Yearbook 2017
Panama. During the year, President Juan Carlos Varela became increasingly involved in the investigations of the corruption scandal surrounding the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht. According to Countryaah.com, it began in February when one of the defendants in this case about the so-called Panama Documents claimed that Varela received illegal campaign funding during the 2009 election campaign. it would have been bribery. See ABBREVIATIONFINDER for frequently used acronyms and abbreviations related to as well as country profile of Panama.
Also Varela’s representative, President Ricardo Martinelli (2009-14), was included in the tours around Odebrecht with charges of bribery of more than $ 59 million to decision makers to secure contracts for infrastructure projects around the country. In August, however, the Supreme Court ruled that the investigation against Martinelli should be closed, which caused great upset, and Prosecutor Kenia Porcell, who energetically dedicated to combating bribery, declared that the Prosecutor’s Office received threats from the country’s most important economic players in connection with the corruption investigation. Martinelli himself, who lives in exile in the US, was arrested by US police in June and requested to be extradited to Panama.
Not least, the expansion of the Panama Canal became the focus of the corruption investigations, as the colossal construction was undertaken by a number of private companies. Ironically, the head of the country’s anti-corruption agency demanded, already the day after the one-year anniversary of the new channel’s inauguration, that two members of the channel authority should resign, and the prosecutor initiated a preliminary investigation against them. However, the new channel proved to have lived up to expectations: boat traffic increased by 22% in the first year and part of the country’s large GDP increase during the first four months, over 6%, could be linked to the channel.
Three eras of Panama City
If the channel comes to mind first when talking about Panama, it is worth watching more. Three different eras of Panama City tell the tourist about the region’s past. Old Panama was founded by the Spaniards in 1519 to ship gold to the mainland and also to unload cargo from there. Only the ruins of the prosperous city remain, as pirate Henry Morgan took the gold with him and destroyed the city.
After this, people were better equipped and a fortress was built in Casco Viejo against attacks from the sea. It was sheltered by a colonial-style district, to which French canal builders later brought their own architectural addition. Part of Casco Viejo was badly bombed in 1989 when the United States ousted President Noriega with armed intervention after he was caught engaging in international drug trafficking. Now this idyllic, refurbished fort is part of modern Panama City, with its dozens of skyscrapers, bank headquarters and shopping malls reminiscent of any major city of millions.
Weather conditions. – Located between 6 ° 50 ‘and 9 ° 4’ of lat. N., Panama has on the whole equatorial climate, that is, very hot and humid, not very different from that of other Central American countries. In the lower coastal parts the average annual temperatures are around 26-27 °, with annual excursions even lower than 2 °, and daytime excursions of about 8 °: Colón has an average annual temperature of 26 °, 6, with a maximum of 27 1 ° in April and August, and a minimum of 25 °, 9 ° in November; Balboa Heights has 25th, 8th respectively; 26th, 7th (April) and 25th, 2nd (November). Towards the interior, as the height increases, temperatures decrease, on average by 1 ° every 170 m. The rains are particularly abundant on the Atlantic side, where the NE trade winds blow from December to May, which lose most of their humidity. reaching almost dry on the Pacific side. Southern winds blow from June to November, bringing rain to the whole region. On the Atlantic side, the average annual rainfall exceeds 2500 mm everywhere, and in some places even 4000 (Bocas del Toro, 2714 mm.; Colón, 3249; S. Blas Farm, 3133; Porto Bello, 4004) and there is no dry season, but only a less rainy season, which usually runs from January to April; on the Pacific side, the annual rainfall is usually less than 2000 mm. (Penonomé, 1836 mm.; Balboa Heights, 1742; Garachiné, 1699), significantly exceeding this figure, however, in the higher areas. From January to March there is a real dry season. Sanitary conditions were once very bad, particularly in the lower parts, where swampy areas abound, nurseries of the larvae of the anopheles and stegomias, the former propagators of malaria, the latter of yellow fever. The Spaniards called the countryburial de vivos: and such it was in fact, since the most dangerous tropical diseases raged there, such as the two mentioned above and also dysentery, typhus, cholera, smallpox, plague, which made countless victims especially among the Whites. Now conditions have improved a lot in central Panama, after the major rehabilitation works carried out by the United States before and during the construction of the canal: in fact, mortality has dropped sharply both in the capital (1905, 660 ‰; 1922, 21 ‰) and in Colon (from 49 to 14 ‰). Unhealthy are still vast low-lying areas, where the air is full of miasmas deriving from the rapid decomposition of plants and where anopheles and stegomias can still multiply by the millions.
Continental waters. – The isthmus is at most 190 km wide, and therefore cannot have watercourses of considerable development, especially on the Atlantic side, where the reliefs follow closely the coast; moreover, the Chagres should be remembered, since its course was used for the construction of the canal. The Chepo (or Bayano), 150 km long, and the Tuyra, 175 km long, flow into the Pacific; both end with navigable estuaries. The rivers of Panamá are generally rich in water, due to the abundance of rains, impetuous in the mountain course, where rapids and waterfalls are not uncommon, slow, however, in the lower course, where they have sinuous beds, cluttered with plant debris and closed between curtains of vegetation, which in the humid areas presents a truly spectacular exuberance.