by the Universidad of Michigan

ANN ARBOR, Michigan.— After 56 years of discomfort, embarrassment, and even pain, Maureen Dillon was finally able to go out in public with only one layer of makeup on. She felt beautiful for the first time since adolescence. She jumped in a pool without worrying about her makeup washing off and revealing a strawberry-colored cheek and nose.

Dillon had lived with port wine stains since birth, and they became darker and brought more distress as the years went on.

After dealing with blood vessel clusters and papules, swelling and infections, Dillon’s family doctor sent her to see Jeffrey Orringer, M.D., director of the Cosmetic Dermatology and Laser Center at the University of Michigan Health System. Orringer used lasers that, over eight treatments, removed Dillon’s port wine stains.

Three of every 1,000 children born has a port wine stain, which is made famup of numerous dilated vessels in a localized part of the skin. They can occur anywhere on the body, but most laser treatment patients have port wine stains on the face or neck.

“There are lots of theories about why port wine stains develop, but the truth is that no one really knows why a child is born with a port wine stain,” Orringer says.

Even though he cannot explain why Dillon or anyone else gets the vascular birthmark, he has good odds of making them better with the laser therapy: 75 percent to 80 percent of patients have their port wine stain lighteBrattned by at least 50 percent, and the mark disappears completely in 15 percent to 20 percent of patients.

“When this type of laser therapy is performed by an experienced physician, risks are really very low,” Orringer says. The combination of state-of-the-art lasers with experienced anesthesia doctors makes the treatments essentially pain-free for children undergoing the procedure, he added. Adults generally tolerate the treatments in the clinic setting without the need for anesthesia.

Treatments typically take just a few minutes. The patient reclines in a chair, wearing goggles to protect the eyes, while the doctor­uses the laser in small circles to reach the entire surface of the port wine stain. Bruising occurs for up to two days after each treatment. Dillon said the look reminded her of black currant jelly. When the bruising wears off, the strawberry-colored port wine stain is not there either.

“It was just amazing,” Dillon said. She no longer requires the antibiotics or prednisone that she needed for infections and swelling from the birthmark.

Orringer recommends that those with port wine stains seek treatment early in life as they normally worsen over time; however, he has also treated older patients with great results.

by Chanaye J. Thomas

CODEPINK protest during Obama’s vist to SF. (photo by Chanaye J. Thomas)

The UK Guardian, and countless other news sources recently reported that President Barack Obama is quietly deploying an extra 13,000 troops to Afghanistan, an unannounced move that is separate from a request by a U.S. commander for even more reinforcements.

In San Francisco a group of protesters, including the organization CODEPINK, held a demonstration against Obama’s escalating of the war at Union Square, across from where the President was to speak at an Organizing for America fundraiser.

­“Right now we have a CODEPINKer who is inside and she will be presenting Obama with a stack of petitions to have a responsible withdraw plan and an exit strategy to get out of Iraq, as well as reports of her recent trip to Afghanistan,” said Rae Abileah of CODEPINK.

“It’s an appeal to the humanity of these leaders to say what for? Why are we attacking innocent civilians?”

Around 5:30 p.m. on Oct. 15, CODEPINK climbed to the roof of the Cheesecake Factory, directly above the Macy’s building in Union Square San Francisco to reveal a 50ft banner across from where the event was being held and where Obama was scheduled to appear.

While still on the roof and as the banner which read “Obama end Afghan War” had been almost completely revealed, the loyal security guards showed up to bring it down before the police intervened. The police took the names of two of CODEPINK members and told them “not to worry about it,” said Marina, a CODEPINK member.

According to news reports, they 13,000 extra troop acre composed of mainly engineers, medical staff, intelligence officers and military police. About 3,000 of them are specialists in explosives, who are being sent to try to fght the growing fatality rate from roadside bombs. “Last week Obama decided to send 13,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

That’s not a noble peace qualifier, that’s not what we think a real peace president would do, so we want to help support the president do what he was elected to do” said Rae.

When El Reportero asked Rae if she had any last comments she said, ”We are all out here because President Obama made a lot of promises and now we need to remind him to fulfi ll them, hopefully he’ll take our messages to heart, but I’ll believe it when I see it.”

CODEPINK is a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement. ­They direct their energy on working to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, stopping new wars, and redirecting U.S. resources into health care, education, green jobs and other life-affirming activities.

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by the El reportero’s news services

Yoani Sánchez

HAVANA — A Cuban blogger who has become an international sensation for offering frank criticism of her country’s communist system said she was denied government permission Monday to travel to New York to receive a top journalism prize.

Yoani Sánchez had hoped to go to Columbia University for a Wednesday ceremony to receive her María Moors Cabot Prize, the oldest international award in journalism.

“Immigration just confirmed that I remain prohibited from leaving the country,” she posted on her “Generation Y” blog.

There was no confirmation from the government, but Cuban authorities almost never comment on such matters.

Sánchez’s husband, Reynaldo Escobar, who uses his own blog to provide searing criticism of everyday life in Cuba, said in a phone interview that his wife spent the morning discussing her travel request with immigration offi cials, then posted word of the denial.

In May, Cuban authorities denied Sánchez permission to fl y to Madrid to accept the Ortega y Gasset Prize in digital journalism for creating Generation Y, which gets more than 1 million hits a month. Around the same time, Time magazine deemed Sánchez one of the world’s 100 most infl uential people.

Indigenous groups across the region flex their muscles

Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa and assorted cabinet ministers received more than 30 indigenous leaders in the presidential palace Carondelet this week in an effort to pre-empt an escalation in protests against the new Water Law and the government’s mining plans.

Correa’s decision to give the indigenous a hearing shows he is acutely aware of how the Peruvian government’s mishandling of protests in the Amazon led to bloody clashes with security forces in June.

Peru’s President Alan García failed to consult the indigenous about development plans in the area: a commission belatedly travelled to Bagua this week to assess the causes of the protest.

How different would a Piñera government be?

The opinion polls for Chile’s presidential election still point to a decisive, second-round run-off between a rightwing billionaire, Sebastián Piñera from the Alianza por el Cambio, and Eduardo Frei, from the ruling Concertación, on January 17.

The first round on 13 December is likely, according to the opinion polls, to knock out Marco Enríquez Ominami, an independent socialist and Jorge Arrate, a radical leftwinger. Here we look at how different a Piñera government might be from the Concertación administrations of the past 20 years.

Hondurans agree on constitution; no deal on Zelaya

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Honduras’ opposing factions agreed Tuesday on nearly every point of a pact to end the political crisis except the central issue: ousted President Manuel Zelaya’s return to the presidency.

Negotiators said Zelaya’s camp has promised that if he returns to power, he will drop his efforts to change the Honduran constitution, an initiative that led to his June 28 ouster.

Juan Barahona, a Zelaya supporter who has led street protests against the coup, walked out of the talks Tuesday in protest of the agreement on the constitution. He vowed to continue fighting for a new constitution on his own even if Zelaya is restored to offi­ce.

Critics say Zelaya was seeking to extend his time in office by removing a constitutional ban on presidential re-election, as his ally Hugo Chavez has done in Venezuela. Zelaya denied that was his intention, but soldiers fl ew him into exile at gunpoint after he ignored court orders to drop a referendum to ask Hondurans if they wanted an assembly to rewrite the constitution.

Zelaya sneaked back into Honduras on Sept. 21 and is holed up at the Brazilian Embassy. The United States and other countries have suspended aid to the Central American country to pressure the interim government to restore Zelaya.

(AP and Latin News contributed to the report.)

by Erick Galindo

Twice now, Lou Dobbs has mentioned: Roberto Lovato on his “Lou Dobbs Tonight” program carried by CNN. Lovato is an investigative reporter and former community organizer. On the aig Dobbs labeled him a ‘’flea” and a “bozo.”

Dobbs annoyance stems from the fact that Lovato is part of a national movement to get the controversial commentator dropped from CNN. Lovato’s group, Basta Dobbs, is conducting one of three major campaigns tar geting the conservative anchor.

Drop Dobbs Now and Democracia Ahora’s campargn entitled “Enough is Enough!” are the others.

“At some point the :Latino community had to do something to push back against the tide of hatred that seals the cup and pocketbook of Lou Dobbs and CNN’” Lovato told Weekly Report.

The majority of Dobbs’ shows deal with immigration, a problem Lovato says, “has the potential to change the course of American history.” In 140 broadcast hours this year from Jan. 1 through July 23, “Lou Dobbs Tonight” devoted 77—more than half—to the topic of immigration.

Dobbs has claimed that immigrants carry diseases across the border, are criminals and steal jobs from U.S. workers as pan of a major Mexican conspiracy to re-conquer the Southwest as part of the fabled Aztlan. In 2007 he falsely related a substantial rise in leprosy cases to immigrant flow across the border.

Lovato gives the CNN show credit for one positive advance in the Hispanic community: Dobbs’ attacks have brought the community to its feet, he says. They have facilitated the movement, seriously damaged his credibility with the public, and put in question CNN’s impartial image as “the most trusted name in news.~

This year Dobbs aired a piece questioning the citizenship of President Barack Obama even as CNN itself had already discredited the so-called “birthers” movement.

In August, he affiliated himself with the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an anti-immigrant special interest group, prompting Media Matters President Eric Burns to issue an open letter to CNN Vice President Jonathan Klein.

“Mr. Dobbs represents an ongoing threat to CNN’s credibility as a serious news organization’ in no small part because of his polemical coverage of immigration issues and his continued Use of his CNN show to lend prominence to groups such as FAIR,” wrote Burns.

But according to Lovato, Dobbs threatens more than his reputation. “I know the kind of dangerous threat represented by CNN and Lou Dobbs.” Lavato said. “He is willing to draw on some of the famed gutters of imagery and language that perpetuate racism and hate and somehow call it news.”

CNN has defended Dobbs opinions and he has repeatedly defended his right to be on the air and state his partiality. Yet, his diatribes have contributed to a rise in hate crimes in the community~ according to a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“This kind of really vile propaganda begins in hate groups’ makes its way out into the larger anti-immigration movement’ and’ before you know it, winds up in places like ‘Lou Dobbs Tonightt on CNN,” said Mark Potok’ director of the Intelligence Project. “This country needs a robust debate on immigration, but it does not need a debate based on racist allegations and bogus conspiracy theories.”

Lovato said the movement is making great strides and has grown by the tens of thousands in the past few weeks alone, giving him optimism to complete the mission.

“What is happening now is a national and multi-prong, multi-focused effort and that’s something they have never had to face,” he said. “It’s something bigger they didn’t think the community capable of ever really taking on. It’s actually really exciting that way.”

Lovato said the movement has also made progress at CNN and some inside the network have privately admitted ­that there is pressure. The fact that extreme caricature zealots, like FOX’s Glenn Beck, continue to lose sponsors is also something that concerns the network.

Dobbs has begun to drop in the ratings which could be why he chose to acknowledge Lovato on the air and invite him to come on “Lou Dobbs Tonight” to debate immigration: a move that could re-energize Dobbs’ ratings. But Lovato and other leaders of the movement say they are past the stage of trying to debate Dobbs.

“At this point we are going over his head,” Lovato said. “We’re talking to his bosses. CNN tells us that it is feeling the massive attack, I mean, executives are seeing the national growing pressure from Latinos throughout the United States. Hispanic Link.