by Katie Moisse

Scientists have discovered a new strain of gonorrhea- causing bacteria in Japan that is resistant to available treatments.

Since the 1940s, the sexually transmitted disease known as “the clap” has been easily treated with antibiotics.

But the new strain of Neisseria gonorrhoeae has genetically mutated to evade cephalosporins — the only antibiotics still effective against the infection.

“This is both an alarming and a predictable discovery,” lead researcher Magnus Unemo, professor at the Swedish Reference Laboratory for Pathogenic Neisseria in Örebro, Sweden, said in a statement. “Since antibiotics became the standard treatment for gonorrhea in the 1940s, this bacterium has shown a remarkable capacity to develop resistance mechanisms to all drugs introduced to control it.”

The discovery, announced by Unemo at the International Society for Sexually Transmitted Disease Research meeting in Quebec City, Canada, could hail gonorrhea’s transition from treatable STD to global public health threat.

“While it is still too early to assess if this new strain has become widespread, the history of newly emergent resistance in the bacterium suggests that it may spread rapidly unless new drugs and effective treatment programs are developed,” Unemo said in a statement.

Cephalosporin-resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae joins methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and vancomycin- resistant enterococci in a sinister class of bacteria known as superbugs. But unlike hospital acquired MRSA and VRE, which spread where antibiotic use runs high and immune defenses run low, super gonorrhea could spread anywhere.

“This report points out that antibiotic resistance is occurring not only in hospitals, but out in the community,” said Dr. William Schaffner, chair of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn. And while the strain was disovered in Kyoto, Japan, antibiotic-resistant bacteria “don’t need a passport.”

Antibiotic resistance is not a new phenomenon — even for Neisseria gonorrhoeae, which developed resistance to several other antibiotics used before cephalosporins.

“We were concerned about this 20 years ago and combated that very effectively,” said Schaffner, explaining how gonorrhea treatments have evolved alongside the bacteria.

“But if you have a strain that’s completely resistant to antibiotics, you have to very quickly develop strategies to recognize the resistant strain and alternative treatment regimens.”

Such tests and new treatments could be developed, Schaffner said, but they would likely be more expensive. Amid cutbacks across all facets of research, pharmaceutical companies are investing less in the quest for new antibiotics, he said.

With an estimated 700,000 new cases each year in the U.S. alone, gonorrhea is one of the most common STDs. It spreads through direct contact with   the penis, vagina, mouth or anus, and can also be transmitted from mom to baby during delivery.

But only 50 percent of infected women and less than fi ve percent of infected men develop symptoms, such as a burning sensation and discharge. Left untreated, the infection can spread to the skin, blood and other organs causing pain, infertility and even death.

A July 8, 2011, report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged doctors to be on the lookout for gonorrhea resistant to cephalosporins, and to report cases promptly.

The new superbug serves as a reminder that antibiotic resistance is a problem that spreads beyond hospital and nursing home walls.

­“We need to implement a program so that pharmaceutical companies are motivated fi nancially to pursue research in developing antibiotics,” Schaffner said. “And both the public and professional have to be much more rigorous in their expectations and use of antibiotics.”

­by the El Reportero’s news services

Arturo Valenzuela

Today, June 15, is Arturo Valenzuela’s last day as the US’s chief policymaker for Latin America. President Barack Obama has yet to indicate who might succeed Valenzuela, who has, in Latin American eyes at least, been a success.

He has been a much steadier policymaker than many of his predecessors, refusing to rise to taunts from anti-Americans such as President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela or President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua. Valenzuela’s biggest success is to have changed Latin American perceptions about ‘Los Gringos’.

This was built on a Valenzuela’s clear-sighted choices about where US interests lay over issues such as the coup in Honduras; whether former president Alvaro Uribe of Colombia should be encouraged to flout the constitution and run for re-election; and preventing the WikiLeaks scandal from poisoning relations with the region.

Peculiar f a mily piles pressure on Peru’s president-elect

When Ollanta Humala won election on June 5 what tipped the balance was a frank acknowledgement that while there might be “doubts” about him, there was “proof” that his rival Keiko Fujimori was a danger. Humala said it was not necessary to look beyond the rampant corruption of her father, Alberto Fujimori’s authoritarian government in the 1990s.

Three weeks before he takes office on July 28 Humala has been caught up in a media storm over a trip to Russia by his brother Alexis to discuss business contracts. Alexis might have travelled in a personal capacity, as he claims, but his visit was sufficiently opaque for the largely hostile domestic media to raise the fear that the “doubts” about Humala were legitimate; that the nepotism and corruption he promised to root out might in fact thrive under him.

­The link between Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala

All three countries are dealing with political problems caused by the constrictions imposed by their constitutions.

In this edition of the Caribbean & Central America Report we analyse what has happened (see p2 to7) and here we attempt to draw some conclusions. We argue that the coup in Honduras was the consequence of brinkmanship and miscalculations on both sides. El Salvador and Guatemala, and perhaps, the international community as well, have learned from what went wrong in Honduras and so a repeat of the coup there in either of its neighbors is unlikely.

by U.S. Desk

In light of the recent popular protests in various parts of the world — particularly in Egypt — some conspiracy theorist have hinted at the possibility of the U.S. government using FEMA camps to hold potential protesters.

Some of these theories suggest that the government is prepared to turn FEMA camps into “concentration camps” holding “civilians” deemed a potential threat to the US government.

Such claims prompted Press TV to take a closer look at FEMA and its activities:

FEMA

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security, initially created by a Presidential Order on 1 April 1979. Fas.org.

FEMA had one original concept when it was created,  to assure the survivability of the United States government in the event of a nuclear attack on the nation.

It was also provided with the task of being a federal coordinating body during times of domestic disasters, such as earthquakes, floods and hurricanes.

Some people have referred to it as the “secret government” of the United States. It is not an elected body, it does not involve itself in public disclosures, and it even has a quasi-secret budget in the billions of dollars. The National Governor’s Association asked President Carter to streamline the nation’s disaster response mechanism. Endrtimes.blogspot.com.

Like the George W. Bush effort to bring agencies under the umbrella of Homeland Security, Carter created FEMA to combine the efforts of dozens of agencies. But just as Homeland Security has done with Katrina, the new FEMA bungled its first tests with the Washington Post reporting, “The new anti-disaster agency is on the verge of becoming a disaster itself.”

Prior to 1950, the federal government stayed out of local disasters for the most part, with only an occasional congressional appropriation when absolutely necessary. But in that year, Congress gave the president the power to declare disasters and dispense monetary aid. Newsmax.com.

Controversy surrounding FEMA

Not surprisingly, with the advent of FEMA, the number of national disasters began to balloon. However, it was not until Hurricane Andrew in August of 1992 that FEMA began to morph into what it now is. A lot of money went to the victims of Andrew, but politicians were beginning to see the potential in natural disasters. A community college got a new parking lot. Miami Beach got new art deco lifeguard stands. The then-governor of Florida, Lawton Chiles, obtained $25 million for a new prison that had nothing to do with the hurricane. Newsmax.com.

FEMA was not created under Constitutional law by the Congress. It was a product of a Presidential Executive Order.

FEMA has the power to suspend laws, move entire populations, arrest and detain citizens without a warrant and hold them without trial, it canseize property, food supplies, transportation systems, and can suspend the Constitution. Endrtimes.blogspot.com.

In 2004, the federal government used hurricane aid money to pay funeral expenses for at least 203 Floridians whose deaths were not caused by last year’s storms, the state’s coroners have concluded. Sun-sentinel.com.

As of 2008, FEMA had only spent about 6 percent of its budget on national emergencies; the bulk of their funding had been used for the construction of secret underground facilities to assure the continuity of the government in case of a major emergency, foreign or domestic.

Executive Orders associated with FEMA

Here are just a few Executive Orders associated with FEMA that would suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These Executive Orders have been on record for nearly 30 years and could be enacted by the stroke of a Presidential pen:

* EXECUTIVE ORDER 10990 allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports.

* EXECUTIVE ORDER 10995 allows the government to seize and control the communication media.

* EXECUTIVE ORDER 10997 allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals.

* EXECUTIVE ORDER 10998 allows the government to take over all food resources and farms.

* EXECUTIVE ORDER 11000 allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades.

* EXECUTIVE ORDER 11001 allows the government to take over all health, education and welfare functions.

* EXECUTIVE ORDER 11002 designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons.

* EXECUTIVE ORDER 11003 allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft.

* EXECUTIVE ORDER 11004 allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with publicfunds, designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new locations for populations.

* EXECUTIVE ORDER 11005 allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways and public storage facilities.

* EXECUTIVE ORDER 11051 specifies the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic or financial crisis.

* EXECUTIVE ORDER 11310 grants authority to the Department of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional institutions, and to advise and assist the President.

* EXECUTIVE ORDER 11049 assigns emergency preparedness function to federal departments and agencies, consolidating 21 operative Executive Orders issued over a 15-year period. Endrtimes.blogspot.com.

* EXECUTIVE ORDER 11921 allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money in U.S. financial institution in any undefined national emergency. ­It also provides that when a state of emergency is declared by the President, Congress cannot review the action for six months. Dmc.members.sonic.net.

­por Víctor Franco Alonso

Facundo Cabral

Poetry has been left without soul, the song is filled with dismay, the man’s freedom is totally restricted.

On July 9, at 5.20 in the morning, South America started to mourn in unison the murder of the genius and troubadour, Facundo Cabral, in Guatemala City. In fact, tears haven’t stopped and won’t stop anytime soon. The singer-songwriter died due to multiple gunshots fired by a band of strangers when he was on his way to the city airport in a vehicle steered by Nicaraguan businessman Henry Fariña.

The news of his death woke his followers up, like a dagger stuck in the heart and within few minutes all the international media echoed the event. It has been debated whether the crime entails political aspects or links to drugtrafficking. In statements to the newspaper El País, the Nobel Prize Laureate in 1992, Rigoberta Menchú, claims that it is the case.

No soy de aquí, no soy de allá, Cabral used to sing in one of his most well-known performances. He was from nowhere and loved to seize the days as if they were the last ones. “Blessed who doesn’t change the dream of his life for the daily bread”, he highlighted in an interview with the Argentine newspaper El Litoral.

He was born on May 22, 1937, and according to his own words, his mother gave birth in the streets of La Plata, province of Buenos Aires. Cabral had a very complicated childhood, and in one occasion when he escaped home, he arrived in Buenos Aires. There, he evaded the police fence that surrounded President Juan Domingo Perón, in order to ask him for a job for his family. He got it. During his teenage years, he fought thousands of battles, quitting his studies at an early age and being involved in quarrels that would deprive him from his freedom for about a year. Nevertheless, in his nomadic life he found light when he placed his fingers on a guitar.

It all began there.

He had enough stories in his back and in his head to share with someone whom only by barely touching the breeze of his songs would be captivated.

The honesty of his words could be sensed, the words of someone who lived with the basics and who turned the street into his school. A fervent believer, he didn’t trust governments or ideologies, but liberty and equality of men, who he believed was good by nature. He never silent his ­feelings and vindications, which forced him to exile during four years. UNESCO declared him World Peace Messenger. He shared stage with artists such as Alberto Cortez, Julio Iglesias, Pedro Vargas or Neil Diamond.

Nevertheless, he wasn’t a person who would easily settle and wanted to give even more to his public. “I turn the face to the enemy, the back to a good comment, because whoever takes compliments starts to be dominated”, Cabral asserted to El Litoral in one of his famous phrases.

Curiously, in his last concert he said goodbye to his followers, in order to rest in his homeland from the cancer that struck him; he wouldn’t go back on stage. This time he retires definitely from the world that gave him so much and that took away from him so much as well. In any case, he does leave a legacy of indelible and incomparable lyrics and emptiness. May he rest in peace, the genius, Facundo Cabral.