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The readers' turn

Allan seeks help for good causes

Hola Gente:

Many of you knows that I like to help people, first was only the children in isolated areas of Panama (mainly Chiriqui) with this this bags with food, toys, pencils, books, clothes, etc. well packed in a backpacke so they can use it for the school too. Everything is new. My friends in the bank cooperate with this program and the last three years I have invited the people of the forums to contribute with this.

So with the money collected, We pass all the year helping poor people in Panama City and other areas. In 2008 we gave some money to the Cruz Roja de Panama due to the flood in Boquete, in 2009 we bought (among other things) a wheelchair for a man I saw in Santa Ana during my pictures tour.

The only thing We said to them is that is a contribution from the American people living in Panama. Doing this, makes us happy a lot.

This year, in addition, We'll focus on two persons: one has a cancer on his face, and the other have a several distortion in his spinal column so he has to walk on all fours and it is impossible for to stand upright on his feet like you and me. We promise something good for both (not mention any money because we depend on you). I was unable to take some pictures because both show are shy of the camera, so I'll have to go about it in a discrete manner.

If you're in Panama, near the Iglesia del Santuario in Obarrio, you can see this man in the middle of the street asking for money, the other guy is in Transistmica, near the McDonald's.

As always, your support will be appreciated.

Allan Hawkins V.

Editor's note: You regular readers may have noticed photos by Allan Hawkins, a former bank employee, in The Panama News over the years. His annual efforts are for real, and worthy.

Re: Artificial islands project

Sorry you didn't add that the one-and-only "one small street" that leads into and out of the circle at the end of Punta Pacifica (which will lead to the islands) LITERALLY FLOODS when we get one of our fantastic tropical rain storms!

Have you ever seen it? It turns into "Lake Punta Pacifica," especially at high tide! It's awesome!!! As usual, the traffic engineers failed to estimate the amount of rainwater that falls in Panama City; drainage culverts were installed that are too small to handle the amount of water runoff (as compared to the drainage culverts in the city of Colon, which are the exact size as the center wall culverts of the Gatun Locks). Because the area under discussion is still a heavy construction area, the drainage culverts are not maintained, that is, power flushed of all the construction sand and other trash that gets flushed into it from the construction sites.

CW

Editor's note: Indeed, that flooding problem has been noticed. What it will be like once the major construction is done is an interesting question, as is what will happen in that neighborhood if the sea level goes up just a bit. There are many parts of the metro area that have flooding problems, but it's a safe bet that people in the wealthiest neighborhoods will demand priority for their areas, and that developers in this particular area will say that this is a problem for the government, not for the private enterprises that created it, to solve.

About a late respected teacher

I saw the piece on Coach Palumbo. I went to Christobal High in '54 and '55. Luke Todd was in my class. This Internet is great it allows you to reach out over the years and see what has happened in the lives of old acquaintances.

Betty Jean Phillippi-Cook

Bells and whistles won't fix serious shortcomings

As construction of the new locks for the Panama Canal proceeds, publicity continues to praise the project's choice of "superior" gates --- and steers clear of noting the pitfalls inherent to the system's overall layout.

No matter how superior a modern-day component is --- as compared to one available 100 years ago --- better parts cannot make a poorer lock layout outperform a better lock layout since all layouts can similarly benefit from those same components.

The problem with the expansion plan's lock layout is that it is based on a 1930's plan that was long ago found to be deficient. Furthermore, modifications to that plan for this project only make things worse.

In the 1930's, the US began construction of a "third set", or lane, of locks. The 1930's lane addition was to have three steps at each end of the canal, like the canal's original two lanes have, but this addition was to have longer and wider chambers for larger ships.

Before the US ceased working on their 1930s project with the onset of WWII, excavations into rock for the planned locks' three contiguous steps at the canal's Caribbean entrance had been practically completed. In contrast, at the Pacific entrance only the two contiguous lower steps --- those effectively parallel to today's Miraflores Locks --- were nearly completed. Excavation of the independent uppermost lock step alongside the present day Pedro Miguel Locks never got started.

As a result of the war, perspectives regarding future canal transit needs changed and new concerns, such as how major projects like this one impact the environment and neighboring activities, caused the project to be put on ice for rethinking. At issue were 1) how many lanes should ultimately be targeted, 2) what maximum size ship should the addition handle, 3) how much operating water could ultimately be made available to it, and 4) what environmental or ecological issues would need to be overcome. The cost of attending each of those issues was, obviously, itself an issue requiring contemplation.

In addition to the Panama Canal Company's routine salinity measurement program, these new interests gave rise to more detailed environmental studies, such as those established by the Smithsonian Institute. Also, the US Army Corp of Engineers studied for many years the options for and issues with building a Sea Level Canal somewhere across the Isthmus. Ultimately, a multinational group of experts was brought together --- during the years the canal was operated jointly by the US and Panama --- and tasked with evaluating all issues and recommending the best course for a future canal or upgrade.

With its present Canal Expansion Plan it would appear that Panama has chosen to ignore concerns and recommendations and proceed with building the third lane much as it was planned in the 1930's.

This plan sticks to the 1930's plan in that its chambers will use the lock sites that the US blasted out. However, rather than blast out the uppermost Pacific end lock step next to today's Pedro Miguel Locks as originally planned, the top step is now to be contiguous to the lower two steps next to today's Miraflores Locks. That top step is to be connected to the Gatun Lake waterway by means of a dike built along the west bank of Miraflores Lake across known faults --- originally rendered harmless by the presence of that very small lake. This plan is very dangerous and puts the entire canal in jeopardy!

Plan promoters are intent on inaugurating this expansion on the Canal's 100-year anniversary in 2014.

However, that's an absurd reason for promoting and advancing a very wasteful, very damaging, and potentially dangerous system without ever having performed comparative assessments of other known lock layouts. Recognized layouts, that use operating procedures present and tested in today's Panama Canal and/or elsewhere, can readily be shown to save more water, transit more ships, be physically and operationally less complicated, require less maintenance, and cause far less damage to the environment.

Not only are the 1930's lock chambers too small for today's shipping needs and is the change in the top lock's location dangerous, the added circa 1870 water-saving tanks don't save enough to justify the cost and operating complexity they add, plus as employed they greatly increase ecological damage potential relative to the 1930's design. While project promoters claim otherwise, anyone with a modicum of technical prowess can independently confirm that salt intrusion into the lake will be many times more as compared to the 1930's plan, an increase that will undoubtedly confirm damage-to-sea-life studies.

From its inception, the Panama Canal Expansion Project has followed a technically and financially illogical path with respect to long term canal growth and profitability. Launched with its planned lock system predefined --- which is not acceptable for any engineering project, especially not a public works project --- this project has proceeded essentially unaltered ignoring all calls for independent review.

One major change that was made --- practically overnight --- was to add a third water-saving tank to each lock step and to expand the range of Gatun Lake's seasonal level fluctuations, seemingly done to quiet public objections to a planned watershed expansion that threatened the project's approval. Project outsiders have ever since been suspicious of that change as, not only does the added tank notably slow lock operations, the cargo capacity of ships using today's locks will seasonally be greatly reduce when the lake goes lower. Reports that preparations are afoot to expand the watershed, despite a law against so doing having been created to gain project approval, suggest this "change" was a ploy and not real.

Clearly there are significant short term financial benefits for someone other than the Republic of Panama and the canal's users, that are driving this unsavory plan forward.

Considering which companies have "won" the most lucrative of the project's contracts along with the questionable processes that were followed in awarding those contracts, it is doubtful that what's in the public's best interest has ever been included. This assessment is not so far-fetched if one considers how the entire country of Panama is now up for grabs for development of all its hydro-power and mineral reserves. Open-pit mining is to cover nearly 44% of this small country's surface area, and hydro-plants are planned for virtually all rivers, big and small, with 28 to be built on just one river! So much for Panama being an attractive tourism and retirement place. And, where are Panamanians to live?

With what's being built and how canal profits for many years to come are being tied up, not only will the Republic of Panama not see profit from what is done for a very long time, all of the canal's clients will pay too much for too little. What's more, the canal's future growth potential will be severely and permanently cut short by what's being built. On top of that, this plan's negative "secondary" impacts to its water resources will greatly reduce or eliminate the livelihoods of many who live near by or fish for a living. Per its present development plans, Panama is safeguarding nothing for its future generations.

Today's Panama Canal Expansion plan is nowhere near one that could, in all fairness, be considered sustainable. The only reason most believe the project is among the world's best-run projects is that the project's propaganda machine has told them so.

Bert G. Shelton

Partition by census

We, the undersigned, defending the right of Iraq to independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity, rejecting the attempts of Iraqi puppets promoted by the US occupation to trade the national rights of Iraqis and to institutionalize via census the criminal demographic engineering they have pursued by force, declare that:

From the first day of the US-UK occupation of Iraq, the occupation began to undertake a series of measures, directly or through its local allies, to destroy Iraq as a state and a nation and to partition it along ethnic and sectarian lines.

Today, the puppet government of the occupation and its Kurdish partners are trying to hold a population census in Kirkuk province whose aim is to give a permanent legal character to the criminal social engineering, ethnic cleansing and demographic changes that have been implemented under occupation. This could unleash a full blown civil war across Iraq, and potentially lead to its partition and a consequent regional war.

In addition to the death of more than one million Iraqis, the ethnic cleansing and other means pursued by the United States, United Kingdom and their allies in order to implement the process of partitioning Iraq, in its cities and regions, have caused the forced migration of 2.5 million Iraqis out of Iraq and the forced displacement of 2.5 million others from their homes inside Iraq.

The ethnic cleansing suffered by the population in the provinces of Mosul, Diyala, Salahuddin and the Baghdad area, and most notably in Kirkuk and the so-called "disputed areas" --- where the population is forced by various means, including systematic assassinations, bombing civilians, collective punishment, transfer, displacement, deportation and other crimes against humanity, to migrate only to be replaced by people from other provinces or even from outside Iraq --- is a clear crime of destruction and part of the intended partition of Iraq.

The United States, the United Kingdom and their allies waged an illegal war of aggression against Iraq and occupied its territory. This war in itself is a crime punishable under international law. International law, in particular The Hague Regulations of 1907, the Geneva Conventions and additional protocols, and the Genocide Convention, explicitly prohibits occupying powers from instituting changes aimed at permanently altering the foundational structures of occupied territories, including the judiciary, economy, political institutions and social fabric.

International law considers the systematic transfer, deportation or displacement of population a crime against humanity. Residents of affected areas, the Iraqi national forces, the displaced, and the majority of the people of Iraq declare this census null and void. It has no binding legal consequences and cannot and should not be used to support or justify the intended partition of Iraq.

We demand that no census be conducted before the free return of all Iraqi refugees. We demand that the question of ethnicity not be used to instigate the partition of Iraq and that it be removed from any census, now and in the future. We declare as fraudulent the justification under occupation of a census on the basis of long term planning in the context of a temporary and unstable demographic situation.

We demand that the United Nations and the Arab League and all governments, personalities, organisations and institutions support the demands of the people of Iraq by not recognizing the results of this census, and by not assisting in conducting it. This census is designed to reward criminals for their crimes at the expense of their victims.

Editor's note: Iraq is an ancient country and that may give it an appearance of durability, but before the 2003 invasion it was delicately balanced under a strongman whose traits were remarkably like those of some of the legendary tyrants of the disappeared kingdoms and empires of ancient Mesopotamia. That balance was broken and not only the situation referred to in the above letter, but also continuing vengeful death sentences handed to officials of the old regime, a persistent legislative stalemate and the conflicting demands of outside powers threaten whatever stability there is. What to do is easier said than done.

The Blair - Hitchens debate about God

The claims to atheism are both presumptuous and intrinsically false.

A world which has to create its own justice through human reason alone --- a reason whose very existence and origin atheists cannot explain --- is a world without hope. When human interests and values are based on reason alone, apart from the truth of God that transcends them, the individual and his human rights, dignity, worth, and capacity for self-realization are at the mercy of caprice.

The truth is is that we all act by faith everyday. We go around affirming that "we believe" in many things, even though we ourselves have not checked out the evidence. Is religious faith, in principle, any different? Not really. This faith understands that something else that we do not see is true, because we accept the testimony of someone who saw. We Christians, for example, accept the testimony of Christ and His apostles who saw and believed.

Atheism is essentially a materialist ideology that reduces man to a mere machine. When man is nothing more than a product he becomes subject to the control of man. Imperfect individuals must then be weeded out; the path of planning and production must aim at the perfect man. Suffering must disappear, and life is to consist of pleasure alone. In the final analysis atheism is a recipe for consumerism, selfishness, power, and pleasure-seeking.

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Bernal, Five years as a persona non grata at the University of Panama
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Jackson, We need a beverage container deposit law
Persaud, Food security is a fundamental right
Weisbrot, Attempted coup in Ecuador fails, but threat remains
Human Rights Watch, Ghailani trial paves way for important 9/11 prosecution
LeGrand & Reed, Castro's change of heart
Carlsen, A Plan Colombia for Mexico
Reporters Without Borders, Violence against the media in Ecuador's police revolt
O'Brien, Proposed US law would undermine Internet freedom
Keller, Congratulations to Physicians for Human Rights
Keine, From Death Row to elusive freedom
Hightower, Conservatives turn to crackpots
Boehner, The People's House
Obama, A mission to rebuild our country
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