Cuba’s “Code of Freedom” inspires US-based activists, academics

Natalia Marques

People’s Dispatch | September 29, 2022

Activist Karina Garcia asks question to Cuban officials at Cuban Mission to the UN in New York City (Photo: Emily Brease)

The people of Cuba approved their new Family Code on September 25, now the most progressive code of families in the world. With 74.01% of eligible voters participating, the Family Code passed in a landslide victory. 66.87% of participants voted in favor of the new code and 33.13% voted against. 

On September 27, the Cuban mission to the United Nations hosted US scholars, activists, union leaders, lawyers, journalists and judges in order to share the Cuban experience in winning and ratifying their new Family Code. People in the US were able to dialogue directly with Cuban officials, and many expressed their admiration for the victory.

Travelling with Fidel Castro

E P Menon

Frontier | Vol 55, No. 10, Sep 4 – 10, 2022

Way back in 1966 when I received an invitation to join the Indian Delegation to Cuba for participating in the first ever Tri-Continental Conference involving only those countries from Latin America, Africa and Asia, I was delighted and agreed immediately. It was a 14-member group under the leadership of Aruna Asaf Ali and endorsed by the Government of India.

More than 1500 delegates were accommodated in the majestic Hotel Havana Libre for two weeks and after the 10-day events we were all given a country-wide tour for two weeks which was indeed very educative and forward-looking for building better human solidarity and world peace. Two specific events can never be erased from my mind.

US sanctions are blocking life-saving relief to Cuba

A fire in a Cuban oil storage facility has killed, injured, and displaced Cubans and exacerbated the country’s energy crisis. Crucial aid efforts have been impeded by US sanctions

Natalia Marques

People’s Dispatch | August 08, 2022

A firefighter near the ongoing Matanzas fire (Photo via David Ramírez Álvarez on Twitter)

On August 5, a major oil storage facility was struck by lightning in the Cuban province of Matanzas, injuring 121, killing one, and leaving 17 firefighters missing. 5,000 people have been evacuated from the surrounding region.

The fire in Matanzas, still blazing as of August 8, is the largest in Cuban history. This fire will only exacerbate the energy crisis in Cuba, which has been racked with high fuel costs and aging infrastructure. Yet US anti-blockade organizations claim that existing US policies make providing humanitarian aid extremely difficult.

Despite the US Embassy in Cuba claiming that “US law authorizes US entities and organizations to provide disaster relief and response in Cuba,” activists say that existing US policy severely restricts any aid to Cuba.

The Caribbean’s Rapprochement with Venezuela Tests U.S. Hegemony

The Caribbean’s economic difficulties and the ongoing energy crisis have pushed these countries closer to autocratic Venezuela’s sphere of influence

Leonardo Di Bonaventura-Altuve

National Interest | July 23, 2022

On July 5, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), which comprises twelve Anglophone Caribbean states plus Haiti and Suriname, held its forty-third Heads of Government Meeting, the community’s principal political organ. The meeting’s agenda focused on the recurring energy and food crises faced by these small states due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Specifically on the energy front, a unified CARICOM collectively asked for help from authoritarian Venezuela through PetroCaribe, a geo-economic tool created in 2005 by the late President Hugo Chávez to buy CARICOM’s loyalty by financing participants’ oil imports and increasing intra-bloc trade and investment. In exchange, the highly democratic CARICOM ignored Venezuela’s descent into authoritarianism and shielded the regime from condemnation in multilateral organizations like the Organization of American States (OAS).

After the 2014 global oil price slump, chronic fiscal mismanagement, and U.S. sanctions, the ability of President Nicolás Maduro to buy CARICOM’s support virtually disappeared. However, given CARICOM’s current urgency for cheap oil and leveling off in Venezuela’s oil production, PetroCaribe is likely to return from the dead. The re-marriage of CARICOM and Venezuela will likely hurt democracy prospects in the South American nation and, critically, continue to show the United States’ hegemonic decline in the hemisphere.

No Cuban child died of COVID-19 after vaccination campaign

Before the vaccination campaign in children started, 18 infants between the ages of two and 18 years old had unfortunately lost their lives to COVID-19. No child died of this terrible disease in Cuba after the vaccination campaign in this population group began.

Leticia Martínez

Granma | July 20, 2022

Photo: Ismael Batista

Before the vaccination campaign in children started, 18 infants between the ages of two and 18 years old had unfortunately lost their lives to COVID-19. No child died of this terrible disease in Cuba after the vaccination campaign in this population group began. This is the most relevant result of the Cuban vaccine Soberana, an immunogen of the Finlay Vaccine Institute.

Precisely, the Pedro Kourí Institute of Tropical Medicine presented the closing of the evaluation of the effectiveness and impact of the pediatric vaccination against COVID-19 in the country during the Tuesday meeting with the President of the Republic.

Cuba: Digitization of medical services: Another revolution in health

A project to digitalize Cuba’s public health system was presented at a meeting between Party First Secretary and President of the Republic Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez and Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz with experts and scientists working on healthcare issues

René Tamayo León

Granma | June 22, 2022

As part of the computerization of society, the first system to undergo a digital transformation must be public health, Díaz-Canel emphasized. Photo: Ricardo López Hevia

As “another revolution in health,” Party First Secretary and President of the Republic Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez described the project, “For digital health,” presented at this week’s meeting with experts and scientists working on healthcare issues.

The Ministry of Public Health project involves “a cultural transformation of health institutions, to produce a positive impact on the quality and safety of services focused on the patient, the family and the community, as a result of the computerization of care, teaching and research processes, through inter-operational integration,” explained Dr. Dalsy Torres Dávila, one of the specialists leading the initiative.

Two giants twinned by history

Two giants who share a birth date and common ideals. Two men who both, in different times, dignified our country’s past to illuminate our present and future. Two heroes of the Revolution who are June children, Antonio Maceo Granjales and Ernesto “Che” Guevara de la Serna

Mailenys Oliva Ferrales

Granma | June 14, 2022

Photocomposition: Carlos M. Perdomo

Distances matter little – in time and kilometers – if two names remain eternal in the memory of a country, fused as the same reference of integrity and courage. Two giants that history has twinned beyond a shared birth date and common ideals. Two men who both, in different times, dignified our country’s past to illuminate our present and future. Two heroes of the Revolution who are June children, Antonio Maceo Granjales and Ernesto “Che” Guevara de la Serna.
In Santiago de Cuba the first was born. It was 1845 when the Maceo family baptized the boy who would become a renowned Mambí leader in Cuba’s wars of independence.

China, Cuba Present Jointly-Produced ‘Pan-Corona Vaccine’

teleSUR | June 03, 2022

Cuba and China present the first patent for the Pancorona vaccine, result of the collaboration between both countries in the biotechnological field. | Photo: Twitter @EmbacubaChina

Cuba managed to develop five COVID-19 vaccines and inoculated 95% of its population against the COVID-19 virus, despite the burden of the U.S. blockade. China, likewise, produced a massive amount of two different vaccines for its 1.4 billion-strong population and much of the Third World.

Cuba and the People’s Republic of China jointly filed the first patent for a vaccine against  COVID-19 and its many variants, which could also be effective against several related viruses, the Cuban daily Granma reported on Thursday.

Venezuela Shows Solidarity in May 1st Celebrations in Cuba

teleSUR | April 30, 2022

The Cuban President, Miguel Díaz-Canel, recently issued a call under the slogan “Cuba lives and works!”, for the massive participation of the people this May 1st as a sign of unity and support to the work of equity and justice of the Revolution. Apr. 30, 2022. | Photo: @EmbacubaChina

A delegation of the Venezuelan Committee of International Solidarity and Struggle for Peace (COSI) will participate in the events for International Workers’ Day in Havana, Cuba, its president Gabriel Aguirre informed on Friday, 29 April.

According to Prensa Latina, the head of COSI said that this organization will ratify its support to the working class of the island in the face of the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the U.S. government and intensified during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Caribbean Countries Protest Sectarianism at Summit of the Americas

Orinoco Tribune | April 30, 2022

At least 14 Caribbean countries will be absent from the upcoming Summit of the Americas as a protest measure against the exclusion of the representatives of Venezuela and Cuba, which the host country US has decided in accordance with the proposal of a group of US Congressmen. This was declared by the Ambassador of Antigua and Barbuda to the United States and to the Organization of American States (OAS), Sir Ronald Sanders.

“If Cuba is not invited to the Summit of the Americas, 14 Caribbean states won’t go,” said Sanders. “Same as if Guaidó is continued to be recognized, a number of Caribbean states won’t go.”