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Bernal, The superficial parallel pitch

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MAB CUCO

The alibis of power

by Miguel Antonio Bernal

It is impossible to hide that Panama is today less and less a society and more and more just a place where people live. It’s a place where mistrust, incredibility, “I couldn’t care less” and the corrosive absence of active citizenship reign.

This then makes it mandatory for citizens who reject the current state of affairs to activate ourselves, to awaken sleepy minds, to urge the urgently needed changes, shake up those made drowsy by the siren songs of a political power that’s each day more authoritarian and abusive.

For this reason, it is necessary to repeat, one and a thousand times, that If there is no debate, there is no democracy, because democracy — true democracy – is permanent debate.

Those who today shy away from citizen participation, those who only seek pretexts to prevent citizens from having effective public spaces and instruments to control the irrational exercise of political power, are those who take refuge in demagogic and superficial alibis to prevent urgently needed changes and the rebirth of a civic and active republicanism.

The numbness of civil society has served as fertilizer for the parties, both those in and out of political power, to exercise a new tyranny that excludes citizens from the public stage. The people are relegated to the role of spectators and not actors, even if by theory and official declarations the people are the source of all power.

The alibis of those with the political power to impose a perverse and authoritarian system do not cease. They disrupt the essential values that are attributes of a modern society. They resort to all kinds of gaslighting to make citizens renounce their own conscience. That’s what they do.

Now those who trample us with their fallacies give us their caricatures of the theory, the doctrine and the history of constitutionalism. They give us a sheep and present it as an iguana — and a “parallel” process that is NOT a constituent assembly as they claim.

It is then necessary to redouble efforts to prevent democracy from being used as a great alibi for those with political power to continue developing their constitutional authoritarianism, which is a declared enemy of citizen participation.

In their zeal to expel rationality from our midst — and from our history – the “parallels” and their allies in government deploy propaganda worthy of Goebbels. They take advantage of the misguided impulses of intellectuals and professionals to appear “up-to-date,” and the fear of freedom sown by the reigning plutocrats and party leaderships.

 

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¿Wappin? Lista de reproducción de David Young

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Afro, latino y caribeño

Rubén Blades – Caminando
https://youtu.be/Q4rHIe2z7-0

Son Boricua — Bilongo
https://youtu.be/ge4dRaVXvsg

Cal Tjader – Afro Blue
https://youtu.be/RmbiBAXXxZs

Thelonious Monk – ‘Round Midnight
https://youtu.be/bEDr84cJQzE

Abraham Rodriguez Jr. – Son Bacheche
https://youtu.be/kE2TZMnwB0o

The John Santos Quintet – Guararé
https://youtu.be/SNnA-RF2XmI

Ismael Rivera – Quitate De La Via Perico
https://youtu.be/-rbE8KxEZd8

Joey Pastrana – El Pulpo
https://youtu.be/WfVYHkDSAkM

Ricardo Lemvo – Mambo YoYo
https://youtu.be/CaGmP-GORPM

Yoruba Andabo 3 Abakuá (Havana 1992)
https://youtu.be/2g-qcs0Rv-Q

Totico y sus Rumberos – Mil Gracias
https://youtu.be/rQOJFPjK3EI

Tito Rodriguez – Chango Ta’ Beni
https://youtu.be/EDTtTCHkkZ8

Eddie Palmieri at the 2003 Newport Jazz Festival
https://youtu.be/bGL7BUrSfq4

 

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To fend off hackers, organized trolls and other online vandalism, our website comments feature is switched off. Instead, come to our Facebook page to join in the discussion.

Para defendernos de los piratas informáticos, los trolls organizados y otros actos de vandalismo en línea, la función de comentarios de nuestro sitio web está desactivada. En cambio, ven a nuestra página de Facebook para unirte a la discusión.  

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Beluche, A different left arises in Latin America

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PC
Pedro Castillo, on the shoulders of those who were ignored, captured on video by one of his supporters. In the Andean region it’s no longer just THEIR story.

The time has arrived for the left – a new left – across Latin America

by Olmedo Beluche

In memory of Humberto Tito Prado

The great electoral victory of Pedro Castillo in Peru, despite the fear of “communism” campaign waged by the media and the bourgeois parties, is evidence that the peoples of Latin America urgently want change. It’s a confrontation with so much misery, violence and death that are the features of a dying 21st century capitalism. The COVID-19 pandemic only exacerbates it.

The heroic popular and democratic revolution that is taking place in Colombia, against one of the most disgusting fascist regimes on the continent, is yet another piece of evidence that heralds the dawn of a new day. In Colombia, the pseudo-democratic mask of an oligarchic, undemocratic, murderous paramilitary thug regime has fallen. Year after year they have killed dozens of labor, community, indigenous and environmental leaders. Forget the “War on Drugs” rhetoric – it’s for the benefit of a disgusting oligarchy, the main exporter of cocaine in the world, lackeys of US military and foreign policy elites that spout delusional narratives.

The Colombian people and youth have risen up against poverty, unemployment, forced migration, repression, and the corrupt political institutions that govern them. They are resisting the murderous bullets of the police. They’re also standing up to the death squad roadblocks of the Duque-Uribe government’s paramilitaries.

Chilean youth also show us the way to a new dawn. With constant mobilization they’re set to end the shameful constitution inherited from the Pinochet dictatorship, which was sustained for more than two decades by an alliance of social democrats and liberals. It’s over. The Chilean people have not only managed to install a Constituent Assembly, but have elected a group of activists, feminists, environmentalists and leftists to represent them, in doing so repudiating the traditional parties.

The original nations of the continent have also been in motion, starting with important political victories against the neoliberal and racist oligarchies. In Bolivia, their mobilization was decisive for the defeat of the dictatorship of Mrs. Añez. In Ecuador, two years ago they defeated a neoliberal plan by Lenin Moreno, and this year they presented their own presidential candidacy with the ability to make a serious bid for power in the electoral arena.

In Brazil, tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in all of its cities to forcefully say “no” to Bolsonaro and his regime. Everywhere, despite the pandemic, our Latin American peoples are mobilizing against an increasingly inhuman capitalist system, which takes advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to increase exploitation and misery, which ignores the labor rights conquered in decades of struggles, which imposes regressive fiscal reforms to load the weight of the crisis on the popular shoulders while the bourgeoisie remains exonerated, which cuts social budgets for education and public health when they are most needed. Instead their priority is the payment of public debt to banks and bondholders.

It has to be a political proposal capable of meeting the challenges that the moment demands. The left cannot be represented by the grotesque Nicaraguan regime, which increasingly seems to be taken from a novel by García Márquez, Roa Bastos or Miguel Ángel Asturias, and which usurps the name of what was the glorious Sandinista Revolution.

This new left cannot be represented by the sad caricature that the Bolivarian Process led by Hugo Chávez has become. There they talk about socialism while the US sanctions only serve to degrade the rights of the working class – starting with wages, — while the pro-government and “opposition” bourgeoisie continues to enrich themselves, united in the corruption that suffocates the Venezuelan people.

A new left must emerge that does not remain within the limits of “progressivism” that’s incapable of going beyond the role of administrator of capitalism. It shouldn’t try to extinguish the social fire with “redistributive” measures based on an inadequate policy of “transfers” that are financed by more loans or by exports of raw materials, but which doesn’t dare to touch the interests of national and foreign capitalism.

But this new left must also overcome ultra-leftism and self-proclamation. It should be based in the experiences of the peoples with the various political leaderships. It should consulting with the masses, along the way celebrating their small democratic and economic triumphs. The revolution may not have the stages that people’s consciences do.

It should be a New Left that assumes a program that fearlessly raises the demands of all the oppressed to unite their struggles towards a new society under the principles of popular democracy, multiculturalism, freedom, the rights of the original nations, of the Afro-descendant culture, of women, of LGBT groups, against extractivism, that respects nature, the rights of the working class and socialism.

 

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How to reduce carbon in shipping?

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ships
Shipping is responsible for a large portion of global emissions. William William/Unsplash, CC BY

Shipping is tough on the climate and difficult to
clean up: these innovations can help cut emissions

by Jing Sun, University of Michigan

Ships carry more than 80% of world trade, and they rely heavily on some of the least environmentally friendly transportation fuels available.

There are no cheap, widely available solutions that can lower the shipping industry’s planet-warming carbon emissions – in fact, shipping is considered one of the hardest industries on the planet to decarbonize – but some exciting innovations are being tested right now.

As a professor of naval architecture and marine engineering, I work on ship propulsion and control systems, including electrification, batteries and fuel cells. With attention focused on climate change this week as world leaders meet at the G-7 summit and negotiators discuss shipping emissions at a meeting of the U.N.‘s International Maritime Organization, let’s take a look at what’s possible and some of the fuels and technologies that are likely to define the industry’s future.

Shipping’s climate problem

Shipping is the cheapest way to move raw materials and bulk goods. That has given it both an enormous economic impact and a large carbon footprint.

The industry emits roughly 1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide per year – nearly 3% of global emissions, according to the IMO, a specialized U.N. agency made up of 174 member nations that sets standards for the industry. If shipping were a country, it would rank between Japan and Germany as the sixth-largest contributor to global carbon dioxide emissions. Moreover, nearly 70% of ships’ emissions occur within 250 miles (400 kilometers) of land, meaning it also has an impact on air quality, especially for port cities.

Technological innovation, in addition to policies, will be crucial for achieving low-carbon or zero-emission shipping. Academic research institutes, government labs and companies are now experimenting with electrification; zero- or low-carbon fuels such as hydrogen, natural gas, ammonia and biofuels; and alternative power sources such as fuel cells and solar, wind and wave power. Each has its pros and cons.

Why electrifying ships matters

Just as on land, electrification is one key to cleaning up the industry’s emissions. It allows engines operating on fossil fuels to be either replaced by alternative power generation technologies, or downsized and modified for low-emissions operation. It also allows ships to connect to electric power while in port, reducing their emissions from idling.

Ship electrification and hybridization are significant trends for both commercial and military vessels. Electrifying a ship means replacing its traditional mechanical systems with electrical ones. Some fleets have already electrified propulsion and cargo handling. Hybrid power systems, on the other hand, integrate different power-generation mechanisms, such as engines and batteries, to leverage their complementary characteristics.

I see deeper electrification and broader hybridization as a core strategy for achieving green shipping.

Cranes load shipping containers onto a ship docked in port.

 

Ships that can connect to electric power in port can cavoid burning fuel that produces greenhouse gases and pollution. Ernesto Velázquez/Unsplash, CC BY

Tremendous opportunities also exist for improving the operation of the existing fleet – and reducing fuel use – through automation and real-time control. Advanced sensors, artificial intelligence and machine learning can help ships to “see,” “think,” and “act” better to improve efficiency and reduce emissions.

Greener fuels for ocean voyages

Shifting to cleaner and greener fuel sources will be essential for decarbonizing the shipping industry.

Most of the power plants on today’s ships are based on internal combustion engines that use cheap heavy fuel oil. Innovations in marine diesel and gas turbine engine design and treatment of exhaust gas have lowered harmful emissions. However, most of the “low-hanging fruit” has been harvested, with little room left for dramatic improvement in traditional power sources.

The focus now is on developing cleaner fuel sources and more efficient alternative power generation technologies.

Low or zero-carbon fuels, such as natural gas, ammonia and hydrogen, are predicted to be the dominant energy sources for shipping in the future. Ammonia is easy to transport and store, and it can be used in internal combustion engines and high-temperature fuel cells. But like hydrogen, it is largely still made with fossil fuels. It’s also toxic. Both have the potential to be made with water and renewable energy using electrolysis, but that zero-carbon technology is still in the early stages and costly.

These fuels have started replacing heavy diesel fuels in some marine segments, primarily as demonstration projects and at a slower rate than needed. Cost and infrastructure remain major barriers.

Renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar and wave energy, are also promising. Integrating renewable sources as cost-effective and reliable energy solutions for oceangoing vessels is another challenge developers are working on.

Powering ships using fuel cells and batteries

Fuel cells and batteries also hold promise as alternative power generation technologies.

Through electrochemical reactions, fuel cells generate electric power in a highly efficient and clean manner, making them very attractive for transportation. Fuel cells are operated with pure hydrogen or reformed gases, except for high-temperature fuel cells that can use natural gas or ammonia as fuel.

Given the existing fuel infrastructure, most maritime fuel cell demonstration projects today have to store liquid hydrogen or use onboard systems that convert natural gas or other fuel to hydrogen-rich syngas. Infrastructure for hydrogen storage has to be developed for widespread adoption of fuel cell technology.

Battery technology is essential for electrification, even for ships with an internal combustion engine as their prime mover. It also has its own unique challenges. In addition to ensuring the batteries are safe and reliable – you don’t want a fire or power outage in the middle of the ocean – ruggedness and flexibility are necessary for powering operations such as cargo handling and tugboat operations.

Investing in the future

In 2018, the International Maritime Organization’s Marine Environment Protection Committee set targets to reduce the carbon intensity of the global fleet by at least 40% by 2030 and to cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050 from the 2008 levels. It’s expected to adopt mandatory requirements reflecting those long-term goals at its meeting June 10-17, 2021.

Those targets are important, but they leave the deadlines for action well into the future.

Countries and some shipping companies are recommending a faster transition. In early June, the governments of Denmark, Norway and the United States, along with the Global Maritime Forum and the Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping, announced a new Zero-Emission Shipping Mission to try to scale up and deploy new green maritime solutions faster.

The shipping giant AP Møller-Maersk has said it could support a carbon tax of $150 per ton of carbon dioxide to encourage more innovation and a faster transition, though others in the industry argue that a tax like that would nearly double the cost of bunker fuel and make freight far more expensive, with repercussions throughout the global economy.

I believe the grand vision of zero-emission shipping can be realized if the ship design and fleet operation communities work together with policymakers, the logistics industry and the broad academic and industry technical communities to find solutions.

This is an exciting time to work in the area of energy and power solutions for shipping. The technology developed today will have a transformative impact, not only on the marine industry but also on society.The Conversation

Jing Sun, Professor and Department Chair, Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, University of Michigan

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

 

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¿Wappin? True colors / Colores de verdad

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rainbow
The color scheme this month. Photo of DC in June by Ted Eytan.

 June tunes / Melodías de junio

Santana – Toussaint L’Overture
https://youtu.be/Jli1gW37fqk

The Four Tops – Are You Man Enough?
https://youtu.be/faaxsHyyIzY

Of Monsters and Men – Visitor
https://youtu.be/Bq1lpEC70Hg

Maná – Mariposa Traicionera
https://youtu.be/av3wkasS-WQ

Cyndi Lauper – True Colors
https://youtu.be/LPn0KFlbqX8

Suzanne Vega – Luka
https://youtu.be/VZt7J0iaUD0

Kafú Banton – No Me Hablen de Bala
https://youtu.be/QdMWMGxA1v8

The Fighting Men From Crossmaglen – Sniper’s Promise
https://youtu.be/dSnWTDFzgrg

Mon Laferte – Funeral
https://youtu.be/aNH3C5JPlg4

Jefferson Airplane – Greasy Heart
https://youtu.be/1ckv1v9GWRk

Carole King – Smackwater Jack
https://youtu.be/Zc8MToURBjc

Eric Clapton & Roger Waters – Wish You Were Here
https://youtu.be/4fHjRjbORD8

Buffy Sainte-Marie – Universal Soldier
https://youtu.be/VGWsGyNsw00

Cienfué – Life in the Tropics
https://youtu.be/2Viu0klMgN0

Natalie Merchant – Motherland
https://youtu.be/A2JbLUVt0Z0

 

Contact us by email at / Contáctanos por correo electrónico a fund4thepanamanews@gmail.com

 

To fend off hackers, organized trolls and other online vandalism, our website comments feature is switched off. Instead, come to our Facebook page to join in the discussion.

Para defendernos de los piratas informáticos, los trolls organizados y otros actos de vandalismo en línea, la función de comentarios de nuestro sitio web está desactivada. En cambio, ven a nuestra página de Facebook para unirte a la discusión.  

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A mid-day stroll through El Nispero

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1
Explaining the concept of being slashed to the bone and then it gets infected generally doesn’t register with a third grader who’s being raised in the States. And the little sloth is so very cute. So the folks at El Nispero made the cage out of a finer mesh, so that the slow-moving creature won’t show folks how quickly he can slash at a perceived threat with those claws.

Eight takes from an early afternoon at El Nispero

photos by Robert Jackson

El Valle has a combination zoo and nursery, a great little attraction for kids and adults with the usual pluses and minuses of zoos. Are the minuses enhanced when someone who has lived in captivity sees them?

The editor had a good enough time — getting licked by a doe and sniffed by a vixen, and getting off on an old hippie’s flower power rush — but did not find any breeding pairs of guinea fowl, which would have been his Holy Grail. Two old men, a next generation just starting to get touches of gray, and this third grader with roots in Panama and Costa Rica but whose world is the Atlanta area dashing from place to place with starry-eyed wonder. It might have been even more of an eye-opener for him, had it been a different hour instead of many of the animals’ siesta time.

El Nispero is something you want to do if visiting El Valle for the first time, or if you live nearby and are shopping for cool plants to landscape your property, or to help you live off the land with agroforestry or animal husbandry.

 

2
Any behavioral resemblance to the plant that Levi Stubbs played is fanciful — isn’t it?

 

3
If you’re Chinese and want to flaunt your heritage by way of the barnyard fowl you raise, El Nispero just might be the place to go for ideas.

 

4
Wow, man! The COLORS!

 

5
Russian intelligence has investigated. These are terrestrial ñequis, not arboreal squirrels. One big hint was that they found no moose on the premises.

 

6
A complex flower that surely puts out many seeds to propagate ground cover.

 

7
Many are the hibiscus varieties, but this one is especially pretty.

 

All donkeys are Democrats, and any true Democrat wants to take the opportunity to pet the donkey. However, since we are dealing with DEMOCRATS, everyone has to look out for backbiting.
 

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Editorials: Peru has chosen; and Plutocratic “populism”

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PC
Peruvian president-elect  Pedro Castillo addresses his supporters during the campaign. The government’s TV Peru used this photo posted on Twitter by a Castillo supporter. The photojournalism of Peruvian politics lately is indicative of some systemic problems there. The major corporate media all but ignored the Castillo campaign — not because they were unaware of it but because they sought to suppress it with a news blackout. Once in the runoff the oligarchic press and the talking heads it usually features were solidly scornful of Castillo, often in defamatory or racist ways. In turn, Castillo’s supporters have generally adopted attitudes running from dismissive to hostile with respect to Peru’s mainstream media. The establishment game plan may have worked in Lima, but out in the countryside the Fujimori family reputation is toxic.

Time to recognize Peru’s mandate

With virtually all ballots counted, the leftist schoolteacher Pedro Castillo has an insurmountable lead of more than 100,000 votes in the runoff for Peru’s presidency. The legislator and former spokeswoman for her now-imprisoned father’s right-wing dictatorship, Keiko Fujimori, is without showing any real evidence demanding the nullification of 200,000 votes and a recount of 300,000 more.

There are some polling places that need to be looked at for possible fraud, and others in which the Fujimori campaign openly engaged in outright vote buying. These apparent or alleged offenses need to be investigated, but the end result will not and should not change. Castillo won the election.

Nito Cortizo, Joe Biden and their colleagues across the Americas should  call Mr. Castillo, congratulate him, talk about differences and seek common ground. That’s what mature heads of state do. That’s how sister republics in the Americas should act.

 

2
An election day past, in San Carlos.

New ways to preserve disliked old ways

The COVID epidemic has brought out the very worst behavior in the political caste, such that whatever they say or do, and no matter what the rules of the next electoral contest may be, a great many current elected officials will not be returning. People are fed up.

It’s generally recognized that the problem is systemic. If Panamanians choose to look away from that, lenders and international financial institutions will be reminding us ever more frequently and forcefully in the months and years to come. We are into a severe national debt crisis — both the government and much of the private sector. Things are going  badly for many of the rich and most of the poor. Those who can afford it may see a buyers’ market and buy — but what then?

Thus, a groundswell of support for a new constitution, with important arguments about the how and the who, but not so much intelligent discussion of WHAT we want or should want. Most of the talk about what responds to notorious examples of what people rightfully detest — or really, is it about WHOM most of us dislike?

The National Assembly is the stellar example. A costly and corrupt political patronage operation in the legislative branch may do much more than Nito’s timid and vacillating presidency to send the PRD into political oblivion.

The thing is, because of the families that own Panama’s mainstream media, because of banking and corporate secrecy laws that buttress opaque political practices, because of a general level of education that’s intentionally kept low and then increasingly compartmentalized the higher one gets, people here are not used to following money trails when evaluating politicians and public policies.

Panama has this creole aristocracy of a few dozen families into which a few climb and a few fall off. Mostly it’s white folks. Mostly they don’t run for seats in the National Assembly, but fund the campaigns of those who do. Mostly the legislature does their bidding, no matter the anti-establishment speeches that its members make. It’s government of the rich, for the rich, by the paid proxies of the rich. 

Easier to blame the politicians, declare that there are too many of them and propose changes based on those premises. So out of the crowd pushing for a parallel constituent assembly, but also heard among advocates of other approaches to fix or replace the constitution, there is this hue and cry for fewer legislators, to be elected at large on the national or provincial levels. Most of those who advocate this curiously don’t mention the legislators’ alternates — the suplentes who collectively form a costly, corrupt and generally unproductive shadow operation appended to the National Assembly.

The easiest and most sensible way to pare down the National Assembly payroll is to eliminate the suplentes, and with them their office staffs.

But what  about reducing the size of the legislature?

That’s reinforcement for rabiblanco rule and a subsidy for the television station owners. That’s an elimination of less costly traditional ways to deliver campaign messages. That would allow, for example, all of Panama City’s legislative delegation to come from La Cresta, Paitilla and Punta Pacifica.

At large constituencies, provincial constituencies and national constituencies generally can’t be reached by the retail politicking of going door to door, meeting people on the street or passing out leaflets in the neighborhood. Candidates running in those sorts of races have to buy radio, television or online advertising. They have to have a lot of money or rely on those who do.

With at large elections the power of party slates is enhanced. Mix in the right of independents to run and alliances among parties and we get into this manipulable quotient / half-quotient / residue formula — or something like it — which, for example, allowed the religious far-right legislator Corina Cano  to get into the National Assembly when someone else of the same alliance in the same multi-member circuit got more votes than she did but didn’t get to be a legislator.

It would be better to reduce the money barriers to running for office and cut out a lot of the old games by actually having MORE deputies in the legislature, each from a single-member circuit. Say, instead of a 70-member National Assembly that also has 70 suplentes, a legislature with 101 members and zero suplentes, all chosen from smaller circuits than we have now.

But the politicians who are out of office now, and those whose role has been as donors and power brokers, make this facile argument about how there are too many politicians and the solution is to have fewer of them. And if people swallow their lure, they get hooked onto a new constitutional order which, like the present one, is about power and privileges for the rich.  

 

Aristotle: Wikimedia photo of a classic sculpture, graphic by Jorenz1.

          All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.

Aristotle          

 

Bear in mind…

 

Nobody outside of a baby carriage or a judge’s chamber believes in an unprejudiced point of view.

Lillian Hellman

 

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

Mohandas K. Gandhi

 

To be astonished is one of the surest ways of not growing old too quickly.

Collette

 

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Fundación Libertad: The banking moratorium set to end

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Zu doo
If there has  been plenty of demagoguery and self-deception to go around on all sides of this issue, the economic realities are that the Panamanian economy was sinking in unsold inventory before the virus hit us and the epidemic shattered many business plans and economic expectations. The Liberal perspective is the inevitable adjustments should be made via private agreements. Photo by the National Assembly of one of that body’s debates on the subject.

A social explosion at the end of the bank foreclosure moratorium?

by the Fundacion Libertad

Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have seen the government issue laws and decrees, supposedly aimed at protecting the population from the virus, from the economic consequences of these measures and perhaps, in their minds, protecting ourselves from ourselves.

One of these measures, perhaps one of the most applauded, but certainly one of the most misunderstood, and therefore most dangerous, has been the moratorium.

In theory, this measure has given many people the opportunity to sleep peacefully that their financial commitments would be “suspended”, not to mention that this measure could not last forever. Now we are waiting for what will happen once the banks start knocking on doors again to collect.

Meanwhile, representatives of the banking sector assure that extending the moratorium beyond June of this year would be disastrous, since it would increase uncertainty and the level of perceived risk, which in turn would harm the country’s possibilities in terms of access to financing , either through the issuance of bonds or loans from multilateral entities.

Considering the possible consequences of the moratorium, from a liberal perspective we find the Assembly’s proposal for a new extension until December irresponsible and incoherent. Passing a measure like this would only bring more uncertainty and instability for both individuals and banks. This is why we advocate the opening of private agreements between natural and legal persons and their banking entities, so that they can seek coherent solutions in accordance with the financial realities of each client, instead of authoritatively imposing measures that may well harm to the parties involved in a severe and permanent way.

 

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“Keystone XL Is Dead!”

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KXL protest
R.C. and Doug locked to “skidder” — used to move clear-cut trees in the path of Keystone XL.
Archive photo by the Tar Sands Blockade.

After 10-year battle, climate movement victory over Tar Sands Pipeline is complete

by John Queally — Common Dreams

After more than a decade of grassroots organizing, agitation, and tireless opposition by the international climate movement, the final nail was slammed into the Keystone XL’s coffin Wednesday afternoon when the company behind the transnational tar sands pipeline officially pulled the plug on its plans.

Following consultation with Canadian officials and regulators—including “its partner, the Government of Alberta” — TC Energy confirmed its “termination” of the project in a statement citing the revocation of a federal US permit by President Joe Biden on his first day in office on January 20 as the leading reason.

Climate campaigners, however, were immediate in claiming a final victory after years of struggle against the company and its backers both in Washington, DC and Ottawa.

“TC Energy just confirmed what we already knew but it’s a thrilling reality all the same — the Keystone XL pipeline is no more and never will be,” said David Turnbull, strategic communications director with Oil Change International (OCI).

“After more than 10 years of organizing we have finally defeated an oil giant, Keystone XL is dead!” declared the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) in reaction. “We are dancing in our hearts because of this victory! From Dene territories in Northern Alberta to Indigenous lands along the Gulf of Mexico, we stood hand-in-hand to protect the next seven generations of life, the water and our communities from this dirty tar sands pipeline. And that struggle is vindicated.”

IEN said that the win over TC Energy and its supporters was “not the end—but merely the beginning of further victories,” and also reminded the world that there are “still frontline Indigenous water protectors like Oscar High Elk who face charges for standing against the Keystone XL pipeline.”

Calling the news “yet another huge moment in an historic effort,” Turnbull at OCI said that while the Canadian company’s press statement failed to admit it, “this project is finally being abandoned thanks to more than a decade of resistance from Indigenous communities, landowners, farmers, ranchers, and climate activists along its route and around the world.”

Jared Margolis, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, declared the victory in the drawn-out battle—which largely took place under the Democratic administration of former President Barack Obama—”a landmark moment in the fight against the climate crisis.”

“We need to keep moving away from dirty, dangerous pipelines that lock us into an unsustainable future,” added Margolis, who said he now hopes President Joe Biden will take this lesson and apply to other polluting fossil projects. “We’re hopeful that the Biden administration will continue to shift this country in the right direction by opposing fossil fuel projects that threaten our climate, our waters and imperiled wildlife,” he said. “Good riddance to Keystone XL!”

Jamie Henn and Bill McKibben, both co-founders of 350.org and key architects of the decision to make the Keystone XL pipeline a target and symbol of the global climate movement, also heralded the news.

“When this fight began, people thought Big Oil couldn’t be beat,” said McKibben, who was among those arrested outside the White House in 2011 protesting the pipeline.

“Keystone XL is now the most famous fossil fuel project killed by the climate movement, but it won’t be the last,” said Henn. “The same coalition that stopped this pipeline is now battling Line 3 and dozens of other fossil fuel projects across the country. Biden did the right thing on KXL, now it’s time to go a step further and say no to all new fossil fuel projects everywhere.”

Clayton Thomas Muller, another longtime KXL opponent and currently a senior campaigns specialist at 350.org in Canada, said: “This victory is thanks to Indigenous land defenders who fought the Keystone XL pipeline for over a decade. Indigenous-led resistance is critical in the fight against the climate crisis and we need to follow the lead of Indigenous peoples, particularly Indigenous women, who are leading this fight across the continent and around the world. With Keystone XL cancelled, it’s time to turn our attention to the Indigenous-led resistance to the Line 3 and the Trans Mountain tar sands pipelines.”

McKibben also made the direct connection to KXL and the decision now looming before Biden when it comes to Line 3 in northern Minnesota. “When enough people rise up we’re stronger even than the richest fossil fuel companies,” he said. “And by the way, the same climate test that ruled out Keystone should do the same for Line 3.”

 

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¿Existen pruebas que Dornheim y Nito no aprueban de esto?

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them
Se rompió un agujero en la pared del dormitorio del editor, lo suficientemente grande como para introducir a un niño en su casa para robar cosas, lo cual se hizo. Hasta ahora, la Policía Nacional se ha negado a investigar.

Denunciando OTRO delito en El Bajito de Juan Díaz de Antón, Coclé

Para la Policía Nacional
Por Eric Lea Jackson Malo, cédula 3-721-1318

(La última vez, USTEDES rechazaron a recibir una denuncia de un hurto de mi casa de una cámara Nikon D-90 y varios celulares. USTEDES, porque los que contestaron al teléfono representaron a todos y todos de la Policía Nacional.)

~~

Mi nombre es Eric Jackson, soy periodista trabajando en la economía informal y vivo en Juan Díaz de Antón, en la provincia de Coclé. Mi cédula es 3-721-1218.

Hablo español, aunque toda mi educación formal es en inglés. Tengo algunas dificultades para hablar por teléfono, no porque no entiendo español, sino porque me estoy volviendo sordo.

Tengo un teléfono simple y “tonto”. No utilizo WhatsApp para que Ricky Martinelli intercepte mis comunicaciones. En este momento no hay minutos en mi celular y los servicios de llamadas urgentes no conectan aquí. Mis comunicaciones están a través de mis laptops, por email aquí y aquí, por Facebook y por Twitter.

La mujer que vive al lado, generalmente a través de sus novios, y la gente que la visita de la ciudad y sus hijos, me roba constantemente. Por lo general, son cosas pequeñas, pero a veces cosas como conexiones eléctricas ilegales a mi medidor y la cámara Nikon D-90 que fue robada valían miles de dólares y eran una herramienta importante para mi trabajo.

A menudo ha sido comida, como enviar a sus hijos a recoger mi fruta o verdura, o desenterrar mi yuca u otoes. A veces agua de mi tanque. Una vez estaba robando un cercado ciclónico que iba a usar para mejorar la propiedad.

HOY lo que me hurtaron fue comida de mi cocina. Eso es trivial en el esquema de las cosas y es parcialmente un producto de las políticas sociales de este gobierno.

Lo que NO es trivial es que se rompió una bodega contra la pared de mi habitación, lo suficientemente grande como para permitir la entrada de un niño, y parece que el niño salió por la ventana de mi sala de trabajo. Pero en una salida apresurada quedaron cosas atrás, seguramente con las huellas dactilares de quien fuera sacando cosas de mi cocina. Y el baúl que solía golpear el agujero en mi pared, lo que ahora significa que no puedo cerrar completamente mi casa, también quedó en la escena.

Llegué a casa en un automóvil con mi hermano y mis sobrinos, quienes tomaron fotos de los hombres que estaban parados. Vi la expresión del rostro del chico de al lado: parece tener unos 10 años.

Este no es un robo y un robo ordinarios. Esto también parece ser el reclutamiento de un niño o niños para cometer un delito.

Entonces, ¿soy este hombre rico prepotente que exige el máximo castigo por un crimen económico de personas hambrientas? EN REALIDAD, creo que es un caso en el que los niños deberían ser sacados de ese hogar y los adultos que están allí. Si la investigación, incluidas cosas como la identificación por huellas dactilares, convierte en una posibilidad viable el procesamiento penal de quienes dañaron mi casa y me hurtaron, yo también estoy a favor de eso.

~~

Si ustedes, los hombres y mujeres de la Policía Nacional, continúan en su negativa a aceptar denuncias por delitos en mi barrio, eso se convierte en un comunicado político a la prensa desde su institución.

He adjuntado mapas para indicar dónde está. Adjunto una foto de mi cédula. Puesi tener más fotos relevantes para enviar en un momento. Pero realmente necesitan enviar a alguien para que se lleve las pruebas.

Eric Jackson

 

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