International
Marco Rubio leaves Panama after distancing from China and giving priority to his ships in the Canal
The US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, concluded his official visit to Panama on Monday after ensuring that the Central American country has committed itself not to renew a trade agreement with China and to work with the US Navy to “optimize the priority” of the transit of its ships through the Channel.
The Government of Panama has wanted to bring positions closer to Rubio in an attempt to reduce tensions over Donald Trump’s threats to “recover” the Panama Canal due to the alleged presence of China, denied by the Panamanian authorities and which seems to have its origin in the Hong Kong business administration in two ports near the road.
Thus, the epicenter of Rubio’s visit to the Central American country, and also of his meeting with the Panamanian president, José Raúl Mulino, have been the controversy around the interoceanic route, China and migration, another issue that marks the agenda of the US Secretary of State on the tour he makes through Central America.
After the meeting between the two officials last Sunday, Panama communicated its intention not to renew the economic cooperation agreement with China on the New Silk Road signed in 2017, under the mandate of then-President Juan Carlos Varela, whom Mulino himself has blamed for that crisis with the United States.
Rubio applauded this decision on Monday and described it as a “great step forward for US-Panama relations, and for a free Panama Canal.”
Thus, given the concerns expressed by the United States about the two ports of the canal, operated by a Chinese company, Mulino informed Rubio at that meeting that there are audits in progress and that it cannot be pronounced until they are concluded.
Mulino indirectly referred to the company CK Hutchison Holdings, a multinational based in Hong Kong that operates two ports at the entrances of the Pacific and the Atlantic of the Channel, and that has been in the process of being audited by the Panamanian authorities for weeks.
Although the Panamanian president announced that the meeting was “cordial and respectful,” Rubio launched a harsh message demanding Mulino to “immediate changes” to counter the alleged Chinese influence in the Panama Canal. Two very distant communications after the meeting.
For its part, China said on Monday that Panama’s withdrawal from the Silk Road initiative promoted by its Government before what it calls “the global South” is “a regrettable decision,” in the words of its ambassador to the UN, Fu Cong, during a press conference in New York.
Panama’s decision not to renew the cooperation agreement with China of this initiative to which it joined in 2017 was one of the promises that the US Foreign Minister, Marco Rubio, made yesterday with the Panamanian president, José Raúl Mulino.
For his part, Cong indicated that behind the Silk Road there is “no political agenda”, contrary to the “defamation campaign launched by the United States and other Western countries.”
On the contrary – he reasoned – the Silk Road “is an economic initiative whose purpose is to build a platform for countries, especially those of the global South, to promote economic cooperation among themselves.”
The ambassador also referred to the accusations made by President Donald Trump and his team that China controls the Panama Canal, something he said “is totally false.”
“China has not participated in either the management or operation of the Panama Canal, and has never interfered in the affairs of the canal,” the diplomat clarified, thus coming out in step with Trump’s main argument to claim his right to “recover” the Panama Canal for the United States.
China – the ambassador said – “respects Panama’s sovereignty and recognizes the Canal as a neutral international infrastructure,” he insisted.
After the meeting with Rubio, Mulino declared that “Panama’s sovereignty is not in question,” a message that agrees with his speech since Trump threatened to regain US control of the interoceanic route.
In addition, the Panamanian president felt that there is “no real threat at this time against the treaty, the validity, and much less the use of military force to seize the Channel” and clarified that “there is no doubt that the channel is operated by our country and will remain so,” two of the great fears behind Trump’s intentions.
Rubio also visited the Panama Canal and met with the waterway authorities, who pledged to work with the US Navy to “optimize the priority in the transit of their ships” through the interoceanic route.
The United States is one of the main customers of the Panama Canal and the route “an important driver of the trade relationship” between the two countries, since at the end of fiscal year 2024, 52% of transits through the Channel registered ports with origin-destination in the United States, and more than 76% of the cargo that transited through the Channel had that country as origin-destination.
During the meeting at the presidential palace of Las Garzas, the Panamanian president offered Rubio to strengthen cooperation in the deportation of migrants, since Panama and the United States maintain an agreement to return passers-by who have crossed the dangerous jungle of Darién, the natural border with Colombia, on flights paid for by the North American country.
Even this Monday before leaving for El Salvador, Rubio was present on one of those flights framed within the agreement and admitted that “to a certain extent, our border does not begin in Texas and Mexico, it begins much earlier.”
This memorandum between both countries was signed on July 1, the same day of the inauguration of Mulino. Since it was launched on August 20, the United States has financed almost 2.7 million dollars in flights and tickets for the return of 1,729 migrants to their countries of origin, according to information from the US government.
Panama has been Marco Rubio’s first stop on his tour of Central America, which has been in El Salvador since Monday, and then continues to Costa Rica, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic.
For her part, the Chinese ambassador to Panama, Xu Xueyuan, asked Washington to “learn to respect” the decisions of countries like Panama to cooperate with China, with whom she maintains ties “based on the principles of equality, respect and mutual benefit.”
“The United States cannot tolerate Panama cooperating with China. The establishment of relations between China and Panama was transparent and honest, without covert operations or money transactions,” said the ambassador in the newspaper ‘La Estrella de Panamá’, according to the website of the Chinese delegation in that country today.
In 2017, Panama broke off diplomatic relations with Taiwan to establish them with China, which was an important diplomatic victory for Beijing.
In addition, Panama joined the New Silk Roads initiative months later, but after yesterday’s meeting between the president of Panama, José Raúl Mulino, and the head of US diplomacy, Marco Rubio, the country communicated its intention to withdraw from the Chinese project.
“A US delegation visited Panama, bringing a greater impact than a tropical storm,” said Xu, who also assures that “respecting the permanent neutrality of the Panama Canal is a solemn commitment from China.”
International
A magnitude 6 earthquake shakes the province of Esmeraldas in Ecuador, bordering Colombia
A magnitude 6 earthquake was recorded this Friday in the coastal province of Esmeraldas, bordering Colombia, causing damage to several infrastructures and leaving, so far, 20 people injured.
According to the Geophysical Institute of the National Polytechnic School, the earthquake occurred at 06:44 local time (11:44 GMT) at 1.03 degrees south latitude and 79.69 degrees west longitude.
According to the source, the tremor occurred at a depth of 30 kilometers and 9.31 kilometers from Esmeraldas, capital of the homonymous province.
According to the National Secretariat of Risk Management (SNGR), the affected people had head injuries and bruises.
While the SNGR continues with the verification of affectations, it indicated that 80% of the electricity service and 80% of the telecommunications that were affected, are gradually restored.
Among the affected public buildings are the ECU 911 due to a fall of masonry; the Vargas Torres University, which has cracks; the Los Militares building where the front collapsed and the Prefecture building, among others.
The SNGR reported that the earthquake was felt with strong intensity in seven municipalities of the province of Esmeraldas and moderately in the provinces of Guayas and Manabí, while mildly in Carchi, Cotopaxi, Imbabura, Los Ríos, Pichincha, Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas and Tungurahua.
About twenty minutes after the earthquake in Esmeraldas, one of magnitude 4.1 was reported in the coastal province of Guayas, located in the southeast of the country, without damage or victims having been reported so far.
The President of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, ordered the displacement of all his ministers to Esmeraldas, in order to coordinate actions after the magnitude 6 earthquake recorded this Friday.
“I have arranged for the immediate deployment of all ministers in the province of Esmeraldas to coordinate the installation of shelters, delivery of humanitarian aid kits and assistance in everything our people need,” Noboa wrote on his social network account X.
The province of Esmeraldas was one of the most affected by the 7.8 magnitude earthquake recorded on April 16, 2016, which left more than 670 dead, thousands affected, as well as millions of material losses.
This earthquake also hit the province of Manabí, located, like Esmeraldas, on the coast of the Andean country, but also affected other areas and was felt strongly, even in the Ecuadorian capital.
Ecuador is located in the Pacific Ring of Fire or Belt, which concentrates some of the most important subduction areas (sinking of tectonic plates) in the world and is the scene of strong seismic activity.
In addition to Ecuador, the Horseshoe-shaped Belt comprises a large number of countries such as Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, the United States and Canada.
International
Preparations for Pope Francis’ funeral, in figures
The funeral of Pope Francis this Saturday, the first of a reigning pontiff for two decades, is an event that moves dizzying figures and will require the full mobilization of Italian authorities and volunteers.
These are some of the figures that draw what can be expected tomorrow for a historic day:
The Italian Ministry of the Interior has calculated that 200,000 faithful will attend the funeral of Francis. For the next conclave – with a date yet to be defined – and the election of the new pope, that figure amounts to 250,000.
The funeral procession that will move the remains of the late pope from St. Peter’s Vatican to the Basilica of Santa María la Mayor, where Francis arranged to be buried in a simple tomb.
3,000 volunteers will mobilize the Italian Civil Protection, responsible for the management of the preparations. There will be 55 health teams distributed throughout the funeral procession between San Pedro del Vaticano and the basilica de Santa María la Mayor, in addition to 11 advanced medical posts and 52 additional ambulances that will join the existing fleet.
17 degrees and a radiant sun are expected at 10:00 (08.00 GMT) on Saturday, the start time of the funeral, although the thermometer could reach 24 degrees throughout the day.
The state group Ferrovie dello Stato makes 260,000 seats available to those who wish to approach Rome by train. Civil Protection also confirmed that 500 parking spaces for buses and coaches have been reserved for the same day in Rome and its surroundings.
130 international delegations have already confirmed their presence at the event, but it is expected that the final figure may rise to 170. Fifty will be headed by heads of state or government, including a dozen sovereigns.
120,000 arrivals planned in Rome on April 25 and 26, which will translate into about 320,000 overnight stays, according to figures from the Department of Tourism of the Italian capital, which warns that the estimates may be below even those that finally occur. 101,000 of those arrivals will take place in hotels and another 53,000 in “supplementary establishments”.
11,000 soldiers and members of the security forces, not counting the teams of the international delegations, who will ensure that the funeral is held without incident. Police, police officers and traffic officers will join at least 1,500 soldiers.
5 anti-drone bazooas, capable of intercepting the radio frequencies with which these devices are operated, which will reinforce the decreed no-fly zone over the Roman sky.
International
“A dignified life” for migrants, the plea in Panama in memory of Pope Francis
Catholics who work with some of the 299 migrants deported by the United States to Panama, beg the Government that beyond placing the flag at half-mast for the death of Pope Francis this week, it should pay tribute to him by giving “a dignified life” to the migrants, as the Supreme Pontiff preached.
“Never forget your human dignity,” because “you are not a discard,” the pope wrote last year in a message addressed to the thousands of migrants who had just crossed the dangerous Darién jungle, the natural border between Colombia and Panama, on their way to the United States.
Known by many as “the pope of migrants” for his defense of those who are forced to leave their land in search of better living conditions, he himself recalled then that he was “son of migrants who went out in search of a better future,” and that “there were times when they were left with nothing, until they went hungry; with empty hands, but their hearts full of hope.”
Therefore, members of Catholic organizations that are part of the CLAMOR Network (the Latin American and Caribbean Ecclesiastical Network for Migration, Displacement, Refuge and Trafficking in Persons), and who work with dozens of migrants in the Panamanian capital deported by the United States, remember the teachings of Pope Francis.
Elías Cornejo, coordinator of social promotion and attention to the migrant population of the Catholic organization Fe y Alegría, which is part of the Clamor Network, explained to EFE in a migrant shelter that we must “look for alternatives for these people, they cannot be kept in conditions that are not favorable or dignified.”
“In the context of the death of Pope Francis, who was incisive in insisting on humane treatment of migrants, I believe that this country that declares itself mostly Catholic (…) beyond the flag at half-mast, I would also ask the national government to dignify that memory of Pope Francis by giving an answer to many people who (…) have the right to have a dignified life,” Cornejo stressed.
“Give them that, try to find a human, Christian, evangelical answer,” he insisted.
The pilgrimage of this group of migrants through Panama began in mid-February, when a total of 299 arrived on three planes from the United States within the framework of an agreement that turned the Central American nation into a “joup” country for their repatriation.
Coming from extracontinental nations such as China, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Iran, Russia, Pakistan or Nepal, 188 returned to their countries “voluntarily”, according to the latest official information available, and 111 refused to do so, many of them fearing for their lives.
The entire group was first housed in a central hotel in the Panamanian capital, and those who refused to be repatriated to their countries were transferred to a shelter more than 200 kilometers away, near the Darién jungle.
Then, after the decision last March by the Government of Panama to grant them a temporary humanitarian permit for 30 days, extendable up to 90, to find a way out of their situation, they took them back to the capital, although now without any type of logistical support, so the CLAMOR Network occupied that vacuum by first hosting the migrants in a humble hotel in the city, to transfer them days later to one of its shelters.
According to Cornejo, who underlines the support they receive in the shelter of “non-believing people, believing people, Muslim people, people of other religions too,” of the 69 migrants who moved there – families with children continue to stay in a hotel – 47 remain, since they “make their own decisions and move” by their own decision to other places.
“We don’t know where, we have an idea, but we don’t want to keep them or force them to anything, because they are free, they are not people who are imprisoned (…) We don’t want to pressure them, we don’t want to pressure the Government, but we do want to tell them again, ‘please, let’s find a way out of this’. An exit that has to be worthy for the State and for them, for migrants,” he remarked.
At least, he says, from the Foreign Ministry they have guaranteed that they will not deport anyone by force if the new 60-day period ends, an extension that ends in June and that, according to official data shared with EFE, at least 80 migrants have requested.
Two mothers from Asian countries who requested with their children the extension of the “temporary resident permit for humanitarian reasons”, as indicated in the document to which EFE had access, and who asked for anonymity, insisted that returning to their country is not an option, since if they return their “lives are in danger”.
Housed in a humble hotel in the center of the Panamanian capital, on a floor where behind each door there is a family of different nationality, they explain to EFE through a translation application part of their journey to the United States, crossing several countries of America with their minor children, and then their sudden expulsion without knowing the destination, some handcuffed hand and foot.
“When they put me on the plane I felt suffocated. His hands and feet were cold. My heart was beating fast, I had high blood pressure. I told the military,” recalls one of them. There were men and women handcuffed, the children were terrified. They are adults, but children are not, “how can they treat them as criminals?”
Now, they say, they are “afraid” that the day will come when the deadline they were given to stay in Panama will expire. “When this document ends, I don’t know exactly what will happen to us if the United States doesn’t get us out of here.”
“We want to ask Donald Trump to return us to the United States, please,” they begged.
A magnitude 6 earthquake shakes the province of Esmeraldas in Ecuador, bordering Colombia
Preparations for Pope Francis’ funeral, in figures
“A dignified life” for migrants, the plea in Panama in memory of Pope Francis
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