The work of art shown above doesn't exist anymore. It was an New Year's muñeco, in the image of Dr. Manuel Amador Guerrero, Panama's first president. Such effigies are burned in New Year's bonfires, one of the peculiar cultural features of Panama's Interior. For a longer look at the tradition, take a look at our Arts section.

As the Republic of Panama approaches its 100th birthday (November 3, 2003), The Panama News just passed its ninth birthday, with a decennial to celebrate about a month after the nation's centennial.

We're getting lots of emails about the availability of hotel rooms. Things are filling up for the important days, but the hotel managers aren't eager to talk about it. Those of you who live abroad and are thinking about visiting Panama in this centennial year should do your best to reserve rooms for Carnival or next November's patriotic observances right now, and you shouldn't be shocked if your first choice of accomodations is already booked up.

I'm working on the buttons on several pages, in part to help visitors better plan their time in Panama. Check out the Sports and Travel sections to see what I'm talking about. The Review section is also growing --- this time we look at a fantasy movie, a science fiction book, the Theatre Guild of Ancon and the usual Internet sites.

Our Spanish pages are rarely mere translations of things on our English pages (or vice versa), and that's in large part a recognition of the reality that most of the English-speaking community in Panama is bilingual. One Spanish-language item about which those who only read the English pages ought to be aware is the Black Queen competition. Her Majesty's domain will include the Antillean Fair, on the Saturday and Sunday of Carnival (March 1 and 2) at the West Indian Museum. If you're coming to Panama for Carnival, or if you are already here, this is an annual event that you should check out.

The powers that be, in keeping with their bad habits, laid some serious bad news on us over holidays when people weren't paying much attention. Most notable was the New Year's Eve announcement of yet another electricity rate hike, which gives Panama some of the world's highest utility bills and is another severe blow to the nation's economy.

A few days later, Alberto Vallarino cancelled many political bets when he announced that he won't contest the 2004 election under the new rules that Mireya Moscoso proposed and the PRD legislators as well as the president's supporters passed. Also in our News section, I took a look at one of the possible wild cards on the national political scene, the "izquierda callejera" on its annual Day of the Martyrs march.

I touch upon the Day of the Martyrs in my Opinion column and on the Community page. Between the Spanish and English Opinion sections, the Editorial and the Letters, we go far afield this time. Some of the Spanish Opinions that don't appear in English are Dr. Norman Girvan's column on a lost half-decade in Latin America and the Caribbean (he has a different column on the English side), the Farmers' Coordinator Against the Dams making their case against expanding the canal by flooding their lands, the University of Panama deans' retort to the national government over the budget dispute that caused a 35-day strike and New Year analyses of international press freedom standards by Journalists Against Corruption and Reporters Without Borders. The English Opinion columns include an American coalition's take on how a proposed change in US tax laws might affect an industry that's important to Panama, a growing US legal argument about which human rights apply to non-human "persons," and the definitive collection of 2002 Editorial page quotations.

A couple of sections have been renamed to reflect the realities of the subject matters they include. We have always had an expansive view of what makes a business section story, so now it's the "Business & Economy" section. This time we get into the much more substantial US government contracts that could be at risk if anybody in Washington paid any attention to the Unisys scandal in Panama. Science has become "Science & Technology," to better describe a section that this time includes Carlos Hassan's column about backing up your computer and my coverage of a Harvard biologist's presentation at the Smithsonian. Our Outdoors section also includes a glance at the dry season manifestation of one of Panama's biological facts.

As a news watcher and a thinking person, developments on the international scene these past couple of weeks have been interesting and horrifying on many counts, but my reasons and reactions may be different than yours.

I was and am appalled by the odd Raelian cult's claim of human cloning, especially given their claims of why they're doing it. That these people were able to dominate the news without a shred of proof about their claims, while other important stories received no attention from the major corporate media, says extremely nasty things about the judgment of folks at places like AOL/Time/Warner/CNN.

I have also been avidly reading VHeadline, Venezuela's online English-language newspaper, because the mainstream international media have been little more than pro-coup cheerleaders while the little guys give a more balanced perspective. It does seem that with the inauguration of Ignacio Lula da Silva as president of Brazil the whole South American paradigm has changed, and the hopes that Chávez's foes had of US intervention are now being offset by the possibility of Brazilian intervention in the other direction. Reading in one of Reverend Moon's publications how Henry Hyde is accusing Lula of being a terrorist in search of weapons of mass destruction, I get a bad feeling about the direction that United States policy toward the region may be turning.

However, and though I'm going to be reviewing some of Panama's TV programming in upcoming issues, I'm not spending too much time in front of the idiot box because it's dry season. It's too nice outside not to enjoy the season. If you find yourself reading these words while sheltered against the winter cold or more northerly climes, you may want to consider flying down to sunny Panama. I doubt you'd be reading this if the thought hadn't crossed your mind.

Eric Jackson
the editor