Okke Ornstein in Panama | Dispatches from the isthmus

I wrote an article for the Narco News Bulletin now that Panama has joined the Colombian war against the FARC. And I just noticed that the Venezuelan publication Patria Grande has made the effort to translate the story in Spanish and run it too!

Convicted fraudster Monte Friesner heads a myriad of shady schemes in Panama with ties to Martin Rodin, David Murcia, Herbert Young and many others.

Exclusive video proves Honduran elections were a fraud.

De Kavel Company blokkeert toegang tot haar website vanuit Panama, Martinelli regering kondigt maatregelen aan, Kavel Company gelieerd aan dubieuze Costa Ricaanse teak en vanille rommelaar EN het kavelproject ligt middenin een toekomstige olieraffinaderij!

In het altijd gezellige Habanos ontmoetten we Dennis Bode, Henri Kerkhof en Pim Nolen van de Kavel Company, een gezelschap dat ergens het midden houdt tussen Peppi en Kokki en de Josti Band.

Martinelli says it’s the TV news, but let’s explain him the REAL reasons why serious business avoids Panama like the plague…

Schultz, formerly of infamous LifeFlight Panama, starts new air ambulance scheme in Panama but without helicopters, the “main reason being safety”. Oh, really?

Tom McMurrain, released from jail, hypes his past scams and adds some new ones.

Eric Jackson writes today on Panama Forum that The Panama Star, the English language paper/supplement of La Estrella, has ceased to exist.

Well, it was about time.

My recent story about the Kunas invading land and committing environmental crimes AND taking me hostage has caused Kuna nitwit lawyer Atencio Lopez to offer us a fascinating insight in the mind of the mentally disturbed.

Ornstein appears in a CNBC documentary about his former friend and now convicted money launderer Marc M. Harris.

Billions are spent on this so-called “war on drugs” and the crew of the CIA spy plane isn’t even able to communicate in Spanish with their Peruvian colleagues, with a plane shot down that had nothing to do with drug trafficking as a result.

Wacky Honduran oligarch wants peacekeeping forces from Panama, but, ummm, we have no army!

In 2006 I traveled to Kabul, Afghanistan, to report for the US magazine Newsmax. I still want to go back, even more so now that Obama has announced a change of policy towards the war torn country. Meanwhile, here are the links to the stories that were published on the Newsmax website.

Monte Friesner is going to sue me because he sent me nude pictures of his wife. Or something like that.

When you’re a journalist, you always get these complaints that you never write anything positive. Of course the people who make these complaints are wrong and ignorant and they will never actually pay you to write something upbeat, but it never hurts to pacify them every once and a while.

I had big plans with the new Celimo Typhoon scooter I bought just months ago. For example, I immediately registered diariosdescooter.com, a website that would document my journeys all over the country, and beyond. Like a modern Che I would voyage Central America and report on whatever I would encounter, from social issues to geographics, from the beauty of its nature to the ugly circumstances of the many people that live in it. Even my Afghan shawl, bought in Kabul in 2006, entered the plans as it would protect me on the many dust roads I surely would have to navigate. Other than that, the scooter would serve me well to commute from where I live to Panama City, where I work.

That was the plan. Then came reality….