Panama
The official name of Panama is the Republic of Panama or (República de Panamá). Panama is located on the narrowest and lowest part of the Isthmus of Panama that links North America and South America. This part of the isthmus is situated between 7° and 10° north latitude and 77° and 83° west longitude. Panama is slightly smaller than South Carolina, approximately 77,082 square kilometers.
The country’s two coastlines are referred to as the Caribbean and Pacific, rather than the north and south coasts. To the east is Colombia and to the west Costa Rica. Pacific. Dominant features of their landform is highlands forming the continental divide. The higher elevations near borders with Costa Rica and Colombia. The highest point in the country is the Volcán Barú which rises to almost 3,500 meters. The lowest elevation is in the middle of the country where it is crossed by the Panama Canal.
Most of the population is on the Pacific side of the divide. The population of the country is around 2.8 million with a growth rate of 1.5%. The racial and ethnic groups are 65% mestizo, 14% African descent, 10% Spanish descent, 10% Indian. The religion is 85% Roman Catholic,
5% Protestant, and 5% Islamic. Spanish is the official language, though United States influence and the canal zone reinforce the use of English as a second language. Panama's arts show its ethnic mix. Indian tribes, West Indian groups, mestizos, Chinese, Middle Eastern, Swiss, Yugoslav and North American immigrants have all offer contributed ingredients to the
culture. Traditional arts are woodcarving, weaving, ceramics and mask-making.
The capital city is Panama City with major cities of Colon, Bocas del Toro, Potobelo, El porvenir, Santiago, Tocumen, La Palma, David, Balboa, and el Dorado.
Political culture traditionally characterized by personalism, the tendency to give one's political loyalties to an individual rather than to a party. Politics from 1968 until his death in 1981 dominated by General Omar Torrijos Herrera, Their form of government is Executive under provisions of their 1972 Constitution, as amended in 1978 and 1983. The chief executive is president of the republic, he is assisted by two vice presidents, all elected by popular vote for five-year terms.
The unit of currency is the Balboa which is equal to the United States dollar. Balboas are
available only in coins.
Almost 500 rivers intertwine through Panama's landscape. Many of these rivers
originated as swift highland streams. The Río Chepo and the Río Chagres are sources of hydroelectric power. The Río Chagres is one of the longest and most vital of the 150 rivers that flow into the Caribbean. A part of this river was dammed to create Gatun Lake, which forms a major part of the transit route between the locks near each end of the canal.
Panama has a tropical climate with high temperatures and humidity year round. Seasons determined by rainfall rather than by changes in temperature.
The country is divided into nine provinces, plus the Comarca de San Blas, which is treated as
part of Colón Province. The provincial borders have not changed since they were determined at
independence in 1903. The provinces are divided into districts, which in turn are subdivided into
sections called corregimientos.
The country claims the seabed of the continental shelf, which has been defined by Panama. In addition, a 1958 law asserts jurisdiction over 12 nautical miles from the coastlines, and in 1968the government announced a claim to a 200-nautical-mile Exclusive Economic Zone.
The major port on the Pacific coastline is Balboa. The principal islands are Archipiélago de las Perlas in the middle of the Gulf of Panama, the penal colony, and the island of Taboga, a tourist attraction that can be seen from Panama City. In all, there are some 1,000 islands off the Pacific coast. The Pacific coastal waters are extraordinarily shallow. Depths of 180 meters are reached only outside the perimeters of both the Gulf of Panama and the Golfo de Chiriquí, and wide mud flats extend up to 70 kilometers from the coastlines. As a result, the tidal range is outrageous. A difference of about 70 centimeters between high and low water on the Caribbean coast contrasts sharply with over 700 centimeters on the Pacific coast, and 130 kilometers up the Río Tuira the range is still over 500 centimeters. The mountain range of the divide is called the Cordillera de Talamanca near the Costa Rican border. Farther east it becomes the Serranía de Tabasará, and the portion of it closer to the lower portion of the isthmus, where the canal is located, is often called the Sierra de Veraguas. The major animal life is primarily Birds which are a primary indicator of biodiversity Panama has 936 species of birds.
Public education began in Panama soon after independence from Colombia in 1903 child should. By the 1920s, Panamanian education was good, explicitly designed to assist the able and ambitious individual in search of upward social mobility. In the late 1930s, as much as one-
fourth of the national budget went to education. Between 1920 and 1934, primary-school
enrollment doubled. Adult illiteracy, more than 70 percent in 1923, dropped to roughly half the
adult population in more than a decade. By the early 1950s, adult illiteracy had dropped to 28.
The 1950s saw essentially no improvement; adult illiteracy was 27 percent in 1960. There were
gains in the 1960s, however, and the rate of adult illiteracy dropped 8 percentage points by 1970.
According to 1980 estimates, only 13 percent of Panamanians over 10 years of age were
illiterate.Men and women were equally represented among the literate. The most notable
disparity was between urban and rural Panama; From the 1950s through the early 1980s,
educational enrollments expanded faster than the rate of population growth and, for most of that
period, faster than the school-aged population. School attendance was good for children from
ages six through fifteen years, or until the completion of primary school. A six-year primary
cycle was followed by two types of secondary school programs: an academic-oriented program
and a vocational-type program. In addition to the academic program, there was a vocational type
secondary-school program that offered professional or technical courses aimed specifically at
giving students the technical skills needed for employment following graduation. In the mid-
1980s, nearly one-quarter of all secondary students chose this type of course. Like the more
academic-oriented secondaryschool program, the vocational-type program was divided into two
cycles. Students could choose their studies from a variety of specializations, including
agriculture, art, commerce, and industrial trades.
Admission to the university normally required the bachillerato (graduation certificate or
baccalaureate), awarded on completion of the upper part of the academic course of studies,
although the University of Panama had some latitude in determining admissions standards. The
bachillerato was generally considered an essential component of middle-class status. Public
secondary schools that offered the baccalaureate degree also offered the lower cycle. They were
generally located in provincial capital cities. The oldest, largest, and most highly regarded of
these was the National Institute in Panama City. The University of Panama grew out of it, and
the school had produced so many public figures that it was known as the Nest of Eagles. It
tended to draw its student body from upwardly mobile rather than long-established elements of
the elite. Its students were well known for their political activism.
Another college, the Colegio del Istmo, was started early in the nineteenth century, but the school did not prosper, and Panamanians who wished to pursue a higher education were required to go abroad or to Colombia until 1935, when the University of Panama was founded. In the mid-1980s, most presecondary schooling took place within the university. Other institutions,
such as the School of Nursing and the Superior Center for Bilingual Secretaries, made up for less
than 3 percent of enrollment at this educational level.
There are Fourteen ports, the most important Balboa (Pacific) and Cristóbal (Atlantic) at
the entrances to Panama Canal. There were 3 separate, unconnected Railroad systems totalling
238 kilometers. Main line between Panama City and Colón (seventy-six kilometers). Other two
in west, originating in David and Almirante, respectively, and continuing across the Costa Rican
border. In 1984 about 9,535 kilometers of roadside twined through Panama, 32 percent asphalted. Principal axes are Pan-American Highway, running across Panama from Costa Rica toward Colombia. There are eight main airport fields, including one international airport: General Omar Torrijos International Airport, more commonly known as Tocumen International Airport, near Panama City. The trans-isthmian pipeline completed in 1982. Approximately eighty-one kilometers long, running from Puerto Armuelles to Chiriquí Grande.
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Robert Bolt
Over his lengthy, distinguished career, British screenwriter and playwright Robert Bolt has been thrice nominated for Academy Awards and has won twice for Doctor Zhivago (1965) and A Man for All Seasons(1966). Born and raised in Manchester, Bolt served in the British Air Force during WWII and afterward attended Manchester University. Following graduation, Bolt became a teacher of English at the prestigious Millfield private school in Somerset. He remained there between 1950-58. In his spare time, Bolt wrote radio and stage plays, but gained little recognition until he penned the script for his play Flowering Cherry (1957). His third play, A Man for All Seasons opened in 1960; the original production made actor Paul Scofield a star and was a hit on the London and Broadway stage. The publicity surrounding the production attracted the attention of movie producer Sam Spiegel who hired Bolt to completely revise recently exiled writer Michael Wilson's script for David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia. (1962). The result was an Academy Award nomination for Bolt's script. Throughout the decade, Bolt would specialize in adapting literature to the screen. He would not have an original script produced until Lean directed Bolt's Ryan's Daughter (1970). Unfortunately, the film bombed at the box-office. After that, Bolt spent a while working on his playwrighting career and found success with Vivat! Vivat Regina! (1970). His next script was for the costume drama Lady Caroline Lamb (1972) starring Bolt's wife Sarah Miles, who had also starred in Ryan's Daughter. In 1976, Lean approached Bolt with a new idea for an epic reworking of the story of the Bounty mutiny. With funding by Dino De Laurentiis and Paramount studio, Bolt set to work on the script. Over the next two years, Bolt concentrated most of his energy on the script, creating two versions. Their working titles were The Law Breakers and The Long Arm. He had completed the former script but suffered a massive heart attack on April 12, 1979 followed by a stroke, and he was unable to finish the second script. In 1984, however, the first script was made into The Bounty directed Roger Donaldson. Bolt saw his final script The Mission, produced in 1986. -- Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
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