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“The central objective of the government’s program is to tackle poverty and inequality by improving access to health and education programs for poor and underserved groups. This is a very wise investment and the World Bank is pleased to support it,” said Laura Frigenti, World Bank Director for Central America.

Recent growth, averaging over 7.5 percent annually during 2004-07, and increased social spending has helped Panama improve social indicators such as infant and child survival and education enrollment rates at all levels, however, access to health and education remains a challenge among poor and indigenous groups. Rural and indigenous communities are the most affected by resilient poverty and inequality. Poverty affects close to 60 percent of the population in rural areas and virtually all people living in indigenous areas, where the poverty rate reaches 98 percent. Nearly 10 percent of Panama’s 3.5 million people belong to indigenous groups.

The US$40 million Health Equity and Performance Improvement Project seeks to increase access of underserved rural communities to quality basic health services and improve health system performance by supporting the following components:

Latin America is rich in minerals, providing the gold, silver and emeralds that bankrolled Spanish and Portuguese empires, but it has long been a backwater in the diamond trade despite modest production in Brazil, Venezuela and Guyana.

To meet the new demand, Panama is building Latin America's first diamond exchange expected to be recognized by the World Federation of Diamond Bourses, one of the main players in the wholesale diamond market.

"Latin America is the last frontier," said Erez Akerman, who heads the Panama Diamond Exchange, the group behind the project. "We are looking at four main markets: Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Chile," he told Reuters in the exchange's temporary offices in one of Panama City's upscale districts.

The $200-million project, due to be up and running by 2010, will include a purpose-built 50-story building in Panama City with safes, a gemological institute, laboratories, polishing and cutting facilities and a trading hall.

Panama will make the exchange a tax-free zone and has applied to join the Kimberly Process to stop the spread of conflict diamonds so rough stones can be traded there.

Akerman hopes to draw 300 traders to Panama to create a place for buyers and sellers and raise the profile of the jewelry market in Latin America.

"We believe the jewelry market here grew about 5 to 10 percent a year in the last 10 years. We think we can change that number to 20 to 25 percent per year," he said.

La Prensa---Camilo Mendoza sat at the base of the Corredor Sur, where fishermen from the Boca La Caja neighborhood launch their boats. Children splashed in murky water of the Bahía, returning to the shore covered in ash and grime.

Mendoza has been fishing this area for 60 years, and recalls that when he first arrived, the neighborhood was “all mosquitos and hills,” a memory he describes with affection.

Today, Boca La Caja’s hills are covered with humble cinder block houses separated only by labyrinthine alleys and narrow, crumbling sidewalks. The tropical sun either pounds down on the zinc roofs below or is blocked out completely by apartment towers going up all around. A luxury shopping mall and private hospital lie just a few meters from the neighborhood, a world apart that threatens to close in.

Mendoza senses that this neighborhood may not be around much longer, though he doesn’t know exactly why. “That’s our great unknown,” he said.

La Prensa --Between January and July, the Instituto Panameño de Turismo (Ipat) adopted 27 draft plans by hoteliers that will result in an investment of $472.3 million, according to a report of the Dirección de Desarrollo e Inversiones Turísticas del Ipat.

In addition, the report recorded 22 more proposals that are currently awaiting approval. Together, these projects will generate 10,728 jobs and bring 7,270 new rooms to the country. The total investment is projected to be $931.2 million, a 40 percent increase from the 48 projects that Ipat approved in 2007. Those projects were valued at a total of $664 million.

Jorge Loaiza, presidente de la Asociación Panameña de Hoteles (Apatel), said the new projects will provide some relief to the current shortage of hotel rooms in the country, but warned that the proposed projects “have not satisfied all of the demands for hotel rooms in the country.”

In fact, Loaiza said that he is aware of “three or four” other planned projects whose plans have not yet been forwarded to Ipat.

One problem is that the vast majority of the plans being received by Ipat, which must approve hotel projects, call for projects in or near Panama City. Of the 27 that have been approved, 21 are located in the city, meaning an economic impact there of $432 million. Those projects promise to create 3,420 rooms and 2,868 jobs.

Ipat has approved one project in the province of Coclé, a 192-room hotel involving an investment of $27 million and could generate some 300 new jobs.

There have been two new projects approved for Bocas del Toro. These projects entail the construction of much smaller facilities, as the total investment is estimated at $7 million. The projects are expected to create an estimated 50 jobs and 159 rooms.

Even smaller-scale projects are slated for Chiriquí, where plans have been approved for two hotels. Together, these facilities will cost $5.7 million to develop, and will create 40 jobs and 100 rooms.

Loaiza pointed out that the interior of the country continues to lag behind Panama City in terms of hotel development. He said that there is a growing gap between facilities available in rural communities compared to one available in the capital.

Although Brazil and Mexico dominate foreign direct investment in Latin America, measured as a percent of their economies, they are both laggards - ranking below the average for the region. The total FDI of $105.9 billion to the region last year represented 3.1 percent of its 2007 GDP of $3.4 trillion. 

Foreign direct investment in Panama last year reached $1.8 billion, which was actually a decline of 29 percent from 2006. However, even the new figure produced favorable results. It represents 9.1 percent of  Panama's GDP of $19.7 billion. FDI in Chile reached $14.5 billion last year, nearly double the rate of 2006. That represented 8.9 percent of Chile's GDP last year of $163.8 billion.

CENTRAL AMERICAN CHAMPIONS

A plethora of crafts made by national artisans is on display at the 31st annual Feria Artesanal, which is taking place at Atlapa Convention Center.

The event, which opened Wednesday, features 400 artisans representing every province in the country. In addition to crafts, the event also features a large variety of traditional foods. It is the largest event of its kind in Panama.

The fair wraps up on Sunday. The operating hours are from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Telecommunications consortium Mer Group-Cable & Wireless (C&W) has won the contract for implementing and managing Panama’s new 911 emergency response system, reported Gaspar Tarté, ministro de Innovación Gubernamental.

The company’s winning bid of $37 million was not the cheapest, falling between German company Siemens’ offer of $27 million and Movistar-TriStar’s $58 million bid.

Tarté said that the Comisión Técnica will now begin negotiations with C&W to settle the details of the contract, which will be subject to final approval by both C&W’s board of trustees and the Cabinet.

The company will be responsible for recruiting and training personnel for the emergency service, known officially as the Sistema Único de Manejo de Emergencias (SUME) 911.

As in similar public emergency services, that staff will include emergency call center operators, paramedics and ambulance services, doctors and nurses and IT technicians who will maintain the SUME command center.

The minister explained that the decision-making process took into account C&W’s experience in designing and implementing emergency response centers, its economic and financial profile, among other factors.

Staple's Cafe is moving to the Feria Artesanal at the Atlapa from July 30th through August 3rd between the hours of 12:00 - 8:00. Prices on the menu are from $2.00 to $2.50. Please come and join us and sample our Caribbean and American menu. See you there!

About Staples Cafe:

We are located at the corner of Calle 13 Rio Abajo and Avenida La Pulida. Our doors are open Tuesday-Thursdays from 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and Friday-Saturday from 8:00 to 9:00 p.m.  We are currently working on providing you with a full grill for Staple’s Café hamburger, BBQ rib, BBQ chicken, hot dog, steak, and pork chops.  Staple’s Café current daily menu includes: For Breakfast: American and Panamanian style breakfast.  For Lunch: Prices range from $2.00 to 4:50/ Dinner $3.50 to $6.50.  Cod fish, sea food medley southern style, oxtail, Baked Chicken or stewed, Stewed Pork Chops, meat loaf (Tue & Thu), plantain, pig feet (Tue & Wed), cow foot soup, Chicken soup, New England Clam chowder, potato, spaghetti and meat balls, white rice, coconut peas and rice, patacones, fried yuca or al moho, salad of the day. For drinks we have lemonade with raspadura, orange with raspadura, sorrel, tropical drinks (seasonal) papaya, pine apple, banana shake, cherry shake, oatmeal shake, and chocolate shake, soda, and alcoholic beverages. For a sweet dish we have Staple’s Café apple turnover, carrot cake, yucca pone (on occasion), brownie, fruit cake(on occasion), and ice cream (vanilla, chocolate, cherry, or grape nut, and casa blanca).  We offer catering with 72 hours notice and we do deliveries with an extra fee of $2.00.  If there is any thing you would like us to add to our menu, please contact let us know by calling (507) 222-1126.  In the mean time, we are inviting you to come and enjoy our outdoor cafe style restaurant.

Raúl Rodríguez, a legislator from Chiriquí, has been selected by the Partido Revolucionario Democrático (PRD) to be the next leader of the Asamblea Nacional.

He will replace Pedro Miguel González, whose election to the position last year was widely blamed for the stalling of a free trade agreement with the United States.

González is wanted in the United States for the 1992 murder of an American soldier who was stationed in Panama.

Yesterday, 44 of the 46 PRD members of the Asamblea voted for Rodríguez to succeed González when his term ends in September. Because the PRD has a majority in the legislative body, his selection by the party almost guarantees that he will win the election for the leadership position.

The election was conducted behind closed doors at the Playa Bonita Hotel in Veracruz. It was chaired by Francisco Rodríguez, president of the Comisión Nacional de Elecciones of the PRD, and legislator Elías Castillos, head of the party's Comité Ejecutivo Nacional (CEN). Rodríguez ran unopposed. At the meeting, Nelson Jackson of Colón was named his deputy candidate.

There was a close election for second vice-chair between Elizabeth de Quirós and Maricruz Padilla.After a vote that lasted almost an hour, Quirós won with 26 votes to Padilla's 16. Rodríguez acknowledged that the next year will be dominated by the presidential elections, but he vowed not to let the Asamblea's administrative duties go unattended because of the campaign.

“We can not leave the Asamblea unattended, because it would be like leaving the country unattended,” he said. Formal elections for the leadership positions within the Asamblea will be held Sept. 1.

Contrary to previous evidence, a new University of Florida study shows the Isthmus of Panama was most likely formed by a Central American Peninsula colliding slowly with the South American continent through tectonic plate movement over millions of years.

The study, co-authored by Florida Museum of Natural History researchers Michael Kirby, Douglas Jones and Bruce MacFadden, is published in the July 30 issue of PLoS ONE, the online journal of the Public Library of Science. The study uses geologic, chemical and biologic methods to date rocks and fossils found in sides of the Gaillard Cut of the Panama Canal. The results show that instead of being formed by rising and subsiding ocean levels or existing as a string of islands as scientists previously believed, the Isthmus of Panama was first a peninsula of southern Central America before the underlying tectonic plates merged it with South America 4 million years ago.

President Torrijos's Cabinet released its package of security reforms yesterday, about a month after various public and private sector groups, along with the general public, began insisting on discussing the measures openly, before the government enacted them unilaterally by decree.

Members of the Consejo Nacional de la Empresa Privada (Conep), or National Private Enterprise Council, were the first to be briefed on the five draft laws aimed at tightening security and improving public safety, while attending a meeting late yesterday afternoon in the Salón Paz at the Palacio de las Garzas.

According to a press release from the Ministerio de Gobierno y Justicia, the government has now “detailed the principle features” of its reforms, which would create a Naval Air Service, the Servicio Aéreo Naval (SENAN); a National Border Service, the Servicio Nacional de Fronteras (Senafront); and partially reform the law regulating the National Police, the Policía Nacional. (PN).

An adviser to Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee for the presidency of the United States, gave clear indications yesterday that the candidate will support a free trade agreement with Panama once Pedro Miguel González leaves the presidency of the Asamblea Nacional.

“He anticipates the possibility of moving [forward on the agreement] when that situation has changed,” said Daniel Restrepo, director of the campaign's Latin American policy committee.

Senator Obama “has supported agreements with the kind of environmental protections and labor agreements that Panama now has,” Restrepo added. Obama recently voted in favor of a trade agreement with Peru but against one with Central America (CAFTA). In a speech in May, the candidate explained that protection for workers was, in his eyes, the crucial difference between the two agreements.

Supporting the free trade agreement with Panama is one of the ways Obama and his team are seeking to their bolster Latino support.

Obama's campaign team announced yesterday that it plans to spend $20 million in an “historic and unprecedented” effort to capture the Latino vote in the presidential elections in November.

Panamanian Gladys Bernett, a member of the Democratic Party's Leadership Council, was one of the activists who gathered yesterday to launch the effort to woo Latino voters.

The aunt of canoe fraudster John Darwin has criticised a holiday firm over plans to take British tourists to places he visited in Central America.

The 57-year-old and his wife Anne, 56, were jailed after John Darwin faked his own death in a canoe accident in 2002. They planned a new life in Panama.

Journey Latin America's week-long tour takes in Panama City and Lake Gatun, where the pair planned a canoe school.

Margaret Burns, 80, from County Durham, described the tour plan as "mad".

London-based Journey Latin America said it saw an opportunity to use the Darwin case to "make people aware" that Panama was a wonderful place.

It plans to charge people upwards of £1,400 for the holiday.

Marketing executive Laura Forsyth said: "It has been reported in the media that the Darwins visited Panama City and Gatun Lake, where they hoped to make a home and start up a canoe business.