Linger longer, learn the lingo

Steve McKenna learns how to wrap his lips around 'Espanol' with the locals in Latin America.

Latin America is an increasingly popular holiday destination for Australians. The thing is, most of us head there knowing little in the way of Spanish, unless you count si, no and gracias. While this won't matter so much if you're sticking to major tourist spots such as Machu Picchu, staying in five-star hotels or mingling with fellow English speakers on the gringo trail, if you're looking to leave the beaten track, chat to locals, sleep in humble B&Bs, ride local transport or eat in down-to-earth diners, it's essential that you know a bit of the lingua franca.

Fortunately, Spanish schools have swelled across South and Central America in the past few years, offering every chance to learn the lingo, while immersing yourself in the culture.

Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Santiago (Chile) are the obvious - and most expensive - options, especially if you want to indulge in city life. If you'd prefer less hustle and bustle and more bang for your buck, you won't go far wrong with these sublime spots.

Arequipa, Peru

Lima may be its capital and Cusco its tourist darling but Arequipa is, quite simply, Peru's best-looking city.

Set against a backdrop of enormous snow-layered volcanoes, it has magnificent architecture and a fabulous selection of cafes, restaurants, museums, shops and parks, making it a wonderful place to stay a few weeks.

It's also a smart place in which to knuckle down and start swotting up on your Spanish. Not only is Arequipa budget-friendly, it's far from clogged with English speakers, unlike Cusco, where they're everywhere.

I found it much easier to learn Spanish surrounded by people who couldn't speak English, forcing me to speak their language. Like they say, practice makes perfect. Well, almost.

The Spanish School Arequipa (spanishschoolarequipa.com) offers beginners' courses for $US125 ($135) a week (20 hours class time).

Sucre, Bolivia

Just strolling the streets of sunny, postcard-pretty Sucre, with its blaze of ornate whitewashed buildings, manicured parks and colourful plazas, is a pleasure.

It's remarkably laid-back for a capital city - a status it guards jealously from the country's biggest metropolis, La Paz - and it's a wonderful place to pitch up for some Spanish classes.

Private lessons at Bolivian Spanish School (bolivianspanishschool.com) cost $US6.50 an hour, although it's half the price if you study in a group.

After class, Sucre offers a string of excellent bars and restaurants to hang out in. The newest is Florin (Calle Bolivar 567), a stylish Dutch-Bolivian place that serves an excellent blend of national and international food.

Don't leave without trying Florin's delicious "pique a lo macho". One of Bolivia's most famous dishes, it comprises a jumble of chips, beef, chicken, salami sausage, tomatoes, onions and peppers, lashed with a creamy "beer" sauce.

Boquete, Panama

Rural and idyllic, the highland town of Boquete is the place to base yourself if you like long walks in the verdant countryside, quiet evenings and fine coffee from the award-winning local plantations.

Panamanians say Boquete has changed beyond all recognition in the past decade because of the influx of elderly Americans retiring there.

But it's still a sleepy place and Spanish is, by far, the dominant language used on the streets.

Panama is one of the Americas' more expensive places to study, though still less pricey than Buenos Aires or Santiago.

Boquete's highly rated Habla Ya Panama Spanish School (hablayapanama.com) offers a selection of tailor-made courses, with discounts the longer you stay. A 60-hour crash course is $US500 ($538).

If you'd prefer to learn by the seaside, El Paraiso (elparaisoschool.com) offers week-long courses at Bocas del Toro, a beautiful archipelago on Panama's Caribbean coast, a three-hour drive from Boquete. The price is $US205 a week.

Medellin, Colombia

Though other Latin Americans will disagree, Colombians claim they speak the purest form of Spanish in the Americas. And if you believe Paisas, the people from Medellin, there's no better place to pick up the language than in the City of Eternal Spring.

Back in the 1980s and '90s, you'd have been mad to come here. Medellin was under the vice of drug lord Pablo Escobar and murder and kidnappings were rife. With him long gone, however, this perennially sunny city is much safer, very friendly and a joy to spend time in.

Medellin's plush upmarket suburbs such as El Poblado have scores of excellent restaurants, cafes and bars that are filled with beautiful people who are eminently approachable - especially if you can speak Spanish.

There are some fine Spanish schools in town. Enroll at Nueva Lengua (nuevalengua.com) and you'll get 20 hours of lessons for $US180. Nexus Academy (nexusmedellin.com) is another option.

Antigua, Guatemala

There are more Spanish schools in Antigua than coffee shops - and that's saying something. This gorgeous old colonial town is arguably the prettiest in central America and certainly the most popular with foreigners but it won't be to everyone's liking. In fact, some moan that it's too touristy and not the real Guatemala, largely because it's clean, safe and well-run.

But despite a heavy smattering of tourists, there are worse places to learn Spanish. And with so much competition for your custom, you're bound to find cheap deals - including packages that enable you to stay with a local family.

By lodging, you can immerse yourself deeper in Guatemalan culture and practise your Spanish at the dinner table while sampling the local cuisine.

For a full overview of language schools in Antigua, see visitguatemala.com.

Academia de Espanol Antiguena (spanishacademyantiguena.com) and Proyecto Linguistico Francisco Marroquin (spanishschoolplfm.com) are long-standing institutions. Expect to pay about $US90 for a 20-hour course, plus $US70 for a week's lodging.

Honorary mentions

GRANADA, NICARAGUA Super-cheap Spanish schools abound in this gorgeous colonial town, which sits on the banks of Lago Nicaragua, the largest lake in Central America. See granadanicaraguaspanish.com.

CORDOBA, ARGENTINA Dubbed one of the cultural capitals of the Americas, this vibrant university city is awash with theatres, museums, cafes and bars — plus a handful of Spanish schools. See coined.com.ar.

CUENCA, ECUADOR This charming colonial town, tucked amid Andean mountains and valleys, boasts pleasant drinking and dining spots and is a fine place to learn Spanish. See sicentrospanishschool.com.

Source:smh.com.au/

Canadian aid workers say aid slowly reaching Haiti quake survivors

TORONTO — Help was slowly starting to reach desperate survivors of the earthquake in Haiti Saturday, despite the massive infrastructure damage suffered in the disaster, Canadian aid groups said.

World Vision, UNICEF and the Canadian Red Cross said planes with relief supplies landed at the airport in Port-au-Prince Saturday and more are on the way. Supplies were also being trucked in from the Dominican Republic, the Red Cross said.

However aid workers describe a chaotic situation with people sleeping in the streets, damaged hospitals and some roads that are difficult to travel.

Steve Matthews of World Vision Canada said in an interview Saturday from Port-au-Prince that the chaos there has increased over the past three days and it's harder to get around the city but aid is getting through.

"It seems that those who have cars that didn't have gasoline for them have found fuel and they're out driving around," said Matthews, 52, who's from London, Ont.

Some streets remain inaccessible but the main roads can be travelled although debris on the side of the road makes the lanes very thin. He described a surreal scene as he drove at night, illuminated by headlights.

"You see things along the edge of the road and you're kind of (think) what is that and then you realize it's 300 people sleeping basically side by side by side along the edge of the road and that's all over the edge of the city," he said.

"When they're sleeping it looks kind of freaky because it looks like dead bodies. In this city that's been destroyed, that's in rubble, that's pulverized, it's very surreal, very eerie."

The priority remains on search and rescue operations as time starts to run out, said Isabelle Marin of Montreal, with the Panama-based Red Cross Pan American Disaster Response Unit, in an interview from Port-au-Prince Saturday.

Marin said there is still hope of finding people alive in debris. She told of a dramatic rescue of a family that had texted they were trapped in rubble in Port-au-Prince, despite the limited communications there.

"Our team leader today managed to relay a (text) message practically across the world, through Canada, through here, through Panama to Europe back to the search and rescue unit so they could go and rescue a family that had contacted by text message that they were trapped under the rubble," said Marin.

A convoy of Canadian Red Cross doctors and nurses also arrived and set up base camp Saturday, said Marin.

An emergency hospital advance team from the International Committee of the Red Cross went to the hospital in the centre of the city Saturday and performed triage, she said.

Two cargo flights with hospital and surgical supplies have landed and a Canadian cargo plane has landed, said Marin.

Within the day or two, a Norwegian Red Cross field hospital will be set up to provide "the emergency health care that's very much needed," she said.

Canadian doctors and nurses will be part of an international team that will staff the field hospital.

"The International Committee of the Red Cross actually has 40 tonnes of supplies that will be on the ground within the next 24 hours to be distributed," said Katie Kallio of the Canadian Red Cross in an interview from Ottawa on Saturday.

The Red Cross, which has been in Haiti since 2006, already had some supplies in the region which it quickly deployed. From its warehouse in Panama, it has sent 15,000 blankets, 3,000 buckets, 6,000 tarps, 4,000 mosquito nets and 2,000 jerry cans to the quake zone.

The Haitian Red Cross Society has hundreds of volunteers on the ground distributing these items. For them, and it's overwhelming, said Kallio.

"These are people who not only see the immense needs but they themselves have lost their homes, they've lost their families. Members of their own neighbourhoods and communities have been affected by this," she said.

A plane carrying water and sanitation materials from UNICEF landed at the Port-au-Prince Airport on Friday while another arrived Saturday, said UNICEF Canada president Nigel Fisher in Toronto.

"That means water purification tablets, jerry cans, larger bladder tanks, oral rehydration salts given to children when they have diarrhea to stop that. We had several water and sanitation engineers on the flight," said Fisher.

The distribution of water bottles has been proceeding although some locations have been difficult with a large crowd forming, "and in one or two places it was getting a little rough," said Fisher.

But on the whole, he said, UNICEF has not seen too many incidents.

Source:AFP

Panama Names December Students Of The Month

PANAMA - Panama Central School officials recently announced their Students of the Month for December. Those chosen are as follows:

Cathleen Monroy, ninth grade and the daughter of Carlos and Joan Monroy of Panama. Her hobbies include swimming and basketball. Her favorite subject in school is art, her favorite musical group is McFly, her favorite TV show is Gossip Girl and Beverly Hills 90210 and she belongs to the Spanish Club.

Jade Annabel, 10th grade and the daughter of John and Verna Lepley of Panama. Jade's hobbies include listening to music, bowling, singing and acting, tennis, volleyball, hanging out with friends, baking, and trying and learning new things. Her favorite school subject is Spanish, favorite music groups are Chosen, KJ52, Kutless, Scapegoat and Skillet, favorite TV shows are Grey's Anatomy, NCIS, Bones, the Flintstones and the Closer and she belongs the Drama and Language clubs, Acettes singing group, church youth group and IMPACT.

Chris Enlow, 11th grade and the son of Jeff and Larissa Enlow of Panama. His hobbies include playing in the Gus Macker 3-on-3 basketball tournament every year with Nick Lenart and Zach Lubi, watching the Syracuse Orangemen, Denver Nuggets, Atlanta Braves, Buffalo Bills and Buffalo Sabres play and hanging out with friends or family. Chris' favorite subjects in school are math and gym, he enjoys any new music, his favorite TV show is SportsCenter and he is a member of the National Honor Society, chorus, Panama United Methodist Church Youth Group, and is on the Panama basketball, football and baseball teams.

Ashlyn Ruth, 12th grad and the daughter of Lisa Minton of Jamestown and Tim Ruth of Ashville. Ashlyn's hobbies and interests include varsity soccer and basketball, indoor soccer, fashion and hanging out with friends. Her favorite subject is economics, her favorite musician is John Mayer, her favorite TV shows are Law and Order and Gilmore Girls, and she belongs to the Language Club, National Honor Society, Band Council and the Pride Council.

Source:post-journal.com/

Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. March

Sunday's rainy and gloomy weather didn't keep the sound of freedom from downtown Panama City during the Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Walk.



Source:wjhg.com/

Tyndall Federal Credit Union Has Reached $1 Billion in Assets

PANAMA CITY, FL - Tyndall Federal Credit Union is pleased to announce that the credit union reached a milestone of $1 billion in total assets at the end of December 2009.



“We were able to achieve this milestone as a result of the hard work of our employees, prudent guidance from our Board of Directors, and most of all, our member-owners, who have trusted us as their financial provider,” said Jim Warren, President and CEO of Tyndall. “We hope all of our members are proud to say that they own a $1 billion credit union.”



Tyndall Federal is a federally chartered, not-for-profit financial cooperative serving over 100,000 members worldwide with assets of more than $1 billion. Currently, Tyndall has branches in Panama City , Panama City Beach, Tyndall Air Force Base, Lynn Haven, Parker, Port St. Joe, Marianna, and Chipley , Florida . Tyndall also has a new branch location in Dothan , Alabama which was opened in late 2009.

Source:fosterfollynews.com/

Russia rows back on plans in Nicaragua channel construction

Russia has rowed back on plans to take part in the construction of a canal across Nicaragua, linking the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, saying it needs to reassess current financial conditions before making a final decision.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev accepted over a year ago his Nicaraguan counterpart's proposal to study the possibilities of participation by Russia's state and private sectors in an enterprise to build a canal through Nicaragua.

However, Sergei Aristov, a Russian deputy transportation minister, gave on Monday a less optimistic remark on the proposal, saying that Russia must first review its foreign financial ambitions in the light of the ongoing global financial crisis.

"Considering the financial situation in the world, as well as the beginning of the Panama Canal reconstruction, the given issue needs additional elaboration taking into account the altered economic conditions," Aristov said at a meeting with Nicaraguan Deputy Foreign Minister Coronel Kautz.

Russia was hit hard by the global economic and financial meltdown, prompting authorities to devalue the national currency, pump liquidity into the banking sector and provide loans to domestic businesses to keep the economy afloat.

With the federal budget deficit expected to hit 6.8% of GDP this year, the Russian government will have to resort to borrowing on world capital markets for the first time in 10 years to bridge budget gaps and maintain macroeconomic stability.

The proposed canal, whose construction is estimated by experts at $18 billion, would be able to accommodate ships larger than those that can pass through the Panama Canal, even after its enlargement.

MOSCOW, January 18 (RIA Novosti)

Source:en.rian.ru/

Argentina, Panama send humanitarian aid to Haiti

BUENOS AIRES, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Argentine government on Thursday sent a planeload of medical equipment and relief supplies to Haiti, which was hit by a magnitude-7.3 earthquake on Tuesday.

An air force Hercules C-130 plane carrying water, power generators, satellite telephones and food, as well as staff of the United Nations peacekeeping force and rescue workers, took off Thursday evening from an airport in the western suburb of Buenos Aires.

Before the plane took off, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez said: "It is not enough with a humanitarian mission. There is a lot of poverty, indigence, unemployment and insecurity. With a 78-percent unemployment rate, the insecurity level is really high."

On Friday, another Argentine plane will fly to Haiti with more humanitarian aid.

Also on Thursday, Panama sent to Haiti a cargo plane carrying 22 rescue workers and four sniffer dogs, as well as 15 tons of food and medical supplies.

Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli said the plane also carried badly needed communication equipment, water purifying machines, tents and other relief items.

Arturo Alvarado, director of the Panamanian National System of Civil Protection, said the Panamanian rescue workers will stay in Haiti for 10 days and work in coordination with the Haitian authorities.

Source:news.xinhuanet.com/

Bunker Hill en route to help Haiti mission

SAN DIEGO — The guided missile cruiser Bunker Hill was making full speed Saturday from the coast of Panama to reach Haiti and join U.S. military efforts in the Caribbean island devastated by Tuesday’s massive earthquake.

Bunker Hill will join other San Diego-based ships, including destroyer Higgins and aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, already off the coast of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital city. Officials fear that the death toll, currently estimated at about 50,000, will rise above 100,000 as searches and assessments continue.

The ships are part of the Navy’s expanding sea base, which will include four ships with Norfolk, Va.-based Bataan Amphibious Ready Group as well as the hospital ship Comfort, which was leaving its home in Baltimore for the humanitarian and disaster relief mission led by U.S. Southern Command. The Bataan group is carrying landing craft and Marines, vehicles and helicopters with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit from Camp Lejeune, N.C.

With Port-au-Prince’s seaport nearly destroyed by the powerful quake, and a limited tarmac and support at the city’s international airport, military and U.S. Coast Guard helicopters are filling a central role in assisting evacuations of the wounded, transporting military and medical personnel and delivering supplies to areas made even more remote and inaccessible by vehicles.

“The big action going on here are helicopters flying of the Carl Vinson,” Higgins’ commanding officer, Cmdr. Carl Meuser, said in a telephone interview Saturday from the ship, which was operating 16 miles from the capital. “There are heavy lift helicopters and carrier-onboard delivery aircraft flying” between Haiti, Vinson and the naval base at Guantanamo Bay.

Higgins, carrying a crew of about 270 sailors, arrived Thursday off the coast. Meuser said Navy officials were concerned that the quake might have altered the seabed and potentially put underwater obstacles in the way that could damage ships’ hulls, so the ship guided Vinson through the channels and into the port.

Bunker Hill had left San Diego on Jan. 10 to load weapons at Seal Beach Naval Station, Calif., and was headed to Panama for a scheduled port visit when orders came to join the Haiti mission.

“By Wednesday, we were making full speed toward Panama to accelerate our arrival,” said Capt. Dominic DeScisciolo, Bunker Hill’s skipper, in the joint teleconference call with Higgins’ commander as his ship sailed off the Pacific side of Panama. The ship’s sailors “really want to try to make a difference to ease the suffering on the ground.”

The ship is expected to reach Haiti and by early Monday join Vinson and Carrier Strike Group 1, which is led by Rear Adm. Ted Branch aboard Vinson.

Like Higgins, Bunker Hill does not have its own complement of helicopters but is “a very capable ship,” DeScisciolo said, noting the ship’s advanced radars, sensors and air control capabilities that “will allow us to provide these services for all of the helicopters navigating back and forth from Guantanamo to Port-au-Prince.”

“Our full goal is to try to stem the human suffering,” he said.

Higgins can support the Navy’s H-60 Seahawk helicopters, while Bunker Hill, with a larger flight deck, can accommodate an array of Coast Guard, Air Force and Marine Corps helicopters, including the CH-46E Sea Knight medium lift transport that will arrive in the region with the Bataan ready group.

That air support, along with fixed-wing aircraft that are operating out of the capital’s airport, will be critical in delivering much-needed water, food and medical supplies to help the affected Haitians because the quake knocked out the capital’s seaport.

“The port facility itself was wrecked,” Meuser said, noting that a large crane used to move containers from the pier “just fell into the water. The port itself is just unusable.”

As they join in with delivering supplies and aid and helping transport the wounded, both skippers also have their attention on the security situation, particularly off the coast as fears surface of a mass migration of Haitian refugees if help doesn’t come quick enough. Haiti’s recent past is dotted with the tidal wave of refugees escaping civil war and severe poverty and taking to the high seas in small boats, inflatable tubes and even 50-gallon drums in efforts to reach Florida, Cuba or other islands.

“That is something that is getting a fair amount of attention at levels above me,” Meuser said. “At this point, we haven’t seen that big migration or signs of that.” If the situation gets dire, he said, “we could very well have something of a mass migration.”

Such flow of refugees “has been done before,” he added.

That could lead to “the worst case scenario,” said DeScisciolo. “If the poor, destitute Haitians decided … they would rather take their chances and take to their boats … that will pose quite a vexing problem for us. We certainly would keep our ship secure.”

Ships would render aid to any imperiled on the seas as needed under existing international laws of the sea, the skippers said.

Higgins’ equipment includes two rigid-hull boats and boat teams that could help pluck Haitians out of the water, and the ship could provide food and aid, “but then we have to take them some place,” Meuser said.

Meuser said the mission, coming near the end of Higgins’ round-the-world deployment, shows the Navy is “the global force for good” hailed in the service’s latest recruiting slogan. “We are going to stay here as long as we are told to stay,” he added.

Source:navytimes.com/

Students go Lego loco

Jan 17, 2010 (The News Herald - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- PANAMA CITY BEACH -- About 100 robot-building students from across the Panhandle pitted their machines against the clock and obstacles Saturday for top honors in a Florida Lego League regional meet.
Thirteen Florida and Alabama teams, with names like the Terra Bytes, WildBots, Robonauts and BayBots, met at Surfside Middle School with hopes of qualifying for the statewide Lego competition in February.

Kathy Jones and Jay Buddi, preengineering teachers at Surfside, have been working with the students since September to prepare for the contest. The event was the first Florida Lego League qualifying tournament held in Northern Florida.



Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference and EXPO East, January 20-22, 2010. Miami, FL.
Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference and EXPO East, January 20-22, 2010. Miami, FL.
Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference and EXPO East, January 20-22, 2010. Miami, FL.
Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference and EXPO East, January 20-22, 2010. Miami, FL.
Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference and EXPO East, January 20-22, 2010. Miami, FL.
Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference and EXPO East, January 20-22, 2010. Miami, FL.

Participants, all between the ages of 10 and 14, were tasked with creating a robot and with researching and resolving a problem within their communities. They presented their research projects and put their robots to work at the qualifier.

Robots were evaluated on design and performance. Volunteer judges also awarded points to machines that successfully completed missions, such as crossing a Lego bridge.

Students also had to demonstrate their ability to work well in teams. They were presented with a problem they hadn't seen before -- building a mode of transportation from things like egg cartons and golf balls -- and scored on teamwork.

Surfside team members said they worried most about how their robots would fare against those of other teams.

"The nerve-wracking waiting is the hardest part," Court Rogers, 12, said. "You can't see what the other teams are doing." "But, mostly, it's just a competition against yourself, to test yourself," Meredith Bush, 13, added.

Ed Kloess, an engineer at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division, judged the teams. He said he was impressed by the students.

"They've come a really long way, both in their programming skills and in their understanding of problem solving," Kloess said. "It's been phenomenal." Forthefourthprongofthecompetition,most teamsperformedskitstopresenttheirresearch projects. Surfside's two teams, the BayBots and the PiBots, focused on transportation issues.

The BayBots developed a plan to resolve traffic backups at the campus, while the PiBots pitched their ideas on how to improve bike lanes to members of the Bay County Chamber of Commerce.

The BayBots presented their plan to the school's principal last week; it's already been implemented and is working well, Jones said.

Although Surfside's two teams won first place and best overall at Saturday's event, Jones said the students won't be heading to the next regional meet. They attended a qualifying meet in Central Florida in the fall, she said, and can't afford to make the trip again.

Instead, teams from the Junior Museum and Oakland Terrace Elementary School in Panama City, and from Holy Comforter Episcopal School in Tallahassee, were invited to compete in the state qualifier.

Source:tmcnet.com/

Panama Ex President in Money Laundering Case

PANAMA - Panama ex President Ernesto Perez Balladares, now under home arrest, calls attention from political parties and other sectors as first action against organized crime.

Prosecutor Jose Ayu Prado is leading this probe, first against an ex president for alleged money laundering through gambling concessions during his 1994-1999 government.

The prosecution claims political pressure to affect the ex president's image while the defense already rejected nine charges for the alleged fraud.

Opposition Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD) also exposed the slanted interpretation of justice for the arrest coincides with adverse climate and does not follow due process.

Source:insidecostarica.com/

Panama set for pineapple export boom

Panama is starting 2010 with a boost to its fresh produce exports, as vice-minister for foreign trade José Domingo Arias announced at a press conference last week that Panama aims to rival Costa Rica as Central America’s largest exporter of pineapples.

Arias said Panama has great potential and is now in a position to exploit that, given the range of microclimates in its different regions, most importantly the Capira-Chorrera corridor in the west of the country. He added that so far, only 10 per cent of suitable area is dedicated to production in the regions benefiting from an ideal microclimate.

The government is encouraging exports with various measures, including a new law for investment in industry and investment certificates for agricultural exports. Trade agreements have also been signed with Cuba and Costa Rica and negotiations with Canada completed.

Arias believes that the melon, watermelon and pineapple sectors stand to be among the main beneficiaries of the new incentives. He said: “Pineapple production in Panama is very stable, so we can enter the market at times of shortage.”

He said that in 2010, Panama will increase the area under production of these three key export lines to 4,000 hectares, from 2,500ha in 2009.

However, there is still a long way to go before pineapple production reaches the scale of Costa Rica, where some 40,000ha are dedicated to the crop.
Source:freshinfo.com/

After One Year, an Assessment of Obama in Latin America

One year after taking office, President Obama has yet to usher in the new dawn in relations with Latin America he talked about during his campaign. It was a huge promise, given his predecessor’s visits to the region, free trade agreements with Colombia and Panama, the newly created Millennium Challenge Account directing more effective aid to countries there, the Merida Initiative for fighting drugs in Mexico, and the continuing success of the Clinton-era Plan Colombia.



Thus far, the Administration’s involvement with the Americas has been more reactive than proactive, dominated as it has been by a fuzzy strategic vision, unplanned events, obstructionists in Congress, and resource constraints.



Early in the new Administration, the White House made it clear it would not push Congress to approve the trade agreements Bush signed with Colombia and Panama, thereby rebuffing advances from two traditional friends and weakening economic relations further.



Obama’s softer approach toward anti-American regimes in the region did little to bring relief to the millions of Cubans still living under communist tyranny or to advance democracy and the rule of law in countries like Venezuela. By comparison, the Administration’s unexpectedly harsh approach to Hondurans who sought to protect their constitutional democracy when their President tried to conduct an illegal referendum was surprising. The Administration had hastily joined the likes of Hugo Chávez and Raul Castro demanding his reinstatement. And it was very slow to recognize the democratic and constitutional elections to replace Zelaya on November 29th.



Equally confusing for those who’ve worked for human rights and freedoms in the region is the Administration’s ambivalence to inroads that Iran, China, and Russia are making there, leading pundits to once more proclaim the last rites for the Monroe Doctrine. Add to this the Administration’s lackluster approach to Mexico’s problems, including its 6 percent economic contraction and its increasingly brutal drug violence, and it's no wonder many Americans are more jittery about our southern flank.



The horrific earthquake in Haiti on January 12th ended Obama’s first year of engagement in Latin America on a somber note. The humanitarian response thus far by Americans and by the Administration demonstrates our capacity for compassion and action. But fixing Haiti will require more long-term commitment, and bold departures from the traditional forms of development assistance and governance that have failed that country so miserably.



Regaining America’s historic position of leadership in the Americas will not be easy. The President must focus his strategy this next year on activities that not only address core U.S. interests, such as expanding trade, reducing corruption, and attracting investment to create jobs on both sides of our border. He must also focus on ways to help the people of Latin America strengthen their democratic institutions; and ways to achieve closer cooperation in our fight against international crime, drugs, and terrorism.

——————————

Ray Walser is a Senior Policy Analyst specializing in Latin America at The Heritage Foundation, The Foundry, The Heritage Foundation, January 16, 2010.

Source:mexidata.info/