News
Thursday 23rd February 2023.
February 23, 2023
Well it all ended with lots of fireworks and chants which characterized the traditional topón de reinas in Las Tablas, Los Santos province.
The activity, which began at 6:00 a.m. and ended at around 7:45 a.m., marked the end of the Tableño carnivals, which were held after having to be suspended for two years due to covid-19 .
With the letting off of fireworks, both Calle Arriba and Calle Abajo measured forces again in Porras Park to show which tuna was the winner.
The show was witnessed by hundreds of people, both national and foreign, who gathered to enjoy the popular festivities in Las Tablas.
Some 48 complaints for alleged violations of the electoral ban were reported during the 2023 carnival festivities. This was reported Wednesday.by the Tribunal Electoral (TE).
Most of the complaints correspond to the ruling Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), a group that has accumulated 23 complaints. Of these, 22 correspond to alleged electoral propaganda installed on billboards and an additional one which has to do with promotional items, the TE indicated.
The second party with the most complaints is Cambio Democrático (CD), with nine complaints for billboards and four for promotional items. In total, the TE reported 13 complaints concerning CD.
At least 30 tons of garbage have been collected during the four days of the Las Tablas carnival. According to Ángel Barrios, mayor of Las Tablas.
The waste collection work is still going on, “The last day of the party is when the most garbage is generated,” Barrios said.
Ricardo Martinelli Berrocal has decided to “give signs of life” in the court of Palma (Spain) that is investigating him -along with other people- in the case of alleged espionage in Mallorca on a woman, identified as the “ex-lover” of the former president of Panama (2009-2014).
This is how the newspaper Última Hora reports in a publication on Wednesday.
And it is that the Gender Violence Court of Palma kept the former president as an “untraceable” person, the Spanish newspaper reported that a lawyer for Martinelli Berrocal – whose name was not mentioned – has acted in the case.
When Guillermo Ferrufino took office as Minister of Social Development in July 2009, he had no political experience, university studies or the four houses he bought while in office, valued in total at more than $2.2 million. He, too, had not been sentenced to six years in prison for illicit enrichment , nor the other for corruption of public officials that he would have to face ten years after leaving power.
Until the day that former President Ricardo Martinelli put him in charge of his government’s social policies, Ferrufino was known as a television presenter. He was 35 years old and lived in a common chalet near La Chorrera, next to a cement factory. Going up and enjoying the change that his political boss was announcing, he climbed from the Inter-American Highway to the Canal Zone, in a mansion that he bought on June 1, 2010 for $650,000.
The change of address helped him to run for mayor of Panama City, although he immediately gave up. Ferrufino then said that it was for medical reasons, but he was already under investigation for various issues.
The Attorney General’s Office suspected that he increased his fortune more than he could justify with his minister’s salary – he earned $7,000 a month, which, after tax deductions, fell to less than $6,000. Ferrufino was unable to justify the $2,288,000 invested in assets and was sentenced twice, the last time on February 15 of this year. But his problems did not end there.
Now there is a new chapter: the former minister would not have finished paying for the Albrook house in which he lives. The seller pursuers him in another lawsuit.
The former minister lives in a mansion that he promised to pay in full four months after its purchase. Almost 13 years later, the previous owner maintains that he did not pay.
The City Mall of David, in the province of Chiriquí, was consumed by flames early this Wednesday.
Firefighters from the David and Bugaba stations carried out extinguishing work at the premises, whose structures began to collapse. They were trying to prevent the fire from affecting the rest of the premises in the area.
However, the “Bomberos” have had some obstacles because the hydrants for resupplying the firetrucks are not close to the place of the accident. No injuries have been reported so far.
The fire was reported around 1:00 a.m.
The City Mall, located in the Chiriquí Mall shopping center, was inaugurated in 2018.
The mayor of San Miguelito, Héctor Valdés Carrasquilla, will have 200,000 dollars for “donations to people.”
This is stated in the 2023 budget approved by the Municipal Council of San Miguelito, made up of nine representatives, for 34.6 million dollars. The figures are recorded in Municipal Agreement 139 of December 29, 2022, published in the Official Gazette 29702-B of January 17.
The budget also includes $208,705 for “special services” for the use of the upper management of the Municipality of San Miguelito.
The councilors also approved funds for their “per diems”: a total of $108,000.
75% of the total budget of this district, the second with the highest electoral weight in the entire country (with 254,567 voters), will be allocated to payroll and operating expenses.
Municipal Agreement 139 was sanctioned by Mayor Valdés Carrasquilla and bears the signature of César Caballero and Dixia Delgado, president and vice president of the Municipal Council. All are militants of the ruling PRD.
Valdés Carrasquilla enrolled in the PRD on October 8, 2022, at the hands of the Vice President of the Republic, José Carrizo.
San Miguelito has high levels of poverty. Arnulfo Arias and Belisario Porras, for example, are part of the list of the 10 corregimientos with the highest number of poor people in the country (with some 36,000 people in this condition), according to the Multidimensional Poverty Index prepared by the Ministry of Social Development, as part of the Beehive Plan, promoted by President Laurentino Cortizo, to combat inequalities.
Interpol captured the Panamanian Jaime Powell Rodríguez, alias ‘Yunya’, in Spain, the authorities confirmed on the afternoon of this Monday, February 20.
According to the National Police, the arrest of Powell Rodríguez occurred during an operation against money laundering crimes in Spain. They apprehended him in Madrid.
“He himself is required in Panama with a warrant of arrest and conduction by the Metropolitan Prosecutor’s Office, for the commission of a crime against public faith,” a statement detailed.
Yunya is pointed out by the judicial authorities as one of the alleged leaders of the Baghdad gang.