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^{_{Modified on April 2nd, 2024 at 5:07 pm}
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Kill Zone

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Massacre @ Al-Shifa Hospital

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Climate Protest

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Protests against copper mine deal turn deadly in Panama

By Patrick Oppmann, CNN : Original Article

Published 8:30 PM EST, Wed November 8, 2023

^{Roberto Cisneros/AFP/Getty Images}

^{People protest during a march against the government contract with Canadian mining company First Quantum and its subsidiary Minera Panama in Panama City on November 3, 2023.}

Anti-mining protests that have roiled Panama for the last two weeks turned deadly on Tuesday when a man allegedly shot and killed two demonstrators, according to police.

A chilling video posted by bystanders on X, formerly known as Twitter, showed a disheveled elderly man apparently frustrated with the logjam trying to force the protestors to remove a barrier blocking the Pan American highway about 50 miles south of the capital, before pulling out a pistol and opening fire. Panama’s National Police later said they arrested the suspected gunman at the scene of the shooting.

The unusual scene of violence is the latest flashpoint in some of the largest protests to hit the Central American nation since Panamanians flooded the streets en masse to demonstrate against the dictatorship of Manuel Noriega in the 1980s.

For weeks, tens of thousands of protestors have vented their fury at a controversial mining contract given to Minera Panama, the local subsidiary of a Canadian mining company, to extract copper, a key component in electric car batteries.

The contract allows Canada’s First Quantum Minerals to restart an open-pit copper mine surrounded by rain forest for the next 20 years, with the possibility of extending for another 20 years.

Environmentalists say the mine could contaminate drinking water and devastate tracts of the 32,000 acres the company negotiated use of, in exchange for yearly payments of $375 million.

Panama’s government has promised, however, that the mine will bring thousands of jobs in addition to the badly needed revenue. First Quantum Minerals did not respond to CNN’s request for comment on the protests.

Teachers march to protest the deaths of two teachers during a demonstration against the government's contract with Canadian mining company First Quantum and its subsidiary Minera Panama in Panama City on November 8, 2023. A man shot dead two teachers who were participating in blocking a route in a town located 80 km west of Panama City on November 7, in the third week of protests against a Canadian mining company. These are the first fatalities left by the protests that began on October 20 against the contract between the government and the company First Quantum Minerals (FQM), which operates the largest open-pit copper mine in Central America in the Panamanian Caribbean. (Photo by Roberto CISNEROS / AFP) (Photo by ROBERTO CISNEROS/AFP via Getty Images)

Roberto Cisneros/AFP/Getty Images

Teachers march to protest the deaths of two people during a demonstration against the government’s contract with Canadian mining company First Quantum and its subsidiary Minera Panama in Panama City on November 8, 2023.

Roberto Cisneros/AFP/Getty Images

A march against the government contract with Canadian mining company First Quantum and its subsidiary Minera Panama in Panama City on November 3, 2023.

‘Panamanians are suffering’

Opposition to the mine has united environmentalists, indigenous groups and teachers’ and construction unions who see allegations of backroom dealings between the government and the mining company as further evidence of widespread official corruption.

The protestors accuse the government of selling off the nation’s natural resources at the same moment many Panamanians have been hit with the costs of rising inflation and are feeling the impacts of climate change.

“Panamanians are suffering from lack of water, suffering from droughts, principally in the central provinces, animals that die, harvests that don’t happen,” environmental activist Martita Cornejo told CNN en Español.

“The government did not guage the opposition from Panamanian society to a mining contract.”

But former US ambassador to Panama John Feeley said while much of the outrage is real, the new contract announcement has also presented an opportunity for some groups to try to force their own concessions and win sweetheart deals from the government.

“This is the horrible thing about Panama: Even when you protest corruption, you are probably facilitating it as well,” he said.

Weeks of road blocks set up by protesters have shut down the country, preventing farmers from bringing crops to market and sequestering Panamanians in their homes. According to Panama’s association of company executives, the standstill inflicts $80 million in daily losses to local businesses. Celebrations to mark Panama’s independence from Colombia in 1903 were also widely cancelled last week.

Panama’s President Laurentino Cortizo has defended the mining deal after its announcement on October 20, saying the agreement would create jobs and revenue for Panama.

The mine had provided a rare economic bright spot for Panama where tourism has been slow to recover from the pandemic and the drought has reduced traffic though the Panama Canal, which is expected to a cause a drop of revenue of $200 million in 2024.

“We made the right decision, not the easiest one,” Cortizo said. “After a difficult and complicated negotiation for more than two years, a contract was agreed in 2023 between the company Minera Panama and the Panamanian State, which guarantees much better terms and conditions for the country.”

But as the protests have dragged on, Panama’s government has offered concessions that have done little to deflate the crisis: Last week, congress passed a moratorium on all future metal mining and Cortizo called for a nationwide referendum in December on the controversial project.

In 2017, Panama’s Supreme Court declared another contract to operate the copper mine as unconstitutional, forcing the mining company and government to renegotiate the deal.

Opponents now say they are hopeful that an announcement by Panama’s Supreme Court this week that it is examining the legality of the contract could once again kill the deal.

Whatever the resolution to the crisis, it may be too late to repair the damage done to Panama’s reputation in the region as a rare bastion of political and economic stability.

By leela

^{_{Modified on November 2nd, 2023 at 11:05 am}
October 25, 2023 at 9:56 am}

Abu Dalal massacre

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Watch:

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^{_{Modified on November 2nd, 2023 at 10:54 am}
October 23, 2023 at 8:23 pm}

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^{at 4:11 pm}

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^{_{Modified on October 20th, 2023 at 4:09 pm}
at 4:07 pm}

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https://youtu.be/SEI2EVYXX7Q?si=EnGyONy7mStBGMQ3

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at 3:57 pm}

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^{_{Modified on October 20th, 2023 at 2:35 pm}
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^{_{Modified on October 20th, 2023 at 2:31 pm}
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^{_{Modified on October 20th, 2023 at 1:58 pm}
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^{October 15, 2023 at 7:38 pm}

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^{_{Modified on October 9th, 2023 at 8:37 am}
October 9, 2023 at 8:36 am}

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His website

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^{_{Modified on October 6th, 2023 at 11:45 pm}
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3-13-23: mass migration

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^{_{Modified on October 6th, 2023 at 11:26 pm}
at 11:25 pm}

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^{_{Modified on October 6th, 2023 at 11:27 pm}
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^{_{Modified on October 6th, 2023 at 3:24 pm}
at 3:19 pm}

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Nearby:

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^{_{Modified on July 14th, 2023 at 11:32 pm}
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11 Jul ‘23: Record High 60°C

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60°C (140°F) temperatures in farmland of Spain.

Here’s an article

My take: Farmland monocrop disrupts water cycle, increasing dryness that heightens temperature extremes.

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^{_{Modified on June 27th, 2023 at 12:37 pm}
June 27, 2023 at 12:36 pm}

🐶 News

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^{_{Modified on January 13th, 2024 at 4:25 am}
June 26, 2023 at 9:51 pm}

It Bears Fruit: Tropicals in a Temperate Zone

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As plums and apricots are ripening in the rest of California, mangoes are setting fruit in a backyard in California’s Central Valley, as well as other tropical fruit trees such as citrus, guavas, sugar apples, and longans.

What else is growing in this yard?

This early stage of fruit is fragile, as young or stressed trees may drop their small fruits to prioritize growth on the rest of the tree.

The creator of the YouTube channel, Tropical Central Valley, demonstrates gardening feats that many gardeners & horticulturists previously thought impossible: growing tropical fruit trees in the Central Valley. Ripe bananas, papayas, starfruits, and much more has already been harvested by this gardener, who prefers to remain anonymous (here on referred to as “TCV”), from trees growing on his land: a front and back yard of a suburban lot in Visalia, California.

TCV’s backyard jungle oasis is visibly lush, shaded by an Inca tree (AKA Ice Cream Bean Tree) that produces delicious fruit and drops nitrogen-rich leaves that protect and fertilize many young fruit trees growing in containers and in the ground of a yard lined with fences and surrounded by grass lawns, houses, pavement, and a sea of farms.

California has precedents of commercial cultivation of tropical fruit, including citruses (mandarins, oranges, lemons, limes, grapefruit), avocados, passionfruits, loquats, and pineapple guavas. In recent years, mangoes and cherimoyas grown in the San Diego region have entered large scale distribution channels.

On the Tropical Central Valley channel, TCV shares his understandings, methods, and progress of growing tropical fruit trees in USDA hardiness zone 9B, where temperatures above 100°F and below freezing, a zone which also encompasses regions around Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area.

TCV explains that the exchange of nutrients between animals, plants and soil fungus (AKA the Mycorrhizal Network) is vital for life.

Diverse growing arrangements of edible plants, such as TCV’s yard, is called a “food forest.”

^{Sugar apples, with varieties such as atemoya and cherimoya, were declared by Mark Twain to be the most delicious fruits on Earth.}

Social media outlets have been instrumental for a new wave of tropical fruit tree growers in California.

On Facebook, groups such as the San Francisco Bay Area Tropical Fruit Growers, backyard growers share progress, growing tips, fruits, plants of diverse tropical fruit trees.

How do they do it?

There are many strategies used to grow tropical fruit trees, but it can be hard to tell what our effect is versus the natural resilience of living organisms.

TCV’s plants fruit trees close together in his yards, which have irrigation that is on for 3 minutes each hour and a floor of around a foot high of mulch, not including the Inga leaves, to effectively recreate a forest floor. Mulch helps retain moisture and insulates plants from extreme temperatures.

Find Unexpected Fruit Trees