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Emergency teams deploy to Peru

by the El Repartero news services

Relief International is deploying emergency relief and assessment teams to Peru to provide immediate assistance to survivors of this week’s powerful earthquake. The 8.0 magnitude quake struck in the evening of Wednesday, August 15, killing hundreds, injuring thousands and destroying homes, businesses and critical infrastructure. Harsh winter temperatures are making the situation even worse as survivors, afraid to return to their houses, sleep in the streets and wait in long lines for food and medical care.

Relief International’s Rapid Emergency Deployment (RED) Team went into action hours after the quake struck. The first team members – two medical doctors and an emergency medical technician (EMT) with search and rescue expertise will arrive in the disaster area on Sunday. They will collaborate with local officials, determine the most appropriate course of action, and begin delivering medical treatment to those in need.

RI emergency teams have responded to the world’s worst humanitarian disasters since 1990. RI’s response will begin with immediate emergency relief, but will soon transition into longer term efforts including shelter, infrastructure reconstruction, livelihood rebuilding, education and more. To do this, we need your help!

HOW DO YOU HELP

To help provide relief to victims of the earthquake in Peru please make monetary donations by phone, 1mail or online. 95 percent of all private contributions directly benefit the survivors through direct aid on the ground. Contributions of relief items and pharmaceuticals are also accepted.

Online:www.ri.org/Peru.

Phone: 1-800-573-3332 or 1-310-478-1200.

Mail: Make Check Payable to: Relief International – Peru Earthquake Relief, 1575 westwood Blvd., Suite 200, Los Angeles, CA 90024. IRS Tax Exempt ID: 95-4300662.

Menem defeated in Argentine local elections

ARGENTINA – Local elections which took place in two provinces on 19 August produced victories both for the President Kirchner’s Frente para la Victoria (FV) and for Peronists opposed to Kirchner.

With 93 percent of votes counted in the province of La Rioja, incumbent governor and Kirchner candidate, Luis Beder Herrera, gained 42 percent of votes, followed by Ricardo Quintela with 28 percent, who was also running on the FV ticket. Dissident (“anti-K”) Peronist and former president Carlos Menem, came third with 22 percent.

In other related news in Argentina, Cristina launches candidacy amid corruption probe in Argentina The government launched its official presidential ticket, the “Cristina-Cobos” partnership, in a large political rally in Buenos Aires this week. Senator Cristina Fernández, and the governor of Mendoza, Julio Cobos, made much of the fact that they represented different political parties but shared the same vision: a united Argentina.

President Néstor Kirchner, who attended the rally with his entire cabinet, created the cross-party alliance in 2005 to provide a contrast with the “corrupt” administrations of the 1990s. This now rings hollow. Fernández is trying to steal back the political momentum less than eight weeks before the elections after the emergence of yet another official corruption case, which has the added twist of complicating relations with Venezuela.

The seizure and deportation of Elvira Arellano in Los Angeles

by Salome Eguizabal

Elvira Arellano, the 32-year-old undocumented woman who a year ago took refuge with her U.S.-born son inside a Chicago church to avoid deportation to Mexico, was arrested Aug. 19 outside a California church and removed from the country shortly afterwards.

Arellano and her son Saul, 8, had become spokespersons against U.S. immigration policies that separate mothers and children. She was arrested outside Our Lady Queen of Angels church in Los Angeles after talking with reporters.

The National Immigrants Solidarity Network called her arrest and deportation “a shameful move,…a clear signal from the government to terrify people who dare to speak up and fight injustice.”

The Associated Press has reported that Arellano has pledged to continue her campaign for immigration reform from Mexico.

In an interview with Weekly Report a few days before her arrest, Arellano deflected questions about what would happen to Saul if she were detained or deported.

Emma Lozano, president of Sin Fronteras, an immigrant advocacy group in Chicago and Arellano’s top ally, will take care of Saul, according to the Associated Press.

On Aug. 15, when Arellano announced her plans to leave the Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago, she spoke of holding a prayer vigil in Washington, D.C., Sept. 12 to urge Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform before the upcoming presidential elections.

Arellano’s supporters state they will go ahead with the vigil as scheduled.

Arellano had declared that she was not afraid of being taken into custody and that traveling outside of the Chicago church would not increase her chances of being detained.

“From the time I took sanctuary, it’s been a possibility that they would arrest me in the place and time of their choosing,” Arellano said. “If immigration wants to arrest me, then [they should] arrest me there [in Washington] in front of the men and women who make the big decisions and who are ignoring the millions of families who are shouting that we need changes in the immigration laws.”

Over the past year, her situation became symbolic of the struggles facing the many mixed-status families – those made up of both undocumented and legal residents currently living in the United States.

“Congress must act in September to stop the separation of families, the torture of four million U.S.-citizen children, the raids and deportations, [and] the no-match sanctions,” Arellano said the day she announced her plans to lobby in Washington, D.C.

In December 2002, while working as a janitor at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, Arellano was caught in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement sweep. After her appeals failed, she defied her deportation order last year and sought sanctuary with Saul inside the Adalberto United Methodist ­Church, where she had lived ever since.

Religious sanctuary has no legal basis for protection under U.S. Iaws. ICE had maintained it would arrest Arellano at a time and place of its choosing.

Saul has traveled the country extensively and even addressed Mexico’s Congress, pleading for his mother’s future.

“He has met other children who are also living under difficult situations because of their parent’s deportation, and he wants to be a part of this struggle,” Arellano told Weekly Report.

Hispanic Link.

Bomba and Plena from Puerto Rico hit the Mission

by Juliana Birnbaum Fox

Los Pleneros de Severo, de Puerto RicoLos Pleneros de Severo, de Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico’s Los Pleneros de Severo Quiñones (PSQ), a dynamic Bomba & Plena group, will be playing the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts on August 24.

Pleneros de Severo Quiñones is Charlie (dir. & Congas), Tony (singer), Bandy (Quinto), Raul (Guiro) & Agustin (Bas). Jose Nogueras, one of the main characters in Puerto Rico’s folkloric representations says: “PSQ has taken Plena to another level.”

Angel Alvarado, director of Grupo Esencia, the main Plena group in Puerto Rico”When PSQ is on stage – everything else just stops, is like if your inner self says -listen, watch, and dance.” Tickets are available through www.MissionCulturalCenter.org.

City College Rams host football scrimmage

The Rams, City College’s football team, will host a scrimmage match against San Joaquin Valley College at 4:00 P.M. at Rams Stadium on Wednesday, August 22, 2007. San Joaquin Delta was one of the top five teams in the Valley Conference last year and is traveling out to play the Rams for their fourth annual face-off.

Led by Coach George Rush, the Rams were the top team in the NorCal Conference last year and remain a prime source for Division I recruiters. In 2006, 15 team members transferred to prominent college football programs, including Penn State and Nebraska. Rush described the scrimmage as “a valuable opportunity to provide a competitive atmosphere while protecting our players and getting to see them perform together as a team.”

The two teams will meet at CCSF’s Rams Stadium, located on City College’s main campus at 50 Phelan Avenue in San Francisco.

37th Annual Millbrae Labor Day Festival brings music, crafts and food to the streets

Every year for the past 37 years, the last unofficial weekend of summer brings throngs of festival lovers to Millbrae for one of the Bay Area’s biggest Labor Day weekend events, transforming the downtown streets into a vibrant street fair with two days of live music, arts and crafts, and food and wine. This year the festival is expanding its green initiative, encouragingrecycling and composting and running a shuttle service from the Milbrae BART/Caltrain station to the south end of the festival.

­The music lineup this year highlights bands that pay tribute to history’s great rock and roll. It will feature Zoo Station (U2), Who Too (The Who), Evolution (Journey), The Gator Alley Band (Lynyrd Skynyrd), Replica (80’s rock bands), along with talented teenage sensations Lane Four, fan favorites in the KFOX Last Band Standing Competition. String ensemble HeartStrings Music, jazzy r&b trio Emerson & The Growiser Band, and woodwind/keyboard duo Dreamroad round out the stellar lineup of music. The festival will also feature performances by the Chinese Folk Dance Association, the Mills High School Dragon Team, and the Shinnyo Temple Taiko Drum Group.

Presented by the Millbrae Chamber of Commerce, this year’s festival runs September 1-2 (Saturday and Sunday of Labor Day weekend) on Broadway (1 block west of El Camino Real) between Victoria and Meadow Glen. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days. Admission is free.

Juanes to release new single, Beyancé Knowles sings bilingual

by Salome Eguizabal

JuanesJuanes

NEW MUSIC: Juanes, the internationally renown crooner famous for his love songs, will release a new single Sept. 4 entitled “Me enamora.” Juanes is set to release his fourth album, La vida es un ratico, later this year after an absence since his last release, Mi sangre, in 2004.

CROSSING OVER: R&B singer and actress Beyoncé Knowles, who recently recorded several of her English-language hits in Spanish and collaborated with Colombian megastar Shakira in the hit single “Beautiful Liar,” plans to release the tracks as part of a special compilation for her Latino fans. The eight-track CD which showcases Beyoncé’s Spanish proficiency goes on sale Aug. 28 exclusively through Wal-Mart.

NORTENO CONCERT: Some lucky California residents will be a treated to a concert so exclusive that tickets won’t go on sale. Spanish Broadcasting System, Inc. will host the second annual “Viva La Raza” mega concert at the Pico Rivera Sports Arena in Whittier, Calif, Aug 26 Tickets to the event will be available only to the KLAX-FM “97.9 La Raza” audience through on-air giveaways, at sponsor locations and during special station appearances.

Artists scheduled to perform include Norteño superstars Los Rieleros del Norte, Chapo de Sinaloa, El Coyote y su Banda and La Banda Pequeños Musical, among others.

For more information and to enter ticket giveaway contests, visit www.9791araza. com­.

VISUALIZING EL BARRIO: To keep up with the area’s increasingly Hispanic population, the University of Maryland, College Park, minutes away from the nation’s capital, is hosting an art gallery event depicting the lives of Latinos from across the D.C. metropolitan area. It features the works of eight local Latino artists. They include photographs of daily life in Latino communities as well as watercolors and paintings infused with Latin culture.

The exhibit, open to the public at Adele Stamp Student Union, began Aug. 6 and runs through Sept. 13, with a reception Sept. 6 from 5-7 pm.

For more information, call (301) 314-8493 or visit www.union.umd.edu/gallery.

Hispanic Link.

Supervisor Daly introduces legislation to regulate “push” polls

by Juliana Birnbaum Fox

A type of telephone polling called persuasion or “push” polls, whose purpose is more to plant information rather than measure public opinion, have been increasingly used to influence voters with misleading or false language.

Supervisor Daly’s bill, co-sponsored by Supervisors Ammiano and Mirkarimi, wouldrequire disclosure of these polls when conducted within 60 days of an election and related to candidates for a San Francisco elective office.

The legislation would require the persons conducting to poll to identify the call as “a paid political advertisement” and require that person authorizing the poll file with the Ethics Commission.

“I’m concerned about the corrupting influence push polling has on elections,” said Supervisor Daly. “The City has a responsibility to ensure that are elections are as fair and open as possible and that voters have the most accurate information on which to base their decisions when they vote.”

New Intercity Bus Service offers $1 fares

San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose are part of a new express bus with services to L.A., San Diego, Phoenix and Las Vegas with fares that start at $1.

Megabus.com, a subsidiary of Coach USA, offers a limited number of $1 seats on each route so passengers are encouraged to book early via the internet. After all $1 tickets have sold, prices increase incrementally. The Web site is available in English and a Spanish version is being developed.

The megabus.com San Francisco stop is located at the bus shelter in front of the San Francisco Caltrain station on 4th Street; the San Jose stop is located on the west side of Cahill Street, just south of the entrance to the Caltrain Station; and the Oakland stop islocated behind the West Oakland BART Station.

While being cost-efficient, bus travel is environmentally friendly as well. If one megabus.com coach was filled to capacity, thereby removing 56 cars from the road, the result would be 3,850 fewer pounds of carbon emissions for every 100 miles traveled.

South Bay Union charged with violating Union laws

A case against the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) alleging that the organization did not pay overtime to its workers will draw to a close this month at the California State Labor Commission.

The decision could set a precedent for other SEIU staff to pursue similar ­claims, amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars in back pay. The workers were quick to point out the irony of the situation, as unions were responsible for the legislation that created the eight hour day and overtime protections for workers.

“I am embarrassed and hurt that an organization that is supposed to defend workers’ rights and uphold laws that protect workers is denying us the right to be paid farily for the amount of work that we have provided them,” stated Phuong Tran, a former SEIU employee.

San Francisco welcomes first California-based airline

Virgin America and the City of San Francisco celebrated the airline’s new local headquarters and operations base at SFO by lighting monuments red throughout the city this past week.

“We wanted to paint the town red to show our excitement over our hometown airline,” Newsom said during a welcome event. “…It brings thousands of jobs, millions of dollars in business revenue and millions of dollars in state and local taxes.”

Virgin America is the only airline based in California and the first to have its headquarters in Northern California. Effective today, Virgin America will start with five daily flights to Los Angeles and two daily flights to New York City. A third San Francisco-New York flight will be added on August 19 and a fourth on September 9. Within the next two months, Virgin America will add flights to Washington D.C. (Dulles) and Las Vegas.

Rethinking the Property Tax

by Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson

Property taxes in Pennsylvania appear locked into a long-term uptrend. In recent years, there have been huge increases in the portion of the property tax that finances county government. County officials have levied these increases to pay for the unfunded mandates imposed by the state government in Harrisburg. The largest share of the property tax funds the public school districts, and virtually nobody foresees a time when the expenditures of those districts will stop rising. These ongoing pressures for additional tax revenues raise the question: Is it politically and economically feasible to continue raising property taxes in the coming years?

Some might look at the results of a recent ballot proposal in Lawrence County and conclude that Pennsylvanians prefer a property tax over others types of taxes, but this conclusion is unwarranted. When offered the opportunity to receive a modest reduction in the public-school portion of their property tax in exchange for a one-percent increase in their earned income tax, voters in every school district in the county overwhelmingly voted against it. The context here is crucial. Voters were not opposed to property tax relief, but to a package deal that represented an overall tax increase.

We have a political stalemate in Pennsylvania, because Harrisburg has mandated that the only permissible reform to public-school funding must be structured like the Lawrence County proposals. The psychology is all wrong. It’s hard for voters to get excited about a proposal that makes an obnoxious, already-high tax just a little less high (i.e., the property tax) at the price of ratcheting up another obnoxious tax—the income tax—when the federal/state/local taking of income is already at an uncomfortable level. If Harrisburg really wants reform, it needs to emulate the boldness of the Michigan government in the 1990s, when it totally scrapped the property tax for school funding, and replaced it with a two-percent hike in the state sales tax. I suspect that Pennsylvania voters would be far more comfortable with an increase in one type of taxation if it were offset by the complete removal of another type of taxation. If you give pennsylvania voters the chance to eliminate one part of their tax bill completely, then tax reform has a fi ghting chance for approval.

The larger, more fundamental problem here is the property tax itself. This form of taxation is totally antiquated, appropriate in America’s 19th-century agrarian society, but out of place today. In the 1800s, when there was no income tax and it was considered none of the government’s business how much money anybody made, the property tax served as a proxy for one’s income. This made a lot of sense then, because it was logical to assume that the citizen farming 80 acres had a higher income than one farming only 40 acres. Today, though, the homesteads of most Americans are not their source of income, but merely where they live. Why, then, take more money from a citizen with a house of 1500 square feet than one with 900?

One of the elementary principles of prudent taxation is that, in order to avoid harming citizens, taxes should take into consideration the individual’s ability to pay. Today, one’s ability to pay depends far more on one’s income than on the size of one’s house. To continue taxing people as if their house were generating their income is absurd.

An additional fault of the property tax is that it can jeopardize home ownership. On the surface, it appears that once a person has paid off the mortgage on his house, then he owns it free and clear, but this is not so. If the homeowner falls on hard times and can’t pay his property taxes, the sheriff comes and confi scates the house.

Under the present system, a person doesn’t really “own” his home completely, but in effect rents it from the local government which permits him to keep it only so long as the “owner” continues to pay taxes on it. We have heard of senior citizens—wonderful, lawabiding citizens who worked hard for decades to buy their own home—having to sell their home because they couldn’t afford the taxes. This is abominable. And how many of America’s homeless persons became so because they fell on hard times and were evicted from their homes because they couldn’t pay their property tax?

In an era when it has been the federal government’s policy to facilitate home ownership as a central feature of “the American dream,” it is anomalous for local governments to make it diffi cult for some citizens to keep their homes. The property tax is outmoded, unfair, irrational, and destructive. It’s time to abolish it.

Hate has reached its highest proportions

by Marvin J Ramirez

Marvin RamirezMarvin Ramirez

The enemies of Latinos have thrown a jab to the liver against immigrants with the latest immigration plan that calls for stronger employer sanctions if they hire undocumented people.

In a written statement, the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), expressed deep concerns over the Bush Administration’s plan.

The measures include increasing the use of state and local law enforcement in enforcing federal immigration laws, expanding raids at workplace sites, and implementing new Social Security “no match” regulations that could put millions of Americans at risk of losing their jobs, says the statement.

“Today the Bush administration put forth a set of measures disguised as immigration enforcement which amounts to an assault on the civil rights of all Hispanic Americans,” stated Janet Murguía, NCLR President and CEO.

“The package of measures announced will result in the racial profiling of all working Latinos. In effect, what these measures will do is impose a substantial burden on a subset of our citizens which is based entirely on the color of their skin, their accent, or their name,” continued Murguía.

Why are they doing all that? Who’s going to benefit from it? Not only they are going to stain the soul of the country abroad as a humanitarian and nation of justice, but also it will hurt most large and small businesses nationwide at a time when there is serious fear of a recession.

Congressional opponents of real immigration reform have been targeting legal immigrants and even U.S. citizens in recent debates. The distinction between undocumented and legal immigration and between immigrants and Latinos has been deliberately blurred. It is the responsibility of congressional leaders to halt the scapegoating, do their job, and fix our nation’s broken immigration system,” concluded Murguía.

Powerful earthquake shakes Perú and kills 510

by the El Reportero news services

Carlos VallejosCarlos Vallejos

LIMA, Perú – At presstime, a powerful 7.9-magnitude earthquake shook Peru’s coast near the capital, killing at least 510 people and injuring more than 1,05Speaking on radio stations Radioprogramas and CPN, Health Minister Carlos Vallejos gave the latest toll of victims and said he was trying to reach the city of Ica, the hardest hit by the quake.

Earlier, Deputy Health Minister Jose Calderon called the situation “dramatic” in Ica, a city of 650,000 people located 165 miles southeast of the capital.

He encouraged Peruvians to donate blood for the injured and said a convoy of doctors and nurses was headed to the Ica area. News reports said dozens of people were crowding hospitals in the city seeking help even though the hospitals had suffered cracks and other structural damage.

Immigration-related legislation surges at the state level

by Salome Eguizabal

States have passed more than twice as many immigration-related bills already this year than in the first six months of 2006, according to a report released AU9.6.

The report, by The National Conference of 5State Legislatures, shows that 170 immigration bills in 41 states were enacted as of July 21 2007. This contrasts with 64 through June 2006.

In addition, the number of immigration-related bills introduced at the state level has also more than doubledwithin the same time frame. Between Jan. 1 and July 2, 1404 bills were introduced across all 50 states compared to 570 in the same period.

Experts attribute the increase in state bills to the failure of the federal government to pass an immigration bill.

Pro-immigrant activists also claim that most of these bills, prevalent not just at the state level but locally, cause harm to immigrants and to the Hispanic community.

“The failure of the federal government to enact immigration reform has given a green light to those who are hateful and in the position to maneuver government to enact anti-immigrant legislature,” said Walter Tejada, Arlington County Board vice chair in Virginia, during an Aug. 6 immigration discussion at the Center for American Progress.

An analysis by the National Immigration Forum states, “As more and more states and communities consider punitive immigration proposals, the line between anti-illegal-immigrant and anti-Latino sentiments is sometimes blurred.”

Many of the new laws listed in the report intend to curb the presence of undocumented immigrants.

The most common examples included verifying employment eligibility, limiting public benefits to lawful residents, denying driver’s licenses to undocumented people and state and local enforcement of immigration laws.

In terms of policy area addressed, the most common bills enacted covered identification and driver’s licenses (35 in 26 states), employment (26 in 19 states), public benefits (15 in 39 states) and human trafficking (15 in 29 states). There were also 38 resolutions passed in 14 states.

Not all measures enacted were punitive. For example, some education-related measures aim to help immigrants integrate, such as facilitating the requirements to qualify for in-state status or expanding English-language instruction for immigrants.

At the local level, the city of New Haven, Conn., started issuing identification cards last month to all residents regardless of their immigration status.

However, Vic Wilczak, legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union in Pennsylvania, stressed that most local ordinances promote xenophobia and racial profiling.

“Not only are these ordinances unconstitutional, but they also create racism and are toxic for our communities,” said Wilczak, adding that the local ordinances “create a patchwork of faulty laws.”

­Jack Martin, director of special projects at the Federation for American Immigration

Reform, told Weekly Report these ordinances aim to discourage undocumented residents from forming roots in neighborhoods and encourage them to return voluntarily to their countries of origin. FAIR is an organization which opposes measures benefiting the undocumented population.

Martin stated the enactment of various local ordinances creates discrepancies in the legal system and may lead to problems.

“We are in a period of flux because of the failure of the federal government to adequately enforce immigration laws,” said Martin. “Some mistakes will arise at the local levels in efforts to pass laws, but these will serve as examples and we will learn over time what works best.”

Dan Restrepo, director of the Center for American Progress, said, “The 50 states are laboratories for the federal government…Some of these laboratories are being run by mad scientists.”

Subsiding immigration fees hike is a great idea, also to stop the SFPD from confiscating cars

by Marvin J Ramirez

Marvin RamirezMarvin Ramirez

Behind a great man there is a woman, says the saying. Behind a great nation, there are some tyrants, I say. This is what is happening to this nation. Is has become a terrorizing nation against the same people who has helped her grow strong and rich.

In our city of San Francisco, there are some selfish politicians who only live to satisfy a few and the rich who help them put them in office. However, there are other politicians who love doing the common good, who want to show an example of real duty by helping and protecting those who don’t have instruments for their defense: the immigrants.

And although our local politicians have never gone an extra mile in helping undocumented drivers by means of extending the city’s sanctuary to their vehicles in the city by not confiscating them, the recent action of San Francisco Sup. Chris Daly is worth applauding.

Daly is requesting the City Attorney to draft legislation to create a plan to provide subsidies for immigrant applying for citizenship, green cards and petitions for relatives and workers.

“I’m particularly concerned that documented and undocumented immigrants do not have safe and economical pathways to citizenship and legal immigrant status,” said Daly.

The new federal fees to applying for a green card gone high from $325 to $930 – which could be the actions of a revenge against immigrants for protesting during the recent street immigrants ­marches– will really stress their fragile economic budget.

“The reality is that immigrants are a vital part of our society and make great contributions to our culture and economy,” said Supervisor Daly.

“These are the ties that bind us together and I believe they city has a responsibility to open its arms wide to all the people who help make this city work.”

But just as Daly is extending this noble gesture, he should also lead a legislation to stop the SFPD from taking the cars of the undocumented, especially now when school is about to start, and parents will need their vehicles to transport their children to school.

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