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Highway blocked as Panama protests persist

AFP

Large trucks and banner-waving demonstrators blocked the Panamerican Highway and other roads in Panama on Friday as two weeks of revolt against high prices and corruption showed no signs of abating.

As protesters ignored government calls for negotiations to end the angry mobilization, dozens of blockades were maintained on the critical highway that connects the country of 4.4 million people to the rest of Central America.

At one roadblock, outside the city of Aguadulce, protester Nelly Jaen, a 63-year-old homemaker, told AFP: “We are desperate. Panama cannot take any more of this.”

“Lower the price of food, fuel and medicine, because we can’t stand it in this country any longer,” added truck driver Arnulfo Sarmiento, 53.

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Its economy hurt by the coronavirus pandemic and Russia’s war on Ukraine, Panama is experiencing one of its most difficult periods since the military dictatorship of General Manuel Antonio Noriega fell in 1989.

Year-on-year inflation of 4.2 percent was recorded in May, along with an unemployment rate of about 10 percent and fuel price hikes of nearly 50 percent since January.

Despite its dollarized economy and high growth figures, the country has a high rate of social inequality.

Economic woes have led to a shortage of fuel in some parts of the country, and stalls at food markets in the capital have run out of products to sell.

“Politicians are the biggest thieves,” said another of the Aguadulce protesters, 41-year-old homemaker Mitzila Chanis.

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“But it is also partly the fault of the people who keep electing swindlers, scoundrels and liars… That’s what they are. While they are eating ham, the people have nothing.”

In a bid to calm the mood, President Laurentino Cortizo has announced reductions on the price of fuel and some foods, but unions rejected the measure as insufficient and refused to take part in negotiations scheduled for Thursday with mediation by the Catholic Church.

“The social explosion we are experiencing is not the product of an isolated event or of short-term increases in fuel and food,” ex-president Martin Torrijos said on Friday.

“It is the accumulation of neglected demands… and an evident deterioration in the quality of life of Panamanians,” he added.

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FBI Most Wanted Fugitive Arrested in Mexico and Deported to U.S.

Authorities in Mexico announced Thursday that Samuel Ramírez Jr., a U.S. citizen accused of murdering two women and listed among the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, was arrested in the northern state of Sinaloa.

Ramírez Jr., 33, was detained Tuesday in Culiacán just 1 hour and 13 minutes after being added to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Ten Most Wanted list, the agency said in a statement.

The suspect, who was born in California, has already been deported to the U.S. state of Washington, where he faces charges related to the fatal shooting of two women at a bar in Federal Way in May 2023.

A court issued an arrest warrant for Ramírez in November last year, and the FBI initially offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to his capture, later increasing the amount to up to $1 million.

“To protect individuals’ privacy and ensure continued cooperation from the public, the FBI does not confirm the identity of those who provide information,” the agency said in its statement.

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UN experts warn Nicaragua runs vast transnational network to monitor exiled dissidents

Nicaragua maintains an “extensive” transnational network to monitor and intimidate opposition figures living in exile, affecting “hundreds of thousands” of people, the United Nations Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua warned on Tuesday.

In a statement, the experts said their report “details an extensive transnational architecture of surveillance and intelligence used to monitor, intimidate and attack the hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans living abroad.”

The report, which will be presented on March 16 to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, states that the structure maintained by the government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo includes the army, the police, migration authorities and diplomatic missions.

According to the statement, “the government has arbitrarily stripped 452 Nicaraguans of their nationality, left thousands more exiled in a situation of de facto statelessness, and prevented many from returning to Nicaragua.”

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Trump: ‘We Think It’s True’ Amid Claims Iran’s Supreme Leader Was Killed

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he believes multiple reports claiming the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during the U.S. and Israeli offensive against the Islamic Republic are likely true, though he stopped short of confirming the news.

“We have a feeling that the information is correct,” he said, according to NBC News. “I don’t want to say anything definitive until I see it, but we think that’s the case. And many of their leaders have disappeared,” he added.

Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there were “many indications” that Khamenei had died in an attack on his residential compound.