OFF THE CUFF: Sunny  day for shutterbugs, cloudy for farmers

SELFIES –Panama’s social network paparazzi switched from shooting selfies with iconic buildings in Casco Viejo as a backdrop to moving in on former US president Bill Clinton who took a stroll around the old city on Wednesday, January 30 after a meeting with Panama president Juan Carlos Varela  Clinton in the Palacio de las Garzas.,

Clinton is in Panama to participate, in a  ribbon cutting ceremony at a solar park in Chiriqui likely for a handsome “donation” He came to Panama from Puerto Rico, where he visited some rural farms that are in the process of reconstruction, after the devastating effects of Hurricane Mary that hit the island last year.

DIALOGUE – The ex-US president got a better reception in the presidential palace than Panama’s beleaguered farmers who are ready to return to the streets if they don’t get to meet with a “top-level government group including President Varela to air their concerns about the agricultural sector, hit by cheap imports, introduced during the term of by a former president who owns a supermarket chain. The producers’ leaders have complained of the tortoise-like the response of the current ruler and have withdrawn from talks with low-level Ministry officials which they describe as a waste of time. Meanwhile, Varela turned from   tortoise to hare this week to sign into law a tax fraud bill, that got Assembly approval  only two days before

 WELCOME MAT – –  Panam’s minuscule country population turned out to be more welcoming For World Youth Day (WYD), welcoming than the cities of Madrid, Spain; and Krakow, Poland, with 50% of the pilgrims staying in the homes of host families reports  GAD3 a Madrid based social research consultancy. which details that at the WYD I in Madrid (2011) less than 20% of the pilgrims stayed in homes of, and in Krakow (2016), barely 25%.

The  WYD Organizing Committee had more than 100,00 host families available for foreigners from all over the world, and the 70, 803 pilgrims who arrived to participate in the religious event, according to the National Migration System.