US ECONOMIC WAR ON CUBA CONTINUES, EVEN AFTER WAR IN AFGHANISTAN ENDS

President Joe Biden justified military withdrawal from Afghanistan by arguing that the US must stop “military operations to remake other countries,” but its efforts to “remake other countries” like Cuba through economic warfare continue unabated.

Radhika Desai and Arnold August

The Real News Network | September 01, 2021

As the 20-year war in Afghanistan officially came to an end, President Joe Biden justified US military withdrawal in an address to the nation on Aug. 31: “This decision about Afghanistan is not just about Afghanistan. It’s about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries.” While these remarks suggest a potential reckoning with the longstanding US policy of imperialist intervention around the world, increased US sanctions on Cuba demonstrate that such intervention persists in the form of economic warfare. From the dire strain US sanctions have put on the Cuban economy to the corporate media frenzy that exploited protests in Cuba this summer as a justification for interventionist “regime change,” it is clear that efforts by the US to “remake other countries” are not ending any time soon.

TRNN contributor Radhika Desai is joined by Arnold August to discuss the protests in Cuba, the media narratives about the protests, and the prospect that the Biden administration will succeed in exploiting Cuba’s current troubles to achieve its interventionist ends. August is a Montreal-based author, journalist, lecturer, and the author of multiple books on Cuba, including Democracy in Cuba and the 1997–98 Elections, Cuba and Its Neighbours: Democracy in Motion, and Cuba–U.S. Relations: Obama and Beyond.

Reflections on Events in Afghanistan

M. K. Bhadrakumar

Indian Punchline

11. US slips out of Kabul but is vengeful

The back-to-back press briefings on August 30 by General Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr, commander, US Central Command and Antony Blinken, Secretary of State, on Afghanistan conveys the picture of a superpower badly bruised and embittered but remaining vengeful. This is bad news. 

Gen. McKenzie said, “Taliban had been very — very pragmatic and very business-like… they were actually very helpful and useful to us as we closed down operations”. But then, Americans wouldn’t even share with the Taliban the exact time of their “tactical exfiltration”. Nor was there any “discussion of turning anything over.” 

Read Full Article: https://www.indianpunchline.com/reflections-on-events-in-afghanistan-11/

12. To recognise, or not to recognise, that’s the question

At the weekly briefing in Moscow on Thursday by the Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova stated that Russia will consider recognising Afghanistan’s new authorities once an inclusive government is formed in the country. 

To quote Zakharova, “We call for the establishment of an inclusive coalition government in Afghanistan that would involve all of the country’s ethnic and political forces, including ethnic minorities, so the question of recognising the country’s authorities will rise after the process is over.” (TASS) 

Read Full Article: https://www.indianpunchline.com/reflections-on-events-in-afghanistan-12/

13. Panjshir revolt becomes footnote

At the daily foreign ministry briefing in Beijing on Friday, Russian correspondent of Sputnik asked spokesperson Ambassador Wang Wenbin how China viewed the Taliban decision to attack Panjshir and how this will affect the Afghan situation. 

Ambassador Wang replied that “it is China’s sincere hope that all parties in Afghanistan will go with the Afghan people’s eager aspiration and the international community’s expectation to resolve differences through consultation and ensure a steady transition so that the people of this war-torn country can live free from war and conflict and build lasting peace at an early date.” 

Read Full Article: https://www.indianpunchline.com/reflections-on-events-in-afghanistan-13/

14. The fall of Panjshir

Panjshir has fallen to the Taliban with a bang — and a whimper. The bang is because a 40-year old legend lies shattered, the legend of the invincibility of Panjshir Valley. And the whimper is because the short-lived ‘resistance’ had a tame ending. 

A BBC report said the revolt’s two top leaders Ahmad Massoud and Amrullah Saleh were not even in Panjshir during the past 4 days at least but had left for Tajikistan and were apparently leading the so-called ‘resistance’ via Twitter. It may seem farcical and will have deleterious consequences. 

Read Full Article: https://www.indianpunchline.com/reflections-on-events-in-afghanistan-14/

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Afghanistan Crisis: Statements by Communist Parties

idcommunism.com | August 27, 2021

Since the beginning of the rapid developments in Afghanistan and the comeback of Taliban in the power, Communist and Workers’ Parties from all over the world have issued statements concerning the situation in the country.  The vast majority of statements refer to the disastrous role of US-EU imperialism, the military intervention in 2001, as well as the immense responsibilities of the U.S. and European governments for supporting the rise of Taliban in the 1980s, primary in the war against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. 

Read here the statement of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). 

Read here the joint statement by the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India (Marxist). 

Other Statements:

Party of Labour, Austria (PdA)

On the developments in Afghanistan

The developments in Afghanistan confirm the reactionary and for the peoples devastating character of imperialist wars and interventions. The fall of the Afghan puppet government and the return of the Islamist Taliban movement to power after the withdrawal of the US and NATO occupation forces of course mean a continuation of the sufferings of the Afghan people caused by the uninterrupted interference of imperialist forces in the country for decades.

Mikis Theodorakis: I want to leave this world as a communist

idcommunism.com | September 03, 2021

Mikis Theodorakis, anticipating the end of his life, had contacted by telephone the Secretary General of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece, Dimitris Koutsoumbas, giving him the stigma of his last wishes.

In his personal letter on October 5, 2020, to Dimitris Koutsoumbas, he wrote:

“Now at the end of my life, at the time of reckoning, the details fade from my mind and remain the big picture. So I see that my most critical, strong and mature years were spent under the banner of the KKE. That is why I want to leave this world as a communist.”

The great composer and fighter of social justice, democracy and peace, Mikis Theodorakis, died yesterday, 2 September, at the age of 96. Read here the statement of the Communist Party of Greece.

SOURCE: http://www.idcommunism.com/2021/09/mikis-theodorakis-i-want-to-leave-this.html

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Communists of the world bid farewell to Mikis Theodorakis

idcommunism.com | September 06, 2021

Communist Parties from Russia to Chile and from Turkey to Mexico express their condolences for the death of the legendary Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis who died on September 2nd aged 96. 

In a message published on Twitter the President of the Republic of Cuba Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez pays tribute to the late composer: 

“Mikis Theodorakis died and the world accompanies the mourning of Greece for one of the greatest musicians of all times. Cuba, which always had his militant solidarity, also mourns. Let the Canto General sound in his memory”. 

200+ medical journals demand emergency climate action

Editors urge ‘fundamental changes to how our societies and economies are organized’

The editorial below is being published this month by over 200 medical journals, including the Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine, the British Medical Journal, the Canadian Medical Association Journal, the East African Medical Journal, the Chinese Science Bulletin, the National Medical Journal of India, and the Medical Journal of Australia, and others from around the world. (Click here for a full list of the authors and journals.)

Climate and Capitalism | September 07, 2021

Wealthy nations must do much more, much faster

The UN General Assembly in September 2021 will bring countries together at a critical time for marshaling collective action to tackle the global environmental crisis. They will meet again at the biodiversity summit in Kunming, China, and the climate conference (COP26) in Glasgow, UK. Ahead of these pivotal meetings, we — the editors of health journals worldwide — call for urgent action to keep average global temperature increases below 1.5°C, halt the destruction of nature, and protect health.

Health is already being harmed by global temperature increases and the destruction of the natural world, a state of affairs health professionals have been bringing attention to for decades. The science is unequivocal; a global increase of 1.5°C above the pre-industrial average and the continued loss of biodiversity risk catastrophic harm to health that will be impossible to reverse. Despite the world’s necessary preoccupation with Covid-19, we cannot wait for the pandemic to pass to rapidly reduce emissions.

Cuba Denounces Theft of Its COVID-19 Vaccine Information

orinocotribune | September 04, 2021

With the arrival of COVID-19, Cuba has had to fight even harder against the cruel US blockade that has prevented humanitarian aid from reaching its territory and which has blocked it from rapid access to raw materials for the development of its own COVID-19 vaccine technology.

Moreover, there is a constant smear campaign with fake news aimed at misinforming and downplaying Cuba’s scientific development which, despite the blockade, has successfully produced vaccines for the Cuban people on a scientific basis.

Plotters of the coup d’état in Bolivia tried to assassinate Evo Morales, reveals AMLO

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador revealed that a section of the Bolivian armed forces may have launched an RPG rocket at the plane that was transporting former President Evo Morales to Mexico after the coup d’état in Bolivia in November 2019

Peoples Dispatch | September 03, 2021

Former Bolivian President Evo Morales arrived in Mexico from Bolivia on November 12, 2019, two days after the civic-military coup that forced him to step down. Photo: Kawsachun News

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) has revealed that former Bolivian President Evo Morales would have been assassinated by the right-wing opposition forces with the support of the Bolivian armed forces if a pilot from the Mexican Air Force (FAM) hadn’t saved his life by dodging an RPG rocket launched at the plane that was transporting him to Mexico. The assassination attempt was revealed in his book A la Mitad del Camino (Halfway through the Road), which was released on August 31,

AMLO’s book gives a detailed account of Operation Bolivia, through which Morales was rescued after the coup d’état in November 2019. A document of the National Defense Secretariat of Mexico, published in the book, shares the testimony of a FAM official and pilot, Miguel Hernández, who expressed his suspicions that a section of the Bolivian armed forces targeted the aircraft with an RPG rocket, moments after it took off from the Chimoré airport in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

Humanitarian measure granted to Alex Saab

Últimas Noticias | 2 September, 2021

In the order dated August 31, to which the Cape Verdean digital medium Notícias do Norte had access, the court considers that “being so, and because it seems to us that such a decision will not create great limitations, and even if it does, health it must come first, it is granted to the transfer of residence requested by Alex Saab to the city of Praia, Santiago ”.

This decision is the result of a request from the defense, to transfer from the city of Santa María, Sal, where the ambassador is under house arrest, to the Cape Verdean capital, alleging “the need for the ambassador to have assistance of specialists in the area of ​​oncology that do not exist on the Island of Sal ”, according to what was reported by the Saab defense team in a press release.

Mexico Talks Second Round – Day 2: Optimism on Early Agreements, ‘Ambassador’ Vecchio Removed

Jesus Rodriguez-Espinoza

Orinoco Tribune | September 05, 2021

Caracas, September 4, 2021 (OrinocoTribune.com) —Jorge Rodríguez, leader of the Venezuelan government delegation in the ongoing dialogue in Mexico, reported this Saturday, September 4, that the second day of the talks was focused on reaching partial agreements related to lifting US and European illegal sanctions and the illegal seizure of assets affecting millions of Venezuelans.

“There is a willingness to put all our efforts to achieve partial agreements soon,” Rodríguez said, adding that “this is a great opportunity for Venezuelans to regain their right to economic freedom.”

“We are very attentive to the economic guarantees that have been cut off, blocked, stolen — stolen from the people of Venezuela,” he asserted.