Panama News Briefs

Panama News Briefs

Extent of DEG poisoning again in the news

According to the Torrijos administration, 115 people died from taking cough syrup mixed in a government lab that contained toxic diethylene glycol (DEG). The poison got into the medicine supply by way of mislabeled chemicals that came through a long chain of international commerce from China, which were never tested to confirm that they were the substance the stickers claimed. But to date there have been more than 800 complaints filed with prosecutors about claimed DEG poisoning. The Torrijos administration denied funding for the toxicology tests on the remains of the claimed victims until after decomposition made it too late to detect the residues of DEG, then claimed that only those cases in which a toxicology test conclusively proved poisoning really happened. Especially out of luck were families who lost their breadwinners in the remote indigenous comarcas, where the president and first lady made canal expansion referendum campaign visits in which they passed out medications and where virtually none of the claimed suspicious deaths could be physically investigated. But now special prosecutor Dimas Guevara has sent a list of more than 6,000 people whom he said records of returned medicine bottles indicate had used the DEG-tainted medicine to health authorities. He has requested the Social Security Fund (CSS) and Ministry of Health to verify the health status of each of these persons. The CSS countered with a press release calling the more than 6,000 possible cases old news and dismissing its importance. Guevara countered that it's important to check these leads to verify possible cases.

Career cop in charge of National Police

By law since 1990, chiefs of the National Police have to be from civilian backgrounds and had been attorneys. Supporters of this system, adopted in the wake of the US invasion that overthrew the military dictatorship, defend it as a guarantee against militarism overtaking the government again. Others argue that the police should be headed by an experienced professional law enforcement officer. President Torrijos, without bothering to debate or change the 1990 law, has promoted Commissioner Jaime Ruiz, by education a soldier and with a long career in police work, from the uniformed ranks to head the National Police, replacing Rolando Mirones. Ruiz, who was number two in the police under Mirones, has been named acting chief as a legal fiction to avoid the legal prohibition against a cop rising through the ranks to become chief.

Cabinet changes

There has been a mass exodus from cabinet positions as appointed officials leave to run for elected offices, or in some cases have simply worn out their welcome. On May 12 President Torrijos announced a bunch of changes among his ministers and vice ministers. Former Universidad Tecnologico rector Salvador Rodríguez replaces the scandal-tainted Belgis Castro as education minister. The number two guy at the Housing Ministry, Gabriel Diez, moves up to replace presidential candidate Balbina Herrera. Second Vice President Rubén Arosemena has been replaced as minister of the presidency by Dilio Arcia.

New Electoral Prosecutor

Boris Barrios has been named Electoral Prosecutor, filling a spot that had been occupied by the suplente for Gerardo Solís, Orlando Barsallo, after Solís had been elevated to become a magistrate on the Electoral Tribunal. Barsallo had been too amateurish about the dives he took to allow the use of public funds to support PRD candidates.

Two new vice ministers

With Panama's public debt at record levels in absolute terms (though not in terms of percentage of Gross Domestic Product), the Torrijos administration has decided that it needs two more highly paid administrative positions. According to a plan approved by the Cabinet Council, the Vice Minister of Education's job will be split in two, with the creation of vice ministers for academic affairs and for administration; and the Vice Minister of Government and Justice's job will be split in two, with vice ministers for public safety and for government.

New Catholic bishop in Bocas

Pope Benedict XVI has named Aníbal Saldaña Santamaría as the Catholic bishop of Bocas del Toro. He replaces José Agustín Ganuza, who has retired at the age of 75. Saldaña, a 50-year-old Augustinian priest, was born in Puerto Armuelles. His eclectic higher education includes the study of law, philosophy and theology at universities in Panama, Spain and Italy and his clerical career has been divided between teaching and working as a parish priest.

University closed after larger than usual street battle

On May 9 much of Panama City was shrouded in tear gas and most of the metro area was in traffic gridlock as students battled police on the Transistmica for six hours. It seems that after the campus radicals captured a motorcycle from the police and were showing it off to press photographers the cops reacted with special fury, shooting sociology student Marc Horabuena in his left arm, nearly severing it, and creating a cloud of tear gas that enveloped patients at the nearby Arnulfo Arias Hospital Complex, stung skin and watered eyes at the far end of Via Argentina on one end and affected residents and business in Perejil and Curundu (including the Santa Fe Hospital) on the other edge. The University of Panama closed down, with its ruling bodies then debating what to do. After an academic council vote to expel three students allegedly identified as those who commandeered the motorcycle student militant groups declared that there would be trouble on campus if the university administration persisted in taking that stand. In the end the administration gave way a bit, suspending two students for one year and reprimanding three others, and the university reopened on May 15.

Five major road blockages in one day

The riot squads were busy on Tuesday, May 13. In San Miguelito, parents, teachers and students from San Miguelito's Escuela Severino Hernandez blocked Via Tocumen because of uncontained fiberglass insulation that people in the school are breathing in and getting into their eyes and on their skin. Over near the Costa Rican border, about 100 mostly indigenous farmers blocked the Panama-American Highway in and out of Paso Canoa over a plan to dam the Chiriqui Viejo River and deprive them of water supplies upon which they have long depended. In Colon, residents of a couple of dilapidated tenement buildings blocked streets to demand repairs to their homes. At Cerro Canajagua in Los Santos, ranchers, truckers and local residents blocked the highway between Las Tablas and Tonosi to demand repairs to the road that serves their community, which the protesters say is now becoming impassable to even four-wheel-drive vehicles. Meanwhile on the Transistmica, the usual suspects weren't blocking the street because the University of Panama remained closed in the wake a May 9 all-day blockade and rumble with the riot cops, so this time it was the Comite por el Derecho a la Vida --- survivors and relatives of victims of the poisonous cough syrup disaster --- blocking the road to protest the government's failure to provide benefits or medical attention to many of those affected.

Students, parents and teachers block road over pigeon droppings

On May 14, students, parents and teachers at the Instituto Benigno Jiménez Garay on the Transistmica in Colon blocked the road between Colon and Panama because the sidewalks at the entrance to the school are covered with pigeon droppings that those entering and leaving the school must walk through. Moreover, the water in the school is off so there is no good way for those with fouled footwear to clean up the gooey stuff and there's an excuse for the school's janitors not to clean the sidewalk.

Arraijan roads blocked over water

On May 12 hundreds of residents Nuevo Chorrillo, Nuevo Emperador and Princesa Mia residents blocked the old Pan-American Highway for about five hours because they have no running water. The developer of Princesa Mia, built two years ago, fraudulently misrespresented to buyers that there would be running water 24 hours per day and when they found out they had been lied to told them that it was the government's responsibility to provide water. In the older Nuevo Emperador and Nuevo Chorrillo neighborhoods, the IDAAN water and sewer infrastructure is insufficient to provide a regular water supply. IDAAN says that the situation might get better in three months, after they install a new pump to their system for that part of Arraijan.

Ngobe block highway over hydro dams

On May 7 about 300 Ngobe protesters blocked the Pan-American Highway near Horconcito, Chiriqui, to protest against hydroelectric projects that they say will displace them from their homes, either by flooding them out or by depriving them of the water resources they need to survive. The protest, timed to coincide with a visit to the area by First Lady Vivian Fernández de Torrijos, ended after about an hour, after the vice governor of Chiriqui came to speak with the group.

Los Santos students block road over fiberglass

About 200 students from the Colegio Manuel María Tejada Roca in Las Tablas, along with some of their parents, blocked the road between their town and Chitre on May 7 to demand that the Ministry of Education finish the job of removing fiberglass insulation from the school. Due to the unfinished work the students first lost three weeks of classes, and then were split up among three other school buildings, which makes it hard for them to take all the classes they need.

Anton high school on strike over fiberglass

On May 13 teachers and students walked out of Colegio Salomon Ponce Aguilera in Anton, over exposure to loose fiberglass insulation in the school. The teachers' union said that they won't be going back to work at the school until the problem is fixed.

Parents close Escuela Republica de Venezuela

Parents of the kids who go to Excuela Republica de Venezuela in Panama City's Calidonia neighborhood closed the school on May 12 because there was no running water, electricity was off in parts of the building and a number of the doors were broken. The problems were supposed to have been fixed when the school year began two months ago, and when the school opened in bad condition the Education Ministry promised repairs, which were not made.

Cops beat up protesters, journalists

On May 12 students, teachers and parents from the Escuela de Quebrada Ancha in Colon province blocked traffic on the Transistmica because the school is set to be moved to a less convenient place to make way for the new Panama-Colon toll road. The riot police responded with tear gas and clubs, not only against the people from the elementary school who were blocking the road, but also beating up television crews from TVN and MEDCOM.

Torrijos gets La Prensa excluded from DC press conference

Part of the media control game that President Torrijos plays is aimed toward as much control as possible over local news reporting and part of it is aimed at projecting a sanitized image abroad. The latter can't be done if when he travels there are non-obsequious reporters who know something about Panama and ask him informed and relevant questions. The former he does by largely avoiding exposure to local journalists whom he does not directly or indirectly control. In his recent trip to Washington, the Panamanian embassy blocked the attendance at the White House press conference of La Prensa's US correspondent, Betty Brannan Jaén, by being "unavailable" to approve her request to attend, without which approval the Bush White House will not allow a foreign reporter onto the premises. The script in Washington has it that due to the genius of President Torrijos and Panama Canal Administrator Alberto Alemán Zubieta the canal has a greatly improved safety record and a foolproof financial plan for the expansion project; that Panama is a democracy with full freedoms; that the abuses and personalities of Noriega times are behind us; that we have "zero corruption" and so on. Of course, all of those things are lies, but the media control game has been sufficiently successful that those who don't go along with it can and are vilified as something other than "real journalists." And now the game is being played on Betty Brannan, who is no Torrijos acolyte but has also not said much when the information control games were directed at other journalists and other media.

War drums beating in the region

Out of Bogota and Washington we are getting a steady stream of alleged revelations about an international terrorism centering around Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Colombia's FARC rebels. The script being handed to various world news agencies claims that documents found in a computer seized by Colombian forces after an attack on a FARC camp in Ecuador, about a kilometer from the Colombian border, contain details of various plots. The first couple of "revelations" were duds --- a claim that a document showed that Venezuela had given $300 million to FARC when the document said nothing of the sort; and a cryptic document twisted into a physically and financially implausible alleged plot for FARC had to get uranium for a bomb. Now the allegations are various, including one that FARC conspired with El Salvador's leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front --- which laid down its arms years ago and has a good chance to take control of the Salvadoran government from the ARENA party that arose from the right wing death squads in the next elections --- to kidnap people in Panama. It is also said that Venezuela provided or intended to provide anti-aircraft rockets to FARC, that FARC was employed to train Venezuelans to wage guerrilla war, that FARC briefed government officials in Ecuador about its history and political views and so on. Meanwhile, international news agencies have for the most part buried the story that Colombia's President Uribe is being investigated by prosecutors for having personally organized a 1997 massacre by the AUC paramilitary, which is on the US list of terrorist organizations. No way, Uribe argues, demonstrating his alleged good faith by extraditing 14 AUC leaders to the United States. But Human Rights Watch and other groups note that some of the people whom Uribe sent out of Colombia in the mass extradition are key witnesses in the case in question.

Uribe's boys?

On May 14 a National Maritime Service patrol found a headless corpse on the beach in the Darien community of Jaque, not far from the Colombian border. Decapitations are the trademark of the right-wing United Colombian Self-Defense (AUC) paramilitary, which is theoretically demobilized but for the most part has just changed its name and reorganized and still operates just across the border in Colombia. This wouldn't be the first headless paramilitary hit victim found in the Darien, nor, if the crime took place in Panama, would it be the first Colombian paramilitary incursion into Panama. Colombian President Álvaro Uribe is currently under investigation for allegedly having planned the October 1997 El Aro massacre in which 15 people were killed, 43 houses were burned down, 900 people were forced to leave their homes and farms and a number of women were raped. The attack, which took place when Uribe was governor of Antioquia province, was carried out in a combined operation of the AUC supported by the Colombian Army. The alleged intellectual authors, in addition to Uribe, were AUC leader Salvador Mancuso --- just extradited beyond the reach of Colombian investigators --- two Colombian Army generals and Uribe's brother. In addition to what Mancuso might have to say about the El Aro massacre, there are in the prosecutors' file incriminatory recorded telephone messages and records of the use of Antioquia department's helicopters to transport AUC members to the town. Here in Panama, previous cases would indicate that it's unlikely that there will be a serious police investigation if this was a Colombian paramilitary hit.

Trump posts bond to keep Arabs at bay

An upscale oceanside condo building in the shape of a sail? That's the Burj Al-Arab building in Dubai. However, a lesser Arab-Colombian developer has essentially pirated the design and bought the use of Donald Trump's name for the knockoff Trump Ocean Club project. The owners and developers of the Buru Al-Arab, the Jumeirah Group, Jumeirah International and Jumeirah Beach, have cried foul. This has led the Newland International Properties Corporation, the corporate promoter of the Trump Ocean Club, to pay a $200,000 bond to a Panamanian court to block the Dubai companies from shutting them down for intellectual property theft. Of course, if the Gulf Arabs are serious about litigating they'll do so in the United States, going after The Donald and his corporations. In that event neither the Trump name nor influence with the Panamanian government or courts would likely be all that useful, but it would still be an interesting and maybe even a landmark case over copycat architectural styles.

Ten story apartments overlooking the scenic fuel tank farm?

The Ministry of Housing has approved the construction of 10-story apartment towers at Amador Heights, much to the neighbors' consternation. The action will be challenged in court and politically, but it might just be market forces that keep this project from happening. The developers seem to have the common misconception that foreigners in general and gringos in particular are these millionaire idiots created by a higher power to be fleeced by sharp dealing Panamanians. They may find otherwise when they try to sell extremely expensive apartments overlooking a fuel tank farm. You might expect that. People who revere Disney World as the epitome of US culture wouldn't understand that overlooking a scenic toxic industrial zone isn't the sort of place where Americans with enough money to live pretty much wherever they want would choose to make their homes.

"Plan Balbina" to destroy the Camino de Cruces

Balbina Herrera has left the Housing Ministry (MIVI) to run for president. Now her successor has unveiled a surprise she left for us. The Inmobiliaria P&P construction company had planned to build a subdivision of single family homes in a wooded part of the old Fort Clayton through which the colonial era Camino de Cruces passes. Historic preservationists, environmentalists and neighbors who don't want the extra traffic sued. The Supreme Court stopped the project for awhile, but eventually ruled mostly in the developer's favor and left related cases percolating in the courts and administrative bodies. But meanwhile, while the original project was before the courts, Balbina quietly approved a new development plan for the site. This one calls for a dozen seven-story apartment buildings. There was never any new environmental permit process for the developer's new idea, so the legal battles over the area in question seem destined for several lengthy new rounds.

Groups seek to restore bridge

Back in 1997 the Ministry of Public Works (MOP) under then-President Pérez Balladares --- who apparently never saw an archaeological or historical site that he didn't want to bulldoze --- destroyed the remnants of the Camino de Cruces bridge over the Curundu River. The pieces of the historical span, over which great treasures and much world commerce passed, were tossed aside in a MOP yard in Panama Viejo and forgotten. However, they have been located and a coalition composed of neighborhood groups along the route of the old Camino de Cruces, archaeologists, architects and the Panama Historical Society is now pushing to have the old bridge reassembled, restored and preserved as a national historical landmark.

Martín's welcome mat

Good news for Raoul Cedras, the brutal gangster who used to be dictator of Haiti. He, along with others who have been granted political asylum here and have been in the country for 10 years or more by November 13 will be able to change their immigration status from high-ranking refugee to permanent resident. The change in status also applies to the kids of tyrants. Why the early cutoff date? It may be that the law was written with one person in mind. In any case, it was not the subject of public discussion before or during the time it was rammed through the legislative process.

Burning bus driver and owner sentenced

It appears that brothers Ariel and Prospero Ortega were guilty of buying a bus on government credit. The state-owned Banco Nacional de Panama, at the time part of the Mireya Moscoso racketeering organization, insisted that they could only buy a Guatemalan-made bus through a specific dealer in Panama City, so that's what they did to replace the old bus they had been using on the route that had been their source of income for some time. This particular bus, however, had no emergency exit and had an air conditioning system that used an explosive chemical. On October 23, 2006 the air conditioner exploded and 18 people were burned to death in the bus, on the street below the Hosanna Temple. Another 27 people were injured. The Torrijos administration, as a matter of comity with the thugs who preceded them in office, wouldn't hear of any allegations of corruption in the National Bank of Panama, let alone the argument that this corruption resulted in multiple and awful deaths. Attorney General Ana Matilde Gómez's prosecutors also wouldn't touch the subject of white collar crime, until a judge ordered them to do so. The government's theory of the case all along was that the Ortega brothers, through bad maintenance of their bus and at one point a mechanic who bypassed a fuse, had caused the tragedy. Expert testimony showed that there was no bypassed fuse, so the mechanic was let out of jail. There was testimony both for and against the Ortegas' alleged negligence, but in the end judge Rolando Quezada bought the prosecutors' allegations and found the brothers guilty of negligent homicide, handing them 40-month prison terms. They have already served 18 months behind bars. One of the brothers suffered a nervous breakdown when he heard that he had another 22 months to serve, and was taken to the lock ward in Santo Tomas Hospital. The defense lawyers say they'll appeal the verdict. Meanwhile, the court-ordered criminal investigations against the bankers and importer who put the death trap on the road continue at a snail's pace.

Ton of coke seized in raids on Mexican cartel

In coordinated May 13 raids at an apartment on Avenida Balboa in Panama City and in Chilbre, police seized 2,046 pounds of cocaine, a dozen vehicles, a couple of firearms and 14 people --- seven Colombians, four Panamanians and three Mexicans. It appears that this was one of a Mexican cartel's shipments that got waylaid.

Police change their story about labor activist slaying

On August 16, 2007, when police acting to suppress the SUNTRACS construction workers' union on behalf of a Colombian who had been issuing death threats in the media and his business partner Héctor Alemán (a RPD legislator and President Torrijos's 2004 campaign manager) shot and killed unarmed labor activist Luiyi Argüelles, the National Police did several things to hinder the investigation. First, the police chief at the time, Rolando Mirones, spread the false story that Argüelles, who was armed with a paper stop work order from the local municipal government, had a pistol. Second, though eyewitnesses said that then Sergeant Manuel Moreno shot Argüelles, the National Police said it was actually Corporal Agustín Garay and meanwhile whisked Moreno and the shotgun he used off of the island in a helicopter. On May 14 prosecutors, who had quickly rejected the claim that Argüelles was armed or had been engaged in an act of violence when gunned down, held the reconstruction of the death, a normal part of a Panamanian murder investigation. The union's claim about what happened was corroborated by two members of the National Maritime Service (Panama's coast guard). They said that Moreno, who has since been promoted to lieutenant, killed Argüelles. At the reconstruction Garay also said that he didn't shoot Argüelles, but claimed that he was more than 100 meters away and doesn't really know who did.

Gates: Policia Nacional are an army

In the United States, Pentagon funding for military aid to Panama that had previously not shown up in budget line items has been questioned in the hall of Congress. After all, Panama abolished its military forces after the 1989 US invasion. However, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates defends military aid to Panama, claiming that this country's National Police are an army in everything but name.

Bank robber escapes, allegedly with a cop's help

On May 8 Abilio González, alias Pili, one of Panama's most notorious bank robbers, escaped from Santo Tomas Hospital, where he had been taken for treatment. National Police officer Brandy Quintero is under investigation for possibly having helped González get away --- La Prensa reports that Quintero was seen on video accompanying the robber to the door through which he left. Other prison officials are being investigated on suspicion that they aided in the escape by authorizing González's transfer from La Joyita, where he was doing seven years for a stickup at the Multicredit Bank, to the hospital for a minor ailment that should have been treated in prison.

Portugals cleared of disrespect charge

On April 28 the San Felipe night court judge threw out disrespect for authority charges against Patria and Franklin Portugal, whose father, labor activist Heliodoro Portugal, was disappeared, tortured and murdered by undercover agents sent by President Torrijos's father, the late dictator Omar Torrijos. The Portugals and a Costa Rican student video crew were shooting a scene for a documentary about the case in front of the Supreme Court in Ancon when judicial security agent Encarnación Rodríguez pointed a gun at them and arrested them for filming. There is no law against what the Portugals and the Costa Ricans were doing and the high court's presiding magistrate, Harley Mitchell, apologized to the Portugals for the arrest. But Rodríguez, meanwhile, charged the Portugals with disrespect for authority. The judge didn't buy it.

Consumer advocate acquitted of criminal defamation

Pedro Acosta, who heads the National Union of Consumers and Users of the Republica of Panama (UNCUREPA), has been acquitted by circuit judge Waleska Hormechea de Segovia of criminal defamation (calumnia e injuria). The charge had been brought by the director of the Registro Publico, Alvaro Visuetti, over Acosta's broadcast criticism of the services at that institution. The judge ruled that since Acosta hadn't mentioned Visuetti by name the crime of injuria, to which the truth is not a defense, could not apply. As to the calumnia charge, the judge found that what Acosta said wasn't shown to be untrue and was an exercise of his right to free speech.

New pro-corruption proposal

Although it has become a dead letter as the sale and purchase of court decisions has become an ordinary business, theoretically it's a crime for a judge to hand down a judgment that he or she knows or should know is contrary to Panama's constitution and laws. However, at the behest of former judge Carlos Muñoz Pope, the National Assembly has quietly inserted the repeal of this law, which could send crooked judges to prison for up to eight years, into a package of Penal Code reforms. Anti-corruption activists are annoyed, but not surprised.

Gun lobby against proposed law

The Asociacion Panameña de Armas (APA), the nation's principal organization for gun owners and sellers, is lobbying against a proposed law that would raise the minimum age to get a permit to carry a firearm to 25 years as an attack on the right to self-defense and a violation of Panama's constitution. The APA is not as politically influential here as the National Rifle Association is in the United States, and there is not a great public outcry against further restrictions on young men carrying firearms around. On the contrary, most of the public comment on this issue has been in favor of even tougher weapons laws.

Violence has Santo Tomas chronically short of blood

Panama has some prestigious private hospitals, but if you get shot or hit by a car, the best trauma team in the city will be at the public Santo Tomas Hospital. They get lots of practice. El Panama America reports that four of every five patients coming into the Santo Tomas operating rooms have either been shot or stabbed, and the blood bank is a busy place. With a recent rise in violent crime, the daily reports, the hospital's blood bank is frequently running short of supplies.

González won't seek another year as Assembly president

On May 4 Pedro Miguel González announced that he won't seek re-election as the National Assembly's president for the 2008-2009 term that begins on September 1. He even suggested that after the current regular session ends on June 30 he may step down a few weeks early. This may clear the way for the US Congress to vote on ratification of a US-Panama free trade agreement, but probably not until after the November elections because this is a US election year and trade pacts of this sort are highly unpopular with the voters. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland) has said that there is "no problem" with ratification once González, who is wanted under a US warrant for the 1992 drive-by shooting death of US Army Sergeant Zak Hernandez, steps down from the legislature's leadership. But then Hoyer likes paramilitary-linked Colombian President Uribe too, yet can't convince his fellow Democrats to vote for a free trade deal with Colombia.

Pedregal's representante dies

Javier Henríquez, the PRD representante who had represented the Panama City corregimiento of Pedregal for many years, died on April 25 after a long illness. He was succeeded on the city council by his suplente, Oscar Coronado.

Former legislator on the lam

Former Arnulfista legislator Carlos Santana has been sentenced to six months in jail for using public resources for his failed 2004 re-election campaign. However, he's made himself unavailable to hear the sentence from the Electoral Tribunal in person. Police are looking for him.

PRD candidate for legislator can't be questioned

It was a pretty lucrative business, practicing law without a license. Using the services of a notary who didn't bother to check if he was actually an attorney and allegedly forging the name of an actual lawyer, one Orlando Barría Frago registered at least 447 corporations at the Registro Publico, something that, as full employment for lawyers measure, the law says only licensed lawyers can do. The actual attorney whose signature was used, Itzel Sanmartín, said she discovered the massive forgery of her signature and filed a criminal complaint. Alas, there's a problem with dealing with Mr. Barría Frago. He's a PRD candidate for a seat in the the National Assembly from the San Felix area of Chiriqui and is thus immune from investigation or arrest for criminal activity. His lawyer presented authorities with a certificate of his candidacy and the investigation was called off.

PRD official accused in truck hijacking

The PRD-controlled Electoral Tribunal giveth, and the PRD-controlled Electoral Tribunal taketh away. The magistrates raised a few eyebrows when they extended the immunity that candidates for public office have from arrest or criminal investigation to even the lowest-level officials of the political parties and candidates for such party posts. One of those who rushed out to get his impunity for crime was Carlos Enrique Ramírez Rivas, who was duly elected as an immune delegate to the PRD national convention. He allegedly used it in an attempt to hijack a truck laden with electronic products coming out of the Colon Free Zone. But alas, he got caught and the Electoral Tribunal lifted his immunity and allowed prosecutors to order his arrest.

City bans boom cars on causeway

We shall see if the authorities have the will to enforce it and if young men will be inclined to obey, but Panama City's municipal government has banned amplified sound equipment, the drinking of alcoholic beverages on public property and lewd acts on the Amador Causeway. Actually the noise ordinance and regulations about behavior in public parks are not new, but the city has posted signs advising about the restrictions and warning that they will be enforced. It will be interesting to see whether support for or opposition to boom cars becomes an issue in the PRD presidential primary contest between Balbina Herrera and Juan Carlos Navarro. It could be really fascinating if both of them compete for the prize of who hates being blasted by hip hop stuff the most, but it could also play out in other directions, as the PRD has spent a lot of money on hip hop advertising to promote its image to young people.

These briefs were compiled on May 15

News \| Economy \| Culture \| Opinion \| Lifestyle \| Science \| Outdoors Noticias \| Opiniones \| Calendar \| Archive \| Unclassified Ads \| Home	Volume 14, Number 9 May 4 - 17, 2008