By Lisandra Romeo Matos and Lisandra Fariñas Acosta
Cubadebate journalist. Degree in Journalism (2011), Universidad de Oriente. Worked at the Cuban News Agency (2011-2018).
February 28, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
First Nations leaders and health technicians from Manitoba and Alberta in Canada expressed their communities’ interest in establishing cooperation links with Cuba in the field of health.
After a week in Havana, where they toured several institutions in the sector and held meetings with authorities in the field, including the head of the country, Dr. José Ángel Portal Miranda, they announced this Friday at a press conference their growing desire that the Island be able to provide them with professionals trained in basic health services, who can attend to the needs of these for decades marginalized communities.
Jerry Daniels, the great chief of the southern region of Manitoba, and of the Organization of the Chiefs of the South, which represents 34 of the more than 600 native nations of Canada, said at Hotel Nacional de Cuba that these peoples “have been limited in their access to health care provided by the government,” and that is why they demand health care providers and various services in these communities.
He said that these communities “are in the midst of a process of transformation of care services, aimed particularly at creating and facilitating access, not only in infrastructure, but also in decision-making and training of professionals.
What we all agree on is that we need many more providers and access to health care, quality services, and professionals to assist these communities, especially in the most remote ones,” he remarked.
According to Daniels, Cuba has a structure in place and is recognized for using it, in addition to having cooperation programs consisting of sending health professionals to various nations, where they do their work with quality and contribute to saving lives even in the most difficult to reach regions.
He added that the Cuban government “can help in two fundamental aspects: sending doctors and other professionals to work in our communities to provide health services, and training specialists at the Latin American School of Medicine to return and cover existing health needs.
We are pleased to imagine that hundreds of health professionals will come to our communities and heal women, children, the elderly and other vulnerable populations. It would be a truly promising future, the native leader argued.
According to Daniel, another impact would be that by improving access to health care in these communities, in a more just and professional way, the migration of these populations to the cities in search of these services would be reduced.
“We want our communities to have health posts, hospitals and other assistance centers, and I urge the other chiefs of the first nations to open up to this possibility of collaboration with Cuba, which we need so much,” he said.
He called for accelerating the process of finding solutions to reverse existing health problems in these locations, such as diabetes, cancer, among other factors. “That is why we are here and we call on all world leaders to help us find solutions to provide better, quality health systems,” he summarized.
For Chief Dave Ledoux of the Gambler Pueblo, the offer from Cuba to the native peoples in Canada corresponds to the Cuban health mission around the world since 1959.
The leader highlighted the recognition of the Island’s health system by the WHO, as well as the quality and its preventive and holistic model, which has allowed to achieve minimal infant mortality rates, and to increase the life expectancy of its population.
“Thousands of students from all over the world have come to Cuba to study the different medical specialties in the last 60 years,” he pondered, and emphasized that it would be an opportune moment for this offer of help, “since we are currently rebuilding our communities to get out of decades of systemic institutional oppression.
The health philosophy of this country and its values are very similar to the traditional medicine model of our peoples, said Deloux.
The more than 600 first nations in Canada include more than one million people who would benefit from these services, he said. He added that from these initial meetings in Havana they are optimistic and hope to apply the ideas, designs and organizational strategies observed in the Cuban health system.
Published: Saturday 29 February 2020 | 10:53:30 pm.
By Leonel Nodal digital@juventudrebelde.cu
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Presidential candidate Donald Trump had to rub his hands together when he learned in detail the real situation of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. That would be a strong campaign theme for him to win the White House.
Trump’s election promise in 2016 would be as close to the national will as possible: to end America’s endless wars abroad.
Barack Obama could not win it, even with the deployment of more than 100,000 soldiers in the Central Asian country between 2010 and 2012, at a cost of 100 billion dollars a year. Better to think of another way out.
The Pentagon had a guarded diagnosis, which the current head of the Defense Department, Mark Esper, recently simplified into a lapidary phrase: the war in Afghanistan is “still” in “a state of strategic impasse. In other words, lost, with no chance of military victory.
The $760 billion spent on the war in Afghanistan from October 2001 to March 2019, plus an additional $240 billion in additional spending, according to official figures, should be honored, but without losing face or completely sacrificing the business it represented for its war industry allies.
The publicity challenge for re-election in 2020 would be to make good on the promise of troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, but keeping up appearances, without winners or losers.
Trump changed the position maintained until then by Washington of refusing to speak directly with the Taliban.
With his high sense of political opportunism and dominance of the publicity show, the only winner of the bloody confrontation would be Trump, the architect of peace.
In October 2018, Trump gave the green light to secret negotiations with Taliban representatives in Doha, the capital of Qatar. In early September 2019, he even prepared – in complete secrecy – a spectacular “end of the war in Afghanistan” ceremony at the presidential residence at Camp David, where historic international agreements were signed.
However, the death of a US soldier in an attack in Kabul on 5 September led to an abrupt breakdown in the negotiations.
The talks “are dead,” he said in a theatrical tone, but without abandoning his secret intentions to resume dialogue.
However, The Washington Post warned last December that Trump was eager to announce the first redeployment of 5,000 troops, which some sources said was already in place, and was pressing for “a complete withdrawal before the 2020 election.
Washington would manage a “reduction of violence” and seal the end of hostilities between the United States and the Taliban. This would be followed by the negotiation of an “inter-Afghan” agreement.
It took 18 months of talks in Doha to end 18 years of war against the Taliban, the longest in U.S. history. On Saturday, February 29, the two sides signed a peace agreement that will pave the way for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, in exchange for a series of solid guarantees from the Taliban to the United States and its allies.
In his new, revised version of “withdrawal,” released during his trip to India earlier this week, Trump said the United States is trying to reduce its troop levels in Afghanistan to 8,600 and “we will make a decision on what the final outcome will be.”
“We’re not really serving as a military force, but as a police force,” he said, “and we’re not a police force, they (Afghans) have to police their own country.
The president made it clear that even after a possible withdrawal of troops, the U.S. will maintain its presence in Afghanistan. “We will always have intelligence, they will have other things there,” Trump said.
What the president is hiding is that the background to the negotiations has been the pure and simple defeat of the world’s greatest war power. After 18 years of resistance, the Taliban is today stronger than before, with a stranglehold on more than half of the country’s territory.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani himself said this year that more than 45,000 members of the security forces have been liquidated since he came to power in 2014.
U.S. troops counting the days Afghanistan. Photo: Reuters
Afghanistan’s security force has a shortfall of 79,000 men, and official sources reveal that they are losing troops faster than they can replace them. In addition, the country’s income is insufficient to pay the bill for its own security forces. And that’s a doorway back to the United States.
TheTaliban’s chief negotiator, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, who expressed his satisfaction with the peace agreement signed between the United States and the group in Doha, which he called a historic moment for the country.
The agreement was officially signed by Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the deputy leader of the Taliban, and Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special representative for reconciliation in Afghanistan, in the presence of representatives from more than 30 countries, including U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
“After 20 years of war imposed on Afghanistan by U.S. and NATO forces, a peace agreement was signed today between the Americans and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,” Stanekzai said, adding, “According to the agreement, all U.S. and NATO forces must leave Afghanistan within 14 months of the signing of the agreement.
Donald Trump is trying to transform a military disaster into a political-diplomatic peace victory, which as of February 15, 2020, left 2,448 U.S. soldiers dead and about 20,500 injured in action.
The damage suffered by the Afghan nation and people due to imperial intervention and the desire to establish a regime submissive to its interests characterizes one of the greatest humanitarian catastrophes in history, with more than half a million civilians killed and tens of thousands injured and wounded.
With next November’s elections in mind, Donald Trump is trying to capitalize on the gruesome U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan as his own victory and trump card in his quest to screw himself into the presidential seat for four more years.
Published: Saturday 29 February 2020 | 10:18:31 pm.
By Lianet Escobar Hernández lianet@juventudrebelde.cu
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
The cry of “guajira” is heard almost constantly in the training area of the women’s national archery team. Everyone knows that when Professor Vladimir Quintas comes to the appellation, he is calling Elizabeth Rodriguez Camilo.
The 25-year-old from Santiago is the captain of the Cuban women’s archery team and does not even wrinkle her face at the adjective that replaces her name, since she knows how fond the word is when it is pronounced by the person who was her first coach when she joined the national team, approximately eight years ago.
Rodríguez Camilo is currently the best goalkeeper in Cuba. This is guaranteed by her status as national champion, a title she has won four times in a row, and also by her results in international tournaments, including two fifth places in the Pan-American Games of Lima 2019, one in the team modality and in the mixed recurve goal.
“For me, as an athlete, it is important to have won the elite tournament of my sport so many times. That’s why I prepare myself all year long, always making my best effort to win. I don’t see the domestic competition as the highest step I have to reach, I think that at the level I’m at I have to aspire to more”, commented the young woman exclusively for JR.
For Elizabeth, that step up is certainly no different than the Olympic Games. The fact that she has never been under the five hoops is a motivation for the youngster who almost achieved her dream four years ago, and now she has the chance to make it happen again.
“For the Rio 2016 Olympics I was just a few inches away from the qualifying event, because my opponent shot very well, in the end, we went to a playoff arrow and he beat me by proximity, so I have a little thorn in my side that I hope to get out of the qualifying fight that will be in the Mexican city of Monterrey, from the 22nd to the 30th of this month.
I hope and can get the Olympic place, although I assure you I would be very happy if another one of us gets it, because that will be great for the Cuban archery. However, contrary to what happens in other sports where the country wins the ticket to the competition and not the athlete, we internally decided that whoever gets the ticket is the one who will be in Tokyo. I think that’s the fairest thing and it’s an additional stimulus that we have,” argued Rodríguez Camilo.
The untamed young woman is one of the few athletes who has the opportunity to share her training and competitions with figures with vast experience in the discipline such as the woman from Matanzas, Maidenia Sarduy, whom she accompanied in what was her first foray outside the country when she was only 18 years old.
I’m lucky enough to be on the same team as Maidenia,” he said. “Her advice, like Larissa Pagan’s, was fundamental. She helped me face my first international experience at a Central American qualifying event for Veracruz 2014, held in Medellin, Colombia, where the World Archery Championship was also held.
“There I was 33rd in individual archery and fifth place in the team. That was a competition that even scared me a little bit because of the high level I had, so it was essential to have the support of those figures,” emphasized Elizabeth.
Perhaps the most difficult thing for the Cuban Artemis is to be away from home, especially from her mother Kenya, who says it is her life and like the rest of the family supports her in all her decisions, including that of leaving the sport if her personal goals are not fulfilled.
“My particular aspiration is to finish this Olympic cycle and complete another one. Although this discipline is very long-lived, where you can be in it for years, I do want to make my family and living so far away does not make things easier for me. If I could put down roots in Havana, something that would allow me to form my family and have my mother with me, then I would gladly continue with bow and arrows under my arm, otherwise, I would say goodbye to it,” she emphasized.
Electoral integrity specialists Jack Williams and John Curiel of the MIT (Election Data and Science Lab), concluded that “there is no statistical evidence of fraud” in Bolivia, as denounced at the time by the OAS.
By Raúl Antonio Capote | internacionales@granma.cu
February 28, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
The Washington Post on Thursday published an analysis by electoral integrity specialists Jack Williams and John Curiel of the MIT (Election Data and Science Lab), which concludes that “there is no statistical evidence of fraud” in Bolivia, as the Organization of American States (OAS) denounced at the time.
“On the contrary, it is highly probable that Evo Morales passed the ten percentage point mark in the first round,” the report states.
After the results of the MIT investigation were published, Evo Morales declared from his Twitter account that this is “one more evidence of the monumental theft that Mesa, Áñez, Camacho and Almagro did to all Bolivians.
According to The Washington Post, specialists Jack Williams and John Curiel indicated that according to their studies and the results that were released in preliminary form by the Bolivian Electoral Tribunal, the Movement towards Socialism party (MAS) would have obtained at least 10.49 percentage points more than the opposition candidate Carlos Mesa.
Mexico announced that it will demand that the OAS “clarify and explain the deficiencies in its report. In this sense, a third party will be formally requested to carry out a comparison of both studies and elucidate the discrepancies.
By Yurisander Guevara
February 26, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Do you like to learn another language? One of the most enjoyable ways is with Duolingo, an application available for iOS and Android, as well as in web format, which allows users to get into the basics of multiple languages.
Its creators designed the application in a very visual way. “Our short, free lessons are designed to feel more like a game than a study book. Learning is easier when you’re having fun,” they say.
The lessons focus on a real-world goal, such as ordering in a restaurant. Students develop the vocabulary and grammar necessary to achieve that goal through varied reading, writing, listening and speaking practice.
According to its creators, the application has over 300 million users.
February 28, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
New water charges for hydrometric control in the productive or service sector will begin to be applied as of April 1, officials from the Higher Organization of Business Management (OSDE) Water and Sanitation, of the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources, reported in Havana.
According to the Cuban News Agency, the new prices should contribute to saving the vital liquid in hotels, industries and other centers of production and services, many of which have become large consumers, said Marcia Almeida Llanes, director of State Commissioning of the aforementioned OSDE.
She clarified that, in addition to the companies in this group, there are also self-employed workers and cooperatives, especially when some of their activities or businesses require the important natural resource for commercial purposes.
Likewise, she explained that the water supply service will maintain up to the established standard of a cost of 1.55 pesos per cubic meter (m3) for hotels and other tourism entities.
Industries or other productive sectors and commercial facilities of service and offices will have as rates an amount of 4.20 pesos/m3 until its established standard and an increase to 15 pesos/m3 if they exceed 25 percent of the same. However, there are also discount bonuses of up to 35 percent for entities that save below 25 percent of the established standard, said Almeida Llanes.
Granma offers details of other ways to send remittances
By Raúl Antonio Capote | internacionales@granma.cu
February 28, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Trump’s most recent action against the Cuban family, starting with the cancellation of remittances sent through Western Union from countries other than the United States, confirms an old modus operandi typical of psychological warfare designed in the company’s manuals.
The logic behind the method is described in agency documents that were declassified in the late 1990s. They explain that the proper way to break resistance is to create a violent rift between people and their ability to explain themselves and understand the world around them. The constant blows that affect the normal rhythm of life, that affect the daily life of individuals, can create serious psychological disorders.
As with other decisions taken previously against the people of Cuba, in order to incite discouragement, the measure 191 that the U.S. Government “imposes” on the Caribbean nation is part of the set of techniques outlined to provoke a state of shock.
The constant “rain” of measures, almost all of them announced on Thursdays or Fridays, is intended to directly affect such important things as transportation, cooking fuel, and electricity generation, and to place the citizenry in a state of deep disorientation and unrest, of depression and anguish.
The aim is to cause people to fall into a state of regression and fear, to be unable to think rationally, which, according to the CIA, would limit resistance to zero and make them act against themselves.
More than the economic damage that this strategy may cause, the aim is to create a psychological state of defeat, which, together with other covert actions, may generate chaos and ungovernability.
It is not only Western Union that operates in sending money. The American company shares the market with other competitors in the rest of the world.
Money can be sent to Cuba through bank transfers, bank to bank, through travel agencies or using electronic cards, for example, the American International Service (AIS).
Magnetic cards for purchases in freely convertible currency allow deposits that can be made by bank transfers from abroad, through correspondent banks. In addition, Fincimex has commercial relations with more than ten international companies for sending money.
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