The weekly report on US and International policy
by Edwina Rogers
Policy & Ecology – Secular Policy Insitute┬áReceived By Panamanian Ambassador This Week
On Tuesday, July 7th, Secular Policy Institute┬áCEO Edwina Rogers had dinner with the Ambassador of Panama at the Ambassador’s residence in D.C. ┬áH.E. Emanuel Gonzalez-Revilla was appointed to serve as the Ambassador of the Republic of Panama to the U.S. by the newly elected President of Panama, H.E. Juan Carlos Varela Rodriguez in August of 2014.
This spring, the Panamanian President signed a new law to create the Environment Ministry, formerly the National Environment Authority (ANAM). This move indicates┬áthat environmental issues will receive more consideration as Panama’s political agenda develops.
Mirei Endara, the head of the new ministry, outlined five priority areas in a recent interview:
1. Changing the Ministry’s procedures to be more efficient and transparent,┬álooking specifically at technology investments. This would include an analysis of the Ministry’s environmental impact study framework to identify areas of improvement.
2. Stimulating eco-tourism in protected areas. Tourism in general has been growing in Panama over the past few years, but this has contributed to over-development in sensitive environmental areas.
3. The Alliance to Reforest 1 million hectares of trees over the next 20 years. Announced several months ago, this initiative could mean more incentives for smallholder farmers to plant trees on their deforested land.
4. Addressing climate change by promoting low-carbon development.
5. Water, including better management of watersheds,┬áincreasing access to clean water in rural areas, and better information and monitoring systems. This would start with a baseline inventory of all the water systems in Panama to understand their quality and integrity, though it’s not certain that would extend all the way out into the types of rural villages where we work.
Iceland’s parliament agreed to abolish the blasphemy provision of the Criminal Code. The Pirate PartyÔÇÖs parliamentarians submitted the proposal in January, which received broad support from all other political parties in Parliament. The matter was unanimously supported by the committee examining the proposal. Icelanders have now taken an important step in guaranteeing human rights and joined other nations which respect freedom of speech and expression.
There was also extensive support for the bill among the various organizations consulted by Parliament: in addition to Sidmennt (The Icelandic Ethical Humanist Association), the bishop of Iceland, the Icelandic priesthood, the Association of Publishers, PEN Iceland, IMMI (The International Modern Media Institute) an Icelandic based international organization of information and freedom of expression and an atheist group called Vantr├║.
The bill is a response to criticism by various international institutions such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Council of Europe and the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe which specifically concluded that countries should abolish the blasphemy provisions in their laws. 
Sidmennt has always focused attention on abolishing the blasphemy provision in the Icelandic Criminal Code and has sent parliamentarians memoranda about this in our annual letter to them with suggestions about important issues which promote human rights.
SidmenntÔÇÖs comments to Parliament on this bill included the following:
“Often, countries where there is a lack of democracy and freedom are criticized for punishing people for blasphemy even with death sentences. When those countries are criticized, their spokespeople frequently point out, correctly, that similar laws are in force in “Western” democracies. Therefore, it sends a vital message to the rest of the world if Iceland has repealed its blasphemy law. Nations which maintain blasphemy laws with serious consequences should not be able to point to Iceland and say that it has the same kind of law.”