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People’s Power Is At The Heart Of The Cuban Political System

On Sunday, March 26, eight million Cubans will have the opportunity to vote in the elections to elect the 470 members of the National Assembly of People’s Power. The Assembly has the duty of discussing and passing laws that affect the lives of the Cuban people. Half of the candidates to the Assembly are elected at a municipal level, and half are nominated by the different sectors of society, such as the mass organizations of women, students, workers, peasants, among others, whose electoral representation is a unique aspect of Cuban democracy. The National Assembly is the body that is responsible for electing and appointing persons to various state offices such as the President and Vice-President of the Republic who are elected from among its members...

The Havana Syndrome Case Cracked

The Havana Syndrome was first reported in Cuba in 2016. The mysterious malady initially afflicted US embassy staff in Havana, especially those attached to intelligence missions. It then spread to Canadian embassy officials. The sudden headaches, debilitating dizziness, and hearing excruciatingly painful sounds struck both at work and at home. Oddly, the Cubans themselves appeared immune to the pathology. Soon other cases of what the US Defense Department called “anomalous health incidents” (AHIs) were reported in Russia, China, Colombia, Uzbekistan, and then even in the US.

Metastasis

Meta has been at it again. It deactivated 363 Facebook accounts of Cuban users, in addition to 270 pages and 229 groups, as well as 72 from Instagram. The operation covered other social networks such as YouTube, TikTok and Twitter, and included hundreds of pages of Bolivian citizens. As is often the case, it hit two leftist governments without providing any evidence of violation of the platforms’ community policies. What’s new in this raid? Little, actually. It is not the first time it happens. Zuckerberg’s transnational is under the dictates of U.S. government figures, particularly groups associated with the Cuban-American gang in Florida. Facebook’s director of public affairs, Alex Burgos, previously worked for Senator Marco Rubio and was his campaign manager in 2016.

National Network On Cuba Condemns Biden’s Country Report

There is no mistake about it. With the February 27 release of the State Department Country Report on Terrorism 2021, President Biden accepted ownership of the illegal U.S. economic war on Cuba, following suit with Donald Trump, George Bush, and Ronald Reagan’s hawkishness with the false designation of Cuba as a so-called “State Sponsor of Terror.” Unbelievably Biden’s Secretary of State asserts that “Cuba had repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism since its State Sponsor of Terrorism designation had been rescinded in 2015.” Despite this untrue report, Pres. Biden need only review the past six months and accept Cuba’s unequivocal rejection of terrorism to take Cuba off the list.

A Trip To Cuba

I was very fortunate to have been able to travel to Cuba a week ago as part of a delegation of American authors, poets, and writers to participate in the 31st annual International Book Festival.  The Cubans included my first book, The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in the CIA’s War on Terror, in the permanent collection of the Cuban National Library, and there was a small ceremony to commemorate it. I had several impressions as a first-time traveler to Cuba. I spent most of my career at the CIA and on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff either living in or working on the Middle East, and I have almost no familiarity with Latin America. 

Rescue Collective Life By Reading A Red Book

In December 1998, Fidel Castro addressed the 7th Congress of the Young Communist League in Havana, Cuba, a year after the catastrophic ‘market failure’ in Asia, when global finance exited the region and left behind economic deserts stretching from Korea to Malaysia. ‘The world is rapidly being globalised’, Castro told the Cuban youth, and this globalisation was ‘an unsustainable and intolerable world economic order’ founded on the cannibalisation of nature and the brutalisation of social life. Capitalist ideologues championed greed as foundational for society, but this, Castro cautioned, was merely an ideological claim rather than a statement drawn from reality.

Mexico’s AMLO Announces Campaign Against US Blockade Of Cuba

Mexico’s progressive President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced that his country will lead an international movement to end the US government’s illegal blockade against Cuba. The Mexican president, known popularly by his initials AMLO, condemned the six-decade US blockade of Cuba as “inhumane”. He said the global campaign to overturn it must be more “active”, complaining that, while the vast majority of countries on Earth vote against the US embargo every year at the United Nations General Assembly, nothing ever changes.

Cuba And Mexico Strengthen Ties Of Friendship With Visit Of Díaz-Canel

Cuba and Mexico continued to strengthen their ties of brotherhood  Saturday, as the president of the Caribbean island, Miguel Díaz-Canel, received from the hands of his Mexican counterpart, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle, the highest decoration awarded to a foreign head of state. The act, which took place during the visit of the Cuban leader to the State of Campeche, represents a new seal to a close bilateral relationship that goes beyond the symbolic. Since his arrival to power in 2018, López Obrador has been recovering the traditional harmony between Mexico Havana, that had cooled during the last several governments. The rapprochement has been forged with economic agreements and political winks until reaching its most intense point last year.

Havana Congress Plans Technological Sovereignty For Global South

The Congress brought together over 50 delegates - scholars, diplomats, parliamentarians, and policymakers from 26 countries across all six inhabited continents, including Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla. Following deliberations over two days on geopolitics, climate, finance, technology and trade through panels and keynote speeches, including from Andres Arauz, Clara Lopez and Yanis Varoufakis, the Congress agreed to focus on science, technology and innovation in the next 18 months. The Congress, part of the Progressive International’s project for a New International Economic Order, is held as Cuba assumes the presidency of the G77 bloc of 134 Global South countries.

Lawyers Ask Biden To Remove Cuba From State Sponsors Of Terrorism List

ACERE, the Alliance for Cuba Engagement and Respect, announces the release of a letter to President Biden signed by prominent lawyers nationwide expressing concern over the continued placement of Cuba on the State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT) list. The letter, which was sent to the President today January 20th as he begins the second half of his term, highlights the lack of legal or moral justification for Cuba’s inclusion on the SSOT list, especially in light of the fact that it had been removed from the list just a few years prior by the Obama-Biden administration. The letter, which is signed by 160 lawyers, comes on the heels of a similar letter sent to the President by 18 former heads of state, as well as petitions signed by hundreds of civil society organizations and thousands of citizens, all calling for the United States to lift its embargo and for Cuba to be removed from the SSOT list.

US Funds ‘Independent Journalists’ In Cuba To Spread Propaganda

A former top CIA spy has admitted that the United States funds anti-government propagandists in Cuba who portray themselves as “independent journalists”. Major British newspaper The Guardian spoke with CIA veteran Fulton Armstrong, whom it described as “the US intelligence community’s most senior analyst for Latin America from 2000 to 2004”. Armstrong stated that, in Cuba, “a lot of the so-called independent journalists are indirectly funded by the US”. The ex CIA analyst pointed out that, today, the Joe Biden administration bankrolls anti-government opposition forces in Cuba with at least $20 million in annual support for supposed “democracy promotion” activities. The Guardian acknowledged that the CIA has a history of spreading disinformation inside Cuba, as part of a US information war aimed at destabilizing the revolutionary government.

US Veterans Sail Historic Peace Boat To Cuba

The Golden Rule anti-nuclear sailboat, crewed by US veterans and friends, has successfully completed an historic voyage to Cuba. The 34-foot wooden ketch, which in 1958 was sailed toward the Marshall Islands to interfere with US nuclear testing, is owned by Veterans For Peace, and carries out an important part of its mission, “to end the arms race and to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons.” Five crew, including several members of Veterans For Peace, sailed the Golden Rule from Key West, Florida and, after 22 hours at sea, arrived at Havana’s Marina Hemingway on December 31, just in time to celebrate New Years and the 62nd anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. The Golden Rule was sailed to Havana under a General License issued by the US Treasury Dept. that allows US residents to travel to Cuba for educational and people-to-people purposes.

Statement By Ana Belen Montes After Her Release From Prison

Here is an update and current image of Ana Belen Montes, after her release from prison … we share with you the only authorized statement she wanted to share and make public, sent through her lawyer Linda Backiel on Sunday, January 8, 2023.

Cuba Says Biden Applies Blockade More Aggressively Than His Predecessors

In his address at a conversation series on “Cuba in the Foreign Policy of the United States of America,” held on December 14 at the Higher Institute of International Relations in Havana, Fernández de Cossío took aim at the Biden administration’s enforcement of the blockade against Cuba, stating, “there can be no doubt that the economic blockade is the defining factor in the bilateral relations” between the United States and Cuba. Biden pledged during his 2020 presidential campaign that he would “try to reverse the failed Trump policies that inflicted harm on Cubans and their families.” In 2021, he claimed, “We stand with the Cuban people.”

Veterans For Peace Golden Rule In Havana, Cuba

Thank you to the many Cuban people who have welcomed us to their beautiful country.  Thank you to ICAP for hosting our press conference.  And thank you to the members of the media who are here today to listen to our message of peace, love and solidarity. We are a diverse group of people from the United States and Hawai’i.  We are from the US states of California, Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, Minnesota, New York and Rhode Island.  And several of us are from the island nation of Hawai’i.  We are the crew and supporters of the historic anti-nuclear sailboat Golden Rule. Many of us are members of Veterans For Peace, an organization of former soldiers who are dedicated to abolishing nuclear weapons, and to abolishing war.
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