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The government of Nicaragua is chaired by a National Destruction Board

This June I have immersed myself so deeply in the human pain that my Nicaraguan compatriots are experiencing, that I missed some important dates in my life, such as the 14th anniversary of the death of my beloved father, the journalist José Santos Ramírez Calero, died on June 12, 2004 in SF, to whom I apologize for not even being able to go to the cemetery to leave some flowers. But I love you father, and you will always be with me in my heart. And the other date that has very bittersweet memories for me is Father’s Day as my father died five days earlier.

The month of June has been a month of human disaster in my beloved Nicaragua, which has caused me such deep pain that it has also led me to be absent for long hours, days and months from my normal daily work in front of the computer, from where I bring you El Reportero every week – as I have been following the events of the government killings of national destruction.

The ruthless war that the Nicaraguan government has unleashed against the Nicaraguan people has brought me so close to my homeland in spirit and soul from here in the US, that I have not been able to concentrate on my daily work.

This government – led by Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo – if you can call it a government, since for me it is nothing more than a criminal enterprise group that has seized the administration of the state of Nicaragua in a mafia-like, turbulent way, through the destruction of the ideals and the human dignity of all the people, through bribes, blackmail, murders, lies and the dismantling of all state institutions, including the destruction of public and private properties.

All a monstrous work.

Can it be called ‘Government of National Destruction’ in Nicaragua?

And I saw it coming.

About eight years ago, at a table in a popular Nicaraguan Restaurant on Mission Street in the Mission District of San Francisco, while eating a delicious mondongo soup, I told Denis Galeano, Consul General of Nicaragua in San Francisco, “Denis, Daniel Ortega is creating a monster that no one is going to be able to over throw …” We looked at each other in silence. His look was deep. He made no comment about it. Just as recently, when a group of Nicaraguans came to the consulate offices to protest and asked him to speak out about the murders that the Nicaraguan government has been perpetrating against the Nicaraguan people throughout the country. He just said coldly: “There’s no comment.”

When he arrived in San Francisco to occupy the consular chair during the first administration of Ortega, it was I who introduced him to the Nicaraguan community in a front-page article in El Reportero. I honored him for his position of a great commander, because he led 5,000 men of the Contra in the north of Nicaragua, in the Segovias, where he is a native.
The Sandinista Front had managed to convince the members of the Contra’s guerrilla force to lay down their arms in exchange for their complete integration or submission, and to receive land benefits, positions in the government, etc., during their National Reconciliation Government.

“Then the Front bought them”? I asked him in a conversation on another occasion during one of my many friendly visits in his office. Can it be called ‘Government of National Destruction’ in Nicaragua?

“Yes,” he answered quickly.
I kept thinking: “Are you sure you understood my question”?

Of course, his benefits as the Nicaraguan diplomat of more than one rank in Northern California, a good salary and perhaps land in Nicaragua, were something he could not obtain on his own if he ceased to be a Consul or criticized his supreme boss, Daniel Ortega.

While the government was giving itself away as dictatorial, my attitude was changing, which was reflected in my public criticism. Obviously, I no longer received invitations to social events at the consulate, and my relationship with the Consul was reduced to a casual greetings.

With the recent events that have shaken the life of the entire Nicaraguan population since April 18, Nicaragua has placed itself on the world news. The unarmed people have turned to the streets asking for the resignation of the presidential couple, and in response, the president – who until recently enjoyed the blessing of the great capital in Nicaragua to govern politically at will – has massacred the people with bullets, so violently that it does even compare to the Somoza dynasty in its brutality.

An unusual fact that has left me perplexed is that the so-called Latin American ‘Left’ has remained silent before the massacre against the people who are asking for the resignation of their executioner, the leftist Daniel Ortega, and who, as of today, has left approximately 170 dead, thousands of wounded and missing.

It seems that the ‘Left’ only obeys the ideology and the party, and not the lack of justice and human values. I add that I never use the words ‘left’ or ‘right’, because I consider that these are terms used by the ruling world elite to divide humanity.

It also causes me sadness that most of the Nicaraguans I know in the United States, and whom I see regularly on Facebook, have not spoken out against the pain the people of Nicaragua suffered at the hands of the government. Have they become so cold that they no longer feel? I wonder.

Today, on the closing day of this edition, something unusual happened in the city of Masaya, where it was expected that the guard of Ortega – anti-riot and paramilitary – carried out the ‘Operation Cleanup,’ which would dismantle with violence the barriers that the town has been raising to prevent them from entering their neighborhoods to kill more people and to put pressure on the rulers to leave power. It was expected to be a slaughter of large proportions.

The bishops of Nicaragua, in one of their many interventions in defense of the population, were present in Masaya in a long caravan of vehicles along with the thousands of villagers who joined them, managed to stop the massacre. They spoke with the police commissioner so that, in the name of God, they would not repress the people and he beseeched them.

It remains to be seen, after this issue has come out on the street, if the commissioner also released the dozens of protesters who were detained for protesting against the government – peacefully – as promised.

The Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) will hold a special session on Nicaragua this Friday, June 22.

And we hope that by Monday, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the OAS and the EU, will already be in Nicaragua, which is the people’s last hope for the government to stop repressing and killing.

The INE guarantees the sending and receiving of the Electoral Package Postal for the vote of Mexicans abroad

by the El Reportero’s wire services

Until Sunday May 27, the National Electoral Institute (INE) has registered the sending of 140 thousand Postal Electoral Packages (PEP), of a total of 181 thousand 256, to Mexicans living abroad so that they can vote this 1st July by president, senators and, if applicable, by governors.

At the moment, four thousand packages have been returned to the country with the suffrage of the nationals. The sending and receiving of the PEPs has been carried out thanks to the UPS courier company, which has been awarded for the tenth consecutive year as one of the most ethical companies in the world (World’s Most Ethical Company) for its star practices.

This company exclusively designed guide numbers for the PEPs for the electoral process in Mexico, to ensure that all votes reach the INE-owned winery (Avenida Tláhuac #5502, Col. Granjas Estrella, CP 09880, Iztapalapa, Mexico City ) where the votes will be protected by the Mexican Army.

Teachers set up camp in Mexico City after chaotic Monday

Officials estimate 3,500 arrived in city for protest

Teachers from six states set up camp in front of the building housing the Secretariat of the Interior (Segob) in Mexico City yesterday after a chaotic day in the capital.

From 9:00am yesterday, members of the dissident CNTE union set up roadblocks at various access points to the city, while thousands marched to protest against the 2013 educational reform. Chaotic traffic conditions were reported in various parts of the city.

The teachers are demanding dialogue with the federal government but their ultimate aim is for the reform — which includes compulsory teacher evaluations — to be repealed.

At the toll booth marking the entry point to the Mexico City-Cuernavaca highway, a confrontation between protesters and police left three officers injured.
Teachers threw backpacks, sticks and stones during the clash while the police retaliated with the use of tear gas.

Yesterday’s protests affected more than 12,000 businesses and resulted in the loss of 36 million pesos (US $1.76 million) in revenue, the Mexico City business chamber Canacope said.

The capital’s Public Security Secretariat said that around 3,500 teachers arrived in Mexico City on 47 buses, although the CNTE had anticipated that as many as 12,000 teachers would arrive.

Teachers from Oaxaca, Chiapas, Guerrero, Michoacán, México state and Mexico City arrived at the Segob building at around 4 p.m.

One CNTE member from Guerrero told the newspaper El Universal that in addition to anger at the government over the educational reforms, Mexicans are fed up generally with the current situation in the country.

“That hartazgo [feeling of being fed up] is going to be noticed when it’s time to elect a president,” Salvador López said.

Among the teachers’ demands is the reinstatement of almost 600 teachers who were laid off when they refused to write evaluation tests.

“Carry on teachers, to victory, we will only get ahead with the triumph of our president Andrés Manuel López Obrador…” one protest participant said.

Protests continued today in front of the Mexican Stock Exchange building, leading authorities to bolster security at the site.

In addition to the Mexico City protests, CNTE teachers have occupied public locations in Oaxaca and blocked access to that city’s airport and central bus station.

A week-long strike in Oaxaca spread to Guerrero, Michoacán and Chiapas and teachers have vowed that it will continue until the government agrees to restart negotiations.

The federal Secretariat of Public Education (SEP) warned yesterday that it would dock the pay of teachers who missed classes but the protesters have remained defiant and CNTE members have previously shown that they are prepared to be patient.

A 2016 teachers camp set up around La Ciudadela Park in downtown Mexico City remained in place for three months.

Source: El Universal (sp), El Financiero (sp)

Socialism equals triumph for corporate criminals

By Jon Rappoport

In several recent articles (all here under category: socialism), I’ve exposed the myth that socialism is a revolution of and for the people.

I’ve presented evidence that socialism is actually a movement owned, operated, and funded by ultra-wealthy elites.

Dupes, foot soldiers, blind idealists, indoctrinated students, and low-level thugs are recruited through cutouts to serve the agenda of Rockefeller Globalists, for example, who are determined to bring about worldwide socialism.

Socialism, in a nutshell, equals ultra-rich elites (represented by the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg, etc.) owning the free market, cutting out competition, and creating more powerful, overarching, central governments.

Hidden in the plan is the granting of greater dominion to mega-corporations. This is a key fact.

The US Constitution was a document that established extremely limited central government. Regardless of the motives of the authors and the state legislatures that ratified it, the ideas contained in the Constitution were, and are, extremely oppressive toward large centralized structures controlling the people.

But there was another factor present at the beginning of the American Republic.

At the dawn of the United States, corporations were chartered and thus allowed to operate by the individual states. If a corporation, in the eyes of a state legislature, violated a basic trust by harming the people, committing offenses against the citizenry, the legislature could summarily cancel their charter and literally exile them from the state.

This power followed, in part, from the fact that corporations were not and are not individuals. They do not have the rights and freedoms of individuals. Corporations were not granted the rights of citizens in the Constitution.

Richard Grossman, an activist and scholar of US corporate history, unearthed and made lucid these facts.

At the birth of the American Republic, therefore, there was a double limitation on power. Central government and corporations were both strapped and shackled.

Of course, just as the federal government has been allowed to expand like an unchecked fungus, so has corporate power.

Under socialism (aka Globalism), mega-corporate power is the prow of a ship that sails on and on and conquers the economies of the world.

Corporate crimes go unpunished.

Contrary to popular belief, the real agenda of socialism has nothing to do with prosecuting those crimes.

The idea, for example, that greater socialism in America would defeat Monsanto is ludicrous in the extreme.

Monsanto is one of the components of actual socialism—the real, not the fake, version.

Again, socialism is by, for, and of the ultra-wealthy elites. It is not a movement on behalf of the downtrodden.

As Gary Allen puts it in his 1971 classic, None Dare call It Conspiracy: “…pressure from above and pressure from below… The pressure from above comes from secret, ostensibly respectable Comrades in the government and [elite Globalist] Establishment, forming, with the radicalized mobs in the streets below, a giant pincer around middle-class society. The street rioters are pawns, shills, puppets, and dupes for an oligarchy of elitist conspirators working above to turn America’s limited government into an unlimited government with total control over our lives and property.”

“The American middle class is being squeezed to death by a vise. In the streets we have avowed revolutionary groups… Virtually all members of these groups sincerely believe that they are fighting the Establishment. In reality they are an indispensable ally of the Establishment in fastening Socialism on all of us. The naive radicals think that under Socialism the ‘people’ will run everything. Actually, it will be a clique of Insiders in total control, consolidating and controlling all wealth. That is why these schoolboy Lenins and teenage Trotskys are allowed to roam free and are practically never arrested or prosecuted. They are protected. If the Establishment wanted the revolutionaries stopped, how long do you think they would be tolerated?”

Gary Allen wrote that passage in 1971. Does it ring a familiar bell now?

As philosopher George Santayana famously wrote in 1905, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Equally famous is the prescription for all advertising: repeat the same message over and over, so it sinks into the mind and forms a false impression of truth.

Thus it has been with the basic message of socialism. “This is a form of government that finally serves the people. It is the people rising up to take the reins of power.”

Once that notion is rigidly fixed in consciousness, it is impossible to believe socialism is actually emanating from the elite of the elite.

Fortunately, more and more people are waking up to the basic con of fake news, which doesn’t only broadcast distorted current events spooling out through screens, day by day.

Basic themes of fake news also span decades and even centuries.

What will happen when enough young people, who want to tear down the structures of the monopolists, realize those same men are bankrolling them in the streets?

What will happen when these young people realize their teachers and mentors and handlers and professors have been feeding them the precise reverse of the truth?

As long as independent media continue to proliferate, that day is coming.

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

Socialism equals triumph for corporate criminals

By Jon Rappoport

In several recent articles (all here under category: socialism), I’ve exposed the myth that socialism is a revolution of and for the people.

I’ve presented evidence that socialism is actually a movement owned, operated, and funded by ultra-wealthy elites.

Dupes, foot soldiers, blind idealists, indoctrinated students, and low-level thugs are recruited through cutouts to serve the agenda of Rockefeller Globalists, for example, who are determined to bring about worldwide socialism.

Socialism, in a nutshell, equals ultra-rich elites (represented by the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg, etc.) owning the free market, cutting out competition, and creating more powerful, overarching, central governments.

Hidden in the plan is the granting of greater dominion to mega-corporations. This is a key fact.

The US Constitution was a document that established extremely limited central government. Regardless of the motives of the authors and the state legislatures that ratified it, the ideas contained in the Constitution were, and are, extremely oppressive toward large centralized structures controlling the people.

But there was another factor present at the beginning of the American Republic.

At the dawn of the United States, corporations were chartered and thus allowed to operate by the individual states. If a corporation, in the eyes of a state legislature, violated a basic trust by harming the people, committing offenses against the citizenry, the legislature could summarily cancel their charter and literally exile them from the state.

This power followed, in part, from the fact that corporations were not and are not individuals. They do not have the rights and freedoms of individuals. Corporations were not granted the rights of citizens in the Constitution.

Richard Grossman, an activist and scholar of US corporate history, unearthed and made lucid these facts.

At the birth of the American Republic, therefore, there was a double limitation on power. Central government and corporations were both strapped and shackled.

Of course, just as the federal government has been allowed to expand like an unchecked fungus, so has corporate power.

Under socialism (aka Globalism), mega-corporate power is the prow of a ship that sails on and on and conquers the economies of the world.

Corporate crimes go unpunished.

Contrary to popular belief, the real agenda of socialism has nothing to do with prosecuting those crimes.

The idea, for example, that greater socialism in America would defeat Monsanto is ludicrous in the extreme.

Monsanto is one of the components of actual socialism—the real, not the fake, version.

Again, socialism is by, for, and of the ultra-wealthy elites. It is not a movement on behalf of the downtrodden.

As Gary Allen puts it in his 1971 classic, None Dare call It Conspiracy: “…pressure from above and pressure from below… The pressure from above comes from secret, ostensibly respectable Comrades in the government and [elite Globalist] Establishment, forming, with the radicalized mobs in the streets below, a giant pincer around middle-class society. The street rioters are pawns, shills, puppets, and dupes for an oligarchy of elitist conspirators working above to turn America’s limited government into an unlimited government with total control over our lives and property.”

“The American middle class is being squeezed to death by a vise. In the streets we have avowed revolutionary groups… Virtually all members of these groups sincerely believe that they are fighting the Establishment. In reality they are an indispensable ally of the Establishment in fastening Socialism on all of us. The naive radicals think that under Socialism the ‘people’ will run everything. Actually, it will be a clique of Insiders in total control, consolidating and controlling all wealth. That is why these schoolboy Lenins and teenage Trotskys are allowed to roam free and are practically never arrested or prosecuted. They are protected. If the Establishment wanted the revolutionaries stopped, how long do you think they would be tolerated?”

Gary Allen wrote that passage in 1971. Does it ring a familiar bell now?

As philosopher George Santayana famously wrote in 1905, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Equally famous is the prescription for all advertising: repeat the same message over and over, so it sinks into the mind and forms a false impression of truth.

Thus it has been with the basic message of socialism. “This is a form of government that finally serves the people. It is the people rising up to take the reins of power.”

Once that notion is rigidly fixed in consciousness, it is impossible to believe socialism is actually emanating from the elite of the elite.

Fortunately, more and more people are waking up to the basic con of fake news, which doesn’t only broadcast distorted current events spooling out through screens, day by day.

Basic themes of fake news also span decades and even centuries.

What will happen when enough young people, who want to tear down the structures of the monopolists, realize those same men are bankrolling them in the streets?

What will happen when these young people realize their teachers and mentors and handlers and professors have been feeding them the precise reverse of the truth?

As long as independent media continue to proliferate, that day is coming.

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

La patronal de Nicaragua rompe con Ortega

Los empresarios afirman que el modelo corporativista “se agotó” y apoyan un cambio en el Gobierno

por Carlos Salinas

Entre los cambios que ha generado la inédita rebelión popular en Nicaragua, que desde hace 43 días exige en las calles la salida del presidente Daniel Ortega del Gobierno, está el fin del modelo corporativista que durante diez años fue uno de los principales pilares que le daban estabilidad al régimen.

La noche del martes el Consejo Superior de la Empresa Privada (COSEP), la principal cámara empresarial del país, demandó a sus miembros a renunciar de “forma inmediata” a cualquier relación que mantuvieran con el Ejecutivo de Ortega, mientras que dos de los más poderosos empresarios del país, Carlos Pellas y Piero Coen, afirmaron que ese modelo corporativista “se agotó” y que es necesario un cambio de Gobierno.

El COSEP afirmó en un comunicado hecho público la noche del martes que a partir del 18 de abril –cuando Ortega desató una feroz opresión contra las manifestaciones que se oponían a una reforma a la Seguridad Social impuesta sin consenso– suspendió su participación “en cualquier reunión con las autoridades del Gobierno como consecuencia de nuestro rechazo a la represión y nuestro compromiso con la justicia y la democracia de Nicaragua”. Muchos miembros de la cámara, sin embargo, mantenían cargos en comisiones, comités o justas directivas de instituciones públicas, dentro del modelo de alianza entre el sector privado y el Gobierno desarrollado por Ortega. Desde ayer esa relación quedó rota.

Los empresarios criticaron la represión y los actos de violencia desatados desde el Ejecutivo, que no ha implementado las recomendaciones hechas por la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (CIDH), que exigió el fin de toda forma de represión, el respeto al derecho de los nicaragüenses de protestar de forma pacífica, la protección de los manifestantes y la creación de un mecanismo internacional, autónomo, para investigar y esclarecer las violaciones a los derechos humanos en del país desde abril.

El lunes, Nicaragua vivió una de las jornadas más violentas desde abril, después de que huestes del Frente Sandinista, grupos parapoliciales y oficiales antidisturbios atacaran el campus de la Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería (UNI), donde se habían atrincherado un centenar de estudiantes que exigía el fin del Gobierno sandinista. Las imágenes retransmitidas en vivo por la televisión mostraban a los oficiales disparando a mansalva en el que es el corazón comercial y financiero de Managua.

La violencia dejó dos muertos, más de 40 heridos, una veintena de jóvenes apresados, comercios atacados, quemada la fachada de una radio progubernamental y periodistas agredidos.

Familiares de esos detenidos se presentaron el martes a la sede de la Dirección de Auxilio Judicial, en Managua, popularmente conocida como “El Chipote” y denunciada como centro de torturas. Las madres de estas personas exigían su liberación y tras varias horas de presión un grupo de sacerdotes pudo acceder al edificio. Tras una rápida negociación lograron la promesa de las autoridades de liberar a 22 jóvenes capturados el lunes. Fueron entregados en la Catedral Metropolitana de la capital nicaragüense, pero otras madres informaron de que en la lista no estaban sus hijos, a quienes dan por “desaparecidos”.

“Demandamos la inmediata liberación de los jóvenes y ciudadanos que todavía continúan ilegalmente detenidos”, dijeron los empresarios en su comunicado.
Los empresarios del sector turístico de Nicaragua –uno de los pilares de la economía de este país– también se pronunciaron la noche del martes. Este gremio ha sido duramente golpeado por la crisis. Hay hoteles en las ciudades coloniales de Granada y León –postales de presentación de este país frente al mundo– que no cuentan con huéspedes, otros que funcionan al 20 por ciento de su capacidad, mientras los restaurantes informaron de pérdidas de hasta el 50 por ciento.

En su comunicado la Cámara del Turismo responsabilizó al Gobierno de la violencia e instó a todos sus miembros a participar en una manifestación nacional que se realizará este miércoles, Día de las Madres en Nicaragua, que sería encabezada por las madres de los muertos por la represión. La manifestación, a la que se unirían todas las cámaras empresariales, los universitarios, campesinos y organizaciones de la sociedad civil prometió ser gigantesca.

“Reiteramos nuestra posición firme y clara al lado del pueblo que lucha para alcanza justicia para los asesinados, heridos, torturados, desaparecidos y detenidos ilegalmente”, dijeron los empresarios. “El turismo, algún día, cuando la paz brille en nuestro suelo patrio, podremos recuperarlo, pero las vidas de más de 90 hermanos nicaragüenses, en su gran mayoría estudiantes en la flor de la juventud, no podremos recuperarlas jamás. Por eso y por ellos exigimos justicia”.

Las declaraciones más sintomáticas de la ruptura con el Gobierno vinieron, sin embargo, de dos de los principales empresarios de del país.

Piero Coen, presidente de un grupo de empresas con intereses en el sector agroindustrial, de finanzas y bienes raíces, criticó la feroz represión del Gobierno en una entrevista con el periodista Carlos Fernando Chamorro, director de la revista Confidencial.

Coen abogó por una salida “rápida, ordenada y pacífica” de la crisis y afirmo que el modelo corporativista era “insostenible”. Para Coen los empresarios “ya no marcamos la pauta”. En términos similares se expresó Carlos Pellas, el poderoso empresario que lidera el Grupo Pellas, productor del famoso Ron Flor de Caña, quien en una entrevista con el diario La Prensa dijo que “el modelo que traía el país se agotó” y que se necesita “de forma urgente” un cambio, lo que pasa por adelanto de elecciones y “profunda transformación institucional”.

Ortega había impuesto durante 10 años un modelo económico en el que las decisiones se tomaban entre él y la cúpula empresarial. El mandatario les garantizaba a los empresarios estabilidad y ventajas para hacer negocios, mientras estos no intervenían en las decisiones políticas de Ortega y su deriva autoritaria. Así, permitieron el secuestro de las instituciones, la reforma a la Constitución para que el exguerrillero sandinista se perpetuara en el poder y desarrollara un Gobierno dinástico, con su esposa como vicepresidenta, y con denuncias de graves violaciones a los derechos humanos y la libertad de prensa.

“A Ortega ahora se le ha configurado el peor escenario. Tiene a la gente en las calles, la demanda ciudadana que exige que se vaya del poder y ahora se le ha caído el modelo que era uno de sus pilares, la relación con el capital”, explica a El País, Azahaléa Solís, jurista participante en la mesa del Diálogo Nacional que pretende hallar una solución a la profunda crisis política que sufre el país.

“Este escenario es más sombrío para Ortega”, agrega. Solís añade que ahora no puede haber “aterrizaje suave”, es decir, una solución a largo plazo a través de un acuerdo configurado con la OEA, que apostaba a que Ortega terminara su mandato en 2021.

“Ese acuerdo queda desfasado y es anacrónico”, ha dicho la analista. Aunque es difícil prever cuál será la respuesta de Ortega frente a la ruptura de los empresarios, una acción simbólica del mandatario demuestra su debilidad: ordenó construir más barricadas con enormes piedras alrededor de su casa, en el capitalino barrio del El Carmen, y aumentó el perímetro de seguridad, con decenas de oficiales armados en la zona.

The employers of Nicaragua break with Ortega

The employers of Nicaragua break with Ortega

Business sector says that the corporatist model “got exhausted” and they support a change in the government

by Carlos Salinas

Among the changes generated by the unprecedented popular rebellion in Nicaragua, which for the past 43 days has demanded the departure of President Daniel Ortega from the government, is the end of the corporatist model that for ten years was one of the main pillars that gave it stability to the regime.

On Tuesday night, the Higher Council for Private Enterprise (COSEP), the country’s leading business chamber, demanded that its members resign “in an immediate manner” to any relationship they had with the Ortega Executive, while two of the most powerful businessmen of the country, Carlos Pellas and Piero Coen, affirmed that this corporatist model “was exhausted” and that a change of Government is necessary.

The COSEP said in a statement made public on Tuesday night that from April 18 – when Ortega unleashed a fierce oppression against demonstrations that opposed a Social Security reform imposed without consensus – he suspended his participation “in any meeting with government authorities as a consequence of our rejection of repression and our commitment to justice and democracy in Nicaragua.” Many members of the chamber, however, held positions in commissions, committees or just directives of public institutions, within the model of partnership between the private sector and the government developed by Ortega. Since yesterday that relationship was broken.

The businessmen criticized the repression and acts of violence unleashed by the Executive, which has not implemented the recommendations made by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH), which demanded the end of all forms of repression, respect for the rights of Nicaraguans to protest in a peaceful way, the protection of the demonstrators and the creation of an international, autonomous mechanism to investigate and clarify the violations of human rights in the country since April.

On Monday, Nicaragua experienced one of the most violent days since April, after forces of the Sandinista Front, para-police groups and riot police attacked the campus of the National University of Engineering (UNI), where a hundred students had barricaded themselves that demand the end of the Sandinista government. The images retransmitted live on television showed the officers shooting at close range in what is the commercial and financial heart of Managua.

The violence left two dead, more than 40 wounded, a score of young people imprisoned, businesses attacked, the façade of a pro-government radio and journalists assaulted.

Relatives of these detainees were showed up on Tuesday at the headquarters of the Directorate of Judicial Assistance, in Managua, popularly known as “El Chipote” and denounced as a torture center. The mothers of these people demanded their release and after several hours of pressure a group of priests could access the building. After a quick negotiation they obtained the promise of the authorities to release 22 young people captured on Monday. They were delivered to the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Nicaraguan capital, but other mothers reported that their children were not on the list, whom they call “disappeared”.

“We demand the immediate release of young people and citizens who are still illegally detained,” the businessmen said in their statement.

The tourism business sector of Nicaragua – one of the pillars of the economy of this country – also declared their stand Tuesday night. This union has been hard hit by the crisis. There are hotels in the colonial cities of Granada and Leon –postcards of this country in front of the world- that do not have guests, others that work at 20 percent of their capacity, while the restaurants reported losses of up to 50 percent.

In its statement, the Chamber of Tourism blamed the government for the violence and urged all its members to participate in a national demonstration to be held on Wednesday, May 30, Mother’s Day in Nicaragua, which would be led by the mothers of those killed by the repression. The demonstration, to which all business chambers, university students, peasants and civil society organizations would join, promised to be gigantic.

“We reiterate our firm and clear position next to the people who fight to achieve justice for the murdered, wounded, tortured, disappeared and illegally detained,” said the businessmen. “Tourism, someday, when peace shines in our homeland, we can recover it, but the lives of more than 90 Nicaraguan brothers, mostly students in the prime of youth, we will never be able to recover them. For that reason and for them we demand justice. ”

The most symptomatic statements of the break with the government came, however, from two of the country’s leading entrepreneurs.

Piero Coen, president of a group of companies with interests in the agribusiness, finance and real estate sector, criticized the government’s fierce repression in an interview with journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro, director of Confidencial magazine.

Coen advocated a “quick, orderly and peaceful” exit from the crisis and claimed that the corporatist model was “unsustainable.” For Coen the businessmen “we no longer set the tone”. In similar terms, Carlos Pellas, the powerful entrepreneur who leads the Pellas Group, producer of the famous Ron Flor de Caña, said in an interview with the newspaper La Prensa that “the model that brought the country was exhausted” and that is needed “urgently” a change, what happens by advance elections and “deep institutional transformation.”

Ortega had imposed for 10 years an economic model in which decisions were made between him and the business leadership. The president guaranteed the entrepreneurs stability and advantages to do business, while they did not intervene in the political decisions of Ortega and his authoritarian drift. Thus, they allowed the kidnapping of the institutions, the reform of the Constitution so that the Sandinista ex-guerrilla would perpetuate himself in power and develop a dynastic government, with his wife as vice president, and with denunciations of serious violations of human rights and freedom of press.

“Ortega has now been configured the worst scenario. It has the people in the streets, the citizens demand that that he leave power and now it has fallen the model that was one of its pillars, the relationship with capital”, explains to El País, Azahaléa Solís, participant jurist at the table of the National Dialogue that seeks to find a solution to the deep political crisis that the country suffers.

“This scenario is darker for Ortega,” he adds. Solis adds that now there can be no “soft landing”, that is, a long-term solution through an agreement with the OAS, which bet that Ortega would finish his term in 2021.

“That agreement is outdated and anachronistic,” the analyst said. Although it is difficult to predict what will be Ortega’s response to the rupture of the businessmen, a symbolic action by the president shows his weakness: he ordered to build more barricades with huge stones around his house, in the capital El Carmen neighborhood, and increased the perimeter security, with dozens of armed officers in the area.

Baking soda can be used to treat various autoimmune diseases

by Vicki Batts
(Natural News)

Baking soda is a kitchen necessity, there’s no doubt about that. Whether you use it for baking, as a natural scrub for pots and pans, or as a deodorizer –the list of ways you can use baking soda in and around the home is truly an endless one. But did you know that baking soda (also known as (sodium bicarbonate or NaHCO3) has a variety of medicinal uses, as well? The pantry staple is especially useful for treating conditions like arthritis, but as you may have guessed — baking soda lends itself to a variety of applications across the board, in both home and health.

Even the National Institutes of Health recently funded research on the benefits of sodium bicarbonate in people with rheumatoid arthritis — and the results were astounding. It turns out that drinking a baking soda solution can help reduce inflammation across the body, but how?

Study finds baking soda fights inflammation

Researchers from Augusta University‘s  Medical College of Georgia scientists set out to investigate the possible benefits and mode of action when it comes to baking soda’s ability to battle inflammation. The team published their findings in the Journal of Immunology. Not only have the scientists tested the benefits in rodents, human subjects with rheumatoid arthritis have shown promise with the baking soda treatment, too.

As reported in Science Daily, consuming the baking soda solution “becomes a trigger for the stomach to make more acid to digest the next meal and for little-studied mesothelial cells sitting on the spleen to tell the fist-sized organ that there’s no need to mount a protective immune response.”

The spleen is a key part of the immune system; it acts as a blood filter and also stores some immune cells, like macrophages. Scientists discovered about a decade ago that mesothelial lining also plays a role in immune response.

Mesothelial cells are what line the inside and outside of our organs. The lining has finger-like projections called “microvilli” which are capable of sensing the body’s environment — and warn the organs they cover when an invader (like a pathogen) is nearby, setting off an immune response.

Dr. Paul O’Connor, a renal physiologist in the MCG Department of Physiology at Augusta University and the study’s corresponding author, explained that the baking soda basically tells the body, “It’s most likely a hamburger not a bacterial infection,” and that there’s no need for alarm.

“Certainly drinking bicarbonate affects the spleen and we think it’s through the mesothelial cells,” O’Connor later contended.
In their research, the team found that drinking a baking soda solution for two weeks caused the population of macrophages in the blood to shift from pro-inflammatory “M1” cells to anti-inflammatory M2 cells.

Baking soda protects against more than just arthritis
As the MCG researchers note, in rodents, the benefits of baking soda were tested against one of the most damaging effects of kidney disease: acidic blood. Dr. O’Connor contends that the increasing blood acidity associated with kidney disease “sets the whole system up to fail.”

In clinical trials, baking soda is so successful at reducing blood acidity that it is now offered as a treatment for patients. Studies have shown that taking baking soda slows the progression of kidney disease, too. Similarly to the arthritis patients, studies show that these benefits seem to be derived from a decrease in M1 cells and an increase in M2 cells.

“The shift from inflammatory to an anti-inflammatory profile is happening everywhere. We saw it in the kidneys, we saw it in the spleen, now we see it in the peripheral blood,” O’Connor commented.

Like many other alternative remedies, it seems that the benefits of baking soda are endless. Some people use it to keep skin irritations at bay during the warmer months — or even to improve athletic performance for sports like running and swimming.

This kitchen staple can even be combined with other health-boosting ingredients.

You can learn more about the latest news in natural medicine at AlternativeMedicine.news.

Sources for this article include:WakingTimes.com, ScienceDaily.com.

Adrián Aréas trae su mejor actuación a Berkeley

Compilado por el personal de El Reportero

El Ensemble de Jazz Latino de Adrian Areas traerá su talento para deleitar a la audiencia el próximo viernes, 8 de junio a las 7 p.m. @ Art House Gallery & Cultural Center en Berkeley. Es el hijo mayor del mejor jugador de timbales, Chepito Aréas, quien junto con Carlos Santana, formaron la Banda de Santana.

 

Verdad y belleza: los prerrafaelitas y los viejos maestros
Verdad y belleza: los Prerrafaelitas y los Viejos Maestros son la primera gran exposición internacional que reúne obras de la Hermandad Prerrafaelita del siglo XIX de Inglaterra con las obras maestras medievales y renacentistas que las inspiraron. Obras de Botticelli, Rafael y Fra Angelico, así como pintores renacentistas del norte como Jan van Eyck y Hans Memling estarán a la vista, demostrando la fascinación de los prerrafaelistas con sus antepasados artísticos.
Pinturas, libros, muebles, manuscritos iluminados, vidrieras, tapices, textiles y obras en papel se mostrarán en arreglos multimedia que resaltan la misión paradójica de los prerrafaelistas de ser fundamentalmente modernos emulando el pasado.
Del 30 de junio al 30 de septiembre 30, en la Legión de Honor.

 

CubaCaribe Festival de Danza y Música
El 14 ° Festival Anual CubaCaribe, del 15 al 28 de junio contará con dos semanas de danza, música y teatro caribeños en tres lugares diferentes del Área de la Bahía, Laney College en Oakland, y Brava Theatre y Museum of the African Diaspora en San Francisco.

CubaCaribe es muy aclamado por ser el único festival que presenta expresiones culturales populares, contemporáneas y folclóricas, religión, historia y política de la diáspora afro-caribeña. Unificado por el tema, Los Movimientos de la Migración, este año los artistas del festival realizarán trabajos que examinarán la migración en toda la diáspora del Caribe.

 

Fin De Semana Uno – Alayo Dance Company
Viernes, 15 de junio y sábado, 16 de junio a las 7 p.m., y el domingo 17 de junio a las 4 p.m.
Odell Johnson Performing Arts Center en Laney College en Oakland.
Alayo Dance Company presentará el estreno mundial de Calle, co-coreografiado por Ramos y Jamaica Itule, presentando siete bailarines y música en vivo, y explorando la brecha entre “high art” y “street art”, danzas de concierto y danzas que ocurren en el calle o calle. Cuando Alayo se mudó al Área de la Bahía, se sorprendió de la forma en que los bailes callejeros de Oakland -como el hip-hop, específicamente el turfing y el break dance- también se celebraban como tesoros culturales y simultáneamente se pasaba por alto, al igual que Rumba, el baile nacional de Cuba que fue iniciado por afrocubanos marginados.
Calle se llevará a cabo en la calle fuera del Teatro Odell en el campus de Laney College, ahora una universidad comunitaria diversa que comenzó como una escuela comercial y se sienta en un terreno usado una vez ocupado por un proyecto de vivienda pública para cientos de Astilleros Kaiser de la Segunda Guerra Mundial trabajadores.
Los bailarines de Alayo Dance Company son Adonis Martin Quiñones, Delvis Savigne Friñón, Alexander Vargas, Marshall J. Amey, Margot Hodenfield, Zoe Klein, Fredrika Keefer, Jacinta Vlach, Emanuel Alejandro Colombo y Denmis Bain Savigne. A ellos se unen el bailarín invitado especial Johnny5 Lopez de TurfInc.
Fin De Semana Dos – Programa Mixto
Viernes, 22 de junio y sábado, 23 de junio a las 8 p.m.
El Teatro Brava en San Francisco
Actuando en este programa están Aguas Da Bahia (Director, Tania Santiago), The Cali Dance (Director, Yismari Tellez Ramos), El Wah Movement Dance Theater (Director, Collete Eloi), Nicaragua Danza, Hijos de Maiz (Director, Luis Leon) , Alafia Dance Ensemble (Directora, Mariella Morales), Dimensions Dance Theatre (Directora, Deborah Vaughn) y Dandha da Hora y Yabás Dance Co., Fundación Cheza Nami, Musicians-SambaDá (Directora, Dandha Da Hora).

Adrián Aréas brings his best performance to Berkeley

Compiled by the El Reportero’s staff

The Adrian Areas Latin Jazz Ensemble will be bringing his percussion talent to delight his audience this coming Friday, June 8 at 7 p.m. @ Art House Gallery & Cultural Center in Berkeley. He is the oldest son of the best ever timbales player, Chepito Aréas, who together with Carlos Santana, formed the Santana Band.

 

Truth and Beauty: The Pre-Raphaelites and the Old Masters

Truth and Beauty: The Pre-Raphaelites and the Old Masters is the first major international exhibition to assemble works by England’s nineteenth-century Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood with the medieval and Renaissance masterpieces that inspired them. Works by Botticelli, Raphael and Fra Angelico as well as northern Renaissance painters such as Jan van Eyck and Hans Memling will be on view, demonstrating the Pre-Raphaelites’ fascination with their artistic forebears.

Paintings, books, furniture, illuminated manuscripts, stained glass, tapestries, textiles, and works on paper will be shown in multimedia arrangements that highlight the Pre-Raphaelites’ paradoxical mission to be fundamentally modern by emulating the past.

From June 30–Sept. 30, at the Legion of Honor

 

CubaCaribe Festival of Dance and Music

The 14th Annual CubaCaribe Festival, June 15-28 will feature two weeks of Caribbean dance, music and theater at three different Bay Area venues, Laney College in Oakland, and Brava Theater and Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco.  CubaCaribe is highly acclaimed for being the only festival to present popular, contemporary and folkloric cultural expression, religion, history, and politics of the Afro-Caribbean Diaspora.  Unified by the theme, The Movements of Migration, this year festival artists will perform works examining migration throughout the Caribbean diaspora.

Weekend One – Alayo Dance Company

Friday, June 15 and Saturday, June 16  at 7 p.m., and Sunday, June 17 at 4 p.m.
Odell Johnson Performing Arts Center at Laney College in Oakland.

Alayo Dance Company will perform the World Premiere of Calle, co-choreographed by Ramos and Jamaica Itule, featuring seven dancers and live music, and exploring the gap between “high art” and “street art,” concert dance and dances that happen in the street or calle.  When Alayo moved to the Bay Area, he was struck by the way Oakland street dances – such as hip-hop, specifically turfing and break dancing – were also celebrated as cultural treasures and yet simultaneously overlooked, much like Rumba, the national dance of Cuba which was started by marginalized Afro-Cubans.

Calle will take place in the street outside of the Odell Theater on the campus of Laney College, now a diverse community college that started as a trade school and sits on land once used occupied by a public housing project for hundreds of World War II Kaiser Shipyard workers.

The dancers of Alayo Dance Company are Adonis Martin Quiñones, Delvis Savigne Friñon, Alexander Vargas, Marshall J. Amey, Margot Hodenfield, Zoe Klein, Fredrika Keefer, Jacinta Vlach, Emanuel Alejandro Colombo and Denmis Bain Savigne.  They are joined by special guest dancer Johnny5 Lopez of TurfInc.

Weekend Two – Mixed Program

Friday, June 22 and Saturday, June 23 at 8 p.m.

The Brava Theater in San Francisco

Performing on this program are Aguas Da Bahia (Director, Tania Santiago),  The Cali Dance (Director, Yismari Tellez Ramos),  El Wah Movement Dance Theater (Director, Collete Eloi),  Nicaragua Danza, Hijos de Maiz (Director, Luis Leon),  Alafia Dance Ensemble (Director, Mariella Morales),  Dimensions Dance Theater (Director, Deborah Vaughn) and  Dandha da Hora & Yabás Dance Co.,Cheza Nami Foundation, Musicians-SambaDá (Director, Dandha Da Hora).

Yucatán restaurant wins international recognition for design

by the El Reportero’s news services

Ixi’im Restaurant in Chocholá was selected for the Prix Versailles award
A restaurant in Yucatán has been crowned best designed in the world in a prestigious international architecture competition.

Ixi’im Restaurant, located about 40 kilometers southwest of Mérida in the municipality of Chocholá, beat out all other contenders in its category to win the Prix Versailles World Architecture Award.

The restaurant design prize — along with others in the categories of shops and stores, shopping malls and hotels — was presented at a ceremony held May 15 at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France.

Premiere of Sacúdete las Penas, Hola México Film Fest
The film Sacúdete las Penas will be the closing night at the largest Mexican Film Festival outside of Mexico, which will take place on June 1 – 9, 2018. The festival will be attended by Director Andrés Ibáñez Díaz.

The film is about González, an inmate serving a long sentence, who tells the story of Pepe Frituras, Mexico City’s most famous dancer, who would lose his freedom during a night out partying, ending up in the Palace of Lecumberri – the country’s most dangerous penitentiary.

Through anecdotes filled with music, dances, and romance, González narrates how he became the only convict that managed to escape the prison walls using the power of his imagination.

Official trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=14&v=5jstm_JeyW8

Senate embraces plan for renewed film-tax program to help film/TV industries
The California Senate today on a bipartisan, 37-0 vote approved extending a model program to keep and create mostly off-screen jobs in California’s renowned film and TV industries.

SB 951 would extend the California Film and Television Production Act from June 30, 2020 to June 30, 2025, and makes key improvements.

To date, the program has allocated $840 million in tax credits to 150 approved projects. Those numbers reflect 29,000 cast members hired; 18,000 crew members hired; and 13 TV series that relocated to California from out of state.


Other provisions of SB 951 include:

· Awarding tax credits according to a jobs ratio rating system, whereby applications are ranked based upon the number of jobs created in California and other economic factors.

· Increasing funding for independent films and ensuring smaller productions are not competing with larger productions.
· Offering an additional 5 percent tax credit increase for production outside the Los Angeles 30-mile zone.

Mitchell’s measure was supported by members of both parties and labor unions. Gov. Brown signed into law the original 2014 measure, which also received bipartisan support.

SB 951 now moves to the Assembly. Its initial hearing date has not yet been set.