Panama, officially the Republic of Panama, is a transcontinental country in Central America, spanning the southern tip of North America into the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the south. Its capital and largest city is Panama City, whose metropolitan area is home to nearly half the country's over 4 million inhabitants.
Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno was a Panamanian dictator, politician and military officer who was the de facto ruler of Panama from 1983 to 1989. An authoritarian ruler who amassed a personal fortune through drug trafficking operations, he had longstanding ties to United States intelligence agencies before the U.S. invasion of Panama removed him from power.
Mireya Elisa Moscoso Rodríguez de Arias is a Panamanian politician who served as the President of Panama from 1999 to 2004. She is the country's first and to date only female president.
General elections were held in Panama on Sunday, 2 May 2004, electing both a new President of the Republic and a new Legislative Assembly.
Martín Erasto Torrijos Espino is a Panamanian politician who was President of Panama from 2004 to 2009.
Guillermo David Endara Galimany was a Panamanian politician who served as the President of Panama from December 20, 1989 to August 31, 1994. Raised in a family allied to Panameñista Party founder Arnulfo Arias, Endara attended school in exile in the United States and Argentina following Arias's removal from power. Endara later received a law degree in Panama. He subsequently served as a member of Panama's National Assembly, and briefly as a government minister before heading into exile again following Arias' third overthrow.
Ricardo Alberto Martinelli Berrocal is a Panamanian politician and businessman who was the 36th president of Panama from 2009 to 2014.
Ernesto Pérez Balladares González-Revilla, nicknamed El Toro, is a Panamanian politician who was the President of Panama between 1994 and 1999.
The Panameñista Party is a nationalist political party in Panama. It was the third largest party by number of adherents with 256,138 members.
Odebrecht S.A., officially known as Novonor, is a Brazilian conglomerate, headquartered in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, consisting of diversified businesses in the fields of engineering, construction, chemicals and petrochemicals. The company was founded in 1944 in Salvador by Norberto Odebrecht, and is active in the Americas, the Caribbean, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. Its leading company is Norberto Odebrecht Construtora.
General elections were held in Panama on May 3, 2009.
Panama is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America.
Crime in Panama is investigated by the Panamanian police.
General elections were held in Panama on 8 May 1994, electing both a new President of the Republic and a new Legislative Assembly.
Juan Carlos Varela Rodríguez is a Panamanian businessman and former politician who served as the President of Panama from 2014 to 2019. Varela was Vice President of Panama from 2009 to 2014, and Minister of Foreign Relations from July 2009 to August 2011. He was President of the Panameñistas, the third-largest political party in Panama, from 2006 to 2016.
La Prensa is a conservative Panamanian newspaper founded in 1980. Established by I. Roberto Eisenmann Jr. during a period of military dictatorship, La Prensa built an international reputation as an independent nationalist voice, and has been described by some admirers as "Panama's leading opposition newspaper" and its newspaper of record.
General elections were held in Panama on 4 May 2014. Due to constitutional term limits, Incumbent President Ricardo Martinelli was ineligible for a second consecutive term. Incumbent Vice President Juan Carlos Varela of the Partido Panameñista was declared the victor with 39% of the votes.
Operation Car Wash was a landmark anti-corruption probe in Brazil. Beginning in March 2014 as the investigation of a small car wash in Brasília over money laundering, the proceedings uncovered a massive corruption scheme in the Brazilian federal government, particularly in state-owned enterprises. The probe was conducted through a joint task force of agents in the federal police, revenue collection agency, internal audit office and antitrust regulator. Evidence was collected and presented to the court system by a team of federal prosecutors led by Deltan Dallagnol, while the judge in charge of the operation was Sergio Moro. Eventually, other federal prosecutors and judges would go on to oversee related cases under their jurisdictions in various Brazilian states. The operation implicated leading businessmen, federal congressmen, senators, state governors, federal government ministers, and former presidents Collor, Temer and Lula. Companies and individual accused of involvement have agreed to pay 25 billion reais in fines and restitution of embezzled public funds.
The Odebrecht case is one of the largest corruption cases documented in recent Latin American history, spanning more than 30 years. It is based on an investigation by the United States Department of Justice, along with 10 other Latin American countries, into the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht. This investigation details how Odebrecht would have made bribes to presidents, former presidents and government officials of 12 countries: Angola, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, United States, Guatemala, Mexico, Mozambique, Panama, Peru, Dominican Republic and Venezuela, during the last 20 years, in order to obtain benefits in public contracting.
Porfirio Andrés Bautista García is a politician, lawyer and agricultural producer from the Dominican Republic. He was president of the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM) from 2014 to 2018, and senator for the Espaillat Province of the Dominican Republic for four terms from 1994 to 2010. Bautista García also served as president of the Senate of the Dominican Republic in 2001-2003 and 2004-2006.
