Tuesday, September 3, 2024
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Teatro Nahual to perform controversial play

­compiled by Mark Carney

Miembros del elenco de Los Monólogos de la Vagina.Miembros del elenco de Los Monólogos de la Vagina.

Teatro Nahual, a theatrical troupe formed in 2003, presents ten plays a year, in Spanish, throughout the Bay Area. Besides performing plays in Spanish, Teatro Nahual also teaches acting classes in Spanish to aspiring actors of all ages. This month they will be performing two plays: The Vagina Monologues, a controversial play in which four actresses convey the sufferings of women who have been abused, and also Chismes de Machos, a play in which five actors talk about their experiences with women.

On Saturday, Nov. 13, they will perform at the National Hispanic University in San Jose, while on Saturday, Nov. 20, they will be at the Mission Cultural Center in San Francisco. Galeria de La Raza benefit performance Don’t miss the Galeria de La Raza’s Benefit Performance and Awards Ceremony on Sunday, Nov. 21, at 3:30 pm. It will be an entertaining afternoon, consisting of an awards ceremony, a silent auction, music by DJ Guardado, and the San Francisco premier of Strange Democracy, a spoken word piece performed by Guillermo Gomez-Peña.

Afterwards, there will be a VIP afterparty, catered by Radio Africa & Kitchen, and music by J.Boogie and Rene Flores. In short, an afternoon of food, drinks, music and theater, in the Brava Theatre Center, located at 2857 24th St., in San Francisco.

Theatre Flamenco to perform Una Nota Flamenca

Aida CuevasAida Cuevas

Theatre Flamenco, which happens to be San Francisco’s second oldest professional dance company, will be performing Una Nota Flamenca this weekend. Led by Artistic Director Carola Zertruche, the company will be joined by several notable guest artists from Spain, such as Manuel Gutiérrez, Juan Siddi and Cristina Hall.

”This production”, according to Zertuche, “is an expression of flamenco dance that embodies the emotion ignited from a single musical note—una nota flamenca— that will captivate the senses. It combines extraordinary footwork and invigorating music into a deeply moving theatrical experience.” The performances will take place at Fort Mason’s Cowell Theater, in San Francisco, this Friday, Saturday and ­Sunday.

Free internet training provided

If you are unsure how to take advantage of what the internet offers, you could benefit by the free, weekly classes provided by the Unity Council. Internet searching and the uses of email and social media will be covered. If you’re interested, call Marie-Louise Clark, at (415) 608-2209.

Mortgage modification conference

In the midst of a housing crisis, many homeowners are in need of counseling as to how they can modify their mortgage. The Making Home Affordable Program, or HAMP, can help some homeowners to reduce their mortgage payments and remain in their homes. But, because of the legal complexities, many homeowners are baffled and bewildered, unable to understand the laws and guidelines that affect them.

If this describes you, perhaps you should attend the Northern California Urban Development’s seminar on Nov. 30, at the East Palo Alto City Hall. For more info call Zuzuki Velásquez at (650) 328-1890 ext. 103.

Candidates for the next Latino Grammy are announced

­

by Antonio Mejías-Rentas

Aída CuevasAída Cuevas

STARS ALIGNED: Performers, announcers and hosts have been announced for the upcoming Latin Grammy Awards.

Singers Juan Luis Guerra, Enrique Iglesias, Marc Anthony, Aída Cuevas and Jenni Rivera, as well as pop group Camila are among the acts scheduled to perform at the 11th annual awards, to be held Nov. 11 in Las Vegas. Peformance highlights also include a duet by Caribbean superstars Gilberto Santa Rosa and Johnny Ventura, who will debut their new single Hay que dejarse de vaina, and a performance by bachata nominee Prince Royce of his hit single Stand by Me, along with the song’s originator Ben. E. King. Mexican stars Eugenio Derbez and Lucero will host the event, to be broadcast by Univision. Announced award presenters include Pepe Aguilar, Jorge Drexler, Kany García, and Tito: El Bambino.”

­RICKY RETURNS: A muchawaited autobiography by a well-loved Puerto Rican performer coincides with the release of his first single in two years.

On Nov. 2, Ricky Martin releases Lo mejor de mi vida eres tu, the first single from the Spanish-language album he is expected to release in early 2012. The same day marks the release of the Spanish- and Englishlanguage versions of his memoir, Yo (Me). Martin embarks on a media blitz this week that includes a Nov. 2 appearance on Oprah and subsequent interviews on Ellen and Late Show with David Letterman and book signings from coast to coast.

Martin’s autobiography is expected to recount his decision to hire a woman to give birth to his twin children and the much talked-about announcement of his homosexuality.

ONE LINERS: The New York-based American Ballet Theatre will perform in Havana during the Cuban International Ballet Festival, which began Oct. 28 with a tribute to Alicia Alonso, who danced with ABT and now directs the Cuban National Ballet. It continues through Nov. 7… bandleader Arturo O’Farrill says he plans to take his late father’s band, the Chico O’Farrill Afro Cuban Jazz Orchestra, to the International Jazz Festival in the Cuban capital in December… the town of Dolores Hidalgo, in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato, is commemorating the Primer Festival Internacional José Alfredo Jiménez all month long, dedicated to the late legendary songwriter…Madonna will launch a new international chain of gyms with the Nov. 29 opening of the first Hard Candy Fitness in Mexico City… Max and Emme, the twin children of Jennifer López and Marc Anthony, made their modeling debut in an ad for Gucci children’s wear in which they appear with their famous mom…. U.S. sculptor Richard Serra shares with French-Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf Spain’s Principe de Asturias prize in the arts and letters…. And Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar is expected to attend the Nov. 4 opening on Broadway of the musical Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, based on his movie… Hispanic Link.

Libertarians oppose strip-search machines at airports

Compiled by Mark Carney

Protesta los escáneres en los aeropuertos ahora o tus hijos vivirán condenados bajo un estado policíaco.Raise a stink now or your kids are going to be condemned to living in a police state.

Offended by the extensive use of strip-search machines in airports by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Mark Hinkle, the Libretarian Party Chair, is urging their immediate elimination.

“We have reached a point where our government has no qualms about humiliating us. The fact that I want to travel on an airplane does not make me a threat, and it does not allow anyone to conduct a warrantless search under my clothing,” Hinkle said.

Other groups, like the American Pilots Association and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), have also urged the government to discontinue their use. EPIC, in fact, recently filed a lawsuit against the program, arguing that it violates several laws, including the federal Privacy Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the Video Voyeurism Prevention Act and the Fourth Amendment.

Hinkle noted the perverse uses to which these images may be put, saying, “Regardless of policy, some security personnel will want to store the images, and they will fi nd ways to do it. This is already reported to have happened in Florida, where U.S. Marshalls stored thousands of images from a courthouse scanner.”

Hyatt housekeepers file injury complaint with OSHA

On Tuesday, November 10, Hyatt hotel housekeepers in eight cities fi led injury complaints with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), alleging repetitive motion and other kinds of injuries. In California alone, Hyatt housekeepers in San Francisco, Santa Clara, Los An geles and Long Beach are involved in the complaint. According to the complaint, at some Hyatt properties housekeepers are required to clean as many as 30 rooms a day.

When cleaning a room, the housekeeper not only vacuums the carpet and cleans the bathroom, but also changes the sheets, which requires her to lift a mattress weighing more than 100 pounds.

In the press conference call announcing the complaint, Gary Orr, an occupational ergonomics expert, pointed out the increasing frequency of repetitive motion injuries, particularly within the service industry. Indeed, he emphasized that, in the hotel industry, being a housekeeper may be the most dangerous job of all.

A recent study published in the American Journal of co-workers to suffer an injury, Industrial Medicine found that housekeepers are injured more frequently than other hotel workers, female hotel workers are 50 percent more likely than their male ­and Hispanic women are twice as likely to be injured at work as their white female co-workers. In this same study, Hyatt housekeepers had the highest injury rate of all the hotel workers analyzed.

“It is critical that we explore ways of making hotel work safe to reduce the high rates of injury that we see among housekeepers”, Orr stated. Among other things, Orr recommended “common sense changes like fitted sheets, mops, or caps on daily room quotas that can make the difference between healthy bodies and hurt housekeepers.”

Daily Bail supports raising retirement age In an editorial posted on the website The Daily Bail, the author agrees with the incoming speaker of the House of Representatives, who wishes to raise the retirement age to 70. What bothers him, however, is the reason he allegedly gave for this reform: Boehner reportedly said that paying for the war will require reforming the entitlement system. “We need to look at the American people and explain to them that we’re broke,” Boehner said.

Interpreting Latino political leverage after Nov. elections

by José de la Isla
Hispanic Link News Service (First of two parts)

The Nov. 2 mid-terms were benchmark elections — but not how most people are inclined to think about them.

They raised the question as to whether President Obama’s self-acknowledged setback was also one for Latinos, who have consistently supported the President.

To understand the implications for this country’s 50 million Hispanics, some historical perspective helps.

As early as the 1960s, large swatches of the Hispanic population, back then demographically small, helped elect John Kennedy.

Even with Lyndon Johnson, who claimed to be a friend of Hispanics in Texas, on the ticket, Latinos got little recognition or benefit for it. Johnson made the point to some community leaders that government had to be pushed and pressured to act.

In a nutshell, Hispanic civic and community improvement efforts became a movement for political intercession. Much of this history, leading up to George W. Bush’s first year as president, was covered in my 2003 book, The Rise of Hispanic Political Power.

­From the 1960s to the ’90s, neighborhood-level organizing in support of local candidates drew attention to issues concerning public works, education and unfair practices that held back Latino economic development. The reality was that personal efforts went unrewarded unless the group was given the social respect which usually came following political gains. Personal betterment is more easily recognized after a community has political standing. Congressional pioneers up to the 1970s were Republican Rep. Manuel Luján (New Mexico) and three Democrats, Edward Roybal (Calif.), Henry B. González (Texas), and in the Senate another New Mexican, Joseph Montoya.

The emerging Hispanic political culture has been especially consequential since the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976. In turn, the attention that Hispanics drew translated, at first slowly and then at a healthy pace, to economic improvements for their communities.

The Democratic Party sought to capitalize on a mass following of Latino working people; Republicans defined middle-class professionals and entrepreneurs as their best prospects. These were especially noteworthy during the Nixon, Reagan and both George Bush campaigns and administrations.

The political movement was one for inclusion and not for alignment within any party. It culminated the 1990s during the Clinton administration with the synchronization of a political economy leading to the largest ever Latino expansion into the middle class.

It coincided with the surge of Hispanic elected and appointed officials, who by 2010 had increased to more than 6,000. Such officials are the ones responsible for aiding state and national candidates, who depend on Latino help and expertise in voter registration drives and campaign infrastructure. The reciprocity has stirred a national consciousness on Latino issues. Still, sloppy analysis and stereotyping have persisted since the ’70s over whether Hispanics even show up to vote at all — or are they fickle or Pavlovian voters?

The 2008 election of Barack Obama made it crystal clear that the Hispanic influence is abundant and here to stay as part of the national political culture, and will vote consistent with how it perceives its community interests. By then, only the U.S. Supreme Court remained a government pillar lacking Hispanic inclusion.

That was overcome with Obama’s nomination and subsequent Senate confirmation of Judge Sonya Sotomayor to the Court. With that, the beginning of the quest for responsive government through inclusion was completed in the civic life of U.S. Latinos was complete.

The 2010 mid-term elections established the first benchmark in the new phase, one that harmonizes Latino interests with national ones. Scholar Ilan Stavans once defined it as the “Hispanicization of the United States and the Anglocization of Hispanics.”

The elections came at a time when U.S. society was seeking its own political responsiveness for its recovery from the financial crisis, recession and widespread unemployment. The national parties and Tea Party offshoot had been at loggerheads for more than a year.

The trademark attitudes for the 2010 redress have been reactionary and angry. They could — or better said, should — have borrowed a chapter from the Latino playbook by seeking progress instead of making yesterday sound like tomorrow. They had the opportunity to approach candidates and issues constructively, with optimism instead of enmity, alienation and bad blood.

That is the essential yardstick for measuring who won and who lost. Hispanic Link.

NEXT WEEK: What the midterm elections forebode for Hispanics — in nuts and bolts of lightening.

[José de la Isla’s latest book, Day Night Life Death Hope, is distributed by The Ford Foundation. He writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service and is author of The Rise of Hispanic Political Power (2003). E-mail him at joseisla3@yahoo.com.]

Banks spying on your bills, rent payments

por Daniel Tencer

The age of the plain old credit score is gone, says a report at the Wall Street Journal, and it’s been replaced by ever more intrusive efforts by banks and credit agencies to gauge exactly what you’re worth, and what you can pay.

To that end, financial firms are now tracking their customers’ bank deposits, rent payments or home values, and even utility bills to figure out who may soon become a financial risk, reports WSJ’s Karen Blumental.

So, for example, if your employer pays you through direct deposits and those deposits stop, financial institutions can now have warning that your money situation is likely to tighten, and may deny you credit on that basis.

But the efforts don’t end there. A new area of research, income estimation, “took off earlier this year,” WSJ reports, and involves financial firms collecting information about mortgages, personal loans and credit history to determine how much an individual makes and how much credit they should be given.

In this new era of deep datamining, even your utility bills and rent check aren’t out of bounds.

An estimated 40 million consumers, including young people and people who prefer to pay in cash, have too little credit experience to generate a useful credit score. But they are likely to pay rent or utility bills, which could help credit bureaus better assess their credit-worthiness. Experian, one of thethree major credit bureaus, bought RentBureau—which collects rental-payment data from large property managers—and expects to integrate that information into credit records before the end of the year.

­Credit bureaus say they also would like to offer data on cell phone payments, but have run into concerns over privacy issues, which may require legislation to untangle.

BUSINESSES TARGET CELL PHONES, SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES

The WSJ report comes as new concerns emerge over the extent to which businesses are digging into the lives of their customers in order to assess risk or market products. Raw Story this week on SocialMiner, a new software application from Cisco Systems that allows businesses to monitor social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. The software has raised concerns over the prospect of employers spying on the personal lives of their employees.

“With more and more Web-based conversations taking place over these social platforms, it’s now more critical than ever that businesses are aware of what their customers are saying about them and are able to respond to general inquiries or rectify customer service issues so as to enhance and protect brand reputation,” Cisco stated in a press release.

Meanwhile, a federal class action lawsuit alleges that numerous media companies, including Fox News and CNN, received detailed personal information on millions of cell phone users from an advertising company that circumvented security measures on their phones. Courthouse News reports: D e l a w a r e – b a s e d Ringleader “stamped” a “Unique Device Identifier” into customers’ cell phones, compatible with iPhone, iPad, iTouch and PDAs and other devices, the complaint states.

Once entered into their phones, the class claims, say the code sent their private information to a database that Ringleader shared with AccuWeather, CNN, ESPN, FOX News, Go2 Media, Merriam-Webster, Travel Channel, and WhitePages, all of them named as defendants.

“Essentially, defendants hacked the mobile phones of millions of consumers … by embedding a tracking code in each user’s mobile device database to circumvent users’ browser controls for managing web privacy and security,” the complaint states.

The class claims the database collected information about “gender, age, race, number of children, education level, geographic location, and household income.”

When they learned about the invasion of their privacy, some customers tried to delete the code, but it was programmed for “perpetual re-spawning, creating in effect: ‘Zombie Databases,’” the complaint states.

The Agenda of the Illiminati (fourteenth part of a multi-series)

by Marvin Ramirez

­Marvin J. Ramírez­Ma­rv­in­ R­­am­­í­r­­ez­­­­­­­

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: Given the important and historical information contained in this 31-page article on the history of the secret and evil society, The Illuminati, El Reportero is honored to provide our readers with the­ opportunity to read such a document by Myron C. Fagan, which mainstream media has labeled it a conspiracy theory. To better understand this series, we suggest to also reading the previous article published in our editorials.

This is the fourteenth part of the series.

The following is a transcript of a recording distributed in 1967 by Myron C. Fagan. He had hoped that if enough Americans had heard (or read) this summary, the Illuminati takeover agenda for America would have been aborted, just as Russia’s Alexander I had torpedoed the Illuminati’s plans for a One World, League of Nations at the Congress of Vienna from 1814-15. Fagan correctly describes those members of congress, the executive branch, and the judicial branch of that time as TRAITORS for their role in assisting to implement the downfall of America’s sovereignty. It’s understandable that most listeners of that period would have found it impossible to believe that the Kennedy’s, for instance, were (are) part of the Illuminati plot, but he did say that Jack had a spiritual rebirth and attempted to rescue the country from the Illuminati’s stranglehold by issuing U.S. silver certificates, which apparently greatly contributed to the Illuminati’s decision to assassinate him (his son, John Jr., was also murdered because he had intended to expose his father’s killers after he gained public office).

— Upon the taking the Oath of Office, Lyndon B. Johnson stopped the issuing of the United States Notes and went back to borrowing Federal Reserve Bank Notes (which was loaned to the people of the United States at the going rate of interest of 17 percent). The U.S. Notes, that was issued under John F. Kennedy, was of the 1963 series which beared a “Red” seal on the face of the Note.

Now to remove all doubts, I’ll take a few moments to give you the documentary proof of this racial strife plot. First of all they had to create the leadership and organizations to draw in millions of dupes, both Jewish and Negroes, who would do the demonstrating and commit the rioting, looting, and lawlessness.

So in 1909, Schiff, the Lehmans, and other conspirators, organized and set up the National Association for the Advancement of the Colored People known as the “NAACP.” The presidents, directors, and legal councils of the NAACP were always “white men Jews” appointed by Schiff and this is the case to this very day.

Then in 1913, the Schiff group organized the Anti-defamation League of the B’nai B’rith commonly known as the “ADL” to serve as the gestapo and hatchet man outfit for the entire great conspiracy. Today the sinister ADL maintains over 2,000 agencies in all parts of our country and they advise and completely control every action of the NAACP or of the Urban League of all the other so-called Negro civil rights organizations throughout the nation including such leaders as Martin Luther King, Stockely Carmichael, Barnard Rustin, and others of the ilk.

By 1917 the conspirators had achieved their primary objective, all of Europe was in a state of destitution. All the peoples were war weary and crying for peace and the outcome too was all set. It was to come as soon as the United States would be hurled on the side of the Allies and that was all set to happen immediately after Wilson’s re-election. After that, there could be only one outcome, complete victory for the Allies. To fully confirm my statement that long before 1917, the conspiracy, headed in America by Jacob Schiff, had it all set to hurl the United States into that war. I will cite the proof.

When Wilson was campaigning for re-election in 1916, his chief appeal was: “reelect the man who will keep your sons out of the war.” But during that same campaign, the Republican Party publicly charged that Wilson had long committed himself to throw us into the war. They charged that if he would be defeated he would accomplish that act during his few remaining months in office, but if reelected, he would hold off until after

the election. But at that time the American people looked upon Wilson as a “God-man.” Well, Wilson was re-elected and as per the schedule of the conspirators, he hurled us into the war in 1917. He used the sinking of the Lusitania as an excuse, a sinking which also was prearranged.

Roosevelt, also a Godman ­in the eyes of the American people, followed the same technique in 1941 when he used the prearranged Pearl Harbor attack as his excuse for hurling us into World War II.

Now exactly as the conspirators planned, victory for the Allies would eliminate all the Monarchs of the defeated Nations and leave all their people leaderless, confused, bewildered and perfectly conditioned for the one-world government.

The great conspiracy intended would follow, but there still would be an obstacle, the same obstacle that had balked the Illuminati and Rothschild at that Congress in Vienna (peace gathering) after the Napoleonic Wars. WILL CONTINUE ON THE NEXT EDITION.

Protest against El Zapotillo Dam arrives in San Francisco

­por Yashenka Baca

Una protesta se llevó a cabo frente al Consulado de México en contra de la construction de una represa,: afectando a varias comunidades en México.A protest was held in front of the Mexican Consulate against the construction of a dam, which would affect several communities in Mexico.

To the sound of “The eyes of the world are on Temaca”, more than 20 protestors and activists, standing outside of the Mexican Consulate in San Francisco this past Wednesday Nov. 10, demanded that construction on the Zapotillo Dam, in the Jalisco state of Mexico, be stopped.

The protest, organized in the U.S. by International Rivers, was just one of dozens held around the world to mark the International Day of Action to stop the Zapotillo Dam. Similar actions took place in Argentina, Chile, Australia, Kenya and Canada, among others. All had the same objective: To inform the world about the conflict between the Mexican government and the more than 1,000 residents of Temacapulin (Temaca), Acasico and Palmarejo who will be directly affected.

The Zapotillo Dam, in which the government would invest 8 million pesos, would not only force the resettlement of 1,000 residents in the three closest communities, but also affect another 15,000 residents who live in the surrounding areas. It would flood approximately 4,816 hectares of fertile soil which has been the livelihood of farmers in this area for years.

Jose Merced Aramburo, one of the protestors who spoke with El Reportero outside the Mexican Consulate in San Francisco, said that the Mexican government, “never called the town to consult with them about the construction of the dam, they simply arrived to say: You are going to be moved.” Like Aramburo, more than 1,000 residents of Jalisco would loose property which has been in their family for years. In constructing the dam, the Verde River, which crosses Jalisco, would accumulate until 500 cubic meters of water was collected.

­This would be principally sent to the industrial city of Leon, Guanajuato, which according to environmental impact studies wastes more than 40 percent of its drinking water due to leaks in the storage system.

However, the communities’ stance against the construction of the dam go far beyond the loss of their land. In 2005 when the then president Vicente Fox announced the future construction of the dam, the farmers and wage earners of Temaca could not avoid thinking that the principal beneficiaries of the water coming from this zone would be the ranches, the businesses and the industries that the Fox family own in Leon.

In spite of five years of harassment from the government and the pressure that Temaca, Acasico and Palmarejo experience daily, none of the community members have backed down. The protests, the signs and the resistance continue in the face of a government that is deaf to the voices of the people. The people of Temaca say that they will stay where they are, to see if the government dare to drown them.

Representative from the Mexican consulate in San Francisco did not return the calls from El Reportero to respond to questions about their version of the facts.

Water contamination and its effect on our health

­

“Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth.” Albert Schweitzer

Provided by It’s Healthy New Age

That is a pretty shocking quote, but when you study the impacts and choices the public and corporations in the U.S. are making regarding the production and farming of food along with the pollution and additives deposited into our water you’ll begin to get the point.

The causes of water contamination are numerous and range from agricultural runoff to improper use of household chemicals and everything in between.

While the standard use in our society of over 75,000 ­different chemical compounds has offered added convenience and productivity in our lives, it has also come at a tremendous price.

Drastic increase in degenerative diseases. In the early 1900s, before chlorine, pesticides, herbicides and the tens of thousands of other chemicals that we are exposed to, the average person had a 1 in 50 chance of getting cancer, today 1 in 3 can expect to get cancer in their lifetime, one out of every 2 men.

If you doubt this, you might want to watch the documentary, “The Future of Food.” A real eye opener and illustrates a lack of understanding of the implications of the use of pesticides and the desire to manipulate mother nature.

Water Treatment Facilities are Not Enough

Our municipal water treatment facilities are not designed or effective for removing these synthetic chemicals and typically only consist of sand bed filtration and disinfection, much like a standard swimming pool filter.

For the most part today’s water treatment facilities are much the same as they were at the turn of the century. “Drinking water plants are old and out of date, and water supplies are increasingly threatened by and contaminated by chemicals and microorganisms.” Natural Resources Defense Council. “The way we guarantee safe drinking water is broken and needs to be fi xed.” Carol Browner, U.S. EPA.

Man Made Chemicals and Contaminants in Our Water

Our use of man made chemicals has become so extreme that we can now fi nd traces of these low level toxins in virtually every public water supply in the world. A recent report by the Ralph Nader Study Group, after reviewing over 10,000 documents acquired through the Freedom Of Information Act, stated that “U.S. drinking water contains more than 2100 toxic chemicals that can cause cancer.”

The Federal Council On Environmental Quality reports that “Up to two thirds of all cancers may be attributed to these low level toxins.” and that “once contaminated our ground water will remain so for tens of thousands of years. if not geologic time!”

The majority of the contaminants found in our drinking water can be traced back to improper or excessive use of ordinary compounds like lawn chemicals, gasoline, cleaning products and ever prescription drugs.

­Once we realize that everything that goes down the drain, on our lawns, on our agricultural fields or into the environment by any means eventually winds up in the water we drink, we begin to see just how fragile our water supplies really are.

Authorities on Water Contamination Reports on Risk of Disease and Children

One of America’s leading authorities on water contamination, Dr. David Ozonoff of the Boston University Of Public Health warns that, “the risk of disease associated with public drinking water has passed from the theoretical to the real.” Many illnesses that in the past could not be linked to a probable cause, can now be directly linked to toxins in our drinking water.

The use of pesticides and herbicides has become so excessive that they are now commonly found in household tap water with alarming frequency.

A 1994 study of 29 major U.S. cities by the Environmental Working Group found that all 29 cities had traces of at least one weed killer in the drinking water. The report titled “Tap Water Blues” went on to say that “Millions of Americans are routinely exposed to one or more pesticides in a single glass of tap water.”

Google Maps embroiled in Central America border

by the El Reportero’s news services

Alan GarcíaAlan García

­NEW YORK– Costa Rica stepped up pressure on international mediators to engage in its territory dispute with Nicaragua, after Google Maps was cited in an incident that saw the neighboring countries dispatch forces to their joint border.

The Internet search giant joined the fray after a Nicaraguan commander cited Google’s version of the border map in an interview with Costa Rican newspaper La Nacion to justify a raid on a disputed border area.

The area is hotly disputed by the two neighbors, and Costa Rica has asked the Organization of American States (OAS) to investigate the alleged violations of its territory. OAS Secretary General Jose Manuel Insulza is touring both countries in a bid to mediate the dispute.

Alan García relaunches his scheme for a Pacific seaboard alliance

Peruvian president Alan García has launched a new, slimmed-down but more ambitious version of the ‘Pacific Arc’ initiative he championed four years ago. He is proposing what he describes as an ‘in-depth integration agreement’ ­with Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Panama and an alternative to the ‘doomed’ existing integration mechanisms.

As with his previous initiative, García is seeking partners among the governments that are closest to the US. Brazil, meanwhile has signalled that it intends to press ahead with Mercosur (and with other ‘variable geometry’ initiatives).

Brazil sabre-rattles over weak dollar

Throughout the past month, Brazil’s minister of finance, Guido Mantega, has made increasingly fierce criticisms of U.S. economic policy and the developing ‘global currency war’. After the US Federal Reserve Board’s decision to print another US$600bn of cash, commentators fear that there will be a showdown between the U.S. and the world’s emerging economies, led by Brazil and China, at the forthcoming G-20 meeting in Seoul, South Korea, on Nov. 11-12.

Santos against “the nucleus of illegality”

On 4 November, General Oscar Naranjo, the head of the Colombian national police, confirmed that records held by the Dirección Nacional de Estupefacientes (DNE, the national drugs directorate) had been tampered with. The revelation of irregularities in top institutions had been expected since President Juan Manuel Santos announced (on 30 October) that the executive would take measures against what he called “the nucleus of illegality”. On Nov. 2 the executive placed the DNE under administration pending an investigation into “administrative corruption”.

The move underlines the high risk of penetration of Colombia’s public institutions by narco-trafficking groups. But it also allows the new Santos administration to demonstrate its stated commitment to confronting criminal interests head on.

Dilma takes Lula’s crown

On Oct. 31, Dilma Rousseff, 62, of the ruling left-wing Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), was elected Brazil’s first female president with a resounding 56 percentof the second round run-off vote, compared to 44 percent for her rival José Serra of the opposition Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB). Her election signals close policy continuity with the immensely popular outgoing administration led by President Lula da Silva, which has been in power since January 2003.

‘Dilma’, as she’s locally known, becomes the 12th female president in Latin America & the Caribbean and joins three incumbents in the region – Argentina’s Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (elected in 2007), Costa Rica’s Laura Chinchilla (2010) and Trinidad & Tobago’s Kamla Persad-Bissessar (2010). Globally, she joins a small club of just 17 female leaders. (EFE and Latin News contributed to this report.)

 

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TSA gone wild: Airport thugs are out of control

por Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones
Infowars.com

TSA abuse in airports is completely out of control with more and more cases of security workers groping women, fondling children, abusing naked body scanners, and interrogating passengers emerging every week, and yet the government’s answer to the epidemic of oppression is to hand TSA thugs more power with which to harass American citizens.

The story of Infowars employee Michelle, who along with her child was sexually assaulted by TSA staff after refusing to go through a naked body scanner, has gone viral on the Internet after it was picked up by the Drudge Report, a website leading the charge in the backlash against airport oppression at the hands of the TSA that has now led to the world’s largest pilot’s association boycotting the use of naked body scanners. Michelle’s traumatic experience represents just the tip of the iceberg.

The launch of naked body scanners, which were hastily installed in the wake of the Christmas Day bombing attempt despite the fact that they would not have stopped the attack, has only worsened the levels of abuse dished out to passengers. The body scanners were vigorously promoted by people like former Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff and others who stood to reap a financial windfall from their implementation, despite the fact that scientists at Columbia University and the Inter-Agency Committee on Radiation Safety, along with other scientific bodies, have all warned that the devices increase the risk of developing cancer. Stories about TSA officials abusing the use of the scanners have become commonplace.

44-year-old Rolando Negrin beat his supervisor with a police baton after he had cracked jokes about Negrin’s small manhood when he walked through a naked scanner as part of a training exercise at Miami International Airport. The story underscored the fact that authorities had been lying all along about the claim that the scanners did not show sensitive details of genitalia.

The aggressive campaign on behalf of governments and the media to sell the public on invasive body scanners has been accompanied by the reassurance that the devices do not show details of genitals, an obvious attempt to counter the fact that the machines represent a virtual strip search as well as violating laws against child pornography.

Despite assurances from the TSA that the scanners do not show the shape of genitalia, sample images from their own website clearly display the outline of the penis. In addition, after nearly a year of authorities lying in claiming that the technology used in airports did not allow the naked images to be saved or transmitted, it emerged that police agencies, including the U.S. Marshals Service, who were using the same systems, were storing naked body scanner images. The TSA’s own documents also confi rmed that the machines must “allow exporting of image data in real time” and provide a mechanism for “high-speed transfer of image data over the network.”

­Indian film star Shahrukh Khan told a BBC talk show that naked images of his body from the scanner were printed out and circulated by airport staff at Heathrow in London. Heathrow denied the claim but Khan himself never retracted the story, and had no apparent motive for making it up.

Heathrow authorities were unable to deny a later example of the scanners being abused, when it emerged that a Heathrow worker had perved over a naked image of a female colleague after she passed through one of the devices, before commenting, “I love those gigantic tits”. Jo Margetson, 29, reported John Laker, 25, to the police after she had entered the x-ray machine by mistake and Laker took the image before making lewd comments.

Airport security staff workers are among the least trustworthy people to operate these machines. These individuals are routinely caught abusing their authority for their own ego trip or sexual perversion. their power in treating theAs the video below illustrates, the fact that naked body scanner machines in the U.S. are manned  by TSA thugs who are routinely caught abusing public like prison inmates only heightens the danger posed by the use of the new devices. The systems are being manned by people like a TSA agent who fl ipped out and began screaming, “I am god, I’m in charge,” shortly after he got off duty at LAX earlier this year.

With innumerable reports over the past ten years of TSA agents completely abusing their authority and going on petty power trips with little other motivation than to humiliate and degrade old people, pregnant women, and the physically disabled, while proclaiming themselves to be “Gods,” the fact that these people are now feeling up our children is revolting.

Indeed, we’ve spoken to airport workers who were asked by their employers if they support the naked body scanners. Workers who indicate that they oppose the scanners have quickly been demoted or even fi red. The TSA is now openly pursuing a policy of hiring thugs who enjoy using the scanners to fulfi ll their sick sexual kicks or little-Hitler mentality. We need to halt the epidemic of TSA abuse not only because it interferes with our freedom of mobility but because everything being rolled out in the airports is eventually designed to hit the streets.

Today the airports and tomorrow the world – sniffer dogs, checkpoints and pat downs are now taking place at bus depots. Americans are being radiated by scanners at vehicle checkpoints. Mobile body scanners are set to be used on crowds at public events. We have documented numerous examples over the years of TSA workers abusing their power and behaving like thugs.

At the start of the year we highlighted the case of war reporter Michael Yon, who was interrogated without reason by TSA goons who demanded he give them his private email passwords. We also wrote about another case where Steve Bierfeldt, a Ron Paul Campaign For Liberty treasurer, was hounded and harassed by TSA agents for the crime of carrying cash and Ron Paul campaign material.

Incidents of TSA agents behaving like secret political police and embarking on petty power trips to harass innocent people have exploded way out of control and it has to stop now. Even overlooking the primary issues of gross violations of rights and privacy, the fact is that a large number of people have simply refused to travel to America anymore because entering the country is like trying to get into the old East Germany. This is killing the tourism industry and costing hundreds of millions of dollars each year. A 2006 investigation by the Discover America Partnership found that tourism to America had sunk due to “a climate of fear and frustration that is turning away foreign business and leisure travelers from visiting the United States and damaging America’s image abroad.”

No less than a third of tourists vowed never to return to America after experiencing the treatment of Homeland Security officials at ports of entry. By early 2007, the U.S. had lost around 60 million visitors as a result of the stifl ing and intrusive security measures implemented since 9/11, which were proven to be completely fl awed in light of the underwear bomber incident on Christmas Day. America has not only lost its crown as a beacon of freedom and hospitality, turning instead into a feared police state shunned by tourists, but it has also sacrifi ced almost a third of its tourist industry as a result of TSA and Homeland Security thugs being given the power to treat everyone who enters the country as a potential terrorist who is guilty until proven innocent. In the meantime, a cadre of minimum wage goons are being trained to run nationwide checkpoints.

The Stanford prison experiment taught us that people will obey orders no matter who brutal and inhumane, to the point of torture and even death. A whole legion of such individuals has been turned loose on the American people and soon they will hit the streets.

The national security police state has been advancing for years but now that the true takeover of American society is in full swing, Americans are fi nally beginning to understand that everything supposedly aimed at terrorists is in fact directed towards them.

If Americans continue to blithely accept their abuse at the hands of TSA thugs, it sends a clear message to the authorities that they are quite prepared to suffer any indignity whatsoever, which will inevitably lead to a feeding frenzy unless Americans begin to stand up for themselves against airport oppression in greater numbers.

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show. Watson has been interviewed by many publications and radio shows, including Vanity Fair and Coast to Coast AM, America’s most listenedto late night talk show.

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