Aves de Panamá / Birds of Panama El Martín Pescador Grande / The Ringed Kingfisher
foto y nota por Kermit Nourse / photo and note by Kermit Nourse
This is Panama’s Ringed Kingfisher, the largest of all of the kingfishers, reaching a length of 15.5 to 17 inches. They are water birds found along lakes and rivers whose main diet is mostly fish. They do no not spearfish with their sharp beaks, but rather use them for burrowing holes in which they live. I had over a year of failed attempts at trying to photograph this spectacular bird.
Esto es el Martín Pescador Grande, el más grande de todos los martines pescadores en Panamá, que alcanza una longitud de 15.5 a 17 pulgadas. Son aves acuáticas encontradas a lo largo de lagos y ríos cuya dieta principal es generalmente el pescado. No hacen no el pescado de la lanza con sus picos agudos, pero mejor dicho los usan para cavar agujeros en los cuales viven. Tenía más de un año de tentativas fracasadas en la tentativa de fotografiar esta ave espectacular.
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El Cine Universitario cierra sus actividades de este año con la presentación de un ciclo de cine político dirigido por mujeres, del lunes 11 al viernes 15 de diciembre, iniciativa llevada adelante en conjunto con la Embajada de España y la Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (AECID), enmarcada en la campaña “16 días de activismo contra la violencia de género”.
El ciclo lo componen ocho películas de todas partes del mundo: Bangladesh, Dinamarca, El Salvador, España, Italia y México, y abrirá con la proyección del drama En Construcción (UNDER Construction) (Bangladesh 2015), de Rubaiyat Hossain, en el que una actriz teatral se ve enfrentada al deseo de su esposo de tener hijos y llevar una vida tradicional, mientras ella no está interesada en la maternidad y busca reivindicar su identidad y libertad. El filme cuenta con premios en Francia, Nueva York, Dhaka, entre otros festivales.
Tandas de 3, 5 y 7 pm, menos el primer día en el que se presentarán las dos primeras funciones y la inauguración será a las 7:30 pm. Todas las funciones serán con entrada gratis. El Cine Universitario está en la calle principal del Campus Central de la UP, antes de la Farmacia Universitaria.
Información en redes en Facebook: @cineuniversitarioup, Twitter: @CineUPanama o Instagram: @cineuniversitarioup. Teléfono 523-5391.
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Presidents Varela and Xi in Beijing. Photo by the Presidencia.
Panama and China’s Silk Road (2)
by Marco Gandásegui, hijo
A careful reading of the accords between the governments of Panama and the Peoples Republic of China that were signed in Beijing during President Varela’s trip there indicates in detail the object that China seeks in Panama and in the rest of the region. At the same time, it makes it clear that Panamanian business and government leaders don’t have any vision for the future (or for the country). The Chinese have presented a plan for the next 50 years, with investments of $500 billion in the first 20 years. On the other hand, the leaders who control the levers of power in Panama have no proposal, they haven’t drafted any plan and they are just waiting for the Chinese to arrive.
The game is very dangerous for both sides. China could meet with a short term popular resistance if it does not take into account the interests of ordinary people. Its projects only contemplate economic accumulation for this country and some marginal gains for a parasitic oligarchy. The accords could benefit Panamanians if they are incorporated into a national development plan.
Last week we reviewed the first 10 agreements between the two governments. Now let’s see the remaining nine.
Agreement number 11 refers to the boost that the Chinese want to give to Panamanian duty free zones. In the case of the Colon Free Zone it mentions a $3 billion investment for new stores and another billion dollars for hotels. The investments and new stores would be to handle Chinese products destined for the rest of the region.
The 12th agreement is about tourism and its potential as a source of income for investors. China would give Panama the status of “approved tourist destination” for its citizens to travel to the isthmus. The agreement emphasizes that Chinese “much appreciate casino tourism.” The text included little about other forms of tourism that are prohibited in most countries of the world and tolerated in Panama.
Agreement number 13 refers to aviation. According to the text, China will build a new cargo terminal in Panama City at a cost of $10 billion. Everything indicates that the Chinese intend to complement the interoceanic Panama Canal with an aerial “canal” that would connect Latin America with China. If we add the railway project, Panama will be turned into a continental maritime, aerial and land “hub.”
Agreement number 14 refers to maritime cooperation. The Panamanian flag that is sold to the large shipping companies would receive international treatment in Chinese ports. This business is very much desired by important firms in Panama. Equal treatment is added for the crews of Panamanian ships. The agreement does not mention the labor rights of unionized sailors.
In Agreement 15 Panama “adheres” to the Silk Road. According to the document, the Road is “is aligned with the role that the country plays in the region and the world as the Great Connection that will be enhanced by the inclusion of the interoceanic route.”
The 16th agreement make reference to the much touted “bullet train” that would unite Panama City with the Costa Rican border. The agreement says that China “would pay for the state-of-the-art transport system” whose cost would be $2 billion (less than the cost of Metro Line 2 in Panama City).
Agreeement number 17 makes reference to embassy properties in both countries. China gave Panama a seven-story property in Beijing, worth $150 million.
Agreement 18 aims at organizing a seminar for journalists.
The last agreement refers to a non-refundable cooperation agreement within the framework of a National Cooperation Plan.
The Great Connection is the key to understanding the objectives of China in Panama. The Silk Road would reach the entire Latin American region through the Isthmus of Panama, which is the Great Connection. Panamanians have to decide now if we want to remain a “step” or if we are willing to become a country with a productive population. The Chinese offer that opportunity. We Panamanians have to take advantage of it within the framework of a national development plan.
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Lt. Gen. Flynn, who may lose military benefits due to his scandalous behavior. US Armed Forces photo.
Trump’s high point, low point and turning point
by Eric Jackson
On December 1 the Republicans pulled off the biggest political raid on the public coffers in US history, with well over $1 trillion in tax giveaways to the very rich and their corporations. Note that the Senate’s tax cuts for business do not extend to most small businesses, which are the ones that are most likely create jobs and new economic spaces into which other people and companies can grow.
It will take a little while for the cuts in services and benefits that will flow from this plutocratic heist to make themselves generally felt among the electorate at large, but that will be coming. Republicans and corporate Democrats may be enhanced by even more money in their campaign coffers, but for the foreseeable future all other divisions in US society recede before a gaping chasm over economic class. More and more, variations on that theme will be the stuff over which Democratic primaries and general elections will be fought. Democratic unity on the Senate floor will do little to help the party establishment from a rank-and-file clamor for change in the face of this defeat.
So, was it a big Republican victory? Perhaps. They now have something that they will spend the next few years defending. But it was overall a horrible day for Republicans. Lieutenant General Michael Flynn copped a plea and turned state’s evidence against Donald Trump and members of Trump’s family. It will be an accelerating legal and public relations rout for the Republican administration from now until Donald Trump leaves office. The GOP will fight next year’s congressional elections wearing the taint of disloyalty and corruption.
Flynn was probably not a double agent in the sense of a spy for two sides. He was a multiple agent with a duty of loyalty to the United States both as an army general and as a member of an incoming administration. Despite that he served as an agent on behalf of a repressive Turkish government, illegal Israeli appropriations of Palestinian lands and Kremlin desires to get out from under US sanctions. A private US citizen might lobby for any of those causes, but Flynn had a legal and ethical duty to refrain from that.
So is some Republican going to bring up the infamous revolving door between government and corporate work and point out the foreign influences that were asserted or attempted to be asserted through the Clinton Foundation? And will some Democrat point to Republican foundations that have done more or less the same things? All those nasty things might be truthfully said.
December 1 was a turning point and there will be no going back. The Republican tax cuts will have to be repealed as an existential necessity for the republic, but there will not be and should not be a return to what was. That’s not to suggest a halfway compromise return to the old schedule, but rather something different that does not make much reference to what was. Perhaps it might mean keeping the corporate tax breaks and extending these to small businesses, but jacking up tax rates for those individuals in the highest brackets to far more than they were before this latest legislation. Perhaps it might mean an end to US taxation for Americans earning their livings abroad, but tighter restrictions on companies and individuals in the USA who would want to send their wealth offshore.
There will also be no return to the pretenses that were made before Flynn’s guilty plea. Perhaps the Republicans will want to cut their losses and promote the quick impeachment of Donald Trump, so that Democrats can complain about a President Pence, the right-wing religious fanatic, rather than this bizarre and corrupt piece of work that is President Trump. The tax bill shows Republicans riding high in the water, but make no mistake about it. Their ship is sinking.
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Bats are the only mammals capable of true flight. Scientists believe flight may influence their immune responses to coronoviruses, which cause fatal diseases such as SARS and MERS in humans. (Shutterstock)
In 2003, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) infected a total of 8,098 people worldwide. First reported in China, it spread rapidly through more than two dozen countries in North America, South America, Europe and Asia.
SARS was caused by a coronavirus (CoV). Coronaviruses in general infect humans on a regular basis, often leading to symptoms of the common cold: Coughing, sore throat, runny nose, sneezing and fever. But some, like SARS-CoV, jump species to humans from other animals, causing disease and often death.
Why is this? What adaptations in the bat immune system allow them to survive infections with these viruses? Can they help prevent the next pandemic? These are the questions that drive our research.
We hope these studies might open up avenues for identification of novel therapeutics for humans and help us design strategies to increase our odds of surviving infections with these highly pathogenic viruses.
Immune response is activated when a virus infects the first cell in our body. The cell produces molecules that hinder the spread of the virus. These molecules also prime neighboring cells to resist infection with the virus.
Inhibiting this immune response is thus an advantage for the virus.
Three dimensional drawing of a coronovirus. (Shutterstock)
SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV make several proteins that inhibit these cellular defense responses, allowing the virus to spread and the disease to progress in an infected individual.
The ‘jump’ from bats to humans
Viruses such as coronaviruses have likely evolved for a very long time with bats, thus allowing both bats and viruses to reach equilibrium where they can co-exist.
Generally, hosts and viruses that have co-evolved like this adapt their defense and counter-defense strategies to establish an optimal environment for both participants in this evolutionary race.
However, sometimes these viruses grow to high numbers and cause disease or spread from their evolutionary hosts to other animals and to humans if this “optimal” environment is disturbed.
As bats have been evolving for 50 million years, they have had a long time to adapt to their viruses. The question remains then: Why do some of these viruses occasionally “jump” from bats to other species to cause significant disease?
Bats carry the most viruses per mammalian species, even more than rodents. And bats experimentally infected with MERS-CoV do not develop signs of disease.
Understanding how bats can successfully co-exist with more than 200 different viruses is of growing interest to researchers. Several hypotheses have emerged about this unique ability of bats to resist virus-induced disease. Speculations include co-evolutionary adaptations and the ability to fly.
Bats are the only mammals capable of true flight. During flight, the body temperature of bats rises to over 40℃. This resembles a fever response in humans, and fever is known to prime the immune response.
Is it possible that bats have an immune response that is always primed, in part due to the increase in their body temperatures during flight?
Metabolic rate is also increased during flight, which produces reactive oxygen radicals that can damage cellular DNA. There is evidence that genes involved in antiviral responses are positively selected due to their role in DNA repair as well. Thus, the ability to fly may have caused DNA repair genes to evolve for better functionality, which in turn may have led to the evolution of a more robust immune response in bats.
When humans are infected with these viruses, the viruses continue to make high levels of these proteins. But human cells are not primed to continuously express high levels of antiviral molecules the way bat cells are. Therefore, immune responses mounted by human cells are probably easily overwhelmed by these viral proteins.
Understanding these intriguing interactions is a work in progress and we are currently trying to understand if MERS-CoV behaves differently in bat cells.We’re also interested in observing how bat cells respond to infection with MERS-CoV and other viruses. We hope these studies will open up avenues for identification of novel therapeutic targets and molecules, and enhance research into less-studied wildlife viral reservoirs.
The 2017 edition of the Bomberos’ Torchlight Parade. Photo by Kermit Nourse.
Panama’s best-loved public institution
Yes, November 28 is a legal holiday because that’s when Panama City joined a revolt that started in the Interior and definitively separated the isthmus from Spain, back in 1821. But it’s also the anniversary of the founding in 1885 of this country’s oldest and most beloved public institution, the Cuerpo de Bomberos or Firefighters Corps.
It’s a core of full-time professionals bolstered by a larger group of volunteers. They’re not only on call for fires, but also for floods and other disasters. These are the people who go into burning buildings from which others have fled in terror, and who wade into flood waters to pluck out those having difficulty getting to higher ground like their neighbors. Plus they have the country’s coolest marching bands.
Wouldn’t it be nice, not only for the bomberos but for everyone, if such less loved public institutions like the National Assembly and the Presidency saw to it that the bomberos were properly funded? The are not equipped as they should be to fight fires in and rescue people from tall buildings. Notoriously in Colon’s city center, but in other places as well, fire hydrants don’t get enough water pressure. Bomberos even get sent in to fight fires without proper boots, gloves, coats and breathing apparatus. And for such an international place as we are, our emergency response switchboards are underdeveloped for dealing with the many languages encountered here.
So let not parades be our only occasion to show our appreciation for the bomberos. They protect all of us every day and deserve proper support every day.
Honduras
A vote count that should have been done within less than 12 hours, with final results held off for several days? Let us hope that this is a fruitless final manipulation by a miserable corrupt death squad regime that came to power in a 2009 coup. Latin America’s democracies, left and right, have a lot of problems. The violent overthrows of elected governments and rigged elections make things worse and Honduras has been a poster child for that. And please, President Varela, if former Honduran officials come fleeing here, don’t let them in.
Net neutrality
In Panama years ago, we saw what the Republicans on the FCC are trying to do in the United States, with worldwide implications. Back then Cable & Wireless Panama blocked The Panama News website from being seen by their subscribers, and when people complained they falsely told people that we had gone out of business. At the time it appeared that it was a move to force websites in Panama to US that company’s web hosting services.
Telecom monopolists would shut The Panama News and many other websites from all over Latin America out of access to those who surf the Internet in the USA. This they would do to extort ransom. It would harm US foreign relations by dumbing down Americans about the rest of the world worse than is already the case. It would cause immediate trade conflicts between the United States and many other countries. It would reduce the interchanges of ideas and culture between Panama and its diaspora communities in the USA. It would have that effect with Americans who hail from, or whose recent ancestors have come from, many other places. In the long run — and not actually THAT long — it would lead to international rejection of and retaliation against the US companies that think that they will cash in by ending net neutrality.
Becoming a pariah is the usual thing that happens to stick-up artists. But these folks have led privileged lives that have kept them from learning that lesson. Let’s raise a hue and cry now, so that they don’t learn the hard way at everybody else’s expense.
Bear in mind…
There are sadistic scientists who hurry to hunt down errors instead of establishing the truth.
Marie Curie
Like the wind crying endlessly through the universe, Time carries away the names and the deeds of conquerors and commoners alike. And all that we are, all that remains, is in the memories of those who cared we came this way for a brief moment.
Harlan Ellison
I am a woman, a socialist, separated and agnostic — all the sins together.
Michelle Bachelet
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Esto del Caribe preocupante. ¿Hasta cuándo tanto proyecto en areas de playa, y ese dentro del Corredor Mesoamericano y frente a la isla mejor protegida del pais? pic.twitter.com/Gz7RKU7qVt
video pointed out by Miguel Antonio Bernal, note by Eric Jackson
“We have selected.” Not “we own?” Not “we have title?” Not “we have title legally obtained?”
What we see here is one of these “BUY NOW!” pitches aimed at naive foreigners who have no knowledge of Panama’s protected natural areas, history of corrupt land grabs that have often been set aside, constitutional reservation of the beaches as public property, indigenous land rights and true real estate scene without the money laundering stuff.
No doubt there are beautiful areas on and around the Caribbean coast of Veraguas, and it’s true that there are road building plans and some roads have been built. It’s not true that there is easy and ordinary access to drive to these areas. It’s also not true that these spots on the map, which include protected wildlife areas that are part of the Meso-American Corridor, can readily and legally be developed.
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In Panama there are no real political parties. Nor are there organizations that invite you to a permanent and systematic debate about national affairs. President Juan Carlos Varela made a trip to the Peoples Republic of China during which he committed the country — and all of its population — to undertake 19 financial agreements with its Asian counterpart. The communications media, instead of analyzing the agreements one by one, have by and large emphasized that among the members of the presidential delegation we found labor leader Genaro López, the secretary general of FAD. They also emphasized the team that President Varela picked from among the conspicuous members of the economic and social elites of this country to accompany him.
Let’s present each of the accords for a better understanding of them. This will be done in two parts. This is the first and the second will come next week. In this installment we will analyze the first 10 agreements that have been made public. These accords concentrate on actitivities that Chinese investors will carry out in Panama to prepare for their expansion in the region. They will build all the necessary infrastructure needed to invest enormous sums of money to promote their penetration of the region’s economies.
The Chinese are very clear in the objectives that make up the Silk Road. [See, e.g., this and this.] Panama will be a key instrument in the development of this strategy. China is not only betting on the extraction of metals and foodstuffs from the soil of the Americas. They come with a lot of energy to conquer the high tech market.
The accords reflect a plan conceived in Beijing. They appear to have been drafted in Chinese and later translated into Spanish. Moreover, these agreements only refer to what China will do in Panama. Everything indicates that Panama will play a passive role, which in our country’s history has ended in tragedies and catastrophes.
Let’s analyze each of these agreements. We can do it starting from a criterion of relative “importance” or following a quantitative order of the size of the investments. Let’s instead choose to follow the same order in which the agreements were published.
The first refers to an “understanding” for the promotion of trade and investment. It attempts to attract Chinese investments in Panama. It would serve as a framework to channel Chinese capital investments into the most strategic sectors for Chinese expansion into Latin America.
The second agreement is between the Development Bank of China and the Ministry of Economy and Finance and attempts to facilitate Chinese financial activities in the country and the region. This agreement mentions investments in infrastructure, from bridges and ports to electrical power stations.
The third agreement is between the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Chinese Import and Export Bank (EximBank). According to the draft agreement, the Chinese bank would extend to Panama a line of credit equivalent to $200 billion. We have to ask whether that amount is for projects in Panama or for the whole region. With this capital about 40 Panama Canals could be expanded.
The fourth agreement is a free trade treaty. While the first three accords may have some promise, this one about “free trade” is a mere salute to the flag of satisfying the desires of some merchants who are eager to make more money without creating any jobs.
The fifth agreement refers to “cooperation in productive and investment capacity.” Along this line, the construction and operation of infrastructure stand out. The initiative would entail an initial investment of $10 billion.
The sixth agreement refers to phytosanitary measures to protect China from Panamanian exports.
The seventh agreement refers to loans by the EximBank to ETESA for the develpment of projects in Panama’s electrical sector. All of the funds that ETESA receives would be for “the direct or indirect purchase of Chinese products or services.”
The eighth agreement also refers to the electrical sector and ETESA. This latter Panamanian state enterprise would receive credits from the Bank of China.
The ninth agreement is to increase productivity in the Panamanian agricultural sector with the thought of exports to China. The accord appeas to emphasize joint projects both in production and in research.
The tenth agreement isn’t very clear — all that is mentioned is that a mixed commission will be created to “examine the scope of projects.”
In the next part the rest of the accords will be analyzed, including the much-discussed “bullet train.”
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Three dimensional drawing of a coronovirus. 
We’re also interested in observing how bat cells respond to infection with MERS-CoV and other viruses. We hope these studies will open up avenues for identification of novel therapeutic targets and molecules, and enhance research into less-studied wildlife viral reservoirs.
