CubaDebate 141

The Seven Plagues of Cuba

2 months ago CubaDebate, Translations, ,

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Letter to a Cousin or, the Seven Plagues of Cuba

By René González Sehwerert. Hero of the Republic of Cuba. One of the five young revolutionaries who infiltrated terrorist groups that from the cradle of the anti-Cuban mafia, Miami, organize with impunity their criminal attacks against Cuban territory. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison. His cause enjoyed enormous international solidarity. He returned to Cuba in 2013.

Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.

Cuban flag. Photo: Abel Padrón Padilla/ Cubadebate.

Dear cousin:

I am not going to deny to you that there is a clamor from many people -among whom I find myself- demanding solutions. Much less will I justify that someone lives like Carmelina while so many people sacrifice. The problem is that this is the norm all over the planet and nobody seems to care. It is enough for a people to make a revolution to overcome it and they are immediately hit by three plagues.

1- They beat it up, strangle it and attack it so that it cannot solve anything it set out to do.

2- They blame the government that has tried to do so for the shortcomings imposed by the strangler who assaults him.

3- As if that were not enough, they then attack the collective intelligence of the rest of the planet, magnifying everything bad that happens there, in the victimized space, as if the rest of the planet did not do worse every day, before the complicit silence of all.

I would like to read what Fernando Perez wrote. Maybe I have points of agreement with him, who is a person we all here -including the authorities- respect. It is obvious that we have to change many things. But has it not been a perversity to try to suffocate us for 62 years so that we change according to the convenience of those who imposed worse conditions on our parents, and today are imposing worse conditions today around the world? Is it not time to join the world clamor against this blockade that has been suffocating us for too long now, and whose only purpose is to make us surrender out of hunger and despair?

In the end, the dilemma boils down to this: Those who surrender and those who do not. I cannot judge the surrenderers.

Obviously, we have to defend ourselves from those who, in their surrender, also become our victimizers. Many victims have become victimizers throughout history. For example, the crimes of Zionism against Palestine. I am not aware whether or not there were police excesses during the riots that took place in the past days. It is likely that there were.

A peaceful, secure country, fighting calmly against all demons, was suddenly overwhelmed by a violence that is alien to it, imposed by interests that are also alien to it. You tell me that those young people, dressed in uniforms and shields, bats, helmets, etc, whom you describe as teenagers, waiting with a baton to stop the march -or the brown shirts?- break your soul.

I can understand you, but I can’t help wondering: What would they have made you believe if they were giants, with the same clothing and a baton, ready to break the souls of the demonstrators, as happens every day all over the planet? What would CNN in Spanish, or ABC, or El Comercio have told you? Ah, because the three plagues that you believe in are the three plagues that you believe in? Because, in addition to the three plagues I mentioned before, there is a fourth one: this assaulted, assaulted people, under a stranglehold that has tightened on a pandemic that has already tightened on the entire planet, is not even allowed to make a mistake.

Let’s take a look at the cost to the Cuban people of the upsurge of neo-fascism in the last four or five years:

-The brutal assault on the income of Cuba’s medical programs in Brazil, Ecuador and Bolivia, denying us several billions in income and denying the elementary right to life to millions of Latin Americans, without anyone seeming to notice.

– The application of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, substantially reducing the country’s possibilities of doing business with the rest of the world.

-The bestial aggression against the Cuban family, by breaking their right to send remittances, before the silence of those who claim to clamor for the human rights of Cubans.

– More than 200 measures against the economy and finances of the country, announced publicly before the indifference of the defenders of human rights in Cuba, by the president of the United States of America.

All this was before the arrival of a fifth plague: COVID-19, and its devastating impact on the main economic sector of the island: tourism. But a sixth plague remains: to take advantage of the COVID to tighten the siege, to hinder or prevent the entry of medical supplies.

Do you dare to calculate the impact on the Cuban people, both in terms of billions and human suffering? But when it seems that we already have enough, that we could not bear another blow, the peak of the pandemic infestation occurs and from among those who have been applauding each one of those strangulation measures, displaying unheard-of cynicism and hypocrisy, a perfidious blow to the heart of none other than the people who have faced the COVID in an exemplary manner under aggression: The perverse label of SOSCuba.

And over that people now hangs the seventh plague: a “humanitarian corridor”, at the hand of the most devastating and aggressive war machine in history. Don’t Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria ring a bell? It is against this backdrop, meticulously and perversely built for years around the Cuban people, that suddenly the trumpets sound, calling for the slitting of throats, now through the social networks and the increasingly perverted means of incommunication. Cousin coñoñooo! Only that the wall of Nicolás Guillén is not that of Jericho.

The revolutionaries have indeed taken to the streets, but not to “confront the masses”. They are the masses. After the attempted coup -which is what it was, an attempt- they have come out with flags, with hymns and with ideas.

With those ideas we will have to look for solutions, self-criticize where necessary, listen to each other, attend better to the clamors of the people, broaden the spaces for participation, be more inclusive, break the inertia, attract and not exclude, build a more effective and less formal democracy. Because the society we want to build is not conceived to coexist with such levels of violence. That, cousin, we leave it to those who attack us, strangle us, attack us and then, when we have to defend ourselves, they criticize us. Come on, cousin.

A hug. I love you.

Reflections on the current situation in Cuba

2 months ago CubaDebate, Translations, ,

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Reflections on the current situation in Cuba

By Fabián Escalante. Division General (retd), former head of Cuban intelligence services. Author of several books on the intelligence services of the US against Cuba and has investigated the assassination of John F. Kennedy from the Cuban viewpoint. 

Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.

Photo: Jorge Luis Sánchez Rivera/ Cubadebate.

Undoubtedly, the social explosion that took place in our country on July 11 of this year surprised us all, and not for lack of evidence and indications. The social networks, in an Olympic marathon, spread to the four winds slogans, orientations, false news, doctored photos, etc., aimed at manipulating, confusing and deceiving national and international public opinion on the Cuban socio-political situation.

The objective was clear, to take advantage of the dramatic circumstances of hardships and needs produced by the asphyxia of the multilateral blockade decreed by the United States. To this was added circumstantial events, such as the exponential increase of the COVID-19 pandemic and the breakage of the main electricity factory (Guiteras, in Matanzas), which not only affected energy but also the water supply.

To this should be added the difficulties in the supply of food and medicines with the usual long queues, a “mafia” of “black market” born as a result of this, and the mistakes made in the late implementation of economic measures approved some years ago, including food production.

The subversive operation of coup-like magnitude, at least for what is publicly known, was not discovered and unmasked, nor -at least- was the population warned by all available means. A solitary and excellent documentary, The Dictatorship of the Algorithm, shown on Cuban TV, was the most outstanding alert of these weeks. It, however, since it was not conceived as a well-organized media campaign aimed at exploiting the information provided, did not achieve the psychological and political effects and influence on the social consciousness that was necessary and should have been projected, given the imminence of the aggression underway.

The Cuba -and the world- of today is different from that of yesterday, and even more different from that of the first years of the Revolution. These reasons that make it impossible to use the same methods of analysis or crisis management used before. There is a young, depoliticized sector of the population (due to our inefficient political and patriotic work) that does not understand the need to resist imperial policies and who wish to improve their living conditions and do not find an immediate solution to their expectations.

Days have passed since the events described above and, as it happens, many interpretations are coming to light, while the media campaigns in the United States and its allies continue to accuse Cuba of human rights violations and other atrocities, with the open intention of creating the conditions for a U.S. military intervention.

We, revolutionaries, have to meditate and draw lessons from what has happened. The United States and its fascist government is mainly responsible, but -and this is important-, we also have responsibilities for the errors committed. They demand a self-critical analysis, not only marginal references. It is necessary to deepen in the why of them, what were their causes and how we are going to solve them. That is what Fidel taught us and warned us in November 2005 when he stated in a speech at the University of Havana that only the Revolution could destroy itself.

The call to revolutionaries and communists has to be to go on the offensive, to the front line: fight against counterrevolutionary elements from within and without, fight against corruption, bureaucracy, idleness: fight against what is badly done, fight against disappointment and mistrust, against the lack or absence of administrative and political control, fight against “hollow, formal” orientations, in two words, generate ideas, defend concepts and conquests.

To fight against the enemy and bureaucracy would be the duty and responsibility of this historical moment. To use the political, social and mass organizations, supported by the duties and rights provided by our socialist Constitution, not to shy away from direct confrontation and not to be afraid to face conflicts, because as Fidel indicated on many occasions: the best way to defend oneself is to take the offensive.

The combat and confrontation of ideas is taking place today at the base of society, in the block, in the neighborhood, in the community. It is there where the Party and the social and mass organizations must and have to do battle, not to oppress, but to convince, to explain and, if necessary, to transfer to the leadership of the party and the government, the difficulties, misunderstandings and shortcomings.

Passivity makes us accomplices of the errors and negative tendencies that Fidel had already warned in his time.

The enemy campaigns carried out by social networks, by mercenaries of Cuban origin living in Florida, as well as by the media operations of the traditional bourgeois media, must be confronted without hesitation. It is necessary to denounce them, to alert our population, to disarticulate them from within, taking advantage of the enemy’s need to publicize their slogans, orientations and contact their internal promoters. Their activities can be prevented and neutralized, without unnecessary mobilizations, which could wear down and exhaust our forces in the perspective of a long struggle.

External solidarity, as has been called for, must be strengthened to its maximum expression, both in Miami and other North American cities where honest Cubans live, as well as in other cities of the world, where the Cuban attitude of solidarity is well known.

Once again, Fidel summons us to the battle of ideas, which consists in debate and not in imposition, in conviction, in listening and understanding arguments, and accepting those that are fair, because this does not imply concessions of principles, on the contrary, in any case, it reinforces our concept of Revolution, that which Fidel bequeathed to us.

“Trenches of ideas are worth more than trenches of stones”.

The Most Powerful Piece

5 months ago CubaDebate, ,

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The Most Powerful Piece (re: The Queen’s Gambit)

Author:  Mailen Aguilera Rivas
Published in: Canal USB
December 15, 2020

Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.

They tell some stories of minstrels who once showed Queen Isabella of Castile a board game that had become very popular on the European continent. But when the sovereign knew about the limits on movements of her equivalent in the field of the 64 squares, she demanded, furiously, that it be modified immediately. It could be only a legend, although it coincided with the time when the queen of chess changed the displacement of a square in all directions to the infinite possibilities of having only the end of the board as a limit. The truth is that it doesn’t stop to seem unusual that the only female piece is revealed as the most fearsome, to the point that not few players prefer to free themselves from it by means of exchanges or sacrifices to avoid complications.

Elizabeth, in its English version, is also the name of the main character in the novel “Queen’s Gambit”, by the writer Walter Tevis, which recently was adapted in a television mini-series transmitted by Netflix. Under the direction of Scott Frank, it has in the main role Anya Taylor-Joy, a young revelation who had made her debut several years ago with Robert Eggers in his disturbing “The Witch”.

She is accompanied by other actors including Thomas Brodie-Sangster (Game of Thrones) as Benny Watts, Harry Melling (The Old Guard) is Harry Beltik and the director Marielle Heller now in front of the cameras playing Alma Wheatley. The story is about Beth Harmon, an orphaned girl extraordinarily gifted for chess, a sport almost exclusively for men and more in the historical period she reflects, immersed in the middle of the Cold War.

Although this proposal began without lots of publicity fuss, it has already snuck into millions of homes and been proclaimed as the most-viewed Netflix in the year. A real surprise for those who read the synopsis and didn’t predict great acknowledgments. So it’s fascinating to unravel the keys that made the simple story of “girl overcomes the obstacles of her time” the unprecedented success it has become.

First of all, Walter Tevis was one of those authors with such a coherent narrative style that when we read it we feel like we are in front of the big screen. That is why several of his books have been taken to the cinema like “The Lifeguard” (starring Paul Newman) or “The Color of Money”, with Tom Cruise in the main role. In the novel “Lady’s Gambit”, she offers us the incessant but satisfactory journey of the attractive plot that, like the aerial board that the young woman recreates in her head, transforms the places described during the reading into magnificent sequential shots. Beth’s inner struggles, her irreverent way of interacting with others, make up a very solid and unforgettable character. Therefore, for the experienced director and screenwriter Scott Frank, it was enough to just create the product as faithful as possible to the original work.

The visual language of the series is so exquisite that for those who read the book and then looked for the television adaptation, they experienced the already known, the typical déjà vu. This added to the careful recreation of the time, the soundtrack (impeccable work of the composer and guitarist of Cuban descent Carlos Rafael Rivera) coupled with the various scenarios, the work of costumes and makeup as well as the stellar direction of actors, contribute to make “Gambito de dama” the different and necessary proposal. It is irrefutable proof that the public still prefers a good story over any effective machinery.

However, despite the magnificence of such a team, the queen reaffirms herself as the most powerful. Anya Taylor-Joy became with astonishing naturalness the Beth Harmon of literary work. Through her impeccable performance, she manages to show the fragile balance between genius and destruction that plagues the protagonist. Perhaps to some her character, while fascinating, may also seem unsympathetic and unemotional in the face of common feelings.

But in the disarray of her existence, Beth discovers the logic to explain it only in front of the board. The addiction to drugs and alcohol, more than physical support, becomes a means to feed the demands of her gifted mind and at the same time to make her forget that, like the chess lady, she will always be alone even among crowds. The fight acquires the dimension of titanic task because to reaffirm her only reason of existence, to become Great Master and to be the champion of the world, she must constantly fight against all kinds of discriminations.

Both in the book and in the series, she faces legendary considerations that stipulated the game science as an indisputable domain of the male sex, a situation that becomes more acute in tournaments (Listening to both of them, she felt something unpleasant and familiar: the feeling that chess was a man’s business, and she was a stranger. She hated that feeling).

“Lady’s Gambit” manages to unveil the mysteries of the 64 squares even for those who don’t know all the rules. As an amateur player many years ago, I still remember the exhaustive intellectual combat of each game, the anguish of the move to be made, the anticipation of every possible move of the opponent. In short, a very difficult battle to attract many spectators because it takes patience and genuine interest to follow something that can last for hours.

For this reason, although I would have preferred more specifications of openings, strategies and endings, as it is told in the novel, it is understandable that the adaptation to the audiovisual medium sacrificed part of the essence of the game in order to achieve the interest maintained by a heterogeneous audience. The palms also for all the editing work, led by Michelle Tesoro, another of the team that accompanies Scott Frank in his projects.

The sequences related to the mental sport are then referred to the controversial and resounding plays or, mostly, to the expressions on the face of each participant. It is not surprising that in the interest of achieving near-perfect results, they had the advice of emblematic figures such as Garry Kasparov.

On the other hand, I must highlight some elements that, despite not tarnishing the final product, did seem to me to be counterproductive. During the tournament in Mexico, they clarify that the men who accompanied the champion Borgov were from the KGB to prevent him from running away, a detail that is not mentioned at all in the book. What the novel does show is that Beth, besides fighting against social machismo, also had to face the institutional one imposed by the country, which hindered her training and prevented her from being a child prodigy like little Girev.

At all times, Walter Tevis gives to the game science practiced in Russia the superior level that Beth must decipher to accede to the throne (This was not the attack chess with which she had carved her reputation in the United States: it was chamber music chess, subtle and intricate). For that nation, the sport of the 64 squares has been revealed for decades as a proud practice of crowds with constant support from official institutions.

That is why, with the exception of Bobby Fischer, it has monopolized the World Championship for almost 50 years. That’s why I also find the crowd’s cheers for Beth in Moscow when they had one of their own discussing the title notwithstanding the impression the young American would have made.

The truth is that both the series and the novel had the effect for thousands of people, including myself, to fall in love with chess again. Not only of that disciplined, methodical, that is achieved with years of study and dedication, but also its intuitive and exceptional variant of which our brilliant Capablanca showed off. “Lady’s Gambit” also becomes the expression of a long-cherished dream: a woman with the title of absolute world champion, without distinction of sex. Milestones such as the Cuban Maria Teresa Mora, the aforementioned Nona Gaprindashvili or Judit Polgar are examples that other Beth’s may exist, waiting in the shadows for the right moment to be crowned.

Technical Data Sheet
Title: The Queen’s Gambit
Year: 2020
Country: United States
Duration: 60 min.
Direction: Scott Frank (Creator), Allan Scott (Creator), Scott Frank
Script: Scott Frank (Novel: Walter Tevis)
Genre: TV series. Drama : Chess. Cold War. 50’s. 60’s. TV miniseries.
Cast: Anya Taylor-Joy, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Bill Camp, Harry Melling, Johnston Island, Moses Ingram, Chloe Pirrie, Janina Elkin, Marielle Heller, Marcin Dorocinski, Patrick Kennedy, Matthew Dennis Lewis, Russell Dennis Lewis, Rebecca Root, Christiane Seidel.
Producer: Netflix (Distributor: Netflix)

 

Heberferon versus skin cancer

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Heberferon, Cuban alternative against skin cancer

February 4, 2021

Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.

Photo: Minsap

Cuba joins the global community today in the commemoration of World Cancer Day, a disease that, according to the Pan American Health Organization, is the second leading cause of death in the Americas.

The Antillean nation’s contributions in the creation of drugs to treat this disease, which according to statistics cost the lives of 1.4 million people in 2020, while another four million were diagnosed, stand out.

One of the innovative Cuban drugs is HeberFERON, unique in the world, and also currently used in the action protocol against COVID-19 with very good results.

Doctor in Biological Sciences Irlado Bello Rivero, leader of this project at the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB), commented to the Cuban News Agency on the history and evolution of this important product.

He pointed out that in 1957 Human Interferon Alpha 2b and in 1961 Human Interferon Gamma were discovered for their antiviral properties, but it was not until 1981 when they appeared in the nation.

When their antitumor effects were proven in in-vitro cancer systems, the alpha 2b variant was among the first to be used in the world against practically all tumors, since it inhibits cell growth.

The senior researcher said that Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz was interested in this possibility of treating cancer and sent a group of experts to be trained on the subject and to deepen the technology for the development of interferons.

As a result, he explained, the Human Alpha Leukocyte Interferon, obtained for the first time in a natural way from white blood cells and leukocytes infected with a virus, began to be produced in the national territory.

He added that this formulation was also successfully used in the treatment of conjunctivitis and hemorrhagic dengue.

The Center for Biological Research was inaugurated, where this study was furthered; then the CIGB was created in 1986, and in the 90’s we were already producing Interferon alpha 2b and gamma interferon by recombinant means, he said.

Bello Rivero pointed out that clinical trials of the two products were carried out separately and they were registered in viral activities for almost any disease and type of cancer; their formulations also evolved and greater stability in the blood was achieved.

However, interferons did not have all the effects on cancer patients that were evidenced in vitro and other alternatives for the disease appeared, such as monoclonal antibodies and vaccines, he added.

The specialist commented that although this interest was waning in the world, in the archipelago there was a vast experience in their use and this was one of the few places where the two variants were produced.

Therefore, he continued, they were dedicated to combine them in a mixture, since it was known that together they generated a superior biological potency.

He emphasized that in 1998 they came up with these ideas and in 2005 they managed to define a new combination that allowed them to patent the product.

No one else has combined them in this way or managed to put them in the same bulb in a stable way, because they are very similar biologically but physically and chemically they are very different, he said.

He emphasized that they demonstrated the superiority of the new option over alpha and gamma interferons separately, through clinical trials in patients with basal cell carcinomas, the most frequent skin tumors with a high incidence worldwide.

The anti-tumor response was faster and more complete, he said, and this was also evident in advanced tumors that had not responded to previous treatments or surgery.

In 2008, the formulation was registered, not yet in its final version, which happened in 2016 already under the name HeberFERON for the treatment of basal cell skin cancer, especially in advanced patients and those at high risk of recurrence in the disease.

Bello Rivero reported that they began evaluating the drug in malignant brain tumors and in high-risk renal carcinomas after surgery, with very good results to date.

He specified that both studies are in Phase II, and the projections, when the COVID-19 pandemic allows it, are to register its use for these types of cancer.

According to the expert, HeberFERON has not yet crossed national borders, but the interest of other countries in the drug increases in the pandemic context.

Bello Rivero commented that it is remarkably effective in negativizing SARS-CoV-2 patients a few days after administering the first dose, even in those with viral persistence after 15 days.

He also pointed out that it influences the anti-inflammatory response, which contributes to reducing the number of patients seriously ill with the new coronavirus.

The website of the BioCubaFarma Business Group, to which the CIGB belongs, adds that the administration of this drug allows shortening the response windows against the viral infection without having to use lopinavir-ritonavir and chloroquine.

Researchers report that in the last decades, skin cancer has increased in the world. In Cuba some five thousand new cases are reported every year, with a tendency to increase, particularly basal cell carcinoma, although spinocellular carcinoma and melanoma are also present.

According to PAHO data, melanoma of the skin is among the most frequently diagnosed cancers among men.

The institution itself warned that if measures are not taken to prevent and control cancer, it is expected that the number of people who will be diagnosed will increase by 55 percent, which means approximately 6.23 million people by 2040 in the Americas region.

In addition, he emphasized that cancer patients have a higher risk of suffering from severe COVID-19, since they have a higher mortality rate due to an underlying condition.

In Cuba, attention to this health problem is a priority for the government and, consequently, for the sector’s authorities, with broad intersectoral and community participation, as well as comprehensive and integrated management between the different levels of care and sectors of society.

Recent information indicates that the use of HeberFERON has been extended throughout the country, with the opening of more sites for this purpose in the different municipalities.

Decree Law on Animal Welfare

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Decree Law on Animal Welfare published in Official Gazette (+ PDF)

April 10, 2021

Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.

The Decree Law No. 31 Animal Welfare was published Saturday in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Cuba. With this, it is possible to take legal action in favor of the care and better treatment of animals in the country.

The document will regulate the principles, duties, rules and purposes regarding the care, health and use of animals, to guarantee their well-being, with a focus on “One Health”, in which human health and animal health are interdependent and linked to the ecosystems in which they coexist.

The text published this Saturday in the extraordinary Official Gazette No.25 highlights that animal welfare is understood as the adequate physical and mental state of an animal in relation to the conditions in which it lives and dies.

It refers that natural and legal persons, owners, holders and possessors of animals, must satisfy their basic needs, according to their species and category, they are also required to register.

People are prohibited from inducing confrontation between animals of any species and the activity of veterinary doctors is regulated by Decree Law.

The National Center for Animal Health of the Ministry of Agriculture (MINAG) will be responsible for directing, executing, implementing and controlling State and Government policy on animal welfare, in relation to the organs and agencies of the Central State Administration, state entities, local bodies of People’s Power and associative forms that are linked to animal welfare.

The regulations include the specific functions of each Ministry to promote the proper care and treatment of animals, as well as the conditions with which their owners must comply to guarantee the well-being they require.

The Decree Law stipulates precise actions to be followed by the holders of productive and working animals, also clarifies that species that are domesticated to accompany people or for the purpose of their enjoyment are considered companion animals.

Pets that remain in the outdoor spaces of a home must have conditions that allow them to shelter from inclement weather, isolated from the ground and with enough space for their movement, he points out.

In the case of those that are abandoned by their owners and do not have identification, or those that wander on public roads, agencies or entities, they will be collected by the competent authority, in accordance with the provisions of the Regulation of the Decree-Law.

Regarding commercialization, it is defined that those who carry out this activity must have the corresponding licenses or authorizations, in accordance with the provisions of current legislation, which also applies to people who carry out import and export operations.

The Gazette published today also includes Decree 38: Regulation of Decree-Law 31 on Animal Welfare, signed by Cuban Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero, and the head of MINAG, Gustavo Rodríguez, which stipulates the rules and conduct to be followed by the veterinarians, agencies, and by natural or legal persons.

It also lists the violations and penalties to be applied in each case, which include fines of between 500 and four thousand pesos; The pertinent ways to present complaints or disagreements are also shown.

The Decree-Law of Animal Welfare, approved by the Council of Ministers on February 26, came to satisfy a need of the population and of experts and interested in the subject that required regulations more in line with current times.

Both the Decree-Law of Animal Welfare and the Regulations come into force 90 days after the date of their publication in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Cuba.

In this regard, the Cuban Minister of Agriculture has highlighted that although the Decree-Law may be implemented after 90 days of publication in the Official Gazette, the MINAG has established certain lines for what it considers the first stage of work .

(With information from ACN)

COVID-19 Vaccines: Stories of monopoly, blackmail and inequality

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COVID-19 Vaccines: Stories of monopoly, blackmail and inequality

By Randy Alonso Falcón, Cuban journalist, Director of the web portal Cubadebate, the site Fidel Soldado de las Ideas and the Cuban Television program “Mesa Redonda”. He directed other Cuban publications such as Somos Jóvenes, Alma Mater and Juventud Técnica. He received the Juan Gualberto Gómez National Journalism Award in TV in 2018. He has won several awards in the 26th of July National Journalism Contest. Email: director@cubadebate.cu On Twitter: @RandyAlonsoFalc, 

Edilberto Carmona Tamayo, Chief of the Department of Multimedia Production, Monitoring and Innovation of Cubadebate and the Roundtable. Graduated in Journalism in 2016 from the University of Holguín. Contact: edilberto@cubadebate.cu On Twitter: @edctamayo
March 19, 2020

Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.

Design: Edilberto Carmona Tamayo

The apprehensions raised in some countries by the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine, the US dirty campaign against the Russian Sputnik V and the confirmed refusal of the most powerful nations to let their pharmaceutical companies temporarily release the patents of their antidotes against COVID-19, have further strained the availability of vaccines and deepened the profound differences in the right to life between the powerful and the poor in this world.

Never before has a health emergency struck so many in so many places and in such a short space of time. COVID-19 has already affected more than 120 million people in the world and has caused the death of more than 2.6 million human beings.

Such a universal challenge warranted a global and coordinated response. But once again, contrary to the demands of the UN and the World Health Organization, nationalism, pettiness, the overwhelming power of transnational corporations and every person for themselves, have prevailed.

Vaccines seem to be the only effective barriers against the pandemic. Only immunization of a majority of the world’s population could put a stop to the growing transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. But neither the pharmaceutical transnationals nor the governments of the rich world have that vocation for collective response and global solidarity.

Who can develop and produce vaccines?

The pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry suffers from high concentration and transnationalization. Large companies from developed countries and emerging economies monopolize drug research, production and distribution. Nine of them are among the 100 companies that generate the highest revenues worldwide.

According to Euromonitor Global, the pharmaceutical industry is responsible for almost 4% of global production activity. If it were a country, it would be among the 15 richest economies on the planet. Almost half of the sector’s total sales come from China and the USA, followed by Switzerland, Japan, Germany and France.

The production of vaccines, in particular, concentrates in 4 large firms more than 80% of the market, according to 2019 data: the British GlaxoSmithKline, the American Merck Sharp & Dohme and Pfizer, and the French Sanofi.

That global market generated in 2018 some $37 billion and it is estimated that by 2027 it will exceed 6$4.5 billion.

As is remarkable, underdeveloped nations -which are the vast majority-, have hardly any capacity to develop their own vaccines (Cuba is one of the few honorable exceptions) and no productive capacities of their own. This has left them with little room for maneuver to influence the uneven development of vaccines in the midst of the pandemic.

How have the vaccines against COVID-19 been financed?

Since the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, it has been calling for a concerted and joint solution to the threat. But the wrathful logic of the market dictates the course of our world and what has taken place since then is a frantic race to hit the bull’s eye (immune and financial), in which there has been no shortage of obstacles, pressures and even blackmail.

From the outset, the major powers allied themselves with the major pharmaceutical corporations in order to conveniently manage the discovery of a solution that would allow them to emerge with an advantage from the health and economic crisis ravaging the world.

Governments provided at least $8.6 billion for vaccine development, according to analyst firm Airfinity. The US, EU and UK invested billions in AstraZeneca’s vaccine, developed by Oxford University. Germany invested $445 million in the vaccine developed by Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech. Moderna’s vaccine was fully funded and co-produced by the U.S. government.

While philanthropic organizations contributed $1.9 billion. Individual personalities such as Bill Gates, Alibaba founder Jack Ma and country music star Dolly Parton made contributions.

Only $3.4 billion has come from the pharma companies’ own investment, part of which has also come from external funding.

Despite the fact that Big Pharma has only provided one third of the funding, who is reaping the economic benefits? Who has set the rules of the game in the distribution of vaccines?

Foul Play

To obtain the vaccine against COVID became, beyond the health interest, a geopolitical objective. Whoever managed to get the vaccine would capitalize on its commoditization and whoever had more financial resources would be able to monopolize more immunizations.

Scandalous was the news of the Trump administration’s maneuver, as early as March 2020, for the German company CureVac -which had begun to research a possible vaccine-, to leave its headquarters in the European country and move to the U.S. in exchange for “large amounts of money”.

As it had also acquired PCR tests, pulmonary ventilators, masks and biosafety equipment, Washington also set out from the beginning to acquire the production and distribution of vaccines.

This was coupled with sometimes subtle, sometimes overt, smear campaigns against Russian and Chinese vaccine candidates in a concerted attempt to shut them out of other markets. Many doubts were cast on the speed of development, quality of clinical trials and effectiveness of the candidates from both nations, especially against Sputnik V from Gamaleya Laboratories.

A nurse prepares a Sputnik V injection at a Moscow clinic. Photo: AFP

After Russia’s leading vaccine was certified by its authorities and sparked interest in several nations, the United States and the European Union have been tripping it up all over the place. The 2020 Annual Report of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently revealed that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently revealed that the Office of Global Affairs (OGA) used the Office of the Health Attaché in Brazil to persuade the government of that South American country to “reject the Russian COVID-19 vaccine”.

Text subtitled as Combating malign influences in the Americas. Photo Screenshot of HSS annual report

In response to the revelation, Russian presidential spokesman Dimity Peskov stated: “In many countries, the scale of pressure is unprecedented (…) such selfish attempts to force countries to abandon some vaccines lack perspective. We believe that there should be as many doses of vaccines as possible so that all countries, including the poorest, have a chance to stop the pandemic.”

The European Union, for its part, has not yet given the green light to the Russian vaccine for use in its member countries, even though that region has lagged behind the US, Canada, the UK and Israel in vaccine availability, and even though the prestigious health journal The Lancet acknowledged the high efficacy of Sputnik V in a publication.

Beyond such barriers, Russian and Chinese vaccines have been gaining ground in different regions, due to their effectiveness and the global shortage of immunizers. Slovakia even left the European Union fold to acquire 2 million doses of Sputnik V and Hungary, which has also approved the use of the Russian vaccine, acquired doses of the Chinese Sinopharm, which has also not received the green light from the European Medicines Agency.

Health workers in Indonesia unload a shipment of Chinese vaccine Sinovac

Blackmail without anesthesia

The States made the major investment, but BigPharma imposes the conditions and keeps the revenues. The monopoly of a few multinationals in the procurement and production of anti-COVID-19 vaccines gives such companies overwhelming power.

Recent reports show how pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has attempted to impose onerous conditions on Latin American nations to supply them with certain quantities of its injectable.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro showed his displeasure these days at Pfizer’s demands on his government, pointing out that among the conditions set by the consortium is a clause in the purchase contract that exempts it from “all liability” for possible side effects of its immunizer.

“We have been very hard and they have been very hard on us. They won’t change a comma. The government is dealing with this together with Congress and it is being discussed in terms of a relaxation of the law”, said the recently dismissed Brazilian Minister of Health, Army General Eduardo Pazuello.

Argentina, Peru and the Dominican Republic also suffered intense pressure from Pfizer, as shown in an investigation by The Bureau Investigative Journalism.

Pfizer representatives in Buenos Aires demanded indemnification against any civil claims citizens might file if they experienced adverse effects after being vaccinated. “We offered to pay for millions of doses upfront, we accepted this international insurance, but the last request was extraordinary: Pfizer demanded that Argentina’s sovereign assets also be part of the legal backing,” an Argentine official confessed. “It was an extreme demand that I had only heard when the foreign debt had to be negotiated, but in that case as in this one, we rejected it immediately.”

The Argentine government believes that Pfizer’s demands were part of a commercial strategy that favored sales to developed countries and not to Latin American countries.

There are several voices that warn that the urgency to have vaccines available for a disease that has left so many dead in the world may have led some governments to accept significant limitations on their responsibilities and demand transparency on the agreements with pharmaceutical companies.

Professor Lawrence Gostin, director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Center for National and Global Health Law said, “Pharmaceutical companies should not use their power to limit life-saving vaccines in low- and middle-income countries” and noted that liability protection should not be used as “the sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of desperate countries with desperate populations”.

Even mighty Europe seems to have felt the pressures. Although EU agreements with vaccine manufacturers are kept with their main clauses secret, the Vaccine Procurement Strategy made public by the European Commission states that “the responsibility for the development and use of the vaccine, including any specific compensation required, will lie with the procuring Member States.”

Excerpt from the contract for the purchase of vaccines from CureVac by the European Commission was disclosed with all essential parts blacked out.

Who will be able to be vaccinated in 2021?

Vaccine production capacities in the world are insufficient to have the necessary doses this year to immunize the world’s population. The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) says that the estimated global demand for vaccines in 2021 is between 10 and 14 billion doses.

According to statistics cited by data firm Statista, the United States can produce nearly 4.7 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine and India more than 3 billion potential doses. China, previously not a major player in the vaccine export market, has committed to manufacturing more than 1 billion doses.

Great Britain, Russia, Germany and South Korea are also among the established manufacturing centers, but with lower production capacity.

Vacuna Johnson & Johnson. Photo: Reuters.

Given this reality, the inequity and injustice of today’s world are once again evident: the richest countries have purchased most of the vaccines that will be produced in 2021 (even for stockpiling), while poor nations will not have doses to administer even to their most vulnerable segments of the population. More than 100 nations are waiting for the first bulb to arrive.

It is estimated that 90% of the inhabitants of the nearly 70 lowest-income countries will not have the opportunity to be vaccinated against COVID-19 this year.

The most powerful nations took advantage of their purchasing power and investments in vaccine development to secure supplies of the coveted antidote.

So far, about 12.7 billion doses of various coronavirus vaccines have been pre-purchased, enough to vaccinate approximately 6.6 billion people (except for Johnson & Johnson’s, all vaccines approved so far require two doses).

More than half of those doses, 4.2 billion insured, with the option to buy another 2.5 billion, have been purchased by wealthy countries that are home to only 1.2 billion people.

Canada has bought enough doses to inoculate every Canadian five times, while the U.S., U.K., EU, EU, Australia, New Zealand and Chile have bought enough to vaccinate their citizens at least twice, although some of the vaccines have not yet been approved.

Israel struck a deal for 10 million doses and a promise of a steady supply from Pfizer in exchange for data on vaccine recipients. According to reports, the country also paid $30 per dose, double the price paid by the EU.

As Irene Bernal, a researcher on access to medicines at the NGO Salud por Derecho, told the newspaper El País last December, “we are seeing that whoever has the money is the one who has the access. We have kept 53% of the vaccines for 14% of the population, the rich. And the companies have a limited production capacity, so when are the doses going to reach the poorest countries?”

Design: Edilberto Carmona tamayo

Low- and middle-income countries, with 84% of the world’s population, have made deals directly with pharmaceutical companies, but have so far secured only 32% of the supply.

“We are in such a massive crisis,” said Fatima Hassan, founder of the South African Health Justice Initiative. “If even in South Africa we can’t vaccinate half our population soon, I can’t even imagine how Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Namibia and the rest of Africa will cope. If this is going to go on for another three years, we won’t get any kind of continental or global immunity.”

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and his Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard have asked the U.S. authorities to allow them to acquire part of the tens of millions of AstraZeneca vaccines produced in the United States, which Washington has stockpiled without having approved the use of this drug. Other countries that have already authorized this vaccine are begging to have them.

Mexico, one of the countries with the largest presence of COVID-19, has so far administered some 4.4 million doses using Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Sinovac and Sputnik V vaccines, in a population of more than 128 million inhabitants, which means a low vaccination rate, according to the website www.ourworldindata.org managed by the University of Oxford.

The most current statistics from this observatory show the low proportion and unequal distribution of the number of fully vaccinated people (with all the necessary doses) in the world:

Percentage of population fully vaccinated with required doses by country, March 16, 2021. Graphic: OurWorldinData /Oxford University

According to data collected by Bloomberg, as of Thursday, more than 410 million doses of anti-COVID vaccines have been administered worldwide in some 132 countries. This represents just 2.7% of the world’s population.

% of population  
Country Doses administered Enough for % of people given 1+ dose fully vaccinated Daily rate of doses administered
Global Total 410,697,435 – – – 9,959,983
U.S. 115,730,008 17.7 22.7 12.3 2,503,731
China 64,980,000 2.3 – – 960,000
EU 54,084,195 6.1 8.3 3.6 1,236,527
India 38,920,259 1.4 2.3 0.5 1,835,249
U.K. 27,614,526 20.7 38.5 2.8 458,471
Brazil 14,936,060 3.6 5.2 1.9 357,115
Turkey 12,707,210 7.6 9.6 5.7 306,998
Germany 10,067,955 6.1 8.4 3.7 233,813
Israel 9,609,766 53.1 57.1 49.1 76,526
Russia 8,500,000 2.9 3.4 2.4 100,000
France 7,927,771 6.1 8.7 3.5 214,391
Chile 7,907,275 20.7 27.9 13.5 290,378
Italy 7,330,104 6.1 8.4 3.8 178,874
UAE 6,980,466 32.5 – – 81,874
Indonesia 6,787,283 1.3 1.8 0.7 256,516
Morocco 6,499,476 9.1 12.0 6.3 199,542
Spain 5,993,363 6.4 8.8 4.1 117,322
Poland 4,738,902 6.2 8.1 4.4 72,826
Mexico 4,737,622 1.9 3.2 0.5 178,501
Note: Population coverage accounts for the number of doses required for each vaccine administered. The daily rate is a 7-day average; for countries that don’t report daily, the last-known average rate is used.

 

Vaccine Apartheid 

Design: Edilberto Carmona Tamayo

Scientists and activists warn that we are heading towards a “vaccine apartheid” in which people in the global South will be vaccinated years later than those in the West.

Not only will poorer countries be forced to wait, but many are already being charged much higher prices per dose. Uganda, for example, has announced a deal for millions of vaccines from AstraZeneca, at a price of $7 a dose, more than three times what the European Union paid for it. Including transport fees, it will cost $17 to fully vaccinate a Ugandan.

The effects of this inequity would be severe. A model developed by Northeastern University indicates that if the first 2 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines were distributed proportionally by national population, deaths worldwide would be reduced by 61%. But if the doses are monopolized by 47 of the world’s richest countries, only 33% fewer people would be saved.

Scientists are also concerned that if there are countries that will not be able to immunize a large part of the population, there will be more opportunities for the virus to continue mutating and deaths will increase in these under-vaccinated countries, making the available vaccines less effective over time.

As WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted earlier this year, “…we face a real danger that, while vaccines bring hope to some, they become one more brick in the wall of inequality between those who have resources and those who do not.”

A restrained alternative

The difficulty in securing vaccine supply will make many poorer countries dependent on Covax, an organization created in April 2020, coordinated by WHO, the Coalition for Innovations in Epidemic Preparedness and GAVI, the international vaccine alliance.

Covax aims to administer 2 billion doses globally, including at least 1.3 billion for 92 low- and middle-income countries, by the end of 2021. This would be enough to inoculate 20% of each country’s population, with priority given to healthcare workers, the elderly and people with underlying medical conditions, although that target has been criticized as inadequate to deal with the pandemic.

Analysts estimate instead that Covax will at most provide between 650 million and 950 million doses, divided among 145 nations, including some of those with enough confirmed agreements for the vaccines to vaccinate their citizens multiple times such as Canada and New Zealand.

The pharmaceuticals have not delivered on their promises to COVAX and AstraZeneca, which was the main supplier is also facing its own particular situation of millions of doses withheld in the US and Europe.

Even Europe is not spared from the backlog

Germany suspended vaccination with AstraZeneca as of Monday 15. Photo: EPA Even the European Union is frustrated by the obstacles they have encountered in vaccinating their population. The only European vaccine so far, the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine, is in serious trouble after reports of some 30 cases of clotting problems in people immunized with the injectable. There are already 13 EU countries that have suspended vaccination with AstaZeneca, despite the fact that the WHO and the European regulatory agency defend its use as having more benefits than harmful impact.

To make matters worse, in the midst of the flare-up in the region, AstraZeneca had only delivered 25% of the agreed doses to the EU for the first quarter and Pfizer was also behind in its deliveries. In early 2021 Italy threatened to sue Pfizer for reducing by 29% the distribution of doses in that country. Now the European Commission announces that it has reached an agreement with Pfizer/BioNTech to bring forward 10 million doses for the second quarter of the year.

Despite the fact that BioNtech and CureVac are German, this European country has had problems with vaccination. The daily Der Spiegel pointed out a few weeks ago that “the European Union and Germany could run short of vaccine supplies. The delay in signing contracts with pharmaceutical companies could mean that the vaccines arrive late, as well as not being sufficient”.

The EU has so far administered 11 doses per 100 people, compared with 33 doses in the US and 39 doses in the UK, according to the Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker index.

The low availability and unequal distribution within the European Union has led countries such as Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia and Latvia to publicly express their discomfort and ask for a “correction” in the distribution.

In view of the dilemma, the European Commission determined that the pharmaceutical companies which have vaccine factories in EU territories will not be able to export the products they generate to other regions if they do not receive permission to take them out of the country from the authorities of those nations.

Already on March 4, Italy, one of the countries hardest hit by the pandemic, took advantage of this EU decision to ban the export to Australia of 250,000 doses of Astrazeneca’s vaccine, which the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company produced at its factory in Agnani, near Rome.

As frustrations grow more intense, some European officials are blaming the United States and the United Kingdom. European Council President Charles Michel said the U.S., along with Britain, “have imposed a total ban on the export of vaccines or vaccine components that are produced on their territory.”

Asked about this, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters that vaccine manufacturers were free to export their U.S.-made products as long as they met the terms of their contracts with the [U.S.] government.

But because AstraZeneca’s vaccine was produced with help from the Defense Production Act, for which it received more than $1 billion in funding, Biden has to approve overseas shipments of its doses.

No holds barred for a round deal

The most powerful countries have put pharmaceutical profits above global immunity, despite political discourse that there will be no solution to the pandemic unless it is corralled worldwide.

Last week, on the same day marking one year since WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic, the US, EU, UK and Canada (all with sufficient vaccines secured) blocked the latest attempt by poor or middle-income nations to speed access to vaccines and treatments for COVID-19 by temporarily lifting World Trade Organization rules protecting intellectual property.

A resolution sponsored by South Africa and India and backed by 57 countries, which called for suspending during the pandemic parts of the TRIPS (Trade Related Protections for Intellectual Property Rights) Agreement that protects medical patents, was rejected by the bloc of rich nations. It had already met the same fate in discussions at the WTO in October and December 2020.

An agreement would have allowed underdeveloped or emerging nations to produce COVID drugs and vaccines without waiting for or adhering to licensing agreements with pharmaceutical companies that own the intellectual property of these medical products. This would have expanded the production of antidotes against the lethal disease and lowered treatment costs.

The governments of wealthy nations, the majority financiers of the anti-COVID vaccines, based their refusal on concerns that the release of intellectual property, even temporarily, could reduce incentives for corporate research and also questioned whether “developing” nations could begin production of the drugs soon enough to prevent the spread of the virus.

The truth is that Big Pharma multinationals were initially reluctant to fund COVID vaccine research because of the uncertainty of a race against time to get results and because of the poor cost-effectiveness of creating vaccines for health emergencies in the past.

The drugs sought by these companies are primarily those offered to citizens of wealthy countries, and especially those needed for chronic diseases requiring routine doses, which make them highly profitable.

But after they have seen the profitability that the durability in time of COVID-19 can leave them, they do not want now any limit to the “party” of income that they are enjoying in view of the urgent demand for vaccines.

Moderna reported that it has signed advance purchase agreements for more than US$18 billion for supplies to be delivered this year, while Pfizer projected nearly US$15 billion in revenues this year for its vaccine with BioNTech.

Boxes containing Modern COVID-19 vaccine are prepared for shipment at McKesson’s distribution center in Olive Branch, Mississippi, U.S., Dec. 20, 2020. Photo: Reuters

The main vaccine developers have benefited from billions of dollars in public subsidies, yet pharmaceutical companies have been granted a monopoly over their production, as well as over the profits they generate.

The prices at which vaccines are sold to different countries (they vary) are kept under the veil of secrecy of the agreements signed between pharmaceutical companies and governments, although the specialized website Statista has calculated the average price per dose at these amounts:

Multiply those numbers by the billions of doses required every x years (depending on the length of time these vaccines achieve immunity) and you can calculate how much the dance of the millions will amount to.

But, while pharmaceutical companies profit and control the pace and scope of vaccinations, the costs of the unequal distribution of vaccines to the global economy could be as high as $9 billion, according to Katie Gallogly-Swan, a researcher working with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

“It is unconscionable that in the midst of a global health crisis, huge multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical companies continue to prioritize profits, protect their monopolies and raise prices, instead of prioritizing the lives of people everywhere, including the Global South, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders aptly tweeted a few days ago.

“The world is on the brink of a catastrophic moral failure” has written the Director-General of the World Health Organization. Meanwhile, over here, we cross our fingers for Soberana and Abdala to immunize all of us, without distinction, before this year expires. 

The Right to Love

7 months ago CubaDebate, , , , , ,
 

Translated by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.

cuba-debate

The Right to Love

By Ania Terrero, Journalist of Cubadebate. Graduated in 2018 from the School of Communications at the University of Havana.Ania Terrero, 
Posted in: Genre Lyrics
March 7, 2021 | 183 | 
   

Sexual diversity Photo: Peter Hershey / Valencia Education.

Before last February 14, Alberto searched for more than a week for a gift for his boyfriend. Someone told him about a private business where they customized handmade candles and he thought it would be a nice touch. He contacted the managers and asked if they could make one for him with their names. At first, there were no problems. They assured him that the service was available and he only had to send the details. However, everything changed when they noticed that their partner was a man. 

“They told me they were very sorry, but they could not solve me because they were a Christian business,” he tells this medium. They even suggested that he buy candles with hearts or any other romantic detail, but they completely refused to stamp the free love of a homosexual couple on one of their products.

Facts like this, real and more frequent than we suppose, show the discrimination that persists in Cuba in 2021 towards those who leave the heteronormative codes imposed. And it’s scary, because while many of us enjoy couples’ celebrations without major setbacks, people like Alberto and his boyfriend deal more than necessary with the limitations imposed by prejudices. That insistent reality, in short, lacerates.

For this reason alone, it is urgent to naturalize all sexual orientations and gender identities, the various designs of couple relationships and families. Regardless of their differences, all people deserve the same rights and duties. Recognizing this changing reality and translating it into the new Constitution was just the first step on a difficult path. Assuming these battles from the Family Code and other laws is the following, but it will not be easy. 

Although in recent years, thanks to the coherent and systematic work of institutions and activists, respect for sexual diversity has gained space, not a few stereotypes persist that can play a trick on the airs of change and inclusion. In a sexist society due to inheritance, prejudices still limit the full development of all people. This is confirmed by activists, researchers and those who experience it firsthand.

For Manuel Vázquez Seijido, deputy director of the National Center for Sex Education (Cenesex), the presence of homo-affective couples is not a new reality. “However, it is more visible after the issue of our sexuality was clearly introduced into the public agenda in the regulations, based on the discourse of educational and cultural institutions as well as many opinion leaders,” he explains to Cubadebate. 

The celebration since 2008 of the Cuban Week against Homophobia and Transphobia and the growing work of the media on these issues speak of a political will to advance on issues of equality and non-discrimination.

“More recently, since 2019, the constitutional regulation of family diversity that rests on the principle of equity, equality and non-discrimination has constituted the newest legal political support to defend the rights of this population group,” adds the deputy director of Cenesex.

From the perspective of Juan Carlos Gutiérrez Pérez, professor and researcher at the University of Las Villas, Cuba is moving towards respect and inclusion. Although there is an ancestral machismo dragged on for centuries, these struggles are gaining positions and visibility, both in the media and in the Cuban legal framework. 

In tune with this idea, the journalist Francisco Rodríguez Cruz [Paquito] believes that life in a couple of homosexual people is more and more frequent, without major setbacks, although some people experience their relationship as something very private and intimate, without making it known in their work or study center, and sometimes even in the family.

“They live the same difficulties that all couples have in relation to housing, which is a bit worse for
young people, when at home they are not allowed to establish a relationship with someone of the same gender, due to homophobia,” he explains. 

However, “it is curious the embarrassment that many people feel when approaching naturally with any colleague the relationship of this type of couple. They do not know how to ask about the partner, or they are embarrassed, sometimes they say “your partner”, or another formula that seeks not to hurt or attack, but it ends up being a different treatment”.

Anecdotes like these speak of the distance that remains to be covered towards total naturalization of sexual diversity. And on that path, unfortunately, prejudices abound. Discrimination against non-heterosexual people can occur in different spheres of life: in the family, in the community, in study or work centers. Its manifestations tend to discredit the legitimacy of their relationships, their work potential and their capacities to build functional families and raise children.

“There are many consequences,” Rodríguez Cruz points out, “depending on the assertiveness of the people involved in the relationship. Sometimes the non-acceptance of the family or among the circle of friends can be very painful for homosexual people, because they have to fight for a recognition that heterosexuality has per se. And that wears down, it can even undermine the love bond itself ”.

People in this population group also suffer the effects of rejection, teasing and harassment that range from insecurities and depression to more complex trauma that can even lead to self-deprecation and physical damage.

Gutiérrez Pérez comments that, despite the proven progress, many signs of discrimination against the LGBTI community persist. “From the lewd gaze, the malicious comment, the homophobic and transphobic harassment, to the denial of basic rights to consume certain products or services.” 

In parallel, alert, with the gradual increase of the private sector, there are cases where “business leaders feel they have the right to discriminate, due to their personal or religious positions.”

Teresa de Jesús Fernández, coordinator of the Lesbian and Bisexual Women’s Network, confirms latent discrimination. In his opinion, “the non-recognition of couples formed by people from this population group is a reality at all institutional, social, legislative and patrimonial levels.” 

“That there is no legal and social recognition of equal marriage and the recognition of LGBTI families implies that our unions and our families do not enjoy the same guarantees and the same rights as heterosexual people and causes legal and social inequity” , she adds.

Statistics confirm latent biases. The results of the National Survey on Gender Equality (ENIG-2016), developed by the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI) and the Women’s Studies Center of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), are revealing in this sense. 77 percent of the people questioned agreed that homosexual people should have the same rights as others.

However, only 49.1 percent agreed in part that they could marry. Meanwhile, about 50 percent of the sample was against homosexual couples, both women and men, although they with a slightly higher number, could adopt. Beyond general considerations, there is no consensus that these people have specific rights such as marriage or adoption.

It is clear that the fight for equal rights within families is of vital importance for the LGBTI community which, as a result of discrimination based on persistent sexual orientation in the country, suffers the most intense and direct consequences of not having laws to protect it. 

The causes of these numbers, although it may sound repetitive, lie in the macho culture that still marks us. “The culture and ideology of patriarchy that is transmitted and ratified throughout society and its institutions from the family, school, religion, laws, mass media are the cause that the LGBTI population continues to experience the violation of their rights,” said Teresa de Jesus Fernandez.

For the journalist Rodríguez Cruz also influences “the lack of visibility or sufficient positive examples in the media about natural interpersonal relationships with our partners, from heterosexuality.” 

In this context, the increase in recent years of currents of opinion linked to various fundamentalisms poses an extra challenge. “The advance of fundamentalist groups has contributed to strengthen the prejudices that are at the base of discrimination, and they have even tried to assemble a theoretical body from biology and Christian practice that sustains those prejudices,” Vázquez Seijido explains.

Fortunately, he said, there is an emergence of theologians, theologians and practitioners, not only from Christian practice, who offer other perspectives in tune with the values of social justice, equality and non-discrimination. 

Family Code, facing the challenge

The new Family Code will have among its main challenges recognizing marriage, and consensual union, as alternatives for living as a couple and as a family, without any discrimination in scope and without distinction based on sexual orientation. Related to this, it must establish guidelines so that homoparental, heterosexual families or with any other structure, have equal access to assisted human reproduction techniques and adoption.

In the opinion of Manuel Vázquez Seijido, the new code should contemplate the protection of these various forms of organization on a level of absolute equality, without superimposing one on the other. It is not by chance that the first change is the name of the document: from the Family Code, to the Family Code, in terms of plurality.

“The biggest challenge is the deconstruction of all that heterosexist, patriarchal, prejudicial mechanism of domination, which dismantles centuries of a culture of exclusion towards LGBTI people,” says Teresa de Jesús Fernández. 

In a country where discrimination against this population group is seen much more than it should , the prior debate and the approval in a referendum of the new Code implies other challenges. So that prejudices do not decide on the rights of all citizens, education and awareness-raising work is also necessary.

From Rodríguez Cruz’s perspective, another challenge lies in the low visibility of homosexual couples and LGBTI families in general. Many people maintain a low profile of their affections before society, “for which reason when defending those rights there is not always a firm, open and clear stance, even in people who are opinion leaders, leaders or others who they do not make those non-heterosexual couple ties transparent in a public way, as if they do their job or their professional duties. Perhaps they fear to appear activists, or they think that it is not necessary, or they underestimate the importance of being like any other heterosexual couple, “he highlights.

It is necessary, more than ever, to promote an education that transcends formal spaces and is committed to inclusiveness and respect for diversity. It is necessary to transcend the models imposed by a society that limits and suffocates its members when they do not comply with the established. Ultimately, it is about recognizing rights, social justice.

Facing the debate, Vázquez Seijido insists, it is necessary to mobilize all those people who are in tune with the construction of a fairer country. “I am referring to enhancing that capacity as citizens to participate in the consultation process in a critical way, turning each space of the nation into a space for raising awareness and then, during the referendum, inviting us to express our commitments and exercise our citizenship in pursuit of of equality and non-discrimination ”, he highlights.

Along this path, it is urgent to establish alliances between the media, institutions, schools and activists. Promoting respect for sexual diversity involves having laws that guarantee all rights for all people, but also by raising awareness of that need.

We must “educate at all levels from a gender perspective and from a comprehensive sexuality education, make our lives, families, unions visible in a respectful and non-judgmental way, carry out public good campaigns that raise awareness and deconstruct prejudices, include in the academic curricula of all levels of education and of all academic formations all the information necessary to train people with a humanistic and respectful culture without distinction of ethnicity, sex, gender and any type of prejudice that is harmful to human dignity ”, sums up Teresa by Jesús Fernández when we have the information.

It is about, time and again, defending everyone’s right to be, do and love, without absurd limitations.

  

 

Mujica backs Cuban doctors for Nobel

7 months ago CubaDebate, , , , , , , ,

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Pepe Mujica: “It is an honor to support the candidacy for the Nobel Peace Prize for Cuban doctors”.

By Maribel Acosta Damas. Cuban journalist, specialized in Television. She is a professor at the Faculty of Journalism of the University of Havana and holds a PhD in Communication Sciences.
March 12, 2021

Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.

Pepe Mujica, Minister of Livestock and Agriculture in the first government of Tabaré Vázquez in 2005 and then President of Uruguay between 2010 and 2015. Photo: Resumen Latinoamericano.

There is an old proverb used in Cuba: “God protects innocence”. So it seems with this interview, after all… Weeks preparing it with José Mujica, former Uruguayan president, tupamaro, guerrilla leader of the Frente Amplio. The man with nine bullets in his body, the one who was imprisoned for 13 years, the one who after the dictatorship continued contributing to his country and became Minister of Livestock and Agriculture in the first government of Tabaré Vázquez in 2005 and then President of Uruguay between 2010 and 2015; the one who is married all his life to Lucía Topolansky, also a guerrilla and current senator. The President during the passage of three transcendental laws: Legalization of abortion (2012), Legalization of equal marriage (2013), Legalization of the production and sale of marijuana (2013). During his government, poverty was reduced to 12 %, inequality decreased, allowed an economic growth of 75 % and important social investments in health and science were launched….
 
…Pepe Mujica was waiting for me this March 8, 2021. He is among the many Uruguayan personalities in science and politics who have nominated and support the candidacy of the Cuban doctors for the Nobel Peace Prize. Once again the bridge between Havana and the Chacra de Montevideo. However, this time the communications were fatal: the whatsapp call dropped again and again… but we did not give up. In the end, on the other side of the line there was a guerrilla fighter and on this side, a Cuban woman… What a duo we got together!
 
Pepe Mujica-. Hello, how are you? Nice to greet you, my dear!
 
Maribel Acosta Damas-. Hello! Very well! Nice to hear you too! How are you feeling?
 
PM-. Very well! All in good health…So far so good…..
 
MAD-. Today is International Women’s Day. Chance has wanted this day to be the day of our conversation….
 
PM-. Yes. This is a long process, it will still take some years to get out of the patriarchal society because it is a cultural problem and it is more difficult to change a cultural condition than a material one, but some progress is being made…
 
MAD-. In the midst of this complex time, how have you handled the pandemic?
 
PM-. At the beginning, we were coping quite well, but now it is getting very complicated. They have just started to vaccinate but we are very late and it is very bad in Brazil and this is affecting us to some extent… MAD-. What is the lesson we are learning from the pandemic?
 
MAD- What lesson is the pandemic teaching us? With respect to the lifestyle behaviors, you have talked so much about?
 
PM-. It makes it very clear that we are in a world where everyone gets by as best they can. It seems that everyone has decided to get by as they can and instead of assuming a collective global attitude, it is the opposite; and then the poor area of the world is going to pay a higher price and we are going to go out into a world that is going to be poorer, but it does not seem that solidarity is multiplying in the world in which we live. That is not fixed by the market.
 
MAD-. How can it be fixed then?
 
PM-. It will be fixed as always, by paying a sacrifice fee that could have been avoided. The pandemic also makes clear the importance of public health. There is no doubt about it. Here at the beginning of the pandemic, we managed quite well because our government spent a high percentage on health and that helped the country, but the average of what Latin America spends is only 3 points and a bit of GDP. Then, at the moment of truth, medical services collapsed everywhere, the installed capacity was poor because it is believed that the market is going to fix everything.

And countries have to have a good public service because you never know when there will be a fire and if public goods are not built in a stratified society, the market will respond to those who have purchasing power and the rest will have to suffer twice as much. The construction of public goods by the State mitigates social differences. Otherwise, those who have money will manage, those who do not have money will hardly be able to manage.
 
MAD-. In this scenario, you have expressed your public support to the candidacy for the Nobel Peace Prize to the Cuban medical contingent Henry Reeve?
 
PM-. Of course! It has been a very noble task in the world over the years. How could I not support it! It has been one of the most important gestures you can think of in terms of effective solidarity from a small country with enormous difficulties, which has contributed to humanity everywhere. And that’s why I think it is a very worthy thing….
 
MAD-. You, who know about these networks… what do you think? Will they give it to you?
 
PM-. Ummm…! I don’t know… I am suspicious… but it is an honor to support the candidacy for the Nobel Peace Prize for the Cuban doctors…
 

Photo taken from Cubaenresumen.org

MAD-. How is your relationship with Cuba, Pepe?
 
PM-. Now I don’t go out of my house… I haven’t been there for a long time but… the Cuban people are very open, they are a paragon of communication, friendship, solidarity service, human relations, joy of life… And the Cubans perhaps don’t realize it themselves… and our relations have very old roots… How can we not love them!
 
MAD- You knew Fidel Castro, didn’t you?
 
PM-. Of course! Obviously, I met him. I met him a few times. We talked a lot. We talked about agriculture, pastures, livestock… the last time I was with him he was already very old… I remember he made me drink sheep’s milk yogurt! And we were talking about a leguminous plant they had brought and he wanted it to reproduce because he thought it could be useful for cattle feeding in a tropical country. We talked at length, because I was Minister of Livestock and Agriculture in the first government of Tabaré Vázquez in 2005… we talked for a long time about these issues….
 
MAD-. What did you think of Fidel?
 
PM-. Fidel was a colossal figure. He shook my era. The first time I was in Cuba I heard him give a speech that lasted eight or nine hours. There were a million people there! It rained twice and the sun came out and that man was still speaking! Impressive! Hahahahahahahahahaha….
 
 
MAD-. You also talk a lot about Che… in your house there is a portrait of Che… did you see him when you were in Uruguay in 1961? Lucía Topolansky told me that she went to see him in Montevideo when he gave a conference whose moderator was Salvador Allende…
 
PM-. Yes, I was there. And I saw him in Punta del Este. In those days I was in a delegation of young guys who marched on foot from Montevideo to Punta del Este. The first time I talked to him was in Havana at the Chaplin Theater at the beginning of the Revolution….
 
… (communication interrupted!!!!! Phew! I ask him where he is. He tells me that he is locked in the kitchen of the house… I ask him to move outside to see if he can improve the coverage, where Lucía was when I interviewed her a few days ago… He does it… Nice Pepe!!!!… simple and great man!)
 
PM-... Now I am out in the open!!!!… Ahhhhh!!!! I have just been informed that Lula’s cases have been withdrawn!
 
MAD-. What great news! What do you think about this?
 
PM-. It is fashionable in Latin America to judicialize politics. Now Lula will be in better conditions for the political struggle. It is important because of what Brazil means and, besides, he could be a candidate again… of course it means the importance of popular mobilization around causes… indeed… In a country hit at this moment like no other by the pandemic, with the danger of the appearance of new strains of the virus that can complicate the lives of them and the rest of Latin Americans… I hope this news about Lula will help…
 
MAD-. Let’s go back to your meeting with Che in Havana at the beginning of the Revolution…
 
PM-. We were many young guys, in a greeting meeting… As a young man, I remember well that he was wearing military pants half rolled up on one side and not on the other… Che was very touching! I also remember that he had a somewhat acid humor, typical of the Rio de la Plata. I remember that here when he saw the beaches of Uruguay he said: “It will not occur to them to make the Revolution in summer in Uruguay with these beaches !!!!!”…

In my living room I have a picture of Che, and I have his letters in my memoirs, in a notebook. It turned out that Evo Morales wanted to make a faithful reproduction of Che’s wallet in the Bolivian guerrilla, the last one he had. Evo Morales had it made as a gift to his friends, and I have it. Inside there is also the facsimile copy of the campaign diary and a notebook… I keep it hanging… and I always show it to them when they come to visit. Che is still there. For us, it is an indelible attitude, no matter how much time goes by…
 

José “Pepe” Mujica and Lucía Topolansky at the Uruguayan ambassador’s residence in Havana, January 25, 2015. Photo: William Silveira Mora

MAD-. You have said that we are gregarious and utopian animals… do you still have utopias?
 
PM-. Studying a little anthropology, I have seen that in every age human beings have always invented something to believe in. And why did that always happen everywhere? It is the history of humanity, because human beings need to believe in something… And my utopia is the possibility of helping to build a little better world. There is no goal to reach. The real goal is the path, the struggle for meaning in human life. To be born is a chance. So we have to give meaning to life… inherent to human life, there is much that we receive when we are born.
We receive the inheritance of what is called civilization, which is intergenerational solidarity, which has been handed down through centuries and centuries, from the first discoveries to those who are working today in molecular biology.

We receive all this when we are born. So we have to try to leave something behind for those who will come after us. The world will not improve if there are no people who are concerned about its improvement. The world improves because of the work of people who make an effort.
 
MAD-. You have also said that if there is no intellectual honesty everything else is useless… Why do we need intellectual honesty today?
 
PM-. To get as close as we can to the truth because otherwise, if we remain prisoners of the consumer culture, of the market culture, we are going to confuse being with having… I can have many things and be frankly worse…
 
MAD-. Everyone is impressed by the fact that you have the same things as always: the old bicycle from 60 years ago, the car of the 1980s, the house you’ve lived in all your life… This detachment of yours for material things comes from where, from your poor childhood or from more than a decade in prison… from where?
 
PM-. It comes from a way of looking at life and the world… Look, think… this wasteful civilization is only destroying and will end up with an ecological collapse. We don’t need so many things to live. And we are harming nature because of our wastefulness. I’m not going to fix the world, but at least I’m trying to do my part?
 

Pepe Mujica gives an interview to Randy Alonso Falcón for the Round Table, Havana, January 25, 2016. Photo: William Silveira Mora

MAD-. And related to that, you have also talked about addictions, that the only addiction in the world worthwhile is love, because the rest are all plagues….
 
PM- Of course! Love is the lever of life. But let’s not get into philosophizing about it. Love is something that walks and exists. It doesn’t need definitions…
 
MAD- And how was your love with Lucia?
 
PM-. Ahhhhh perfect, perfect! Every age has its keys. It has passion and all its stages. At my age, it is a sweet and beautiful habit!
 
(In another interview, he tells a colleague: “Lucia lives plugging the holes, organizing. From time to time, she makes time to cook a pizzita, there is a feminine face of the event that if it does not exist, we are lost… It was a discovery that in a stage of life we found each other…”).
 
MAD-. When you said goodbye to the Senate in October 2020, you said that you were kicked out by the pandemic and a disease that has no cure. Do you mean that this was the end of your political life?
 
PM-. No. My political life will be as long as I am alive. As long as I am alive I will think and do something… hahahahahahahaha… But I do not want to take place because new wine must be put in old wineskins. There must be renewal…
 
MAD-. Why do you like talking to young people so much?
 
PM-. Because young people have a crisis of lack of grandparents, because the family has changed and grandparents are in nursing homes… old people are very absent. When you read The Iliad you must have noticed that the most awaited speech was that of Nestor, the legendary king of Pylos, the oldest man. In ancient times the only way to accumulate a little wisdom was to live.

Now there is the internet, there is the university, so it is as if the old people are superfluous, they are left over… It is a world that only wants young people, absolutely young, and then the old men and women disguise themselves to look younger. They all want to be young and they revoke themselves: they dye their hair, they remove wrinkles, they bother with fatness… in short…

Old people are on the way to being discarded. However, sometimes old people see farther because they have lived longer and if they are not yet crippled they have the function of trying to tell things to younger people that probably they are not going to understand them at that moment, but one day they will realize that they did not see part of reality… In Asian villages there is a great reverence for old people, but in Western villages there is no reverence. That is why it is good to retire…

The former Uruguayan president is known for his modest lifestyle and direct speech. Photo: EFE

 
MAD-. … but you are very popular among young people, including young Cubans?
 
PM-. What also happens is that I talk to young people. Young people are ashamed to talk about certain things. Those in their forties, fifties don’t talk about falling in love, about people falling in love and people suffering… about those little big things in life that are central. And young people are also concerned about those things. And I tell young people also to give meaning to life… because you can’t squander your life. It is better to live with sobriety and to have time to cultivate affection….
 
(…in the midst of the bad communications, Pepe has to go to his meeting, his companions are already at home… he gets on the phone again to say goodbye…)
 
PM-. A hug to the Cubans! A dear hug! In my country we say, whenever it rained, it stopped! And in the end you have to bet on life! I salute you for the effort of the vaccines and I hope that the Sovereign will be walking around Latin America! See you soon !!!!
 
(José Mujica, El Pepe, is 86 years old. He lives in the same simple and humble house he has always lived in the outskirts of Montevideo. He farms the land. During the Covid-19 pandemic, he and his wife, Senator Lucía Topolansky, are part of the Committees to support the poor neighborhoods of Montevideo, sending food they grow on their farm. In the chacra they also hold formal meetings with their comrades in struggle and work, according to Lucia herself, taking all measures to take care of themselves… El Pepe also talks on the phone with Latin American leaders and political leaders. La Chacra continues to be, why not, a center of utopia on this side of the world… and beyond…)
 
(Taken from Resumen Latinoamericano )

 

FBI and Assassination of Malcolm X

7 months ago CubaDebate, , ,

cuba-debate

Malcolm X’s Family Shows Letter Implicating FBI in His Assassination

February 21, 2021 
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.

Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X prepare for a press conference at an unknown location. Photo: File.

The family of Malcolm X released a letter written by a deceased officer claiming that the New York Police Department and the FBI were involved in the assassination of the famed African-American activist.

Malcolm X was an influential speaker who rose to prominence as one of the prominent voices of Nation of Islam, an African-American Muslim group that supported black racial separatism. He spent more than a decade with the group before distancing himself and finally cutting ties in 1964.

Shortly thereafter, he moderated some of his initial comments on the benefits of racial separation.

He was assassinated in New York’s Audubon Ballroom as he prepared to deliver a speech. Three members of the Nation of Islam were convicted of shooting him to death.

The letter released at a press conference Saturday was attributed to former undercover NYPD officer Raymond Wood. His cousin Reggie Wood accompanied one of Malcolm X’s daughters at a press conference at the site where the Audubon Ballroom once stood to present the document.

Raymond Wood’s letter said he had been pressured by his NYPD supervisors to manipulate two members of Malcolm X’s security detail into committing crimes that resulted in their arrest just days before the fatal shooting.

Those arrests prevented the two men from taking over guarding the entrance to the event hall and were part of the conspiracy between the NYPD and FBI to assassinate Malcolm X, according to the letter.

“At the direction of my bosses, I was told to encourage leaders and members of civil rights groups to commit crimes,” Wood’s letter said.

Some historians and scholars have argued that the wrong men were convicted. Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance said last year that he would review the convictions in the case.

After Saturday’s press conference, Vance’s office issued a statement saying that “the review of this matter is active and ongoing.”

The NYPD said in a separate statement that it “has provided all available records relevant to this case to the district attorney” and “remains committed to assisting with that review in any way.” The FBI declined to comment on the matter.

Malcolm X’s daughter, Ilyasah Shabazz, said she had always lived with uncertainty about the circumstances of her father’s death.

“Any evidence that provides further insight into the truth behind that terrible tragedy should be thoroughly investigated,” she told the news conference.

(With information from Reuters)

Love in times of pandemic

8 months ago CubaDebate, ,

cuba-debate

Love in times of pandemic

February 11, 2021

Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.

There are as many ways to love as there are people and heartbeats in the world. Photo: Elisa Mendes / Cultura Inquieta

Although the exceptional circumstances caused by COVID-19 mean that we cannot yet do as many things as we want to do, that we cannot yet kiss and touch and embrace as we used to and as we will do again, that cannot stop us from continuing to love.

There are as many ways of loving as there are people and heartbeats in the world. But immersed in a pandemic of perimetralized provinces, of physical and emotional safety distance or of norms and fears, we are forced to relate to each other as we have never done before.

The world has become confined in every sense, but we continue to love seamlessly as best we know and can, with memories and imaginary embraces. We feel that, paradoxically, we are farther and closer than ever to those or that we love.

How are we feeling love? How is it saving us in this difficult journey? Is love the most resistant and mutable feeling in the universe? To think about these questions, Cultura Inquieta leaves us this selection of photographs.

How are we feeling the love? Photo: Jonnhy Cohen / Unsplash

We feel that, paradoxically, we are farther and closer than ever to those or that we love. Photo: Sebastian Dimitru / Unsplash

But immersed in a pandemic of perimetralized provinces, of physical and emotional safety distance or of norms and fears, we are forced to relate to each other as never before. Photo: Maico Pererira / Cultura Inquieta

In what way are you saving us in this difficult journey? Photo: Cultura Inquieta

The world has become confined in every sense, but we continue to love seamlessly as best we know and can, with memories and imaginary embraces. Photo: Pablo Beglez / Cultura Inquieta

But immersed in a pandemic of perimetrical provinces, of physical and emotional safety distance or of norms and fears, we are forced to relate to each other as never before.Photo: Marcin Jokwiack / Unsplash

We feel that, paradoxically, we are farther and closer than ever to those we love. Photo: Pierre Belhassen

But immersed in a pandemic of perimetrical provinces, of physical and emotional safety distance or of norms and fears, we are forced to relate to each other as never before. Photo: Cultura Inquieta

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