Granma 275
Speculators of Dishonesty
Speculators of Dishonesty
On the website of our newspaper, readers denounce, in addition to the resales, the effects suffered by the environment for their “campsites” in parks and sidewalks that count among papers and cans their shameless.
By Walkiria Juanes Sánchez
walkiriajuanessanchez@gmail.com
July 27, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Queues and “coleros” abound in these months of COVID-19 in Cuba. Photo: Jose M. Correa
Queues and “coleros” abound in these months of COVID-19 in Cuba. They move in full view of everyone: those who mark two and three times, for several people, with the aim of selling their stuff to those who can pay high prices for rushing their time to buy. And there are also those who whisper in your ear that they have whatever you want (wet wipes, baby wipes, chicken, picadillo, oil, splits, refrigerators…), but only if you are willing to pay double, triple or who knows what number in CUC above their price in state stores. Then, to expand the resale, they even use the internet.
Like a ray of light in the midst of the global crisis, with its impacts on the internal market and the economic persecutions due to the blockade that increases the national crisis, a note from the Ministry of the Interior recently revived public debate on the subject, stating that more than 1,285 “coleros” had been sanctioned in Cuba since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In view of this figure, which in the opinion of some will increase if the gravity of the situation is taken into account, the indolence of people without social commitment, dedicated to the transfer of products necessary for families, in the midst of a context of lack of supplies and national health emergency, comes to public attention.
One could come to doubt the humanity of these beings who, moved by individualism, forget that children, the elderly, pregnant women and the sick will not have the opportunity to obtain what they need.
On our newspaper’s website, readers denounce, in addition to the resalers, the effects suffered by the environment due to their “camping” in parks and sidewalks that count among papers and cans their shamelessness.
In the case of the severity of the sanctions that these individuals receive, diverse were the petitions to correct, energetically, these types of acts. Remember, the majority of those punished by the law only received fines of one hundred to 300 quotas, a minimum amount compared to the profits generated by the collapse of the sales system in the stores and the hoarding of products.
The so-called “lists”, supposedly created to organize the queues with tickets, numbers and shifts, also cover up the activity of the “coleros”, many of whom are the same organizers of the queues in the shops from the early hours of the morning.
If the authorities already have an identity card scanning system that allows for the order and control of this process, it should be used in the best possible way so as not to leave places available for other modalities.
Control within the stores should also be improved. An efficient service depends, in addition, on the organization and rapidity at the time of collecting the products, the personalized treatment to the client and the administrative vigilance towards the workers, demands that are frequently repeated.
Some people have proposed the use of the ration book [the libreta] as a mechanism to control the distribution of products in times of crisis like these. Something that has already been explained, since the country does not have the millions of dollars needed to carry out such a distribution.
Many other citizens request a greater supply in the stores, despite the effort that it means for the country to maintain them and in view of which alternatives for their re-supply have been generated.
The issue is not new. Among the greatest discontent is that the coleros still exist and cloud a trade already hit by the crisis and the economic, commercial and financial blockade of the United States. The cooperation of all could be the key to success in putting an end to the speculators, but greater control and a more effective complaint mechanism are needed, The will of the people is evident.
Belarus and the Rearview Mirror…
Belarus and the need for a rearview mirror…
Now that Belarus is facing a plot from the West, the warning to avoid the worst may be a reflective look at what happened in neighboring Ukraine, or what is being attempted to impose on Bolivarian Venezuela, or more recently, the coup against suffering Bolivia, after years of vindication and boom
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Author: Elson Concepción Pérez | internet@granma.cu
August 31, 2020 22:08:46
Also in politics there is the rear-view mirror, the one that must be observed at every moment, if the destinies of a country are being conducted, to warn when a premeditated collision can attack a work.
Now that Belarus is facing a plot from the West, the warning to avoid the worst may be a reflexive look at what happened in neighboring Ukraine, or what is being tried to impose in Bolivarian Venezuela, or more recently, the blow against suffering Bolivia, after years of vindication and boom.
Let’s look at the examples. First of all, Venezuela, which on Sunday, May 20, 2018, democratically and transparently elected Nicolás Maduro as president.
According to the National Electoral Council (CNE), with over 98% of the ballots counted, Maduro obtained 6,190,612 votes (67.8%), while in second place was the opposition candidate and former Governor Henri Falcón, with 1,917,036 votes (21%).
The plan planned from Washington was then applied: to ignore the elections and the elected president.
A few months later, on January 23, 2019, in the midst of the chaos created by terrorist groups encouraged by radical sectors of the opposition, Juan Guaidó proclaimed himself interim president of Venezuela. Quickly the government of Donald Trump, the Organization of American States (OAS) of Luis Almagro, the so-called “Lima Group”, an appendix of the latter, and other governments, mainly European, “recognized” the impostor Guaidó.
However, courage, dignity and political guidance, have put up a retaining wall, headed by civil-military unity, which the empire fears so much.
In the case of Bolivia, general elections were held on October 20, 2019. With 100 % of the votes counted, Evo Morales obtained an irrevocable victory in the first round, with 47.08 % in his favor, while his rival, Carlos Mesa, reached 36.51 %.
Then, a divided opposition burst in with all its strength, but capable of uniting in efforts such as that of removing Morales from power. With the support of military and oligarchic sectors, opposition groups with a fascist tendency took to the streets. Meanwhile the OAS, with its Secretary-General Luis Almagro at the head, and fulfilling a script prepared by the US State Department, questioned the results and encouraged chaos and repression against the party in power and its leaders, in the first place against President Evo Morales, who had to leave the country.
Then came the verification of the votes at the polls and the confirmation by international entities of their total transparency. But the coup d’état was already underway and a de facto government was taking power. In the case of Belarus, the script prepared by the West was no different. Presidential elections were held and when the vote was counted, the current president, Alexander Lukashenko, obtained 80.23% of the votes, while the opposition candidate Svetlana Tijanovskaya, only received 9.9% of the votes.
The difference was overwhelming and convincing, but, as Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week, everything was ready long before the election results were known.
Using NATO as a threatening military force, men and means of combat have been moved to Poland’s borders with Belarus, and to the also neighboring republics of Lithuania and Latvia, as sounding boards to incite bewilderment. Washington has moved its military from bases in Germany to Poland and has applied sanctions and threat mechanisms similar to those used in the cases cited in this commentary.
The European Union, too, which has ignored the election results without any real evidence, is already demonstrating this practice of sanctioning those who do not submit to what the West says.
As happened in Ukraine in 2014, the world must know that the plan prepared by the United States is directed against Russia, and for that reason, they want to cut economic, military, family and other ties. This is done under the false pretext of extricating Moscow’s influence in nations that were once part of the then Soviet Union, and that have a strong bond with Russia.
Putin warned that “his nation cannot observe with indifference what is happening in Belarus, because it is a very similar country in linguistic, cultural and religious aspects, and many others”.
“The problems that have arisen today in Belarus must be solved peacefully”, “or with the support of Russian force, if necessary”, Putin assured.
Rosa Luxemburg: A Rose Plucked by Betrayal
FROM THE LEFT
A Rose Plucked by Betrayal
The death of Rosa Luxemburg marked the final step of world social democracy towards treason; it was not only a crime committed with full consciousness of its historical significance, but orchestrated in pursuit of a class hegemonism of the German workers bourgeoisie and big capital, allied after the defeat in the First World War.
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
The Rose was plucked, but not hope. Photo: rosalux.org.ec
The death of Rosa Luxemburg marked the last step of world social democracy towards treason. It was not only a crime committed with full consciousness of its historical significance, but it was orchestrated in function of a class hegemonism over the German working class by the bourgeois workers and big capital. They were allied after the defeat in World War I, to build a new right-wing order, the hard state of National Socialism (Nazi), which would lead Europe towards its dissolution as the center of the world.
In the cold dawn of January 15, 1919, Red Rosa wrote her last lines on the problem of the Revolution on the continent. And, although with pessimism, she referred to the hope that the masses would one day awaken from the nationalist and revenge lethargy hovering over the humiliated Germany of the time, and so the Revolution would show its true strength by saying: “I was, I am and I will be.”
POLAND
Being born in a country occupied by Russians, Germans and Austrians made Rosa Luxemburg look at the national question with distrust. The most “revolutionary” she heard from many of the insurgents against foreign power was based on the restoration of the Polish feudal state of the 15th and 16th centuries. At that time it represented in Europe one of the purest reminiscences of the landowner’s system of servitude. That political creature, impervious to the ideas of the French Revolution, was devoured by three modern and authoritarian states that contained the nascent germ of capital.
For Rosa, then, the national question was a setback and she based her appraisals on the need to internationalize the socialist and workers’ underground movement, as a way to quickly win the emancipation of the oppressed classes. Living later in Germany, a country that based its strength as capital on the unity built by Bismarck, convinced her that nationalism only engendered steps backward on the road to a Revolution that, given the state of things at the end of the 19th century, seemed imminent.
In fact, in Germany the Social Democratic Party became the strongest and most numerous left party in the world, generating expectations in all revolutionaries. The very advance of this force in parliament provoked the removal of ultra-conservative and monarchical elements from the public sphere. But it also favored the establishment of pacts between that left and the central power of the State. It was the beginning of the historical betrayal of social democracy from Marxist socialism.
Rosa, who never felt Polish – much less German – encouraged this powerful left to extend eastwards, capturing countries under the aegis of old feudal empires, such as Russia. She saw in the mass movement of 1905 against the Tsar the beginning of the end of the crowned heads and the other European Caesars. However, the pragmatism of leaders and ideologues of social democracy, such as Karl Kautsky, would clash with Luxembourg’s theory of socialism as a new culture, whose idea is placed beyond nationalism.
For Kautsky, the struggle against capital was one of “attrition,” inasmuch as strikes were only intended to move power momentarily, but never to bring about its downfall, and the young socialist movement “would not know what to do with the vacuum of authority.” But she [Rosa] saw in this what it was: an unprecedented concession to conservative power by the leadership of a party that was beginning to abandon its foundations, while reviewing Marx’s thesis 11 on Feuerbach (Transforming the World). Historical facts demonstrated the lucidity of the Polish revolutionary, as opposed to Kautsky’s reformism, in heated and dangerous polemics.
THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC VOTE IN FAVOR OF THE EMPIRE
Many of those who, at the height of the 21st century, are surprised by the anti-popular cutback policies applied by the non-Marxist European left, forget that this betrayal began a long time ago. Perhaps it is not a bad memory, but a voluntary forgetfulness in order not to recognize the cynicism with which the revolutionary question has been handled since then by elements [who have] sold out to the interests of capital.
Marx warned that the original accumulation product of the plundering of the third world gave the European workers (a part of them) the possibility of becoming bourgeois and, therefore, defending interests far from total emancipation, guided only towards a nationalist, local question of the selfish improvement of their living conditions. The European worker will thus support not only a conservative pseudo-socialism, but also the hard fascist who guarantees a middle-class standard of living, as we are seeing in today’s Europe.
That is exactly the explanation of German social democracy, the model on which that same continental tendency was built during the Cold War (1945-1991), as a wild card against the Marxist socialism of Eastern Europe.
Social democracy should not surprise us, because since the beginning of the First World War, the budget for the Army was approved in the German parliament. [It was] the same [army] that would kill workers and peasants of the other rival imperialist nations of Europe. That fact marked Rosa Luxemburg’s distance when she founded the Spartacus League, the germ of the German Communist Party, which would be hated by social democrats, ultranationalists and monarchists alike.
The German failure in the trenches, which showed the impossibility of the “confluence” project. It put the country on the verge of total civil war, with revolutionary forces ready to drive for power. However, years of social-democratic government and conservative trade unions that agreed with the existing powers prevented the necessary unity of action.
A poster placed in every corner of Berlin appealed, in those hungry early morning hours of December 1918: “Whoever wants bread, let him bring the head of Rosa Luxemburg”. The black legend of Nazism began by blaming the revolutionary socialists for national disaster, as it would later do with the Jews. Worst of all, this poster was sent to hang by the president of the Republic and leader of the social democratic party, Rosa’s former comrade.
Days later, a group of Freikcorps (antecedents of the Nazi SS assault troops) advanced on a lonely 47-year-old woman, who had her skull smashed with rifle butts, and then threw her blood-dripping body into a Berlin canal. A Spartacist comrade sent an obituary to Lenin, leader of Bolshevik Russia, saying that she “took her revolutionary condition to the extreme.’
The Rose was uprooted, but not hope, much less History.
Cuba is Serious and Proactive
VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Cuba’s Work is Serious and Proactive
“The leadership that the FMC has today to exalt women before themselves and society is focused on such purposes as: the conquest of women’s autonomy in all areas, the deconstruction of prejudices and stereotypes, against all forms of discrimination and oppression that restrict their development, their freedom and wound their dignity as human beings. This is a strength to fight and do, in an organized and committed way, for non-violence against women”.
Author: Dilbert Reyes Rodríguez | dilbert@granma.cu
August 22, 2020 01:08:10
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Illustration: UN Women Photo: Unknown 2020 01:08:10
Not even the largest catalogue of possible courtesies is enough to erase the trace of a single deliberate act of gender-based violence against a woman.
Calling such acts abhorrent does not accept a single minute of debate. It is more important to make better use of all the opportunities – highly potential – that we, as an organized country, and with a declared political and governmental will, have to proactively and speedily confront the scourge.
It is well known that there are cultural roots that complicate and prolong this war’, that there are different, concrete and subjective obstacles, and it is also well known that there are hunters of the naïve who are betting on taking advantage of these slopes in order to push Cubans against each other under the skin of sheep and in order to divide us.
President Díaz-Canel himself has repeated it: “In matters of law and society, they have not given up on the search for points of rupture in national unity, magnifying the possible dissent on sensitive issues such as egalitarian marriage, racism, violence against women, or the mistreatment of animals, to mention a few, in all of which we are working seriously to resolve centuries of debt that only the Revolution in power has faced with unquestionable progress.
There will be no lack of those who, once again, contract with the hackneyed accusation of “politicizing everything”, in order to distract the arguments that explain, clearly and from within, that the country is not sitting idly by on an issue as sensitive as violence against women. But since there are words that have their backing in deeds, Granma tackles the issue with Dr. Mayda Alvarez Suarez, director of the Center for Women’s Studies (CEM).
-How have actions been taken in recent years to reduce violence against women?
-There have been many debates over these years, with the aim of making the existence of violence against women in our country visible and understanding its causes, combating stereotypes and placing the issue in the development of essential policies. Important experiences of orientation, prevention, telephone help lines and protection programs have also been carried out in different territories; but we are far from feeling satisfied because we cannot forget that the phenomenon has deep roots in the patriarchy, in societies characterized for centuries by the existence of unequal, unequal and power-based relationships. It is still there, manifested in thought and relationships in couples, families, workplaces, public places, where it is not always perceived as such, nor confronted and attended to as it should and is necessary.
“Male chauvinist concepts, prejudices, sexist stereotypes persist and are reproduced in our society, anywhere and at any level, and although there have been changes in assessments and ideas about violence, which were found by the National Survey on Gender Equality – conducted in 2016 by CEM, the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) and the Centre for Population and Development Studies of the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI) – we were also able to reveal which ones remain, continue to hinder further progress and are at the root of existing inequalities.
“At present, the vast majority of Cubans do not justify violence against women or men, nor do they blame women for acts of violence (mistreatment or rape) and reject the idea that women should bear it.
“However, in a part of the population there are still criteria that contribute to sustaining and perpetuating violence against women. The most entrenched are: alcohol consumption is the cause, the woman who endures the abuse is because she likes it, most women withdraw the complaint, and consider the violence a private matter. These criteria become justifications for not intervening or denouncing the acts of violence”.
-Are there results that allow us to characterize an effective advance in the reduction of violence against women?
-The First Conference of the Communist Party of Cuba, held in 2012, before the National Survey was carried out, had already declared that there was a confrontation with prejudices and discrimination of all kinds that still persist in the heart of society. In particular, in its objective No. 55, it explicitly states that it will “raise the level of rejection of gender and domestic violence and that which is manifested in the communities.
“Among the main achievements of the current phase, the new Constitution of the Republic stands out, which expands and strengthens the protection of rights, particularly those of women and girls.
“The recognition of the right to a life free of violence (Articles 43, 85 and 86), the commitment to address it, ratifies the importance of prevention and enhances the mandatory responsibility of the State in the implementation of legal standards, public policies and the improvement of protection mechanisms for victims. At present, a process is under way to harmonize the new articles of the Constitution with various legislations that will allow its effective implementation, for example, the modification and updating of the Family Code, which will be brought to a process of popular consultation and referendum. The Criminal Code is also being analysed and amendments are being suggested.
“The Standing Committee on Children’s and Youth Affairs and Women’s Rights of the National Assembly of People’s Power is an important ally in promoting compliance with the Cuban State’s agenda for the advancement of Cuban women and in monitoring its implementation.
“In order to assess the progress made in reducing violence against women, better records are needed of the acts of violence that are detected and dealt with, and of their follow-up and solution. Ongoing statistics are needed to make it possible to compare, over time, the increase or decrease in cases, the prevalence and incidence of violence in a given population, and its frequency and severity, among other indicators.
“There is also a need to carry out periodic surveys on violence against women, which would allow for its systematic evaluation in selected periods and data of international comparability”.
-How much more do you think can be done, under the current conditions, to accelerate the change of such behaviours in the country?
-Above all, it is urgent to perfect ways, procedures, mechanisms, protocols of action in the institutions involved and everything necessary to attend, immediately, with respect and without prejudice, to the victims of violence, and to apply the law rigorously to those who commit these acts.
“Improving the presence of the subject in the laws in force, which are currently in the process of being modified, is also very important. However, my personal opinion is that we would benefit from a specific and comprehensive law on violence against women, which contemplates all the measures and sanctions that already appear in existing laws, and others that need to be enacted.
“Regarding macho conceptions and stereotypes, everything that is done to generate transformations in subjectivity is key: creative communication products, adequately focused from a gender perspective, training courses, community and face-to-face debates, the use of social networks
“Essential is the training in gender and violence to decision makers and lawyers because of the importance of their role in this issue, the insertion in curricula, in the training of educators, communication specialists, among other actors.
“Exchanging experiences with other countries, both to research and to confront and address in practice these facts, adapting them to our context, is also very useful, since violence against women is a global problem.
“On the other hand, the FMC has valued the need to increase the confrontation to the facts of violence in the communities, from our base structures and, for that, to raise the level of training of our leaders and collaborators of the Women and Family Orientation Houses. From the fmc, we have always affirmed that the most important thing is not that there are many or few of them, but that whenever there is a woman who is violated, she is well cared for and her rights are defended.
-What strengths exist to confront this?
-We have the political will of our Party and Government. The confrontation with violence is endorsed in the programmatic documents of the Party and in the Constitution. Instruments such as the Family Code, which was approved in 1975 and is in the process of being modified as I mentioned earlier. There’s also the National Plan of Action to follow up on the agreements of the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1997, contain principles and actions to guarantee gender equality and non-violence.
“The educational and employment opportunities enjoyed by women, as well as access to free and universal health services, including sexual and reproductive health services, have placed Cuban women in a better position to achieve autonomy and independence, which weakens the chances of experiencing situations of dependence and having to endure, for that reason, situations of violence.
“The safety and protection of sons and daughters is also guaranteed. The State provides free education for the offspring, their food and systematic medical care, with no gender differences. Thus, for example, girls show as high percentages of education as boys. There are also institutional support mechanisms for low-income families, especially for single mothers.
“The leadership that the FMC has today to exalt women before itself and before society is focused on such purposes: the conquest of women’s autonomy in all areas, the deconstruction of prejudices and stereotypes, against all forms of discrimination and oppression that restrict their development, their freedom and wound their dignity as human beings. This is a strength for fighting and doing, in an organized and committed way, for non-violence against women”.
Banish Indiscipline, Mobilize Consciousness
Banish Indiscipline, Mobilize Consciousness
Putting indiscipline at bay is not only necessary, but imperative. Let us integrate that team called consciousness, which demands shame and good judgement.
By Madeleine Sautié | madeleine@granma.cu
August 3, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Image by Bansky
There was a day when Havana, still in the early stages of the pandemic’s de-escalation, awoke to the happy news that no new positive cases were being reported. Spirits, then, shot up, since the expected zero marked the result of a country’s enormous effort, say, among many workers, that of its doctors, in the first place.
Today, the faces are not the same, and concern is growing at the same time as the numbers and the courage to give so much. Unforgivable are the failures which, due to irresponsibility and disbelief, have modified the results we’ve achieved. Example: insolent disregard for a health system and the management of the Cuban state, applauded for the efficiency of its task, even by those who insist on seeing the erasures in an increasingly admirable health scenario.
Then comes the “must do”, the “have to take action”, as if banishing disobedience was only the business of a few. It is no secret that the legal provisions and police authorities have – as they have done from day one – a great weight in the fulfillment of the guidelines.
However, it is unthinkable that the solution lies only in the application of fines or in ensuring that the law enforcement officers are where every [act of] indiscipline is. It is enough to look out on the balcony, or to walk through our streets, to see, in a perfectly peaceful environment, where the police do not have to be, two or three people talking, one almost on top of the other, without nasobucos! -Will there really be a policeman for each of these cases?
There are two sides to this. On the first side, there are those who protect themselves and their family, compañeros and neighbors through good hygiene practices and distance, those who contribute to the dissipation of the virus; those who reverence with discipline the vigilance of the health personnel and value the happiness of living in Cuba, when the world suffers daily from overwhelming scenes.
The others, the ones who barely inform themselves, the irreverent ones who are aware of their own danger and that of the others; the ones who allow themselves to be spoken to from upstairs, and without nasobucos; the ones who know how to be attended to if the virus knocks on their door; the ones who are more bored than anyone else, who need to attend the party that another sorry person prepares.
Putting indiscipline at bay is not only necessary, but imperative. Let’s join that team called conscience, which calls for [both] shame and sanity.
Cimex Closes Ranks Against Coleros
Cimex Closes Ranks Against Coleros, Resales and Hoarding
By Yaditza del Sol González
August 3, 2020
The Cimex Corporation has designed a series of supervision and control measures to confront resellers and hoarders, among which is the provision of supervisors to commercial units with sale of products that generate hoarding behaviors
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
From hand to hand, like a chain, prices are multiplied to the benefit of some and to the detriment of others. Photo: Osval
There have been many warning calls on the subject because, when it comes to coleros, resellers and hoarders, we are in the presence of a problem that affects almost all of us and undermines the efforts that the country is making to guarantee the population basic items, in the midst of a complex economic situation.
It is almost always the same faces, which repeat over and over again in the waiting lines, and end up buying three or four times what should have been a single purchase, and then reselling that merchandise at an exorbitant price. Then there are those who mark and sell the shifts and shamelessly profit from the need of others.
The subject even takes on other nuances, if we talk about those who go directly to the sales floor or warehouse, without waiting, and avail themselves of dissimilar items -frequently the most demanded items such as food and toiletries- and pay at the checkout without there being any regulation of their purchase. Of course, this is always done in complicity with some staff of the establishment itself.
Other examples and situations could be used in this way, but in the end the bill is the same: it is an illegal activity, which must be stopped without any passivity. However, for this to happen, it is not enough just for the population to denounce it, it is also necessary for the forces of law and order to act, and above all, for the shops and businesses where these events take place.
For this purpose, the Cimex Corporation has designed a series of supervision and control measures to confront resellers and hoarders, among which is the provision of supervisors to commercial units with sale of products that generate hoarding behaviors.
Likewise, it was determined to apply integral controls to branches and territorial complexes with demands and complaints from the population, as well as the training of personnel working directly in commercial units and administrative areas, according to information published by Cimex i\on its Facebook account.
On the other hand, it is forbidden in retail marketing to reserve shifts and goods in sales and warehouse floors for customers, to sell goods outside the established hours in the units, to disclose any information about the products in the warehouse and the internal working procedures, and to receive goods without the corresponding invoices.
Failure to apply price circulars in a timely manner, selling items to customers with blank properties and warranties and without the presentation of an identity card, and the purchase by workers of products in the commercial units where they work are also part of the prohibitions applied.
LETTERS: Unedited machine translation
José Luis said:
1
4 August 2020
03:02:47
As a Cuban, a patriot and a revolutionary, I say the following: we continue to beat around the bush. These measures are more of the same. They will not solve anything as long as the macabre mechanism of the colors is perfectly greased for years. Colero-store-warehouses-retailers. Everyone communicates, calls each other on the phone, receives commissions and a long list well known by the people and the authorities themselves. What do I propose? In view of the current situation, so serious that the country is going through from the economic point of view, with a coronavirus, blockade, etc., cholero, store workers, etc., that their participation in these acts of CORRUPTION, which has no other name because of its profound damage to the social fabric, to the people, be proven, sanctions of more than 10,000 Cuban pesos and/or a minimum of 2 years in prison, WITH INTERNATION. It is over.
LICF responded:
August 6th, 2020
09:10:50
I am a salaried worker, although with a decent salary, I never go to a line because everything is sold during working hours. And my 73-year-old mother, although apparently strong, where I detected diabetes a few years ago, sometimes goes to the queues. By necessity not by choice I agree with you: (Colero-store-stores-retailers) you have to act, but he lacked that all the staff of the store or establishment also wet with the mojito. That is, with the dividends. But I do not agree with the statement: “they say they are going to kill everyone who drinks aguardiente, it is a good thing that they are going to leave Cuba without people”. If I ever hear that phrase or a similar one, I should think that many of those coleros have no work relationship and therefore live off that commission, then I would better say or advise the country’s top management to place them all in agriculture, whether they are coleros of working age, salesmen and storekeepers, and why not managers and administrators who allow this, that and the other. As there will be food in Cuba if this is implemented. I believe that work in agriculture will teach them and give them a chance to claim their rights.
Mila said:
2
4 August 2020
05:23:50
Have you already forgotten about e-commerce? In the midst of the resurgence that is emerging e-commerce is no longer mentioned and no longer exists, on the platform tuenvio and there is never anything and in the delivery of Havana 1 month ago the stores do not open, those who can not make endless queues and resolved to buy by that route can no longer do so. Can anyone explain what is happening?
jrosell said:
3
4 August 2020
06:52:38
It should also analyze the delays in dispatching the products, prioritize the sale of the most demanded, enable the largest number of boxes to speed up the dispatches, comply with the schedules for the start of work, speed up the dispatches from the stores to the points of sale, give priority and follow up the use of the POS by the administrations, eliminate the request for the identity card to make the payment by card (these have the personal data in the banks), look for alternatives so that the queues are not so many hours under the sun, among others.
augusto said:
4
4 August 2020
08:12:28
These are the real culprits of the misery that our people are suffering, the sluts and resellers, by giving them a hard blow we will solve all the problems.
José Manuel Alcalde Lanuza answered:
August 6th, 2020
08:06:21
The basic problem is scarcity. If there were no shortage, there would be no resellers. They are an effect, not the cause.
Lina answered:
August 7, 2020
02:54:20
They are the guilty ones, besides the workers of the store who warn them about the products and keep the goods for them.
Oscar Ramos Isla said:
5
4 August 2020
08:22:07
The control does not depend on the situation caused by the coronavirus or any other abnormality. The control is permanent because that is where the quality of the services and the gratitude of the customers are obtained.
Oscar Ramos Isla said:
6
4 August 2020
08:31:05
Technologies can be the perfect ally for resellers not to take advantage of the needs of the Cuban people.
LICF responded:
August 6, 2020
09:32:24
Identity card in hand national database means interconnected between them and a software programmed for when a citizen buys here today tomorrow in another store wherever it is within our island the system will give him denied until the next 1, 2 or 3 months depending on their acquisition also in that database can be implemented the number of supply book to which they belong and according to the amount of consumers would be the amount of product to purchase. Think that I am not eternal and perhaps one day I will be infarmed with so many irregularities in the system.
Anabel-pinar said:
7
4 August 2020
08:56:37
It’s about time! Here in Pinar del Rio until mid-June we used the supply notebook to control the purchase of products, and the truth is that it had a 99% acceptance rate, since we entered phase 1 and eliminated that way it has been a chaos, the coleros have their stores, they do not move to others and even if you arrive early you will always be above 100. It is incredible how many times you ask some worker for the products that are expected to see if you are interested and “they never know” ahhhhh look for the first ones in the queue that even prices know; these measures are very good, I just think that they should be changing the supervisors because in the long run… They can fall into the same vicious circle. They need to uproot this and design tougher measures and laws against them.
ANA said:
8
4 August 2020
08:57:03
Good morning, this topic makes me feel important in the effort that the country is making in the economic plan, on the other hand, I work until 6 pm in Havana, where there is a regular store known as “Los Frailes”, IT HAPPENS THAT THE MERCHANDISE ARRIVES, AFTER 2 HOURS, IF HE UNDERSTANDS THAT DAY THE CHARACTER WHO GIVES THE TICKETS, HE DOES OR NOT, THIS CAUSES THAT AFTER 2 HOURS THERE WAS GATHERED WHAT IS MOST VALUABLE AND SHINES FROM THE OLD HAVANA, THIS IS ALLOWED BY THE STAFF OF THAT DISASTROUS STORE, WHICH MAKES HOARDING A DIARY IN THOSE CHARACTERS. IT IS THE MANAGEMENT OF THE STORE, THE GOVERNMENT OF HAVANA, AND THE POLICE WHO ONLY SHOW UP IF SOMEONE CALLS, WHO IS GIVING THE POSSIBILITY THAT THESE UNFORTUNATE EVENTS OCCUR.
arelys hernandez alaonso said:
9
4 August 2020
09:04:04
Good morning I think it would be good to publish a phone number to call to inform the place that this is happening. It is the only way to end with these who do not work because most do not work live from it.
Elizabeth Cruz said:
10
4 August 2020
09:07:32
I’m not a Cimex worker, but I have a doubt: if workers can’t buy in the store where they work, how can they manage to acquire the products they need so much, if they stay all day working?
Leanny said:
11
4 August 2020
09:11:08
Very good measures that could facilitate access to products in these stores and in others to the ordinary people. But I would like to give 1 observation, because the chain insists in affecting its workers, as it is possible that a worker cannot buy in his work place the products that he needs for his house (I insist for his house, without hoarding or another type of corruption action) that for me is to throw away the couch, I believe that it would be beneficial for its workers who many times work in unsatisfactory conditions, lack of air conditioning in shops that are designed to work with them and they are only informed que¨ there is no budget for reparaciones¨, many times there is a lack of workers to cover the staff, they have carried out their functions in the middle of a pandemic without being provided with means of protection or at least not in the necessary quantities, etc. , because prohibiting them from buying (regulated) what they need (or they are not citizens of this country of ours). Greetings.
jrosell said:
12
4 August 2020
09:29:15
They should also close ranks with store administrations to improve treatment, improve salaries, be more efficient, educate and use technology to speed up payments and queues.
mili said:
13
4 August 2020
09:48:37
Really the coleros and resellers are a worse pandemic than the covid. But we allow it, because in a queue everyone knows who is for what from the dispatcher to the policeman guarding the queue and we let them in. Cuba is a unique country in many things from the health and education benefits, etc. to the coleros and resellers, which we know are a plague for which there is no insept for the moment. And as a unique country we have to act, we are the only country that has a supply card, why don’t we use it? Among the people around me at work, my neighbors, in the streets, everybody is asking for it, because not now that this pandemic has affected the whole world, since before, since always, the one who works is at a total disadvantage with the one who does not work, the one who goes out to work from Monday to Friday at 6 or 7 in the morning and comes back at 5 or 6 in the afternoon, how does he stock up on what is necessary? But now that everything is supplied by the snacks, it is a problem with no solution, because you have to be on the street and to buy a simple soap or detergent package of which you can not do without sometimes sadly you have to resort to resellers, because the one who does not work has all the time to make the queue, in my modest opinion if we normalize the products of first need, where are they going to resell? Let us not deceive ourselves that in this beautiful country which I love and will always defend, everything is known and everything is possible.
Lad said:
14
4 August 2020
09:54:57
Very good measures. But I think the measure that workers cannot buy where they work is exaggerated. That should stimulate a lot the work taking into account that they don’t have good salaries unlike many people think. To that you add that most of them work 3 days and rest one. Seriously, that day is going to be spent looking for supplies. The most responsible for the store workers to hoard are the managers and salesmen who allow them to do so. Those who think otherwise do not know how a store works. Pq when the manager is right there is no invention.
Rodolfo Rodriguez said:
15
4 August 2020
10:01:05
At last there is a plan from the state side to control the illicit business, which as they say also happens inside the store with the conspiracy of the employees. On the other hand, in Holguin, village brigades have been formed to fight the coleros. The coleros from inside and outside are nothing but vile criminals who take advantage of the situation of shortage that the people suffer and create chaos. They are enemies of the people and as such they must be treated with the maximum rigor of the law and above all those from within.
JOSE CARLOS GARCIA JACOMINO said:
16
4 August 2020
10:47:10
NOW THEY NEED TO COMPLY… THEY SHOULD HAVE DONE THAT MONTHS AGO.
Zulema said:
17
4 August 2020
10:46:51
I thought all that was forbidden since many years ago!
hgm He answered:
August 4, 2020
15:27:36
Of course it is long suspended, in fact it is in the regulations of the cimex, as the supervisors do that work systematically, it is not new
Georgina said:
18
4 August 2020
10:58:45
All this is very good and it’s time to finish with what is doing so much damage to the town, I want to take this opportunity to highlight the work of the organizers of the queue of The Rock, on Sunday I went at 6 and 15 and they were already giving shifts, I took the 51 and went home, returned at 9, began a little late 9 and 25 and at 10 and 5 I went with my package of breast seemed incredible to see those young people as they had everything under control, No fuss, no muss, no mess, everyone in place with their nasobuco and everything super fast, but in Gy 25 you can’t buy anything there, those who organize favor the mess because (at the entrance of the store, far from where you make the queue) accumulate elderly people, Others who say they have treatment for cancer or that they are operated on, in short, another line that causes displeasure and encourages those who have no scruples to slip in and make fun of other old people who get up early and mark their lines, there is always a riot and even the police do not keep their distance and pray, I say this so that they take into account and take measures as in other places, They also treat the people badly when they complain and on one occasion a black woman who supposedly organizes told a lady that she had asked for something to drink a cup of chlorine, hopefully they will put young people like those of La Roca in that place, the neighbors and population that we cannot buy in spite of living in front of it we will be grateful.
Elena said:
19
4 August 2020
10:59:17
I believe that we must continue to close ranks, because it is difficult to end the evil from the roots, now for example they have taken over Tuenvío.cu, it is simply impossible to access the network, only a small group of chosen people can do it.
Angel Rodolfo Diaz Cadalso said:
20
4 August 2020
11:09:40
The streets belong to the revolutionaries, the country belongs to the true Cubans and we cannot allow unscrupulous elements to pretend to profit from the needs of the population. If anything can be done in Cuba, it is to fight in an organized way all the germs that attempt against the social welfare. We are an organized people, with a single party and a government with its ear to the ground supported by all the revolutionaries who number in the millions. The unity of our people makes us invincible. We will resist and we will win. We are Cuba, we are continuity. Always until victory.
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.
George Stinney, Condemned
George Stinney, the Boy Condemned to the Electric Chair
George Junius Stinney Jr. was convicted in March 1944 of the murder of the two girls, ages 11 and 8, in a speedy trial by a jury of white men. George was executed in the electric chair on June 16 of that year.
By Raúl Antonio Capote | internacionales@granma.cu
August 4, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
George Junius Stinney Jr: was convicted in March 1944 for the murder of two girls aged 11 and eight Photo: ABC
A boy looks scared into the camera of the Clarendon police photographer. After long hours of brutal interrogation, he had just confessed to a crime he had not commit.
Whoever pressed the shutter of the camera captured the pure image of fear and innocence; George Stinney’s police photo is not just any photo.
Stinney was a boy from Alcolu, Clarendon, a small town in South Carolina. His life was the life, you might say, of an African-American boy in that region.
George was tending the family’s cows with his sister Amie that day when two white girls, Mary Emma Thames and Betty June Binnicker, approached them to ask about some medicinal plants they were looking for. George and Amie did not know the plants, so the girls went on their way.
Hours after the meeting, the girls’ parents, concerned, went out to look for them. George offered to help when they passed by his family’s farm and told the parents about the conversation he had with the girls.
The bodies of the girls were found near a Missionary Baptist church, showed signs of sexual abuse and had been killed using a 25 kg wood.
The police arrested George and took him in for questioning, in a process that involved many irregularities, physical abuse and psychological torture. The child was not represented by any lawyer and was not allowed the company of his parents, despite being a minor, he was only 14 years old.
They said that he had confessed to the crime, but no evidence of the confession was ever produced, it was the word of the police against that of the black child. His sister–witnessing that Stinney had been with her all afternoon, so she could not commit the crime–was threatened and harassed, so she had to flee the area in the face of the real possibility of being lynched, as some villagers had promised to do.
George Junius Stinney Jr. was convicted in March 1944 of the murder of the two girls, aged 11 and 8, in a speedy trial by a jury of white people. George was executed in the electric chair on June 16 of that year.
In 2014 the case was reviewed and justice ruled that the boy had not received a fair trial and he was found not guilty. The problem is that this verdict came 70 years too late.
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.
I’m Not Who You Think
spectator’s chronicle
I’m Not Who You Think
By Rolando Pérez Betancourt
July 12, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
After 35 years of sustained triumphs in various films, French actress Juliette Binoche is once again shining in her latest film, which will soon be shown on Cubavisión.
I’m Not Who You Think (Safy Nebbou, 2019) is the story of a divorced, 50-year-old literature professor with two children who uses the tricks of Facebook to create a profile that turns her into an attractive 24-year-old blonde.
The causes and consequences of this change will be the main theme of this romantic drama with a thriller-like twist. It’s conceived in the midst of human relationships conditioned by technology and the masks that encourage so-called catfishing, or [creating a] non-existent identity in social networks with the aim of attracting unwary people.
In days of unbridled love passions on Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp, director Safy Nebbou waves the trump card of Binoche and squeezes it into the role of a middle-aged woman trapped in the obsession of feeling wanted. Why not fall in love with a young man much younger than she? And the protagonist embarks on the adventure, even if she ends up in the hands of a psychiatrist. This is a resource that is used from the beginning to weave the threads of the story in two stages and thus expose the intimate worlds of a woman who, after the divorce, was exposed to the risks of depression.
The film takes a critical look at the lies and manipulations of social networks and is a treat for viewers to reflect on issues such as the fear of growing old, the age difference when it comes to love, and whether it “looks good” for a mature woman to go crazy with love (and delude herself into madness), as she would have done in her twenties.
We will then see an exceptional Juliette Binoche fall silent, when a young lover tells her that she could well be her mother; chat in the solitude of her home, pretending to be the little girl she is not; fall into the chaos of uncertainty and moral collapse; shine like a sun and explode into childish euphoria when she feels wanted.
The film is all of her, and also a story of loneliness on days when it seems that everyone is connected.
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