Trump’s Trick for Afghanistan Withdrawal
Trump’s Trick for Afghanistan Withdrawal
Published: Saturday 29 February 2020 | 10:53:30 pm.
By Leonel Nodal digital@juventudrebelde.cu
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Signatories of the Peace Agreement in Afghanistan; Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, leader of the Taliban delegation and Zalmay Khalilzad, representative of the United States Author: Reuters Publicado: 29/02/2020 | 10:33 pm
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.
A “guajira” with good aim
A “guajira” with good aim
The 25-year-old from Santiago is the captain of the Cuban women’s archery team and is also the best archer in Cuba today
Published: Saturday 29 February 2020 | 10:18:31 pm.
By Lianet Escobar Hernández lianet@juventudrebelde.cu
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
With a personal best of 635 points, the Santiago native is aiming for a ticket to the Tokyo Olympics: Author: Abel Rojas Barallobre Published: 29/02/2020 | 09:49 pm
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.
Bolivia – Report “Finds Out” What We All Knew
Report “Finds Out” What We All Knew: There Was No Fraud in the Elections Won by Evo Morales
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.
Photo: Taken from the Internet
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.
A Smartphone App called Duolingo
A Smartphone App called Duolingo
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
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.
New Water Rates Announced
New Water Rates Announced
The new prices should contribute to the saving of the vital liquid in hotel facilities, industries and other centers of the production and services
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.
New Spawn of Useless Psychological Warfare
Measure 191: New Spawn of Useless Psychological Warfare
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.
New Water Rates Announced
New Water Rates Announced
The new prices should contribute to the saving of vital liquid in hotel facilities, industries and other centers of production and services
Published: Friday 28 February 2020 | 12:33:22 am.
By Juventud Rebelde
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
New water charges for hydrometric control in the productive or service sector will start to be applied from April 1, informed in Havana executives of the Higher Organization of Business Management (OSDE) Water and Sanitation, of the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources.
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.
The 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.
Fines Up to 3,000 Pesos for Littering
Since March in Havana, Fines of Up to 3,000 pesos for Throwing Debris Outside Established Sites
February 20, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
As of March, those who generate cadres like this in the Cuban capital will have to think about it and comply with the regulations of the local authorities. Photo: Ismael Francisco/Cubadebate
The provincial government of Havana, as part of the People’s Movement for a More Beautiful, Cleaner and Healthier Havana, has established that the state entities or families that carry out constructive actions in their properties are responsible for the final destination of the rubble generated. It must be deposited only in the sites defined for that purpose by the people’s councils.
As of March 1, this provision, in accordance with the City’s Ornamental Regulations, also establishes that the rubble may be deposited at the points defined by each people’s council, which will never coincide with the traditional points for depositing domestic waste.
In the case of residents in the municipalities of Central Havana and Old Havana, citizens and entities may contract the debris collection service to the Water Company of Havana.
In the remaining municipalities, this can be done by contacting the Provincial Direction of Hygiene, through the telephone numbers 7260-1440, Command Post, and 7260-3011, Commercial Department.
Violation of the rules may be subject to a fine of up to 3,000 pesos.
It is also established that each state or social entity is responsible for the permanent cleaning and beautification of its establishments, including its perimeter environment.
The structures of each people’s council, in close coordination and with the active participation of the CDR, FMC, CTC, ANAP and the Association of Combatants, will systematically develop mobilization actions aimed at maintaining cleanliness in the community, calling on families to deposit household waste at established collection points and during the hours of 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
Those who violate this communal hygiene norm could be fined up to 1,500 pesos. Similarly, the person responsible for collecting the waste may be fined similarly if he or she fails to comply with it.
Cuban Guide Addresses Sexual Dysfunctions
IPS in Cuba
Cuba Has a Guide to Address Sexual Dysfunctions
It was one of the results shared at the 5th Scientific and Methodological Conference of the state-run National Center for Sex Education.
February 22, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
At the conference, it was revealed that guidelines are available to care for those suffering from sexual dysfunctions and disorders in Cuba.
Photo: Jorge Luis Baños/ IPS
Havana, 22 February – What should a doctor tell and guide a man with erectile dysfunction or a woman with an orgasmic disorder? Until very recently, there were no practical guidelines in Cuba for dealing with this health problem.
Today there are guidelines for attending to those suffering from male and female sexual dysfunctions and disorders thanks to a research project carried out by the state-run National Center for Sex Education (Cenesex), explained physician Elvia de Dios Blanco.
From 2016 to 2018, a team of 12 specialists worked on the systematization of the theoretical-methodological references that support care for sexual dysfunctions and disorders in the world and in Cuba, as well as the preparation and evaluation of the guidelines, De Dios said at the 5th Scientific-Methodological Conference of Cenesex.
In the first stage, she said, guidelines were designed for disorders of hypoactive male and female sexual desire, female orgasmic disorder, premature ejaculation and erectile dysfunction, which are the most frequent requests for attention.
In the second phase, guidelines were drawn up for female sexual arousal disorders, pain disorders and vaginismus, as well as paraphilic disorders, he said at the meeting, held Feb. 20, where the institution’s scientific results were presented.
“The ones the one on erectile dysfunction, hypoactive disorder and female orgasmic disorderare published in the Cenesex magazine Sexología y Sociedad. For those pending publication, we coordinated with the Ministry of Public Health to train facilitators for each of Havana’s 15 municipalities, and then extend them to other territories,” she said.
Moments from the day-long scientific conference.
Photo: IPS Cuba Archive
In her opinion, medical professionals are better prepared for male sexual dysfunctions than for female ones, “because really women come very little, they have their problems and they stay with them and don’t come. That happens worldwide, not just in Cuba.
In the expert’s opinion, the Cuban guidelines differ “from the rest of the models that exist internationally in that they include sexual education in all sexual dysfunctions and specify the functions of the integral general physician as a gateway to the health system.
Doctors “must explain to people who seek care the human sexual response, its modifications in the different stages of life, with chronic diseases and with drugs,” he said.
At the same time, she said, sex education should include the presentation of masturbation as a healthy form of sexual activity and the need for privacy in sexual relations.
Education, she insisted, involves making a 20-year-old diabetic man understand that if he doesn’t take his medication, when he is 40 he can develop atherosclerosis, because his fat metabolism is affected, his vessels become hard and blood doesn’t enter his penis.
New paradigms
The conference unfolded a full-day program, where other results and developments were presented.
The Cuban legislative schedule foresees the presentation to the National Assembly of People’s Power (unicameral parliament) of an amendment to the Public Health Law (Law 41 of 1983) by the end of 2020, with a view to moving away from the biomedical paradigm and towards a rights-based approach.
Jurist Ivón Calaña, head of the Legal Advisory and International Relations Department of CENESEX, explained that several groups of specialists are working on different proposals. One concern is that this law must be approved before the new Family Code (planned for 2021), which would leave out some issues, including the autonomy of adolescents in matters of sexuality.
One of the aspects that the health law would include is to clearly specify abortion as a right of women to voluntarily interrupt pregnancy, a procedure that has been available safely and free of charge for more than 50 years in the country.
If the current law referred to quality of health in terms of building care centers, developing the pharmaceutical industry and training personnel, the proposal takes a qualitative leap forward by privileging primary health care as the first level of care for individuals, families and the community in a comprehensive manner.
“From this change, the patient is seen as a subject of rights and duties, because there will be a legal relationship, typical of a service provision, like any other,” he said.
One of the areas analyzed is gender-based violence, which would allow the subsequent implementation of protocols for the care of victims, mainly women and children, she said.
The proposals introduce health concepts that have been absent until now, such as autonomy, integrity, informed consent, privacy, anatomical sex change, the right to decide on the body and obstetric violence, and the right to decide on the number and spacing of children, not only for infertile couples – as is the case in the proposed text – but for all couples.
The long-awaited code
The main advances in the area of sexual rights contained in the proposal of what would be the new Family Code were presented by Manuel Vázquez, deputy director of CENESEX, who is participating in the temporary group working on the text and has had as a good practice to conduct academic debates.
“That a Family Code is proposed, but rather than a name, it is a constitutional mandate in terms of plurality to recognize and protect all families, in all their diversity, regardless of the ways in which they are structured,” he stressed.
Among other aspects, the bill proposes the elimination of the exceptionality to contract marriage before the age of 18, the recognition of marriage and de facto union, the economic regime of marriage, the change of the term parental authority to parental responsibility, the procreational will and multi- and pluri-parenthood. (2020)
Bolivian Golpistas Want Lithium Privatization
MAS Presidential Candidate Denounces Lithium Privatization as a Target for Coup in Bolivia
Former Bolivian economy minister and presidential candidate for the Movement towards Socialism, Luis Arce, denounced on Wednesday that the privatization of lithium is one of the objectives pursued by those who perpetrated last year’s coup d’état.
—————————————————————————-
Author: Redacción Digital | internet@granma.cu
February 26, 2020 14:02:29
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Luis Arce, denounced that the privatization of lithium is one of the objectives pursued by those who perpetrated the coup d’état:
Former Bolivian economy minister and presidential candidate for the Movement towards Socialism, Luis Arce, denounced on Wednesday that the privatization of lithium is one of the objectives pursued by those who perpetrated the coup d’état last year.
In his Twitter account, Arce stated that “(…) the coup d’état was not against the Indian but because of lithium. It was designed by transnationals interested in its privatization along with gas (…)”.
This denunciation, which reiterates those made previously by former president Evo Morales, comes in response to the call for transnationals to invest in Bolivian lithium.
Lithium is considered the energy of the future, because of its properties and use in the manufacture of batteries for electronic effects.
Bolivia has 70 percent of the world’s proven reserves of this mineral (around 21 million metric tons), most of which are in the Uyuni salt flats, in Potosí.
During the Morales government, lithium production began to be industrialised, with the aim of generating 4.5 billion dollars a year for the country’s development.
You must be logged in to post a comment.