Uncategorized 127
Cobalt Could be Blue Gold
Cobalt Could Become Cuba’s Blue Gold
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
Cuban economist Joaquin Benavides Rodriguez, who has served as government minister and leader of his country’s communist party in the area of his specialty, believes that Cuba has in cobalt a great mineral wealth that, like lithium, is becoming a strategic mineral for the production of batteries in the electronic age.
According to international sources, Cuba has reserves of this mineral of around half a million metric tons that place it in third place in the world among the thirteen countries with the largest estimated reserves of cobalt on the planet. It is estimated that the largest is the Democratic Republic of Congo with an estimated reserve of 3.4 million metric tons, followed by Australia with 1.2 million and Cuba appears in third place. Next are the Philippines with 280,000, Canada and Russia with 250,000 each, China with 80,000 and the United States with 38,000, according to data from the German statistical portal Statista 2019 cited by the Cuban expert.
World consumption of cobalt in 2019 is estimated to be 122,000 tons. In 2011 it was 78,000 tons, an increase of 56% in 8 years. The price in 2019 is quoted at more than 46 thousand dollars per ton. The largest extraction is recorded in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has had years to extract 90,000 tons. Russia extracts 5.9 thousand tons.
China is the largest producer of refined cobalt. It contributes 43% of the world total according to the British consultancy Euromonitor International, cited by Benavides.
A few years ago the world produced more of this metal than it was consumed. However, from 2017 onwards, with the increase in demand, prices soared by almost 100%.
Cobalt has a great demand in large producers of electronic effects such as TESLA that requires it to improve the performance of their electric cars. Or Apple, which uses it for the batteries of the IPhones, which produces massively in China.
The reason is that cobalt enhances the qualities of other metals such as lithium which has become the most used component in batteries. Until the last decade this metal had gone unnoticed but about three years ago aroused the interest of the financial world. Before the use of lithium and cobalt batteries became widespread, the companies that made large alloys were the ones that made the greatest use of this metal.
Today these companies have been displaced by battery manufacturers, which each year account for 45% of global production of cobalt, whose demand recorded annual growths of at least 5% for a decade, according to the president of the Cobalt Development Institute (CDI) in the United States, David Weight, quotes Benavides.
The interest increased even more when TESLA announced a model of electric vehicle and inaugurated a mega factory that will allow it to supply 35GWh of battery power. That is to say, a greater volume of production than the total realized in 2014.
There are currently another 13 mega battery factories of different brands in the construction or planning phase.
China needs cobalt to manufacture portable and cellular products within its borders, according to BBC World Euromonitor Economics and Consumer Analyst Oru Mohiuddin.
Nearly half of the planet’s households have a smartphone and a laptop and this is expected to increase by at least 70% by 2030.
A large concentration of the factories that manufacture these products is in China.
Cobalt is Cuba’s most strategic mineral. In the refinery that the island has in Canada together with the company Sherrit, 15% of the world cobalt is produced with a 99.98 purity.
It is a metal that stores a lot of energy in a small space. Its applications in medicine are important and in the blades of turbines or jet engines of all aircraft are used cobalt alloys, for its ability to resist sudden changes in temperature on which the action of the engine fluid is exerted.
The Government of China has been launching a great global investment program, called the Silk Road and the Silk Road, mainly for Asia, Europe and Africa, but there are also Latin American countries that have raised their interest in participating.
Benavides considers that perhaps the moment is coming when “the Government of our country raises with the Chinese authorities Cuba’s interest in participating in this great investment project of the Silk Road, particularly with regard to the extraction and refining of cobalt in the mining area of Moa”.
Cuba’s interest in investing jointly with countries such as Japan and Germany, with highly developed industrial economies in advanced technologies that lack cobalt, could also be raised.
(http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com)
(*) This article may be reproduced by quoting the newspaper POR ESTO! as the source.
Dominica: The Next Victim?
Dominica: The Next Victim?
By Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
December 4, 2019
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Luis Almagro’s hands are stained with the blood of the original peoples – the Aymaras, Quechuas, Guaraníes- murdered by the fascists after the coup d’état plotted in Bolivia with the active complicity of the OAS. But he is also guilty for the deaths, tortures and disappearances of Chilean, Colombian and Ecuadorian students and workers. They are victims of a brutal and ceaseless repression that does not about which the inter-American body has not made a single complaint.
He ignored what was happening and which shook those countries while he made other plans. He also wants to spill Caribbean blood. He dreams of repeating in the small island of Dominica his fascistic “feat” in Bolivia.
Several weeks ago, some groups of the island’s opposition took to the streets in an uproar demanding modification of the electoral rules that govern there and to do so before the elections that are due to take place on December 6. Carrying out the election would be practically impossible if such a process were undertaken at this point.
Immediately, in public statements, they received Almagro’s support. He also offered the OAS to advise and supervise the process that, according to him, was indispensable for democracy.
His shameless interference in matters that do not concern him was vigorously condemned before the Permanent Council of the Organization by the head of Dominican diplomacy and also from the island’s Prime Minister, Roosevelt Skerrit who denounced: “The OAS and Luis Almagro advise the opposition to destabilize the country” and rejected the OAS demand.
Caribbean solidarity was not long in coming. The territorial government promoted a compromise between the contending parties to prevent violence and ensure orderly and fair elections.
On November 27, at the invitation of the Dominica government, an official Commonwealth delegation arrived in the capital to observe the entire process from now until the final count after the vote concludes. The observer group is chaired by Ms. Zainab Bangura, former Foreign Minister of Sierra Leone and a former UN Under-Secretary. She is accompanied by a group of eminent personalities including Assad Shoman, one of the founders and former Foreign Minister of Belize and other jurists and electoral experts from Uganda, Barbados, the United Kingdom, Kenya, Jamaica, Antigua and Barbuda and Malaysia. The names and backgrounds of all of them have since been published in the Caribbean media.
Such a group of notables could not be brought together by the discredited OAS. (By the way, does anyone know those who made up the mission that Almagro sent to Bolivia? Why haven’t they yet published the report that the coup plotters evidently used?)
Awaiting the events in Dominica, let us remember Ralph Gonzalves’ warning. The Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines said: “The OAS and Luis Almagroo are enemies of the continent’s democratic forces.”
Zimbabwe President Receives Cuban VP
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann. Zimbabwean President Receives Cuban Vice President Inés María Chapman Havana, Sep 15 (ACN) Emmerson Mnangagwa, President of Zimbabwe received in Harare the Cuban Vice President Inés María Chapman, who led her country’s delegation to the funeral of Robert Mugabe, founding father of that African nation. During the meeting, the Zimbabwean president highlighted the solid relations between his country and Cuba, reports a Prensa Latina dispatch. Mugabe was honored this Saturday with an official ceremony at the National Stadium in Harare, attended by heads of state and government of the African continent and personalities from other regions of the world. Mnangagwa thanked Cuba for sending a high-level representation to pay tribute to the Zimbabwean independence leader and recalled that thousands of professionals from this southern African nation were trained on the Caribbean island. He stressed that the historical leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, and Mugabe were like brothers, and ratified the friendship between Zimbabwe and Cuba, and his intention to continue consolidating it. Inés María Chapman, Vice-President of the Councils of State and Ministers of Cuba, expressed her condolences on the death of the former president of Zimbabwe, on behalf of Army General Raúl Castro, first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, and President Miguel Díaz Canel Bermúdez. According to sources, the Cuban leader stressed Cuba’s willingness to continue developing and expanding bilateral relations, with emphasis on cooperation. In her words at the ceremony paying tribute to Mugabe, Chapman recalled that he was a dear friend of Cuba and Fidel Castro, and both shared countless moments ‘in the common struggle for the independence of our peoples and for the freedom and sovereignty of the African continent’. The vice-president stressed that her people had always been on Zimbabwe’s side in its struggle to achieve its definitive freedom from colonialism, which had a logical continuity after independence had been achieved ‘in the cooperation that we modestly offer to the construction of this nation’. In this regard, she revealed that about two thousand young Zimbabweans graduated in the most diverse specialties in Cuban universities. Hundreds of professionals from the island have passed through Zimbabwe to offer their knowledge, experience and thus contribute our grain of sand to the construction and development of this beautiful country. She also thanked that the Zimbabwean people and dear friend Mugabe were always on Cuba’s side “in our historic struggle against the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the Government of the United States against our country and in all the battles that the Cuban people have had to fight in the last 60 years”. The Cuban leader stated that Cubans will always remember “with affection and gratitude the presence of Mugabe in the funeral honors of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, when all our people and friends of Cuba bid him farewell”. Chapman arrived in Harare on Friday as head of a delegation, also composed of Marcos Rodriguez, director general of Political Planning at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the ambassador of the Caribbean nation in this country, Carmelina Ramirez. The visitor was received at the capital’s airport by Zimbabwe’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Sibusiso Moyo.
Recibe Presidente de Zimbabwe a vicepresidenta cubana Inés María Chapman La Habana, 15 sep (ACN) Emmerson Mnangagwa, Presidente de Zimbabwe recibió en Harare a la vicepresidenta cubana Inés María Chapman, quien encabezó la delegación de su país a los funerales de Robert Mugabe, padre fundador de esa nación africana. Mugabe fue honrado este sábado con una ceremonia oficial en el Estadio Nacional de Harare, con asistencia de jefes de Estado y Gobierno del continente africano y personalidades de otras regiones del mundo. Mnangagwa agradeció a Cuba el envío de una representación de alto nivel para rendir tributo al líder de la independencia zimbabwense y recordó que en la isla caribeña se formaron miles de profesionales de esta nación de África Austral. Subrayó que el líder histórico de la Revolución cubana, Fidel Castro, y Mugabe eran como hermanos, y ratificó la amistad entre Zimbabwe y Cuba, y su intención de continuar consolidándola. Por su parte, la vicepresidenta de los consejos de Estado y de Ministros de Cuba Inés María Chapman transmitió las condolencias por el fallecimiento del expresidente de Zimbabwe del general de Ejército Raúl Castro, primer secretario del Partido Comunista de Cuba, y del presidente Miguel Díaz Canel Bermúdez. Según las fuentes, la dirigente cubana destacó la voluntad de Cuba de continuar desarrollando y ampliando las relaciones bilaterales, con énfasis en la cooperación. En sus palabras en la ceremonia de homenaje a Mugabe, Chapman recordó que fue un apreciado amigo de Cuba y de Fidel Castro, y ambos compartieron innumerables momentos ‘en la lucha común por la independencia de nuestros pueblos y por la libertad y soberanía del continente africano’. La vicepresidenta subrayó que su pueblo siempre estuvo al lado de Zimbabwe en su lucha por lograr su definitiva libertad del colonialismo, que tuvo una lógica continuidad después de lograda la independencia ‘en la cooperación que modestamente brindamos a la construcción de esta nación’. Al respecto reveló que cerca de dos mil jóvenes zimbabwenses se graduaron en las más diversas especialidades en las universidades cubanas y cientos de profesionales de la isla ‘han pasado por Zimbabwe para brindar sus conocimientos, experiencias y así aportar nuestro grano de arena a la construcción y desarrollo de este hermoso país’. Agradeció también que el pueblo zimbabwense y el querido amigo Mugabe estuvieron siempre al lado de Cuba ‘en nuestra histórica lucha contra el bloqueo económico, comercial y financiero impuesto por el Gobierno de Estados Unidos contra nuestro país y en todas las batallas que ha tenido que librar el pueblo cubano en los últimos 60 años’. La dirigente cubana manifestó que los cubanos siempre recordarán ‘con cariño y agradecimiento la presencia de Mugabe en las honras fúnebres del comandante en jefe Fidel Castro Ruz, cuando todo nuestro pueblo y los amigos de Cuba lo despedimos’. Chapman llegó el viernes a Harare al frente de una delegación, integrada también por Marcos Rodríguez, director general de Planeamiento Político del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, y la embajadora de la nación caribeña en este país, Carmelina Ramírez. La visitante fue recibida en el aeropuerto capitalino por el ministro zimbabwense de Relaciones Exteriores y Comercio Internacional, Sibusiso Moyo.
Zimbabwean President Receives Cuban Vice President Inés María Chapman
cmb cmbRecibe Presidente de Zimbabwe a vicepresidenta cubana Inés María Chapman
En el encuentro el mandatario zimbabwense destacó las sólidas relaciones entre su país y Cuba, informa un despacho de Prensa Latina.
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Washington Confirmed as Terrorist
Washington Confirmed as Terrorist
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
Shortly after the Venezuelan government denounced the huge blackouts in March that were caused by cyber and electromagnetic attacks, Donald Trump signed an Executive Order paving the way for his country’s critical infrastructure to be investigated and defended against foreign electromagnetic pulse offensives.
The initiative took many by surprise, as electromagnetic pulse weapons (EMPs) look like something from the movies rather than real threats.
Since 2001, the US Congress has been evaluating the possible risks of an EMP attack against the US through a Commission made up of scientists, engineers and corporate operators intimately linked to the structure of the Defense Department and private contractors linked to the military-industrial complex.
The reports produced by the Commission study a high altitude EMP attack (the so-called Rainbow Bomb), capable of producing a blackout with power similar to a lightning discharge (50 thousand volts per meter) and the explosion of an atomic bomb about 700 kilometers above the target.
Also mentioned are small-scale EMP weapons, with the ability to damage specific areas such as the electrical system, telecommunications, banking and finance, the oil and gas industry, transportation, food and water infrastructure, and security and emergency services, as well as those of any country’s government.
The Commission’s first executive report was published in 2004 with fairly general considerations on the possible consequences of the Rainbow Bomb on the US. The in which the EMP attack is described there as a “terrorist activity” that uses a small number of nuclear weapons to produce a catastrophic impact on society.
The electronic and electrical collapse scenarios are neatly described, and related to some natural and man-made disasters that have had similar effects in recent North American history.
With the same vehemence with which the U.S. is concerned about electromagnetic attacks, which it claims is imminent, the Venezuelan government denounces the possibility of an EMP attack against the Simón Bolívar Hydroelectric Plant system in Guri.
The report emphasizes the fact that the U.S. electricity grid is deeply connected to all activities of society and the economy, as in many other parts of the world (including Venezuela). In the US, load distribution is divided into three, with the (oil) state of Texas being the backbone of a network with 300 million dependent users.
This means that a modest alteration to the electrical system can cause a functional collapse, with catastrophic consequences.
As it was denounced with respect to the attack against the Guri Hydroelectric Plant, the United States maintains that the electrical network of its country could be attacked “using information of the operations in the control systems”, that is to say, there must be internal hand that assists the terrorist operation.
Such is the capacity of a small EMP weapon that, without the use of the Rainbow Bomb, an attack on a precise target in the U.S. electrical system could take place that would leave 70% of its territory without light in the blink of an eye.
In fact, the Commission admits that a small EMP attack can wreak electrical and electronic havoc similar to those left by Hurricane Katrina (2005), which left some 4 million people without light in some 233,000 km² (989961.8029 square miles) of the US, an area equivalent to that of the UK.
The anti-chavista media have ridiculed the denunciations of cybernetic and electromagnetic attacks in Venezuela, which shows either ignorance about the new tendencies of the military industry with these technologies in the context of a new “cold war”, or that they operate as bleachers of information and scenario before some consumers of news without any critical reading of the facts.
Neither the Commission formed in 2001 nor Trump’s recent Executive Order had been interested in these weapons, either because of their own vulnerabilities or because of their future offensive prospects.
But the arms race and the technological development between powers is currently going through this arms scheme that sounds like science fiction films. And this armament industry is part of a much more current dimension than those shown by Hollywood.
July 29, 2019
This article can be reproduced citing the newspaper POR ESTO! as source.
A Humorous Exception in the US Press
A Humorous Exception in the US Press
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
For those who are not very knowledgeable about the reality of the U.S. press, it is surprising to learn that in the leading country of world capitalism, that there is a publication with a history of more than 65 years of uninterrupted publication, with an apparent freedom of content and, most exceptionally, without advertising. characteristics that are not found in any other media of that great center of capitalism.
Last week, the current owners of the humorous magazine MAD, the company DC comics, announced that the magazine was about to suspend publication. MAD, which had started as a comic book in 1952, becoming a magazine in 1955, it will cease publication and, according to informed, it will only continue to circulate in its next numbers with reprinted material to meet existing subscriptions, but not including new material.
Born in the turbulent era of McCarthyism, MAD is about to die in another squalid political era, Trump’s. MAD was possibly the largest and most influential satirical magazine in the United States, a strange statement from a large circulation publication that was read, throughout its existence, mostly by teenagers and children.
Its content was often rude, tasteless and childish, which made it even more powerful as a tributary of youth culture. The children that read MAD learned to distrust authority, whether it was political, advertising or journalistic. It was a model that successive generations took seriously. Without MAD, it is impossible to imagine the underground comics National Lampoon, Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons, The Daily Show or Stephen Colbert.
In the history of American culture, MAD is the crucial link between the anarchic humor of the Marx Brothers and the counterculture that emerged in the 1960s. A writing in The New York Times Magazine on the 25th Anniversary of MAD in 1977, said that “month after month and edition after edition, in a relentlessly kind manner, MAD tells us that everything was crooked, that there were lies in advertising, that other comic hooks lied, that television and movies lied and that adults, in general, when faced with the unknown, lied. “
An impressive variety of prominent cultural figures witnessed the molding force of MAD. Gloria Steinem has said:
“There was a spirit of satire and irreverence in MAD that was very important, and it was the only place where that could be found in the 50s. ”Singer Patti Smith made a similar observation more succinct: “After MAD, drugs were nothing.”
Kurtzman, the genius who was the source of MAD, sometimes denied any political intentions. He admitted that he made an exception with McCarthy because he was “so evil that it was like making a satire about Hitler.”
The first years of MAD were extremely dangerous times for Gaines. His business manager was arrested for selling disgusting literature in the form of a comic that parodied Mickey Spillane’s violent police novels. (The story was titled “My Gun is the Jury” and Stuart had to serve a year in jail before the judge dismissed the case.
Besieged by the Senate, the legal system, parent groups, other publishers and distributors, Gaines had to give up the comics. Turn MAD into a magazine that constituted its lifeboat. Initially, Gaines and Kurtzman were friends, although they eventually separated when, in 1956, Kurtzman asked for half the ownership of the magazine.
When they got along, Gaines didn’t even care when Kurtzman’s ad skits bothered advertisers. In fact, after the separation from Kurtzman, Gaines decided to do MAD on his own in 1957, a policy that continued until 2001 (almost a decade after Gaines died in 1992).
MAD’s will to tweak the noses of the powerful won him many enemies. In 1961, retired brigadier general Clyde J. Watts claimed that MAD was “the most insidious communist propaganda that existed in the United States.” In 1979, Bill Wilkinson, Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, wrote to the magazine saying: “You and the Jewish-communist magazine MAD are obviously trying to wipe out the colors of our flag and promoting radicalism in the youth of this country. ”
Gaines would cite the progressive tabloid PM, which flourished briefly in the 1940s, as a precedent for MAD’s non-advertising policy. “In those days there was no such thing as stopping publishing an anti-cigarette story out of terror about the possibility of losing your cigarette advertising,” Gaines noted.
July 26, 2019.
US National Pride Declines Sharply
US National Pride Declines Sharply
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
On the eve of their July 4 national holiday celebration, the national pride of the people of the United States fell this year to the lowest rate since the beginning of the 20th century.
According to an extensive Gallup survey, only 70 percent of Americans say they are proud of their nationality and less than half (45 percent) say they are extremely proud of it, marking the second consecutive year that the latter proportion is no longer in the majority.
Those who claim to be supporters of Democrats continue to lag far behind those who, being Republicans, claim extreme pride in their nationality. U.S. scientific achievements in military and cultural/artistic fields are among those of which they are the proudest, while the political system and the health and welfare system are those of which they are the least proud.
Citizens’ extreme pride in their U.S. citizenship has steadily weakened in recent years, and the current reading, according to Gallup’s June 3-16 survey, marks the lowest point to date in such indicators. The latest decline of two percentage points from last year’s 47% is not statistically significant.
The highest proportions in this aspect of the measure were 69% and 70%, respectively, between 2002 and 2004, after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, when the U.S. public expressed the highest patriotic levels and mobilized in support of the U.S. government. However, since the beginning of George W. Bush’s second term in office in 2005, less than 60 percent of Americans have expressed extreme pride in being Americans.
The latest general declines in patriotism have been largely driven by Democrats, whose pride has historically been smaller and has fluctuated more than that of Republicans. The last extreme pride reading of 22% of Democrats is the lowest of the group in Gallup’s 19-year measurement, and is half of what it was several months before Donald Trump’s election victory in 2016.
Interestingly, most Republicans say they remain extremely proud of their country, and the latest reading – which was 76% – is only 10 points below the 2003 high. Even when Barack Obama held the presidency, the Republicans’ extreme pride never fell below 68%.
U.S. patriotism shows itself as another victim of the markedly polarized political climate in the United States today. For the second time in 19 years, less than half of Americans say they are extremely proud of their country. The decline reflects the collapse of pride in the Democrats since Trump took office. This is despite the fact that, among Republicans, it has increased slightly rather than decreased on the basis of nationalist and even chauvinist policies, reflected in the slogan Make America Great Again!
While supporters of both parties agree that they are not proud of the U.S. political system, this can be attributed, in both cases, to President Trump’s low approval rating.
Democrats’ awareness of Trump’s historically low rate of presidential approval in the international community may also be a contributing factor to the decline of patriotism in this latest poll. Gallup data from earlier this year found that only 31% of Americans (including 2% of Democrats) think foreign leaders have respect for Trump.
Politics is affecting Democrats’ overall pride in their country more than in Republicans. The “independents,” that is, those who are not tied to either of the two parties the system admits, have historically manifested less pride in being Americans than the Republicans. Currently, 41% of them express extreme pride, which is the lowest reading of this trend.
Several subgroups that typically identify with the Democratic Party (women, liberals, and young adults) express lower levels of extreme pride in being U.S. citizens.
American patriotism is the latest victim of the markedly polarized political climate in the United States today. For the second time in 19 years, less than half of American adults say they are extremely proud to be Americans. The decline reflects the plummeting pride of Democrats since Trump took office, contrasted with a slight rise among those who declare themselves Republicans.
July 17, 2019.
This article can be reprinted citing Por Esto! as the source.
Remarkable US Journalist Dies in Havana
by Pedro Martínez Pirez A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.
Journalist Lionel Martin, correspondent in Cuba for numerous news organizations from the United States and other Western countries, died in Havana on Friday night at the age of eighty-seven. His body was cremated this Saturday. Martin covered the events of the Cuban Revolution in an exemplary way and spread them through telegraphic, radio and television channels of his country and other western nations. Lionel Martin also worked for a period in the Latin American News Agency Prensa Latina, based in Havana. His death caused deep sorrow in the Cuban media and among the foreign press accredited in Cuba. Lionel Martin will always be remembered for his informative honesty and his attachment to the truth of the facts. adp
El periodista Lionel Martin, corresponsal en Cuba de numerosas entidades informativas de Estados Unidos y otros paises occidentales, falleciò en La Habana en la noche del viernes a los ochenta y siete años de edad. Su cadàver fue incinerado este sàbado. Martin cubriò ejemplarmente los acontecimientos de la Revoluciòn Cubana y los divulgò a travès de cadenas telegraficas, radiales y televisivas de su paìs y otras naciones occidentales. Lionel Martin tambièn laborò durante un perìodo en la Agencia Informativa Latinoamericana Prensa Latina, con sede en La Habana. Su deceso causò hondo pesar en los medios informativos cubanos y entre la prensa extranjera acreditada en Cuba. Lionel Martin serà recordado siempre por su honestidad informativa y su apego a la verdad de los hechos. adp
Remarkable US Journalist Dies in Havana
June 29. 2019FALLECE EN LA HABANA NOTABLE PERIODISTA ESTADOUNIDENSE
Trump Backs Full Spectrum Dominance
Trump Backs Full Spectrum Dominance
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
The United States is formally committed to dominating the world by 2020. President Trump’s Space Directive-4, on the production of laser-armed combat aircraft as possible precursors to space weapons and the possibility of nuclear warheads being placed in orbit, moves the clock forward.
An interesting and credible paper by T.J. Coles in Counterpunch recently reported that in 1997, the re-established U.S. Space Command announced its commitment to full spectrum dominance by 2020, which means military control over land, sea, air and space to protect U.S. interests and investments.
Protecting means guaranteeing the operational freedom of U.S. investments, which in turn means “corporate profits.”
The journalistic work explains that, in the past, the Army was deployed based on the interests of settlers who stole land from Native Americans in the genocidal birth of the United States as a nation.
A National Defense University report recognizes that, by the 19th century, the Navy had evolved to protect the newly formulated “grand strategy” of the United States. In addition to the supposed protection of citizens and the constitution, the guiding principle was, and continues to be, “the protection of American territory … and our economic well-being.
According to the Air Force’s Strategic Study Guide, by the 20th century, the Air Force had been established, ensuring energy supply and freedom of action to protect vital interests, such as trade. In the 21st century, these pillars of power were reinforced by the Cyber Command and the future Space Force.
The use of the Army, Navy and Air Force – the three dimensions of power – means that the United States is already close to achieving “full spectrum dominance”. Brown University’s Cost of War project documents current U.S. military involvement in 80 countries, or 40 percent of the world’s nations.
This includes 65 so-called counterterrorism training operations and 40 military bases. According to this measure, “full spectrum dominance” is almost halfway there, although it leaves out U.S. and NATO bases, training programs and operations in Estonia, Latvia, Poland and Ukraine.
As the United States expands its space operations – the fourth dimension of the war – the race for “full spectrum dominance” accelerates. Space has long been militarized in the sense that the United States uses satellites to guide missiles and aircraft. But the new doctrine tries to turn space into a weapon, for example by blurring the boundaries between high-altitude military aircraft and space itself.
Today’s space energy will be harnessed by the United States to ensure mastery of the satellite infrastructure allowed by the modern world of the Internet, e-commerce, GPS, telecommunications, surveillance and the fight against war. Since the 1950s, the United Nations has introduced several treaties to prohibit militarization and the placement of weapons in space. The most famous of these is the Outer Space Treaty (1967). These treaties aim to preserve space as a common good for all humanity. The creation of the United States Space Force is a flagrant violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of these treaties.
In more recent decades, successive U.S. governments have unilaterally rejected treaties to strengthen and expand existing agreements for peace in Space. In 2002, the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (1972), allowing it to expand its long-range missile systems. In 2008, China and Russia submitted to the United Nations Conference on Disarmament the proposed Treaty on the Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space and the Threat or Use of Force against Outer Space Objects. “Full Spectrum Dominance” is not only a danger to the world, but also to American citizens, who would suffer the consequences if something goes wrong with the complicated space weapons of their leaders.
Coles concludes his work by pointing out that “the catastrophic scenarios that arise in relation to these and other areas of development present the possibility of other, no less calamitous impacts, including ultimately the end of the world, or at least of humanity. June 21, 2019.
This article may be reproduced by citing PORESTO newspaper as the source.
Marta Harnecker has Passed Away
Marta Harnecker, one of the greatest figures of the Latin American left, has passed away
**As an author, Marta Harnecker published more than 80 books, including “Elementary Concepts of Historical Materialism”, written in 1969 and now in its 70th edition.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews
Chihuahua Chronicle
June 15, 16:25 pm
Chilean writer, psychologist and journalist Marta Harnecker passed away this Saturday.
This activist was born in Chile in 1937 and is recognized as one of the main figures of the Latin American left. She lived in the first person the socialist government of Salvador Allende and managed to survive the violence of Augusto Pinochet’s military coup.
Many were politically formed by her works. Her book “Elementary Concepts of Historical Materialism”, written in 1969 and now in its 70th edition, has been part of the formation of militants of leftist parties.
Of Austrian roots, Harnecker studied Psychology at the Catholic University of Chile in 1962. She did postgraduate studies in Paris with Paul Ricoeur and Louis Althusser. Upon her return to Chile in 1968, she taught Historical Materialism and Political Economy in Sociology at the University of Chile and was director of the political weekly Chile Hoy.
After the 1973 coup, she went into exile in Cuba, where she married Commander Manuel Piñeiro with whom she had a daughter.
There she lived through that country’s heartbreaking “special period” and described as “admirable” the way Cuba confronted the fall of socialism in Eastern Europe and the USSR.
After being widowed in 1998, Harnecker continued her research career and drew on the testimonies and experiences of Latin American political leaders that are part of the articles and texts that are now study material in multiple universities around the world.
Among these experiences is that of Venezuela, where she was an advisor to former president Hugo Chávez and the Ministry of People’s Power, where she was part of the management team of the Miranda International Center [CIM] in Caracas.
During her stay in the South American country, she was able to analyze the flourishing of popular struggles in Latin America.
Marta Harnecker, an authentic Marxist
Marta Harnecker demonstrated that socialism is not a “project” thinkable without struggle and that it cannot be done “from above”, since it must be the product of the struggles of the movement of the peoples and dominated classes.
“In this sense, she is an authentic Marxist, continuing the work initiated by Marx, without fear of enriching it – and permanently taking into account of what is new in the reality of the world, of capitalism, of imperialism, of struggles. Thus renewing the conceptualizations, the theoretical proposals and those relative to the strategies of action”, she was pointed out the journalist Samir Amin in an article published by La Haine.
“She helped to give living Marxism a Latin American dimension, as others have given it an Asian or African dimension. Marta Harnecker helped to give Marxism the universal dimension that should be her own; she helped it to be heard by the great majority of the peoples of the world, which are those of the three continents. She managed to escape Marxism from a deadly Eurocentric imprisonment. The experience of advances in the struggles of the peoples of Latin America has paved the way in recent decades, through the theoretical thought of Marta Harnecker, which has been decisive in this sense,” Amin stressed.
Most recognized works
As an author, Harnecker published more than 80 books: El capital: conceptos fundamentales (1971), Cuba: ¿dictadura o democracia? (1975), Pueblos en armas (1983), La revolución social (Lenin y América Latina) (1985), ¿Qué es la sociedad? (1986); Indígenas, cristianos y estudiantes en la revolución (1987); América Latina: Izquierda y crisis actual (1990); Haciendo camino al andar (1995); Haciendo lo imposible: La izquierda en el umbral del siglo XXI (1999); Reconstruyendo la izquierda (2006) and Un mundo a construir (nuevos caminos) (2013), for which he won the Premio Libertador al Pensamiento Crítico .
Harnecker, who suffered from cancer, spent his last years between Cuba, where his daughter resides, and Canada, together with her husband, the outstanding intellectual, Michael Lebowitz.