Bruce Jones Educational Center Helping Poor Street Children In Panama

Bruce Jones Educational Center

Director: Maria Teresa Donato

Objective:
Bruce Jones Educational Center is a not for profit school that takes teaching to where the impoverished kids of Panama are, the streets. The priority of the initial phase of Bruce Jones Educational Center recourses is to introduce these hard to reach kids to English as a second language, helping them improve their skill set in order to achieve a higher level of earning potential. In time Bruce Jones Educational Center will set up a computer lab to teach these same kids computer skills that combined with the English skills will help them leave the streets of Panama, and end the cycle of poverty they have been born into. Bruce Jones Educational Center is also involved with getting basic school supplies to kids that are already in school, and have homes, and loving families that are just unable to afford these basic school supplies. Bruce Jones Educational Center is also dedicated to getting orphans not just educated, but supplying them with those things that make being a kid fun, by purchasing Christmas toys for over one thousand boy's, and girls. With next year's goal doubling, and with some luck, and other kind hearted souls Bruce Jones Educational Center hopes to be able to give every child in Panama that needs a toy to play with, a toy to play with. Why Panama? Panama is an emerging Latin country with a fairly small population, but a high rate of poverty. Bruce Jones Educational Center picked Panama because of the size, which it believes enables it to reach its goal, and affect the most amount of Children in a positive way. Bruce Jones Educational Center has no illusions of eradicating the poverty that so many children are being exposed to, but has a firm commitment to do all that it can to give as many children as possible the opportunity to better their lives, and the lives of their inevitable children if they want it with no other motives then to help. Bruce Jones Educational Center has no ties to any Religious organizations, although it does help where it can with full autonomy, and with the soul beneficiaries being the impoverished children of Panama. Bruce Jones Educational Center has no interest in indoctrinating any children into any belief other than with hard work, and a helping hand they can find all that they seek.

Students: 15 total between the ages of 9 - 15 from Calidonia, Panama

Panama Jack to Visit Hotel Del Rey

China Wants Costa Rica Oil

Chinese represent danger
to Tico culture, environment

Dear A.M. Costa Rica:

The ever sneaky and inscrutable Communist Chinese have one goal in mind here, and it's not promoting "culture." It's to persuade the Costa Rican government to allow the Chinese to develop our offshore oil deposits in order to feed the insatiable Chinese industrial juggernaut. Oscar Arias is playing a dangerous game by opening the country to Chinese influence. He is putting the sociocultural well-being of present and future Costa Ricans at great risk.

For decades, every major human rights organization and Western country has put China at or near the top of worst violators of basic human rights. Let's consider the cultural incompatibilities between Costa Rica and China.

(1) Costa Rica disbanded its military more than 50 years ago. China's nuclear-equipped military is the largest in the world and maintains an open ended threat of an attack on Taiwan, (Costa Rica's ex buddy who got thrown under the bus for a soccer stadium), should that country declare its official independence from the Communists.

(2) China continues its brutal occupation of Tibet in the face of a half century of international condemnation. Look what the Chinese have done to Tibetan culture! The message is clear: China considers its culture to be superior to all others. What kind of political repercussions could Costa Rica expect from its new best friend were she to criticize China's policy towards Tibet? What sort of respect can Costa Rica expect for its OWN culture from a country like that? This should be reason enough for Costa Rica to close its doors to China.

(3) Costa Rica has freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion. FREEDOM!!! China's obsession with curtailing/eliminating these rights and crushing those who support them are all too well known and lately exemplified by the cyber attacks on Google.

(4) China has the death penalty. Costa Rica does not. China uses convict labor to produce consumer goods for export. Costa Rica wouldn't even think of it.

(5) China's record on the environment is nothing short of abysmal. While Costa Rica's environmental regulations/regulatory enforcement leave much to be desired, this country's eco values are far superior to those of the Chinese, who view industrial expansion at any cost as being in the best interests of its people. (Even when they're being poisoned.)

China knows that all over the developing world, poverty and cash strapped, overwhelmed politicians mean political malleability and opportunities to buy and manipulate governments and the natural resources they possess.

The fact that the Chinese are building a soccer stadium here instead of a hospital is very telling. They are wooing the Costa Rican people by feeding their addiction to football. I think this is deplorable. Once China gets its foot in the door with grants, loans and other "carrots," how does Costa Rica then say "no" to the Communists? On ANYTHING!

I would take five minutes sitting in the presence of H. H. the Dalai Lama over a hundred years of exposure to Chinese "culture." Ticos had better wake up to the threat of the dragon at the gate before its too late.

Dean Barbour
Manuel Antonio

Latin America and Caribbean leaders

PLAYA DE CARMEN, Mexico – Latin America and Caribbean leaders united Tuesday to create a regional bloc excluding Canada and the United States, but its birth was undermined by a spat in which the Colombian president told Venezuela's Hugo Chavez "to be a man."

Many of the 32 Latin American and Caribbean countries participating in the summit have long called for a new organization that will not be dominated by the interests of their two wealthy northern neighbors. The Washington-based Organization of American States, the largest diplomatic bloc in the Western Hemisphere, has been heavily influenced by the United States.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who hosted the summit in a Caribbean resort, said the bloc "will consolidate and globally project a Latin American and Caribbean identity."

Latin American countries, however, have competing interests of their own — a point driven home by bickering at the summit.

At a dinner Monday night, conservative Colombian President Alvaro Uribe started complaining about Venezuela's trade sanctions against Colombia, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because delegations at the meeting had agreed not to discuss the spat publicly.

He described the following incident to reporters: Chavez shot back that Venezuela was constantly threatened by paramilitaries in the neighboring country and suggested the Colombian government was involved.

Chavez then stood up from the table, ready to storm off, when Uribe told him to stay and "be a man."

Chavez told Uribe to "go to hell," according to Venezuelan state television.

After they calmed down, the leaders agreed to create a "group of friends" to mediate between the feuding presidents. Chavez and Uribe played down the incident Tuesday, promising to work out their differences.

Then, Bolivian President Evo Morales, one of Chavez's strongest allies, reignited tensions by suggesting Uribe was a U.S. "agent" sent to sabotage the bloc.

"What's my conclusion?" Morales said. "Since we are debating a new organization without the United States, the agents of the United States have come to bog this down to make this event fail."

Meanwhile, Washington welcomed the new group.

"Virtually all of the countries attending the unity summit are strong partners of the United States and we are working together with them on a broad range of initiatives," said U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley. "So we consider the meeting in Mexico as consistent with our goals for the hemisphere."

The leaders agreed to meet again in Venezuela in 2011.

The bloc's formation is expected to take years and faces many challenges.

Latin America remains divided on whether to recognize the government of Honduran President Porfirio Lobo, who won November elections organized under interim leaders who took power after the June 28 ouster of then-President Manuel Zelaya.

Lobo was not invited to the summit and had not spoken to any of its participants, although the presidents who did attend spoke of including all 33 Latin American and Caribbean nations — including Honduras — in the new bloc. Lobo's spokesman said Honduras wants to join.

The leaders did not discuss Honduras to avoid polarizing the group, Calderon said.

Participants also disagreed on whether the bloc should replace the OAS, but they did find common ground on some issues, rallying around Argentina in its condemnation of Britain's oil exploration in waters surrounding the Falkland Islands, which Argentina claims.

Peter Hakim, president of the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue, questioned whether Latin American countries sensitive to outside meddling in their affairs will be able to confront touchy issues within their own region.

"It requires making some sacrifices of sovereignty and this is an issue that Latin America seems unyielding on," Hakim said.

President Martinelli meets with presidents of Costa Rica and Mexico

Martinelli meets with presidents of Costa Rica and Mexico
la prensa

President Martinelli, along with 29 other heads of State, are gathered in Cancun for a regional summit.

President of the Republic, Ricardo Martinelli, is scheduled to meet with President of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias, and President of Mexico, Felipe Calderón during his current mission to Cancun to attend the “Latin America and Caribbean Summit of Unity."

One of the objectives of this mission is the signing of an agreement with Mexico to avoid double taxation; an action that forms part of the strategies being developed by the Panamanian government to extricate the country from "the list of uncooperative countries with regards to tax matters.”

During the Summit, which approximately 30 Heads of State are attending, Martinelli, accompanied by Vice-President and Foreign Minister, Juan Carlos Varela, is expected to hold bilateral meetings with his Central American counterparts.

The purpose of these meetings is to join forces to promote the incorporation of Panama into the process of negotiating an Association Agreement between Central American countries and the European Union.

Martinelli is also expected to support efforts being made to rebuild Haiti, as well as to discuss infrastructure investment and regional trade promotion with his counterparts.