­por Marvin Ramírez

The new District Attorney de S.F. George Gascón (standing), Sup. Scott Wiener, an assistant District Attorney and Supervisor David Campos at the Community Court event.  (PHOTO BY MARVIN RAMIREZ)

At a community gathering at Centro Latino of San Francisco, the District Attorney’s Office launched the Community Court Initiative, a pilot project that will try minor-criminal cases outside the traditional court system. Originally, according to news reports, the project is a U.S Justice Department pilot project initiated in November of 1998.

Mayor Gavin Newsom brought a fresher idea about the program during a trip to the Big Apple and copied it for San Francisco starting it in the Tenderloin District. This was back in 2005, but actually started running in 2007, according to records.

The new City District Attorney George Gascón has re-launched it and expanded it to operate in the Mission and the Bayview/ Hunter’s Points Districts San Francisco, as in the past it was first used to prosecute crimes committed in the Tenderloin and South of Market neiborhoods. A neighborhood-based mini-court set up, the project is staffed by volunteers and designed to handle misdemeanor offenses. In the last fi ve years, the San Francisco model has become an outstanding example of how a Restorative Justice program can reduce crime in inner-urban areas, according to the D.A.’s offi ce. The program was established as a collaborative of city departments, neighborhood residents and merchant associations. Starting with two courts, there are now eleven courts in 10 of the 11 San Francisco districts.

As the D.A.’s office describes it, the plan is to discourage criminal violation that impact our City’s neighborhood by helping heal victims, the community and the offenders.

Community courts order offenders to pay restitution to victims when there have been monetary loses o property damage, so creating an atmosphere of inclusion and responsibility in the part of the accused. It also orders those with addictions and anger problems to rehabilitation.

Each community court establishes a fund of their own through fi nes from various misdemeanor offenses. Once the fi nes accumulate in each separate account, the Mayor’s Offi ce of Criminal Justice issues an RFT (Request for Proposal) Request, usually three times a year. ­Any non-profit organization in any of the communities can apply to do neighborhood improvements and other activities that fi t the criteria of the RFP.

San Francisco’s Community Courts are organized and staffed by the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office and CaCDS. The program has drawn increasing collaborative support from The Superior Court, San Francisco’s Mayor’s Offi ce, Board of Supervisors, The Public Defenders Offi ce, the San Francisco Police Department and San Francisco Pretrial Diversion Inc.

by S. L. Baker

Natural News

According to the National Cancer Institute, about 16,700 new cases of esophageal cancer were diagnosed last year — and about 14,500 people died from the disease. Obviously, there’s no easy cure for this often fatal malignancy. So, as with any disease, it’s much better to prevent getting it in the first place.

But how? Mainstream medicine pushes Big Pharma drugs called H2 blockers and proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) to calm gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) in hopes of preventing Barrett’s  esophagus, a complication of GERD that ups the risk  for esophageal cancer. But these meds are loaded with potential side effects and there’s no strong evidence they really prevent cancer.

However, a new study provides evidence there may be a natural and tasty way to not only lower the odds of developing esophageal cancer but to halt and perhaps reverse the progression of precancerous lesions.

The powerful and delicious substance? Strawberries, especially the freeze-dried variety.These fi ndings were just presented for the fi rst time at the American Association for Cancer Research’s (AACR) 102nd Annual Meeting 2011, held in Orlando.

“We concluded from this study that six months of eating strawberries is safe  and easy to consume. In addition, our preliminary data suggests that strawberries can decrease histological grade of precancerous lesions and reduce cancerrelated molecular events,” said lead researcher Tong Chen, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor, division of medical oncology, department of internal medicine at Ohio State University. Dr. Chen is also a member of the Molecular Carcinogenesis and Chemoprevention Program in Ohio State University’s Comprehensive Cancer Center.

She pointed out that esophageal cancer is the third most common gastrointestinal cancer and the sixth most frequent cause of cancer death in the world. Dr. Chen and her research team are zeroing in on esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) which accounts for 95 percent of cases of esophageal cancer worldwide.

In earlier research, Dr. Chen’s research team discovered that freeze-dried strawberries significantly inhibited esophageal tumor development in rats. For the new study, the scientists launched a trial which included participants with esophageal precancerous lesions who were at high risk for developing fullblown esophageal cancer.

The research subjects consumed 60 grams of freeze-dried strawberries every day for six months. Freeze-dried strawberries were used because, by removing the water from the berries, the natural cancer-preventive substances in the strawberries soared by nearly 10-fold, according to Dr. Chen. Biopsies were taken before and after the six months of strawberry consumption. The results showed that 29 out of 36 participants experienced a decrease in the histological grade of their precancerous esophageal lesions during the time they ate the strawberries.

“Our study is important because it shows that strawberries may slow the progression of precancerous lesions in the esophagus. Strawberries may be an alternative or work together with other chemopreventive drugs for the prevention of esophageal cancer,” Dr. Chen stated.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/031981_strawberries_esophageal_cancer.html#ixzz1K5eU5g9n.

In other related news:

California delivers on toxic strawberries

by Kim Evans

In a time of intense propaganda about food safety, California recently approved the use of a chemical regularly used to create cancer in lab animals for use on strawberries that will be shipped around the world. The chemical is methyl iodide and some scientists call it the most dangerous chemical known to man. Scientists use protective gear when using it in the lab because of the cancer risk and the chemical’s easy ability to damage our DNA. Of course, damaged DNA leads to problems for the holder of that DNA, and for all future generations that inherit it too. The chemical is also known to cause brain and reproductive damage, so it’s a move that California has made to ensure strawberries will be about as unsafe as possible.

Learn more: ­http://www.naturalnews.com/030958_strawberries_pesticides.html#ixzz1K5wBOgKp.

­by the El Reportero’s news services

Manuel Zelaya

Former President Manuel Zelaya plans to return to Honduras in May, in the wake of efforts started this month with the mediation of Venezuela, Deputy Coordinator of the National People’s Resistance Front (FNRP) Juan Barahona announced.

Barahona said that the FNRP fully trust the mediation of President Hugo Chavez so that institutional order can be restored in Honduras.

Leaders of the resistance front participated along with Zelaya in a meeting on Saturday in Caracas with Chavez, who expressed his willingness to contribute to restore peace and democracy in Honduras. Zelaya’s return is a main demand made by the international community to Honduran President Porfirio Lobo so that the country can be readmitted into the Organization of American States.

Mexico Rercovers stolen archeological pieces

Authorities in Hessen locality, Germany, returned a lot of 49 Pre-Columbian pieces to Mexico, which were seized at Frankfurt airport in 2004, local press reported on Saturday.

A joint text of the General Attorney of the Republic and the Foreign Affairs Secretariat says that among the stolen objects are a stone-carved mask and another 42 pieces made of gray and green granite rock.

Mexican and German investigations revealed that the lot is directly linked to operations staged by Leonardo Augustus Patterson, internationally known as an alleged smuggler of Pre-Columbian pieces.

Patterson is also linked with the robbery in Spain of an important lot of archeological pieces coming from different Latin-American countries, which is already saved in Munich for returning to their countries of origin.

The joint note also expresses the appreciation of the Mexican government for the cooperation offered by Hesse’s authorities, who especially made possible the checking of the lot and preserved it in peak condition.

Fernández divides and rules

President Cristina Fernández announced on April 18, a series of new benefits for Argentina’s pensioners and extended the child benefit program, Asignación Universal por Hijo (AUH), to include pregnant women in their second trimester. Government critics slated the move as a preelectoral and populist stunt by the government ahead of the Oct. 23 general election.

Likewise, the opposition has cried foul over the revised (and reduced) allocation of media air time for the 2011 campaign, arguing that it puts the government, which is not affected by the new regulations, at a clear advantage. However, while the opposition complains (and bickers internally), the (undeclared) Fernández is making full use of the state machinery to boost her image.

Peruvians opt to live life on the edge

Two candidates at either extreme of the political spectrum will contest the second round of Peru’s presidential elections on 5 June.

After the first round on 10 April, many Peruvians will be puzzling over how they have been left to choose between two options which 40 percent of voters apiece consider unpalatable: a left-wing ethnic nationalist, Ollanta Humala, and a right-wing populist, Keiko Fujimori, ­the daughter of a former president who ran an authoritarian kleptocracy and has been convicted of corruption and human rights abuses.

The run-off will be very closely contested and could hinge on which way the centre-right, urban middleclasses in Lima, who distrust both candidates, sway.

by Mike Adams

Natural News

Thanks to the recent (and laughable) “largest annual spending cut in history” announced by Obama and Boehner, it is now abundantly evident that the U.S. government is headed toward a complete economic meltdown that will make Fukushima look chilly by comparison. While cesium- 137 may have a half-life of 30 years, and iodine-131 a half-life of 8 days, if the U.S. government continues on its current path of spending trillions of dollars it doesn’t have, the half-life of the value of a dollar may soon be measured in hours.

Want to buy a loaf of bread at the store? Bring a bucket load of cash, because by the time you get there to buy it, the price may have doubled yet again, Zimbabwe-style. Such absurdities are now headed our way, and they will arrive sooner that you’ve been led to believe.

The downward spiral of the debt addiction

That’s because in order to avoid a government shutdown, the U.S. government has recently decided to go bankrupt instead. Already drunk from the freewheeling spending of other people’s money, the feds have now resorting to the intravenous mainlining of new debt just to take another “hit” that will get them by for another week or two.

To call the U.S. political leaders “debt junkies” is an insult to heroin addicts. After all, heroin addicts mostly destroy only themselves and their loved ones, not entire nations. But Washington’s new policies — endorsed by both the Democrats and the Republicans — are based on the street drug equivalent of snorting five lines of cocaine while mainlining heroin while riding a double hit of meth chased down with the desperate chugging of unfiltered Russian vodka smuggled into the country in used gasoline cans.

Like a drug addict passed out face-down on the sidewalk in a pool of his own vomit, wearing nothing but a ragged pair of underwear soaked with his own urine, the United States federal governmentis now beyond the window of opportunity for rational intervention. It is now a basket case of “schizonomics” where key economic decisions are made by leaders who, instead of following the laws of economics, follow the persistent voices in their own heads. And those voices keep repeating the same disturbing mantra: Spend! Spend! SPEND!

There is no medication strong enough to quell this chorus of fi scal insanity, either, because these voices are not based in reality but rather a kind of economic mental illness that has infected the minds of nearly every lawmaker in America today. Strangely, the CDC offers no statistics on this unsightly epidemic, perhaps because the White House has named this insidious disease “Economic Policy.”

IMF declares USA is headed straight into a dead end

As if to underscore the chilling degree of derangement in Washington D.C., the IMF has issued one of the strongest statements yet about U.S. debt spending, declaring that the USA lacked a “credible strategy” to stabilize its debt (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dc1aadea-…). Furthermore, it warns that runaway debt spending from Washington threatens to cause a global financial crisis.

So far, all we’ve seen from Washington is financial sleight of hand and trickery.

Most of the recent $38.5 billion in cuts — which were already puny compared to the total debt spending — were achieved by using accounting tricks and claiming to have cut programs that were already slated to be cut anyway (http://apnews.myway.com/article/201…).

­Even then, Democrats screamed as if they were having their fingernails plucked out. If they can’t stomach a miniscule $38.5 billion in cuts, how on Earth are they going to fi nd a way to stomach the trillions of dollars in spending cuts that must be made to keep the government solvent?

Huge 15.7 percent increase in budget deficit in just one year

Almost as if to underscore the insanity of the situation, recently-released fi gures from the U.S. Treasury reveal that the budget defi cit has shot up 15.7 percent in just one year. The deficit for just the October-March period (half a year) was $829 billion. (http://finance.ninemsn.com.au/newsb…)

What we’re seeing here is the U.S. government burning through nearly a trillion dollars in new debt every six months. This is beyond the bounds of everyday, crazydude-on-the-street insanity. It is very rapidly approaching a level of economic terrorism on the part of our national leaders. To continue to drive America’s fi nances into such unbearable depths of debt is very nearly an act of economic warfare against America — a “fi nancial dirty bomb,” if you will. A bomb that, when it goes off, will sadly injure America’s economy in a way that will absolutely dwarf the economic fallout of 9/11.