Granma 144
Our Women
Our Women
In keeping with these times, more than 130,000 women have joined the urban agriculture movement and the medical brigades that have gone out to fight the pandemic in other nations, 61% of whom are women.
By Yenia Silva Correa
August 5, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Photo: Rodríguez Robleda, José Raúl
From economic and productive work, continuation of the work to support the fight against the pandemic and stops to pay homage and recognition, the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) is promoting a group of activities to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the organization, which will take place on August 23.
With strict adherence to the health measures required by the complex epidemiological situation caused by COVID-19, it was reported this Tuesday, through a press conference, that the program on the occasion of the event will have the communities as its setting.
Teresa Amarelle Boué, Secretary General of the organization and member of the Political Bureau, reminded [everyone] that the main challenge that the new coronavirus represents today does not diminish the protagonist [leading role, wl] of Cuban women in the other challenges they lead. These include “maintaining what has been conquered in terms of gender equality, that there are no setbacks in the midst of the new forms of economic management that the country is promoting, the situation of the aging population and how to perfect the protocols of action to confront gender violence in our country.”
JOY AT NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS
Excited, after the news of being the vanguard of the country, the FMC of Santiago de Cuba dedicated to the FMC’s founder, Vilma Espín, the condition received.
“We could not go to Segundo Frente, to pay her any other tribute than this one, obtained in the midst of the current complexity”, declared Elena Castillo Rodríguez, provincial secretary.
In addition to the leading role played on the health front, she highlighted the massive incorporation of food production in agriculture and on industrial estates, the demand for discipline in public spaces, the active promotion of electricity saving, and the implementation of more than a hundred training programs for women who are not working.
Palo Alto, an Unreleased Monk Album
Palo Alto, an Unreleased Album by Thelonious Monk Will be Presented on July 31
The musician is considered one of the revolutionaries and geniuses of post-World War II jazz music.
By Ricardo Alonso Venereo
July 29, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Album cover Photo: Taken from the Internet
Palo Alto, an unreleased album by American jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk (Rock Mounty, 1920 – Weehawken, 1982) will be presented next July 31, on digital platforms, 52 years after his songs were actually recorded in a concert that the artist gave in 1968 in a high school in the city of Palo Alto, California, which at the time, helped “temporarily unite a city divided by racism.”
Coincidentally, the release of the album, which under the label ¡Impulse! Universal Music, will also be released on CD and vinyl. (The latter in a special edition that will include a replica of the original poster and handheld program.). It had been scheduled to be released before the current epidemiological situation in the world. It serves to show us today how identical some things are to 1968, the year of the assassination of Black leader Martin Luther King and when racial conflicts between whites and Blacks stirred up American society at the time.
“With Palo Alto, Monk’s music once again becomes balm for a wounded society that resists understanding that we all vibrate to the same beat and rhythm,” says the important Californian cultural promoter Danny Scher, This album is largely due to the current atmosphere in that country as a result of the death of the African-American George Floyd.
“The performance is one of the best recordings I’ve ever heard of Thelonious,” said T.S. Monk, son of the star, after listening to the recording that,15 years ago ,Danny Scher found, and which he put in his hands through saxophonist Jimmy Heath. He was one of the greats of the be-bop era, after he finished producing an unreleased album by Monk and Coltrane at Carnegie Hall in 2005.
The pianist with tenor saxophone Charlie Rouse, one of the members of his quartet Photo: Taken from the Internet
Although it is acknowledged that Monk’s best performances have always been live, it is also stated that there are numerous documented concerts and tours of the pianist, which are of great value and this recording is an example of this. Here the band really sounds very relaxed and inspired, but also because this era of Monk in concert is not particularly documented, which makes this album the last official live performance of Monk’s classic quartet with Charlie Rouse, Larry Gales and Ben Riley.
It is claimed that when this concert took place the group had just recorded the legendary album Underground and the band’s days were about to come to an end, but in 1968 they were still sounding full of life, starting with Charlie Rouse, who plays superb solos in this concert. Gales and Riley also shine with their own light. And, of course, Monk, who among other pearls leaves here a version of Don’t Blame Me, truly anthological.
Other themes collected in Palo Alto are Don’t Blame Me and Ruby My Dear; the dynamic and lively Well You Needn’t, at 13 minutes and with solos by all the components or the abrupt end with Rudy Vallée’s classic: I Love You (Sweetheart of All My Dreams).
The magnificent human story behind this album, only 47 minutes long, is profusely detailed in the excellent notes signed by Monk’s biographer, Robin G. Kelley.
Thelonious Monk is considered one of the revolutionaries and geniuses of post-World War II jazz music.
Iván Cepeda: “Cuba was Impeccable”
Iván Cepeda: “Cuba as a Guarantor was Impeccable”
By Enrique Moreno Gimeranez
July 15, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Iván Cepeda Castro was representative to the House (2010-2014) and senator (2014-2018 and 2018-2022) for the Alternative Democratic Pole. From 2012 to 2016, he served as facilitator of the peace process between the Colombian Government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP) and had similar responsibility in the dialogues between the executive and the National Liberation Army (ELN) between 2014 and 2018.
Iván Cepeda has dedicated himself to the defense of human rights and the search for peace in Colombia Photo: Juvenal Balán
For more than 20 years, he has devoted himself to the defense of human rights and the search for peace in Colombia. It has not been an easy road. Because of his work for justice for the victims in his nation, he has received countless threats against his life, had to remain in exile for several years and faced political persecution.
Iván Cepeda Castro is a man of principle who dreams and acts, as a citizen and a politician, for a better country. Representative to the House (2010-2014) and Senator (2014-2018 and 2018-2022) for the Alternative Democratic Pole, he served between 2012 and 2016 as a facilitator of the peace process between the Colombian Government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP) and held similar responsibility in the dialogues between the executive and the National Liberation Army (ELN) between 2014 and 2018.
Therefore, his views acquire special relevance to deepen in several issues related to the peace process in his nation. He kindly responded to Granma on different topics of current Colombian politics, of notable regional and global interest, taking as a starting point his assessment of Cuba’s role during the dialogues between his country’s executive and the FARC-EP…[sic]
“In each and every circumstance, Cuba’s role was fundamental, decisive, indispensable, because it created the necessary environment and context for the dialogues. A role that has been especially careful, respectful at all times of the Colombian State and its government and, of course, also of the delegation of the FARC-EP. The role of guarantor has been carried out with scrupulous care to avoid crossing that line where one begins to intervene in the dialogues, to try to guide them, or to break the independence that each of the parties must have.
“Cuba’s work as guarantor was impeccable, both in contributing to the solution of the problems inherent to the talks, facilitating the dialogues, fundamentally the rapprochements at the most difficult moments of the debate that took place at the Table. Also, at the most critical moments, with events outside the talks, the dynamics of the confrontation that continued in the country and another series of issues such as the fierce opposition of sectors that were not prone to dialogue, arose in Colombia.
“In all those moments of tension, in all those moments of difficulty in which dialogue was in serious danger, the work of Cuba and also of Norway was definitive; both teams of guarantors dedicated to seeking, precisely, to resolve the problems. This has also been the case in the implementation of the agreement, in which Cuba – together with Norway and also the United Nations Verification Mission – has played a central role”.
-More recently, the Cuba also played the role of guarantor in the peace dialogue between the Colombian Government and the ELN. What is your opinion of Cuba’s role in this process?
-It has also been fundamental in the dialogue processes that have taken place in relation to the ELN. A process which has allowed, for the first time in the history of the rapprochement with the ELN, the concretion of a negotiation agenda and also the beginning of the development of the points contained in that agenda.
“Unfortunately, the current Colombian Government has not had a congruent attitude towards such an effort. It has ignored the role of Cuba as a guarantor country in this context, ignoring the Protocol of Rupture that had been adopted and denying, not only the specific role of Cuba as a guarantor country, but also the role of guarantors in general in any peace process.
“The attitude of the Colombian Government towards these dialogues and towards the specific episode of this protocol is an attack, an aggression against the principle of legality of peace dialogues in any circumstance”.
-A few voices in the current Colombian government have deployed a series of hostile actions against Cuba…
-The Government has not only ignored this debt of recognition and gratitude towards Cuba with regard to its contribution to the peace process but has also taken an openly hostile attitude towards Cuba’s role in the international context and, in particular, with regard to peace in Colombia.
“It is part of a conception of International Relations that this government has developed, totally folded and absolutely subordinated to the interests of a radical and extremist sector of the White House policy today and that, fundamentally, obeys the electoral dynamics and the debts that Donald Trump has with a Republican political sector in the state of Florida.
“This is what, unfortunately, has led Colombia to assume the sad role of a kind of battering ram in US policy towards Cuba, Venezuela and the region in general”.
-In this sense, among the latest events in his country is the arrival on Colombian soil of the U.S. Security Force Assistance Brigade.
-Colombia becomes the platform and the laboratory of an aggression policy of the current US Government towards countries in the region. It is evident that it is serving as a leading government in the policy of aggression towards Venezuela and Cuba. “We are now witnessing what is called this “by invitation” military intervention, that is, the presence of an elite brigade of the U.S. Army Southern Command in our territory. This could easily become a scenario of international confrontation, of a multinational nature, in which not only would Colombia and the U.S. military forces be involved against Venezuela, but also, eventually, in a confrontation with other world powers such as China and Russia. It is clear that this scenario is highly dangerous and the policy of the current Colombian Government is being applied to it.
-The work of the High Commissioner for Peace, Miguel Ceballos, was questioned by you and other legislators during a debate on Political Control in the Second Committee of the Senate at the beginning of June. Can you give us more details on this?
-We argued in the debate on Political Control that High Commissioner Miguel Ceballos has produced a radical transformation in the responsibility he has in the Government. He should be the official in charge of peace policy and we see that his entire management has been oriented precisely in the opposite direction: in generating obstacles, difficulties and problems to make the implementation of the Peace Agreement already achieved practically impossible. In addition, in preventing the development of a peace process with the ELN and, within that function, of course, in having contributed to the aggression against Cuba. In particular, having actively promoted, as he himself accepts, the inclusion of Cuba in the list of those called by the United States countries that do not cooperate in the fight against terrorism.
-On 15 June, you and other congressmen also welcomed, through a statement, the decision of the Government of Iván Duque to maintain and consolidate diplomatic relations with Cuba?
-It is very positive that, in statements made by government officials, the status of Cuba as a guarantor country has been ratified, but we consider that to be insufficient. The problem that generated the lack of knowledge of the Protocol of Rupture of the conversations with the ELN must be left resolved. So that work of Political Control, which we exercise as congressmen, is going to continue and we are going to develop new actions seeking that the Colombian Government responds in an integral and full way to its commitments.
– What actions could the Government of Iván Duque undertake in support of the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace?
-The only way for the current Government to straighten out the course of the country, after such an erratic and unfortunate leadership as it has had in these two years, is to move towards a serious peace policy, which includes the full implementation of the Peace Agreement, the resumption of the dialogues with the ELN and the promotion of a radically different international policy, oriented towards cooperation, integration and towards that objective of making our region a Zone of Peace.
From the “Monkey Trial” to Our Times
From the “Monkey Trial” to Our Times
In July 1925, 95 years ago, in the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called “Monkey Trial” was held. It all began with the arrest of teacher John Scopes, who was accused of explaining to his high school students Darwin’s Origin of Species.
By Abel Prieto Jiménez
July 17, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
The same irrational obstinacy of Darwin’s deniers reappears in Trump’s dismissive attitude towards science and scientists and in his erratic and criminal response to the pandemic. Photo: AFP
In July 1925, 95 years ago, in the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called “Monkey Trial” was held. It all began with the arrest of teacher John Scopes, who was accused of explaining to his high school students Darwin’s Origin of Species.
He had violated a Tennesee law that forbade “the teaching of any theory that denies man’s Divine Creation as it is in the Bible, and replaces it with the teaching that he is descended from an order of lower animals.”
Many local people demonstrated in the streets with signs and shouts in favor of their religious values and against Scopes and Darwin himself, whom they saw as representatives of the Devil.
From the caricatured simplification of the thesis of evolution (“we are descended from the monkey”), the name with which the trial passed into history was born. It received great publicity in its time and ended up being presented as a duel between two sides, “creationists” and “evolutionists”, and between two prestigious lawyers.
The press in the North showed the clash between a world view that was typical of “deep America”, closed in itself, rural, moralistic, anti-scientific, very religious, and another “free thinker”, open to the debate of ideas and the advances of science.
Scopes was finally found guilty; although he was only sentenced to pay a fine and did not go to prison, as the prosecutor and the extremist sectors of the people wanted.
A theatrical piece based on the trial was released years later, and from it several versions were made for film and television. The sympathies in these plays tend to be on the “liberal” side, although, as in the U.S. entertainment industry, there is no serious investigation into the real causes of the conflict.
Within the questionable and undemocratic US electoral system, “Deep America” contributed decisively, in 2016, to Trump’s victory.
In that space, more cultural than geographical, analysts locate the “hard” electoral base of the ultra-right, associated with the stereotype of the white, Protestant, sexist, homophobic, illiterate, racist, hunter and gun lover, attached to Republican politics, the most conservative morality and the traditional concept of the family. With an exalted and messianic image of his country, he lacks curiosity about universal culture and that which thrives in New York and other US cities with a cosmopolitan vocation.
Joe Bageant wrote an incisive, exceptional book, Chronicles of Deep America, in which he characterizes the scam of the Yankee model and denounces the decline of the Empire on a planet controlled by corporations. His description of “that provincial America,” inhabited by churchgoers who “fanatically listen to the pastor explain the infallibility of the Bible in relation to all known matters, from biology to baseball rules,” and “are not even able–and do not care much about–to put Iraq or France on the map, assuming they have one, is very valuable.
Many believe that Trump is addressing this hard core of voters most of the time, in his speeches, in his tweets, in his permanent show.
The same irrational obstinacy of Darwin’s deniers reappears in Trump’s dismissive attitude toward science and scientists and in his erratic and criminal response to the pandemic.
Trump has also exceeded the political use of the Bible. On June 1, he ordered the removal of anti-racist protesters to walk through a park to St. John’s Church and “hold up a Bible in front of the cameras, like some kind of championship trophy,” as one journalist ironically put it.
Mariann Budde, the bishop of the Episcopal diocese of Washington, said: “It was traumatic and deeply offensive. Something sacred was misused for a political gesture.
Last Friday, in Florida, at the Doral Jesus Church Worship Center, a refuge for terrorists, in a shameful rally where he avoided talking about the health catastrophe, Trump mixed internal and external enemies under the “caused” word socialism. The Democrats, he said, are standing alongside those who are knocking down statues. And he accused them of wanting to do the same with the statues of Jesus Christ.
An evangelical Christian of Cuban origin went so far as to say that Trump is “God’s chosen one” to stop the communist threat in the United States.
Let us remember that in the 2016 campaign this “chosen one” used inquisitorial language to refer to Sanders and Hillary Clinton: “He made a pact with the devil. She is the devil.” This is the kind of medieval insult used in 1925 by the people of Dayton to attack Scopes and Darwin.
The pandemonium virus
The pandemonium virus
Our greatest threat is not pandemic, but “pandemonium”. Among the meanings that appear in the Grande Dicionário Houaiss of Portuguese is the following: pandemonium is an “association of people to practice evil or to promote disorder and confusion”
Author: Frei Betto | internet@granma.cu
July 15, 2020 00:07:24
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Aerial view of tombs in el cementerio Nossa Senhora Aparecida, in Manaos, Brazil. Photo: AFP
The Brazilian news program prioritizes the advance of the pandemic and the ineffectiveness of the federal, state and municipal governments. Allegations of corruption, such as the purchase of overcharged respirators and misappropriation of public funds, follow one another. What each of us fears most, even those who for reasons of survival are forced to disregard confinement, is contracting the virus in a lethal way.
Is it true that our greatest threat of genocide is COVID-19?
I don’t think so. Our greatest threat is not pandemic, but “pandemonium”. Among the meanings that appear in the Grande Dicionário Houaiss of Portuguese is the following: pandemonium is an “association of people to practice evil or promote disorder and confusion”.
The main evil that threatens the Brazilian nation today is the government of Bolsonaro, who suffers from thanatomania, an obsession with death. A person suffering from phallic obsession embodied in weapons, who defends torture and exalts torturers and paramilitaries, certainly does not feel the slightest concern for the growing number of victims of the pandemic, whether 60 000 or 600 000, because she is psychologically blocked from warning the other. He only manages to see himself and the extent of himself, as his children.
It is the syndrome of depersonalization, a disorder that leads to insensitivity and makes feelings just work in the head, that is, one reasons about them without managing to experience them.
A person who likes to shoot so much and brags about his good aim doesn’t have to care about a wave of lethality, as long as he doesn’t get it. Since he cannot follow through on his manifest desire to “kill 30,000”, as he has said, he is pleased to see the number of dead multiplied daily by the COVID-19.
His only concern is that the pandemic will seriously affect the economy and, consequently, his chances of re-election, which psychologically can be understood as perpetuation. He acts as if he were invulnerable. He escaped an alleged stabbing attack, so it will not be a “crack” that will bring him down. That is why he does not respect confinement or social isolation, goes out on the streets without a mask, does not avoid crowds and does not care about personal detachment.
It is this sense of impunity and immunity that must have crossed Nero’s mind when he saw Rome devoured by fire. Hugging his lyre, he was convinced that the fire would not reach his palace.
More serious than the virus is this government negligence. Because, in addition to thousands of deaths from the pandemic, it produces victims of the economy: the 13 million unemployed and the 120 million Brazilians, of the 150 million over 16 years of age who earn less than two minimum wages a month. That’s not counting those who will be affected by the recession caused by COVID-19.
The “pandemonium” virus spreads the specter of symbolic death, by giving free rein to police violence and the arms trade; undermining culture and respect for human rights; weakening education; and encouraging deforestation and the invasion of indigenous lands.
This “pandemonium” virus, which lives in the Alvorada Palace and has been carrying out its lethal work since the Planalto, is the most serious threat to democracy and the Brazilian nation.
Bullying
MINI-DICTIONARY FOR TODAY’S WORLD
Bullying
Bullying ascribes to its victim negative stereotypes, whether based on gender, sexual identity, religion, family economic capacity, cultural differences, place of birth or residence, among others
Author: Victor Fowler | internet@granma.cu
June 9, 2020 23:06:01
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Photo: Taken from the Internet
It’s a continuous form of violence that takes place at school – although it usually reaches the residence, entertainment and leisure spaces of the participants. It’s in which one or several aggressors are determined to cause damage (physical, psychological or spiritual) to one or several victims. It can include verbal (direct or indirect), physical (more or less disguised), mockery, continuous devaluation and other degrading practices, isolation and ostracism.
It is based on an abuse of power by the aggressor, the passivity, silence or little reaction of the rest of the group and the weakness of the aggressor. Such a scheme subverts any teaching about values of equality, solidarity and justice, generates dysfunctionality among peers and often makes reveals problems of domestic violence or family isolation, both in aggressors and in victims.
Bullying assigns its victim with negative stereotypes, be it on the basis of gender, sexual identity, religion, family economic capacity, cultural differences, place of birth or residence, among others. In addition to breaking bonds of solidarity, bullying can have destructive effects and cause profound (low self-esteem, depression or other disorders) and long-term damage to those who suffer it and in extreme cases lead to self-harm (including suicide) or physical assault on the abuser.
The contemporary development of communications online and the easy access to these in a widespread way, has given rise to the emergence of a new variety of school bullying, in this case through the Internet, cell phones and social networks.
BIBLIOGRAPHY CONSULTED (MAIN SOURCES):
Sánchez-Castañeda, Alfredo. Bullying. A comparative view. – Mexico, Mexico City : Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Defensoría de los Derechos Universitarios, 2018.
Inter-American Institute of Human Rights. Prevention of school bullying : Bullying and cyberbullying San Jose, C.R. SOURCE: IIDH, 2014.
Shane Jimerson, Susan Swearer and Dorothy Espelage. – Handbook of bullying in schools. An international perspective. New York : Routledge, 2009.
United States at the Crossroads
United States at the Crossroads
As the crisis in the U.S. deepens and the protests following George Floyd’s assassination take on a broader tone, old and new wounds of a society in need of profound change come to light
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Author: Raúl Antonio Capote | internacionales@granma.cu
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
The protests take on a broader tone, bringing out old and new wounds of a society in need of profound change. Photo: La Vanguardia
As the crisis in the U.S. deepens and the protests that have erupted in the wake of George Floyd’s assassination take on a broader tone, old and new wounds of a society in need of profound change come to light.
The makeup that was intended to cover the worn-out face of the US Statue of “Liberty” is slowly fading, and the truth is making its way into the minds and hearts of the people. A protester in New York asks in front of the cameras of a TV network covering the protests: Where is the greatest country in the world, and he answers himself with anger and pain: “It is not here.”
It’s a fact that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo boasts of being an accomplished liar and recalls during an interview at the University of Texas A&M, the time when he was director of the company, his image as a supposed strongman is not respected either.
The head of U.S. diplomacy is still the same cynic who said, “I was the director of the company. We lied, cheated and stole. We even had training courses” which drew applause from those present, who must have included some of those who, these days, obeying Trump’s “guidance”, gargle with chlorine to combat COVID-19.
You can’t fool everyone all the time. The current government is responsible for more than 112,000 deaths from the pandemic, rampant unemployment, loss of rights, hunger for many (a hunger they can no longer hide), lack of medical care for the majority of the people and racial discrimination.
The man already considered by many the worst president in the history of the United States is covered by a deluge of criticism, with a shower of lies launched through Twitter, a kind of “counter-water” strategy that seems to make no sense, but it does.
Donald Trump speaks to his base, those who voted for him in the previous election, and hopes they will do so in the next one, on November 3. They are secure bases that have remained faithful to their president, despite the defection of a group of the less firm.
Who will vote for whom?
Those who will vote for Trump are those who see him as a “winner” who will achieve success for America, those who admire his showmanship, his misogynistic poses, his image as a rich, powerful man, with a lot of luck with women.
Those who are alienated by conspiracy theories, including those who believe that health care reform and 5G [Internet] seek to control the population.
The U.S. government, which is opposed to vaccination, believes that the left belongs to an alien invading race that wants to dominate the world, and a thousand and one other absurd theories.
Trump gloats over the unconditional love that many ultra-nationalists, religious fanatics, racists, supremacists, and separatists have for him, to whom he presents himself as a political outsider.
Trump and his team calculate that many of the people who oppose his re-election will not vote for Joe Biden either.
They estimate that the most radicals, who want a profound change in the country, would not vote for the neo-liberal group that the former vice president represents. Many millennials and Z-generation supporters do not see Biden as a viable option for solving the country’s problems.
Therefore, faced with possible massive abstentionism, motivated by the lack of valid alternatives and the security of the vote of their bases, the followers of the current president trust that they can win again.
An uncertain future
However, the situation is getting darker for him. Important figures of the Republican Party, prestigious military and hawks with voice and influence, are closing ranks against Trump’s possible re-election.
Colin Powell, former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, was the last of a series of retired senior officers to publicly criticize Donald Trump.
“We have a Constitution. And we have to follow that Constitution. And the president is walking away from it,” Powell said in an interview with CNN, in which he accused him of “lying about a lot of things.
Powell, who served as secretary of state during the George W. Bush administration, and according to the Pew Research Center, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, his statements can influence independent voters, who make up 38 percent of the electorate.
Among others, Trump has been criticized by former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
Powell has been joined by the voices of several prominent military figures, including former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who said that Trump is not “a mature leader” and accused him of “deliberately trying to divide the country.
Former U.S. Chief of Staff John Kelly, a retired general who served in the U.S. government, called on the American people to “look carefully at who you elected.”
Another uniformed man who spoke out against the White House tenant was retired Navy Admiral William McRaven, the commander who led the military operation in which the U.S. killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
“It’s time for new leadership in this country, Republican, Democrat or independent,” adding that “the president has shown that he doesn’t have the qualities to be a good commander-in-chief.’
Current Defense Secretary Mark Esper criticized Trump’s actions during the protests: “I do not support the invocation of the Insurrection Act. These measures should only be used as a last resort, and in the most urgent and extreme situations.
Prominent intellectuals, renowned artists and sportsmen, workers, unemployed, Afro-descendants and Latin Americans, businessmen and ex-soldiers, small landowners ruined by the crisis, young people from all walks of life, have joined in the protests across the U.S.
Many are talking about giving their all so that the current administration will not be re-elected. It looks bad for the tycoon-president. Whatever he does, history is bent on sawing the floor to him.
Lifting Restrictions is Very Dangerous
Lessons from Hokkaido Island to the World:
Lifting Restrictions is Very Dangerous
The region acted quickly and contained the initial outbreak with a three-week quarantine. But when restrictions were lifted, a second wave hit even harder.
April 30, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Masked passers-by in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan, on February 26, 2020 Photo: Reuters
The island of Hokkaido in northern Japan is experiencing a second wave of coronavirus infections and deaths, which experts say could have been avoided if the state of emergency had not been lifted too soon. Their experience offers a grim lesson for the next phase of the battle against covid-19, TIME reports.
The region acted quickly and contained the initial SARS-CoV-2 outbreak with a three-week quarantine. But when local authorities lifted restrictions, a second wave of infection hit even harder: less than four weeks later, the island was forced to re-implement the blockade.
Hokkaido reported 38 new cases on Tuesday, bringing its total number of infections to 688, the fifth highest in Japan. Simultaneously, one person died from the virus, bringing the number of deaths on the island to 27.
Chitose Airport, Hokkaido, Japan Photo: Reuters
Success Story
Thus, the island, which was seen as something of a success story for the way it worked to contain, track and isolate the virus, is once again in the spotlight as it struggles to cope with the second wave of contagion.
In late February, Hokkaido became the first place in Japan to declare a state of emergency for covid-19. Schools were closed, large-scale meetings were canceled and people were advised to stay home. The local government pursued the virus with determination, isolating anyone who had had contact with those infected.
The strategy apparently worked, and by mid-March, the number of new cases had been reduced to one or two per day. On 19 March, the state of emergency was lifted and schools were reopened in early April. But only 26 days after the state of emergency was lifted, a new one had to be imposed.
It should be noted that Hokkaido has acted independently of the central Government, which only last week placed Tokyo, Osaka and five other prefectures in a state of emergency.
Lifting the restrictions “is very dangerous”.
“Now I regret that we should not have lifted the first state of emergency,” Kiyoshi Nagase, president of the Hokkaido Medical Association, told TIME. “It really won’t be until next year that we can safely lift these blockades.
Experts say the restrictions on the island were lifted too quickly and too soon because of pressure from local businesses, along with a false sense of security about the declining infection rate.
According to Kazuto Suzuki, a professor at Hokkaido University, the example of the island “shows that what is happening in the U.S.,” where some governors are lifting restrictions, “is very dangerous.
“That’s what we know now: even if you control the first wave, you can’t relax,” Suzuki concluded.
(Source: Russia Today)
Cuba Returns 2000+ Stranded Cubans
Cuba guarantees the return of more than two thousand Cubans stranded in 15 countries
Since the beginning of the spread of the pandemic, Cuban Consulates have provided timely information to Cuban nationals abroad on the evolution of the disease on the island and on consular procedures.
April 27, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Photo: Cubaminrex
Since the announcement of the regulations on travel to and from Cuba, a measure adopted by the Cuban authorities as part of the national plan for the prevention and confrontation of COVID-19 as of March 20, more than 2,000 Cubans have returned to national territory, by air and sea, from more than a dozen countries, among them: Angola, Barbados, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Italy, Nicaragua, Peru, Portugal, Mexico, Panama and Equatorial Guinea, Cubaminrex reported.
These return flights of Cuban citizens and foreigners residing on the island have been organized between the competent Cuban authorities and their counterparts in each of the countries involved, in strict compliance with internationally established standards.
Since the beginning of the spread of the pandemic, Cuban Consulates have provided timely information to Cuban nationals abroad on the evolution of the disease on the Island and on consular procedures. At the same time, the Cuban authorities are permanently monitoring the situation of our nationals stranded in different countries, while efforts are being made, whenever possible, to ensure their return to our country.
Equally commendable has been the action of Cuban residents and members of solidarity organizations with Cuba, who have provided food, medicines and arranged cheap accommodations for Cuban citizens who are waiting to return to our national territory.
Pandemic and Spirituality
Pandemic and Spirituality
The coronavirus forces us to assume a new spirituality and attitude towards reality. Spirituality is the capacity to open oneself lovingly to the other, to nature and to God.
By Frei Betto
April 11, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Life is full of contingencies. On a personal level, failure, loss of friends, illness, death. On the global level, events that no analyst or futurologist foresees, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Twin Towers in New York. Nor did anyone suspect that in the midst of the 21st century, with all the resources of science, humanity would be threatened by a pandemic.
Who could have imagined that it would come from China, in the form of a contagious disease, the cause of the deepest crisis of capitalism since 2008? According to the Morgan Stanley Composite Index, in a few weeks in the financial market, the shares of the world’s stock exchanges lost $15.5 trillion dollars, more than eight times the GDP of Brazil in 2019!
Will any of those speculators and mega-researchers be affected in their pockets (the most sensitive part of the human body) have become poorer? And yet, before the pandemic, almost all of them refused to make their own contribution to measures to combat hunger and global warming.
That reminds me of the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans in the year 70. There came a time when the rich man offered a pot full of gold in exchange for a piece of bread.
The coronavirus forces us to assume a new spirituality and attitude towards reality. It does not make class distinctions, as does gastroenteritis, which kills thousands of malnourished children. Likewise, it makes no distinctions of sexual orientation, as does AIDS, which affected mostly homosexuals. Now we are all vulnerable, even if the age groups and situations of risk vary.
We are all forced to withdraw into the house and into ourselves, to become detached. This abandonment of routine activities and programmed agendas can uproot or humanize us. Those who are attached to certain habits that, for the moment, are forbidden, such as going to the movies, to the theater, to the club, will rebel. In the case of the elderly, they will not be able to have contact with their grandchildren and will have to stay at home as long as possible.
Air travel has been reduced, national borders have been closed, tourist tours have been canceled. We have no choice but to stay put where we are. Huit-clos [no exit], within four walls. We may discover, like Sartre, why others are hell. And it may be that we rescue family life, dialogue with the family, the care of the house (everything must be sanitized).
It is time to learn to work and study without leaving domestic space. Now we have more time to watch movies on TV, surf the internet, read good books, do research, meditate and pray.
The virus makes everyone equal. But it doesn’t level the playing field. The bourgeois couple, who never took the trouble to go into the kitchen or clean the house, are now forced to roll up their sleeves or risk having one of their employees bring the virus into their home. The recalcitrant does not follow the instructions of the health authorities, and the selfish buy all the alcohol gel and masks in the pharmacy.
I know a young woman who volunteered to do the shopping for the vulnerable neighbors in her building without charging anything for it. Another distributed her phone number so that isolated elderly people would have someone to talk to. A married couple of lawyers go in their car every morning to pick up their cook on the outskirts and take her back in the afternoon, to prevent her from using public transportation. Three neighboring families from a hospital decided to prepare lunches for the nurses and doctors who double their work hours. In Italy, neighbors look out the window in the late afternoon and sing in chorus. Churches, mosques, synagogues open their doors to those who live on the streets and need hygienic care. Finally, there are countless examples of generosity and solidarity in this period when we are all potentially threatened.
These gestures have their source in spirituality, even if it is not of a religious nature. Spirituality is the capacity to open oneself lovingly to others, to nature and to God. And its best teaching is in generosity, the secret of happiness. Rich is not he who has everything, said Buddha, but he who has need of little.