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The Cuban government strongly rejected on Saturday the blacklisting of the island by the US State Department in its annual Trafficking in Persons Report.
The Cuban government strongly rejected on Saturday the blacklisting of the island by the US State Department in its annual Trafficking in Persons Report by calling it a groundless unilateral practice and an offence against the Cuban people.
A statement issued by the general director of the Cuban Foreign Ministry’s United States Division, Josefina Vidal, reads that on June 20, the US Department of State decided to again include Cuba on the worst category of its annual report on countries that do not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking in persons and that do not make significant efforts to do so.
Washington took the decision disregarding the high recognition and prestige of Cuba for its outstanding role in the protection of its children, youths and women.
The statement reads that Cuba has not asked any evaluation from the United States nor it needs any recommendations from that country, which is facing some of the worst problems related to the trafficking in children and women around the world.
The United States has no moral to certify Cuba or to suggest any kind of plans when, according to estimates, nearly 200 thousand US citizens are victims of trafficking inside the US territory, where labor exploitation is the most expanded modality of trafficking in persons with 85 percent of legal processes on the issue are related to sexual exploitation and with over 300 thousand children, out of one million who leave their homes, are subject to some kind of exploitation, the statements notes.
The Government of Cuba strongly rejects the unilateral US practice, for considering it groundless and an offence against the Cuban people, reads the statement and adds that the inclusion of Cuba on the US list is due to political interests, as it is the certification of the island as a state sponsor of international terrorism, which is a pretext to justify the financial sanctions imposed and increasing stiffened by the US government against Cuba, thus severely affecting Cuban children, youths, women and all the people, concludes the statement issued by the general director of the Cuban Foreign Ministry’s United States Division.
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Milagro de la Caridad Pérez Caballero, a member of the National Secretariat of Cuba's CTC labor federation (Cuban Workers' Central), began a speaking tour in Spain on April 14. Spain's Coordinating Organization for Solidarity with Cuba organized her trip. Her interview with journalist Enric Llopis appeared May 29 on rebelion.org. The link is:http://www.rebelion.org
The opening for emerging sectors like self employed workers or cooperatives, or the arrival of foreign investment in Cuba doesn't mean enterprises of the socialist state will no longer predominate in the country's economy. To the contrary, "That sector assumes the major burden for developing the economy," says Milagro de la Caridad Pérez Caballero, deputy of the National Assembly of People's Power and member of the National Secretariat of the CTC. The labor leader participated in a discussion of "New labor relations and Cuban unionism in the context of updating socialism," organized by the José Martí Cuba Friendship Association of Valencia.
Question: The 20th Congress of the Cuba Workers' Central (CTC) was held in February. What were the main conclusions?
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Sherritt International Corp. announced that the Cuban government extended an existing oil and gas production-sharing contract in the on-shore Puerto Escondido/Yumuri oil field by 10 years.
The production-sharing agreement for the Puerto Escondido/Yumuri oil field will now sunset in March 2028. During the new 10-year term, Sherritt — currently Cuba’s only independent oil and gas producer — must drill a minimum of seven additional wells within an initial two-year period following the effective date in 2018.
In the same press release, the Toronto-based company said it was awaiting final approval by the Cuban government for four new exploratory production-sharing contracts, after having completed negotiations.
“After more than two decades in the country, we have developed a great relationship with the government of Cuba,” said David Pathe, president and CEO of Sherritt. “We are pleased to announce this extension as an important milestone towards continuing long-term oil production in Cuba.”
Sherritt currently works under two production-sharing contracts in three commercial oil fields, which contributed an average of 20,042 barrels of gross working-interest oil production per day in 2013.
Sherritt invested US$67 million in oil and gas during the first quarter, most of it in Cuba.
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Enemigo by Raúl Capote, Editorial Jose Marti, 2011 (in Spanish)
Review by Raidel López
In Enemigo (Enemy), Cuban writer and university professor of history, Raúl Capote, reveals his life as a double agent; agent Pablo for the CIA, and agent Daniel for Cuban intelligence. This is not a work of fiction or a classic spy novel. It is the real experience narrated by the protagonist about plans by the CIA and its allies to destroy the Cuban Revolution. His story reveals one of the many facets of the US war against Cuba. For over half a century plans of espionage, sabotage, terrorist attacks, assassination, subversion, military, economic and political aggression, have been made and executed from the US. Most of these plans have failed, thanks to the work and sacrifice of men like Capote.
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The US is seeking more than €7.4 billion ($10 billion) to resolve a criminal probe into allegations that the French bank evaded US sanctions against Iran, Sudan and Cuba, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
BNP – the largest publicly traded French bank – is seeking to pay less than $8 billion, the newspaper reported citing people familiar with the case.
Still, the multibillion dollar figure would put the fine among the largest penalties ever imposed on a bank and is far higher than what BNP has provisioned for.
A $10 billion settlement figure would represent a "hit" of around 5 percent to the bank's tangible book value and result in a €5 per share impact on the fair value of BNP Paribas stock, Citigroup analysts said.
The US Justice Department and BNP are reportedly currently discussing whether the French banking giant, as part of its punishment, would be temporarily denied the right to transfer money into and out of the United States – a central part of any foreign bank's business dealings in the US.
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ACN 23 May
Cuban medical cooperation, which began over half a century ago, has been present in about 120 countries with 135,000 voluntary workers, pointed out Roberto Morales, member of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) and minister of this sector.
Morales chairs the 67th World Health Assembly under way this week in Geneva, Switzerland, where he said that at present over 50,000 health professionals are offering their services in 65 nations, 25,000 of which are physicians.
Doctor Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organization (WHO) praised in that meeting the medical cooperation that has increased health indicators in various peoples, in the presence of the 194 representatives of the same number of nations that are members of that international organization.
In statements to ACN, Doctor Jose Luis Di Fabio, representative to Cuba of the WHO and the Pan-American Health organizations, praised these contributions and also described as invaluable the training of human resources, not only for the Cuban people but also for nations in need.
He underlined the training at Havana's Latin American Medical School, free of charge, of some 15,000 physicians coming from the most vulnerable populations of various parts of the world, who after graduation return to their countries to serve their communities
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Following the release of '14ymedio' the new online newspaper published by the infamous internationally funded blogger Yoani Sanchez, RATB reposts an opinion article from La Alborada 27 May
For more information on Yoani Sanchez see Salim Lamrani's excellent '40 questions for Yoani Sanchez'
Vice-president Joe Biden gave Yoani Sanchez an interview (exclusive!) in time for her new venture's debut. Or so it's said: she once published what she said was an on-line interview with President Barack Obama, but it turned out that both questions and answers were prepared at the US Interests Section in Havana and subsequently attributed to Obama, who never was interviewed by Sanchez. The Biden interview may have followed the same route. It's hard to believe the internet maven.
It's not fresh news, either, because, according to Sanchez, the interview took place in April, at least 28 days ago, while she was in Washington. She was saving the article for yesterday.
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www.freethefive.org National Committee to Free the Cuban 5
Yesterday morning, the Cuban Ministry of the Interior (MININT) announced that on April 26, four terrorists who live in Miami were arrested for plotting terrorist attacks on Cuba soil. Their names are José Ortega Amador, Obdulio Rodríguez González, Raibel Pacheco Santos and Félix Monzón Álvarez.
According to the MININT report, the men have admitted that they planned to attack military installations and they had entered Cuba several times since 2013 to plot their actions.
Santiago Álvarez, Osvaldo Mitat, Manuel Alzugaray, collaborators with terrorist Luis Posada Carriles,were directing the plotters
The four men who are now detained in Cuba have admitted to Cuban authorities that Santiago Álvarez, Osvalto Mitat and Manuel Alzugaray were directing their actions.
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Granma Lisandra Fariñas Acosta
Opening minds and breaking new ground
For the first time, Cuba will host the VI Regional Conference of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association for Latin America and the Caribbean (ILGALAC), to be held in tandem with the VII Cuban Workshop against Homophobia.
The VI Regional Conference of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association for Latin America and the Caribbean (ILGALAC) will be held in Cuba for the first time, on this occasion in parallel with the VII Cuban Workshop against Homophobia.
From May 6 thru 9, Matanzas city’s Plaza América Convention Center will be the venue of this event organized in favor of the recognition of sexual such as freedom of sexual orientation and gender identity as human rights.
National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX) director Mariela Castro Espín said in a press conference that the ILGALAC meetings reflect the increasingly stronger and closes links of fraternity and respect of diversity in the region. “If we fail to develop bonds based on our views to have the political influence we need, we will not make any progress”.