“The grandmother of French New Wave cinema” talks with LA Review of Books producer Michael Kurcfeld about her 1962 photograph series and film on Cuba, along with her views on filmmaking and the recent terrorist attacks in Paris. Shot at her home/studio in Paris in Nov 2015.
Translations 329
Translations, mostly from Spanish to English. Mostly edited and posted to the Web by Walter Lippmann. Translations prior to August 2015 can be found here.
Assange, Between Gratitude and Betrayal
Assange, Between Gratitude and Betrayal
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Special for the newspaper POR ESTO! of Mérida, Mexico.
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann. Julian Assange was arrested in England on Thursday, April 11, and is feared to be extradited to the United States to face charges for his actions during the Obama administration.
According to an editorial in the Washington Post in 2011, such a conviction “would also cause collateral damage to the liberties of the U.S. media so Washington should not attempt to do so with Julian Assange.
The Post’s editorial of years ago is still relevant, given that Assange would be tried for a “crime” which took place almost a decade ago. What has changed since then is the public perception of Assange and, in a supreme irony, that of Donald Trump. At one point in Trump’s demagoguery, he proclaimed himself a fanatic twitter lover of WikiLeaks,. Now he has now been left as the ultimate beneficiary of public support for initiating a process that the Obama administration hesitated to push when he was President.
The current accusation is the extension of a years-long effort, begun prior to Trump, to build a legal argument against those who release secrets the government finds embarassing.
But much of the U.S. citizenry now sees the arrested founder of WikiLeaks through the lens of the 2016 elections, having been denounced as a Russian ally in favor of Trump’s election.
Barack Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, said as early as 2010 the founder of WikiLeaks was the center of an “active and ongoing criminal investigation. At the time, Assange had won, or was about to win, several journalism awards for publishing shameful classified information about many governments, including the video “Collateral Murder” delivered by Chelsea Manning showing a helicopter attack in Iraq that killed two English reporters.
The prosecution is known to say that “it is part of the conspiracy that Assange and Manning took steps to hide Manning as the source of the revelation,” while the defense will argue that reporters have extremely complicated relationships with sources, especially with whistleblowers like Manning, who are often under extreme stress and emotionally vulnerable.
The indictment now filed against Assange is just a technicality: an indictment for a (seemingly unsuccessful) attempt to help Chelsea Manning crack a government password. Assange’s lawyer, Barry Pollock, said the charges “boil down to encouraging a source to provide information and taking steps to protect the identity of that source.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) stated: “Any U.S. prosecution of Assange for WikiLeaks publishing operations would be unprecedented, unconstitutional, and open the door to criminal investigations by other news organizations.
Assange’s case, and the very serious problems it poses, will be affected by things that happened long after the alleged crimes like Assange’s role in the 2016 election.
Not only did this case have nothing to do with Russiagate, but in one of the strangest unreported details of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, he never interviewed or attempted to interview Assange. In fact, it appears that none of the 2,800 citations, 500 witness interviews and 500 search warrants in Mueller’s investigation pointed to Assange or WikiLeaks.
As for Assange’s case, coverage by a national press corps that welcomed him at the time of these crimes – and that repeated his leaks widely – will likely focus on the issue of hacking, as if it weren’t really about reducing legitimate journalism.
“The weakness of the U.S. indictment against Assange is shocking,” Edward Snowden said on Twitter. “The accusation that he tried to help crack a password during his world-famous report has been public for nearly a decade: he is the count that Obama’s Justice Department refused to accuse, saying it endangered journalism.
In fact, it would be difficult to find a more extreme example of how deep the bipartisan consensus is to expand surveillance of leaks.
Both happened, however, and we should stop being surprised by them, even as Donald Trump takes the final step of this journey begun by Barack Obama.
April 15, 2019.
Helms-Burton: A Silenced Story (I)
Helms-Burton: A Silenced Story (I)
By: Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Ph.D in Philosophy and Literature, writer and Cuban politician. He was Ambassador to the UN and Cuban Foreign Minister. Presided over the National Assembly of People’s Power of Cuba (Parliament) for 20 years.
April 13, 2019
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Infographics: Edilberto Carmona
The Trap
Since the beginning of this year, the U.S. State Department has issued several announcements about the partial suspension of the application of some aspects of a chapter of the so-called Helms-Burton Act. It has done so in the deceitful, fraudulent style characteristic of the current rulers. Its clear intention is to create uncertainty and confusion, a purpose for which they have, as usual, the means that are supposed to be used for informing the public.
Above all, it must be said rigorously said that this is a secondary aspect of the Helms-Burton Law, a pseudo-juridical contraption that grossly violates International Law, whose illegality and aggressiveness does not change a bit whether or not the so-vaunted suspension is applied. It is a question of opening or not, now, the possibility of presenting lawsuits before North American courts for acts carried out outside their jurisdiction, in this case in the territory of the Republic of Cuba. Since such litigation could affect foreign companies with investments in the Island, the matter provoked rejection by other countries. It also led the European Union to present a formal complaint to the World Trade Organization in 1996. The matter was then sealed when Washington undertook to suspend the action before its courts, which Clinton, W. Bush, Obama, and even Trump, have consistently done every six months.
This was an exercise repeated for more than twenty years until, on January 16, [2019] it was announced that this time the suspension would be for only 45 days. When the deadline expired in March, they made it known that they would extend it for another 30 days, adding that, as of the 19th of that month, they would allow the filing of lawsuits before their courts against some 200 Cuban companies arbitrarily included in a list drawn up by Washington. Again, in April, they extended the deadline by two weeks, until May 1st, maintaining the exception against Cuban entities.
Already in 1996, Fidel Castro had anticipated that the suspension clause was a “hoax”. Since last January, twenty-three years later, Mr. Pompeo appears, in a doubtful pose, “shedding the daisy”, mocking everyone, especially his European allies, turning the commitment made to them into wet paper.
This game serves, above all, to divert attention from what is fundamental, to what is barely spoken of, and to what I would like to refer to, trusting in the benevolence of the readers of Por Esto!
The Helms-Burton Act has four Chapters or Titles. The first turns into Law, all the measures, which until then were executive decisions, that shape the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed on Cuba, widens it, and tries to extend it all over the planet. The infamous policy, thus codified, could only be eliminated by a decision of both Houses of the U.S. Congress.
The Second describes, with a certain level of detail, what would happen with the hypothetical defeat of the Cuban Revolution as a consequence of the economic war. There would then be what they call a “transition period” during which all the institutions of Cuban society would be dismantled and the country would be under total U.S. domination. So that no one can doubt it, the process would be led by a U.S. official appointed by the President of the United States, whom the law discreetly calls Cuba Transition Coordinator. This true proconsul was actually appointed by W. Bush, although he never fulfilled his mandate on the island. He had to devote himself to promoting, outside Cuba, the Transition Plan that Bush, in compliance with the law, presented to Congress in 2004 and in an expanded version in 2006 and that no one has repealed.
Throughout Title II, there is a redundant insistence on the concept that for the elimination of the blockade and future relations with a supposed post-revolutionary Cuba, an indispensable condition will be the return of their properties to those who lost them on January 1, 1959 (to this subject I will have to return later).
So far, with Title I and Title II, Helms-Burton is a text that tramples on International Law from beginning to end. Its extra-territorial character is more than obvious since the Cuban archipelago is not part of the territory under Washington’s jurisdiction.
In addition to the above, Helms-Burton added a Title III that establishes the possibility of bringing legal actions before U.S. courts against companies or individuals who use, in any way, properties claimed by those who allegedly owned or inherited them. This Title includes an article that allows the US President to suspend the commencement of such actions for half-yearly periods, to which I devoted the initial part of this essay.
Finally, Title IV, which has already been applied on several occasions, denies visas to enter the United States to businesspeople and their families who use properties that are the subject of a lawsuit.
The Helms-Burton Act reminds us of the warning Carlos Manuel de Céspedes gave us very early on. The Father of the Cuban Homeland, in 1870, discovered that the “secret” of U.S. policy was to “seize Cuba.” Thanks to Helms and Burton, the designs of the Empire appear in the light of day. That they can make them a reality is, of course, something quite different. From Céspedes to Fidel, Cubans have shown that they will fight to the end and that they will never be anyone’s slaves again.
Special for Mexican daily Por Esto! Taken from Cubadebate.
“We Speak for Those Who Can’t Speak”
Cuba Against Animal Abuse:
“We Speak for Those Who Can’t Speak”
By Thalia Fuentes Puebla, Student of Journalism of the Department of Communication of the University of Havana. On Twitter: @ThalyFuentes and Ismael Francisco
April 7, 2019
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Photo: Ismael Francisco/ Cubadebate
If we mention stories that touch the heart, we cannot forget Rinti, a dog that after his owner died, threw herself at the feet of her protector’s grave until she died, after refusing the food and water offered by the cemetery keepers.
This love was mutual, just a page from Jeannette Ryder’s work in defense of animals. Precisely under her motto: “We speak for those who cannot speak”, hundreds of people arrived this Sunday at her tomb in the Columbus Cemetery to make people aware of the importance of fighting animal abuse.
“Violence is one, it doesn’t matter against what,” quoted one of the many slogans that demanded sensitivity to protect animals. These were attached to orange ribbons, pets of different breeds and sizes along with their owners and posters and T-shirts with inscriptions such as: “Protection for our animals” and “Animal abuse is a crime.”
The animalists pledged to continue to promote pet adoptions, mass sterilizations and deworming. Waiting for a law, they must act in the order of conscience and appeal to civic, individual and social culture.
Jeannette Ryder was an American philanthropist who lived in Cuba at the beginning of the 20th century. She founded the humanitarian organization Sociedad Protectora de Niños, Animales y Plantas, also known as el Bando de Piedad.
She was buried in the Colón cemetery in Havana. Her pantheon is known as the tomb of loyalty. A commemorative sculpture depicts Rinti resting at the foot of the tomb.
Cuba against animal mistreatment. Photo: Ismael Francisco/ Cubadebate.
Cuba against animal mistreatment. Photo: Ismael Francisco/ Cubadebate.
Cuba against animal mistreatment. Photo: Ismael Francisco/ Cubadebate.
Cuba against animal mistreatment. Photo: Ismael Francisco/ Cubadebate.
Cuba against animal mistreatment. Photo: Ismael Francisco/ Cubadebate.
Photo: Ismael Francisco/ Cubadebate.
Cuba against animal mistreatment. Photo: Ismael Francisco/ Cubadebate.
Cuba against animal mistreatment. Photo: Ismael Francisco/ Cubadebate.
The Most Difficult Time
The Most Difficult Time
By
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
In December I saw people looking for food in the garbage… but it wasn’t Venezuela, it was the United States, not Caracas, but Los Angeles.
It’s clear that Venezuela is having a hard time. The question is why do the international networks and the channels of my country only report these cases in the Caribbean country and do not say a single letter when it happens in the lands of Uncle Sam.
I know of a country that imprisons children with officials who sexually abuse them because they are immigrants; but it is not Venezuela, it is the United States.
When millions of Colombians were fleeing the internal war and the criminal regime of Álvaro Uribe, both Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Rafael Correa in Ecuador received them fraternally. In the reign of Donald Trump, in late February a complaint against his policy of separating immigrants from their children exposed the sexual abuse to which minors were subjected in captivity. Democrat Congressman Ted Deuch said 154 officials are accused of assaulting children in detention centers in the border area, where two children have already died. 4556 complaints from the Refugee Bureau supported his words.
I know of a country where the popular will is mocked and whoever gets to the presidency is not the most voted in the polls; but it is not Venezuela, it is the United States. Hillary Clinton got 2.8 million more votes than Donald Trump; but the incomprehensible American electoral system prevented her from occupying the White House. As former President Jimmy Carter put it, “The best electoral system in the world is that of Venezuela; the worst is that of the United States.
I also know of a country where one of its provinces has legalized work for 10-year-old children; but it is not Venezuela, the country is Argentina and the province of Jujuy.
I know of a country where there are thousands of opposition journalists persecuted, fired and harassed; but it is not Venezuela, but Argentina. The case of Uruguayan Víctor Hugo Morales, to whom the judges dependent on the Clarín Group and the macrismo fabricate causes left and right, is emblematic, but not unique. Among the most recent cases are those of the El Destape mobilist Lucas Martínez, beaten by the City Police, and the photographer of Página 12, Bernardino Ávila, who after portraying a woman taking a vegetable from the ground (during the so-called “Cuadernazo”) was detained along with other demonstrators for 11 hours.
I also know of a country where its president despises women, blacks, indigenous people and gay people; but it is not Venezuela, but Brazil. Recently, two members of the Landless Movement were assassinated, but neither Almagro nor Trump asked the government for explanations, nor did the large international chains of disinformation give them the space they would have given if they had occurred during the presidency of Nicolas Maduro.
I know of a country that is one of the most corrupt in the world; but it is not Venezuela, but Paraguay, with its eternal Colorado Party, a minimum wage of $370 dollars and an industry minister who boasts that half of Paraguayan workers earn less than that figure. As Oscar Andrade has pointed out, he did not say it with pain, but with pride and satisfaction. It should not be forgotten that the governments of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay have been applauded by the Uruguayan opposition right-wing.
I know of a country where every four days a trade unionist is murdered, but it is not Venezuela, but Colombia. The denunciation was presented by the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Colombia before the International Labor Organization and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, but impunity prevails. Threats are focused against union leaders in the oil sector, teachers and agriculture. Neither CNN nor Almagro have shown themselves with their souls split in two for these crimes that already imply a blatant attempt to exterminate trade unionism on the part of the right-wing and the Colombian business community.
I know of a country where anyone who dares to criticize the ruler, who, on the other hand, holds power without ever having been endorsed by the ballot box, is punished with imprisonment; but it is not Venezuela, but Spain. It is incredible that in the 21st century the monarchy persists, a real attack against the intelligence of the peoples of Spain, England and Canada, among others; but it is even more incredible that such monarchies pretend to teach democracy to their former colonies.
And I also know of a people that neither sells nor gives up, that neither breaks nor surrenders, that neither fears nor trembles, in spite of the permanent harassment and the immense power of its adversaries… but it is not that of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Spain, Colombia or the United States…
It’s the one from Venezuela.
(Taken from the magazine Revista Caras y Caretas)
Yoga for Sexuality
Yoga for Sexuality
Published: Friday 29 March 2019 | 10:14:58 pm.
The mind is a friend of that soul that has known how to conquer it.
Bhagavad Gita
By: Mileyda Menéndez Dávila
sentido@juventudrebelde.cu
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
According to the Journal of Sexual Medicine, many women report a significant increase in their level of sexual arousal and desire when practicing yoga Author: Taken from the Internet Published: 29/03/2019 | 10:18 pm
According to the Journal of Sexual Medicine, many women report a significant increase in their level of sexual arousal and desire when they practice yoga. Their orgasms are of higher quality and their relationships are enriched while increasing their self-esteem and assertiveness.
It is not magic, suggestion or isolated physiological effects: whoever spends a few minutes three times a week pampering the mind, body and spirit integrally, can recover elasticity and fluidity in movements, reduce fear and discomfort, be more alert to perceive love and enjoy pleasures without attachments or obsessions.
Yoga is a lifestyle within the reach of all people, whatever their gender identity, because it is cultural conditioning and not biological sex that leads to experiencing the erotic act as a task to fulfill or mere relief, attitudes that deprive it of its true essence, which is the exercise of a joyful corporeal and spiritual freedom.
There are hundreds of postures or asanas. They all combine strength and comfort, which helps to burn fat, release toxins, quiet the mind and improve the skin and figure. By acting on various body systems, they stabilize their functioning and channel the unconscious emotions retained in them.
In this ancient technique, the movements are serene and natural. It is convenient to keep your eyes closed and at all times the breathing must be conscious and deep. With effort and discipline, each exhalation can bring you closer to the ideal pose. Just try not to violate the limits of your body or feed more frustration or arrogance.
Follow Nature
To balance sexuality, various manuals suggest combining postures in which 15 seconds are enough for the kundalini energy, usually dormant at the base of the spine, to flow throughout the body. This tones the muscles, stimulates the endocrine system, clears the mind of rigid or repetitive thoughts (typical of stress) and increases the state of alertness and receptivity.
One of the recommended positions is Upavistha Konasana: sit with open legs and a straight back, and “walk” your hands on the floor so that the blood irrigates the entire pelvis and raises the level of excitement. You can also do Uttanasana and Paschimottanasana: the first is standing and the other sits; in both, you keep your legs closed and your back straight, and bend your body trying to touch your feet with your hands and knees with your head, as far as you go. If you do this consciously, you will feel an electrifying tickle in your spine that will keep you in good spirits for the rest of the day.
You can also exercise to use some postures during intercourse and observe your sensations. Very suggestive is the Supta Baddha Konasana or lying goddess: face up, join the soles of your feet, lower knees and leave your arms next to the body, palms up. Breathing brings the chin to the throat and separates the ribs from the hip. The Adho Mukha Svanasana or downward-facing dog (stand on hands and feet, elevated buttocks, straight legs) invigorates the body and helps to see things at a fun angle. You can “pedal” in place, if you like… that is a very attractive sight for your partner.
Other asanas improve sexual capacity: the chair, the cobra, the pigeon, the butterfly, the baby’s posture… all bring flexibility to the spine, hips, legs and abdomen. Fortunately, there are yoga schools in almost every province and Cuban books on the subject in libraries, as well as manuals and digital videos.
Some texts suggest combining poses with sounds (mantras) whose vibration is in tune with the neurovegetative system. For example, in the sphinx pose (pelvis, legs, abdomen and arms on the floor, chest elevated and front view) repeat the syllable “vam” and you will soon notice its beneficial effect.
Sexual yoga does not require much: an airy space, comfortable clothes, and a synthetic or vegetable fiber mat. If you are going to use music, it will help your equanimity. It can be done alone or as a couple, but it is important to reserve a moment of peace at the end (preferably meditating) before facing work, eating something or “using” energy sexually.
The plan is not to compete with anyone, but to improve skills to appreciate the good in life, including sex, and it still favors you if your choice is celibacy because your cells rejuvenate, healthy emotions and elevate the mood.
Yoga stimulates blood circulation, and where your blood goes, your energy goes. This charge of vitality is unique in each being and at the same time is “connected” with the entire universe, as shown by dozens of modern experiments. It is up to you to decide at every moment whether you are going to use it for creative, reproductive or recreational purposes.
Agnes Varda’s Cuban Memory
Agnes Varda’s Cuban Memory
From April 29 to June 10, a hundred images of Agnes Varda can be seen by Cubans at the National Museum of Fine Arts in an exhibition that accompanies the 20th French Film Festival in Cuba. French Film Festival in Cuba
Author: Pedro de la Hoz | pedro@granma.cu
April 26, 2017 21:04:16
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
Benny Moré captured by Agnes Varda.
Agnes Varda arrived in Havana in the last weeks of 1962. She did not shrink from the recent events that had kept the world on edge, with the Island at the center of one of the most critical episodes of the Cold War, the missile crisis and the danger of nuclear war.
Shortly before, she married Jacques Demy, in his second marriage. He was two years away from becoming a famous filmmaker with the musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. She, of Belgian origin but French by adoption, had debuted on the big screen with the film La Pointe Courte in 1954, which dealt with the relationships of a couple in a fishing village from which she took the name of the work, and appeared as one of the most disturbing personalities of the so-called nouvelle vague (new wave) since the 1961 release of Cleo de 5 a 7, a sensitive reflection on the boundaries between life and death.
Since she traveled without a film crew, Varda chose to record reality with a small Leica camera and ordinary black-and-white film. She wanted to know what was happening in the streets of the city, among people she loved, laughed, danced, and did not stop to philosophize amid challenges and tensions arising from a revolution threatened by a powerful neighbor.
She was not an improvised photographer. In the early 1950s, after studying Art History, she worked as such for none other than the National Popular Theatre of Paris, directed by Jean Vilar.
But the idea of portraying Cubans did not mean for her to return to the field of photography, but to use the images in a film. In February 1963, she revealed her purpose in an interview published in La Gaceta de la Unión de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba: “I’ve been struck by how much people move and how they move, and I want to give you an idea about that. But I am going to express it with an opposite procedure: by means of fixed photos, which I will then animate based on the intermediate movements. Thus was born Saludos, cubanos (Salut les Cubains), which premiered in 1964.
In the winter of 2015, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris asked the mythical filmmaker – at that time she was revered for La felicidad (1965), Daguerrotipos (1975), Sin techo ni ley (1985, winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival) and Jacquot de Nantes (1991) and had just become the first woman to be awarded the Palme d’Honneur in Cannes – to collect the Havana photos for the first time.
She thought that the curatorship would opt for other images, for example, according to her words “a portrait of Salvador Dalí, another of Eugene Ionesco or things from the Europe of the 50s and 60s, considering that Cuban photographs were never conceived to be exhibited”.
Varda/Cuba was a rediscovery. There were Fidel Castro, smiling despite the fact that when the photographer found him she asked him not to smile; those who had learned to read from the 1961 national literacy campaign who later decided to train as teachers, cane cutter volunteers, teenage loves, and children’s games.
That’s where the great Benny Moré appeared, with his unbeatable singer’s stamp even when he knew he had been wounded to death, and a very young Sara Gómez, dancing a cha cha chá dressed as a militia member for the days when she dreamed of being the first Cuban filmmaker.
From Saturday, April 29 to June 10, Cubans can see a hundred of Varda’s images. The National Museum of Fine Arts will display them in an exhibition that accompanies the 20th French Film Festival in Cuba.
Some will succumb to nostalgia. Others will not, because they will see in that graphic testimony, more than an unrepeatable moment, the trace of what was carved in time, of a resistant spirit.
http://www.granma.cu/cultura/2017-04-26/memoria-cubana-de-agnes-varda-26-04-2017-21-04-16
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Published on Jan 28, 2016
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Agnes Varda’s Benny More video.
The eight years of “spring”
The eight years of “spring”
Libya is a very clear exponent of what U.S. military intervention has left the world.
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A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
Libya devastated by endless conflict. Photo: Sputnik
In 2011, the Middle East underwent a reconfiguration of its political map through protests stimulated from outside, and interventions disguised as aid. This series of events went down in history as the “Arab Spring”. However, the similarity with the word that refers to one of the most festive seasons of the year is only in nomenclature, as this geographical region has since been plagued by continuous internal crises, resulting in a climate of permanent instability.
In this situation lives Libya, a nation that for four decades had traveled paths of stability and progress under the hand of President Muammar Gaddafi, a leader who promoted social and economic development in this North African country.
What happened? An accurate formula of manipulation, lies and “humanitarian intervention” designed by the US government and supported by the European Union (EU) was applied against Libya, which sounds suspiciously familiar to the situation facing the Venezuelan people today.
The opposition forces were armed to fight Libya’s army, a conflict was constructed in the media that, it is known, had as real scenario of development film and television studios, hired extras, stuffing extras, where battles, massacres, bombardments were filmed, in the best style of Hollywood cinema. Through this, they manufactured the necessary pretext that “justified” the intervention of the US-NATO duo, under the pretext of “preserving human lives”.
Invented bloggers emerged, supposedly writing from Tripoli about events in real time, but months after the end of the staging it became known that the vast majority of that “citizen journalism” was made thousands of miles away from Libyan land, from comfortable offices in London, New York or Berlin.
In order to sow chaos, the international mass media carried out a “mythification” of the Libyan president, spreading the story that he was governing through blackmail and humiliation.
This false image, paved with fake news about the execution of civilians in the confrontation between the army of Gaddafi and the militias, was amplified by the large newspapers and right-wing publications, which gave them greater validation.
All these lies responded to the simple reason that in this country there are the largest reserves of light oil in Africa and the Western oil companies wanted to take them. Also, months before, Gaddafi had urged African and Muslim countries to adopt a single currency: the gold dinar. In that way, the dollar would have been excluded, threatening the empire’s currencies.
But the truth had nothing to do with this story. The media montage combined with the actions of the US and NATO bombings not only ended the life of the Libyan leader, but also turned that nation into the failed state that it still is today.
FORTY YEARS OF PEACE
Libya was an Italian colony until the Second World War when, by agreement of powers such as Britain and France, and the United Nations, it was administered by both countries. The British ruled the destinies of the regions of Cyrenaica and Tripolitania, and the French occupied the area of El Pezzan, until 1951 when the nation achieved its independence.
However, until 1969, when Gaddafi overthrew the monarchy of King Idris, the people of that country lived in difficult conditions. They had low rates of development, as exemplified by an article entitled “Libya according to the UN and the harsh reality,” by Thierry Meyssan, a French journalist and political activist, which states, among other elements, that only 250,000 inhabitants of the 4 million total knew how to read and write.
With independence and the subsequent construction of a state characterized by social achievements, Libya reached one of the highest indices of human development and the highest nominal per capita GDP in Africa.
Several sources say that Gaddafi led his country to set an example for Africa and the Arab world by unifying the nation and creating institutions and ministries to strengthen institutionality.
The movement promoted by Gaddafi was known as “The Green Revolution”.Among its achievements were the beginning of an agrarian reform, the impulse of a social security system, putting health within the reach of all and that the profits of resources such as oil, could be really exploited by the people.
In order to achieve this objective, the Libyan government nationalized the so-called black gold industry, taking those large incomes to subsidize minimum human rights such as access to drinking water or education, which before were considered true luxuries.
The Libyan leader allowed peasants who wanted to till their own land to do so and the state helped them to do so. It also promoted housing as a right for all as well as access to electricity.
According to Telesur, loans of any kind had a zero percent interest rate and the Central Bank of Libya was a sovereign institution at the service of citizens.
Gaddafi worked for the cooperation of African countries through the African Union (AU), founded in May 2001, with the aim of finding a way to empower these countries without the intervention of Western powers.
FAREWELL TO DEMOCRACY
El País, a well-known Spanish newspaper, included in many articles the vision of a Gaddafi obsessed with power and sex. However, in 2016, five years after his physical disappearance, they had to accept and publish that Libya was living a real nightmare, where the people were the least.
An example of this is political instability. Today, Libya has up to three governments, two in the capital, competing for leadership in the west of the country, and another in Tobruk, which dominates the eastern regions and controls the main oil resources.
On the other hand, Usef Shakir, an expert on the subject, comments for Sputnik that “Libya used to be secure and stable: the state worked well, the country was developing. Years later the country is in chaos and terror. Some of its cities are still under the control of armed groups. We can deduce that Libya has degenerated from a sovereign country to a mixture of fragmented groupings.
It should be noted that since 2011 more than 5,000 people have lost their lives and almost one million have fled their homes because of fear and insecurity. Also, crude oil exports have fallen by 90% and the losses of its GDP are accounted for around 200 billion euros over the last eight years, according to figures collected by Middle East Monitor.
Women’s rights, respected during the former president’s government, are outraged without the slightest remorse. According to Amnesty International’s official website, “the ongoing conflict is particularly damaging to women, disproportionately affecting their right to freedom of movement and to participate in political and public life”.
Libya is a very clear example of what US military intervention has left the world: chaos, political instability, appropriation of resources by Western transnationals and an “oasis” where terrorist groups, local militias and others converge, in addition to being an example of human trafficking and extortion to those who arrive there in search of a quick way to Europe through the Mediterranean.
IN CONTEXT:
In January 2011 several Middle Eastern countries were shaken by revolts, uprisings, protests and covert interventions that resulted in a reconfiguration of the map of the region. These events were referred to by the West as the “Arab Spring”.
It began with the so-called Tunisian revolution, whose starting date is usually counted from the immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old young man who protested against the police, on 4 January 2011.
Behind all these uprisings soon became visible the hand of Western powers, as always, with the U.S. and France, among other countries at the forefront.
An external intelligence report, quoted by French journalist and intellectual Thierry Meyssan, said that on February 4, 2011 NATO organised in Cairo a meeting to launch the “Arab Spring” in Libya and Syria. According to the report, John McCain chaired the meeting.
SOURCE: TELESUR
“They Saw Us As Gods”
BBC MUNDO
“They saw us as gods, today they see us as nothing”:
The difficult situation of thousands of Cuban doctors in Brazil after Bolsonaro’s arrival in power.
March 19, 2019
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
The “More Doctors” program was launched in 2013 on the initiative of then-Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.
The program “Formerly they saw us as gods, today they see us as nothing”.
Cuban doctor Yulia Molina Hernandez does not know what other doors to knock to get out of the situation in which she finds herself.
Molina arrived in Brazil five years ago as part of the international program “Mais Medicos” (More Doctors), an initiative launched in 2013 by then Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff to facilitate basic medical care in disadvantaged and remote areas of the country.
Last November, Cuba announced its withdrawal from the program due to conditions imposed by the new president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro.
Cuba withdraws from the “More Doctors” program, for which it sent 8,000 doctors to Brazil. (Link to Spanish article not translated here.)
Brazil announces that it has “replaced” the thousands of Cuban doctors who left the country after the cancellation of the More Doctors program. (Link to Spanish article not translated here.)
The decision left more than 8,000 Cuban doctors facing the dilemma of returning to the island or staying in Brazil and being considered deserters by the Cuban government. Más Médicos” started in 2013 at the initiative of then-Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff.
More than 2,500 chose to stay and now denounce the precariousness in which they find themselves: they cannot practice medicine and cannot find other types of jobs.
“You get tired of being exploited.”
“It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time,” doctor Surizaday Fernándezr, told BBC Mundo.
Cuban doctor Surizaday Fernández, 31, arrived in Brazil in August 2017. Photo: SURIZADAY FERNÁNDEZ
“You get tired of being exploited, in the end, you lose years of life, you lose time with your family, you lose a lot of things. I had made my decision.
Despite this, Fernandez, 31, was paralyzed when she learned that Cuba was withdrawing from the More Doctors program.
“I was walking and I was in shock, I didn’t know whether to go forward or backward. When Bolsonaro won, he knew that Cuba was going to pick us up, but I didn’t imagine it would be like that.
Fernandez then lived in Cunha Porã, a small municipality in the southern state of Santa Catarina, from where she moved to other municipalities to find employment.
There she began her odyssey, similar to that of many of her colleagues.
A Difficult Search
Following the announcement of Cuba’s withdrawal from the More Doctors program, Bolsonaro said Cuban doctors who wanted to stay in the country would receive asylum and could work as doctors if they re-validated their degree.
Joan Rodriguez is living with another Cuban doctor in the house of a Brazilian woman who does not charge them rent.
However, the reality is becoming much more complicated, as doctor Joan Rodriguez relates.
“I arrived in Brazil in June 2017 and I was working normally until the cancellation of the program. I got by for two months with the savings I had. At the end of last December, the Brazilian government created an edital, which is like a public announcement, to cover the 8,500 places that the Cuban government had taken out.
“We Cubans were able to register, but the day before we were able to apply for a place, our rights were terminated. We were told that we could go to the federal police in each state to ask for refuge.
“They gave us a paper, the request for refuge, with which we could go to the Ministry of Labor and ask for a job portfolio, which is like a permit to be able to work in Brazil,” he explains.
The job portfolio hasn’t been much use to him so far.
“When they realize that we are Cubans and that we were members of the More Doctors program, they close all our doors for work,” he laments.
The president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, announced new conditions for the “More Doctors” program as soon as he won the presidential elections in his country.
“Many people, when they find out that we are doctors, tell us that they cannot offer us work because our hierarchical level is superior.
“We were doctors, yes, but today we are nothing, we are like anyone else, needing work in order to survive,” he says.
BBC Mundo tried to find out the position of the Brazilian Ministry of Health, but at the time of publication of this article, it did not receive a response.
Bad economic situation
Yulia Molina has hit the same obstacles as Rodriguez.
Yulia Molina (left) has not found a job in Brazil for two years.
Her story is similar to that of her colleagues, albeit with nuances. She did not leave the program when Cuba closed it, but two years ago because she was pregnant, with a threat of preterm pregnancy, and Cuba demanded that she return in that condition.
“Since I didn’t want to go back so as not to risk my life or that of my son, they gave me up as a deserter. Either you leave or you stay. That was the choice I was given, and I stayed,” Molina told BBC Mundo.
The 34-year-old doctor lives in the northeast of the country, where the economy is not at its best.
“The entry of money where I live is much poorer because things are much more expensive. What you buy in the south for a price, here they sell it to you for double. I haven’t worked in two years.
“I can’t find a job because I’m a doctor, I don’t care, I just want to work, ‘but you’re a doctor,’ they tell me.
“They are obstacles that face us, for no reason whatsoever. What there is xenophobia with any foreigner, not only with Cubans. Formerly they saw us as gods, today they see us as nothing,” she says.
Thousands of Cuban doctors packed their things and returned to Cuba after their country’s withdrawal from the international “More Doctors” program.
Molina considers herself lucky because at least her husband has a job. She says she knows many of her compatriots who are going through very delicate situations.
“I know cases of people living in a house to pay the rent, eating in the least healthy way possible, colleagues who are desperate, many thinking of going out in caravans.
Objective United States
The Cuban doctors with whom BBC Mundo spoke agree that the option of the title revalidation is practically unattainable. The main obstacle, they say, is that the Cuban government retains their documentation and without these papers, there is nothing they can do.
Returning to Cuba is out of the equation. Being considered deserters, these doctors cannot return to the island for another eight years. And even if the Cuban government decides to allow them to return as they expressed last February, the doctors fear the treatment they might receive.
Thus, Yulia Molina, Joan Rodriguez, Surizaday Fernandez and most of their paralyzed colleagues in Brazil have their sights set on the United States.
“Our future is very uncertain. We realize that we cannot stay in this country. At the beginning of January, Republican Senator Marco Rubio proposed reopening the U.S. the medical parole program that Obama closed in January 2017,” says Rodriguez.
Last January, Senators Marco Rubio (left) and Bob Menendez presented a motion for a resolution to reopen the Parole Program for Cuban Medical Professionals.
The parole the doctor is talking about is the Cuban Medical Professionals Parole Program (CMPP) which was launched in 2006 and which allowed Cuban medical personnel who were in other countries (i.e., not in Cuba or the United States) to apply for permission to enter a U.S. embassy or consulate.
On January 12, 2017, the U.S. and Cuba signed an agreement to normalize their migration policy relationship, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security terminated the CMPP.
Molina has the same hope as Rodriguez. “The only real alternative would be the opening of the parole that is what we are fighting for today. This is not a story, it’s not that we’re faking it. And it’s not that it’s going to get better, it’s that we don’t see a better future in Brazil.
Many of the Cuban doctors who stayed in Brazil are unable to find employment, even in other sectors.
For her part, Fernandez is clear that she is not going to stand idly by. “When I decided to stay out of Cuba, I decided to pull forward. I assumed I wouldn’t practice medicine for long, maybe never again,” she admits.
“I’m not going backwards or to gain momentum. Always in the hope that parole will open and have the opportunity, later, to do another formation. In the U.S. they have study programs, more possibilities of employment, of having a normal, dignified life.
“I studied six years that cost me my sacrifice, my effort and that of my family, no one else. I do not admit that a person comes to treat me as if I were garbage. I work in whatever is, in whatever touches me, but that is respected”.
New Technologies and Mental Health
Cuban Psychiatry Studies the Impact of Technologies on Mental Health
When Cuban society advances towards computerization as a priority, it turns out, in the opinion of Dr. Miriam de la Osa O´Reilly, head of the Psychiatry Service of the Hermanos Ameijeiras clinical-surgical hospital, that the theme chosen for the IX Cuban Congress of this specialty is very timely: Frontiers of Psychiatry and the Impact of New Technologies.
Author: Lisandra Fariñas Acosta | lisandra@granma.cu
14 March 2019 00:03:09
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Photo: Yaimi Ravelo
In the danger of living an excessively “connected” 21st century, and increasingly dependent on computers or cell phones, psychiatry finds new and enormous challenges, said Dr. Miriam de la Osa O´Reilly, head of the Psychiatry Service of the Hermanos Ameijeiras clinical-surgical hospital, to Granma during the first day of the 9th Cuban Congress on this specialty.
We are talking about behavioral addictions, which can range from distorting reality, showing dependence on devices to having communication and socialization problems, and even suicidal attitudes, all related to the misuse of mobile phones and different social networks on the Internet.
When Cuban society moves towards computerization as a priority, in the opinion of the specialist, the topic chosen for the appointment is very topical: Frontiers of Psychiatry and the Impact of New Technologies.
The congress, which seeks to be a space for reflection, scientific exchange and professional commitment, on a science that gains in maturity and experiences on the road to human improvement and well-being. It brings together more than 250 Cuban delegates and some twenty countries at the Havana Convention Center through Friday, March 15.
“We have tried to make the scientific program address the main problems of mental health in the population, while constituting an update on topics specific to this century. Among these are the advantages and dangers of using the Internet, but also the development of neurosciences and nanotechnology in psychiatry,” said the president of the organizing committee.
We communicate all the time, and there is a network like a highway, in which one can advance in time, distance, friends and knowledge is extraordinary. But that same goal implies, if not used properly, multiple dangers, she said.
That’s why psychiatry professionals insist, from the promotion of health and prevention of diseases, on being aware of the problems that so-called TICS can bring; an alert that involves the media and the rest of society, especially when Cuba connects more and more, insisted Dr. Osa O´Reilly.
Healthier contents should be placed in the social networks that are being created and in the existing ones. They should be directed to the well-being of people. At the same time, a critical reading of those messages that we consume daily is needed. And let’s not lose sight of what the smallest members of the household consume, she warned.
The young population is the most affected by this misuse, explained the specialist. And there are plenty of examples, ranging from nomophobia or fear of being without a mobile phone for a long time, the need to check it even when the person wakes up at dawn, to the controversial selfies, which have caused death in the search for new, exuberant places… and the construction of a virtual life in networks like Facebook, dissonant from reality and which can lead to depression.
The interviewee also mentioned other organic consequences of these addictions, such as vision disorders or orthopedic disorders, when adopting incorrect postures for a long time in front of a computer or mobile phone.
On the other hand, for Profesor de la Osa, in this technological era, the cornerstone of the specialty continues to be clinical training, she said.
Based in the capital, the 9th Cuban Congress of Psychiatry was extended in a group of pre-congress courses to the provinces of Artemisa, Santiago de Cuba and Holguín.
On the closing day this Friday, Doctor of Science Pastor Castell-Florit Serrate, director of the National School of Public Health of Cuba and president of the National Council of Scientific Health Societies, stressed that Cuba recognizes the complexity of mental health problems and their social determination, as well as the right of the population to it. In addition there’s to the provision of information and communication with patients and families, and to understanding and support until recovery and continuation of the life project.
Dr. Carmen Borrego, head of the Mental Health and Addictions section of the Ministry of Public Health, signified the high knowledge and responsibility of the professionals of this branch in Cuba, who work in a wide network of services in the country and exceed one thousand specialists.
The urgent need for a resistance front
from the left
The urgent need for a resistance front
If democratic forms of government have been subjected to the harshest tests in recent times, nowhere have they been so fiercely attacked and placed in such a serious disruption as in our America.
Author: Raúl Roa García | internet@granma.cu
November 4, 2018 22:11:08
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
“Peace is the supreme aspiration of the man who feels freedom as an imperative of conscience. Photo: Archive.
If democratic forms of government have been subjected to the harshest tests in recent times, nowhere have they been so ferociously attacked and placed in such a serious disruption as in our America. From south to north, military lodges, lords of the earth, merchants of power, wild oligarchies and big companies, in a sinister consortium, have been abolishing the fundamental freedoms of man and of the citizen, without the UN and the OAS giving them a break, The cynical adulteration of the popular will, or the violent substitution of constitutionally-elected governments by autocracies using typical totalitarian rhetoric, characterize this dramatic process, which threatens to be generalized to the whole continent.
Pseudo-Marxist fifth columnism and imperialist greed today lord it over a beam of invertebrate nations, at the mercy of unscrupulous swords, gamonales, politicians, bankers and businessmen. Scarce governments of popular roots, the majority undermined by administrative corruption, social imbalances, electoral demagoguery and colonial exploitation, complete this gloomy picture. There is no doubt that the fate of democracy is cast. The unavoidable urgency of forming a broad front of resistance to the unbridled aggressiveness of the enemies of popular liberties is obvious.
It is indisputable that the democratic conception of life, society and the state is consubstantial with the spirit and historical development of our peoples; but, no less, that conception is currently threatened by the most regressive and rapacious forces of our time.
The central question to be debated is how to galvanize the democratic regime, to the point of promoting, in the peoples, the passionate determination to defend it, at the price of life, in all contingencies and avatars. A democratic regime without economic content, without a broad social base and without the active participation of the people in the orientation of public power, is a useless piece of junk at this historic juncture of transition. There can be no room for circumlocutions or euphemisms.
The fundamental problem facing democracy at this time is how to organize society without compromising freedom. On a universal level, it is now imperative that democracy clearly distinguishes subjective rights from patrimonial rights. Questions concerning the human person can only be resolved with the “discovery and establishment of a fairer legal structure, which allows the problem to be reduced to its true terms”.
Economic rights can already exist only in function of society. No individual interest, which pretends to oppose the social interest, is legitimate. If we aspire for man to recover his “lost fertility” and to develop, to the full, his aptitudes and powers, it is indispensable to socially discipline things. The task ahead of the democratic movement is extremely complex.
In the particular case of our America, we have to count on what history has given us. In material and cultural terms, much progress has been made so far this century. Considering the process as a whole, we must agree, however, that the economic, social and administrative structure of the Latin American peoples is in need of a substantial transformation. This transformation must go hand in hand with respect for public liberties and an international policy of militant repudiation of all regimes that violate human dignity.
It should be insisted that only through clean elections, administrative honesty, public freedoms, economic welfare, social justice, diffusion of light and consolidation of sovereignty can the representative institutions in this hemisphere be saved. The opportunity is unique to provide content and historical projection to the fight against the American dictatorships.
The American states have acquired the commitment to guarantee freedom and justice to the peoples by signing the Charter of Human Rights in the UN Charter of the Rights and Duties of Man at the IX Inter-American Conference in Bogota.
Peace is the supreme aspiration of the man who feels freedom as an imperative of conscience. The role that the leaders of the working forces will play is of the first line. No one like them will be able to contribute the most urgent and effective formulas for social improvement to strengthen the democratic regime.
Nor can the problem of the industrialization of our America be uncontroversial. Increasing the economic potential of our peoples is one of the most effective means of strengthening and consolidating the democratic regime and of putting at bay the imperialists of every sign and of every bay.
The American states have made a commitment to guarantee freedom and justice to the peoples by signing the Charter of Human Rights in the UN Charter of the Rights and Duties of Man at the IX Inter-American Conference in Bogota.
Peace is the supreme aspiration of the man who feels freedom as an imperative of conscience. The role that the leaders of the working forces will play is of the first line. No one like them will be able to contribute the most urgent and effective formulas for social improvement to strengthen the democratic regime.
The problem of the industrialization of our America cannot be uncontroversial either. Increasing the economic potential of our peoples is one of the most effective means of strengthening and consolidating the democratic regime and of putting at bay the imperialists of every sign and every bay.
The way in which the most developed countries can contribute to this increase in our economic potential must be considered, in the light of this question: could governments that are representative and respectful of public liberties and those that are born of the usurpation of the will of the people and deny their governed the enjoyment of the essential rights of man and of the citizen, be placed on an equal footing with regard to this aid? Nor can the question of the recognition of de facto governments be ignored. On this matter ,there are no guidelines within the inter-American public law, nor unanimity of criteria in the chancelleries.
If democracy needs both America to overcome the deep crisis it is going through, it is essential that the policy of good neighborliness be effectively restored. After the death of Franklyn Delano Roosevelt, on many osions the “good guys have been us and the neighbors them. May the government of the people, by the people and for the people, cease to be the government in the name of the people, without the people and against the people! And may they live on an equal footing, in peace and harmony, the America of Juarez and the America of Lincoln!
(Excerpts taken from the book 15 años después [15 years later], Editorial Librería Selecta, Havana, 1950).