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Affidavits: Is Luis Enrique Martinelli going to flip on his dad?

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MLs
The Martinelli Linares brothers are see here in Guatemalan custody. An affidavit released in the United State says that Luis Enrique Martinelli Linares, left, agreed to talk to the FBI. His brother Ricardo Alberto Martinelli Linares did not. These affidavits and the the other pleadings released in the case refer to activities to launder the proceeds of a bribe for an unspecified “public official” paid by the Brazilian company Odebrecht. It’s generally presumed that said official is former president Ricardo Martinelli. Photo by the Guatemalan National Civil Police.

Cryptic pleadings and affidavits,
but the outlines start to show

Just talking to the FBI doesn’t necessarily mean an agreement or a disposition to cooperate with them. Generally, however, when someone in a position to spend millions of dollars on a criminal defense effort breaks his or her silence when approached by the FBI it’s either a foolish move or an indication of a readiness to strike a deal. Luis Enrique Martinelli Linares did talk to the FBI. The two could get 20 years each if the books gets thrown on the money laundering and conspiracy charges, so there might be a temptation to sing in exchange for leniency. See the two affidavits and the complaint, in PDF format, Below:

Affidavit with respect to Luis Enrique Martinelli Linares

Affidavid with respect to Ricardo Alberto Martinelli Linares

The complaint in the case, which is likely to be amended

Do keep in mind, presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty, both as to the sons and the father, the latter who may or may not be charged. The Martinelli Linares brothers are fighting extradition from Guatemala to the United States, where if granted they would face trial before a US federal district court in Brooklyn. Guatemalan courts have never denied a US extradition request.

 

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Editorials: Thanks; and An American tradition

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Uncle Sam lends a hand
A shipment of masks, gloves and protective clothing from the USA came just in time to prevent staff at several of Panama’s major hospitals from walking off their jobs out of fear of continuing to work with minimal personal protection. US Embassy photo.

¡Gracias, Tío Sam!

It’s a long and complicated bilateral relationship, now featuring two deeply troubled countries. Are Panamanians over blaming the Gringos for everything that goes wrong here? Are Panamanian over the expectation that it takes the Americans to resolve Panama’s most serious problems?

The main truth of the matter is that Panamanians are the only ones who can save Panama. But it’s also true that we are the crossroads of the world, necessarily intermingled with, helping and being helped by other nations on this planet. Even when we are hurting, even when our old partners are hurting.

US hospitals have their own shortages. The United States has suffered a terrible death toll in this pandemic. It’s a suffering USA that extends a helping hand. Just as a suffering Panama has to give up on hosting some important sporting events that would have helped to rebuild our tourism, but we have not renounced our role of playing host to the regional humanitarian relief hub at Howard. It’s the wounded helping the wounded. What can we say?

Thanks, Uncle Sam – for starters.

  

The view of the White House, across the south lawn. Photo by @RebeccaARainey.

Now that he has a bit more privacy,
some remedial education is in order

“Nobody likes me. It could only be my personality. I don’t know.” Thus spake the president of the United States. 

You know, there’s an American tradition about that.  Now that Donald Trump can sit in the White House gardens with enhanced privacy, he has the opportunity to learn what he apparently never did in nursery school.

 

 

Pepe & Manuelita

Life is not just receiving, it is giving. No matter how messed up you are, you always have something to give.

Pepe Mujica

 

Bear in mind…

 

When we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy it implies, then the “division” of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form.

Simone de Beauvoir

 

At a certain point in their historical lives, social classes become detached from their traditional parties. In other words, the traditional parties in that particular organizational form, with the particular men who constitute, represent and lead them, are no longer recognized by their class (or fraction of a class) as its expression. When such crises occur, the immediate situation becomes delicate and dangerous, because the field is open for violent solutions, for the activities of unknown forces, represented by charismatic “men of destiny.”

Antonio Gramsci

 

We women live a moment of transition, of yearnings and grievances.

Clara González

 

 

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GOP puts $30 billion for Pentagon into coronavirus bill

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F-35
The basic unit price of  an F-35 is $79.9 million, before any extra features are added. Image by DigiFX / Pixabay.

“F-35s don’t help families pay their bills”

by Jake Johnson — Common Dreams

In a floor speech late Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell described the GOP’s newly released coronavirus stimulus package as a “carefully tailored” plan to provide financial relief to desperate Americans.

But a look at the legislative text (pdf) released by Senate Republicans shows the HEALS Act is replete with massive gifts to the Pentagon and defense contractors that would do nothing to aid the unemployed, provide nutrition assistance to hungry children, prevent an avalanche of evictions, or stop the spread of coronavirus.

“Last time I checked F-35s don’t help families pay their bills,” Rep. Chuy García (D-Ill.) tweeted in response to the GOP’s proposal of $686 million in spending on new fighter jets.

The legislation also includes hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for surveillance planes, Apache helicopters, and armored vehicles.

The HEALS Act proposes a total of $29.4 billion in new military spending just a week after the House and Senate approved a $740.5 billion Pentagon budget for fiscal year 2021.

Meanwhile, as Common Dreams reported earlier Tuesday, the Republican package includes no money for state and local governments, election assistance, or the U.S. Postal Service. The legislation would also slash the weekly federal unemployment insurance boost from $600 to $200.

Roll Call’s John Donnelly reported Monday that “Senate Republicans have laced their roughly $1 trillion coronavirus relief package with at least $7 billion for weapons, most of which are built by leading contractors that contribute heavily to congressional campaigns.”

According to Donnelly:

The draft appropriations portion, made public Monday evening, includes money for fighter jets, helicopters, radars, ships, and armored vehicles that the measure’s authors have deemed “emergency” spending that is not capped by the budget control law…

The top two defense contractors, Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co., would do especially well under the measure.

The list of weapons is topped by fully $1 billion for an unstated number of Boeing P-8 Poseidon maritime surveillance jets. Also on the list is $283 million for Boeing Apache helicopters for the Army.

Boeing’s Ground-Based Midcourse Defense anti-missile system, which is aimed at intercepting incoming ballistic missiles from sites in Alaska and California, would receive $200 million, and $243 million more would go to a missile defense radar program.

“People are dying, or worried about keeping a roof over their families’ heads, or cutting hours because their kids’ schools are closed,” said Anthony Weir, a lobbyist on nuclear disarmament and Pentagon spending at the Friends Committee on National Legislation. “And this is the time to jam some military procurement into this year that you didn’t get last year?”

 

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PARLACEN se lava sus manos de los hermanos Martinelli Linares

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them
Al menos 13 de los 20 miembros de la delegación de Panamá en PARLACEN dicen que no aprobarán una ceremonia de juramento para los hermanos Martinelli Linares. Es más probable que sea un voto de 15-5 o 16-4 en contra de ellos. Foto de la Policía Nacional Civil de Guatemala.
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Bernal, Even before all this hit us…

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twitter
Hungry people block the road in Chorrera, demanding food assistance from which they were excluded. Photo from Twitter, by somebody stuck in the traffic jam.

Previous balance

by Miguel Antonio Bernal V.

Remaining indifferent to what is happening, rather than difficult, is impossible. However, the Panamanian people address our misfortune with a sick complicity. This is the result of decades of inequalities that have been increasing, qualitatively and quantitatively, over the years.

Today, as the first COVID-19 wave intensifies in our midst, we cannot afford to continue with the dehumanized logic of individual benefit. Those who govern today, their followers and above all, the most troglodyte group in the business sector, persist in that sort of thinking with zero social awareness.

We must recover the courage to feel and be part of a community that cannot accept borders or flags. But the Cortizo-Carrizo administration, in each and every one of its decrees and resolutions over the last six months (without forgetting the first six), seeks to atomize society and promoted labor insecurity, along with isolation, indifference and confrontations.

They have loved us, they want us to believe. Also, that the social, economic, health, and education problems (etc.) first came to us with the pandemic. Worst of all, they’d have us believe that these problems can be solved by individual choices.

They cackle “wash your hands” while IDAAN cuts the water. They say “stay at home,” with 80 bucks and a food package that doesn’t reach everyone who should get them. It all confirms the how little respect those in power have for human dignity.

Today, when the dead number over a thousand and the infected in the tens of thousands, when the hospitals have collapsed, the morgues are overflowing, the cemeteries have no space and unemployment and hunger are the lot of so many Panamanians, the previous balance leads us to react, to arm ourselves with civic courage, to shed these faint-hearted leeches from the national treasury, to demand a change,

But not the Gatopardo change, so that nothing changes. No! A 180º turn is required. Only a truly participatory constituent process can do that. There is nothing more worthy than fighting for what is just. To do that we must remove the unjust who misgovern us.

 

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Democrats Abroad Online US Post Office celebration / Voting rights rally

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rally

This was planned to be a Facebook watch party, but Zuckerberg’s company would not let us load most of the videos. We didn’t give up. We never do.

 


Benjamin Franklin was postmaster under British colonial times and invented much of what’s relevant to this day in postal services around the world. The Brits fired him for revolutionary activities and when the US Post Office was established he was postmaster for that.

 


Alas, with a laptop camera and microphone. Long story about why that is.

 







https://youtu.be/ktpT_9dPF6s



Voting rights are going to be a problem for Americans living abroad this year, and the Democrats Abroad global counsel office is really not set up for litigation, which may be necessary. It’s likely that the American Civil Liberties Union will carry the ball on this more than anyone else.

 


Trump and his thugs are making vote suppression a moving target this year. If you stand back and watch things as they happen — that’s what they want.

 


Do not let ANYBODY convince you that it’s “woke” not to vote.

 

After a hard-fought primary, Dems need to rally behind him to take that US Senate seat in Colorado from the GOP.

 

 

https://www.votefromabroad.org

 



 

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Perredistas de PARLACEN: No a la juramentación de los Martinelli Linares

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bros
Debido a que no estuvieron presentes en la ceremonia regular, los hermanos Martinelli Linares deben obtener la aprobación de la delegación panameña en el Parlamento Centroamericano (PARLACEN) para jurar como miembros suplentes y así recibir la inmunidad legal que les permita. Hay 20 miembros de la delegación: 7 miembros del PRD, 1 de  MOLIRENA (aliado del PRD), 2 del Partido Panameñista, 1 independiente alineado con Ana Matilde Gómez, 7 miembros de Cambio Democratico y 1 diputado de la facción disidente CD Alianza. Si se tratara de enemistades históricas y actuales sin soborno que entraran en la ecuación, los hermanos probablemente no tienen los votos para jurar. Foto de la Policía Nacional Civil de Guatemala.
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¿Wappin? Hardcore violins, hold the body shots

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Vote benefit
Ops 2020 is an online concert to benefit a wonderful organization called Spread The Vote and will feature performances by Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax, Jonathan Biss, Anthony McGill, Alisa Weilerstein, and Noah Bendix-Balgley, hosted by Joshua Weilerstein. Spread the Vote helps US voters exercise their right to vote in the face of voter ID laws. 21 million Americans do not have a photo ID. If they live in a state that requires one, they can’t vote. Spread the Vote works to get a photo ID for every American that needs one. Purchase tickets at https://www.kindest.com/events/opus-2020-a-special-online-event-to-benefit-spread-the-vote. 100% of proceeds will go to Spread the Vote. If you have any questions, visit https://www.opus2020.com/

Cultural Friday with strings attached

The Corrs — Live in London
https://youtu.be/5Q4bZrhwz4w

Yo Yo Ma plays Ennio Morricone – Once Upon a Time in America
https://youtu.be/KQCGvfBc-oI

Joshue Ashby & C3 Proyect – Concierto Mi Cultura en Casa
https://youtu.be/luzNcWNPNr0

The Charlie Daniels Band – The Devil Went Down to Georgia
https://youtu.be/wBjPAqmnvGA

Khachaturian – Violin Concerto in D minor
https://youtu.be/TeKZAbFj83I

Graciela Núñez – Rapsodia Panameña por Roque Cordero
https://youtu.be/9HEqwLEfaT4

Jean Luc Ponty – Warsaw Jazz Jamboree 1999
https://youtu.be/sL588eI4EbI

 

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A million more people on lockdown, Los Santos eateries to reopen

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border
There are many points along the Panamanian – Costa Rican border where people come and go for ordinary rural or semi-rural business without a lot of concern about which country they’re in. But both countries see a health risk so now, as here, the border and health officials of the two countries are working such communities together to monitor public health and restrict the free passage of coronavirus infections back and forth. Seguro Social photo.

Severe lockdown in Colon, Chiriqui and Bocas del Toro, some restrictions eased in Los Santos, Herrera and Cocle

by Eric Jackson

Citing concerns about increased infection rates in Colon province and the westernmost parts of Panama in Chiriqui and Bocas del Toro, Minister of Health Dr. Luis Fernando Sucre has ordered the same sorts of health restriction that apply in Panama Oeste and Panama provinces. That means that starting on Friday night a 7 p.m. about one million people will be under a strict curfew until 5 a.m. on Monday.

Thereafter people’s hours of ciculation will be limited according to their gender, age and the last digit on the ID cards they use. (Cedula for citizens, passport for foreigners.) Women get to circulate on Mondays, Wednesdays and Friday, while men can get out on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There will be exceptions to the 7 p.m, to 5 a.m. curfew to allow food deliveries and establishments that prepare meals for such to operate until 10 a.m.

In the case of essential businesses, there will be restrictions on travel time to and from, to keep people from traveling at will using a business related pass in ways not related to that business. Generally people who have to work day shifts must be there by 8 a.m.

In provinces in Panama’s Dry Arc, however, low infection rates have led health authorities to ease restrictions. In Los Santos restaurants and fondas will be able to reopen, subject to health rules, starting on Monday. A lot of professional and administrative offices in Los Santos, Herrera and Cocle provinces will be able to reopen, as will enterprises like car dealerships.

The national government warns that if the epidemic gets worse in a given place, new restrictions on mobility may be imposed.

In an number of municipal districts mayors are issuing dry law decrees. The most populous of these is Arraijan. Unlike earlier in the year, it does not appear that the national government will insist on exclusive control of alcohol. Traditionally mayors and representantes have enjoyed broad powers to control bars and liquor vendors in their bailiwicks.

The general lay of the land on the day the new measures were announced.
 

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Protegiendo las ballenas jorobadas del tráfico marítimo

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blue whale sounding
Una parte de nuestra economía marítima es el turismo de observación de ballenas. Foto por Anne Gordon.

¿Han cooperado las embarcaciones con los esfuerzos para la conservación de ballenas en el Golfo de Panamá?

por STRI

Luego de que la Organización Marítima Internacional (OMI) adoptara una serie de Esquemas de separación de tráfico (TSS) en el 2014, con el objetivo de reducir las áreas de coincidencia entre los buques que ingresan al Canal de Panamá y las ballenas jorobadas migratorias, se esperaba que el número de colisiones disminuyera en más del 90%. Como las acciones de gestión de la conservación sólo son efectivas si se llevan a cabo concienzudamente, los científicos del Instituto Smithsonian de Investigaciones Tropicales (STRI) y otras instituciones analizaron los niveles de cumplimiento de los buques con las nuevas regulaciones.

Las colisiones con buques representan una de las amenazas humanas más graves para las poblaciones de ballenas, con un mayor riesgo de letalidad cuando las colisiones se dan con embarcaciones más grandes y rápidas. En el Golfo de Panamá, los altos niveles de tráfico marítimo a la entrada del Canal a menudo convergen con la llegada de ballenas jorobadas y sus crías, que migran desde las latitudes norte y sur durante su temporada de invierno. Entre el 2009 y 2011, esto dio como resultado 13 reportes de colisiones fatales entre buques y ballenas.

“Nuestra investigación inicialmente apoyó la solicitud del gobierno panameño a la Organización Marítima Internacional (OMI) para organizar el tráfico marítimo”, comentó el científico de STRI y autor principal del estudio, Héctor M. Guzmán. “Ahora, nuestra ciencia evalúa los niveles de cumplimiento con las medidas de enrutamiento adoptadas por la OMI en el 2014”.

Para evaluar el cumplimiento con los nuevos esquemas de separación de tráfico de la OMI y los límites de velocidad recomendados durante la temporada de migración de ballenas, el equipo de investigación recopiló datos desde el 2014 hasta el 2016, de los sistemas de identificación automática (AIS) de los buques, que rastrean de forma remota su posición, velocidad y rumbo. Descubrieron que la mayoría de los buques se adhirió al TSS durante ambos años, con tasas de cumplimiento más altas para los buques de carga y los petroleros.

A pesar de que estos TSS han reducido la posibilidad de encuentros entre embarcaciones y ballenas, continuar monitoreando el cumplimiento de estas regulaciones, y reportando las lesiones y la mortalidad de ballenas relacionadas con las colisiones con buques, es crucial para evaluar la efectividad de las medidas de conservación. Entre el 2017 y 2019, por ejemplo, ocho ballenas grandes fueron reportadas muertas, una disminución del 38% en comparación con los informes entre el 2009 y 2011.

“Los esquemas de separación de tráfico del Golfo de Panamá, implementados en el 2014, disminuyeron considerablemente la interacción entre buques y cetáceos”, comentó Fernando Jaén, capitán de la Autoridad del Canal de Panamá y co-diseñador de los esquemas de separación.

Los investigadores también señalaron que podría mejorarse el cumplimiento del límite de velocidad estacional recomendado para los buques que transitan el TSS. Aunque no es una regulación obligatoria, es un factor comprobado para aliviar el riesgo de colisiones fatales con buques. Las compañías navieras podrían anticipar estas restricciones de velocidad y compensar el tiempo perdido aumentando su velocidad en áreas no restringidas a lo largo de la ruta.

“Nuestro estudio es el primero en evaluar las medidas para mitigar el riesgo de colisiones de buques con ballenas, tras de su implementación en el Golfo de Panamá”, comentó Stefanie Kaiser, bióloga marina de la Universidad de Lodz y coautora del estudio. “Es positivo que la mayoría de las embarcaciones cumplan con los esquemas de separación de tráfico, pero si aumentamos el cumplimiento de las restricciones de velocidad podremos proteger a las ballenas jorobadas en el área de manera más efectiva”.

El monitoreo continuo del cumplimiento de estas políticas y recomendaciones basadas en la ciencia, así como una mejor comunicación con los marinos, a través del apoyo continuo del sector marítimo panameño y las autoridades de conservación, podría conducir a una navegación segura y rentable y al logro de los objetivos de conservación.

Los miembros del equipo de investigación están afiliados al Instituto Smithsonian de Investigaciones Tropicales (STRI) y al Centro de Historia Natural de la Universidad de Hamburgo. La investigación fue financiada por STRI y la Secretaría Nacional de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación (SENACYT).

El Instituto Smithsonian de Investigaciones Tropicales, en ciudad de Panamá, Panamá, es una unidad de la Institución Smithsonian. El Instituto promueve la comprensión de la naturaleza tropical y su importancia para el bienestar de la humanidad, capacita estudiantes para llevar a cabo investigaciones en los trópicos, y fomenta la conservación mediante la concienciación pública sobre la belleza e importancia de los ecosistemas tropicales.

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