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NOTICE FOR TENDERS

NOTICE FOR TENDERS

NOTICE TO GENERAL CONTRACTORS The Department of Public Works of the City of San José will be receiving sealed bids until 3 p.m. m., on July 11, 2019, at 200 E. Santa Clara St., San Jose CA 95113, to modify the existing traffic signal system at the intersection of King Rd. and San Antonio St. by replacing the signaling equipment existing traffic, removing the right turn lane eastbound on San Antonio Street, adding separate curb extensions at the northwest and southeast corners, six (6) new ramps that comply with the ADA, relocating public services, example, fire hydrants, utility boxes and adding new signs and traffic marks. Project funded with a Block Grant for Community Development and subject to the federal requirements of Davis-Bacon. The General Contractor shall comply with Section 3 of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968 (12 U.S.C.17IOU) which requires that preference be given to the hiring of low and very low income residents of San José. Women and minority-owned businesses are strongly encouraged to submit their application.

INSTRUCTIONS TO BIDDERS:

The contact documents, drawings and specifications can be consulted or obtained from Biddingo at: www.biddingo.com.

Meeting / voluntary tour prior to bidding: June 27, 2019 at 10 a.m. m.

200 E Santa Clara St., Tower 6th floor Room 644, San José, CA Tender opening: July 11 at 3:00 p.m. m.

200 E. Santa Clara St., Tower 5th floor Room 550, San Jose, CA.

E Reportero – CNS-3259972 #

Yerba Buena Gardens Festival

Compiled by the El Reportero’s staff

What’s in that box, you ask? In the hands of Ka-Hon, a gentle spring shower, a flamenco troupe, a galloping stallion and a rumba circle.

Drawing on a pan-American array of rhythms, the high-energy ensemble displays the astounding versatility of the humble cajón, a simple wooden box usually played by a percussionist seated atop it.

Founded in 2012 by some of the Bay Area’s finest Latin percussionists, Ka-Hon features Venezuelan-born Omar Ledezma Jr., Perú’s Braulio Barrera and Pedro Rosales, and Mexican-born José Roberto Hernandez and Javier Cabanillas. Known for highly interactive performances, this band creates an experience that’s definitely outside the box. Outdoors for Kids.

Hosted by Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, at Yerba Buena Children’s Garden, 775 Howard St, San Francisco. June 7 – 11:00 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. | Cost: FREE

10x Grammy winner Arturo Sandoval at Yoshi’s

Arturo Sandoval, a protégé of the legendary jazz master Dizzy Gillespie, anx Grammy winner, will be playing at Yoshi’s next week.

He is one of the most dynamic and vivacious live performers of our time, and has been seen by millions at the Oscars, at the Grammy Awards, and the Billboard Awards. Sandoval has been awarded 10 Grammy Awards, and nominated 19 times; he has also received 6 Billboard Awards and an Emmy Award.

Friday, June 14. Doors: 7:30 p.m. / Show: 8 p.m., at Yoshi’s, 510 Embarcadero West, Oakland, CA 94607 (510) 238-9200.

Dinner celebration of 4th anniversary of priestwood

The San Francisco community is gathering to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Father Javier Pudota (Father Shouraiah Pudota) Javier Pudota of St. James Churche at Guerrero and 23rd streets in San Francisco. It will be an event to raise funds for the construction of a school in Nicaragua. He is going to Ometepe, Nicaragua, with the mission of helping build the school. It will be a party with full dinner.

People are encouraged to reserve tables to share among friends to help fund this humanitarian project. Tickets can be purchased at Ibarra Brothers Printing, at 1009 Valencia Street. For more information please call at 415-826-6700. It will take place at Patio Español “Salón Picasso”, at 2850 Alemany Blvd, San Francisco.

Admission per person: $65 (chicken or pasta), $70 (steak) incudes dinner, salad, dessert and 2 carafes of wine per table. Music by DJ.

LOS VAN VAN and Banda Sin Nombre at Stern Grove Festival 2019

San Francisco’s Original Outdoor Music Festival Celebrating 82 Years! 

Los Van Van heats up the Grove with its revolutionary “songo” sound, a uniquely Cuban concoction of rock, jazz, and son designed for one thing—dancing! One of the most important bands in 20th century Cuban music, Los Van Van celebrates its 50th Anniversary this year. Don’t miss this legendary group when they return to the Grove. (Los Van Van performed at Stern Grove Festival in 1999).

Opening the show on June 23, is local group Banda Sin Nombre, a five-piece street band from San Francisco’s Mission District. Mixing rich vocal harmonies with acoustic instruments—including guitar, fiddle, charango, cajon, and bass—the band’s inspirations range from Peruvian chicha to Catalan rumba, Appalachian old time to cumbia. Then they are followed by Los Van Van.

Stern Grove Festival, a San Francisco summer tradition, announced its line-up of free concerts—Sundays at 2 p.m. from June 16 through Aug. 18 — at Sigmund Stern Grove, located at 19th Avenue and Sloat Boulevard in San Francisco.

This summer’s 10-week concert series kicks off with Digable Planets, and features performances by Los Van Van, Galactic, Mitski, Toots and the Maytals and Lee Fields and the Expressions, The Psychedelic Furs and James, Pink Martini, The Isley Brothers, and more, as well as the Festival’s classical partners San Francisco Symphony and San Francisco Ballet.

Every Sunday 10,000 people gather to enjoy world-class live music in a breathtaking setting. And all for free! Celebrating its 82nd season, Stern Grove Festival is the Bay Area’s original outdoor music festival where the sounds  of rock, hip-hop, jazz, folk, classical, funk, and blues all define the experience.

In the land of the free, cops raid a journalist’s home, kidnap him after he refused to name source

Despite multiple laws on the books protecting journalists from revealing their sources, a journalist in California was raided after refusing to reveal his

by Matt Agorist

In the land of the free, journalists are now being raided by SWAT teams in an effort to find out their sources and this is in spite of the law protecting journalists from this very act. Freelance journalist Bryan Carmody just fell victim to the police state in California as multiple San Francisco cops with sledge hammers and weapons began breaking down his door last week in an effort to find out his source for a leaked police report.

As the Society for Professional Journalists points out, California’s Shield Law protects journalists from being held in contempt for refusing to disclose their sources’ identities and other unpublished/unaired information obtained during the news gathering process (California Constitution, Article I, § 2(b); California Evidence Code § 1070(a)). California Penal Code section 1524(g) provides that “no warrant shall issue” for any item protected by the Shield Law.

Despite this protection under the law, police still raided Carmody’s home.

According to a report from NPR:

The raids on Carmody’s home and office are the latest in a series of events concerning the death of San Francisco public defender Jeff Adachi in February, at age 59.

Within hours of Adachi’s collapsing in a San Francisco apartment, details from a leaked police investigation into his death were already sowing up in news reports, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

A number of the details in the police report were salacious, suggesting that perhaps one or more members of the police department were trying to tarnish the reputation of Adachi, who was known as a police watchdog and fierce advocate for criminal justice reform. In San Francisco, a public defender is an elected position.

After Carmody sold the report to several outlets, it showed up everywhere and this likely infuriated the police department.

“There were leaks happening all over the place,” Carmody recalled to the Los Angeles Times.

Due to the nature of the report painting police in a negative light and hurting their image, the raid could’ve been retaliatory in nature. Indeed, since it was in direct violation of California law, it appears as such.

According to Carmody, before the raid, two cops came to his home to demand he tell them the source of his report. However, knowing full well that he did not have to, Carmody politely refused. Two weeks later, a team of cops showed up.

Carmody recalls the officers showing up to his home, who began smashing in his door with a sledge hammer and a battering ram, without knocking. To avoid having the front of his home demolished by the raid, Carmody opened the door.
This is a screen grab from my surveillance system. pic.twitter.com/qEHc0lpzs4

— Bryan C. Carmody (@bryanccarmody) May 11, 2019.

“I don’t think it was right to break my door down,” he said in an interview. “I’m one of the original independent media companies in San Francisco. This is outrageous.”

When the police came into his home, they kidnapped Carmody for over six hours, holding him in handcuffs.
pic.twitter.com/qrVRsHCxb9
— Bryan C. Carmody (@bryanccarmody) May 11, 2019

“I’m smart enough not to talk to federal agents, ever,” Carmody told The Washington Post. “I just kept saying ‘lawyer, lawyer, lawyer.’”

While they held Carmody captive, the officers tore his home apart, confiscating all of his computers and equipment.

“It’s designed to intimidate,” Carmody’s lawyer, Thomas Burke, told The Associated Press. “It’s essentially the confiscation of a newsroom.”

Naturally, the police are standing by the Stasi-style raid of a journalist’s home, and referred to Carmody’s detainment and theft of his equipment as part of an “investigation.”

David Stevenson, a spokesman for the San Francisco police, told the Chronicle that the “search warrant executed today was granted by a judge and conducted as part of a criminal investigation into the leak of the Adachi police report.” He called it “one step in the process of investigating a potential case of obstruction of justice along with the illegal distribution of a confidential police report.”

As NPR notes, Burke said that normally journalists would receive a subpoena, and then get a lawyer to ensure the proper protections. “So much information has nothing to do with the purpose of their investigation,” he said. “If you are looking for one piece of information, that’s why you issue a subpoena.”

But this did not happen and instead, police carried out an extremely disturbing raid on a journalist.

Luckily, because Carmody had committed no crime, he was eventually released, but not before the cops took the report, stole his property, and damaged his home. This is what journalism looks like in 2019.

The day my heart opens once a year is for you, dad, on Father’s Day

This is one of the most sublime days for me: Father’s Day, the day of the man who guided me from a distance, the journalist José Santos Ramírez Calero.

It is the day that many celebrate the one who one day was, if he is not among us anymore: our father. How nice it is to remember that human being that by his nature does not complain; that silently keeps his pain and tears, and goes, as the song of Piero says, already going slow in his life, knowing that he is going to die.

He’s a good guy, my old man who walks alone and waiting have long sadness from so much coming
I look at it from afar but we are so different is that he grew up with the century with trolley cars and red wine
My old dear old man now you are walking slowly like forgiving the wind
I am your blood, my old man I am your silence and your time
He has good eyes and a heavy figure the age came on him without carnival or comparsa
I have the new years and the man the old years pain he carries inside and has a history without time
My old dear old man now you are walking slowly
like forgiving the wind
I am your blood, my old man
I am your silence and your time.
— Piero

My father fit in that profile of this Piero’s song. It’s like a spoken picture of him.

And that’s why when I listen to this song that I tuned the day of his funeral, I cannot help crying again, crying as if his death had been yesterday, but it was on June 12, 2004 when he left.

Yes father. Things were not the same from that day that I cried uncontrollably back in the funeral home in front of friends and family, sitting in front of where your body laid dead in that cold coffin … My life came to me in my thoughts, remembering what I did not do for you. What I could not do for lack of time, even when you were in an endless agony, when cancer took you drop by drop, day by day your life; that consumed the flesh of your body … and you were already only in the bones. And they forced you to eat by the stomach. I never understood, although I suspected it, that keeping you alive produced profit to some who took care of you. What a shame!

What a horrible death you suffered, Dad, and those who took care of you – paid by the county, they did not want you to leave, they were paid to keep you alive; tied your soul by a thread that stopped you from going to the eternal abode, where God awaits us all , at the end of the race.

A little past 11 p.m. of that June 12 I received the news that you had left; my heart cried intensely, but I was able to change my clothes and go where your lifeless body laid, and see you how the supposed caregivers always kept you: naked on a bed. An act that I always considered humiliating to your dignity; a lack of respect for your humanity. Thank you! Oh God, I said, for having stopped the pain you endured while being forced not to die, when it was really time for you to leave.

And those who ‘took care’ of you for a salary, as if it were a business, did not even come to the funeral house, or to the cemetery. It seemed that they were not your children, and the little that you left behind of your possession they took it in a rush. They did not use what little you had to pay for your candle and burial, but I was the one who responded with dignity by paying it on my own. And now, like vultures, they are fighting for the little land you left. What a shame.

This Father’s Day, oh dad, it really burns me from the bottom inside, because even as the years go by, I always feel like it was yesterday. And I know, without a doubt, that from the beyond, you’re watching me.

Your legacy was to have inspired me to take the same sublime career of journalism that you professed throughout your life, from Nicaragua to the U.S. You could show in your eyes how proud you were of me when I printed my first edition of El Reportero newspaper on that March of 1991, and later when you attended my graduation at San Francisco State University. And I think that this is what makes me continue to keep printing, even though I no longer have the same strength, because from there you inspire me not to hang the gloves.

Followers pray after church leader arrested on human trafficking, sex charges

Head of evangelical church La Luz del Mundo described as a sexual predator

by Mexico News Daily

Officials and followers of a Mexican-based evangelical church are defending and praying for its leader after he was arrested this week on human trafficking, rape and child pornography charges.

Naasón Joaquín García, leader or “Apostle” of the Guadalajara-based church La Luz del Mundo – Light of the World – was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport on Monday.

Three women also affiliated with La Luz del Mundo – Alondra Ocampo, Azalea Rangel Meléndez and Susana Medina Oaxaca – also face charges. They had been under investigation since 2018 after California authorities received a tip via an online clergy abuse complaint form.

The accused are alleged to have committed 26 offenses in Los Angeles county between 2015 and 2018.

García, who is being held on US $50 million bail, as well as Ocampo and Medina appeared in a Los Angeles courtroom yesterday. Rangel failed to appear.

In a graphic criminal complaint filed Tuesday, prosecutors allege that García is a sexual predator and that the three women helped procure young girls for the pleasure of the man known by church members as “the Apostle of Jesus Christ.”

In one incident described in the complaint, Ocampo is alleged to have called a girl to García’s home and ordered her to remove her clothes and serve him coffee in his office.

When the girl entered his office, García allegedly kissed her on the lips and touched her in intimate locations. He is accused of sexually abusing three girls and one woman, according to the criminal complaint.

Prosecutors also allege that Ocampo took photographs of three naked girls, telling them that they were for “the servant of God” – García.

Just hours after the 50-year-old leader was detained, La Luz del Mundo bishops urged church members to start praying for their leader, and not stop.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the doors of La Luz del Mundo church in East LA, where García was once a pastor, have been left open overnight so the devout can pray for their leader around the clock.

“We’re united in prayer,” said Jack Freeman, a minister who has been with the church for almost three decades.

“An attack like this, which is meant to stumble us or bring us apart, it actually brings us closer together… We’re not giving up. The church is still going to go forward. We believe this is still the church of the Lord.”

At the church’s flagship temple in Guadalajara, scores of congregants have been praying for García, who has led services there during the past four and a half years. A minister leading a service yesterday told the congregation to have faith that their leader will return soon.

Jesus Christ himself and his disciples also faced persecution, he said.

Church members in California told the Times that García is a target of a smear campaign designed to bring him down, as occurred with his deceased father and former church leader, Samuel Joaquin Flores, who was also the subject of child sex abuse allegations but never faced charges.

“He is a man of God,” said David Salazar. “It’s not true… It’s just meant to discredit him.”

Another church member, Francisco Lucas, said: “This is a living church, we are a spiritual church. We believe in justice. We are praying for God to do justice.”

Silem García, a spokesman for La Luz del Mundo, told reporters in Mexico City that the church and its congregants consider the accusations to be “defamatory” and false.

“We believe firmly in the innocence of the Apostle of Jesus Christ,” he said.

Ashley García, who is also a La Luz del Mundo spokesman, said in East Los Angeles that the church is confident that the legal system will find García innocent.

“The Apostle of Jesus Christ has always adhered to the law… He is the mouthpiece for God,” he said.

Founded in Mexico in 1926 by García’s grandfather, La Luz del Mundo has spread to more than 50 countries and has more than one million members.

The church – which doesn’t celebrate Christmas or Easter, segregates sexes during services, prohibits alcohol and doesn’t allow women to hold leadership positions – has been the subject of controversy for decades and described by critics as a cult that preys on the poor.

Andrew Chesnut, a professor of religious studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, said the church is “too large to be considered a cult” but has been run as a “cult of personality.”
“García took on godlike roles, saying he couldn’t be judged, that he was like a king.”

Source: The Los Angeles Times (en), El Universal (sp).

Mexico takes another hit as Fitch downgrades Pemex to junk status

If Moody’s follows suit there would be a huge sell-off of Pemex bonds

Mexico was dealt another ratings blow today: Fitch Ratings downgraded Pemex to junk status, reducing its credit rating from investment grade to speculative with a negative outlook.

The new rating of BB+, down from BBB-, follows yesterday’s downgrade of Mexico’s sovereign debt from BBB+ to BBB.

“Although Pemex has implemented some cost-cutting [measures] and received moderate tax cuts from Mexico, the company continues to severely underinvest in its upstream business, which could lead to further production and reserves decline,” Fitch said in a statement.

“The very high level of transfers from Pemex to the Mexican government continues to significantly pressure Pemex’s cash flow generation and reinvestment ability and weaken its standalone credit profile,” it added.

The downgrade had been anticipated by some investors but perhaps not quite so soon.

Reuters reported earlier today that investors at six of the world’s largest asset managers, all of whom own Pemex bonds, expected them to be downgraded to junk status within months.

If one of the two other ratings agencies follows Fitch’s lead— Moody’s currently rates the bonds at one level above junk — there would be a sell-off of up to US $16 billion by investors who are required to hold investment-grade bonds.

Reuters said if that were to happen Pemex would become the largest fallen angel — a borrower that descends from investment grade to junk — in history. (Mexico News Daily).

Bill to protect ‘dreamers’ and offer a path to citizenship passes the House

by the El Reportero’s news services

Democrats passed a bill on Tuesday that will offer protection and a path to citizenship to about 2.5 million “dreamers” who were brought to the US as children, and which President Donald Trump had intended to remove.

The bill, which passed 237 to 187, with seven Republicans voting yes, would create a new legal pathway for young undocumented immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children, known as Dreamers, and for those with Temporary Protected Status, granted to immigrants whose countries are ravaged by natural disaster or violence.

The vote for the American Dream and Promise Act of 2019, would grant dreamers 10 years of legal residence status if they meet certain requirements.

The White House said on Monday that Mr. Trump would veto the measure. But as the vote tally hit 218, representing a majority for passage, scores of Dreamers seated in the House gallery rose to their feet and cheered loudly, chanting, “Si se puede!” and then the English translation, “Yes we can!” It was evidence of the national grass-roots movement they have built over more than a decade to push for permanent legal status.

Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.), a freshman congressman and the son of Eritrean refugees, prompted cheers and a standing ovation from Democrats as he quoted President Ronald Reagan to defend immigration as integral to the fabric of the country. He also described dreamers as “young people all across our country who know no other home but the United States.”

“We can’t allow these young people to continue to live in fear, to be at risk,” Neguse said.

The Obama administration granted work permits to many of them through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, but President Trump ended the program in late 2017. Its fate rests with the Supreme Court, which may take up the issue in the coming months.

Versions of the bill have been introduced in Congress over the years but never passed, despite support among members of both parties. The debate over the legislation has been emotional at times; in 2010, more than 60 young people crowded into the Senate gallery to push for passage of a previous version of the bill known as the Dream Act. The chamber ultimately defeated the measure.

“This is legislation that is consistent with who we are as Americans, as an aspirational people, as a nation of immigrants and as a place where people can come to pursue the American Dream,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, told reporters ahead of Tuesday’s vote.

Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.), the lead sponsor of the current bill, noted that Tuesday marked “the first time the Dream Act will be passed by a chamber of Congress as a top Democratic priority.”

“Because of Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant policies, millions of immigrants across the country live in constant fear that they will face deportation and potentially be separated from their families,” Representative Nydia M. Velázquez, Democrat of New York, said as she argued in favor of the bill. “Let’s send a strong message to the world that we recognize that immigrants make America America.”

Republicans denounced the bill as a grant of amnesty that would provide an incentive for more illegal immigration at a time when the border with Mexico is already overrun by migrants.

“This bill does nothing to address our crisis,” said Representative Mike D. Rogers, Republican of Alabama. “Instead, it tells an entire generation of illegal immigrants that breaking our laws is rewarded.”

The House measure was introduced in March. That month, two groups of senators introduced similar legislation that would protect dreamers. One bill was authored by Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.). The other was introduced by a group of Democrats, including Sens. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), Ben Cardin (Md.), Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) and Tim Kaine (Va.).

House Democratic leaders on Tuesday voiced optimism that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) would bring up the legislation in the Senate.

“There should be nothing partisan or political about this legislation,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said at a news conference, flanked by other Democrats and supporters of the measure. “We are proud to pass it, we hope, in a bipartisan way.”

Passage of the legislation follows years of haggling among Mr. Trump and congressional Republicans and Democrats over a plan that would have done both, pairing legal status for the Dreamers and Temporary Protected Status holders with money for a border wall. The negotiations broke down repeatedly, even amid signs that such a measure would have had enough bipartisan support to pass.

Democrats now say they are opposed to any money for a wall. Even as they debated the so-called Dream and Promise Act on Tuesday, they unveiled a spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security that added no new money for border barriers or security measures. Republicans likewise were nearly unanimous in their opposition to protecting Dreamers and Temporary Protected Status holders, arguing that stricter immigration policies must first be imposed.

Immigrants with temporary protected status or deferred deportations could immediately apply for green cards if they have been in the country for at least three years, had their status as of September 2016 and passed background checks. Five years after obtaining a green card, members of both groups could apply for citizenship.

(Sources: The New York Times and the Washington Post).

Mexico blocks new caravan of Central American migrants

Tuxtla Gutiérrez (Mexico) (AFP) – Authorities blocked a new caravan of Central American migrants Wednesday after they entered Mexico bound for the United States.

Soldiers and police forced hundreds of migrants in the group — which was mostly from Honduras — to a halt in the southern town of Metapa de Domínguez, about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) from the Mexican-Guatemalan border.

The National Migration Institute (INM) said about 420 migrants had been stopped and taken to a detention center by bus.

But many others may have fled: state police initially estimated the caravan had some 1,200 people.

(Source: AFP).

US Army arrives in Guatemala to stop migration to Mexico

by the El Reportero wire services

Despite the fact that the United States and Guatemala signed an agreement to stop migration, President Donald Trump requested the invasion of US military troops.

The Minister of Defense of Guatemala, Luis Miguel Ralda, indicated that the US military troops are already working with the department of Huehuetenango to stop the unauthorized migration that leaves the country.

Ralda, indicated that US military troops are already working in Guatemala to stop migration pic.twitter.com/CToNOlomnQ – Diario La Hora (@lahoragt) June 3, 2019

Last week the United States and Guatemala signed a cooperation agreement to stop human trafficking and criminal networks, the country committed to share information and improve border security.

Despite this, The New Yorker published a letter in which Donald Trump requested the intervention of US military troops in Guatemala, an action that President Jimmy Morales would have accepted.

According to the Washington Post, officials from the Department of Homeland Security would help the Guatemalan national police and immigration authorities in operations to intercept human trafficking.

“I am proud to sign this agreement with the Minister Enrique Antonio Degenhart. Through our ongoing collaboration and partnership, the United States and Guatemala are formalizing a series of initiatives to improve the lives and safety of our respective citizens through the fight against human trafficking and the smuggling of illegal assets, helping to limit the factors that encourage the dangerous irregular migration to the United States, perpetuating the crisis that exists on the border, “said Acting Secretary McAleenan. (Source: Migrant Connection).

The IACHR asks El Salvador to suspend the Reconciliation Law

The president of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), Eduardo Ferrer MacGregor Poisot, issued on May 28 a resolution ordering the Salvadoran State to stop the process of the “Special Law of Transitional and Restorative Justice for National Reconciliation”.

Through a communiqué, the Inter-American Court ordered that El Salvador suspend the legislative process of the bill and asked for additional information about how this rule would affect the processes of several massacres that occurred in 1981, in which members of the Armed Forces killed more than 900 civilians.

The resolution requires the State to submit a report no later than June 14, 2019. The international body warns that “if approved in the terms in which the project is currently proposed, it could be a law incompatible with the articles 8 and 25 of the American Convention.”

The bill must be reformed since it contains inadmissible rules that could deprive thousands of victims of atrocious crimes of genuine justice.

This establishes alternative penalties for defendants who confess crimes and tell the truth about what happened:

• Would fully suspend the sentences imposed on those sentenced to 10 years in prison or less.

• Those sentenced to more than 10 years, even if they are massive and aberrant crimes, must comply with sanctions of “public utility work” for a maximum of 10 years.

The legislative project of the so-called “Special Law of Transitional and Restorative Justice for National Reconciliation” would benefit the military and guerrillas involved in serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, which occurred during the 12 years of internal armed conflict in the country. It ended in 1992. The massacre occurred in the El Mozote farmhouse and its surroundings, in the eastern province of Morazán, El Salvador, between December 10 and 13, 1981.

Those responsible for these deaths and forced disappearances, whether military or guerrilla, have never been tried in El Salvador, since they were protected by a general amnesty promulgated in 1993 by the then President Alfredo Cristiani, however, the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice left it without effect in 2016.

FLO, The Funky Latin Orchestra

Compiled by the El Reportero’s staff

The band FLO led by Mio Flores, El Timbalero, consists of a collection of musicians based out of the San Francisco and greater East Bay Area. Each with 30 years and plus of professional entertaining, performing, recording and touring with many greats of the music industry.

This group of well seasoned musicians have been playing together and entertaining audiences of many diverse social backgrounds and genres of music and have crossed paths with each other anywhere from the last five to 25 years in their careers. “FLO” Funky Latin Orchestra is pleased to be at Club Fox with all of you on this great night.

Azul Latino is led by Ernie Nolasco who is a self-taught lead guitarist with over 30 years of experience in the local Bay Area Music Scene. Growing up in the Mission District of San Francisco, Ernie was immersed in the eclectic blend of musical scenes that traversed the Bay Area through the 70s and 80s. Drawing influences from Ernie Isley, Neil Schon, Jimi Hendrix, and Carlos Santana. Ernie is a product of the Guitar’s Golden Age; when artists used the guitar to organically emulate emotion. (www.azullatino.com).

On Saturday, June 1, at Club Fox, 2209 Broadway, Redwood City. Doors open 7 p.m. Show 8 p.m.. Advance: $20/ Door: $25. For More Information, call 415-285-7719 or write DrBGMalo@aol.com.

Teatro Nahual presents “The First Lady” (Spanish)

The First Lady written by the Mexican playwright Willebaldo López is a farce that reflects the absurd reality of the politics that surrounds us worldwide. This work, in a grotesque way and at the same time very close to reality, shows the scope of corruption in which the political layers and the type of ambitious individuals that make up the political posts move. The public, through laughter, can see reflected the reality of the town. Likewise, the eccentric personality of a political leader and the opulence and ambition of his first lady are caricatured, who try to reform the laws for their own convenience, regardless of the welfare of the people.

The work has the performances of Juan Aquino, Lucía Peralta, Geraldo Cadenas, Marco Morales, Brenda Gutiérrez and Carolina López.

The original music is by the masters Gerardo Fernández and Isidro Jiménez. The set design is by Bridget Wylie. The stage direction is in charge of Verónica Meza.

“The First Lady” will premiere on Friday, May 24 at 8 p.m., followed by more performances on Saturdays, May 25, Sunday, May 26, at matinee at 2 p.m .; Friday, May 31 and Saturday, 1st. of June.

Place: MACLA-510 S. First Street in San Jose, CA.

Tickets are on sale at the Teatro Nahual site: www.teatronahual.org. You can also buy them at the theater door or book your tickets at: (650) 793-0783.

San Francisco International Arts Festival

Since 2015 the San Francisco International Arts Festival (SFIAF) in collaboration with the Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture has worked to expand its range of harmonically inspired offerings and this year’s program will feature 20 music concerts or other genres including live musical accompaniment.

The presentations cover many subjects as part of the Festival’s Path to Democracy theme including civil rights, social and racial justice; migration and the plight of refugees and a testimony to the re-emergent period of democracy in Spain’s post-Franco era in the mid-1970s; and concerts focused on protecting the environment and climate change. Among the lineup are:

– Caminos Flamencos (USA)
Flamenco Generation XYZ is a variety showcase by Caminos Flamencos featuring the next generation of dancers and musicians comprising a span of 50 years in a concert of solidarity, collaboration and the passion of flamenco culture.
Gallery 308. Friday May 24, 9:30 p.m. Tickets: $15 – $38.
– San Francisco Flamenco Dance Company (USA) – Don Quixote Rides Again
Get ready for another whimsical flamenco adventure for the whole family. Master Flamenco artist Luis de la Tota stars as Don Quixote in this bilingual, rhythmic adventure filled with dazzling footwork and colorful costumes. He can rap, tap and make you laugh! Don Quixote rides again and you’re invited!
Gallery 308. Saturday May 25, 2 p.m. Tickets: $15 – $28.
At Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture. Thursday May 23 – Sunday June 2, 2019. $15 – $100. Box Office and Information: www.sfiaf.org or 415-399-9554.

Celebrating the joy of giving with Latino flavor!

The Latino Community Foundation will be honoring legends and celebrating the power of culture and courage. There will be dance, great food and wine, and sharing lots of loud, collective laughter.
The event will celebrate the leadership and contributions made by past, present, and future leaders. It’s a celebration of culture, values, and families. Celebrating and honoring the sacrifices that have been made to open doors of access of opportunities for others.
On May 17, 2019, from 5:30 p.m. to 12 midnight, at the San Francisco Fairmont Hotel, 950 Mason Street, San Francisco.
The Latino Community Foundation is on a mission to unleash the power of Latinos in California. Will you join us? www.latinocf.org.

Willie Colón celebrates 30 years of recording El Gran Varón

by the El Reportero’s news services

Willie Colón celebrates 30 years of recording The great man The musician has a lot to celebrate: 30 years of his famous melody and 50 of artistic career Willie Colón is celebrating his golden wedding for his artistic career, 30 of having recorded ‘El gran male ‘and 50 years of belonging to the Fania All Star group, which is why he will celebrate with a concert at the Metropólitan theater. “The song has become a hymn and is placed in the first 25 most listened songs.

‘The great man’ was ‘cooked’ in the La Maraka hall in Mexico, and from there he went out into the world … It’s a song that I have to sing in all the concerts, “said Willie.

Activist, politician, composer, music producer and now sheriff in the state of New York, Colón recognized that salsa is a genre that will not disappear.

“I do not have a lack of work. There is demand everywhere, in Latin America, in Europe and the United States. I know there are other genres right now that are standing out like reggaeton, but salsa has a special place … although there are also no great new values in salsa.”

And although the genre that currently dominates the music industry is urban, for the composer this type of music contains many influences of salsa, because as with reggaeton, the lyrics emerge from the experiences of the marginalized classes.
(Source: El Gráfico).

Bolivian Constitution to recognize three new indigenous languages

Joaquiniano, Paunaka and Kumsa are three new indigenous languages that will be added to all 36 tongues existing and recognized officially by the Political Constitution of the State of Bolivia, local media reported.

The general director of the Plurinational Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures (IPELEC), Pedro Apala, noted that those languages, which have a comparative grammar and vocabularies and are spoken in several regions of the country, will be recognized this year.

Apala pointed out that Joaquiniano is spoken in the plain regions of Beni, Paunaka in Santa Cruz and Kumsa in Sur Chichas (Potosi). He added that he was proud of these new contributions to the Constitution that will increase the cultural identity of the Bolivian peoples through language, which transmits knowledge and wisdom.

Bolivia’s recognized official languages are Spanish and those spoken by indigenous nations and peoples, and peasants, like Aymara, Araona, Baure, Besiro, Canichana, Cavineño, Cayubaba, Chacobo, Chiman, Ese Ejja, Guarani, Guarasu’we, Guarayu, Itonama, Leco, Machajuyai-Kallawaya, Machineri and Maropa.

It also recognizes Mojeño-Trinitario, Mojeño-Ignaciano, More, Moseten, Movima, Pacawara, Puquina, Quechua, Siriono, Tacana, Tapiete, Toromona, Uru-Chipaya, Weenhayek, Yaminawa, Yuki, Yuracare and Zamuco.

According to official statistics, Bolivia has the largest indigenous population in Latin America (62.2 percent, followed by Guatemala, Peru and Mexico).

France, Italy pay tribute to Da Vinci

After months of tensions between the governments of France and Italy, Presidents Emmanuel Macron and Sergio Mattarella joined Thursday to pay tribute to the great Renaissance master Leonardo Da Vinci.

On the 500th anniversary of his death, the two Heads of State moved to the town of Amboise, in the central valley of the Loire River, where Da Vinci had spent the last three years of his life.

The Italian genius was deemed as the Renaissance man archetype because of his incursion in many fields of knowledge and creation – painting, architecture, engineering, and design, among others. He arrived in Gallic lands at the invitation of King Francis I and here he died on May 2nd, 1519.

Although he left a prolific legacy that ranges from philosophical works to incredible engineering designs for his time, in the world he is known mainly for his painting The Giocconda, or The Mona Lisa, which today is exhibited in the Parisian Louvre Museum.

Whistled at, taunted, touched and grabbed: a snarky lesson for cat callers

Being grabbed by a strange man used to happen about once a year

by Sarah DeVries

During my first 10 or so years in Mexico, I would be grabbed by a strange man, on average, once a year.

All seemed to be crimes of opportunity, and it didn’t really stop until I got a big, scary-looking dog, and men would cross the street to avoid me. (Cat calls and whistles are several times a week, forever, until you’re a skeleton, I guess).

A few times were downright scary, like when a man ran up to me and reached under my skirt while I was walking early in the morning to the bus stop to go to work. He stopped and stared at me for a few seconds even as I screamed and hit him as if he were deciding what to do next. No one was around.

Another time someone grabbed me in front of my apartment building after having asked for directions, and said, when I protested, “What, you don’t like it?” He genuinely seemed confused.

I was so paranoid about him knowing where I lived that I went inside and barricaded my door and carried my keys points-out for months.

Nowadays I live in a decidedly more chill area, my neighbors know me, and often see me with my husband and daughter (having a child with you seems to reduce one’s “fair game” rating by about 70%, but is still no guarantee).

Like every woman I know here, foreign and Mexican, I’ve been whistled at, taunted, touched, and grabbed by men. It sucks. But what sucks more is that so many men don’t seem to realize that it’s something they seriously shouldn’t do, and the contempt it shows for women in general chills my blood. This letter (admittedly snarky) is for them.

Hey there, Cat Callers!

Cute gringa here with your first official class on how to not be creepy toward women. Welcome! I know, this isn’t the best introduction to put you at ease, and surely there are some of you out there who feel you’re being sexy and daring, but much like you feel the need to get things off your chest immediately when you see a female of our species that you think you might like (to harass?), I feel it’s best to just jump right in. Shall we?

First, and this is very important: do not, I repeat, DO NOT touch strange women. Or known women, for that matter, if you aren’t sure how they’re going to take it, and especially if it hasn’t even occurred to you that they’d have any emotions about it at all.

I’m not talking about handshakes and greetings in social situations, and I know you know what I mean. I don’t know a single woman, foreign or national, who hasn’t been grabbed on the street by a strange man and had the living daylights scared out of her, and not an insignificant number of women have disappeared and even died after precisely that kind of initial contact.

So take it from me, fellas: unless your end goal is to commit an actual crime, just keep your hands to yourself! If your end goal is to commit a crime, well, tie yourself up somewhere. I don’t know.

Second rule: direct and constant eye contact is very creepy, and not charming at all. Judging from the number of men who do this, I think this one might not be quite as obvious. Haven’t you ever seen those National Geographic documentaries where giant cats crouch, fixated and unblinking, on their prey?

It’s not a nice feeling, thinking you’re about to get pounced on or are being stalked. And it’s definitely not sexy. If you like someone, do this instead: glance over, catch the person’s eye, smile a bit, then look away again. If she smiles back, maybe do it once or twice more (but don’t sustain the look for over two seconds), then walk over and introduce yourself like a normal human being. You can do it!

Third, just do not do that thing where you turn your head a second too early when a woman walks by so that she just knows that you are checking out her behind. It’s icky. It’s gross. And most of all, it’s unwelcome. When you do that, any hope that you might just see us as regular people dissipates, and makes us feel like, well, an object: something to be compared and examined, then bought or left to rot on a shelf; and if you truly love women, I don’t think this is how you want to make them feel.

Lastly, and oh-so-importantly: when women protest in the streets because they’re tired of being ridiculed, ignored, abused, kidnapped, raped and killed at numbers so high Mexico might as well be one giant war zone, march with them instead of criticizing their efforts as “not the right kind” or “too soon” or discrediting the entire movement because a couple of people spray-painted some graffiti (if there’s one thing we won’t abide, it’s graffiti, amiright?): march with them side by side.

Sexism and machismo hurt all of us, but true equality is sexy.

(Sarah DeVries writes from her home in Xalapa, Veracruz).

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