por Víctor Franco Alonzo

El Dr. Noel Estrada Martínez en la ciudad de Sur San Francisco meses antes de muerte (PHOTO BY HAZEL GUTIÉRREZ)

Nicaragua is mourning. Dr. Noel Ernesto Estrada Martínez passed away in San Francisco, California, on July 4 at the age of 85. Born in Managua, Nicaragua, on Sept. 23, 1925, Dr. Estrada-Martínez studied at the Colegio Bautista de Managua, where he got his high school diploma, and then transferred to the National University of León city, where he got his Doctorate in Jurisprudence.

Dr. Estrada Martínez wanted to specialize in medicine; however, his father urged him to study law and, although this wasn’t his vocation, he specialized on it, until he became one of the most important lawyers in Nicaragua. He exercised his career from 1959 to 1979, when a change of government forced him and his family to exile in the city of San Francisco, California.

Nevertheless, “even though he physically lived in the U.S., his spirit continued to be trapped in a paradise called Nicaragua, which was going to remain forever in his memory, just the way he knew it before his departure”, said his daughter Glenda Gutiérrez in an interview with El Reportero. A loyal friend of his accurately named him man-homeland, a characteristic that is reflected in most part of his heartfelt writings, which in occasions led him to tears.

He was a person who read a lot and thus, he was very cultured, who felt that every book he held in his hands provided him with a new lesson. Moreover, he loved his family and was proud of it. He was born rich for two reasons: firstly, due to a significant inheritance; secondly, due to the most important reason: he never paid attention to material stuff and gave away all the things he owned to his loved ones. He was a humble person; he settled for not too much.

His hobbies were photography, hunting and horse-riding, as his affinity for writing and his works can be considered more of a vocation than a hobby. Through these he rested and connected with his beloved Nature, to which he has been united forever, leaving an inheritance of permanent love everywhere he passed by.

“He was a very good man”, said sadly Ivania Palacios, owner of the Restaurant El Trebol, where Dr. Estrada used to eat Nicaraguan food since approximately three decades.

“A picture of me he took with his camera during the 15th birthday party of his granddaughter Hazel Gutiérrez, and which surprisingly he brought to me as a gift to the office at the newspaper, is a very sweet memory that I will always keep and be very fond of”, said Marvin Ramírez, editor of El Reportero. “Don Noel Estrada was a soul of God, a gentleman full of virtue, love and peace.”

It was that same heart, through which he always delivered happiness and goodness among the people around him that failed at 3 a.m. on U.S. Independence Day. In heaven, where his beloved wife, Mary Estrada, deceased a few years ago, was waiting for him, together with his parents Ernesto Estrada and María Estrada.

He is survived by his siblings Robert J. Padilla and Yolanda Robert; his daughters Glenda Ninoschka Gutierrez, married to Sergio Gutiérrez and Grace Ninnete Alfaro, married to Raúl Alfaro; his son Noel Ernesto Estrada Jr, married to Marina Estrada; just as Linda Griffith, his son’s ex wife and considered a daughter to him; and eight grandchildren, among them Ernesto Ignacio Estrada, Frarinz Guiselle Alfaro-Shkurkin, Ninnete Elizabeth Alfaro, Christina Griffith, Hazel Montserrat Gutiérrez, Alyeska Gutiérrez, Ian Raúl Alfaro and Sheyla Janel; and a great grandson, Dominic Shkurkin.

His remains will be watched on Sunday, July 10 from 3- 9 p.m. and a rosary at 7 p.m. at the funeticsnerary Driscoll’s Valencia Mortuary. Monday, before his burial, at 11 a.m., there will be a mass in lying state in the historic Dolores Basilica, located in Dolores Street with 16th, and then after carry his body for burial at Cyprest ­Law Cemetery in the city of Colma at 10:30 a.m.

The staff of El Reportero and especially its editor, Marvin Ramírez extend their most sincere condolences to the mourning family and accompanies join them in their grief.

by Matthew Silverstone

(NaturalNews) We have all been sold a lie, yet again. We are constantly being told that the only solution to solving the world’s food shortages is to use enormous amounts of fertilisers or genetically modified seeds that produce “super” crops. What we are not being told is that we do not need either of these two options to solve the worldwide crisis in food production, all we need to do is give seeds a little magnetic tickle.

That is right, that is all we need to do. No nitrates, no genetics, no toxic chemicals, no damage to our health or to the natural balance of nature. Just a simple tickle of tiny amounts of magnetism.

One of the authors of a study into crop growth through magnetic stimulation, Angel De Souza, wrote to me after reading the research in my book, Blinded by Science (www.blindedbyscience.co.uk)  which proved that magnetism was the long term solution. He wanted to share his disbelief as to why seed companies showed no interest in his research.

“ We d e v e l o p e d a technology of magnetic treatment to improve the vigour of tomato, lettuce and onion seeds, rate and germination uniformity, growth, emergency and seedling vigour under field conditions as well as crop yields and quality of harvest… Also, this technology increases protection against the stress of heat and pathogens.

In further correspondence he went on to say that he published a paper in an offi cial seed journal to promote his research in 2010, proving it was possible to increase seed germination and growth of yield of tomatoes. This piece of research fell on deaf ears. No seed company was interested.

This is almost an act of crime against humanity! So start asking yourself this question, what is the motive behind all of this.

It can only be one thing, profits. What can we do about it? Start a media campaign and spread the word, let everyone know what is being done and put pressure on supermarkets, retail outlets and specifically seed companies to let them know that we don’t want to eat food grown with chemicals of plants that are genetically modified in any way. We want natural.

If this means that they don’t make enormous profi ts then so be it as humanity will be the big benefactor, not only for you, but for your ­children and your children’s children.

De Souza A, Garcia D, Sueiro L, Gilart F, Porras E, Licea L (2006) Pre-sowing magnetic treatments of tomato seeds increase the growth and yield of plants. Bioelectromagnetics, 27, pp. 247-257. De Souza A, Sueiro L, Gonzalez L, Licea L, Porras E, Gilart F (2008) Improvement of the growth and yield of lettuce plants by the non-uniform magnetic fields. Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine, 27, pp. 173-184.

“Extremely low frequency non-uniform magnetic fi elds improve tomato seed germination and early seedling growth” Seed Science and Technology 2010.

About the author: Matthew Silverstone is the author of Blinded by science, www.blindedbyscience.co.uk a book that will completely change your attitude to your health. Blinded by Science offers a theory which when applied to factors like water, plants, the Sun and the Moon all seems to make perfect sense. As simple as it sounds, it is the theory that everything vibrates.

The book explains that everything vibrates from the nucleus of an atom to the molecules of our blood, our brain, sound, plants, animals, all the way into outer space. Once this basic principle is understood, everything suddenly becomes clear. Once you apply this theory to the world around you, you will be astounded by what you learn.

Find out more at www.blindedbyscience.co.uk

­por Isaac Bigio

Ollanta Humala

Before officially taking office, Peru’s elected president was in La Paz, where he claimed that he would like to revive the Peru-Bolivian Confederation of 1836-39.

This statement, just as others related to foreign policy, was absent in the debate during the presidential campaign. Nevertheless, if it is successful in going beyond being just a wish and starts to seek implementation, it will entail the emergence of a unionist tendency, opposed to that of the current world.

To date, the dynamics of Hispanic-America have not been related to the reunification of diverse republics, but towards an increasing fragmentation. Since the 1821 post-colonial Mexico, the Central-American federation broke away, and afterwards it was divided into 5 new republics. Later, Texas demanded its independence, in order to be annexed to the US, and so was later the north of Mexico. In 1830 the Great Colombia was divided into Venezuela, Ecuador and Colombia (from this latter  Panama split in 1903).

The attempts of keeping integrated the old Vice-royalty of la Plata have failed, just as any possibility to unify the old Spanish colonies of the Caribbean. The Spanish island is currently divided between the Dominican and Haitian republics. The Spanish Antilles were captured by the US in the 1898 war, allowing Cuba to obtain independence, although one of its zones (Guantanamo) and Puerto Rico remain under Washington’s administration.

The tendency towards division has been enhanced in the rest of the Antilles. The Federation of the Western Indies of 1958-62 gave rise to 14 countries (most of them under the rule of Elizabeth II, although only 4 were semi-autonomous dependencies). The Dutch West Indies have ­advanced towards fragmentation as most of the 6 islands that comprise them have voted for its separation.

At an international level there is, on one hand, a tendency to form regional blocs, but on the other hand, there is a tendency towards the fragmentation of the states. Until half a century ago, most of the 54 countries of Africa were united under the administration of France or Great Britain.

I n w e s t A s i a , a t least 8 new countries emerged from decolonization. The old British India is today divided into 5 republics and the French Indochina, into 3. Since 2 decades ago, the 3 “socialist” federations from Eastern Europe have split, giving rise to 23 new members of the United Nations, while others are also demanding to become members.

Countries that could claim a national common past (such as Austria and Germany or several in Arabia) are still separated. Libya’s, Egypt’s or Syria’s attempts of integrating among them or with other neighbors have failed. Countries such as Gambia, Swaziland, Monaco, San Marino or the Vatican, despite being entrenched within a bigger nation, have insisted in maintaining their independence.

Three exceptions to that rule are the reunifications of Vietnam, Germany and Yemen, even though these 3 cases include historical nations that were temporarily divided due to the fact that parts of their territories chose different socio-economic models during the Cold War.

Violencia en México

by Michael Smith

Just before sunset onApril 10, 2006, a DC-9 jet landed at the international airport in the port city of Ciudad del Carmen, 500 miles east of Mexico City.

As soldiers on the ground approached the plane, the crew tried to shoo them away, saying there was a dangerous oil leak. So the troops grew suspicious and searched the jet.

They found 128 black suitcases, packed with 5.7 tons of cocaine, valued at $100 million. The stash was supposed to have been delivered from Caracas to drug traffickers in Toluca, near Mexico City, Mexican prosecutors later found. Law enforcement officials also discovered something else.

The smugglers had bought the DC-9 with laundered funds they transferred through two of the biggest banks in the U.S.: Wachovia Corp. and Bank of America Corp., Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its August 2010 issue. This was no isolated incident. Wachovia, it turns out, had made a habit of helping move money for Mexican drug smugglers.

Wells Fargo & Co., which bought Wachovia in 2008, has admitted in court that its unit failed to monitor and report suspected money laundering by narcotics traffickers — including the cash used to buy four planes that shipped a total of 22 tons of cocaine. The admission came in an agreement that Charlotte, North Carolina-based Wachovia struck with federal prosecutors in March, and it sheds light on the largely undocumented role of U.S. banks in contributing to the violent drug trade that has convulsed Mexico for the past four years.

‘Blatant Disregard’ Wachovia admitted it didn’t do enough to spot illicit funds in handling $378.4 billion for Mexicancurrency-exchange houses from 2004 to 2007. That’s the largest violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, an antimoney-laundering law, in U.S. history — a sum equal to one-third of Mexico’s current gross domestic product.

“Wachovia’s blatant disregard for our banking laws gave international cocaine cartels a virtual carte blanche to finance their operations,” says Jeffrey Sloman, the federal prosecutor who handled the case.

Since 2006, more than 22,000 people have been killed in drug-related battles that have raged mostly along the 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) border that Mexico shares with the U.S. In the Mexican city of CiudadJuarez, just across the border from El Paso, Texas, 700 people had been murdered this year as of mid- June. Six Juarez police officers were slaughtered by automatic weapons fire in a midday ambush in April.

Rondolfo Torre, the leading candidate for governor in the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas, was gunned down yesterday, less than a week before elections in which violence related to drug trafficking was a central issue.

45,000 Troops

Mexican President Felipe Calderon vowed to crush the drug cartels when he took office in December 2006, and he’s since deployed 45,000 troops to fight the cartels. They’ve had little success.

Among the dead are police, soldiers, journalists and ordinary citizens. The U.S. has pledged Mexico $1.1 billion in the past two years to aid in the fight against narcotics cartels. In May, President Barack Obama said he’d send 1,200National Guard troops, adding to the 17,400 agents on the U.S. side of the border to help stem drug traffic and illegal immigration.

Behind the carnage in Mexico is an industry that supplies hundreds of tons of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamines to Americans. The cartels have built a network of dealers in 231 U.S. cities from coast to coast, taking in about $39 billion in sales annually, according to the Justice Department.

‘You’re Missing the Point’

Twenty million people in the U.S. regularly use illegal drugs, spurring street crime and wrecking families. Narcotics cost the U.S. economy $215 billion a year — enough to cover health care for 30.9 million Americans — in overburdened courts, prisons and hospitals and lost productivity, the department says.

“It’s the banks laundering money for the cartels that finances the tragedy,” says Martin Woods, director of Wachovia’s anti-moneylaundering unit in London from 2006 to 2009. Woods says he quit the bank in disgust after executives ignored his documentation that drug dealers were funneling money through Wachovia’s branch network.

“If you don’t see the correlation between the money laundering by banks and the 22,000 people killed in Mexico, you’re missing the point,” Woods says.

Cleansing Dirty Cash

Wachovia is just oneof the U.S. and European banks that have been used for drug money laundering. For the past two decades, Latin American drug traffickers have gone to U.S. banks to cleanse their dirty cash, says Paul Campo, head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s financial crimes unit.

Miami-based American Express Bank International paid fines in both 1994 and 2007 after admitting it had failed to spot and report drug dealers laundering money through its accounts. Drug traffickers used accounts at Bank of America in Oklahoma City to buy three planes that carried 10 tons of cocaine, according to Mexican court filings.

Federal agents caught people who work for Mexican cartels depositing illicit funds in Bank of America accounts in Atlanta, Chicago and Brownsville, Texas, from 2002 to 2009. Mexican drug dealers used shell companies to open accounts at London-based HSBC Holdings Plc, Europe’s biggest bank by assets, an investigation by the Mexican Finance Ministry found.

F o l l o w i n g R u l e s

Those two banks weren’t accused of wrongdoing. Bank of America spokeswoman Shirley Norton and HSBC spokesman Roy Caple say laws bar them from discussing specific clients.

They say their banks strictly follow the government rules. “Bank of America takes its anti-money-laundering responsibilities very seriously,” Norton says.

A Mexican judge on Jan. 22 accused the owners of six centros cambiarios,  or money changers, in Culiacan and Tijuana of laundering drug funds through their accounts at the Mexican units of Banco Santander SA, Citigroup Inc. and HSBC, according to court documents filed in the case.

The money changers are in jail while being tried. Citigroup, HSBC and Santander, which is the largest Spanish bank by assets, weren’t accused of any wrongdoing. The three banks say Mexican law bars them from commenting on the case, adding that they each carefully enforce anti-money- laundering programs.

­HSBC has stopped accepting dollar deposits in Mexico, and Citigroup no longer allows noncustomers to change dollars there. Citigroup detected suspicious activity in the Tijuana accounts, reported it toregulators and closed the accounts, Citigroup spokesman Paulo Carreno says.

Criminal Empires

On June 15, the Mexican Finance Ministry announced it would set limits for banks on cash deposits in dollars.

Mexico’s drug cartels have become multinational criminal enterprises.