Cuba has Assisted Almost One Third of the World’s Population in Health Care

CUBA’S REVOLUTIONARY SPIRIT 

CUBANEW/ACN | February 23, 2021

HAVANA, Cuba, Feb 23 (ACN) In the six decades of Cuban medical collaboration abroad, its health personnel have assisted 1.988 billion people in the world, almost a third of mankind, said Dr. Jorge Delgado Bustillo, director of the Central Unit for Medical Cooperation (UCCM).

Delgado Bustillo also assured that Cuban doctors have performed more than 14,500,000 surgical operations, 4,470,000 deliveries and have saved 8,700,000 lives, results that increase the prestige of Cuban medicine in the international arena.

Currently, when the COVID-19 pandemic causes the death of thousands of people every day, more than 30,407 Cuban health professionals are in 66 nations, distributed in permanent medical brigades and the Henry Reeve Contingent.

World debt rises to record $281 trillion in 2020

WORLD DEBT

A Journal of People report

The coronavirus pandemic has added $24 trillion to the world debt over the last year, said the Institute of International Finance (IIF).

The IIF study said: Government spending has accounted for about half of the increase. Corporations added $5.4 trillion to the total, while banks and households accounted for $3.9 trillion and $2.6 trillion respectively.

With the world debt now totaling a record $281 trillion, the ratio of debt to world GDP has risen 35 percentage points to over 355 percent, the study said.

12 deaths per week: More than 6,500 migrant workers died during Qatar’s World Cup prep

OPPRESSION ON WORKERS

A Journal of People report

More than 6,500 migrant workers have died in Qatar amid the nation’s preparation to host the 2022 World Cup, The Guardian reports.

The report cites government data from the home nations of migrant workers, including India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Deaths that occurred in the final months of 2020 are also not included.

The data have been compiled since Qatar was awarded the World Cup in 2010, working out to an average of 12 deaths per week, according to the report.

FIFA awarded the World Cup to Qatar despite widespread concerns over human rights violations and treatment of migrant workers.

FACE OF A STATE: Tillerson’s tactics with Trump

U.S. POLITICS

A Journal of People report

A Huffpost report – “Rex Tillerson Reveals The Tactics He Used To Make Trump Focus On Important Matters” – said:

“Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson delivered a damning verdict on Donald Trump in a recent interview, saying the U.S. is in ‘a worse place’ globally because of the outgoing president.”

The outgoing president mentioned in the report is now former U.S. President Donald Trump.

The January 15, 2021 report by Lee Moran, reporter, HuffPost, said:

“Tillerson, who Trump fired via tweet in March 2018 following a controversial 14 months leading the State Department, told Foreign Policy magazine this week that Trump’s ‘understanding of global events, his understanding of global history, his understanding of U.S. history, was really limited.’”

LIFE: Post-snow storm: Over a million Texans are still without drinking water

WEATHER CRISIS IN U.S.

A Journal of People report

Over a million Texans are still without drinking water. Smaller communities and apartments are facing the biggest challenges, said reports. And oil refineries, chemical plants and other industrial operators emitted 3.5 million pounds of excess pollution during the winter storm and power crisis in Texas, according to an analysis of company notices provided to state regulators. The recent snowstorm created havoc in the life of the people in Texas. Mainstream media reports have documented the life there in Texas.

A report by The Texas Tribune said:

“Over 1.4 million Texans still faced water disruptions on Wednesday afternoon, more than a week after Texas’ winter storms wreaked havoc on the state’s power grid and water services.

The Drain of Wealth

POLITICAL ECONOMY 

Colonialism before the First World War

Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik

Monthly Review | Volume 72, Issue 08 (January 2021)

British Indian Empire, “Political Map of the Indian Empire, 1893” from Constable’s Hand Atlas of India, London: Archibald Constable and Sons, 1893. Link.

The Western European powers appropriated economic surplus from their colonies, and this materially and substantially aided their own industrial transition from the eighteenth century onward, as well as the diffusion of capitalism to the regions of new European settlement. In the literature on economic growth, however, we find little awareness of the existence of such transfers, let alone their sheer scale, or the specific real and financial mechanisms through which these transfers were effected. Much research still remains to be done in this area. In the case of India, however, for well over a century there has been a rich discussion on transfers, termed the drain of wealth, initiated by two outstanding writers, Dadabhai Naoroji and R. C. Dutt.¹ Here, we confine ourselves to discussing transfers only in the context of India.

With few exceptions, the literature on the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century industrial transition in the core countries ignores the drain of wealth, or transfers, from the colonies.² The mainstream interpretation posits a purely internal dynamic for the rise of capitalist industrialization, and some authors even suggest that the colonies were a burden on the metropolis, which would have been better off without them.

Canada’s Failed Foreign Policy for Latin America and Venezuela should be Abandoned, not Re-furbished

IMPERIALIST AGGRESSION AGAINST VENEZUELA 

Radhika Desai, Venezuela Peace Committee, Winnipeg
Alison Bodine, Fire This Time Venezuela Solidarity Campaign, Vancouver
Maria Páez Victor, Louis Riel Bolivarian Circle, Toronto
Alan Freeman, Canadian, Latin American and Caribbean Policy Centre, Winnipeg

No Sanctions Against Venezuela | February 09, 2021

 

By No Sanctions |  Posted February 15, 2021 |  In Uncategorized

We write in response to the article, ‘Canada and the U.S. must unite to help Latin American refugees’ by four prominent public figures including former US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright and former Canadian Foreign Minister, Lloyd Axworthy urging U.S.-Canadian cooperation on important hemispheric issues, particularly the ‘crisis in Venezuela’ and the region’s mounting refugee crisis.

[UPDATED] EU Imposes Further Sanctions on Venezuela as Maduro Visits UN Human Rights Council

IMPERIALISM 

Paul Dobson

Venezuelanalysis | February 22, 2021

EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell. (EU)

Mérida, February 22, 2021 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuela has blasted the imposition of additional European Union (EU) sanctions against nineteen politicians, state officials and security chiefs.

According to an EU statement released Monday, the individuals are penalised for their alleged role in “acts and decisions undermining democracy and the rule of law” or “as a result of serious human rights violations.”

For FinTech Magnates: Digital Dollars for the Poor, Exponential Profits for the Rich

CAPITALISM 

Raul Diego

MintPress News | February 24, 2021

In a virtual conference hosted by The New York Times, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen gave her nod of approval to the idea of “sovereign digital currencies” to solve the riddle of financial inclusion in America.

According to recent data, approximately 7.1 million, or 5.4 percent of households, in the United States have no access to a bank account and almost 20 percent more are underbanked, leaving tens of millions of people at the mercy of predatory pay-lending services and other means to receive or make payments. While these numbers do seem to be on a downward trend, they are still far above those of most developed countries, such as France and Germany.

Minorities and the Poor are the Worst Affected By COVID-19 in the US

COVID-19 IN U.S. 

Peoples Dispatch | February 25, 2021

On February 22, the US recorded 500,000 COVID-19 related deaths. While the pandemic has had a devastating effect on US citizens everywhere, it has affected the most underprivileged racial minorities, African-Americans, Latin Americans and Native Americans, the hardest.