Weekly Report - 18 March 2010 (WR-10-11)

Panama's right-wing president Ricardo Martinelli paid a trip to Israel earlier this month where he distanced himself from the country's traditional policy of neutrality by hailing Israel as the “guardian of the world's capital, Jerusalem". His bold remarks, which unleashed a barrage of criticism from the opposition, follow his government's increasingly unequivocal stance in relation to a foreign conflict closer to home - that between the Colombian government and the guerrilla group Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc).