The latest on the seemingly endless Martinelli soap opera…after some 20+ days, the Tribunal Electoral has finally received formal notification of the ex-President’s conviction, which should render him ineligible to stand in the May elections – an election where he had been by far the leader in the polls. It is for the Tribunal Electoral to formally bar him from the election – but then he remains holed up in the nearby Nicaraguan Embassy, having sought asylum there.
In another mini-episode, the courts have rejected the latest in what appears to be an endless stream of appeals from Martinelli, this time 2 habeas corpus applications.
In perhaps reasonably good news, it seems that the drought conditions affecting the Canal have improved, but have not been eradicated. A new report says that current forecasts suggest that despite some rain over the next few weeks, persistent rainfall will not return until the April-June period. As the El Niño fades, a rapid La Niña phenomenon is forecast, which should allow the region to break the drought cycle by mid-2024. For my part, there does seem to be a feeling of change in the air, despite very high temperatures and UV over the past week.
In other, not unexpected, news the IMF projects that Panama’s GDP growth will slow to 2.5% in 2024, well below the 7.5% in 2023, due to the closure of Minera Panama, the large copper mine subsidiary of Canada’s First Quantum Minerals.
However, in what might be encouraging news, we hear today that the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), the same tribunal that would deal with claims from First Quantum, ruled in favour of Colombia in a dispute with a mining company and dismissed claims for expropriation and violation of the minimum standard of treatment presented by the miner.
4 MARCH 2024
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