Mireya Moscoso has announced several changes in her cabinet, some of which have to do with ministers stepping down to run for president. Harmodio Arias is the new foreign minister, replacing presidential hopeful José Miguel Alemán, while Eduardo Quirós takes over as minister of public works, replacing Víctor Juliao, who is also running for the 2004 Arnulfista presidential nomination. Linneth Stanziola is the new agricultural development minister, while Rosabel Vergara takes over as minister of youth and family and Jaime Moreno becomes the new labor minister.

Panama's consul in Guayaquil, José Manuel Ciervides Lacayo, was gunned down on January 8 by assassins firing .45 caliber pistols into his pickup truck as he was leaving his home in Las Cumbres. Witnesses say that four men escaped from the scene in a white sedan. Ciervides Lacayo was back in Panama for a vacation and had met with President Moscoso earlier in the day. Police rounded up a number of suspects, including a Panamanian man with a long criminal record in Panama Viejo and four Colombians, a woman and three men, who rented a Bella Vista apartment from the slain consul. However, it's not clear whether those arrested actually committed the crime or why Ciervides Lacayo was killed.

In a move apparently designed to maintain her control over the Legislative Assembly, President Moscoso has called a special legislative session to begin on January 14. Theoretically, the session is to consider legislation to turn the Civil Aviation Directorate (DAC) into a Civil Aviation Authority, with corresponding higher status and pay for those who run it. The current civil aviation scene is a mess, with an investigation into theft of DAC fuel stymied by a "spontaneous combustion" fired that destroyed the agency's records, the unexplained disappearance of a Boeing airliner entrusted to the DAC's care during bankruptcy proceedings and the US Federal Aviation Administration's downgrading of Panamanian aviation due to the DAC's failure to maintain its safety systems and airport firefighting capabilities to international standards. The proposed new legislation addresses none of those faults, but while the legislature is in special session the deputies' immunity is in effect, which means that Attorney General Sossa's attempt to prosecute PRD defector Carlos Afú, a key figure in Moscoso's control of the assembly, will be on hold until at least next July.

The University of Panama's non-teaching employees returned to the job after a January 7 accord ended a 35-day walkout. The strike was over contractually mandated pay increases for 2002 that were not paid. The Moscoso administration claims that it gave the university the money to pay the increases, an allegation that its makers, Economy and Finance Minister Norberto Delgado and Comptroller General Alvin Weeden, have been unable to substantiate. The agreement will likely result in further labor strife, because it calls for Weeden to report on the facts, and if the Moscoso administration finds that it lied the national government will be responsible for paying the workers the back pay owed to them, while if it is found that the university administration lied it will be responsible for paying. However, the money for the back pay is not part of the 2003 national budget or the 2003 university budget, so it appears that university employees went back to work without winning anything real.

Attorney General Sossa wants to prosecute legislator Carlos Afú, former Consorcio San Lorenzo executive Stephen Jones and CEMIS promoter Martin Rodin, acquit legislator Mateo Castillero and continue the investigation over various alleged acts of bribery in the Legislative Assembly. Sossa's recommendations have been sent to the Supreme Court, which might quash the corruption probe, order certain things investigated or take other actions in the case. For Afú to be tried for bribery, the legislature would have to vote to strip him of his immunity. Rodin and Jones enjoy no such protection but protest their innocence, and Rodin told reporters that he welcomes the opportunity to refute the charges against him.

An attempt to grab the former Fort Randolph by Arnulfista activist Tony Domínguez, his partner former MOLIRENA legislator Alonso Fernández and a group of Chinese investors may soon be resolved in court. Another group of Chinese investors claims an interest in the land by way of a 1991 contract, but Domínguez and his backers claim that the prior interest has been extinguished and say that they'll build a cruise ship port and upscale commercial, hotel and residential area across Manzanillo Bay from Colon city. On its merits the development looks like wishful thinking, but beyond that Domínguez's move has offended environmentalists, historic preservationists and Colon residents who don't like to see outsiders with national political connections grab choice Atlantic side real estate. It seems that the project may stand or fall on the results of a simple trespassing trial. Prosecutors have asked the Third Circuit Court of Panama province to try Domínguez, Fernández and nine others for tresspassing in prejudice of the prior investors. Domínguez, who served as immigration director during the Endara administration, says that he expects to prevail in the legal dispute.

In an announcement curiously timed on January 9, Foreign Minister Harmodio Arias said that US military engineering units have arrived in Panama and will start their "Nuevo Horizonte" construction works in the Ngobe-Bugle comarca shortly. The program lets US National Guard and Army Reserve units get needed practice in tropical engineering work and gives depressed rural areas roads, bridges, water wells, schools and health care clinics.

President Moscoso, whose narrow cultural nationalism defines the salsa music that Rubén Blades makes as "un-Panamanian" (as it arose from Afro-Cuban roots), also doesn't like the fact that Panama's best-known entertainer is supporting Martín Torrijos for president. Thus at the president's insistence the Centennial Commission pulled its endorsement and its $50,000 subsidy from the New Year's "La Rumba de las Estrellas" concert a few days before the event because Blades was one of the performers at the event.

He may have been her escort to many social events at the beginning of her presidency, but Dr. José Manuel Terán is not Mireya Moscoso's choice for the 2004 Arnulfista presidential nomination. That point was recently emphasized by the firing of Cecilio Sáenz, who headed the Ministry of Labor Development's office in Cocle. According to Sáenz the firing was because he supports Terán for president.

With just a few exceptions, President Moscoso has approved the firings of public officials who supported Vice-president Arturo Vallarino's bid to be president of the MOLIRENA party. Mireya has not, however, fired Minister of Commerce and Industry Joaquín Jácome, whose ouster MOLIRENA party boss Jesús "Maco" Rosas had demanded. Vallarino himself is rumored to be considering the formation of a party of his own, a difficult task under current electoral laws. Rosas says that he'd welcome the vice-president's departure from the party.

The Arnulfista Party membership rolls will be open for new inscriptions on February 2. It is not clear how long they will be open. Manipulation of party membership rolls is one of the keys to Mireya Moscoso's domination of the party, and it is unlikely that the organization of a serious intra-party challenge to the presidential candidacy of her personal annointee --- whoever that will turn out to be --- will be allowed.

Panama City municipal politics have provided the platform necessary to demonstrate the intra-party divisions that Martín Torrijos will have to overcome going into the 2004 elections. The PRD holds nine of the 19 Panama City representante posts, with the other 10 divided among several other parties. However, Joaquín Vásquez and Jair Martínez, two of the nine PRD representantes voted with the non-PRD city council members to make Martínez president of a city council at the head of an Arnulfista-dominated coalition. Vásquez recently won the leadership of the PRD's Youth Front, but in the wake of the city council presidency vote the party's National Executive Committee has suspended him from that post. The city council's PRD caucus also responded by expelling Martínez and Vásquez.

Rafael Ruiloba will have to assert his claim to have discovered the remains of what may have been Christopher Columbus's Vizcaina as a private citizen. Ruiloba, who made the claim in a dispute over the old ship's salvage, preservation and restoration, has been replaced as director of the National Institute of Culture (INAC) by Pablo Barrios.

The Panamanian ambassador in Jamaica, Franklin Barrett, made news in Jamaica recently when he was sued for some $37,000 in unpaid rent on his residence on the island. The controversy has led to his firing by the Moscoso administration, which said that the debt reflects badly on Barrett's image.

The Truth Commission has filed a request with prosecutors in Chiriqui to investigate the murders of five people whose bones were found buried near the old Panama Defense Forces barracks in David. Attorney General Sossa has systematically blocked such requests for investigations.

Now that he's a fugitive whose location is unknown, former FOTOKINA owner Carlos Nandwani has had his diplomatic passport revoked. The passport was issued by presidential hopeful and then Foreign Minister José Miguel Alemán in 2001. After that, FOTOKINA declared bankruptcy and prosecutors are alleging a $60 million fraud in the process.

When an international maritime union leader without the proper qualifications bought a first mate's certification from the Panamanian consulate in Manila for $4,000, it caused an international scandal that in turn led to increased coast guard inspections of Panamanian-flag vessels around the world. That, in turn, led to many companies to re-registering their ships under other flags to avoid the delays. There has never been any question of the Moscoso administration replacing the Panamanian consul in the Philippines, Juan Carlos Escalona. The anti-corruption prosecutor, however, purportedly looked into the matter. However, now it seems that, many months later, all the documents related to the case have disappeared from the files of the National Maritime Authority. National Maritime Authority director Jerry Salazar's job isn't in danger either --- in fact he has been mentioned as Mireya's possible appointee to be the next Panama Canal Authority administrator. If it's a miscarriage of justice, Government and Justice Minister Arnulfo Escalona isn't complaining about it.

The Supreme Court has overturned a lower court's decision that Panama City must turn over information on municipal purchases to former Mayor Mayín Correa. At the lower court, the city argued that it had turned over the information that Correa wanted, and has no obligation to spend time creating documents to give it to her in the form she requested. The Supreme Court, however, ruled that Correa has no right to information about city purchases because she's not a party to the transactions. Magistrates Graciela Dixon, César Pereira Burgos and José Troyano dissented from the ruling.

The Health Ministry reports an outbreak of at least 40 cases of whooping cough, one of which has been fatal, in the Ngobe-Bugle Comarca. The cases are in remote areas that are not regularly served by the national health care system, and where a lot of children don't get the immunizations that make whooping cough rare in most parts of Panama. The baby who died in this outbreak was also suffering from malnutrition, according to the ministry.