We Ask Forgiveness of the Cuban People
We Ask Forgivness of the People of Cuba for What Our Government is Once Again Doing
A delegation composed of more than 50 Americans and called by the organization Code Pink, conducted an intense program of visits to communities in order to talk with the Cuban people.
by | internet@granma.cu
February 7, 2020 22:02:02
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Pacifists Medea Benjamin (left) and Ann Wright are active in ending the blockade of Cuba and defending other just causes around the world. Photo: Orlando Perera
A delegation composed of more than 50 Americans and convened by the organization Code Pink, carried out an intense program of visits to the communities with the purpose of talking with the Cuban people.
One of the founders of the solidarity group, Medea Benjamin, said at the headquarters of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) that she felt pain for the setback in bilateral relations between the United States and the island. She felt the same because of the actions of Donald Trump’s administration, mainly the intensification of the unjust blockade and the activation of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act.
“We are facing an economic war and it is being practiced against countries like Venezuela, Nicaragua, Iran, and others, which are not to the liking of the White House. This is a form of pressure from the Trump administration to change governments. That president must obey international laws and respect the sovereignty of the people,” warned the peace activist.
She called the foreign policy implemented by the current presidency in Washington dirty: “This is an election year. They (the right-wing) want to take over the majority of Florida’s votes. This is why they are taking measures that have nothing to do with the well-being of Cubans,” she said, mentioning the names of Congress members Marco Rubio and Mario Rafael Diaz Balart as the most sinister characters in this type of political game.
She said she was part of the group that occupied Venezuela’s diplomatic headquarters in the United States to save it from the representatives appointed by self-proclaimed President Juan Guaidó. “We stayed several weeks living inside the embassy, fighting against very aggressive people, mainly right-wing Venezuelans living in the U.S. We have been taken to jail, we have been threatened, but we remain firm in proclaiming that our government cannot recognize a president who has not been elected by the people. It cannot give a facility to people who have no real power to carry out consular procedures. Nor do they have the right to decide for the Venezuelan people and elect a president of their own choosing,” said Medea Benjamin.
Also, in the last few weeks, members of the Code Pink group have visited Bolivia, because it hurts them to see what is happening in that country, after a coup d’état carried out by fascists, who privatize resources and sell the people’s goods. “We must defend Evo Morales, because he has been the first indigenous president, a symbol not only for Bolivia, but for worthy people all over the world, including the United States,” said the human rights defender.
She stressed that the main task of the Code Pink group on this issue is to report on events and show evidence of the White House’s involvement in overthrowing legitimate Latin American governments. The organization was born on November 17, 2002, and works to end wars and occupations by the U.S. government, to challenge global militarism, and to redirect resources to finance arms and military supplies to health, education and employment programs.
With her came Ann Wright, a retired and ex-colonel and diplomat. She had been against the war in Iraq in 2001 and other wars sponsored by her country. Today she is a peace activist and speaks out against the foreign policy of the U.S. government.
She believes that the relationship with Cuba has changed for the worse, and said she is very concerned about the decisions of the Trump administration. “We’ve talked to many people in the communities and members of non-governmental organizations, also with the accountants about the impact of the sanctions on their lives. We feel a sense of sadness and ask the people of Cuba to forgive us for what our government is once again doing.”
Coronavirus…Biological Terrorism?
Coronavirus, Another Act of Biological Terrorism?
“Isn’t it highly suspicious that the coronavirus has appeared in China and that Washington has introduced it to weaken what many already consider the world’s leading economic power over the hitherto evil empire led by Trump?”
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Author: Orfilio Peláez | orfilio@granma.cu
February 7, 2020 23:02:34
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
China faces the coronavirus responsibly and with its people., In the image the first hospital to care for the sick, built in just ten days, and the second hospital is already delivered for the same purpose. Photo: XINHUA
An article published in his personal blog by Spanish journalist Patricio Montesinos deals with the theory that the coronavirus could be a germ created in U.S. laboratories, as a bacteriological weapon of the commercial war unleashed by Washington against China.
According to the text reproduced in Rebelión, several recent statements by senior White House officials and an increasingly intense international media campaign against China, feed the hypothesis that the administration of President Donald Trump could be responsible for the epidemic that appeared in late December 2019, in the city of Wuhan.
Montesinos alludes to the January 31 statement by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who said, “The coronavirus outbreak that has infected thousands of people could boost the U.S. economy. But the senior official went further, saying that it “will help speed the return of jobs to America.
Ross’s statements followed those of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who in the midst of the world’s emergency for the disease identified China as a threat to international democratic principles.
In addition, the silence of the major media omits to mention the enormous efforts made by the Asian country’s authorities to control the spread of the epidemic. These include the construction, in record time, of two major hospitals to provide top-quality medical care to the sick and the search for effective drugs that can cure the disease.
In his article, the journalist states that although there have been attempts to hide it, the world knows well how successive U.S. administrations have resorted to biological warfare to overthrow governments considered to be adverse, and to unleash conflicts between nations and exterminate populations.
Fidel, one of the first targets
A look at what has happened in the world during the last 60 years allows us to say that few nations have suffered such varied forms of biological attacks as Cuba.
Perhaps one of the first alleged victims of that dark form of aggression was Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro at the beginning of the Revolution. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) designed a plan to contaminate a diving suit that was supposed to be used by the Cuban leader.
Carefully infected with tuberculosis bacilli, the CIA wanted to use Fidel’s hospitality with James Donovan, a lawyer who was negotiating with the Cuban government to free the mercenaries captured in the invasion of Playa Giron, to deliver the suit to the Chief of the Revolution through him.
The macabre gift was not given by Donovan to his host and the versions that have come down to us suggest that he refused or sought a pretext to avoid becoming involved in the infamous act.
There were also attempts to inoculate microorganisms in tobacco that Fidel would smoke, in order to cause his emblematic beard to fall out.
After the failure of the invasion of Playa Girón, in 1962 the CIA, with the approval of the U.S. government, implemented the so-called Operation Mongoose. Included among its actions was the use of biological and chemical agents capable of destroying Cuban crops and incapacitating agricultural workers.
It was not by chance then that shortly afterward the pathogenic New Castle virus appeared in the fields of the largest of the Antilles and caused severe damage to the national poultry population by having to slaughter tens of thousands of birds.
According to what William Turner, former FBI agent, and the journalist Warren Hinckle, as stated in the book Lethal Secrets: The War of the CIA and the American Mafia against Fidel Castro and the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the United States used bacteriological warfare in Cuba during the administration of Richard Nixon (1969-1974) and the CIA engaged the northern government in an undeclared and illegal secret war against Cuba. An example of this was the sudden emergence and rapid spread in 1971 of the first epidemic of African swine fever, whose control and eradication led to the elimination of more than half a million pigs.
On January 7, 1977, a cable from the U.S. agency UPI, dated in Washington, reported that an unidentified CIA source revealed that it had received a container containing the virus in early 1971 at Fort Guglick, a U.S. Army base in the Panama Canal zone. It was to be transferred in a fishing boat to agents in charge of operating clandestinely in Cuba.
Following the investigations made by a group of scientists of the National Center of Agricultural Health (Censa), directed by Dr. Rosa Elena Simeón Negrín, it was concluded that this specific germ of the pigs had been artificially adapted to be transported by means of birds. The specialists warned that this could only be achieved intentionally and with refined techniques of genetic engineering and biotechnology.
It was the first time that the aggressive disease had spread in the Western Hemisphere.
African swine fever reappeared in Cuba in 1979. On that occasion, it became known that the reinfection originated in the surroundings of the town of Caimanera, very close to the Naval Base, which illegally occupies Cuban territory in Guantánamo.
Other acts of bacteriological warfare suffered by the Cuban people between the 1970s and the 1990s. These included the deliberate introduction of the Blue Mould of tobacco (1971), which severely affected the production of such an important exportable product, Cane Rust (1978), whose devastating effect forced the dismantling of almost all the fields planted with the Barbados 4326 cane variety, which has high agricultural and industrial yields. Finally, the painful epidemic of dengue hemorrhagic fever (1981), which caused 158 deaths, 101 of them children, and the insect infestation Thrips palmer which devastated several crops.
During a trial held in New York City in 1984, the Cuban-born agent of the CIA Eduardo Arocena, declared in no uncertain terms that the mission of the group under his command was to obtain certain pathogenic germs and introduce them into Cuba.
The confession is recorded in the minutes on page 2189, file 2-fbi-ny 185-1009, but the prosecutor in charge of the process never ordered an investigation.
There is no evidence at this time that the coronavirus is part of a biological terrorist action by the United States, but the practice of that country and the statements of some of its highest officials leads journalist Patricio Montesinos in his thoughtful article to ask himself: “Isn’t it very suspicious that the coronavirus has appeared in China and that Washington has introduced it to weaken what many already consider the first economic power in the world, over and above the until now evil empire led by Trump?
In context
More than 31,400 cases of coronavirus infection exist worldwide, according to a report yesterday from the World Health Organization (WHO), and of those more than 31,200 in China.
The outbreak is now in 25 countries and 638 people have died, of which only one was recorded outside the Asian giant.
No Latin American country is yet on the map of coronavirus distribution drawn up by the WHO, although an Argentine citizen traveling on a cruise ship held in Japan was found to be infected.
So far, Chinese doctors have saved 1,540 people, according to a report by the People’s Daily.
The People’s Daily reported that Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke by phone Friday with his U.S. counterpart, Donald Trump, asking for sanity in the international media atmosphere. Figures and data are deliberately presented there without contrast, which convey an image that the Asian nation is not doing enough to counteract the epidemic.
During the 146th session of the WHO Executive Board on February 4, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus praised China for its strong action and speed in the fight.
The Isolated Superpower
The Isolated Superpower
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
On March 12, 1996, the Congress of the United States of America approved one of the most regressive and draconian imperialist foreign policy initiatives, ironically named the Solidarity Act of Freedom and Democracy for Cuba (LIBERTAD), known as the Helms-Burton Act.
Before the triumph of Cuban guerrilla weapons over the armed forces of Fulgencio Batista’s tyranny, which had been imposed by Washington on Cuba, the United States exercised absolute control. The economy of the island was ultimately subordinated to the interests of U.S. companies involved in relations with the Cuban authorities and entities.
After the victory of the revolution in January 1959, the situation changed completely. Cubans became masters of their country and their economy. Nevertheless, Cuba could not conduct its normal foreign trade relations with the US because US hostility became present in economic relations.
However, before the 1990s, the blockade on trade with Cuba had not been legally established although it started working through so-called “executive orders”.
It was President Kennedy who officially initiated the blockade, euphemistically called the “embargo”, in 1962. He did this on the basis of [U.S. national] self-interest in response to the nationalization of US assets ordered by Cuba following the revolution’s coming to power.
Happily for Cuba, that moment arrived just at the moment when Moscow was in a position to become Cuba’s main trading partner in the New World. There were special incentives from its ideological affinity and a certain economic complementarity that the political alliance would bring about.
It is rightly said that the community’s approach and world public opinion have very little influence on the policy of the United States of America. This perception was fully confirmed by history during the second half of the 20th century.
Every year, Cubans, many Latin Americans and not a few Americans, humiliated by the shame of the criminal economic, commercial and financial blockade that their country, the richest and most militarily powerful in the world, has been exercising against this small island. Cuba is a giant in terms of dignity,
The sole justification of Washington’s fear is that the example of Cuba’s successful resistance to unjust abuse will encourage other peoples and governments of the continent to defend their sovereignty, which cannot be renounced.
Once again this year, the most representative body of the international community debated and approved almost unanimously, in a plenary session of its General Assembly, the resolution “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States on Cuba”.
A few minutes after the conclusion of this most recent session of the UN General Assembly, the whole of Cuba celebrated, as it does every year, “the new victory against imperialism” with as much joy as if it were the first time that it did so as an expression of its condemnation of the unjust blockade imposed on the Caribbean country.
This was the umpteenth time in as many consecutive years that the United Nations General Assembly approved the same resolution. It calls for the suspension of the longest blockade in human history. It has already caused the island more than $100 billion in losses. It could have served to bring Cuba out of underdevelopment through its own efforts, according to the original projects of the triumphant revolution in January 1959.
The Helms-Burton Act was not the only piece of explicitly anti-Cuban legislation circulating in Congress at the time. On February 9, 1995, Representative Charles Rangel (D-NY) introduced a bill with a diametrically opposed text, the Cuba Free Trade Act. It was aimed at eliminating the blockade and establishing a dialogue with Cuba. In doing so, Rangel sought to draft an agreement on the disposition of expropriated U.S. assets in Cuba.
Congress did not approve that law, opting for a hard-line stance against Cuba and avoiding constructive policies that would transform it.
December 27, 2019
Farewell Letter to a Lost Cell Phone
Farewell Letter to a Lost Cell Phone
By Liudmila Peña Herrera digital@juventudrebelde.cu
January 30, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Cell Phone Author: LAZ Published: 03/02/2020 | 01:23 pm
My good Samsung Note 3:
Although it sounds corny, I must say that I miss you; that everything seems boring and unimportant without you; that I will try to learn to love the Xiaomi that I will buy for myself when I get my 13th month and my uncle Alcides gets paid for the pig he sold us for the 31st there in La Caoba; that now I am going back to study for my Master’s thesis because of the books or the handwritten notes, but nothing, absolutely nothing, is the same without you: neither the HD videos I recorded with you, nor the photos, nor the 3G, nor the audio, nor the music – alas, the last records of Buena Fe and Carlos Varela went with you!—. I can’t even listen to music now, my never well-pondered Note 3. I’m crestfallen and forgetful, because not even the calendar of this little task I was lent is any use at all (nor any reminder!)
Who knows in whose hands you are! Maybe at the bottom of a drawer, hidden by the guy who put his hand in my purse in the middle of the P-12 full of people squeezed and protesting. And I was taken away by the demands of my girlfriend to look her in the face and attend to her when she began to tell me, in the middle of the bus, and to all of the other guys, another of her banal anguishes of a contemporary woman: that if the boss only listens to himself and laughs out loud at his own jokes, that if the receptionist is a gossip and applies the x-ray or ultraviolet rays to every nylon jaba [Cuban shopping bag] she enters the office with, that if she doesn’t have a balance left in the Nauta account and all that blablabla that, you and I know, was never of interest to me when you were with me.
Who would have sent me to roll up your headset around your waist and put them in your purse pocket? What feminist article would have convinced me that women are right or should be made to believe they are! Nothing, I’m keeping my talking girlfriend, but I’m getting ready for a new cell phone.
Now she says she’s got me back, that I’m finally the same person she knew at the university when neither of us knew what a mobile phone was. This was because we didn’t even have a flash memory, just five or six three-and-a-half inch discs to make the many copies of the research methodology papers we kept like a gold chain inside a pullover in a Santiago van.
It’s true that I’ve been sexually active for a week since that bastard put his hand in my purse. It’s true that I talk more and am noticed to be a little less entertaining and anxious. I have to admit that I don’t wake up anymore and the first thing I do, almost without opening my eyes, is to look for Facebook, Instagram and Twitter notifications. I don’t even have bad digestion anymore!
Oh, but how I miss you in the bathroom, especially when I sit on the toilet and do my thing calmly. Now you can call and call, and if I’m in the bathroom, I don’t answer.
And how envious I am of people who arrive at the office meeting, at the policlinic emergency room, at the bus stop – and even on the bus itself – and take out their cell phone, activate their mobile data and go surfing! And those who have no data start looking at the photos in the gallery, reading their digital books, playing games?
How hard it is for me to wait without you. I didn’t know, before my partner Robert brought you “from the outside”, after I broke that iPhone that was also in use, that you could love a Note 3 so much. It’s true that when I met you you already had miles traveled with Robert on the fast lane roads in the First World Internet, but how efficiently you always worked with me, after they changed your little piece that cost me 15 cuc in that “cell clinic”.
Now my girlfriend, who criticized me so much for my obsessive-compulsive stance towards you that she even took it out on her students at the university. She took all their cell phones and put them on the desk until after class so that they wouldn’t get distracted. Now she is now the one who walks around the house all day with her headphones stuck in her ear every Saturday while she washes or lays out her clothes.
It makes me angry every time I go to stay at her house and when we talk or watch a series, between one sentence and another, I catch her activating the data and reacting to some publication of her friends with a face of “I love you” or “I adore you”. Why lie to you: I even hate it when she says “Titi, come, open me up, let’s make a selfie” (this token doesn’t have a front camera, boy). Sometimes I see her attached to her Galaxy S10 that her uncle brought her and I think she looks like a woman attached to a cell phone. I tickle her ear and she doesn’t even notice, with that modern appendage in her hands.
Then I see it all so clearly: I hate both my girlfriend and her cell phone. She doesn’t even listen to me anymore. I look like a monkey talking to itself. Oh, my Note 3, I can’t wait for my girlfriend’s phone to be stolen!
Desperately,
The owner of the “tarequito”. [old clunker, wl]
Russia Increases Parliament’s Role
Russia Increases Parliament’s Role
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
During his annual message to the Federal Assembly (Russian Parliament), the President of that nation, Vladimir Putin, proposed a series of constitutional amendments that he considered important for the development of Russia as a legitimate social state, one whose highest value lies, he said, in the freedoms and rights of citizens, the dignity of people and their welfare.
Putin proposed that a package of legislative actions to be put to a citizens’ vote, the outcome of which would serve to make the final decisions. Putin’s most publicized proposal was to transfer from the President to Parliament the power to approve nominations of the Prime Minister and members of the government.
It also gives Parliament the power to approve, on the proposal of the head of government, the appointment of all deputy prime ministers and federal ministers. However, the Prime Minister shall retain the power to dismiss the Prime Minister, his vice ministers and other ministers, when they lose their confidence or perform their duties incorrectly.
It consolidates the regular indexation of pensions and sets the minimum wage that cannot be below the level of the current subsistence minimum. It prohibits the adoption of foreign citizenship or any residence permit abroad for certain categories of public officials who hold positions critical to ensuring the country’s security and sovereignty, such as regional leaders, parliamentarians, ministers, heads of other federal agencies and judges.
It adjusts the requirements in order to ensure that candidates for the Russian presidency have permanent residence in the country for no less than 25 years and that they do not have citizenship or a residence permit in a foreign country.
It consolidates the status and role of the Council of State, so that the highest leaders of all regions of the country are included in this high legislative body.
Limits the priority of international law so that the requirements of international law and treaties, as well as the decisions of international bodies, may act on the territory of Russia only to the extent that they do not restrict the individual rights and freedoms of citizens, and do not contradict the [Russian Federation’s] Constitution.
It grants the Council of the Federation (the upper house of the Russian Parliament) the power to dismiss federal judges and, in some cases, to remove – on the proposal of its president – judges of the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court.
It strengthens the role of the Constitutional Court, giving it the right to verify the constitutionality of federal laws that are initiated by the President, before they are signed by the Head of State.
It assigns to the Russian President the power to appoint the heads of law enforcement agencies, after agreement with the Council of the Federation.
Currently, under the Russian Constitution, the President only requires authorization from the State Duma to appoint the head of government and, after that, to appoint the head of the Cabinet, his
deputy ministers and all ministers.
Now Putin has proposed changing this order and entrusting the State Duma not only with the authorization, but also with the approval of the candidacy of the President of the Government of the Russian Federation, and then, on the proposal of the President of the Government, of all the deputy prime ministers and federal ministers”.
The Head of State will also be obliged to appoint them to the post, i.e. he will not have the power to reject the nominations of officials approved by Parliament.
Putin said that this is “a very serious change in the political system that will increase the role of Parliament, as well as the importance of the State Duma, the parliamentary parties and the accountability of the head of government and all members of the Cabinet.
He assured that they will assign greater responsibility in the formation of the Executive with “more responsibility for the policies that the Government implements”.
Currently, under the Russian Constitution, the President only requires authorization from the State Duma to appoint the head of government, and after that the President appoints the head of the Cabinet, his deputy ministers and all ministers.
Putin argues that greater responsibility in the formation of the executive augurs well for greater accountability in the policies that are implemented.
After the opinions of 75 experts with diverse profiles created to discuss the constitutional amendments proposed by Putin are known, they will be voted today, Thursday 30th, in the Duma.
January 31st, 2020.
Trump’s Impact on U.S. Youth
Trump’s Impact on US Youth
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
It’s easy to imagine the formidable negative impact that the presidency of the energetic Donald Trump may be having on America’s youth.
In every action, every gesture, and every word of his behavior as head of the nation that rules the destiny of the capitalist world, Trump sends signals that being racist, sexist, homophobic, or misogynist is a merit equivalent to an honorary badge.
Historically, inept presidents are challenged, among other defects, for being liars, spoiled and rude, which are precisely the adjectives that most “adorn” Donald Trump’s daily behavior.
This is highlighted in a new book entitled The Fixers, which examines the relationship between Trump and Roy Cohn (1927-1986), an American lawyer who was best known for being Senator Joseph McCarthy’s chief advisor during the anti-Communist Senate hearings held by the Army and Senator McCarthy himself in the 1950s.
It was Cohn who orchestrated the McCarthyite persecutions of suspected communists that later extended to homosexuals. Thousands and thousands of Americans were subjected to police and legal investigations. Their lives, families, and careers were destroyed as a result.
Later, Cohn would become the personal lawyer of Donald Trump, the current president of the American nation. Roy Cohn was publicly homophobic and encouraged public persecution of homosexuals. It is now known that he himself was a homosexual man and died in 1986 at the age of 49 due to AIDS-related complications.
Trump had “distanced himself” from Cohn after he became ill. However, the President organized a “farewell dinner” in his luxurious Mar-a-Lago club shortly before his death from AIDS, according to the book mentioned above.
The book states that Trump would later recall Cohn’s visit when, in 2016, he jokingly told guests at his club that he had to have Mar-a-Lago sprayed after the man’s visit because he was dying of an AIDS-related illness. “I had to spend a fortune to fumigate all the dishes and silverware in this place,” he said amid jokes.
In an excerpt from the book published in the Wall Street Journal, authors Joe Palazzolo and Michael Rothfeld wrote that Cohn, as Trump’s first fixer, “manipulated the media and the legal system to secure business advantages for Mr. Trump. “He passed his client off as a fabulously successful developer who transformed his father’s collection of low-cost apartment buildings in Brooklyn and Queens into a Manhattan-based luxury condominium tower empire.
Trump’s views on the media and celebrities were shaped by Cohn and his successors, people he trusted to project a particular version of himself that often bore little resemblance to reality.
“Their careers with Mr. Trump shed light on his rise in public life and his victory in the 2016 presidential election. In 2017, recordings emerged of President Trump joking that he forced Princess Diana to take an HIV test before having sex with her. Trump made such horrific comments shortly after Princess Diana’s death in 1997, in a radio interview with athlete Howard Stern. When Cohn died of AIDS in 1986, his biography was as fascinating as it was despicable. His life journey made him more like a movie villain than a royal lawyer. Which might be funny if it weren’t for the fact that the consequences of his worst acts still reverberate throughout the world.
After graduating from law school at the age of 20, Cohn made a name for himself by prosecuting the couple Ethel and Julius Rosenberg on espionage charges. Even then, he set aside ethics to ensure that the Jewish couple would not only be found guilty but also sentenced to death and executed, even though the evidence was clearly insufficient to do so.
Throughout the 1950s, he became McCarthy’s right-hand man during the witch-hunt and the lawyer for mob boss Anthony Salerno. Two moves that propelled him into the circles of power – and corruption – in New York. His figure was something like a bridge between the bosses of organized crime and the politicians and businessmen who had to deal with them.
His lack of scruples and his bellicose ways made him a notorious character, who surrounded himself with the most prominent people in the country: celebrities, communication magnates, the Reagans… and Donald Trump.
The two men first joined forces when Trump, then a young construction entrepreneur, was sued, along with his father, for refusing to rent his apartments to Black tenants. Contrary to Cohn’s initial opinion, Trump settled with the plaintiffs, not without first suing the government for $100 million. Trump had learned one of Cohn’s golden rules: “never admit you’re wrong and never apologize.”
The Role of Fear in U.S. Elections
The Role of Fear in U.S. Elections
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
Although there are still several months to go before the U.S. vote is held for the 2020 presidential election, scheduled for November 2020, the U.S. media has been noting concerns about the vulnerability of the event to foreign interference.
The initial factor in the escalation of fear appears to have been the release of a joint statement issued by key members of the Trump administration last November, authored by Attorney General Bill Barr, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan, Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, FBI Director Christopher Wray, National Security Agency Director General Paul Nakasone, and Director of the Infrastructure Security and Cybersecurity Agency Christopher Krebs.
This document states that foreign interference in the voting for the 2020-2024 presidential election is imminent although it admits that there is no evidence for such a claim.
“Our opponents want to undermine our democratic institutions, influence public sentiment, and affect our government policies with Russia, China, Iran, and other malicious foreign actors who will try to interfere with the voting process or influence voters’ perceptions.
“Opponents may seek to achieve their objectives through a variety of means, including social media campaigns, directing disinformation operations, or carrying out disruptive or destructive cyber attacks against state and local infrastructure.
“While we have no evidence at this time that the electoral infrastructure has been compromised or altered to allow opponents to prevent voting, alter the vote count, or alter the ability to count votes, we continue to closely monitor any threats to the U.S. election,” the statement said.
Despite the key caveat that there was no evidence at the time the document was issued, many media reports such as BuzzFeed, ABC News and Newsweek used the statement to claim that foreign interference in 2020 was imminent.
In addition to reports that have confirmed the involvement of state actors – Russia, Iran and China – and despite the lack of evidence, other media have claimed that this supposedly imminent interference will inevitably be successful. This is, in large part, due to claims that the tactics used will be based largely on technologies that the US does not have the capacity to successfully counteract.
CSO Online, an online media outlet that provides news, analysis and research on security and risk management, recently warned that “fixing the United States’ voting and election infrastructure problems is a long-term proposition that will not be solved in time for the November election.
Meanwhile, the New York Times warned of the impending chaos. It said that “stealthy” and malevolent foreign actors had already laid the foundation for “an ugly campaign season marred by hacking and misinformation. The US monthly magazine Wired and its news website of the same name claimed last year that the security of the US elections “continues to hurt on all levels”.
The target is the mind of the American people,” says Joshua Geltzer, former director of counterterrorism at the National Security Council. “In some ways, we are less vulnerable than we were in 2016. In other ways, more. Almost all experts agree on this: The worst-case scenario – for which we must prepare – is a situation that causes Americans to question the very foundations of our democracy – “with free and fair elections.
Long before this kind of rhetoric reached the U.S. media, the Israeli intelligence-linked technology company Cybereason said in a statement on its Web site that “messing with the voter’s mind” would have a greater impact than changing the total vote, even before the 2016 election.
That statement, released by Cybereason before the last presidential election, was written by the company’s CEO, Lior Div, who was then leading offensive hacking operations against nation-states for Israeli military intelligence.
Everything indicates that a great electoral fraud is being prepared for next November’s elections and that the scene is being set for the identification of the “culprits” of an alleged “foreign interference” to cover up the simulation.
February 3rd, 2020.
Interpol Rejects Evo Morales Persecution
Interpol Rejects Bolivia Coup Government Request to Persecute Evo
The International Police (Interpol) notified the coup government of Bolivia of the rejection of the activation of the blue and red stamps against former president Evo Morales
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Author: Digital Editor | internet@granma.cu
January 30, 2020 11:01:37
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
The International Police (Interpol) notified Bolivia’s coup government of the rejection of the activation of the blue and red stamps against former President Evo Morales, who is accused of terrorism, financing of this scourge and sedition.
Attorney Eduardo León revealed that Interpol considered that the request processed by the Attorney General, Juan Lanchipa, differed from Articles 2 (i) and 3 of its Statute and decided not to publish the notification and to eliminate the data of that person (Morales) from its database.
The document stated that Article 2 states that its actions must be framed in respect for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, while Article 3 prohibits the entity from “intervening in matters of a political, military, religious or racial nature.
In light of this decision, León filed a complaint against Lanchipa on Wednesday for the crime of breach of duty and allegedly acting in a negligent manner in this case.
The lawyer said the attorney general lied to the Bolivians about the persecution of Morales because the activation of the red and blue stamps must be through an order issued by a judge and not only through efforts of the Attorney General’s Office.
“Interpol’s decision demonstrates the lack of seriousness with which the Attorney General acted in this case and, furthermore, it shows the lack of knowledge that Mr. Lanchipa has,” he concluded.
On the other hand, Lanchipa, in line with the coup regime, also confirmed last December the request to activate the blue notice for the former Minister of Coordination with Social Movements, Alfredo Rada.
This is a request to locate Rada, whose whereabouts are unknown and who has been accused of three deaths of opposition civilians in 2007 (when he served as head of the Interior Government), during a riot against the constituent assembly that was in session in the central-southern city of Sucre, under siege by violent groups.
The request was made in spite of the fact that, as he acknowledged, the indispensable authorization of Parliament to open a trial of responsibilities for Rada is pending, as is constitutionally required.
(Taken from CubaSí.cu)
CCP Heads Battle Against Coronavirus
Chinese Communist Party leading the battle against the coronavirus
According to Radio China International, the meeting, chaired by the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CCP, Xi Jinping, was aimed at studying the next steps in the fight against the disease, with the conviction of winning that battle
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Author: International Editor | internacionales@granma.cu
February 4, 2020 23:02:42
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
The 2019-nCoV outbreak has claimed more lives in China than the severe acute respiratory syndrome that affected the country in 2002-2003. Photo: Reuters
The 2019-nCOV outbreak has claimed more lives in China than the severe acute respiratory syndrome that affected the country in 2002-2003. Photo: Reuters
The Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held a meeting on Monday to hear the report of the Central Steering Group on the coronavirus and related departments on prevention and control of the epidemic.
According to Radio China International, the meeting, chaired by the Secretary-General of the Central Committee of the CCPR, Xi Jinping, was aimed at studying the next steps for the confrontation of the disease, with the conviction of winning that battle.
With the death toll from the new coronavirus outbreak rising to 426, the World Health Organization (WHO) called for global solidarity, with special emphasis on collective surveillance.
According to Prensa Latina, so far there are 20,471 confirmed cases in the Asian giant, including 425 deaths; while 176 cases were recorded in 24 other countries and one death in the Philippines.
Drug in the test phase
Russian Deputy Health Minister Sergei Kraevói said Chinese specialists are testing a Russian-made drug known as Triazavirin to see if it can fight the coronavirus.
The news, published by Sputnik, assures that the Triazavirin is an antiviral drug from this Eurasian country of direct action of the azoloazine family. According to its creators, it is effective against 15 types of flu.
Cuba remains on alert although no cases of coronavirus have been reported so far.
Cuba’s Ministry of Public Health (Minsap) informed the people that, as part of the protective measures established at the national level to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in the nation, some people who in the last 14 days were in China and other countries with the presence of the virus have been isolated.
According to Dr. Francisco Duran, national director of MINSAP Epidemiology, these people presented symptoms similar to those of the coronavirus, and therefore were admitted to the Pedro Khouri Institute (IPK)and “other hospitals” on the island. However, it has not been confirmed that any of them suffer from the disease, he told Cuban television.
Evo Morales is Bolivian Senate Candidate
Evo Morales registered as a candidate for the Bolivian Senate
According to the electoral calendar, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal has until 21 February to publish the list of eligible candidates
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Author: International Editor | internacionales@granma.cu
February 4, 2020 23:02:21
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Photo: Taken from the Internet
Bolivia’s former president, Evo Morales, is running as a candidate for the Senate for the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) in the elections next May, after the de facto government made several maneuvers to prevent him from registering.
The former Bolivian leader said on Tuesday in a tweet that “MAS-IPSP (Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples) was the first party to present lists of candidates”.
“I appreciate the hard work of our leadership in preparing them. Perhaps not everyone has been satisfied, but it is time for unity, for a conscious and reflexive vote to recover democracy and the country,” he said.
According to the electoral calendar, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) has until February 21 to publish the list of qualified candidates, which means that until this date it will be known if the former president continues in the electoral race.
In addition to MAS, other parties registered for the elections include Acción Democrática Nacionalista (dna), Comunidad Ciudadana (cc), Frente para la Victoria (fpv), Partido de Acción Nacional Boliviano (pan-Bol), Juntos, Creemos, and Libertad y Democracia (Libre 21).
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