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Economic Blockade

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.

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.

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.

Cuba: 64 Years Of Revolution!

The people of Cuba enter 2023 celebrating the 64th anniversary of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. How can the singular meaning, the seminal nature, the effervescent history of the Cuban Revolution be sufficiently encapsulated? How can speeches, essays and ceremonies adequately convey the transcendent essence and substance of the work of Fidel, Che, Raúl, Vilma, Celia and so many other heroes and protagonists of this historic transformative event? Perhaps, it suffices to say that the significance of the Cuban revolution extends beyond the physical boundaries of the island. Indeed, the political and human geography of the Cuban Revolution is the planetary geography of the global struggle for justice, social development, and human dignity. The Cuban Revolution, flesh, bone, and idea is part and parcel of the wave of anti-colonial and national liberation struggles that swept Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean in the second half of the 20th century.

Historic Golden Rule Peace Boat On Its Way to Cuba

The historic Golden Rule anti-nuclear sailboat is on its way to Cuba. The storied wooden boat, which was sailed toward the Marshall Islands in 1958 to interfere with US nuclear testing, set sail from Key West, Florida on Friday morning, and will arrive at the Hemingway Marina in Havana on Saturday morning, New Years Eve day. The 34-foot ketch belongs to Veterans For Peace, and implements its mission “to end the arms race and to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons.” The five crew members will be joined by Veterans For Peace members who are flying to Havana to participate in an educational Arts & Culture program coordinated by the Proximity Cuba tour agency. The veterans will also be visiting communities that suffered great damage from the recent Hurricane Ian, which destroyed thousands of homes in Pinar del Rio province in western Cuba. They are carrying humanitarian aid for people who lost their homes.

We Charge Imperialism: The International People’s Tribunal

Since the end of the Cold War, the world has witnessed an unprecedented proliferation of sanctions regimes, particularly by the United Nations Security Council, the European Union, and the United States. This is due in part to the collapse of the Soviet Union, which ended the deadlock between superpowers at the Security Council. Over the past few decades, sanctions were slowly reconfigured from war time weapons into peacetime policy instruments. In order for this effort to materialize, policymakers, legal scholars, and government officials campaigned to legitimate sanctions as a lawful weapon to punish nations who refuse to submit to the United States and Europe. A rich body of literature investigates the use of multilateral coercive measures by the Security Council, and the bilateral and unilateral measures exercised by regional and state actors.

The Real Reason The US Is Against The Entire World On Cuba

The entire world just voted to end the 60-year blockade against Cuba…except for two countries. Can you guess which ones? (Luxembourg was neither of them.) I take you back to September 1961. The U.S. was a younger, naive nation. We drove around with children in our laps because the seatbelt law was still years away. And the top song of the day was Barry Mann’s “Who put the bomp into bomp bah bomp bah bomp?” (Turns out it was Henry Kissinger. He was a childlike 73 years old back then, and he was actually into “bomping” before he was into bombing.) In 1961 the United States began a massive embargo against the island country of Cuba. This was just a few months after the Bay of Pigs invasion, in which the U.S. tried to retake Cuba from the communist revolutionaries who had wrested it away from the American-backed capitalist oligarchs.

Let Cuba Rebuild!

The US sanctions and embargo are preventing Cuba from rebuilding after Hurricane Ian. The Biden Administration needs to act right now to help the Cuban people. Hurricane Ian caused great devastation. The power grid was damaged, and the electrical system collapsed. Over four thousand homes have been completely destroyed or badly damaged. Cuba must be allowed, even if just for the next six months, to purchase the necessary construction materials to rebuild. Cubans are facing a  major setback because of Hurricane Ian. Despite Cuba’s well-known preparedness for natural disasters, the damage from this hurricane has been immense. In the western province of Pinar del Rio, famous for Its tobacco production, over 5,000 farms were destroyed. In small towns like San Luis, 80% of all homes were left damaged.

Punishing Cuba: The Self-Serving ‘State Sponsors Of Terror’ List

Today car and bike caravans in many U.S. cities are rightly demanding that Cuba be taken off the U.S. State Department’s “State Sponsors of Terrorism” list. Did you know there was such a thing? Every presidential administration appoints a secretary of state. Now it is Antony Blinken; before him was Mike Pompeo, and under Obama it was John Kerry and Hillary Clinton. And the president, through the secretary of state, can put countries on this list or take them off. It is that arbitrary. As a parting slam against Cuba, on Jan. 12, 2021, just eight days before Joe Biden assumed the presidency, the Trump administration condemned Cuba once again. And Biden has let it stand, although he can waive provisions or decide to remove Cuba from the list altogether.

Sanctions Are Destructive, Illegitimate, And Totally Bipartisan

What right does the United States have to starve civilians to achieve political goals? Despite its obvious importance, this question is largely absent from mainstream discourse. Through economic sanctions, or economic warfare, the U.S. can unilaterally collapse economies and generate famine in foreign countries. The civilian death toll from sanctions is often equal to—and sometimes greater than—the toll from conventional warfare. Yet on both sides of the aisle, it is taken for granted that we have the “right” to impose destitution on civilian populations in order to advance our interests. The U.S. administers two types of sanctions: primary and secondary sanctions.

Milwaukee Cuba Caravan Highlights The Damage Caused By The US Blockade

Thirty Cuba solidarity activists heard updates, Sunday, August 28, on how the people of the island are adapting to the ongoing impacts of the US economic blockade and the recent fire at an oil depot in Matanzas, fifty miles from Havana.  Three members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation gave report backs from a recent visit to the island, which included the delivery of humanitarian assistance, part of the Hatuey Project.  The updates preceded a car caravan, one of many around the country, demanding an end to the US blockade of Cuba. Sam Doucas, Erica Steib, and Alexa 'Lex' Nutile spoke about Cuba’s justified reputation for providing health care for all of its citizens. They pointed out that Cuba’s infant mortality rate is less than that of the more developed United States. However, because of the 62-year US economic blockade, the Cuban health care system is short of vital medicines and diagnostics and surgical equipment to facilitate health on the island. To help support Cubans’ health, the three PSL members joined with others in the Hatuey Project to bring medical supplies to support maternal care on the island.

While Cuba Deals With Blazing Fire, The US Heartlessly Watches And Waits

By now, the images of the oil explosion that erupted in the Cuban province of Matanzas on Friday, August 5 and continues blazing have become international news. When lightning struck an oil tank in Cuba's largest oil storage facility, it quickly exploded and began to spread to nearby tanks. As of now, four of the eight tanks have caught fire. Dozens of people have been hospitalized, over 120 have been reported injured, at least 16 firefighters are still reported missing and one firefighter has died. This latest disaster—the largest oil fire in Cuba's history—comes at a time when Cuba is currently undergoing an energy crisis due to soaring global fuel costs, as well as over-exploited and obsolete infrastructure. The raging fire will undoubtedly further exacerbate the electricity outages that Cubans are suffering from as a result of the on-going energy crisis that is occurring in the middle of one of the hottest summers on record globally.

One Dead And 121 Injured In Fuel Storage Depot Fire In Matanzas, Cuba

At least one person has died, 17 firefighters are missing, and 121 people have been injured in a huge fire that broke out on Friday, August 5, in a fuel depot in Matanzas, in western Cuba, 60 miles east of Havana. The fire started on Friday evening after a lighting hit a fuel tank in Matanzas, and then in the early hours of Saturday it spread to a second tank, causing a big explosion around 5:00 A.M. while government officials and firefighter teams were trying to control the first explosion. All throughout Saturday Cuban authorities worked tirelessly to prevent the fire from reaching a third tank. The storage facility consists of eight storage tanks overall. The governments of Mexico and Venezuela have already sent expert teams to help the Cubans in the midst of the catastrophe that has shaken the island nation subjected to more than 60 years of an illegal US blockade.

Hate Campaign Targets Bridges Of Love For Its Solidarity Work With Cuba

Marco Rubio has done it again. The man famous for slandering and being ashamed of his Cuban and Latino roots once again made a fool of himself before the world by requesting the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to conduct an “immediate” inquiry into the ties between the U.S.-based solidarity group Puentes de Amor and Cuba. The Florida senator believes it is highly suspicious that Carlos Lazo, who founded and currently coordinates the group, is meeting with authorities on the island. The movement has traveled to the Caribbean country dozens of times with health supplies and food, especially during the hardest months of the pandemic. According to Rubio, it is inadmissible that Lazo has met with Cuban leader Miguel Diaz-Canel at two very recent moments, in June of this year and August of last year.

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