Granma 299
Bolivia Suspends Elections until Further Notice
Bolivia Suspends Presidential
Elections until Further Notice
The Bolivian de facto government declared total quarantine this Saturday, taking effect from Sunday and will last 14 days, as an extreme measure to combat the new coronavirus pandemic.
March 22, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Photo: Taken from the Internet
The Bolivian Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) announced on Saturday the suspension of the election calendar due to the total quarantine decreed by the de facto government in the face of the new coronavirus, and therefore the presidential elections scheduled for May 3.
The President of the Supreme Electoral Court, Salvador Romero, said that the new date for the elections should be set “with technical support”. He reiterated that it should be made taking into account scientific assessments on the evolution of the pandemic. “It must be accepted without bias in favor or against any political organization or candidate,” he added.
In its statement, the TSE also expresses its commitment to resume its activities as soon as the minimum conditions are met.
“We declare our willingness to continue the broad and pluralistic dialogue with all political organizations participating in the 2020 process, as well as with the other branches of government, so that in a framework of consultation and unity of all Bolivians, we can define a new date for the voting day of the 2020 general election,” the TSE’s statement states.
For the time being, health authorities reported that 19 cases of infection and no deaths have been confirmed in the country.
In the run-up to the elections, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) is the favorite to win the presidency, vice-presidency and most of the seats in the Plurinational Assembly.
Quarantined Physician Describes It
Quarantined
Holguinera doctor Yaritza Pérez Peña fought her first face-to-face battle with the Covid-19
By Germán Veloz Placencia
March 19, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
I’m listening to Dr. Yaritza Perez Pena on the phone. Her voice sounds strange because she’s wearing a nasobuco [face mask]. I confess that I am anxiously looking for this contact and that she has more admirers behind her. I wish, I tell her, that from the Military Hospital of Holguin, where she is now in quarantine, she will share details of the moments in which, thinking of human beings, with her clear vision as a doctor, she fought her first face-to-face combat with the Covid-19.
“It was at the Hotel Rio de Oro, in the municipality of Rafael Freyre. She worked at the International Clinic of Guardalavaca and was on duty at the hotel’s Medical Post, where a Canadian guest arrived, at the suggestion of Mariluz Claro, the room’s waitress. She detected that the tourist had a cough, vomiting and diarrhea.
“Mariluz didn’t waste any time. She was alert and also warned her superiors about the case. This is what all the hotel staff was told to do when they trained staff to act at times like this. Together with nurse Marilín Oramas, I concluded that we were facing a suspicious case of the new coronavirus and we isolated it right there, to cut the chain of contacts with other people”.
She tells details about the operation of isolating the patient and his subsequent transfer to Villa El Cocal, in order to carry out the test expeditiously, which, sent to the Laboratory of Molecular Biology of the Provincial Center of Hygiene, Epidemiology, and Microbiology in Santiago de Cuba, proved positive.
Yaritza Pérez, since she was a student at the University of Medical Sciences of Holguín, has prepared herself to face contingencies like this, she assures us. Then in Brazil, during her second mission as a collaborator, she faced severe outbreaks of zika, dengue and malaria, and implemented well-designed medical protocols. But the new coronavirus has great contagious power and collective vigilance to detect cases and prevent their spread cannot be compromised, she says.
She says that in the 26 de Julio neighborhood in Rafael Freyre, her son, husband, parents and siblings are keeping an eye on their progress during the period of isolation, and that is great emotional support. She is also called by her colleagues at the clinic.
“Mariluz, Marilín and I remain asymptomatic, just like the rest of the people we contact with the patient. We will be isolated for about 14 days, which is the incubation time of Covid-19. We feel protected by the staff of the Military Hospital. They have been very gentle with everyone.
In hands like those of these names, the Cuban family is well protected. The best thing is that, throughout the island, there are thousands like them.
CFK and Florencia Fly to Argentina
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Her Daughter Florencia Fly from Cuba to Argentina
In her text, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner also recommends that Argentines respect preventive isolation within the framework of the fight against the coronavirus pandemic
By Redacción Digital
March 20, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Photo: Taken from the Internet
Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner announced that she is returning to Argentina from Havana, Cuba, with her daughter Florencia Kirchner. The decision was made public by the former president herself through her Twitter account. There, in a tweet, she states that her daughter and her doctors “managed to restore some of her lost health and have been working on her return home for some time.”
In her text, she also recommends that Argentines respect the preventive isolation in the framework of the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
The return will take place through a flight from Cubana de Aviación, the island’s flagship carrier. Although Cuba is not a country at risk from the coronavirus, the former president said that, together with her daughter, they will comply with the preventive isolation.
This is her tenth trip so far this year, and for the former president, this is the most important one. “Flor asked me to come and help her… I felt that I could not do it alone,” wrote CFK.
In her tweets, the former president deeply thanks the people and government of Cuba. “And I feel that even if I had a hundred lives, they would not be enough for me to express my gratitude to this Cuba of solidarity, punished by the powerful but dignified and haughty,” writes the vice president and continues: “Cuba stood by me at a very difficult time in my life, that held out its hand to my daughter without speculation and that cared for and protected her when the fierce media and judicial persecution severely damaged her health.
Regarding Cuba, the former president also points out that “that Cuban doctors exercise their vocation with commitment, with a profoundly humanist stance and who, with precise diagnosis, for the first time, gave Flor the tools that those who have lost their health need”.
Finally, the Vice President asked Argentines to take care of themselves in the face of the coronavirus pandemic: “I would like to ask you to do the same, to take care of yourselves and others by respecting preventive isolation in your homes. I love you all very much”.
Another Brick in Roger Waters’ Wall
Another Brick in Roger Waters’ Wall
Roger Waters, a former member of the rock band Pink Floyd, is one of the artists who stands up for noble causes. He will be eternally condemned by those who do not benefit from these revolutionary positions
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Roger Waters joined the Chilean people’s pots and pans. Photo: Taken from the Internet
It seems that the artists who stand up for the noble causes against massacres, racism, xenophobia, exploitation and other evils that coexist within humanity today, will be eternally condemned by those to whom these revolutionary positions do not favor them. Such is the case of Roger Waters, a former member of the rock band Pink Floyd, who has once again been criticized for opposing the genocide in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
The concerts of the British musician were being publicized by the website of Major League Baseball of the United States (MLB), which announced, last Saturday, March 8, that their platforms would stop promoting Waters’ performances, due to the pressures of the Zionist organization B’nai B’rith International. In January, in another attempt to silence the bassist, he had sent a letter to Rob Manfred, commissioner of MLB – the most important baseball league in the world – so that he would stop promoting the ticket sales for Waters’. This is not a Drill tour, scheduled to start on July 8, 2020.
The event that prompted such a reaction was the support of the British to BDS, a movement that drives the boycott policy, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel.
The campaign promotes non-violence and advocates for the rights of the Palestinian population in Gaza and the West Bank, according to the Argentine newspaper Clarín.
It turns out that Waters, after announcing a tour of Tel Aviv in 2006, began receiving messages from one of the movement’s promoters. In this way, as he approached the conflict and its realities, he bet on supporting the Palestinians. Thus, in 2018, during his visit to Montevideo [Uruguay], the musician participated in the talk Palestine and Human Rights Today. In the same year, in Barcelona, he was present at the colloquium Totes per Palestina. The Palestinian rain and international solidarity, where the co-founder of Pink Floyd stated that all human beings should have inalienable rights such as freedom, beyond being European, African, Palestinian, Jewish or Muslim.
In his view, there is no “legitimate reason” to justify the massacres that have caused the death of not a few Palestinians on the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip. This conflict has continued to take lives since the last century and which, if it does not stop, will exterminate Palestinian culture and society.
However, this anti-Waters campaign is not only based on his position in the face of this conflict, but it is enough to sound out the British man’s social networks to realize that his fight is for peace and the defense of humanity. It’s a vision that makes some people uncomfortable, precisely because they are defending many. There are plenty of examples.
As part of the Desert Trip festival, which in October 2016 brought together several stars from the golden age of rock, Waters gave a finale that resonated throughout California and beyond. During his presentation, Donald Trump’s montages appeared on the screens, accompanied by his craziest phrases from his last campaign. Meanwhile, the song Pigs was playing. Then, Another Brick in the Wall was heard, while a huge inflatable pig, with the face of the American president, flew over the audience, who could read in the figure: “pig”, “ignorant”, “liar”, “racist”, “sexist”…
In February 2019, the musician spoke out against the US interventionist attempt in Venezuela, which was holding the Venezuela Live concert, with the support of British tycoon Richard Branson and Colombian President Ivan Duque. In October of that year, Waters posted a video on Instagram, where he chanted in support and solidarity with Chileans protesting against the government of Sebastián Piñera. And in 2020 he has spoken out against the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States.
While his music and ideas in support of humanity have no borders, these actions against Waters are just another brick in the wall.
Movies and the Coronavirus
Movies and the Coronavirus
By Rolando Pérez Betancourt
March 16, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
A few days ago, actress Gwyneth Paltrow appeared on social networks wearing a mask and this recommendation: “I’ve already been in this movie. Stay safe. Don’t wave. Wash your hands often.”
The film Paltrow was referring to is Contagion (Steven Soderberg, 2011), the most-watched on the Internet in recent weeks because of its similarity to that global scourge that keeps humanity against the wall, Covid-19.
Contagioun has a first-rate international cast: Jude Law, Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet and Matt Damon, in addition to Paltrow, and is the film, within the genre of catastrophe, that most resembles what we’re experiencing, something like if since fiction its scriptwriter, Scott Z. Burns, had been sending out a warning message.
Gwyneth Paltrow has posted an image on Instagram recalling the film Photo: Instagram
In Contagion, Soderberg once again demonstrates his ability to combine experimental films with documentary elements and commercial touches, a formula that, through the use of breathless editing, opens the doors to vast audiences, while at the same time immersing the viewer in an atmosphere of tribulation.
The film talks about a virus that is supposedly transmitted from Hong Kong. Gwyneth Paltrow’s character, infected by a chef who shakes her hand after preparing a strange dish, later visits a casino where she blows the dice on a man who will die two days later. There he will contaminate everyone who approaches him, people who in a few hours will take planes to different parts of the world. On her way back to her native Minnesota, she falls ill and dies.
The epidemic takes on a global dimension and scientists begin to work on a vaccine, while the most diverse reactions take place in a film that gives great importance to the secondary characters: a blogger who denounces an international conspiracy that links the government with the pharmaceutical industry, cases of extreme selfishness, countries with no economic possibilities that are not involved in international cooperation, the manipulative role of the media and the lukewarmness, at the level of the nation and from the first moments, with which it faces what is happening.
Soderberg once again demonstrates in Contagio the ability to combine his experimental cinema with documentary elements and commercial touches Photo: sensacine.com
It is true that there are other films that deal with the subject, but none with the realism of Contagioun, hence the worldwide resurrection that makes many people look for it, and especially those people who remain in quarantine in their respective countries, perhaps because after long anguished suspense of anguish, the conflict opens the way to hope.
It is logical that in this “re-envisioning” the scriptwriter of Contagion, Scott Z. Burns, a faithful collaborator of Soderberg, returns to the foreground – with greater force than nine years ago. Interviewed by the website Slate, he had no qualms about condemning the cold actions of some governments in the face of the pandemic, starting with President Trump, who in the first moments relied more on his elusive messages via Twitter than on concrete actions.
According to Burns, while writing the script for the film, he went to meet with leading scientists who told him that the issue was not whether what he said could happen, but “when” it would happen. “When scientists say something, it’s better to listen,” the screenwriter said, and he had words of praise for the professionals at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control who advised him on his script. But he complained, “We’re finding out that we don’t have enough kits to test and for some reason, we’ve dissolved our pandemic response teams.
Speaking of the many people who tell him that the film was becoming a reality, Burns responds that he said, “I never imagined that there were leaders in this country who would leave us defenseless.
From a long interview appeared on the Slate website and an extensive lunge by Scott Z. Burns: “The administration and the Republican Party talk about protecting people with a wall [on the border with Mexico], but we don’t even have test kits. And he blames the lack of measures against hoarding, demonic price hikes, and other reprehensible aspects. “Where is the law when there are people on the Internet selling miracle cures?” he wonders. Those who saw the film remember the tricks of a grotesque con man in it, one more similarity of the many that come to show that, between fiction and reality, only the passage of life is in between.
Cuba Rejected Jewish Refugees in 1939
SS Saint Louis:
Under U.S. Pressure, Cuba Turned its Back on 909 Jewish Refugees in 1939
This is the heartbreaking story of the passengers of the SS Saint Louis liner, who in order to escape persecution by the Nazis, decided to travel to Havana, and then to the United States, but upon arrival at the Cuban port, under pressure from the U.S. government, were denied
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Author: Dolphin Xiqués Cutiño | archivo@granma.cu
March 17, 2020 13:03:41
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
The SS Saint Louis leaving the port of Havana on June 2, 1939, when the Jewish refugees were denied landing. Photo: Carteles Magazine
This is the heartbreaking story of the 937 passengers of the SS Saint Louis liner, who in order to escape the persecution by the Nazis, decided to travel to Havana, and then to the United States, but upon arrival at the Cuban port, under pressure from the Yankee government, were denied disembarkation.
Most of the passengers were Jewish families who, with the arrival of the Nazi party to power, began to be harassed: Their synagogues and properties were burned, they were constantly harassed and, moreover, they risked being detained only because they were Jews.
937 Jews fleeing the Nazi repression were shipped to the port of Hamburg. Photo: Taken from the Internet
Also traveling were four Spaniards and two Cubans who were not Jews. Almost all of them carried their visas in order issued by the Cuban Embassy in Berlin at a cost of $200 or $300 each, a fortune at that time.
The passengers of the SS Saint Louis were traveling with the illusion of reaching Cuba and then the United States, but that did not happen. Photo: Taken from the Internet
The SS Saint Louis set sail from the port of Hamburg on May 13, 1939. Gisela Felman was 15 years old when she embarked on that unknown adventure and “she remembers her father begging her mother to wait for him but she was tenacious and always replied: I have to take the girls away for safety.”
The families enjoyed the trip without suspecting that they would be rejected in Cuba, in the United States and in other Latin American countries. Photo: Taken from the Internet
“So, armed with visas for Cuba acquired in Berlin, 10 German marks in their bag and another 200 hidden in their underwear, they headed for Hamburg and the St Louis.
The voyage took place with the usual normality of passenger ships. Games, dances, dinners, walks on deck and that its captain Gustav Schroder kept so that women, men and children could enjoy the comforts on board, knowing that those families had suffered enough on German land.
The Havanese were very supportive of Jewish immigrants. Photo: Taken from the Internet
Everything was ready for the passengers to disembark. But big was the surprise when the authorities showed up on board the ship and informed the captain that nobody could go ashore.
The Jewish immigrants were unaware that eight days before the departure of the ship from Hamburg, the then president of Cuba, Federico Laredo Bru, under pressure from the Yankees, had denied the landing permits by means of a decree. Now, in order to enter Cuba, it was required to have an authorization from the Secretary of State and another from the Secretary of Labor and to pay a $500 bonus, except for the tourists.
The SS Saint Louis in the port of Antwerp, Belgium, after sailing for almost a month through Latin America without getting any country to accept its passengers. Photo: Taken from the Internet
Of course, the Jewish refugees could not comply with the new entry regulations because they had left Germany with what little value they had left. And now they had nothing of value with them, only their lives.
Only 28 passengers were able to disembark without problems, including the four Spaniards and the two Cubans.
The SS St. Louis remained in the Havana watershed for almost a week while the lives of the 909 Jewish refugees were traded as if they were just another commodity. They were fleeing from Nazism and were caught by capitalism.
On June 2, President Laredo Bru ordered Captain Gustav Schroder to leave the port of Havana. As the ship was leaving, thousands of Havana residents came to see them off, offering their solidarity and thus showing that the Cuban people were with them.
The ship set sail escorted by two Navy boats and set course for Florida, but there they refused to receive them as they did in Puerto Rico. The captain then telegraphed the authorities in Canada, Honduras, Venezuela, Ecuador, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, and Argentina, among other countries, to persuade them to take in the Jewish immigrants, but they all refused entry.
Almost a month after his departure from Germany, the SS Saint Louis had to set out for Europe and after long conversations some Jews were accepted by Great Britain, Holland and France, confining them in internment camps. The remaining passengers disembarked on June 17, 1939, in Antwerp, Belgium.
The epilogue to this heartbreaking story goes back to the German invasion of western Europe in May 1940: approximately 670 SS Saint Louis refugees were caught by the Nazis and died in concentration camps. Some 240 survived years of starvation, abuse, and forced labor.
Sources:
Cartel Magazine, June 11, 1939
Juventud Rebelde, March 29, 2009
No One Can Ever Bury Marx
No One Can Ever Bury Marx
There is no Marxist who knows Marx’s work inside out and does not fight for social justice; if one rationally assumes his postulates, but does not vibrate in the face of injustice committed against other human beings, in any corner of the planet
by Enrique Ubieta Gómez
March 14, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Illustration dedicated to Karl Marx Photo: Archive illustration
There is a drawing that imitates a photo, Karl Marx appears in a pitusa, a red pullover and leather jacket. Under his arm, he carries a volume of his masterpiece: Das Kapital. The Genius of Trier looks at us as he walks, impatient. The poster bears a legend, written in English and Russian: “I am back”. In another poster, Marx himself, now full-length, appears with a couple of university students; the professor and his students are almost dressed alike. This is recent propaganda by the Russian Communists. They’ve made one of Lenin’s as well. Sitting down, he holds a modern laptop on his knees and feverishly writes one of his revolutionary articles. The drawings connect, no doubt, with young people. They are doors that invite to be crossed.
On March 14, 137 years ago today, the greatest social thinker in history physically ceased to exist. His mark on modern culture is so profound that it is not necessary to know his work in depth to breathe its air. Humanity, whether it knows it or not, has assimilated many of his discoveries, just as, without having read or studied Copernicus or Darwin, it “knows” that the Earth is round and understands that evolution is a key factor in nature. The intellection of his work is, however, arduous: it demands dedication, study. Marx set out to understand capitalism, and he discovered its fundamental laws, in force despite its changes. He also discovered the path to overcome them. From a theoretical point of view, he was a man of action. But we are not given in simplifying capsules, nor in manuals.
His work demands active readers, creators. It demands native revolutions, capable of readjusting their paths, time and again, as Martí requested, in order to avoid the sieges and traps of Capital, its military, financial and media tentacles, and to conquer spaces of freedom, anti-colonial at first, and anti-neocolonial later. Fidel explained it as follows: “Marx’s theory was never a scheme: it was a conception, it was a method, it was an interpretation, it was a science. And science is applied to each concrete case. And no two concrete cases are exactly the same. The Cuban Revolution had the genius of Fidel, and a well-established tradition, whose roots go back to the independence and anti-imperialist thinking of José Martí and Antonio Maceo. It extends through a long list of combatants in the 20th century: Carlos Baliño, Julio Antonio Mella, Rubén Martínez Villena, Antonio Guiteras, Jesús Menéndez, Frank País, Ernesto Che Guevara…
There is no Marxist who knows Marx’s work inside out and does not fight for social justice. if one rationally assumes its postulates, but does not vibrate before injustice committed against other human beings, in any corner of the planet.
Ethics and science are basic assumptions. That is why in 2001 Fidel reaffirmed: “We will never renounce the principles we acquired in the struggle to bring all justice to our country by putting an end to the exploitation of man by man, inspired by the history of humanity and by the most preclarified theorists and promoters of a socialist system of production and distribution of wealth. It is the only one capable of creating a truly just and humane society: Marx, Engels and later Lenin. 137 years ago today, Karl Marx physically abandoned us. But no one will ever be able to bury him.
Diversifying IT Services and Making Them Exportable
Diversifying IT Services and Making Them Exportable
The Minister of Communications, during the balance sheet of the Informatics and Communications Business Group, highlighted the need to encourage human capital and undertake projects that increase income
by Yaditza del Sol González | internet@granma.cu
February 19, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Cuba is strongly committed to the computerization of society, despite the intensification of the U.S. economic blockade. Currently, 63% of the country’s population is connected to the Internet through various channels. Photo: Granma Archive
Establishing alliances that promote productive linkages between different Cuban enterprises, implementing services to citizens, with priority given to government management and electronic commerce, as well as accelerating the safe development of technological infrastructure and encouraging research, development and innovation programs, are actions that respond to a single strategy: the implementation of the policy of computerization of society.
This was the opinion of the head of the Ministry of Communications, Jorge Luis Perdomo Di-Lella, who highlighted the need to encourage human capital and undertake projects that increase income. In this sense, he referred to the possibilities of exporting Cuban software, with a guaranteed quality, and in the deployment of proposals that are connected with foreign investment.
“The challenge is to diversify services, make them attractive, study which ones we can offer in the international market, all from the resources we have. In view of the economic situation of the country and the tightening of the U.S. economic blockade against Cuba, we are called upon to manage financing and seek foreign currency. [We must do this] either by using measures to make state-owned companies more flexible or by means of productive chains. This not only contributes to the monetary stability of the country but also to the very development of business.
During the assessment of the Informatics and Communications Business Group, the Minister called for a close follow-up of the e-government program. [This is] because once the present stage is over, “we are entering a more complex phase, where the provincial and local governments must guarantee the updating of the website’s contents and motivate the citizen to be at the center of the transformation of the management they carry out”.
With respect to cyber security, he said that there is a demand for digital certificates in the country and yet there is no consolidated marketable supply from computer and communications companies. The use of these certificates by the institutions allows us to increase the security codes and protect the exchange of information, an essential tool in a scenario where Cuban users are increasingly connected.
As Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel has mentioned on several occasions – the Minister emphasized – we must be able to make better use of the financial resources at our disposal to enhance the process of computerizing society.
IN FIGURES
By the end of 2019:
7.1 million Cubans were connected to the Internet, representing 63% of the country’s population
More than 143,000 homes were connected to the Nauta Hogar network
More than six million active lines are supported by the mobile phone network on the island, and 70% of these connections were made through smartphones
Source: Global Digital Report 2020 and Etecsa
Toiletries to Become Available
Toiletries are Going to Become Available
Authorities say that April will show some improvement in the supply of toiletries.
As of May and June the situation should be stable in the country.
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by Yaditza del Sol González | internet@granma.cu
and Yudy Castro Morales | yudy@granma.cu
March 4, 2020 00:03:02
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Toiletries, such as soap, toothpaste, liquid detergent and others sold in the retail network, should start to show greater availability in the market, even from March itself. Photo: Vicente Brito
Based on the current conditions of the national industry, the conciliation in terms of production and the assigned financing, the toiletries -such as soap, toothpaste, liquid detergent and others that are sold in the retail stores-must start to show a greater availability in the market, even from this month.
This was announced by Betsy Diaz Velazquez, head of Domestic Trade (Mincin). She explained that now in March, the levels of presence and assurance of these products will show better performance compared to previous weeks, which should go to stability once they begin to recover inventories.
In this regard, she added, April will also show some improvement, and from May and June the situation of sanitation should be stable in the country.
As to why these items are not marketed through the system of the ration book, perhaps as an emerging measure in the face of hoarding and re-sellers, the Minister explained that the toiletries can not be included in the basic family basket, as it would become a controlled product and, therefore, acquire rights.
If we do not have enough to put, for example, one soap per person, and ensure that it reaches the population according to the established cycles, then we can not assume control measures in the register of consumers, said Diaz Velazquez.
“What we can do, and do, is give the authorities of the territory the power to apply regulatory measures in the sale of products in high demand and with insufficient supply on the market. We are not talking about the administrator, but a power of governments and municipal administrations,” he said.
In addition, he insisted, there are certain items that can only market the units of MINCIN, such as Lis and Nacar soap, or liquid detergent Limtel. No one else is authorized, and anyone who incurs in this type of sales is acting illegally.
Since February, Suchel has had all the financing required to meet the planned levels of washing and toilet soap, liquid detergent and toothpaste. Photo: Granma Archive
AT THE SUCHEL COMPANY
Carlos Miguel Boggiano Sánchez, Managing Director of the company Suchel, agrees with the words of the head of MINCIN, telling Granma that “in May they will start to gradually improve deliveries, after achieving sustainability in their production and marketing”.
And more than goodwill or an optimistic attitude to support the announced stability, the company has, since February, “all the financing required to respond to the planned levels of laundry and toilet soap, liquid detergent and toothpaste”, products that showed sensitive deficits during 2019 and at the beginning of the year.
This guarantee, stressed Boggiano Sanchez, “marks the difference with respect to previous periods and ensures compliance with contracts for raw materials, as well as their arrival.
To get an idea of the recovery trend shown by the industry, it is appropriate to review the production indices for the first quarter of 2019 and those contemplated for the same stage in 2020.
During the first three months of the previous year, this entity delivered to MINCIN 7,806 tons of cleaning supplies, a figure that represented 16.1% of the 2019 plan.
However, at the end of March, the company must deliver 8296 tons, equivalent to 16,5 % of the forecast for 2020, a schedule that shows growth in the four families of products mentioned.
“From the raw material already available in the market, it is projected to exceed the production of the quarter by 380 tons of washing soap and 500 tons of liquid detergent”, said the CEO of Suchel.
It is precisely this last product, together with toothpaste, that has shown the greatest impact at the beginning of the year. It is estimated that it will recover, as of May, in the following order: detergent, although demand continues to exceed supply; laundry soap, toilet soap and toothpaste.
He said that, so far, the most significant deliveries are concentrated in the provinces of Havana, Matanzas, Villa Clara and Camagüey.
He stressed that as with the stable arrival of raw materials and the continuity of production, the industry, composed of six business units with a productive base, will put its capacities above 95% of use. This is the goal for which all the strategies are designed, from the availability of personnel to the organization of the required work shifts.
And it cannot leave out, from any productive analysis, as Boggiano Sanchez says, the impact of the hostile policy of economic, commercial and financial blockade of the US Government, whose tentacles press each sector of the economy.
The production of shavings, a fundamental raw material for making soap, requires imported oils and fats which, during 2019, in the words of the director, did not reach the country. This is, in addition to financial restrictions, due to the impossibility of tankers to touch Cuban ports, because of the pressures resulting from the unilateral and illegal U.S. sanctions against Cuba.
Of the 21,000 tons of shavings planned in 2019, barely 6,625 were obtained. This year no manufacture has been achieved, since the same constraints persist, not counting the increase in the price of the final product, which involves both the import of shavings and the import of fats and oils in different formats.
Although it might seem an excess, perhaps because of the reiterated nature of the subject, even in the production of soaps the economic blockade wags its tail.
IN DEVELOPMENT NEW LINE OF ECONOMIC PERFUMERY
By 2020, most of the demand of the mixed company Suchel Camacho s.a. is redirected to the network of stores in MINCIN, according to Caridad Estévez García, its sales manager.
In that sense, he said, the range of products is expanded with two new additions to the Daily line: cologne and deodorant. Other existing ones are consolidated, such as soap, children’s dental gel and [insect] repellent. In addition, there are also hair products such as professional dye and shampoo, conditioners and peroxides in large formats.
Likewise, he continued, “we are working on the development of new economic products of perfumery, cosmetics, and cleaning, which contribute to the substitution of imports, and guarantee the relation quality-price-opportunity”.
Together with the MINCIN and the governments of the territories, Suchel Camacho will participate, in the words of Estévez García, in the setting of personalized spaces, with adequate furniture for the positioning of such products.
In a first stage, the work will be done in stores located on Galiano and San Rafael streets in the capital, to be later extended to other establishments in the country.
Food Self-Sufficiency and National Security
Food Self-Sufficiency:
A Matter of National Security
Granma publishes the remarks of Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz, at the 32nd anniversary of the Urban, Suburban and Family Farming Program in the municipality of Segundo Frente, Santiago de Cuba
Author: Manuel Marrero Cruz | internet@granma.cu
February 16, 2020 21:02:00
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Photo: Sierra Maestra newspaper
Compañeras and compañeros of the presidency and invited guests;
Delegates to this important work meeting:
More than three decades ago, on December 27, 1987, during a visit to an experience of growing vegetables in quarries enriched with organic matter in Hortifar, an entity belonging to the Military Agricultural Union, the Army General [Raul Castro] indicated to analyze and develop this method of cultivation. This is how the Urban Agriculture Program was born.
Years later, this type of quarry became part of the environment in every corner of Cuba, from the big cities to the small towns.
Then the idea emerged, also from the Army General, to increase the scale of those crops to the lands around the cities, which in their great majority remained unproductive.
As you will remember, this came to be on April 8, 2009, first in Camagüey, within a radius of ten kilometers from the center of the provincial capital. It was called suburban agriculture, and wisely integrated into the by-then already consolidated urban and family agriculture. It was under the direction of comrade Adolfo Rodríguez, known affectionately by all of us as Adolfito. With such passion, responsibility and efficiency he took on the task, practically until the last moment of his life, and to whose commitment we owe a great deal of what was achieved. May this event serve to honor his memory.
The concept has remained unchanged: to generalize a system of food production based on local potential, that is, creating there their own technologies and productive inputs by using the potential available in the territory.
Undoubtedly, since then, progress has been significant. The program has been consolidated as a popular movement of a productive extensionist nature and under agro-ecological principles. This is done with the use of sustainable production technologies, the use of local resources, and the combination of experience and traditions with science and technology.
It is a dynamic, deep, vertical, coordinated and directed work system through the National Group. This has allowed us to achieve positive results and with it, important savings to the country’s economy, contributing to the decrease of input imports.
At a time when the U.S. government has tightened the blockade and everything indicates that it will continue to do so, this project aimed at producing food for the people. It’s something that is not simply another priority, takes on much more importance. It is a vital issue for national security, I repeat, something that is not simply another priority; it is a vital issue for national security, which is equal to preserving our independence and sovereignty.
Today, our country imports $1.65 billion in food for the people, so replacing those imports is strategic. We must commit ourselves to the development of this program and extend its various productive structures to our cities, up to 10 square meters per inhabitant by next year. To take advantage of all available spaces in the cities or towns.
There are plenty of reasons to defend this strategy. In the first place, it is the most economical way of producing food. It can work with a minimum of motor transport and fuel – even without any if necessary – as people can buy them where they are grown, or the transport is a short distance and allows the use of alternative means.
Another very important point: it does not require imports of pesticides or fertilizers. Each hectare of quarry committed must be supported by the amount of fertilizer and other organic inputs needed.
In addition, it guarantees employment for thousands of workers, including women and young people. It is an elementary tool for achieving food security. It contributes to improving water management and nutrient recycling. It allows the use of unproductive, idle or underutilized spaces and is capable of producing the seeds it demands, among other advantages.
All this makes it a realistic and sustainable alternative, a reference for what we have to do to achieve food and nutritional sovereignty for our population.
It is fair and necessary to recognize what has been achieved, but you know, and you analyzed it during the event, that even greater results can be achieved with the resources available today, if we use them with the maximum of rationality and intelligence.
No one can feel satisfied until the last disused quarry and organoponico is recovered. The goal is to repair them all and put them into use during the current year. Likewise, to complete the reconstruction of the protected and semi-protected cultivation areas affected by meteorological phenomena or by the logical deterioration of the years of exploitation.
The yield per square meter must be increased. There are plenty of examples of what is possible when quality seeds are used and with a constant application of organic substrates and fertilizers, as well as the appropriate use of bio-products and agro-technology.
The use of animal traction in cultivation work around towns and villages should be a constant, whether or not fuel is available. In addition to the efficient use of water and renewable energy sources, such as biogas, windmills, solar panels, biomass and other alternatives, depending on the possibilities in each location.
We cannot stop at the incorporation of idle areas, covered with marabou and other weeds, in the surroundings of population settlements and communities.
It is also important to guarantee production throughout the year; not to neglect the summer under the excuse of unfavorable weather. In those months we have to promote products that are more resistant to heat, such as cucumbers, eggplants, beans, and okra, among others.
We must perfect the marketing of fresh vegetables and fruit, with emphasis on the population, but without forgetting tourism, social consumption, defense, and the internal order, and we must even get to export some products.
Closely linked to these purposes is the objective of continuing to adjust the organizational system of Urban Agriculture. It is necessary to analyze its financial structure and measure its impact, to ensure adequate profitability and stability in the results.
The Municipal Urban Farm and its representatives of the people’s councils must exercise a broad power of convocation among local producers. In turn, they must play the productive, political and social role for which they were created. It is necessary to work hard to re-establish the marketing network that will simplify and facilitate the acquisition of agro-products directly for the local population.
The success of this great effort has a decisive key: the women and men who make the land produce. It is essential to continue to increase the incorporation of the labor force into this activity, especially young people, and to perfect the systems of payment by results.
Also from Urban Agriculture, the fruit tree program was born, which was incorporated into the local supply in all the perimeter of our localities.
Regarding this program, Army General Raul Castro Ruz suggested to create a fruit tree cooperative in each municipality and today we can report with satisfaction that we have 353 cooperatives throughout the country, dedicated to the production of fruit for the people.
With regard to food production in general, today more than ever we have to promote polyculture.: It is not the same to invest in fuel, fertilizers and other resources to prepare the land and sow a single crop than to take advantage of the same for two and three more.
Compañeras and compañeros:
We had proposed to guarantee 30 pounds per month of food and vegetables to each fellow citizen,. Of those, we reached 20 in 2019. We will reach that goal in less time if we continue to increase the productive areas, from the backyards, the orchard, the giant organoponicos and suburban agriculture, to the large productive poles.
To do this, we must continue to produce high-quality seeds. Research centers already show positive results with seeds that are better adapted to our climate, increase yields and even reduce production cycles.
Another objective is to guarantee each Cuban five kilograms of animal protein per month, and last year we only reached 200 grams. It is unsustainable to try to increase the production of animal protein-based on imported feed and raw materials, in which we are investing 450 million dollars today. It is as much of a priority to produce animal feed as we consume directly as people.
We Cubans have inherited as a food tradition a diet made up of four basic products: rice, beans, food and protein, to which we should add vegetables or salads. Of these, we now have total sovereignty over only one: food. We import an important part of rice, and to a lesser extent, beans and meat, but also in considerable volume, and even a level of vegetables.
Our future has to be directed towards achieving food sovereignty. We have to aim for this in stages, the shorter the better, planned and well-coordinated in a comprehensive way through realistic plans. It is precisely vegetables and beans that we can stop importing in the short term.
We are convinced that this program will continue to grow and will play an important and irreplaceable role in achieving these strategic objectives.
We congratulate you on the results achieved in 2019 and we urge you to continue to move forward as a national reference in the production of food for the people and thereby demonstrate that Yes we could, Yes we can and Always we will.
Thank you very much.
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