­by Emm­a Volonté
El Reportero corresp­ondent in México

Mexican campesinos vote in Chiapas. ­(PHOTO BY MOYSÉS SANTIAGO ZÚÑIGA)

Enrique Peña Nieto is the new president of Mexico. In the 1st July elections, the candidate of the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) won with around 38 percent of the vote, against 31 percent for progressive Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the PRD (Democratic Revolution Party). Peña Nieto left only 26 percent to Josefina Vazquez Mota, from the governing PAN (National Action Party), and 2.5 percent to Gabriel Quadri de la Torre from the New Alianza group.

In Mexico there is only one round in the presidential election: who gets more votes wins. The president’s term is of six years and he cannot run again. The election day has developed normally, although there were several complaints of irregularities in a context where, according to a survey released a few days before the election, 71 percent of the voters believed that there could be fraud.

The Institutional Revolutionary Party is a conservative group, born from the ashes of the Mexican Revolution, who ruled from 1929 to 2000. It was over seventy years of cronyism, corruption and impunity, which did not end when the PRI was forced to cede power to the PAN, an even more conservative party.

In the 2006 presidential elections, the centerleft leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who had obtained only 250 000 votes less than Felipe Calderon accused the right-wing of election fraud, and along with his supporters he occupied the downtown Mexico City for three months.

According to analysts, the decision of Felipe Calderon – shortly after his election – to start the so-called “drug war” was just a demonstration of strength to his progressive opponent.

Mexican voters wanted to close twelve years of PAN government, exasperated by the drug war (which in six years has killed nearly 60,000 people), the economic crisis (the Mexican economy is 14th biggest in the world, but its GDP went from 6.9 percent in the period 1950-1982 to 1.97 percent today) and inequalities in the country (Mexico produces the world’s richest man, Carlos Slim, and at the same Mexico is the country with more migrants to the world). Mexicans have removed the PAN by choosing the alternative promoted by the media: according to research from the prestigious British newspaper The Guardian, from 2005 the PRI has paid the network Televisa to promote their candidate and to discredit the opponent Lopez Obrador. The student movement I Am132 was born last May to expose the media manipulation by the Televisa-TV Azteca television duopoly.

It was created as “anti-PeñaNieto” and finally stated to be nonpartisan. With his appearance on stage at last month’s election campaign, the student movement has been an obstacle to the triumph of the PRI candidate- which according to early polls was over Lopez ­Obrador by twenty points – and has reopened the campaign.

Enrique Peña Nieto was the controversial governor of Mexico State, a body located in the center of the Republic of Mexico. The most obvious failure of his term as governor was recorded in 2006 in the town of San Salvador Atenco, when a police operation against people who resisted the construction of an airport caused – according to official figures – 2 dead, 201 arrested and 23 allegations of rape by law enforcement.

Another element that creates pessimism among human rights defenders on the future mandate of Peña Nieto is the inclusion of the Colombian General Oscar Naranjo Trujillo in the ranks of his foreign advisers on security. Naranjo, who was Director of the National Police of Colombia during Uribe’s administration is accused of being one of the leaders of Operation Phoenix – namely the bombing occurred in 2008 by the Colombian army, to a FARC camp in Ecuadorian territory that killed four Mexican citizens – and to have strong relationships with drug-trafficking (for example, in 2006 his brother was arrested for cocaine trafficking in Germany).

“With organized crime there will be no agreement or truce. The fight against crime will continue, with a new strategy to reduce violence and protect, above all, the lives of the Mexicans”, said Peña Nieto, without specifying what kind of strategy he will use against drug cartels or whether he will withdraw the army that occupies much of the country’s streets. In economic policy, Peña Nieto will undoubtedly promote neoliberal capitalism and dependent on exports, which will create debt. It provides a plan of privatization of public companies, notably Pemex, the state company that has a monopoly on oil.

Regarding foreign policy, Mexico will continue watching from afar the Latin American integration process driven by the progressive governments of the region, which is strengthening its sovereignty, and will align with the countries of the Pacific Alliance, the most faithful allies of the United States in Latin America: Colombia, Chile and Peru.

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­por Ethan A. Huff
Natural News

If you have ever wondered why junk food is almost always artificially cheap compared to healthy food, you need look no further than federal agriculture policy. Little do most people know that the federal government funnels billions of taxpayer dollars via the “Farm Bill” into large-scale crop systems that primarily grow genetically-modified (GM) soy, corn, cotton and other commodity crops used throughout the highly-processed, industrial food supply.

Every five years, Congress reviews the guidelines of the existing Farm Bill, and comes up with new ways to allocate the nearly-trillion dollar sum typically apportioned for American agriculture programs. And since existing Farm Bill provisions are set to expire on September 30, 2012, the Obama enti-administration is currently pushing Congress to pass a revised Farm Bill known as the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2012.

Hailed as encompassing “the most significant reforms in agricultural policy in decades,” the 2012 Farm Bill will allegedly end direct payments to farmers, end farm payments to individuals and entities whose gross income exceeds $750,000 per year, and consolidate risk management programs, among other things. But many of the provisions of the new bill still favor large-scale producers of mostly commodity crops at the expense of small-scale farmers, who receive little, if any, financial incentives or benefits.

“Every five years or so, Congress promises a new, improved farm bill that will end unnecessary subsidies to big farmers, enhance the environment and actually do something to help small farmers and small towns,” writes Robert B. Semple Jr. from The New York Times (NYT). “But what it usually does is find ways of disguising the old inequities, sending taxpayers (sic) dollars to wealthy farmers, accelerating the expansion of industrial farming, inflating land prices and further depopulating rural America.”

Direct payments, for instance, is a program that, since 1996, has been doling out payments to farmers for commodity crops regardless of market value or production levels. According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG) and others, these payments have been given to farmers regardless of need.

The government has also been providing insurance subsidies to farmers who grow commodity crops such as corn, wheat, soybeans, cotton, rice, and canola, which not only causes more farmers to grow these crops, but also puts these farmers at an unfair, competitive advantage compared to farmers who grow various other crops.

This year’s Farm Bill, the Senate version of which was passed on June 21, is not really all that different from previous Farm Bills, as it still subsidizes industrial crops at the expense of non-industrial crops. This means that an organic farmer producing non-commodity crops like carrots, sweet potatoes, and beets, for instance, will not receive nearly the benefits nor the incentives that an industrial grower of GM corn will receive.

To make matters worse, large-scale growers in general are also given preferential treatment over small-scale growers, including smallscale farmers growing commodity crops. According to data collected by NYT, the top 20 percent of farm subsidy recipients between 1995 and 2010 received 90 percent of the overall allotment of subsidies, while the remaining 80 percent collectively received the remaining paltry 10 percent. These and other inequities in the federal agriculture policy are what keeps America’s food system both unhealthy and dominated by corporate, agricultural interests with no regard for human health. And they are the very inequities that groups like EWG are calling on Congress to address in this year’s farm bill.

In other related news: Support ‘local farms, food and jobs act’ to help decentralize food system Federal food policies that distribute billions of taxpayer dollars every year to subsidize the growth of ­commodity crops like genetically-modified (GM) corn and soy are largely responsible for the dismal state of food quality and health in our nation today.

But Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Oh.) have introduced a new bill known as the Local Farms, Food and Jobs Act that would help decentralize the food system and promote diversified, small-scale farming operations capable of meeting the growing demand for clean, fresh, local foods.

At least $12 billion a year is currently allocated to subsidize industrial-scale agriculture systems like pesticide-ridden GM crop mega-farms, and concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) that hold tens of thousands of animals in filth. Meanwhile, only about $100 million a year is allocated to support local food programs that grow and distribute fresh, clean food.

But all this can change with the passage of the Local Farms, Food and Jobs Act, which will provision more money from the Farm Bill for small-scale, organic farmers, and help bring more clean, local food into public school lunchrooms.

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by the El Reportero news services

Enrique Peña Nieto

­México, 2 jul (PL) The presidential candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary parties (PRI) and Green Ecologist (PMVE), Enrique Peña Nieto, proclaimed his triumph in the Mexican elections.

However, according to Latin News, PRI returns to power but falls short of congressional majority.

“The Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) is back after a 12-year hiatus. The party that had a stranglehold on federal power in Mexico for 71 years will once more inhabit Los Pinos from 1 December after Enrique Peña Nieto won a tighter-than-predicted contest on 1 July.”

Preliminary results strongly suggest that the PRI failed to secure a coveted congressional majority, however, which could complicate Peña Nieto’s proposed reform agenda. The party made some gains in the state gubernatorial elections but it also received some setbacks, reported Latin News.

The president of Guatemala, Otto Pérez Molina, confirmed to have congratulated by telephone to Peña Nieto for having won the elections in Mexico.

Pérez Molina talked to Pérez Nieto the night on Sunday when the surveys at the ballot boxex showed him as the winner, with which the candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary and Green Ecologist parties will be president in the neighboring country.

According to the Guatemalan president, he said to Peña Nieto his government interest in continuing working closely with Mexico and invited him to carry out a visit to this nation.

Yo Soy 132 movement does not recognize virtual Mexican President

The Mexican student movement #Yo Soy 132 unanimously approved not recognizing the stated results of the July 1 elections, which gave the victory to Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) candidate Enrique Peña Nieto, said Mexican press today.

Yo Soy 132 pointed out that there had been “a process to impose candidate Enrique Peña Nieto” as President of the Republic.

In its Fifth Inter-University Assembly, the students denounced the process as plagued with presumed irregularities, among them the lack of media equity, the polling surveys – regarded as tricky – and the purchase and co-opting of votes during the elections, said Foro TV.

The movement decided to congregate indefinitely in front of the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), to protest the partial electoral results.

Televisa and TVAzteca can do whatever they want and for six years they’ve been telling the people ‘this guy will be your president,’ and then they put in Felipe Calderon,” said Juan Carlos Sanchez, from the UNAM School of Political and Social Sciences.

­But in 2012, people are no longer going to swallow such an imposition, he added, assuring that in Sunday’s election “people were bribed and bused to the vote, and that votes were bought,also people were threatened, these things happen here.”

For his part, Enrique Peña Nieto told Televisa he was sure the vote recount will confirm the edge he was given in preliminary results.

Dominican president asks new international order

The Dominican Republic’s President, Leonel Fernandez advocated a new international financial order today at the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), capable of putting an end to the speculation linked to food price volatility. That phenomenon joins the crisis of sovereign debt and bank in the Eurozone, Fernandez said at FAO headquarters.

(Latin News and Prensa Latina contributed to this report).

by Alex Newman
The New American

As Americans celebrate Independence Day this Fourth of July with barbeques and fireworks, more than a few patriots and lovers of liberty are instead mourning the steady loss of freedom; the erosion of unalienable rights that seem to be trampled upon more and more after each election. But despite the current climate — perfectly illustrated by the never-ending series of “Homeland Security” reports characterizing the beliefs of America’s Founding Fathers as potentially terroristic — optimism about the future of freedom and American independence is growing as well.

On July 4, 1776, the Founding Fathers officially adopted the Declaration of Independence, written mostly by a passionate lover of liberty named Thomas Jefferson. In the document, those original American patriots outlined a series of bold and timeless statements that still reverberate around the world to this day: the idea that the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” entitle all people to take charge of their own futures — including, if necessary, by invoking the right and duty to “alter or abolish” any form of government that becomes a threat to individual rights.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” explains the Declaration, outlining a series of principles that led oppressed colonists to take up arms against the greatest super power in the world — values that have formed the foundation of America’s unique constitutional republic since its founding. “That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

But this Independence Day, amid national celebrations, analysts and concerned citizens are warning that those timeless truths are increasingly under threat in America — and not from King George III or his royal successors.

“Individual liberty, secured by limited government: that is its essence. Too often today, however, government is not serving liberty but is at war with it, telling us that it knows best, that it will decide for us,” observed Roger Pilon, director of the libertarian Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies. “As we celebrate our independence today, let’s keep in mind that we’re celebrating our independence from overweening government — British or American.”

Others worry that the current federal government is actually at odds with the concept of independence itself. “Today, powerful elites in Washington, D.C. are bent on recasting America in a way that would make July 4th more accurately called Dependence Day,” opinedAmerican Civil Rights Union (ACRU) chief Susan Carleson. “Many Americans are being tempted by the siren song of reliance upon government — but thankfully, we are seeing many more bent on resisting this dangerous idea and reversing it.”

Even more alarming, perhaps, are recent developments within the U.S. government’s so-called “security” apparatus. A federal study on terrorism released this year and publicly exposed earlier this week by the alternative media, for example, identified “extreme right-wing” terror suspects as individuals who are “suspicious of centralized federal authority” or “reverent of individual liberty.”

Other potential terrorists include people who “believe in conspiracy theories that involve grave threat to national sovereignty and/or personal liberty,” or those who believe their “way of life” is under attack and are preparing with “survivalism.” Pro-lifers and Americans who are “fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation)” were also included.

If those traits sound suspiciously like the beliefs held by the Founding Fathers and outlined in the Declaration of Independence, that is because the brave Americans who stood up to the British Crown more than two centuries ago would have fit the federal government’s wild characterizations almost perfectly. In fact, some of the very same grievances against the King listed in the Declaration are again being imposed on Americans — the main difference is that now, the abuses and violations are mostly coming from Washington, D.C., in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution.

“We understand that a lot is happening in our beloved America, and that she is in distress, but we must concentrate on the fix for what ails her. The cause of this malady is Marxism, political correctness and progressivism and all the evil that comes with it,” noted Save America Foundation President Fred Brownbill in a piece celebrating American independence. “The cure is the Constitution, probably the most incredible document ever written by the hand of man. We may not be the land of the free right now, but we are still the land of the brave and from that bravery, freedom will once more return.”

Other activist leaders, while also recognizing the dire straits American liberty currently finds itself in, were hopeful about the future as well. “Although our country is currently experiencing economic uncertainty, among other problems, the underpinnings of the American spirit remain. On the whole we are still a people who believe that inalienable rights are God-given, not a matter of government grace, and that hard work, self-reliance, and determination can bring about the realization of dreams, regardless of the obstacles our government places in our way,” explained Edward White, senior counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ).

“We are truly a unique nation, born with reliance upon God’s protection and upon sound values,” he concluded. “Consequently, we should be optimistic about our future no matter the hurdles we are now facing.”

Indeed, as the perpetual unconstitutional expansion of federal power becomes increasingly obvious and destructive, Americans from across the political spectrum are taking action to stop it.

And with elections coming ­soon and a new wave of liberty-minded activists and candidates getting involved to save the Constitution, there is certainly cause for optimism. Cautious optimism, perhaps. But without a doubt, the future could still be very bright — at least if enough Americans stand up for the principles so masterfully laid out in America’s Declaration of Independence some 236 years ago. For now, after enjoying the fireworks, a good place to start might be reading the document itself.