Thursday, September 5, 2024
Home Blog Page 186

AMLO’s win could be a landslide with congressional majority

A new poll gives AMLO’s party 41 percent support in the 500-seat lower-house contest

by Mexico News Daily

Presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador is not only on track to become Mexico’s next president but the coalition he leads could also win a majority in Congress, according to global financial company UBS.

If the latter scenario unfolds — as polls suggest is within reach — it will make it easier for the Morena party leader, as president, to follow through with economic policy initiatives to which he has committed such as reviewing contracts awarded to private and foreign companies in the energy sector.

For several months, López Obrador has enjoyed a consistent and commanding lead over his rivals in most opinion polls, although four surveys published this month showed that second-placed candidate Ricardo Anaya has started to close the gap that separates him from the frontrunner.

Still, news agency Bloomberg’s latest poll tracker — a collation of poll results — shows that AMLO has 46 percent support and is 18 points ahead of Anaya with less than seven weeks to go before the July 1 election.

In a report published today, Bloomberg attributed that lead in part to López Obrador’s “pledges to boost social spending and review oil auctions to private and foreign companies.” But it also pointed to the leftist third-time presidential contender as the likely culprit if Mexico turns out to be “an emergent-market laggard this year.”

The peso, which at one point earlier this year was the best-performing currency in the world, has lost almost 9 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar since its 2018 high recorded last month.

It is currently trading at around 19.6 pesos to the dollar and many analysts believe that it will continue to lose value in the lead-up to the elections. Uncertainty surrounding the future of NAFTA has also taken a toll on the currency.

In addition, stocks on Mexico’s main index have dropped by almost 6 percent this year.

“The market might have incorporated the possibility of an AMLO win but we believe that it still needs to account for Morena dominance in several gubernatorial elections and in the federal Congress,” UBS’s chief Mexico investment officer, Esteban Polidura, told Bloomberg.

A poll published by the newspaper El Financiero yesterday showed that López Obrador had 46 percent voter support, an imposing 20 points ahead of Anaya and 26 points clear of ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) candidate José Antonio Meade.

However, a large percentage of voters polled by El Financiero — 38 percent — were undecided and their responses were stripped out.

The figure is a much higher percentage than the respective 18 percent and 14 percent of respondents who said they hadn’t made up their minds in surveys conducted by the newspaper Reforma and polling company Parametría that were published earlier this month, suggesting that Anaya could still make up the wide gap between him and López Obrador.

The survey also showed that the leftist Morena party that AMLO leads had 41 percent support in the 500-seat lower-house congressional contest.
Once the 2 percent and 1 percent support garnered by alliance partners the Labor Party (PT) and the Social Encounter Party (PES) are added, the “Together We Will Make History” coalition reaches 44 percent backing, just 7 percent shy of an outright majority.

However, even if López Obrador’s coalition fails to win a majority of seats in its own right on July 1, a congressional majority is still possible, according to a New York-based risk analyst.

Daniel Kerner of political consultancy Eurasia Group told Bloomberg that if AMLO’s Morena party achieves a “victory of any kind,” candidates from the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) — one of two junior partners in Anaya’s right-left “For Mexico in Front” coalition — would likely jump ship to the Morena-led alliance.

Some lawmakers from the PRI may even do the same, Kerner said.

Some analysts say that if López Obrador achieves a working majority in Congress, he will be able to approve budget spending without needing to negotiate with opposition parties.

Among the proposals the candidate has put forward are implementing immediate tax cuts in border regions and shifting spending on social programs.
Along with his would-be finance secretary Carlos Urzúa, López Obrador has also pledged to reduce debt by getting rid of government corruption.

Another analyst described an election outcome that includes an AMLO-controlled Congress majority as the “main concern” for the Mexican economy.

“There are things that he can do with a majority that he obviously would not do if the congressional elections lead to a result that would keep a stricter check on him,” Shamaila Khan, director of emerging-market debt at AllianceBernstein, said.

Not all observers, however, are convinced that “Together We Will Make History” will get close to forming a working majority in Congress.

Luis Carlos Ugalde, a former chief electoral regulator, said that Morena will likely win the largest number of seats of any party but still fall short of a majority.

Even more improbable is that López Obrador’s coalition will win the two-thirds majority required to completely overturn constitutionally-enshrined laws, such as the 2014 energy reform.

However, if he manages to exceed 50 percent congressional support, “he can certainly have a weaker fiscal policy, he can certainly slow down energy reform,” Khan said.

Source: Bloomberg (sp), El Financiero (sp).

Lady of Chiquilistan, Jalisco, dies

by the El Reportero staff

The Mexican community in the Bay Area and Southern California were in mourning when heaven opened its doors to receive the soul of Mrs. María Navarro Carvajal on April 1, 2018. She was 89 years old.

Mrs. Navarro, who was originally from Chilistan, Jalisco, Mexico, was born on June 11, 1929.

After moving to San Francisco where she lived since 1983, she later moved with her other children in the city of Chula Vista, California, where she spent her last years and died.

She is survived by her three children “Ramon López, José Luis López, and Martin Palos; five grandchildren; and a great-grandchild.

Her remains were created in Chula Vista and were scheduled to be taken to her native Chiquilistan.

Latino Caucus’ 17th Annual Latino Spirit Awards Honorees

by the El Reportero’s news services

The California Latino Legislative Caucus recognized on May 7, Latino trailblazers at its 17th Annual Latino Spirit Awards during an Assembly floor ceremony at the State Capitol in Sacramento

– Hector Barajas-Varela, (U.S. Army veteran) Achievement in Military Service & Advocacy
– Melinda M. Cuellar, (Domestic violence advocate) Achievement in Community Empowerment
– Faith Estella Florez, (Founder, Latina Legacy Foundation) 2018 Dynamic Youth Award
– F. Gaviña & Sons, Inc., (Gourmet coffee producers) Achievement in Business & Philanthropy
– Liz Hernandez, (Journalist, TV personality) Achievement in Media & Entertainment
– Lupita Lomeli, (Host, Arriba Valle Central) Achievement in Journalism & Media
– Cheech Marín, (Actor, director, musician, art collector) Achievement in Arts & Entertainment
Chauncey Veatch, (Army veteran, school teacher) Friend of the Latino Community
– Kat Von D, (Tattoo artist, author, entertainer, designer) Achievement in Business & Entertainment
Latino Caucus’ 17th Annual Latino Spirit Awards Honorees

The 2018 the California Latino Legislative Caucus will recognize Latino trailblazers at its 17th Annual Latino Spirit Awards during an Assembly floor ceremony at the State Capitol in Sacramento, California.

The California Latino Legislative Caucus bestows the Latino Spirit Award honor on prominent Latinos in fields such as technology; journalism & media; literature; health & science; business, education; human rights; arts; public service, entertainment and advocacy. Established in 2002, The Latino Spirit Awards take place each year at the State Capitol in Sacramento to coincide with the state’s celebration of Cinco de Mayo and to recognize inspirational figures in the Latino community.

2018 Literature Nobel Prize to be granted in 2019 due to scandal

The 2018 Literature Nobel Price will be granted along with next year”s, due to a sexual scandal that is shaking the Swedish Academy, the institution informed.

‘The 2018 Literature Nobel Prize will be designated and announced at the same time as the 2019 winner,’ according to a press release on the decision to alter the ceremony for the first time in nearly 70 years.

‘The active members of the Swedish Academy are aware that the current crisis of confidence represents an important challenge in a long term and demands solid reform work,’ the interim permanent president, Anders Olsson, noted.

‘We think that it is necessary to take time to recover public confidence in the Academy before the next winner can be announced,’ he pointed out.

The scandal that is shaking the world’s most important literary award started in November 2017, after a wave of revelations on sexual abuses committed by the French playwright and photographer Jean-Claude Arnault, who is very close to the institution, although he is not a member.
Arnault was also accused of leaking the name of the winner in advance at least three times.

The crisis began when the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter published the testimonies of 18 women who said that they had been raped, sexually assaulted or harassed by the 71-year-old writer.

The scandal led to the resignation of several members of the award committee, including the poet Katarina Frostenson, Arnauld’s wife, so the number of members was below the quorum necessary to choose the award winner.

Europe under the vaccination gun: an expanding tragedy

by Jon Rappoport

Storm clouds are gathering…

First the solution—leave the European Union. Do it soon. Don’t knuckle under.

Europe is moving closer to mandatory vaccination. The drive is spearheaded by a collaboration between the European Union (EU) and Big Pharma companies.

Many citizens of EU member countries aren’t even aware of what is happening. Key high-level meetings are being held in secret.

Those who are aware, and object to what is on the planning table, are being ignored.

Robert F Kennedy Jr. and the World Mercury Project have a report:

“European Union (EU) residents have less confidence in vaccine safety than people in any other region in the world. From the perspective of the powerful pharmaceutical industry and its bought politicians, this growing skepticism about vaccine orthodoxy cannot be permitted to gain further momentum.”

“Ignoring massive protests by citizens and municipal authorities, the governments of France, Italy and other EU nations (with the help of Big-Pharma lobbyists) have begun methodically and paternalistically proposing and/or enacting new vaccine laws. These laws aim to erase any remaining ability for citizens to weigh risk-benefit information and make vaccine decisions for themselves.”

“And now, the European Parliament (the EU’s law-making body) has thrown its considerable weight into the fray to promote EU-wide coordination of vaccination policies and programs. Not content to let vaccination policy remain ‘a competence of national authorities,’ the Parliament’s committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety adopted a resolution in March 2018 to promote stricter policies both ‘within and outside the EU.’ To carry out this aim, the European Commission (the EU’s executive arm) will present, in 2018, a Joint Action to increase vaccination coverage and address ‘vaccine hesitancy’.”

“According to a commentary on the resolution in The British Medical Journal (BMJ), European Parliament members are unwilling to brook any dissent, characterizing all licensed vaccines as safe and dismissing information to the contrary as ‘unreliable, misleading and unscientific.’ A query that one might legitimately pose in return, however, is whether massive lobbying by the pharmaceutical industry has rendered parliamentarians incapable of impartiality.”

The EU-Pharma claw is squeezing tighter. The citizens of Europe are in the grip. Freedom of choice is at stake. Health is at stake. The official iron-fisted stance on vaccines—“safe and effective beyond question or doubt”—is fascism personified.

The EU will not back down. Therefore, the answer is: exit the EU. Leave it in the dust.

The EU vision of a United Europe is the old Nazi plan in a new suit. First came the common market, which eventually morphed into a political framework of governance of European nations from above. That is now a reality.

As predicted by many analysts, this structure—friendly and encouraging on the surface—has enacted a tidal wave of rules and regulations to choke the population.

And now, injection of toxic substances (e.g., aluminum, formaldehyde) in the bodies of millions. Ordered. Mandated. If the EU has its way.
Line up. Take your shots.

“The science is settled.”

One of Europe’s most important 20th-century political analysts, Ivan Illich, wrote these explosive words in 1977: “The combined death rate from scarlet fever, diphtheria, whooping cough and measles among children up to fifteen shows that nearly 90 percent of the total decline in mortality between 1860 and 1965 had occurred before the introduction of antibiotics and widespread immunization. In part, this recession may be attributed to improved housing and to a decrease in the virulence of micro-organisms, but by far the most important factor was a higher host-resistance due to better nutrition.” (Medical Nemesis, Bantam Books).

Illich is only one of the many critics of vaccination the EU has studiously chosen to ignore, in its pursuit of establishing a pharmaceutical empire.

The EU also chooses to trample on freedom without a second thought—on its own continent, where once a struggle of centuries birthed freedom in the West.

(Jon Rappoport is he author of three explosive collections, The Matrix Revealed, Exit From The Matrix, and Power Outside The Matrix).

Nicaragua, Nicaraguita, fear has gone away, but now mothers cry the murder of their children

FROM THE EDITOR:

FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT IS HAPPENING IN NICARAGUA

It was thought that in Nicaragua Anastacio Somoza Debayle would be the last dictatorship, after the end of a 45-year-old family dynasty. An ardent civil war left approximately 50,000 dead and culminated in the overthrow of the dictator by the people, led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional) with the revolution in 1979.

But, just a moment, although I said that Somoza was a dictator, he always denied that his government was a dictatorship, since he always offered ‘free’ elections. It is known that where there are elections is because there is democracy, right? In the elections, power is gambled. But the reality is different, in the casinos you play your money, but the card leader designs the system for only them to win. And the house always wins.
That was the election with Somoza.

He was defeated during a war that was fought in almost every neighborhoods around the country, where each citizen was a combatant, while the forces of the dictator Somoza attacked the civilian population, especially young people who had lost their fear and took up arms against the regime.

Now the story is repeated 40 years later, young people are in the streets of Nicaragua shouting: “Ortega out, we do not want dictatorship” just like when the people protested against Somoza. In the same way, Ortega has never accepted being a dictator, since he has won the presidency several times through elections.

During all this time the Frente, which became a political party, achieved great popularity nationally and internationally. Their defense of the poor and their social programs made them demigods. But as they say out there, that power corrupts, the power was concentrated in Daniel and his brother Humberto in charge of the newly created Sandinista Army (he is no longer part of the government since the Frente loss the power in 1990).

The directorate of the Frente, which at that time was composed of nine commanders of the general staff, gradually disintegrated until only Daniel, and his partner Rosario Murillo, remained. They were accumulating more power and more power.

Their comrades Commanders of the Revolution separated when they saw that this comrade was becoming a dictator and accumulating wealth, and they distanced themselves when the Frente loses the presidency to Violeta Barrios de Chamorro.

Daniel and the Frente made life difficult for the new government. The slogan was, “we will govern from below.” And that was applied to the two successive liberal presidents who were not able to govern at ease. With the so-called Sandinista mobs, the presidential couple learned that following that path they would perpetuate themselves in power when they again won the presidency – it was always the hope.

So it happened.

With the army and the national police at their side – which they managed to subdue under their control, they prepared for the long road of an unlimited presidency. Venezuela, with its oil, became their private bank, in an alliance to create a presidency without limits in the American hemisphere, which was used to buy whatever adversary they faced.

The crime that inflamed the population at that time was fading through the hiring of street criminals, who became members of the newly created Sandinista Youth, which would later become the paramilitary force to crush anyone who oppose them.

And his power strengthened in the greatest expression, turning the JS into a small army of reserve paramilitaries, whom they sent to strike at any demonstration against his government. And until today they have done the dirty work and with pay, thanks to the help of the oil of Venezuela.
Everything was going well. Nobody thought that luck would change to the presidential couple, because they got into their pocket the judiciary, the Supreme Electoral Council, the National Assembly, the Army and the National Police, and become owners of about five television channels, radios, and many million-dollar companies.

Until they dared to touch Social Security.

By approving a recent reform that would have taken a piece of the benefits from the population, the protests were immediate. That ignited the flame.

Their paramilitary mobs were sent to repress the elderly, acts of repression that had been committed for years against the political opposition when organizing marches.

The protests of young university students did not wait, and these young people, unarmed, were beaten and many killed by these JS and with the approval and protection of the Police.

Since then the protests have been taking place daily and have been increasing, to the point that now it is not only the young university students -who are the ones who started the sit-ins – but now also the peasants, more universities, the people, the same Sandinistas people, saying that they are Sandinistas but not Danielistas, the red, while the black and red flag of Sandinismo symble has become a taboo for many, and they destroy it.

Danielismo has turned into something negative for many Sandinistas who want to separate themselves from the massacre that the regime has just executed in the name of Sandinismo, and its red and black symbol.

A dialogue was requested at the beginning after more than 45 deaths, hundreds of injured and about 100 missing, with the assistance of the church, but as I write these lines, the dams on the roads around the country have already begun to put into effect the new agenda: a national strike to get Daniel and the Rosary out of power.

The last march that took place this Wednesday, was the largest that has been seen in Nicaragua in several decades, if I’m not mistaken.

And the most interesting thing is that, despite the fact that Ortega created a super army capable of crushing any rebellion, this time, with this new massacre, the people began to turn against his government. And the most important thing is that people have gone out to protest without arms and peacefully, which makes it impossible for Ortega to have to use the police and the army to crush the rebellion with artillery fire. And that’s why they use the JS.

Now the people has taken the streets and there is general agreement that they will not let go, leaving the power of Ortega with its hands tied.
It is estimated that his days are numbered, and that before, there could be more massacres, just as the dictator Somoza did when the people rose up against him.

But the people have lost their fear, thanks to the brave students.

Eating a Mediterranean-style diet protects your liver

by Edsel Cook

If you want a healthy liver and gut, an article on EurekAlert! recommended taking up a Mediterranean-style diet. A study on American and Turkish patients with liver cirrhosis showed that eating fermented milk products and vegetables – plus moderate amounts of chocolate, coffee, and tea – could reduce the chances of serious complications that send you to the hospital.

Such a diet would also benefit the diversity of the beneficial bacteria living in the gut, which contributes to the protection of the liver.
The study was comprised of nearly 300 participants in the U.S. and Turkey. They were divided into three groups: Healthy individuals, patients with compensated cirrhosis, and patients with decompensated cirrhosis. (Related: Salep (orchid extract) found to offer protective effects against isoniazid medication toxicity of the liver.)

According to the results, all of the Turkish participants showed much better microbial diversity than the American cohort.

Cirrhosis of the liver claims more than a million lives every year. While it is a serious and increasing cause of death, it is also easy to prevent.

The amount of alcohol consumption, the type and quality of alcohol that is drunk, and the levels of viral hepatitis B and C are the main factors that determine the risk of death from liver cirrhosis. These factors differ from country to country.

Furthermore, there is a link between gut microbiota and the development and progression of cirrhosis. Microbial diversity was shown to progressively weaken in all three groups.

Experts say diet affects gut microbe diversity and liver cirrhosis

The study’s lead author, Dr. Jasmohan Bajaj, explained that diet plays a big role in deciding what microbes are found in the gut. His research team wished to find out if there was a link between diet, microbial diversity, and their effects on patients suffering from cirrhosis.

Bajaj theorized that the interaction between diet and cirrhosis affected the composition of gut bacteria, which in turn affected the overall health of a patient.

His study recruited health individuals who served as controls, outpatients who showed no signs of cirrhosis, and outpatients who suffered from symptoms of liver cirrhosis like jaundice. The diets and stool microbiota of all participants were analyzed.

Furthermore, researchers followed the participants with liver cirrhosis for a minimum of 90 days. This was done to get data regarding unplanned hospitalizations.

The American group generally adhered to a Western diet. They consumed low amounts of fermented foods and large amounts of coffee and carbonated drinks.

The Turkish group practiced a Mediterranean-style diet. They ate a lot of ayran, curds, and yogurt, which are all fermented milk products. They also consumed a lot of vegetables.

Mediterranean diet improves gut microbe diversity, reduces health complications

Analysis of stool samples showed that Turkish participants had much more varied gut microbiota than the U.S. group. Furthermore, both healthy control group members and patients with cirrhosis shared the same level of bacterial diversity.

In the U.S. control group, diversity was highest in the healthy control group, while the outpatients with decompensated cirrhosis had the lowest. The U.S. group also experienced a much higher frequency of hospitalizations during the 90-day follow up, be it related to liver cirrhosis or caused by other health problems.

Consuming chocolate, coffee, fermented milk, tea, and vegetables increased microbial diversity. In contrast, the use of lactulose – a synthetic sugar used to alleviate symptoms of liver cirrhosis – and carbonated drink led to lower diversity.

University of Bern professor Annalisa Berzigotti remarked that the study showed the Mediterranean-style diet exerted a protective effect during all phases of chronic liver diseases. (Natural News).

NHLA condemns US decision to end TPS for Hondurans

by the El Reportero’s wire services

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, a coalition of 46 of the nation’s preeminent Latino advocacy organizations, denounces the Trump administration’s decision to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for more than 50,000 Hondurans seeking refuge in the U.S. subsequent to natural disasters, political unrest, and violence.

In a series of decisions to uproot legal immigrants from the U.S., Honduras will be the sixth country for which the Trump administration terminates TPS. Over 300,000 TPS holders from Honduras, Nicaragua, Haiti, El Salvador, Sudan and Nepal will be torn from their families and forced to return to hostile environments despite being law-abiding, contributing citizens.

TPS holders from Honduras, Haiti and El Salvador alone contribute an estimated $4.5 billion annually to U.S. Gross Domestic Product. The mass deportation of TPS holders would result in over 250,000 layoffs, costing approximately $164 billion in Gross Domestic Product.

“This administration, contrary to federal law, is plainly exercising no legitimate discretion with respect to TPS, but is instead acting on a predetermined, race-tinged, anti-immigrant agenda,” said Thomas A. Saenz, NHLA Chair and MALDEF President and General Counsel. “Congress must step in to protect Honduran and other TPS holders in order to restore some integrity to implementation of our immigration law.”

“First, Trump came for the Salvadorans. Then it was the Haitians, Nicaraguans, Sudanese and Nepalese. Now, it’s the Hondurans. All of these TPS holders and their families have now had their lives upended because of a president who disdains their skin color, ethnicity and culture”, said José Calderón, President of Hispanic Federation. “We urge Congress to summarily call out and reject this ongoing white ethnocentric effort by the White House to reduce the number of immigrants of color in the United States.”

After Criticism, UN endorsed report of violations in Ayotzinapa case

Following the criticism made by the Mexican government, the Human Rights Office of the United Nations reaffirmed today the validity of its investigations which indicate signs of torture and cover-up in the Ayotzinapa case.

During the night of Sept. 26-27, 2014, a large group of students from the Ayotzinapa Normal School traveled in five buses when the municipal police attacked them in the city of Iguala, Guerrero state.

A total of 43 were victims of enforced disappearance, six people (including three students) were killed and at least 40 others were injured. The role of various security forces in such events is now under investigation.

After a thorough reading of the response given by the Mexican government last Monday, that UN office reiterated that its operations were within the mandate established in an agreement with the authorities of that country, signed in 2002.

There are strong elements of conviction to consider that at least 34 people detained during the first stage of the investigation were tortured and many of them, arbitrarily detained, indicates the report.

These serious violations were, in turn, investigated and disguised in an inadequate way, alert the text.

Important donation to restore Zapotec Pyramids in Mexico

Monte Alban archaeological complex, in Oaxaca, Mexico, a World Heritage Site, will receive one million USD from the World Monuments Fund (WMF) to restore earthquake damages.

The September 2017 earthquakes impacted on structures of the pyramidal complex, one of the major ones in Oaxaca and the Zapotec culture, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The WMF is a private, international organization dedicated to preserve historical architecture and cultural heritage sites around the world.
‘Fifteen structures within Monte Alban and the northern section of Atzompa were damaged by a devastating earthquake of September 2017, five of them are severely damaged and require emergency structural shoring to avoid collapse,’ the group said in a statement.

The scream in the streets of Nicaragua: “Go Ortega!”

Popular pressure increases for the Nicaraguan president to leave the government. Massive demonstrations in Nicaragua challenge the power of the Sandinista ex-guerrilla

by Carlos Salinas Maldonado

At 17, Max says he has lost his fear. This young student of Tourism Administration at the University of Managua participated on Wednesday in a massive demonstration in the Nicaraguan capital, in which the main demand was the exit from power of President Daniel Ortega. Max is hurt by the young people who were killed in April, when the president unleashed a bloody crackdown that left at least 46 dead, most of them young people under 25 years of age.

“It’s not fair that we, university students, go out into the streets with only our voices, our desire to express ourselves, and the riot police with bullets to kill students,” said the young man, who painted against Ortega in the downtown Rotonda Rubén Darío , where the demonstration began on Wednesday. Very thin, with long bones, his face and head were covered. Along with other boys as young as he demanded the departure of the Nicaraguan president. “We want freedom in Nicaragua,” Max said. “May Ortega go and pay for the sins committed, because murdering your people has no forgiveness from God. We want him out of power, “added the boy.

Tens of thousands of Nicaraguans returned to march through the main cities of the country on Wednesday. The largest demonstration was in Managua, where it covered at least three kilometers of the main avenues of the city. At the end of the afternoon some calculations spoke to at least 200,000 people participated in the protest of the capital. The capitalists were joined by thousands of peasants who moved from the south of Nicaragua. They also demand that the concession for the construction of an Interoceanic Canal, delivered to a Chinese businessman, be repealed.

It is the third march of this magnitude that is organized against the Ortega government in a country heated after the death of young people in the April protests, when people rose against a reform to Social Security that the president imposed without consensus. Later Ortega repealed the reform, but the harsh repression generated a widespread feeling of national indignation, which has kept the Nicaraguans mobilized in the streets for three weeks, without exhausting, demanding now the end of the regime.

The government also called for a counter demonstration in its favor, which mobilized thousands of state workers to demonstrate force.

On Tuesday night, the Higher Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP), the main business chamber of the country, demanded the Sandinista Executive to guarantee “protection and security” of all the demonstrators who would participate in the march against Ortega and to avoid any type of provocation.

“The guarantee and security on the part of the authority to the demonstration and civic protest of the citizens is indispensable to create a climate of trust. We reiterate our call for an end to all acts of repression and violence against the population,” said the businessmen. COSEP also demanded to open an “independent and credible” investigation to clarify “the crimes that occurred during the April protests.”

The demand for justice for the dead was one of the objectives of the demonstration on Wednesday.

Nora Pérez, who wore the Nicaraguan flag around her neck and shouted slogans against Ortega, said the April deaths should not go unpunished. “We are fighting for the freedom of Nicaragua. May the dead not be forgotten. Their deaths cannot go unpunished. We ask for justice, we ask for justice,” said the woman. “We are remembering all the students who gave their blood for us. We want democracy. We want Daniel Ortega to leave power, to leave, “she added.

The demonstration advanced under the sultry afternoon in Managua. People waved the national flag, claimed by protesters in the country, while horns and protest music played. At some points the avenue was so narrow and the progress of the people so slow that the atmosphere was suffocating. Whenever some of the speakers located in different areas of the route heard I like the students – a song that has animated student movements throughout Latin America – the crowd shouted and danced. The tune has become the soundtrack of the protests in the 21st century Nicaragua. A tribute to the students who paid with death their demand for freedom under the Ortega regime. Long live the students / Garden of our joy / They are birds that do not get scared / Of animal or the police / And do not scare the bullets / Nor the barking of the pack.

Max, a young student of Administration at the University of Managua who was protesting against the government, is clear about it.

“We are fed up with the corruption, the violence that has been imposed on university students. We do not want more murders of our Nicaraguan brothers. We want that dictator of to leave power, “he said.

At her side, Michelle Cortés, an economics graduate of the Polytechnic University -one of the bastions of the university protest against the regime – was of the same opinion.

“I march for the injustice that exists in our country. We are tired of having a dictatorship. We were silent because of fear, fear of Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo, but today we broke the fear, we understand that we are a youth that we can defend our rights. If they (Ortega and Murillo) are listening to me, let them know that the youth will fight. No matter what they do to us, we want our future children to be able to enjoy a free Nicaragua, in a democracy, “said the young woman.

– Carlos Salinas Maldonado is editor in chief of the online TV program Confidencial, and a contributor for 10 years of El País.

(This article first published in the Spain’s newspaper El País).

‘Amlo’: the veteran leftwinger who could be Mexico’s next president

A promise by Andrés Manuel López Obrador to tackle rampant corruption has helped propel him to frontrunner status but detractors paint him as an Hugo Chávez-style ‘tropical messiah’

by David Agren in Villahermosa and Tom Phillips in Mexico City

It has been more than three decades since Teresa Jaber sneaked into a clandestine political meeting in this sweltering south-eastern city to watch the man they would come to know as “Amlo” preach revolution.

“I remember him saying: ‘The country cannot go on being the personal property of four of five people,’” said Jaber, recalling that underground gathering in 1987, after which she promptly signed up to his cause.

Before sending his followers out to spread the word, Jaber remembers Amlo offering a final prediction that night. “I am going to be the president of Mexico,” he told them.

Thirty-one years later it appears he may have been right.

With Mexico set to elect its next president on July 1, Amlo – or Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to give him his full name – is in pole position.

Polls give the silver-haired 64-year-old leftist – whose coalition bears the name Together We Will Make History – a commanding lead over his closest rival Ricardo Anaya, a 39-year-old lawyer who is heading a right-left coalition.

The ruling Institutional Revolutionary party’s uninspiring candidate, José Antonio Meade, trails in third.

On the campaign trail, Amlo, who is a friend of Jeremy Corbyn and his Mexican wife, Laura Álvarez, has pledged to wrest back control of the oil industry, explore an amnesty for those involved in Mexico’s devastating drug war, and challenge the country’s powerful and thieving “mafias”.

That last message has found widespread support in a nation outraged and demoralized by jaw-dropping corruption scandals involving its ruling elite.

“López Obrador is the only option,” Margarita García Rodríguez, a homemaker and mother of three, said during a recent Amlo rally in the industrial sprawl that encircles Mexico’s capital.

“If he can’t help us out, then there’s nobody else that can. The whole system will collapse.”

The prospect of a six-year Amlo presidency horrifies his many detractors and foes who paint him as an Hugo Chávez-style authoritarian and “tropical messiah” whose antiquated policies would ruin the Mexican economy.

“He believes in old-fashioned nationalism. Old-fashioned statism. Old-fashioned protectionism. Old-fashioned subsidies across the board,” said Jorge Castañeda, one of Anaya’s two campaign chiefs and Mexico’s former foreign minister.

“Is he a guy who is sufficiently pragmatic and intelligent to understand that you can’t do a lot of these things? Yeah. But what would he do if he could?”

Amlo has sought to assuage such fears by naming a team of highly educated experts as his cabinet and promising business leaders there will be “no expropriations, no nationalizations” if he wins.

He denies claims he is seeking to drag Latin America’s second largest economy back into the past. “If this horror we’re living now is what they want to give us in the future, the past is preferable,” Amlo told one recent rally.

But as the clock ticks down to July’s election, Mexico’s answer to Project Fear is intensifying its operations in a last-ditch bid to thwart Amlo’s push for power.

“This is a guy who is the wrong alternative for Mexico. He is tired, he is old, he is obsolete. He is surrounded by wackos and he has old ideas,” said Castañeda, a key figure in the often apocalyptic-sounding endeavour to derail Amlo’s campaign.

“People don’t go to his rallies or listen or believe in him because he speaks intelligently or eloquently or charismatically. They go because of what he represents – the end of the system.”

Amlo’s story begins in the Tabasco river town of Tepetitán, where he was born in November 1953, the first of seven children. Today, a bust of the town’s most famous son stands outside one of his childhood homes beside a plaque that declares him “El Rostro de la Esperanza” – “The Face of Hope”.

Nicknamed “El Peje” after the pejelagarto, a feisty local fish, Amlo spent his early years playing baseball and tending to his father’s clothing store with his brother José Ramón, who later died after accidentally shooting himself with a revolver.

He became politically active in the late 1970s, moving to Nacajuca, an area north of Tabasco’s capital, Villahermosa, that is home to the indigenous Chontal Maya people, to work as a local representative of the National Indigenous Institute.

“López Obrador took on that role as if it was his destiny, with a missionary’s spirit,” writes José Agustín Ortiz Pinchetti in a flattering new biography of his friend called Amlo: With his Feet on the Ground. “He went to live in a shack just like the ones the indigenous families lived in.”

Pinchetti recalls how during Amlo’s six years in the impoverished region, he and his family slept in hammocks and endured “African temperatures of over 40C” with nothing but a single fan to keep them cool. It was an experience that lit an “inner fire” within the young tabasqueño and made him determined see Mexico ruled for the many not the few.

It also earned Amlo a considerable grassroots following. “Whatever he says, we believe. Whatever he says, he fulfils. He’s a man of his word,” said Glenda Jasso Aquino, a Chontal Maya woman who knew the presidential frontrunner at the time.

“He’s more than a man … He’s going to be president to help his people, the earth, the countryside.”

Jasso remembered Amlo taking on Mexico’s state-run oil company, Pemex, setting up protest camps outside its offices to force it to pay compensation to indigenous communities and campesinos whose lands it had polluted. “Amlo was the only person who raised his voice,” she said.

From Tabasco, Amlo’s political quest eventually took him to the nation’s capital. In 2000 he was elected Mexico City’s mayor vowing to “put the poor first, for the wellbeing of all”.

His administration proved popular: the left has crushed opponents in subsequent Mexico City elections. He subsidized subway fares, provided stipends for senior citizens and single mothers and built elevated expressways. Critics condemned such projects as populism, but promptly copied them in other parts of the country.

“If you look at how he ran Mexico City, he was far from a radical,” said Carlos Bravo Regidor, professor at the Center for Teaching and Research in Economics.

As Amlo set about transforming Mexico’s capital, he also began eyeing the ultimate political prize, the presidency. He narrowly lost on his first attempt, in 2006, subsequently and controversially alleging that he had been the victim of electoral fraud and leading a months-long occupation of Mexico City’s political heart. In 2012 he was defeated again.

Since that second setback, Amlo has sought to project a more moderate image – disappointing some longstanding disciples such as Jaber, now a lawyer, who had hoped for a more radical leader. “[He’s] no longer the revolutionary of those years,” she said.

Revolutionary or not, as election day approaches many analysts are convinced Amlo is in an unassailable position, even if one recent poll showed his main rival gaining ground.

Calif school district says parents can’t pull kids from new LGBT sex education

by Calvin Freiburger

ORANGE COUNTY, California, (LifeSiteNews) – California is about to implement new abortion- and homosexualty-promoting sex education lessons, and one school district has told parents they have no choice but to expose their children to them.

California enacted the California Healthy Youth Act in 2015, but only now are its controversial provisions starting to take effect in classrooms. Under the auspices of health, the law says it will equip students to develop “healthy attitudes” on “gender [and] sexual orientation,” among other things. It also says it will inform students about the “effectiveness and safety of all FDA-approved contraceptive methods,” and facilitate “objective discussion” about “parenting, adoption, and abortion.”

RedState contributor Kira Davis, a resident of Orange County, California, warns that among the teaching materials approved for use under this law are a study guide for the transgender children’s book I Am Jazz, as well as a “sexual health toolkit.”

This “toolkit,” funded in part by the George Soros-connected Tides Center, offers kids tips on using sex toys and anal lubricant. It defines “anal intercourse,” “phone sex,” and more as “common sexual behaviors.” It teaches that “abstinence” and “virginity” can mean engaging in a variety of sexual activities, but stopping short of intercourse.

“What if you don’t have time or money to buy sex toys?” the guide asks on page C-51. “Cucumbers, carrots, and bananas (with the peel) make great dildos. Just remember to use a condom!”

It teaches that one of the “cons” of abstaining from all sexual activity is that it “requires motivation, self-control and communication from both partners.”

The “toolkit” lists as resources Planned Parenthood and the radically pro-homosexual and pro-abortion group Advocates for Youth.

The law also mandates that lessons and materials “affirmatively recognize” varying sexual orientations, and that they “be inclusive of same-sex relationships.” Instruction must take a positive view of gender confusion, and explore “the harm of negative gender stereotypes.”

Davis notes that the California Healthy Youth Act expressly protects parents’ rights to “excuse their children from participation” in sex education courses without penalty of any kind, because “parents and guardians have the ultimate responsibility for imparting values regarding human sexuality to their children.”

The Orange County school district apparently interprets this differently.

In a memo dated March 29 to the Orange County Board of Education, Orange County Department of Education general counsel Ronald Wenkart says that the law’s opt-out provision “does not apply to instruction, materials, or programming that discusses gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, discrimination, harassment, bullying, intimidation, relationships, or family and does not discuss human reproductive organs.”

Parents who disagree with the state’s LGBT positions “may not excuse their children from this instruction,” Wenkart continues. He then suggests that parents still having the right to “advise their children that they disagree with” such lessons compensates for this restriction.

He also cites judicial precedent to claim that “parents do not have a constitutional right to excuse their children from portions of the school curriculum that they find objectionable.”

Heidi St. John, an author and speaker who covers faith, motherhood, and homeschooling as The Busy Mom, forcefully spoke out Wednesday against the memo.

“The Orange County Department of Education feels it is their right to GIVE YOU PERMISSION TO DISAGREE WITH THEM,” she wrote on Facebook. “These are our children! They do not belong to the schools.”

St. John advises California parents to contact their local school boards and Democratic Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, the law’s author, and to pull their children out of schools that force LGBT lessons on children.

She also urges parents to participate in the Sex Ed Sit Out on April 23, an event spanning the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia in which parents pull their children out of school for the day in protest of radical sex education programs.

RedState’s Davis has similar advice.

“Make noise. Lots and lots and lots of noise,” she writes. “When [lawmakers’] constituents get cranky, they pay attention…and so few people actually call and write anymore that just a few hundred voices go a very long way to making your representative and governor think twice about proceeding with something that seems unpopular.”

Davis also stresses that parents who pull their children out ensure the school does not record it as an excused absence.

“The reason your public school demands you call to excuse a child’s absence is because they lose state and federal dollars on every unexcused absence,” she writes. “If you really want to make an impact, hit them where it hurts.”

1...185186187...598Page 186 of 598

SELECTIONS

POPULAR TICKETS

POPULAR CATEGORY

ABOUT US

Welcome to our Marvin J. Ramirez website! We are an innovative newspaper located in the heart of San Francisco. With a relentless passion for telling powerful stories, we inform our community with truthful news, insightful analysis, and compelling reporting.

Contacto: lreportero@aol.com

FOLLOW US

© Copyright 2023. Agenciadigital.pw. All rights reserved.