“We will continue to evaluate, as conditions permit, a further expansion of visa services in Havana,” the Embassy said. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana, 9 June 2022 — The U.S. Embassy in Cuba continues to expand the categories of immigrant visas that it will process in Havana. On Thursday, it announced that by July, immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, including spouses and children under the age of 21, will be able to be interviewed in the island’s capital.
Immediate family visa applicants who will be processed in Cuba must be notified beginning June 9 by the National Visa Center or by the Embassy itself that they “will have their interview scheduled in Havana, and not at the consular headquarters of Georgetown, Guyana,” the legation clarified on its website. Applicants who were informed of their interview before that date “will continue to be processed in Georgetown.”
This expansion of services, “follows the steps taken in May to start the processing of all IR-5 cases, or parents of U.S. citizens, for interviews in Havana,” the Embassy said.
“Preferred family immigrant visas for Cubans will continue to be processed in Georgetown,” the diplomatic headquarters also reported. Within this group are “brothers and children over the age of 21” of U.S. citizens and some relatives of permanent residents.
Regarding the decision to work only with the categories selected so far, they indicate that they recognize “the importance of family reunification for U.S. citizens” and insist that they understand “that other applicants may have difficult circumstances,” but “the Havana Embassy is still unable to accept applications for transfer of other visa categories.” continue reading
(1/2) A partir de junio de 2022, el Departamento programará todas las citas de visado de inmigrante en la @USEmbCuba a familiares inmediatos, incluyendo cónyuges e hijos menores de 21 años de ciudadanos de EEUU, con entrevistas por Julio de 2022. Lea más abajo: pic.twitter.com/qYB3ZDHBQL
— Embajada de los Estados Unidos en Cuba (@USEmbCuba) June 9, 2022
Twitter text above: 1/2) Starting in June 2022, the Department will schedule all immigrant visa appointments at @USEmbCuba for immediate relatives, including spouses and children under the age of 21 of U.S. citizens, with interviews scheduled for July 2022.
“We will continue to evaluate, as conditions allow, a further expansion of visa services in Havana,” the legation said, while recalling that its consular staff in the Cuban capital “continue to provide essential services to U.S. citizens and the limited processing of emergency visas for non-immigrants.”
The U.S. Embassy in Havana resumed the processing of visas for immigrants on May 3, processing only the IR-5 category.
Both on that occasion and in its announcement this Thursday, the legation insisted that while work continues to expand services on the island, the headquarters in Guyana “will continue to be the main processing place for all Cuban applicants for family preference immigrant visas and cases of immediate relatives who are already scheduled to be processed in Georgetown.”
The resumption of consular processes “is part of a general expansion of the functions of the Embassy to facilitate diplomatic and civil society engagement,” the legation said at the beginning of last month.
The U.S. reduced the staff of its embassy in Cuba in 2017, after about thirty of its diplomats suffered mysterious health incidents known as “Havana syndrome,” and whose causes have not yet been clarified. Since then, Cuban visa applicants have had to travel to a third country to process their documents such as Guyana, where hundreds of island nationals have to wait for the resolutions of their visas, not exempt from irregularities.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Izaguirre laments the high prices in her store, but explains that she does not have the capacity or the resources to increase her production. (EFE)
EFE (via 14ymedio), Raquel Martor, Havana, 8 June 2022 — Cuban Loypa Izaguirre, with her small business in Old Havana that offers designer clothes, cocktails and music, is an example of the new generation of young entrepreneurs that is emerging on the island despite the crisis and the pandemic.
The 33-year-old has been promoting the Color Café fashion workshop and café since 2018, a multidisciplinary and modern space installed in a remodeled 1900 premises, an establishment that has just reopened after two years of forced closure due to restrictions to counteract covid-19.
“Every day there is a new challenge that changes your perspective and you have to face it,” Izaguirre tells Efe in an interview. The young woman, who declares herself self-taught, acknowledges that there are plenty of problems in Cuba, but she believes that the “positive vibe” must be maintained with the philosophy that “no doesn’t exist.”
Despite the paralysis caused by the pandemic, Izaguirre chose not to stay home. “We couldn’t stop sewing,” she stresses. Although she was forced to close Color Café and materials were missing, she searched among her friends for fabrics, thread, buttons and other recyclable materials to make masks and clothes.
Then, when steps could be taken towards normality, she reopened and called her employees with a “we start again.” continue reading
The lack of some food in her café-bar, as a result of the shortage of basic products that the Island has suffered for months, was remedied with “a healthy proposal that has been well received by customers.”
She brought fabrics and remnants from abroad, which have been turned into small purses, bags and other wardrobe accessories. Skirts, blouses, dresses and clothes that fit various sizes make up the “comfortable and fresh” proposal of this Havana company, one of the more than 3,600 micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) approved in recent months.
Izaguirre laments the high prices in her store, but explains that she does not have the capacity or the resources to increase his production.
“The fabrics are expensive, the workshop is small and I have to pay my employees well (15 in total) so that they feel stimulated to work every day and make an effort to make quality garments,” she summarizes.
Among her clientele there are foreign women living in Havana, although Cuban women also frequent her store, and she tries to favor them with “adjusted prices,” and those who are looking for “custom-made” men’s shirts have joined.
White, red and blue, ruffles, flowing skirts, and stylistic references inspired by the 40s and 50s prevail in the designs. Her commitment is based on “pleasing customers, who understand the importance of coming to a workshop and making clothes.”
An example of her way of facing challenges was her first individual catwalk, just a few days ago in Havana, which was not overshadowed despite a monumental downpour and the still persistent fears about covid in public spaces.
“All of us who worked on it knew each other and we were willing for the job to come out, for that catwalk to be done, totally inclusive,” she says.
Her new collection, “Seasons,” brings together 30 pieces with color, elegance, classic style, daring and a mixture of cultures, conceived for plus size women, the elderly and girls, exhibited on models of the traditional type, of various races and gender.
Izaguirre explains that in Cuba there are currently those who are torn between staying in the country and trying to carry out a project there and those who choose to migrate.
“My decision has been to stay with the perspective of opening up with my Cuban, tropical style and touch, with a design and added value that I believe would make it possible to project myself abroad, and we will try,” she says.
As part of its identity, the brand has a logo that resembles a coffee pot — “a symbol of Cuban identity” — but it is really the idealized silhouette of a woman, explains this entrepreneur.
The young woman is satisfied with the results she is achieving. “They have accepted us, we have positioned ourselves, they recognize the quality and the work we are doing,” she says.
The project, she adds, is “sustainable” because she is convinced of “always finding a solution” with “creativity and human capital,” although she admits that she would like to have more resources.
His look is “to the future” to leave a mark: “That people remember me as a girl who created something beautiful and that is my feeling and what I put into what I do.”
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Floods in Jovellanos, in the province of Matanzas. (Girón)
14ymedio, Havana, 8 June 2022 — The number of people evacuated in Matanzas due to the rains of recent days continues to grow. This Tuesday, the number already amounted to 5,171 in this province alone. Olga Lidia Ramírez González, secretary of the Provincial Government Protection Commission, told the official press that 4,953 people have been housed in family members’ homes, while the remaining 218 were relocated to state centers.
One of the most affected municipalities is Pedro Betancourt. In the Camilo 1 community, 960 people “self-evacuated” this Tuesday, while another 14 were transferred to a municipal protection center. In this area, over 11 inches of accumulated water was reached in the early hours of Tuesday, according to Reynaldo Báez Hernández, director of Aqueduct and Sewerage, who said that the channel overflowed and caused flooding.
A man from Matanzas pointed out on the networks of the newspaper Girón that the lack of maintenance of the drainage structure in Camilo 1, Camilo 2, La Luisa and Socorro is the cause of the disasters and that, in addition, all of them are affected by the waters that fall in areas of Jovellanos. “When the canals were periodically maintained and cleaned, that did not happen. We must bear in mind that this area is low and the main crop was always rice due to the conditions of the land,” he explains.
The local authorities had to send 15 trucks, two fire trucks, one rescue and salvage vehicle, an ambulance and other means of transportation to attend to the families, while the earth was removed with backhoes so that the water level dropped.
In this municipality alone, in addition, tons of food and grain have been lost, in addition to the death by drowning of four calves and thousands of tons of tobacco that turned moldy due to humidity.
In Jovellanos, where almost 11 inches of water accumulated in the last 24 hours, 379 inhabitants have had to leave their homes and up to 2,480 people have suffered losses. In addition, 562 homes are affected, 120 of them in the Popular Council of Carlos Rojas. continue reading
Unión de Reyes, where there have also been torrential rains, although to a lesser extent than in the previous towns (6 inches), 70 houses were flooded and a portal collapsed on Monday, just as a truck carrying students was passing, which, fortunately, was not damaged.
In this province, the Cimarrones dam has greatly exceeded the authorized volume, reaching 184% of its capacity, with 9,306 cubic meters, although the authorities assure that “there is no danger at the moment.”
In a high-level meeting held this Tuesday in Havana, the global material damage was evaluated, in addition to the four lives lost. The Minister of Construction, René Mesa Villafaña, said that 1,219 homes were affected, 90 of them with total collapses and 114 partial, in addition to 108 with total roof loss and 546 partial.
On agriculture, the Minister of Economy. Alejandro Gil Fernández, indicated that there was damage to 4,000 hectares of vegetables, pumpkins, sweet potatoes and cassava, among others. While, in Pinar del Río tobacco there were 443 tons collected with damage and 17.5 lost. “However, the total damage is less than one percent of the leaf preserved in Vueltabajo,” he added.
The president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, asked that the weather situation be followed up, since there is saturation of water in the soil: the last straw for the bad harvests that is being reported in Cuba.
Meteorologists have explained how this situation was reached, after a tropical cyclone converged in the Gulf of Honduras, which was diluted, with Hurricane Agatha that affected Mexico. Both events created instability that ended up leading to several days of rain. Finally, Hurricane Álex unleashed the waterspouts that have flooded the western and central areas of Cuba since Friday.
The worst, announces the Meteorological Center, is that the forecast for the month does not improve: “The large-scale meteorological conditions, especially in the Caribbean Sea, to the south of the Island, remain unstable enough so that some another tropical system, which, if it occurs, will be reported in a timely manner.”
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Llorente (right) and his son crossed into the US through the Mexican city of Nuevo Laredo. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Madrid, 8 June 2022 — A year has passed since Daniel Llorente, better known as “the man with the flag” arrived in the United States after storming the Plaza of the Revolution during the 2017 May Day parade with the banner of the 52 stars shouting “freedom.” Luck has not been on his side since then and he barely survives in Tampa, Florida, although he cannot hide a certain satisfaction in the midst of adversity.
“I get up every day at 5, read the Bible, have a cup of coffee and I’m ready to work anywhere. That freedom is priceless,” he told the Tampa Bay Times.
Llorente, 58, arrived with his son, Eliezer, in the United States in June 2021, after a long and complicated journey, like thousands of Cubans. After he broke into the Workers’ Day march, the activist was imprisoned for a month in the 100 y Aldabó prison, and then transferred to the Havana Psychiatric Hospital, known as Mazorra, where he spent another year.
In May 2019, State Security pushed him to leave, with pressure and threats according to his testimony, to Guyana, where he began his journey through Venezuela, Colombia, Central America and Mexico, until he reached Texas, where he began his asylum process.
Then a new life began in which difficulties were not going to be lacking. Until October 2021 he was staying at a friend’s house who took him in temporarily, but finally had to leave to look for a permanent place that he has not been able to find, due to the high housing prices in Tampa.
Shortly after arriving, both he and Eliézer, 22, began working construction, maintenance, cleaning… just about any job that came along. So they were able to buy a car, a very old Mazda that had to be repaired, investing the $900 they saved for an apartment.
Now, the car is his home, and in it he stores his few belongings: a pillow, a blanket, a bag of clothes and toiletries. His son, on the other hand, has suffered a very different fate, he works full time as a dishwasher and kitchen assistant in a restaurant in the city and lives with the family of his Cuban girlfriend. continue reading
Daniel Llorente could barely pay his bills, has been through months of inactivity, and has no family in Florida he can turn to, other than his son with whom he keeps in touch and eats often, but who can’t provide lodging. According to the newspaper, he has had to spend a few nights in Salvation Army shelters and is trying to find room at the Good Samaritan Inn, a rooming house where he hoped to sleep with other tenants for $130 a week. However, there was no space available. “But the administrator said that it is a matter of time. I am a man of faith and I believe that when one door closes, another opens,” says Llorente.
At this time, the Cuban has found work as a construction painter, but the salary remains low and forces him to turn to charities for food, clothing and toiletries.
As for his legal situation, “the man with the flag” is still waiting for his asylum interview, a status that he should have no difficulty achieving, since he has a well-known record as a political prisoner. The delays accumulated by the Administration, however, keep him in that limbo and unable to apply for a green card, a step prior to applying for citizenship.
Llorente has decorated the back window of his car with a photo of himself and his son, hugging an American flag, the same one that is tattooed on one hand. The Cuban flag on the other.
“Sometimes you have to start from scratch. Life is complicated anywhere in the world,” he says optimistically.
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Charter flights from Sagua Travel will fly to Santa Clara, Cuba on Thursdays and Sundays, and to Holguín, Cuba on Mondays and Fridays. (Sagua Travel)
14medio, Havana, June 8, 2022 — Flights from the United States to Cuban provinces will resume on June 16, and the first locations went on sale this Wednesday.
Yfrain Villazón, a representative of Café Travel, told Miami-based journalist, Mario J. Pentón, that next Thursday, Sagua Travel will begin charter flights to Abel Santamaría Airport in Santa Clara, and on Friday, to Frank País International Airport in Holguín. Flights will go to Santa Clara on Thursdays and Sundays, and to Holguín on Mondays and Fridays.
Tickets for travel to the Cuban provinces are already available, and, so far, other commercial companies, such as American Airlines, JetBlue and Southwest, according to Villazón, have not yet announced flights.
The resumption of travel from the United States to the provinces comes after Washington’s announcement, on May 16, to resume the family reunification program and remove the limit of $1,000 per quarter to send remittances to the island.
These measures, imposed two and a half years ago by then-President Donald Trump, in retaliation for the collaboration of the Cuban government in the repression in Venezuela, were aimed, according to the United States, at restricting the economic resources of the Havana regime.
Flights to the remaining airports that were affected by the restrictions have not yet been announced, including to: Camagüey, Santiago de Cuba, Cayo Largo, Cayo Coco, Manzanillo, Cienfuegos and Matanzas.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Cubans lament the poor quality of their bread but Granma claims the fault lies with bakers. (Escambray)
14ymedio, Havana, June 6, 2022 — It is a culinary maxim that good cooking requires good ingredients. But an article appearing in Granma, the nation’s official Communist Party newspaper, on Sunday contradicts that, blaming the poor quality of Cuban bread on its bakers.
In March the newspaper Fifth of September reported that the declining state of bread sold at rationed stores was due to the “low indicators of quality” of the wheat being used to make it. Granma, however, faults the absence of another ingredient: love.
“It’s true that you have to be a magician to make good bread out of bad wheat but, if you put a little love into it, it won’t be quite so bad,” the article quotes one seasoned baker as saying.
One reporter stood at the entrance to La Especial, a bakery in Ciego de Avila province, to ask customers why they thought the quality of bread keeps getting worse. Of the 250 people who responded to this casual survey, 72% blamed the bakers while 28% said the problem was due to low-quality ingredients (from flour to oil), theft or electrical outages. None of those queried said it was good.
The responses were different at other stores, however. Some customers mentioned bakeries where the product was acceptable while others described bread “you couldn’t even bite into.” continue reading
“Most of our workers are very conscientious but I cannot deny that there are some who are not,” says Yoslainay Hernandez Collado, technical and development director at the Ciego de Avila Provincial Food Company.
She maintains it is not worth buying the best quality raw materials if employees do not do their jobs, though she adds that there are disciplinary measures in place to deal with anyone who does not follow the correct procedures. Among these measures are “termination.” Milady Santana Espinosa, the company’s legal consultant, points out that ten disciplinary actions were taken in the province this year.
Eduardo Hernandez Soriano, director of La Ideal, one of the more highly regarded bakeries, admits there are problems with raw materials and working conditions but believes there is a need to “further revolutionize the baker’s soul.” He explains: “If you bring love and wisdom to the manufacturing process, working with what you have, you can turn out good bread of decent quality.”
Granma also mentions equipment problems at places like La Moderna, where the oven and grills are in disrepair, the lighting is poor and the flour is bad. “It is no surprise that flour from domestic producers is not of the best quality compared to imports,” the journal states.
Typically, the machinery is old, suitable spare parts are not available and most stoves have problems of one sort or another, situations which are not conducive to increasing bread supplies.
Privately owned bakeries have also been accused of using stolen raw materials. “You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to realize that some flour and oil is being sold as contraband, which supports the operations of many private bakeries,” the article states. It closes with the words of one baker, which it describes as the “most accurate” assessment: “Working with what we have, we can achieve better bread, using the technology at hand and putting love, a lot of love, into the work so that the bread can be eaten with pleasure.”
Cubans are entitled to eighty grams of rationed bread a day but, if current conditions continue, things will get even worse, not only in Ciego de Avila and Cienfuegos, but in all the other provinces as well, a result of the global grain crisis caused by the war in Ukraine.
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The new tower at K and 23 has already changed the recognizable profile of Havana, with the Hotel Nacional, Habana Libre and Focsa, all built before 1959. (14ymedio)
14medio, Havana, 8 June 2022 — Havanans have seen what will be the tallest building in Havana go up, at 23rd and K, the heart of El Vedado, in just a few months and without the usual propaganda by the Cuban authorities when it comes to an achievement.
The construction, which is called the “López-Calleja tower” on the street because it is the work of the military conglomerate Gaesa — commanded by the general of that name who is the former son-in-law of Raúl Castro — was announced with great fanfare four years ago as a future 42 floor, 505-foot-high hotel, part of the ambitious plan to offer 100,000 rooms in Cuba by the year 2030, but it was soon covered with a veil of silence.
This Monday, for the first time since 2018, when they presented a model, the official press has pronounced on the mammoth work. It has done so only to defend that “quality control is rigorous and constant” in its construction, after several experts questioned it.
The controversy began with a text by the Cuban architect residing in Berlin Rafael Muñoz, who on his blog Malanga Blue expressed himself forcefully about the tower: “I am not going to talk now about everything we know, about disrespect for urban planning laws, about the use of the wrong materials, about the contracting of foreign projects to the detriment of local professionals, about the economic nonsense that it represents, if not literally of ’birthing’, since I have seen this photo today and as an architect, I have no choice but to address the dark points of this construction.” continue reading
The specialist referred to a photograph of the building in which the mesh with which it was covered could be seen and he recommended zooming in to analyze the surface of the “recently poured” concrete: “Let’s look at that large patch on the beam in the third level. Let us then contemplate the succession of dark points that contrast on the lighter concrete on the closest wall in the photo. No, that is not a work of art but ’cockroaches’, places which, due to lack of vibration, the concrete mass did not settle and there were holes in its surface. The repair is expensive and requires special materials and resins if it is done well. The bad thing about ‘cockroaches’ is that you can only ’cover’ the holes that are visible, especially the surface. But what about the ones you can’t see? The ones left in the middle of the concrete?”
Muñoz also criticized “the edges and joints between elements,” whose color, again different, betrays “a second pouring of concrete to correct the failure of the first.” This, the architect clarified, “is not a problem in itself, if it is done well,” and he said: “I take it for granted that they have done the right thing, sealed the joint and continued to build. The specialist referred to an photograph of the building in which the mesh with which it was covered could be seen and he recommended zooming in to analyze the surface of the “recently poured” concrete.
“Let’s look at that large patch on the beam in the third level. Let us then contemplate the succession of dark points that contrast on the lighter concrete on the closest wall in the photo. No, that is not a work of art but ’cockroaches’, places which, due to lack of vibration, the concrete mass did not settle and there were holes in its surface. The repair is expensive and requires special materials and resins if it is done well. The bad thing about ‘cockroaches’ is that you can only ’cover’ the holes that are visible, especially the surface. But what about the ones you can’t see? The ones left in the middle of the concrete?” . In any case, at first glance the quality of surface finish of that blank wall is not good. Light and shadow on a vertical wall is always a sign that something didn’t go as planned.”
Lastly, the architect drew attention to the lack of “protections and signs” for the workers. “Why is a mesh only placed on the upper floors and not throughout the building as it should be and is provided for Cuban regulations?” Muñoz wondered. “Do you have to wait for someone to fall into the void to mourn the loss, blame the blockade and promise an investigation of something that is visible to the naked eye before it happens?”
The expert went further, asking: “What do you think would happen if a brick, a wheelbarrow, or a wagon accidentally or intentionally detaches and falls from the 20th floor onto 23rd Street on top of a bus? Or if soon, as a result of the rains these days, a gale forms and cement and materials begin to fly over the city?” In addition he referred to the explosion of the Saratoga Hotel, a month ago, and the accident that cost the life of a customer in 2020 at the Meliá Habana hotel, when the elevator he was in fell: “When a hotel fails, it is a consequence of the sum of many negligences, of bad work, of ignoring rules, procedures and laws.”
Muñoz also asserted that none of the materials used “are high-tech”: “All of them are within the reach of a work of this caliber in Cuba. Bear in mind that a 5-star hotel with 42 stories plus basements is being built whose value without much effort, it will exceed 55 or 60 million dollars. Ensuring that accidents do not occur does not exceed 1% of the cost of the work, but it can insure lives or damages to third parties. It is also showing respect for the life of others and the property of others. But if that were not enough, it would at least to comply with Cuban laws.”
The text, replicated by independent media, provoked a reaction from Alejandro Manuel Silva González, who in a Facebook post identified himself as “part of the team of engineers that has prepared the structure project and that for more than two years” has reviewed the project at least once a week.
“Why is a mesh only placed on the upper floors and not throughout the building as it should be and is provided for Cuban regulations?” architect Muñoz wondered. (14ymedio)
This post is the one that Granma glossed over this Tuesday in its article about the hotel it calls “K23.” The Communist Party newspaper reproduces the declarations of Silva González, who assured that “the concrete poured in the work exceeds the resistance of 50 MPa and the batches used are endorsed by national laboratories and recognized international institutions.”
The engineer said that “the difference in color between the elements is due to the application of various formulas and additives, all approved and validated” and that the safety standards established by law are followed in the work. All this, accompanied by photos, were also reproduced by the official newspaper.
Those photos, responded Rafael Muñoz in a new entry in Malanga Blue, “have only reaffirmed my opinion,” although he clarified: “Go ahead, I have opposed alarmist comments that affirm that the building will fall. It will not. I have never doubted, I have not even mentioned the specified resistance, the use of additives in the concrete, or the complexity of the work.” His analysis, he detailed, referred to “the quality of the finishes of that concrete,” and the “observance of the regulations of works in Cuba in terms of safety.”
In their Facebook, other colleagues added their point of view. For example, Ernesto Herrera Quintas, who celebrates Muñoz’s “excellent analysis” and criticizes “the counterpart published by the engineer,” which “generated more doubts because he missed many important points.”
Maurys Alfonso Risco expressed that he was concerned about “other things”: “The effectiveness of a curtain wall in a country where there is no tradition and preventive maintenance is zero. I think of the unnecessary veneer elements that surround it and I think of Amelia’s mural, right in front. In my case I have always shot from the aesthetic point of view but that doesn’t mean I ignore many technical concerns at the same time,” and he noted that he is an expert.
Muñoz himself responded to this: “Now that’s another edge, which I didn’t want to touch. There’s nowhere to take that building. Either because it’s ugly, because of the use of inappropriate materials, because of hiring foreigners instead of nationals.”
In addition to Granma, with its brief gloss on the engineer Silva González, it replied to Muñoz, this Tuesday, on the television program Con Filo, aimed at discrediting not only opponents, activists and independent journalists, but also any expert who opposes the Cuban regime. Without offering more arguments, an attempt is made to disqualify the architect as experts “in the teleworking modality.”
Regardless of any discussion, the work that at the end of 2020 was still barely a hole — one of those that abound so much in bombed cities — has already changed the recognizable profile from the Malecón, with the National Hotel, the Habana Libre and the Focsa, all built before 1959.
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Empty pallets in the EJT market on 17 and K streets in El Vedado (Havana, Cuba). (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, June 7, 2022 — If 90% of Cuban food production originates from agricultural cooperatives, this figure must be reviewed as soon as possible. Cooperatives in the Cuban communist regime don’t fulfill their function of meeting the population’s food needs. In addition, at first glance they are very different from those that exist in other countries, such as Spain, where the cooperative movement reaches very prominent dimensions and relevance in terms of production and employment. Cuban agricultural cooperatives are unproductive and inefficient.
The authorities of the Ministry of Agriculture (MINAG) and the National Association of Small Farmers recognize that the model doesn’t work and that they can’t find the solutions they need in the implementation of the 17 measures approved for their strengthening and consolidation within the economic plan.
Perhaps cooperatives in Cuba don’t work because of the plan and the measures that are designed by communist bureaucrats, completely removed from reality and the needs of the cooperatives. Cuban cooperatives, led by communists and with the forced participation of private actors, have very little in common with these legal entities in other countries, where the worker takes precedence over capital, can make personal decisions and is free of interference. The origin of their failure is the economic and social model.
I insist, the supposed recognition in the National Economy Plan is useless to the agricultural cooperative sector if it then doesn’t work efficiently and can’t produce enough to feed all Cubans. If cooperatives represent 90% of food production in Cuba, and it’s not enough for everyone, something doesn’t work and has to be fixed as soon as possible. The problem of malfunctioning cooperatives can’t be fixed with either “recognitions” or with access to resources for production and investment.
According to the State newspaper Granma, the authorities have tested the implementation of solutions for the strengthening of agricultural cooperatives in 77 cooperatives (26 UBPC, 18 CPA and 33 CCS) belonging to 19 municipalities in five provinces (Holguín, Granma, Havana, Mayabeque and Artemisa). As a result, as of last April, 7,084 unresolved issues were identified in the cooperatives. These were related to questions that, from a technically productive point of view, have little or no interest.
I will quote them, as listed in Granma. Some of them are amazing. continue reading
For example, the lack of presidents and economic managers has been detected among the “pending issues,” which, according to Granma, “translates into incomplete boards of directors, poor planning, poor financial status and lack of areas of collective use.” In other words, agricultural cooperatives don’t produce due to corporate and organizational problems. Is this really credible, is it really the cause of unproductivity?
Let’s continue with the “unfinished business” relationship. Granma cites, nothing more and nothing less, than “the need to implement a communication and education system that contributes to the promotion of the values and principles of cooperativism in Cuban society, through the national, provincial and municipal media, and education centers at all levels of education.” Well, that sounds good, but can it really be accepted that this is necessary to increase production in the furrow? Do the principles and values of cooperativism serve to produce more cassava and malanga to feed people? The truth is, I don’t know.
In addition, considered essential for the authorities, is “the completion of an awareness process with presidents, boards of directors and assemblies of cooperative members; and the consultation process on competencies.” To this end, 2,200 leaders of 550 cooperatives are being investigated as a baseline. Wouldn’t it be better if, instead of so much awareness, they were left alone to produce and dedicate themselves to harvesting crops instead of so many surveys and questions?
And to close the list of “pending issues,” the authorities highlighted the importance of the “procurement process, statistical control, the creation of a contract proforma (SIPA) for the procurement process in 2023, as well as the inclusion in the new Decree-Law of the cooperative method on what is related to the election of leaders.” Bureaucracy, hierarchy, control and communist interference in the lives of these organizations that, by their nature, should be free.
The leaders didn’t mention a single word from the regime about property rights, free choice and decision-making by the cooperatives about production and pricing or, for example, how to achieve continuous supplies of products and tools that can be bought with the national money [Cuban pesos].
Nor did they mention the need to ensure the existence of a competitive and flexible distribution market, capable of meeting the needs of urban consumption, much less talk about the necessary flexibility and autonomy of current cooperatives so that they can decide on all kinds of issues, including their structure and legal future, partnership with other entities, the entry of foreign capital or the free contracting of the market.
It’s not surprising that Cuban agricultural cooperatives don’t produce food and function so badly. They’re an obvious example of the regime’s internal blockade of everything that represents independent private economic activity.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The cracks in two of the balconies of the Reina Building seem to deepen with the passing of days and the humidity left by this week’s downpours. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 7 June 2022 — Originally called the Reina Building, because of the street on which it is located, and renamed Almacenes Ultra because of the large store that is located on its ground floor, the building that bears number 109 on centrally located Reina avenue has become a danger for residents and passers-by. If inside there is a lack of water supply and leaks in the roofs abound, outside the threat is provided by the cracked balconies that overlook one of the busiest areas of Havana.
“I didn’t even look up, but after the collapses of the last few days due to the rains, I’ve started to look and this is a danger,” detailed a woman on Monday, while waiting in line for the bus in the park El Curita, a few meters from what was once one of the most famous and visited stores in the Cuban capital. The reason for her words is the balcony that overlooks the entrance to the Almacenes Ultra, cracked after the passage of years without maintenance.
The construction, which was once the envy of all who passed in front of its art deco facade, has been mired in disaster for years. In May 2022, a fire broke out in an apartment on the third floor and affected several adjoining apartments, but that was just one more step in the descent towards the abyss of deterioration that the building has experienced for decades. The problem of the scarce and sporadic supply of water seems to be what most despairs its inhabitants on a day-to-day basis. continue reading
“People believe that if you live above a store you have everything solved, but this is a disaster,” says Humberto, a resident there until a few months ago when he decided to move with his daughter to another neighborhood further from the center. “Yes, in Reina 109 I was a few minutes from Central Park and a jump from the Malecón, but what is all that if when I got up I didn’t even have water to wash my face. Very nice on the outside but a nightmare on the inside,” he details to this newspaper.
The soot that has been falling for years on the facade gives the entire construction a musty appearance, which in some parts still retains traces of the paint that once covered its walls. The cracks in two of its balconies seem to deepen with the passing of days and the humidity left by this week’s downpours. Beneath it passes a student in her uniform on her way to a nearby school, an old woman with a bag hanging from her arm and a young man with headphones who moves his hand to the rhythm of the music he is listening to.
Everyone is oblivious to the fact that a tragedy is brewing a few meters above. The same one that some have already seen from the tail of the bus, because the angle they are at allows them to see the terrifying perspective. “This is how misfortunes happen,” says a woman. He says it a few meters from the place where the Saratoga Hotel exploded a month ago, also very close to a collapse of a house at the back of the Fin de Siglo store, which left several families homeless, and a breath away from the collapse of a balcony on San Miguel street.
A sequence of the collapses of facades and roofs has redoubled the attention of Havanans when they walk through the streets. Some choose to look up to avoid the greatest dangers, others walk in the streets avoiding sidewalks and doorways, risking their lives with the vehicles. A considerable share reduces their outings outside the home, but in their own home there can also be danger. Like in the Almacenes Ultra building.
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Drawing of the cover of the book ’Mapa dibujado por un espía’ [Map drawn by a spy]. (@penguinrandomhouse)14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 5 June 2022 — The extraordinary and effective Slander Manufacturing Machine is not a single device, but a complex system for organizing informers, informants, police officers, files, compromised neighbors and improvised agents. There is an instruction manual to understand the Machine, but I could never find it in Cuba, when I needed it most: it is the Mapa dibujado por un espía [Map Drawn by a Spy], by Guillermo Cabrera Infante.
When Guillermo died, his widow searched her library for lost manuscripts. Hidden in an envelope that the Cuban had sealed and forgotten were the 314 typewritten pages of the Map. From his exile in London — the capital of another island — Cabrera Infante recounted his last trip to Havana, in 1965, and settled scores with the living and the dead.
That year — the story has been told so many times that I no longer know how to distinguish fiction from reality, document from gossip — Cabrera Infante was a cultural attaché in Belgium. There were problems at the embassy and the government sent a mediator. The first job of any mediator is to open their ears and turn the stories and “gossip” into well-written reports. A kind of security policeman called Aldama lived in the embassy, and it was he who started the extraordinary and efficient machine.
Aldama was mixed-race, rather dark, very tall, with a deep voice and tight glasses; he drove a Buick. He had belonged to the clandestine “action groups” against Batista and claimed to know Fidel Castro. He was pleased to refer — as bait to record the interlocutor’s reaction — to an episode of machine guns and thugs in which Castro had been involved. continue reading
Far away, in the gloomy and hot State Security offices, Aldama’s information was well received. Thanks to the mediator and to Aldama, the embassy was emptied of the problematic and remaining were only Cabrera Infante and “comrade” Aldama, who began to prowl like a lion of espionage.
Anyone who has read Cabrera Infante knows that there have been few Cubans so sarcastic and moody at the same time. Operating certain threads in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he managed to get rid of the surveillance of Aldama, who was removed from peaceful Brussels back to the sweat of the tropics.
Nobody like a Cuban to be alive and silly at the same time. Little did Cabrera Infante suspect that Aldama was going to drag him down with him — thanks to the slander manufacturing machine — and that the salary would come soon: his mother was about to die and he had to return to Havana.
We are talking about the years in which Castro behaved—he always did—like an agrarian and proletarian czar; in which Manuel Piñeiro, Barbarossa , trained the first State Security agents with the KGB booklet; in which Ramiro Valdés — today a sleeping mummy in an olive-green shroud — was the bloodthirsty Minister of the Interior. Camilo [Cienfuegos] dead; Guevara on a guerrilla tour of Africa; the snitching cederista [CDR member] on his “caramel point.” That was Havana populated by political zombies that Cabrera Infante found.
“I knew,” he said in an interview, “that you couldn’t write in Cuba, but I believed that you could live, vegetate, postpone death, postpone every day. Within a week of returning I knew that not only could I not write in Cuba, I couldn’t live either.
Then begins the story — which is, in effect, a kind of espionage novel in a disfigured country — of the rupture, disenchantment and finally suffocation of the person who is taken off the plane, until further notice, to live for four months in tension and surveillance.
I would have liked to read Map Drawn By a Spy in Cuba, but entering that story while wandering in a similar environment, creating the inevitable links that every reader practices, between fiction and life, between the memory of others and one’s own anguish, would have been little recommended for mental health. I can do it now — read, compare, remember — sheltered by a certain innocence and remoteness.
Everyone who leaves, who thinks of leaving, who dissents, sooner or later acquires a fellow Aldama, a shadow that cuts out the portion of life and country that he has. Until one vanishes, he becomes a non-person, a scourge, a deceased infant. Then he only remains “to flee as far as possible, as fast as he flees from the plague, from the tyrant.”
I close the Map Drawn By a Spy in Cuba, in the nice edition of Galaxia Gutenberg, and make myself a coffee. At a certain point, Cabrera Infante understood that he could no longer return to Cuba alive. All exiles confront that panic. I, who said goodbye to all things — my cat, my books, my places — know that even if I return tomorrow and the Machine no longer exists, there is an irremediable and concrete rupture: everything changes when we are not there, and there is no map that serves to recover time.
The extraordinarily efficient Machine for Making Slander continues its work, perhaps with a little more rust and missing parts, but indifferent after six decades. Cabrera Infante affirms that “when unlivable situations are experienced, there is no other way out than schizophrenia or escape.” I want to think, above pessimism and history, that studying the operation of the Machine is the most lucid way to break it.
When that day comes, we exiles can return home. Although I, who knows my people and know what leg they limp on, I don’t think I’ll come back — as Guillermo would say — on the first plane.
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Third Plenum of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC), on December 16, 2021. (Revolution Studies)
14ymedio, Ariel Hidalgo, Miami, 3 June 2022 — In a previous article, I stated that a revolution is a radical transformation of the structures of a society and that, therefore, there has been no revolution in Cuba for more than 50 years. Revolution was what was carried out during the first nine years by the leadership that took power in Cuba in 1959. So, why do those who govern continue to speak in the name of something that ceased to exist so long ago?
The question only has one answer and a very simple one: to hide, behind that word, what really began to exist in Cuba: a tyranny. As the economic model that emerged is dysfunctional – the older Castro himself confessed it shortly before he died: “it doesn’t even work for Cubans” – that leader did the only thing he did for the next fifty-odd years, every time the rope tightened around the neck, there were nothing more than reforms, a word that means “to change the form,” just to achieve a respite, but leaving the essence intact. Tyranny is still tyranny, and nothing has rescued the population from all its calamities.
But now very few believe in his reforms. It is about changing “everything” so as not to have to change anything, or at most, make fearful and insufficient concessions, as if trying to save the life of someone who is dying of dehydration with doses from a dropper and not with a bottle. Also, when they see that the dying person has any signs of recovery, they remove the drip as they have done many times. In other words, the reforms generally have a short term of life, because they have already fulfilled the objective they sought (to give some hope to calm people down, accompanying that, of course, with the usual mass exodus). continue reading
What, then, are those who are called “counterrevolutionaries”? If there is no revolution, there can be no counterrevolutionaries. If opponents are called that because they want to radically change the structures of that system that has become a tyranny, then, by definition, the true revolutionaries are those opponents, whether those who govern like it or not and those who oppose it like it or not. Do those opponents want to radically change that system or not? Well, that’s called a revolution.
Enough of deception and let’s speak the Spanish language correctly. Let’s not follow the game of those who disrupt the terms as a propaganda strategy. There are no counterrevolutionaries in Cuba, and if there are, they are on the Central Committee of the Communist Party and not behind prison bars, if we bear in mind that those who seized power in Cuba betrayed the ideals of that Revolution for which so many Cubans gave their blood. Not only for refusing to reinstate the 1940 Constitution and to hold free elections, but also for not satisfying the social demands of that Constitution, such as putting an end to the large estates and distributing the land among the peasants, since they neither eliminated the large estates nor distributed the land, but they converted the latifundios into state estates by having the State absorb 70% of the arable land.
Don’t let the opponents call you “counterrevolutionaries,” a term that was accompanied by another, “worms [gusanos],” an epithet that the Nazis foisted on the Jews. That’s where they took it from. It was the brainchild of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s shadowy propaganda chief.
On second thought, what’s wrong with a worm? Isn’t it a laborious little animal the creator of fine silk? The great Chinese sage of 2,400 years ago, Lao Tzu, said that when the worm believed that everything was already lost, trapped inert in the cocoon, it was when it was closest to reaching everything, because “what he called death, the world called butterfly.” The butterfly is the symbol of transfiguration, the symbol of freedom that we Cubans should put everywhere, because it represents the destiny of the new Cuba.
So while we might just as well reject that “worm” moniker, we might as well take them at their word, but instead of seeing it for what it is today, see it for what it will become and do what worms know how to do: break out of the cocoon and take flight in a wonderful winged world of many colors.
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The solution to preventing theft in community canteens is to have a perpetual inventory. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana,5 June 2022 — The crisis hits all of Cuba, but the state sector suffers twice. In addition to the lack of raw material, looting by employees is added. The most recent solution to reduce these robberies has been to apply the so-called “perpetual inventory” in the community canteens in Havana, which means supplying the goods daily instead of storing them for several weeks.
In El Cubano, belonging to the Family Care System (SAF) and located on Aguiar Street, between Obispo and O’Reilly in Old Havana, “since this week the perpetual inventory has already been put into practice,” says a worker in the canteen, which is mainly attended by the elderly and people with disabilities. “Now, the products that are going to be consumed will enter the warehouse daily, not like before, when they came in for two weeks or the month,” he explains.
“This is a diabolical invention and, although we knew that the concept of perpetual inventory or perpetual warehousing, as it is also called, existed, it had never been implemented here. We have a worker who now, every afternoon, has to go by bicycle to the central warehouse of the Gastronomy Company, to inventory the merchandise that will be cooked the next day,” he explains.
“There they must give him the products for the number of people who eat in our place every day, about a hundred.” The employees of El Cubano attribute the measure to the new municipal director of the SAF, who previously worked in the Ministry of Commerce. “This is overcontrol for the super-poverty that exists,” the source says.
“This means more work and more paper; now we have to make double and triple delivery entries but they don’t give us paper. In the first column we have to put the products, another for the price, another for the quantity that came in and another for what went out. With this new mechanism there is nothing left, it remains at zero.” For three days, the dining room has only sold “rice and a small piece of chicken, in addition to pea soup.” continue reading
In Cuba there are about 76,175 people registered with the SAF who attend 445 canteens of this type on the island. Users of this service often complain about the poor quality of the food, which often lacks spices, oil or fat. The deterioration of the dishes is due, to a large extent, to the looting of products by the employees themselves.
Although the variety of ingredients has decreased significantly in recent years, SAFs maintain a basic offer that includes rice, some grains and a little animal protein that is often diluted with croquettes or tasteless hamburgers. Prices range from 1.55 pesos for a ladle of black beans to 2.15 pesos for a boiled egg or a peso for a small roll.
Although the prices seem economical compared to other gastronomic premises, the majority of SAF consumers have minimum pensions that don’t go beyond 1,500 pesos. Most of them are also elderly people who live alone and have to pay out of pocket for electricity, transportation and other expenses.
“This is a very sensitive system, because any failure directly affects people who have no other chance of putting some food in their mouths,” admits another employee of El Canciller, a SAF near the Havana neighborhood of La Timba. “People believe that we steal and that’s why the food is so bad, but here I have colleagues who even bring seasonings from their house so that lunch tastes like something to the old people.”
The employee doesn’t look favorably on the new measure of limiting the number of products they receive on a daily basis and also having to account for the use of these foods. “What it is going to bring is more bureaucracy, and we won’t be able to plan how to stretch some ingredients,” he laments.
“If this is designed for more control, we will go crazy, and the food quality will be even worse, because the day that we don’t get protein, we won’t have any for lunch, whereas now we always try to intersperse and distribute what we have in the warehouse during the week to achieve a menu as varied as possible.”
“More workers are planning to leave because it’s not worth the effort to come in, even less so because salary payments tend to be delayed in Gastronomy. The administrator has already started the paperwork to retire from the career because he says he can’t work like this,” he adds.
However, the reason for applying this method differs if staff members are asked. While in places such as El Cubano and El Canciller workers have been informed that this measure prevents the diversion of goods and maintains more effective control over resources, sources from the Ministry of Agriculture and the state company Acopio, interviewed by this newspaper, point to other reasons.
“We can’t know how much food we’re going to get to take to Gastronomy and then to the canteens in a week, much less in a month,” warns an Acopio official linked to the supply of these community premises. “We aren’t getting much merchandise, especially rice, beans and meat, so we’re going to distribute it little by little.”
Problems with fuel also aggravate the situation. “We have less than half the trucks we used to have to bring merchandise to the city, because the lack of parts and fuel are affecting us a lot. When we get a little something we have to deliver it the same day, it’s like that.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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View from Dragones Street where the Saratoga Hotel and the El Calvario Temple meet, headquarters of the Western Baptist Convention. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 6 June 2022 — Still surrounded by a strong police operation and with metal fences to prevent the passage of pedestrians and vehicles, the deteriorated structure of the Saratoga Hotel continues to remind everyone who approaches about the explosion of a month ago that destroyed part of the building and claimed the lives of 46 people.
The event, which shocked the entire country, continues to be involved in controversy and the results of the police investigation into the causes of the accident have not yet been made public. Since that fateful Friday, six people who suffered injuries in the incident, including a minor, continue to be hospitalized.
The Saratoga hotel is located in a 19th century building, and was categorized as five stars. At the time of the explosion, which left 99 injured, the tourist facility was closed for repairs and its reopening was scheduled for May 10. continue reading
Some of the buildings damaged by the incident still have not received major repairs, as is the case of the residential buildings that exist in the block, and all of which were affected.
Of the building located at Prado 609, which had to be evacuated, the official press reported that they would begin the shoring process and then begin studies for a possible repair “with the aim of maintaining the same façade.”
The building on Zulueta street marked with the number 512 continues in the process of demolition, and according to local authorities this work will take about two months. “Then the Historian’s Office will work on a proposal for new housing for that space and for the corner of Monte and Zulueta,” according to the State newspaper Granma. The properties adjacent to Saratoga located Prado 617 and Zulueta 508 also received irreparable damage.
Most of the residents affected by the explosion were housed in state facilities or at the homes of family and friends.
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Nislay Molina will go on to occupy other functions at the UJC, although they have not been specified. (Twitter)
14ymedio, Havana, 6 June 2022 — Nislay Molina, the political commissar who directed the Ideological sphere of the National Committee of the Union of Young Communists, UJC, has been relieved of her duties a month after the former director of the Alma Mater magazine, Armando Franco Senén, blamed her in part for his dismissal. The journalist directly accused her of telling him: “We should have kicked you out long ago, there is nothing more to say, we are doing you the favor of liberating you. You may do as you wish, it is our decision.”
The official newspaper Juventud Rebelde reported this weekend on the “liberation” of the official, as a dismissal is called in the regime’s newspeak, and said that she will have “other assigned tasks,” without offering more details of her new functions. She will be succeeded in the position by Meyvis Estévez Echeverría, a 31-year-old Law graduate who previously headed the educational area.
In turn, this sphere will be occupied by Yaliel Cobo Calvo, previously the first secretary of the Provincial Committee of the UJC in Cienfuegos and a graduate in Social Communication. According to the note, “these movements of cadres in the National Bureau seek to strengthen the work of the organization with young people who have been linked to working life and accumulate experience in youth management.”
The truth is that Molina’s departure from office to unspecified functions sounds more like a penalty for the recent scandal. At the end of April, Armando Franco Senén was fired as head of the magazine, news that was then reduced to a few simple lines on the publication’s social networks that indicated that “by decision of the National Bureau of the Union of Young Communists, Armando Franco Senén was liberated from his duties as director.” continue reading
The controversy grew for weeks amid rumors that the situation was far from friendly, as the Editora Abril, the UJC and even the Communist Party itself defended, calling Rogelio Polanco, head of the Central Committee’s Ideological Department, to calm the storm. The cultural ruling party gave its support to Franco, who had led the magazine to tackle more diverse topics and with success, but the journalist kept silent.
After 15 days of rumors, Franco decided to tell his version in detail in a Facebook post and explained that on April 26 he was summoned to a meeting in the office of the director of Editora Abril, Asael Alonso Tirado, in which Molina was also present. Both explained to him that he had to leave due to “continuous errors in the editorial work of the magazine” and, when he tried to defend his work, the official blurted out the controversial phrase that may now have cost her her job.
The Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba (FDHC) included the official in its list of “white collar” repressors on May 12, when Franco told the story of her dismissal.
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The publications echo statements by the Russian Ministry of Defense according to which Ukraine develops pathogens for military use to spread through the migration of ducks and bats. (EFE/Russian Defense Ministry Press)
14ymedio, Alejandro Saavedra, Havana, 1 June 2022 — The Cuban official press has spent months supporting the Russian narrative that there are secret laboratories sponsored by the United States in Ukraine that are dedicated to the production of biological weapons, although there is no evidence in this regard.
In at least five articles published since the end of March, media such as Cubadebate, Granma and Visión Tunera affirm that there are more than 30 laboratories in Ukraine that carry out large-scale military biological activities. However, the aforementioned facilities are not secret, nor is there evidence that they carry out any military research.
The publications echo statements by the Russian Ministry of Defense according to which Ukraine develops pathogens for military use to spread through the migration of ducks and bats. Its only source is Russian military reports.
“The objective of this biological research funded by the Pentagon in Ukraine is to create a mechanism for the secret spread of deadly pathogens,” says one of the articles published by Cubadebate.
“During its special military operation in Ukraine, Russia found numbered birds produced by Ukrainian biological laboratories, financed and supervised by the United States,” Granma says, in an article entitled: Numbered birds, a weapon to kill without firing a single shot, among other biological experiments.
Various western media, such as BBC, EFE y Polifact, have already verified that Russian claims are unfounded. continue reading
First of all, the laboratories are not secret. On the contrary, it is public knowledge that Ukraine has a network of laboratories that investigate diseases dangerous to human and animal health, such as anthrax and hemorrhagic fever.
Nor is it a secret that these facilities receive financial support from the United States. On the website of the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine there is a section that includes all the details of this collaboration. Some of the laboratories are also supported by the European Union and the World Health Organization.
Another relevant aspect is that Russia hasn’t presented any evidence that these laboratories are used for military research or that the facilities have the necessary capabilities for the development of weapons.
“There is no indication that Ukrainian laboratories have been involved in any infamous activity, or in any research or development that contravenes the Biological Weapons Convention,” Filippa Lentzos, a biosafety expert at King’s College London, told the BBC.
“The reality is that a true biological weapons program has additional requirements, such as the formulation of an agent that can be mass-produced and stable enough to be stored and disseminated,” the director of the Postgraduate Program in Biodefense at George Mason University, Gregory Koblentz, told Politifact.
Ukraine also submits, on a regular basis, voluntary reports on compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention, which prohibits the development, production and possession of biological weapons. Nor does the United Nations have any report from the Office for Disarmament Affairs that indicates suspicion about the research carried out in Ukrainian laboratories.
Finally, the United States Department of Defense reported on March 11 that when the Russian attacks began, the Ukraine Ministry of Health ordered the safe disposal of the pathogen samples that were stored in the laboratories, with the aim of preventing any type of accidental release generated by the attacks.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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14ymedio, Havana, 9 June 2022 — The U.S. Embassy in Cuba continues to expand the categories of immigrant visas that it will process in Havana. On Thursday, it announced that by July, immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, including spouses and children under the age of 21, will be able to be interviewed in the island’s capital.
