Granma 63
Official Biography of Spanish President
Official Biography of H.E. Mr. Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón, President of the Government of the Kingdom of Spain
He served as a Member of Congress for the Madrid constituency and Councillor in the Madrid City Council and was leader of the opposition and candidate for the Presidency of the Government between 2014 and 2016.
Author: Granma | internet@granma.cu
November 21, 2018 20:11:30
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
Photo: Taken from Internet.
He studied Secondary Education at the Instituto Ramiro de Maeztu in Madrid, where he played in the basketball club Estudiantes.
In 1995 he graduated in Economics and Business Studies from the Real Colegio Universitario María Cristina, a centre attached to the Complutense University of Madrid.
He holds a Master’s Degree in Economics from the European Union at the Free University of Brussels and a Master’s Degree in Advanced Studies in European Economic and Monetary Integration from the Ortega y Gasset University Institute.
In 2012 he received his PhD in Economics from the Camilo José Cela University, where he taught Economics.
He worked as an advisor in the European Parliament. He was a member of the cabinet of the High Representative of the United Nations in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In 1993 he joined the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), of which he is its Secretary General.
He was a deputy in the Congress for the district of Madrid and Councillor in the City Council of Madrid.
He was leader of the opposition and candidate for the Presidency of the Government between 2014 and 2016.
He has been President of the Spanish Government since June 2018.
Married and father of two daughters.
Vigil Continues In U.S.
Vigil Continues In U.S. In Honor Of Synagogue Massacre Victims
October 29, 2018.
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
Several U.S. cities were the scene yesterday of vigils in honor of the victims of last Saturday’s mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where 11 people died and six were injured. Several Jewish organizations and interfaith groups held a service at the Adas Israel synagogue on Monday afternoon with the participation of the mayor of Washington, Muriel Bowser; and the governors of the neighboring states of Virginia, Ralph Northam; and Maryland, Larry Hogan. Other religious congregations, such as Temple De Hirsch Sinai and the Jewish Family Service, also organized a prayer service at their Capitol Hill shrine. (PL)
Falls Can and Should be Prevented
ALL ABOUT HEALTH
Falls Can and Should be Prevented
Falling is a geriatric syndrome, a disease; when it becomes recurrent it is clearly giving alarm signals that must be paid attent to.
Author: Lisandra Fariñas Acosta | lisandra@granma.cu
October 28, 2018 20:10:34
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
As we age we must adapt to the environment, which is often a challenge for the performance of activities of daily living, crossing streets, transportation, ant the footwear that is used, can cause of fractures on numerous occasions. Photo: Juvenal Balán
“It took human beings about five million years to learn to walk and only 70 years to fall. This, which humorously may be interesting, should not really be allowed, because falling is not a habitual state. Falling is a geriatric syndrome, a disease. In other words, not everyone falls, because there are people who reach the age of 90 without having suffered any event of this type.
This was explained to Granma by the doctor of the Argentine Association of Orthopedics and Traumatology and member of AO Trauma, Emilio Fantin. He emphasized the need to prevent falls in the elderly, an aspect that is not often thought of. For the expert, it is important not only to know what a fall is, but also to understand why we fall and to evaluate the old person who falls.
Participating in the Seminar AO Trauma “Traumatology in the Elderly”, which was held in recent days in the teaching Fructuoso Rodriguez orthopedic hospital, and included recognized experts from this organization, Dr. Fantin commented that if we take into account that 1 to 5% of falls end in fracture and almost all hip fractures are secondary to them, it is vital to talk about this issue.
After a hip fracture, between 20 and 50% of older people fall again within two to six months of the first fall, so that prevention is once again the key. It happens that of those who fall for the second time, approximately 12% have a new fracture and 5% a hip fracture.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are a thousand hip fractures per million inhabitants. If this figure is taken to the aging population, it is considered that a thousand fractures occur for every 100,000 people over 60 years of age, which would correspond to 10% of this age group.
It is estimated that around 12,000 of these fractures occur annually in Cuba, with resulting costs that they imply for the patients, the family, the health system and society in general.
20.1% of the Cuban population is 60 years of age or older, as shown by data from the Center for Population and Development Studies of the National Office of Statistics and Information. According to the latest Population and Housing Census (2012), 40% of Cuban households are inhabited by older adults. In 32% of them reside up to two or three persons of 60 years or more, so it is very likely that an older adult is caring for the other, and 13% of older adults live alone.
WHEN ARE YOU AT RISK OF FALLING?
The fall causes worries from the first moment, but when it becomes something recurrent (two or more falls in the space of a year) is clearly giving alarm signs that should be addressed, warned the specialist.
At the same time,” said the interviewee, “we must pay more attention when patients tell us “I have no strength, I fall, what can I do?
In Dr. Fantin’s opinion, the first thing is to think that falls are not normal events, because the fact of being old does not necessarily imply falling. Why does it happen? It has to do with physiology and physical structure, loss of bone and muscle mass, and functions such as hearing and sight.
But these aren’t the only causes, he explained. As we age, we must adapt to the environment, which is often aggressive in carrying out the activities of daily living. The streets, the transport, the footwear that is used, derive in reason of fractures in numerous occasions.
With respect to the profile of the older adult who falls and fractures, the professor pointed out that generally they are over 80 years old, there is a poor self-perception of their state of health, cognitive deterioration, that is, of the state of consciousness, and many have depression. To this is added the presence of visual and motor deficits, because a large part of this age group needs help to walk, using walkers, canes or someone who accompanies them.
“Even if we investigate, we can find stories of falls that deny us, or do not tell because they are ashamed. It is very rare for an older person to confess to a child who has fallen. They come to the bathroom with the fracture, but they usually fall for longer: in the early morning when they go to the bathroom, for example. Falls can also be related to the consumption of certain medications and polypharmacy, which can cause fragility and gait disturbances due to unbalance,” he said.
When evaluating a patient at risk of falling, the expert commented that intrinsic and external factors must be taken into account, in addition to others that may precipitate this fact, such as alcohol consumption.
Among the intrinsic causes, diabetes is one of the most frequent, followed by the state of consciousness, that is, dementia, delirium, or depression. A third place is given to diseases where muscle mass decreases, and the fourth element is the female sex, since a greater number of falls occur in women than in men.
Regarding external factors, the interviewee mentioned domestic animals, sidewalks, stairs, public transportation and medication.
“More than four drugs a day are considered polypharmacy, and this is a cause of falls, so making adjustments to prescribed drugs is essential. The older adult is given a medication and it is never taken away, they leave it forever,” explained Dr. Fantin.
In addition, the interviewee pointed to osteoporosis, tobacco use (mainly in women) and vitamin D deficiency, as other elements not to be lost sight of. “Older adults don’t sunbathe regularly, and it’s important to get them out in the sun. The amount of ultraviolet light needed to convert vitamin D, either from the diet or as a medicine, is 10 minutes, you don’t have to go to the beach, and you just have to discover your hands and face.
The ideal,” he said, “is to treat these fractures within 48 hours of their occurrence, which has allowed mortality in the world from this cause to decrease from 30 to 10%.
Particular emphasis was made by the expert in post-cause syndrome. “Whoever falls and fractures is afraid of falling again and the great majority does not return to their previous state. Anxiety disorder is very serious, and there is a tendency to the syndrome called immobility, which can even lead to death. For each day of rest, 1% of body mass is lost,” explained Dr. Fantin, who placed great importance on family support.
It is fundamental that prevention also begins at an earlier age, stimulating, for example, exercises such as the use of bicycles, which are less expensive, ideal for recovering muscles, stimulating the semi-circular ducts of the ears and making it easier for people to have balance, concluded the interviewee.
ACCURACY
– AO Trauma is one of the four clinical subdivisions of the AO Foundation (Working Group to Study Fracture Problems) created in Switzerland in 1958. Its purpose was the integrating and aligning of efforts in research, community development, and education in Traumatology and Orthopedics at the global and regional levels.
– According to Dr. Roberto Balmaseda Manent, secretary of the Cuban Society of Orthopedics and Traumatology, it has been particularly useful for the training and improvement of specialists in this branch.
– About 600 professionals from all regions of the country have had the opportunity to be trained step by step in the courses, workshops and seminars that the Society has organized.
Fear of Competition from RT (Russia Today)
Fear of Competition from RT (Russia Today)
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Author: Julio Martínez Molina | internet@granma.cu
25 October 25, 2018
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
“The closure of RT by authorities in other countries is due to fear of competition,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, October 18, during the international discussion forum Valdái, which hosts Sochi.
Russia Today (RT) has been described since its inception, both in the United States and in some nations, as a “hostile foreign power” or “foreign agent on home soil. In fact, on July 17, it was announced that “the Australian Federal Police has opened a preliminary investigation into the chain as a suspected foreign agent.
The real sense of bitterness – or really fear or hatred – towards the Russian platform is that it is one of the few alternative voices charged with providing angles of analysis different from those provided by the mainstream American media. Organs that, no matter how “anti-Trump” they may seem, are part of the U.S.-owned corporate system.
RT represents one of the few media conglomerates on the planet (two others, bridging differences, would be Telesur in Caracas and Hispan TV in Tehran) that, without bowing to the dictates of the American empire, try to offer an objective global perspective of the local, regional and global political reality.
A balanced vision that weighs multipolar power and the sovereignty of peoples; a vision that deconstructs each deception perpetrated by the lie-repeating apparatus at the service of Washington, that gives voice to otherness and positions itself as an independent entity, cannot be well received by the Yankee powers and their European allies or clones.
The witch-hunt against the Russian station is yet another of the fronts of open war against Moscow, in the political, diplomatic and sports spheres…
Not even at the height of the Iron Curtain did American cinema and television produce as much volume of audiovisual material against Russia as they do today.
The order of the White House was and is to export that hatred. Not surprisingly, in 2016, a European Parliament report compared the “danger” of RussiaToday “with that of the Islamic State”.
The Western aversion to the progressive resurgence of the great Eurasian nation in its economic, military, scientific and communicational capacity is expressed in dissimilar ways. Attacking its website is not the least significant.
The increasing number of people who tune into the RT signal in the world puts the Western think tanks and their corporate media apparatus into a warning position. Thus, the rage against the Russian network is not only expressed in the organs of the United States, but also in a good part of the Europeans.
El País, the most read Spanish newspaper in the Spanish-speaking universe, has the challenge of the web as one of its obligatory daily tasks, along with the daily attack on Venezuela.
Korda’s Militia Woman
Korda’s Militia Woman
Granma today commemorates the 59th anniversary of the National Revolutionary Militias with the story of Idolka Sanchez, the militia face Korda immortalized with his lens in 1962.
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Author: Alejandra García Elizalde | internet@granma.cu
October 25, 2018 21:10:37
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
«La Miliciana». Photo: Alberto Korda
In the crowd of that May 1, 1962, a young photographer focused on the still-adolescent face of Idolka Sánchez as she marched in front of the José Martí Memorial in Havana.
She, one of the nearly 2,000 militiawomen of the Lidia Doce women’s battalion, saw him approach, camera in hand. He didn’t seem to care about anything else. It was as if he had seen her from afar and didn’t want to let her go without obsessively capturing her image. He chose her.
“The man whose name, Korda, I had barely heard, was the same man who, in March 1960, had immortalized Che’s face with his mane in the wind, during the burial of the victims of the La Coubre terrorist attack. He ordered her to “put the machine gun up”. His order was followed by several clicks of his camera and, in a matter of seconds, she disappeared.
When she had forgotten the incident, he returned that same morning. Korda wanted to repeat two new shots. She did not want to capture just one face or one image. He was looking for a symbol, and he found it. The next day the photo went from one end of the island to the other on the cover of the Revolución newspaper.
“I felt an emotion that I cannot describe. It was not vanity, but eternal gratitude. I never thought about the transcendence of that image,” Idolka Sánchez Moreno told Granma.
Fifty-six years after that encounter with Korda, the image known as “La Miliciana” endures. The sun on her face, the severe look focused on the horizon, her embrace to the rifle that points to the sky, the beret tilted …
Today, Idolka preserves the late beauty of the 22-year-old girl who was in those early and intense times of Revolution. “I will never forget that it was a beautiful, clear morning, similar to today. I didn’t expect that it would attract the attention of any photographer, being surrounded by so many women. My main interest that day was the possibility of parading in front of the Commander in Chief,” she says.
It would take years for Idolka and Korda to meet again, after “La Miliciana” became an iconic image and adorned banners, postcards, photographic exhibitions, and appeared on the walls of workplaces and embassies. Few people know that she was the young woman in the photo.
“I remember one day, walking with my sister to work, a woman saw “La Miliciana” hanging in the window of an establishment. She, a few steps away, said, without knowing that we were listening: “Look at that, surely she left the country and yet they have her everywhere. My sister confronted her, but finally we decided to continue on our way.
She joined the Militias as soon as they were created: “I came from a family that supported every step of the revolutionaries through the Sierra, and my destiny could not be any other. I studied Law at the University, I have dedicated all my life to my country and today my two children are photographers”, remembers Idolka.
Almost two decades after that May Day, in 1981, he saw Korda again. Muchacha magazine arranged a reunion between him and “La Miliciana”.
“It was very emotional, but I never expected any recognition. That was his work. I was only an occasional model, discovered in the middle of the parade, one of so many young people who proudly wore the most beautiful of all the costumes, that of the militia.
From that meeting in front of Revolution Square on May 1, 1962, Korda once recalled that “I had been looking for hours with my camera in the crowd. The Lidia Doce women’s battalion attracted me and I captured many gestures. But in revealing only one was the indisputable one: the militia woman with the rifle held high and such a decision in her eyes that I said to myself: this is the Cuban warrior, the woman in the defense of the homeland.
Alberto Díaz Gutiérrez, better known as Alberto Korda (September 14, 1928-May 25, 2001), is one of the great photographers of all time, with a body of work that forms part of the symbolic imaginary of the Cuban Revolution.
“La Miliciana”, the instant that captured the purity and strength of women at an exceptional moment in national history, was one of his most beloved portraits. “It is a photo that will survive us,” said Korda. Future generations will admire our eternally young militia. And so it was.
“I never thought about the transcendence of that image,” confesses Idolka. Photo: José Manuel Correa
Idolka in the meeting with Korda, which was set up by the magazine Muchacha. Photo: Courtesy of the interviewee.
Of John McCain and Other Truths
Of John McCain and Other Truths
The media has reflected that McCain’s wife will be the one to take office in the Senate, a practice that demonstrates the unique logics of American “democracy”.
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Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
John McCain, who ran for president in 2008, with his wife Cindy. Photo: Lasexta.com
He went to war in Vietnam and did so at ease, convinced that by bombing the people of that country he was helping the greatness of the United States, while striking blows against communism, then identified as the Soviet Union.
This is Senator John McCain, who died recently at the age of 81, who at only 31 was a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Navy and on October 26, 1967, during an action against the Vietnamese population, the fighter jet he flew was shot down by a Soviet-made missile during his 23rd mission to the north of the Asian nation.
After their physical disappearance, due to cancer, not a few stories and fables have been spread to the world by the big media. An attempt has even been made to establish a supposed critical stance against the current president, Donald Trump.
Little or nothing, however, is brought to the international community’s attention regarding the war against Vietnam and the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese deaths, many of them from Agent Orange, a toxic chemical used savagely by Washington.
The war in Vietnam – I am sure – scarred this man of war and the system he represented, not only for the five years he was a prisoner of the Vietnamese army. In this regard, the period of time between his death and the broadcast by the media of the most varied lies, exhibits as an example those that stand out in the supposed “torture” that the U.S. military suffered.
Today the mainstream media highlights one aspect of McCain’s posthumous letter, in which he emphasizes the the deceased’s recommendation that Americans not hide behind walls. “It’s a veiled critique of Donald Trump,” reports the northern nation.
It is also recalled that whoever was a candidate in the 2008 elections, had numerous public confrontations with Trump despite being colleagues in the Republican Party. In his posthumous letter he calls for understanding between different positions.
As an example of the media’s treatment of the death, John McCain lived at a time when the political, military and cultural power of the United States was unrivalled in the world.
The Republican senator was born a few years before World War II and came to adulthood at the dawn of the United States becoming a global superpower. “Now he is leaving during what is, perhaps, the twilight of U.S. domination as the nation focuses inward, concerned about the potential risks and challenges of immigration, multilateralism and the global economy,” says Anthony Zurcher, BBC correspondent in Washington, D.C.
Another issue that has not escaped the media hype has to do with the occupation of McCain’s Senate seat and the references that his widow, Cindy, will be the nominee, since an Arizona state law – very “democratic” in the style of the United States, by the way – determines that it is the governor who appoints his replacement until 2020.
Although there has been little time between the death of the former U.S. military man who bombed Vietnam and the media coverage with its excesses and adulterations, would it not be too much to ask that, in moments of recollection like this, at least remember what happened in Vietnam.
Or is it that the truth may be different when it comes to the United States?
Marijuana Legalization
Marijuana Legalization: Know the World Before You Give Yourself to It
About the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking of Drugs and the growing debate over the legalization of the most widely used illicit drug in the world, Granma spoke with the renowned professor Dr. Ricardo A. Gonzalez Menendez, consultant of the service for comprehensive care of addictions at the Havana Psychiatric Hospital and Chairman of the National Medical Ethics Committee.
Author: Lisandra Fariñas Acosta | lisandra@granma.cu
June 25, 2015 23:06:32
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
Photo: Juvenal Balán
For more than 6000 years, the world has known Cannabis sativa and the history of human consumption dates back some 5500 years. Of Asian origin, Cannabis Indicus –its common name- was used for centuries as a textile fiber and its seeds as bird feed. It is marijuana, whose effects were initially considered scarcely dangerous and therapeutically useful, which placed it in the frontline of medications thousands of years ago, but which today are recognized as catastrophic.
It seems paradoxical that in the 21st Century, “the debate over this plant and its effects resembles that of 2000 years ago, the date of Proverbs that clearly indicate divided opinions. For some, marijuana was a passport to paradise, while for others it was a plant that grew along the road to hell. It is extremely worrying that we are now at the same point, when marijuana is a hard drug which is included, along with alcohol and other substances, among the first psychoactive substances capable of significantly transforming human behavior.”
Marijuana is a hard drug which is included, together with alcohol and others, among the first psychoactive substances capable of significantly transforming human behavior.”
This reflection was given to Granma by Dr. Ricardo A. Gonzalez Menendez, consultant of the service for comprehensive care of addictions at Havana Psychiatric Hospital and Chair of the National Medical Ethics Committee when commenting on the current trend around “the ghost” of legalizing marijuana, the most widely-used illegal drug in the whole world.
With over 30 years experience in the treatment and detoxification of addicts, the professor said it was urgent to destroy myths with facts that are established science. There is enough up to date scientific information on the outbreak of schizophrenia, cognitive impairment, carcinogenicity and sudden violence caused by marijuana consumption.
“One argument that has contributed to the legalizing trend is the therapeutic properties attributed to the plant. The list of positive effects range from the attenuation of nausea and vomiting associated with cytostatic serums in cancer patients receiving chemotherapy, references to some decrease in seizure frequency and the intraocular pressure in glaucoma cases, up to analgesic effects and appetite control as well as tranquilizing action, despite being one of the drugs most associated with symptoms of acute anxiety or panic,” said the expert.
Although the macroeconomic and social impact of organized crime is indisputable, proponents of legalization, cannot, by their professional profile, assess the impact at home, work and community of the cerebral effects of this drug that blocks the rational brain and releases the more primitive structures and functions”
Precisely –he said– what happens is that for all these cases there are specific and more effective medications with the huge advantage of being much safer when applying the ethical principle of risk-benefit. “Marijuana, like tobacco, alcohol and all the hard drugs are not isolated and purified active principles, but mixtures of hundreds of chemicals with different effects, often opposite and usually harmful. From this, it follows that the use of the drug as medicine would require a pharmacological high-tech process to demonstrate, separate and produce adequate presentations for consumption, dosage and control of both positive and adverse effects. The final product would be tablets, vials or eye drops and not the absolutely anti-medical way that has been proposed for its use, which is the traditional form of illegal consumption simply growing and smoking marijuana either in the form of leaves, flowers and stems, as resin (hashish) or oil obtained through the same procedures as those used by narco producers and drug traffickers.”
The interviewee said that many honestly think that legalizing this drug is a solution –among them people with high human qualities, but with limited knowledge of the neuro-psycho-physical pathology and the personal, home and community impact of behavior modifying drugs, as well as the micro-paradigms of risk-benefit and accessibility–consumption implicit in such a measure. “They do not know the true face of drugs. Few have been able to interview a patient who feels enslaved wanting to stop using and being powerless, nor a desperate mother who has gone out with a gun to kill the seller who supplied his son, and who is a codependent, almost passive consumer hurt by the addict’s suffering.”
There is enough up-to-date scientific information on the outbreak of schizophrenia, cognitive impairment, carcinogenicity and sudden violence caused by marijuana consumption.”
For Dr. González Menéndez, the contradiction between these two tendencies is not based on lack of human values or the dubious ethics of the proponents, but in lack of knowledge. “Although the macro-economic and social impact of organized crime is indisputable, proponents of legalization cannot by their professional profile, assess the impact at home, work and community of the cerebral effects of this drug, that blocks the rational brain and frees the most primitive structures and functions. It is also naive to expect a reduction of consumption by eliminating the ”attraction of the forbidden” he remarked.
“Consuming marijuana before age 18 reduces up to 10 IQ points, and that is irreversible”
If marijuana is an illegal drug (like many others) it is not by chance but because the extensive damage it causes has been established. “The myth that it is a soft drug without determinant effects of addiction and dependency must be destroyed. Far from it, the percentage of consumers who become addicted and dependent, the little time it takes for that slavery to settle in and the great risks to determine symptoms of irreversible intellectual impairment, treatment-resistant schizophrenia, cannibalistic behaviors and cancer manifestations make marijuana quite hard and destructive drug which can by no means be underestimated. It produces moderate dementia with memory and learning difficulties in adolescents, especially those who began to consume early,” he said.
Professor González Menéndez argues that in today’s science, it is irrefutable what happens in the brain of a human being under the influence of these drugs. “Drugs that modify behavior in a relevant way, that is, from alcohol on, have immediate effects. In mid- and long terms, when consumption is addictive and prolonged, they cause impulsive and irrational instinctive-affective behaviors that are exclusive to animals. This has very little to do with the humanism, ethics and spirituality that everyone expects. “
It is marijuana –even more than the non-social use of alcohol– the true prototype of the “Russian roulette” metaphor in which no one can know for sure when the bullet will fall into the chamber; and when that happens, the effects are usually fatal
“The misuse of these substances implies a profound moral degradation, with the potential to become chronic in the individual case, but it has a generalization potential that would turn it into a macro-social phenomenon of very high relevance, because, when sober, our behavior is cognitive, volitional, rational and controlled. This also brings down the belief that marijuana does not generate violence or criminality. “
The history of these 6000 years of living with marijuana has given exemplary lessons.
Clinical and research experience shows that the much-propagandized ‘consumer placidity’ often and unpredictably is transformed into extreme violence. Therefore, marijuana –even more than the non-social use of alcohol– is the true prototype of the “Russian roulette” metaphor: no one can know with certainty when the bullet falls into the chamber, and when this happens, the effects are usually fatal.
LEARNING FROM SCIENCE AND HISTORY
The history of these 6000 years of living with marijuana has given exemplary lessons. Our interviewee remembers that in the early eighteenth century there was an English doctor, O’Shaughnessy, who traveled to India and returned amazed at marijuana’s analgesic properties. He was so enthusiastic that with his influence he managed to get marijuana introduced in the pharmacopoeia of his country. This trend reached the United States. A decade later, England declared it was a mistake to have this substance (“a product with so many dangers”) in their list of medications. A few years later, the United States eliminated it and subsequently, India did the same.
Finally, since 1971, the use of cannabis was controlled through the “Illicit Drugs Act” which prohibited the medical use of both the weed and its active constituents. Its nefarious actions on the human body had eclipsed its possible medical uses. This criterion was emphatically endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1997, recognizing that cannabis adversely affects mental health.
The legalization of marijuana is far from being an accurate blow to drug trafficking, and so, as organized crime, how long would it take to replace and compensate the product for other designer drugs?
Physician Jacques Moreau, quoted by Escohotado, had described in 1973 his experiences resulting from the self-administration of an infusion of Sativa Cannabis flowers. He described eight main symptoms observed under the influence of the substance: “Unexplained feelings of happiness, dissociation of ideas, errors in assessing time and space, exacerbation of hearing, fixed ideas, disturbance of emotions, irresistible impulses and delusions or hallucinations”. He suggested that, in some cases, the intoxication caused by this drug could be considered a pattern of psychiatric illness.
The idea that ending the ban would end the lure of the forbidden, and reduce consumption, is absolutely anti-historic. The specialist says that it would be enough to remember London in 1751 when a phenomenon called the gin epidemic inspired Hogarth’s Gin Alley engraving. The work is expressive of the catastrophic effects derived from a certain overproduction of grains diverted to the production of the most genuine and legal drink of the time in that country. A 90% reduction of gin’s price created a flood of eager buyers who –as shown in the engraving– committed every imaginable crime. The consumption of this drink was multiplied by more than five and the tragedy transpired to this day.
Dr. González Menéndez says the legalization of marijuana is far from being a real blow to drug trafficking because organized crime would soon replace the product and compensate with other designer drugs. Can we ignore the consequent risk of a chain of effects that in the long run would make us face the dilemma of having to legalize all drugs, and the resulting immediate extinction of the human species?
The specialist says that the trend –defended by many on the grounds of the right of each person to choose how to live their lives– imposes a reflection: “Doesn’t that right end where the rights of others begin? And what about the cost to the family, and bystanders who die in traffic accidents due to marijuana or other drugs such as ecstasy? Isn’t legalization of marijuana a first step, by necessity consistent with the promotional efforts of health and healthy lifestyles, the promotion of moral values, of prevention of disease and crime, as well as the creation of a better world? Can we thus achieve cultures of higher spirituality, and dismissive of the consumption of substances that degrade our biological, psychological, social and cultural well-being? Can the problem of drug abuse be solved by legalizing consumption without creating truly effective multi-sector systems for the care and comprehensive solution of the multiple effects of drug abuse?”
We live in a world where young people tend to experiment. We fear legalization will determine most unfavorable results once the drug is free from family, school and community censure –together with the higher addictive nature of marijuana compared to alcohol.
Tobacco and alcohol should have taught us something. If with only two legal drugs in the world we lose more than nine million lives each year, do we need another legal drug? Drugs –that do not respect anything, not age or gender, or skin color or culture, ideology, sexual preference or philosophical position– open the doors to more drugs. The success of anti-drug programs depends on our awareness that these toxic substances are a system of substances that associate and reinforce their actions. This demands the indispensable confrontation with all its categories. We must remember the universal principle that the greater the access, the greater the consumption.
http://www.granma.cu/cuba/2015-06-25/conoce-el-mundo-antes-de-darte-a-el
Development without drugs
According to the World Drug Report 2014, the use of these substances continues to cause considerable damage, reflected in the loss of valuable lives and the productive years of many people.
Author: Lisandra Fariñas Acosta | lisandra@granma.cu
June 26, 2015 00:06:46
This new International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking -–a day that humanity celebrates every June 26– is dedicated to development for our lives, our communities, and our identity in a world without drugs.
This date established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1987, serves to remind the target agreed by the Member States of the United Nations to create an international society where drugs are not misused. According to the World Drug Report 2014, the use of these substances continues to cause considerable damage, reflected in the loss of valuable lives and the productive years of many people.
“In 2012 an approximate total of 183 000 drug-related deaths were reported (variation margin 95 000-226 000). That figure corresponds to a mortality rate of 40,0 (variation margin: 20.8 to 49.3) deaths per million in the population between 15 and 64 years,” refers the document.
Although this calculation is less than 2011 figures; this reduction can be attributed to the lower number of deaths reported by some countries in Asia.
According to the statistics in this global report it is estimated that in 2012 between 162 and 324 million people, i.e. 3.5% to 7.0% of the population between 15 and 64 years, consumed illicit drugs – mainly cannabis group substances, opium derivatives, cocaine and amphetamine-type stimulants– at least once.
This Friday, June 26, the United Nations reminds everyone that we all have a role to play in protecting youth from dangerous substances.
http://www.granma.cu/cuba/2015-06-26/desarrollo-sin-drogas
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:
Message on International Day
against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking
26 June 2015
VIENNA, 26 June (UN Information Service) – In September, leaders from around the world will meet at the United Nations to adopt an ambitious new sustainable development agenda to eradicate extreme poverty and provide a life of dignity for all. This ambition, while achievable, must address various obstacles, including the deadly harm to communities and individuals caused by drug trafficking and drug abuse.
Our shared response to this challenge is founded on the international drug control conventions. In full compliance with human rights standards and norms, the United Nations advocates a careful re-balancing of the international policy on controlled drugs. We must consider alternatives to the criminalization and incarceration of people who use drugs and focus criminal justice efforts on those involved in supply. We should increase the focus on public health, prevention, treatment and care, as well as on economic, social and cultural strategies.
We must address the nexus between illicit drugs and violence, corruption and terrorism. A balanced approach recognizes the close connections between those who traffic in drugs and criminal networks involved in firearms smuggling, kidnapping, human trafficking and other crimes. This work must also include redoubling efforts to prevent the supply of the precursor chemicals that are the foundation of so many illicit drugs.
Promoting international cooperation through the UN conventions on transnational organized crime and corruption is essential to addressing today’s security and development challenges. No criminal should escape justice. The balanced approach calls for unity of purpose within the international community, including the UN, civil society and, most importantly, the world’s nations. No country can work in isolation. Comprehensive and integrated efforts at the local, regional and global levels offer the best hope for dealing with the traffickers, while taking care to protect vulnerable groups and marginalized communities.
Efforts against illicit drugs must be connected to our work to promote opportunities through equitable and sustainable development. We must continually strive to make the weak and fragile stronger. The United Nations General Assembly special session on the world drug problem, to be held in April 2016, can advance this cause, with countries sharing knowledge and forging common solutions.
On the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, let us raise awareness about the value of applying a balanced approach to these problems based on an understanding that sustainable development can and must catalyze change across all these fronts.
Original print edition in PDF:
http://www.granma.cu/file/pdf/2015/06/26/G_2015062604.pdf
http://www.granma.cu/file/pdf/2015/06/26/G_2015062605.pdf
Fidel Castro on his mother Lina
Lina
“Tell me about your mother”, was the request of journalist Ignacio Ramonet to Fidel
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Author: Fidel Castro Ruz | internet@granma.cu
August 12, 2018 18:08:16
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
Extraordinarily hardworking, there was no detail that escaped her observation, Fidel said of his mother. Photo: Office of Historical Affairs
She brought into the world seven children, all born in that house, always assisted by a rural midwife. There was never and could never be a doctor there, it did not exist in all that remote region. No one tried so hard to get her children to study, she wanted for them what she didn’t have. Without her, I, who always felt the pleasure of studying, would still be functionally illiterate today. My mother, even if she didn’t say it every minute, loved her children. She had character, she was brave and self-sacrificing. He knew how to bear with integrity and without hesitation the sufferings that some of us involuntarily caused her.
Ángel Castro and Lina Ruz, Fidel’s parents. Photo: Office of Historical Affairs
She accepted the Agrarian Reform and the distribution of those lands, which she undoubtedly loved, without bitterness.
Extremely religious in her faith and beliefs, which I have always respected, she found comfort in her sorrow as a mother, and she also accepted with motherly love the Revolution for which she suffered so much, without having had the slightest possibility of knowing the history of humanity and the deepest causes that the events she experienced so closely in Cuba and in the world originated, due to her origin as a humble poor peasant woman.
Lina at her home in Birán. Photo: Office of Historical Affairs
She died on August 6, 1963, three and a half years after the triumph of the Revolution.
Cuba hands over US citizen sought by Interpol
Cuba hands over US citizen sought by Interpol
On Thursday, August 9, the Government of Cuba handed over to the authorities of the United States government the US citizen Joseph Mahmoud Dibee, who is wanted by the US justice system and who is also subject to an Interpol arrest warrant with a Red Alert.
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The Government of Cuba handed over to U.S. government authorities on Thursday, August 9, the U.S. citizen Joseph Mahmoud Dibee, who is wanted by the U.S. justice system and who is the subject of an Interpol arrest warrant with a Red Alert, the daily Juventud Rebelde reports.
Author: Digital Editor | internet@granma.cu
August 11, 2018 10:08:20
Information published on the CubaMinrex website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cuba details the following:
On 9 August 2018, the Cuban government handed over to United States government authorities in Havana a US citizen wanted by the US justice system for crimes committed there, who is also facing an Interpol arrest warrant with a Red Alert. This citizen entered the national territory on July 31, 2018.
This action is based on Cuba’s strict compliance with its international legal obligations and existing bilateral agreements with the United States on compliance and enforcement, and the cooperation that both Governments are developing on that front.
Interpol’s Red Alerts refer to people who are being sought by national jurisdictions. What it stipulates is the arrest or provisional arrest of the persons sought for extradition. The legal basis for issuing a Red Alert order is the arrest warrant or judicial decision issued by the judicial authorities of the interested country.
New Face of Palestinian Resistance
Ahed Tamimi, the new face of Palestinian Resistance
The 16-year-old girl arrested by the Israeli army two weeks ago has become a symbol of Palestinian resistance.
Author: Ernesto J. Gómez Figueredo | internet@granma.cu
January 5, 2018 01:01:52
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
The international campaign for the liberation of Tamimi, the new flag against imperialist policy in the Middle East. Photo: PalestineFree Photo: Palestinalibre
With curly, thin, brave hair, that’s the image of Ahed Tamimi, the 16-year-old girl arrested by the Israeli army two weeks ago who has become a symbol of Palestinian resistance.
An Israeli military court charged the teenager with 12 crimes after the incident in which she slapped a Zionist army soldier after he entered her backyard.
Thanks to his family’s filming of the events, images of his resistance went around the world.
Tamimi is one of many minors arrested by the Zionist army for the purpose of being “interrogated” about alleged illegal activities. Army spokesmen confirmed that Ahed is charged with “assaulting a soldier”.
“She argued with the Zionist Defense Forces because her cousin Mohammad, 15, had been shot,” her father said. The Israeli version is that they were “throwing stones”.
According to the Committee for Palestinian Prisoners’ Affairs, the number of Palestinians detained by Israeli security forces since US President Donald Trump declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel on 6 December has risen to 610, including 170 minors.
The young woman lives in Nabi Saleh, 20 kilometers from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. He claims he wants them to see them as fighters, not victims. “Ahed says she does what any Palestinian child does, but she is filmed,” her father said in an article in the Haaretz newspaper.
“I do not want to be identified as a victim, and I will not give your actions the power to define who I am and will be. I choose to decide for myself how you will see me. We don’t want your support because of photogenic tears, but because we choose the fight and the fight is fair. This is going to be the only way we will ever stop crying,” wrote the father, reproducing Ahed’s words.
Tamimi is already an international heroine of the Palestinian cause and after her arrest her mother and cousin were also arrested.
The arrest of the Tamimi family was like the fire that awaited the sleeping powder of the international community to react. For days now, social networks have been flooded with messages calling for the release of mother, daughter and cousin, under the labels #FreeAhedTamimi and #LibertadAhedTamimi.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called Ahed’s father, Basem Tamimi, a Fatah militant, and praised the family for “the key role” in the protests in his people against the Israeli occupation and settlements, according to an official statement.
“I can’t think about the future because the Israeli occupation prevents me from thinking about it. When I went to play in the streets, the army would come in and start shooting,” she said.
The international campaign for the liberation of Ahed Tamimi is a new flag against imperialist policy in the Middle East and highlights the crimes committed by the Zionist regime.