CubaDebate 165
What are vaccines?
Vaccines and Sovereignty (II):
What are Vaccines?
By Luis A Montero Cabrera
January 11, 2021
Translated by Merriam Ansara for CubaNews and other outlets.
This is the second in a series of articles.
Seventy coronavirus vaccines are in development worldwide, and three are already being tested in human trials, the World Health Organization said. Photo: iStock
The molecules of an invading biological entity that are identified and are accessible to the human immune system are often referred to as “antigens”. They are usually expressed in the outermost parts of the nanoscopic carrier and are a necessary part of its composition. They are the same when found in a virus, in a fungus, in a bacterium, or in the cells of an organ from another being transplanted into our body.
An important characteristic of the infection and self-healing process is that when an individual overcomes a disease by the action of the immune system, it usually remains prepared to defeat it in future reinfections of the same type. The system “remembers” the intruder antigen and thus we are prepared to reject its carriers again. It is a biological fabric very refined by natural selection through many generations and species.
By realizing this, and using scientific reasoning, human beings try to use this defense “memory” to ensure that people do not get sick with an infection, even if they have never suffered from the disease. It is about “teaching” the immune system of each individual to activate and destroy any morbid invasion once its antigens are detected. The challenge is great, because to invade the body with antigens from a certain infection without making the person sick requires wise processing.
The result is known as a “vaccine.” Its name is due to the fact that the first formulations were cultivated in cows. It is always a chemical-biological preparation of antigens to achieve active acquired immunity against a particular infectious disease. The first vaccines contained the organisms that caused the disease from weakened or dead forms of themselves. It was not known then that what the immune system recognized was only its antigens. These preparations thus “taught” the human body to “shoot” the actions that would destroy the invader. Vaccines can be prophylactic when they prevent and prevent the effects of future infection, as it is desired that COVID-19 be, or therapeutic when they are used to fight a disease that has already invaded the body, such as cancer.
Most likely, the first disease to be prevented by inoculation was smallpox. It seems that the first recorded use of it occurred in the 16th century in China. The scientific and reproducible vaccine against smallpox was invented and duly reported in the specialized literature in 1796 by the English physician Edward Jenner. Smallpox was a contagious and deadly disease, and it is said to kill up to 60% of infected adults and 80% of children.
Tomas Romay y Chacón was a physician and scientist born in Havana in 1764. Having begun by studying law he switched to medicine and in 1791 at the age of 27 was 33rd medical graduate in Cuba. He became a professor at our University of Havana and co-founder of the Royal Patriotic Society of Havana, today the Economic Society of Friends of the Country. As early as 1804, just 8 years after the appearance of the vaccine in Europe, Romay implemented smallpox vaccination on our island with preparations made “in situ” with the support of the Patriotic Society. In this way, he used the local science instead of waiting for delayed arrival of the vaccine from the Metropolis. He and his collaborators followed the procedures published and described by Jenner and manufactured the first Cuban vaccine, the smallpox vaccine. A marvelous success of a nascent, Creole, nation’s innovation and wisdom.
Time passed and scientific research led to the knowledge that the key to vaccines were the antigens and not the entire infectious entities.
Vaccines have been produced in Cuba for many decades. Two of them at least have been both original and exclusive. In 1987 Drs. Concepción Campa and Gustavo Sierra led a scientific group at the Finlay Vaccine Institute to obtain a vaccine that at that time was the first of its kind in the world. This vaccine was and still is very effective against a bacterium that attacks the meninges in the brain and nervous system, called group B and C meningococcus. This type of meningitis is particularly deadly in children. Cuban science at the University of Havana produced in 2004 the world’s first efficient commercial vaccine based on an antigen manufactured in the laboratory, that is, “synthetic”. Prof. Vicente Vérez, a scientist who has dedicated his life to the chemistry of sugars, his wife Dr. Violeta Fernández (who died very young) and their collaborators were the authors of this second great feat. Thanks to the work of these scientific groups, many Cuban children and children in many parts of the world are alive and active today as adults.
Vaccines don’t just contain antigens. The immune system is not equally effective in all people and at all ages. Certain antigens are more activating than others because they are more easily recognized and “trigger” the work of the entire system that feels invaded. Vaccines are made more effective with so-called “adjuvants” (helpers) which, when given together with the appropriate antigens, cause many people’s immune systems to wake up more quickly and efficiently.
New types of vaccines have recently appeared that do not contain antigens directly but rather RNA that allows our cells to synthesize them “in situ”, recognize them and learn to fight them. While the vaccines that contain only antigens without the need to supply the infectious agent are efficient and safe, these others are as well and furthermore allow for mutations of the virus to be taken into account with much greater facility and so ensure the utility of the vaccines over time.
It can be said that vaccines are pieces of biological technology that represent a lifeline for many human beings. Without them we would be at the mercy of Darwinian natural selection and an epidemic would be survived only by the few who could overcome it thanks to some singularity of their organism. This was the case before science intervened by inventing vaccines. The cost was immense in precious lives ending early. It could also be said that without vaccines some type of infection could come along that might lead to the extinction of homo sapiens as a living species, which has happened many times before with other species in the beautiful and harsh history of life on this planet.
And what will the current vaccines against COVID and very particularly the SOBERANAS, MAMBISA and ABDALA be like? How do you prove that they serve what they have been designed for?
Havana, January 6, 2021
Luis Alberto Cabrera Montero holds a Doctorate Chemical Sciences. He is a Senior Researcher and Full Professor at the University of Havana. He is President of the Scientific Advisory Council of the University of Havana and is a Merit Member and Coordinator of Natural and Exact Sciences of the Academy of Sciences of Cuba. For a full biography, see http://www.academiaciencias.cu/en/node/674
The virus and the immune system
Vaccines and Sovereignty (I):
The virus and the immune system
By Luis A Montero Cabrera
December 31, 2020
Translated by Merriam Ansara for CubaNews and other outlets.
This is the first in a series of articles.
A vial of COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, on December 16, 2020. Illustrative image: Craig F. Walker/Pool / Reuters
The word we all speak today with hope is “vaccine.” We have had an absolutely extraordinary 2020’s year. An unexpected and unprecedented pandemic has changed everything, in almost every way for the worse, although there also have been some good consequences. The political defeat of some enemies of our country who did not even know how to lead their powerful country in these extraordinary conditions may have been influenced by this factor, and that is a good consequence. That and the vaccines, four of them Cuban, mean a more optimistic outlook for 2021 for us. Unfortunately, those who lalready lost or will lose their lives to this pandemic will not be able to take advantage of what little good there is in the remains of this pandemic.
We already know how life originates, how it works and how it manipulates the laws of the rest of the universe to perpetuate itself, more as a system than in its individualities. Within that system of life, viruses appear at a given moment and have their own space. The one that has caused the current pandemic is only one of the many that exist and that have existed, and it will by no means be the last that affects humanity and other living beings. They can arise anywhere and will or will not spread depending on their characteristics and how science influences where they occur.
Molecules are inanimate particles of the nanoworld since their sizes are around one billionth of a meter. Some of them act as the “bricks” and “cement” that make up living organisms. There are many types of molecules that are part of this network and the most unique and complex are proteins (which are the ones that “work” and are also part of the functional structures), fats (which “cement” and store energy), sugars (which cement and hold, but in a much more specialized way, and also accumulate and transport energy), and the so-called “nucleic acids”. The latter are very special and complex molecules whose fundamental function is to accumulate the information of the living system so that all the others can exist.
Viruses are not living beings, but relatively stable aggregates or associations of various types of vital molecules, the fundamental component of which are nucleic acids. In this case, they carry their own information, but foreign to the system of other living organisms. However, they include the ability to self-replicate at the expense of the animal or plant, including us, in which they are housed. They change (or mutate) in the environment in which they develop and out of the many ways in which this happens, the vast majority fail. However, the few mutations that turn out to be successful put the cells they invade at their service to give rise to new viruses. And in that task, it always affects in one way or another the host cell that lent it its resources. If the virus is COVID-19, it seems to affect the cell to such an extent and in such a way that even the ways we defend ourselves against them can kill us.
There is a great debate among virologists about the origin of viruses. Three main hypotheses are usually mentioned: i) The “progressive” hypothesis that states that viruses arose from genes (made up of nucleic acids) in cells that showed the ability to move or transfer to other cells; ii) the “regressive” hypothesis proposes that viruses are genetic remains of dead cell organisms that showed the ability to be assimilated by other living cells and to reproduce there; and iii) the “primary virus” hypothesis proposes that viruses precede cells in evolution: they would have appeared first. For this reason, they may have been the initiating molecular aggregates of the ability to self-reproduce. If this is the correct hypothesis, it would make them predecessors of cells and in conditions of “coevolution” with them, which are their current hosts.
A living system such as the human being that has evolved in the last 3.7 billion years has very efficient ways to defend itself against potentially harmful agents that are carriers of foreign molecules. We do this through what is known as the “immune system.” This has a complex form of action, which can be understood in a simplified way.
The immune system of our body recognizes the vital molecular structures that are our own and not those of others. Our natural “identity card” is in the genes. Once our mother’s egg was fertilized by our father’s sperm, our genes became differentiated from theirs. We constitute ourselves as a new living entity similar to but different from that of our parents. Only a certain part of our cells preserve the identity of our mother.
Among all the information that is transmitted is also that of the system that identifies its own vital molecules with respect to those of any other living entity. These characteristic molecules of bacteria, fungi, viruses and all possible living beings can be of very different types. They are called “antigens.” The wonderful human immune system is capable of identifying foreign antigens that penetrate our body and generating an arsenal of its own components that are responsible for destroying their carriers.
If the invasion is by bacteria, or any other living alien organism, then they identify their foreign antigens, design the appropriate molecules to associate with them, and from there the life span of the invading organism is counted. The intruder can win only if our immune reaction is less efficient than the intruder’s harmful action or if the action of the intruder damages the immune system specifically. Viruses and the cells they infect are identified and killed in a similar way. AIDS, for example, originates from a virus that affects the immune system, and thus it is very difficult to overcome.
How, then, can a disease caused by a virus-like COVID-19 be defeated?
Essentially in two ways: the first is to combat and neutralize the effects of the virus on the diseased organism, which has been attacked. It is achieved with effective treatments. The second is to help identify and destroy the invading species by our own immune weapons. This can be achieved by “teaching” the immune system to do its job, but without the symptoms of the disease that can be fatal. That is “to get vaccinated” against the virus.
Luis Alberto Cabrera Montero holds a Doctorate Chemical Sciences. He is a Senior Researcher and Full Professor at the University of Havana. He is President of the Scientific Advisory Council of the University of Havana and is a Merit Member and Coordinator of Natural and Exact Sciences of the Academy of Sciences of Cuba. For a full biography, see http://www.academiaciencias.cu/en/node/674
Polarization and a repressive environment
United States:
Polarization and a repressive environment
By Fernando M. García Bielsa
December 23rd, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
The latest incidents of police brutality and racist killings in many U.S. cities are not a recent phenomenon. They are long-standing events, stemming from the days of slavery and, as now, developing alongside the violence of paramilitary and white supremacist groups.
The warlike projection of the country and its having reached the point of being permanently involved in a series of wars in various confines, has permeated the psyche of thousands of people and is reflected in a growing militarization at the domestic level. In addition to police brutality, it is clearly expressed in the proliferation of violent groups, as well as in government agencies such as the prison system, the militarization of the border with Mexico, and violence against immigrants.
In addition to the violent and racist tradition with which the U.S. nation was formed and the impact of imperial militarism, there are also the social fractures, polarization, and growing inequalities that this society has shown in recent decades. There are tens and tens of millions of people inserted in a vicious circle of residential segregation in unsafe neighborhoods lacking basic services.
Let’s look at some background
Protests in New York against racism. Photo: The New York Times/Archive
The question of race and racism against Blacks has been a major factor in shaping American culture and policy from colonial times and the formation of the republic to the present. Much of national politics revolves around them. The historical and current location of African Americans is – in many ways – central to the country’s problems.
In turn, Black political movements and activism have historically been at the forefront of struggles for progressive change in the United States, a vast and diverse country where class and other movements have been co-opted or fragmented. This is influenced by historical reasons, immense institutional obstacles, as well as the dimensions of the country, the tensions arising from the multi-ethnic character of its population, and the growing weakness of the labor movement.
In the late 1960s and 1970s, so-called “communities of color” began to understand that society, as it existed, would never address their needs as they were perceived and felt. It was in this period that exploring their cultural heritage and building their own institutions became their greatest strength. The Black Power slogan had electrified Black communities across the country.
A dramatic transformation in the self-image of Black people began, in the context of one of the most effective social movements to date in the country, of racial pride, collective consciousness and community solidarity, with enormous repercussions in society as a whole.
After the impact of the great struggles and mobilizations of the Black civil rights movement, it became evident to sectors of power that the strength of such movements was being enhanced given the serious social problems in those communities. For this reason, since the 1960s, a whole series of government programs and assistance projects for the “development” of marginal areas and Black communities had been spreading.
Among the results of these programs was the strengthening of reformist groups and economic interests, as well as contributing in the long term to the formation of a whole layer of African American and Latino professionals and politicians with possibilities of access, public presence, and supposed representation of the interests of so-called ethnic minorities.
The Black bourgeoisie, including that which developed during the Obama administration, has continued to make false promises of inclusion. Except in the recent context in reaction to the wave of killings and police violence, organized political activism by African Americans has reached this stage after a long period of ebb.
Black groups have remained atomized, uncoordinated, focused on immediate economic and social concerns, and their energies have become diffuse, marked by the needs and life emergencies of their social bases, internal divisions, and the social polarization in their communities. External manipulations of all kinds do the rest.
The appearance of greater political influence by the Black population given the access of a few of their own to positions of some visibility has been misleading. Despite some advances in participation and representation, Blacks continue to fare worse than whites in having their political preferences and interests legislated.
The increase in class diversity that has taken place within these ‘communities’ and the nefarious role played by the Democratic Party in presenting itself as a champion of the underprivileged when in fact it is subject to the interests of the country’s financial elite, were felt.
A polarized and contentious society
Black Lives Matter mural on a street in Washington Photo: CNN.
The United States shows a growing number of very deep social divisions. Racism and the dangerous ideology of white supremacy is a serious obstacle to social cohesion, and is sometimes conducive to and at the root of serious outbreaks of violence. Demographic trends, some warn, suggest that the nation will not be sustainable in the long term unless marked inequalities between populations of diverse ethnic backgrounds are corrected.
Analyst Tim Wise said (on the Truthout website, March 2, 2012) that, in 25 or 30 years when non-whites will be half the population and the majority in several states, it will not be sustainable for the country to maintain that population as it is now. Blacks today are three times more likely to be in poverty than whites, twice as likely to be unemployed, with several times less assets and with an income less than the other half of the citizenry, and with nine years less life expectancy.
Behind that reality, repressive conceptions prevail. These are not only fed by overflowing militaristic mentalities or fears of ungovernability, but they are backed up by calculations of profit generation. These are derived from the so-called wars on drugs, mass incarceration in private prisons, outsourcing to private “security” agencies, and institutionalized repression against immigrants and marginalized populations.
The focus of repressive state activity is directed against Black groups and progressive organizations, which has led to the violation of civil liberties, the criminalization of social movements, increased surveillance and infiltration of Black, Latino and poor Muslim institutions and communities, including the deployment of undercover police, informants and intimidation in homes and public spaces.
–
A woman protests in New York against the ban on Muslims in Trump. Photo: Stephanie Keith/ AFP.
Muslim communities in the country face an environment of growing intolerance and hostility since the September 11, 2001 attacks. State and local police forces gather information and spy on law-abiding Muslim citizens. They become targets of violence as an extension of racism and xenophobia to our day, virtually demanding submission and near abandonment of their cultural and identity expressions.
So far, anger and despair have replaced the organizational strength and momentum of the civil rights era.
Trapped in almost immovable racist structures
A woman affected by the tear gas launch during a protest in Boston in June. Within six nights, the agitation spread to every major city in the country and became a general protest against systemic racism in the United States. Photo: Brian Snyder/Reuters.
U.S. society is deeply fractured politically and across class, regional, economic, ethnic, religious, and cultural interests. Racial issues intersect with class differences and class oppression, and are often instrumentalized for political purposes. Levels of violence resurface; disparities are enormous. There are pockets of the population where people live in constant paranoia.
Even after the great rebellions against racism and the successes of the civil rights movement in the middle of the last century, including the partial dismantling of many of the legal structures that supported segregation, racial inequality remains a palpable fact. The racial chasm is widening and has not been altered by changes in government.
Racial prejudice in the United States has a strong negative impact on the lives of African Americans. It expresses itself in forms of discrimination in all areas and conditions of existence: segments of the population caught in a vicious circle of residential segregation, inferior opportunities for education or health services, marginality, increasing rates of incarceration, and discrimination in employment. Black workers receive 22% less than white workers in their wages, with the same levels of education and experience. The average income of African American households is just over half that of white households.
In most cities and urban areas of the country there are separate areas where the Black population resides,. This reflect the historical racial segregation that shaped the country and the policies created in the past to keep Black people out of certain neighborhoods. Many of these slums have high levels of poverty and face an intense and unwanted police presence.
In such an atmosphere and because of such deep-rooted prejudices, any activity, no matter how innocent, in which a Black man is involved generates suspicion, alarm and often danger to his life. Consider also that the rate of Black citizens in prison is five times that of white citizens. Despite being only 13% of the population they constitute 40% of all incarcerated men.
Highly peaceful neighborhoods coexist with others where violent death ravages the usually poor. Entire communities of Black, Latino, Muslim or Asian populations feel their communities are under increasing police occupation.
U.S. society has not been able to address the root causes of the outrage and anger that consume millions and are behind the recent powerful demonstrations against repression and racism. Neither politicians nor public institutions have established effective government programs to mitigate at least these gross inequalities, ultimately produced by the prevailing capitalist system.
On the other hand, what that society has done quite effectively is to divide and co-opt many of the struggles and organizing efforts that were going on in those communities.
The re-emergence of a “new Jim Crow,” that is, of a climate of brutal segregation, based on the mass imprisonment and repeated police killings of unarmed Black men, shows that the old systems of repressive control have increased in the present, always maintaining the dividing line of skin color.
In contrast, white hate groups, nationalists and racists, as well as their armed paramilitary branches, proliferate and carry out violent actions, often being overlooked or even in collusion with authorities in certain regions. Many of President Trump’s words and actions have seemed to encourage such groups.
All of this demagogic rhetoric, which has a fascist slant and is a mirror of the country’s war policies, encourages desperate sectors to organize themselves into militias to wage crusades of various kinds. It is a propitious environment when more than 300 million firearms, many of them of high caliber, are in the hands of the population, when a part of the hundreds of thousands of war veterans live with their frustrations, resentments and traumas of their war experiences.
In this context, hundreds and hundreds of right-wing armed militias throughout the country are operating, whose ideology and motivations are a combination of paranoia, fear and aggressive claims of their rights to carry firearms, receptiveness to elaborate conspiracy theories and extreme anti-government anger. Many claim that the country’s government has been subverted by conspirators and has become illegitimate, and therefore see themselves as patriotic by organizing themselves paramilitarily, confronting the authorities, and fomenting racial warfare.
An increasingly complex urban [and national] future
Stop killing us. Photo: Raul Roa/Daily Pilot
Many authorities, in conjunction with the media, continued to criminalize protests and progressive groups, going so far as to characterize minor actions as violent crimes and even “terrorism.
Raising alleged “security” interests, the so-called program to Counteract Violent Extremism (CVE) was begun under the Obama administration (2009-2017), that openly resembles the repression against radical groups and the COINTELPRO program of the 1960s and 1970s, and that was added to the actions deployed after the passage of the Patriot Act in October 2001 and other actions.
On the basis of sections of that law, federal agencies are able to make more and more inroads into areas of civil and personal life. The FBI, for example, can demand information such as telephone and computer records, credit and banking history, etc., without requiring court approval and without being subject to controls on the use that the feds make of such personal information.
Abuses and violations of the law often occur. Such is the case when attention is drawn to controversial sections of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which allow for the conduct of mass spying on Americans communicating abroad. Recently the National Security Agency (NSA) has admitted to improperly collecting several hundred million phone calls from U.S. citizens.
According to William I. Robinson, a specialist on these issues, in his January 2018 article Global Police State, as war and state repression are privatized, the interests of a wide range of capitalist groups converge around a political, social, and ideological climate conducive to the generation and maintenance of social conflict.
For some time there have been signs that the government was anticipating the possible occurrence of serious civil problems and disturbances.
A video entitled “The Urban Future and its Emerging Complexity,” created by the U.S. Army to be used in the training of special forces, is revealing of the mentality and attitude in state entities regarding citizenship and the so-called “problems” that the government must be prepared to face through the use of martial law.
Already in 2008, a report from the Army Defense College stated that in the face of the possibility of a wave of widespread civilian violence within the country, the military establishment planned to “redirect its priorities under conditions of exemption to defend domestic order and the security of the people.
In its 44 pages, the report warned of the potential causes of such problems, which could include terrorist attacks, unanticipated economic collapse, loss of legal and political order, intentional domestic insurgency, health emergencies, and others. It also mentioned the possibility of a situation of widespread public outcry that would trigger dangerous situations and that would require additional powers to restore order.
In recent years, the U.S. state has radically expanded its punitive and surveillance capabilities. To limit protests, control dissent and popular opposition, as part of the well-known actions of the FBI and local police forces in previous decades, the system used administrative and legislative methods, espionage and covert infiltration, discrediting actions, massive “preventive” arrests, police attacks even against authorized peaceful protests, and so on.
The FBI’s budget for funding undercover agents, much of it within progressive organizations, rose from $1 million in 1977 to several tens of millions today.
People march with signs, protesting police violence and racial equality in Washington, USA, on September 5, 2020. Photo: Leah Millis / Reuters
See also:
In the United States, Black deaths are not a flaw in the system. They are the system.
“Living for the second time”
After nine days in a coma because of COVID-19:
“Living for a second time”
January 16, 2021
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
María Lourdes, Antonio and their son Sandir constitute a family and live in the Vedado. Photo: Facebook/Naturaleza Secreta
María Lourdes, Antonio and his son Sandir are a family and live in Vedado, in Havana. They keep in their memory the memory of a terrible fight against COVID-19. Months ago they received a friend from Malaga, Spain, at a time when no positive cases of SARS-CoV-2 had been reported in that city and through her they were infected.
María Lourdes, 64 years old, is hypertensive, has a slight heart failure and therefore it was feared that the disease in her case would manifest itself in a more aggressive way. However, it was Antonio -without any comorbidity- who experienced more evident symptoms. He stopped eating, had pains all over his body, fever, a lot of dry cough, numerous diarrheas, all of which led him to intensive care and nine days in a coma.
Doctors told his family to prepare for the worst. We share with you his testimony, which is part of the recently completed documentary Parallel Stories, which tells the stories of several people who were sick with COVID-19:
“The anguish, the suffering, the strongest tragedy was for the two of them, who were aware that I was in an extremely critical situation, and my younger children who were in Mexico and were totally desperate, totally unhinged. They made a huge chain of people so that they would have me in their prayers, in their hearts, that also helps.
I did not even know I was in the Naval Hospital, I believed that I was in a therapy room in a totally deserted place that was guarded by soldiers, the things I thought. I in front of me there was a tree that I imagined as a woman with many arms, who danced in front of me as if mocking and I closed my eyes and all those leaves became thousands and thousands of coronaviruses.
María Lourdes, wife of Antonio, convalescent of COVID-19. Photo: Facebook/Naturaleza Secreta
When I came to my senses in the midst of the gravity, that I came out of the coma, that they took away the intubation, the first thing I thought about is her (his wife) and that was for me the most critical moment, in which I think she had died. Because of her basic disease and heart problems, I thought I had lost her. She is the mother of my children, but she has been my partner for 46 years, the other half of my life. I cried in silence, I am a strong man, I consider myself an enthusiastic, fighting person, but I thought that I would never see again what sustains my life, because that is it, the wife, the children, the grandchildren fighting together for life. We think about everything, even about getting rid of the most intimate relationships that we can still have at our age, which are limited, but they are there.
I remember that once I was pricked in the groin, on this side, what I did see was that they were continuously giving me all kinds of medication, interferon, antibiotics, I don’t know how many, I’m not exaggerating, I think that every day they were 14, 15 times that they came to give me medication. When I came out of gravity, I had no smell, no palate, I still did not speak, it left me with a lung lesion, I was practically unable to walk for a month, I was able to climb the stairs of this house after a month, skin lesions, I could not sleep, sleep was disturbed.
I am a man of dreams, I had dreams before the pandemic and I still have them, in all aspects of life, the day I don’t have dreams is not worth living and there was a moment, I will tell you honestly, after you put it or not in the interview, when I thought that values had been lost, all of them: moral, spiritual, solidarity, to help your neighbor, to cooperate, to share your bread and your soul, and I have seen how the neighbors have come without you calling them, without you asking them anything, knocking on your door and sometimes without asking them anything they said: I brought you this, I threw away the garbage, I found you the food, what do you want? That spirit. The artisans who made 10 beds for a hospital, the cooperative that left with a food truck for an old people’s home, that spirit of solidarity that was there, that I thought was like baby teeth, that were falling out, because they didn’t have any calcium, and yet it was enough for this situation to happen, unfortunately, for that spirit to come out again with more strength than ever.
I felt as if those nurses, those doctors, the intensive care doctors at the Naval hospital were part of my family. That team of nurses, technicians, doctors, gave me the possibility of living for the second time.
Son of Antonio, convalescent of the COVID-19. Photo: Facebook/Naturaleza Secreta.
The team of nurses, technicians, doctors, gave me the possibility to live for the second time, said Antonio, convalescent of COVID-19. Photo: Facebook/Naturaleza Secreta.
New Prices for Agricultural Products
Government of Havana Approves
New Prices for Agricultural Products
January 3, 2021
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Agricultural market in Havana Photo: Alex Castro
Decree-Law 17 “On the Implementation of the Monetary Ordering Process”, dated November 24, 2020, establishes the monetary and exchange rate unification.
In accordance with the above and in compliance with the recently approved policy of commercialization of agricultural products, the Governor of Havana, by means of Resolution 19 of 2020, approved the purchase prices to the producer, the wholesale prices and the maximum retail prices in Cuban pesos (CUP) of the first quality agricultural products in all the commercialization network of Havana that are commercialized by all the forms of state and non-state management, as of January 1, 2021.
Approved in the resolution itself, in the case of benefited and packaged products, up to 20% above the approved retail price will be applied, and when benefited products are cut and packaged, up to 50% above the approved retail price will be applied, empowering the mayors to approve the network that will market these products.
In approving the prices, the intention was to stimulate the income of producers as the main link in the production and marketing chain, with an increase of between 2 and 3.5 times the current prices.
Maximum retail prices of first quality agricultural products in the entire marketing network of Havana that are marketed by all forms of state and non-state management.
Products Retail Price UM: pesos per pound |
|
ROOT VEGETABLES |
|
1. Sweet potato (Boniato) |
3.00 |
2. Malanga xanthosoma |
8.00 |
3. Malanga colocasia |
4.00 |
4. Yuca |
4.00 |
5. Banana fruit |
3.00 |
6. Banana lunch |
4.00 |
7. Donkey banana |
2.00 |
VEGETABLES |
|
8. Tomato |
8.00 |
9. Dried Caribbean Onion |
28.00 |
10. Green Caribbean onion |
13.00 |
11. Dried white onion |
15.00 |
12. Green onion branch |
10.00 |
13. Garlic |
47.00 |
14. Bell pepper |
10.00 |
15. Cucumber |
3.00 |
16. Pumpkin |
4.00 |
17. Melon |
3.00 |
18. Cabbage |
3.00 |
Other vegetables |
|
19. Carrot without the top |
6.00 |
20. Beet without the top |
6.00 |
21. Chives |
6.00 |
22. Eggplant |
5.00 |
23. Hot bell pepper |
11.00 |
24. Chay bell pepper |
7.00 |
25. Radish |
5.00 |
26. Bean |
8.00 |
27. Okra |
6.00 |
28. Lettuce |
5.00 |
29. Chard |
4.00 |
30. Spinach |
3.00 |
31. Chinese Cabbage |
3.00 |
32. Watercress |
4.00 |
CITRUS AND FRUITS |
|
33. Sweet orange |
10.00 |
34. Lemon |
13.00 |
35. Mango |
6.00 |
36. Guava |
7.00 |
37. Grated fruit |
5.00 |
38. Green fruit bomb |
3.00 |
39. Pineapple |
4.00 |
40. Avocado |
5.00 |
GRAINS |
|
41. Baby Corn |
(UM: weight per ear) 3.00 |
42. Black common bean |
14.00 |
43. Common red bean |
16.00 |
44. Chickpeas |
35.00 |
(With information from Tribuna de La Habana)
This article also appears in GRANMA:
http://www.granma.cu/cuba/2021-01-03/aprueban-nuevos-precios-de-productos-agropecuarios-en-la-habana-03-01-2021-18-01-25
Desiderata beyond the pandemic
By Manuel Calviño, Doctor of Psychological Sciences and university professor.
December 24, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Law on National Symbols discussed in Cuba. Photo: Archives.
We are closing the year, and in the passage to the coming one, a spiritual exercise is always advised: to decide what we are going to stay with to give food to our soul.
Some people may remain with a dark and sad memory that may recount tensions, ravings of anguish and uncertainty, and return to what was lost, to sickness and death. Selfish attitudes, on the verge of the sinister, contextual dissolutions turned into definitive, up to the queues and the lack of supplies sowing laziness and uneasiness.
To sit on this side of the problem, is a legitimate and possible decision, but a grim and demobilizing one.
It will be better then to forget what happened, turn the page, and have a little faith that things will get better (because worse is impossible). “You have to have faith that everything will come,” said the magnificent Consuelo Vidal with a double sense of libertarian inspiration. But not even the perceived gravity alone makes what faith recommends fall. Faith must be helped.
However, others, others will remember what we were able to do in the face of such adversity. We will recover the solidarity we have experienced, the responsibility we have assumed not only for our own life but also for that of others. We will take charge of the capacities we mobilize to do what is possible and more… and much more, and we will not leave them behind, we will multiply them. We will feel grateful for the friendship, the companionship, the good humor that we did not lack. We will tell what happened to us, only to make what we did the protagonist of the experience.
We will recognize that we learned to see better, to discover the smile behind the nasobuco and to love in the middle distance. That we rediscovered the value of being a good person, of thinking about ourselves. Resilience is not in the blow, in the fall, but in overcoming it, more when it enriches the very meaning of existence.
Then, those of the cosmogonic side of intelligent optimism, of the certainty of the hands and not only of the heart, those that today we would say. “We must help faith to walk, to be given”, we will close the year with a deep sense of achievement. We will feel that life is not a casual event, it is a construction – that we make it, we enjoy it, and, of course, from time to time we suffer it, but in the equation, we put everything in its place, and in the place of the summary remains the possible utopia, the one we can conquer, the one that bewitches us with the best feelings.
To those who opt for the first option, I suggest to be indulgent with the clumsiness of nature that we mistreat so much and that responds with strength, to be benevolent with people, with oneself, with life (so beautiful even in its imperfection), and to join those who are grateful for the generous act of living and making life grow.
To those who are undecided, not to delay any more their decision to be tied to the commitment with the creative and redeeming soul.
And to the others, to whom I believe we are the most, just say: thank you very much for the company on this journey that has helped us grow, thank you very much for reaching the metaphorical birth of Christmas with renewed vows of prosperity, well-being and happiness.
Let’s keep on doing together, being doers of our destiny, knowing perfectible but grateful, improvable but satisfied.
Dreaming is the premonitory foretaste that gives us hope, that which drives us and moves us day after day. The human soul deserves it. The Cuban soul needs and appreciates it.
May the spirit of festivity accompany us.
It is not easy, but it is worth it!
Pilgrimage to El Rincón
Pilgrimage to El Rincón
By Claudio Pelaez Sordo
December 17, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Celebration for St. Lazarus Day. Photo: Claudio Peláez Sordo.
Today part of the Cuban people celebrate the day of Babalú Ayé, popularly known as Saint Lazarus, one of the most miraculous saints according to popular culture and venerated for being the guardian of the most dispossessed and sick.
Through the lens of Claudio Pelaez we know the journey to the sanctuary “El Rincon”, in Santiago de las Vegas, where thousands of faithful of Saint Lazarus arrived. The usual pilgrimage, which is already part of the Cuban identity, was marked on this occasion by faces covered with masks due to the context of the COVID-19.
Anyway, I get to the Corner. Photo: Claudio Peláez Sordo.
Between the two of us we arrived at the Rincón. Photo: Claudio Peláez Sordo.
Very happy to celebrate this day. Photo: Claudio Peláez Sordo.
Lazarus is our favorite deity. Photo: Claudio Peláez Sordo.
This pilgrimage is an expression of Cuban identity. Photo: Claudio Peláez Sordo.
We carry Lazarus deep inside. Photo: Claudio Peláez Sordo.
Special moment to gather together the deserved homage to the saint who watches over them and protects them. Photo: Claudio Peláez Sordo.
Cult of Saint Lazarus, solid expression of Cuban identity. Photo: Claudio Peláez Sordo.
Any sacrifice is little to venerate Lazarus. Photo: Claudio Peláez Sordo.
Cuba: Pilgrimage to San Lázaro
Cuba: Pilgrimage to San Lázaro
December 17, 2012
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Yeniel Zamole crawled five kilometers with a cement block chained to one foot to thank St. Lazarus for her daughter’s health, while other believers on Monday asked Cuba’s most revered saint to intercede for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
“I make this promise because of the devotion of my daughter, who walked here again thanks to Saint Lazarus,” said Zamole, a 25-year-old ceramist who paid a promise to a miraculous being venerated by Catholics and Santeros (worshippers of African origin), in a communist country that until 1992 was officially atheist, before becoming a layman.
Every December 17, hundreds of thousands of Cubans come to the Sanctuary of Saint Lazarus in El Rincón, 30 kilometers southwest of Havana, to venerate the person whom Catholics identify with Saint Lazarus the Bishop and the Santeros with Babalú Ayé.
Visited by Pope John Paul II during his historic trip in January 1998, this small chapel is, together with a leper colony, the main place of devotion to this deity of popular creation, in a pilgrimage in which prayers are mixed with reggaeton, bread with piglet, rum and cigars.
The five kilometer walk from the town of Santiago de las Vegas to the Sanctuary is completed by many dressed in jute or purple clothing. Dozens of faithful are martyred during the way and enter the temple exhausted, crawling, kneeling, rolling or doing somersaults.
Yeniel Zamole dragged a block of cement, others carried rocks, shackles or even a piece of rail. One man rolled down the road with two lighted candles held in place by his toes.
The walk, which started on Sunday, took place under heavy police protection, in a fair atmosphere – as in previous years – with stalls selling criollo food and loud music, which was mixed with sales of flowers, candles and plaster statuettes of St. Lazarus of different sizes.
Once in the temple, the believers and payers of promises deposited their offerings to the saint and prayed, while the public renewed itself incessantly.
“My baby girl, when she was born, looked very serious. I made a promise to him (Saint Lazarus) that if my little girl never went to a hospital again, I would come every year that I could come,” Yaniset Avila, who came with her daughter, who is now 11 years old, told AFP.
“I’m here because my daughter was seriously ill three years ago and she’s fine now. I made a promise for 10 years,” Jorge, who makes and sells candy in La Lisa, a western Havana suburb, told AFP.
This year, some of the faithful had a new reason to pray to Saint Lazarus: the health of the president of Venezuela, Cuba’s main political ally and business partner, who underwent surgery last Tuesday for the fourth time for cancer in Havana.
“Chavez is the best, he is very good, he is a good president,” Patricia Ascui Martinez, an old lady from the western province of Pinar del Rio who lit candles and prayed before a small picture of the president that another pilgrim pasted on a wall inside the Shrine, told AFP.
Olivia Valle, another woman from Pinar del Rio who prayed to the photo of the Venezuelan leader, expressed: “He is very human, he worries about everyone, we are asking for him in the prayers we make”.
“I pray for Chávez, poor thing, that Saint Lazarus may help him. I wish him much health, he is good, I am not a fool, he is good”, indicated María Caridad González, from the central province of Villa Clara.
On the economic level, there are neighbors of El Rincón who took advantage of the massive influx of people to earn some money selling flowers or food, but some complained that the sales were not very good.
“The sales are weak, because there are many vendors,” said Walnier Pérez Morales, who sold sunflowers and strange roses outside his house.
“The devotion to Saint Lazarus is still the same, but (the authorities) gave many sales licenses this year,” he lamented.
(With information from Noticias24)
Ralph Gonsalves Wins Fifth Term
Ralph Gonsalves Wins Fifth Election in St. Vincent and the Grenadines
By Caribe, Elections, Ralph Gonsalves, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
November 6, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
The Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves
The citizens of St. Vincent and the Grenadines elected Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves to a fifth consecutive term in Thursday’s general elections, according to preliminary figures released in Kingstown, the capital.
According to these figures, the United Labor Party (ULP) achieved a major victory by winning nine of the 15 seats in Parliament, compared to the eight it controlled until now.
Godwin Friday’s opposition New Democratic Party (NDP) lost one seat and took the remaining six.
In declaring himself the winner in the elections, Gonsalves affirmed that the population adopted “our progressive agenda for the future” and rejected “the policy of hate, backwardness and colonialism.
He also stressed the need for the unity of the country to address the challenges of development.
For the elections, this regional body sent a group of six observers, led by Anthonyson King, a member of the electoral commission of Antigua and Barbuda.
Voter registration for the election was 89,119 persons over the age of 18 out of a total population of 110,000.
Those subject to quarantine because of COVID-19 were also able to cast their vote. The consultation took place under a pandemic prevention protocol.
The country is one of the few in the world that has not recorded any deaths from the disease and only 75 cases, 70 of them recovered, since the beginning of the health crisis in March, while CARICOM as a whole reports some 45,000 confirmed cases and just over 1,000 deaths.
St. Vincent and the Grenadines is among the 10 smallest countries in the world and this month it holds the presidency of the United Nations Security Council, a position it holds from last January until December 2021.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez today congratulated St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves and the United Labor Party (ULP) on their election victory.
In his Twitter account, the Foreign Minister highlighted the relations of friendship and cooperation between both nations, on which he expressed the will to continue advancing in their development.
(With information from Prensa Latina)
Ten Notes on the “Cuban vote” in Florida
Ten Notes on the “Cuban vote” in Florida
By Rosa Miriam Elizalde, Daniel González
Rosa Miriam Elizalde is a Cuban journalist. First Vice President of UPEC and Vice President of FELAP. She is a Doctor in Communication Sciences and author or co-author of the books “Antes de que se me Olvidar”, “Jineteros en La Habana”, “Clic Internet” and “Chávez Nuestro”, among others. She has received the “Juan Gualberto Gómez” National Journalism Award on several occasions. Founder of Cubadebate and its Chief Editor until January 2017. She is a columnist for La Jornada, Mexico.
On twitter: @elizalderosa
November 6, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
In Miami, this van circulated this Thursday with a sign asking to turn Cuba into the 51st state of the USA. Photo: Twitter.
Two-thirds of Florida counties voted for Donald Trump, as did a good portion of Latin American Americans, with a record turnout in this election. In the United States, Mexicans represent by far the largest percentage of Latino voters (almost 60% of the electorate), 14% of those who come from Puerto Rico and, in third place, Cubans with 5%. Why then the overvaluation of this last group?
No one doubts that Donald Trump’s disinformation campaign worked in the émigré community from our country, but as far as the final figures on voters go, the “Cuban vote” should be taken with a grain of salt. Here are a few quick notes on the subject.
1.-There are no definitive figures for the “Cuban vote” or for any other community. Counts are underway in the country. According to the American Community Survey 2014-2018, 697,785 Cubans were registered in Florida in 2016. Of these, 367,233 declared themselves in favor of the Republican Party; 180,227 for the Democratic Party, and 150,325 other political affiliations. Finally, four years ago, 564,938 voted. Between 52 and 54% voted for Trump and between 41 and 47% for Clinton. Both NBC News and Fox News estimated a Cuban participation rate in these elections of 58%, a level similar to that of 2016.
2.-The “Cuban vote” in Miami-Dade gave a majority to the Republican candidate, as in the previous election. However, this did not prevent the election of a Democratic mayor – the first woman to hold that office in the county – despite the fact that the other candidate was a Cuban and a Republican, Steve Bovo, and more signs as he was the son of a member of the failed Brigade 2506 that invaded Cuba in 1961.
3 – This Wednesday, The New York Times acknowledged that Florida lived in a climate of unprecedented misinformation, especially in the Spanish-language media and in the local social networks. The McCarthyite hysteria reached such a level of alienation that Joseph Biden was accused of being a com munist, a socialist and even of practicing witchcraft. Nevertheless, the Democratic Party won Miami Dade County with more than a 7-point lead over his opponent.
4.-The “Cuban vote” is not a monolith. One million were born on the island and at least another million are descended from Cubans, but have lived all their lives in Florida. They all identify themselves as such in the national census. In those two groups there are American citizens and others who are not, some speak only English and others only Spanish, have registered to vote or not, are Republicans, Democrats or Independents, and have direct family in Cuba or not.
5 – Michel Bustamante, an academic from Florida International University, maintains that the Cuban community is much more complicated than it has been described in the middle of the electoral contest. He speaks of a “cognitive dissonance”, notable in the Cuban communities of Hialeah and Miami. Many send remittances to their families or travel regularly to the island, but also express support for Trump’s sanctions.
6.-The relationship with Cuba is not the main issue that defines the vote of a Cuban resident in the United States and it has not even been among the main motivations for going to vote. According to data from the Latino Decisions survey, the main concerns of Florida’s Hispanics are the pandemic (52%), employment and the economy (44%) and health care costs (28%). Other analysts have perceived that, even for those most receptive to the administration’s anti-Cuban rhetoric, the fear of the Covid was greater than the hatred for the Havana government.
7. There is no single “Cuban vote,” nor can a similar statement be made about any immigrant community in the United States, whether larger or smaller than the Cuban one. The emergence of the term and its permanence in time has to do with the state policy applied against Cuba for 60 years, which is totally different from any other articulated towards the rest of the nations of the world. Cuban emigration in the United States is a by-product of that policy.
Not for nothing did Bustamante say this Wednesday in a tweet: “The White House has established an alliance of convenience with the local Republican machine that once opposed Trump in the 2016 primaries, but since then has helped him fan the flames of anti-socialist attacks to a despicable and unprecedented level.
8.-There is no “Mexican vote” even though it is geographically concentrated in territories that one day changed sovereignty. There is no “Soviet vote” or “Chinese vote”, despite the fact that the Cold War translated into enormous hostility towards the former USSR and China, which originated the respective migratory flows of those nations.
9.The “Cuban vote” is politically conditioned. Like any significant social group, among Cuban Americans there was a sector that was dedicated to local politics and the rest to survival. Since the 1980 elections, a relationship of convenience was generated between the Republican Party and a Cuban-American elite that negotiated space and access within the US system of government, in exchange for a quota of votes. Both Republicans and Democrats have courted the Cuban community since then, but only in Florida. A not inconsiderable group of Cubans resides in the New Jersey-NY area and yet there is no recurring talk of the “Cuban vote.”
10.- In many US states the results of the vote are decided by a marginal amount of votes. Any group with a similar identity that expresses itself in favor of one or another candidate at the polls can make a difference, as we are seeing right now in the dispute over Georgia or Pennsylvania to decide the next president of that country. Cubans have run again and again as a bloc, to continue to benefit from federal funds, as do Puerto Ricans or Haitians living in Florida, for example.
As many analysts have pointed out these days, rather than reducing the complexity of this scenario to a stereotype, it would be necessary to assess the extent to which one or another campaign team has understood the changes that have taken place among Cuban-Americans and to what extent both Republicans and Democrats are betting on the real possibility of attracting supporters in that community.
The historical truth is that since 1980 the Republicans have invaded, conquered and established themselves in the Cuban-American media, while the Democrats have made furtive attempts in a field they consider alien and in which they have renounced a permanent presence.
Part of the Democrats’ weakness is that their main leaders share or coexist with the state policy of confrontation with Cuba, either through pressure or through a “democratizing” approach. The local South Florida Democrats repeat virtually the same messages of hostility against Cuba as their fellow Republicans, posturing as tough as the Republicans are, and end up ignoring and alienating those new generations of Cubans who are the vast majority and who neither aspire nor need to succeed from the funds of the programs associated with “regime change.”
In the elections that have just concluded, the Democrats saw their initial advantage over the Republicans in Florida gradually disappear. Among the first explanations was the performance of the supposed “Cuban vote.” In reality, the votes Biden lacked were the result of the absence of support from other groups and minorities.
Democrats and Republicans may or may not choose to continue to cultivate the fiction of the “Cuban vote,” they may or may not continue to fund the federal programs that court them, but the truth is that time and again there will be a conflicting relationship between the foreign policy interests of the United States as a country and the electoral games at one point in that country’s geography.
In focusing on that tiny vote, in national terms, both parties are unaware of the position of large sectors of American voters who favor the most normalized relationship possible with Cuba and who have specific interests in business, science, culture, academic relations, health, and other sectors.
Behind Washington’s immobility with its unilateral sanctions on Cuba for more than 60 years, behind the power lent to Florida’s machinery of hate, calculation and despotism, old anti-communist rhetoric and the usual failure are mixed. We will see how the votes look when the final numbers are known – by the way, journalist John Kruzel of The Hill has denounced the fact that a significant number of votes were lost in the south of the state. Before crowing so much about the “Cuban vote,” let’s wait for the end of this stormy election recount that has turned the United States into a banana republic and Donald Trump into the most pathetic autocrat in that country’s history.
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