The governments of Panama and the United States have announced that they have agreed to an amendment to an existing anti-drug accord that allows US military forces and law enforcement agencies to pursue drug traffickers into Panamanian territory and make arrests here. The Moscoso administration says that the new deal will not allow US forces to bear arms on Panamanian and subordinates American government agents to Panama's laws. While both countries have publicized the deal's provisions, the actual text of the agreement has not been published. The opposition PRD's International Relations Committee has demanded that the government publish the accord, warning that it affects national sovereignty and speculating that it may be used to allow the United States to use Panamanian territory for military activities.

Carnival is traditionally a busy time for police, who have their hands full with heavy traffic, large crowds and boisterous drunks. It's also a time when pickpockets and muggers like to work, and that is seen as a threat to the tourism industry. Thus the IPAT government tourism bureau have reached an arrangement with the Judicial Technical Police (PTJ) to place undercover agents in likely spots to catch those who would make tourists their prey. This effort is in addition to the National Police department's Tourism Police division, which has been largely successful at protecting foreign visitors from street crime.

Most of La Chorrera's representantes, who are members of political parties, are calling for the removal of Mayor Brenda De Icaza, an independent, by the governor of Panama province. There has long been animosity between the council and the mayor, but the latest round has been over city fees for Carnival events. De Icaza says that she's not opposed to the representantes holding the traditional dances and barbecues in their corregimientos, but that they must pay for the required municipal permits for such events. The representantes, whose funding has been cut by the cash-strapped city, are pleading poverty and demanding De Icaza's political head. At one heated session two female city employees, the mayor's secretary and the city council's legal assistant, got into a fistfight.

The nation's Board of Censors has approved the gay community's application to march and have floats in the Carnival parades, but has turned down an application for a stage for a Panama City drag queen show. Panama's gays have in recent years presented a higher public profile, and have long benefited from this country's general respect for individuals' privacy. However, gay participation in Carnival and events like the annual three crowns female impersonator competition usually draw opposition from some political and religious leaders.

Las Tablas Mayor Erick Elpidio JaZ&Mac255;n has issued the annual decree about prohibited conduct during the nation's largest Carnival celebration. In addition to the usual bans on nudity, lewd behavior and spraying water on the queens, this year there's a ban on placards, t-shirts, leaflets or other messages that denigrate anyone --- the nation's much-despised political leaders, for example.

The expulsion from the University of Panama of three members of the leftist Revolutionary Student Front (FER-29) for blocking traffic on the Trans-Isthmian Highway to protest the bus fare increase last december has been downgraded to a one-year suspension. The students, Kenia Cede–o, Lorenzo Gal‡stica and Ronaldo Ort’z, chained themselves to the rector's office and went on a hunger strike, while at the same time appealing the rector's expulsion order to the faculty council. The latter body heard the appeal and reduced the penalty.

Alberto Cigarruista, who was recently promoted from the Legislative Assembly to the Supreme Court of Justice in a controversial vote, may be reprimanded by his new colleagues. He attended the inaguration of a new bus terminal in his old legislative district, which was built in part with money from his legislator's circuit fund. Unfortunately, such politically oriented public events are off limits to high court magistrates, according to the court's rules. The appearance prompted protests from the president of the Colegio de Abogados (Panama's bar association), Carlos Vásquez, and more predictably, from Cigarruista's partisan critics.

Four lawyers and an official at the Ministry of Labor have been arrested for selling bogus labor permits to foreigners for $50. The charges came after a two-month investigation of irregularities at the ministry's Chitre, Los Santos and Panama City offices. The ministry says that it will adopt stricter controls to prevent repeats of the crime, but has not explained how only one of its officials was involved if the activity went on at three of its offices.

Under the recently passed Freedom of Information law, the names and salaries of people on the Legislative Assembly's payroll have become public information for the first time, and deputies of both the government and opposition factions are looking bad. Each legislator has a payroll of $4,000 per month, and can hire whomever he or she wants with this. It turns out that many legislators hire relatives. Those who do so argue, as would be expected, that their family members work hard and well and that is all that matters.

In a series of surprise pre-Carnival health inspections of San Miguelito pushbuttons, half of the establishments were found in violation of the health regulation requiring two condoms in each room. The pushbuttons were fined and the occasion was used to remind Carnival revlers to practice safe sex. This year's anti-AIDS campaign has also featured television ads with Panama City's Carnival queen, Jannesy Contreras, urging people to use condoms to prevent HIV infections.

Health authorities report a half-dozen confirmed cases of whooping cough, two of them fatal, and a number of other suspected cases. The cases have been found around the country, but mostly in indigenous communities in the Ngobe-Bugle comarca, Kuna Yala, eastern Panama province and the Darien. Public Health Director Esteban Morales says that this outbreak should be taken as a warning to parents that they should not neglect to get their babies immunized. The government is taking steps to intensify screening of pre-school and kindergarten children to make sure that they have had their shots.

The police bomb squad was called in to a farm in the Cocle community of Pueblo Nuevo, Anton, on February 6 after a laborer who was putting in the foundations of a building several days earlier struck a object about one foot beneath the soil with his shovel. It turned out to be a World War II artillery shell, which was intact and apparently still live. During the Second World War US forces had gun emplacements and other military sites throughout the isthmus to defend against German or Japanese attacks that never took place, and ordnance was abandoned at many of these sites when the the American troops withdrew from them. Some of the old military sites are known, but many are not.

On February 6 La Prensa published a two-page feature, part of a series on city life, about noise. Apparently an editor didn't quite get it --- the headline read "El ruido, una contaminaci—n silenciosa" --- "Noise, a silent pollution," in its English translation. Most Panama City residents would argue that their neighborhoods are anything but silent.

On February 5 an ACCEL, SA tanker truck had an accident at Chiriqui's Puerto Pedregal, spilling some 900 gallons of fuel into the water around the yacht club there. The company immediately called in a spill containment crew and announced that it will bear all the costs of cleaning up the mess and repairing any damages.

On February 5 the American nuclear submarine USS Alaska transited the canal amidst heavy security. The sub's passage through the Gatun Locks forced delays or cancellations of a number of the tours that passengers on visiting cruise ships were allowed to take, as helicopter flights in the Gatun area, trips down the Chagres River below the dam and sightseeing from the locks' observation deck were all banned during the transit. About 250 police officers and security guards were posted around the locks. The added security for US Navy vessels is something that has been instituted since the September 11 attacks on the United States.

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