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Francisco Escobar speaks to Rock Around the Blockade during the 2012 Justice for the Cuban 5 brigade to Cuba, February 2012. Francisco is a leading member of the Committee for the Defence of the Revolution (CDR) no 2 in Zone 90 of Boyeros municipality, Havana. He explains to the brigade, the role of the CDR's and their participation in the economic updates and guidelines that have been discussed nationwide over the last year.
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- Written by RATB
First published on 9 April 2012 Liberation News
The governments of Ukraine and Cuba have announced an agreement to build a treatment center for cancer patients in Ukraine.The two countries are also discussing jointly producing medicines to treat cancer and other chronic diseases. The online news service Ukrinform.com reports that the Ukrainian government will fund the center, while Cuba's renowned Centro de Inmunología Molecular in Havana will provide the medical technology and expertise.
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- Written by RATB
Originally published on 30 March 2012
on Cubadebate René González is in Cuba
René González, one of the five anti-terrorist Cuban fighters unfairly given harsh prison sentences in the United States, arrived to Cuba on Friday on a family, private visit in the wake of authorization by a US judge to visit his gravely ill brother. According to information released by the TV news program, René arrived minutes after midday.
On February 24, René had filed through his lawyer an emergency motion before the South Florida District Court, requesting an authorization to visit his brother, seriously ill in Cuba. Nearly a month later, on March 19, Judge Joan Lenard, who have been handling the case of The Cuban Five since the start of their proceedings, authorized the trip for 15 days under certain conditions, including obtaining all US government travel permits needed.
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“Rise up; this matter is in your hands. We will support you, so take courage and do it. Ezra 10:4”
As reported across the main stream media, Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger a.k.a Pope Benedict XVI visited Cuba between 26 and 28 March. As expected counter-revolutionaries within Cuba, though negligible in both numbers and popularity, and right-wing reactionaries in Miami have tried to exploit this occasion for their miserable political agendas. We will never know whether the “dissidents” in Cuba hoped for a divine intervention backing them up in their actions during the papal visit to the island but all of their provocations have been an embarrassing flop.
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Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 225 February/March 2012
Reporting on the Sixth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party (CCP) of April 2011 and the approval of the Guidelines of the Economic and Social Policy of the Party and the Revolution we said: ‘New measures and legislation will be announced in Cuba in the coming months as the guidelines are implemented. Although there will be no surprises, we can expect these to be met by the sensationalist exclamations about the advent of capitalism from the enemies of Cuban socialism’ (FRFI 221). This has indeed been the case with the bourgeois (and social democratic) media focusing on legislation implemented or anticipated to:
a) Permit the direct purchase/sale of privately-owned houses.
b) Permit the direct purchase/sale of privately-owned cars.
c) Authorise agricultural producers to sell direct to state-owned tourist entities (regulated under the national plan).
d) Provide loans from the state to non-state workers, farmers and people who need to repair their homes (previously only farming cooperatives had access to loans).
e) Permit trade between state enterprises and workers in the non-state sector (using bank transfers, not cash payments).
f) Allow those planning to leave Cuba to transfer their home ownership to relatives or co-habitants.
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Interview with Luis Marron, former Political Councillor for the Cuban Embassy in Britain and representative from the Cuban Institute of Friendship between Peoples (ICAP)
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Article published 26 February 2012 in Mexica newspaper 'La Jornada'. Translated by Rock Around the Blockade. Original article in Spanish: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2012/02/26/opinion/024a1mun
Yoani Sánchez, a famous blogger in Havana, Cuba, is a character peculiar to the world of Cuban dissidents. No opponent has ever benefited from such massive media exposure and international recognition of such a scale in so little time. After emigrating to Switzerland in 2002, she returned to Cuba two years later, in 2004. In 2007, she joined the world of the Cuban opposition and created her blog ‘Generation Y’ becoming a staunch critic of the government. Never has any dissident in Cuba, or perhaps in the world, achieved so many international awards in such a short time, and all with a particular characteristic: Yoani Sánchez has been provided with enough money to live quietly in Cuba for the rest of her life. Indeed, the blogger has been paid up to 250 000 euros in total, or an amount equivalent to more than 20 years of the minimum wage in a country like France, the fifth world power. The minimum monthly wage in Cuba is 420 pesos, or 18 dollars or 14 euros, so that Yoani Sánchez has won the equivalent of 1,488 years of Cuban minimum wage for her opposition activities.
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- Written by RATB
Article published 26 February 2012 in Mexican newspaper ‘La Jornada’.
Translated by Rock Around the Blockade
Original article in Spanish: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2012/02/26/opinion/024a1mun
Yoani Sánchez, a famous blogger in Havana, Cuba, is a character peculiar to the world of Cuban dissidents. No opponent has ever benefited from such massive media exposure and international recognition of such a scale in so little time. After emigrating to Switzerland in 2002, she returned to Cuba two years later, in 2004. In 2007, she joined the world of the Cuban opposition and created her blog ‘Generation Y’ becoming a staunch critic of the government. Never has any dissident in Cuba, or perhaps in the world, achieved so many international awards in such a short time, and all with a particular characteristic: Yoani Sánchez has been provided with enough money to live quietly in Cuba for the rest of her life. Indeed, the blogger has been paid up to 250 000 euros in total, or an amount equivalent to more than 20 years of the minimum wage in a country like France, the fifth world power. The minimum monthly wage in Cuba is 420 pesos, or 18 dollars or 14 euros, so that Yoani Sánchez has won the equivalent of 1,488 years of Cuban minimum wage for her opposition activities.
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- Written by RATB
A short film with footage and speeches from the 2009 Day against Homophobia. Made by the National Centre for Sex Education (CENESEX), a government funded body which promotes Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender rights, headed by Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban leader Raul Castro