Panama says it has postponed until Aug. 12 a U.N. …read more
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Tag Archives: Panama
USA vs Panama Live Stream Free Soccer: Watch Online Gold Cup 2013 Final CONCACAF Football
USA vs Panama takes place in the Gold Cup 2013 Final on Sunday afternoon with the United States looking to claim their 11th straight win and extend their record breaking run even further by claiming the CONCACAF crown. …read more
Source: The Christian Post
Gold Cup Final 2013: U.S. Beats Panama In Final, 1-0 (VIDEO)
By The Huffington Post News Editors
By Mike Slane, Goal.com
CHICAGO — Jurgen Klinsmann helped get them there, and a young American squad did the rest to get their coach his first trophy with the United States.
With Klinsmann sitting in a booth high above the playing field at Soldier Field, the Stars and Stripes overcame their coach’s suspension and dominated Panama to walk away with a 1-0 victory and a Gold Cup title in front of a crowd 57,900 on Sunday afternoon.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post
Mexico vs Panama Live Stream Free Football: Watch Online Gold Cup 2013 CONCACAF Semifinal Soccer
Mexico vs Panama in the CONCACAF Gold Cup 2013 takes place on Wednesday night to see who will meet the USA in the final of this year’s competition. …read more
Source: The Christian Post
Red Cross visits crew of seized N. Korea ship in Panama
A delegation from the Panamanian Red Cross Tuesday visited the 35 crew members from a North Korea ship being held for carrying undeclared Cuban weapons. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
First high-resolution national carbon map—Panama
A team of researchers has for the first time mapped the above ground carbon density of an entire country in high fidelity. They integrated field data with satellite imagery and high-resolution airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data to map the vegetation and to quantify carbon stocks throughout the Republic of Panama. The results are the first maps that report carbon stocks locally in areas as small as a hectare (2.5 acres) and yet cover millions of hectares in a short time. The system has the lowest demonstrated uncertainty of any carbon-counting approach yet—a carbon estimation uncertainty of about 10% in each hectare overflown with LiDAR as compared to field-based estimates. Importantly, it can be used across a wide range of vegetation types worldwide. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
Mexico vs Trinidad & Tobago Live Stream Free Football: Watch Online Gold Cup 2013 CONCACAF Soccer
Mexico vs Trinidad & Tobago in the Gold Cup 2013 quarterfinals takes place on Saturday night, with Mexico safely through to the knock out stages following their shock opening loss to Panama. They will now be desperate to push on, claim a good win today and move through to the semifinals. …read more
Source: The Christian Post
Panama vs Cuba Live Stream Free Soccer: Watch Online CONCACAF Gold Cup 2013 Quarterfinals Football (Start Time, Live Score)
Panama vs Cuba in the Gold Cup 2013 soccer tournament takes place on Saturday afternoon with both teams looking to progress to the semi-finals of the CONCACAF competition. …read more
Source: The Christian Post
US: Wanted ex-CIA officer headed for US
A former CIA base chief convicted in the 2003 abduction of an Egyptian terror suspect is being sent to the United States instead of Italy, which wanted him to serve prison time for his role in the notorious anti-terrorism program known as extraordinary rendition, the U.S. State Department said Friday.
Robert Seldon Lady was detained in Panama this week after Italy and Interpol requested his arrest. After barely two days in detention, he was put on a plane to the U.S. by Panama, a close U.S. ally that offered no explanation for its decision.
“It’s my understanding that he is in fact either en route or back in the United States,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters in Washington. She declined to disclose other details about his case.
Italy’s deputy foreign minister, Lap Pistelli, said in a statement that Italy “acknowledges” Panama’s decision, adding nothing more about the case. Italy and Panama have no extradition treaty, Italian diplomats said, but Panama would have been free to send Lady to Italy if it wanted.
Lady had crossed the border into Costa Rica this week and was sent back to Panama where he was detained, according to an Italian official familiar with Italy’s investigation of the rendition of Cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the case.
A Panamanian National Police official said Lady, 59, had been detained Wednesday on the Costa Rica-Panama border. The official also spoke on condition of anonymity due to lack of authorization to discuss the matter.
Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, was hustled into a car in February 2003 on a street in Milan, where he preached, and transferred to U.S. military bases in Italy and Germany before being flown to Egypt. He alleged he was tortured in Egypt before being released.
Italy conducted an aggressive investigation and charged 26 CIA and other U.S. government employees despite objections from Washington. All left Italy before charges were filed in the first trial in the world involving the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program, under which terror suspects were abducted and transferred to third countries where many were tortured.
All of the U.S. suspects were eventually convicted but only Lady received a sentence — nine years in prison — that merited an extradition request under Italian legal guidelines.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Panama Arrests Ex-US Spy Over CIA Tactics
By Kevin Spak
A former American spy has been arrested in Panama at Italy’s behest over his role in the CIA’s controversial Bush-era extraordinary rendition tactic . An Italian court convicted Robert Seldon Lady , the CIA’s Milan bureau chief, and more than 20 other agents of kidnapping in 2009, but by then they had… …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Home
Lima: Where the pallbearers are black
Elegant in tuxedos and white gloves, the six black pallbearers silently and gracefully remove the mahogany coffin bearing a Lima tire magnate from his mansion. They slide it into the Cadillac hearse that will parade Jorge Reyna’s body through the Chorrillos district where he was once mayor.
The pallbearers are in the job precisely because of the color of their skin, a phenomenon unique to this South American capital that was the regional seat of Spain’s colonial empire for more than three centuries. In fact, prominent citizens such as Reyna, a widely respected, charitable man of indigenous origin who died at age 82, request black pallbearers for their funerals.
“He planned his funeral and wanted it to be elegant,” said Reyna’s widow, Clarisa Velarde.
Blacks routinely bear the caskets of ex-presidents, mining magnates and bankers to their tombs in Lima. The peculiar tradition exists neither in provincial Peruvian cities nor in other Latin American countries with significant black populations such as Brazil, Panama and Colombia.
It is not a profession chosen by Lima’s blacks but is rather thrust upon them by a lack of opportunity, say Afro-Peruvian scholars. And racism remains so deeply ingrained in Peru that many don’t consider the practice discriminatory.
“Beyond the question of racism or prejudice, I think it is simply a question of employment,” said Jose Campos, a leading Peruvian black studies scholar and vice rector of the National Education University.
For 61-year-old Armando Arguedas, who like his fellow pallbearers never finished elementary school, it’s simply a job.
“Some people are friendly,” he said of those who employ him. “Some don’t even say thank you.”
Black pallbearers were even used for the recent funeral of the wife of former U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar.
“We were never treated better,” said Arguedas. “The family members thanked us and paid us triple.”
Blacks are all but absent from Peru’s business and political elite and although slavery was abolished in 1854, only 2 percent of Peru’s blacks go to college. Afro-Peruvians are consigned largely to manual labor including as field hands in sugar cane plantations along the nation’s Pacific coast.
Census-takers don’t even register …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Ex-CIA agent convicted in Milan in kidnapping held in Panama
A former CIA base chief convicted in the 2003 abduction of a terror suspect from an Italian street has been detained in Panama after Italy requested his arrest in one of the most notorious episodes of the U.S. program known as extraordinary rendition, Italian and Panamanian officials said Thursday.
Robert Seldon Lady, the former CIA chief in Milan, entered Panama, crossed the border into Costa Rica and was sent back to Panama where he was detained, according to an Italian official familiar with Italy’s investigation of the rendition of Cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the case.
A Panamanian National Police official said Lady, 59, had been detained Wednesday on the Costa Rica-Panama border. The official also spoke on condition of anonymity due to lack of authorization to discuss the matter.
The government of Panama, which maintains one of the region’s closest relationships with the U.S., was officially silent on the case. Security Minister Jose Raul Mulino told The Associated Press that he was unaware of Lady’s detention and the press office of the National Police — which works with Interpol, the international police agency — said it had no information. The CIA also declined to comment.
Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, was hustled into a car in February 2003 on a street in Milan, where he preached, and transferred to U.S. military bases in Italy and Germany before being flown to Egypt. He alleged he was tortured in Egypt before being released.
Italy conducted an aggressive investigation and charged 26 CIA and other U.S. government employees despite objections from Washington. All left Italy before charges were filed in the first trial in the world involving the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program, under which terror suspects were abducted and transferred to third countries where many were subjected to torture.
All the U.S. suspects were eventually convicted but only Lady received a sentence — nine years in prison — that merited an extradition request under Italian legal guidelines. Two former Italian spy chiefs were also convicted this year for their role in the cleric’s kidnapping.
The case caused tensions between Rome and Washington, two traditionally stalwart allies. In April, Italy’s president, Giorgio Napolitano, pardoned a U.S. Air Force colonel convicted in the rendition case, a move Napolitano hoped would keep American-Italian relations strong, especially on security matters.
Napolitano said he granted the pardon in hopes of resolving an affair that the United States considered unprecedented because a U.S. military officer for NATO had been convicted for deeds committed on Italian territory.
The colonel, Joseph Romano, was security chief of the Aviano air base in northern Italy, where Nasr was taken on his way to Egypt.
In issuing the pardon, Napolitano’s office said the president had taken into consideration the fact that Obama, immediately after his election, had put an end to George W. Bush administration anti-terror practices that both Italy and the European Union considered to be “not compatible with fundamental principles of rule of law.”
Lady, who …read more
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Italy: convicted ex-CIA chief detained in Panama
The Italian justice ministry says a former CIA station chief who was convicted in the 2003 abduction of an Egyptian terror suspect from a street of Milan has been detained in Panama.
Robert Seldon Lady, the former Milan station chief, was sentenced by an Italian appeals court earlier this year in the extraordinary rendition case to nine years in prison after being tried in absentia in Italy.
The ministry said it didn’t immediately have details on when or where in the Central American country Lady was detained.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
N. Korea says Cuba arms seized on ship part of legitimate deal
North Korea’s foreign ministry said late Wednesday that Cuban arms seized from a Pyongyang-flagged ship in Panama’s waters were part of a legitimate deal and demanded the immediate release of the ship, state media reported.
“This cargo is nothing but ageing weapons which are to be sent back to Cuba after overhauling them according to a legitimate contract,” the Korea Central News Agency quoted the foreign ministry as saying, adding: “The Panamanian authorities should take a step to let the apprehended crewmen and ship leave without delay.”
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
NKorea to Panama: Free detained freighter and crew
North Korea’s Foreign Ministry says Panama should release the crew detained in the apprehension of a freighter carrying missile components because no drugs or illegal cargo were aboard.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman, who was not named by the official Korean Central News Agency, says “The Panamanian investigation authorities rashly attacked and detained the captain and crewmen of the ship on the plea of ‘drug investigation’ and searched its cargo but did not discover any drug.”
Decades-old missile components were found on board.
North Korea said Wednesday “This cargo is nothing but aging weapons which (North Korea) are to send back to Cuba after overhauling them according to a legitimate contract.”
North Korea says “The Panamanian authorities should take a step to let the apprehended crewmen and ship leave without delay.”
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Cuba calls weapons on North Korean ship 'obsolete'
Cuba said military equipment found buried under sacks of sugar on a North Korean ship seized as it tried to cross the Panama Canal was obsolete weaponry from the mid-20th century that it had sent to be repaired.
Panamanian authorities said it might take a week to search the ship, since so far they have only examined one of its five container sections. They have requested help from United Nations inspectors, along with Colombia and Britain, said Javier Carballo, Panama’s top narcotics prosecutor. North Korea is barred by U.N. sanctions from importing sophisticated weapons or missiles.
Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli said Tuesday that the ship identified as the 14,000-ton Chong Chon Gang, which had departed Cuba en route to North Korea, was carrying missiles and other arms “hidden in containers underneath the cargo of sugar.”
Martinelli tweeted a photo showing a green tube that appears to be a horizontal antenna for the SNR-75 “Fan Song” radar, which is used to guide missiles fired by the SA-2 air-defense system found in former Warsaw Pact and Soviet-allied nations, said Neil Ashdown, an analyst for IHS Jane’s Intelligence.
“It is possible that this could be being sent to North Korea to update its high-altitude air-defense capabilities,” Ashdown said. Jane’s also said the equipment could be headed to North Korea to be upgraded.
North Korea has not commented on the seizure, during which 35 North Koreans were arrested after resisting police efforts to intercept the ship in Panamanian waters last week, according to Martinelli. He said the captain had a heart attack and also tried to commit suicide.
But Cuba’s Foreign Ministry released a statement late Tuesday acknowledging that the military equipment belonged to the Caribbean nation, saying it had been shipped out to be repaired and returned to the island.
“The agreements subscribed by Cuba in this field are supported by the need to maintain our defensive capacity in order to preserve national sovereignty,” the statement read.
It said the vessel was bound for North Korea mostly loaded with sugar — 10,000 tons of it — but added that the cargo also included 240 metric tons of “obsolete defensive weapons”: two Volga and Pechora anti-aircraft missile systems, nine missiles “in parts and spares,” two Mig-21 Bis and 15 engines for those airplanes.
It …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Cuba claims as own weapons found on N. Korea ship
Cuba claimed as its own the arms found on board a North Korean ship that Panama impounded, saying the missile system parts were to be repaired and returned.
In a statement read on state television, Havana said the “obsolete” weaponry included anti-aircraft missile arrays, nine disassembled missiles and other parts, without mentioning where they were being sent.
“The agreements Cuba has signed in these areas are based on our need to maintain our defensive capacity to protect national sovereignty,” the statement said.
Panama called Tuesday for UN investigators to inspect a shipment of suspected weapons parts aboard a North Korean-flagged ship as it tried to enter the Panama Canal last week.
Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli tweeted a photo of the suspected weapons cache, which experts have identified as an aging Soviet-built radar control system for surface-to-air missiles.
Panama said the contraband munitions were hidden under thousands of bags of sugar aboard the North Korean-flagged Chong Chon Gang.
Officials said if the shipment is determined to contain missile components, that could violate a UN ban on most weapons being shipped into or out of North Korea.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
N. Korean ship carrying weapons seized near Panama Canal
A North Korean ship carrying weapons system parts buried under sacks of sugar was seized as it tried to cross the Panama Canal on its way from Cuba to its home country, which is barred by United Nations sanctions from importing sophisticated weapons or missiles, Panamanian officials said Tuesday.
The ship appeared to be transporting a radar-control system for a Soviet-era surface-to-air missile system, according to a private defense analysis firm that examined a photograph of the find.
Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli said the ship identified as the 14,000-ton Chong Chon Gang was carrying missiles and other arms “hidden in containers underneath the cargo of sugar.”
Martinelli tweeted a photo showing a green tube that appears to be a horizontal antenna for the SNR-75 “Fan Song” radar, which used to guide missiles fired by the SA-2 air-defense system found in former Warsaw Pact and Soviet-allied nations, said Neil Ashdown, an analyst for IHS Jane’s Intelligence.
“It is possible that this could be being sent to North Korea to update its high-altitude air-defense capabilities,” Ashdown said.
Panamanian authorities said one container buried under sugar sacks contained radar equipment that appears to be designed for use with air-to-air or surface-to-air missiles, said Belsio Gonzalez, director of Panama’s National Aeronautics and Ocean Administration. He said Panamanian authorities expected to find the missiles themselves in containers that must still be searched. An Associated Press journalist who gained access to the rusting ship saw green shipping containers that had been covered by hundreds, perhaps thousands, of white sacks marked “Cuban Raw Sugar.”
Later Tuesday, Cuba acknowledged that the military equipment belonged to the Caribbean nation, saying it had been shipped out to be repaired and returned to the island.
A statement from the Foreign Ministry said the vessel was bound for North Korea mostly loaded with sugar but added that the cargo also included 240 metric tons of “obsolete defensive weapons”: two Volga and Pechora anti-aircraft missile systems, nine missiles “in parts and spares,” two Mig-21 Bis and 15 engines for those airplanes.
“The agreements subscribed by Cuba in this field are supported by the need to maintain our defensive capacity in order to preserve national sovereignty,” the statement read.
The U.N. Security Council has imposed four rounds of increasingly tougher sanctions against North Korea since its first nuclear test on Oct. 9, 2006.
Under current sanctions, all U.N. member states are prohibited from directly or indirectly supplying, selling or transferring all arms, missiles or missile systems and the equipment and technology to make them to North Korea, with the exception of small arms and light weapons.
The most recent resolution, approved in March after Pyongyang’s latest nuclear test, authorizes all countries to inspect cargo in or transiting through their territory that originated in North Korea, or is destined to North Korea if a state has credible information the cargo could violate Security Council resolutions.
“Panama obviously has an important responsibility to ensure that the Panama Canal is utilized for safe and legal commerce,” said Acting U.S. Ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo, who is the current Security Council president. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Panama seizes North Korean ship
Panama’s president says on his Twitter account that authorities have seized a North Korean-flagged ship traveling from Cuba with “undeclared military cargo.”
President Ricardo Martinelli offered no details but posted a photo of what appeared to be a green tubular object sitting inside a cargo container or the ship’s hold.
Panamanian officials verified the tweet was authentic but did not immediately respond to requests for further details.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Panama stops N.Korean ship over missile material
Panama stopped a North Korean vessel that President Ricardo Martinelli said had sailed from Cuba and tried to illegally sneak suspected sophisticated missile material through the Panama Canal.
“The world needs to sit up and take note: you cannot go around shipping undeclared weapons of war through the Panama Canal,” Martinelli said, noting that the ship had been inspected to rule out drugs and was found to have other cargo of greater concern.
“We had suspected this ship, which was coming from Cuba and headed to North Korea, might have drugs aboard so it was brought into port for search and inspection,” on the Atlantic coast of the country, the president said on Radio Panama on Monday.
“When we started to unload the shipment of sugar we located containers that we believe to be sophisticated missile equipment, and that is not allowed,” Martinelli stressed, describing a dramatic scene in which he said the ship’s captain tried to kill himself.
“The captain has tried to commit suicide, and the crew also rioted,” when police moved in, Martinelli said. “So we are holding this vessel for further investigation.”
Cuba is the only one-party Communist regime in the Americas, and a rare ally of also-isolated Pyongyang.
China is the main ally of North Korea, which defiantly carried out its third nuclear weapons test in February and threatened to attack the United States, in language that was shrill even by the standards of the reclusive communist state.
Cuba’s coast lies just 90 miles from the United States’ southeastern flank.
Back in 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear war at the height of the Cold War.
US and Soviet leaders had a 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuban soil.
In the end disaster was avoided when Washington agreed to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s offer to remove the missiles in exchange for a US pledge not to invade Cuba.
Then president John F. Kennedy also secretly agreed to remove US missiles from Turkey
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