On November 25 the Supreme Court suspended the Public Utilities Regulating Board's decree banning the use of 24 Internet User Datagram Protocols. The edict was aimed at blocking Internet telephony but also caused disruptions in other online services as business data transmissions using those banned portals shifted to other electronic routes. The ban was justified by the board as a move to prevent evasion of the $1 per international call telephone tax, but condemned by critics as a special interest move for the benefit of Cable & Wireless. The court granted the suspension on the petition of the Net2Net Corporation, but after further litigation the ban might be reimposed.

The Panamanian government's 49 percent stake in Cable & Wireless Panama is suddenly worth a lot less, as the parent company's shares have plunged and is top management has quit. Cable & Wireless has its roots in the British Empire, but its colonial-style monopolistic practices have earned it many enemies in its old imperial strongholds and its recent ventures into Europe and the United States have failed. These failures led to a drop of about 50 percent in the parent company's share prices and the rating of company bonds by Moody's as junk.

A trial court has given two companies, Inversiones Kamasu SA and Cibertec Internacional SA, a $62 million judgment against Cable & Wireless Panama for pirating software designed to detect fraudulent telephone calls. The plaintiffs alleged that C&W allowed a competitor access to their programs, in violation of the contract that the two companies had with the phone monopoly, and that the software was in the course of that contract breach illegally copied and used by competitors. C&W is appealing the verdict.

On December 2 University of Panama clerical and maintenance workers went on strike for back pay owed to them, and as we uploaded this issue the walkout continued. The dispute involves a curious political argument, with Treasury and Finance Minister Norberto Delgado claiming that the university had been paid more than $700,000 to cover this cost, and the university's rector, Julio Vallarino, flatly denies this. Delgado has not shown any documentary evidence to back his claim, although he should be able to produce a cancelled check if he is telling the truth. The strike has been generally nonviolent, but has included some traffic blockages on the Trans-Isthmian Highway in front of the university.

On November 26 clerical workers for the Social Security Fund began working only four to six hours per day, claiming that they were owed some $14 million in back pay for overtime work. Four days later the slowdown was settled and the workers received their back pay on December 13, along with their Thirteenth Month paychecks. Comptroller General Alvin Weeden is demanding that Social Security Director Juan Jované identify the workers who participated in the protest, so that he can dock their pay.

One person has been arrested and several others may face criminal charges for bankruptcy fraud in last year's collapse of The Providence Corporation. The allegation is that the high-yield investment fund became insolvent in 2000, but its managers didn't inform shareholders and continued to solicit new investments under false pretenses, then favored the Banco DISA over other creditors before the collapse became generally known.

An arrest warrant for bankruptcy fraud has been issued against Carlos and Aquilino De La Guardia, the brothers who owned the bankrupt Grupo ADELAG. Civil fraud charges and a book cooking fine for the company's accountant's Arthur Andersen have been public for a long time, and meanwhile the De La Guadia brothers have been allowed to leave the country.

One of Chiquita's Panama subsidiaries, the Puerto Armuelles Fruit Company (PAFCO), says that it lost $16 million this year and has to close up shop. The company has already laid off hundreds of workers and spun off several of its farms to "independent" operators, which have not been economically viable. The company proposes to create co-ops out of PAFCO's remaining holdings, if the government will agree to buy the fruit that the spun-off farms produce.

Social Security director has called on the San Miguel Arcángel Hospital to back off their contracting procedure for blood bank and lab services. The hospital switched contract specifications around to disqualify the company that had been performing these services for four years, Laboratorios de Analisis Clinicos, SA, and give the contract to Analisis de Reactivos, SA, a company that had been incorporated only a few days before the "bidding." The hospital contracted to pay the latter company $1.32 million per year, while the former company was offering to do the work for $684,348. A spokesperson for the Health Ministry called Jované's complaint "fiction," because according to the way that the contract specifications were rewritten, Laboratorios de Analisis Clinicos was duly disqualified and Analisis de Reactivos "won." Nobody had complained of the services that the hospital had been receiving, and under Panama's corporate secrecy laws and the Moscoso administration's policies, the public doesn't get to know specifically which person or persons profit from the switch.

On December 11 President Moscoso vetoed legislation that would have based public employees' thirteenth month bonuses on a salary of no more than $800 per month. For many government workers, this would have been a raise, because the current top salary for the purpose of calculating the bonuses is $400, and they make more than that amount per month. The president said that the country doesn't have the money available to carry out such a promise.

A highly controversial rezoning plan to place a high-density housing development at the former Fort Amador has been withdrawn by the Interoceanic Regional Authority (ARI). Most of the projects that ARI has announced for Amador have failed, but some have succeeded and the proprietors of those were very unhappy with the prospect of inappropriate uses causing congestion in the area and negating the advantages that brought them to Amador.

ARI reports that in two-thirds of the real estate auctions that it has held since 2000, there have been no bidders. The authority has a reputation for representations that are not to be believed, obnoxious urban planning decisions an unrealistic base prices.

Genaro López, the leader of the militant SUNTRACS construction workers' union, predicts that his industry, which is down about 10 percent this year, will rebound next year. "Everything indicates that there will be a construction sector rebound," he told La Estrella.

The Panamanian Insurers Association (APADEA) says that the industry will end 2002 having done about three percent more business than it did in 2001. Last year was a huge disaster for the industry worldwide due to the events of September 11, 2001, but this year there haven't been an extraordinary losses to spread around the world and Panama's economy, while not bouncing back, seems to have ended its free fall.

Tommy Hilfiger's Latin American headquarters, which is located here and employs about 300 people, plans to lay off 10 to 15 percent of its work force early next year. The company has been suffering from the effects of a weak economy across Latin America.

In a series of charges that were first aired in Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Insight on the News magazine, the president of the Washinton DC-based consulting firm Plexus Consulting Group alleges that his company was obliged to post a bond through a company whose owners include former Panamanian diplomat Fernando Eleta, whose father is a member of the City of Knowledge Foundation board of directors. Plexus, in a consortium with Ernst & Young, won the bidding on a $700,000 Inter-American Development Bank-financed publicity and management consulting contract with the City of Knowledge. Plexus president Steve Worth told Insight that a bond was required and that the institution required a bond and steered him to the younger Eleta's company to do so. The City of Knowledge ultimately rejected the Plexus-Ernst & Young consortium's work and collected on the bond. In answer to questions by The Panama News and other Panamanian media, the City of Knowledge released a statement denying any wrongdoing and suggesting that legal action would be brought for defamation, but failed to answer the specific questions about whether it had steered business to a company owned by the son of one of its directors. The City of Knowledge's pitches to attract businesses to its technology park have not been notably successful. Part of that is because the world economy is weak, but another part is that the institution insists on using discredited slogans, such as describing its goal as attracting "businesses focused on the new economy."

Banker and presidential hopeful Alberto Vallarino's Banco del Istmo empire has expanded again, with its Costa Rican subsidiary Corporacion Banex acquiring BANCRECEN, a bank that was founded on Mexican capital. The purchase gives the Vallarino banking empire 30 more branches in Costa Rica.

Heavy rains over the weekend of November 22-24 caused severe flooding in parts of Colon, Panama and Bocas del Toro provinces, leaving at least 1,400 people homeless and destroying crops and killing farm animals. There were no reported human fatalities. The worst affected area was the Costa Abajo, that part of Colon province west of the Panama Canal, where Rio Indio and other streams overflowed their banks by at least 15 feet.

Heavy rains over the weekend of November 29-December 1 caused the Sixaoloa River to overflow its banks in Bocas del Toro, with two people being drowned and some 1,500 left homeless in the flooding. The rains also washed away some roads in the Chiriqui highlands.

Panama City has approved a $59.4 million 2003 municipal budget, $11.5 million of which is for capital improvements and the rest for operating expenses. The new budget, which restricts travel at city expense and includes some other belt-tightening moves, was unanimously approved by the 19 representantes and signed by Mayor Navarro.

The city government, citing health concerns and as part of its general movement toward renovation and gentrification in the Casco Viejo, has evicted the last of the seafood vendors from the Terraplen landing and torn down their old stalls. Those who cared to do so were able to obtain somewhat smaller but much nicer vending stalls at the Municipal seafood market on Avenida Balboa, but many of the fishmongers protested the move anyway.

The Panamanian Society of Engineers and Architects (SPIA) says that the planned Panama-Colon toll road is not and will not be economically viable. PYCSA, the Mexican company that built and operates the Corredor Norte, has defaulted on the contract to build and operate the autopista, which Colon Free Zone merchants and others consider crucial to the Atlantic side's economic development. SPIA suggests that instead of the new road, the government should fix and widen the current Trans-Isthmian Highway.

Constructora Urbana (CUSA), in a bidless proceeding, has won the contract to build the eastern approach to the new bridge across the Panama Canal. The deal is for $48.9 and includes both design and construction. In a prior bidding process that was called off when all bidders submitted offers above the maximum that the government wanted to pay, CUSA had submitted the lowest bid.

On December 8 a settler from the Interior who had taken land claimed by the Wounaan community in Rio Platanares suffered shotgun wounds when he tried to resist an eviction. The government's Indigenous Affairs Office had ruled in favor of the Wounaan claim when a group of colonos moved onto the land, and a compromise which allowed the latter to harvest the crops they had planted and then required them to leave had been honored by all but the one who resisted. The man was shot and wounded, after which his family removed their belongings from the community and all of the colono invaders's buildings were burned down.

The Legislative Assembly has approved loan guarantee legislation for small and medium-sized farmers. About 13,000 agricultural producers who had been unable to get financing on the market will be eligible for loans through the Banco Nacional de Panamá, the Banco de Desarrollo Agropecuario, farm co-ops and private banks.