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The containment of the “popular wall”
The containment of the “popular wall”
Holguin authorities take action to combat price violations
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
The population feels protected every time their rights as consumers are taken care of. Photo: Ariel Cecilio Lemus
Holguín: With the COVID-19 on the prowl, a large group of rogue traders, whom Mercury himself would classify as a bunch of profiteers, have raised the prices of agricultural products and various items. In the face of this, the population is crying out to stop the mistakes of those who only think of their own pockets.
Solicitous, as it should be in times where half-baked positions are not admitted, the authorities of this province deploy actions to curtail the excesses that hurt, above all, the lowest income compatriots.
To the hard and without pause
Among the abusers sanctioned in recent days is a worker at a point of sale of agricultural products in the ccs Manuel Angulo. He was operating in the area of El Coco, near the provincial capital, and did not have the Commercial Authorization. It had been withdrawn a month ago for breaking the prices, which he ignored once again. This time, the outcome was the confiscation, among other products, of about 240 pounds of pork, valued at 5,470 pesos. Thus, what was intended for profit ended up in the 8 de Marzo maternity home.
In this effort, the agents of the National Revolutionary Police acted legally and with no ostentation. Access to reports on their work reveals that recently, in only 48 hours, they faced 111 cases related to the excessive increase in prices. These people had in their possession 4.5 tons of agricultural products and other merchandise, including coffee and animal feed. As expected, some of the violators could not justify the origin of what they were offering.
Dionisia Milagros Portelles, who heads the province’s Integral Direction of Supervision, points out that the body of supervisors works intensely in all the municipalities, which is why, in December and the first week of January, upon finding severe alterations in prices, they levied more than 1,700 fines amounting to more than 719,000 pesos.
As we proceed with absolute respect for the law, in several cases the confiscation of the goods was the result. Thus, for example, several people in the municipality of Calixto Garcia failed in their attempt to continue spoliation of the fellow citizens through the high prices at which they sold children’s shoes, socks, women’s sandals, razors and other items.
The abusive vendors frown and even blaspheme, but the people go out to stock up appreciate and applaud this action. They have had the opportunity to access, without excessive expenses, food, fruit, vegetables, ham, and sheep and pig meat, among other foods.
Ramiro Andrés Hampton agrees with this way of stopping the rampages of the abusers and speculators.
The “harassment” of the good
Abnalie Rondón says that the work of the authorities facing the price changers will not be efficient without the collaboration of those affected. “We have to let them know that we are not willing to put up with them. And since they have reached such a point of arrogance, one cannot be afraid to denounce them. We have allowed them too much until now”.
And it is true that denouncing unscrupulous procedures that affect the community is a civic attitude that needs all the support of those responsible for putting things in order. Addressing this issue at a recent working meeting attended by the media, the first secretary of the Cuban Communist Party in Holguín, Ernesto Santiesteban Velázquez, said that it would be unforgivable not to act in a hurry when the population brings to the attention of the authorities acts that hurt it.
Not believing in the power of collective vigilance was the mistake of an individual who, these days, transported in the vehicle driving packages of razor blades and blister packs of various types of medicines, among them diclofenac sodium plus paracetamol, ibuprofen, amoxicillin, tadalafil, vitamins and metronidazole and nystatin eggs. It was intended to be profitable and will now be processed by their recipients.
The same thing happened to a citizen residing in a rural area of Banes. Along with salt packs, he was taken care of by five plastic fumigation backpacks with all the attachments.
Similarly, acts of speculation and hoarding that lead to outrages continue to find a retaining wall. A resident of the Miraflores neighborhood in Moa knows this well, who was engaged in the illegal sale of a wide range of clothing for children and adults, jewelry, perfumes, wipes, USB cables, hearing aids and even nasobucos.
Staff at the Citizen’s Portal, a digital site of the Provincial Government, assures us that through this communication channel, notifications about price violations by cart drivers and other self-employed workers are constantly arriving.
It is not to prohibit, but to control and order
In view of the irregularities found in points of sale belonging to cooperatives, the ANAP in Holguín has undertaken a thorough review of the matter. This is aimed, above all, at identifying the productive forms that have fallen into the harmful game of lending their legal personality to the profiteers. “It is not a question of erasing these points from the commercial scene, but of controlling them, so that they can fulfill their true function. We must take into account that they will play an important role in the food offers in the context created by the new policy of commercialization of agricultural products”, says Amaury Velázquez Zaldívar, president of ANAP in the province.
Along with the actions of the inspectorates, dialogue with self-employed workers is also expanding, a sector in which, unfortunately, the greatest number of violations have been reported. An example of this effort to walk the right path are the meetings held by officials from the Provincial Directorate of Labor and Social Security with those who sell in bazaars in the city of Holguín to explain, once again, the regulations to be taken into account.
In the provincial capital, most of the points of sale of agricultural products operated by self-employed people show a total lack of supply, since those in charge know about the verifications in progress. But when a potential customer approaches, an attentive “public servant” appears from the vicinity with the product offers he keeps hidden.
Intelligence and perseverance are required to maintain this confrontation. It cannot be overlooked that many ask themselves if this attack against opportunism will be something specific, when avoiding inflation has to be a constant in order to achieve order in the economic environment.
Indications from the President
We can no longer postpone what the people ordered at the last Party congresses. We need to implement everything that is pending without delay, shake up the business system, ensure order, and intelligently deal with rising prices.
We also called on the necessary private and cooperative sectors. We must banish the selfishness and exclusive pursuit of personal gain that drives some to fish in the troubled river of the needs of the majority, abusively raising prices.
This people, noble and hard-working, has survived all the imperial fences and abuses with an extraordinary dose of solidarity and generosity that is now an inseparable part of the national being. Selfishness is an attitude that will not prosper in our Homeland.
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UNEDITED TRANSLATION OF COMMENTS AT GRANMA WEB PAGE:
Very well by the authorities and Holguinero police but WHAT ABOUT HERE IN HAVANA? It seems that there are only exhortations from the bosses to the rogues to behave well, and if not, why don’t they publish the cases like in this article of what they do in Holguin?
lesther veloso santos said:
2
January 7, 2021
08:15:34
everyone looks at the prices of these people and the mistake that the Cuban government has made with the rise in food prices essentially and the urban transport that even if you earn your salary does not give you the bill you have to criticize yourself and correct yourself because the bill does not give and there we will see …..
josé julio said:
3
January 7, 2021
08:55:35
I think that we really have to take the necessary measures to stop this kind of actions, that far from helping our society what they do is to destroy & attempt against the implemented laws. Everything that is exposed in this journalistic work is very well. Yes, because for many years we have been burdened with this great problem & the evil really continues. Sometimes they even call the telephone number assigned to make any complaint of this nature & many times it is “eternally” busy or nobody attends to it.
Olaida said:
4
January 7, 2021
10:03:38
I think it is very good that prices are within the reach of citizens, but the quality of bread has not been resolved, pork does not appear, fruit is not on the market, food is very scarce and of poor quality, beans and rice are very scarce and of poor quality, medicines are still lacking and the pension that we receive the people who no longer work is not enough for us with the prices that are hit and reduced. We need products to feed ourselves, medicines. Water, electricity and other essential elements to live decently the few years we have left. What is published in the press is not a reflection of the reality we are living. People need to solve their needs for food, medicine, housing, water and light in order to be able to talk about and deal with politics and what is happening in other countries. There are many organizations and officials dedicated to solving the problems but the results are only partially and sporadically appreciated, there is no stability and guarantees for a normal and decent life for the elderly and life is running out.
Lachy1989 said:
5
January 7, 2021
10:15:44
Hopefully, they will be able to control the prices in all Cuba. The task is hard because all the barrow drivers are slowing down the change since in the end they want to continue making the most of it. In the end I hope that someday the pyramid will be really ordered because if everyone raises prices in the end it will be the same. The barber or handyman will continue to earn more than an engineer working for the state. The biggest problem that the order will have, apart from inflation, is the widespread corruption that exists today in our country.
Aimara Perez Rodriguez said:
6
January 7, 2021
10:36:44
In Holguín alone, I deployed those actions throughout Cuba, all the money that they increased for us is being taken by those people, the individuals.
Deisy said:
7
January 7, 2021
10:44:38
Good article, many of these things not only happen in the provincial capital in the municipalities but also mainly in the “public servants” merchandise It would be good to check also the ice cream, the Coppelia ice cream ball, the most delicious, most popular ice cream is at 5.00 CUP and the own account raised to 8.00, how do you understand this?
habanera said:
8
January 7, 2021
11:27:33
The same thing happens in Havana, in the park Fe del Valle in Boulevard de San Rafael there are the sellers with their tables depending everything that is sold in the stores of all x 1. But they these products increased the value how 5 times. An example a pqte of Sponge to scrub (Which there is nowhere) in all x 1 cuc, cost 1cuc or 25 mn; they have them each individual sponge costs 30.00 MN. Like other products you don’t see in the stores. It is an abuse that these merchants have to the people buy and resell. Be careful with them. Greetings
MAYRA PINAR said:
9
January 7, 2021
12:30:48
Hello, this price increase is very diabolical because here in Pinar del Rio, the sellers of household goods that are really resellers and do not count propistas because they acquire the goods from one hand to another the prices are hot, hot please who revises that nobody sees it the responsible authorities this where this, on the other hand the cafeterias neither to speak, the pizerias by the same style and I join to the commentary better they had not raised the salaries, anyway neither we have left to pay a ball of ice cream in the coopelia that neither quality has to five pesos.
angel said:
10
January 7, 2021
13:23:11
Here in Santiago de Cuba, also the rogue sellers and abusers are for the free, and the inspectors know where it is sold expensive
Joe Biden measures for his first days in office
Joe Biden prepares measures for his first days in office
In a memo circulated among the major U.S. media, Biden’s advisors describe such executive actions as an urgent readiness to address the most serious crises in the nation’s modern history
Author: Digital Editor | internet@granma.cu
January 17, 2021 10:01:43
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Photo: EFE
Amidst preparations for the inauguration, President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team is today preparing a set of urgent measures for the first 10 days of the administration.
In a memo circulated Saturday to the major U.S. media, Biden’s advisers describe such executive actions as an urgent readiness to address the most serious crises in the nation’s modern history.
Ron Klain, the incoming chief of staff to the next White House chief, wrote in that document that the orders will focus on ‘the Covid-19 health crisis, and its resulting serious impact, climate change and racial equity.
The official said the provisions will be accompanied by a ‘strong’ legislative agenda and are intended to provide relief to the millions of Americans struggling with these serious issues.
He added that the president-elect will take steps not only to reverse the worst damage of Republican President Donald Trump’s administration, “but also to begin to move our country forward.”
The new head of state will begin implementing the measures on Wednesday, the day he takes office, with what Klain said would be about a dozen executive orders on the issues mentioned.
The president-elect also plans to bring the country back into the Paris climate change agreement and undo the ban on travel to the United States by citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, a measure implemented by Trump.
Biden will also issue a provision for mandatory use of masks as a requirement for staying on federally owned land or facilities and on interstate travel, and will also extend a pause on evictions and mortgages.
He even plans to take steps to mitigate the spread by expanding Covid-19 testing, protecting workers, and establishing clear health standards.
The White House will spend the remaining eight days instructing its cabinet to push for economic assistance to mitigate the effects of the pandemic and to take executive action on issues such as reunification of children separated from their families after crossing the border, among others.
The effort comes as the Senate prepares for President Trump’s second impeachment, in the early days of the Biden administration.
Although the transition team has not outlined many components of its upcoming legislative agenda, the next White House chief implemented a $1.9 trillion plan to combat the damage from the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, a top priority for the new administration.
(Source: Prensa Latina)
Hitler returns from the afterlife
Hitler returns from the afterlife
One of the last crimes of the multimillionaire Donald Trump has triggered worldwide and domestic condemnation, at the same time as it once again proves those who warned that Hitler was back because of the racist, ultra-right-wing, xenophobic, nationalist and isolationist positions of Trump were right
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
An angry crowd caused disorder in the U.S. Congress on Jan. 6. Photo: EFE
Five fatalities, at least a dozen injured police officers, 70 people charged, more than 125 files opened, rewards of up to $50,000 for information about fugitives from justice, damages in the millions for the multiple destructions inside the facilities of the U.S. Congress, a newly-militarized city with more than 25,000 troops and walled up in the face of new threats, are the results of the quantitative analysis of the scandalous assault on the Capitol on January 6.
One of the latest crimes of billionaire Donald Trump has triggered world and internal condemnations, while giving reason, once again, to those who – since his unexpected electoral victory in 2016 – warned that Hitler was back due to his racist positions, ultra-rightists, xenophobes, nationalists and isolationists of the new president, who associated him so much with the fascist, that he also made intentional use of lies to trap the will of millions in Germany and try to bring the world to its knees.
A January 14 Los Angeles Times editorial reflected that, although Trump has never really led the far right, it fell in love with him after finding common ground in his rhetoric, which explains why 74 million supported him in 2020 after seeing his “authoritarian impulses” on display for four years in office.
One week after what many have called “a historic act of domestic terrorism,” media around the world are alternating news of the global pandemic’s resurgence and its current increased threats. These are impacting Americans with record numbers of 4,300 deaths a day, and with the horrors surrounding the acts of violence that shook Washington and U.S. democracy, following the president’s call to prevent, by force, the legislative recognition of Joe Biden’s triumph as president-elect.
While the sessions in Congress for the second impeachment against Trump are taking place in a Capitol that looks like a military camp, with soldiers sleeping in hallways, rooms and staircases, police closures are proliferating throughout the city, in response to indications, detected by the FBI, of new armed rallies before Joe Biden’s inauguration, not only in Washington, but in all 50 states.
The proclivity to allow disorder and let it go has generated suspicions and accusations. It was clear in recent days that the mobilization would attract thousands of people, the security apparatus was surprisingly small. Some wondered whether it was “mere incompetence or a strategy” that was premeditated. Then came the version that when the Capitol Police asked for help from the Department of Defense, led by people with no credentials other than their total loyalty to Trump, it imposed severe restrictions on the mission of the District National Guard, which had no riot gear or ammunition.
Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy alleged that Congress did not ask for riot control assistance and was concerned about the image that the presence of uniformed personnel in the building might convey, despite the fact that, until then, President Trump had not shaken his hand in sending in the military when those protesting are Black Lives Matter supporters.
This time the Pentagon took almost three hours to authorize the deployment of riot police and National Guard reinforcements,. While congress members and senators were being evacuated, the building ended up being taken over by the rebels. Among the garbage and the disorder caused, racist insignias and symbols appeared next to Trump’s hats and flags, and a large gallows with the rope prepared: “Let them cut off their heads,” read a banner, according to local correspondents.
OLD SUSPICIONS
Two months before the Trump’s coup against Congress, US columnist and Nobel Laureate in Economics, Paul Krugman, analyzed in his commentary The United States: A Failed State, the possible impact of Trump’s electoral failure. He predicted “that we are in serious trouble. Trump’s defeat would mean that, for the time being, we would have avoided falling into authoritarianism; and yes, the risks are that great, not only because of who Trump is, but also because the modern Republican Party is that extreme and undemocratic.”
Krugman denounced, during the 2020 election campaign, the Republican strategy based on false conspiracies and trying to scare voters by talking about bad things that are not happening, through “damn lies and Trump rallies.”
The day after the election, another New York Times commentator, Thomas Friedman, wrote an article entitled In the Election, There Was a Loser: America, a view that held that “we have just lived through four years of the most divisive and dishonest presidency in American history, one that attacked the two pillars of our democracy: truth and trust. Donald Trump has not spent a single day of his term trying to be the president of all the people and he has broken the rules and shattered the norms in a way that no president has dared; like last night, when he falsely warned of electoral fraud and called on the Supreme Court to intervene and stop the vote, as if such a thing were even remotely possible.
Using the social network platforms, the stands as President and the freedom of expression as an alibi, Trump and his serial manipulators fomented hatred, attempted against migration, undermined confidence in the democratic processes and fed populism and authoritarianism, taking advantage of the macabre techniques of Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda of Adolph Hitler’s Germany. Goebbels used the media to offer biased information, to multiply invented, unreal things, and to make people believe them as unquestionable truths, to expand, to inflame and to manage the genocidal Nazi ideology. More than seven decades later, Trump’s media terrorism took advantage of the fact that today lies reach further, faster and more people than ever before, with technologies.
The end? A broken country, a questioned democracy, a diminished, isolated international authority; a polarized, nervous, fractured society, which appeals more and more to drugs and medicines in the face of so much stress. It is no less concerned with the violence and terrorism generated by the hatred engendered and fueled by Trump, who lived by the lie. The fascists of yesterday and today confirm that delirium is also a deadly virus.
Related information
Showcases of “democracy” with which the United States has pretended to give lessons to the world are broken.
If the Capitol Assailants had been Black?
TODAY IN HISTORY
What if the assailants at the Capitol had been African Americans?
In the 1940s and 1950s, the segregationists adopted the flag as the emblem of their battle to prevent movements that emerged to advance the rights of African Americans. In essence, it represents the racist southern culture
It was not by chance that a mob of supporters of President Donald Trump, all of them white-skinned, razed the Capitol’s fences, pounced on the police guarding the building and, with little resistance, forcibly entered the compound. Nor was it by chance that one of them walked through the corridors waving an enormous “confederate” flag.
This was possible because hours earlier, Trump had incited them in the Save America march, to support him in a desperate and last attempt to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s already recognized victory.
It was, moreover, a racist assault. No African Americans participated in that violent demonstration, and the Confederate flag, a historic symbol of racism and the defense of slavery in the United States, was flown for several hours without being stopped by any police officer.
Photo: Reuters
Some of the leaders of the demonstration, identified as members of extreme right-wing conspiracy theory and white supremacist organizations, are trying to distance themselves from the vandalism, claiming that the destruction was caused by anti-fascists.
But the police have already located and arrested Jacob Anthony Chansley, known as Jake Angeli, who is considered the “shaman” of the QAnon. Members of the QAnon movement, which appears to have begun in October 2017, consider Trump a hero.
Trump supporters stormed the Capitol after a march in support of the outgoing president. Photo: Reuters
Its militants believe an unfounded theory. They say that President Trump is waging a secret war against pedophiles from the elite of the U.S. government, business and media who worship Satan, and that one day there will be a reckoning among political figures like former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
In this case, Jake Angeli is the man photographed inside Congress with his face painted and dressed in a bearskin and horns on his head. In addition, he carried a spear with an American flag tied to the blade, and who calls himself “The Wolf of Yellowstone.”
Richard Barnett, a follower of President Trump, is also in custody. He is pictured sitting in the office of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Trump supporters stormed the Capitol after a march in support of the outgoing president. Photo: Reuters
Trump supporters stormed the Capitol after a march in support of the outgoing president. Photo: Reuters
Adam Johnson, who was photographed taking Pelosi’s lectern, also remains in police custody.
WHAT IF THE ASSAILANTS AT THE CAPITOL HAD BEEN AFRICAN-AMERICANS?
The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, an international and decentralized movement originating within the African American community, stated:
“When African Americans protest for our lives, we often encounter National Guard troops or police armed with assault rifles, shields, tear gas, and combat helmets.
“When whites attempt a coup, they run into a small number of agents who can’t do anything and who even take selfies with the terrorists,” they said.
A statement on Twitter was written by Michelle Obama, wife of Barack Obama, the first Black president of the United States:
“To those who criticize others as unpatriotic for simply kneeling in protest, to those who wonder why we even have to remember that Black lives matter, it has become painfully clear that some Americans are, in fact, allowed to degrade the flag and symbols of our nation. What do they have to say now?”
What do Joe Biden and Donald Trump think about January 6?
NBA legend LeBron James was blunt in his denunciation:
“We live in two Americas. “If people like me – African Americans – had stormed the Capitol, what would have been the result? I think we all know. We know what would have happened to them if they had approached the Capitol, let alone entered the offices and the hallways.”
Photo: Reuters
Florida Senator Marco Rubio released a video on Friday comparing the attack on the Capitol by supporters of President Donald J. Trump with protests by Black Lives Matter, the racial equality and justice movement.
Rubio said the invasion of Congress was similar to the protests the left had been “justifying” last summer in cities across the United States following the murder of George Floyd, an African American who died in Minneapolis police custody.
So far, more than 80 people have been arrested and four died in the assault on the Capitol. Police found 11 Molotov cocktails on an Alabama man.
THE CONFEDERATE FLAG CARRIED BY THE CONGRESSIONAL ASSAILANTS
Between 1861 and 1865 a civil war developed in the United States that confronted the southern states (Confederates) that defended, contrary to the foundations of the northerners whose leader was Abraham Lincoln, the maintenance of slavery in the states of South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina.
After the defeat of the Confederate states, the banner carried by their troops in the civil war reduced its public presence but reappeared in the mid-twentieth century with racial segregation.
The first Confederate flag was composed of two red bars and a white one in the middle, with a blue box in the upper left that had a circle formed by stars. However, its successor, the red one, which contains a blue cross with white borders and stars, was the one that became popular. It was the symbol of the Battle of Virginia.
Trump supporters stormed the Capitol after a march in support of the outgoing president. Photo: Reuters
In 1863, the Confederate Congress recognized the Northern Virginia flag as its official symbol.
The descendants of Civil War veterans placed it on the nation’s monuments, so it gradually became an icon of Southern culture
In the 1940s and 1950s, segregationists adopted the flag as the emblem of their battle to prevent movements that emerged to advance the rights of African Americans. In essence, it is the representation of Southern racist culture.
Some time ago, the U.S. Navy decided to ban this flag from all Navy facilities, including ships, planes and submarines.
Sources: (not translated)
El significado sureño y racista de la bandera ondeada durante el asalto al Capitolio en EEUU. Publicado en Yahoo Noticias el 7 de enero de 2021.
La herida racial vuelve a sangrar en el asalto al Capitolio. Publicado en El Periódico el 8 de enero de 2021.
Toma del Capitolio, ejemplo de desigualdad racial. Publicado en Sun Sentinel el 7 de enero de 2021.
¿Qué significa la bandera confederada y por qué causa polémica en EU?. Publicado en Vive USA el 12 de junio de 2020.
Biden and Trump on January 6, 2021
What do Joe Biden and Donald Trump think about the violent demonstrations in Washington? ( + Photos )
U.S. lawmakers were meeting Wednesday to confirm Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election amid protests by Trump supporters both outside and inside the Capitol
Author: Digital Editor | internet@granma.cu
January 6, 2021 19:01:25
Outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump called on his extremist supporters to stop violent demonstrations in Washington, but insisted there was “election fraud.:
“I don’t want anyone to be hurt (…) I love you, you are very special, but go home. I know you are hurt. We have an election that was stolen from us, and you know it, especially from the other side,” said Trump according to Telesur TV.
The outgoing president warned that this is a very difficult time, “there was never a time like this, where something like this happened, that something was stolen, from everyone, from you, from me, from the country. It was a fraudulent election”.
Trump’s call came after a group of extremists stormed Congress to prevent certification of Biden’s election victory. At that time, the congress members left the Capitol in the custody of the authorities.
Photo: Internet
On Wednesday, president-elect of the United States, Joe Biden, repudiated the violent invasion by supporters of Donald Trump in the Capitol that caused the cancellation of the certification of the votes.
Photo: Internet
“Attacking the capitol, destroying the US Senate, endangering security. This is not a protest, it is an insurrection … I call them mafiosi, they are not attacking democracy,” Biden said.
The president-elect rejected the position of Trump’s fanatics who attacked the certification of last November’s votes, “we are seeing a small number of extremists who are dedicated to breaking the law. This is chaos and it must end now,” he added.
“The job in the coming years is to restore democracy, honor and respect. Solve the problems by looking at ourselves without stoking hatred,” the new White House tenant said.
Finally, he urged all leaders to work together to recover democracy in the country of the North, “democracy is fragile and to preserve it we need people of good will, courageous leaders, who are not dedicated to power, but to the common interest,” he concluded.
U.S. Congress meets Wednesday to certify Biden’s victory
U.S. lawmakers were meeting Wednesday to confirm Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election amid protests by Trump supporters both outside and inside the Capitol itself.
A session that, every four years, goes unnoticed by most people has as an ingredient this year the announcement of some Republican senators and representatives, who have pledged to support President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the result through a formal sessional objection, in an attempt that is almost certain to fail.
The two houses of Congress, the House of Representatives and the Senate, in a joint session this Wednesday will open sealed certificates from all 50 U.S. states containing a record of their electoral votes.
Photo: Internet
Photo: Internet
Under the U.S. system, people cast their votes for “electors,” who in turn formally vote for candidates weeks after the election, which occurred on December 14, when Biden received 306 votes under the electoral college system, compared to 232 under Trump.
Photo: Internet
Protecting Family Caregivers
The Other Side of Dependency:
Protecting Family Caregivers
Demographic aging is a phenomenon that poses multiple challenges at all levels, which are common to all societies
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Coronavirus, Ayestaran Street
Three-quarters of the elderly population in Cuba, who are in care, receive informal support, and it is the family that contributes most to this, and of these three quarters, 85% of the informal care is provided at home Photo: Ariel Cecilio Lemus
Demographic aging is a phenomenon that poses multiple challenges at all levels, which are common to all societies.
According to an article by the Center for Demographic Studies at the University of Havana, Cuba has been ranked, after Uruguay, as the country with the second-highest number of elderly people in Latin America and the Caribbean since 2015.
The statistics also reflect that in much of Europe, North America and in some Latin American countries, there is a considerable increase in the number of older people, even those over 85.
Added to this, is the number of people in a situation of disability, as well as the increase in the chronicity of illnesses, particularly neurodegenerative ones, factors that lead to an increase in the number of people dependent on care.
However, the analyses of the phenomenon of population aging have always weighed, more or less correctly, the approaches from the vantage point of those who receive care, and never, or almost never, “which is not the same, but it is the same”, from that of the caregivers.
The current legislation, according to Dr. Leonardo Pérez Gallardo, president of the Cuban Society of Civil and Family Law, of the National Union of Jurists of Cuba, does not contain any reference to the subject. Hence, this is probably one of the novel aspects to be incorporated in the new Family Code, which could be presented to the National Assembly of the People’s Power this year.
Afterward, there will be the popular consultation, discussion with the deputies and final approval, in a referendum, of the resulting text, as dictated by the Eleventh Transitory Provision of the Constitution.
OF CARE AND CAREGIVERS
Although dependency is not a new phenomenon, says Perez Gallardo, “the convergence of different factors such as demographic aging, increased life expectancy and changes in family structure, have led to it becoming a phenomenon that requires urgent and appropriate responses from political, technological, social, health, psychological, family, economic and, of course, legal.
The dependent person, he explains, requires assistance from others for a prolonged period, that is to say, it is not a question of attention for a passing illness, but it implies the need of assistance for those activities of the daily life. This care, constant and lasting, over a long period of time, has been called long-term care, and it involves the provision of assistance with progressive intensity.
Nor can it be lost sight of, in Pérez Gallardo’s opinion, that chronic illnesses and disabilities can be accompanied by functional and cognitive limitations that end up preventing people from enjoying an independent life.
In situations of this nature, family care generally takes on a more prominent role. The key, warns the professor at the University of Havana Law School, lies in the physical and emotional availability of a person to devote himself or herself regularly to the care of that family member, even to the point of giving up or reducing his or her productive or working capacity in order to satisfy the demands of the recipient of his or her services.
In Cuba, according to Dr. Leonardo Pérez, three-quarters of the elderly population in care receive informal support, and it is the family that contributes most to this. And of those three-quarters, 85% of informal care is provided at home.
INFORMAL CAREGIVERS PROTECTED?
Family caregivers, says the President of the Cuban Society of Civil and Family Law, are also called informal caregivers because, unlike professional caregivers, the former are engaged in care for a circumstantial reason, without specialized knowledge and without compensation.
Professional caregivers, on the other hand, are hired and receive financial compensation for their service. Informal caregivers, on the other hand, do so out of altruism, based on the moral duty they owe to their family members, who in many cases are their own parents.
Moral duty which, by the way, and as a lag in a patriarchal and androcentric society, is usually attributed to women, either as daughters, wives or sisters. It has even been assumed as “logical” that it is the children’s wives who take care of their in-laws, especially when they did not have female descendants.
Without a doubt, summarizes Pérez Gallardo, there are many and varied risks that the caregivers assume, because this activity implies, in the personal order, resignation to an adequate life. In the social order, it implies isolation and, in the professional order, loss of their productive capacity and even abandonment, total or partial, of their life project.
For this reason, he emphasizes, “it is necessary to regulate the rights of family caregivers so that the legal system can make them visible, based on the recognition of their autonomy and dignity, as well as the condemnation of any form of manifestation of family or gender violence against them.
“There is an urgent need for legislation that recognizes the right to their own care, to dedicate time to personal activities, to be treated with respect and to receive the due support of the rest of the family members. It is about protecting, from the Law, the other side of the care”.
The protection of caregivers, acknowledges the professor, “should not only be transversal in the field of public law, but also from the private law, capable of providing useful tools to compensate the asset imbalance associated with the performance of the work of caregiving.”
In the words of Pérez Gallardo, “it is necessary to focus on those people who, as caregivers, have been left socially and economically unprotected after the death of the care recipient. To this end, the rules of both family law and inheritance law can be important instruments.
“It would be worthwhile to think of alternatives that, without diminishing altruism, affection, solidarity, dedication and love, encourage care, compensate for silence, emotional and physical overload and facilitate an equitable and fair redistribution of the inheritance”.
In that sense, he points out, “the freedom to bequeath can be a useful alternative and within everyone’s reach. Nobody better than the one leaving [material resources] to compensate the efforts of the caregiver. And, in the absence of the exercise of the power to bequeath, it will be up to the legislator, as they see fit, to establish the best correlation between participation in the inheritance and care for that person in the twilight of life”.
The Chinese model, he suggests, “could be a mirror for the succession rules, from the establishment of more and more flexible rules in the legal succession, suitable to give an answer to the dissimilar social equations that this 21st century has been establishing, in pursuit of a distributive justice in favor of the caretakers”.
IN CONTEXT
The constitutional text, proclaimed on April 10, 2019, establishes in Chapter III Families, of Title v Rights, Duties and Guarantees that
The State, society and families, as far as each one is concerned, have the obligation to protect, assist and facilitate the conditions to satisfy the needs and raise the quality of life of the elderly. Likewise, to respect their self-determination, guarantee the full exercise of their rights, and promote their social integration and participation.
The State, society and families have the obligation to protect, promote and ensure the full exercise of the rights of persons in a situation of disability. The State creates the conditions required for their rehabilitation or the improvement of their quality of life, their personal autonomy, and their social inclusion and participation.
Why No Social Outbursts in Cuba?
FROM THE LEFT
Why are There No Social Outbursts in Cuba?
Despite the intense propaganda to which the US allocates tens of millions of dollars each year, the results are overwhelmingly favorable to the revolutionary leadership that Washington has been trying to overthrow for six decades
Author: Iroel Sánchez | internet@granma.cu
November 2, 2020 02:11:30
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Young people
Photo: Taken from Karla Santana’s Facebook profile
A Brazilian friend who, as a journalist, was in Cuba for a few days, told me of her amazement at how all the Cubans she spoke to know who Bolsonaro is, who Dilma is and who Lula is, which was not the case in other Latin American countries she had visited recently.
The exceptional interest with which Cubans follow international events is something very particular that often goes unnoticed by those of us who live on the island. The social upheavals in Haiti, Chile, Panama and Ecuador, the conflict of powers in Peru, the endless repressions and assassinations of social leaders in Honduras and Colombia, the inherited ungovernability that forced the Mexican government to release a drug trafficker, the unjust imprisonment suffered by the leader of the Brazilian left to prevent his safe electoral victory and the elections in Bolivia and the United States, or Washington’s constant aggressions against Venezuela, can be topics of conversation anywhere in Cuba, from a corner where dominoes are played to a university classroom.
Of course, these conversations do not avoid the serious difficulties that the Cuban economy is going through, against which every week new US government sanctions are announced, nor any of the deficiencies in services with which the citizenry clashes. In these, the impact of the economic blockade can be mixed with bureaucratic laziness and cause discomfort and dissatisfaction.
However, this mixture of economic warfare with internal shortcomings does not cause social upheavals, and when the system – single-party socialism – has been put to the test at the ballot box, as in the recent constitutional referendum. This is so, despite the intense propaganda to which the US spends tens of millions of dollars each year and a well-funded “Cuba Internet Task Force”. The results have been overwhelmingly favorable to the revolutionary leadership that Washington has been trying to overthrow for six decades.
The explanation for the dominant media machine is that the mix of “intense regime repression” and “Cuban relaxation” prevents an outbreak. But in the history of Cuba –from Weyler’s reconcentration to Machado’s dictatorship to Batista’s– no regime based on repression has ever managed to remain in charge of the country for a long time, despite a “relaxation” in which corruption was the dynamic of the functioning of politics and the economy at all levels.
On the contrary, if instead of February 2019, the electoral consultation were to take place now, in the midst of an intensified blockade, the percentage of approval would probably exceed that obtained then, and that would be the result, without a doubt, of the combination of three conjunctural and two structural factors.
Conjunctural factors:
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The intensification of the U.S. government’s aggressiveness strengthens patriotic sentiment and national unity.
The political effectiveness of the Cuban government, convincingly explaining the relationship of shortages with the increase in aggression, and the way in which the strategy to confront the US sanctions seeks to lessen their impact on the daily life of the people.
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The international situation with visible failure of neo-liberal policies and discrediting of the formulas of bourgeois democracy
Structural:
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The massive political culture among Cubans, established for 60 years by Fidel Castro’s teaching, about the nature of imperialism and the project of social justice and national sovereignty of the Revolution.
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The link between the revolutionary leadership and the people, continued by the leadership of Raúl and supported by Díaz-Canel, which has reinforced the perception that the government listens to the people and works for them.
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No Latin American country, of those who right now repress social protest with gunshots and gases and/or openly violate the rules of formal democracy that they themselves defend, has been subjected to economic warfare, to multi-million dollar financing to create an artificial opposition and, much less, to permanent global media and academic lynching of their leaders and their political and social project.
But in spite of all that, it must be recognized that there are dissatisfied people in Cuba, and many of those dissatisfied people are going to Miami. The accumulation of almost six decades of migratory privileges, together with the development of educational capabilities and the state of health brought about by Cuban socialism, make them very competitive with respect to the rest of the non-native communities, but they do not make them freer. More than one million Cubans in the US suffer serious limitations in their relations with their families in Cuba thanks to Trump’s measures; however, there is no news that this causes significant protests there.
Nor do we read anywhere that this public absence of disagreement is attributed to corruption and the repressive practices, not at all democratic, that the ruling class on the island until 1959 seems to have implanted in Miami during its already long stay in that city. This is not to disregard the uplifting example offered by a system that today puts Donald Trump and Joe Biden in competition, in corruption and insults.
2500+ French defy coronavirus restrictions
France: More than 2,500 people defy coronavirus restrictions at illegal holiday
France introduced fairly strict rules in mid-December to curb the spread of the coronavirus, including a curfew from 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m., as it has been one of the European countries most affected by the pandemic, reporting more than 2,600,000 cases of COVID-19 and at least 64,892 deaths
Author: Web Editor | internet@granma.cuJanuary 3, 2021 09:01:14
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Photo: Getty Images
The French police intervened in an illegal New Year’s Eve party held at an industrial warehouse in Lieuron, northwest of the country, where about 2500 people broke the health restrictions imposed by the coronavirus, reports the BBC news portal Mundo.
Some of those attending the massive celebration came from Spain and the United Kingdom.
At least three police officers were injured. A statement from local authorities details that the police faced “fierce hostility from many in attendance.
The organizers of the event were identified, and participants were fined as they left the site.
MORE THAN 1200 FINES ISSUED FOR VIOLATING SANITARY MEASURES
More than 1,200 fines were issued for failing to observe curfew, not wearing a mask and attending an illegal meeting, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said on a tweet.
He reported that the police seized trucks, sound equipment and power generators at the scene, and that they were investigating the events.
The authorities reported that they had opened a cordon sanitaire around the party and urged all those who attended the event to remain isolated for seven days.
One of the participants, who identified herself as Jo, told AFP that “very few had respected social distancing” during the time of the event.
Another interviewee said that the party was “very well organized” and that there were even food stands inside.
The Ministry of the Interior organized an emergency meeting and later all the party’s vehicle exits were blocked while the police tried to control the situation.
FRANCE INTRODUCED A CURFEW FROM MID-DECEMBER
France introduced fairly strict rules in mid-December to curb the advance of the coronavirus, including a curfew from 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.
More than 100,000 police officers were deployed throughout the country to enforce the curfew and break up the holiday season.
The French police are ordered to end the underground parties as soon as they receive a complaint, and are also tasked with fining participants and identifying the organizers.
France has been one of the European countries most affected by the pandemic, registering more than 2,600,000 cases of COVID-19 and at least 64,892 deaths.
The most dangerous professions
The most dangerous professions in the world in 2020
None of the murdered, disappeared, assaulted, or imprisoned communicators without cause, despite what the barometer of Reporters without Borders indicates, is Cuban
Author: Raúl Antonio Capote | internacionales@granma.cu
January 4, 2021 23:01:57
Julian Assange resists the oppression of journalism professionals committed to the truth Photo: reuters
According to the barometer of press freedom violations, website of the NGO, Reporters without Borders (RSF), 51 journalists were killed in 2020 and 400 were imprisoned. The source itself stops to list arbitrary detentions, disappearances, torture, mistreatment and other methods, country by country.
The subject of the moment draws attention, that of the founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, who suffers a marked deterioration of his health in the prison where he is held, in Great Britain, for which the judge in the case, Vanessa Baraitser, accepted the diagnosis of the psychiatrists and ruled to prohibit the transfer to the U.S., due to the high risk of suicide.
The same judge described the judicial process as defective and punitive, but did not grant him bail, since the Australian journalist faces charges in the U.S. country for the leaking of thousands of classified documents in 2010 and 2011.
The other side of the story is the proposal by Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who asked for Assange’s freedom and offered his country to grant him political asylum.
However, RWB does not refer to the case, but marks Cuba in black along with other countries, symbolized as the worst violators of that freedom, although none of its figures include the Cuban archipelago.
The explicit contradiction in the information on the RSF website demonstrates the double standards and political intent with which this data is measured and the information is manipulated with the aim of demonizing the Cuban Revolution.
On the other hand, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) reported, on December 23, that 59 journalists were killed in 2020, four of them women. There is a difference of eight between the two reports.
According to UNESCO data, during the last ten years, 888 journalists and media workers, that is, one every four days, were killed.
These crimes continue to be committed with total impunity, according to the report on the safety of journalists, published in November by the UN agency, which shows that in 2020 there were no consequences in 87% of the cases.
The agency reflected the increase in harassment and attacks on information professionals, for example, in the attacks they suffered during the coverage of protest demonstrations in Chile, where 90 attacks were reported, and the case of the Black Lives Matter mobilizations, where up to 500 different attacks against the press occurred.
The document of the multilateral organization detailed that, in the first half of the year, press workers were attacked in 125 protests held in 65 countries.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations recently asked all the governments of the world to release, immediately, the journalists who have been arrested for carrying out their professional work. “Many have been subjected to harassment, acts of intimidation, sanctions, killings and also arbitrary arrests. We know that prisoners, detainees and prisoners, in general, are very vulnerable to the rapid spread of the virus,” said António Guterres.
It should be noted that none of these murdered, disappeared, assaulted or imprisoned communicators without cause, despite what the barometer of Reporters without Borders indicates, is Cuban. The last journalist murdered in the Greater Antilles fell victim to Fulgencio Batista’s police in 1958.
Health workers, the most dangerous job in 2020
Although practicing journalism remains an extremely dangerous profession, in the year that ended, health workers contributed, through their dedication and courageous stand in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the greatest number of victims.
At least 7,000 of them have died from COVID-19 in the world, with Mexico being the hardest-hit country, according to a recently released study by Amnesty International.
Behind Mexico, the study places the United States (1,077 deaths), United Kingdom (649), Brazil (634), Russia (631), India (573), South Africa (240), Italy (188), Peru (183), Iran (164) and Egypt (159). Cubans did not add to this last statistic either.
It is not a matter of informative curiosity, a simple coincidence or mere chauvinism on our part, it is a reality marked by results, it has to do with the culture of socialism that places human being in first place, in the center of all priorities.
Sources: RT, RSF Barometer and reports from the UN.
Winner of the impossible
Winner of the impossible
During this very tense, very difficult year, in which we had to face COVID-19 and an unprecedented imperial offensive, Fidel has been accompanying us
Author: Abel Prieto | internet@granma.cu
December 30, 2020 22:12:20
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
During this very tense, very difficult year, in which we had to face COVID-19 and an unprecedented imperial offensive, Fidel has been accompanying us.
Cuba’s response to the pandemic, here and in other countries around the world, is admirable. As Díaz-Canel has reiterated, in that victory, Fidel’s strategic thinking in the field of medicine and science, his extreme sensitivity to the most vulnerable and his intimate conviction that nothing is worth more than the life of a human being, carried decisive weight.
We owe to Fidel the large-scale training of doctors and nurses with different professional backgrounds and ethics, the early creation of a health system that reached every corner of the island and every one of its inhabitants, the internationalist collaboration that began in 1960 and has its maximum expression in the ELAM and the Henry Reeve Contingent, and the foundation and development of cutting-edge scientific centers in a small Caribbean country. It has also been essential the participation, from the neighborhoods and communities, of the organized and conscious people, protagonists in all the battles fought by the Revolution under its guidance.
Our enemies wanted to suffocate us with the ruthless reinforcement of the blockade and the economic war, and they have managed to make the daily life of the population very difficult. But they have not been able to break the trust of the Cubans in those who lead us, working day and night so that Cuba can move forward, without anyone being left helpless.
Raúl reminded us, at Fidel’s funeral, that “his authority and his close relationship with the people were decisive for the country’s heroic resistance during the dramatic years of the special period”.
In 2020, together with Raúl and other figures of the historical generation, there have been Díaz-Canel and many paintings of younger generations, very close to the people, who maintain that “intimate relationship”. Our Party and our Government have gained more authority and prestige in the face of the complexity of the challenges, precisely when the enemies have insisted on achieving the opposite.
This year there was, not by chance, an escalation of terrorist and subversive actions, with the support of the hegemonic media, the so-called “independent media” and social networks.
Some of these projects tried to acquire “artistic” clothing to enhance certain mercenaries. This was a mistake. The thinking tanks of the counterrevolution forgot that Fidel himself designed an inclusive, anti-dogmatic, unitary cultural policy, based on permanent communication with creators, which was capable of rectifying errors and misunderstandings and of laying the foundations for a rational link between authentic intellectuals and artists and the Revolution.
The campaign against the Henry Reeve Contingent also failed. No lie, no insult, has been able to stain the very high moral example offered by our doctors.
Fidel was the main forger of the new consciousness that would germinate after the triumph of 1959 among the Cuban people, which was anti-imperialist, patriotic and –at the same time– generously internationalist and in solidarity. He contributed with his word and his example to bring about the unity of the nation and its spirit of resistance.
An expert in foreseeing dangers and traps, and in dismantling all deceptions, Fidel showed us (as Raúl also said) that it is possible to overcome “any obstacle, threat or turbulence, in our firm determination to build socialism in Cuba, or what is the same, to guarantee the independence and sovereignty of the homeland!”
Cintio Vitier saw, in the Cuban struggle for their definitive emancipation, so many times failed, a permanent duel against “the Impossible”. And he saw “with the glorious day, January 1st, when a ray of justice fell upon all”, the defeat of that ominous fatalism that seemed to condemn us to ignominy.
1959 was, according to Cintio, “the most beautiful year, the decisive one of our life”. “Other battles were beginning; but since then the becoming has roots, coherence and identity. (…) And everything that seemed impossible was possible”.
Front page of Granma:
http://www.granma.cu/file/pdf/2020/12/31/G_2020123101.pdf
http://www.granma.cu/file/pdf/2020/12/31/G_2020123101.pdf
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