by Erick Galindo

WASHINGTON, D.C. — High-stakes political maneuvering is dragging Hispanic advocacy groups here deeper into the battle over the future of the Internet.

As the Federal Communications Commission moves ahead with plans to create a set of rules designed to prevent online monopolies from forming, supportive consumer protection organizations are pressing ethnic advocacy and civil rights groups, including the Urban League, One Economy and National Council of La Raza, to speak out in support of network neutrality.

Some, such as the NAACP, the League of United Latin American Citizens and the Hispanic Technology & Telecommunications Partnership, are following the lead of telecommunication giants Verizon, AT&T and Comcast. Others are avoiding taking a position opposing the trio. Still others, including the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and non-white media groups, are lining up with consumer protection groups and Web giant Google.

On one point all agree: Much is at stake for communities of color. Groups favoring network neutrality are led by the Center for Media Justice. Without it, they fear unequal access and eventual extra costs to poor and non-white communities. Its supporters came from throughout the country in December to try to sway traditional civil rights organizations to back their position. In meetings with several such groups and federal legislators, CMJ encountered minimal opposition to its arguments.

“This was new information to us, that there were civil rights organizations that believed that network neutrality was an essential policy in protecting the rights and power of people of color online,” CMJ executive director Malkia Cyril told Weekly Report. None of them outright opposed the idea, she said.

Cyril, who spearheaded a series of meetings with the groups Dec. 8-10, added that one group’s representative called it “absurd” for any civil rights organization to oppose it.

“They are taking a measured approach to the issue,” Cyril said. ”To them, the issue is whether this should be on par with broadband adoption and other issues.” Cyril noted that the groups invited to the meetings were singled out because of their close partnerships with telecommunications companies and the fact that they had not yet taken a fi rm stance.

Alex Nogales, president of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, which is based in California, told Weekly Report that a lack of information is the root of any rift between consumer protection groups and civil rights groups. Cyril added,

“The leaders of the groups thanked us for meeting with them face-toface and not letting one of the telecommunications companies mediate. So far all the information they have been getting has been coming from the telecom companies. Organizations that have deep relationships in communities of color on the ground in regions and states are much more likely to take a pro-net neutrality stance because they understand the real impact.” LULAC executive director Brent Wilkes argues that just the opposite is true. He told Weekly Report that the average member of the Latino community is more concerned with hackers and viruses.

LULAC’s only opposition to net neutrality is to the non-discrimination clause, which would prevent Internet service providers from favoring content or access.

Wilkes noted that LU-LAC’s concern is with any adverse effect legislation could have on broadband adoption. “What we don’t want net neutrality to do is drive up price. We know that our communities are price-sensitive,” he said, adding that forcing ISPs to provide the same access to other companies’ content would be unfair since ISPs have invested into building the infrastructure.

“The only option these companies could redeem the costs of laying the pipe

would be to charge more ­for the data itself.” Wilkes denied allegations that LULAC’s close relationship to AT&T had any infl uence on the matter. AT&T has donated more than a million dollars to help LULAC gain broadband access to underdeveloped communities and other philanthropic endeavors.

“Obviously we have to raise money from a variety of sources, but we never shy away from standing up for what we believe is right,” he said. “That whole argument is really unfair, especially when it only seems to belevied against minority advocacy groups.”

In this, Nogales agreed with Wilkes. “To say that these organizations are doing this for the money is way off,” Nogales said. “LULAC and these groups do a lot of great things and they have their reasons for opposing net neutrality.”

Nogales and Cyril agreed that broadband prices would not go up under net neutrality. “Our numbers point to the opposite,” Nogales said. Cyril said it would be illegal to pass the cost on to consumers, adding she believes that the FCC will pass net neutrality and remain open to working with LULAC and others.

“There are groups all across the country who are committed to partnering with national civil rights groups in order to promote open networks because we know that’s what empowers communities that can vote, that can advocate forthemselves online,” she concluded.

Weekly Report tried numerous times to contact AT&T without success. Hispanic Link.

­by Marvin Ramirez

Bass player Óscar Danilo Murillo at pianist Gullermo Guillen’s funerals. (photo by Marvin J. Ramirez)

Óscar Danilo Murillo was known, not only for his good bass playing in the San Francisco Latino music world, but for his tenderly character and simplicity as a human being, for which he was loved by most who knew him. He died appr­oximate on Sunday, Dec. 20. He was 55 years old.

“He was someone who you can say, was never bitter, who lived a happy life,” said an unidentified man at the Driscoll’s Valencia Street Mortuary, where many of his musician friends came to pay their respect and to say good-bye during his two-day funeral services.

Known as El Poderoso (The Powerful), possibly after his short height and the strong sound his bass guitar projected, Mr. Murillo was well-known by most musicians who played Salsa and tropical music during nearly the last three decades in the Bay Area.

In music, the bass guitar is the instrument that is followed by the rest of the instruments; it is the sound that one can hear a mile away making building structures vibrate.

Mr. Murillo long music career spans back in Nicaragua, since the age of 16. Born in Managua, Nicaragua, on Sept. 25, 1954, he started playing rock music in the early 70 in the old Managua, before an earthquake destroyed the Nicaraguan capital to the ground on Dec. 23, 1972.

As many Managuans who fl ed the destruction of their city and who lost their homes, it is believed that Mr. Murillo, who worked for 12 years at Priority Parking in Downtown San Francisco, stayed in Managua a few years before leaving for Costa Rica, in search of new horizons in the music fi eld, since this country had become the mecca in entertainment for most Nicaraguans after the  earthquake.

However, in 1979, he joined the popular group, Los Ramblers in Nicaragua, which took him to represent Nicaragua in Cuba’s festivals on July 1980. He returned to Cuba in 1981 to play at the Festival de Varadero.

At the time, Los Ramblers musical success was taking off, and they were invited to play in San Francisco in 1983, according to a band member, and it was during this tour that the members of the group, including Mr. Murillo, who was from Barrio Santo Domingo in Managua, decided to stay in the City by the Bay, which became their domicile up to this day.

The family of Oscar Danilo Murillo at the funeral house. (photo by Marvin J. Ramirez)

“He (Murillo) was an individual of good manners… a peaceful man who got along with everyone,” said Arturo Ibarra, the musical director of Los Ramblers.

Among the groups he played and recorded with, include, La Fórmula Infi nita, en San Francisco, Los Dandis, Los Gatos, in Costa Rica, Los Ramblers, with whom he recorded in Cuba the famous Calos Mejía Godoy’s song Alforja Campesina, Orquesta Borínquen and Sonora USA, Los Clarks in Nicaragua; and played with Macondo in Nicaragua, Orquesta de Roberto Lechuga and Orquesta Candente in San Francisco, Llama Viva in Nicaragua, Grupo Mestizo in San Francisco, Orquesta Marianao, Sol y Ritmo y Ana Daisy, in San Francisco, and Los Galos.

To his daugher Johana Lissette Murillo, who is blind, the loss is like losing more of her sight, but she has plenty to remember of him.

“He as the only one who took me to see Walt Disney movies,” when she was about 7 years old, before she lost her sight at age 16, said his daughter Johana Lissette to El Reportero.

She clearly remembers the sweet moments she spent with her dad, especially when he took her to watch the movie Bambi. Last time she was with Mr. Murillo was in May, in Los Angeles, when he came to visit her; and she was waiting to be united with him again the following weekend to spend this year’s Christmas with him. But this was not possible.

According to Johana Lissette, he might have died of asphyxia, after using an inhaler prescribed by the doctor, who prohibited him to drink alcohol when using the medicine.

­After he didn’t showed up for work on Monday, his boss Antonio came to the house where he lived, and knocked at the door. But he only heard Mr. Murilo’s dog barking, said Johana Lissette. It was then that he called the police, so entering into the house through a another unit. Mr. Murillo was found dead on the floor. It is believed that he had been dead for two days. It is unknown if there was an autopsy performed.

Mr. Murillo is survived by his father Braulio Murillo, 82, who lives in Nicaragua; his mother Rosa Argentina Prado Castro, 80; two brothers, Omar Murillo, 51, and Héctor Prado, 36, two children, Danilo Murillo, 33, and Johana Lissette Murillo Wheelock, 36; and two grandchildren, Mauricio Emmanuel, 18 month-old, and Sofía Damilu, two-month-old.

The staff of El Reportero, but especially, its editor, Marvin Ramirez, send their most sincere condolence the grieving family.

­

by the University of Michigan

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Even when women at high-risk of breast cancer are well-informed about the risks and benefits of using the drug tamoxifeno for prevention, only 6 percent said they were likely to take it.

Researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center created a decision aid designed to inform women about the risks and benefits associated with tamoxifeno, a drug that was first used to stop breast cancer from returning and has recently been shown to prevent breast cancer in the first place.

The U-M decision aid gave objective information about tamoxifeno and was tailored to each woman’s health history. The study targeted women who were at high risk of developing breast cancer within the next five years; 632 women participated.

“Tailored information is critical because the risks and make benefits vary across women. This is one of the most detailed tailored decision aids to address breast cancer chemoprevention. The information about the risks and benefits of tamoxifeno was tailored to each woman’s health history. That means, when women read this decision aid, they learned about how the drug was likely to affect them given their age, race, breast cancer history and medical history,” says lead author Angela Fagerlin, Ph.D., associate professor of internal medicine at the U-M Medical School and a research investigator at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System.

After viewing the decision aid, 41 percent of women could correctly answer six questions about the risks and benefits of tamoxiXX1feno, while 63 percent correctly answered at least five of the six questions.

Despite this understanding, only 29 percent of women said they were likely to seek out more information about tamoxifeno, and only 29 percent said they would ask their doctor about it. A scant 6 percent of women said they were likely to take tamoxifeno.

Three months later, the researchers found that fewer than 1 percent of participants had started taking tamoxifeno, and fewer than 6 percent had either talked to their doctor or sought more information.

Results of the study appear online in the journal Breast Cancer Research and Treatment.

“For any given woman, there is not a right or wrong answer in regards to whether she should take tamoxifeno to prevent a first diagnosis of breast cancer.

The goal of decision aids is to explain the risks and benefits in a clear way so that the woman is able to weigh these factors and make an informed decision about what is best for her,” Fagerlin says.

While as many as 10 million women could be eligible to take tamoxifeno to prevent breast cancer, few choose to do so.

Side effects were the biggest concern about tamoxifeno cited in this study, with 80 percent of the participants worried about this. The side effects of tamoxifeno include hormonal symptoms, including hot flashes, and sexual problems, as well as rare incidences of endometrial cancer, blood clots or cataracts.

“Experts have be­moaned the dearth of women taking these pills, worried that word has not gotten out about tamoxifeno’s ability to prevent breast cancer in high risk women.

Our study shows that even when the word does get out, most women are too concerned about the pill’s side effects to want to take it,” says senior author Peter Ubel M.D., professor of internal medicine and director of the Center for Behavioral and Decision Sciences in Medicine at U-M.

by the El Reportero’s news services

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Iran has mounted a concerted and successful diplomatic outreach towards Latin America designed to counter U.S. interests and offset the pressure it is facing over its alleged nuclear enrichment ambitions. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a controversial figure both at home and abroad, has found a welcome in capitals from La Paz to Caracas that he cannot be sure of anywhere else.

The promise of Iranian investment has helped to bolster its political initiatives, yet there remains a large gap between the hype surrounding its promise of broad anti-imperialist cooperation and the reality of funds left unspent and projects unimplemented. Tehran’s major challenge is to effect a coherent long-term strategy towards Latin America that goes beyond the opportunism of its recent contacts. The close personal relationship between Venezeula’s President Hugo Chávez and Ahmadinejad has made Caracas the most important port of call for Iran. Yet it is Brazil’s biggame diplomacy that may, in the long-term, offer Tehran the best opportunities to leverage its political and economic clout.

Rebels kidnap Colombian governor

On 21 December the governor of the southern province of Caquetá was kidnapped from his home by gunmen dressed in military uniforms, in an attack the authorities believe was carried out by the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) guerrilla group.

This would be the Farc’s fi rst major stunt since early 2009 and arguably its most high profile kidnapping since 2002. The stunt is a bold show of strength intended to demonstrate that the rebel group is not a spent force ahead of important congressional and presidential elections in March and May next year. The attack, in the context of increased activity by the group in the latter part of 2009, appears to indicate that it has come out of a strategic withdrawal following its disastrous year in 2008.

Venezuela: Campaign to Revoke Obama´s Nobel

The United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) shapes from Tuesday a world campaign to claim the revocation of the Nobel Peace Prize that was bestowed upon Barack Obama because he is considered to be a warmonger.

was founded in 1901 andAccording to the party, which has more that seven million members, the first African American Head of the White House is far from deserving the prize that has been bestowed upon 95 people and 20 organizations.

We believe there should be a review of the acknowledgement. It is a duty of the progressive countries to request it, assured leader of the PSUV Jacqueline Faria when she announced the initiative.

According to Faria, the Commission of Foreign Affairs of the bloc has the mission to promote the crusade.

The justification of the war in Afghanistan, the sending of new occupying troops to that Central Asian nation and the installation of military stations in Colombia and Panama constitute arguments to demand the annulment of the Nobel Prize.

Obama´s stance at the Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen, where he acted as a strategist but a war one, should be added to that.

Faria recalled the North American plan of imposing an exclusive pact in the meeting that was meant to save the planet, which was a proposal with a lack of concrete actions to move forward in the mitigation of the release of pollutant gases to the atmosphere that are responsible for the increase of global temperature.

Obama has broken his promises of peace and change, she said.

Among the guests that are different from Obama are the indigenous Guatemalan Rigoberta Menchu (1992), Kenyan environmentalist and politician Wangari Maathai (2004), former President of the United States James Carter (2002) and former US Vice President Al Gore (2007).

­(Latin News and Prensa Latina contributed to this report).