Image of the presentation at the National Intellectual Property Office of China of the first patent for the Pan-Corona vaccine. (@EdMartBCF)
14ymedio, Madrid, 3 June 2022 — Cuba and China presented Pan-Corona this Thursday, the first patent for an anti-covid vaccine jointly developed between both countries. The project is located in a joint biotechnological R&D center in Yongzhou and is led by experts from the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB) and the Cuban Biotechnological and Pharmaceutical Industries Business Group (BioCubaFarma).
“Cuba and China present a patent for a Pan-Corona vaccine, developed for current and future variants of coronavirus,” the Cuban scientific institution said on Twitter.
Eduardo Martínez Díaz, president of BioCubaFarma, added that the goal is to achieve effective vaccines against coronaviruses through joint research, so that they transcend the one that causes covid-19.
“Not only would they have value in the current pandemic, but they could also be effective against the appearance of new pathogens belonging to this family of viruses,” says Martínez Díaz.
Gerardo Guillén, director of biomedical research at the CIGB, said that the Pan-Corona project arose at the request of the Chinese side and has the approval of the Cuban Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment. continue reading
Pan-Corona is a recombinant-type antigen, which is the vaccine development platform in which the CIGB has the most experience, with successful antecedents such as that of hepatitis B, in addition to two of the Cuban vaccines against covid-19, one of them Abdala.
This serum is still pending approval from the World Health Organization (WHO), after the necessary documentation was delivered in April to give the green light to the vaccine, whose administration on the island began more than a year ago, as it was endorsed by the Regulatory Authority for Medicines, Equipment and Medical Devices of the Republic of Cuba.
Soberana 02, for its part, has not yet delivered the dossier, although it has announced its intention to do so on an unspecified date. As long as they remain without authorization for emergency use, they cannot be included in the international Covax mechanism, which makes it difficult for them to be sold, sales which, until now, have been limited to a few friendly countries whose pharmaceutical authorities have supported them.
Cubans inoculated with Abdala or Soberana are still unable to fly to the US as they lack a vaccine accepted by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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The musician Abel González Lescay awaits the result of his appeal, to be announced in July. (Facebook)
14ymedio, Havana, 3 June 2022 — “The trial was the same as always. We have to wait for the result. Thank you,” said the artist Abel Lescay on Thursday, after his appeal hearing was held on Wednesday in the court of San José de Las Lajas (Mayabeque). But something did happen that was out of the norm: the young man had the opportunity to speak, something infrequent in this type of process in Cuba.
As revealed by his mother, Isel María Lescay Oliva, to Martí Noticias, the artist, sentenced in the first instance to six years in prison for offending a police officer during the 11J (July 11th) protests, admitted having exceeded himself and argued that his seven-day detention had meant enough punishment. “He said that he had already suffered all the rawness that implied that,” she said.
Lescay, whose hearing lasted until four in the afternoon, claimed not to be a criminal and not to have bad behavior, but to be a musician whose life is to play the piano, a way of life that he asked not to be deprived of.
“[He said that] he recognized that he had exceeded himself, that he had acted badly, that it was not right to offend people with words on the street, much less a policeman. But that what he had done was a rap, which is part of the things he studies and that rap is like that. That they require a certain marginality,” his mother said.
Isel María Lescay stressed that in appeals the defendants are not usually called – “It is something that happens between the lawyer, the judges and the prosecutor” – so her son’s case would be an exception.
According to Abel Lescay’s mother, the sentence will be announced in about a month, a long time compared to other appeals that are in court these days. In the same session as the artist there were 18 other people in an appeals trial that reviews the sentences of other 11J protesters from Bejucal, Las Vegas, Güines and Los Palos.
The judges of the Havana Supreme Court traveled to San José de Las Lajas to avoid having to move such a large number of prisoners on that same day.
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Floods have left some communities incommunicado. (Cortesía)
14ymedio, Havana, 4 June 2022 — Havana reports the greatest damage due to the heavy rains associated with the large area of low pressure in the southeast of the Gulf of Mexico that affects western and central Cuba. The authorities of the capital describe the conditions in the city as becoming “complex” and report two deaths, 111 building collapses, of which two are total, more than 4,500 evacuees and 23 flooded areas.
In addition to “the heavy rains, the floods,” they said the damage was due to “the age of the city,” according to the Cuban Presidency’s Twitter account with a source at a meeting of the National Civil Defense General Staff.
The rise of the Almendares River, the main one in Havana, has forced the evacuation of almost 50 people in the communities of El Fanguito and La Polar, neighborhoods where most of the houses are made of wood and other light materials. The waters rose quickly, and when they withdrew they left a thick layer of mud and garbage, according to Tribuna de La Habana.
The president of the Municipal Assembly of People’s Power of Plaza de la Revolución, Osmani Arcia Peñate, reported that 48 people were evacuated from El Fanguito this Friday to the nearby Pioneer Palace, including six minors and two infants. Vicente Ponce Carrasco Elementary School was was also able to accommodate another 300.
In Pinar del Río, where the rains have caused flooding in several locations, the disappearance of citizen Yusiniel Cabeza La Rosa was reported yesterday afternoon. According to the state radio station Radio Guamá, the 21-year-old, resident of the Ojo de Agua farm belonging to the Santa Lucía popular council north of the municipality of Minas de Matahambre, was swept away by the strong currents of a river that he tried to swim across. continue reading
“Since then, combined forces of the Ministry of the Interior together with inhabitants of the surrounding communities are carrying out search work,” reported the Municipal Civil Defense, which added that “the spillage from the Nombre Dios dam makes it difficult to search.”
Provincial authorities also say that 11 communities continue to be incommunicado, and they ask the population to “maintain discipline” and not cross rising rivers to “avoid the loss of human life.” On Friday afternoon, the body of Yosvel Cabrera Álvarez, 44, who fell into a swollen creek hours earlier, was found.
In Pinar del Río, 4,480 people continue being evacuated, and there have been 302 reports of damage to the electricity service.
“In the provinces of Cienfuegos, Villa Clara and Sancti Spíritus, the rains have been beneficial and so far no major damage has been reported,” reported PresidenciaCuba, while noting that in Mayabeque 17 homes were damaged and the cucumber, melon and corn crops were affected.
On the Isle of Youth, four families were helped, and the biggest problem “is the leaks in buildings,” while in Matanzas the return to their homes of about 250 people who were evacuated began and, in addition, there are 14 homes damaged. In Artemisa, “a severe local storm occurred in the municipality of Candelaria, which affected the roofs of 22 homes,” the local authorities said.
The Institute of Meteorology of Cuba predicts for this Saturday that in much of the western and central regions it will continue to be largely cloudy “with showers, rains and some thunderstorms that will be strong and locally intense,” in some territories, although it predicted that the rains “will gradually decrease in the west in the afternoon.”
He also warned of tidal waves on the south-west and central coast and on the north west. “In the areas of showers and thunderstorms, both the strength of the winds and the height of the waves will increase.”
The heavy rains so far have left three dead in western Cuba and one missing.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Carlos Varela’s performance this Sunday in Havana, where cries of “freedom” were heard.
EFE (via 14ymedio), Miami, 2 June 2022 — Cuba registered 185 public protests in May, 108 less than in the previous month, according to the report of the Cuban Observatory of Conflicts (OCC) released this Wednesday. The report ties this “decrease” with the entry into force of the Island’s new Penal Code, with its “greater penalization of crimes.”
“Nine months after the popular uprising of July 11, 2021, the cries of ’Libertad’ [Freedom] were not extinguished in Cuba,” the OCC, an autonomous civil society project supported by the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba, based in the United States, says in its monthly report.
“The cries of ’Libertad’ chanted for several minutes at the Sports City Coliseum, during a concert by singer-songwriter Carlos Varela, revealed the mirage of supposed ’governance’ that was intended to be exhibited with the compulsory May 1 parade,” says the statement.
The OCC also attributes the 37% “decrease” in the protests in relation to the previous month to the reduction of prison sentences for some of the participants in the 11J protests, “which could have created positive expectations among family members and sympathizers of who are still awaiting sentencing.”
Other factors cited are the “migratory exodus that is equated to a new Mariel,” and “the measures of the Biden Administration making the sanctions more flexible, which create hope that tourist activities will resume” on the Island.
Among the May protests, which occurred in the 15 provinces of the country and the special municipality of Isla de la Juventud, those motivated by economic and social rights predominated for the first time (58%), while 77 protests (42% of the total) focused on political and civil rights, the report details. continue reading
May presents two new features. For the first time, the protests decreased to levels equivalent to those of March 2021 (184). Also for the first time, the number of economic and social protests (108) surpassed those motivated by political and civil rights (77),” it says.
According to the report, the “lack of transparency” by the Cuban government regarding the explosion that occurred on May 6 at the Saratoga Hotel, with a toll of 46 dead and almost a hundred injured, was also a reason for mistrust.
“The hasty and final official assessment — given by politicians, not by experts — that it was an unfortunate accident, was not well received,” the report finds.
According to the OCC, “the victims demand explanations and question why there were more police patrols in the place than the few ambulances that took time to arrive to attend to the wounded.”
“Cuba continues to be a social bomb with a short fuse, especially in the summer months when schools close and young people return to the streets, today fraught with serious economic and social tensions,” the report concludes.
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Many Cubans have been unable to exchange their Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUCs) due to the pandemic, authorities say. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Madrid, 3 June 2022 — The umpteenth extension to change Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUCs) that are still in the hands of Cubans begins this Friday. The authorities have established a new term of 90 days to get rid of the currency, although the incentives are few, since the exchange rate of 24 pesos per CUC is maintained. In any case, there is no alternative for money that, otherwise, is dead paper or a collector’s item.
The amount of convertible currency that may remain on the Island is unknown, since the latest and scarce data available go back to May of last year, when Marino Murillo, then in charge of the Planning Task, stated that more than 80% had been collected. What he never said is the actual amount represented by the percentages he provided in the time that the process lasted, which, initially, should have been completed expeditiously, at least during 2021. However, the extensions have been constant, both for the cash and for accounts.
The Cuban economist Elías Amor wonders in a post on his blog this Friday what reason could push Cubans to hoard a currency that is worth nothing. “Undoubtedly, there is something dark that they do not want to recognize. Civil disobedience? Cubans district in their leaders?” he speculates.
As the expert, who lives in Spain, notes, inflation has devalued the already useless CUC. Although the currency — which was born in the 1990s and became the symbol of inequality on the island after creating two social classes based on its possession — had been dying for at least five years before its final death, there were still Cubans who maintained safe savings in CUC at the beginning of 2021.
If they had exchanged them at that time, with the same rate of 1×24, the purchasing power would have been much higher than today, when inflation has sunk the Cuban currency even further. continue reading
“The inflation that has occurred in the Cuban economy from that date until today, 98% in the inter-annual rate, reduces those 24,000 pesos in terms of purchasing power to only half, that is, about 12,000 pesos. What in January 2021 it could be bought with 24.00 pesos, now it is virtually impossible,” Elías Amor calculates based on a deposit of 1,000 CUC.
Following the same logic, the economist addresses accounts in dollars, the currency that Cubans really long for. Those 24,000 pesos that could have been obtained at the beginning of 2021 with 1,000 CUC, exchanged at the price that the US currency had at that time in the informal market, about 70 pesos, would have become 350 dollars; while now, even taking into account the devaluation of the last weeks, barely 240 dollars would be obtained.
The economist accuses the Central Bank of Cuba of ineffectiveness in the current situation, with the aggravating circumstance that its role is merely decorative because it depends entirely on the Party and the Government, a situation that leves monetary policy entirely in the hands of the political authorities.
Elías Amor asks Cubans that, in the face of the total abandonment of the institutions, they take charge of their savings and take an interest in listening to the experts to do what suits them best. “Cubans should know that today’s money is not worth the same as yesterday’s, but the important thing is that it will not be worth the same as tomorrow’s.”
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Cooperatives are one of the forms of agriculture in Cuba. (Bohemia)
14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, 30 May 2022 — Cuban president Díaz-Canel wants to sound like Fidel Castro, but it’s hard. That way of approaching problems, as if he had a magic wand and the solution to everything, is leading him along the path to perdition. Castro did the same thing. Even when a threatening cyclone was coming, he became the television meteorologist to explain where it was going to go and where it was not going to go. Díaz-Canel has done the same with agriculture, and from there came a front-page report by the State newspaper Granma entitled “Producing food efficiently is the challenge,” which directly talks about how to feed Cubans every day.
Díaz-Canel met with agricultural producers to convey his impressions on what to do to “advance the processes of production, better use of land and promote the diversification of agricultural products; the objective is not to reduce production and planting but to do them in the most efficient way possible.” But you have the impression that he isn’t on the right track, that he’s not connected to reality. More or less like Castro, but look, it’s not the same. No one blamed Castro for his extravagances, like a deceptive cyclone that changed its trajectory and in the end went another way. Díaz-Canel should be careful.
No one at this point can have the slightest doubt. The Cuban communist regime may have two or three heartbeats left if it doesn’t find a solution to increase agricultural production. That is, so that a Cuban family can normally have three meals a day.
But any idea that occurs to the communists goes right in the opposite direction. With nothing better ahead, that idea of banishing food imports, because there is no foreign currency to pay for them, may end up creating more hunger problems and a terrible food crisis that blows everything up. In the short term, there is no choice but to import food and pay any price, no matter how high. The fault, as you know, lies with an ally of the Cuban regime: Putin, with his expansionist adventures in Ukraine.
Díaz-Canel speaks in an inappropriate way of “banishing the import mentality in an effort to meet the food needs of our population,” but he knows very well that, under current conditions, the agricultural sector is unable to feed the population. It may be very good to break that dependence in the medium and long term, but tomorrow, next month, things will be more complicated than ever.
And he doesn’t blame the bureaucracy and the obstacles that prevent the management of companies in this area, because he is solely responsible for that internal blockade, which we have denounced so many times in this blog. Freedom, private property rights, market and profitability are the principles that must be restored in the Cuban countryside, and in the economy as a whole, if it is to move forward.
But Díaz-Canel turns a deaf ear to these calls and remains silent on the subject of the application of science and innovation, which may be very good, and no one disputes it, but it must be raised over a longer time horizon. Tomorrow when they want to eat lunch and don’t have enough of what they need, Cuban families will not remember science and innovation at all. continue reading
He also spoke of “advancing production processes, better land use and boosting the diversification of agricultural products,” but this is impossible if the producers don’t own the land they cultivate. No one aspires to leave their mark on something that will never be theirs. Working for the communist state came to an end. Production and planting can only be increased and done in the most efficient way possible with private land-ownership rights, markets for the purchase and sale of plots and land, and private management of the agricultural sector. The land should belong to those who really work it. There is no other way; even the Vietnamese did it, and it was a wonder for them.
And then he talked nonsense at that moment, about “protein plants to increase the obtaining of animal feed, the production of feed with our own resources, or the development of mini-industries to take advantage as much as possible of agricultural production.” These are also things that don’t serve to solve the problem of tomorrow’s lunch.
The same is true of the use of bioproducts, even when the possible decrease in intermediaries between producers and agricultural markets is cited, and the speeding up of marketing in this area. No farmer supports the ideas that are included in the “63 measures.”
Díaz-Canel knows that there is no point in publishing a Law on Food Sovereignty and Food and Nutrition Security or the 63 measures, if the crops aren’t harvested and the population can go to the points of sale. Something so simple and so easy to achieve in Cuba becomes, thanks to the communist economic model, a thankless task.
Hence, in the face of such a difficulty, which could be solved with the aforementioned recipe of freedom, private property rights, market and profitability, principles that must be restored in the Cuban countryside and in the economy as a whole, Cuban communists start rehearsing other collectivist experiments to see what comes out. Díaz-Canel is irresponsible, getting into these types of stories that lead nowhere. I am referring to the 19 “productive poles” that have been created throughout the country.
According to Granma, these poles are made up of 86 basic business units, 54 basic cooperative production units, 45 agricultural production cooperatives and 190 credit and service cooperatives, with an arable land area of 151,829 hectares.
Can these poles really solve the problem of tomorrow’s lunch? They are clear about it. The estimated production at the end of 2021 reaches a total of 706,200 tons of agricultural items,, only a quarter of the planned production. Honestly, such a bureaucratic and organizational effort to achieve only that percentage of agricultural production is unjustified. If private tenants obtained from the communist regime the same amount as these collectivist-inspired poles, they would surely produce much more than that quarter, and they would also do so more efficiently.
But the communist regime is more interested in poles and municipalities, in the commitment to transfer to the local representatives the responsibilities that the central government is unable to achieve because it has failed again and again. The local authorities are not in favor. This strategy that can even be counterproductive, but it offers an idea of how lost they are for not giving up failed ideological principles.
Especially worrying was Díaz-Canel’s message to the attendees: “We are called upon to train and mobilize government structures from the municipal level so that they are in a position to lead this production process with popular participation in the local stages and, in addition, to promote an intense process that reaches all local producers, both state, cooperative and private, the state enterprise and even the last farm, the agroindustrial productive pole, each local development project, favoring agroecology as a necessary alternative for agricultural production in the current circumstances.” What does this sound like?
In the midst of all this, Díaz-Canel called for “increasing exports, achieving the linkage of all producers through a state company, or in other cases of cooperatives and new economic actors also closely linked to production.” Not a single reference was made to the values of freedom, private property rights, market and profitability in the Cuban countryside. As if he were talking about another country, at another time. You have the feeling that every day that passes he is further away from the reality in which he lives, and it is not known if it is his fault or the court of party and regime sycophants that surround him. The same as Fidel Castro.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The rains are linked to the low-pressure zone that moves slowly over the southeast of the Gulf of Mexico. (Social Networks/Collage)
14ymedio, Havana, 3 June 2022 — A resident of Pinar del Río fell into a swollen creek in the district of Diez de Octubre and is reported missing by local authorities after heavy rains that mainly affected the west and center of the country.
According to what neighbors told the official media, the man “didn’t manage to get out of the water,” and agents of the Ministry of the Interior and neighbors are searching for him.
Several residential areas, both in Pinar del Río, as well as in Havana, Sancti Spíritus and the special municipality of Isla de la Juventud, have been flooded with water by the rains associated with an extensive area that covers the northwest of the Caribbean Sea and western Cuba.
The climatic phenomenon is linked to the low-pressure zone that moves slowly over the southeast of the Gulf of Mexico and has caused the evacuation of families in several territories, falling trees, landslides and overflowing rivers. Interruptions in electricity service are also reported in Pinar del Río, large areas of Artemisa, Havana and other provinces.
In the Cuban capital, neighborhoods and areas near the Plaza de Cuatro Caminos have been affected, an area that normally reports flood problems and where neighbors, in the last few hours, are living with water above their knees. continue reading
The corner of Infanta and Amenidad is seriously affected by the rains, and the water even covers part of the vehicles parked nearby. The same panorama is experienced in the lower areas of Centro Habana, especially in the neighborhood of Los Sitios, very close to the El Pontón Sports Center.
According to the latest report from the Institute of Meteorology of Cuba, the territories with the highest record of rainfall are the weather station of Embalse Cuyaguateje in Pinar del Río with 176.0 millimeters, followed by the INRH Municipal Delegation of Isla de la Juventud with 160.0 and the Jarahueca Telecorreo station located in Sancti Spíritus with 156.5.
A month ago, the Institute of Meteorology recalled that June is considered the rainiest month of the year in Cuba. “A considerable part of the accumulated precipitation occurs associated with rainy events of several days duration, which occur mainly in the first twenty days of the month.”
He then anticipated that “the precipitation depends on the influence of migratory systems in the tropical zone, such as tropical storms and low pressure systems and their important interaction with mid-latitude systems,” while recalling that this month “the period of high thunderstorm activity” begins.
This Wednesday, June 1, the new tropical cyclone season in the Atlantic began, which will close on November 30, and in which up to 17 cyclones are expected to form, of which nine could reach hurricane status.
With this perspective, the Forecast Center of the Institute of Meteorology has predicted an 85% chance that one of these hurricanes could affect Cuba in the coming season.
The official institution called for attention to the persistence of rainfall, due to the saturation of soils mainly in low-lying and poorly drained areas.
The new cyclone season is favored by the presence of warmer than normal sea temperatures in the tropical strip of the North Atlantic and the Caribbean during the first months of this year, according to observations by Cuban meteorologists.
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The writer and activist María Cristina Garrido saw her sentence confirmed, a long with the other defendants in her case, during this week’s appeal. Writing on hand: No more violence against women. (Facebook)
The writer and activist María Cristina Garrido saw her sentence confirmed, a long with the other defendants in her case, during this week’s appeal. (Facebook)
14ymedio, Madrid, 2 June 2022 — The writer María Cristina Garrido Rodríguez and her sister Angélica, sentenced in March to seven and three years in prison respectively after their participation in the July 11th (11J) protests, had their sentences ratified after the appeal hearing held this Monday in the Provincial Court of Mayabeque.
According to Luis Rodríguez Pérez, Angélica’s husband, during the hearing the charge of attack was modified and the charge of contempt was maintained. However, the sentence did not undergo any change.
In the same case were Alexis Pedro Acosta Hernández, Osmany Hernández Rodríguez, Giorbis Pardo del Toro, Yanet Sánchez Cocho and Patricia Lázara Acosta Sánchez. The five, a married couple and their daughter who were in the main square of Quivicán drinking with two friends, had a fight and, according to Rodríguez Pérez, they were arrested and included in the same case and their sentences were also confirmed.
“Their case is also sad, there is a 14-year-old boy who, if his parents’ sanction is maintained as it is, would be left in the care of his sister who is very young and has a little girl. [And nothing they did was] related to 11J, nor with the Garridos. It is likely that they tried them together to smear them with politics, or to give the Garridos a criminal connotation more common than political,” Rodríguez said. continue reading
According to her account, the judge – whom she describes as an actress – indicated that the Revolution was generous with children and the sentence of the mother of the family was modified to six years of correctional work with internment. When the astonished lawyer pointed out that this was already the sentence she received in the first trial, the magistrate replied: “Ah, yes! Here it is! Apparently there was a mistake. Well, then it stays that way, as it is.”
This Thursday the appeals of Abel Lescay were also held and, according to the musician himself, those of 18 more people who were with him in court. In addition, Makyel Puig, who was already sentenced to 20 years for his participation in 11J, was facing a second trial for allegedly assaulting a guard at the Quivicán prison where he was an inmate.
As of today the results of these hearings have not been reported.
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The singer Yotuel Romero, one of the architects of the anthem for change in Cuba ‘Patria y Vida’, opened a debate on Tuesday through his networks. (Screen capture)
14ymedio, Havana, 2 June 2022 — The singer Yotuel Romero, one of the architects of Patria y Vida, the anthem for change in Cuba, opened a debate on Tuesday through his social networks that has ignited Cubans, especially from outside the Island.
“And if we ask at the Summit of the Americas for the end of the embargo on the Cuban dictatorship, in exchange [for]: the release of all Cuban political prisoners and free elections in Cuba, multiparty [and] supervised by an international commission and let what the people choose win?” This is what the musician — who has been invited by the United States to the Civil Society Forum that will take place within the framework of the summit, between the next 6 and 8 June in Los Angeles — suggested on his Facebook wall.
Immediately, he received passionate comments, especially against. One of the harshest was that of Alex Otaola, who in his Wednesday program said that it could not be that “the face of Patria y Vida suggested the end of the embargo… What must be asked at the Summit of the Americas is that a dictatorship not be oxygenated,” the ‘influencer’ commented on Yotuel’s proposal.
“Were you invited to the Summit of the Americas or to the ALBA-TCP Summit? I don’t understand anything,” said independent reporter Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho, exiled in the United States.
The also independent journalist Iliana Hernández responded, from Spain: “The embargo is eliminated when the created conditions exist in Cuba, freedom for political prisoners, freedom of the press and free elections. The embargo is a law, they persecute human trafficking, in Cuba there is a slave system.” continue reading
Internet user Odalys Menéndez replied to Hernández: “Those who implemented the embargo and keep it active at half throttle do nothing to ensure that the conditions are met, rather they are accomplices,” to which the journalist replied again: “It’s that it’s not them [the US] that have to do it, it’s us.”
The controversy that arose was such that Yotuel himself deleted the original post and, instead, published a video clarifying his words. The singer explained before the camera that “there are some very basic and very important conditions for the freedom of Cuba” and that “if there is freedom of expression, if there is freedom of political prisoners, if there is freedom of elections supervised by a foreign body… that embargo ceases to exist automatically.”
The clarification generated enthusiastic sympathy, such as that of Estela Puertas Borges (“Very well said, brother! Now all Cubans on the island need to understand that it is like that!”) and that of Daimiry Ríos Valiente (“I don’t think that this time Otaola is right. We have to take off Cuba’s mask in front of all of Latin America”).
Also, there were some ironic comments in favor, such as that of Guena Rod: “It is incredible, but we have arrived there. Yotuel only showed the same conditions established by the Law of Freedom of Cuba (Helms-Burton) to lift the general sanctions against Cuba. Luckily he did not mention that in that same law, there is a significant part that stipulates a great “economic aid” for the island after the conditions, that is, muuuucho money for Cuba once the same thing that Yotuel asked for has been fulfilled. It is not going to be that they also accuse him now of wanting to give $ to the dictatorship.”
However, it has continued to arouse misgivings. “We are at a time where you have to be exact with each term that is used, especially when you represent a people without a voice. With the dictatorship there is nothing to negotiate, nothing to discuss,” expressed Heidy Pérez.
“You can’t negotiate with them, you have to remove them from power. Only that!” Esther García emphasized. Maga Noa was more forceful: “First dictators go to prison,” as was Zafiro Sony: “The embargo is lifted when the Freedom Law is fulfilled!”
Others, like Pedro Fechter, allowed themselves another critical nuance: “I think your idea is very good, only that it starts from the wrong premises. I also think that people did not understand your post well because in the text the first thing you say is: and if we ask for the end of the embargo… I advise you for the next one, first put the ultimate goal and then the means to achieve it.”
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A judge in Puebla will decide whether to suspend the hiring of 500 Cuban doctors. (Vladimir Molina / El Diario)
14ymedio, Madrid, 1 June 2022 — Health workers from Cuba arrived in Mexico on May 31, a few hours before a judge in Puebla was to decide if Mexico could hire 500 Cuban doctors under the conditions agreed upon by the governments of both countries.
“They have already arrived and are in Mexico in three hotels; whether they are doctors or not, we don’t know, but they are here,” confirmed Éctor Jaime Ramírez Barba, deputy of the National Action Party (PAN) for Guanajuato. The politician argued that, taking into account the number of health workers that the federal government plans to hire, Cubans do not represent a disproportionate amount, although at one time he opposed the agreement.
“If they are doctors, there is no formal decree that prevents the President from incorporating them today. If he doesn’t comply with what the court orders, we will be making the corresponding complaints,” Ramírez Barba told the local press. If the data available to the opposition, provided by the Government, are true, the number of Cuban health workers in Mexico would equal for every 10,000 national health workers.
However, the complaints are focused on issues such as whether the group is made up entirely of health professionals, whether they are properly trained and whether working conditions are respectful of the law, which is very doubtful considering the number of complaints charging that agreements of this type are a semi-slavery relationship.
The anonymous whistleblower who is trying to paralyze the incorporation of the 500 doctors stated in the application that the Mexican Government has not demonstrated that the doctors have the adequate capacity or training to practice medicine in Mexico and that the remuneration that the Mexican government will pay for these health workers could go, as in all agreements of this type, to the Cuban Government rather than to the contracted professionals themselves. continue reading
The judge denied the provisional suspension because “so far it’s not determined that the agreement signed by the federal government contravenes provisions of public order,” but he gave a deadline of May 31 for the authorities to present their arguments and is scheduled to announce his decision on June 1.
On May 31, the PAN deputy explained that the model in which Cubans will work is the one planned for “dispersed areas,” which are organized by health communities. The politician commented that Mexican doctors who go to those areas do so temporarily, with a one-year contract that provides them with points for their next destination, so they are not classified as “places.” However, national health workers refuse to occupy these areas.
By virtue of the agreement announced by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, during his visit to Havana on May 8, Cubans will be sent to these places, some of them in very dangerous areas, such as the Montaña de Guerrero, one of the most conflictive points in the country, due to the presence of several cartels that dispute drug trafficking.
The profession of doctor in Cuba, which was once the jewel in the crown, is losing its appeal and not only within the island, since the foreign missions, often used by the doctors to earn more money but also as a springboard to emigrate, are becoming more complicated. On Tuesday, news broke on social networks that at least 17 Cuban doctors sent to Venezuela were arrested while trying to leave for Colombia.
Doctor Miguel Ángel Ruano said on Facebook that some have been sent back to the island as prisoners and threatened with the application of article 176 of the new Criminal Code, which punishes with between three and eight years in prison anyone who “on the occasion of the fulfillment of a mission abroad and against the express order of the Government, moves to another country.”
Emilio Arteaga Pérez, a member of the Free Cuban Medical Association like Ruano, confirmed the facts and said that the rest of the 20,000 Cuban collaborators in Venezuela have also had their passports taken away as retaliation and as a preventive measure.
Under these conditions, it’s not surprising that the majority of Cubans who still have a vocation for public health choose the only way that opens the door for them to leave the island, which is to practice “Integral General Medicine.” Medical specialists have been regulated since 2015 and are prohibited from leaving the island for five years, after which they can request their “liberation” by the authorities.
The advice not to specialize so as not to close the door to emigration circulates in several medical forums, one of them based in Spain, where many Cubans fight to validate their degrees in a country where more and more doctors are imported while nationals emigrate.
In the last five years, 20,608 foreign doctors have had their degrees validated in Spain. Cubans were in the top tier of the most professionals admitted in 2018, 2020 and 2021, with 342, 598 and 564 respectively. Most know that in order to work in a European country they need the permission of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from which they must ask for the required documentation to be able to validate their degrees. To do this, they must have performed their required social service and, of course, not be “regulated” [banned from leaving the country] or marked by “desertion”; otherwise they will never get the papers.
In addition, they often need to complement their studies to equate their level with that required and pass the MIR (Internal Resident Doctor) exam in case they want a specialty other than family medicine.
Trade unions in Spain warn of the shortage of doctors in the country, where wages are low and the workload very high, especially compared to some of the neighboring European countries, where there is more stability and better conditions. In the last five years 11,506 Spanish health workers applied for the certificate of eligibility to leave, while, in the same period, almost twice as many foreign graduates validated their degree: 20,608.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The Ministry of Agriculture affirms that it cultivated 6,000 hectares this year and recognizes as a failure “the lack of inputs during the cultivation cycle.” (ACN)
14ymedio, Havana, 1 June 2022 — While pineapples abound in Cuban fields, potato production has fallen to historic lows, as was glimpsed in recent publications in the official press. According to data from the preliminary report of the 2021-2022 campaign of the Ministry of Agriculture, the potato harvest totaled 93,650 tons, the worst in the last 30 years, with the exception of 2014.
The original plan for the 2022 campaign was to collect 120,914 tons to try to meet the demand in Cuba. However, in March the same ministry predicted that tuber production would not reach that forecast.
Although there is still no harvest in Ciego de Ávila, the preliminary report indicates that the previous campaign did not reach 97,354 tons, and the demand had to be covered by importing to make up for the shortfall. The figures are not expected to change, since the Ciego de Ávila press announced last week that it had its worst harvest in the last 20 years, due to the rains.
The Ministry of Agriculture affirms that it cultivated 6,000 hectares this year and recognizes as a failure, “the lack of inputs during the cultivation cycle.” It adds that due to the storms that began on April 6, there was a delay in the harvest and “high levels of loss due to rot, mainly in the provinces of Ciego de Ávila and Matanzas.” continue reading
By province, comparing the plans that the Ministry of Agriculture had for each of them, Matanzas registered the worst result: of 29,305 planned tons, it actually collected 21,657. Villa Clara follows, where 8,220 tons were expected and 5,379 were harvested. However, Cienfuegos obtained more than expected, 6,245 tons harvested, versus a plan of 5,692.
“It is worth noting that Cuba must increase the planting of nationally multiplied potato seed, to reduce the cost of importing seed from abroad” to cover the demand for fresh and industrial consumption of potatoes, the document states.
Last February, the shortage caused the price of potatoes to double and the long lines to buy them were even longer. One pound of the tuber went from three to five pesos, and up to six pesos in the case of refrigerated potatoes.
In 2014, with just 53,308 tons of potatoes, half the harvest of the previous year (130,933), according to data from the National Office of Statistics and Information (Onei), one of the worst results in the historical series since 1946 was recorded. Eight years ago, the long lines to buy one of the essential foods in the Cuban diet were beginning to be seen.
In 1996, upon reaching a record production of 364,958 tons, Cuba became an exporter of the tuber, which had been rationed for years, and sales on the island were liberalized as of 2010.
The good news ended in 2014 with the collapse of production and, despite the recovery registered in 2015, with 123,938 tons, the Government had to import potatoes to cover demand, which led to rationing again in 2017. Between 2010 and 2018, both the planted area and production were reduced by approximately 30%. In 2019, potato consumption in Cuba was 151,668 tons, of which 35,272 were imported from the Netherlands and Canada.
Despite the catastrophe, the official press celebrates that 77% of the planned harvest has been achieved and hides the fact that there will not be enough potatoes for all Cuban tables this year.
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Numerous “red berets” guarded the entrances and shops of the Plaza de Carlos III in Havana. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 1 June 2022 — The picture offered by the Plaza de Carlos III in Havana was not normal, with numerous “red berets”, known within the Armed Forces as “prevention troops”, guarding the entrances and shops of the market on Wednesday morning. The same thing happened in La Época, in Galiano and Neptuno.
“Normally there is a guarapito or two, never three, so six per corner is too much,” explained a boy on the outskirts of Carlos III, surprised by the presence of the agents. “You smell fear in the air.”
The last time such a deployment was seen was in the weeks after the July 11 and 12 demonstrations , to police hard currency stores. One of the elements that precisely formed part of the protests of those days was the complaint against the establishments selling in freely convertible currency (MLC), which the bulk of the population cannot access, which charges in pesos and does not have access. to money from abroad.
Precisely those who can only buy in national currency were busy early, this Wednesday, looking for some meat in the state stores of the capital. Unsuccessfully. They did not take out or mincemeat, or sausages or chicken.
“The stores are bare,” a resident of Centro Habana complained as she walked away to look for another establishment, the room she would visit in the morning. She “has” to buy “for the book” in the Amistad Market, located in San Lázaro and Infanta, but it has been closed for several days. “People are speculating that they’re going to turn it into a store in MLC.” continue reading
There was the same vigilance at La Época, on Galiano and Neptuno. (14ymedio)
On the other hand, food rationing on this day was meager. “A single pound of sugar per person was given today,” said an old man as he left the ration store.
Plaza de Carlos III is one of the shopping centers that have almost entirely gone to selling in foreign currency, with the exception of the food market located on the ground floor and some processed food stores. The rest are stores that offer their products for home hygiene, brand clothing or decorative elements in MLC (hard currency) only.
One of the new restrictive measures of the provincial government, in force since May 20, is that the bodegas – the ration stores – will be linked to the Cimex and Caribe stores. The regulations, in any case, force people to go to fewer establishments, which has further complicated daily shopping in Havana, especially in the municipalities farthest from the center.
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As Cuba’s economic situation worsens, citizens are faced the with empty markets. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, 29 May 2022 — Is the agricultural situation in Cuba really going to be substituting “good practices” to increase the production of food, vegetables, grains and fruits? Well, it seems that this is what they did in the National Plenary of Cooperatives and Advanced Producers of the Productive Poles of various crops. Tremendous name.
According to the State newspaper Granma, which carried out the news coverage of such an important meeting, “the integral management of agroindustrial chains to generate high value-added products and services was analyzed, and the good practices of producers were socialized, with the purpose of increasing the production of food, vegetables, grains and fruits.” Deputy Minister Tapia, Minister of Agriculture Ydael Pérez, along with other ANAP (National Association of Small Farmers) authorities participated in the event.
Faced with the terrible results of the agricultural sector in 2021, which apparently are just as bad in 2022, as Minister Gil acknowledged at the last meeting of the Council of Ministers, citing the numerous “non-compliances” in product deliveries, communist leaders organize these “flower games” in which the cooperatives that make up a so-called “Political Productive Vanguard Movement” participate for the 100,000 kilograms of various crops and advanced producers.
Apparently 19 municipal plenaries were preceded by as many others in the agro-industrial “productive poles” with an agricultural vocation, the last collectivist invention of the regime, and four provincial ones. And of course, in the face of so many agricultural gatherings of the “productive avant-garde” one asks: Who is left in the furrow working daily to produce more? continue reading
The communists, in the face of the evident failure of their “63 measures” and any initiative that has its origin in the social communist model that governs Cuban agriculture in the last six decades, can think of nothing more than to “distract” producers, instead of letting them work freely, decide how much to produce, in what dimensions of plot and at what prices.
The regime’s interference in agriculture is the origin of all the evils of a sector that aspires to have the freedom to decide. Agrarian reform was a disaster; INRA’s (National Institute for Agricultural Reform) replacing the old ministry was another. A lot of time has passed since then, but the evils of Cuban agriculture remain the same: statism, bureaucracy, interference, control and repression.
It is not with “substitution of good practices” that more and better can be produced. The communist invention of the so-called “productive poles” dedicated to the production of various crops, will not work either, since it implies exercising a coercive force on producers, based on bureaucratic and political decisions, which have little or nothing to do with the socio-productive reality of Cuban agriculture.
A good example of this deficient creation of the so-called “poles” was offered by Granma stating that this formula, despite the full support of the regime, including these “substitutions of good practices,” has only produced 706,200 tons, barely 26% of the total production achieved in the year. A minutiae. And in the first quarter of this year, when non-compliance by Minister Gil was reported, the productive poles have not improved their contribution, with only 232,485 tons, which represents 25.3% of total production, one point less.
Then the National Director of Marketing of the Ministry of Agriculture spoke about marketing policy to point out what everyone knows, “that it is once again a difficult task, especially because of the scenario that Cuba is currently experiencing.” The solution is at their fingertips, and if they don’t implement it, it’s because they don’t want to: suppress ACOPIO (Cuba’s State Procurement and Distribution Agency) forever and leave absolute freedom to the marketing of producers with competitive private distributors. That’s a good practice.
In reality, and although this plenary served to vindicate, for the umpteenth time, the 63 measures of agricultural production, the truth is that no more production has been achieved, and there are the official results of ONEI (National Office of Statistics and Information) and the statements of Minister Gil, and they have not served to improve marketing either. Cuban communists still do not understand that what is not produced cannot be distributed, and that before the pitcher, you have to have the cow to produce milk. The achievements in terms of new products, new points of sale and new economic actors that offer products in other varieties have been carried away by the wind, in a 2021 lost forever, and a 2022 that is not going any better.
And in the face of the failure of the “63 measures”, the leaders insist that it’s necessary to continue “advancing in the dissemination of this policy, in which its importance and advantages, especially for the producers, are understood.” The author of this blog has consulted several Cuban agricultural producers who insist that the problem isn’t in knowing the measures, but in their futility, which simply don’t address what is really needed, so they turn their backs on them.
The meeting also discussed agricultural prices, an issue of the utmost importance, which according to the CPI prepared by ONEI on a monthly basis, are the fastest growing of the different components of the index, with their negative influence on the population. The evidence indicates that the current inflationary process that the Cuban economy is experiencing, which will get worse in the coming months, is originating from and also influencing the prices of raw materials and food.
And that either the authorities face this problem with effective and practical solutions, or the probability of a food crisis in Cuba seems very high. Wasting time relying on a possible solution to the problem on the part of state-owned companies doesn’t make sense, in view of past experience. The productive poles don’t either. The regime has no solutions within the communist social model to deal with the agricultural crisis, a situation that, similarly, led the Vietnamese to apply the Doi Moi (1986 Vietnam economic reforms). Why not in Cuba?
With this type of substitution of “good practices” and support for statism, the communist regime is on its way to a situation of serious structural crisis in the agricultural sector that no one wants, but which is on the doorstep. For a long time, the Cuban guajiro has known what the good practices are in his sector, and although he cannot claim them freely for fear of repression, it’s very clear: freedom, private property rights and a free market. The rest is wasting time.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
They told several family members who were waiting for her at the door of the police station that they’d release her if they provided another T-shirt for her to wear over the one she was wearing, which contained the hand-written slogans, “Free Maykel Obsorbo” and “Free Luis Manuel.”
“They freed Saily González. She is on her way home now!” informed blogger Boris Sancho on social media. The message was shared on the accounts of several activists who also confirmed that a patrol car dropped off the Villa Clara-based activist at home and that the political police also interrogated her mother.
The measure is part of a government policy denounced by the Madrid-based Cuban Observatory for Human Rights which sent a report on Tuesday to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights that detailed how family members of those arrested are used as part of the harassment.
“The government strategies consist of surveillance, interfering with or suppressing the use of internet by family members to silence them or reduce their presence on social media and independent news media; exhorting them not to organize defensive legal actions before national and international organizations; infiltrating agents or trusted subjects; and offering legal benefits conditioned on forced exile,” they warn.
“All I want to say is that if I’m home, Ktivo must also be. Both of us protested similarly in a public street. Both equally demanded freedom for political prisoners, because those prisoners are also my brothers,” said González adding the hashtags that are being used for the trials against the July 11th (11J) protesters and the trial of Otero Alcántara and Osorbo. continue reading
The video she recorded while she marched, described the government as “terrorist” and “fascist” for “all the injustice and arbitrary actions” it commits. González added that the regime “cannot handle the free souls,” which is why “they want them in prison.” “Disrespect against patriotic symbols?” she asked alluding to the charges against Alcántara for his performance Drapeau, to which she responded, “That is when I see Miguel Díaz-Canel standing alongside a Cuban flag.”
At that moment, a State Security agent violently pounced on her and said, “You know you can’t do that. Give me the telephone. You know you can’t do that. What is that for?” The individual took González’s telephone and interrupted the livestream while he admonished her for her behavior.
The court day on June 1 was also expected to be intense, as the appeals of several 11J protesters in Las Vegas were expected as well as the appeal of Abel Lescay, who was sentenced to six years in prison for his participation in the July 11th protests in San José de las Lajas, Mayabeque.
Singer songwriter Silvio Rodríguez came to the musician’s defense, asking for transparency during Lescay’s trial and a higher level review of his sentence. “I do not have faith that the system will correct itself. As I have said before, it continues to be a very small circle of people, practically a sect, which makes decisions,” he said despite everything.
Translated by: Silvia Suárez
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Drivers of state vehicles do not stop in response to signals of the new inspectors and, if they do stop, they do not take on any passengers. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 30 May 2022 — “Transportation is bad, but not worse than other days.” Havana residents have not been taken by surprise by the declarations of the provincial authorities acknowledging the critical situation the sector finds itself in, because they have been putting up with it daily for at least three months.
Neither is it any better. This Monday, after the Havana government made the announcement that 286 vehicles, “school buses and from different institutions and organizations,” would be added to the urban buses that are circulating in the capital “as part of the strategy to alleviate situation in this sphere”, there were more Transmetro buses, which normally transport state workers, but this hasn’t seemed to have alleviated the problems, the waiting lines or the crowds.
The inspectors, uniformed in blue, also returned this Monday. Their function is to force state vehicles to stop to take possible passengers who are going in the same direction but, in this regard, they do not impose much of their authority either. As this newspaper was able to testify, either the drivers do not stop in response to their signals or, if they do stop, they do not allow anyone to get in either.
The Government’s voluntarism, which has promised to expand “electric tricycle routes in the municipality of Boyeros” and study a “similar system” for Guanabacoa, does not hide what they themselves have acknowledged: “Currently, Havana has the lowest technical readiness coefficient of the last ten years”, Granma cites, based on statements by First Deputy Minister of Transportation, Marta Oramas Rivero.
Until April, Havana Provincial Transport Company only had 442 vehicles in operation, reports the same official press, which transported more than 580,000 people daily, “a figure that is far from the 780 buses scheduled three years ago, with 20% in reserve”.
Last Friday, the governor of the province, Reinaldo García Zapata, stated that “the situation is critical”, since only 30% of the total fleet of transport buses is active.
The authorities did not refer to the fuel crisis that, for a few days, has shaken the country again. They did mention “the energy issue”, only to announce “saving measures in the non-residential sector to reduce consumption during peak hours”.
At any rate, Cubans are resigned, although they can no longer stand the analyzing. “It’s one lie after another with the problem of electricity,” complained a man on crutches, while waiting for a bus this Monday in Central Havana, to which another man replied: “If they stopped building hotels, they could improve the state of the National Electric System.”
Translated by Norma Whiting
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14ymedio, Madrid, 3 June 2022 — Cuba and China presented Pan-Corona this Thursday, the first patent for an anti-covid vaccine jointly developed between both countries. The project is located in a joint biotechnological R&D center in Yongzhou and is led by experts from the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB) and the Cuban Biotechnological and Pharmaceutical Industries Business Group (BioCubaFarma).
