Miguel M. Díaz-Canel Bermúdez: These hard times motivate us to continue working united, with more cooperation and agreement

Remarks by Miguel M. Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, President of the Republic of Cuba, during the high-level online conference of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA-TCP) to discuss the post-pandemic economy, June 10, 2020, Year 62 of the Revolution

Granma | June 11, 2020

Photo: Estudios Revolución

(Transcript: Presidency of the Republic)

Dear President Nicolas Maduro Moros;

Distinguished heads of state and government;

Heads of delegations;

Esteemed economic authorities from Alliance countries and guests accompanying us:

I would like to begin by thanking brother President Nicolas Maduro Moros for convening this ALBA-TCP Economic Conference.

Urgently needed are the exchange of experiences and agreement on positions to confront together the effects of COVID-19, a pandemic that threatens to significantly deepen the multi-sectoral crisis suffered by our societies, particularly in the economic field.

Cuba prepares to begin post-epidemic recovery

Following its approval by the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee Political Bureau, a series of measures for the first stage of recovery from the COVID-19 epidemic, conceived as a gradual process with three phases, was considered by the Council of Ministers yesterday

by Leticia Martínez Hernández

Granma | June 11, 2020

Photo: Estudios Revolución

Cuba is preparing to enter the first stage of recovery, with a view toward maintaining control of the COVID-19 epidemic within the country, achieved as a result of “the work of all institutions and our people’s participation as an active element in the battle,” noted President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, presiding an extraordinary session of the Council of Ministers yesterday morning, June 10, led by Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz, where the plan of measures to be implemented in the three phases of the first stage of the country’s recovery was presented.

As the President reported, this meeting of the highest body of the Cuban government was preceded by a discussion in Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee, chaired by its first secretary, Army General Raul Castro Ruz, which “approved the work strategy that we must implement.”

Distortions and Attempts to Undermine the Cuban Medical Brigades Will Not Succeed

by Bill Hackwell

 

Cuban medical brigade returning from Italy (Photo: Ismael Fransisco Gonzalez)

Every evening for the past two and a half months the people of Cuba have come out on their streets and porches to applaud and cheer for the 3,000 members of the Henry Reeve medical brigades who are fighting the Covid-19 pandemic on the front lines in 28 countries with 34 brigades. For the Cuban people these medical professionals are not just doctors going abroad but representatives of a society where health and human life are considered an absolute priority.

After two and a half months the first brigade that had been in Lombardy, Italy returned home and were met at the airport by President Diaz Canel via a video conference who told them, “With your noble gesture and your brave disposition to defy death to save lives, you have shown the world a truth that Cuba’s enemies have tried to silence or misrepresent: the strength of Cuban medicine! You represent the victory of life over death, of solidarity over selfishness.”

International Criminal Court Rejects US Government Sanctions

teleSUR | June 12, 2020

International Criminal Court Headquarters, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 2020. | Photo: Twitter/ @Kredo0

“Measures hinder the international effort to ensure that atrocious crimes do not go unpunished,” the ICC assured.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) Thursday rejected sanctions announced by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, which seek to force the international body to abandon an investigation into possible U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan. 

The Political Narrative Around the Origins of COVID-19 is Starting to Crumble

by Raul Diego

MintPress News | June 10, 2020

Over the last several days, conflicting reports about COVID-19 have sprung from both official and non-official sources. On Tuesday, Maria Van Kerkhove, Ph.D. of the World Health Organization (WHO) caused a firestorm of reactions from health experts across the globe after declaring in a press briefing that transmission of COVID-19 via asymptomatic individuals is “very rare.”

Less than a day later, Kerkhove was compelled to walk her statements back clarifying that, in essence, no one really knows: “What I didn’t report yesterday”, said Kerkhove, “was that because there’s so many unknowns around this, some modeling groups have tried to estimate the proportion of asymptomatic people that may transmit, and… some estimate around 40% of transmission may be due to asymptomatic [transmission]. And I didn’t include that in my answer yesterday.”

World over, people agitate against structural racism

Protesters across the world demanded justice for George Floyd and other victims of racism and police brutality.

Peoples Dispatch | June 11, 2020

Voter suppression in Georgia portends catastrophe for November

by Mark Gruenberg

People’s World | June 10, 2020

Extremely long waiting times were just one of the voter suppression measures in Georgia on Tuesday. Here, voters wait in line to cast their ballot at Central Park in Atlanta. Voters at this polling site reported wait times of three hours. | John Bazemore / AP

ATLANTA—The big story in the political party primaries on June 9 wasn’t who won or lost, but voter suppression in Georgia – and what that could mean for November’s balloting.

That Georgia mess – a toxic brew of few voting machines, especially in African-American areas, breakdowns of a new voting system and lack of trained poll workers — drew national notice as a potential precursor of nationwide election problems in November.

The result in Georgia, and especially Atlanta, which is majority-minority, was lines so long that voters in one African-American precinct in Union City reported finally leaving the polls at, no kidding, 12:36 a.m. By contrast, a white voter in Atlanta’s northern Fulton County suburbs tweeted voting took only 20 minutes in her precinct.

Wang Dingguo, oldest surviving Long March veteran, dies aged 108 in China

Morning Star | June 11, 2020

A portrait of Wang Dingguo. [Photo/CNR]

THE oldest surviving veteran of China’s Long March died on Tuesday aged 108.

Wang Dingguo joined the Chinese Communist Party aged 21 in 1933, escaping a forced marriage in which she had been purchased as a bride aged 15.

She served with the Fourth Red Army during the 1934-36 Long March, the 6,000-mile trek through some of China’s most hostile terrain as the communists sought to escape extermination at the hands of Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Party.

The current stage of the Sudanese revolution

Based on an interview with FATHI ALFADL, spokesman and secretary for information of the Sudanese Communist Party

by Fathi Alfadl

Morning Star | June 10, 2020

Sudanese protests last year culminated in the removal of dictator Omar al-Bashir, who had been in power since 1989 Photo: Hind Mekki / Creative Commons

DESPITE the success achieved in removing the former president and dictator Omar al-Bashir and a number of his inner circle last year, there is still a long way to go to dismantle the former regime, particularly in the face of additional obstacles created by the subsequent palace coup staged by Bashir’s generals.

The struggle continues between two projects: that of the forces for Freedom and Change (F&C) — supported by the majority of the population — and the “Soft Landing” project designed by international and regional interests to halt radical change. This seeks to attract part of the opposition.

COVID-19 Pandemic Is Accelerating in Africa, WHO Warned

teleSUR | June 11, 2020

Ten countries are currently driving Africa’s epidemic, including South Africa, Nigeria, Senegal, Algeria and Cameroon. | Photo: AFP

It took 98 days for the continent to reach 100,000 cases and just 18 days to reach 200,000, WHO says.

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports the COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating in Africa and moving from the continent’s large capital cities into the remote rural areas where it will be more challenging to contain the spread of the disease.