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Art exhibition Montar la Bestia at U.C. Berkeley

Compiled by the El Reportero’s staff

MONTAR la Bestia (Riding the Beast), art exhibition is on display at the Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS) at the University of California, Berkeley, 2334 Bowditch St., in Berkeley, CA. The exhibition is open to the public through September 29, Tuesdays through Fridays from 1 p.m.- 5 p.m., MONTARlaBestia/Riding the Beast will be part of a larger CLAS program in Fall 2017 focusing on important themes involving the U.S. and Mexico.  

 Presented by the Colectivo de Artistas Contra la Discriminación (Artist Collective Against Discrimination), MONTARlaBestia/Riding the Beast is a moving, visually stunning exhibition that uses art and poetry to describe “La Bestia” – a train that carries up to 500,000 Central American migrants each year on a dangerous journey across Mexico towards the hope of a new life in the U.S. Walls and deportations, often presented in a context of xenophobic rhetoric, have focused national and international attention on the southern border of the U.S. CLAS feels this is a critical moment to engage in dialogue with people from both sides of the border.

 MONTARlaBestia/Riding the Beast is underwritten by Andrew M. Kluger, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of The Mexican Museum, in collaboration with the museum, Richard A. Levy, M.D., the Mexican Consulate General of San Francisco, and the Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation.

The California Museum announces new partnerships for the Unity Center

The California Museum announced new partnerships with corporate leaders in diversity for the Unity Center today. The Museum will open the all-new long-term exhibition inspiring community activism to the public.

On Sat., Aug. 26, 2017, the Museum will open the Unity Center to the public at the Unity Center Block Party from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Featuring free admission to the all-new installation plus all current exhibitions, the event features a civil rights panel discussion from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. with Dolores Huerta of the Dolores Huerta among other leaders. 

Additional festivities include hands-on activities for all ages; music and dance performances by regional cultural organizations; food trucks, beer garden and more.

 
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 Istituto 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

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

I went to Charlottesville during the protests and this is what I saw

by Jarrett Stepman

I picked quite a time to go on a weekend trip to Charlottesville.

What was supposed to be a nice getaway with my wife turned into a journey through the eye of a national media storm.

On Saturday, clashes between “Unite the Right” protestors and “anti-fascist” counterprotesters at the foot of a Gen. Robert E. Lee statue—which the City Council had voted to remove from a local park—turned violent.

One woman was killed when an Ohio man allegedly associated with the white nationalist marchers rammed his car through a wave of people. He has been charged with second-degree murder.

The clash between Nazis and leftists in the streets was an ugly and surreal scene one would associate with 1930s Germany, not a sleepy American town in the heart of central Virginia.

A city, and country, in shock

The attitude of people around Charlottesville—the silent majority—deserves to be noted. They were almost universally upset, blindsided, and resentful that these groups showed up in their community to drag down its reputation and fight their ideological proxy wars.

Albemarle County, which includes Charlottesville and a few other small towns, is deeply blue in its most populated centers around the University of Virginia and dark red on the outskirts. It’s politically purple. Yet everywhere I went, the attitude toward the protests was similar.

As a thunderstorm rolled in on Saturday evening, a waitress at a restaurant I ate at said, “Let’s hope this washes the day away.”

A local gas station attendant told my wife: “These people from out of town, Nazis, [Black Lives Matter], they’re all hate groups to me.”

In the aftermath of the events, most townsfolk walking in the Charlottesville downtown area appeared stunned and shaken. The overall feeling in the area was resentment—certainly not sympathy for any of the groups involved.

It would be a mistake to blow the events in Charlottesville too far out of proportion by linking either side to a mainstream political movement. In the grand scheme of things, it was a small-scale clash between groups who clearly represent an extreme minority in this country.

Even calling the gathering of a couple hundred people a “movement” would be a stretch. The overwhelming media attention given to these fascist, racist groups even before violence took place served as a conduit for the views of this handful of people.

The media’s role in blowing this event out of proportion is lamentable and predictable, but it doesn’t excuse what took place.

What the event does demonstrate is the looming danger of identity politics run amok. This is what is in store if we are consumed by the tribal politics that have destroyed so many other countries.

In June, I wrote about why I think politically incorrect historical monuments—even Confederate ones like the Lee statue in Charlottesville—should stay.

At the time I wrote:

“In our iconoclastic efforts to erase the past, we rob ourselves of knowing the men who forged our national identity, and the events that made us who we are. This nation, of almost incomprehensible wealth, power, and prosperity, was created by the decisions of men like Lincoln—and Lee, too.”

The zealous march to obliterate America’s past, even parts we dislike, will leave us a diminished civilization.

Though many have now jumped to conclude that the events in Charlottesville show the need to give in to the desire of people to tear down statues, this will only serve to strengthen and embolden the radicals—on both sides—to step up their efforts to plunge the nation into constant social unrest and civil war.

Identity over individuals

In a sense, the “alt-right” and leftist agitators want the same thing. They both seek to redefine the battle over American history in racial and tribal terms in direct opposition to the most basic ideas of our national existence.

Such was the case in the unsightly scene in front of Charlottesville’s Lee statue.

The real individuals whom these statues represent simply ceased to matter.

It was telling that a counterprotest erupted in Washington, D.C., in front of the Albert Pike memorial. Pike had been a Confederate general, but the memorial itself was simply dedicated to his work as a freemason and not his military career.

That fact was irrelevant.

Only the war over identity mattered. Pike must be plucked out and purged.

In a country of 320 million people of stunningly diverse ethnic backgrounds and philosophies, this is a fire bell in the night for complete cultural disintegration. The end result will be uglier than the already sickening events that took place this past weekend.

The Federalist’s publisher, Ben Domenech, rightly noted what this means for the direction of the country: “[I]t is the open conflict of a nation at war with itself over its own character. This war will end badly, no matter how it plays out. And the way this story ends is in demolishing [Thomas Jefferson’s] Monticello brick by brick.”

There is no arc of history bending perpetually on its own toward justice. History is instead a series of twists and turns, influenced by cultural and social forces as well as individuals and communities.

America has never been a perfect nation. It has benefitted from great ideas advanced by imperfect men, and almost miraculously formed a great and good national community out of widely disparate elements.

This history is worth remembering and even celebrating. It shouldn’t be buried because a few evil men have twisted it to serve their causes. Nor should it be used to attack and haunt the living.

As the late 19th-century poet Henry Van Dyke wrote:

“I know that Europe’s wonderful, yet something seems to lack:

The Past is too much with her, and the people looking back.

But the glory of the present is to make our future free —

We love our land for what she is and what she is to be.”

This is the spirit of our country, and it won’t change because a few thugs wish to turn our most fundamental principles on their heads.
We have a duty to repudiate them through a stronger dedication to the founding principles that have made this country great. (The Daily Signal).

Nikki Haley, the US ambassador at the UN is not correct

Let me tell you something:

UN Ambassador Nikki Haley said on Sunday July 30 – after the election to elect the Venezuelan Constituent Assembly, that “Maduro’s false election is another step towards dictatorship. We will not accept an illegitimate government. The Venezuelan people and democracy will prevail. “ President Trump then imposed economic sanctions against Maduro and his administration.

With a new constituent assembly, the government will have the power to rewrite the Venezuelan constitution, and that is what concerns the opposition allied to Washington.

One does not have to be a socialist to express an opinion on a system that calls itself socialist. I am not a socialist, I do not sympathize with socialism, because I know that it is a system of control over the people and the economy by a materialistic state corporation that suppresses civil liberties.

However, the case of Venezuela, and after sharing so many postings on Facebook in favor of the Venezuelan opposition, I find that there is another reality that perhaps many ignore: what is really at stake in this Bolivarian homeland is its sovereignty of oil, and not the beautiful faces of its Miss Universes.

What can it matter to Washington if democracy is not perfect or if there is no democracy in Venezuela or in another country?
Is it not from the White House that orders are given to bomb sovereign nations and assassinate their leaders when they do not obey Pentagon orders – on behalf of the oil cartels?

Just look at some Arab countries that the US. supports, where state crimes leave much to say. Where the rights of women or the beheadings of their critics matter don’t matter.

However, the US, instead of seeking a change of government in those countries, it give them more weapons, because US companies control the market of their oil.

There are rumors that the heat is intensifying towards an intervention and that a coup d’stat could be ahead in that Caribbean nation.
And it is not that Maduro is a saint, but I am coming to the conclusion that if he releases the reins of power, Venezuela will suffer like Mexico, where oil is no longer Mexican and now they have to buy gas from the US. I think that should not happen to Venezuela.

The best thing would be for both sides to sit down to negotiate – without foreign intervention – and to begin with Maduro’s government freeing the dollar market for the economy to return to its previous course. But they also must endorse a constitutional agreement that Venezuela’s oil will NEVER STOP BEING VENEZUELAN PATRIMONY – no matter what happens, whoever governs, and that no constitution be able to accept in its paper something that allows the oil to be controlled by foreign interests , including Wall Street, of course.

But I am sure that US oil interests do not want negotiation, but a civil war to breaks out and the economy to collapse so to make the country ungovernable – and then call the Marines to “protect American interests.” However, the latter is less likely, as the Venezuelan armed forces have not abandoned Maduro, yet.

The large Venezuelan oil fields are now the target of Washington, as in February 2003 PDVSA (Petróleos de Venezuela, SA) was was turned into a state-owned company. And it pains them that Venezuelan oil has gone out of their hands and that Venezuela (not long ago) has paid its debt. Or is it not true?

According to some calculations, Venezuelan reserves should last between 100 and 150 years under conditions of intense exploitation.
It is said that the payment of the debt of $ 2.5 billion and the oil downturn have been the cause of scarcity, as the government has been forced to maintain a cut in imports of basic goods despite the country’s sharp three years recession.

And I do not doubt that the violence and its cause have been mostly ingenious. And if you doubt it, do some investigative work on the internet about how and what governments the CIA has overthrown worldwide. I have done it, and that is why I have no doubt that this is what is happening in Venezuela.

There has been repression, but what government does not use force when the protests reach such a point of wanting to collapse the government? Is not there in the US, or in Nicaragua or in Mexico while the traditional press is silent?

There have also been many errors and outrages on the part of the government, especially in the lack of mercantile freedom that has triggered inflation and scarcity, but behind it, I do not doubt that it is the petro-bankers who want chaos.

It does not make these special interests happy that an ‘underdeveloped’ country to have so much economic power and that it cannot be controlled- by them.

Therefore, don’t go to fast into believing the traditional media, because they are following a script so that there is a war.
Do you remember William Randolph Hearst’s cryptic phrase?

Among Hearst’s employees was the famous illustrator Frederic Remington.

In 1897, Remington was very bored by the lack of something newsworthy in Cuba and telegraphed to Hearst, “Everything is quiet, there are no problems here, there will be no war, I want to return.”

In response to Remington’s message, Hearst replied, “Please stay. Provide the photos and I will provide the war.“

Less than three weeks later, the American ship USS Maine exploded in the port of Havana. The cause of the explosion that claimed 274 lives remains a mystery.

Whatever its real cause, Hearst determined that the sinking of Maine was the result of Spanish betrayal and his newspaper vigorously published stories that helped create and nurture American anti-Spanish sentiment.

Within three months, the United States was at war with Spain in what became known as the US-Spanish war.

Never before has the media been shown to have such immediate and far-reaching effects.

I leave this link with an article (in English) well analyzed about the Venezuelan controversy.

Venezuela: Reactionary Coup in the Making, Media Disinformation, The Attitude of the Left

– Vale, Marvin Ramírez

PG&E opens $10.3 million in funding for multifamily rooftop solar program

Public Service

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.—Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) today announced $10.3 million available in funding for the Multifamily Affordable Solar Housing (MASH) Program, which offers rebates for affordable solar energy to families in disadvantaged communities across Northern and Central California. Supported by the MASH program, solar energy can lower monthly energy costs for tenants, improve the quality of low-income multifamily housing and drive more clean energy in the state.

Through the MASH program, PG&E offsets the costs of installing new solar energy systems on multifamily affordable housing buildings, providing clean energy for tenants as well as in common areas like hallways, stairwells and laundry rooms. On average, the program financially supports about 40 percent of the solar system equipment and installation for an apartment building.

“The real benefit of solar in California is when everyone has access to it regardless of location or income – which is exactly what the MASH program aims to achieve. Supporting access to solar energy for all is a win for our customers, and a win for the state’s clean energy goals,” said Aaron Johnson, vice president of PG&E’s Customer Energy Solutions.

In addition to expanding solar energy in disadvantaged communities, the MASH program also increases job training in the clean energy industry by requiring at least one trainee work on each project. Since it started in 2008, the program has:
• Directly benefitted more than 3,600 families across Northern and Central California
• Provided $33 million in funding for rooftop solar on multifamily buildings like apartments and condos
• Supplied about 15 megawatts of solar energy, equivalent to powering more than 6,000 homes

How the program works
Typically, solar contractors apply for the MASH program on behalf of property owners of multifamily developments in disadvantaged communities. After the solar system is installed, the MASH program provides financial rebates based on the size of the system and how much of the solar energy is allocated to tenants. The benefits of solar can be split among the tenants and common areas, with residents seeing lower monthly bills as they use solar for electricity during the day.

Any building with customers participating in the MASH program are required to go through an energy efficiency audit to ensure their facility is energy efficient before going solar, which can save money in upfront costs by allowing for smaller solar systems. Additionally, tenants are informed of energy efficiency programs they may be eligible for, such as PG&E’s Energy Savings Assistance Program that offers free energy-saving improvements for customers on PG&E’s California Alternate Rates for Energy (CARE) Program.

The new funding for the program is open from Monday, July 31 at 9 a.m. through Friday, August 11 at 4 p.m. For more information, please visit pge.com/mash.

What blood pressure is and how to control it yourself

by Ben Fuchs

The body is always talking to us. We may not listen, but it’s always reporting back about what’s going on with it, how it’s responding to our actions and what we’re doing wrong and right. If you have a problem dairy, your intestine will signal its distress with cramping, bloating and other digestive symptoms.

These symptoms can be correlated to eating things like cheese, gluten, strawberries eggs and any other foods that initiate intolerance or allergies. Drink too much alcohol, the next day’s hangover can be a communication so clear and impactful you may never imbibe again.

On the other hand, sometimes a burst of happiness or a hit of energy or just some plain old peace of mind, can let you know that you’re on the right track, doing something your body really needs, wants and likes. For instance soaking in hot tubs, a brisk workout or playing with babies and puppies come to mind.

While digestion, immunity, skin and respiration are all exquisitely sensitive to their environments, no part of the body is more responsive than the heart and circulatory system.
Considering something on order of one out of every two or three Americans have some sort of circulatory health challenges, that’s good news. That’s because, once we recognize our complicity in our vascular health challenges, we’ll be able to address them for real. This can be done without doctors, devices, diagnostics or drugs and their associated side effects.

One of the more significant manifestations of cardiovascular disease is hypertension, and it’s a serious problem. According to an infographic published in the Jan. 12, 2013 edition of New Scientist Magazine, hypertension is the leading contributor the global burden of all disease. Yet nothing exemplifies our participation in our own health and our health challenges more than high blood pressure. Which is the source of endless fodder for comedian’s jokes and is universally acknowledged for its association with stressful situations.

Yet while seemingly everyone knows that stress and hypertension go hand in hand, most hypertensives think nothing about accepting the standard diagnosis of “essential” hypertension (i.e. hypertension caused by meaning caused by “unknown” factor) and pharmacological anti-hypertensives that are among the most toxic of all prescription medication.

Hypertension is about stress. To the body there is no more important stress factor than a shortage of oxygen in the blood, a condition called “hypoxia”. Once a critical hypoxic threshold is reached, changes immediately take place in the blood vessels, causing a rerouting of blood.

These modifications, that are the result of the intelligent shunting and strategic opening and closing of vessels, lead to an increase in blood pressure. Blood pressure is the force with which the sanguineous fluid moves through the circulatory system and represents the body’s attempt to get more blood (and oxygen) to the brain, heart, lungs, musculature and other vital parts of the body.

Hypertension isn’t the only cardiovascular effect of hypoxia. Oxygen acts as a buffer, separating red blood cells, helping keep them freely floating in easy and smooth fashion throughout the 50,000 mile long river of blood in the circulatory system. Under conditions of low blood oxygen, blood cells will tend to clump up.

This clumping can create clots and further impede the delivery of oxygen to tissues, inducing even more hypertension. That’s not all. Hypoxia can disrupt electrical conductivity in the heart, leading to various heart arrhythmia, including the dreaded A-fib. Not coincidentally, among the most prescribed drugs in America are the anti-coagulants, medication that pharmacologically compels blood to thin. These drugs include beta blockers to chemically ablate (destroy) the heart, to prevent electrical malfunctioning and anti-hypertensives, that lower blood pressure by poisoning vessel valves, forcing them to open like a dam in a tsunami.

BAD NEWS: Circulatory diseases are serious business. They’re collectively by far the leading cause of death and illness in the United States not to mention spent dollars and wasted time. If you participate in the medical model’s impotent strategy of drugging, electrocuting and sticking in stents, you’re not going to be getting better.

GOOD NEWS: If you are dealing with any cardiovascular health issue, by applying simple lifestyle strategies, like slow deep breathing, nutritional supplementation, dietary modification and plain old relaxation, you can dramatically reduce your blood pressure, with zero toxicity and no side effects on your own. These tools are available to you without doctors, pharmacists, insurance companies or any other pharmaco- medical intervention.

Anti-immigrant rally in Laguna Beach ends in violence

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iIkJhZwWls

 

by Dylan Gascon

At first glance, it would seem as if nothing was amiss in the seaside town of Laguna Beach.

Visitors casually left their cars at the $10 a day parking lot to take a trolley shuttle toward the town, passing the local arts festival that happens at this time of year. Posters decorated the theater, advertising A Night with Janis Joplin on the outer walls of the building, enticing people to come and see. There was traffic in the streets and the trolleys lurched forward toward Main Beach. But the closer they got, the more apparent it was something more was going on.

At Main Beach the crowds had already gathered early, even though the event didn’t officially start until 6:30 p.m. Counter protesters arrived on the scene in droves. Many carried signs, some sung chants, while on some green nearby others danced to the rhythm of bongo drums. The police made their presence known, with officers posted in nearby parking lots and a nearby gas station, while horse mounted officers got ready to ride into the crowd to separate the two sides. There was a fire alive in the air that lit everything up, almost rivaling the illumination of the sun.

Officers were dressed in riot gear and armed with batons or non-lethal shotguns loaded with beanbags and zip ties on their sides. And at the center of everything in far fewer numbers, were the right-wingers themselves, organized by a group called AmericaFirst!

Holding an event in Laguna Beach is nothing new for AmericaFirst! The group has held three events, all of them occurring without incident. The man behind the AmericaFirst! rally is Johnny Benítez, who in a YouTube video has stated of he and his group: “We oppose immigration from anywhere in the world.”

On Sunday, the group was scheduled to have an “Electric Vigil for the Victims of Illegals and Refugees”, with members of the group wearing rainbow colored gear, reminiscent of decorative pieces’ people at music festivals wear.

Although Benítez asserts he and his group aren’t racist, didn’t condone violence at the event, and even called the event “family friendly”, police weren’t taking any chances after last week’s event’s in Charlottesville, Virginia.

On Aug. 11, in the quiet town of Charlottesville, what started as a peaceful protest turned violent over the removal of a statue of confederate general Robert E. Lee. White nationalists came to protest the statue’s removal, while they were met with counter protesters, some of them being masked ANTIFA (anti-fascist) members.

The day ended in tragedy, with the death of one and injury of 19 others at the hands of a right-wing extremist drove his car into a crowd. Two police officers would also lose their lives at the rally when their helicopter crashed while attempting to give assistance to other officers.

Since that day, conservative groups have planned protests across the country, even in states like California, which is known for its liberal tendencies. There were three protest rallies planned in southern California this past weekend; one in front of Google headquarters in Venice, protesting the firing of James DeMoore, one in Huntington Beach, which was to be a book burning of leftist literature, and a third in Laguna Beach, being the vigil spearheaded by AmericaFirst!

Of the three events, the only one not cancelled was the latter of the three.

“I’m from here, and it’s sad to see events like this happening,” said Jody, a counter protester who came with a couple friends holding signs. She was one of about 2,500 counter protesters who came out against the small band of conservative supporters. According to AmericaFirst!’s Facebook event page, only 125 people showed up to support the vigil.

On Saturday, the day before the AmericaFirst! vigil, left wing groups Indivisible OC46 and Indivisible OC48 organized a counter rally that was comprised of around 350 people who were demonstrating against the AmericaFirst! Rally. These groups did this to avoid confrontation with AmericaFirst! But even so that didn’t stop people from attending the rally on Sunday.

Although they are criticized for being “racist” or “fascist”, AmericaFirst! doesn’t consider themselves anything of the sort. As they like to point out, not only is Benitez originally from Columbia, but they also have members of different ethnic groups as well, including Latinos and a few African Americans and Asians.

“I’ve never had any issues with them,” said a right-wing supporter named Hanzel, a Filipino who showed up in support of the vigil. Yet that didn’t stop the appearance of a few neo-Nazis from showing up to support the conservative cause; they are a presence that has been known to stalk events such as this. “I hate when they come out.” Hanzel said.
As the sun fell into the horizon and clouds began to obscure the darkening sky, the police made a clear division from the area where the vigil was to take place, keeping the counter protesters at bay.

Around the outskirts of the vigil were scattered members of AmericaFirst! and the Proud Boys, members of a right-wing group created by ex-Vice media founder Gavin McInnes, all engaged in heated debates/shouting matches by virtually everyone around them. Although grossly outnumbered, none of them backed down from their views.

By the end of the night, police had arrested three people and one 12-old boy claimed he had gotten pepper sprayed. At one point, horse mounted officers had to disperse counter protesters who began to crowd into the street who were blocking traffic. The SWAT team was called in, issuing via loudspeaker that if people didn’t disperse, they would be arrested. Eventually everything would calm down, returning the night to silence. Yet both sides knew this was far from over.

“Love will always win” Jody said as she and the crowds dissipated into the night.

By the end of the night, police had arrested three people, and one 12-year-old boy claimed he had gotten pepper sprayed.

NAFTA partners agree to accelerate talks

by the El Reportero’s wire services

Anti-US rhetoric predicted to accompany Mexico’s presidential election campaign

Five days of trade talks wrapped up Sunday with a commitment by all three NAFTA partners to accelerate the process in the coming months.

An early finish to negotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement will benefit Mexico, which would prefer to see it done before campaigning begins for next year’s presidential election.

In a joint press release on Sunday, representatives of Mexico, the United States and Canada said last week’s meetings covered more than two dozen different negotiating topics.
“Negotiators from each country will continue domestic consultations and work to advance negotiating text through the end of August, and will reconvene in Mexico for a second round of talks from Sept. 1-5,” the statement said.

The three parties have agreed that negotiations will continue “at a rapid pace,” moving to Canada in late September and returning to the U.S. in October. Additional rounds are being planned for the remainder of the year.

Mexico Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo said the idea is to conclude the negotiations at the end of the year or in early 2018 before election campaigns begin for the Mexican presidency and U.S. Congress.

According to a Canadian analyst, accelerating the talks has turned the process around, putting the tougher issues on the table — including automobiles and rules of origin — first rather than waiting till the end.

That, says public policy analyst Meredith Lilly, is a sign that “the Americans realize that they could be put in a [difficult] position because of the Mexican calendar.”

That calendar means anti-U.S. political posturing could begin early in the new year as parties and candidates come out hard against U.S. President Donald Trump as an election tactic, said Lilly.

But an unnamed source told Reuters the schedule was exceedingly fast, given that past trade deals took years to negotiate.

One of the stickier issues in the talks will be rules of origin for the automotive industry. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has made it clear that strengthening those rules was a priority. They are also the main factor behind U.S. trade deficits, an issue deemed critical by President Trump.

Source: El Universal (sp), CBC (en), Reuters (en).

Differences emerge in trade negotiations

Neither Mexico nor Canada support changes to rules of origin in auto industry

Rules of origin in the automotive industry have emerged as the biggest sticking point among other differences between Mexico and the United States in talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

The United States is demanding higher U.S. content in auto manufacturing but Mexican Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo said he doesn’t support the implementation of specific national rules of origin into a renegotiated NAFTA.

His position is shared by Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chrystia Freeland.

In his opening statement, United States trade representative Robert Lighthizer said “Rules of origin, particularly on autos and auto parts, must require higher NAFTA content and substantial U.S. content. Country of origin should be verified, not deemed.”

However, automotive groups from all three countries are urging negotiators not to change rules of origin to avoid upsetting complex supply chains.

Industry sources say the U.S. also pushed for the establishment of a wage system in the manufacturing industry, an issue that had not previously been publicly raised by the U.S. government.

Both Mexico and Canada sought instead to formalize international wage mechanisms in the agreement such as those provided by the International Labor Organization (ILO).

The U.S. has also made it clear that it wants to restore what it perceives as an imbalance in the agreement with Lighthizer saying, “We need to assure that huge trade deficits do not continue.”

However, Mexican foreign trade undersecretary Juan Carlos Baker said, “I would strongly contest whether emphasizing trade deficits is the real metric for how our relationship should be measured” and both Mexico and Canada have argued that the deficit is due to a low U.S. domestic savings rate.

Another clash came on the issue of intellectual property. Mexico wants to grant eight years patent protection while the U.S. wants 12.

More differences are likely to arise with talks scheduled on a dispute settlement system for anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases. The U.S. wants to eliminate the system while Mexico and Canada want it maintained.

Mexico and the U.S. clashed earlier this year over subsidies and dumping in the sugar industry.

Guajardo played down any suggestion that NAFTA was wavering due to difficult issues or differences. He said that after two days of talks, progress has been made and that there are issues that have benefits for all parties.

Common ground has been found on not using currency manipulation to make markets more competitive and a desire to reduce Asian imports in the textile industry.

The first round of talks started in Washington on Wednesday and will run until Sunday. The second round is scheduled for Mexico in early September.

Source: El Universal (sp), Milenio (sp), Reuters (en).

US warns of violence in tourist destinations

Increased criminal activity, more homicides bring new travel alert

Crime increases in five Mexican states have triggered a new travel warning for Mexico by the United States Department of State, which offers a new caution about several tourist destinations.

The alert cites increased criminal activity in Baja California, Baja California Sur, Chiapas, Colima, Guerrero, Quintana Roo and Veracruz, warning U.S. citizens about gun battles between rival criminal organizations or with authorities on the streets and in public places during broad daylight.

Caution is urged in Baja California, including Tijuana, Rosarito, Ensenada, Tecate and Mexicali, particularly at night.

As with several other state-specific warnings, that for Baja California says most homicides appear to be targeted, criminal organization assassinations, but turf battles have resulted in violent crime in areas frequented by U.S. visitors.

The warning announced that U.S. government personnel are only allowed to travel on the Mexicali-Tijuana toll highway during daylight hours.

Criminal activity and violence remain an issue throughout Baja California Sur, said the State Department, which included Los Cabos and La Paz in its warning, making the same caution about violence in tourist areas.

In Chiapas, including Palenque and San Cristóbal de las Casas, U.S. officials must now remain in tourist areas and are not permitted to use public transportation.

Inter-city travel at night is prohibited for government personnel in Colima, as is traveling within 19 kilometers of the border with Michoacán and traveling on highway 110 between La Tecomaca and the Jalisco border.

Source: El Universal (sp), CBC (en), Reuters (en).

12,000 child porn sites identified in Mexico

by the El Reportero’s wire services

Mexico has been the world’s largest distributor and the second-largest producer of child pornography for at least half a decade, and a new report on the situation suggests nothing has changed.

The federal Congress called on state governments to strengthen their efforts against it after a report by the federal Attorney General’s office (PGR) revealed it had detected over 12,300 Mexican internet accounts that distribute photographs and videos of children being sexually abused.

According to data gathered by the Federal Police’s Center of Cybercrime against Minors, Veracruz is one of the states where the crime has noticeably increased in recent years, targeting girls aged between 11 and 15.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has estimated that there are 16,700 websites worldwide dedicated to distributing child pornography, and that 73% of the victims appear to be younger than 10 “in pictures that are increasingly graphic and violent.”

Congress has also asked the Veracruz government for a detailed report on the measures it has set in place to combat child pornography.

The governor himself, Miguel Ángel Yunes Linares, has been accused of links to a child pornography scandal in which businessman Jean Succar Kuri has already been convicted and sentenced in 2011 to 112 years in prison.

Journalist Lydia Cacho described the Cancún-based child exploitation and pornography network led by Succar in her 2005 book Los demonios del edén (The Demons of Eden), in which Yunes Linares is mentioned.

He has labeled the accusations as a part of a politically motivated “dirty war” against him.

While the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has stated that on a global scale organized crime is not involved in child pornography, the same might not be said for Mexico, where criminal organizations have been involved in human trafficking and linked to underage prostitution.

Estimates made early in the decade suggested that 20,000 children are victims of human trafficking for sexual exploitation annually in Mexico, and there was a high probability that some of them become part of the country’s large child pornography industry.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Mexico: Tragic results after ten years fighting drug trafficking

Ten years after the beginning of the war against drug trafficking in Mexico, results are tragic and alarming, said Erika Llanos, coordinator of Red Retoño to prevent organized crime.

She noted that the campaign has resulted in 160,000 deaths, 200,000 displaced people, 30,000 missing persons and countless attacks on human rights advocates and journalists.

Speaking at the 2nd Forum Security without War, she commented that the magnitude of the humanitarian crisis in the country can only be understood due to political corruption, impunity and lack of justice.

The only way that organized crime can be installed in a nation is through an alliance with the structures of the State, the police, judges, prosecutors, governors and officials at all levels, she stressed.

She pointed out that the assets confiscated from criminals should be given a social use to solve the great damage caused to families and society.

Llanos noted that in light of the State’s absence to search for missing people, relatives organize brigades to look for them, even if they find their bones, in an effort to find peace.

Mexico is living difficult times, she noted, because traffic not only involves drugs, but also migrants, children, girls and adolescents to exploit them sexually.

Muni Art launches the Art of Poetry contest in SF – Mexican artist asks for your vote

by the El Reportero’s news service

Now Muni urban transport users can enjoy the magic of art instead of seeing the usual commercials on the way to work or home. The buses will become galleries on the wheels.
This is what moved Mara Patricia Hernández, a local artist, and multimedia coordinator for the Mission Cultural Center, to enter the contest, and of course, to be among the five finalists to make her work part of the Muni project Art 2018.

For that she has worked tirelessly in the development of her work, which she hopes will be among the finalists, who are only eligible if they are from the SF Bay area.
The five artists with the most votes will each have their art displayed on Muni Buses from January to April of 2018 along with five short-listed poems, from local poets of the SF Bay Area.

This year, Muni Art 2018 seeks together with Poetry Society of America and Supervisor London Breed, for the first time to include local poetry.
The new element of poetry is a contribution of Poetry in Motion, a division of the poetry Society of America that places poetry in public transportation systems throughout the country.

A hundred buses will showcase this year’s theme, “The Art of Poetry in San Francisco,” where five pre-selected poems will be visually interpreted by this year’s winners.
This year more than 40 local artists competed for the five seats available. Ten finalists, selected by a local committee representing galleries, artists and arts institutions are now moving to a public vote.

In addition to having their art exhibited on buses, the artist receiving the most votes will receive $ 2,000 and each of the remaining four will receive $1,250.
The visual proposal of Hernández, a Mexican-American visual poet, creator of a multifaceted visual poetry, is based on a series of visual poems where the visual language is the essence; and verbal language works as a complement to the image.

She combines digital and traditional techniques, her attention to the form of a letter or the form of a word places the language and text in the tactile and metaphorical center of her work. Much of her visual poetry has been published and exhibited around the world.

Review the proposal and vote by visiting https://neighborland.com/ideas/sf-words-

Unfold until Monday, Aug. 28 at 6 p.m., the last day to vote.

The Bolivian film Dark Skull, among the favorites of Fenix ​​Awards

After winning achievements at festivals in Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Chile and Brazil, the Bolivian film Dark Skull or Viejo Calavera, is among the favorites in the fourth version of Fenix ​​Awards, local press reported today.

Dark Skull recognized with special mention of the jury of version 69 of the Locarno International Film Festival, obtained the bronze statuette for the best film at the International Film Festival of Cartagena de Indias, Colombia.

The film tells the story of Elder, a young man who has no responsibilities and his only option is to replace his late father in the mines of Huanuni, in the department of Oruro.

Some other pre-selected films for the event are April’s Daughter by Michel Franco (Mexico); The Distinguished Citizen by Mariano Cohn (Argentina-Spain), and Bad Influence by Claudia Huaiquimilla (Chile). TV series also compite in this international event, among them Red Eagle (Spain), Ingobernable (Mexico), Feriados (Uruguay) and Magnifica 70 (Brazil).
His discontent with such reality and the risks of extracting minerals will lead the protagonist through dark and painful ways.

Founded four years ago, the Ibero-American Fenix ​​Award recognizes and celebrates the work done by those who dedicate their lives to films in Latin America, Spain and Portugal.

Marijuana associated with three-fold risk of death from hypertension

by the European Society of Cardiology

Marijuana use is associated with a three-fold risk of death from hypertension, according to research published today in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.

“Steps are being taken towards legalization and decriminalization of marijuana in the United States, and rates of recreational marijuana use may increase substantially as a result,” said lead author Barbara A Yankey, a PhD student in the School of Public Health, Georgia State University, Atlanta, US. “However, there is little research on the impact of marijuana use on cardiovascular and cerebrovascular mortality.”

In the absence of longitudinal data on marijuana use, the researchers designed a retrospective follow-up study of NHANES (National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey) participants aged 20 years and above. In 2005-2006, participants were asked if they had ever used marijuana. Those who answered “yes” were considered marijuana users. Participants reported the age when they first tried marijuana and this was subtracted from their current age to calculate the duration of use.

Information on marijuana use was merged with mortality data in 2011 from the National Centre for Health Statistics. The researchers estimated the associations of marijuana use, and duration of use, with death from hypertension, heart disease, and cerebrovascular disease, controlling for cigarette use and demographic variables including sex, age, and ethnicity. Death from hypertension included multiple causes such as primary hypertension and hypertensive renal disease.

Among a total of 1,213 participants, 34 percent used neither marijuana nor cigarettes, 21 percent used only marijuana, 20 percent used marijuana and smoked cigarettes, 16 percent used marijuana and were past-smokers, 5 percent were past-smokers and 4 percent only smoked cigarettes. The average duration of marijuana use was 11.5 years.

Marijuana users had a higher risk of dying from hypertension. Compared to non-users, marijuana users had a 3.42-times higher risk of death from hypertension and a 1.04 greater risk for each year of use. There was no association between marijuana use and death from heart disease or cerebrovascular disease.

Ms Yankey said: “We found that marijuana users had a greater than three-fold risk of death from hypertension and the risk increased with each additional year of use.”

Ms Yankey pointed out that there were limitations to the way marijuana use was estimated. For example, it cannot be certain that participants used marijuana continuously since they first tried it.

She said: “Our results suggest a possible risk of hypertension mortality from marijuana use. This is not surprising since marijuana is known to have a number of effects on the cardiovascular system. Marijuana stimulates the sympathetic nervous system, leading to increases in heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen demand. Emergency rooms have reported cases of angina and heart attacks after marijuana use.”

The authors stated that the cardiovascular risk associated with marijuana use may be greater than the cardiovascular risk already established for cigarette smoking.

“We found higher estimated cardiovascular risks associated with marijuana use than cigarette smoking,” said Ms Yankey. “This indicates that marijuana use may carry even heavier consequences on the cardiovascular system than that already established for cigarette smoking. However, the number of smokers in our study was small and this needs to be examined in a larger study.”

“Needless to say, the detrimental effects of marijuana on brain function far exceed that of cigarette smoking,” she added.

Ms Yankey said it was crucial to understand the effects of marijuana on health so that policy makers and individuals could make informed decisions.

She said: “Support for liberal marijuana use is partly due to claims that it is beneficial and possibly not harmful to health. With the impending increase in recreational marijuana use it is important to establish whether any health benefits outweigh the potential health, social and economic risks. If marijuana use is implicated in cardiovascular diseases and deaths, then it rests on the health community and policy makers to protect the public.”

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