Some people are complaining about public transport in Panama City. Nonsense. We probably have the fastest buses in the world! Compite Panama!

That, of course, comes with a price, which we should be willing to pay if we value on-time delivery of passengers. A bus may catch fire. Or, in its urge to get there first, capsize, break in half and leave many dead and wounded. The one in the picture, for example, was racing against a competing bus - the wonders of the free market system! - to get at the next stop primero, but didn't quite make it. Passengers were screaming "stop the bus!" and "go slower!" before the crash, killing two and leaving 31 wounded. That's what you get when you distract the driver from his work. No arrests have been made however.

None of this should be any reason not to send your children to school by public transport.

Death toll update. Just as Panama is facing scrutiny by the OAS and US government for its human rights violations in the prisons, riots break out. Two dead. Both victims of the war on drugs.

And just as FRENADESO has decided to take back to the streets (protest march today) because the government refuses to negotiate in a serious fashion about safety in construction we have another victim: Guillermo Barsallo fell off the 13th floor of Galera Uno, a project owned by Arco y Asociados, in Obarrio. Now let's see how the wingnuts spin this today.

UPDATE: We didn't have to wait long for the wingnuts: It is not clear yet if the worker had his safety harness attached to a safety line (it could also be that the line broke or wasn't provided), but that doesn't stop our resident wacko union basher from making the following comment:

I've watched and taken pictures of construction workers, high up on ledges and perches, working on dangerous areas of the building under construction, wearing a safety harness but not taking the time to tie-in. It slows them down and many times they simply won't do it.

Without actually providing these pictures, of course. The message is clear: Someone died in construction. Must be his own fault.