On November 7, 2019, for the 28th year in a row, the entire United Nations General Assembly, gathered in one room, voted overwhelmingly against “the Economic, Commercial, and Financial Embargo Imposed on Cuba by the United States.” The final tally was 187 in favor, 3 opposed (Brazil, Israel, US), 2 abstentions (Colombia, Ukraine), 1 not voting (Moldova)....Dissident Voice
The Trump administration likes the steps Bolsonaro took. It wants to starve Cuba of access to hard currencies that the body leasing of doctors provides. It is also one of the reasons why it targets Venezuela:
Around 50,000 Cuban health professionals work in 66 countries worldwide, although around half of those work in Venezuela, with an additional 11,456 in Brazil.
The Cuban doctors in Brazil are gone and the U.S. is pressing for those in Venezuela to leave. Trump's National Security Advisor John Bolton falsely claims that the Cuban doctors in Venezuela are military personal that should leave the country. The Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces have in total only 39,000 regular troops. To suggest that more than half of them are in Venezuela, even though none are ever seen there, borders on lunacy.
The Trump administration is looking for additional ways to destroy Cuba's doctor leasing program:Why would the US want to do this? Because the leasing of Cuban doctors, who were trained for free in Cuba, earns Cuba hard currency. This is a piece of the economic war.
Latin America is an important region with a concentration of developing countries, said Wang. The development and revitalization of the region is an important part of the endeavors to revitalize the emerging markets and developing countries as a whole.
China-Latin America comprehensive cooperation is facing new opportunities, he noted.
Recently, the tape recordings of the Oval Office discussions during the crisis were declassified and, according to Benjamin Schwartz in The Atlantic, yielded this priceless nugget:This post is longish but worth the read if you are into history. It would be almost unbelievable if it weren't for the release of the transcripts.
On the first day of the crisis, October 16, when pondering Khrushchev’s motives for sending the missiles to Cuba, Kennedy made what must be one of the most staggeringly absentminded (or sarcastic) observations in the annals of American national-security policy: “Why does he put these in there, though? … It’s just as if we suddenly began to put a majornumber of MRBMs [medium-range ballistic missiles] in Turkey. Now that’d be goddamned dangerous, I would think.” McGeorge Bundy, the national security adviser, immediately pointed out: “Well we did it, Mr. President.”
"We must be alert, today more than ever," President Raul Castro said, warning Washington is determined to end Cuba's socialist revolution.When something has not worked in fifty years, try something else. Regime change is still the goal.
Raul Castro told the party's congress that reforms should be implemented faster, but said Cuba was not moving towards capitalism, citing China and Vietnam as models, while emphasizing that social ownership and cooperatives were mostly preferable to private property. He also said he remained convinced of the benefits of improved relations with the United States and said Cuba was committed to the diplomatic thaw. But he made clear he did not believe Obama's promise that the United States would not impose political or economic change on Cuba.teleSUR
Capitalism has arrived: families are running small restaurants called paladares; people are renting out rooms in their homes to foreign tourists; artists are inviting buyers into their studios and homes; and entrepreneurs are providing goods and services as best they can to all manner of buyers.
The nature of creeping capitalism, however, is different in Cuba. Unlike Mexico which, after the implementation of NAFTA in 1994, quickly became a nation obsessed with American franchises, the lack of capital in Cuba makes that possibility less likely.
In Mexico, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Wal-Mart and Costo seem to be everywhere.
In Cuba, on the other hand, by keeping multinationals out, there could be an opportunity for an organic, sustainable capitalism that may be healthier for the local economy. Within the next years there will be a dozen or so new coffee shops throughout Old Havana joining the ones now open—making Starbucks unnecessary.
This possibility is not wishful thinking, but very likely because of the nature of U.S.-Cuba relations: While full diplomatic relations have been reestablished, only the U.S. Congress can lift the embargo and currency controls remain in place. And Republicans are vowing to keep the punitive embargo in place.
That’s why neither McDonald’s nor Starbucks will be able to set up business in Havana in the near future.
The good news? The absence of multinationals allows individual entrepreneurs the opportunity to set up shop and flourish. Buenfil, who runs the Mexican restaurant, laughs at the prospect that Taco Bell could be competition any time soon. “I’m going to spoil Cubans into knowing what good Mexican food is, so if Taco Bell ever shows up, the only ones interested in them would be American tourists,” he said.
If what is happening in Havana is a “softer, kinder” form of capitalism, then it is in keeping with current thinking.
Pope Francis, two years ago, began to speak out against “savage capitalism,” a message he reinforced on his recent pilgrimage to South America where he called for a new world order.
But whether this kind of "humanistic" capitalism can be sustainable remains to be seen.New America Media
Washington is losing its weight in the international arena and this makes it target Russia and Venezuela, as well as attempt to curtail China’s growth, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro told RT's Spanish-language channel in an exclusive interview.RT
The Latin American governments understand this strategy and see it as an ugly threat to democracy in the region; hence their quick response and fierce opposition to the sanctions.Latin American leaders are all too aware of US history from slavery followed by cultural and institutional racism, Native American genocide, "gunboat diplomacy," and the Spanish-American War, to the Bay of Pigs, the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile, the Pinochet dictatorship, and the death squads, and the coup against Hugo Chavez that was foiled, right down to the recent overthrow of democracy in Honduras and now the foiled coup against the Maduro government in Venezuela.
By pursuing defense cooperation with Latin American countries Russia will counterbalance NATO expansion in Eastern Europe, experts say.
During his recent Latin American tour Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu signed a number of important agreements strengthening military collaboration between Russia and Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.
In Caracas, the Russian and Venezuelan defense ministers discussed further development of military and military-technical cooperation and agreed on holding joint military drills, while in Managua, Shoigu signed an agreement allowing Russia's warships to enter Nicaragua's ports and ratified bilateral deals aimed against drug trafficking and organized crime. In Cuba, Russia's delegation and its counterparts focused on maritime cooperation issues as well as training of Cuban military servicemen in Russia. While discussing global and regional security issues, the authorities of the countries pledged their commitment to a just and polycentric world order and recognized Russia's efforts of establishing peace and stability in the world.Sputnik
Experts stressed that the agreements signed by Sergey Shoigu and his counterparts will form the basis for strengthening Russia's positions in South American region and bolster mutually beneficial defense cooperation between the countries. According to analysts, the move is a response to NATO's further expansion in East Europe. The president of the Russian Academy of Geopolitical Issues, Gen. Leonid Ivashov praised the course of Russia's Defense Ministry, stressing that while NATO is moving rapidly toward the Russian borders, Moscow should develop its own non-nuclear deterrence strategy, containing a potential Alliance's aggression.
Imagine – a US Embassy in Havana – it would open the floodgates for US NED (National Endowment for Democracy) funded ‘NGOs’, for Washington’s spies and anti-Castro propaganda machine; it would have free hand to destabilize the country. And what would Cuba gain? – Zilch, zero, nothing. Not even a gradual lifting of the embargo had been announced. To the contrary, it would open Cuba’s borders to the vultures of Florida Cubans, eventually to theirs and other foreign investments, subjugating the country’s huge social gains over the last half a century – universal free education and health services, by far the best social system of the Americas – to the sledgehammer of neoliberal privatization.…
Listening to Obama's speech about Cuba I was stunned by the following statements:After all, these 50 years have shown that isolation has not worked. It’s time for a new approach. (...) I do not believe we can keep doing the same thing for over five decades and expect a different result. Moreover, it does not serve America’s interests, or the Cuban people, to try to push Cuba toward collapse. Even if that worked -– and it hasn’t for 50 years –- we know from hard-earned experience that countries are more likely to enjoy lasting transformation if their people are not subjected to chaos.
You get that? Obama admits that 50 years of sanctions and attempts to isolate a small island right off the coast of Florida has not worked. And then he announces that he will impose more sanctions on Russia, the biggest country on the planet, and that he will isolate Russia, even though Russia now has full access to the biggest economy on the planet?!
Is that not the height of stupidity and self-delusion?The Vineyard of the Saker
Former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden got stuck in the transit zone of a Moscow airport because Havana said it would not let him fly from Russia to Cuba, a Russian newspaper reported on Monday....
Citing several sources, including one close to the U.S. State Department, Kommersant newspaper said the reason was that at the last minute Cuba told officials to stop Snowden from boarding the Aeroflot flight.
It said Cuba had changed its mind after pressure by the United States, which wants to try Snowden on espionage charges.The Huffington Post
