by Manolo De Los Santos and Kate Gonzales It’s a hot and crowded Tuesday morning in the Yoruba Cultural Center in Havana, and the air sticks to the skin. You can hear the fluttering of paper as people fan themselves, and a surprise blackout takes out the sound system with a flicker of the lights. And yet, 150 young organizers from[Read More…]
On September 25, 2022, Cuba passed one of the world’s most progressive codes on families. All in one go, the small island nation legalized same-sex marriage, defined and upheld the rights of children, the disabled, caregivers, and the elderly, and redefined “family” along ties of affinity rather than blood. This opens the concept of “family” to include nontraditional forms of familial relations,[Read More…]
The Cuban socialist healthcare system is internationally recognized as one of the best in the world.1 It is innovative, preventative, people-oriented, comprehensive, community-centered, internationalist, and, of course, de-commodified—treating healthcare as a human right, not a profitable commodity. However, in spite of its extraordinary successes, the United States’ sixty-year long blockade has tremendously detrimental effects on Cuban life in general, and their[Read More…]
by Noam Chomsky and Vijay Prashad Cuba, a country of 11 million people, has been under an illegal embargo by the United States government for over six decades. Despite this embargo, Cuba’s people have been able to transcend the indignities of hunger, ill health, and illiteracy, all three being social plagues that continue to trouble much of the world. Due[Read More…]
“Venezuela will once again be treated normally, as all countries want to be treated,” said Lula da Silva. A teleSUR report said: On Monday, Brazilian President Lula da Silva asked the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to help solve the problems of Venezuela and Cuba and treat these nations with “much affection.” These statements were made during[Read More…]
The blockade of Cuba limits its ability to share its scientific and technological advances with the rest of the world. Scientists in Cuba believe that the breakthroughs they have made in the health care and technology sectors should be used to save and improve lives beyond the country’s borders. This is why the island nation has developed important scientific and[Read More…]
On November 27 morning, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, walked into a voting station in the Playa neighborhood to vote in Cuba’s municipal elections. He had landed in Havana an hour earlier from an intense tour of Algeria, Russia, Turkey, and China. The tour, which started on November 16, was both a journey into the past of the nonaligned world that Cuba played an integral role in building and[Read More…]
During a speech at the Duma (Russian parliament) on Tuesday, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel rejected the unilateral sanctions imposed by the U.S. and its allies on Russia. A teleSUR report said: “Cuba strongly condemns the unfair unilaterally imposed sanctions against Russia. The reasons for the current conflict must be found in the aggressive policy of the United States and in the[Read More…]
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has overwhelmingly voted in favor of a resolution condemning the U.S. embargo on Cuba for the 30th year in a row. Only the U.S. and Israel voted against the measure on Thursday, while Ukraine and Brazil abstained. Cuba celebrated a new victory in its struggle against the U.S. blockade, by achieving overwhelming support in[Read More…]
Ernest Hemingway learned in Cuba that the best way to get through a hurricane is to have your ears tuned to a battery-powered radio and keep your hands busy with a bottle of rum and a hammer to nail down doors and windows. The American writer appropriated the typical jargon of Cuban meteorologists and fishermen who speak of “the sea”[Read More…]
Hurricane Ian lashed at western Cuba on September 27, 2022. I waited desperately for a phone call from my friends in Puerto Esperanza, a small fishing village on the northern coast of Pinar del Río. Over a crackling phone line, my friends told me that the hurricane had ripped off the roofs of their houses and had cut their electricity supply. But[Read More…]
The article documents that, for the first time, life expectancy in Cuba exceeds that in the US by almost three years. It explores intertwined reasons behind this occurrence, including responses to Covid, health care systems, racism, poverty, misinformation campaigns, the embargo, international solidarity efforts, and resilience to climate change. Recent data shows that between 2019 and 2021, life expectancy (LE)[Read More…]
by Vijay Prashad and Manolo De Los Santos On August 5, a major oil storage facility in Matanzas, Cuba, 65 miles east of Havana, was hit by lightning. A tank that contained 25,000 cubic meters of crude oil caught fire after being struck. Since then, an enormous fire has been raging in Matanzas. Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Ávalos Jorge, deputy head of Cuba’s[Read More…]
by Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan and Medea Benjamin 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,[Read More…]
by Roger Waters, Vijay Prashad and Manolo de los Santos The United States maintains a list of countries that it considers as “state sponsors of terrorism.” There are currently four countries on that list: Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Syria. The basic idea behind this list is that the U.S. State Department determines that these countries have “provided support for acts of[Read More…]
by Vijay Prashad & Manolo De Los Santos To move from 59 infant deaths out of every 1,000 live births to no infant deaths in the matter of a few decades is an extraordinary feat. Palpite, Cuba, is just a few miles away from Playa Girón, along the Bay of Pigs, where the United States attempted to overthrow the Cuban[Read More…]
Though Bandung in Indonesia and Havana in Cuba couldn’t be farther apart geographically—with each city located on two distant islands in their respective countries and separated by more than 17,000 km—they have been ideologically close in the imaginations of many people across the Global South. The Third World Project, born out of the continuous collaboration between the newly independent states and[Read More…]
On May 16, the Biden administration announced new measures to “increase support for the Cuban people.” They included easing travel restrictions and helping Cuban-Americans support and connect with their families. They mark a step forward but a baby step, given that most U.S. sanctions on Cuba remain in place. Also in place is a ridiculous Biden administration policy of trying[Read More…]
At first, there was an explosion. The six-story building vibrated, and a few wires snapped with the force of a whiplash. Immediately afterward, more than half of the facade collapsed without any warning, with each floor swallowing the one above as the ceiling crushed against the floor and the floor against the ceiling during the explosion, and a cloud of[Read More…]
In 1994, Miguel Díaz-Canel began a new position in Santa Clara, not far from his birthplace of Placetas, as the provincial secretary of the Cuban Communist Party. He set aside the air-conditioned car given to him and went to work each morning on his bicycle, his long hair and jeans defining him. Díaz-Canel organized rock concerts, spent time with his[Read More…]
It all seems worn, part of an aspic approach to foreign policy. But US President Joe Biden is keen to ensure that old, and lingering mistakes, retain their flavour. Towards Cuba, it is now 60 years since President John F. Kennedy’s Presidential Proclamation 3447 imposed an embargo on all trade with the island state. The proclamation was packed with Cold[Read More…]
It’s easy to say, but it’s been six very hard decades that began with disconcerting lightness and the belief that the United States government’s blockade of Cuba would not last long—a couple of years, maybe. On February 2, 1962, U.S. President John F. Kennedy called his press secretary, Pierre Salinger, and gave him an urgent task: “I need a lot of [Cuban][Read More…]
I swear, I can’t hear well. Photo: Osval, Granma “Havana Syndrome” came out as an accusation, first, against Cuba, and then, against Russia. Now, the CIA has found the fact: No hostile power, no foreign enemy was involved with the so-called Havana Syndrome. A report by NBC News – CIA says ‘Havana Syndrome’ not result of sustained global campaign by hostile power[Read More…]
What’s changed in Venezuela and Cuba since Biden became President? Nothing. But as US foreign policy on those two great threats to America continues seamlessly on from the Trump presidency to the Biden presidency, there’s something the White House and the media don’t want you to know. Venezuela Though you’d barely know it from the media, Venezuela just had an[Read More…]
“If you build it, they will come,” said Kevin Costner in the Field of Dreams. In Cuba, they didn’t come. Dissidents on the island, with their U.S. backers, had been working feverishly for months to turn the unprecedented July 11 protests into a crescendo of government opposition on November 15. They built a formidable structure, with sophisticated social media (including an[Read More…]
On September 20, letters began to arrive at eight Cuban municipal or provincial government headquarters announcing the holding of “peaceful” marches on November 15 by a group called Archipiélago. The motivation for these marches was a call for change. The letter was not a formal request to occupy the busiest streets of some cities in Cuba, but rather a notification by the group[Read More…]
The white capitalist cannibal has always fed on the world’s black peoples. White capitalist imperialist society is profoundly and unmistakably racist. Walter Rodney White supremacy and racism cannot be dissociated from capitalism. It was racism and white supremacy that provided the cultural justifications for slavery and the concomitant slave trade, for European colonial expansion and imperialism, without which capitalism[Read More…]
The piggy bank was rattled again. In September 2021, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) gave $6,669,000 in grants for projects aimed at “regime change” in Cuba, a euphemism to avoid saying “direct intervention by a foreign power.” The United States’ current Democratic administration has especially favored the International Republican Institute (IRI) with a bipartisan generosity that Donald Trump never[Read More…]
by Manolo De Los Santos and Vijay Prashad U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) appears to be obsessed with Cuba. Every few days he takes to social media or makes remarks to the press about his desire to overthrow the Cuban Revolution. In recent months, Rubio has played a key role in drumming up support for anti-government protests in Cuba. On September 23, 2021, for[Read More…]
Cubans living abroad have been unable to send remittances to their loved ones on the island due to the unilateral coercive measure imposed by Donald Trump just before leaving office With the money she earns cleaning houses in the morning and an office at night, Virgen Elena Pupo, a 47-year-old Cuban migrant, has managed to raise her family in Washington,[Read More…]
A Half-century Long Brutal USA Embargo Against Tiny Cuba! 184 Nations Vote For its End & Against US & Israel NEW YORK, June 23 (Reuters) – ‘U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration continued Washington’s tradition of voting against an annual United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for an end to a U.S. economic embargo on Cuba. The resolution was adopted[Read More…]
I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. — Mike Pompeo, former US secretary of state on how the United States conducts its business One of the filters in the Propaganda Model propounded by professors Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky was stoking a fear of communism. [1] The establishment’s anti-communism has never abated in the United States.[Read More…]
While President Joe Biden campaigned on a pledge to reverse the “failed” policies of his predecessor that “inflicted harm on Cubans and their families,” his administration—already under mounting pressure from progressives to deliver on that promise—announced new sanctions against Cuba on Friday. Following Cubans’ recent protests over shortages of food, medicine, and other essentials during the Covid-19 pandemic, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets[Read More…]
68 years ago, on July 26, 1953, an angry young lawyer, Fidel Castro, led a small band of armed men in a failed attempt to seize the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba, in Oriente province. Nearly one-half of the rebels were killed – most of them died under or following torture. While Fidel and his young comrades did not[Read More…]
Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Saturday that Cuba is an “example of resistance,” and proposed the entire country should be declared a World Heritage site. Media reports said: The Mexican President praised Cuba’s ability to stand up to U.S. hostility since 1959. López Obrador has in the past stated his opposition to U.S. sanctions that limit commerce with[Read More…]
People from different walks of life are standing in support of revolution in Cuba. They are calling to defend the revolution in Cuba. Leading artists, intellectuals, personalities, U.S. lawmakers are calling on the U.S. government to withdraw blockade against Cuba. A Granma report said: As another reliable example of the rejection generated in the international community by the hostile policy[Read More…]
Threat for imperialist intervention in Cuba is increasing. A Havana, July 22, 2021 datelined AP report said: Cuba criticized the US and President Joe Biden on Wednesday for a series of statements by senior officials, accusing the US government of seeking to justify a military intervention. The report said: Johana Tablada, deputy director for US affairs at Cuba’s Ministry of[Read More…]
Cuba has been witnessing anti-government protests since July 11, 2021. Several objective factors account for these demonstrations. Cuba is experiencing its greatest economic crisis in 30 years. The devastating knock-on effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the country’s tourism-dependent economy, coupled with criminal sanctions and blockade, have caused real hardship to the Cuban people. The decline in foreign visitors caused a loss of around $3[Read More…]
Assassinate Fidel and Raul, and subvert Cuba are now well-known facts related to the Empire. The Empire is ceaselessly engaged with this task since Revolution in Cuba; and the Empire considers the assassination attempts and acts of subversion as essential for its existence. Recent disturbance in Havana and some other places in Cuba have again brought this issue to forefront.[Read More…]
The USA has imposed the longest ever embargo on Cuba which has continued for almost six decades with very limited relaxations for short durations . The Cubans ( as well as other critics) refer to this as blockade to convey its more damaging impacts. For almost the last three decades the United Nations General Assembly has been regularly passing resolutions[Read More…]
A ‘Protest Song’, the Singers, what else they sang for, A Wrong Protester Vis-à-vis other kind of Cuban ‘protesters’ least talked-of #Patriayvida, @descemerbueno, @gentedezona, (René Pérez Joglar) @residente, @lajovencuba A new Cuban ‘protest-song’ is now much talked about. It is “Patria y Vida” sang by Descemer Bueno, Gente De Zona, and Yotuel, and written by Beatriz Luengo Gonzalez, Descemer Bueno,[Read More…]
Cuba has been witnessing anti-government protests since July 11, 2021. These demonstrations are fuelled by a number of factors. The devastating knock-on effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on a developing nation like Cuba – a tourism-dependent economy – coupled with the criminal sanctions and blockade against the country have caused real hardship to the Cuban people and their economy. Cuban[Read More…]
It was not fire-breathing communists but Jawaharlal Nehru who took the initiative to recognize Cuba at a time when Western powers were bristling with frustrated rage against the tiny island-country only thirty and odd miles from the American coast.Because Nehru saw the Cuban revolution as part of the national liberation movement that roused people against suffocating colonial and imperialist dominance[Read More…]
There’s now call to bomb Cuba – a suggestion from the land of inequality, the Empire. Francis Suarez, Mayor of Miami, has called for US military intervention in Cuba. The mayor has cited many examples – from Panama to Kosovo. Mr. Suarez claims – all US attacks went smoothly. An act to feel proud by imperialists! The logic behind this[Read More…]
Since July 11, Cuba has been facing a protest that started in a city and then spread to 60 to 70 points of turbulence. Everyone knows that Cuba is a thorn in the flesh for the US imperialist. Imperialist propaganda for decades was Cuba was alive only due to Soviet Military Umbrella and Soviet aids proved partially wrong after the[Read More…]
The mainstream media (MSM) is over-active with news on protest in Cuba. All these news attract readers. One such news by National Review from the US is interesting: “In another tweet, Cuban dissidents are seen flying an American flag.” (“Cuban President blames US for ‘social unrest’ after massive anti-communist protest”, July 12, 2021, https://www.nationalreview.com/news/cuban-president-blames-u-s-for-social-unrest-after-massive-anti-communist-protest/) Has not the “protest” been exposed?[Read More…]
by Carlos L. Garrido & Edward Liger Smith Yesterday, the Midwestern Marx co-founders got together to discuss the recent imperialist attacks on Cuba. In the podcast below, Carlos and Edward analyze the Cuban protests in their historical context; beginning from the development of colonial monocropping and the subsequent sugar and tobacco dependency created on the Cuban economy thereof, to the[Read More…]
Since June 11, 2021, protests have been taking place in Cuba. USA’s imperialist Mafiosos have laid their vulturine eyes on these events, sensationalizing the demonstrations as evidences of the Cuban people’s disillusionment with their revolutionary government. Jake Sullivan, the US national security advisor, was quick to pose as a full-blown freedom fighter, saying: “The U.S. supports freedom of expression and assembly across Cuba,[Read More…]
Imperialist media and its followers are over-active in circulating the news: Protests and loot in Cuba. Then, they draw conclusion: The people in Cuba are rejecting socialism. The MSM circulated news on Cuba said: Large anti-government protests broke out in Cuba’s major cities. Thousands of protesters marched on Sunday in Havana, Santiago de Cuba and other locales, decrying food, medicine[Read More…]
There are some aspects of the experiences of Cuba in recent times from which many developing countries in particular can learn valuable lessons without necessarily accepting some other aspects. The persistence of imperialism , its injustices and even cruelties has been very much a reality of the world which emerged following the end of more formal and obvious forms of[Read More…]
Raul Castro, leader of the Communist Party of Cuba, has announced that he is stepping down and handing leadership to a younger generation “full of passion and anti-imperialist spirit.” Fidel Castro and Raul Castro have led the Communist Party of Cuba party since 1961. Ready to defend revolution “As I live I will be ready with my foot in the[Read More…]
Cuban blood left its stamp on the conscience of the world after the Angolan Wars of 1975-1988. Corporate politicians are united in their desire for us to ignore this reality. * * * Fed up with foreign wars, Portuguese officers overthrew Prime Minister Marcello Caetano on April 25, 1974. Many former colonies had the opportunity to define their own future.[Read More…]
Written by Medea Benjamin and Leonardo Flores On January 11, in his final days before leaving office, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo added one parting blow to the series of bludgeons his administration has inflicted on Cuba for four years: putting the island on the list of “state sponsors of terror” that includes only Iran, North Korea and Syria. The[Read More…]
As a coup de grâce to the Bernie Sanders campaign Joe Biden declared that he would veto Medicare-for-All. This could drive a dedicated health care advocate to relentlessly pursue Med-4-All as a final goal. However, it is not the final goal. It should be the first step in a complete transformation of medicine which includes combining community medicine with natural[Read More…]
Samir Amin was one of the great anti-imperialist Marxist intellectuals of the 20th century. I have elsewhere called him a ‘global organic intellectual’ because he drew his conclusions from a wealth of primary data little considered by mainstream academe; namely, the sincere theoretical/political reflections of ‘third-world’ radical intellectuals, with whom he engaged in constant discussions, on seven continents, for over five decades[Read More…]
When in 1868, Cuban slave-owner Manuel de Céspedes embarked on a 10-year nationalist uprising against Spain, the colonial master, he did not imagine he would be building not only the political bases of an independent Cuba but also the ideological blocks of a new Cuban identity. Scholars correctly point out that Ten Years War (1868-78) turned out to be the[Read More…]
Co-Written by Medea Benjamin and Leonardo Flores Credit: Cubacooperation A team of 85 Cuban doctors and nurses arrived in Peru on June 3 to help the Andean nation tackle the coronavirus pandemic. That same day, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced another tightening of the sanctions screws. This time he targeted seven Cuban entities, including Fincimex, one of the principal[Read More…]
Beginning in December 1951, Ernesto “Che” Guevara took a nine-month break from medical school to travel by motorcycle through Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Venezuela. One of his goals was gaining practical experience with leprosy. On the night of his twenty-fourth birthday, Che was at La Colonia de San Pablo in Peru swimming across the river to join the lepers.[Read More…]
Díaz-Canel, the president of Cuba, has reaffirmed the firm commitment: We will not give up; we will not betray; and we will never surrender. President Miguel M Díaz-Canel Bermúdez was delivering a speech in early-October, 2018 during the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the beginning of Cuba’s independence struggle in La Demajagua. Amidst slogans of Viva, Díaz-Canel declared: Socialism[Read More…]
The biggest problem for families in Cuba these days is the financial difficulties caused by the United States blockade. It has not been removed even though diplomatic relations were established following former President Obama’s visit to Cuba. This is due to, among other things, the fact that there are laws that have to be repealed by the US Congress. So[Read More…]
President Barack Obama’s official visit to Cuba in March 2016 has deluded a lot of people into believing that relations between the United States and Cuba are now normal. They do not realise that the severe US economic sanctions against Cuba are still in force. Of course there have been slight improvements in the application of some of the[Read More…]
Cuba has come a long way since the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the loss of imports crucial for the island nation’s industrial agriculture system—such as chemical pesticides and fertilizers—left Cuba with a severe food crisis in the 1990s. Today, Cuba has become a regional leader in sustainable agricultural research. Within its practices and institutions lies a model for[Read More…]
An equal level of consumption for everyone around the world at the level of today’s Cuba offers the possibility of substantially lowering human impact on the biosphere while at the same time maintaining a rather decent standard of living for all.
A hegemonic power never says sorry. Three recent episodes underscore this truism. When US President Barack Obama offered a floral wreath at the cenotaph of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park on 27 May 2016, some peace advocates in the United States, in Japan and in other parts of the world hoped against hope that he would say “sorry” for the[Read More…]
Urban farming has gained momentum in recent years as a result of increased awareness of environmental issues and the desire to feed people living in cities sustainably. For Cuba in the 1990s, however,the shift to an urban agricultural economy was a matter of life or death. The Plaza de la Revolución is supposed to embody the spirit of revolutionary Cuba.[Read More…]
Indigenous Australians & Palestinians: Treaty, Truth, Voice, Referendum & Senator Lidia Thorpe 
Kya Sharmsaar hai hindustan……are wrestling champions of India going the Mohammed Ali way? 
Legislative Gaps Helping Overseas Shell Companies? 
Book Review: Marginalised but not Defeated 
When Will US Join Global Call to End Ukraine War? 
AUKUS, Congress and Cold Feet 
The Wars We Don’t (Care to) See – Aggression Made Easy 
Raising the Palestinian flag in Daley Plaza Center, Chicago: A powerful symbolic gesture 
Shocking Lack of Concern for World’s Safety by War Mongering Elite 
Has Hindutva been defeated in Karnataka? 
UN Agencies Warn ‘Acute Food Insecurity’ Likely to Worsen in 18 Hunger Hot Spots 
Meta and Privacy: The Economy of Data Transgressions 
A Response to The New York Times’ Ritualistic Denunciation of Mao’s Cultural Revolution… 
GM Crops Likely to Worsen Climate Change Related Problems for Farmers 
Symbolism of Sengol 
Forget GDP growth, it’s sustainable wellbeing we need to aim for 
Supremes Declare War on Wetlands 
Kings Coronation, Victory Day Parade and Perverse Values 
A critical approach to the exploration of Identity & Violence: An attempt by the young researchers of EDRU 
Delay in Census enumeration, unreliable death registration and fake Aadhaar cards adversely impact integrity of elections, leads to misuse of public funds 
Special Significance of the Next Decade in Human History, and a Campaign Linked to This 
Prophets of Doom: Kissinger and the ‘Intellectual’ Decline of the West 
“Free Trade” as Revealed in the China-United States Paradigm 
Memorialize USA Lies About Each Mistaken Undeclared War Americans Remembered Today Gave Their Lives 
Tipu Sultan: Fallacies and Facts around the Historical Figure in India 
The intertwined history of caste and census in India 
A Tale of Two Indias 
Dismantle the structures of sexual violence, NOT the protesters’ tent! 
CDRO condemns the manhandling of the protesting wrestlers 
From Deathly Silence to Violence: The journey of Wrestlers struggling for Justice 
Workers Protests break out in China 
Now I Am Ravana’s Head 
Noam Chomsky on Why This Is the Most Dangerous Point in Human History 
HAK Birthdays: Henry Kissinger Turns 100 
Brotherhood and Friendship in a time of War- Reflections on The Mercenary, by Jeffrey E. Stern 
Weaknesses of the National Security Strategy 2022 – Part 8: The NSS falsely claims that Russia and Putin have malicious goals and spurn negotiation 
What role did trade unions play in the struggle for independence in Kenya? 
A Timely Warning on Avoiding the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework that Deserves Wide Attention 
Tinsel Gods 
Kirti Kisan Union conducts massive rally in Moga on issue of Canal Water 
Our beloved K.P.Sasi is no more. Filmmaker, cartoonist, writer, mentor, friend and above all tireless activist championing the cause of every underdog, Sasi breathed his last, mid-afternoon this Christmas day – after battling a medical condition for months. I remember the last time I met him, almost exactly a month before he passed away, at the ayurvedic healing center in[Read More…]
