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The city and the community come together in historic plan

by Fernando A. Torres

Three years after the historic protests of thousands of people, mostly residents of the Mission District in San Francisco, against displacement and evictions, the city and community organizations are finalizing a joint strategy: the Action Plan for the Mission 2020 (MAP2020).

In an informative meeting at the Women’s Building on Wednesday, more than 200 residents, leaders and city officials gave their opinions and suggestions to update the plan known as MAP2020, version that will be presented to the Board of Supervisors for approval.

In a story plagued by conflicts between the city and low-income communities, the plan is far-reaching. What in 2015 could have been a pitched battle, today was a nice working meeting between municipal officials, leaders and neighbors of the neighborhood.

The housing crisis, fueled by a housing deficit and the mass arrival of workers in the so-called Silicon Valley with high purchasing power, caused evictions and displacements to levels never before seen. The crisis has generated large demographic and social displacements of historical communities that are threatening the very culture of the city. San Francisco is becoming a city for the rich, it was one of the slogans in the dozens of protests that came.

“This really started when the community went to City Hall. We were like 800. There (the politicians) knew that the community was seriously asking for something to be done. This is the result of all that.” Thus, Erick Arguello recalled the beginning of a day of protests that took thousands of people out of the neighborhood and took them to City Hall himself.

Today the city is putting its resources and talking with the community. “The city is behaving like a good partner in this process. We have been working with them for several years and have been quite receptive to the needs of the community, “said Arguello, President of the 24th Street Latino Cultural District, in a more reflective tone.

Contrary to other meetings, this time the meeting was friendly and direct to the important points. The meeting was divided by themes and papers were put on the walls where neighbors wrote their opinions and suggestions. Next to each topic was a city official or a community leader talking to neighbors.

The plan seeks to stop the evictions and maintain the socio-cultural characteristics of the Mission through a detailed plan that includes stopping the exodus of families to other cities through the construction of affordable housing and maintaining jobs in the neighborhood as small businesses and the artistic workshops.

But some think that the popular neighborhood of the Mission suffered irreversible damage, so deep that no plan will be sufficient, that it is only to alleviate the damage suffered. “We are achieving things, but it is not enough, (not equal) to how aggressive the displacement was in the Mission. We are just remedying things, we are not even going back to the original situation. It’s going to take a while for it to stabilize, “said Dairo Romero of the Mission Economic Development Agency (MEDA).

Since 2000, according to MEDA, 8,000 Latinos have been forced to leave their homes. The Mission, which has always been a place of support for immigrant and low-income Latinos, “is today one of the most inaccessible neighborhoods in the country.” Small businesses, spaces for art, for the community and small industry, have closed because the contract renewal has doubled or tripled the cost of the lease.

According to Claudia Flores, a worker in the Urban Planning Department of the city, the problem also generates a crisis in the economic aspect. “We are losing the working class and this is important for the economic health of the city. That a worker has to come from Stockton or that teachers have to live so far is not sustainable. It will not be a magical solution to stop the evictions. We are committed to do what we can, “said Flores, who was also the moderator of the meeting.

Romero said that progress has been made and cited as an example the 780 units of affordable housing for the elderly and low-income families. “We have been trying for two years to get it out and finally this year they are going to start building”. In order to grant housing, the city will carry out a lottery. “We want many people to know to apply for the lottery,” exclaimed Romero.

At the meeting some showed a mixture of skepticism and optimism at the same time. Such was the case of Carlos Solórzano who recalled that 10 years ago a similar process was experienced and “nothing happened”. Solórzano, who is president of the Hispanic Chambers of Commerce of San Francisco, said that there is now a difference because it has the participation of other organizations such as Calle 24, the Chamber of Commerce and the Association of Merchants of the Mission.

However, Solorzano warned that the current traffic plan in the neighborhood is restrictive for the normal activity of the neighborhood. Following this, many small businesses are closing. The red areas for buses and taxis and the restrictions to turn to the right or to the left do that the clients can not park or transit expeditiously.

“If you come to la Misión, to your favorite restaurant that is on Calle 24 and when you get to César Chávez avenue you are forced to turn right then you have turned around, you can not find parking, then you go from the neighborhood to another part,“ Solórzano asserted.

More information about the MAP2020 Plan can be found on the San Francisco City Planning Department website: http://sf-planning.org/MISSION-ACTION-PLAN-2020.-PLAN-2020.

In Mexico: AMLO gains six points to garner 48% support

Second-place Anaya drops to 26 percent; PRI’s Meade steady at 18 percent

by Mexico News Daily

Leftist presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador has extended his lead over his nearest rival to 22 points, according to a new opinion poll by the newspaper Reforma.

The survey, conducted between April 12 and 15, gave López Obrador 48 percent support, an increase of six points from a February Reforma poll.

Ricardo Anaya of the right-left coalition “For Mexico in Front” was in second place with 26 percent, a decline of six points since February.

The net effect was a widening of López Obrador’s advantage over Anaya from 10 points in the February survey to 22 points in the new poll.
Ruling party candidate José Antonio Meade remained in third place with unchanged support of 18 percent.

The backing for the two independent candidates in the race also remained steady. Margarita Zavala had 5 percent and Jaime “El Bronco” Rodríguez had 3 percent.

The results did not take into account the 19 percent of respondents who expressed no preference.  In total, 1,200 voters were surveyed and Reforma said the poll had a margin of error of 3.7 percent.

The advantage for the third-time presidential candidate commonly known as AMLO is double that of a poll published by the newspaper El Universal earlier this month and four points higher than the 18-point lead he had over Anaya in a March poll by El Financiero.

Another survey published yesterday by the polling firm Mitofsky also showed that López Obrador had increased his lead, although it suggested a tighter race with AMLO leading Anaya by 31.9 percent to 20.8 percent.

The 22-point advantage in the Reforma poll is the largest lead that any candidate in the past three presidential elections has enjoyed over rival candidates at the same time in the campaign period.

President Enrique Peña Nieto had a 15 percent lead over López Obrador in April 2012 and went on to win the election with just over 38 percent of the vote, almost seven points more than AMLO, who was runner-up.

News agency Reuters said that López Obrador had consolidated his lead in the poll by capitalizing on “widespread disenchantment” with the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) over political corruption, rising levels of violence and slow economic growth.

The survey showed that 76 percent of respondents disapproved of the job Peña Nieto is doing.

López Obrador’s increased lead comes despite threats he has made to suspend the new Mexico City International Airport project, a stance that has put him at loggerheads with rival candidates and the business sector.

Mexico’s richest man and key airport investor Carlos Slim came out in defense of the project this week, saying that canceling it would halt economic growth and declaring that candidates have no reason to interfere in the development.

Support for Anaya has dropped since he was implicated in a money laundering investigation involving the sale of a property he owned in his home state of Querétaro.

The former president of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) has denied any wrongdoing but his rivals have continued to accuse him of acting improperly.

After the federal Attorney General’s office (PGR) released a video of the second-placed candidate at one of its offices, Anaya’s team accused the agency of conducting a “dirty war” on behalf of the PRI. Last week Mexico’s electoral tribunal ruled that the PGR had interfered in the presidential election.

Meade’s unchanged support indicates that his campaign has failed to gain any real traction among voters.

The former finance secretary was chosen to run as the ruling party’s candidate despite not being an official member of the PRI. His campaign logo does not include any reference to the party or feature its customary colors.

The Reforma poll also showed that López Obrador’s support was stronger among men than women and his popularity was highest among the 18-29 age demographic.

Half of all respondents with a university education said that they intended to vote for the former Mexico City mayor, compared to just 12 percent and 11 percent who said they would back Anaya and Meade.

Head-to-head with his two main rivals, the poll showed that the candidate for the “Together We Will Make History” coalition would win comfortably.

Facing Anaya, López Obrador wins by a margin of 51 percent to 31 percent while against Meade the gap is even larger at 57 percent to 22 percent.

Asked what they considered most important in this election, 59 percent of respondents cited “removing the PRI from government” as the priority while 22 percent said avoiding an AMLO presidency was their first concern.

The National Regeneration Movement, or Morena party, that López Obrador heads is also poised to become the largest party in Congress, just four years after it was formally registered, the poll showed.

Morena was projected to win 37 percent support in the lower house while its coalition allies, the Labor Party (PT) and the Social Encounter Party (PES), polled 5 percent and 1 percent respectively.

The PAN garnered 21 percent support and the PRI had 17 percent.

The first of three presidential debates will take place this Sunday at 8:00pm in Mexico City. The election will be held July 1.

Source:  Reforma (sp), RT (sp), Reuters (en)

Mexico registers Cuban medication to treat diabetic foot ulcers

by the El Reportero’s wire services

The Federal Commission for Protection against Health Risk (Cofepris) granted the sanitary registration to the Cuban medication Heberprot-P, which is used to treat diabetic foot ulcers, it was reported here today.

The drug is an injection that speeds up the cicatrization of deep ulcers caused by diabetes and one of the main causes for amputation in Mexico.

The medication, which was developed at the Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Center (CIGB) in Cuba, reduces complications like gangrene and infections.

The measure was announced at the 1st Meeting of the Mexico-Cuba Health Cooperation Group in Havana, which was attended by Mexican Health Secretary Jose Narros.

At the meeting, authorities from the two countries agreed to identify new lines of research on diseases that have a great impact on people, like cancer, high blood pressure, mental diseases and genetics.

They also agreed on creating a bilateral catalogue of units and research centers to identity common areas and potential cooperation.
The two countries will also explore success cases in such fields as geriatrics, mental health, genetics and a model to prevent chronic diseases, the news agency Reforma reported here.

Mexican film students dissolved in acid

Mexican film students who disappeared on March 19 in Tonalá, Jalisco, were murdered by a criminal group and their bodies dissolved in acid, the state attorney’s office said.

After searching 15 farms, finding evidence and the statements of two participants in the crime, the investigation chief of the Public prosecution’s office, Liz Torres, asserted that it can be confirmed that the youngsters are dead and their bodies dissolved in acid.

There are Marco Francisco Garcia Avalos, Javier Salomon Aceves and Jesus Daniel Diaz, who were kidnapped when they were filming for a homework.

It was determined that Aceves’ aunt, now imprisoned and accused of procuring women for immoral purposes, is linked to members of the Nueva Plaza Cartel, which remain fighting against the Jalisco Cartel Nueva Generación (CJNG) and the young people were caught in the middle of that dispute.

The detainees declared to be members of the CJNG, in charge of guarding the farm where on March 18 the three students and others of their classmates made filming for a school assignment.

The farm is owned by Diego Gabriel Mejía, a member of the Nueva Plaza Cartel, who was arrested there in 2015 along with five other people and who could leave prison soon after serving his sentence.
‘Without knowing it, the students were in a place of serious risk guarded by a criminal cell of the CJNG, contrary to the Nueva Plaza Cartel,’ said the head of the prosecution’s office.

Trump administration must accept new DACA applications, said Federal Judge

Federal judges in California and New York have also blocked the administration’s plans on those grounds, and ordered the administration to renew work permits for immigrants enrolled in the program, reported the NY Times.

But the ruling by Bates, an appointee of President George W. Bush, is far more expansive: If the government does not come up with a better explanation within 90 days, he will rescind the government memo that terminated the program and require Homeland Security to enroll new applicants, as well. Thousands could be eligible to apply.

The cases were brought by the NAACP, Microsoft, Princeton University and a student.

Puerto Rican teachers to set a human shield outside the Capitol

The Association of Teachers of Puerto Rico (AMPR) called today for setting a human shield outside the Capitol in San Juan to protest against the closing of 280 public schools.

AMPR placed also a reproduction of a cemetery outside the Ministry of Education, in the community of Hato Rey in San Juan, with 183 reproduction tombstones with the names of the 183 schools, the closing of which was initially outlined for the end of the semester.

The flow of some 40,000 students from the public educational system has been used as a pretext by the Government of Puerto Rico to foster the closing of schools as part of a privatization process, which includes the establishment of charter schools to benefit private sectors.

36th International Film Festival of Uruguay opened

by the El Reportero’s news services

With a varied and broad film program of almost 200 Uruguayan and foreign films from 50 countries, the 36th International Film Festival of Uruguay was opened today until April 7.

The festival was opened at the Montevideo Cinematheque with the screening of the French film ‘Visages, villages’ by veteran director Agnes Varda and photographer JR, who tackle the power of art to change life.

In the 10 day-event, the juries will award the best film prizes to foreign and Latin American feature films and new filmmakers, as well as human rights films and foreign and Uruguayan short films.

The Festival includes various sections as Ensayo de Orquesta (Orchestra’s Rehearsal), in which films on music or related to music will be screened, as Around Luisa (Switzerland), Diante dos meus olhos (Brazil), Fevereiros (Brazil), French waves (France) and The Last Hot Lick (United States).

Another section Ojo con el Cine (Be careful with Cinema) will screen three films related to the works within the film industry, In the Mood for Melville (France), Las Cinephilas (Argentina) and Mi tia Loly (Ecuador).

The festival will be closed on April 7th by the French film La Villa by filmmaker Robert Guediguian.

Dancers from 18 Countries to Perform at Havana’s Festival

Artists from 16 countries will perform in Havana from April 11th to 15th at the International Dance Festival in Urban Landscapes, said organizers today.

The program of the 23rd International Dance Festival in Urban Landscapes, also known as Old Havana, City in Motion, includes exhibitions, concerts, audiovisual screenings and dance performances on streets, at squares, parks and museums in Habana Vieja.

As every year, the festival fosters opportunities for professional development through courses, workshops and lectures, given by Cuban and foreign teachers.

It is organized by the dance-theater company Retazos and the Office of the Historian of the City, with the support of the Theater Center of Havana.

Some of the techniques tackled will be Afro-Cuban Dances, Mixed Techniques, Arara, Contemporary Dance, Tango, Retazos and Contact Improvisation, by professionals such as Sofía Barriga from Ecuador, John Fandiño from Colombia, Luca Carco and Paula Zacharias from Argentina, Reinado Echemendia, Jhoannes García and Isabel Bustos from Cuba.

According to director of the event Isabel Bustos (National Dance Award 2012), this festival promotes the link between inhabitants of the city with their surroundings through movement, and contributes to the culture in a new and enthusiastic way.

The event is expected to be attended by 29 Cuban groups and representatives from countries such as Germany, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, United States, Italy, Norway, Uruguay, Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Switzerland and Mexico, the one with the largest delegation.

Venezuelan guitarist José Luis Lara dies

The South American country laments the death of Venezuelan guitarist José Luis Lara, who was the president of the International Guitar Festival of Angostura. He died on Sunday, April 1. Lara, who was shot to death, was a prominent exponent of the guitar, who focused his career on the interpretation of the Venezuelan and Latin American repertoire, and shared that activity with teaching and composition.

The individual vs. globalism

by Jon Rappoport

“Global solution” means the individual is cut out of the equation, he doesn’t count, he doesn’t mean anything in the larger scheme of things, he’s just another pawn and cipher to move around on the board.

This is purposeful.

This is the script for the future: create problems whose only solution appears to be collective.

Psychologically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually divert the individual’s attention from his own vision, his own profound desires, his own imagination—and place it within The Group (“all of humanity”).

Propagandize the idea that, if the individual concerns himself with anything other than The Group, he is selfish, greedy, inhumane. He is a criminal.

More and more, this is how the young are being trained these days.

The grand “we” is being sold to them like a cheap street drug. They buy in. They believe this “we” is real, instead of a hollow con designed to drag them into a Globalist framework owned and operated by mega-corporations, banks, foundations, governments, and ubiquitous Rockefeller interests.

And what of the individual, his mind, his unique perception, his independent ideas, his originality, his life-force?
Swept away in the rush toward “a better world.”

I have breaking news. Earth is not a spaceship and we are not crewmembers. If Earth is a spaceship, it has serious design flaws, because it keeps making the same trip around the same sun every year.

Each one of us does not have a specified function, as a crewmember would.

Going back as far as you want to in history, shortage and scarcity in the world that engendered a crisis was either created by some elite or maintained by them, for the purpose of eradicating dissent and fomenting a collectivist solution. Meaning a solution that came from the top. Meaning a solution that reduced individual freedom.

In recent human history, a different idea emerged: severely hamstring government, in order to protect the individual against it.
This idea has had a very tough time. Collectivists have fought it every step of the way.

But regardless of circumstances, the individual can author his own freedom and what it implies. He can discover, within himself, extraordinary possibilities. He can contemplate what it means to create reality that expresses his most profound desires.
And then he can begin a voyage that no one and no group can stop.

Civilizations come and go, rise and fall; the individual remains.

The word “imagination,” when properly understood, indicates that the individual can envision and then create futures that never were, and never would be, unless he invented them.

Imagination is the opposite of “provincial,” “restricted,” “well-known,” “familiar,” “accepted.”

That is its challenge to the status quo.

That is the true threat the individual poses to all predictive systems.

“It’s all just information” is a psyop code-phrase. Ideas, thoughts—nothing is original, nothing is new; we all “share” information floating in the collective consciousness; the individual invents nothing.

Which is the opposite of the truth.

The individual invents everything.

He can’t be predicted when he is himself. He is not a pattern. He is not a system.

He is not anyone else.

He thrives on his own inspiration.

He is not a piece of universe.

He is not a humble servant of Order.

He invents the space and time of his own time to come.

As early as 1961, a brilliant healer, Richard Jenkins, whom I write about in my book, The Secret Behind Secret Societies, explained what was to come. He wrote me a note, which I’m paraphrasing from memory: “People are confusing their own empathy for others with some inflated idea about group-identity. They aren’t the same. People are becoming afraid of their own unique and distinct existence. This is a social fear. A new social contract is being foisted on the population. Either you belong, or you have no rights. This is a totalitarian concept. It’s coming in through the back door.”

Well, now, it’s right there at the front door.

The individual still has a choice. But he has to make it.

Explore his own power, or give it away for nothing more than an illusion of belonging.

Stoke the fires within, or form a diluted image of self, and bow down to The Group.

The “I” is not isolated. He can reach out to others whenever and however he wants to. The question is, is he moving on the ground of his own independence, or is he searching for a group life raft, to which he will attach himself without thought or hesitation?

Beyond economics or politics, Globalism is a system that offers a life raft which is heading toward a machine-future. Disembark and find the great We, a construct of integrated parts, each of which is an individual, in a state of spiritual amnesia.

Happiness there is function and sedation, shadowless, wiped clean of distinctions.

This is the elitist end-game of social justice and equality.

It’s a fake culture.

It’s a grid of artifice, laid over the individual.

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

What many do not know about the importanceof the pancreas

by Ben Fuchs

One of the best movies I’ve ever seen was the Rob Marshall adaptation of the Broadway musical Chicago. Not only was the historical depiction of the Windy City in 1920’s fascinatingly presented but watching funnyman John C. Reilly put out an Oscar worthy, if not Oscar winning performance, and listening to him belt out a tune was a pleasant surprise as well.

My favorite song in the film was Reilly’s character Amos Hart’s rendition of “Mr. Cellophane” a plaintive plea for recognition from an oblivious love interest that many of us can find familiar. “Mr. Cellophane” tells the story of the trials of an under-appreciated and misunderstood man in love. And, who among us can say that they never felt unrequited love from a guy or girl we simply wanted to acknowledge our affections.

When I think of unrequited love, sometimes I think of our human body and its parts. Like Chicago’s Amos Hart, our heart, and spleen and thymus and thyroid among other structures faithfully love us but remain unrecognized and unappreciated. And no organ in the body is more unrecognized and unappreciated than the pancreas. While everyone knows about the heart and the brain and the stomach and the skin hardly anyone ever give this little 2 or 3 ounce organ its due.

Not only does the pancreas manufacture and secrete insulin for blood sugar control, it also makes digestive enzymes for breaking down protein, carbs, fats and cholesterol. Bicarbonate for blood health and for controlling the acid levels of digested and processed foods is also made by the pancreas. Even the DNA of living and formerly alive foods is processed by pancreatic secretions.

There’s a reason why carcinogenesis of the pancreas is the most deadly form of cancer. The pancreas is super important and once this structure breaks down so does the entire body. In addition to being a digestive structure the pancreas plays a major role in sugar processing via its manufacturing of the hormone insulin. Autoimmune disease of the pancreas technically known as type 1 diabetes affects nearly 3 million Americans according to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and includes unpleasant symptoms like chronic thirst, weight loss, visual problems and mental confusion. Ultimately unconsciousness and even death can result from autoimmune pancreatic disease further highlighting the importance of this unappreciated digestive and endocrine organ.

Keeping the pancreas in tip-top shape is one of the most effective paths to digestive health. Making sure your sugar and refined carb intake are low can support pancreatic wellness. Even unprocessed carbs like potatoes and grains can put a burden on the pancreas. Caloric restriction in general is another way to be kind to the pancreas. With every mouthful of food, the pancreas is required to work hard at making enzymes and digestive juices.

How to have a healthy pancreas? In addition to caloric restriction and laying off the refined carbs, and sweets, using 3 or 4 digestive enzymes capsules with every meal can be helpful. Pancreatic enzyme supplements (i.e. pancreatin) can be especially helpful; take a couple with meals and snacks. And using uncooked, whole, unprocessed, enzyme-rich fresh vegetables can support pancreatic enzyme activity. And, chromium (200mcg with meals) and the B-complex (especially Niacin) can support sugar metabolism and help insulin activity, reducing the load on an overworked pancreas.

Human rights in Mexico, from crisis to catastrophe

Two recent reports reveal that Mexico’s institutions are simply unable or unwilling to actually protect human rights and rampant incompetence denies justice to victims

by José Luis Granados Ceja

MEXICO CITY — Thirty-one-year-old photojournalist Ruben Espinosa was murdered the first time in July of 2015, when he and four women were fatally shot, execution style, with a 9-millimeter handgun, inside an apartment in a middle-class neighborhood of Mexico City. Three of the women were likely in the wrong place at the wrong time; the real targets were almost certainly the human-rights activist Nadia Vera, 31, and Espinosa, both of who were implacable foes of the corrupt governor of the state of Veracruz, Javier Duarte.

In fact, Duarte — who would go on the lam after prosecutors accused him of embezzling $35 million in taxpayer money – was so enraged by the publication of one unflattering Espinosa photograph of the portly governor wearing a police cap, accompanying an article titled “Veracruz: A Lawless State,” that he tried to buy every copy of the magazine’s print run.

Espinosa was one of 42 Mexican journalists murdered during the presidency of Enrique Peña Nieto, more than in any other country in Latin America and rivaling war zones such as Syria. According to the annual report released last week by Article 19, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting freedom of expression, there were 507 documented acts of aggression against journalists in Mexico; and yet in a staggering 99.6 percent of those cases no one is punished.

The reason, to most Mexicans, is clear: five years into the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto, Mexico is, for all intents and purposes, governed by narco-politics, in which a corrupt and complicit ruling party, the PRI, has no interest in protecting the citizenry because that would be tantamount to biting the hand that feeds it.
This deliberate neglect represents the second murder of Espinosa. From the beginning, police showed little interest in solving the homicide, and an independent review found that they erred at virtually every step in the investigation, from failing to preserve the crime scene to irregularities in the autopsy. Moreover, according to Espinosa’s sister, Patricia Espinosa, law-enforcement authorities have insinuated that her brother’s recklessness was to blame for his own death and have attempted to stigmatize the women who were killed alongside him, suggesting that they were sex workers and their deaths were a result of their lifestyle.

“Prosecutors do not see us as people with dignity and rights,” Patricia Espinosa told MintPress News, adding:

“They see us as yet another page in the five, 10, or 20 volumes of the dossier … They believe that the (number) of pages (in) a volume reflects the quality.”

The state’s impunity in the murders of Espinosa, Vera, her roommates and housecleaner is reminiscent of the 43 students from Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College, who disappeared while traveling by bus from the province of Guerrero in southwest Mexico to attend a demonstration in Mexico City in September of 2014.

Prosecutors maintain that a notorious drug cartel kidnapped and killed the students, and then incinerated their corpses in a local dump site, but witnesses and evidence suggest a scenario in which both local and federal police are responsible for the massacre.

A report released last week by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Mexico found that torture was used by the state to interrogate suspects in the Ayotzinapa case, which helped to undermine the investigation’s conclusions.

For the families of the missing students, the report served to confirm what they already suspected.

“These people were forced to declare what their torturers wanted to hear and not the truth,” said Mario González, father of one of the disappeared students.
Entitled “Double Injustice,” the report identified several human rights abuses – including arbitrary detention, lack of due process, and torture – committed throughout the investigation, and even found that an investigation into human rights violations was stymied by an abrupt change in managerial personnel.

For Patricia Espinosa, the country is in the midst of a human rights crisis in which the state is “complicit” and, without the political will to enforce legally guaranteed protections, the rights of Mexicans under the current regime are “just letters on a page, without any value.”

A case in point is Congressional passage of the Law for the Protection of Defenders of Human Rights and Journalists six years ago. A fine law on paper, but attacks against journalists have continued unabated.

This year is already off to an inauspicious start. On March 21, Leobardo Vázquez Atzin, a reporter with La Opinión was shot dead, making him the third journalist slain so far in 2018. According to local reports, Vázquez had been the subject of threats from a mayor in the state of Veracruz.

Contrary to politicians’ assertions, recent trends suggest that the state, and not the drug cartels, is now the prime purveyor of violence and abuse against journalists.

According to Article 19, nearly half — about 48 percent — of the 1,986 acts of aggression against journalists since 2013 were carried out by the public officials, mostly law-enforcement and the armed forces.

Despite a number of independent investigations that debunk the government’s version of the Ayotzinapa disappearances, the government of Peña Nieto insists it played no role in the crime.

Recently, however, one of the IFAI’s six commissioners, Ximena Puente, announced her candidacy for a Congress seat as a member of the ruling PRI, raising concerns about politicization of the regulatory agency.

In its report, Article 19 also called on the state to act swiftly to bring spending on government publicity under control. The federal government, in particular, spent approximately $2 billion on publicity during a five-year period from January 2013 to December 2017.

The situation is such that the Supreme Court of Justice took the unusual step of ordering the Congress to approve a law regulating government publicity by April 30, 2018.

“The government of Enrique Peña Nieto is unwilling to shoulder the political costs of its lie,” said Mario Patron, director of the Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center, at an event addressing the psychosocial impacts on the victims in the Ayotzinapa case.

As a result, families of victims of this narco-political administration are left yearning for justice.

(José Luis Granados Ceja is a writer and photojournalist based in Mexico City).

Human rights in Mexico, from crisis to catastrophe

Two recent reports reveal that Mexico’s institutions are simply unable or unwilling to actually protect human rights and rampant incompetence denies justice to victims

by José Luis Granados Ceja

MEXICO CITY — Thirty-one-year-old photojournalist Ruben Espinosa was murdered the first time in July of 2015, when he and four women were fatally shot, execution style, with a 9-millimeter handgun, inside an apartment in a middle-class neighborhood of Mexico City. Three of the women were likely in the wrong place at the wrong time; the real targets were almost certainly the human-rights activist Nadia Vera, 31, and Espinosa, both of who were implacable foes of the corrupt governor of the state of Veracruz, Javier Duarte.
In fact, Duarte — who would go on the lam after prosecutors accused him of embezzling $35 million in taxpayer money – was so enraged by the publication of one unflattering Espinosa photograph of the portly governor wearing a police cap, accompanying an article titled “Veracruz: A Lawless State,” that he tried to buy every copy of the magazine’s print run.
Espinosa was one of 42 Mexican journalists murdered during the presidency of Enrique Peña Nieto, more than in any other country in Latin America and rivaling war zones such as Syria. According to the annual report released last week by Article 19, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting freedom of expression, there were 507 documented acts of aggression against journalists in Mexico; and yet in a staggering 99.6 percent of those cases no one is punished.
The reason, to most Mexicans, is clear: five years into the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto, Mexico is, for all intents and purposes, governed by narco-politics, in which a corrupt and complicit ruling party, the PRI, has no interest in protecting the citizenry because that would be tantamount to biting the hand that feeds it.
This deliberate neglect represents the second murder of Espinosa. From the beginning, police showed little interest in solving the homicide, and an independent review found that they erred at virtually every step in the investigation, from failing to preserve the crime scene to irregularities in the autopsy. Moreover, according to Espinosa’s sister, Patricia Espinosa, law-enforcement authorities have insinuated that her brother’s recklessness was to blame for his own death and have attempted to stigmatize the women who were killed alongside him, suggesting that they were sex workers and their deaths were a result of their lifestyle.
“Prosecutors do not see us as people with dignity and rights,” Patricia Espinosa told MintPress News, adding:
“They see us as yet another page in the five, 10, or 20 volumes of the dossier … They believe that the (number) of pages (in) a volume reflects the quality.”
The state’s impunity in the murders of Espinosa, Vera, her roommates and housecleaner is reminiscent of the 43 students from Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College, who disappeared while traveling by bus from the province of Guerrero in southwest Mexico to attend a demonstration in Mexico City in September of 2014. Prosecutors maintain that a notorious drug cartel kidnapped and killed the students, and then incinerated their corpses in a local dump site, but witnesses and evidence suggest a scenario in which both local and federal police are responsible for the massacre.
A report released last week by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Mexico found that torture was used by the state to interrogate suspects in the Ayotzinapa case, which helped to undermine the investigation’s conclusions.
For the families of the missing students, the report served to confirm what they already suspected.
“These people were forced to declare what their torturers wanted to hear and not the truth,” said Mario González, father of one of the disappeared students.
Entitled “Double Injustice,” the report identified several human rights abuses – including arbitrary detention, lack of due process, and torture – committed throughout the investigation, and even found that an investigation into human rights violations was stymied by an abrupt change in managerial personnel.
For Patricia Espinosa, the country is in the midst of a human rights crisis in which the state is “complicit” and, without the political will to enforce legally guaranteed protections, the rights of Mexicans under the current regime are “just letters on a page, without any value.”
A case in point is Congressional passage of the Law for the Protection of Defenders of Human Rights and Journalists six years ago. A fine law on paper, but attacks against journalists have continued unabated.
This year is already off to an inauspicious start. On March 21, Leobardo Vázquez Atzin, a reporter with La Opinión was shot dead, making him the third journalist slain so far in 2018. According to local reports, Vázquez had been the subject of threats from a mayor in the state of Veracruz.
Contrary to politicians’ assertions, recent trends suggest that the state, and not the drug cartels, is now the prime purveyor of violence and abuse against journalists.
According to Article 19, nearly half — about 48 percent — of the 1,986 acts of aggression against journalists since 2013 were carried out by the public officials, mostly law-enforcement and the armed forces.
Despite a number of independent investigations that debunk the government’s version of the Ayotzinapa disappearances, the government of Peña Nieto insists it played no role in the crime.
Recently, however, one of the IFAI’s six commissioners, Ximena Puente, announced her candidacy for a Congress seat as a member of the ruling PRI, raising concerns about politicization of the regulatory agency.
In its report, Article 19 also called on the state to act swiftly to bring spending on government publicity under control. The federal government, in particular, spent approximately $2 billion on publicity during a five-year period from January 2013 to December 2017.
The situation is such that the Supreme Court of Justice took the unusual step of ordering the Congress to approve a law regulating government publicity by April 30, 2018.
“The government of Enrique Peña Nieto is unwilling to shoulder the political costs of its lie,” said Mario Patron, director of the Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Center, at an event addressing the psychosocial impacts on the victims in the Ayotzinapa case.
As a result, families of victims of this narco-political administration are left yearning for justice.
(José Luis Granados Ceja is a writer and photojournalist based in Mexico City).

Google and corporate news giants forge new alliance to defeat independent journalism

The “new media” monopolists of Silicon Valley and the once-dominant traditional print media have clearly agreed that the “fake news” frenzy is a convenient pretext to step up their censorship of the internet through new algorithms, allowing them to boost their profit margins and silence opposition through a new framework of “algorithmic censorship”

by Elliott Gabriel
MPN

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA – Search engine and advertising monolith Google continued to press its offensive against alternative media this week with an announcement unveiling a new $300 million project called the Google News Initiative.

The initiative encompasses a range of new projects announced by the tech giant, which has long been accused of enjoying a monopoly position and of siphoning off digital advertising revenue from traditional news publishers.

Google sees it differently, however, and asserted in a press statement announcing the initiative that it “paid $12.6 billion to partners” while driving “10 billion clicks a month to publishers’ websites for free.” The company is now promising to continue working “with publishers to elevate accurate, quality content and stem the flow of misinformation and disinformation.”

The move will likely drive the stake further into the heart of independent media while merging Silicon Valley with mainstream publishers traded on Wall Street and aligned with the agendas of beltway politicians in Washington.

According to Google:

The commitments we’re making through the Google News Initiative demonstrate that news and quality journalism is [sic] a top priority for Google. We know that success can only be achieved by working together, and we look forward to collaborating with the news industry to build a stronger future for journalism.”

Launched in a partnership with a range of traditional corporate media giants – including The Washington Post, The New York Times, Financial Times, and U.S. newspaper giant Gannett – the project promises to combat so-called “fake news” and misinformation. Many reasonably fear, based on recent trends, that this will mean the further marginalization of non-hegemonic left-wing and conservative media — as well as a sort of “death by algorithm” for already-struggling publishers who once flourished, prior to the hysteria over alleged “Russian interference” and propaganda in the 2016 elections.

The initiative will include a new lab to analyze and parse out what is deemed “mis- and disinformation during elections and breaking news moments;” a fact-checking partnership with Stanford University and corporate media non-profit groups like the Local Media Association and the Poynter Institute; and a new service meant to expedite reader subscriptions to pay-gated news websites, among other new projects.

In the past decade, companies that enjoyed a monopoly in the U.S. media market — such as Gannett, Hearst, and The Times — saw their readership base, as well as the advertising revenue on which they depend, largely evaporate in the face of the rise in online news outlets. Such new competition included state-funded broadcasters like Al-Jazeera, PressTV and RT, as well as dissident voices at smaller news sites offering original journalism, like MintPress News, Truthout, Monthly Review, the World Socialist Website, and a range of alternative and volunteer-based journalism outfits across the globe.

Last April, Google clamped down on alternative media with new structural changes to its algorithms — accompanying the change with an announcement tarring alternative media with the broad black brush of “misleading information, unexpected offensive results, hoaxes and unsupported conspiracy theories” as opposed to what it called “authoritative content.”

As a result, organic search-engine traffic to these sites uniformly plummeted to less than half of what it had previously been, devastating many publishers.

 Google parent company, Alphabet Inc., has seen its stock dive this week amid a broader selloff of tech stocks resulting from the Cambridge Analytica controversy embroiling Facebook.

While former Google and Alphabet Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt once argued that “policymakers should work with the grain of the internet rather than against it [and] allow innovation to flourish,” tech platforms have faced mounting pressure from governments across the globe, which are constant threats to step in and regulate the lawlessness that once reigned across the world wide web.

Indeed, companies from the same corporate-media roster with which Google is now partnering have been leading the charge calling for regulation, arguing that the tech giant failed to protect users from alleged abuse in the form of false information spread by Russian operatives.

By last November, Schmidt was already caving in to pressure on the company resulting from the hue and cry over “Kremlin meddling” in the U.S. electoral process.
Arguing that he was opposed to censorship, the Google leader nonetheless announced that the company would begin to purposefully reduce the presence of “misinformation” sites, like Russian government-owned Sputnik and RT, on Google News by “deranking” the sites in news search results and “trying to engineer the systems” to prevent the classification of “propaganda” as legitimate news.

Facebook, which is witnessing a PR meltdown after the revelation that it allowed the data of 50 million users to be misused by right-wing political operatives, is also undertaking measures to prioritize content from mainstream outlets like The Times while using the fact-checking services of corporate nonprofits and wire agencies like Associated Press.

 An algorithmic gag to silence the people

As the share prices of corporate media outlets and Silicon Valley alike begin to tumble and the rise of anti-systemic social movements, anti-capitalist perspectives and opposition voices continues unabated, it’s become a matter of consensus for politicians, billionaire tech geeks and media moguls alike that the internet must be policed in a stricter manner.

The “new media” monopolists of Silicon Valley and the once-dominant traditional print media have clearly agreed that the “fake news” frenzy is a convenient pretext to step up their censorship of the internet through new algorithms, allowing them to boost their profit margins and silence opposition through a new framework of “algorithmic censorship.”

This new model overwhelmingly favors those who see information and journalism as an article of commerce alone. It poses a stark threat not only to internet users’ ability to access information, but to the ability of citizens and social movements that hope to interact with, participate in, and wield influence over the political and economic activities that determine our lives and the fate of communities across the world.

(Elliott Gabriel is a former staff writer for teleSUR English and a MintPress News contributor based in Quito, Ecuador. He has taken extensive part in advocacy and organizing in the pro-labor, migrant justice and police accountability movements of Southern California and the state’s Central Coast).

Construction begins on desalination plant

10-billion-peso facility will be the largest in Latin America

by the El Reportero’s wire services

A groundbreaking ceremony yesterday initiated the construction of a desalination plant in Playas de Rosarito, Baja California. It will be the largest in Latin America.

The 10-billion-peso (US $540-million), privately-funded plant is expected to begin operating in three years’ time. In its first phase, scheduled for completion by the end of next year, it will produce 2.2 cubic meters of water per second.

Once the facility is fully operational, that output will double and be enough to supply 75 percent of the water currently provided by the Río Colorado-Tijuana aqueduct.

Governor Francisco Vega de Lamadrid explained that the plant’s water quality will comply with the highest standards.

He also said the water will only be for use within the state and will not be sold to the United States.

It sill supply agricultural needs and domestic water requirements in Rosarito and Tijuana, and could also serve to fulfill demand in Ensenada.

Baja California depends almost completely on the Río Colorado-Tijuana aqueduct to satisfy its water needs. With a carrying capacity of 5.3 cubic meters per second, the aqueduct is falling short in supplying water to the four coastal municipalities where 71% of the state’s population lives.

The Rosarito desalination plant is being built by a Mexican subsidiary of Cayman Islands-based Consolidated Water Co. Ltd, which will operate the facility for a period of 37 years, after which it will become property of the state.

Source: El Sol de Tijuana (sp)

AMLO won’t be part of airport ‘corruption’
Presidential candidate said legal action being taken to stop awarding more contracts

Leading presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador said yesterday he would take legal action to stop the government from awarding more contracts for Mexico City’s new US $13-billion airport.

And today he reached out to business leaders by proposing a special committee be struck to do an analysis of the project.

The leftist veteran of Mexican politics told reporters the project was “corrupt” and declared he would not be part of it. “…we will file an injunction so that they stop handing out contracts because they are awarding them to commit the next government [to the project] and tie our hands.”

He also said he would not waver in the face of pressure from the business community, which has urged the candidate to respect airport contracts should he be elected in order to guarantee investment and prevent economic uncertainty.

“Uncertainty, yes, that’s what they say. But then what? So that there is no uncertainty am I going to become an accomplice to corruption? No, I prefer that there is uncertainty…” he said.

López Obrador has previously said he will scrap the project altogether if elected, charging that it is too expensive and not needed.

Instead he favors keeping the current airport and expanding the Santa Lucía Air Force base in México state so that it can be used for commercial flights.

The leader of the “Together We Will Make History” coalition, who had an 18-point lead over his nearest rival in a poll published yesterday, also said that committing his administration — if he wins office — to the project would drain it of resources because it would be forced to pay for the “dirty tricks that they are currently contracting.”

“How is it that three months out from an election they’re awarding billion-peso contracts for works in the future?… They’re giving out contracts to commit federal participation in 20 years… it’s all very shady, very dirty…” he said.

In addition, López Obrador labeled both the project and those who support its construction as corrupt.

“I can’t be tolerant with corruption and I consider that the construction of the new airport is corruption and those who defend it being built on Lake Texcoco are involved in the business of corruption… that’s why they say that they want me to accept unfair contracts that are stained by corruption,” the candidate said.

President Enrique Peña Nieto, Mexico City Mayor Miguel Ángel Mancera and the powerful Business Coordinating Council (CCE) have all said that the new airport project is indispensable for both the capital and the country and that halting it would have devastating consequences.

It was the head of the latter organization who today accepted an invitation from López Obrador to participate in an in-depth and clear analysis of the project. The 15-member committee will consist of five business representatives, five from López Obrador’s Morena party and five from the federal government.

The agreement took place during the annual congress of the Mexican construction industry, where López Obrador was a guest speaker.

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