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COMENENAL, ¿Otra autoridad?

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HST

¿Otra autoridad?

por la Comisión Médica Negociadora Nacional (COMENENAL)

COMENENAL informa a sus bases Médicos, Odontólogos, Veterinarios y a todo el país.

Con gran sorpresa vemos las noticias de hoy de TVN “SALUD, Farmacias, perjudicadas por el desabastecimiento de medicamentos“.

La Directora Nacional de Farmacias y Droga del MINSA, Mag. Jenny Vergara:

1. Plantea crear una Autoridad Autónoma de adquisición de Medicamentos e Insumos “para así “agilizar el proceso de adquisición de medicamentos” ¿?????¡¡¡¡¡¡¡!!!!!!!.
2. Dice sin tapujos que ella “ha estado siempre postulando desde el primer momento la necesidad de crearla en este período…”
3. y dice que para ello ha recibido la cooperación de la Organización Panamericana de la Salud (OPS), quien los visitó e hizo una evaluación para trabajar un plan…
4. Y los empresarios doran la falacia de que “ya está probado en muchos países que una Autoridad así, trabaja mucho mejor independiente que bajo el paragua del MINSA …”
5. Y por último dice la noticia que las “Asociaciones de Farmaceutas piden la creación de una Autoridad de Medicamentos e Insumos…”

Analicemos, como siempre:

1. ¿Otra AUPSA? Tristemente célebre ya, por todas las decisiones improcedentes en contra del interés nacional.
2. Desgajar otra “Autoridad” del MINSA, como es de moda según las reformas Neoliberales, sólo disminuye más la Rectoría del MINSA.
3. Al hacerla autónoma, ya el MINSA no puede regular directamente las decisiones que allí se tomen, con lo cual se abren las puertas para que las decisiones no sean de interés nacional, sino, defendiendo los intereses de unos cuantos privilegiados cercanos como siempre a los gobernantes y con seguridad donantes de sus campañas electorales.
4. Quien garantiza que con una Autoridad se resuelvan los problemas actuales de adquisición y abastecimiento de medicamentos, cuando sabemos que el problema no es recursos, sino pésima gestión administrativa.
   a. Como siempre ponen a dirigir la cosa pública, gente que no le interesa el interés público. Con su administración torcida crean la crisis primero de desabastecimiento, para luego proponer las privatizaciones o la creación de Autoridades, como única medida salvadora, cuando en realidad lo que buscan es que el Estado a través de su MINSA no regule directamente las decisiones de a quien favorecer.

COMENENAL, comprometida exclusivamente con el interés nacional, con el interés de los pacientes, de la población y sobre todo de los más necesitados declara:

1. Rotundamente oponerse a la creación de otra “Autoridad” más de cualquier índole, que disminuya aún más el maltrecho Rol de Rectoría que debe tener el MINSA.
2. Denuncia las intenciones de aplicar en Panamá el librito Neoliberal de las privatizaciones y de control de las decisiones de todos los sistemas de compra, a través de crear “Autoridades” que se convierten en autónomas para tomar decisiones a espaldas de las leyes y de las regulaciones nacionales, para así torcerlas más fácilmente con el interés de favorecer a unos cuantos.
3. Cataloga a la Directora de Farmacias y Drogas como testaferro de esos intereses antinacionales, que al final derivan no en mejor eficiencia, sino en corrupción para favorecer a algunos elegidos.
4. Este tipo de decisiones está en contracorriente con todo el trabajo hecho hasta ahora por la Mesa de Salud para el mejoramiento de la Salud en Panamá. Y está en contra de las conclusiones de la Comisión de Alto Nivel (CAN) para la transformación de la Salud en Panamá.
a. Por cosas como esta, es que pierde credibilidad el Gobierno actual, y la administración de su MINSA y de la CSS.
5. Desnuda las verdaderas intenciones de los representantes de OPS en Panamá que en los últimos años han sido cómplices de las peores decisiones- experimentos en el ámbito de Salud pública, como lo son los malos resultados catastróficos de mortalidad infantil y materna en las comarcas donde atienden las Organizaciones Externalizadas (OE´s) que son compañías privadas para lucrar con los presupuestos públicos de Salud, y que en su momento fueron empujadas y avaladas por OPS y Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo, (BID), y Banco Mundial. Hoy estos últimos, en sus informes recientes admiten el fracaso de estas formas de gestión. Pero aquí en Panamá quieren perpetuarlos porque están favoreciendo con jugosas ganancias a algunos ungidos.
6. Demuestra que OPS sigue siendo un instrumento de penetración de fórmulas neoliberales en el ámbito de la Salud en Panamá y en toda América Latina.
7. Demuestra que la empresa privada corrupta avala las fórmulas neoliberales que finalmente sirven de instrumentos legales para sustentar la corrupción.
8. Demuestra que es pura falsedad, cuando los gobernantes y altos administradores de la Salud, hablan de fortalecer la Rectoría del MINSA para hacer cumplir las mejores leyes, normativas, estándares de calidad y bioseguridad.
   a. Y por detrás desregulan todo, creando “Autoridades” para que precisamente el MINSA no pueda interferir directamente en sus decisiones.
9. En cuanto a “las Asociaciones de Farmacéuticos” mencionadas en las noticias quisiéramos saber ¿cuáles son? Que digan y se manifiesten y den la cara. Y al mismo tiempo preguntamos al Colegio de Farmaceutas ¿cuál es su verdadera posición sobre esto?
10. Piensan que hemos bajado la guardia. ¿Por ajustes salariales? ¿Por persecusiones que ya empiezan? No Srs., no se equivoquen.

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What Republicans are saying

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What Republicans are saying

 

 

 

 

 

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Gandásegui, Transparencia y democracia en Panamá

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EllosTransparencia y democracia en Panamá

por Marco A. Gandásegui, hijo

En Panamá, la clase dominante, los partidos políticos y los medios de comunicación reducen la democracia a las elecciones que se realizan cada cinco años desde hace más de tres décadas. Hay que aclarar que los partidos políticos inscritos y los medios de comunicación de circulación masiva son propiedad de la clase dominante. La democracia, entonces, queda reducida a la libertad de expresión de este pequeño segmento de la sociedad panameña.

Igualmente, la transparencia (en el lenguaje de los políticos) se refiere al hecho que todos los actos públicos deben ser de conocimiento exclusivo del círculo que conforma la clase dominante. Es parte de la fórmula clásica que se refiere al mercado libre. Para que ésta exista, todos los que participan deben estar plenamente informados de ‘la oferta y la demanda’. Este juego que debe desenvolverse sobre un terreno equitativo, donde todos conocen las reglas, no se aplica a escala mundial y menos en el caso de Panamá.

Un ejemplo reciente es la renuncia del renombrado economista Joseph Stiglitz de la Comisión Independiente de Expertos (creada por el gobierno panameño) quien pretendía destapar la falta de transparencia en las prácticas financieras del centro bancario y otras operaciones. Lo que se quiere tapar, según los comisionados, va desde el lavado de dinero hasta “los círculos de prostitución infantil”. La salida de Stiglitz no extraña. Lo que sí fue muy raro fue su selección para formar parte de la Comisión. El premio Nóbel de Economía, en realidad, está más interesado en conocer las irregularidades del sistema financiero norteamericano y los ‘paraísos fiscales’ que operan en ese país.

Los problemas endémicos de Panamá en torno a su raquítica democracia y falta de transparencia serán objeto de análisis en el XV Congreso Nacional de Sociología que se realizará en la Universidad de Panamá del 24 al 26 de agosto. En la inauguración, han sido invitados para disertar el presidente de Transparencia Internacional (Capítulo Panamá), Carlos Gasnell, hijo, el sociólogo Enoch Adames, del Programa FLACSO Panamá, y la diputada Ana Matilde Gómez. Cada uno de ellos abordará el tema central del Congreso, “Transparencia y democracia en Panamá en el siglo XXI”, desde una perspectiva diferente. La pregunta no es si el sistema montado después de la invasión militar norteamericana colapsó. Más bien, la interrogante es qué transformaciones son necesarias para que se pueda encaminar el país hacia una democracia que goce de transparencia.

El Congreso también contará con mesas de trabajo que enfocarán la crisis política de Panamá. El profesor Roberto Arosemena J. propondrá “una fórmula para detener la corrupción y exigir rendición de cuentas. El ciudadano es el custodio y el garante del buen gobierno. En esto consiste el salto de la democracia representativa a la participativa”. Desde una perspectiva de la juventud panameña, el estudiante de Sociología, Mario de León, planteará que en los últimos lustros de “post- invasión”, quienes manejan el discurso que auguraba el inicio de la democracia y la participación de todos, ha visto como “la juventud se ha distanciado de ese discurso y de la participación que se predicaba”.

En otra mesa, la profesora Briseida Allard analizará el escándalo de los ‘papeles’ de Mossack-Fonseca y su impacto sobre el sistema político panameño. En la mesa sobre participación política, el antropólogo, Francisco Herrerra, enfrentará lo que llama “los procesos de aculturación” de los pueblos indígenas que contribuyen a “la pérdida de identidad cultural e histórica”. El sociólogo Harry Brown descompondrá los resultados electorales de 2014 y describirá sus resultados. Según este estudioso, “el análisis de la fragmentación del voto, de la transferencia de los votos y la competitividad de las elecciones, (permite) concluir que el sistema de partidos panameño ha perfeccionado su re-alineamiento”.

Desde Cracovia, el papa Francisco envió a los sociólogos y a todos los panameños un mensaje pensando en el futuro político. A los jóvenes del mundo, les dijo que para pensar en el futuro, hay que “tener memoria… Hay que preguntarse de dónde vengo, (tener) memoria de mi pueblo, de mi familia, de toda mi historia”. Si el joven “es esperanza para el futuro y tiene memoria del pasado, ¿qué tiene que hacer en el presente? Tener coraje. Ser valientes. No asustarse”. El papa concluyó diciendo que “no sé si voy a estar en Panamá (en 2019), pero si sé que les vamos a preguntar si hablaron con los abuelos”.

 

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Democrats Abroad Panama board meets Saturday at the Balboa Yacht Club

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DAP 2016
From the wilderness into the towns — or will it be the other way around? This year Democrats intend to be everywhere, including in places and among social scenes where we haven’t been before. Just about everyone in Panama and in the rest of Latin America knows what a disaster a Trump presidency would be for us. It’s up to Democrats Abroad to get the US citizens in our communities — including Panama’s dual citizens and naturalized Americans — registered and voting to head off that calamity.

Democrats Abroad – Panama board of directors meeting
Saturday, August 13 from 1-2 p.m. — socializing afterward
at the Balboa Yacht Club on the Amador Causeway

Our board meetings are open and this one is an important opportunity for rank-and-file Democrats who want to get involved in this year’s general election campaign

Meeting Topics
(board members can add new business, but we do have a full plate)
1. Our next member sendout for voter registration.
2. Weekly press releases (bilingual)
3. Setting up committees
4. Contact list for visits to schools and debates
5. Outreach to local NGos for voter registration
6. Polo shirts, buttons, etc.
7. Meet with US Ambassador to coordinate our voter registration and support their outreach.

Reminder: Americans vote from abroad by absentee ballot, generally in the place where they last resided in the USA. Each state has different election laws. Some states are still having primaries but getting into September the state deadlines to register to vote and order your ballot start coming up. Federal law now requires voters living abroad to re-register to vote every election year. To look up the deadlines in the state where you vote, click here.

 

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Can anyone collect 517,000 signatures for a constitutional convention?

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Bernal
Law professor Miguel Antonio Bernal, a long-time advocate of a new constitution, is heading the Colegio de Abogados effort to convene a constituent assembly. Archive photo by José F. Ponce.

Two, three, many constitutional reform processes

by Eric Jackson

On August 9 — Lawyers Day, based on the birthday of Panama’s 19th century hero lawyer, politician and diplomat Justo Arosemena — the nation’s main bar association, the Colegio de Abogados, swore in a new commission to organize a process leading the the convening of a new constitutional convention. This was the third constitutional change initiative announced in the past month and a half.

There is the possibility of a constituent assembly — constituyente or constitutional convention — being called by citizens’ petition. However, there has never been any ballot question election by this form of popular demand. It would take more than 517,000 signatures to compel the government to hold elections for delegates to such an assembly. Jaded Panamanians are wary of signing anything, because they are afraid that their signatures may be used for fraudulent purposes or their name on a petition may make them targets of retaliation by some powerful person or organization. Here people typically join political parties to get or keep government jobs and rarely do so to support some ideology or cause. People will take to the streets — often blocking them — to advance an economic interest or as an ephemeral reaction to a community crisis like a prolonged neighborhood water outage. Widespread popular movements do arise in Panama but they are few and far between.

So will the lawyers go the petition route?

In July the Cambio Democratico party announced that it would begin a petition drive this month to collect the more than half-million signatures needed to call an election for constitutional convention delegates. However, that scandal-plagued outfit is at war with itself in large part over a constitutional disagreement. The exiled party boss, former President Ricardo Martinelli, wants to purge 16 of the 25 CD legislators, while much of the party organization in the country wants to get rid of him. The petition drive is not yet underway. The party’s secretary general Rómulo Roux, who has purportedly been stripped of most of his powers by Martinelli, is going around the country campaigning for the 2019 CD presidential nomination but not saying much about the constitution on his campaign swings. It is expected that Martinelli would put top priority on a constitutional change that would allow himself to run for president again in 2019. It’s probably a set of delusions that CD alone could collect the signatures to force a convention, that delegates promising to weaken the restrictions on presidential re-elections would win a majority of such an assembly, and that Martinelli could ever again be elected to any public office in Panama.

What if CD and the lawyers began separate petition drives, and with each falling short on their own, they collected a combination of more than 517,000 signatures? That would be a novel question of law, but maybe a political logjam breaker. Either the president or a majority of the legislature could call for the election of a constituent assembly and more than half a million people who want one might be a force that they wouldn’t want to resist.

The novel questions of law would also give the politicians room to maneuver and manipulate. Would the elections be partisan or nonpartisan? Would the delegates be elected at large in each province or comarca, or would there be districts, perhaps some version of the weird mix of single-member and multi-member districts by which the National Assembly is elected? These would be questions for the Supreme Court, the legislature and the Electoral Tribunal to decide, and perhaps to bicker about among themselves. (Polls have consistently shown for many years that the high court and the assembly are widely detested, while the electoral magistrates have a somewhat better reputation.)

Can the lawyers get the signatures on their own? Bernal is a veteran campaigner, but he has never pulled off such a monumental feat. Then there is that current of popular opinion that holds the legal profession itself responsible for Panama’s constitutional woes. The endless stream of motions that has kept Martinelli from a Panamanian penal court’s defendants’ dock would be seen as one of the proofs by many people of that opinion. (The blockage that’s keeping the extradition request bottled up in the Ministry of Foreign Relations is just gravy for the legal system, but one of the sources of public discontent with Varela’s administration.)

President Juan Carlos Varela ran for office on a pledge to call a constitutional convention, then backed off because he said that there would be no guarantee of the outcome of such a process. In his July 1 speech at the start of the current legislative session, he said that he would work on a “road map” for constitutional change over the next year. However, Varela’s popularity is declining and his party’s 17-member caucus in a 71-member National Assembly is showing signs of disunity, such that his ability to control the outcome of a constitutional process is doubtful.

Both Cambio Democratico and the PRD have called for a constituent assembly, but both of those parties are bitterly divided to the extent that the faction leaders might hesitate to start a contest in which their prospects would be doubtful. Ordinarily, though, the combined PRD and CD caucuses would have the votes to convene a constitutional convention regardless of Varela’s wishes.

“The usual,” done four times before, would be for a compromise package of constitutional changes around the margins to be passed by the current legislature, then ratified by the legislature elected in 2019. Bernal and many others say that another patch will not suffice. If there is any politically viable partial patch it’s neither obvious nor currently a subject of public discussion. Firing the entire Supreme Court, holding early elections for a new president and legislature and curbing the power of the political parties — all of these ideas are being bandied about. Just not by the president, the legislators, the magistrates or the party bosses.

 

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Festival ICARO en Panamá, Colón y David

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ICARO
Fiodor en el Fiordo (Guatemala).

En tres ciudades se presentará
el Festival ICARO Panamá

por GECU

El GECU de la Universidad de Panamá y la Fundación pro Artes Escénicas y Audiovisuales (FAE) anuncian que el FESTIVAL DE CINE ICARO PANAMÁ 2016 se realizará este septiembre por primera vez en tres ciudades del país: en Panamá del 21 al 27, en Colón del 26 al 28 y en David del 26 al 30, con los auspicios de la Dirección General de Cine del MICI, la Alcaldía de Panamá y la Autoridad de Turismo y con la colaboración de Casa Comal de Guatemala, el Centro Cultural de España, el Teatro Amador, el Hotel Wyndham Panama Albrook y Alamo.

Buscando llegar a la mayor cantidad de públicos este evento gratuito contará con varios locales de exhibición, siendo ellos, en la capital, el Teatro Amador, el Estudio Multiuso del GECU, el Centro Cultural de España y el Teatro Gladis Vidal del Municipio; en Colón la Biblioteca Mateo Iturralde, en colaboración con la Alcaldía de Colón y el grupo cultural Contrapeso y en David la Universidad Nacional de Chiriquí (UNACHI), gracias a alianza con este centro educativo y la Fundación Montilla.

La programación incluirá una selección de películas centroamericanas premiadas en el pasado Festival Internacional de Cine ICARO en Centroamérica, con sede en Guatemala; una selección de películas de todas partes del mundo también galardonadas en dicho certamen y la presentación de las películas panameñas seleccionadas por un jurado local e internacional para representar al país en dicho encuentro regional en noviembre próximo, de entre las que respondieron a la convocatoria.

El ICARO Panamá contará este año con un programa de actividades formativas mucho más ambicioso, compuesto por talleres, conversatorios y mesas redondas desarrolladas por cineastas extranjeros y nacionales invitados, dirigido a reforzar las capacidades y conocimientos de los cineastas del medio, especialmente de los más jóvenes. Mayor información a info@faepanama.org o al 6398-1875.

 

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Sanders, Defeating Debbie Wasserman Schultz

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TC vs DWS
Tim Canova on the South Florida campaign trail.

Defeating Debbie Wasserman Schultz

by Bernie Sanders

Many of you already know that I’ve endorsed a candidate, Tim Canova, who is challenging the former head of the Democratic Party Debbie Wasserman Schultz in Florida.

This race is very important for Our Revolution because if we can win this tough fight in Florida, it will send a clear message about the power of our grassroots movement that will send shockwaves through the political and media establishments. The latest poll shows us within reach.

July 31 Poll
Debbie Wasserman Schultz: 46%
Tim Canova: 38%
Undecided: 16%

This is going to be close.

Much like in our campaign for president, Tim started off as a major underdog in this race, battling a well-known and well-established person who was the chairwoman of the Democratic Party.

He is running a tough campaign on the kind of progressive platform we need to see in this country: opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, backing free tuition at public colleges and universities, reforming a corrupt campaign finance system and raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Tim is on the side of working people and that’s why we need to help him win.

The recent emails leaked from Democratic Party staff showed that under Debbie Wasserman Schultz, DNC staff were not exactly fair and even-minded during the presidential primary. What was revealed wasn’t much of a shock to us, because we knew all along that the establishment wasn’t on our side.

But now that Debbie Wasserman Schultz has resigned we have the opportunity to transform the Democratic Party and open up its doors to working people and young people — people who want real change. Democrats must make it crystal clear that their party is prepared to take on Wall Street and the powerful corporate interests whose greed is doing so much harm to our country. We must stand with Americans who are working longer hours for lower wages, the uninsured, students leaving school deeply in debt and all those worried about climate change.

I believe Tim Canova is the kind of candidate whose policies will move the Democratic Party and our country in that direction. Electing Tim will send a strong message to the Democratic establishment about what this party should stand for. That’s why I’m asking you today to help send him to Congress.

This race has been an uphill battle from the very beginning, but the latest poll has us very close. I am confident we can win this fight with your support.

Thank you for being a part of Our Revolution.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders

To donate money to Tim Canova’s campaign click here

To donate your labor to Tim Canova’s campaign click here

Toque aquí para Tim Canova en español

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After the rain…

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afte the rain 1
After the gully washer, progress on gully construction in the streets of the less affluent parts of the village is more easily noticed.

After the rain

photos by Eric Jackson

after the rain 2
After the rain the wetland, with the dust and grime washed away, comes back to life in full color.

after the rain 3
After the rain the detritus of a throwaway culture accumulates by the side of a country lane where the flood waters left it as they subsided.

 

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Jackson, The Russians and the Americans

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da
Hillary Clinton meeting with Vladimir Putin. Photo by the Kremlin.

The Russians and the Americans

by Eric Jackson

Is US politics getting back to a “The Russians are coming” discourse? If so, does it make any sense at all?

Russians tend not to think like Americans on some key issues, but then a big part of the difference was accentuated in the 20th century by Americans who trace ancestral roots back to the Russian Empire, albeit that they were not ethnic Russians as such.

Geography and history shape the Russian outlook on government. From a Western viewpoint, invading Russia has been the height of folly. Hitler learned it the hard way. So did Napoleon. So did the Teutonic Knights. Each in their turn beat the hell out of the Russians — at first. And what was left of Russia retreated, then retreated some more, and then winter set in and the invaders had impossibly long supply lines to protect. On its western end Russia has no natural boundaries that can be usefully fortified. Its protective barrier is vast open spaces, which throughout its history it has tried to push ever westward via conquests or the establishment of vassal states, protectorates or lesser allies along its periphery.

If you are a Finn, a Pole, a Lithuanian, a Czech or a Ukrainian, you are likely to be less sympathetic to Russian concerns about being naturally defenseless on the western side. Get into the extra added complications of church and state, and how Russia relates to its ethnic minorities, and you will begin to understand the mass exodus to America of Jews living in areas under Russian control or domination in the 19th and 20th centuries. Among this part of the Jewish diaspora were the theater people who by and large founded Hollywood. It’s not just that the Jewish film moguls, screenwriters, directors and actors embraced an American culture that was already anti-authoritarian. (That goes back to the resentments that led the pilgrims to flee the Church of England and later the 13 colonies to resent impositions like the Navigation Acts and the Stamp Tax.) The abuses of the czars, and then of the commissars, and the pogroms that the Russian state would neither prevent nor suppress and occasionally provoked, were part of the collective ethnic memory that went into the foundations of Hollywood culture.

Looking toward the east and south, Russians have another set of fears. They conquered places with some formidable natural barriers — mountains, deserts and the vast expanse of Siberia — but a lot of the Muslim peoples whom they conquered or dominated have long resented the Russians and have periodically risen in rebellion. Before those conquests and the establishment of Cossack settlements to defend them, part of Russia’s formative experience was a quite brutal conquest from the east, by the Mongols.

From the Russian perspective, to have a weak leader is to invite invasions and encourage revolts on the periphery, leading to death and suffering on a massive scale for ordinary Russians. After Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin presided over the loss of an empire and a consequent decline in the average life span of Russians — particularly the men — former KGB man Vladimir Putin looked and acted the part of a strong leader regardless of how strong a hand he actually held. Russians have appreciated that. Putin’s actions are at least partly explained by his political need to look strong. It’s a hard act to keep up these days because Russia has an economy mostly based on resource extraction — oil, gas, metals, timber and so on — at a time when commodity prices are down and countries that rely on such sources of income are hurting.

Are the Western powers going to install a regime subservient to them in the Ukraine, some 350 miles by a highway with no natural choke point from Moscow? Russians expect and demand their leader to take a hard line about that. Put nukes in Estonia, some 85 miles from Russia’s second city, St. Petersburg? Expect Russians, including Putin, to go ballistic about that idea.

What really happened in the last Cold War with greater Russia, the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact dependencies? Vast amounts of money and many human lives were expended in proxy wars which the USA and the USSR respectively lost, in Vietnam and then in Afghanistan. Then there was this insanely expensive nuclear weapons race. The Russian economic engine blew up first. Look at it as two teenagers drag racing daddy’s Lada against the other daddy’s Ford. But the Ford engine hasn’t been running very well since then either.

It’s a reasonable US military policy to be ready to fight anyone if the need arises. It’s not a reasonable US policy to pick a fight with the Russians by provoking them along their borders.

Do American voters face a policy choice between neoconservative belligerence toward Russia and a blowhard who has been known to hang out with Russian mobsters and who now — whether seriously or in jest — invites Putin to wage computer warfare against his election opponent? If Russia indeed cares to tip the balance, what is Putin to do?

The choice for the Russian leader is not obvious. Half of Hillary Clinton’s party is in the antiwar camp and will not readily accept a new military adventure. Half of Donald Trump’s party is appalled at the potential effect of his wild foreign policy pronouncements, one of which appears to be a retreat from Western guarantees of the Baltic states’ independence from Russia.

Sure, Putin might like an apparent rusophile in the White House, except that this particular one would be dangerously unpredictable. Having dealt with Napoleon and then Hitler, Russians tend to be particularly wary of maniac adversaries. (They had Ivan the Terrible and the non-Russian Josef Stalin, but generally draw different conclusions about those guys than Americans do.)

Rivals, allies or ever-changing mixes of both — those are all basic US-Russian paradigms with which both countries can live as the need arises. The ruin of both is avoided only if ways are found to limit the mutual damage that can be done by hostilities getting out of hand. In the worst case scenarios the costs of failure are expressed in terms of body counts but it would be foolhardy to discount the economic disasters that can happen without a shot being fired.

The people of the respective countries are not going to agree on things like the practical definitions of freedom, strength and safety. But there is a shared interest in having leaders who understand the math of decisions made or not made. A failed relationship between two major powers is not something that can be easily walked away from, like, say, from a bankrupt casino.

 

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Varela’s malaise

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Cabinet
President Juan Carlos Varela meets with his Cabinet Council to plot retaliatory measures against countries that impose money laundering sanctions against Panama. But if a country is to wage a trade war, there are certain things to consider. Are there products or services that only we provide, for which there are no substitutes, and which are needed by other countries? Are we a vital market, the loss of which would cause terrible economic damage to key sectors in a foreign economy? At a glance, it looks and sounds like saber rattling with a toy rubber sword. Photo by the Presidencia.

Varela’s malaise

by Eric Jackson

After a month of internal bickering, the Panameñista Party caucus in the National Assembly decided to make deputy Jorge Ivan Arrocha head of the Budget Committee, the most sought-after post in a legislature that’s set up by the constitution as a political patronage sop to the political caste in a system dominated by a strong national executive. (Back when the constitution was written, that centralized executive power was held by the top military commander, but since the 1989 invasion it’s the president.) In a fragmented and realigned legislature wherein most of the deputies of the two largest party caucuses, the PRD and Cambio Democratico, have thumbed their noses at their respective party bosses, the ruling alliance among Panameñistas, PRD dissidents and CD dissidents assigned the chair of that committee to President Varela’s party, the Panameñistas. Up stepped Panameñista legislator Carlos Santana — almost a caricature of the grasping machine politician with a hyperdeveloped sense of entitlement — who cited a succession deal from last year’s version of the alliance, by which he would be the next chair of that committee. But the thing is, his fellow party members in the legislature despise the guy, and they voted to choose Miguel Salas instead.

With loud protests about betrayal, Santana vowed to take the decision to the assembly’s floor, where the Panameñistas’ decision might get overruled by deputies from both within and outside of the ruling alliance. (What better way to make some mischief if you’re loyal to PRD president Benicio Robinson or exiled CD owner Ricardo Martinelli and thus cut out of influence, than to disrupt the other faction’s control of the Budget Committee?)

Further secret meetings were held, the Panameñistas came up with Arrocha as a third choice and on August 8 National Assembly president Rubén De León swore in the new Budget Committee for a legislative session that began on July 1.

What a mess, you might observe? More than a week into August, and 10 of the legislature’s 15 committees are yet to be installed and functioning. That’s one-tenth of the middle year of Varela’s term with the National Assembly in self-paralysis.

Is this to be Panama’s moment to bask in the sun of worldwide acclaim for the opening of the larger new locks? The Panama Canal Authority’s hired PR hands and the sycophants of the rabiblanco press — whose bosses’ banks, construction companies, PR firms and so on, as well as the media businesses for which they work, have made a lot of money off of the expansion — have been dutifully pumping up that narrative. But there were at least three accidents in the first 55 transits by the bigger ships and notwithstanding efforts to define that problem away, the ACP narrative is ever less accepted by the world press.

Those looking on from afar, however, generally don’t catch the real mess in the ACP: as a business the Panama Canal is hurting. Thus it’s looking to develop new revenue streams, and that has economic interests both within and outside of the organization at war with one another.

Is the ACP going into the ports business? So they say, and steps along that way are well advanced. In the proposed Corozal and Diablo port plan’s earlier iterations, everything was set for a managed bidding process that would give the private concession for that to the Motta family. Resistance was raised in the legislature and elsewhere in Panamanian society, so as the process continued into prior qualifications to submit bids the Mottas were eliminated from consideration. Panama Ports, which has the adjacent Port of Balboa concession, still doesn’t like it. Nor does the Panama Maritime Authority, into whose bailiwick ports traditionally fall. Nor do the canal pilots, who think that a port in the planned place would pose a navigation hazard.

So can the ACP board just brush off those objections and proceed? Not quite. See, the plans for the new port include a sewage treatment facility to serve the ships that call there. It’s the environmentally responsible feature for a major seaport to have in this day and age. The thing is, one of Ricardo Martinelli’s appointees to the ACP board — the overall qualities of whom is another whole set of issues — is Lourdes Castillo. So what, other than being a Martinelli loyalist, was her qualification for the board? Her company does the garbage collection and sewage removal for Panama Ports. As in, she considers herself entitled, if not to get the sewage contract outright, for her company to be allowed to bid on it. As in, no sewage treatment as an integral part of the new port. With some help from colleagues she shut down the board meeting about the bid specifications over that issue.

The National Assembly and the Panama Canal Authority board don’t register on too many screens outside of Panama. But the Panama Papers did, and although the rush of headlines is over it still does. Yes, the Brits are rid of the Prime Minister whose family fortune was in part the product of his father’s tax evasion via a shell game set up by Mossack Fonseca, and the UK parliamentary commission that was set up to look into that and related questions in the wake of the data dump of the law firm’s files appears to be something of a dead letter. Yes, Vladimir Putin brushed aside embarrassments about people close to him — and is now going after lesser Russians who were named. Maltese and Pakistani leaders are still being questioned and calling for an end to the questions. HSBC may have warned that legal consequences from the revelations may yet affect its bottom line, but there were signs that the whole thing was about to blow over.

Then came a preliminary report from an all-star international commission that Varela appointed with the scandal was in full scream, and it wasn’t what the president wanted to see and certainly not what the corporate lawyers and financial services people in his entourage wanted the Panamanian people and the world press to see. The president moved to suppress that preliminary word, and notified the committee that their eventual findings might or might not be published, according to political expediency. The commission’s American chair, Nobel economics laureate Joseph Stiglitz, resigned along with the seven-member panel’s Swiss expert, former OECD anti-bribery task force leader Mark Pieth. The resignations were accompanied by a statement about lack of transparency and the world press did take notice, even as pundits of the rabiblanco media muttered about foreigners manipulating Panama, or being disloyal to their generous boss, or displaying bad manners. Varela, his social class and their caste of mouthpieces appear not to understand that world-class experts with earned reputations need not check their ethics and opinions at the door as their domestic servants are expected to do.

It’s a gaffe that will accelerate international moves against banking and corporate secrecy, in Panama especially but elsewhere as well. Most inconveniently for Varela, that tangle disrupted the plan just as he was getting into trade war mode.

Trade war? Panama’s going to war with anybody, in any fashion, over any matter?

Panama has this trade dispute with Colombia over duties that the latter imposes on textiles and shoes coming through the Colon Free Zone. Mainly it’s about Colombia trying to develop its own apparel industries without competition from cheap Asian good that in this region typically pass through the duty-free import/export zone in Colon. Because of the economic weakness of its traditional customers — particularly the Venezuelans — the Free Zone is seriously hurting these days, and the extra hit of Colombian trade measures aggravates the situation. The dispute has been running for some years, with Bogota insisting that it’s about the money laundering that goes on via the Free Zone and represents a big loss to Colombian tax collectors. The World Trade Organization ruled in Panama’s favor earlier this year, but Colombia isn’t budging. Instead, the Colombians are putting off implementation of a previously agreed bilateral free trade deal and using their influence to keep Panama out of the regional Pacific Alliance trade pact.

The argument with Colombia is atop a growing pile of present or contemplated trade measures that discriminate against Panama, almost all of them said to be due to money laundering, tax evasion and other undesired phenomena arising from Panamanian banking and corporate secrecy laws. Much of the Panama Papers scandal was about a Panama-based law firm setting up financial shell games played in other jurisdictions. That may be conveniently ignored by the British, whose crown dependencies account for several of those “other” places, and by the politicians of other rich countries’ whose financial backers are the sorts of people who comprise the tax havens’ customer bases. The hypocrisy of it may be protested by Mossack Fonseca, which was caught working with some particularly ugly criminals as well as the more genteel international jet set tax cheats. The Varela administration ignored all that and talks about enforcement of previously existing international agreements, and not only in terms of special duties on goods coming from those places, costlier visas for people of those nationalities and bans on certain foreign companies seeking Panamanian government contracts. One of the threats is to bar the passage through Panama of cargoes or persons associated with a nation that imposes financial sanctions on Panama.

As in, we were hearing bluster about highly self-destructive things that Panama might do if other countries don’t leave folks like the Mossacks and the Fonsecas alone when the Stiglitz and Pieth resignations put Panama back into world headlines. You won’t read it that way in La Prensa or see Alvaro Alvarado put it that way on TV, so maybe the incongruity will fly over the Panamanian electorate’s head for now. It will be interesting to see whether it affects Varela’s short-term standing in opinion polls. But if the president is serious about picking any substantial trade war with anybody, that’s a strategy with a low probability of success and a high risk of public indignation in the event of a loss.

Ah, but all news is not negative for Varela. He went to Poland for the Catholic Church’s biennial World Youth Day, lobbying European governments about trade matters while he was on their continent. There is little published word about his talks with government leaders, but Varela did come back with a papal commitment to hold the 2019 World Youth Day here. But where in Panama? The church has yet to say, but if tales of one venue in Anton are accurate, that would be yet another rekindled international controversy.

Varela’s malaise is often portrayed by his critics as tortuguismo, a turtle-like pace at everything that he does. It’s probably more accurately perceived as extreme caution about stepping on long-established prerogatives and ways of doing things among Panama’s economic elites. It sometimes saps his popularity with the general public, and sometimes gets him stalled in squabbles among the lesser figures of the political caste. Most recently, however, it’s making Panama look ridiculous to the rest of the world. Is it a matter of the outside world misunderstanding about the ways that things have always been done here? More likely it’s a rather accurate understanding, coupled with a growing insistence that Panama can’t go on this way.

 

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