Granma 299
Notes on Pablo Armando Fernández
Notes on Pablo Armando Fernández
Pablo Armando Fernández was justly praised for his extraordinary literary work in poetry and novels, as well as for his patriotic and revolutionary attitude, during the forum held at Uneac in the context of the International Book Fair.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Writer Pablo Armando Fernández, honored at the Fair. Photo: Pastor Batista
Pablo Armando Fernandez was justly praised for his extraordinary literary work in poetry and novels, as well as for his patriotic and revolutionary attitude, during the forum or tertulia held at Uneac in the context of the International Book Fair.
Miguel Barnet, president of the Uneac, dwelt on the character of the author of such important works as Los niños se despiden, Casa de las Américas Prize 1968; Golpe de dados, or the first-born Salterio y lamentaciones, among many of great literary flight and reception of the reader.
Barnet’s words were preceded by speeches by writers Enrique Saínz, Juan Nicolás Padrón and Nancy Morejón.
Barnet, more than Armando’s work, wanted to refer to his life, both to the intimate love with his wife Maruja, as everyone knew her, and to his unwavering attitude in defense of culture in the Revolution. He shared singular anecdotes about Pablo Armando, whom Fidel honored by visiting him at his home.
He especially focused on the celebration of the writer’s 70th birthday, which was also attended, among other intellectual friends, by Gabriel García Márquez, later winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The Forum began with the reading of a letter from Roberto Fernández Retamar, who met Pablo Armando when he was living in New York and had not yet published his first book, which turned out to be the famous Psalter and Lamentations.
The exhaustive and rich exposition on Pablo Armando’s immense work in poetry and prose turned out to be an extraordinary piece, whose publication, in the Gaceta, was proposed by Barnet, as it would be necessary to resort to it in order to know the literary work of Pablo Armando, National Literature Prize winner.
Enrique Saínz also referred to how much his birth and life, until he was 15 years old, in the Batey del Central Delicias and in the surroundings of Chaparra, in the former province of Oriente, could have influenced the intellectual.
Juan Nicolás Padrón fundamentally approached Pablo Armando’s poetic work, as well as his life of continuous creation in poetry and novels; he also dealt with the author’s links with the most outstanding Cuban intellectuals in the Revolution and with American colleagues and those from many countries of the world. He also praised the undeniable value of the Spanish and English languages, which Pablo Armando masters with excellence.
After the words of the panel members, applauded by the large audience in the Villena Hall, a documentary about Pablo Armando Fernandez was screened.
Without masks… and with neocolonial garnish
Without masks… and with neocolonial garnish
The U.S. Government, which claims to be a Democrat, is disrespected when three senators from President Joe Biden’s own party set up a virtual conference with an interlocutor lacking in merit and authority, such as the Venezuelan Juan Guaidó.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
The Government of the United States, which claims to be democratc, is disrespected when three senators of President Joe Biden’s own party set up a virtual conference with an interlocutor lacking in merit and authority, such as the Venezuelan Juan Guaidó. There, in addition to giving him guidance on the peace process and the upcoming elections, they put the neocolonial garnish of insults against the Government and the democratically-elected president, Nicolás Maduro Moros. Do they really believe they have the right to such action?
That such slips occurred in the Republican government of Donald Trump, although immoral, was contemplated as one more of those actions displayed by the president, where irrationality and fundamentalism were determinant.
It is incredible that, at this point in time, a Democratic administration in a country where law and order supposedly prevails, three members of Congress ignore everything and attack Venezuelan legislation and authorities and dare to establish a dialogue with a nobody like Guaidó.
The Yankees who protect him know very well that this gentleman has no capacity or morals whatsoever to speak and act on behalf of a country and a people against whom he has even asked for foreign military intervention since he has never been elected by Venezuelans to be their president.
Everything he does is illegal and illegitimate -including the money he takes or is allowed to take, in foreign banks where it remains as patrimony of the Bolivarian nation-.
Now it turns out that three legislators of the U.S. Congress, the number two of the Democratic majority in the Senate, Dick Durbin; the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Bob Menendez, and the head of the subcommittee for Latin America, Tim Kaine, met virtually with Guaidó, under the suthat they were providing guidance and listening to views of the “interim president” of Venezuela.
This was an interventionist action far from the system of international relations, of respect for the laws and in defiance of the vast majority of the Venezuelan people. They democratically elected Maduro as President and together with him participate in the construction of a more just and equitable society, where solidarity and love predominate. This is quite the opposite of the hatred and confrontation used as a banner by the U.S. administrations and their internal lackeys.
According to EFE news agency, the U.S. senators and Juan Guaidó spoke about the “political impasse” facing Venezuela.
And that statement of “dead-end” could say it all, since both those in Washington who fabricated an “interim president”, as well as the character selected to carry that label, could be feeding ideas from the years of Donald Trump -and still present today-, of seeking a “solution” to unblock the dead-end with armed intervention, through the volatile border with Colombia. Interference is done “with a mask off” and with neo-colonial dressing, even though we are in the 21st century.
No originality in the script
No originality in the script
The purpose remains the same: to employ asphyxiating maneuvers until the prey loses all possibility of survival. The 243 measures of the U.S. administration to cut off the slightest maneuver of the Cuban government in the midst of the effects of the pandemic, bet on bringing the end of the pandemic closer.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Photo: Illustration taken from Cubaenresumen
After six decades, the cast changes and the script remains the same. Such a long-standing political strategy requires operatives to renew the tactics in the field. The purpose remains the same: to employ asphyxiating maneuvers until the prey loses all possibility of survival. The 243 measures taken by the U.S. administration to cut off the slightest maneuver of the Cuban government in the midst of the effects of the pandemic, bet on bringing the end closer.
Faced with this scenario, Biden continued in the footsteps of his predecessors. Now, in a context that has even motivated the Pope’s reflections and rejection, the President must find pretexts to justify his policy towards the archipelago. Hence, the most active official of his government on the Cuba issue threatened the independent and sovereign nation of the Caribbean. To an international media, the principal director of National Security for the Western Hemisphere, Juan Gonzalez, declared that Washington will respond with sanctions if the promoters of the provocative march announced for November 15 in several cities of the country are prosecuted.
In recent months, through social networks, platforms through which the U.S. Government intends to build a parallel reality for Cuba and manage its interventionist strategy, the federal employee even exchanged with Cuban influencers to expose the vision of his administration towards the Island.
Promoting the “free flow of information”, supporting political operators associated with culture and “independent” journalism, as well as erasing the legitimacy of the Cuban Revolution in the international scenario, have been the matrices presented to the public opinion by the also advisor to President Biden. But these ideas need their correlate in practice in order to achieve their objective.
Weeks ago, in the midst of the VI Celac Summit, while several leaders were betting on cooperation to face the current scenario, a president chose “complacency” with Washington’s dictate towards Cuba, and was out of tune with a sepia speech on democracy and human rights.
To support these arguments in the international arena, the White House supports operators in Cuban territory. And now, once again, behind the “peaceful” discourse, the intention is to stage an event that articulates and advances the U.S. agenda and, furthermore, justifies it before public opinion. Whether or not the purpose has been achieved, the strategists have already ensured the counter-response: a justification to sustain the blockade and to point the finger once again at the Government of the Island for declaring such a “civic” expression unconstitutional.
The main promoter of the “peaceful march” has denied any link with organizations that respond to the US government; however, he himself revealed that the demonstration would be led by several citizens and civil society groups of which there is evidence of their financial and operational dependence on Washington. Among them, members of the self-styled 27N Movement and the Council for Democratic Transition. At the same time, all the press financed through projects of the NED, USAID and other organizations with similar purposes, maintains in its headlines any content related to the march or its organizers.
The date chosen for the performance could not be otherwise. They take advantage of the month and the day of the opening to international tourism, of the return to schools, of the restart of cultural life. Right now it is the information that the algorithms in the large servers of the social networks, all managed by U.S. corporations, rank in relation to Cuba.
Shortly before the mid-term elections that will renew Congress and one-third of the U.S. Senate, the Democratic Party runs the risk of losing control of Congress. The Republicans would only need five more seats in the House of Representatives and one in the Senate to regain the majority. In this dispute, despite not fulfilling his campaign promises, Biden reaffirms his votes with the most recalcitrant and powerful representatives of the Cuban community in the North American country.
A march or any other representation, in tune with the counterrevolution industry, will continue to be postable content in the profiles of U.S. government officials and agencies. Meanwhile, Cuba follows its own agenda. More than 7,000,000 people have received the complete COVID-19 vaccination schedule. Florida and Washington know it.
German experts on Cuban vaccines
German experts confirm that Cuban COVID-19 vaccines could be part of the continent’s immunogen portfolio
Cuban-made vaccines could form a vital part of the immunogen portfolio that the continent will need for many years to come, say eminent German professors Bert Hoffmann and Jan Felix Drexler, in the article “COVID-19 in Latin America: where we are and what is to come”
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Photo: Ricardo López Hevia
Cuban-made vaccines can form a vital part of the immunogen portfolio that the continent will need for many years to come, say eminent German professors Bert Hoffmann and Jan Felix Drexler, in the article “COVID-19 in Latin America: where we are and what is to come”.
In the text published in the giga magazine of the German Institute for Global and Area Studies, both specialists agree that “given that vaccines are being produced in the region, their trade should be facilitated.
They also reflect on the vaccines that have been inoculated in the Latin American region. These include vectored vaccines such as those of AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson or Russia’s Sputnik-V; mRNA vaccines such as those of Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna (a modified messenger RNA encoding the spike protein); inactivated vaccines such as SinoVac and Sinopharm (which rely on cultured SARS-COV-2 that is chemically inactivated, for example, with formaldehyde); and protein subunit-based vaccines such as Cuba, Abdala and Soberana (which rely on the spike protein receptor-binding domain, in the case of Soberana, coupled to tetanus toxoid to enhance immunogenicity).
“Moreover, Cuba’s vaccines are a different case, as they are not produced under license from international companies, but are original developments of the Island’s biotechnology sector, a remarkable achievement given the country’s economic limitations and the fact that much richer states and pharmaceutical companies did not achieve this,” they point out, elsewhere in the text.
“Cuba also became the first country in the world to vaccinate children over the age of two. By the end of 2021, it is likely that the island will have fully vaccinated 90% of its population,” they point out.
CUBA INTENSIFIES VACCINE PRODUCTION
Cuba reached 40 million doses of the anti-COVID-19 Abdala vaccine, an achievement reached by the shared effort and work of the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB) and the AICA pharmaceutical laboratories, institutions that give prestige to Cuban science.
According to the Twitter account of AICA Laboratories, this result is the result of a common vision, and highlights the importance of teamwork between two entities of the business group of the Biotechnological and Pharmaceutical Industries of Cuba (BioCubaFarma).
Revolution’s strength is in the neighborhoods
The Revolution’s strength is in the neighborhoods (+ Video)
The President of the Republic arrived this Friday to La Timba to appreciate the resuscitation actions that have been carried out there for a few months. This time he was accompanied by the first secretaries of the provincial committees of the Communist Party and the first secretary of the Municipal Committee of the Party in the special municipality of Isla de la Juventud, who are in Havana to participate in the II Plenary Session of the Central Committee
Author: Yaima Puig Meneses | internet@granma.cu
October 22, 2021 16:10:43
Translated by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
The First Secretary of the Party and President of the Republic Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez called on the residents of La Timba to continue and not stop in everything that is being done in this vulnerable neighborhood. Photo: Revolution Studios
From a balcony the child’s voice overcame the noise of the patching equipment and the bustle of the people. The President heard him. He slowed his pace. He turned his face away. He raised his hand in greeting and smiled back at the boy.
The hustle and bustle continued in La Timba, one of the 65 neighborhoods that are part of the transformation experienced by deep places in the Cuban capital, and one of which the Head of State arrives every week.
This Friday, the visit there of the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party had a sui generis company: together with him, the 15 secretaries of the provincial committees of the Party in the country and the secretary of the Municipal Committee of the Party in the municipality walked streets and citadels special Isla de la Juventud, who are in Havana to participate in the II Plenary Session of the Central Committee.
The president shared with them the experience that has multiplied in Havana since July, with the challenge of “extending to the entire country, taking into account the particularities of each territory.”
The tour had begun at the Gustavo Pozo elementary school, where the first secretary of the Municipal Committee of the Party in Plaza de la Revolución, Leira Sánchez Valdivia, spoke to them about the development challenges that distinguish the municipality, including the management of differences that are generated in an environment where large buildings and 53 citadels converge.
«In La Timba a dream is being built; now we are at a starting point that will continue to give us content to work more, “he said, and then detailed about the 47 works in which constructive actions are carried out, all of high interest to the population, such as the winery, various markets , the family doctor’s and nurse’s office, a post office, and more.
La Timba’s road structures were well defined since its inception, but the neighborhood “has grown disorderly” over the years and its streets require extensive paving and patching.
In the midst of these tasks, the President toured the community, greeted the small groups of workers, asked them about the works and continued to advance: in recent months here, more than 300 tons of asphalt have been used in patching actions and they have repaired almost 150 cubic meters of sidewalks.
“With these actions and later, when all the buildings and properties are painted and repaired, the streets have another life,” Díaz-Canel told a group of neighbors, whom he called “to continue and not stop in everything that is doing”.
Are you aware of the priorities? Do you agree? ”He asked again and again as he advanced through the busy crowd, which barely stopped to greet him.
Thank you, President! Thanks, mijito! Thank you! ”Were phrases that some shouted from afar and others –those who, no matter how fast or well located, could bump fists with the president– would burst out at him when they were close to him.
La Timba is a people that trusts in its Revolution, that is grateful. Mayra Arevich Marín, Minister of Communications – the organization that sponsors this neighborhood – reminded Díaz-Canel how in the first days of beginning the resuscitation work in the community, she thought that the people would never join. That was only at the beginning, he said, then the participation overflowed all spaces.
MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL PRIORITIES
Because among the priorities defined by the community are the ways to initiate actions, one of the most important that is currently being carried out in La Timba is aimed at the conservation and maintenance of buildings, the construction of new homes for people who they live in critical condition, and the rehabilitation of citadels with their infrastructures.
More than a thousand families in the community –with some 4,000 inhabitants– will benefit from some of these actions. The President wanted to know about it, without any reports, retracing the streets and “asking permission” to break into the humble homes that today are filled with hope.
In the eventfulness of the journey, it was impossible to keep track of how many homes he visited. He entered, walked, filled the neighbors and builders with questions, left, advanced on the journey, and again the cycle was repeated. Each family has a story to tell, and in each family singularities can be discovered, which also help to solve many problems in the country.
La Manigua is a cultural and creative center that runs in the heart of La Timba, and aims to become an innovative space, where girls and boys can learn, experiment and have fun with Cuban history, art and culture, through the humor and the values of Juan Padrón’s work.
Near the place of the constructive actions, Silvia Padrón, daughter of the revered Cuban cartoonist, explained to Díaz-Canel that the place will be the materialization of “a dream that my father had, of seeing his work transcending the world of cartoons, where the children could interact with her, experiment and connect ».
Then this idea came up, “which is a gift for the Cuban family; It will be very connected to La Timba, but it is a gift for the whole city. The idea is that the people who come can, based on the values of the work itself, connect with the best of being Cuban and enjoying the game. This is what this site is all about: people are going to learn by playing, having fun.
Thus, during the tour, Díaz-Canel and those who accompanied him were able to learn about different community projects that are developed and implemented in La Timba, including one that they have decided to call Entimbalao, and that has come to life in a park, where adolescents and young people play sports with skateboards.
Here the boys themselves have participated with their opinions in the design of the park, and according to the leader of the project, once completed, it will also contribute to improving the quality of life in the neighborhood and expanding recreational offers.
The tour concluded at the Plaza Cultural Center. There, a fruitful exchange between President Díaz-Canel and the party leaders who accompanied him took place, along with them also the member of the Political Bureau and Secretary of Organization and Politics of Cadres, Roberto Morales Ojeda; the Minister of Communications, Mayra Arevich Marín, and the Governor of Havana, Reinaldo García Zapata.
For more than an hour, useful experiences were shared from that stage that ratified the urgent need for resuscitation actions carried out in capital neighborhoods to reach all the country’s territories.
Among other issues, Díaz-Canel spoke then of joint work, always listening to what the community wants and needs as a key to strengthening this experience and making it sustainable over time. He underlined the importance of fostering public debates, where the population participates; the transparency of the procedures; hone the role of the delegate; and assume with ever more sensitivity the problems that exist in our communities.
And because “the strength of the Revolution is in the neighborhoods,” the First Secretary of the Party’s Central Committee insisted on constantly looking at them and learning from the many lessons that the people always leave us.
To the inhabitants of the community, who were waiting for his departure from the Cultural Center to greet him, the Head of State asked to continue working as they have done so far: together with the organizations that have arrived to support them.
That everything we do – he added – is because you propose it and you need it. “There are many problems and we cannot solve them at once, but every day we are going to be tearing a bit out of each one, and thus we are going to move forward,” he explained.
In them he left the challenge of “supporting that everything is done with quality and nothing is violated that are motivations and aspirations of the population in the neighborhood.”
TEN MORE PHOTOS:
https://www.granma.cu/cuba/2021-10-22/vuelve-diaz-canel-a-la-barriada-capitalina-de-la-timba
VIDEO: Seven minutes
Cuba reports 2197 new cases of Covid 19
Ministry of Public Health: Cuba reports 2 197 new COVID-19 cases
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
At the end of yesterday, October 16, 25,457 patients were admitted, 15,123 were suspected, 1,651 were under surveillance and 8,683 were confirmed active.
For COVID-19, a total of 30,359 samples were taken for surveillance during the day, resulting in 2,197 positive results. The country accumulates 10 million 172 thousand 672 samples taken and 934 thousand 965 positive.
Of the total number of cases (2,197): 2,189 were contacts of confirmed cases; 5 with source of infection abroad; 3 with no source of infection specified. Of the 2,197 diagnosed cases, 1,159 were female and 1,038 were male.
Of the 2,197 positive cases, 5.4% (118) were asymptomatic, making a total of 129,294, representing 13.9% of those confirmed to date.
The 2 197 diagnosed cases belong to the following age groups: under 20 years of age (495), 20 to 39 years of age (488), 40 to 59 years of age (681) and over 60 (533).
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Of the 934,965 patients diagnosed with the disease, 8,683 remain hospitalized, of whom 8,428 have a stable clinical course. There were 8058 deaths (21 during the day), with a case fatality rate of 0.86% vs. 2.04% in the world and 2.45% in the Americas; two evacuated, 55 returned to their countries. During the day there were 2,274 discharges, 918,167 patients recovered (98.2%). There are 255 confirmed patients in intensive care, of which 88 are critical and 167 are serious.
During the day, 21 patients died. We deeply regret what happened and convey our condolences to their families and friends.
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As of October 16, 190 countries and 32 territories have reported cases of COVID-19, with 241 million 65 thousand 235 confirmed cases (+ 436 thousand 600), 17 million 870 thousand 542 active cases and 4 million 908 thousand 8 deaths (+ 7 thousand 117) for a case fatality rate of 2.04% (=).
In the Americas region, 93 million 106 thousand 348 confirmed cases (+ 135 thousand 747) were reported, 38.62% of the total number of cases reported in the world, with 11 million 50 thousand 910 active cases and 2 million 282 thousand 106 deaths (+ 4 thousand 185) for a case fatality rate of 2.45% (=).
How U.S. finances actions against Cuba
How does the U.S. finance psychological actions against Cuba?
El Estornudo, Periodismo de Barrio and Cuba Posible are some of the sites of “independent journalists” that appeared to be promoting the actions of July 11 and 12 in Cuba, as recently denounced in a report by the Argentine Club of Journalist Friends of Cuba.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
El Estornudo, Periodismo de Barrio and Cuba Posible are some of the sites of “independent journalists” that appeared to promote the July 11 and 12 actions in Cuba, as recently denounced in a report by the Club Argentino de Periodistas Amigos de Cuba (Argentine Club of Journalists Friends of Cuba).
These journalists, confirms the source, “are trained and awarded” by NGOs that operate with common sources of financing: the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a front for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Open Society Foundations founded by tycoon George Soros.
The note warns that the Cronos Civil Association based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, received “$80,000 dollars from the NED in 2020, to train journalists from the Island linked to the dependent media. This organization has, according to the Argentine club, two main media outlets, Revista Anfibia and Cosecha Roja. In relation to the Caribbean nation, they point out, “these sites carry out training projects and scholarships for journalists”.
On the other hand, the Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (IPYS) based in Lima, Peru, received in 2020 a total of $70 523 dollars to develop programs aimed at training “Cuban independent journalists” and promoting their links with journalists in the region. “In turn, Cronos and IPYS receive funds from the Open Society Foundations,” the publication explains.
Likewise, the Investigative Journalism in Cuba project of the Espacio Público Foundation, based in Chile and developed between 2019 and 2020, the text indicates, also works with funding from the NED.
“The agenda of these media and journalists is that of political correctness, an aesthetic and a profile friendly to progressivism that appears to have a low political profile, questionable in light of their sources of funding, NGOs linked to the worst crimes against the peoples,” comments the club of journalists in solidarity with the largest of the Antilles.
This is only one part of a huge continental project to train its journalistic cadres in Latin America, which includes other organizations (such as the Gabo Center, in Colombia, and Article 19, in Mexico).
Cuban dependent journalists are trained, awarded scholarships and prizes by this network of organizations throughout Latin America.
“Analyzing the message of these media allows us to understand the depth and complexity of the psychological action promoted by imperialism against our peoples”, they state.
Reason is our shield
Reason is our shield (+ Video)
Dignity, resistance and unity are our most powerful forces in the face of the dishonorable and dishonorable annexationist action that serves the historical enemy of the Cuban nation in its plan to fracture and divide us in order to defeat us.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Photo: Yaimí Ravelo
After hard months of the pandemic, of shocking world economic crisis, of intensified and sustained blockade -which have harshly hit our people-, Cuba is beginning to revive its social life, public spaces and services, schools, tourism and other sectors of the economy.
We are already the country in the Americas with the highest percentage of the population with at least one administered dose of the vaccines against COVID-19, the one with the highest daily vaccination rate in the world and the only one that has been able to develop a massive campaign in children from two years of age. All this has been possible due to the country’s capacity to produce its own vaccines, as a result of the scientific policy outlined and promoted by Fidel and the talent of men and women forged by the Revolution.
We are rising up with our own strength, with the unbending spirit, the dignity and the capacity of resistance of our people, with the serene and firm leadership of the country, with the spirit of victory and the creativity that has been cultivated in the midst of so many years of hard battles.
Those who have bet on the failure of Socialism in Cuba and saw July 11[,2021] as the definitive blow to the Revolution, are frustrated and in a hurry in their plans. They intend to prevent any possibility of well-being, individual and collective development, citizen tranquility and peace in our Homeland.
That is why they are promoting various destabilizing actions in the country, to provoke an incident that will lead to a social outbreak that will bring about the longed-for military intervention, which they are vociferously calling for in Miami and even in front of the White House itself.
Neither 62 years of blockade nor its 243 additional measures have been able nor will they be able to bring us down, hence the repeated attempt at a “soft coup”. It is part of the unconventional warfare that they apply to us with intensity. Strike on top of the blow.
In the Central Report to the 8th Party Congress, Army General Raúl Castro Ruz warned:
“The program of subversion and ideological and cultural influence has been redoubled, aimed at discrediting the socialist model of development and presenting us with capitalist restoration as the only alternative.
“The subversive component of U.S. policy toward Cuba is focused on the breakdown of national unity. In that sense, priority is given to actions aimed at young people, women and academics, the artistic and intellectual sector, journalists, athletes, people of sexual diversity and religions. Matters of interest to specific groups linked to animal protection, the environment, or artistic and cultural manifestations are manipulated, all aimed at disregarding existing institutions.
“Act of aggression have not ceased to be financed with the use of radio and television stations based in the United States, while the monetary support for the development of platforms for the generation of ideological contents that openly call to defeat the Revolution. They launch calls for demonstrations in public spaces, incite the execution of sabotage and terrorist acts, including the assassination of agents of public order and representatives of the revolutionary power. Without the slightest modesty, they declare the fees paid from the United States to the executors of these criminal actions.
“Let us not forget that the U.S. government created the “Internet Working Group for Cuba” which aspires to turn social networks into channels of subversion, creation of wireless networks outside state control and the carrying out of cyber attacks on critical infrastructure.
[…]“Lies, manipulation and the propagation of fake news no longer know any limits. Through them, a virtual image of Cuba as a dying society with no future, on the verge of collapsing and giving way to the longed-for social explosion, is shaped and spread to the four winds.”
Sectors of the traditional counterrevolution and new characters, educated in leadership courses financed by US foundations or the US federal budget, have joined forces to try to fulfill such purposes. They lack a social base in the country, but they are duly instructed, financed and supported from abroad.
The empire puts money and expectations on the annexationists trained by them, who, under the false banner of pacifism, seek to provoke new disturbances, generate chaos and induce the destabilization of the country.
In the last few weeks, they made public their intentions to hold a march in November, supposedly peaceful, designed to take place simultaneously in several cities of the country. Their declared purposes and their organizational scheme reveal a provocation articulated as part of the strategy of “regime change” for Cuba, previously tested in other countries.
They choose dates with a certain symbolism? But this time it seems that they also wanted to show off their annexationist stature. Did they want to celebrate President Biden’s birthday with an attack on the Revolution that has so annoyed imperial administrations for 62 years? They were left wanting.
One of its promoters has been trained in courses sponsored by the right-wing Argentine foundation CADAL, U.S. universities and think tanks such as the Carnegie Fund for International Peace (directed until recently by the current CIA director, William J. Burns). Among the topics of their indoctrination have been the formation of leaders, confrontation against government structures, the dynamics of mobilization, and the role of the Armed Forces in the “democratic transition”.
Last July 11 he was the organizer of an attempted takeover of the ICRT, complying with instruction 167 of the Nonviolent Action Workshop which states: Nonviolent “Attacks”: invasions: starting with a march and taking peaceful possession of a place or property.
More recently he has joined a subversive project in academic garb, in which he shares a seat on its Deliberative Council with the terrorist Orlando Gutiérrez Boronat.
He is accompanied among the organizers of the November demonstration by counterrevolutionary leaders of the so-called Council for the Democratic Transition of Cuba, a platform that is articulated according to the anti-constitutional coup in the country, and who have openly acknowledged receiving funding from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a front for the U.S. government.
As soon as it was announced by its organizers, the march received public and notorious support from U.S. legislators, political operators of the anti-Cuban mafia and media that encourage actions against the Revolution.
Tweets, declarations, Resistance Assemblies and other frenetic actions fill Miami these days, as if the demonstration were to take place in that city. Regime change, the overthrow of the government and military intervention is once again the prevailing narrative in South Florida.
Among the most fervent supporters of the provocation are Congressmen Marco Rubio, Mario Diaz-Balart and Maria Elvira Salazar; the reconverted terrorist Gutierrez Boronat (who has declared his support for this action “to overthrow the regime”), the Cuban American National Foundation and the mercenary retinue of Brigade 2506, whose president on duty declared in Miami that “With these steps, an explosion will be fomented inside Cuba so that once again our brothers take to the streets and this will lead us to the overthrow of a regime…”
As denounced by the U.S. media outlet MintPressNews, many of the operators of the digital social network campaign in support of the demonstration are residents of Florida and other U.S. states. “The participation of foreign citizens in Cuba’s internal affairs is at a level that is hardly conceivable in the United States,” the publication says.
The direct involvement of the U.S. government in the counterrevolutionary farce is also explicit and provocative. No care has been taken to conceal it and no one can do so honestly. High government officials are directly involved in its promotion and, with the support of the special services, in its organization. An important instrument, though not the only one, is the U.S. embassy in Cuba, whose public statements often include blatant meddling in the nation’s internal affairs.
That office, fruit of the bilateral agreements signed in 2015 to formalize diplomatic relations between the two countries, has not fulfilled any diplomatic office for years. It does not even serve for the provision of immigration and consular services that citizens of both countries demand and depend on.
Its officials, including the Chargé d’Affaires, are forced to play the unworthy role of babysitters of the counterrevolutionary exponents and provocateurs in our country. They have the thankless task of falling in behind them, providing them with logistical and material support, as well as advice and guidance. Everything is known and documented. The embassy’s own activity in the digital networks provides evidence of what is happening and what the counterrevolution is doing.
Such behavior is in total contravention of International Law and in particular of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
With such sponsors and declared purposes, it is very difficult to presume civility and pacifism in the action called for November. Much less any legitimate and sovereign intentions.
What is at stake here, and there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind, is Cuba’s right to defend itself against foreign aggression, regardless of the disguise it takes.
The organizers try to cloak themselves in the Constitution to legitimize the provocation. They use constitutional precepts to defend anti-constitutional strategies. They adduce the right to demonstrate expressed in the Magna Carta, but they forget that this same Constitution, in its Article 45, indicates that the rights of the people are limited, among others, by the respect to this supreme norm: “The exercise of the rights of the people is only limited by the rights of others, the collective security, the general welfare, the respect to the public order, the Constitution and the laws”.
This Magna Carta, approved in a referendum just three years ago by 86.85 % of the voters, clearly defines in its Article 4 that: “The socialist system endorsed by this Constitution is irrevocable”. And in Article 229 it also establishes that “In no case shall the pronouncements on the irrevocability of the socialist system established in Article 4, and the prohibition to negotiate under the circumstances foreseen in paragraph a) of Article 16, be reformable”.
It is clear that neither now nor in the future can the right to demonstrate be used to subvert the political system, to overthrow the Cuban socialist project, or to establish alliances with groups and organizations that receive foreign financing with the objective of promoting the interests of the government of the United States and other foreign powers.
There does not exist in our country the right to act in favor of the interests of a foreign power and to put the stability of our citizens at risk. It is unconstitutional, illegitimate, immoral, to adhere to an annexationist project. Our laws say so and our history says so.
This is what our National Hero José Martí warned: “On our land, there is another plan more sinister than what we know until now, and it is the iniquitous one of forcing the Island, of precipitating it to war to have a pretext to intervene in it, and with the credit of mediator and guarantor, to keep it. (…) To die, in order to give a basis on which to rise to these people who push us to death for their benefit? Our lives are worth more, and it is necessary that the Island knows this in time. And there are Cubans, Cubans, who serve, with disguised boasts of patriotism, these interests”.
Enough of lies and gross manipulation of the facts. Nobody is going to be crushed by tanks in the streets as the spokesmen of the next provocation have spread. The Moncada exercise [November 20, National Defense Day] is part of the training we constantly do in preparation for defense. In the face of provocations such as this one, we are assisted by the most legitimate act in defense of the people and their conquests.
Dignity, resistance and unity are our most powerful forces in the face of the dishonorable and dishonorable annexationist action that serves the historical enemy of the Cuban nation in its plan to fracture and divide us in order to defeat us.
They have not been able to and will not be able to. Reason is our shield.
(No English subtitles on the video.)
Cuba bets on gradual economy opening
Cuba bets on the gradual opening of its economy
The Council of Ministers analyzed, during its most recent meeting, the performance of the economy at the end of August and other important issues to maintain the country’s vitality.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
All the power that is exercised in Cuba is done through the people, with the participation of the people to solve the problems of society, Diaz-Canel stressed in the most recent Council of Ministers. Photo: Estudios Revolución
The tightening of the US government blockade, the international economic crisis aggravated by the COVID-19, and the epidemiological situation itself, determine that the Cuban reality at the beginning of the fourth quarter of the year continues to be complex.
However, Cuba is committed to the gradual opening of its economy, which should have a favorable impact on productive activities. This was stated by the Minister of Economy and Planning, Alejandro Gil Fernández, when presenting a report on the performance of the economy at the end of August, at the most recent meeting of the Council of Ministers, chaired by the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, and led by the member of the Political Bureau and Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz.
As a favorable element amidst the complexities, Gil Fernández defined the growth of employment, which distinguishes Cuba. “In many countries, the tendency has been to unemployment, to the cheapening of the labor force,” said the also deputy prime minister. Together with the fight against the epidemic, he stressed, we generate jobs and we are going to generate more with the improvement of the economic actors; the opening of gastronomy, services, tourism and the non-state sector.
So far, he said, 203,733 people have sought employment at the municipal Labor and Social Security departments, of which 138,656 were employed and 5,440 were linked to qualification courses to access a job.
Of the total who have been employed, he highlighted, 36% are young people under 35 years of age. The same percentage corresponds to women.
Referring to the main food balances in the national production, he pointed out that at the end of August, rice, corn, beans, milk and egg production, as well as beef and pork were out of compliance.
As for the vegetables, even though the demand is much higher than the supply, he pointed out that in August there was a greater quantity of stockpiled products than in previous months. This trend continued in September.
He referred to the behavior of energy carriers in the country. In August, he pointed out, the actual generation of electric energy was well below the foreseen plan, which meant a non-negligible cost in the economy and productive activities, with the objective of reducing the effects on the population.
Gil Fernández stressed the need for greater initiative and creative work, as well as “to take more advantage of the measures that the Government has been approving in the last few months to grant greater autonomy to the socialist state-owned company”.
These are measures -he valued- that must be taken advantage of in order to be able to move forward with greater efficiency in the state-owned enterprise. “A productive effort is required in all sectors to achieve, in the remainder of the year, the maximum possible economic growth”.
Complying with the design to control the pandemic, and with the economic measures adopted, Gil Fernandez assessed that “we can be in better conditions to, with an additional effort, in the fourth quarter try to aspire to the highest possible economic growth this year and start better 2022”.
Regarding the challenge that the reopening of tourism on November 15 means for Cuba, the Prime Minister considered that “it is an event that is already gaining strength at the international level”.
This is an issue -he reflected- that will have an impact on the economy; we are convinced that it will boost the economy, but for that “we all have to contribute. It is not only a tourism issue, but no sector is also unaffected by this event in the country”.
USEFUL AND DIVERSE AGENDA
Among other matters, the highest government body approved the new Portfolio of Opportunities for foreign investment in the country, consisting of 678 projects, 175 more than in the previous one.
In presenting the subject, the Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, Rodrigo Malmierca Díaz, explained that, in order to prepare it, it was based on the criterion of the greater importance of foreign investment in the current economic situation.
At this moment, he assured, we have 429 projects with approved directives, ready to be negotiated, and 56 in the Mariel Special Development Zone. The projects respond to strategic axes of the National Economic and Social Development Plan until 2030, as is the case of productive transformation and international insertion; natural resources and the environment; infrastructure; as well as human potential and science, technology and innovation.
According to him, from the territorial point of view, the Portfolio is distributed among all the provinces and, for the first time, the food production sector is the most represented.
The Prime Minister drew attention to the need to promote foreign investment in a more dynamic way and always preserving our sovereignty. “It is necessary to give it the priority that this matter carries at the higher levels of management, each one with the role that corresponds to him.”
At the meeting, the Minister of Transportation, Eduardo Rodríguez Dávila, presented a report on the results of the Port-Transport-Internal Economy Operation, in the first semester of the year.
According to the information provided, even though all the missions were secured during the period, “there are still insufficiencies, both of a subjective and objective nature, which will be the focus of attention in the last months of the year”. Many of them, he explained, will be solved as funding and resources become available.
The Prime Minister emphasized that, in the midst of the complex situation, “it is more necessary than ever to get this operation right. It has to work properly; it cannot be an obstacle for the distribution of the goods that we are able to bring in, to get stuck inside the national territory, he said.
At the meeting, which was attended by Esteban Lazo Hernández, president of the National Assembly of People’s Power; Salvador Valdés Mesa, vice president of the Republic; and Roberto Morales Ojeda, secretary of Organization and Cadres Policy of the Central Committee of the Party, all members of the Political Bureau, the provincial scheme of territorial organization of Villa Clara was approved.
Likewise, the status of accounts receivable and payable in arrears, in litigation and court sentences at the end of June was analyzed; the fulfillment of the integral plans to confront urban illegalities by the governments, agencies of the Central State Administration and higher organizations of Business Management; and the progress of the Government Scholarship Program in other countries.
The Council of Ministers was also informed about the approval of the first micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), as well as non-agricultural cooperatives, after the regulations supporting them came into force on September 20.
THE KEY LIES IN POPULAR PARTICIPATION
We are obliged to design, among all of us, a system of popular control, aimed at confronting all the deviations that may exist in the fulfillment of the socialist legality, in the confrontation of corruption.
In this idea, considered the President of the Republic, lies the key on how we have to face the facts of corruption. His reflections were motivated by the presentation made by the Comptroller General of the Republic, Gladys Bejerano Portela, who presented to the Council of Ministers information on the fulfillment of the directives and the plan of control actions of the National Auditing System in the first semester of the year.
It is still insufficient, it was pointed out during the meeting, was the understanding, and the attention to the Policy approved for the improvement of the auditing activity and the urgency before the changes and challenges ahead. It is necessary to ensure the exercise of control and prevention as a method of management, exercised systematically in the development of all processes and not occasionally, or after they are concluded, as is generally the case. Control is the responsibility of those who exercise management; it must always be present.
The Head of State highlighted the political and governmental will that has historically existed in the Revolution to solve the problem of economic control and, in general, of everything that has an impact on efficiency and good performance, on the transparency of all our economic and social processes, as well as in the fight against corruption. On this, he said, it is necessary to look at the thinking of the Commander in Chief [Fidel] and the Army General [Raul]
Since the creation of the Comptroller’s Office, he recalled, work has been unleashed to create an adequate control environment and to advance in it. However, “the results are still insufficient and fill us with dissatisfaction,” he said.
After a broad reflection on our system of government and the leading role of popular participation in all scenarios, the President said that, on the basis of elements related to the defense of popular power, we can reach an analysis of how to make further progress in the fight against corruption.
All the power exercised in Cuba is done through the people, with the participation of the people to solve the problems of society, and this is one of them, he said. Hence his emphasis on there being a direct relationship in how the people participate in this battle. “I believe that by facing this with the people we are going to advance more.”
Díaz-Canel on racism at the UN
Díaz-Canel at the UN: The peoples of the world will always be able to count on Cuba’s contribution (+Video)
Speech by Miguel Díaz-Canel, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, at the High-Level Meeting during the General Debate of the 76th Regular Session of the United Nations General Assembly
Author: Redacción Digital | internet@granma.cu
September 22, 2021 10:09:29 am
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Photo: Estudios Revolución
(Shorthand Versions – Presidency of the Republic)
Mr. Secretary General;
Mr. President:
The world should be ashamed to observe the poor scope of universal agreements that were once the hope of the excluded and the dispossessed.
Twenty years after the adoption of the Durban Declaration and Program of Action, the objectives set out in those documents for the fight against all forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance have not been achieved.
Structural racism persists. Hate speech, intolerance, xenophobia and discrimination proliferate at worrying levels, including on social media and other communication platforms.
Developed capitalist countries try with demagogic speeches to divert attention from their historical responsibility in the enthronement and persistence of these scourges and their debt to the peoples who are victims of the slavery to which they were subjected. There is a lack of political will on the part of these same countries to make the promises of the Durban Declaration and Program of Action a reality.
The multidimensional crisis generated by the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the structural inequalities and exclusion inherent to the prevailing unjust economic order, which subjects the poor, those of African descent or migrants to all kinds of discrimination.
Mr. President:
In Cuba, beyond skin color, African, European and Native American genes are all mixed . We are one people, Afro-Latin, Caribbean, mestizo, in which several roots were fused to forge a unique, vigorous trunk, with its own identity, open to the world from a sense of belonging in which cultural values are assumed from an ethic of solidarity.
With a colonial slave-owning past, the black and mulatto Cuban population suffered for centuries the consequences of a system in which racism and racial discrimination were part of everyday life. Only with the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 did a process of radical transformations take place that demolished the structural bases of racism and eliminated institutionalized racial discrimination forever.
The advocacy of hatred, the promotion of intolerance and supremacist ideas on the basis of national, religious or ethnic origin and xenophobia are alien to the political, social and economic life of the country.
The new Constitution of the Republic of Cuba ratified and strengthened the recognition and protection of the right to equality, as well as the prohibition of discrimination.
The Magna Carta provides that all persons are equal before the law, receive the same protection and treatment from the authorities and enjoy the same rights, freedoms and opportunities; but laws and decrees are not enough to erase centuries of discriminatory practices in societies.
To make further progress in the emancipating work of the Revolution, the National Plan against Racism and Racial Discrimination was approved in November 2019, as a government program that favors the most effective confrontation of racial prejudice and social problems that still exist in our society.
Cuba’s commitment to the eradication of racism transcends its borders. Thousands of Cubans supported national liberation movements in Africa and against the opprobrious apartheid regime. Thousands of others have contributed their solidarity aid, particularly in the area of health.
We will not relent in our pursuit of social justice. The peoples of the world will always be able to count on Cuba’s contribution so that the commitments we assumed 20 years ago in Durban become a reality.
Thank you very much.
[1] The Cuban Genetic Map, 2015 Cuban Academy of Sciences Award, indicated that on average, without distinction by skin color, genetic crossbreeding marked the presence of European ancestral genes in a proportion of 73.8%, 16.8% of African origin and 9.4% of genes of Native American origin.
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