Cuba: After 60 years of struggle, sacrifices, efforts and victories, we see a free, independent country, the master of its own destiny

Speech by Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee, at the central act to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the triumph of the Revolution, in Santiago de Cuba, January 1st, 2019, “Year 61 of the Revolution”

Granma | January 02, 2019

As part of Our America, our respect and solidarity with sister nations has, and will be, invariable. Photo: Estudios Revolución

(Council of State transcript / GI translation)

SANTIAGO women and men;

Compatriots of all Cuba:

We gather today to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the revolutionary triumph of January 1st, and we do so again in Santiago de Cuba, cradle of the Revolution, here in the Santa Ifigenia cemetery, where the immortal remains of many of the best children of the nation are venerated, very close to the tombs of the National Hero, of the Father and Mother of the Homeland, and of the Comandante en Jefe of the Cuban Revolution.

Entering 60th year of Revolution, Cuba has new Constitution, almost

by W. T. Whitney Jr.

People’s World | January 01, 2019

Delegates of Cuba’s National Assembly of People’s Power on December 22 unanimously approved extensive revisions proposed for Cuba’s Constitution of 1976. The Assembly authorized a national referendum on acceptance or not of what is in effect a new constitution. That vote takes place on February 24, the day in 1895 when Cubans launched their second War of Independence from Spain.

The constitutional change responds to new realities and old problems confronting Cuba’s brand of socialism. A new generation of political leadership has materialized, as has increasing dependence on foreign investment, new property-ownership patterns, and new forms of private enterprise. Meanwhile, U.S. hostilities and economic blockade persist, economic productivity lags, personal income is low, the debt load increases, and costs for importing goods are high.

Report from Cuba: Insights from a visitor after 60 years of socialism

People’s World | January 01, 2019

Richard Grassl lives in Washington State. He first went to Cuba in 1997 to attend a U.S./Cuba Labor Conference in Havana and has returned periodically, most recently in August 2018. Richard’s wife is Cuban. His visits there with her family have allowed him to see Cuba in ways quite different from those of most North American visitors. Tom Whitney of the Let Cuba Live Committee of Maine and a regular People’s World correspondent, takes advantage of Richard’s unusual vantage point and his analysis to ask him a few questions.

Brazil’s Bolsonaro targets minorities on first day in power

by Mauricio Savarese

People’s’ World | January 03, 2019

SAO PAULO (AP)—Newly installed President Jair Bolsonaro targeted Brazil’s indigenous groups, descendants of slaves, and the LGBTQ community with executive orders in the first hours of his administration, moving quickly after a campaign in which the far-right leader said he would radically overhaul many aspects of life in Latin America’s largest nation.

Sao Paulo’s stock market, meanwhile, jumped 3.56 percent to a record closing of 91,012 points as new Cabinet ministers reinforced the intent to privatize state-owned companies and a Brazilian arms maker benefited from Bolsonaro’s plans to loosen gun controls. Similar spikes in stock prices also occurred during the presidential campaign.

India: PMFBY: Profiting from Farmers’ Distress

by Subodh Varma

Peoples Democracy | Vol. XLII No. 52 | December 30, 2018

AMONG the series of schemes launched (or repackaged) by the Modi led NDA government, one of the most toxic is the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY). Its purpose is to provide crop insurance to farmers, that is, if the crop fails due to some non-preventable reason like weather calamity etc, then the farmers will be compensated for this loss. The principle is sound – the government should take care of such losses which are very common in India since cultivation is largely dependent on monsoon rains.

India: Sabarimala Protests: Day of Violence Sees Over 700 Arrests; Several Injured

The Wire | January 04, 2018

 

BJP workers pelt stones in Palakkad while protesting the entry of women into Sabarimala. Credit: PTI

New Delhi: The Kerala police have arrested at least 745 people and taking another 628 into preventive custody after a hartal against the entry of women into the Sabarimala temple saw normal life disrupted on Thursday. Several dozens were injured, while one person died. The media was also reportedly attacked by right-wing activists at several places.

The hartal was called by the Sabarimala Karma Samithi, a grouping of various Hindu organisations. The Bharatiya Janata Party supported the hartal, while the Congress-led opposition coalition observed a black day.

F.W. ENGDAHL: Why NATO Wants to Destroy Putin’s Russia—the Cold War that Never Ended

Why NATO Wants to Destroy Putin’s Russia: From Manifest Destiny Book

Dear Readers,

For this installment of my gratis newsletter I want to share a chapter excerpt from my latest book, Manifest Destiny: Democracy as Cognitive Dissonance. In the first chapters of the book I describe in detail rarely discussed background to how severely and ruthlessly both the Bush and Clinton Administrations during the 1990’s used their CIA-controlled asset, Boris Yeltsin, to open up the fabulously resource rich but money poor Russian Federation after 1989. By the end of that fateful decade, in 1999 internal opposition to the Yeltsin looting of the country was so great that the CIA-backed Russian oligarchs around Yeltsin—Boris Berezovsky, Vladimir Potanin, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and others—decided to bring in an unknown new face, one they were convinced would allow them to continue their plunder. He was then 47-year old former Deputy Major of St Petersburg named Vladimir Putin. Within months as Putin won the 2000 Presidential vote on a promise to restore Russia to a stable nation, the oligarchs and their friends in Washington realized they were dealing with a far different character from the pliable Yeltsin. There began NATO’s 18- year campaign to bring down Putin’s Russia. The following is an excerpt from my book, Manifest Destiny dealing with NATO efforts after 2002 to encircle Russia and break Putin, all to date to little success. It gives an essential missing element to the extraordinary demonization of Putin’s Russia over the recent time.

The Plight of Children in a Neoliberal World

by Peter Koenig

Felipe Gomez Alonzo near his stepsister’s home in Yalambojoch, Guatemala. Alonzo died from indifferent medical care for influenza while in detention by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection authority. But why did he even have to undertake such a terrible trip toward “el Norte”? That’s exactly what media and politicians refuse to talk about.

The NYT wrote yesterday, Christmas Day, that an 8-year old Guatemalan boy died in US Border Control custody. The circumstances are not clear, or are simply not reported. A month earlier, a 7-year old girl, also from Guatemala, died also in US Border Control custody. Here too, the circumstances are not revealed. How many more children, not mentioned by any media, or any statistics have already perished, trying to make their way to a better future? – A better future, because their real and beloved future in their own countries has been miserably destroyed by the US empire’s imposed corporate abuse and fascist-like dictatorships. But who cares, they are just children of illegal immigrants; children separated from their parents – to dissuade parents to migrate to the US of A. – Welcome to paradise of hell!

Facebook: The global censor

by Andre Demon

The year 2018 has seen a vast intensification of internet censorship by Google, Facebook and Twitter, transforming them from tools for exchanging information and communicating around the world into massive censorship dragnets for policing what their users say, do and think.

In August 2017, the World Socialist Web Site published an open letter to Google charging that the company, in collusion with the US government, was working to shape political discourse by manipulating search results. The open letter warned that Google’s actions set a dangerous precedent for subverting constitutional protections of freedom of speech and demanded that the company cease what the WSWS called “political blacklisting” of left-wing sites.

Reporter Quits NBC Citing Network’s Support For Endless War

by Caitlin Johnstone

A journalist with NBC has resigned from the network with a statement which highlights the immense resistance that ostensibly liberal mass media outlets have to antiwar narratives, skepticism of US military agendas, and any movement in the opposite direction of endless military expansionism.

“January 4 is my last day at NBC News and I’d like to say goodbye to my friends, hopefully not for good,” begins an email titled ‘My goodbye letter to NBC’ sent to various contacts by William M Arkin, an award-winning journalist who has been associated with the network for 30 years.