Panama

Aug. 28 (UPI) — Panama has brought home 17 citizens linked to the war between Russia and Ukraine as prosecutors investigate an alleged network accused of recruiting Panamanians for military service through false job offers.

The Foreign Ministry said Thursday that 11 of the citizens returned from Russia and six from Ukraine after diplomatic and consular efforts coordinated with Panamanian missions abroad. The statement did not identify the returnees or specify when they arrived.

Panamanian officials held four meetings with representatives of the Russian Embassy and two with Ukrainian Embassy officials to seek the release of citizens serving with military forces and arrange their return.

Foreign Minister Javier Martínez-Acha also sent diplomatic communications to Russian and Ukrainian authorities to request their cooperation on humanitarian grounds.

Panama’s embassies in Russia and Poland, which handle the country’s diplomatic affairs involving Ukraine, continue working to locate and assist other Panamanians connected to the conflict, officials said.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office began to investigate the alleged recruitment operation in June. A judge on Aug. 18 ordered the pretrial detention of a third suspect charged with aggravated human trafficking.

The suspect was detained Aug. 16 at Tocumen International Airport after arriving from Colombia under an Interpol alert, the prosecutor’s office said.

Prosecutors said Panamanians were allegedly offered jobs paying more than $2,500 per month, but were placed in forced military work after reaching Eastern Europe.

Two men who returned from Ukraine told reporters Aug. 12 they knew they were traveling to the country, but had been promised they would not be required to participate in combat missions.

They said their passports and phones were taken after they arrived and that they were required to sign contracts written in Ukrainian without receiving Spanish translations.

“We were told that they would not take our passports, that we would not lose contact with our families and that they would not take our phones,” one of the men said, according to Panama’s La Prensa. “When we arrived, that was the first thing that happened.”

The men said recruiters used TikTok, Instagram and WhatsApp to find candidates. They spent about six weeks in Ukraine and said they did not receive the money they had been promised.

The Foreign Ministry estimated that approximately 30 Panamanians may have been or remained connected to the conflict, including 13 associated with Russian forces and 17 with Ukrainian forces.

The ministry stressed that the figures were preliminary, and said some people enlisted voluntarily while others reported being deceived by offers of civilian work.

Panama is not the only country in the region facing cases of deceptive recruitment. Peru has reported a significantly larger recruitment operation.

In early August, the Peruvian Foreign Ministry said that it had official information showing 459 Peruvians had enlisted, including 11 who died, 114 who were missing and three who were captured by Ukrainian forces.

Peruvian authorities evacuated 31 citizens, including 28 who returned to Peru and three who chose to remain elsewhere in Europe. Four of those evacuated said they had escaped forced recruitment.

Prosecutors opened a human trafficking investigation May 1 after families reported that Peruvians had been offered security and other jobs in Russia before allegedly being forced into combat.

Similar allegations have emerged in Bolivia and Colombia.

Bolivia’s Deputy Consular Affairs Minister Héctor Huanca said in July that approximately 16 Bolivians might be in combat zones, although he described the figure as preliminary, Unitel reported. Bolivian prosecutors opened a human trafficking investigation involving false employment offers.

In Colombia, Noticias Caracol reported in early August that families had documented dozens of suspected recruits, although no nationwide official count was available. A Tolima regional official separately told Caracol Radio that authorities knew of at least six local cases involving allegedly false job offers.

Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Arturo Hoyos said Panamanians are still traveling to become involved in the conflict despite repeated warnings.

“We urge, recommend and almost implore Panamanians not to go,” Hoyos said to El Siglo.

Aug. 26 (UPI) — El Salvador and Panama have declared their highest-level alerts nationwide as the effects of El Niño threaten economies and residents’ safety.

In Panama, the climate phenomenon already has brought torrential rains and severe flooding to northern and Caribbean areas, affecting more than 15,600 people.

In El Salvador, it has triggered extreme agricultural drought and unprecedented heat that destroyed 20% of basic grain crops, seriously threatening the country’s food security.

In contrast, Panama’s metropolitan and central regions are facing a rainfall deficit that could persist at least through March, according to forecasts from Panama’s Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology.

Eleven watersheds already are experiencing “water stress,” with the effects expected to persist through May, along with elevated temperatures, Infobae reported. The situation has prompted the Panama Canal Authority to impose preventive restrictions on vessel traffic because of low water levels.

El Niño is a natural climate phenomenon marked by warmer-than-normal surface waters in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, causing shifts in global wind and rainfall patterns, as well as erratic weather conditions.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a historic forecast this month, warning that the current El Niño has a greater than 90% chance of becoming a “very strong” event.

The agency’s official models indicate a nearly 70% chance that it will surpass all events recorded since 1950 in intensity, exceeding the record set by the massive 1982-83 event.

Panama’s Government Minister Dinoska Montalvo said Tuesday the state of emergency was declared to streamline administrative procedures, strengthen operational capacity and prepare “for what is to come,” the Panamanian newspaper La Estrella de Panamá reported.

According to El Salvador’s Environment Ministry, the country is experiencing its third consecutive drought period during the current rainy season, with the eastern and coastal regions hardest hit, the news outlet elsalvador.com reported.

The government declared a nationwide red alert Tuesday because of the risk that the drought could threaten people’s livelihoods and food security.

The Environment and Natural Resources Ministry expects estimated rainfall from August through October to total only about .24 inch, compared with a normal average of 37 millimeters during that period, La Prensa Gráfica reported.

In July, El Salvador experienced a heat wave that pushed temperatures above 104 degrees-F in the country’s eastern and central regions for 12 consecutive days, representing a severe anomaly.

Although those areas are accustomed to hot weather, regular rainfall during the country’s rainy season typically acts as a natural temperature regulator, keeping average highs closer to 91 degrees.

US Southern Command says that Sunday’s strike targeted a vessel operating along established narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific.

The United States military said it struck a suspected drug-trafficking boat in the Pacific Ocean, killing two people.

In a Monday post on X, US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) said Sunday’s strike targeted a vessel operating along established narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific.

“Confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel’s active involvement in narco-trafficking,” SOUTHCOM added.

“This operation is a clear and decisive reminder that SOUTHCOM is taking the fight directly to the cartels.”

Grainy, black-and-white video accompanying the post appeared to show a boat moving through the water immediately before a large explosion.

The post stated that under the direction of SOUTHCOM Commander General Francis L. Donovan, the Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere executed a lethal kinetic strike on the low-profile vessel.

“We are committed to imposing total systemic friction on narco-terrorists — disrupting their operations, dismantling their leadership and eliminating cartel terror across the region,” Donovan was quoted as saying.

“Let me be clear, we will not permit narco-terrorists to operate with impunity in the Western Hemisphere, nor will we allow their deadly poison to reach American communities. This operation is a powerful demonstration of our lethal precision, overwhelming capability, and absolute resolve to protect the U.S. homeland.”

The US military launched Operation Southern Spear in early September, with President Donald Trump arguing that Washington is effectively at war with Latin American drug cartels.

Since then, more than 200 people have been killed in strikes across the Eastern Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, according to a tally by the AFP news agency.

However, the Trump administration has not provided definitive evidence that the targeted vessels were involved in drug trafficking.

Legal experts and rights groups warn that the attacks could amount to extrajudicial killings.

The Pentagon’s inspector general said in May that it would review whether the military followed standard targeting procedures, though the evaluation will not examine the legal authority behind the strikes.

Aug. 21 (UPI) — The Panama government blamed low rainfall caused by El Niño for a decision to cut the number of vessels permitted to transit the 51-mile-long Panama Canal by more than 11%, despite being in the middle of the wet season.

Shipping lines were notified by the Panama Canal Authority on Thursday that as of Sept. 15, it was slashing the number of daily ship movements through the canal from 36 to 32 to ensure there was no disruption to traffic and to conserve water for human consumption.

The authority said the step was necessary “to support the long-term sustainability of transit operations,” even though it had already implemented other water-saving measures and the rainy season had finally arrived.

With the sea-warning El Niño weather cycle expected to be one of the most intense on record, Britain’s Met Office said Central America, along with tropical South America and countries in the western Pacific, was at significant risk of low rainfall in this year’s wet season.

With vessels already lining up to transit the canal, in some cases for weeks, fears were growing of a knock on impact from the delays and extra costs on goods prices, including fuel and medicine.

One container ship reportedly paid $4 million to jump to the front of the line.

San Francisco-based freight-forwarding firm Flexport, which had 30 containers on the ship, told CNN that the delays at the Pacific end were the longest in three months, when there was significant backlog due to a surge in demand from maritime traffic displaced by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

“The ripple effects are significant through supply chains and all the way to consumer prices at stores,” said Benjamin Gedan, senior fellow and director of the Latin American program at the Stimson Center in Washington.

The canal relies on fresh water from Lake Gatun to feed 12 sets of locks that use water compartments to move vessels up or down as they navigate the topography of the Panama Isthmus.

Extreme drought during El Niños in 2023 and 2024, forced Panama to impose deep cuts in the number of ships transiting daily — 24 compared with 36 in normal times — after water levels in Lake Gatun retreated to historic lows.

The El Nino weather phenomenon is expected to increase the likelihood of drought and excess heat across the region.

The Panama Canal is expected to limit traffic starting in early September, as it prepares for lower water levels due to the El Nino weather phenomenon.

On Thursday, the Panama Canal Authority, the body that oversees the waterway, announced that daily transit caps would be set to address concerns about the drier weather conditions ahead.

Under the new measures, 34 vessels will be permitted to sail through the canal as of September 4. A further reduction will start on September 15, when the limit will be 32 ships.

The travel restrictions are a reversal for the Panama Canal Authority. Officials told the news service Reuters in May that they had no plans to limit crossings this year, citing water conservation measures imposed last year.

The canal, which handles about 5 percent of global maritime trade, usually has capacity to accommodate about 40 vessels per day.  Since June, it has seen a daily average of 35 transits.

Any significant decrease in travel through the canal is likely to translate into slower international shipping for industries that rely on the waterway. That, in turn, could increase costs.

A severe drought in 2023, for instance, cut traffic through the Panama Canal by roughly 36 percent, leading to disruptions in global supply chains.

The declining water levels that year were also attributed to El Nino, as well as climate change accelerated by human activities.

El Nino is a naturally occurring weather phenomenon that takes place every two to seven years, when the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean is warmer than usual.

The resulting weather patterns can have an impact across the region and even globally, putting some areas at risk of excessive heat and drought, while others suffer from flooding

Scientists expect a particularly strong El Nino in the coming months, potentially among the strongest on record. That could lead to an increase in cases of extreme weather events.

Panama Canal authorities have previously imposed vessel limits in order to conserve water.

The canal relies on a lock system that lifts and lowers vessels as they travel from the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean Sea, and vice versa.

But the canal is fed, in part, by freshwater from nearby lakes and reservoirs, most notably Gatun Lake.

Panamanians rely on that lake as well to supply drinking water to nearby cities, including the capital Panama City, putting additional strain on the waterway during times of drought.