Jason Margolis

Jason Margolis has written 172 posts for PRI's The World

Jason Margolis: Thoughts on Ukraine

Reporter Jason Margolis visited Ukraine for 10 days. In his journal, he describes what he found: beautiful architecture, clean streets, and a certain bluntness.

Ukraine’s Viktor Yushchenko

YushenkoFour years ago, something terrible happened to Viktor Yushchenko while he was running for president of Ukraine. His face became horribly disfigured. Doctors determined he was poisoned by dioxin. At lot’s happened since then. Ukraine went through the ‘Orange Revolution’ and Yushchenko went on to become president. These days he face looks less damaged. Now it’s his political health that’s suffering. Jason Margolis has an update on the Ukrainian leader’s physical — and political — health.

Panama: A historical perspective

A century ago, the building of the Panama Canal and construction of Lake Gatun was met with great fanfare. It captured the attention of the world, showing that the seemingly impossible was indeed possible. The engineers were heroes, household names. Newspapers were obsessed with how much earth would be excavated to build the canal – [...]

Part III: Panama fossils

Panama wants to make its famous canal bigger and better. The government is enlarging the waterway to allow more and larger ships to pass through it. 7,000 people will work on widening the canal. Some are doing a different kind of digging. Paleontologists are already following along the excavation. They’re searching for fossils. And they’re [...]

Part II: Developing Panama City

Today we continue our series exploring the expansion of the Panama Canal. Panamanians recently voted in favor of a $5 billion project to upgrade the century-old waterway. A wider passageway will be able to accommodate larger ships… and bring in more money. Panama has run the canal since 1999, when the American government handed over [...]

Part I: The Big Canal

A century ago, American engineers embarked on what was then the greatest building project in history. It took 10 years and 75,000 men to construct. Three presidents oversaw its completion. Teddy Roosevelt called it, “the giant engineering feat of the ages.” We’re talking about the Panama Canal. Now a hundred years later, Panama is in [...]

Panama series

IMG_0208The century-old Panama Canal has become too small for today’s massive ships. So the country decided to widen the canal. The World’s Jason Margolis went to Panama to report on the excavation project, to examine the engineering, and Panama City’s current explosive growth.