One for the Sinophobes or Hating Carter All Over Again.

This is almost a month old but I just discovered it in an Indonesian-American newspaper while waiting for my spare-ribs:

PANAMA CITY -- Learning Mandarin could soon be compulsory for school children in Panama to ready the Spanish-speaking nation for China's growing importance as a trading partner.

Panama's National Assembly next week will debate a bill to make Mandarin lessons obligatory in all government-run primary schools in the trade-dependent canal nation.

Mandarin is the official language of China and Taiwan. Panama has no diplomatic relations with Beijing but China has major interests in its transport and shipping sectors.


http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html?id=38757649-a220-4411-8130-ff26c8ffa143

I don't give a fig what Panamians speak but obviously this signals a u-turn away from El Norte. I'm surprised the Amero crowd hasn't jumped all over this one. It fits nicely into the crackpot realism worldview.