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Claire Dunn and her sensory art: “I study the relationship between the body and the world”

The Argentine artist has lived in SF since 2021. Her childhood between Buenos Aires and Córdoba, the union between psychology and art, the trip to England – which changed her life – have been the factors to inject an innovative style into her art, and which allows you to develop contact with the City

by Jonathan Raed

Friday April 5, 2024

Claire Dunn was born in Buenos Aires 28 years ago in Pilar, a town located in the urban cordon that surrounds the Federal Capital, although it is part of the urban area, it is characterized by being far from the noisy dynamics of the capital, without a doubt it is an ideal place for a sensitive person looking to connect with themselves; and that is where she -Claire- lived during her first years, accompanied by her parents and her brother.

Claire mentions that her and her family’s names are not common in an Argentine family and it is because her grandfather Denis was of English origin and also because her grandmother Margaret was an artist, with whom she has spent a lot of time making art in Cordoba Argentina. She adds “My parents gave us names that they liked how they sounded with the last name” and when she was little she didn’t like having a different name, but over time she knew that it could help her be identified as a unique rhythm artist.

Silvia Fiori was his art teacher at school and also his professional mentor. She indicates that in addition to teaching him all the drawing and painting techniques, “she was an angel for me,” because he was going through an identity crisis and she accompanied him to self-study. discover yourself through art.

Claire studied psychology at the University of Salvador (BA) and thanks to that she obtained an exchange scholarship to England where she stayed for almost a year; place where she found part of the inspiration for her artistic practice, since at only 22 years old she was able to hitchhike, walk and by bus until she knew each other “intimately.”

That contact with the world was essential for her artistic expressions. As happened with psychology, she considers that both disciplines are closely related and that fascinates her, since she can study this connection. She did so in her psychology thesis, where she delved into that link by working with many artists to conclude that “art can be a way to mental health.”

In 2021, she arrived in the United States, in order to pursue a master’s degree in art in San Francisco. “I wanted to understand and connect with the place, the trees and the people who live here, so I did it by walking many hours around the city. Talking to many strangers along the way and asking questions. To this end, there is a quote by Rebecca Solnit that says: ‘Walking is the only way to compare the rhythm of the body with the rhythm of the earth.’

In that sense, she considers that each place has a constellation of conditions, which create and affect the experience of life, with the codes of the place being those that remain imprinted on the human being. It is even said that “climatic conditions influenced the beginning of different religions in the world.”

Claire’s art is unique, it does not have much background and the streets of San Francisco were key to its development. She narrates that on each walk she picked up tree bark and fallen leaves on the sidewalk that caught her attention. And when she returned to her studio, without a final goal, she sewed, embroidered and joined the barks that she had collected, creating different shapes, and at the same time “processing everything she experienced during the day.” This process became a “meditative” practice.

Over time, the barks became sculptures, to show “a dialogue between me and my surroundings.” Then, she began picking up discarded human-made objects; trash. Objects that inspired her. And so, her practice completely transformed to: “exploring the world of sculpture with found objects,” she indicated. However, Claire’s work is interdisciplinary, ranging from sculpture and painting to experimental photography, immersive installations and invented tools. She adds that in everything she seeks to “connect my body to my location, focusing on the unique qualities of each place” and thanks to sensory research she manages to study the relationship between the body and the world.

Dunn has exhibited her work in Argentina and the US, in venues such as the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, the Berkeley Art Center, the Minnesota Street Project, the Palo Alto Art Center and the Argentine Embassy in Washington DC . Likewise, she has been a resident artist at La Flecha del Arte in Argentina, and has managed to win the Monson Arts Abbott Watts Residency Award in Maine and the Recology AIR in San Francisco.

Claire puts everything of herself into her works, even her own DNA: “These days I am working a lot on my photograms,” “combining my analog macro-photographic documentation of objects found in the forest with my own DNA (extracted from my hair and saliva); in addition to other elements such as broken mirrors that have my fingerprints, to create abstract and dynamic drawings with different tools such as sandpaper, and nails,” she explained.

With the warmth that characterizes her, Claire indicates that her art is about “molded skins from different trees; I lift them from the ground and I find that each bark has memory, “because she considers that each tree is a being with personality and its skins fall off without being noticed, and for that reason she lifts them and gives them life again.”

Dunn not only has her own style, but also her own tools. “When I paint, I do it with hand-carved tools that I created from sticks that I also picked up from the floor; generally, from the tree called Redwood. Each piece has the latitude and longitude where it was found, and the year carved. It’s a feeling of mapping how I move in space. “I also explore other ways of moving my hand and using tools,” she described.

Finally, she talked about her future. “I learned how to curate exhibitions. I love asking questions, opening dialogue with other artists and having them respond in her own way, with her art or perhaps adding more questions. That’s what it’s about because collaborating with people is also something that fascinates me. My dream is to be able to continue traveling, see the world and continue making art, meeting incredible people along the way,” she concluded.

Claire Dunn and her sensory art: “I study the relationship between the body and the world.”

The Argentine artist has lived in SF since 2021. Her childhood between Buenos Aires and Córdoba, the union between psychology and art, the trip to England – which changed her life – have been the factors to inject an innovative style into her art, and which allows you to develop contact with the City

by Jonathan Raed

Claire Dunn was born in Buenos Aires 28 years ago in Pilar, a town located in the urban cordon that surrounds the Federal Capital, although it is part of the urban area, it is characterized by being far from the noisy dynamics of the capital, without a doubt it is an ideal place for a sensitive person looking to connect with themselves; and that is where she -Claire- lived during her first years, accompanied by her parents and her brother.

Claire mentions that her and her family’s names are not common in an Argentine family and it is because her grandfather Denis was of English origin and also because her grandmother Margaret was an artist, with whom she has spent a lot of time making art in Cordoba Argentina. She adds “My parents gave us names that they liked how they sounded with the last name” and when she was little she didn’t like having a different name, but over time she knew that it could help her be identified as a unique rhythm artist.

Silvia Fiori was his art teacher at school and also his professional mentor. She indicates that in addition to teaching him all the drawing and painting techniques, “she was an angel for me,” because he was going through an identity crisis and she accompanied him to self-study. discover yourself through art.

Claire studied psychology at the University of Salvador (BA) and thanks to that she obtained an exchange scholarship to England where she stayed for almost a year; place where she found part of the inspiration for her artistic practice, since at only 22 years old she was able to hitchhike, walk and by bus until she knew each other “intimately.”

That contact with the world was essential for her artistic expressions. As happened with psychology, she considers that both disciplines are closely related and that fascinates her, since she can study this connection. She did so in her psychology thesis, where she delved into that link by working with many artists to conclude that “art can be a way to mental health.”

In 2021, she arrived in the United States, in order to pursue a master’s degree in art in San Francisco. “I wanted to understand and connect with the place, the trees and the people who live here, so I did it by walking many hours around the city. Talking to many strangers along the way and asking questions. To this end, there is a quote by Rebecca Solnit that says: ‘Walking is the only way to compare the rhythm of the body with the rhythm of the earth.’

In that sense, she considers that each place has a constellation of conditions, which create and affect the experience of life, with the codes of the place being those that remain imprinted on the human being. It is even said that “climatic conditions influenced the beginning of different religions in the world.”

Claire’s art is unique, it does not have much background and the streets of San Francisco were key to its development. She narrates that on each walk she picked up tree bark and fallen leaves on the sidewalk that caught her attention. And when she returned to her studio, without a final goal, she sewed, embroidered and joined the barks that she had collected, creating different shapes, and at the same time “processing everything she experienced during the day.” This process became a “meditative” practice.

Over time, the barks became sculptures, to show “a dialogue between me and my surroundings.” Then, she began picking up discarded human-made objects; trash. Objects that inspired her. And so, her practice completely transformed to: “exploring the world of sculpture with found objects,” she indicated. However, Claire’s work is interdisciplinary, ranging from sculpture and painting to experimental photography, immersive installations and invented tools. She adds that in everything she seeks to “connect my body to my location, focusing on the unique qualities of each place” and thanks to sensory research she manages to study the relationship between the body and the world.

Dunn has exhibited her work in Argentina and the US, in venues such as the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, the Berkeley Art Center, the Minnesota Street Project, the Palo Alto Art Center and the Argentine Embassy in Washington DC . Likewise, she has been a resident artist at La Flecha del Arte in Argentina, and has managed to win the Monson Arts Abbott Watts Residency Award in Maine and the Recology AIR in San Francisco.

Claire puts everything of herself into her works, even her own DNA: “These days I am working a lot on my photograms,” “combining my analog macro-photographic documentation of objects found in the forest with my own DNA (extracted from my hair and saliva); in addition to other elements such as broken mirrors that have my fingerprints, to create abstract and dynamic drawings with different tools such as sandpaper, and nails,” she explained.

With the warmth that characterizes her, Claire indicates that her art is about “molded skins from different trees; I lift them from the ground and I find that each bark has memory, “because she considers that each tree is a being with personality and its skins fall off without being noticed, and for that reason she lifts them and gives them life again.”

Dunn not only has her own style, but also her own tools. “When I paint, I do it with hand-carved tools that I created from sticks that I also picked up from the floor; generally, from the tree called Redwood. Each piece has the latitude and longitude where it was found, and the year carved. It’s a feeling of mapping how I move in space. “I also explore other ways of moving my hand and using tools,” she described.

Finally, she talked about her future. “I learned how to curate exhibitions. I love asking questions, opening dialogue with other artists and having them respond in her own way, with her art or perhaps adding more questions. That’s what it’s about because collaborating with people is also something that fascinates me. My dream is to be able to continue traveling, see the world and continue making art, meeting incredible people along the way,” she concluded.

Peso ‘eclipses’ US dollar, trades at 16.30

by the El Reportero‘s wire service

The Mexican peso continued its hot streak on Monday, appreciating to its strongest level against the dollar in almost nine years.

After strengthening on Friday to close at 16.46 to the greenback, the peso appreciated around 1 percent to reach 16.30 to the dollar on Monday, its strongest position since August 2015.

The currency subsequently weakened slightly to close at 16.33, according to the Bank of Mexico.

Asserting that the Mexican peso had “eclipsed” the US dollar on a day on which the moon totally obscured the view of the sun from parts of North America, the El Financiero newspaper reported that the peso was the world’s best-performing emerging market currency in Monday trading.

Gabriela Siller, director of economic analysis at Mexican bank Banco Base, said on the X social media platform that the appreciation of the peso was due to three factors.

She cited the inflow to Mexico of foreign currencies from exports, remittances and direct foreign investment (FDI); the “expectation” that the wide gap between interest rates in Mexico and the United States “will attract capital to Mexico”; and the “expectation” that nearshoring “will attract waves of dollars” to Mexico due to an increase in FDI and exports.

The peso also got a boost from a general weakening of the dollar, as shown by a slight decline on the DXY index, which measures the value of the greenback against a basket of foreign currencies.

The peso has benefited for an extended period from the difference between the Bank of Mexico’s key interest rate — currently set at 11 percent after a 25-basis-point cut last month — and the 5.25 percent-5.5 percent rate of the United States Federal Reserve. The March 21 decision by the Bank of Mexico board to reduce rates hasn’t had an adverse impact on the peso despite a narrowing of that gap.

In fact, the peso has appreciated around 2.5 percent since the interest cut was made. Compared to the beginning of last year when one dollar was buying around 19.5 pesos, the gain for Mexico’s currency is almost 20 percent.

With inflation still above the Bank of Mexico’s 3 percent target, interest rates are expected to remain high in Mexico for some time. Inflation data for the entire month of March will be published later this week.

With reports from El Financiero, El Informador, El País and Aristegui Noticias

Crisis between Mexico and Ecuador debated by Celac foreign ministers

The regional organization chaired pro tempore by the Head of State of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, seeks to take action after the recent forced entry of Ecuadorian security forces into the facilities of the Mexican embassy in Quito to arrest the former vice president. Jorge Glas.

Given the lack of respect for international conventions that stipulate the inviolability of diplomatic headquarters and recognize the right of asylum, Castro will call the Summit of Presidents scheduled for April 12.

The call includes requiring the government of Ecuador to rectify the events that occurred in flagrant violation of the Vienna Convention regarding diplomatic relations and the Caracas Convention on asylum, as well as redirecting the appropriate procedure of said regulations in the case. of the request made by former Vice President Glas.

On behalf of Mexico, Foreign Minister Alicia Bárcena will formalize the establishment of a lawsuit before the International Court of The Hague and advocates for the support of her counterparts in the Celac countries, in addition to sending a letter to the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, to be presented to the UN, the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly.

In this sense, Celac will promote dialogue as a means of solution to restore diplomatic ties between Mexico and Ecuador and, if this is not possible, assume political positions whether jointly, bilaterally, or in multilateral organizations, for its entirety. compliance.

Banning cellphones at school brings positive changes for students

by Mark Richardson

Separating high school students from their cellphones might be seen as a daunting task but one California school said having students stash them during the school day has brought some surprising results.

Administrators at High Tech High in San Diego said fostering a phone-free school environment led to positive change. Starting this school year, High Tech High required students to relinquish their phones at the beginning of the day.

Colleen Glass, compliance officer for the school, said tracking student perceptions and observing the impact of cellphones on the learning culture provides a compelling case study.

“Where before, they were sitting in those spaces and kind of ‘heads down’ into their technology, they’re now sitting in those spaces and having conversations,” Glass explained. “There’s a lot more engagement and conversation in class, because students are talking to each other and they’re not listening to their AirPods.”

Across the country, more than three-quarters of K-12 public schools prohibit nonacademic cellphone use, according to a report from the 2021-2022 school year. But only 43 percent of public high schools have such a rule and it is often not enforced.

Doug Keller, partnerships lead for the nonprofit Youth Truth, said it has been tracking students’ experiences over the past decade in such areas as engagement, relationships, culture, academic challenges and their overall sense of belonging. He noted once the phones were gone from classes, the majority of students showed improvement in several areas.

“When they implemented the policy, we saw a sharp jump upward,” Keller reported. “We saw growth, students feeling a stronger sense of belonging at their school because of this new policy, after seeing a decline that matched the decline that we have anecdotally seen elsewhere.”

Keller added Youth Truth surveyed students to measure the “intersection of student voice, school improvement and key indicators of the student experience.” It also includes areas like peer collaboration and relationships with their teachers. He emphasized they will continue the study in future years.

The REAL Solution to the UN Madness

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR:

The content of this article, authored by journalist James Corbett, does not reflect the view and opinion of El Reportero and its staff. It is published for entertainment and to explore diverse ideas. – Marvin Ramírez.

by Corbett |

Apr 7, 2024 – You’ll never guess what just happened. Politico published an article about a real solution!

Yes, an honest-to-goodness solution!

Shocking, isn’t it?

Even more shocking: it’s a solution that details how we can free ourselves from the clutches of the UN!

And the most shocking thing of all: this proposed solution isn’t a “don’t throw us in the briar patch” trick to get the public to back some alternative plan for global enslavement. It’s a solution that attacks the root of the problem and, by extension, threatens the globalist agenda itself.

Now, let’s not get carried away here. Naturally, the establishment lapdogs over at Politico have only reported on this solution in order to disparage the idea and those who are forwarding it. But still, to see an actual solution being discussed on a dinosaur media platform at all is itself an amazing development.

So, what on earth is going on here? Let’s put on our reading glasses and take a look.

If you exclusively follow mainstream news and establishment propaganda, you might have heard of the Paris Agreement, the accord adopted at the UN’s annual “Conference of the Parties” climate talks in Paris in 2015. And, if you do exclusively follow those sources of misinformation, then you’ll have some vague, woolly-headed idea that the Paris Agreement is a magical parchment that will—through some mystical process you can’t quite explain—placate the weather gods enough to limit future global temperature increases to 1.5°C (2.7°F).

If, however, you are a dedicated Corbett Reporteer, then you’ll know that:

But, like it or not, unless you happen to be a resident of Iran, Libya or Yemen—the only three nation-states on the planet that have not ratified this net zero death pledge—you are subject to this agreement.

Enter Trump. Back in 2017, Trump announced Washington’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. However, by a strange coincidence, the earliest date that the US could actually withdraw from the treaty was November 4, 2020, the day after the American presidential (s)election. And, as we all know, Sleepy Uncle Joe won the (s)election and promptly signed up the US to rejoin the agreement.

So, what lessons can we learn from this ordeal? Given the fact that this on-again, off-again withdrawal charade accomplished precisely nothing, how can we ensure that a subsequent withdrawal attempt actually works?

Well, we could choose to believe that the Orange Man is our MAGA saviour and, in order to end all climate nonsense forever, Americans will just have to vote even harder in 2024!

. . . But that is an aggressively stupid take, one which fundamentally misunderstands the reality of the situation and thus arrives at a “solution” that is no solution at all. Even if you believe Trump is actually against the globalists—which / is, needless / to / say, an / easily / demonstrable / lie—then the only thing that the US’ failed Paris withdrawal demonstrates is that what can be arbitrarily struck down by one president can be arbitrarily resurrected by another.

Imagine a universe in which the voting machines had declared Trump the winner in 2020 and the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement had stuck. Americans would be in the exact same boat today that they were then: hoping that Trump’s appointed successor wins the next (s)election in order to keep the US out of Paris.

No, leaving the United States’—or any other country’s—participation in the climate scam up to the caprice of a would-be ruler’s whims is no solution at all.

So, how can the US exit Paris for good?

Enter Político.

Earlier this month, the Washington propaganda rag published an article on “How Trump could exit Paris—and make it stick,” which purports to reveal a new idea cooked up by “prominent conservatives”:

The idea, included in a 920-page policy report, is to pull the United States out of the 1992 treaty that underpins the Paris deal, known as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. That would be a serious step beyond what Trump did during his first term, when he exited the Paris Agreement but continued sending delegations to the annual UN climate talks.

While a president can unilaterally reenter the Paris deal (as President Joe Biden did), rejoining the underlying convention could require a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate — a tall order.

That “could” in the last sentence is doing a lot of heavy lifting, but for the time being let’s take the idea at face value: rejoining the UNFCCC after a withdrawal from that convention would require a (difficult to obtain) two-thirds majority Senate vote.

At first glance, proposing that the US withdraw from the UNFCCC seems like a refreshingly radical idea. (“Radical” as compared to the usual milquetoast platitudes and meaningless gestures that generally accompany American political campaigns, anyway.) No doubt, this suggestion is closer to being a solution to the problem of the growing UN climate tyranny than the withdrawal charade that Trump teased the public with during his administration.

But the devil, as always, is in the details. Upon further inspection, it turns out that this “withdrawal” is—exactly like Trump’s ineffectual action—part of a parlor game being played by the political establishment. This time, the globalists on the right are reading the anti-establishment mood of the average voter and are deciding to cosplay as crusading anti-globalist populists in order to win votes.

Specifically, this UNFCCC withdrawal strategy—first reported on by E&E News—sources back to “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” a “policy roadmap” put together by an organization called Project 2025.

Project 2025 describes itself as a “broad coalition of conservative organizations that have come together to ensure a successful administration begins in January 2025.” It is being spearheaded by The Heritage Foundation and bankrolled by the likes of Leonard Leo and Pierre Omidyar, among many others.

As an elitist group of Beltway insiders funded by questionable Deep State operatives, you might expect that they have embedded a booby trap in their policy roadmap . . . and you’d be correct. You see, Project 2025 isn’t actually advocating for the US to reject the Paris Agreement and the UNFCCC and the entire climate hoax narrative. Instead, it’s merely complaining that the agreement is “inimical to the prosperity of the United States.”

No, Project 2025 doesn’t want to question the climate narrative itself and consign the entire $100 trillion house of cards that is the green swindle to the dustbin of history. They just want to negotiate a bigger slice of that $100 trillion pie for Uncle Sam.

Lest there be any doubt on this point, Project 2025 member Mandy Gunasekara recently explained to E&E News what the group wants to see happen with this climate deal in the future:

Let’s create a better agreement that’s focused more on tangible solutions and expanding the reach of innovative technology, instead of the current Paris climate accord and the UNFCCC that has China designated as a developing country permanently.

Ah, I see. No, let’s not reject the UNFCCC and the climate scam itself. Instead, let’s “create a better agreement” that will give the American corporatocracy a chance to reap greater profits from the scam!

This is of course exactly the way Trump framed the problem when he failed to withdraw from Paris the first time. Speaking about his decision to pull out of Paris in 2017, Trump stressed that the agreement “disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries.” That’s why he refused to rebuke the entire climate hoax and withdraw from the UNFCCC altogether.

In fact, he was eager to make clear that he was not seeking to end US participation in the climate hoax, but rather to “begin negotiations to reenter either the Paris Accord or a really entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers.”

So, just to be clear, neither Politico nor Project 2025 nor Trump nor any of the other lying, manipulative globalist insiders in the corrupt political system are going to save Americans (or anyone else) from the climate tyranny of the UNFCCC and its insidious Paris Agreement.

Having said that, the underlying idea that they are teasing the public with is a first step toward a real solution to this UN tyranny.

Yes, the US and every other country on the planet should withdraw from the UNFCCC. Not just because pulling out of the UNFCCC will automatically end the Paris Agreement, and not just because these agreements are economically disadvantageous to American workers, but because the UNFCCC is a blatant political power grab masquerading as concern for Mother Earth (that is, in fact, based on psuedoscientific woo-woo).

Considering the incredible power of this simple idea, the next logical question is . . .

Why Stop There?

Why stop with the UNFCCC? Why not withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO), too? After all, as Corbett Reporteers are aware by now, the WHO is planning a political power grab of its own at the upcoming World Health Assembly in Geneva this May.

Specifically, the WHO technocrats are hoping to rubber stamp a raft of amendments to the International Health Regulations and a new Pandemic Agreement that may or may not include a slew of new tyrannical biosecurity measures (although no one can be sure, because they are still negotiating the details behind closed doors).

So, if member states can withdraw from the UNFCCC in order to bring down the Paris Agreement, can they also withdraw from the WHO in order to escape the clutches of the Pandemic Agreement? Of course they can.

For those who are concerned about the legalities and procedures involved with such a move: fret not! There are lawyers working on this very problem as we speak. Dr. Francis Boyle, for example—the man who drafted the US legislation implementing the Biological Warfare Convention and someone who has been calling out the scamdemic since day one—provides his own assessment of the legalities of member state withdrawal from the WHO in “Exiting The World Health Organization“:

A Withdrawal from the WHO Constitution can be accomplished by invoking the Doctrine of Fundamental Change of Circumstances under Article 62 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Article 62 codified the rule of customary international law then known and still known today as rebus sic stantibus. Therefore, all States should be able to invoke the Doctrine of Fundamental Change of Circumstances/rebus sic stantibus even if they are not parties to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. It was never known or contemplated or even suspected that at the time States became contracting parties to the WHO Constitution that the WHO would someday attempt to transform itself into a totalitarian worldwide medical police state by means of the proposed Amendments to the International Health Regulations and/or the proposed Pandemic Treaty.

What’s interesting about Dr. Boyle’s proposed approach is that it is not specific to the WHO itself and does not rely on appeal to any particular clause of the WHO Constitution or withdrawal procedure in the WHO playbook. Merely by making the point that the WHO has undergone a fundamental change of circumstances—a transformation into “a totalitarian worldwide medical police state by means of the proposed Amendments to the International Health Regulations and/or the proposed Pandemic Treaty,” as Dr. Boyle puts it—any state could enact a unilateral and immediate withdrawal from the organization.

Indeed, the legal mechanics of a withdrawal from the WHO are fascinating . . . but they seem to me to miss the point. In the final analysis, who cares what legal mumbo jumbo can or can’t be invoked to complete a withdrawal? Withdrawal from the WHO or from the UNFCCC isn’t the end result of a magical legal incantation, it’s a unilateral action. And—much like the phoney baloney paper money Ponzi scheme being run by the central banks of the world—the only thing keeping the UN’s whole house of cards from coming down is that every country plays along with the fiction that they are legally obligated to participate in these organizations.

After all, if the US or another major member simply pulled out of the WHO, what are they going to do? Send their lawyers? Oooh, scary.

So, once we’ve formed the widespread, grassroots movement that will be responsible for effecting our withdrawal from the UNFCCC and the WHO—because, needless to say, neither Project 2025 nor any other group of partisan Beltway insiders will actually accomplish any of this for us—why stop there? Why not press forward and withdraw from all the global treaties and organizations?

Given that both the UNFCCC and the WHO are merely organs of the United Nations beast, so why not cut off the head of the snake and withdraw from the UN altogether? And, once newly liberated from the UN, why not start extracting ourselves from all the other talons of the globalist bird of prey?

Bye-bye, World Trade Organization!

Arrivaderci, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development!

Sayonara, NATO!

Hasta la vista, European Union!

Smell ya later, International Parliamentary Union!

Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out, Earth Federation! (What, you don’t know about the Constitution for the Federation of the Earth? You need to watch more Corbett Report!)

Of course, after we’ve uncorked this bottle and let the withdrawal genie out, we might as well take it all the way. In other words, once we’ve removed our federal governments from all these globalist agreements and organizations, we need to remove the next layer of involuntary, top-down control. We can get to work organizing the secession of the states from the USA, of the provinces from the dominion of Canada, of the prefectures from Japan, and of the countries from the UK. And then we can begin declaring sovereignty of counties. And then it’s time to devolve power down to the municipalities, and next to neighbourhoods, and finally . . .  to sovereign individuals?

Well, one can always dream.

But, until people wake up and reclaim their individual sovereignty, we can at least start withdrawing from the WHO and the UNFCCC and all the other globalist death pledges that we find ourselves bound to.

I say: “Enough with half-measures and tinkering around the edges of the globalist scam! It’s time to withdraw from all the international treaties and institutions!”

Who’s with me?

The REAL Solution to the UN Madness

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR:

The content of this article, authored by journalist James Corbett, does not reflect the view and opinion of El Reportero and its staff. It is published for entertainment and to explore diverse ideas. – Marvin Ramírez

by Corbett |

Apr 7, 2024 – You’ll never guess what just happened. Politico published an article about a real solution!

Yes, an honest-to-goodness solution!

Shocking, isn’t it?

Even more shocking: it’s a solution that details how we can free ourselves from the clutches of the UN!

And the most shocking thing of all: this proposed solution isn’t a “don’t throw us in the briar patch” trick to get the public to back some alternative plan for global enslavement. It’s a solution that attacks the root of the problem and, by extension, threatens the globalist agenda itself.

Now, let’s not get carried away here. Naturally, the establishment lapdogs over at Politico have only reported on this solution in order to disparage the idea and those who are forwarding it. But still, to see an actual solution being discussed on a dinosaur media platform at all is itself an amazing development.

So, what on earth is going on here? Let’s put on our reading glasses and take a look.

If you exclusively follow mainstream news and establishment propaganda, you might have heard of the Paris Agreement, the accord adopted at the UN’s annual “Conference of the Parties” climate talks in Paris in 2015. And, if you do exclusively follow those sources of misinformation, then you’ll have some vague, woolly-headed idea that the Paris Agreement is a magical parchment that will—through some mystical process you can’t quite explain—placate the weather gods enough to limit future global temperature increases to 1.5°C (2.7°F).

If, however, you are a dedicated Corbett Reporteer, then you’ll know that:

But, like it or not, unless you happen to be a resident of Iran, Libya or Yemen—the only three nation-states on the planet that have not ratified this net zero death pledge—you are subject to this agreement.

Enter Trump. Back in 2017, Trump announced Washington’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. However, by a strange coincidence, the earliest date that the US could actually withdraw from the treaty was November 4, 2020, the day after the American presidential (s)election. And, as we all know, Sleepy Uncle Joe won the (s)election and promptly signed up the US to rejoin the agreement.

So, what lessons can we learn from this ordeal? Given the fact that this on-again, off-again withdrawal charade accomplished precisely nothing, how can we ensure that a subsequent withdrawal attempt actually works?

Well, we could choose to believe that the Orange Man is our MAGA saviour and, in order to end all climate nonsense forever, Americans will just have to vote even harder in 2024!

. . . But that is an aggressively stupid take, one which fundamentally misunderstands the reality of the situation and thus arrives at a “solution” that is no solution at all. Even if you believe Trump is actually against the globalists—which / is, needless / to / say, an / easily / demonstrable / lie—then the only thing that the US’ failed Paris withdrawal demonstrates is that what can be arbitrarily struck down by one president can be arbitrarily resurrected by another.

Imagine a universe in which the voting machines had declared Trump the winner in 2020 and the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement had stuck. Americans would be in the exact same boat today that they were then: hoping that Trump’s appointed successor wins the next (s)election in order to keep the US out of Paris.

No, leaving the United States’—or any other country’s—participation in the climate scam up to the caprice of a would-be ruler’s whims is no solution at all.

So, how can the US exit Paris for good?

Enter Político.

Earlier this month, the Washington propaganda rag published an article on “How Trump could exit Paris—and make it stick,” which purports to reveal a new idea cooked up by “prominent conservatives”:

The idea, included in a 920-page policy report, is to pull the United States out of the 1992 treaty that underpins the Paris deal, known as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. That would be a serious step beyond what Trump did during his first term, when he exited the Paris Agreement but continued sending delegations to the annual UN climate talks.

While a president can unilaterally reenter the Paris deal (as President Joe Biden did), rejoining the underlying convention could require a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate — a tall order.

That “could” in the last sentence is doing a lot of heavy lifting, but for the time being let’s take the idea at face value: rejoining the UNFCCC after a withdrawal from that convention would require a (difficult to obtain) two-thirds majority Senate vote.

At first glance, proposing that the US withdraw from the UNFCCC seems like a refreshingly radical idea. (“Radical” as compared to the usual milquetoast platitudes and meaningless gestures that generally accompany American political campaigns, anyway.) No doubt, this suggestion is closer to being a solution to the problem of the growing UN climate tyranny than the withdrawal charade that Trump teased the public with during his administration.

But the devil, as always, is in the details. Upon further inspection, it turns out that this “withdrawal” is—exactly like Trump’s ineffectual action—part of a parlor game being played by the political establishment. This time, the globalists on the right are reading the anti-establishment mood of the average voter and are deciding to cosplay as crusading anti-globalist populists in order to win votes.

Specifically, this UNFCCC withdrawal strategy—first reported on by E&E News—sources back to “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” a “policy roadmap” put together by an organization called Project 2025.

Project 2025 describes itself as a “broad coalition of conservative organizations that have come together to ensure a successful administration begins in January 2025.” It is being spearheaded by The Heritage Foundation and bankrolled by the likes of Leonard Leo and Pierre Omidyar, among many others.

As an elitist group of Beltway insiders funded by questionable Deep State operatives, you might expect that they have embedded a booby trap in their policy roadmap . . . and you’d be correct. You see, Project 2025 isn’t actually advocating for the US to reject the Paris Agreement and the UNFCCC and the entire climate hoax narrative. Instead, it’s merely complaining that the agreement is “inimical to the prosperity of the United States.”

No, Project 2025 doesn’t want to question the climate narrative itself and consign the entire $100 trillion house of cards that is the green swindle to the dustbin of history. They just want to negotiate a bigger slice of that $100 trillion pie for Uncle Sam.

Lest there be any doubt on this point, Project 2025 member Mandy Gunasekara recently explained to E&E News what the group wants to see happen with this climate deal in the future:

Let’s create a better agreement that’s focused more on tangible solutions and expanding the reach of innovative technology, instead of the current Paris climate accord and the UNFCCC that has China designated as a developing country permanently.

Ah, I see. No, let’s not reject the UNFCCC and the climate scam itself. Instead, let’s “create a better agreement” that will give the American corporatocracy a chance to reap greater profits from the scam!

This is of course exactly the way Trump framed the problem when he failed to withdraw from Paris the first time. Speaking about his decision to pull out of Paris in 2017, Trump stressed that the agreement “disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries.” That’s why he refused to rebuke the entire climate hoax and withdraw from the UNFCCC altogether.

In fact, he was eager to make clear that he was not seeking to end US participation in the climate hoax, but rather to “begin negotiations to reenter either the Paris Accord or a really entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers.”

So, just to be clear, neither Politico nor Project 2025 nor Trump nor any of the other lying, manipulative globalist insiders in the corrupt political system are going to save Americans (or anyone else) from the climate tyranny of the UNFCCC and its insidious Paris Agreement.

Having said that, the underlying idea that they are teasing the public with is a first step toward a real solution to this UN tyranny.

Yes, the US and every other country on the planet should withdraw from the UNFCCC. Not just because pulling out of the UNFCCC will automatically end the Paris Agreement, and not just because these agreements are economically disadvantageous to American workers, but because the UNFCCC is a blatant political power grab masquerading as concern for Mother Earth (that is, in fact, based on psuedoscientific woo-woo).

Considering the incredible power of this simple idea, the next logical question is . . .

Why Stop There?

Why stop with the UNFCCC? Why not withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO), too? After all, as Corbett Reporteers are aware by now, the WHO is planning a political power grab of its own at the upcoming World Health Assembly in Geneva this May.

Specifically, the WHO technocrats are hoping to rubber stamp a raft of amendments to the International Health Regulations and a new Pandemic Agreement that may or may not include a slew of new tyrannical biosecurity measures (although no one can be sure, because they are still negotiating the details behind closed doors).

So, if member states can withdraw from the UNFCCC in order to bring down the Paris Agreement, can they also withdraw from the WHO in order to escape the clutches of the Pandemic Agreement? Of course they can.

For those who are concerned about the legalities and procedures involved with such a move: fret not! There are lawyers working on this very problem as we speak. Dr. Francis Boyle, for example—the man who drafted the US legislation implementing the Biological Warfare Convention and someone who has been calling out the scamdemic since day one—provides his own assessment of the legalities of member state withdrawal from the WHO in “Exiting The World Health Organization“:

A Withdrawal from the WHO Constitution can be accomplished by invoking the Doctrine of Fundamental Change of Circumstances under Article 62 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Article 62 codified the rule of customary international law then known and still known today as rebus sic stantibus. Therefore, all States should be able to invoke the Doctrine of Fundamental Change of Circumstances/rebus sic stantibus even if they are not parties to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. It was never known or contemplated or even suspected that at the time States became contracting parties to the WHO Constitution that the WHO would someday attempt to transform itself into a totalitarian worldwide medical police state by means of the proposed Amendments to the International Health Regulations and/or the proposed Pandemic Treaty.

What’s interesting about Dr. Boyle’s proposed approach is that it is not specific to the WHO itself and does not rely on appeal to any particular clause of the WHO Constitution or withdrawal procedure in the WHO playbook. Merely by making the point that the WHO has undergone a fundamental change of circumstances—a transformation into “a totalitarian worldwide medical police state by means of the proposed Amendments to the International Health Regulations and/or the proposed Pandemic Treaty,” as Dr. Boyle puts it—any state could enact a unilateral and immediate withdrawal from the organization.

Indeed, the legal mechanics of a withdrawal from the WHO are fascinating . . . but they seem to me to miss the point. In the final analysis, who cares what legal mumbo jumbo can or can’t be invoked to complete a withdrawal? Withdrawal from the WHO or from the UNFCCC isn’t the end result of a magical legal incantation, it’s a unilateral action. And—much like the phoney baloney paper money Ponzi scheme being run by the central banks of the world—the only thing keeping the UN’s whole house of cards from coming down is that every country plays along with the fiction that they are legally obligated to participate in these organizations.

After all, if the US or another major member simply pulled out of the WHO, what are they going to do? Send their lawyers? Oooh, scary.

So, once we’ve formed the widespread, grassroots movement that will be responsible for effecting our withdrawal from the UNFCCC and the WHO—because, needless to say, neither Project 2025 nor any other group of partisan Beltway insiders will actually accomplish any of this for us—why stop there? Why not press forward and withdraw from all the global treaties and organizations?

Given that both the UNFCCC and the WHO are merely organs of the United Nations beast, so why not cut off the head of the snake and withdraw from the UN altogether? And, once newly liberated from the UN, why not start extracting ourselves from all the other talons of the globalist bird of prey?

Bye-bye, World Trade Organization!

Arrivaderci, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development!

Sayonara, NATO!

Hasta la vista, European Union!

Smell ya later, International Parliamentary Union!

Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out, Earth Federation! (What, you don’t know about the Constitution for the Federation of the Earth? You need to watch more Corbett Report!)

Of course, after we’ve uncorked this bottle and let the withdrawal genie out, we might as well take it all the way. In other words, once we’ve removed our federal governments from all these globalist agreements and organizations, we need to remove the next layer of involuntary, top-down control. We can get to work organizing the secession of the states from the USA, of the provinces from the dominion of Canada, of the prefectures from Japan, and of the countries from the UK. And then we can begin declaring sovereignty of counties. And then it’s time to devolve power down to the municipalities, and next to neighbourhoods, and finally . . .  to sovereign individuals?

Well, one can always dream.

But, until people wake up and reclaim their individual sovereignty, we can at least start withdrawing from the WHO and the UNFCCC and all the other globalist death pledges that we find ourselves bound to.

I say: “Enough with half-measures and tinkering around the edges of the globalist scam! It’s time to withdraw from all the international treaties and institutions!”

Who’s with me?

Chris Hedges: A Mockery of British Justice

British courts for five years have denied due process to Julian Assange as his physical and mental health deteriorates. That is the point of his show trial

Prosecutors representing the United States, whether by design or incompetence, refused — in the two-day hearing I attended in London in February — to provide guarantees that Julian Assange would be afforded First Amendment rights and would be spared the death penalty if extradited to the U.S.

The inability to give these assurances all but guaranteed that the High Court — as it did on Tuesday — would allow Julian’s lawyers to appeal. Was this done to stall for time so that Julian would not be extradited until after the U.S. presidential election? Was it a delaying tactic to work out a plea deal?

Julian’s lawyers and U.S. prosecutors are discussing this possibility. Was it careless legal work? Or was it to keep Julian locked in a high security prison until he collapses mentally and physically?

If Julian is extradited, he will stand trial for allegedly violating 17 counts of the 1917 Espionage Act, with a potential sentence of 170 years, along with another charge for “conspiracy to commit computer intrusion” carrying an additional five years.

The court will permit Julian to appeal minor technical points — his basic free speech rights must be honored, he cannot be discriminated against on the basis of his nationality and he cannot be under threat of the death penalty.

No new hearing will allow his lawyers to focus on the war crimes and corruption that WikiLeaks exposed. No new hearing will permit Julian to mount a public-interest defense. No new hearing will discuss the political persecution of a publisher who has not committed a crime.

The court, by asking the U.S. for assurances that Julian would be granted First Amendment rights in the U.S. courts and not be subject to the death penalty, offered the U.S. an easy out — give the guarantees and the appeal is rejected.

It is hard to see how the U.S. can refuse the two-judge panel, composed of Dame Victoria Sharp and Justice Jeremy Johnson, which issued on Tuesday a 66-page judgment accompanied by a three-page court order and a four-page media briefing.

The hearing in February was Julian’s last chance to request an appeal of the extradition decision made in 2022 by the then British home secretary, Priti Patel, and many of the rulings of District Judge Vanessa Baraitser in 2021.

If Julian is denied an appeal, he can request an emergency stay of execution from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) under Rule 39, which is given in “exceptional circumstances” and “only where there is an imminent risk of irreparable harm.”

But it is possible the British court could order Julian’s immediate extradition prior to a Rule 39 instruction, or decide to ignore a request from the ECtHR to allow Julian to have his case heard there.

Julian has been engaged in a legal battle for 15 years. It began in 2010 when WikiLeaks published classified military files from the wars in Iraq andAfghanistan — including footage showing a U.S. helicopter gunning down civilians, including two Reuters journalists, in Baghdad.

Julian took refuge in the embassy of Ecuador in London for seven years, fearing extradition to the U.S. He was arrested in April 2019 by the Metropolitan Police, who were permitted by the embassy to enter and seize him. He has been held for nearly five years in HM Prison Belmarsh, a high-security prison in southeast London.

The case against Julian has made a mockery of the British justice system and international law. While in the embassy, the Spanish security firm UC Global provided video recordings of meetings between Julian and his lawyers to the C.I.A., eviscerating attorney-client privilege.

The Ecuadorian government — led by Lenin Moreno — violated international law by rescinding Julian’s asylum status and permitting police into their embassy to carry Julian into a waiting van.

The courts have denied Julian’s status as a legitimate journalist and publisher. The U.S. and Britain have ignored Article 4 of their Extradition Treaty that prohibits extradition for political offenses.

The key witness for the U.S., Sigurdur Thordarson — a convicted fraudster and pedophile — admitted to fabricating the accusations he made against Julian in exchange for immunity for past crimes.

Julian, an Australian citizen, is being charged under the U.S. Espionage Act although he did not engage in espionage and was not based in the U.S when he was sent the leaked documents.

The British courts are considering extradition, despite the C.I.A.’s plan to kidnap and assassinate Julian, plans that included a potential shoot-out on the streets of London, with involvement by London’s Metropolitan Police.

Julian has been held in isolation in a high-security prison without trial, although his only technical violation of the law is breaching bail conditions after he obtained asylum in the embassy of Ecuador. This should only entail a fine.

Finally, Julian did not, unlike Daniel Ellsberg, leak the documents. He published documents leaked by U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

Three of the nine legal grounds were accepted by the judges as potential points for appeal. The other six were denied. The two-judge panel also rejected the request by Julian’s lawyers to present new evidence.

Julian’s legal team asked the court to introduce into the case the Yahoo! News report that revealed, after the release of the documents known as Vault 7, that the then-director of the C.I.A., Mike Pompeo, considered assassinating Julian.

Julian’s lawyers also hoped to introduce a statement from Joshua Dratel, a U.S. attorney, who said that Pompeo’s use of the terms “non-state hostile intelligence service” and “enemy combatant” were phrases designed to give legal cover for an assassination.

The third piece of evidence Julian’s lawyers hoped to introduce was a statement from a Spanish witness in the criminal proceedings underway in Spain against UC Global.

The C.I.A. is the engine behind Julian’s extradition. Vault 7 exposed hacking tools that permit the C.I.A. to access our phones, computers and televisions, turning them — even when switched off — into monitoring and recording devices.

The extradition request does not include charges based on the release of the Vault 7 files, but the U.S. indictment followed the release of the Vault 7 files.

Justice Sharp and Justice Johnson dismissed the report in Yahoo! News as “another recitation of opinion by journalists on matters that were considered by the judge.” They rejected the argument made by the defense that Julian’s extradition would be in violation of Section 81 of the U.K. Extradition Act of 2003, which prohibits extraditions in cases where individuals are prosecuted for their political opinions.

The judges also dismissed the arguments made by Julian’s attorneys that extradition would violate his protections under the European Convention of Human Rights — the right to life, the prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment, the right to a fair trial and protections against punishment without law respectively.

The U.S. largely built its arguments from the affidavits of the U.S. prosecutor Gordon D. Kromberg. Kromberg, an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia has stated that Julian, as a foreign national, is “not entitled to protections under the First Amendment, at least as it concerns national defense information.”

Ben Watson, king’s counsel, who represented the U.K. government during the two-day hearing in February, conceded that if Julian is found guilty under the Espionage Act, he could receive a death penalty sentence.

The U.S. and the U.K secretary of state were urged by the judges to offer the British court assurances on these three points by April 16.

If the assurances are not provided, the appeal will proceed.

If the assurances are provided, lawyers for both sides have until April 30th to make new written submissions to the court. At that point, the court will convene again on May 20 to decide if the appeal can go forward.

The goals in this Dickensian nightmare remain unchanged. Erase Julian from the public consciousness. Demonize him. Criminalize those who expose government crimes. Use Julian’s slow motion crucifixion to warn journalists that no matter their nationality, no matter where they live, they can be kidnapped and extradited to the U.S.

Drag out the judicial lynching for years until Julian, already in a precarious physical and mental condition, disintegrates.

This ruling, like all of the rulings in this case, is not about justice. It is about vengeance.

(Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for 15 years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East bureau chief and Balkan bureau chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor and NPR.  He is the host of show “The Chris Hedges Report.”)

Mexico to file complaint against Ecuador with the International Court of Justice

Foto: El presidente López Obrador mostró imágenes de una cámara de seguridad de la policía ecuatoriana allanando la embajada de México para arrestar al ex vicepresidente ecuatoriano Jorge Glas, quien enfrenta cargos de corrupción allí. (Galo Cañas/Cuartoscuro) - President López Obrador showed security camera footage of Ecuadorian police raiding the Mexican embassy to arrest former Ecuadorian vice president Jorge Glas, who faces corruption charges there. (Galo Cañas/Cuartoscuro)

by Mexico News Daily

Mexico will file a complaint against Ecuador with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over last week’s police raid on the Mexican embassy in Quito on Thursday, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) said at his Wednesday morning press conference.

Mexico severed its diplomatic relations with Ecuador on Saturday after police broke into the Mexican Embassy on Friday night to arrest former Ecuadorian vice president Jorge Glas, who was in office from 2013 to 2017 but had been promised asylum in Mexico. Ambassador Raquel Serur Smeke — whom Ecuador declared a persona non grata before the raid — and other diplomatic personnel returned to Mexico on Sunday.

Glas has been twice convicted for corruption in Ecuador and is currently facing new charges that he misused earthquake reconstruction funds. He has long claimed that the corruption charges leveled against him have been politically motivated, an allegation Ecuador’s government denies.

Mexican Foreign Affairs Minister Alicia Bárcena explained that the decision to break ties with the South American nation was taken “in view of [Ecuador’s] flagrant and serious violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, in particular of the principle of inviolability of Mexico’s diplomatic premises and personnel and the basic rules of international coexistence.”

López Obrador, who called the forcible entry to the embassy “a flagrant violation of international law and Mexico’s sovereignty, said Wednesday that there has been a lot of domestic and international “solidarity” with Mexico following last Friday’s events.

“Our people condemn this violation of our sovereignty, the vast majority of Mexicans don’t agree with the authoritarian behavior of the government of Ecuador. … The majority of governments around the world condemn these actions,” said AMLO, who on Tuesday accused the United States and Canada of being “very ambiguous” in their positions on the incident.

U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan subsequently condemned Ecuador’s actions, saying that “the Ecuadorian government disregarded its obligations under international law as a host state to respect the inviolability of diplomatic missions.”

López Obrador noted that the Organization of American States — a regional body of 32 countries — also spoke out against Ecuador.

“All the governments represented — and even Secretary [General] Luis Almago, who has had a very conservative, antidemocratic attitude — condemned the incident because the truth is, it’s unjustifiable,” López Obrador said.

At a meeting on Tuesday of foreign ministers of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), Bárcena urged CELAC member states to “back the lawsuit that we will bring to the International Court of Justice, as well as the letter that we will send to the UN Secretary-General condemning these appalling events.”

Earlier on Tuesday, López Obrador presented security camera footage of the police raid, showing one heavily armed officer scaling the front wall of the embassy complex and several police carrying Glas out of the embassy. The former vice president had been living there since December.

Attempts by the deputy chief of mission Roberto Canseco Martínez to stop the police operation were fruitless. He was restrained and assaulted by police on repeated occasions.

Glas, who was vice president during governments led by former Ecuadorian presidents Rafael Correa and Lenín Moreno, was taken away in one of two vehicles that entered the embassy complex.

“This is what is going to be reported [to the ICJ],” López Obrador told reporters at the conclusion of the video.

Sullivan said that the U.S. government has reviewed the footage and believes that Ecuador’s actions were wrong and violated the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. He also said that the U.S. government had asked Ecuador to work with Mexico to find a solution to the dispute between the two countries.

On Wednesday, López Obrador thanked U.S. President Joe Biden for “rectifying” the U.S. government’s position with the “more forceful declaration” issued by Sullivan. He added that he was waiting for a similar move from Canada, Mexico’s other North American commercial partner under the USMCA free trade pact.

The Canadian government said on Saturday that it was “deeply concerned at Ecuador’s apparent breach of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations by entering the Embassy of Mexico without authorization.”

López Obrador said Tuesday that he wasn’t happy with Canada’s use of the word “apparent.”

“We don’t allow that; we don’t accept it,” he said.

Earlier this week, opposition presidential candidate Xóchitl Gálvez weighed into the debate over the raid on the Mexican Embassy. The candidate condemned “what happened in Ecuador” before declaring that “[Mexican] embassies in my government won’t be caves for criminals.”

“I wouldn’t give asylum to anyone accused in the Odebrecht case, for example,” she said, referring to corruption scandals involving the Brazilian construction company and ex-officials in several Latin American countries, including Glas in Ecuador and former Pemex CEO Emilio Lozoya in Mexico.

On X social media platform, Morena presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum said that seeing the video López Obrador made public “provokes enormous indignation” and supported the decision for Mexico to cut diplomatic ties with Ecuador.

The office of Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa said in a statement issued shortly after the Friday night raid that “no criminal can be considered a politically persecuted person” and that “the diplomatic mission harboring Jorge Glas” had “abused the immunities and privileges” granted to it and gave the former vice president “diplomatic asylum contrary to the conventional legal framework.”

For those reasons, authorities proceeded with the “capture” of the ex-official, the statement said.

“Ecuador is a sovereign country, and we’re not going to allow any criminal to go unpunished,” Noboa’s office said.

With reports from La Jornada, El Universal and Reuters.

Breaking Cultural Stigmas Around Alzheimer’s

Stigma around Alzheimer’s disease — the second-leading cause of death in California — prevents many communities from getting help

by Selen Ozturk

Stigma around Alzheimer’s disease — the second-leading cause of death in California — prevents many communities from getting help.

In response, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) is launching Take on Alzheimer’s, a new campaign to reduce the stigma by teaching Californians how to spot the disease and what to do after a diagnosis.

At an Ethnic Media Services briefing, CDPH, Alzheimer’s experts and community workers statewide shared what they’ve learned about addressing taboos around Alzheimer’s and related forms of dementia in communities including Latino, Black, AAPI and LGBT+.

Taking on Alzheimer’s

The disease is the leading cause of death for adults 85 and older in California, the state with the largest concentration of older adults — “and as our population continues to age, we expect these numbers to grow,” said CDPH clinician Dr. Lucía Abascal. Even within such a widespread disease, “big disparities exist. Communities of color are more likely to develop it.”

A recent CDPH report found that by 2040, the number of California adults living with the disease will have increased by 127 percent, or nearly 1.6 million.

Take on Alzheimer’s, the first-ever statewide Alzheimer’s campaign, aims “not only to raise awareness that this disease is a big problem and getting bigger, but also to shift misperceptions around it by working with community organizations statewide,” she continued.

“The earlier this progressive disease is diagnosed, the more doors it opens to combat its impacts, but many fear the stigma a diagnosis comes with,” Abascal added. “Alzheimer’s is not a person’s fault and it’s not a normal part of getting old — it’s a disease and must be treated as such by linking people to care. We don’t want communities to wait 10 years to get the help they can get right now.”

Asian American stigma

“There’s often much stress involved with care in Chinese and Vietnamese communities, because caregivers — typically daughters aged 40 to 60 — are sandwiched between caring for the parent as well as their own children,” said Dr. Dolores Gallagher Thompson, professor emerita at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

“A common feeling reported by Asian caregivers is depression, partly associated with filial piety,” said Thompson, who has worked with Asian caregivers for over 30 years. “Younger and middle-aged caregivers may not fully endorse this traditional concept, because it involves conflict in juggling multiple roles … to treat individuals with dementia, you need to treat the family as a unit, because the disease affects everyone.”

“Educating the family that dementia is a neurological condition, not a psychiatric condition, is key,” she continued. “In traditional Chinese writing, the character for ‘dementia’ is the same as that for ‘crazy,’ and this attribution often escalates the stigma. To fight it, we teach caregivers how to respond to problem behavior in ways less stressful for everyone involved, and how to include them in the family by focusing on what they can still do — if they can’t make rice alone, they can make it supervised or wash the dishes.”

“Often unique to the experiences of Vietnamese communities is war-associated PTSD,” Thompson added. “This can make seeking and giving care even harder than it already is, and our programs for the Vietnamese community encourage them to share their experiences, how they’ve coped with them, and how it might impact their caregiving.”

Latino stigma

In the Latino community, “stigma is alive and well,” said Dr. María Aranda, USC professor of social work and gerontology, and executive director of the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. “Memory loss is typically a topic that does not make dinnertime conversation.”

“There’s societal stigma, where there’s a high price put on people’s intellect and ability to compete, alongside a personal fear that the person with the diagnosis will be treated differently,” she continued.

“This stigma prompts a ‘cocoon experience’ where Latino families protect the individual against more stigma so much that they miss out on an early diagnosis of dementia, and getting the care they need,” said Aranda.

“Due to less access to timely, accurate information to prevent and manage memory declines, especially among monolingual Spanish speakers, there’s a polarized spectrum where Alzheimer’s is seen as part of a severe psychiatric disorder like psychosis on the one hand, and as apart of normal aging on the other,” she added. “While age is the biggest risk factor, it doesn’t mean everyone who reaches a certain age will have it.”

LGBT+ stigma

Out of an estimated 2.7 million LGBT people in the U.S. over the age of 50, 7.4 percent pf lesbian, gay, and bisexual older adults have dementia “and that number is increasing,” said Lunae Chrysanta, training manager at Openhouse SF, which provides caregiver training and community support for LGBT individuals.

“The same elders who were pathologized for most of their life — from the Lavender Scare of the 50s, through the civil rights movements of the 60s and 70s, to the collective trauma of the HIV and AIDS pandemic in the 80s and 90s — may feel, as they age, like they’re losing the independence that they fought so hard for,” he continued.

Alongside stigma around Alzheimer’s itself, “fear of discrimination stops many LGBT older adults from seeking the care that they need,” Chrysanta explained.

An estimated 40 percent of LGB and 46 percent of transgender older adults don’t disclose their sexual orientation or gender identity to doctors because they fear it will affect quality of care.

In a New York study of over 3,500 LGBT older adults, 8.3 percent reported neglect or abuse from their caregivers because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Because LGBTQ elders often find chosen families after facing rejection from biological families, “family structures in the LGBT community often look different than cisgender and heterosexual family units,” Chrysanta continued.

“Many of our elders are aging at the same time as their loved ones and find themselves being caregivers while also needing that support themselves,” he said. “For us, developing intergenerational mental health programs and 110 units of affordable housing has been key to reducing barriers to support. Our elders with dementia shouldn’t feel like they need to hide their true selves again by going back into the closet.”

Black stigma

Older Black Americans are twice as likely to have Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia compared to older whites.

Both stigma and the belief that memory loss is a natural part of aging prevents them from seeking the care they need, said Petra Niles, senior manager of education & outreach for African Americans at Alzheimer’s Los Angeles.

Although 65 percent of Black Americans say that they know somebody with Alzheimer’s or dementia, half report experiencing discrimination while seeking care for someone who has it; only 53 percent believe that a cure would be distributed fairly, without regard to race or ethnicity; and 55 percent think that significant loss of cognitive abilities is a natural part of aging rather than a disease.

“It’s important for this community to have a good relationship with a physician they trust, who will respond to their concerns and not just say that dementia is a normal part of aging,” explained Niles. “There are warning signs like memory loss, getting lost, issues with finances, repeating stories. You shouldn’t have to wait for these symptoms to worsen before getting help.”

“Alzheimer’s stigma not only prevents our community from getting help, but from sharing that diagnosis with friends who can help — and less help adds on stress for the caregiver,” she added. “We’re hearing about many who have died in the throes of caregiving. As long as we don’t stop the stigma, even trying to get help can endanger your health.”

Celebrate Lowrider Culture

by Magdy Zara

“More Than Cars: Celebrating Lowrider Culture” is a partnership with Pajaro Valley Arts, featuring more than 50 artists and Lowrider club members.

From photography to sculpture, witness the creativity and history of lowrider culture in a stunning display of talent and inspiring resilience.

The exhibition will be open until June 30 and will feature additional events including video screenings, panel discussions and youth arts activities.

Independent filmmaker Consuelo Alba, when asked about this exhibition, stated “with the Lowrider Film Festival and Exhibition, we are recovering our stories, our culture, highlighting the experiences lived by Latinos in the US, portraying ourselves in more authentic than those that the main media have historically represented to us.”

Then the director of the Watsonville Film Festival added “this year we will honor the resilience and creativity of Lowrider culture and the powerful, often unheard, voices of Latino filmmakers.”

The exhibition began last March 10 and ends next June of the current year.

The exhibition is held at the PVA Porter Building, 280 Main Street, Watsonville, admission is completely free.

“Festival of Life and Colors” Exhibition in Women’s Month

As part of the celebration of Women’s Month, the muralist Mama Meg, shows through her Exhibition “Fiesta de Vida y Colores” the experience of Latin motherhood, tropical colors and birds.

This exhibition is comprised of new works and timeless classics, highlighting Ms. Megs’ decades as a Mission artist, street craftswoman, community and religious leader.

This exhibition – inauguration, will coincide with the “Women of the Resistance” Art Walk in March, which celebrates women who resist silence and create to bring peace.

This event is being organized by Acción Latina, and will be shown at the Juan R. Fuentes Gallery, located at 2958 24th St, San Francisco.

Fiesta de Vida y Colores opened its doors to the public on March 19 and ends on April 10, 2024, during gallery hours.

Woman: history, voice and dreams

To learn about stories of prosperous and entrepreneurial women, the event “Woman: History, Voice and Dreams” has been organized, in which you will learn about wonderful experiences of strength that will serve as inspiration to achieve your dreams.

“This will be a vibrant meeting that celebrates the unique essence of each woman with many activities and surprises, to share and vibrate together in this space full of love and connection,” said the organizers. “This will be a vibrant meeting that celebrates the unique essence of each woman with many activities and surprises, to share and vibrate together in this space full of love and connection,” said the organizers. To request more information you can do so through info@prosperacoops.org.

This activity will take place next Wednesday, March 27, starting at 5 p.m. until 8:30 p.m. at the Square – Uptown Station 1955 Broadway Oakland. Admission is free.

Omar Sosa and his American Quartet perform at Yoshi’s

Seven-time GRAMMY-nominated Cuban composer and pianist Omar Sosa is on tour to celebrate the release of the documentary Omar Sosa’s 88 Well-Tuned Drums and a soundtrack LP of the same name.

Sosa is one of the most versatile jazz artists on the current scene. He fuses a wide range of jazz, world music and electronic elements with his Afro-Cuban roots to create a fresh and original urban sound, all with a Latin jazz heart.

The latest turn in Sosa’s creative journey is his Quartet Americanos, a group based on the formative relationships he forged in the San Francisco Bay Area in the mid-1990s. The quartet is made up of Sheldon Brown, Josh Jones and the drums and Ernesto Mazar Kindelán on baby bass.

The documentary captures much of Sosa’s work as a composer, bandleader and recording artist and highlights the rich tapestry of his styles and cultures, from solo piano to big band, from Mother Africa to Cuba and ancestry communities. from the diaspora, and from jazz. and a variety of folk traditions to Western classical music. The vinyl soundtrack includes music from eight Omar Sosa albums, including three GRAMMY-nominated titles.

Omar Sosa and his quartet will be performing on March 29 and 30, at Yoshi’s, located at 510 Embarcadero Oeste, Oakland, tickets cost between $34 and $84.