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Among the women of Panama's indigenous Embera and Wounaan communities, which trace their ancestral roots to the Amazon Basin, there are some impressive basket weavers. Although in these cultures you generally won't see people using such baskets to carry water from nearby rivers to their homes, they could do so if necessary. The baskets are that tightly woven.

This particular basket is also just the right size to pass around when taking up a collection for a struggling little newspaper like The Panama News. As we mentioned on the front page of the last issue, despite an increasing readership and a bit more success in the ad sales department, this online newspaper remains in dire financial straits and our version of an educational TV station's fundraising drive continues. Send your donations to:

And we thank you for your generous support.

In the Business section this time, we highlight an argument very closely linked with the holding of water, former deputy canal administrator Fernando Manfredo's take on the idea of expanding the Panama Canal.

The "in" basket for this edition included two stories that are getting a lot of coverage in the corporate media, George W. Bush's desire to attack Iraq (which is dominating the international cable networks); and Panamanian beauty queen Justine Pasek's elevation as Miss Universe following the purge of Oxana Federova, the foxy Russian policewoman (which was the lead story in the Panamanian dailies for several days).

The debate over Iraq plays prominently in our News, Opinion and Letters sections. We publish George W. Bush's long statement of his national security doctrine in its entirety as a News story, and Al Gore's critique of this as an Opinion. Basically both pieces are newsworthy as well as opinionated, but they were placed in the sections they were because the stated policy of the president of the United States is, whether it's right or wrong, much more than a mere opinion.

Justine Pasek's good fortune is mentioned in our News Briefs. Maybe this placement reflects my personal attitude about beauty pageants, an opinion that I share with most feminists.

I would not want to denigrate Ms. Pasek, who is bright and good looking and works very hard to be as beautiful as she is. I do question the $9 million subsidy that the Panamanian government is giving to Donald Trump to hold next year's pageant here, although I must admit that our hotels and restaurants will get a lot of business for a few days and that if the event is handled right it may give our tourism industry an even longer-lasting boost.

I received emails from Poland, where journalists are very interested in the tale of a young lady of Polish ancestry, as Justine Pasek is, dethroning the Russian queen. Somebody forwarded me a column from Pravda, which criticized the lewd and voyeuristic questions that some reporters asked Ms. Federova at official Miss Universe appearances.

The Panama News was not invited when Oxana Federova made her official appearance here. Had we been, I probably would not have attended. Had I attended, I would not have asked crude and boorish questions about her preferred sexual acts. I might have asked crude and boorish questions about Rocky and Bullwinkle. ("But Boris --- what about the squorrel?" That's the first thing that came to my twisted mind when I saw a video clip of the brunette Federova in her dark Russian police trenchcoat.)

One particularly unfortunate aspect of the way that this story was covered by some of the Panamanian media was the speculation about why Ms. Federova was deposed. The suggestion that she did not live up to Donald Trump's sense of propriety and chastity underwhelms me.

Also in the News Briefs, and to me a far more important tale than the palace intrigue at the Miss Universe pageant, is the continuing persecution of journalists by Panamanian authorities.

Prosecutors have moved to bring El Panama America's Jean Marcel Chéry and Gustavo Aparicio to trial because they wrote a story about a rural road that the Social Investment Fund (FIS) built from La Chorrera to the sparsely-inhabited boondocks, conveniently serving the farms of Supreme Court magistrate Winston Spadfora and Comptroller General Alvin Weeden. The latter complained to the paper about the report, explaining his side of the story --- that the road had been long contemplated, that it would open the way to economic development that would benefit a lot of people, and that when the roadbuilder's heavy equipment was seen making improvements to his farm it was on a separate job paid for by the comptroller from his personal funds. El Panama America duly reported Weeden's retort. Spadafora, then minister of government and justice, reacted differently. He filed a criminal defamation complaint, even though what Chéry and Aparicio wrote was demonstrably true.

Also in the past few days, former publisher Ricardo Alberto Arias was called in for questioning by prosecutors about a report by Rolando Rodríguez, a journalist at La Prensa. Attorney General José Antonio Sossa is trying to have Rodríguez jailed because he wrote about court testimony alleging that Sossa interviewed a prisoner for a book that he allegedly intends to write once he leaves office. The tale was told under oath by Colon businessman Walid Zayed, who had been jailed on money laundering charges and who said that Sossa visited his prison cell and conducted the interview for the claimed purpose. In the case in which Zayed testified, Attorney General Sossa is trying to have Panama City lawyer Santander Tristán thrown into jail for claiming that his phone was tapped on Sossa's orders.

I also mention the criminal defamation charges hanging over me in an Opinion column about the sad state of Panamanian law and what might be done to improve the situation. Maybe they'll charge me with another crime for that, too.

Finally, I hope that you notice the new buttons that have been added near the tops of some of our pages in this and recent issues. The new Astronomy and Navigation button on our Science and Calendar pages gets you to links about these subjects, and The Panama News back to a tradition we upheld when we published regular print editions. We cover astronomy, but not astrology. We aim to inform and we don't pander to superstition.

Eric Jackson
the editor

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