Banish Indiscipline, Mobilize Consciousness
Banish Indiscipline, Mobilize Consciousness
Putting indiscipline at bay is not only necessary, but imperative. Let us integrate that team called consciousness, which demands shame and good judgement.
By Madeleine Sautié | madeleine@granma.cu
August 3, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Image by Bansky
There was a day when Havana, still in the early stages of the pandemic’s de-escalation, awoke to the happy news that no new positive cases were being reported. Spirits, then, shot up, since the expected zero marked the result of a country’s enormous effort, say, among many workers, that of its doctors, in the first place.
Today, the faces are not the same, and concern is growing at the same time as the numbers and the courage to give so much. Unforgivable are the failures which, due to irresponsibility and disbelief, have modified the results we’ve achieved. Example: insolent disregard for a health system and the management of the Cuban state, applauded for the efficiency of its task, even by those who insist on seeing the erasures in an increasingly admirable health scenario.
Then comes the “must do”, the “have to take action”, as if banishing disobedience was only the business of a few. It is no secret that the legal provisions and police authorities have – as they have done from day one – a great weight in the fulfillment of the guidelines.
However, it is unthinkable that the solution lies only in the application of fines or in ensuring that the law enforcement officers are where every [act of] indiscipline is. It is enough to look out on the balcony, or to walk through our streets, to see, in a perfectly peaceful environment, where the police do not have to be, two or three people talking, one almost on top of the other, without nasobucos! -Will there really be a policeman for each of these cases?
There are two sides to this. On the first side, there are those who protect themselves and their family, compañeros and neighbors through good hygiene practices and distance, those who contribute to the dissipation of the virus; those who reverence with discipline the vigilance of the health personnel and value the happiness of living in Cuba, when the world suffers daily from overwhelming scenes.
The others, the ones who barely inform themselves, the irreverent ones who are aware of their own danger and that of the others; the ones who allow themselves to be spoken to from upstairs, and without nasobucos; the ones who know how to be attended to if the virus knocks on their door; the ones who are more bored than anyone else, who need to attend the party that another sorry person prepares.
Putting indiscipline at bay is not only necessary, but imperative. Let’s join that team called conscience, which calls for [both] shame and sanity.
Argentina: Fidel’s Last Trip Abroad
Argentina: Fidel’s Last Trip Abroad
By Orestes Pérez Pérez
August 12, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Fidel and Chavez in a massive act in Argentina. Photo|> Archive
On four occasions, Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz was in Argentina. His last trip abroad was precisely to that country, on the occasion of a Summit of Mercosur Presidents, held in the city of Córdoba, in July 2006.
Wearing his inseparable olive green uniform and almost without warning, Fidel arrived at the Ingeniero “Ambrosio Taravella” International Airport in Córdoba at around 8:30 pm on Thursday, July 20, 2006, where he was received by then President Néstor Kirchner.
Some witnesses tell of that historic visit, that until the last moment there was no news of the Cuban president’s arrival, which took place amidst the strictest security measures.
“This must be the only meeting in which I was not made a plan of attack. I had to disinform even my friends. I don’t think anyone knew if I was coming, not even me”, he commented in a speech delivered at the so-called “Summit of the Peoples”, on a cold night, typical of these southern winter months, at the University of Cordoba, the same one that was the scene of the remarkable University Reform of 1918, more than 100 years ago.
Fidel at the popular event in Cordoba with Hebe de Bonaffini. Photo> Archive
“You made a reform that made history, which was the most important, I am about to say the only one. But time has passed, and the world study system must be reformed,” said the Historical Leader of the Cuban Revolution, who was accompanied that night by Hugo Chávez and Hebe de Bonafini, head of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, the group that organized the event.
Thousands of people from Cordoba and other provinces of the country listened attentively to Fidel, who spoke with them for three hours about the most varied issues, including the urgent need for Latin American and Caribbean integration, social programs in Cuba, public education and the literacy campaign of the first years of the Revolution, among others.
Chavez, for his part, had promised to be brief. “I told Fidel, I’m just going to be his host,” he said to the crowd that applauded him and repeated his last name over and over again. Nevertheless, he reflected for several hours on the “Cordobazo”, the challenges of Mercosur and American imperialism. “Only the people make history,” he said that night in Cordoba.
The Commander-in-Chief had been in Argentina on three previous occasions: in 1959, invited by then-President Arturo Frondizi, at the Ibero-American Summit (1995) and in 2003, when he attended Kirchner’s inauguration, when he delivered his memorable speech on the steps of the Law School of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), before around 30 thousand people.
In this last trip Fidel visited -together with Chávez- the house where Che lived in Alta Gracia, where they shared anecdotes of the Heroic Guerrilla’s childhood and got to know closely the spaces he lived in during his childhood.
Fidel and Chavez at the Che house in Alta Gracia. Photo> Archive
The peaceful mountain village, which enjoyed a sunny and somewhat hot day, unusual for the season, saw its usual mid-afternoon rest interrupted by the unexpected visit.
Since very early in the morning, that July 22nd, the people from Alta Gracia took over the streets of this mountain village, with 45 thousand inhabitants, 35 kilometers away from the capital of Córdoba, to take pictures, hug or -simply- shake hands with these two world leaders.
A sea of people, all surprised and incredulous, shouted and applauded the presence of Fidel and Chávez. For them, it was the most transcendental event in the history of that small town. For Fidel, perhaps without knowing it, his last trip abroad.
Fidel and Chavez at the Che house in Cordoba. Photo> Archive
Fidel and Chavez at the Che house in Cordoba. Photo> Archive
Spoils for Terror from Venezuela
Spoils for Terror from Venezuela
Confiscation of Venezuelan money: another dirty move, which will use the seized financial resources to attack the citizens themselves.
By Marina Menéndez Quintero
August 10, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
The biggest and most brazen robbery that the Venezuelan public treasury has ever suffered is taking place right now. And it has been the right-wing, disobedient and therefore non-functioning sector of the National Assembly that has lent itself out to play the role of the fig leaf and that part of the national money illegally confiscated by the United States is being handled by two foreign private companies.
Certainly, it has not been established -at least not publicly- if during the governments of the demolished Fourth Republic, there was ever such a large amount of embezzlement. Some people might be asking that…
But what makes the current move unprecedented is not only that it deprives citizens of the enjoyment of resources that belong to them. What is most reprehensible is that the action is at the service of interference and aggression by a foreign power.
Specifically, it is about $80 million that the Venezuelan State had deposited in Citibank, in the name of the Central Bank of Venezuela. Now it will be managed by the private American firms BRV Disbursement Co. LLC and BRV Administrator Co. LLC, which will get one million dollars for the work, according to the contract endorsed by that right-wing of the Venezuelan Parliament that continues to support the puppet Juan Guaidó.
However, it’s not the only money stolen. That item is part of the more than $340 million from Caracas that has been transferred just like that to an account at the New York Federal Reserve, on orders from the White House.
But what many are already calling the “policy of dispossession” of Venezuela’s public patrimony, applied by Washington against Caracas in the financial sphere as part of its strategy of harassment and multidimensional aggression, is even broader.
According to a detailed article published by the alternative website The Grayzone, Donald Trump’s policy against Venezuela has led to the confiscation from that country of up to 24 billion dollars in public assets located in the North, or in European Union countries allied with Washington.
The first major scandal was the virtual kidnapping of CITGO, a PDVSA subsidiary based in the US and considered the most important Venezuelan asset abroad.
As in the rest of the actions of this Ttype, the smokescreen has been the figure of Guaidó, and the excuse that resources are put in the hands of his non-existent “transition government”. The false argument that is gaining strength seeks to present Bolivarian Venezuela as a refuge from narco-terrorism, and its leaders as common criminals who must be punished and even imprisoned?
Under the same assumption, Venezuela has also just been stripped of the gold bars from the reserve that it had, supposedly in safekeeping, in the vaults of the Bank of England, the value of which could be as high as USD 3 billion that Maduro asked for in order to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.
Then Boris Johnson’s British executive recognized Guaidó as interim president… and there the gold has remained.
Meanwhile, other trials are continuing in Europe to take away Venezuela’s assets, which could total some $8 billion, according to unofficial sources.
The most dangerous thing is that the decision taken a dozen days ago by the British Prime Minister could set a legal’ precedent for other Venezuelan funds blocked abroad, especially in European countries that have joined the Trump campaign.
The aberrant British decision on Venezuela’s gold Photo. Sputnik
Liberation fund?
The total balance, until today, of the economic and financial war of the United States against Venezuela, also contemplates other punitive measures and therefore, is even greater.
Since the beginning of the sanctions in 2017 after Barack Obama decreed two years ago that the country was a “threat” to its national security, the economic losses suffered by the Bolivarian nation are estimated at 130 billion dollars.
And there are already rumors that show the tricks Washington can play with so much ill-gotten money.
It has been revealed that a tiny portion of the $80 million seized from Citibank -although still juicy since it amounts to $600 million in assets- would have been diverted by Trump to build part of the promised wall on the border with Mexico.
Everything indicates that Guaidó, the supposed interim president that few within Venezuela applaud, has not said much about “the participation” of the White House in the enjoyment of the embezzlement? although he will surely have access to the stolen goods.
Nevertheless, his so-called “ambassador” to the U.S., Carlos Veccio, has admitted that he worked with the Justice Department to establish an agreement defining the percentage that will go to Washington, The Grayzone says.
Ignoring even that the current Parliament without functions elected another opponent as its head – Luis Parra, voted by the majority present in the session last January – that right-wing sector of the National Assembly “approved” a week ago that those $80 million be part of what they have fallaciously named the National Liberation Fund: money that, if used for the purposes that Guaidó defends, will be gasoline to subvert and execute new acts of terror.
Otherwise, they will be a good starting point for the continued corruption of that opposition wing linked to the antagonistic parties of yesteryear.
In this regard, analysts have stressed that this money is not controlled by any entity and, moreover, its management by means of those two U.S. companies privatizes embezzlement and outsources it, supposedly taking Trump’s hands off the plate, although not others.
This modus operandi adds to the economic choking measures of the United States and sets the tone for what the Mission Truth website considers a “para-state”.
It is clear that Guaidó’s scarce popular support for the interior of Venezuela, and his lack of international prestige, even though he claims to have been recognized by 50 countries, cuts the wings off the Machiavellian project in the political order? Even though it continues to cut short the lives of Venezuelans with the vulgar theft that is executed through this, never before seen, financial plunder.
The aberrant British decision on Venezuela’s gold Photo. Lechuguinos
Death Over the Factories of Death
Death Over the Death Factories
War industries, U.S. priorities for economic reopening in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, as Pentagon budget continues to rise madly.
August 10, 2020
By Juana Carrasco Martín
juana@juventudrebelde.cu
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
It could be the agricultural implement factories, but that is not the case. They should increase protective measures for workers in the meatpacking industries, for employees in supermarkets, or for agricultural workers, but that is not their intention either.
There isn’t even an equal standard for health-care workers, and Blacks and Latinos are infected with the new coronavirus three times more than their white counterparts, according to a New York Times analysis of the records of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The study also found that minority workers were 20 percent more likely than white workers to care for suspected or confirmed Covid-positive patients. The rate rose to 30 percent specifically for Black workers. In addition, they also reported inadequate or reused protective equipment (PPE) at a rate 50 percent higher than that reported by white workers. For Latinos, the rate was twice that of white workers.
Although the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is not over, and, on the contrary, there is a resurgence of infections in those states that prematurely relaxed or lifted restrictions on social or physical distancing – to be more precise – those that set about economic movement brought, in not a few cases, a priority that projects good times for… the Pentagon and the war industry.
U.S. military personnel, seen outside the overflow hospital at the Javits Convention Center in Manhattan last month. The Pentagon has issued interim guidance advising caution pursuing recruits who have been hospitalized previously with COVID-19.
Nor is Eisenhower taken into account
The reality surpasses logic in the Trump administration. Making money continues to be the interest and not the care of people’s lives. That is why national security is being relieved, leaving aside a total battle against the enemy SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and continuing to bet on a war, or all the necessary ones, anywhere in the world against a supposed enemy that allows them to manufacture bombs and war equipment of all kinds.
When the numbers of infected and dead in the United States are terrifying -4,941,796 people infested, so probably this Sunday it will reach five million-, Congress has already discussed the Pentagon’s budget. We remember that independent Senator Bernie Sanders, published an opinion in The Guardian, in which he presented a true picture, a warning and a call:
“At this unprecedented moment in America’s history–a terrible pandemic, an economic crisis, people marching across the country to end systemic racism and police brutality, growing inequality of income and wealth, and an unstable president in the White House–now is the time to bring people together to fundamentally alter our national priorities and rethink the very fabric of American society.
The fact is that they approved $740 billion in spending and ignored Sanders’ proposal to cut 10 percent and target it to meet the needs of the most disadvantaged in the U.S. population, which would have been $74 billion for housing, education and health care, essentially. And the Vermont senator cited a Republican hero, General Dwight Eisenhower, who said in 1953 “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired means, in the final sense, a theft from those who are hungry and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its workers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The current situation is much more critical: a quarter of the U.S. population is living from paycheck to paycheck, and now from the pandemic subsidy check, which in July has not yet been approved by Congress; between 22 and 40 million fear eviction for not being able to pay the rent, 40 million also live in poverty, and 87 million lack adequate health insurance.
Sanders is not the only one busy with waste. California Democratic Representative Ro Khanna is proposing that money for the “modernization” of intercontinental ballistic missiles go to research on the anti-Covid vaccine. California Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Lee is calling for a $350 billion cut in the war budget.
Even Eisenhower could not change the military-industrial complex of which he warned, and even less do Sanders, Khanna and Lee, although they appeal to the emergency caused by the new coronavirus, when the President of the country, Donald Trump, daily minimizes the magnitude and lethality of the pandemic and only takes advantage of it to lead the situation in order to be re-elected next November.
Among his most recent manipulative expressions are assuring that children “are practically immune” to COVID-19, and almost assuring that they will have a life-saving vaccine by November 3 – election day – because he is pushing it with all his might, even though he says it is not to win at the polls, he wants to save lives?
Trump, who has long sought exclusivity on potential vaccines, announced in May that the huge task of delivering the vaccine will be in the hands of the military in conjunction with the CDC. At the time he said it would be at the end of the year, but the circumstances surrounding the election campaign, which are not in his favor, have led him to make the hasty declaration that in November he has the salvation of the world in his hands?
The military and COVID-19
There is a reality, in these dramatic times and when the number one enemy should be the pandemic. The Department of Defense is not accountable for its expenditures, while its contractors are making huge profits, as always, under the cover of a circumstance long highlighted by critics of the system. The main recipients of war industries’ contributions to their respective election campaigns are the members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees.
To make matters worse, the new coronavirus has served to compensate arms manufacturers for alleged losses in profits as well. For example, General Electric, which has laid off 25 percent of its workforce, received $20 million to expand its development of “advanced manufacturing techniques,” and Spirit Aerosystems received $80 million to expand its domestic manufacturing after laying off 900 workers.
Some analysts warn that military expenditures could be reduced if the billions spent on the new Cold War with China were not available; if the Pentagon’s requests to buy the controversial and clearly imperfect F-35 fighter planes from Lockheed Martin were not met; or on Trump’s new warrior invention, the Space Force.
Included in the waste is General Dynamics Electric Boat’s $126 billion nuclear submarine program, the new Ford class aircraft carrier built by Huntington Ingalls for $13.2 billion, and its launch system that remains unlaunched but earns a profit for General Atomics. By the way, Bloomberg reported that the ship’s toilets are frequently clogged and can only be cleaned with specialized acids that cost about $400,000 per flush…).
The clogging is greater in those Pentagon priorities, when it becomes known from a June article in Tom Distpach, that in February 2018, the Government Accountability Office, which to some extent oversees federal spending, warned that the Defense Department’s health care system lacked the capacity to handle routine needs, let alone wartime emergencies, and within the ever-increasing military budget, military health care has grown next to nothing.
The 41,361 individuals linked to the Department of Defense, both military and civilian employees, infected with COVID-19, and in a staff mostly in the 18-24 age range we have not found the recognized number of deaths, will they be the humane and disposable part of that budget “oversight”?
The Black Vice Presidency
ajiacomix
The Black Vice Presidency
By Margarita A. Alarcón Perea
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews
The news flooded the nets yesterday like flies to mangoes.
Finally, the presumed candidate for the presidency of the United States for the party that is not Trump’s, Joe Biden, announced his running mate. Senator Kamala Harris. All the media spent the whole day talking about it, as they should. Senator Harris has a lot of prestige within the Senate of that country, and she comes from a long progressive family and personal history. She is a woman more than ready to lead the nation even just as Vice President. It is a step toward much-needed normalcy, and an interesting turn in domestic politics within the United States. Biden could have gone a little more to the right with Susan Rice, with whom he worked during the Obama years, but no, he went more to the left. Evidently something is going on among the young, millennial people who warn the former Vice President that if they want to win, they better please them.
But this is for another paper. Today I want to be more direct and clarify something that I think is necessary. Yesterday, in the midst of the excitement about the nomination, the big media in that country stated, in one way or another, that for “the first time in the history of the United States” there was a black woman nominated for the vice presidency of the country.
Wrong, and wrong.
The first Black woman nominated for the Vice Presidency of the United States of America was Angela Davis, and she was twice in the presidential race. The first in 1980 and the second in 1984. The first African-American woman nominated for the presidential race was Charlene Mitchell in 1968.
By late afternoon the mainstream media had corrected the mistake and the announcement was “The first African-American woman nominated for the Vice Presidency by one of the nation’s major parties.¨ That was good and it needed to be done and it was done.
Now, in the 1960s a poster was printed by Alfredo Rostgaard known to many or all as The Rose and the Thorn where the graphic artist draws the song by Luis Eduardo Aute in honor of the Cuban Revolution. That rose grows beautiful always, or at least it tries to, and the thorn is always seen as the enemy of the fierce and brutal North that threatens us. Why then, have I not seen anything in the national media about this? Why hasn’t the national press done “the individual study” and simply follow the rhyme of “the thorn”? I know it’s not as easy as going into Google and typing in “Black Vice President of the United States”, I know because I did it and what I get is Kamala Harris and the infamy that she is the first. There we see “the thorn”. What is unforgivable is that “the rose” accepts it without any more or less.
Senator Kamala Harris, she deserves credit without question. The history of that nation, the history of the left in that nation and other Black women deserve it; the history of this nation, “the rose”, deserves it too. Angela deserves it.
NOTE: Here is the poster, El Corno Emplumado:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/344736546481598019/
Graphic Opinion: Coleros and Resellers
Graphic Opinion: Coleros and Resellers
By José Alberto Rodríguez Ávila
August 4, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Cartoon: José Alberto Rodríguez/ Cubadebate.
In times of need and shortage, of crisis not only in Cuba but globally, the waiting line as an occupation is the easy alternative for some on the island. Not only to stand on line: then resell at higher prices (with appreciable profit) to others who do work and don’t have the free time that “coleros” do.
Cimex Closes Ranks Against Coleros
Cimex Closes Ranks Against Coleros, Resales and Hoarding
By Yaditza del Sol González
August 3, 2020
The Cimex Corporation has designed a series of supervision and control measures to confront resellers and hoarders, among which is the provision of supervisors to commercial units with sale of products that generate hoarding behaviors
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
From hand to hand, like a chain, prices are multiplied to the benefit of some and to the detriment of others. Photo: Osval
There have been many warning calls on the subject because, when it comes to coleros, resellers and hoarders, we are in the presence of a problem that affects almost all of us and undermines the efforts that the country is making to guarantee the population basic items, in the midst of a complex economic situation.
It is almost always the same faces, which repeat over and over again in the waiting lines, and end up buying three or four times what should have been a single purchase, and then reselling that merchandise at an exorbitant price. Then there are those who mark and sell the shifts and shamelessly profit from the need of others.
The subject even takes on other nuances, if we talk about those who go directly to the sales floor or warehouse, without waiting, and avail themselves of dissimilar items -frequently the most demanded items such as food and toiletries- and pay at the checkout without there being any regulation of their purchase. Of course, this is always done in complicity with some staff of the establishment itself.
Other examples and situations could be used in this way, but in the end the bill is the same: it is an illegal activity, which must be stopped without any passivity. However, for this to happen, it is not enough just for the population to denounce it, it is also necessary for the forces of law and order to act, and above all, for the shops and businesses where these events take place.
For this purpose, the Cimex Corporation has designed a series of supervision and control measures to confront resellers and hoarders, among which is the provision of supervisors to commercial units with sale of products that generate hoarding behaviors.
Likewise, it was determined to apply integral controls to branches and territorial complexes with demands and complaints from the population, as well as the training of personnel working directly in commercial units and administrative areas, according to information published by Cimex i\on its Facebook account.
On the other hand, it is forbidden in retail marketing to reserve shifts and goods in sales and warehouse floors for customers, to sell goods outside the established hours in the units, to disclose any information about the products in the warehouse and the internal working procedures, and to receive goods without the corresponding invoices.
Failure to apply price circulars in a timely manner, selling items to customers with blank properties and warranties and without the presentation of an identity card, and the purchase by workers of products in the commercial units where they work are also part of the prohibitions applied.
LETTERS: Unedited machine translation
José Luis said:
1
4 August 2020
03:02:47
As a Cuban, a patriot and a revolutionary, I say the following: we continue to beat around the bush. These measures are more of the same. They will not solve anything as long as the macabre mechanism of the colors is perfectly greased for years. Colero-store-warehouses-retailers. Everyone communicates, calls each other on the phone, receives commissions and a long list well known by the people and the authorities themselves. What do I propose? In view of the current situation, so serious that the country is going through from the economic point of view, with a coronavirus, blockade, etc., cholero, store workers, etc., that their participation in these acts of CORRUPTION, which has no other name because of its profound damage to the social fabric, to the people, be proven, sanctions of more than 10,000 Cuban pesos and/or a minimum of 2 years in prison, WITH INTERNATION. It is over.
LICF responded:
August 6th, 2020
09:10:50
I am a salaried worker, although with a decent salary, I never go to a line because everything is sold during working hours. And my 73-year-old mother, although apparently strong, where I detected diabetes a few years ago, sometimes goes to the queues. By necessity not by choice I agree with you: (Colero-store-stores-retailers) you have to act, but he lacked that all the staff of the store or establishment also wet with the mojito. That is, with the dividends. But I do not agree with the statement: “they say they are going to kill everyone who drinks aguardiente, it is a good thing that they are going to leave Cuba without people”. If I ever hear that phrase or a similar one, I should think that many of those coleros have no work relationship and therefore live off that commission, then I would better say or advise the country’s top management to place them all in agriculture, whether they are coleros of working age, salesmen and storekeepers, and why not managers and administrators who allow this, that and the other. As there will be food in Cuba if this is implemented. I believe that work in agriculture will teach them and give them a chance to claim their rights.
Mila said:
2
4 August 2020
05:23:50
Have you already forgotten about e-commerce? In the midst of the resurgence that is emerging e-commerce is no longer mentioned and no longer exists, on the platform tuenvio and there is never anything and in the delivery of Havana 1 month ago the stores do not open, those who can not make endless queues and resolved to buy by that route can no longer do so. Can anyone explain what is happening?
jrosell said:
3
4 August 2020
06:52:38
It should also analyze the delays in dispatching the products, prioritize the sale of the most demanded, enable the largest number of boxes to speed up the dispatches, comply with the schedules for the start of work, speed up the dispatches from the stores to the points of sale, give priority and follow up the use of the POS by the administrations, eliminate the request for the identity card to make the payment by card (these have the personal data in the banks), look for alternatives so that the queues are not so many hours under the sun, among others.
augusto said:
4
4 August 2020
08:12:28
These are the real culprits of the misery that our people are suffering, the sluts and resellers, by giving them a hard blow we will solve all the problems.
José Manuel Alcalde Lanuza answered:
August 6th, 2020
08:06:21
The basic problem is scarcity. If there were no shortage, there would be no resellers. They are an effect, not the cause.
Lina answered:
August 7, 2020
02:54:20
They are the guilty ones, besides the workers of the store who warn them about the products and keep the goods for them.
Oscar Ramos Isla said:
5
4 August 2020
08:22:07
The control does not depend on the situation caused by the coronavirus or any other abnormality. The control is permanent because that is where the quality of the services and the gratitude of the customers are obtained.
Oscar Ramos Isla said:
6
4 August 2020
08:31:05
Technologies can be the perfect ally for resellers not to take advantage of the needs of the Cuban people.
LICF responded:
August 6, 2020
09:32:24
Identity card in hand national database means interconnected between them and a software programmed for when a citizen buys here today tomorrow in another store wherever it is within our island the system will give him denied until the next 1, 2 or 3 months depending on their acquisition also in that database can be implemented the number of supply book to which they belong and according to the amount of consumers would be the amount of product to purchase. Think that I am not eternal and perhaps one day I will be infarmed with so many irregularities in the system.
Anabel-pinar said:
7
4 August 2020
08:56:37
It’s about time! Here in Pinar del Rio until mid-June we used the supply notebook to control the purchase of products, and the truth is that it had a 99% acceptance rate, since we entered phase 1 and eliminated that way it has been a chaos, the coleros have their stores, they do not move to others and even if you arrive early you will always be above 100. It is incredible how many times you ask some worker for the products that are expected to see if you are interested and “they never know” ahhhhh look for the first ones in the queue that even prices know; these measures are very good, I just think that they should be changing the supervisors because in the long run… They can fall into the same vicious circle. They need to uproot this and design tougher measures and laws against them.
ANA said:
8
4 August 2020
08:57:03
Good morning, this topic makes me feel important in the effort that the country is making in the economic plan, on the other hand, I work until 6 pm in Havana, where there is a regular store known as “Los Frailes”, IT HAPPENS THAT THE MERCHANDISE ARRIVES, AFTER 2 HOURS, IF HE UNDERSTANDS THAT DAY THE CHARACTER WHO GIVES THE TICKETS, HE DOES OR NOT, THIS CAUSES THAT AFTER 2 HOURS THERE WAS GATHERED WHAT IS MOST VALUABLE AND SHINES FROM THE OLD HAVANA, THIS IS ALLOWED BY THE STAFF OF THAT DISASTROUS STORE, WHICH MAKES HOARDING A DIARY IN THOSE CHARACTERS. IT IS THE MANAGEMENT OF THE STORE, THE GOVERNMENT OF HAVANA, AND THE POLICE WHO ONLY SHOW UP IF SOMEONE CALLS, WHO IS GIVING THE POSSIBILITY THAT THESE UNFORTUNATE EVENTS OCCUR.
arelys hernandez alaonso said:
9
4 August 2020
09:04:04
Good morning I think it would be good to publish a phone number to call to inform the place that this is happening. It is the only way to end with these who do not work because most do not work live from it.
Elizabeth Cruz said:
10
4 August 2020
09:07:32
I’m not a Cimex worker, but I have a doubt: if workers can’t buy in the store where they work, how can they manage to acquire the products they need so much, if they stay all day working?
Leanny said:
11
4 August 2020
09:11:08
Very good measures that could facilitate access to products in these stores and in others to the ordinary people. But I would like to give 1 observation, because the chain insists in affecting its workers, as it is possible that a worker cannot buy in his work place the products that he needs for his house (I insist for his house, without hoarding or another type of corruption action) that for me is to throw away the couch, I believe that it would be beneficial for its workers who many times work in unsatisfactory conditions, lack of air conditioning in shops that are designed to work with them and they are only informed que¨ there is no budget for reparaciones¨, many times there is a lack of workers to cover the staff, they have carried out their functions in the middle of a pandemic without being provided with means of protection or at least not in the necessary quantities, etc. , because prohibiting them from buying (regulated) what they need (or they are not citizens of this country of ours). Greetings.
jrosell said:
12
4 August 2020
09:29:15
They should also close ranks with store administrations to improve treatment, improve salaries, be more efficient, educate and use technology to speed up payments and queues.
mili said:
13
4 August 2020
09:48:37
Really the coleros and resellers are a worse pandemic than the covid. But we allow it, because in a queue everyone knows who is for what from the dispatcher to the policeman guarding the queue and we let them in. Cuba is a unique country in many things from the health and education benefits, etc. to the coleros and resellers, which we know are a plague for which there is no insept for the moment. And as a unique country we have to act, we are the only country that has a supply card, why don’t we use it? Among the people around me at work, my neighbors, in the streets, everybody is asking for it, because not now that this pandemic has affected the whole world, since before, since always, the one who works is at a total disadvantage with the one who does not work, the one who goes out to work from Monday to Friday at 6 or 7 in the morning and comes back at 5 or 6 in the afternoon, how does he stock up on what is necessary? But now that everything is supplied by the snacks, it is a problem with no solution, because you have to be on the street and to buy a simple soap or detergent package of which you can not do without sometimes sadly you have to resort to resellers, because the one who does not work has all the time to make the queue, in my modest opinion if we normalize the products of first need, where are they going to resell? Let us not deceive ourselves that in this beautiful country which I love and will always defend, everything is known and everything is possible.
Lad said:
14
4 August 2020
09:54:57
Very good measures. But I think the measure that workers cannot buy where they work is exaggerated. That should stimulate a lot the work taking into account that they don’t have good salaries unlike many people think. To that you add that most of them work 3 days and rest one. Seriously, that day is going to be spent looking for supplies. The most responsible for the store workers to hoard are the managers and salesmen who allow them to do so. Those who think otherwise do not know how a store works. Pq when the manager is right there is no invention.
Rodolfo Rodriguez said:
15
4 August 2020
10:01:05
At last there is a plan from the state side to control the illicit business, which as they say also happens inside the store with the conspiracy of the employees. On the other hand, in Holguin, village brigades have been formed to fight the coleros. The coleros from inside and outside are nothing but vile criminals who take advantage of the situation of shortage that the people suffer and create chaos. They are enemies of the people and as such they must be treated with the maximum rigor of the law and above all those from within.
JOSE CARLOS GARCIA JACOMINO said:
16
4 August 2020
10:47:10
NOW THEY NEED TO COMPLY… THEY SHOULD HAVE DONE THAT MONTHS AGO.
Zulema said:
17
4 August 2020
10:46:51
I thought all that was forbidden since many years ago!
hgm He answered:
August 4, 2020
15:27:36
Of course it is long suspended, in fact it is in the regulations of the cimex, as the supervisors do that work systematically, it is not new
Georgina said:
18
4 August 2020
10:58:45
All this is very good and it’s time to finish with what is doing so much damage to the town, I want to take this opportunity to highlight the work of the organizers of the queue of The Rock, on Sunday I went at 6 and 15 and they were already giving shifts, I took the 51 and went home, returned at 9, began a little late 9 and 25 and at 10 and 5 I went with my package of breast seemed incredible to see those young people as they had everything under control, No fuss, no muss, no mess, everyone in place with their nasobuco and everything super fast, but in Gy 25 you can’t buy anything there, those who organize favor the mess because (at the entrance of the store, far from where you make the queue) accumulate elderly people, Others who say they have treatment for cancer or that they are operated on, in short, another line that causes displeasure and encourages those who have no scruples to slip in and make fun of other old people who get up early and mark their lines, there is always a riot and even the police do not keep their distance and pray, I say this so that they take into account and take measures as in other places, They also treat the people badly when they complain and on one occasion a black woman who supposedly organizes told a lady that she had asked for something to drink a cup of chlorine, hopefully they will put young people like those of La Roca in that place, the neighbors and population that we cannot buy in spite of living in front of it we will be grateful.
Elena said:
19
4 August 2020
10:59:17
I believe that we must continue to close ranks, because it is difficult to end the evil from the roots, now for example they have taken over Tuenvío.cu, it is simply impossible to access the network, only a small group of chosen people can do it.
Angel Rodolfo Diaz Cadalso said:
20
4 August 2020
11:09:40
The streets belong to the revolutionaries, the country belongs to the true Cubans and we cannot allow unscrupulous elements to pretend to profit from the needs of the population. If anything can be done in Cuba, it is to fight in an organized way all the germs that attempt against the social welfare. We are an organized people, with a single party and a government with its ear to the ground supported by all the revolutionaries who number in the millions. The unity of our people makes us invincible. We will resist and we will win. We are Cuba, we are continuity. Always until victory.
Our Women
Our Women
In keeping with these times, more than 130,000 women have joined the urban agriculture movement and the medical brigades that have gone out to fight the pandemic in other nations, 61% of whom are women.
By Yenia Silva Correa
August 5, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Photo: Rodríguez Robleda, José Raúl
From economic and productive work, continuation of the work to support the fight against the pandemic and stops to pay homage and recognition, the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) is promoting a group of activities to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the organization, which will take place on August 23.
With strict adherence to the health measures required by the complex epidemiological situation caused by COVID-19, it was reported this Tuesday, through a press conference, that the program on the occasion of the event will have the communities as its setting.
Teresa Amarelle Boué, Secretary General of the organization and member of the Political Bureau, reminded [everyone] that the main challenge that the new coronavirus represents today does not diminish the protagonist [leading role, wl] of Cuban women in the other challenges they lead. These include “maintaining what has been conquered in terms of gender equality, that there are no setbacks in the midst of the new forms of economic management that the country is promoting, the situation of the aging population and how to perfect the protocols of action to confront gender violence in our country.”
JOY AT NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS
Excited, after the news of being the vanguard of the country, the FMC of Santiago de Cuba dedicated to the FMC’s founder, Vilma Espín, the condition received.
“We could not go to Segundo Frente, to pay her any other tribute than this one, obtained in the midst of the current complexity”, declared Elena Castillo Rodríguez, provincial secretary.
In addition to the leading role played on the health front, she highlighted the massive incorporation of food production in agriculture and on industrial estates, the demand for discipline in public spaces, the active promotion of electricity saving, and the implementation of more than a hundred training programs for women who are not working.
George Stinney, Condemned
George Stinney, the Boy Condemned to the Electric Chair
George Junius Stinney Jr. was convicted in March 1944 of the murder of the two girls, ages 11 and 8, in a speedy trial by a jury of white men. George was executed in the electric chair on June 16 of that year.
By Raúl Antonio Capote | internacionales@granma.cu
August 4, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
George Junius Stinney Jr: was convicted in March 1944 for the murder of two girls aged 11 and eight Photo: ABC
A boy looks scared into the camera of the Clarendon police photographer. After long hours of brutal interrogation, he had just confessed to a crime he had not commit.
Whoever pressed the shutter of the camera captured the pure image of fear and innocence; George Stinney’s police photo is not just any photo.
Stinney was a boy from Alcolu, Clarendon, a small town in South Carolina. His life was the life, you might say, of an African-American boy in that region.
George was tending the family’s cows with his sister Amie that day when two white girls, Mary Emma Thames and Betty June Binnicker, approached them to ask about some medicinal plants they were looking for. George and Amie did not know the plants, so the girls went on their way.
Hours after the meeting, the girls’ parents, concerned, went out to look for them. George offered to help when they passed by his family’s farm and told the parents about the conversation he had with the girls.
The bodies of the girls were found near a Missionary Baptist church, showed signs of sexual abuse and had been killed using a 25 kg wood.
The police arrested George and took him in for questioning, in a process that involved many irregularities, physical abuse and psychological torture. The child was not represented by any lawyer and was not allowed the company of his parents, despite being a minor, he was only 14 years old.
They said that he had confessed to the crime, but no evidence of the confession was ever produced, it was the word of the police against that of the black child. His sister–witnessing that Stinney had been with her all afternoon, so she could not commit the crime–was threatened and harassed, so she had to flee the area in the face of the real possibility of being lynched, as some villagers had promised to do.
George Junius Stinney Jr. was convicted in March 1944 of the murder of the two girls, aged 11 and 8, in a speedy trial by a jury of white people. George was executed in the electric chair on June 16 of that year.
In 2014 the case was reviewed and justice ruled that the boy had not received a fair trial and he was found not guilty. The problem is that this verdict came 70 years too late.
No Export Industry Without Design
We Cannot Conceive of an Export Industry Without Design
By Liudmila Peña Herrera
Cuban journalist. Graduated in Journalism from the Universidad de Oriente, in Santiago de Cuba. She works for the weekly Ahora, in Holguín province.
and
Ivette Leyva García
Journalist and communicator. Editor of La Tiza, Revista Cubana de Diseño, and contributor to Cubadebate.
July 29, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Leonel Amador, during the presentation of one of his books. With him Gisela Herrero, head of the National Design Office. Photo: ONDi.cu
With all the experience and prestige gained by a broad and multifaceted work in the field of light industry over more than six decades of work, chemical engineer Leonel Amador Perez, today an advisor to the Minister of Industries, is an authoritative and proactive voice in the attempt to insert Cuban design in the quality standards of national productions.
A perfumer by profession, Leonel Amador became involved from a very young age – at just 16 – in the fascinating world of fragrances. He himself defines the year 1958 as a determining moment in the destiny that would follow after entering the Rancho Boyeros Technical-Industrial School.
“At that time, the advertising of the big soap companies on the radio and television was very appealing to me. That’s why I chose the specialty of Soap and Perfumery”, remembers who began his professional history in the aerosol filler, in Havana, where they produced the sprays for various cosmetics, perfumes, shaving foams of different brands and many hair products.
His experience in this sector would be enriched in the Burjois Perfumery, producer of Chanel No. 5; then, in the recently created Empresa Consolidada de Jabonería y Perfumería, and later in the Laboratory of Development and Production of bouquets, currently Suchel Fragancia, of which he was one of the founders and its first director, at the age of 23. If such merits still seem insufficient, he is endorsed by having been director of design at the Ministry of Light Industry and winner of the National Honorary Design and Design Management Award, both granted by ONDi.
So many distinctions do not spoil his humility. In the way he conducts himself with his colleagues, there is not the slightest hint of the egocentrism that usually originates such entertainments; on the contrary, in his slow speech and in the frank and clear dialogue, like the essence of one of his perfumes – Alicia, inspired by Prima Ballerina Assoluta -, one can guess the peasant roots of which he assures he is proud.
His tenacity in work and the energy he gives to that passion, make him “jump” to the laboratory from time to time, to compose some fragrance (the last ones were S Hojas de Tabaco Verde, Súcheli Flores Blancas and Insaciable). For him, talking about the challenges and the need to incorporate design solutions into the daily life of a country that is destined to promote productive chains is an obligation, but also a pleasure.
What policies have been developed within the Ministry of Industries to contribute to the productive linkages that, according to the economic authorities, the country needs so much?
-This is an expeditious way for economic actors involved in a production chain to obtain benefits. Logically, the development of one activity drives that of the others and, strategically, it is beneficial and very effective. This policy, within the Ministry of Industries, is not new, since it was born with the Revolution itself and the ideas implemented by Che, who conceived the Cuban industrial development through the productive chains. That is, if we were going to produce coffee, then we would develop the production of the sack and, for that, we would have to produce the fiber, for which purpose the agricultural crops of the kenaf were planted. Today, the policy and programs of industrial development until 2030 take into account these productive chains.
How do you assess the degree of insertion of Cuban design in those chains?
-The insertion of design in the productive chains is vital, although in some processes it is not given the importance it deserves, even when, strategically, it is essential.
“Today, the quality systems that are implemented throughout the industrial plant are based on the evaluation and validation of the design, not only to have a well-assembled quality management system, but also to avoid defective products that do not meet the needs for which they were created. For this reason, design, both industrial and visual communication, plays a very important role in the development of production and in the levels of satisfaction that products and services must achieve.
“We still need to promote it more, because it is not at the center of the company’s management development, even though there are some who have understood the importance of design management, to the point that today they are successful entities in their product development policies.
“It may be that those working in the industry are not always aware of the importance of design, but neither does ONDi and designers have to wait until they are. I believe they should play a more active role in demonstrating the opportunities offered by design as a tool for achieving higher rates of product competitiveness. We cannot conceive of an export industry if it does not have good design. And this is within the policies that the ministry is developing.
“At the moment, we are working on various aspects of the issue. For example, along with the industrial development policy, there is the packaging policy and the design policy; all this so that there is a guiding document in the country that can show us the way to achieve greater efficiency and competitiveness in the product range through design”.
How could designers play a more proactive role in raising awareness of the importance of design?
-There is no one who knows more about the importance of design than the designer himself. We need to get rid of the complaint a little. We need to talk, convince and show more what can be achieved. We must not allow valuable projects to be drawn up and then archived. We have to fight to get these good projects into production.
“Design work must be seen from the industrial management itself, but that is achieved by educating and demonstrating. We developed an experience 25 years ago, at the end of the nineties, with a diploma in management of this activity, at the Instituto Superior de Diseño (ISDi). Thanks to this action of improvement, a group of industry leaders, including me, who was then a vice-minister, prepared ourselves in the most important aspects related to design. Because of those relationships I had with ONDi, I also participated in international events, always presenting papers on the color-smell relationship in the design of packaging for the cosmetics industry and on experiences in design management.
“We also promoted, in coordination with ONDi and ISDi, the experimental reorientation of higher level graduates. It was not a question of improvising designers, but of enriching with these tools professionals who, with a knowledge base such as industrial engineers, chemists, textiles…, could influence, from the industry, design management.
“I owe a lot to the designers I met during the 23 years that I attended to the activity at the ministry level. José “Pepe” Cuendias was a brother…
(Our interviewee briefly interrupts the dialogue. He is moved by the memory of the former director of ONDi and rector of ISDi for so many years. Before our eyes, he is no longer, for a few minutes, the advisor; now we see him in the skin of the friend. He breathes, and continues).
“My relationship with him, in the framework of work, was very close. We planned the training activities together with the staff of the institute. I was also nourished by boys I had known since they were students: Pedrito (Pedro García-Espinosa), Sergito (Sergio Peña Martínez), Giselita (Gisela Herrero García), Carmita (Carmen Gómez Pozo)… There were very talented designers in the industry itself, from whom I learned, like Rafael de León -National Design Award in 2005-, a costume designer for Tropicana and for Vanessa’s trunks, who is very well known internationally”.
How do you assess, from your work experiences, the industry-design relationships over the years?
-In the seventies of the last century, there was a Design Department in the Ministry of Light Industry, whose creation I defended a lot because there was a similar one in the Ministry of Industries of Che. In 1980 the ONDi was created, and the relations between both institutions led to the emergence of design centres in the 1990s, by branches: clothing, footwear, furniture. It was then that, as Vice-Minister, I started to attend to the activity.
“The fact that later the presence of design in industry has been blurred is due to an essentially economic factor. For there to be design there has to be production, and today access to the market for national products is limited by financial problems. We must therefore ensure that part of the solution to this situation is design as a tool. At present, the linkage of the tourism sector and the furniture industry is a positive example. It is satisfying to see the furniture in hotels such as Paseo del Prado, for example; anyone would think that it is not Cuban, and yes, it is manufactured in an industry that is part of that productive chain that we are called upon to promote.
“When you think about how this chain is carried out, you have to take into account that furniture means wood, varnishes, nails, screws, upholstery materials, the clothes of the factory workers, their shoes… Let’s analyze how many things are derived and we will see that it is a big chain in which design plays a fundamental role”.
At present, the linkage of the tourism sector and the furniture industry is a positive example. Image: ONDi.cu.
In his speech to the National Assembly of People’s Power in December 2019, President Miguel Díaz-Canel posed the challenge of “conquering the greatest possible prosperity”, even in the midst of the economic war we are facing. How can we accompany this objective from industry, from design, in the medium term?
-For me, Cuban industry is committed to be better, to overcome every day, and it will achieve it by working more efficiently and effectively, developing the products that Cubans want and deserve. In that challenge, design is an essential tool, because with it we can adapt the product to the needs of the population in an optimal way.
“Likewise, ONDi must use all its experience and knowledge to help raise awareness among industry specialists and to definitively materialize the use of design in each work, product or service that will be made available to our public.
“It must never be forgotten that if you do not have a design that is competitive with the international average, it will be very difficult to export. To achieve this, you must have stable quality and be very punctual with design solutions”.
In July 2020, ONDi celebrated its 40th anniversary. What idea or message would you like to convey to your collective, who are committed to making Cuba a country of good design?
-We must continue to maintain our professional commitment as we have done up to now, and even more. I know the spirit of work of the office, the battle of its designers who radiate a willingness to help in everything they have been asked to do. I just want to invite you to continue to be an example of that passion for design. That needs to be multiplied.
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