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Statue of José Martí in New York arrives in Havana

by the El Reportero’s news services

Parque Plaza 13 de Marzo, capital of the Old Havana will host the replica of the equestrian statue of José Martí since 1950 in Central Park in New York, local media reported.

The three-ton, 5.67-meter-high sculpture was received on Tuesday at the Sierra Maestra port in Havana, after being delivered to the port of the Mariel Special Development Zone in a ship from the United States.

Forged in bronze and sculpted in Philadelphia, the piece is the fruit of the generous contribution of Cubans and Americans from both shores, according to a note from the site Radio Reloj.

The original work of the American artist Anna Hyatt (1876-1973), is located on the Avenue of the Americas of Central Park in New York, along with the sculptures of the Latin American pro-independence figures Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín.

Acclaimed global features and festival hits amongst October additions

San Francisco, CA – SFFILM has announced the lineup of new films premiering on the SFFILM Screening Room, the curated film streaming service available exclusively to SFFILM members through an easy-to-use web platform and mobile app. Five new feature films have joined the already strong roster of titles on the service, and are now available to stream. There are currently 25 acclaimed films to choose from on the service, with additional titles being added each month. We picked the Latino one.

Who is Dayani Cristal? Tells the story of the body of an unidentified immigrant that is found in the Arizona desert.

In an attempt to retrace his path and discover his story, director Marc Silver and Gael Garcia Bernal embed themselves among migrant travelers on their own mission to cross the border, providing rare insight into the human stories which are so often ignored in the immigration debate. This documentary premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2013.

Television Academy Foundation honors Latinos in news and entertainment

Television Academy Foundation Honors Latinos in news and entertainment with Google Cultural Exhibit For National Hispanic Heritage Month.

Among celebrities featured from The Interviews: An Oral History of Television are Rita Moreno, Edward James Olmos, Hector Elizondo, and Jorge Ramos.

Sourced from the Google Foundation’s extensive video collection, The Interviews: An Oral History of Television, the virtual online exhibit features interviews with Rita Moreno (Netflix’s One Day at a Time), Edward James Olmos (Narcos), Hector Elizondo (Last Man Standing), Mario Kreutzberger aka ‘Don Francisco’ (Sábado Gigante), journalists Jorge Ramos and Maria Elena Salinas (Noticiero Univision), Sonia Manzano (Sesame Street), as well as the late Ricardo Montalban, and highlights the ground-breaking achievements and societal challenges of Latinos in U.S. entertainment and news. Created in partnership with Google Arts & Culture, the Foundation’s “Latinos in News and Entertainment” exhibit can be viewed online at: https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/beta/exhibit/RwJSSMd744AXKw

This replica reflects the figure of the Cuban National Hero at the time of his death during the battle of Dos Rios, on May 19, 1895, and constitutes a gift from Cuba to the people of the United States as a symbol of friendship.

Chamber of Secrets: Teaching a machine what Congress cares about

Want to know what distinctive topics your members of Congress are concerned about? Represent’s got you covered

by Jeremy B. Merrill

If you asked congressional experts what legislative subjects, say, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington specializes in, they’d have a few pretty good guesses: maybe education and health care — because she’s the ranking member on a key committee that oversees those issues. If you asked who else in the Senate shares her interests, you might hear Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado. Why? Because he is a former school superintendent and a member on that same committee.

You could ask them the same question about more members of Congress, but before you got through all 535 lawmakers, they’d probably hang up on you.
But what if we could teach a computer what specific topics are distinctive to each member? We did just that. We trained a computer model to extract what phrases a Congress member uses more than the rest, using hundreds of thousands of press releases from 2015 to the present.

We hope this addition to Represent’s member pages will give constituents new insight into what the people who work in their names specialize in, whether it’s hot-button national issues or local happenings.

Many of the results are intuitive: Rep. Jared Polis, a Democratic representative from Colorado who is known as a civil libertarian, has “email privacy” as a topic; the model also knows Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican, talks often about “coal miners.”

But the model’s strength is not in making obvious observations, but spotting things others might not. The model has picked up on New Jersey Democrat Rep. Josh Gottheimer’s use of the phrase “moocher states,” for example, a phrase more closely associated with libertarian groups than his own party. And the model recognizes Rep. Yvette Clarke’s interest in “confederate generals,” as it relates to street names in Fort Hamilton, near her Brooklyn, New York, district.
The model notices issues that aren’t quite on the national radar, like the “wotus rule” — AKA, the Waters of the United States Rule, a change in who regulates water pollution that has raised the ire of Republicans such as Rep. Bob Gibbs of Ohio. Or widespread interest among representatives of the rural West, including Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming and Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah, about whether to add the sage grouse to the endangered species list, triggering rules that could limit farming and industry near the bird’s habitat.

Just because a topic appears on one member’s list but not another’s doesn’t mean the second Congress member don’t care about it. There may simply be more distinctive topics that they talk about. And for now, that means big topics that lots of representatives and senators talk about, such as education or crime, aren’t included in each member’s list. But we’re working on ways to reflect those, too.

Along with identifying discrete topics, the model finds which members of Congress’ press releases are most similar, in topic or turns of phrase, in essence calculating who “sounds like” whom.

The representative whose press releases are closest to Rep. John Lewis’ is Rep. A. Donald McEachin, another African-American Democrat from a southern state. Rep. Thomas Massie, the model says, puts out releases similar to Sen. Rand Paul, his fellow Kentuckian who also leans libertarian.
How the Model Works

Our code relies on an approximation of what English words mean created by mathematically representing the context in which they occur. The theory that this would give you an idea of words’ meanings is called “Distributional Semantics.”

Why the particular technique we use, called Word2Vec, works so well is a bit of a mystery — especially if you, like me, never studied linear algebra — but it does work. Without being explicitly programmed to know anything about U.S. politics, the model has learned a lot about how our country works:

• It knows that “death tax” and “estate tax” refer to the same thing.
• If you ask the model who has the same kind of relationship to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that Rep. Nancy Pelosi has to Rep. Paul Ryan, its answer is Sen. Chuck Schumer — the Democratic minority leader in the Senate. (Well, it’s a tie: the model suggests Schumer and his predecessor in that position, Harry Reid.)

A related technique, Doc2Vec, assigns a value to individual press releases or a member’s entire body of press releases from the sum of the meanings of the words. Similar to the way in which DW-Nominate, a powerful statistical technique used to characterize where politicians stand along a political spectrum, transforms a congressperson’s voting record into a location in two dimensions, Doc2vec transforms what the Congress member says into a location in 100 dimensions. (However, unlike DW-Nominate, there’s no good way to translate those dimensions into anything that makes analytical sense to humans.) Finding Congress members who sound alike is as easy as finding each member’s “nearest neighbor” in this imaginary 100-dimensional space.

The topics are generated in a way that uses the same software, called Gensim, but relies less on linear algebra and more on counting. It finds the phrases that occur most often in each member’s statements but rarely in everyone else’s — a statistical technique called term-frequency (over) inverse-document-frequency (often shortened to “TF-IDF”) that is a useful proxy for importance. More concretely, it finds that Sen. Enzi’s statements contain the phrase “sage grouse” a lot, but that phrase appears frequently in only a few other members’ statements. A more general topic like “environment” would not show up, since it’s relatively common and only one word long.

The results of the TF-IDF algorithm are not presented verbatim; we do some manual filtering to exclude, say, the name of the member’s contact person for press releases or the phrasing of their “contact me” button.

There’s more in store. Stay tuned for a way to see what bills are related to a given topic — in a way that’s more powerful than just a keyword search. We’re also planning to throw floor statements into the model, as part of the relaunch of the CapitolWords project we inherited from Sunlight Labs earlier this year.

So how did our algorithm do on Murray? Broader topics like “education” and “health care” tend not to get noticed, in lieu of more specific pieces of the topic, like “Trumpcare bill,” a topic the algorithm identified as one of Murray’s. And the algorithm does list Murray as one of the members most similar to Michael Bennet. Pretty decent for some math and a pile of press releases.

September/11 and America’s “War on Terrorism” – 2nd part of a series

FROM THE EDITOR

Dear readers:

I share with you this piece of text from a book, published by Michel Chossudovsky, which by its preface I can see that it carries enough detailed and researched information of the facts that have led us to be, from a free, democratic nation and the threshold of the world , to a nation with less freedom, less democracy, and no longer the threshold of freedom – and all in the wake of the events of September 11, 2001.
Due to its length, this article will be published in parts. This is PART 2 of a series.

by Michel Chossudovsky

The livelihood of millions of people throughout the World is at stake. It is my sincere hope that the truth will prevail and that the understanding provided in this detailed study will serve the cause of World peace. This objective, however, can only be reached by revealing the falsehoods behind America’s War on Terrorism and questioning the legitimacy of the main political and military actors responsible for extensive war crimes.” (Michel Chossudovsky, August 2005 )

Below is the preface of  Michel Chossudovsky’s 2005 bestseller: America’s War on Terrorism 

The mysterious Pakistani general

On the 12th of September, a mysterious Lieutenant General, head of Pakistan’s Military Intelligence (ISI), who according to the US press reports “happened to be in Washington at the time of the attacks”, was called into the office of Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitrage.

The “War on Terrorism” had been officially launched late in the night of September 11, and Dick Armitage was asking General Mahmoud Ahmad to help America “in going after the terrorists”. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was on the phone with Secretary of State Colin Powell and the following morning, on the 13th of September, a comprehensive agreement, was reached between the two governments.

While the press reports confirmed that Pakistan would support the Bush administration in the “war on terror”, what they failed to mention was the fact that Pakistan`s military intelligence (ISI) headed by General Ahmad had a longstanding relationship to the Islamic terror network. Documented by numerous sources, the ISI was known to have supported a number of Islamic organizations including Al Qaeda and the Taliban. (See Chapter IV in the book.)

My first reaction in reading news headlines on the 13th of September was to ask: if the Bush administration were really committed to weeding out the terrorists, why would it call upon Pakistan`s ISI, which is known to have supported and financed these terrorist organizations?

Two weeks later, an FBI report, which was briefly mentioned on ABC News, pointed to a “Pakistani connection” in the financing of the alleged 9/11 terrorists. The ABC report referred to a Pakistani “moneyman” and “mastermind” behind the 9/11 hijackers.

Subsequent reports indeed suggested that the head of Pakistan’s military intelligence, General Mahmoud Ahmad, who had met Colin Powell on the 13th of September 2001, had allegedly ordered the transfer of 100,000 dollars to the 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta. What these reports suggested was that the head of Pakistan’s military intelligence was not only in close contact with senior officials of the US Government, he was also in liaison with the alleged hijackers.

My writings on the Balkans and Pakistani connections, published in early October 2001 were later incorporated into the first edition of this book. In subsequent research, I turned my attention to the broader US strategic and economic agenda in Central Asia and the Middle East.

There is an intricate relationship between War and Globalization. The “War on Terror” has been used as a pretext to conquer new economic frontiers and ultimately establish corporate control over Iraq’s extensive oil reserves.

The disinformation campaign

In the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the disinformation campaign went into full gear.

Known and documented prior to the invasion, Britain and the US made extensive use of fake intelligence to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Al Qaeda was presented as an ally of the Baghdad regime. “Osama bin Laden” and “Weapons of Mass Destruction” statements circulated profusely in the news chain. (Chapter XI.)

Meanwhile, a new terrorist mastermind had emerged: Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. In Colin Powell’s historic address to the United Nations Security Council, detailed “documentation” on a sinister relationship between Saddam Hussein and Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi was presented, focusing on his ability to produce deadly chemical, biological and radiological weapons, with the full support and endorsement of the secular Baathist regime.

A Code Orange terror alert followed within two days of Powell’s speech at the United Nations Security Council, where he had been politely rebuffed by UN Weapons Inspector Dr. Hans Blix.

Realty was thus turned upside down. The US was no longer viewed as preparing to wage war on Iraq. Iraq was preparing to attack America with the support of “Islamic terrorists”. Terrorist mastermind Al-Zarqawi was identified as the number one suspect.
Official statements pointed to the dangers of a dirty radioactive bomb attack in the US.

The main thrust of the disinformation campaign continued in the wake of the March 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. It consisted in presenting the Iraqi resistance movement as “terrorists”. The image of “terrorists opposed to democracy” fighting US “peacekeepers” appeared on television screens and news tabloids across the globe.

Meanwhile, the Code Orange terror alerts were being used by the Bush administration to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation across America. (See Chapter XX.) The terror alerts also served to distract public opinion from the countless atrocities committed by US forces in the Afghan and Iraqi war theaters, not to mention the routine torture of so-called “enemy combatants”.

Following the invasion of Afghanistan, the torture of prisoners of war and the setting up of concentration camps became an integral part of the Bush administration’s post 9/11 agenda.

The entire legal framework had been turned upside down. According to the US Department of Justice, torture was now permitted under certain circumstances. Torture directed against “terrorists” was upheld as a justifiable means to preserving human rights and democracy. (See chapters XIV and XV.) In an utterly twisted logic, the Commander in Chief can now quite legitimately authorize the use of torture, because the victims of torture in this case are so-called “terrorists”, who are said to routinely apply the same methods against Americans.

The orders to torture prisoners of war at the Guantanamo concentration camp and in Iraq in the wake of the 2003 invasion emanated from the highest levels of the US Government. Prison guards, interrogators in the US military and the CIA were responding to precise guidelines.

An inquisitorial system had been installed. In the US and Britain the “war on the terrorism” is upheld as being in the public interest. Anybody who questions its practices—which now include arbitrary arrest and detention, torture of men, women and children, political assassinations and concentration camps—is liable to be arrested under the antiterrorist legislation. (Part 3 will continue next week with The London 7/7 Bomb Attack).

10 amazing benefits of beets for health and beauty

by wikiyeah

Beets, or beetroots, are sweet root vegetable that takes an important position among healthy foods for your diet. Beets are a rich source of minerals and essential vitamins and are used as food item combined with salad, soup, and meals. Let’s take a look at these 10 benefits of beets for health and beauty which might bring to see the amazing nutritional values of this vegetable.

Top 10 Benefits Of Beets For Health And Beauty:

1. Decreasing Blood Pressure
The benefits of beets mainly come from blood flow improvement. Juice extracted from beet can help lower blood pressure, as it reduces systolic pressure in the blood, thanks to the natural nitrates presenting in beets.

2. Reducing Inflammation

Consume beets might prevent you from inflammation since their rich source of betaine is useful in protecting proteins, cells and enzymes from your daily life stress. To obtain better effects of anti-inflammatory properties, combine beets and ginger juice together.

3. Supporting Detoxification

Betaine pigments and methionine found in beets also accelerate detoxification progress and expel broken toxins out of your body, in addition to other positive health benefits.

4. Beet Greens Benefits
What a surprise that green leafy tops found in beets are one of the healthiest parts of this vegetable. These greens are rich sources of essential nutrients for your bodies such as protein, fiber, potassium, magnesium, vitamin A, C, B6, calcium, and iron. What is more, high content of iron in beets greens helps you boost bone strength and immune system, overall nutritional value helps ward off numerous chronic diseases.

5. Avoid Cancers
Researchers have studied that beets contain phytonutrients along with pigment betacyanin that inhibits cancerous cell development. Drink beet juice every day to cancel cell mutations caused by nitrates found in your daily meals that lead to the expansion of nitrosamine compounds.

6. Enhancing Sexual Performance
Sounds weird, but this root vegetable can provide benefits in boosting sexuality, in another word aphrodisiac for men. This is because beets contains huge amount of mineral boron which has been indicated to increase sexual hormones production, such as sperm mobility, libido and fertility improvement. Add beets to your daily basis to enhance your sexual life with your partner.

7. Boosting Energy
When it comes to benefits of beets, people might be amazed that beet juice also works as a powerful sport drink. A great amount of carbohydrates present in beets supply fuel to boost stamina and prolong your sport workout.

8. Macular Degeneration
The beta-carotene in beetroot is helpful in decreasing and slowing eyes macular degeneration. Its rich source of vitamin A supplies antioxidant capabilities and protect the eyes against harmful effects of free radicals.

9. Preventing Strokes
Lack of potassium might be the main cause of strokes for your body. Potassium works best as vasodilator that lower , leads to the restriction of detritus accumulation that enable blood clots formation along the walls of blood vessels. These clots are the culprits of heart attacks and strokes.In that case, it’s recommended to consume beetroot to boost heart health and deliver a rich source of potassium to your body.

10. Fighting Against Premature Aging and Age-Related Diseases
You might have purchased many skin-care products that are available in the market out there, however beetroot juice is still an outstanding low-cost product that protects your skin from inside-out. (Natural News Blogs).

Justice for dreamers – punish the authors of forced migration

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - 5SEPTEMBER17 - Two thousand people demonstrate in front of San Francisco's Federal Building, block intersections, and march through the streets to protest the announcement by Attorney General Jeff Sessions that the Trump administration will repeal the DACA order protecting young undocumented immigrants from deportation.Copyright David Bacon

by David Bacon
Analysis

The DACA youth, the “dreamers” are the true children of NAFTA – those who, more than anyone, paid the price for the agreement. Yet they are the ones now punished by the Trump administration as it takes away their legal status, their ability to work, and their right to live in this country without fearing arrest and deportation. At the same time, those responsible for the fact they grew up in the U.S. walk away unpunished – even better off.

We’re not talking about their parents. It’s common for liberal politicians (even Trump himself on occasion) to say these young people shouldn’t be punished for the “crime” of their parents – that they brought their children with them when they crossed the border without papers. But parents aren’t criminals anymore than their children are. They chose survival over hunger, and sought to keep their families together and give them a future.

The perpetrators of the “crime” are those who wrote the trade treaties and the economic reforms that made forced migration the only means for families to survive. The “crime” was NAFTA.

In a just world, U.S. trade negotiators would rewrite the treaty to repair the damage done to communities on both sides of the border, especially in Mexico. They would ensure that those forced to migrate – dreamers and other migrants – have legal residence where they now live. They would change the rules of the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico, so that the income and lives of working people and the poor aren’t sacrificed to produce profit opportunities for big corporations. And their new agreement would punish those corporations responsible for the vast increase in poverty resulting from NAFTA’s passage.

While the Trump administration and a Republican Congress are certainly not going to negotiate any changes like these, the first step in making change possible is telling the truth. Nowhere is this more important than in relation to NAFTA and immigration policy. It’s impossible to understand the outrageous injustice of deporting the dreamers without acknowledging the reasons why they live in the U.S. to begin with.

The treaty had an enormous effect on Mexico, producing a wave of forced migration of millions of people. The World Bank in 2005 found that the extreme rural poverty rate of 35 percent in 1992-4, prior to NAFTA, jumped to 55 percent in 1996-8, after NAFTA took effect. By 2010 53 million Mexicans were living in poverty, about 20 percent live in extreme poverty, almost all in rural areas.
People were migrating from Mexico to the U.S. long before NAFTA, but the treaty put migration on steroids. In 1990 4.5 million Mexican migrants had come to the U.S. A decade later, that population more than doubled to 9.75 million, and in 2008 it peaked at 12.67 million. About 9 percent of all Mexicans now live in the U.S. About 5.7 million were able to get some kind of visa, but another 7 million couldn’t, and came nevertheless – the dreamers and their parents.

In its first year, 1994, one million Mexicans lost their jobs, by the government’s count. According to Jeff Faux, founding director of the Economic Policy Institute, “the peso crash of December, 1994, was directly connected to NAFTA.”

The treaty then forced yellow corn grown by Mexican farmers without subsidies to compete in Mexico’s own market with corn from huge U.S. producers, subsidized by the U.S. farm bill. Corn imports rose from 2 million to over 10 million tons from 1992 to 2008. Mexico imported 30,000 tons of pork in 1995, and by 2010 811, 000 tons. As a result, pork prices dropped 56 percent, and Mexico lost over 120,000 jobs in pork production.

NAFTA prohibited price supports, without which hundreds of thousands of small farmers found it impossible to sell corn or other farm products for what it cost to produce them. The CONASUPO system, in which the Mexican government bought corn at subsidized prices, turned it into tortillas and sold them in state-franchised grocery stores at subsidized low prices, was abolished. The price of corn to farmers fell by 66 percent, and the price of tortillas jumped by 279 percent in NAFTA’s first decade.

In Dreams Deported, published by the UCLA Labor Center, dreamers describe their memories of forced migration, retold in their families. Vicky’s family in Mexico “was too poor to pay for her mother’s medication and Vicky couldn’t find a job to support her parents.” Renata Teodoro remembers, “My father had been working in the United States for many years, and we survived on the money he sent us.”

Rufino Dominguez, former director of the Oaxacan Institute for Attention to Migrants, says, “NAFTA forced the price of corn so low that it’s not economically possible to plant a crop anymore. We come to the U.S. to work because we can’t get a price for our product at home. There’s no alternative.” About 2.5 million rural Mexican farmers and farmworkers were driven out of work or off their land.

Urban workers felt NAFTA’s impact as well. The average Mexican wage was 23 percent of the U.S. manufacturing wage in 1975. By 2002 it was less than an eighth. In the 20 years after NAFTA went into effect, the buying power of Mexican wages dropped – the minimum wage by 24 percent. A U.S. autoworker earns $21.50 an hour, and a Mexican autoworker $3.00. A gallon of milk costs more in Mexico than it does here. It takes a Mexican autoworker over an hour’s work to buy a pound of hamburger, while a worker in Detroit can buy it after 10 minutes. But Mexican workers in the GM plant making the Sonic, Silverado, and Sierra produce the same number of cars per hour that the workers do in the U.S. plant making the same models. The difference means profit for GM, poverty for Mexican workers, and the migration of those who can’t survive.

Congress was warned that NAFTA might increase poverty and fuel migration. When it passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) in 1986, Congress set up a Commission for the Study of International Migration and Cooperative Economic Development to study immigration’s causes. Its 1990 report recommended negotiating a free trade agreement between the U.S, Mexico and Canada. But it warned, “It takes many years – even generations – for sustained growth to achieve the desired effect,” and meanwhile years of “transitional costs in human suffering.” Nevertheless, the negotiations that led to NAFTA started within months.

Defending the dreamers and the rights of all migrants in the U.S. is intimately connected with changing the policies that uproot communities and force families into the dangerous journey through the desert, across this country’s southern border.

Another mass shooting, another grab for guns

by Tony Cartalucci
News analysis
Global Research

Nothing is more deplorable than hijacking human tragedy to push an unrelated political agenda. A mass murderer taking the lives of some 60 people in Las Vegas this week has nothing to do with the majority of lawful firearms owners in the United States who aren’t and have no intention of ever killing another human being. 

Yet the knee-jerk reaction of many emotionally-driven people in the face of an overwhelming tragedy is to shift public debate back to gun control and even banning guns altogether.

Emotional and irrational responses in the face of overwhelming circumstances is part of human nature and require patience.
Yet another part of being human is then appealing to our ability to reason. To reason we must have facts.
Upon examining the following 6 facts, we will see that access to firearms has no significant relationship to violence – and that violence is driven by another entire set of factors that must be addressed if we honestly want a more peaceful and prosperous world.

1. According to the FBI, more people die of barehanded assaults in the US per year than all rifle violence (“assault rifles” included) combined. In fact, homicide via personal weapons like hands and feet is more than double homicides carried out with rifles.

Most gun homicides are carried out by handguns in some of America’s most destitute communities where national and local governments have failed to keep up with infrastructure, providing education, or economic opportunities. Cities like Detroit who have had their industry shipped overseas and their infrastructure left to – in some cases literally – rot.

2. According to the Small Arms Survey conducted by the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland, the United States has the most guns per capita of any other nation on Earth at 112 guns per 100 people. Second place goes to Serbia at 58.21 guns per 100 people.

Based on this and assumptions that access to firearms equates directly to more violence, we would expect to find the United States and Serbia at the top of list regarding both homicides, and gun related homicides, yet this is not the case at all.

3. Highest homicide rate on Earth goes to El Salvador with 108.64 murders per 100,000 people. The United States comes in at number 94 with a murder rate of 4.88 per 100,000 people.

4. El Salvador’s gun homicides are at around 26.49 per 100,000 people while the US comes in with 3.60 gun homicides per 100,000 people. Honduras comes in first place with 66.64 gun homicides per 100,000 people.

Nations topping the list of gun homicides together with total homicides reveal little relationship between the number of guns per capita and actual violence. In fact, despite the immense amount of firearms in the United States, the United States has a relatively low homicide and gun-related homicide rate. This is why gun ban advocates often attempt to cite “gun related deaths” which includes accidents and suicide instead of citing gun-related homicides – even when advocating gun bans after high profile mass shootings and murders.

5. Gun ban advocates often claim the United States cannot be compared with “failed states” and instead should be compared with “advanced states” like Denmark, Sweden, etc. This is called “cherry picking” and is a logical fallacy, not rational or honest debate.

Neither El Salvador nor Honduras are “failed states” according to the Fragile States Index.

And neither Denmark nor Sweden have a “Detroit” like the US does. During a debate, all data must be considered, not conveniently and conditionally picked through so the numbers add up in one’s favor.

6. Despite the UK and Japan both being “gun free” – according the the United Nations (summarized on Wikipedia here) – the UK has a higher total number of murders (594) than Japan (395) despite having half of Japan’s population (UK: 65.64 million, Japan: 127 million).

For those tempted to claim that the UK isn’t actually gun free, realize that – according to USA Today – only about 50-60 murders a year in the UK are attributed to firearms, and if negated, still leaves the UK with higher total murders, and a still much higher murder rate than Japan.

Concluding Thoughts 

All 6 facts tell us that violence is driven by socioeconomic factors, not access to firearms. If firearms drove violence, the United States would be by far the most violent nation on Earth, followed by Serbia – they are not. The UK and Japan would have roughly the same rate of homicides – they do not.

If you truly care about a more peaceful world, address the root causes of violence – which is clearly, obviously not access to weapons. Those who intentionally stir hysteria and prey on the emotions of well-meaning people to push issues like gun control have ulterior motives – and coincidentally allow all of the actual factors that drive violence – socioeconomic disparity and destitution – to continue or even expand.

If you are truly against violence, you must truly commit yourself to understand what really causes it, and not indulge in emotional campaigns pursuing irrational measures that not only will not stop violence, but will invite great amounts of the very exploitation and injustice that drives violence.

Banning guns did not stop terrorists in Europe from obtaining completely illegal AK-47s used in Paris, France killing over 130 people, nor did banning guns stop a terrorist from using a truck in Nice, France to take the lives of over 80 people. Gun bans did not stop the alleged hijackers of the planes used on September 11, 2001 to kill nearly 3,000 people. They used box cutters.

Those who are determined to carry out premeditated mass murder like that which unfolded in Las Vegas, will do so no matter what implements they have at their disposal. Figuring out what factors actual cause an individual or organization to contemplate and carry out mass murder is the only way to stop or reduce future acts of violence.

Examining the heavily medicated, violent, and intentionally divided population of America and the socioeconomic doldrums they inhabit would be a good place to start.

(This article was originally published by Land Destroyer Report where all images were sourced.

The original source of this article is Global Research).

Venezuela’s Maduro suggests global oil trade in Russian ruble and Chinese yuan

Maduro in Russia for the Moscow International Energy Forum

by the El Reportero’s wire services

The President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro has proposed oil producing countries should discuss creating a currency basket for trading crude and refined products.

“Developing a new mechanism of controlling the oil market is necessary,” he said on Wednesday at the Russian Energy Forum, being held in Moscow this week.

According to Maduro, trading paper futures has an adverse impact on the oil market, undermining attempts by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to stabilize prices.

Introducing alternative currency baskets, including the yuan, ruble, and other currencies will eliminate the impact of futures trading, according to the Venezuelan president.

Maduro insisted Venezuela is dealing with its debt to Russia, and that Rosneft’s deal with Venezuelan state oil producer PDVSA is “subject to negotiation.”

“We fulfill all the obligations to Russia. If we get more favorable terms for restructuring the debt, this will be the result of a deal between the two governments,” said Maduro.

Maduro pointed out that US sanctions make it difficult to negotiate the debt issue with American debt holders.

Caracas is framing a plan to deliver its crude to alternative markets should the White House impose sanctions on trading the country’s oil, Maduro said in response to a question on the possibility of PDVSA’s default.

“Venezuela has plans A, B, C, and others. There are other international companies interested in buying oil and refined products. We will create the best terms for them,” he said. Source: RT


Some 1,500 companies still not operating after earthquake in Mexico

Some 1,500 companies are still not operating after huge damage caused by the September 19 earthquake, Alejandro Salcedo said, president of the Latin American Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (ALAMPYME).

The business director said that the organization made a visit to the most affected areas of Mexico City, Oaxaca, Morelos and Puebla.

‘The huge damage and disasters are higher than those reported by state, municipal and federal governments,’ he said.
He affirmed that the economic supports offered by federal and local authorities are insufficient, so ALAMPYME ‘requests instead of credits to grant resources from government programs.’

He recalled that the data updating made by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) reported that about two million companies and businesses suffered economic damages, accounting for over 40 percent of the country’s economic activity.

Rescue operations after building collapse in Mexico conclude

Rescue team members found today the body of the last person reported as missing, due to the collapse of the building on Alvaro Obregon Avenue at 286, in this capital, giving way to the stage of rubble removal.

After 15 days of rescue operations, after the earthquake on September 19, at the ruins of an office building, the were a total of 28 people rescued alive and 49 dead bodies.

With the rescue of the last body, the total number of fatal victims due to the earthquake in Mexico City and other states in the country should increase to 367.

Boxing schedule – The Sport of Gentlemen

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

Forum, Inglewood, CA, USA (HBO)

Jorge Linares vs. Luke Campbell

Antonio Orozco vs. Roberto Ortiz

Azat Hovhannisyan vs. Sergio Frias

Romero Duno vs. Juan Pablo Sanchez

Abraham Lopez vs. Isao Carranza

Manuel Avila vs. Ramiro Robles
Manchester Arena, Lancashire, UK (ITV Box Office)

Hughie Fury vs. Joseph Parker

Joe Murray vs. Matty Fagan

Josh Wale vs. Don Broadhurst

Kilrain Kelly vs. Stiliyan Kostov
Hartman, Park City, KS, USA (CBSSN)

Waiting list for Section 8 apartments will open

BARRETT_PLAZA TOWNHOMES, 700 BARRETT AVE. Richmond, CA. 94801

Waiting list for Section 8 apartments will open

Plaza 3 bedrooms, 4 bedrooms

Complete the applications:

700 Barrett Avenue,
Richmond, CA 94801
P: (510) 237-3467
(TTY 711 assistance call)
F: (510) 237-8375

Barrett Plaza Apartments has a total of 58 units. Common areas include open, beautiful gardens, parking, play areas, patios, laundry facilities, community room, staff and support services available to all residents.

Accessible units are available for people with mobility problems. Other access modifications can also be requested.

COLLECTION AND DELIVERY OF APPLICATIONS SERVICE BARRETT 700 AVENUE OF APPLICATIONS PRESENTATION WILL OPEN

Monday, September 25, 2017 – Wednesday, September 27, 2017 1 PM TO 5 PM.

PLACEMENT IN THE WAITING LIST WILL BE DATE AND TIME THAT THE APPLICATION IS RECEIVED

Reasonable accommodations for these facilities will be provided upon request. Please bring an interpreter if you need one.

EQUAL HOUSING OPPORTUNITY

Calle 24 Cultural District presents Fiesta de las Americas

Compiled by the El Reportero’s staff

Calle 24 Latino Cultural District presents Fiesta de Las Américas within the 24th Street corridor, in the heart of the Mission District.

Fiesta de Las América’s celebrates the independence of various Latin American countries and commemorates the culture, arts and music found from Patagonia to the Arctic Circle. It highlights the unique Latino diaspora experience which has cemented the Latino Cultural District as the center of Latino activism, arts, commerce, and culture in San Francisco since the 1940s.

 City officials and representatives from the Mexican, Peruvian and Columbian Consulate will be present for the opening blessing. This event will dedicate the restoration of the flags of the Americas first placed in the mid-80s to commemorate the festival and celebrate Richard Segovia’s House of Latin Rock mural unveiling and dedication at 25th and York St. by Latin Rock Inc. with the All-Star legends of Latin Rock.

The festival will extend from 24th and Mission Street to 24th and Hampshire Street.

Sunday, Sept. 17, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

It is an alcohol free and family friendly event for the community.

Traditional dance, music, food and more. “Experience Latin America.”

Featuring: Four Stages

Stage #1 La Placita Capp St. @ 24th
Stage #2 Rumba Stage Harrison St. @ 24th
Stage #3 Brava Stage York St. @ 24th
Stage #4 Latin Rock Stage York St. @ 25th

Calligraphies in Conversation 4th International Exhibition

A unique international calligraphy exhibition, Calligraphies in Conversation, opens in the San Francisco Public Library’s Main Library, Skylight Gallery.

The exhibition explores connections between calligraphy traditions and practices from different cultures as well as the beauty of different world languages. The opening includes a special artist’s presentation and curator tours of the exhibit, along with a reception, in partnership with the Ziya Art Center.

More than 70 artworks will be on display at the Library, with a range of diverse traditions and contemporary pieces in languages such as Latin, Chinese, Japanese, Baybayin, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, Armenian and Hindi. Shirinbab assembled the collection through a competitive process and received more than 250 entries from around the world.

During the exhibition opening on Sept. 17, attendees will have the opportunity to meet local artists while viewing the artwork. Calligraphy presentations, titled “How to Enjoy Calligraphy,” will take place in the Koret Auditorium from 1–3 p.m., when calligraphy masters and experts from Japanese, Arabic-Persian, Baybayin, and Latin traditions present the nuances of their tradition and show participants how to enjoy calligraphy without necessarily understanding the content of the writing. Curator Tours in the Skylight Gallery will begin at 3 p.m.

Save the date for Calligraphy Day on Nov. 5, located in the San Francisco Main Library. Several calligraphy masters from different traditions and languages will give demonstrations and participants can experience calligraphy of various cultures up close.

On Sept. 17, at San Francisco Public Library, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco.

Artists explore Italy

 Beryl Landau and Anthony Holdsworth have been traveling and painting in Italy for thirty years.

This exhibition features watercolors and small oil paintings created onsite from Lake Como and Venice in the north to Palermo and Catania in the south.

It also includes larger works created in their studios after their return from these journeys.  

From Sept. 14 – Oct. 13, at Instituto Italiano di Cultura, 601 Van Ness Avenue, Opera Plaza. Opening Reception, Thurs., Sept.14, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Video Screening and Talk  on Thursday, Sept. 28, 6:30 p.m.

The artists will screen a 38-minute video about their last journey from Sicily to Emilia-Romagna. Afterwards they will talk with the audience.

Voice of resistance with Joan Baez and Lila Downs

Two of the most heavy dirty Latina singers, Joan Baez and Lila Downs, will be on stage in a conversation with Olga Talamante, in a benefit for the Chicana Latina Foundation & Fondo Guadalupe Musalem of Oaxaca.

Another musical talent, Diana Gameros, will be there providing her music.

On Oct. 1, at 3 p.m., at the Brava Theater, 2781-24th St. @ York, San Francisco. Tickets and information at brava.org.

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