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Trump administration using ICE to target immigration activists

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR:

Dear readers, following is a news article written by Kevin Gosztola, that I am sharing with you so you can get informed of the latest move by the current President – which aimed at to target immigration activists, a new strategy to deport more immigrant, causing to separate American children from their undocumented parents. – MR.

Since Donald Trump’s inauguration, multiple high-profile cases have surfaced where immigrants involved in community activism were deported or faced an increased threat of deportation

by Kevin Gosztola

Immigration and Customs Enforcement appears to be escalating its targeting of immigrant rights activists for deportation.

Since President Donald Trump was inaugurated, there have been at least ten prominent cases where immigrants involved in community activism were deported or faced an increased threat of deportation.

Maru Mora-Villalpando received a notice from ICE to appear before an immigration judge. She is from Mexico City and leads an organization known as Northwestern Detention Center Resistance. It was launched in 2014 to protest a private immigrant detention facility in Tacoma, Washington. At the time, hunger strikes were launched by detainees to protest abusive conditions.

She has engaged in civil disobedience, which means she likely has an arrest record. She believes ICE is targeting her for her activism. Her “notice to appear” indicated deportation proceedings were initiated.

“For us, it’s clear that although their actions against immigrants, starting with their campaign, actually hitting Mexicans has grown. But we still fight. We still resist. And we have been winning. So we believe that ICE is really sending us a message to stop our political activity, to stop our activism. When I saw that letter, I immediately knew what it was. And I laughed to myself, because I felt, ‘They are sending me a message. They want me to stop. And I won’t stop,’” she added.

There are several other cases that garnered attention in 2017 that show ICE is developing into a major tool for political oppression.
Siham Biyah, a 40-year-old mother, and activist in Boston, was deported to Morocco a day after Christmas. She had a check-in at ICE headquarters on Nov. 7 and was detained. The Massachusetts Department of Children and Families took her 8-year-old son Naseem and refused to let Biyah’s family decide who would take care of Naseem.

She was removed from her cell on Dec. 26, transferred to Virginia and placed on a plane to Casablanca the next day. Each time she was moved, authorities would not allow her to use the phone so she could rally supporters to make phone calls against her deportation.

The Denver Post reported in October that Colorado had more immigrants living in sanctuary in churches than any other state. One of those individuals who sought sanctuary is Sandra Lopez, a 42-year-old mother who fled violence in Chihuahua, Mexico, about 20 years ago.

Lopez took refuge in the church in November after she was informed ICE would likely deport her if she went to her annual check-in on Oct. 19. She was arrested in 2010 on “misdemeanor criminal mischief and domestic violence” charges but that was “after one of her children mistakenly dialed 911.” Officers reported her to ICE when she could not show a Colorado ID.

“It’s important that we call this what it is. I’m an undocumented mother, and that does not make us criminals. I’m just a mother, and I’m fighting for my family to be together. I had the option to flee and go into hiding, but instead, I’m here. I have dreams. My family has dreams,” Lopez stated.

A California State University student named Claudia Rueda, who is an immigrant rights activist, was arrested on immigration charges on May 18. She was outside of a relative’s home in Los Angeles. The U.S. Border Patrol claimed her arrest was part of a “drug smuggling investigation.”

Rueda had no criminal record but was arrested twice during protests for immigrant rights. Fortunately, immigration judge Annie S. Garcy found her detention without bond to be “unduly severe.” In June, she was ordered released and the judge even was “incredulous when a government attorney asked that Rueda be required to wear a monitoring device.”

A retail janitor and organizer for low-wage workers in Local 26, Luciano Mejia Morales was arrested in Minnesota last summer when he was stopped by police and officers discovered he had no driver’s license. Family and colleagues raised funds for his bail. But a few hours after, ICE arrested him and initiated his deportation. The community was unable to stop his deportation back to Guatemala.

In May, Carimer Andujar, an undocumented Rutgers University student, was summoned by ICE to go to their office in Newark, New Jersey. She feared they would deport her to the Dominican Republic but left the meeting without ICE detaining her.

Both Enrique Balcazar, a 24-year-old human rights activist from Mexico, and Zully Palacios, a 23-year-old activist from Peru, were arrested in March after ICE agents surrounded their human rights organization, Migrant Justice, in Burlington, Vermont. They were detained and face deportation proceedings in March.

Another Migrant Justice advocate, Cesar Alex Carillo, who was 23 years-old, agreed to “voluntary departure” back to Mexico in May after he was arrested the same week as Balcazar and Palacios. He had a prior driving under the influence (DUI) charge, which led a Boston immigration judge to order Carillo be held in detention without bail. (“Voluntary departure” was accepted so Carillo was not formally deported and could attempt to return to the U.S. in the future).

Migrant Justice strongly believes immigration authorities targeted their organization for their political activism. They filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in October.

Jeanette Vizguerra, a mother, and immigrant rights activist, sought refuge at the First Unitarian Church in Denver after her stay of removal expired. She was supposed to meet with ICE but instead sought sanctuary to avoid deportation to Mexico. She was granted relief in May, weeks after Time Magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people.

Three Colorado Democrats—Michael Bennet, Jared Polis, and Ed Perlmutter—fought for a stay of removal to be granted. They introduced legislation. ICE responded affirmatively to the bill, however, as the Los Angeles Times reported, the agency changed its policy of reversing deportation proceedings if a member of Congress introduces a bill. Now, “ICE will consider and issue a stay of removal for up to six months only if the chairman of the House or Senate judiciary committee, or appropriate subcommittee, makes a written request to ICE.”

Comaceuticals: Steeped in and dependent on consumerism

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“Many purchases are the result of nothing more than hype and buying decisions are often functions of ignorance and ads”

by Ben Fuchs

The skin care business is, like many other businesses, steeped in and dependent on consumerism and marketing. Rather than having real effects, products have come to rely much more on sizzle; many purchases are the result of nothing more than hype and buying decisions are often functions of ignorance and ads.

The world of cosmetic products as we know it today was birthed in the late 19th and early 20th century, at the same time that business enterprises were beginning to understand Freudian psychological theories of human motivations and buying behaviors and how to use them to exploit and manipulate consumer minds and emotions.

No business has leveraged human desires and vulnerabilities via sales and advertising more than the business of beauty. We are endlessly manipulated and contorted into spending our hard earned cash via celebrity sales pitches, advertising slogans and the recommendations of dubious department store “advisers”.

But that all changed with the active ingredients dubbed “cosma-ceuticals” which worked as powerfully as prescriptions but were only regulated as cosmetics. The father of the cosmaceutical, Dr. Albert Kligman coined the term to distinguish inactive and superficial ingredients from those that went “…beyond mere camouflage…” and could achieve real and often long-term results. While it’s true that everything including water will inevitably alter the skin in some way, only true cosmaceuticals can provide the kind of performance most consumers expect and are (mis-)led to believe they’ll get when they purchase and apply their cream, lotion, toner and treatment skin care preparations and products.

The retinoids, Vitamin A molecules, were the first cosmaceutical substances, and are, to this day, the most effective. These were followed by alpha hydroxy acids (AHAs), which are low pH extracts from fruit and plant materials that can achieve dramatic anti-aging and skin retexturing effects. Then, most recently, a class of actives called peptides, which affect the structure of the skin like a “-ceutical”, but that were intended to beautify like a “cosma-“, have become all the rage. The most important and the gold standard of peptides is a substance called “Matrixyl.”

The bottom line is, if you’re looking for skin care that works look for cosmaceuticals. While the vast majority of products that you put on your skin are ineffective and inactive, using real cosmaceutical actives will allow you to bypass the standard, “extract-from-a-melon-that-grows-of-the-coast-of-France” type ingredients that you hear about on infomercials and promoted by movie stars. Retinoids, (retinol and retinoic acid primarily) and alpha hydroxy acids are cosmaceutical elements that really work. And, Vitamin C, in its fat-soluble (the proper term is “lipophilic”) format, is one of the most effective topicals you could ever use. In fact, Vitamin A, Vitamin C and alpha hydroxy acids, (which include glycolic, lactic, citric, malic, and acetic acids), are the most important active ingredients and ones that everyone over the age 40 (or even 30) should be applying on a regular basis. I call them “The Big 3” and they should be the core ingredients of any anti-aging skin care program: lipophilic Vitamin C, Vitamin A and AHAs. And for the consumer who wants everything, consider adding in a peptide containing product, ideally one that contains a proven and time-tested ingredient like Matrixyl.

Guatemala’s Israeli ties drive decision to move embassy to Jerusalem

In recent years, Israel has been increasingly turning its attention to Latin America. The shift toward right-wing governments in the region, the latest example being Chile, may facilitate such diplomacy

by Ramona Wadi

GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala — The unfolding of events since U.S. President Donald Trump announced his unilateral recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, against international law and U.N. resolutions, revealed the historical bond between the settler-colonial state and Guatemala — the latter being the first country after the U.S. to declare its intention to move its embassy to Jerusalem.

Writing on his official Facebook page, Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales stated that the decision was taken in light of the historical ties between Israel and Guatemala, thus making the embassy’s relocation “of major relevance.” Guatemala was one of the countries with an embassy based in Jerusalem prior to 1980 when the U.N. called for the withdrawal of such embassies after Israel proclaimed ownership of the entire city.

Morales’s statement was issued after the U.N. General Assembly’s non-binding resolution on Jerusalem in December 2017, which was backed by a majority of 128 to 9. The resolution called upon countries to abide by the previous U.N. Security Council resolutions and reaffirmed that the status of Jerusalem should be resolved through negotiations. It also reiterated that:

Any decisions and actions which purport to have altered the character, status or demographic composition of the Holy City of Jerusalem have no legal effect, are null and void, and must be rescinded in compliance with relevant resolutions of the Security Council.”
Honduras and Guatemala, both of which rely upon Israeli sales of military equipment, voted against the resolution. Honduras recently bought $209 million in surveillance and military equipment from Israel.

Guatemalan Foreign Minister Sandra Jovel gave an interview to the Times of Israel in which she stated that her country had planned the move several years back but had been unable to effect it. “Obviously, President Trump’s decision helped in a way, because we can do it together, as allied nations,” she acknowledged.

Jovel was also reported as stating that Guatemala wanted to be the first country to move its embassy to Jerusalem.

In recent years, Israel has been increasingly turning its attention to Latin America. The shift toward right-wing governments in the region, the latest example being Chile, may facilitate such diplomacy.

Several countries in the region — such as Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Honduras, and Guatemala — have ties with Israel and avail themselves of the opportunity to buy Israeli surveillance technology. Regionally, there is also governmental support for the two-state paradigm rather than overt support for historic Palestine. Governments in the region, therefore, are reluctant to sever ties with Israel, which results in a situation where support for Palestine is in tension with maintaining ties with Israel.

Adel Turjuman — a Palestinian from Jerusalem who has been living in Guatemala since the age of 14 and is a committee member of Confederacion Palestina Latino America y del Caraibe (COPLAC) — thinks that Guatemala’s influence in Latin America remains limited, explaining:

COPLAC has reasons to believe that Guatemala will not influence other countries. For instance, Honduras has announced they will not be moving their embassy to Jerusalem, even though they voted against the U.N. resolution. Panama and El Salvador, who abstained, have also said their embassies will remain in Tel Aviv. The majority of countries in the region voted in favor of the U.N. resolutions and countries such as Argentina, Mexico and Colombia abstained.”

A look at the comments on Morales’s facebook page announcement reveals public sentiment as generally supportive of the government’s position, coming from a largely religious perspective.

On January 8, however, Dr. Marco Vinicio Mejía filed a legal complaint against Guatemala’s decision to move the embassy. He was an advisor to Morales during his electoral campaign, until 2016 when Morales assumed the presidency. The Constitutional Court’s decision on whether to revoke the decision to move the embassy is expected on Monday.

In comments to MintPress News, Vinicio Mejia gave an overview of the religious and political perspectives of Guatemala that led to Morales’s decision:

President Morales’s decision to move the embassy is political; however, he framed it with religious arguments. Guatemalan society is characterized by religious divisions. The majority is Christian; there are also Catholics and Protestants. Morales supports the construction of the Jews as the ‘chosen people.’”

Vinicio Mejia stated that there were public protests by Zionists against his legal action, but he is adamant about his intention:
I am not of Palestinian origin but I believe that the decision taken by President Morales is against peace. I oppose the decision to relocate the embassy to Jerusalem because it violates freedom of religion. On political grounds, the President’s decision is wrong because it also violates international law. With his decision, Jimmy Morales has also violated his obligation to maintain Guatemala’s dignity.”

Morales’s electoral campaign slogan was “Ni corrupt, ni ladron” (neither corrupt, nor a thief), which made him a favorite candidate with the Guatemalan electorate despite his lack of political experience. However, Vinicio Mejía explained:

[By September 2017] hundreds of thousands of people protested and demanded his resignation, after he ordered the expulsion of the commissioner against corruption. He remains in power thanks to the support of the military and Protestant sects.”

Mejía is of the opinion that with this decision, Guatemala will be “considered as a satellite of the U.S.”

Turjuman is of a similar opinion, giving consideration to Morales’s decision against the framework of corruption of which his government is accused:

I do believe that the U.S. has influenced this decision and for several reasons. Since the summer of 2017, Jimmy Morales has been under investigation for charges of corruption. Both his brother and son were in prison for the same reasons. His party is now being investigated for illicit financing. I think that he believed that if he supported Trump and the U.S. with this decision, he would be in some way ‘protected.’”

Burocratic inertia among justice woes

Deficiencies in the Attorney General’s office impede new criminal justice system

by Mexico News Daily

Mexico’s new accusatory criminal justice system continues to be held up by deficiencies in the federal Attorney General’s office (PGR) that inhibit the prosecution of crime and consequently slow down the fight against impunity.

That’s the assessment of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), which cited bureaucratic inertia, poor institutional organization, indifference and technical limitations among the woes that plague the authorities charged with investigating crime.

The bank made the observations in a report it completed as part of the approval process for a US $100,000 IADB grant sought by the Finance Secretariat to implement projects to strengthen the new system, which came into effect in July last year. The IADB approved the funding last month.

The problems stem from shortcomings in the infrastructure, organization, command and operation of the PGR, the bank said, pointing to the agency’s limited capacities to investigate crime and an organizational framework that is ineffective in the prosecution of criminal cases.

In order to strengthen the system, the IADB said the PGR needs to overhaul its justice procurement model and devise a master plan with clearly defined strategies that will enable it to combat the scourge of crime that is plaguing the country.

The number of intentional homicides in 2017 reached 23,101 by the end of November, making this year the most violent in two decades.
The bank also said that it agreed with a report presented in the Senate earlier this year, which said that the organizational design of the PGR was not congruent with the new accusatory system and needed to be changed.

In addition, however, it warned that a change of administration in 2018 could also pose a further risk to continuity and delay the implementation of support for the system.

The IADB noted that through the Mérida Initiative — a security agreement between the United States, Mexico and Central American countries — more than US $247 million had been pledged to support Mexico in its transition to the new system.

Institutional change for its implementation is based on recommendations made by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Statistics from survey company Latinobarómetro showing high levels of impunity and a widespread lack of faith in the country’s justice system underscore the urgent necessity of implementing the system in a way that is effective in the prosecution and deterrence of crime.

Its data, included in the IADB report, show that 85 percent of reported crimes don’t result in a sentence while 73 percent of people surveyed have a high level of distrust in the nation’s courts.

In July, the system was also the subject of scathing criticism from National Security Commissioner Renato Sales, who said that it had descended into a “procedural hell” and contrary to its purpose had led to an increase in crime.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Central bank auction fails to support peso

$500-million sale provides only brief respite for weakening peso

Efforts to support the Mexican peso amid a slump that has seen it trading at around 20 to the US dollar have failed to apply the brakes on the tumbling currency.

The Bank of México (Banxico) auctioned off an unscheduled US $500 million in foreign exchange hedges yesterday, a measure designed to ease pressure on the peso. But it only provided brief respite before the currency slumped again to end the day at 20.15 pesos per dollar.

The central bank took the decision on the advice of the Foreign Exchange Commission, a body made up of officials from the Finance Secretariat (SHCP) and Banxico that is responsible for foreign exchange policy in Mexico.

It explained its motivations to intervene via press release.

“With the objective of fostering better liquidity conditions, better price discovery and orderly operation [of the exchange market], the commission has decided to instruct the Bank of México to sell exchangeable currency hedges today [yesterday] for the value in national currency of US $500 million,” it said.

The central bank placed US $250 million in a 30-day forward contract and the other US $250 million in a 57-day forward contract.
If the peso has declined further by the time the contracts mature, Banxico will have to pay the difference in pesos but if the currency goes up, it will receive the difference.

The measure allows the central bank to support the exchange market without eating into Mexico’s international reserves, currently valued at around US $172.5 billion.

The intervention followed the peso depreciating to its lowest level in nine months last Friday.

Analysts have attributed the dip to high inflation, the threat to investment posed by tax reform in the United States and government corruption scandals that could benefit presidential aspirant Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

But analysts from Banorte-Ixe said that yesterday’s measure showed that the SHCP and Banxico recognized that the recent increase in volatility was largely the result of the US $1.5 trillion tax cut package signed into law last week by United States President Donald Trump.

The chief economic analyst at Banco Base, Gabriela Siller, said the exchange rate would remain vulnerable in 2018 due to speculation related to the July 1 presidential election. In February, the Foreign Exchange Commission announced a US $20-billion hedging program to enable a more orderly functioning of the foreign exchange market.

The move came a month after the peso plunged to 22 pesos to the US dollar just before President Trump was sworn in.

Source: El Universal (sp), El Economista (sp), Dow Jones Newswires (en), El Financiero (sp)

Gobernador: Nueva competencia ferroviaria por el canal

La construcción comienza el próximo mes en la línea ferroviaria de costa a costa

por Mexico News Daily

La construcción de una línea ferroviaria interoceánica que conectará las costas del Pacífico y el Golfo del sur de México comenzará en enero, anunció el gobernador de Oaxaca.

Alejandro Murat dijo que el trabajo en la primera fase de la línea de doble vía de 310 kilómetros entre los puertos de Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, y Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, representará el inicio de un acuerdo de libre comercio para el sureste de México.

El mayor operador ferroviario de México, Ferromex, ganó el proceso de licitación para operar la nueva línea.

Ambas ciudades portuarias, así como un corredor entre ellas, se convertirán en zonas económicas especiales (ZEE) después de que el presidente Enrique Peña Nieto firmara decretos para su creación a principios de este año.

Otros proyectos para complementar el ferrocarril también se completarán con capital provisto por el Fondo Nacional de Infraestructura (Fonadin), dijo Murat.

Incluyen aumentar la capacidad del puerto de Salina Cruz, construir un parque agrícola de mil millones de pesos, modernizar el aeropuerto de Ciudad Ixtepec y completar la carretera Mitla-Tehuantepec.

También se está considerando un plan para reconfigurar y modernizar la refinería de Pemex en Salina Cruz, donde se desató un gran incendio en junio.

Murat anunció por primera vez un paquete de inversión de 3,000 millones de pesos para los proyectos en marzo, incluidos 700 millones de pesos para una carretera directa entre Salina Cruz y Coatzacoalcos.

El gobernador agregó que se espera que la apertura del corredor industrial interoceánico atraiga inversiones adicionales del sector privado de China, Alemania y Estados Unidos.

La multinacional japonesa Mitsubishi ya comprometió US $1.2 mil millones para la creación de parques eólicos en la zona.

Murat dijo que el proyecto de unir los dos océanos colocaría a México en una posición donde pueda competir con el Canal de Panamá.

En una entrevista con el periódico Milenio, Murat dijo que la idea de crear un corredor interoceánico a través del istmo de Tehuantepec fue sugerida por primera vez hace más de 100 años durante la presidencia de Porfirio Díaz.

Sin embargo, agregó que ha llegado el momento de convertirlo en realidad porque las ZEE brindan el sistema tributario y la seguridad jurídica necesarios para que sea un éxito.

“El istmo de Tehuantepec está listo para entrar en operación y aprovechar su gran potencial con un mínimo de inversión”, dijo Murat.
“Las zonas económicas pueden ser el desencadenante de este gran proyecto. Hay infraestructura, conectividad, no se requieren grandes inversiones, tiene todos los atributos, se dan las condiciones“, agregó.

Fuente: Milenio (sp)

Terremoto sacude el Pacífico nicaragüense

Un fuerte terremoto de magnitud 6,0 grados en la escala de Richter, de acuerdo con datos preliminares, sacudió hoy la región del Pacífico de Nicaragua, sin informes de víctimas o daños materiales.

En una comunicación dirigida a los ciudadanos, la vicepresidenta de la República, Rosario Murillo, explicó que el terremoto tuvo lugar a las 09:00 hora local, a una profundidad de 7 km.

Murillo afirmó que el sismo se localizó a 82 km de San Juan del Sur, entre la frontera de Costa Rica y Nicaragua, y se percibió en los departamentos de Rivas, Carazo y Managua.

El líder hizo un llamado a todas las personas que se encuentran en edificios, en centros comerciales y en lugares concurridos como mercados para que tomen todas las precauciones necesarias.

“También llamamos a los colegas del Ministerio del Interior para maximizar las alertas de cortocircuitos, incendios, especialmente en las áreas cercanas al epicentro”, dijo.

Governor: new railway competition for canal

Construction begins next month on coast-to-coast rail line

by Mexico News Daily

Construction of an interoceanic railway line linking the Pacific and Gulf coasts of southern Mexico will begin in January, the governor of Oaxaca has announced.

Alejandro Murat said that work on the first phase of the 310-kilometer double-track line between the ports of Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, and Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, will represent the start of a free trade agreement for the southeast of Mexico.

Mexico’s largest railway operator, Ferromex, won the tendering process to operate the new line.

Both port cities as well as a corridor running between them are slated to become special economic zones (SEZs) after President Enrique Peña Nieto signed decrees for their creation earlier this year.

Other projects to complement the railway will also be completed using capital provided by the National Infrastructure Fund (Fonadin), Murat said.

They include increasing the capacity of the Salina Cruz port, building a 1-billion-peso agricultural park, modernizing the Ciudad Ixtepec airport and completing the Mitla-Tehuantepec highway.

A plan to reconfigure and modernize the Pemex oil refinery in Salina Cruz, where a huge fire broke out in June, is also being considered.
Murat first announced a 3-billion-peso investment package for the projects in March, including 700 million pesos for a direct highway between Salina Cruz and Coatzacoalcos.

The governor added that the opening of the industrial interoceanic corridor is expected to attract additional private sector investment from China, Germany and the United States.

Japanese multinational Mitsubishi has already committed US $1.2 billion for the creation of wind farms in the area.

Murat said that the project to link the two oceans would place Mexico in a position where it can compete with the Panama Canal.

In an interview with the newspaper Milenio, Murat said that the idea to create an interoceanic corridor across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec was first suggested more than 100 years ago during the presidency of Porfirio Díaz.

However, he added that the time is now right to turn it into reality because the SEZs provide the tax system and legal certainty required to make it a success.

“The Isthmus of Tehuantepec is ready to go into operation and take advantage of its great potential with a minimum of investment,” Murat said.

“The economic zones can be the trigger for this great project. There is infrastructure, connectivity, no large investments are required, it has all the attributes, the conditions are given,” he added.
Source: Milenio (sp)

Earthquake shakes Nicaraguan Pacific

A strong earthquake of magnitude 6.0 degree on the Richter scale, according to preliminary data, shook the Pacific region of Nicaragua today, with no reports of casualties or material damage.

In a communication addressed to the citizens, the Vice President of the Republic, Rosario Murillo, explained that the earthquake took place at 09:00 local time, at a depth of 7 km.

Murillo stated the quake was located 82 km from San Juan del Sur, between the border of Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and was perceived in the departments of Rivas, Carazo and Managua.

The leader called on all people who are in buildings, in shopping centers and in crowded places as markets to take all necessary precautions.

‘We also call on the colleagues at the Ministry of the Interior to maximize alerts for short circuits, fires, especially in the areas near the epicenter,’ she said.

The 32nd Annual San Francisco Tribal & Textile Art Show

Compiled by the El Reportero’s staff

Aficionados of fine antique and contemporary ethnographic art will discover an extraordinary world of high-quality tribal and textile arts Feb. 8–11 when the 32nd Annual San Francisco Tribal & Textile Art Show, presented by Objects of Art Shows, returns to the Fort Mason Center Festival Pavilion.

One of the leading ethnographic art fairs in the world, the event showcases the arts of tribal cultures and indigenous peoples of the Americas, Asia, Oceania, Polynesia, the Middle East and Africa. Over 80 national and international galleries and exhibitors will display museum-quality objects and artifacts, making this the perfect event for collectors and art enthusiasts.  

Gala opening: Thursday, Feb. 8, 6-9 p.m. Show dates: Friday, Feb. 9, 11 a.m.-7 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 10, 11 a.m.-7 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 11, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

Major exhibition of artifacts from the Ancient City of Teotihuacan

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF) are pleased to premiere Teotihuacan: City of Water, City of Fire, the first major U.S. exhibition on Teotihuacan in over twenty years. The ancient metropolis of Teotihuacan is one of the largest and most important archaeological sites in the world, and the most-visited archaeological site in Mexico.

At its peak in 400 CE, Teotihuacan was the cultural, political, economic, and religious center of Mesoamerica and inhabited by a multiethnic population of more than 100,000 people. This historic exhibition will feature more than 200 artifacts and artworks from the site and is a rare opportunity to view objects drawn from major collections in Mexico, some recently excavated – many on view in the U.S. for the first time – together in one spectacular exhibition.

Now through Feb. 11, 2018, at the, at the de Young Museum, SF.

Menopause The Musical in San José

Menopause The Musical® is a groundbreaking celebration of women who are on the brink of, in the middle of, or have survived “The Change.” Now celebrating 14 years of female empowerment through hilarious musical comedy, Menopause The Musical® has evolved as a “grassroots” movement of women who deal with life adjustments after 40 by embracing each other and the road ahead.

Set in a department store, four women meet while shopping for a black lace bra at a lingerie sale. After noticing unmistakable similarities among one another, the cast jokes about their woeful hot flashes, mood swings, wrinkles, weight gain and much more. These women form a sisterhood and unique bond with the entire audience as they rejoice in celebrating that menopause is no longer “The Silent Passage.” 

Inspired by a hot flash and a bottle of wine, Menopause The Musical® is a celebration of women who find themselves at any stage of “The Change.” The laughter-filled 90-minute production gets audience members out of their seats and singing along to parodies from classic pop songs of the 60s, 70s and 80s.  

Menopause The Musical®, now in its sixteenth year of production, is recognized as the longest-running scripted production in Las Vegas and continues to entertain nightly at Harrah’s Las Vegas. The hilarious musical has entertained audiences across the country in more than 450 U.S. cities, nearly 300 international cities and a total of 15 countries. For more information, visit www.MenopauseTheMusical.com.

Sixteen performances January 9-21, 2018 at the Hammer Theatre Center in San Jose, California. Tickets on sale now at $72. Additional fees may apply. Greater discounts for groups of 10+ available by calling 409-924-8501.

Selena’s final hours reenacted on Murder Made Me famous

by the El Reportero”s news services

With an insatiable American appetite for (in)famous murder cases it was only a matter of time before the murder of Selena Quintanilla in 1995, at the age of 23, would get the cable TV spotlight.

Today on December 9, the Reelz Network’s wildly popular Murder Made me Famous turns its TV detective lens on the “Queen of Tejano” murder at the hands of her former employee Yolanda Salaivar. Reelz will recrate her death and events leading up to her murder in a Corpus Christi hotel on March 31, 1995. Most of the detectives who worked the case will be interviewed for the segment.

The Argentine Filmmaker Fernando Birri is honored in Rome

Relatives, relatives and admirers of the recently deceased Argentine filmmaker Fernando Birri (1925-2017), will go today to where their remains rest in a burning chapel to pay homage and tell him forever.

The headquarters of the Audiovisual Archive of the Workers and Democratic Movement, founded in 1979 and whose first president was the multi-award-winning Italian director Cesare Zavatini (1902-1989), will be the place of homage to the ‘very old gentleman’ who ‘with huge wings’ flew towards the utopia to continue moving towards the horizon.

Birri will always be remembered as one of the founders of the New Latin American Cinema, committed to the struggles for the emancipation of the peoples of the region, for his filmography and his commitment to the training of audiovisual professionals in his native Argentina and in other countries.

His image, work and creative spirit will endure in the International Film and Television School of San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba, created by him together with Gabriel García Márquez in 1986, of which he was its first director and considered a utopia come true.

There he keeps the apartment where he lived and on a wall, under the phrase ‘art never sleeps’, written by the American director Francis Ford Coppola, left for posterity a sentence very typical of his thought: ‘… but he dreams of the Open eyes’.

Among his works as director, Birri left the documentaries Tire Dié (1960), Rafael Alberti, a portrait of the poet (1983), My son the Che-A family portrait of Don Ernesto Guevara (1985) and Che, death of a utopia? (1999), among others.
In addition, the feature films Los inundados (1962), La pampa gringa (1963), A very old man with huge wings (1988) and El Fausto Criollo (2011).

Happy Birthday to the incomparable Rita Moreno

Today in 1931 the incomparable Rita Moreno was born in Puerto Rico. Moreno is a pioneer in the world of entertainment, but more so for Latino performers – paving the way for many.

The singer, dancer and actress is the first performer to win an Emmy, Grammy, Tony and Oscar (EGOT) and the only Hispanic to do so. Her seven-decade career has garnered her the prestigious Hispanic Heritage Award, The Kennedy Center Honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the list goes on. Last month she was honored at a gala at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington; where her portrait resides in the National Portrait Gallery for her great contribution to the arts in the U.S.

WOW. Not bad for the 5’2” girl from Humacao born to a seamstress.

The 86-year-old talent has multi-generational fans. Many remember her in “West Side Story” in her 1961 role of Anita, a role she won the Oscar for. Then younger fans were introduced to her as Liliana on Jane the Virgen. There have been many roles in TV and movies, however, she often cites Broadway as her first love, having started her career at age 13 on Broadway. By the time she arrived in Hollywood in the 1950s she was a stage veteran.

Contaminated chemo drugs, the FDA, and chemical warfare against the public

by Jon Rappoport

Chemo drugs are highly poisonous to begin with. But suppose, on top of that, they’re contaminated and tainted?

Welcome to the FDA: the handmaiden to Big Pharma; the promoter of destructive medicines; the opponent of natural health; the agency that should have been disbanded and fumigated decades ago. Corruption Central.

In today’s episode, the Agency has issued a slap on the wrist to Fresenius, a major provider of health care in Europe, with two dozen drug-manufacturing facilities around the world.

Bloomberg reports: “U.S. regulators warned Fresenius SE after the company’s Indian plant that makes cancer-drug ingredients for the U.S. market aborted hundreds of drug-quality tests because they seemed like they were going to fail due to impurities.”

“When workers at the plant found potential tainted products, they halted the tests and said human or machine errors were to blame instead, according to a Food and Drug Administration warning letter dated Dec. 4 that cited 248 aborted checks at the West Bengal facility.”

The FDA’s warning basically instructed Fresenius to do better. Re-examine all their manufacturing and testing practices. Hire an outside consultant.

That’s comforting, isn’t it? With contaminated chemo drugs floating around the world, the FDA says nothing about ferreting out these medicines—and here is the capper from the Bloomberg article:

“The agency also warned that if the company doesn’t correct the issues raised in the letter, FDA workers could refuse products made at the facility admission into the U.S.”

My, my. Fresenius can continue to sell its fraudulently tested, tainted drugs. Not a problem. Business is business. Promise you’ll mend your ways, boys, and stick to your word. Meanwhile, we, at the FDA, will get back to seeing what we can do to limit sales of those REALLY dangerous products called nutritional supplements.

Oh, and by the way, this is not the first warning letter the FDA has issued to Fresenius. As fierce pharma reports: “In a previous warning letter…FDA cited similar…deviations.” And now, the FDA writes to the company, ‘You proposed specific remediation for these deviations in your [previous] response,’ the letter reads. ‘These repeated failures demonstrate that your facility’s oversight and control over the manufacture of drugs is inadequate’.”

But the FDA isn’t stopping Fresenius from exporting its chemo drugs into the US. No one is prosecuting company employees and sending them to prison for fraud and reckless endangerment.

Here are excerpts from my piece about the FDA’s overall mafia operation, to give you the flavor of what goes on at that rogue agency:
In a stunning interview with Truthout’s Martha Rosenberg, former FDA drug reviewer, Ronald Kavanagh, exposes the FDA as a relentless criminal mob protecting its client, Big Pharma, with a host of mob strategies.

Kavanagh: “…widespread racketeering, including witness tampering and witness retaliation.”

“I was threatened with prison.”

“One [FDA] manager threatened my children…I was afraid that I could be killed for talking to Congress and criminal investigators.”
Kavanagh reviewed new drug applications made to the FDA by pharmaceutical companies. He was one of the holdouts at the Agency who insisted that the drugs had to be safe and effective before being released to the public.

But honest appraisal wasn’t part of the FDA culture, and Kavanagh swam against the tide, until he realized his life and the life of his children was on the line.

What was his secret task at the FDA? “Drug reviewers were clearly told not to question drug companies and that our job was to approve drugs.” In other words, rubber stamp them. Say the drugs were safe and effective when they were not.

Kavanagh’s revelations are astonishing. He recalls a meeting where a drug-company representative flat-out stated that his company had paid the FDA for a new-drug approval. Paid for it. As in bribe.

He remarks that the drug pyridostigmine, given to US troops to prevent the later effects of nerve gas, “actually increased the lethality” of certain nerve agents.

Kavanagh recalls being given records of safety data on a drug—and then his bosses told him which sections not to read. Obviously, they knew the drug was dangerous and they knew exactly where, in the reports, that fact would be revealed.

The situation at the FDA isn’t correctable with a few firings. This is an ongoing criminal enterprise, and any government official, serving in any capacity, who has become aware of it and has not taken action, is an accessory to mass poisoning of the population.

Seventeen years ago, the cat was let out of the bag. Dr. Barbara Starfield, writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, on July 26, 2000, in a review titled, “Is US health really the best in the world,” exposed the fact that FDA-approved medical drugs kill 106,000 Americans per year. That’s a MILLION deaths per decade.

Dr. Starfield was a revered public health expert at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. In interviewing her, I discovered she had never been approached by the FDA or any federal agency to help remedy this tragedy. Nor had the federal government taken any steps on its own to stop the dying.

The government has still done nothing.

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

Would Trump nuking North Korea “Make America Great Again?”

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

Dear readers:

I share this article with you with the idea to promote diversity of ideas in the current political turmoil that has invaded the sky since the advent of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States and his idea of how to make the US great again. – MR.

by Tyler Durden

If Trump is willing to accept the enormous loss of American life — which are the only people that he cares about as the US President — then turning the Korean Peninsula into Asia’s nuclear panhandle would indeed “Make America Great Again” by permanently handicapping its Russian & Chinese geostrategic competitors as well as its Japanese & South Korean economic ones.

The war of words between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald J. Trump has suddenly taken a very foreboding turn, with both men now talking about “nuclear buttons” and openly hinting at the prospects of carrying out a preemptive first strike against the other.

The first thing to remember is that Trump is dead serious (pun intended) about his desire to “Make America Great Again”, and that he will stop at nothing to see his vision fulfilled in the future, including if he has to use nuclear weapons to make it happen.

Normative objections like arguing about how “terrible” and “evil” this is have absolutely no effect on Trump, who has come to be the literal embodiment of the “Mad Man Theory” and cares nothing about such concerns, ruthlessly viewing the world through a Neo-Realist prism where everything revolves around power.

If there’s any “emotional” point that would give Trump pause to think, then it’s about the lives of the nearly quarter-million Americans (including servicemen and their families) living in South Korea who could easily be killed in the opening days of a Korean Continuation War, and this is the only reason why Trump has yet to use nuclear weapons against North Korea.

Right now the President whose opponents label as a “heartless psychopath” is actually very concerned about the moral responsibility that he would have to forever shoulder in potentially sacrificing so many Americans, but if he ever surmounts his conscientious objections to this or is misled by the “deep state” into believing that North Korea is in the imminent process of launching its own preemptive strike (or is provoked by the military to already do so), the he might “make peace with himself” in the “comfort” that “only” 250,000 Americans had to die (notwithstanding the millions of Asians that he doesn’t care about) in order to “Make America Great Again”.

Brutally speaking, the only real consequence that the US would suffer from nuking North Korea is the death of its South Korean-based compatriots as “collateral damage”, and the possibility of a Chinese military response to America’s brazen bombing(s?) could be avoided if Washington provokes Pyongyang into striking first because of Beijing’s previous pledge not to intervene if its wayward “ally” is the one most directly “responsible” for reigniting hostilities.

Accepting that the US would quickly emerge as militarily victorious in this conflict, it’s now time to examine how the destructive consequences of nuking North Korea would actually “Make America Great Again” from Trump’s “Kraken”-like Neo-Realist perspective.

To begin with, almost all of North Korea’s territory could be rendered inhospitable depending on the scale and scope of the US’ nuclear arms use, thus turning it into the ultimate “buffer zone” and thereforr making the decades-long question of whether the (now-former) country would be occupied by Chinese or American-South Korean troops after a speculative continuation war moot.

Secondly, the atmospheric aftereffects of America’s nuclear weapons use are difficult to precisely predict and should be left to more competent experts to comment upon in detail, but it can confidently be presumed that this would affect South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia, up to and including making some of their territory also inhospitable.

Not only that, but Seoul and even Tokyo could be wiped out if Pyongyang is successful in nuking them in its final moments, and even if they’re not destroyed, then the resultant nuclear atmospheric damage to South Korea and Japan would devastate these once-strong Asian economies and reduce them to uncompetitive “Third World” states.

The same can also happen to a large chunk of China in its rustbelt “Manchurian” region of the Northeast, as well as the base of Russia’s Pacific Fleet and its “Window to Asia” in Vladivostok, though the exact consequences are again subject to the atmospheric ramifications resulting from the scope and scale of any speculative American nuclear bombing of North Korea.

One of the relevant tangential developments that could unfold is that China’s domestic agricultural industry could collapse, and this could combine with the widespread fear resulting from the nearby radioactive panhandle to produce unpredictable socio-political consequences in the People’s Republic.
Furthermore, the nuclear destruction of North Korea and the attendant apocalyptic aftereffects that this would have for Northeast Asia would for all intents and purposes remove each of these victimized nation-states from the geopolitical game except for perhaps Russia, seeing as how they’d all be wreaked with internal turmoil in dealing with the long-term radioactive fallout of what happened, thus restoring the US to its immediate post-World War II “glorious” position in recapturing the majority of the global economy and literally “Making America Great Again”.
It’s precisely this “reward” that is so tempting to Trump and why his finger is itching to press the nuclear button, but then again he’s still held back by the thought of the quarter-million American lives that might have to be sacrificed as a result, though he might “console” himself with the “excuse” that this was “necessary” in order for the remaining 320+ million to “rule the world”.
As for the millions upon millions of Asians who would surely die in this scenario, Trump would “rationalize” it by convincing himself that he was taking North Korean “slaves” “out of their misery” and that all the others who allowed Kim Jong Un to “get out of control” and launch what the Pentagon might provoke to be Pyongyang’s first strike “deserved it”, shedding all personal responsibility for this by claiming that he “inherited an impossible mess” from his hated predecessors who already made its dynamics “irreversible” and therefore its conclusion “inevitable”.
Trump is a modern-day Machiavelli who doesn’t care about morals, ethics, and principles when it comes to advancing his country’s grand strategic interests on the world stage, but it’s because of the little bit of “humanity” that’s still left within him in caring about the fate of a quarter-million Americans that he has yet to push the nuclear red button that’s sitting so tantalizingly close on his desk. Note: (This article was cut to fit space.)
(Authored by Andrew Korybko via Oriental Review)

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