Yaritza Pérez Frías, an 18-month-old girl in the impoverished Playita de Bique neighborhood of Arraijan, has died of starvation. Three of her siblings were also hospitalized for malnutrition. The death has shocked Panama, which generally has a better record of looking after the welfare of its children than is the case in many neighboring Central and South American countries. Health authorities warn that child malnutrition, long a problem in the indigenous areas, has also become very acute in the country's economically depressed banana producing areas.

US President George W. Bush has chosen career diplomat Linda Ellen Watt to be the next American ambassador in Panama. Watt, who has most recently served as political director for the US Southern Command and who served in Santo Domingo, Moscow and the State Department's Middle East desk in Washington. Also designated as the number two person at the US Embassy here is Christopher McMullen, who has been serving as the political advisor at the embassy in Bogota. Watt's nomination must be approved by the US Senate, and a favorable vote is likely. Bush's choices for the embassy here appear to be largely on the basis of Panama's perceived importance as a country bordering Colombia as that nation plunges deeper into war.

The Legislative Assembly has unanimously approved on third and final reading a weakened version of the press law that was drafted by the Sindicato Nacional de Periodistas and promoted by PRD legislator Denis Arce. The final draft of the law eliminated the controversial journalist licensing provisions contained in the original, as well as the revival of the dictatorship's journalism control board and the ban on foreign journalists working for Panamanian media. It purports to impose a code of ethics that would not allow journalists to take bribes without their employers' consent, but would not punish the payment of bribes to journalists or the bribery of media owners. The law will create a registry of professional journalists with degrees from or approved by the University of Panama. The owners of the mainstream daily newspapers and television networks joined the Sindicato de Periodistas to support the legislation. Other journalists organizations, human rights groups and University of Panama journalism students have asked President Moscoso to veto it.

The Castillian, a specially modified boat that had been working on the site of a 16th century caravel that might be Christopher Columbus's Vizcaina, was headed back to the United States when it went missing off the Caribbean coast of Honduras for a week. The vessel's engines were fouled by contaminated fuel and its communications equipment was out of range of Panama, but finally it was found drifting at sea and given the fuel and repairs it needed to limp into port in Honduras for further repairst that should hold up until it gets back to the United States. Recovery work at the site off Playa Dama may resume using other boats, but ongoing squabbles among the National Institute of Culture, the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the Legislative Assembly and rivals who want to grab the site and the recovery job for themselves have stopped all work for the moment, and it's likely that it won't resume this year. That would mean that there probably won't be much to show to interested tourists during next year's expected centennial visitor influx.

President Moscoso has called a special session of the Legislative Assembly to consider a package of educational reforms prompted by a United Nations Development Program report on the deficiencies in Panama's public schools. During the special sessions the legislators will retain immunity and Attorney General José Antonio Sossa will not pursue investigations of allegations that three members of the PRD caucus were bribed to approve President Moscoso's Supreme Court nominees and one of those three members' claims that an undetermined number of deputies were bribed to approve the CEMIS multimodal airport and freight handling project in Colon. On the eve of her announcement that there would be a special legislative session, Moscoso announced government spending cuts, and for months the president has been specifically defending the nepotism and political patronage that has prevailed in the public schools as in other parts of the government, so teachers' unions are warning that the session is unlikely to produce any improvements in the field of public education. The most hotly disputed of the changes that the president wants is likely to be a proposed new teacher tenure law.

Some of the usual suspects are at it again. On June 28 students from Colegio Artes y Oficios did battle with riot police, blocked traffic on the Trans-Isthmian Highway in front of the school, stoned the principal's office and damaged cars caught up in the traffic jam and school property. The incident that provoked the battle was the police juvenile squad's arrival at the school that in turn had been prompted by a fight between students at Artes y Oficios and others from Colegio Toms Gabriel Duque earlier in the day. During the previous week, students from the Instituto Nacional blocked the Avenida de los Martires three times to protest what they believe are moves to privatize the Social Security Fund, resulting in confrontation with riot police and the arrests of 20 students and two teachers.

The red slate, which supports incumbent MOLIRENA party leader Jesús "Maco" Rosas against a challenge by Vice-President Arturo Vallarino's yellow slate, is claiming victory after June 23 elections for delegates to a party convention to be held on August 4. However, the announcement was made by the Rosas-controlled party organization on the basis of a partial vote count, with voting in Arraijan, Las Tablas, Cañazas, Sona and Muna having been postponed until July 7 by the Electoral Tribunal, after the Rosas-controlled party elections commission threw pro-Vallarino nominees off the ballot in those districts. This sort on infighting is the norm in MOLIRENA, a conservative party and junior partner in the Moscoso administration that's at its core an ever-shifting alliance among several of the country's wealthiest families.

María Buenaños Mendoza, the representante of the Darien community of Jaque, which is near the Colombian border, has been accused of using a National Air Service (SAN) plane to transport cocaine from her community near the Colombian border to Panama City. In a police sting operation, the local official was detained in the capital while allegedly in possession of a briefcase containing one kilo of the drug. Although it has been alleged that this was not the first such drug flight, it appears that nobody at the SAN is being charged with participating in the smuggling.

Arraijan legislator Lenín Sucre, who was elected on the Liberal ticket and supports the Moscoso administration, has received a windfall. First, he got a former Panama Canal Commission house in Balboa. Then he rented it out to the National Bank of Panama, which did extensive remodeling for its use as a temporary bank branch while its current Balboa facility is being remodeled. Then the bank decided that it didn't need the building. So now Sucre has a newly remodeled office in Balboa to rent out, without having to bother with the remodeling expenses.

"I go out with whom I want," Mireya Moscoso insisted in a speech attacking the press for being "morbid." The president was complaining about reports about and criticisms of the 53-person entourage that she took with her to a summit in Madrid, a crowd that included Supreme Court magistrates Winston Spadafora and Alberto Cigarruista. Though from time to time there has been speculation and satire about Moscoso's relationship with Spadafora, the criticism has been mainly of the large expense of the junket and the impropriety of judges participating in such politically charged activities. The president, who survived her first husband and divorced her second husband, prefers to duck the criticism by portraying those who report or comment on her travels as having a perverted interest in her personal affairs.

Partido Popular legislator Teresita de Arias is accusing Arnulfista deputy Gloria Young of inserting a change to a law creating new battered women's shelters by altering the official document rather than proposing an amendment during the legislative process. Young is the founder of Panama's first shelter for battered women, the Centro para Mujeres Maltradados in San Miguelito. Backing Arias's claim is her fellow party member, Legislative Assembly president Rubén Arosemena, who says that the proposal that went to the floor of the legislature in a late night session was not the same as the version approved by the Women's Rights Committee.

Legislator José Isabel Blandón recently said what a lot of people have observed over the years, that former President Ernesto Pérez Balladares appears to be wealthier than his known income would justify. So Toro has charged the leader of the Arnulfista legislative caucus with calumnia e injuria --- criminal defamation. It appears, however, that Blandón is shielded from prosecution by legislative immunity. Toro has thus been taunting Blandón in the press, arguing that it's cowardly to rely on his immunity, and it seems that Blandón, an attorney, is disposed to pick up the gauntlet and renounce the legal protection that goes with his office.

Comptroller General Alvin Weeden recently sent out a memorandum to the nation's quasi-autonomous public instutions, purporting to impose guidelines for the acquisition of communications equipment. That offended Gonzalo Córdoba, the executive secretary of the National Science and Technology Secretariat (SENACYT), who replied in a memo that Weeden's communique cast unfair aspersions, because it implicitly criticized SENACYT's program of locating Internet cafes around the country in communities that otherwise would not have access to such services. Weeden's response to Córdoba's complaint was the summary imposition of a $100 fine for disrespect.

The public breakup of the Rodin family business empire has included a series of lawsuits pitting 82-year-old Lew Rodin and his son Peter Rodin against his other son Martin Rodin, and vitriolic press conferences by the elder Rodin, all entwined around allegations that bribes were paid to gain approval of the CEMIS multimodal freight cargo handling and airport project. Recently the dispute has taken another ugly turn. Martin Rodin has moved in the courts to have his father declared mentally incompetent, and a few days later, Lew Rodin was hospitalized for a heart condition. The allegations of mental incompetence have been argued not only in court, but also in a series of newspaper ads.

Osvaldo Martínez, a fugitive suspected in the San Miguelito murder of traffic judge Harmodio Mariscal, was, according to Costa Rican police, arrested for illegally crossing over from Panama and then eaten by a cayman after he escaped and attempted to swim away in the Terraba River. Some Tico cops swear that they saw the incident, though cayman attacks on human beings are rare and no partial remains were produced to independently verify the claim. Though some of Panama's mainstream media, which generally don't hire people with backgrounds in the natural sciences, reported the story as undisputed truth, other observers with better knowledge of both nature and Costa Rican corruption believe that what actually happened is that the fugitive bribed police to let him go and is still alive and at large.

Health authorities report 110 recent cases of viral meningitis in Chiriqui province. The contagious inflamation of the brain and nervous system, which is generally much milder than the often life threatening bacterial meningitis, may be related to the breakdown of much of the city of David's water supply system.

PRD legislator Vicente Magallón and Veracruz quarry operator Héctor Espinosa recently accused each other of corruption in a Legislative Assembly Health Committee hearing about environmental problems that the quarry has allegedly caused for neighboring residents. Magallón said that Espinosa is thumbing his nose at community concerns because he enjoys the protection of friends in the Moscoso administration. Espinosa says that Magallón is making an issue out of pollution and explosion noise in order to shake the quarry down for bribes.

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