On November 10, Daynilis Lobaina Torrell was attacked by her partner in her home in Maisí
Lobaina Torrell was 30 years old. / Facebook/Daynilis Lobaina Torrell
14ymedio, Havana, 16 November 2024 — Daynilis Lobaina Torrell, 30, was the victim of a femicide murder on November 10 in her home in the municipality of Maisí, in Guantánamo. According to what her family and other close sources have published on social networks, the woman was attacked by her partner, leaving two girls aged 9 and 14 orphaned
According to Daribel Lobaina Torrell, who identified herself as a relative of the victim on social media, the attacker hit her several times with a machete. “Her aunt told him not to hit her any more, but he did it more and harder,” she says.
“I can tell you that what the boy did was terrible, unforgivable and incomprehensible, because I participated in the girl’s autopsy yesterday and it was disastrous. In the years I worked at the morgue, I have never seen anything like it,” said another poster on social media.
The posts also identify the alleged aggressor as a violent person who has been involved in several crimes. According to CiberCuba, which contacted a source close to Lobaina Torrell, the murderer fled after the murder, but was captured shortly after by the municipal authorities. continue reading
Last Wednesday, Vania Mojena, 43, was also murdered by her partner.
Cibercuba also claims that Lobaina Torrell’s partner acted with “premeditation and extreme violence,” and that he planned to attack not only the victim, but also her daughters and other close relatives. “He also seriously injured the woman’s uncle, who is hospitalized, while a cousin suffered less severe injuries,” it adds.
Three days later, last Wednesday, Vania Mojena , 43, a resident of the town of Mabay, near the city of Bayamo, in Granma, was also murdered by her partner.
A post on the Facebook group Revolico in Mabay, made by an anonymous user, reported the femicide murder of Mojena. According to close sources, after returning from a trip to Russia, the alleged aggressor visited Mojeda’s home on Wednesday night where he dealt her several machete blows “in front of her children.” According to reports, the victim was a mother of two minors and an adult daughter, who confirmed the events in a comment at the bottom of the post.
The independent platforms Yo Sí Te Creo en Cuba and Alas Tensas confirmed the femicide of Elaine González Estrada
On Thursday, 24 hours later, the independent platforms Yo Sí Te Creo en Cuba (YSTC) and Alas Tensas confirmed the femicide of Elaine González Estrada, mother of a girl. According to them, González disappeared on November 3 after making a trip to a recreational center on the outskirts of the city of Santa Clara, in the province of Villa Clara, and, two days later, she was found dead in the house of her ex-partner. According to the report of this Thursday by Alas Tensas and YSTC, the aggressor fled, but was captured by the Police.
In total, there have been three femicides this November and 45 throughout the year, according to records kept by 14ymedio. In October, the month in which the highest number (seven) of femicide murders has been recorded so far this year, Dianelis Veloz Hernández was murdered in Havana; Yoannia Hernández in Holguín; Liz Yohana Jiménez Morales in Sancti Espíritus; Yadira Moreira in Mayabeque; and Tamara Carrera, Yucleidis Morales and Dagnis Alida Hernández Milanés in Santiago de Cuba. All were attacked by their partners or ex-partners, and three of them were attacked in public spaces.
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The gala included a wide repertoire of ballads, boleros, romantic and traditional music, as well as songs in English, the language that makes officials nervous.
The show ’Behind the Wall’ was directed by baritone Ulises Aquino. / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 16 November 2024 – On Friday night, Havana had a respite from its long decline. In the Plaza de Armas, a few meters from the point where the city was founded 505 years ago, music forced a pause in the midst of the agitation and despair that permeates every wall of the Cuban capital. The show Detrás del Muro (Behind the Wall), directed by baritone Ulises Aquino, was one of the few public tributes that the Island’s most populated city has received this year.
Getting to the almost perfect square guarded by the Palacio de los Capitanes Generales and the Palacio del Segundo Cabo was quite a heroic act, given the transport collapse that paralyzed Havana’s streets. “I was able to come because I ordered a car on the La Nave app, it cost me 1,200 pesos from my house in Cerro to here and I’ll have to pay another 1,200 pesos to get back,” said an elderly woman waiting on the other side of the protective fence surrounding the chairs.
Some tourists looking on with curiosity hovered around the area, hoping to sneak into the free concert and take a few snapshots of the moment. The poor, homeless people, with a limping appearance and outstretched hands waiting for some banknotes, preferably in foreign currency, also did not miss an opportunity; nor did the living statues that put their hats on the ground while holding their breath and acting out the cold bronze of a sculpture; and the matrons dressed up as 19th century Havana commoners, with their headscarves and flowers in their hair.
The front rows were reserved for senior officials of the capital and other figures of the ruling party. / Facebook/Government of Havana
As daylight faded, the place became a magnet that also attracted nearby residents, increasingly absent in a historic center where museums abound and residents are missed. Some arrived with annoyed expression asking what was happening, without remembering that old Havana is blowing out the 505 candles of its existence this Saturday. Joining forces to remind them were the Symphony Orchestra of the Gran Teatro de La Habana, the Chorus of the Teatro Lírico, together with the orchestra and chorus of Opera de la Calle.
The words of Eusebio Leal — the Historian of Havana who died in 2020 — which resonated at the beginning of the show seemed more like an obituary than a text describing a living city. His voice made a tour of the intramuros town and the republican city, stopping at the proclamations, the awnings, the nightly concerts and the commerce in the streets, a vibrant image that continue reading
has nothing to do with the almost deserted avenues and the countless collapsed houses that characterize Villa de San Cristóbal today.
“I come every year when they do this show because I live nearby and it’s free. I also worked for many years with the Teatro Lírico and this reminds me of those good times,” says Ernesto, dressed for a solemn celebration. The old man, with his impeccable hat, long-sleeved guayabera buttoned up to the top and shiny cane, resembled one of those Havanans from the republican prints that hypnotize you when you look at them and make you sigh with nostalgia.
Ernesto finally got a seat and managed to sit in “the poor people’s area,” he said ironically. “But it sounds perfect because the audio, unlike other years, has been very good,” he said during a short break in the gala. “The stage should have been a little higher to see it well from here, but it’s a minor detail. I’m leaving happy, you can see that they’ve worked hard.”
The evening was led by the Symphony Orchestra of the Gran Teatro de La Habana, the Chorus of the Teatro Lírico, together with the orchestra and chorus of Opera de la Calle. / 14ymedio
The first rows of seats were reserved for high-ranking officials of the Cuban capital and other figures of the government, and members of the diplomatic corps of Spain and France were also expected. Guests of the artists who went up on stage also sat in that area, located in front of the façade of the Santa Isabel hotel, in a view from which part of El Templete, the founding auricle of the heart of Havana, could also be seen.
Seen wearing military uniforms were the president of the National Assembly, Esteban Lazo, the secretary of the Communist Party in Havana, Liván Izquierdo Alonso, and the governor of the city, Yanet Hernández Pérez. The olive green color of their attire, the stern look in their faces, and the initials “CDP” on their epaulettes, to warn that they are still mobilized by the Provincial Defense Council after the passage of Hurricane Rafael, seemed as incongruous as arriving at a trench in high heels or participating in a funeral in carnival clothes.
Dressed in civilian clothes were the Vice Prime Minister, Inés María Chapman, and the Vice President of the Republic, Salvador Valdés Mesa. But even their more informal attire did not help them fit in very well at an event where, unlike official events, political slogans, poetic verses intended to praise some leader and party slogans were conspicuous by their absence. Instead, the gala included a wide repertoire of ballads, boleros, romantic and traditional music, as well as songs in English, that language that makes officials and censors nervous.
The weight of the spectacle fell on the actress and singer Gretel Cazón, the tenor Humberto Bernal and Aquino himself.
The weight of the spectacle fell on the actress and singer Gretel Cazón, the tenor Humberto Bernal and Aquino himself, the latter being the mainstay of the gala and a true one-man band who was not discouraged. Minutes before the instruments began to play, the founder and director of Ópera de la Calle was still fighting against the obstacles of bureaucracy and was going from one side to the other trying to tie up the last organizational loose ends in the midst of a context where apathy and improvisation ran rampant.
There was also a hint of support at the end, when the performers were heard singing Silvio Rodríguez’s song Venga la esperanza (Welcome Hope), a song that sounded like an urgent call for hope and enthusiasm to return to the corners of Havana. “Hínchese la vela, rora el motor” (Swell the sail, roar the engine), was the demand in the town whose patron saint who carries a child on his shoulders to the other side of the river. A premonitory metaphor for the exodus and the coyotes that have come to define the city today.
However, it was the song dedicated to the Virgin of Charity of Cobre, patron saint of Cuba, that was the most emotional moment of the concert. The composition by maestro Ernesto Lecuona describes Cachita as a “sweet and dark mother, who showers you with your piety.” The end of the song mobilized enthusiasm by becoming a call “for freedom to shine radiantly in Cuba.” Repeated loudly, that word made hearts beat, provoked tears and turned the faces of the officials in the front row marble.
The attendees loudly applauded this slogan, which, repeated in the streets of Havana during the popular protests of 11 July 2021, cost so many protesters of that historic revolt years in prison. Just a few meters from the spot where the city was once born, on Friday night its residents set themselves a goal more difficult than fighting pirates, building a strong wall or turning this piece of land next to the bay into a dynamic port of the New World. Havana was revered by being reminded of exactly what it lacks most.
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The National Bank of Cuba (BNC) says it respects “legitimate debts” but rejects the claims of the CRF (Cornerstone Total Return Fund)
The BNC assures that it owes nothing to the “vulture fund” / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Havana, 22 November 2024 — In contrast to the arrogance and speed of its reactions in the preliminary stages of the trial, the National Bank of Cuba (BNC) has taken several days to reflect before commenting on the rejection of its appeal before the Court of Appeal in London in its litigation against the CRF (Cornerstone Total Return Fund) investment fund, which is demanding payment of some 78 million dollars in sovereign debt derived from loans taken out in the 1980s. Its tone was also calm, when it announced this Friday that it is “analyzing its defense position for the next steps to follow (and) ratifies, once again, its firm will for dialogue and unwavering respect for debts that have been legitimately contracted.”
“From the very beginning of the process we have maintained that said fund has no relationship with the institution’s financial instruments and, therefore, has not been and is not a creditor of the National Bank of Cuba,” it said in a statement on its social networks.
The official position of the BNC had been revealed hours earlier by the regime’s official spokesman, Humberto López, who, at the bottom of a Facebook post, and with words not far removed from those used by the financial institution, declared that Cuba owes nothing “to the vulture fund.”
As in the official statement, López downplayed the London court’s dismissal: “What has happened now is nothing more than the determination of jurisdiction. In other words, the appeal determines whether or not a new process will be opened to know the merits of the matter,” said the spokesperson, who also stated that the Cuban State “already won” in April 2023. continue reading
As in the official statement, Lopez downplayed the London court’s dismissal
In reality, the court ruling on that date only determined that the State was not the guarantor of the debt, but, as López admits, the BNC “remains within” the dispute, “with much less harmful implications” for Cuba and “different rules.”
López’s half-hearted statements were not overlooked by users, who reminded him that the legal battle continues and “they have not won anything.” “They only changed the name of the debtor. The underlying problem is still there. Otherwise they would never have appealed the sentence. They have put the noose around their necks because, by denying them the appeal, they have done nothing but legitimize the debt,” responded the lawyer Manuel Viera.
The National Bank of Cuba, however, does not consider this to be the case, and the decision of the Court of Appeal is only an affirmation that the entity “would remain in the process.”
Jeet Gordhandas, a representative of the investment fund registered in the Cayman Islands in 2009, said on Tuesday that “this unanimous decision is a fundamental milestone in our efforts to achieve justice and enforce contractual rights.” CRF says it holds a portfolio worth a total of about 1.2 billion euros, although it is not now claiming all of it from the island.
The investment fund also announced that it will proceed with the next phase of the trial, where it hopes to “achieve a victory,” although the BNC can appeal Tuesday’s ruling before the Supreme Court. “The facts are clear: Cuba borrowed those sums and did not comply with its payment obligations, a constant pattern in its dealings,” it said in its note.
The National Bank of Cuba argued that this transfer was not valid because Olivera did not follow the appropriate internal processes.
Last April, Judge Sara Cockerill concluded that the BNC – now dedicated to the management of the pre-1997 external debt – is the debtor of CRF. The Cuban financial institution then responded with an appeal in which it argued that Cockerill was wrong to accept the transfer to CRF of the contractual rights over the securities derived from the original loans granted by two European banks, signed on November 25, 2019 by its former director of operations, Raúl Olivera Lozano, who is now in prison in Cuba in relation to this case.
The National Bank of Cuba argued that the transfer was invalid because Olivera did not follow the proper internal procedures, which the fund disputed. It also claimed that it did not receive, in the manner required by contract, the advance notice necessary for the reassignment of the debt, which it initially contracted in 1984 with Credit Lyonnais and Istituto Banco Italiano and which it later transferred to ICBC Standard Bank (a British subsidiary of the Chinese bank ICBC), from which CRF obtained it.
During the proceedings, CRF also maintained that, even assuming that Olivera had acted without authorization when he approved the reallocation of the debt, the BNC later validated it in practice by responding to the letters from its British legal representatives.
The Cuban bank, meanwhile, said that CRF wants to use its litigation to “block Cuba in the financial markets” in order to facilitate the collection of all its unpaid debt portfolio.
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Image of the damage to the infrastructure of the Augusto César Sandino semi-boarding school in Pilón. / Facebook/Alma Mater Magazine
14ymedio, Havana, 22 November 2024 — Classes for 1,188 students in Pilón, Granma province, have had to be moved to businesses, backyards and even tents. The earthquakes of November 10, with magnitudes of 6.0 and 6.7, damaged the infrastructure of the Pequeñines de Celia daycare centers, the Juan Vitalio Acuña Núñez junior high school and the Augusto César Sandino semi-boarding school, and they are in danger of collapse.
According to the official magazine Alma Mater, the region saw “41 schools, out of a total of 75, eight of them completely” affected by the earthquakes, which since the 10th of this month have already caused more than 5,000 aftershocks. The damage to the school network is so great that “they are working in the variants of classrooms attached to family homes, the homes of teachers and workers in the sector, and state institution premises, in a single session, and without food service,” the same newspaper published.
The head of the Social Care Department, Jorge Luis Broche Lorenzo, confirmed that after an assessment and due to the damage to its structure, specialists have recommended “demolishing” the Augusto César Sandino semi-boarding school. A collapsed roof, cracks in walls, a sinking floor and the collapse of beams are some of the damages to this school, which was founded in 1974 and had an enrollment of 552 children between five and 11 years old, who received classes in 24 classrooms. continue reading
A total of 350 students from the Augusto César Sandino semi-boarding school will receive classes in tents. / Facebook/Jorge Luis Ríos Frías
“Do we have to reorganize the school network? Yes! Now the immediate solution was to look for alternatives,” said the official. Broche Lorenzo also reported that the Pequeñines de Celia daycare center is also considered a total loss and acknowledged that “it will take time to rebuild these two educational institutions.”
The Cuban Communist Party echoed the statements of the director of the semi-boarding school Marlene Mayaso Araujo in which she stressed that “the pioneers (students) began the school year, not in the way we wanted, but we know that they are receiving their academic content.”
Journalist Jorge Luis Ríos Frías, who shared images of the tented classrooms, proclaimed that the so-called “Little Friends of the FAR” [Revolutionary Armed Forces] has the “necessary conditions that ensure the quality of the teaching process” for “350 pioneers of the Augusto César Sandino semi-boarding school.”
Meanwhile, the kindergarten students have had to take classes in classrooms and on the terraces of their homes, while another group of 20 of the 173 students have been cared for since last Monday at the Almeida hostel, located on Camilo Cienfuegos Avenue in the coastal municipality of Pilón.
Since last Wednesday, restoration work began on the Pequeñines de Celia daycare center. / Facebook/CNC TV Granma
Granma TV shared photos of the work of the Provincial Company for Education Assurance and Services in the daycare center.
While the remodeling work begins and to prevent theft, teachers from the Juan Vitalio Acuña Núñez urban basic secondary school (Esbu) work four-hour shifts to guard the facility from outside.
Another school affected by the earthquakes was the mixed center in the People’s Council of Seville. Due to the damage, classes are offered in shelters.
The passage of hurricanes Oscar and Rafael, two major earthquakes and a series of blackouts in less than a month have been the trigger for international humanitarian aid to begin arriving on the island, which is in the midst of a serious economic, food and energy crisis.
A second ship with 200 tons – mostly of construction materials – was sent by the Venezuelan government. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil indicated that the cargo will arrive between next Monday or Tuesday at the port of Santiago de Cuba.
Teachers at the Juan Vitalio Acuña Núñez urban basic secondary school work four-hour shifts to prevent theft. / Facebook/Alma Mater Magazine
On November 6, Venezuela sent a first ship with more than 300 tons of aid in the form of kitchen utensils, mattresses, galvanized zinc sheets, iron pipes and ceiling hooks, as well as personal hygiene products.
In recent weeks, the governments of Mexico, Japan and Russia have also sent shipments of humanitarian aid. The European Union and the United Nations sent 94 tons of medicines, medical supplies and other essential goods.
Other donations followed: nine tons from Spain, $160,000 worth of essential supplies from Japan, $600,000 from Norway via the UN Central Emergency Response Fund and 40 tons of powdered milk from Slovakia via the World Food Programme (WFP).
Several NGOs have also revealed their plans to assist the island, such as the 24 tons of humanitarian aid from the International Red Cross, which arrived last week. For her part, the newly inaugurated president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, justified the sending of fuel to Cuba on “humanitarian grounds” following reports that she was sending 400,000 barrels of crude oil to the island after the blackout that left the entire country in darkness for several days in October.
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.
“I knocked on the doors of several clinics, but no one answered,” says Ivis, who came to the center to get care for her daughter.
Image of the waiting room at the Paquito González Cueto Pediatric Hospital. / 14ymedio
Julio César Contreras, Cienfuegos, 23 November 2024 — The night Ivis arrived at the Cienfuegos Pediatric Hospital with her daughter in her arms, she could not have imagined that institutional neglect and the rest of the crises affecting Cuban Public Health would have had such a profound effect on the center. Because the care is specialized for children and adolescents, the hospital had always had better conditions than others in the province, but the day her daughter suffered an epileptic episode, “there was not even a doctor in the waiting room.”
The bad times for Ivis began, however, before arriving at the Paquito González Cueto Pediatric Hospital. “At seven in the evening the girl began to have strong convulsions and I immediately called the hospital to send me an ambulance, but no one answered the phone,” the mother told 14ymedio. “In my desperation I went out into the street and found a máquina [shared taxi]. Although it may seem unbelievable, the driver charged us 1,000 pesos from our house in the Pastorita neighborhood to the hospital.”
Paying the price for the transport was the least of it, laments the Cienfuegos native, who after entering the Paquito González Cueto did not see “a soul.” “I knocked on the doors of several clinics, but no one answered. Then the security guard appeared, who told me that the doctor on duty was eating and that we had to wait for him,” she explains, pointing out that the memory of that night still bothers her.
Ivis waited for about half an hour until the health worker returned to the office.
Ivis waited for about half an hour until the paramedic returned to the office. During the time she was waiting, she points out, she did not see any medical personnel, whether nurses, laboratory technicians or cleaning assistants, pass by. “They had already told me that this was bad, but I never imagined that at 8:00 at night in the corridors of the Pediatric Hospital there would be no one to help the patients. In my nervousness I asked a woman if she had already been seen, and she told me that she was there to charge her phone, because there was no electricity at home,” she says. continue reading
After going to the doctor’s office, the mother stressed that the doctor’s care was good, but in the current conditions of the health system, with a chronic lack of supplies and medicines, there was little that the health worker could do. “He prescribed a course of clonazepam, but he himself told me that there was none in the hospital pharmacy. Luckily, since the girl is epileptic, I always have these medicines on hand, even if they cost me dearly on the informal market,” says Ivis.
The cienfueguera gave the medicine to her daughter and sat in the waiting room to give it time to take effect. “I started talking to a woman who was there with her grandson. It turned out that she had been waiting since 4:00 in the afternoon for a vehicle to take her to Cruces. The child has respiratory problems and an ambulance or one of the taxis that work with the hospitals was supposed to take him home,” she recalls.
The elderly woman assured Ivis that “she had a hard time even giving her grandson a spray”
The elderly woman, desperate from fatigue and the approach of night, told Ivis that, despite having brought her grandson to the provincial capital seeking specialized care, “she had a hard time even giving him a spray.”
Outside, sitting on the hospital porch under the dim lights of the ceiling, some young people were talking and laughing. According to Ivis, “they are from nearby neighborhoods who, instead of going to the malecón where there is no electricity due to the blackouts and they are exposed to being assaulted, they come here to take advantage of the electricity a little.”
The woman says that after seeing them, an idea came to her mind: “In this country everything is backwards. Parents would like not to have to bring their sick children to those dirty and dark hospitals, but healthy children come on their own for a few hours of electricity and cool night air.”
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The Cuban pianist was interviewed by Juan Manuel Cao on América TeVé
Chucho Valdés this Saturday on Cao’s program / Screen capture
14ymedio, Madrid, 25 November 2024 — At 83, the Cuban pianist Chucho Valdés has been trying to detach himself from the Cuban regime for more than a decade, although never with as much effort as since he supported the anti-government demonstrators in 2021. “It makes me very sad what my people are suffering, including my family. It hurts a lot to see the subhuman conditions in which they subsist. Enough of deception and lies. International humanitarian aid is essential,” he wrote that day.
It did not take long for those who recognized his courage to respond, but so did those who reminded him of the episode for which he will never be forgiven among many exiles who doubt the artist’s honesty: his signature on the letter in 2003 that almost thirty Cuban artists and intellectuals signed supporting the shooting of three young people who tried to hijack the Regla ferry to escape to the United States.
This Saturday, the artist was on the program A Fondo, presented by Juan Manuel Cao on América TeVé, where he vindicated himself as an exile and again strongly denied having signed the letter.
“It’s one thing that they put your name in a newspaper for no reason and try to sully your prestige and career in such a disgraceful way. And it’s another that there is a doubt, that there is a doubt”
“Never, never,” insisted the musician, asked by the journalist. “It’s one thing that they put your name in a newspaper for no reason and try to sully your prestige and career in such a disgraceful way. And it’s another that there is a doubt, that there is a doubt,” he lamented. continue reading
Valdés explained that not only would he be unable to support something like that, but that he was not even on the Island when the events occurred. “I was here, in Miami, when all that happened. I was on tour in the United States, on the spring tour I always do, it was in March or April. And I find out, here in Miami, when I was in a hotel with a friend of mine named Raúl Artiles, and he tells me that I’m in a photo and that my name is there. I was destroyed, because it’s very sad that they use you,” he says.
The artist assures that of all the things that have been said about him, this is the worst that has happened in his life, because he cannot erase the doubt that remains in many people, although he did say he was “calm” with respect to his family and friends, who “know it never happened.” The pianist is the son of another piano legend on the Island, Bebo Valdés, exiled since the Revolution destroyed his work in the Cuban music scene. Having lived in Mexico, the United States, Spain and Sweden – where he settled in 1963 and remarried – he died in 2013, after having returned to stunning success and performing with his son, who this Saturday agreed when Cao said he was exiled.
“Yes, yes, I live in Broward,” said the artist, referring to the county of East Florida where he has his main home, although he also spends time in Malaga, where his father had a residence, after becoming famous with the help of film director and music producer Fernando Trueba. Both, in fact, participated in the multi-award-winning documentary on Latin Jazz Calle 54, which the Madrid filmmaker shot in New York in 2000 and which featured other Cuban artists.
“There is no respect for the Constitution, which is the greatest mistake that a country can make, and they have abused and created horrors for many years”
Many missed the presence in the film of Arturo Sandoval, who later recorded an album called Calle 54: Music for Friends. He also spoke on Cao’s program this Saturday and referred to the matter.
“It’s very sad, very sad. That is the result of a hateful dictatorship that uses everything and everyone at its convenience. In Cuba the law does not exist; absolutely nothing is respected. There is no respect for the Constitution, which is the greatest mistake that a country can make, and they have abused and created horrors for many years,” he said before joking and showing his affection and respect for his friend, Chucho Valdés, who closed the program by playing, as in the opening.
Silvio Rodríguez, although more lukewarm, also distanced himself years ago from having signed the letter of support for the shootings. “I never supported those executions. And I’m sure none of the signatories of that letter did,” he said in 2020, almost on par with Valdés. Too late, for some.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Natural Phenomena tells the story of Vilma, a young nurse who lives in the late 80s on an isolated farm in a Cuban town
A scene from the Cuban movie ’Natural Phenomena’ / endac.org
EFE (via 14ymedio), Geneva, 24 November 2024 — The Cuban film Natural Phenomena, by Cuban Marcos Antonio Díaz Sosa and Isla Negra, by Chilean director Jorge Riquelme Serrano, were awarded at the Latin American Film Festival in Geneva, which ends its 26th edition this Sunday.
Always sensitive to social cinema that treats human rights from different perspectives, the jury awarded Isla Negra for being a “bold and moving work that addresses a theme that is still very little treated, that of the exile of entire populations because of the exploitation of their lands,” said the organization.
Riquelme closes with this production, premiered exclusively at the festival, a trilogy that began in 2016 with Camaleón, his debut film, and continued in 2019 with Algunas bestias.
With the Young Jury Award for Natural Phenomena, Díaz Sosa’s debut as a director, the festival joins the voices of those who oppose the Cuban regime, “a dictatorship that keeps its people in a dramatic situation and exercises arbitrary and uneducated censorship against artistic creation and critical thinking.” continue reading
“The work captivates with its representation of a strong and determined woman, who faces personal and social challenges while seeking to emancipate herself in a context that limits the possibilities”
“The work captivates with its representation of a strong and determined woman, who faces personal and social challenges while seeking to emancipate herself in a context that limits the possibilities,” said the jury, composed of eleven high school students from Geneva accompanied by the Argentine director Pablo Briones.
Natural phenomena tells the story of Vilma, a young nurse who lives in the late eighties on an isolated farm in a Cuban town
The 10-day festival was attended, among others, by the Spanish director Fernando Trueba, whose penultimate film, the animated documentary They Shot the Pianist, was screened this Saturday at the Grütli cinema that hosts the festival.
Filmar, one of the biggest events in Spanish cinema outside Spanish-speaking countries, showed 39 feature films from 15 Latin American countries.
Directed since 2017 by Vania Aillon, the festival has had, as in previous editions, a special love for social cinema, with a good number of films dedicated to issues such as the environment, freedom of expression, the situation of minorities and indigenous peoples, and the fight for equality.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The opponent was transferred and hospitalized in Boniato prison after being assaulted by prison staff, says his family
Ferrer was one of the prisoners of the Black Spring of 2003 / Facebook / Ana Belkis Ferrer
14ymedio, Havana, November 24, 2024 — The opponent and leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu)José Daniel Ferrer was seen last Thursday in the hospital of the Boniato prison, in Santiago de Cuba, “very thin, brutally beaten and with a wound on his face,” said the sister of the political prisoner, Ana Belkis Ferrer. The news that the activist had been transferred and returned to the Mar Verde prison, where he was originally locked up, because he needed medical attention, put his relatives on alert, and they stood in front of the prison on Friday to demand proof of life.
According to the opponent’s sister, Ferrer’s transfer to Boniato was reported by “a person who was able to see him on Thursday at the Boniato hospital, a place where very few people were allowed to prevent him from being seen.” This was later confirmed by the prison authorities of Santiago de Cuba. Aside from that news, little else is known about the political prisoner’s condition.
According to the relatives, the complaint of the “beating” and the transfer were also reported by other political prisoners, who claim that the opponent had been attacked by prison staff and transferred to another prison with better medical facilities. The family also said that Ferrer has been admitted to Room A of the Boniato Prison infirmary for three days and that his health was already deteriorated. continue reading
Ferrer’s wife, Nelva Ismarays Ortega, stood in front of the Mar Verde prison with two of the activist’s children
After Ferrer’s wife, Nelva Ismarays Ortega, stood in front of the Mar Verde prison with two of the activist’s children – including a five-year-old – several organizations and activists began a campaign to demand that the prison authorities allow family members to see the opponent.
“Early on we demanded to be able to see my husband and the prison authorities denied us that right. Around three in the afternoon they let us, from a distance, see a car with several officers and a person dressed in white getting out. Supposedly, that was my husband. Until we are face to face with him we can’t say for sure,” Ortega said in a video on social networks that was taken in the vicinity of the prison.
“We don’t want photos, we don’t want a video, we don’t want a message, we don’t want to see him at a distance. We want to see him face to face to tell us what happened. We will continue to demand proof of life and freedom for Ferrer and all political prisoners,” she added.
Ortega also said that the leader of the Unpacu has been imprisoned since August 2021, and in the last year and nine months, the prison has prevented any kind of contact between him and his family, denying them family visits, conjugal visits and phone calls. “They are violating these rights,” denounced Ortega, who considers that, in these circumstances, her husband “is missing.”
“We want to corroborate whether what happened to Ferrer and his transfer to Boniato is true or not,” Ortega added
“We want to corroborate whether what happened to Ferrer and his transfer to Boniato is true or not,” Ortega added. “If nothing has happened, why don’t they tell us? We have the right to be told where he is and in what condition. The only person who can tell us is my husband, José Daniel Ferrer García.”
Several organizations and NGOs have shown solidarity with Ferrer’s family and have joined the demand for proof of life. Even the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Brian Nichols, said he was “outraged” at the news that José Daniel Ferrer is hospitalized after having received a “brutal beating.”
“We call on the Government of Cuba to allow immediate access for his family and to release him, along with the nearly 1,000 political prisoners unjustly detained in Cuba,” Nichols posted on his X account.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The couple also met with two people who enjoy maximum confidence from the regime, Lourdes and Rodolfo Dávalos
Anido with his mother and Díaz-Canel during a visit to the Vatican in 2023. / EFE
14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 20 November 2024 — Manuel Anido Cuesta is the only young man in the stuffy photo of the Cuban delegation that met with Pope Francis in 2023. His stepfather, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, introduced him to the pontiff as “the opposition in the family.” Lis Cuesta’s son managed to stay out of the spotlight until Wednesday, when ¡Hola!, the Spanish gossip magazine, photographed him in Madrid kissing Cuban actress Ana de Armas.
In the images released by ¡Hola!, Anido walks through Madrid with Ana de Armas, walking her dog, Salsa. They were also captured on their return from the Numa Pompilio restaurant, located in the exclusive Salamanca neighborhood. In addition, one of the photographs shows that they met with Lourdes Dávalos, the lawyer who defended the regime in the case for its debt with the CRF investment fund in London, and with her father, Rodolfo Dávalos, Fidel Castro’s trusted lawyer in international litigation.
Very little is known about Anido. “He is a law graduate, he works with me, he is the one who criticizes me the most,” said Díaz-Canel.
Very little is known about Anido. “He graduated in law, he works with me, he is the one who criticizes me the most,” Díaz-Canel told the Pope, under the tender gaze of Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez and his mother. Although he is credited with a position as an advisor to the president, his role in the government is not clear. He appears in photos of the president’s trips to Moscow, the United Arab Emirates and other countries.
The magazine had reported on the actress’s breakup with tycoon Paul Boukadakis, vice president of Tinder, the online dating app, and had continue reading
speculated about the existence of a new relationship. It had also reported on De Armas’ trips to Cuba, a growing and controversial rapprochement, given the critical situation on the island.
What for the world of showbiz and the paparazzi is a banal incursion into the life of the actress – “she has found a new dream” is the recurring headline – for Cubans is the confirmation of what the Spanish media have rightly called the couple’s “undeniable complicity.”
Actress Ana de Armas, at the San Sebastian Film Festival, in September 2022 / EFE
Like Marilyn Monroe, the legendary actress whom De Armas plays in Blonde, the Cuban – who emigrated to Spain at the age of 18 – has a fondness for the presidential environment. Last August, De Armas traveled to Cuba on a “private visit” about which her friends on the island – especially Claudia Alvariño, actress of La Colmenita and a staunch supporter of the regime – published photos. She was also in Havana last May, accompanied by Boukadakis, to celebrate her 35th birthday. In 2020, the “novio invitado” was Ben Affleck.
Although the island’s official press did not cover her achievements abroad until very recently, it has not been immune to her trips to Cuba. “’Ana, good morning, I’m Thalía Fuentes, a journalist from Cubadebate . Do you think you can answer a couple of questions? ’Excuse me, journalist, I’m on vacation. It’s a pleasure to greet you.’” This is how Fuentes described her meeting with the actress in 2023, a cold shower.
She then consoled herself for the fiasco: “I’m standing in the middle of the street. It’s understandable, she’s on vacation, she wants to be away from the cameras. We have to respect her decision. Being a public figure can’t deprive you of peace. Keep walking, enjoying Havana, that city that is hers, and that always welcomes her with open arms. Ana de Armas from Blonde is an actress and she’s Cuban.” Cubadebate was quick to delete the article.
The media then claimed that De Armas had declared she wanted to be part of the company, “but she couldn’t because he didn’t live in Havana.”
In April of that year, however, Cubadebate reported in great detail on her meeting with the children’s theater company La Colmenita (The Little Beehive). The media outlet then stated that De Armas had declared that she wanted to be part of the company, “but she couldn’t because she didn’t live in Havana.” Indeed, although she was born in the capital, her family moved to Santa Cruz del Norte during the Special Period.
De Armas has spoken kindly of that time in interviews – “the power went out, we ate fried eggs, rice and sometimes chicken” – and praised the fact that education in Cuba is “free” and “very rigorous.” Regarding her father, she admitted that he once held positions in a municipal government – although she did not clarify whether it was in Santa Cruz del Norte – and that he ran a bank.
Her brother, the photographer Javier Caso, who lives in the US, is known for his opposition to the regime and has repeatedly denounced the “dictatorship” that is “killing” Cubans. Caso was summoned by State Security in 2020 and managed to record the interrogation. One of the agents’ questions was about his sister. A year later, Caso reported that the artist Luis Manuel Otero was the victim of police harassment. For this reason, he went on a hunger strike.
Although De Armas is used to photographers – she confessed that her love life was in a sort of “controlled intensity” – the experience is totally new for the “royalty” of the regime. It has not gone well, for example, for Lis Cuesta, whose romantic effusions about Díaz-Canel – such as the memorable “dictator of my heart” or the soul “in dishcloth mode” – have been mocked by hundreds of Cubans.
Neither Anido nor his entourage are ready for the harassment of the tabloids in an environment like Cuba, so far from any romantic idyll. ¡Hola! has walked with the couple through the avenues of Madrid. Very far from the dull streets filled with rubbish in Cuba, where Ana de Armas and her “new dream” were born.
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The organization, based in Washington, says that it is the State’s obligation to ensure the integrity of prisoners
The exact state of Ferrer’s health is unknown, at least one week after he suffered an assault / Ana Belkis Ferrer García
EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, November 26, 2024 — The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) showed its “concern” on Monday after allegations of assault by the prison authorities of the opponent and political prisoner José Daniel Ferrer.
The organization, based in Washington, expressed on social networks its “concern about the complaints of physical violence by prison authorities against José Daniel Ferrer” and stressed that the dissident is “deprived of liberty in the context of the protests of July 11, 2021” and is a “beneficiary of precautionary measures granted by the IACHR.”
The commission also recalled in general terms that “the State must guarantee the personal integrity of persons deprived of liberty and avoid torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”
“The State must guarantee the personal integrity of persons deprived of liberty and avoid torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment”
Last week, family members, human rights NGOs and Cuban dissident organizations denounced that Ferrer, considered a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International (AI), was hospitalized after receiving a “brutal beating” from the prison staff where he is imprisoned. continue reading
His relatives explained that other prisoners, for political reasons, had transmitted this information to them. Several NGOs, including AI and Prisoners Defenders, validated the story, as well as different opposition groups. For its part, the United States Government was “outraged” by the complaint.
According to the sources that informed the family, Ferrer was assaulted and couldn’t be properly treated in the infirmary of the Mar Verde penitentiary center (Santiago de Cuba), where he is serving his sentence. He was then transferred to the Boniato prison, which supposedly has a better medical center.
They added that he had been admitted to Room A of the prison infirmary for three days. No details are known about his state of health, which according to relatives had deteriorated significantly in the last months, with different health issues now added to previous ones related to his stays in prison.
A minor government media reported that the information about the beating “lacks foundation” and that Ferrer was in a “favorable” condition
The Cuban government has not reported on the matter, nor has the official press. A minor government media said that the information about the beating “lacks foundation” and that Ferrer was in a “favorable” condition.
Ferrer has been in prison since 11 July 2021, when he was arrested for joining the anti-government demonstrations that were taking place that day in different parts of the country in the largest protest in Cuba in decades.
The leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba had already been in prison previously for political reasons. He was one of the 75 intellectuals, journalists and opponents imprisoned in the 2003 repressive wave known as the Black Spring. In 2011 he was released but was subsequently arrested on several occasions.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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“Despite an investment of more than 24 billion dollars, the results show an alarming decline,” says Cuba Siglo 21
The report says that several tour operators and airlines have left Cuba, as is the case of the German giant TUI / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Madrid, November 25, 2024 — The most recent report on tourism in Cuba signed by the consultant Emilio Morales, published by the organization Cuba Siglo 21 this Monday and based on the information published in the independent press, especially 14ymedio, fully summarizes the catastrophic situation of the sector that the regime’s propaganda sells as the main engine of the economy. “Despite an investment of more than 24 billion dollars in the last 15 years,” says the text, without explaining where the Government obtained those funds, “the current results show an alarming decline in key indicators such as the arrival of tourists, hotel occupancy and the sector’s income.”
On this last point, the report says that income has decreased by 61.82% in the last five years, from 3,185 million dollars in 2019 to just 1,216 million in 2023. From January to October of this year, there were 1,718,636 foreign visitors in total, although the official figure, as collected by this newspaper a few days ago, is actually 1,844,917 tourists (128,256 fewer than in the same period of 2023).
The number provided by Cuba Siglo 21 – slightly lower than that offered by the National Office of Statistics and Information until September – 1,719,145 travelers – supposes, in any case, “a drop of 48.23% compared to the same period in 2019 (before the pandemic), when 3,563,494 tourists arrived.”
Another of the sector’s “setbacks” listed in the report is the “infrastructure crisis”
As for the hotel occupancy rate, the report states that it is 25%, “leaving a significant number of underutilized facilities.” The name of Gaesa also turns off the tourism industry. Morales points to the conglomerate of the Armed Forces as the main culprit of the situation. “The Business continue reading
Administration Group S.A. (Gaesa), with decisive control over finances and economic decisions, has prioritized excessive investments in tourism to the detriment of strategic sectors such as energy, transport and agriculture,” he says.
Another of the sector’s “setbacks” is the “infrastructure crisis,” which, with “constant blackouts, shortages of drinking water and urban deterioration, decreases the attractiveness of the country as a tourist destination.” In addition there are the epidemics such as dengue fever, the accumulation of garbage and the precariousness of the healthcare system.
“Everything indicates that Cuba as a tourist destination is beginning to disappear from the offerings of international tour operators”
Also discouraging travel to Cuba, the list continues, are the “increase in crime,” the “decrease of staff” – more than 10,000 “qualified” workers in the sector have emigrated in the last three years, says Morales – and the “failed foreign policies.” The consultant refers to the “support for Russia in its invasion of Ukraine,” which “has alienated key European markets” – an unconvincing argument in this case – and to the regime’s “alliance with international terrorist actors,” which “keeps it on that short list of countries associated with that scourge.”
In the midst of this dark panorama, tour operators and airlines have left Cuba, as is the case of the German giant TUI, which, as this newspaper published, suspended its flights from Amsterdam to Varadero last May due to lack of passengers. Also – this time without quoting 14ymedio, which first published the report – Canada issued a third travel alert warning tourists about the dengue epidemic, which joined two previous alerts about the increase in violence and the shortage of basic necessities.
“Everything indicates that Cuba as a tourist destination begins to disappear from the offerings of international tour operators,” says Morales, in contrast to other Caribbean destinations – such as the Dominican Republic – “which are registering sustained growth, expanding their infrastructures and improving their services.”
The recovery of the sector, in short, requires “profound structural changes,” which include solving the energy and health crises, improving transport and security, and “offering economic and political freedoms that attract foreign investment and the trust of the Cuban exile.” Without these reforms, the report concludes, “the tourism industry will continue to decline, leaving Cuba lagging behind its regional competitors.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Raymond Figueredo and Frank Luis Medina will play in Venezuela, while Pavel Hernández will play in Nicaragua
The Island team got a total of $180,000 for participating in the event and another $10,000 for their victory against the Australian team / Jit
14ymedio, Havana, November 25, 2024 — The compensation of $190,000 for participation in the Premier 12 tournament barely alleviates the failure of the Cuban team in the competition. That amount is trivial compared to what was received by the first three: $1,610,000 to Japan, $750,000 to Korea and $500,000 to Mexico.
Three other players, on the other hand, will play from now on outside the Island: Raymond Figueredo and Frank Luis Medina in Venezuela and Pavel Hernández in Nicaragua. Journalist Yussef Díaz confirmed on his social networks the arrival of the first two players to the Tigres de Aragua, a team that is in the penultimate place of the Venezuelan championship.
The managers gave a vote of confidence to Figueredo, despite the fact that in the Premier 12 he only pitched in the game against Japan. The athlete had a depressing performance against the Japanese. In two innings he allowed two runs and had to carry the weight of defeat.
The record of the Habanero refers to his championship title with Parma Clima of Italy, in 2024, where he achieved seven victories and two defeats. In 17 games he allowed 19 runs and struck out 45 rivals. On the Island he continue reading
won a runner-up with Artemisa and a third place in his time with Industriales in the II Elite League.
The managers gave a vote of confidence to Figueredo, despite the fact that in the Premier 12 he only pitched in the game against Japan
Meanwhile, Frank Luis Medina, who was injured in the last preparation match, was included in the negotiation. His departure from the Island represents a balm for this pinareño. Despite the fact that both players are capable of throwing pitches of 90 miles per hour, “control is the main enemy of their performances,” warned the specialized magazine Swing Completo.
However, Figueredo and Medina were included in the Venezuelan team because the first option to strengthen the team of openers, the American Alex Sanabia, “had visa problems,” revealed the newspaper El Emergente.
The Cuban Baseball Federation also managed to place Pavel Hernández. According to journalist Francys Romero, the player will join the Nicaraguan champion team, Gigantes de Rivas.
Hernández, who played with the Mexican team Rieleros de Aguascalientes and before in the Venezuelan club Samanes de Aragua, did not have a prominent place in the Premier 12. His best performance was in the 63rd National Baseball Series, when on May 7 at the Latin American stadium he had zero hits and zero runs against the Holguín team.
In addition to this, Cuba received 190,000 dollars from the Premier 12. This makes a total of 180,000 dollars for participating in the event and another 10,000 for Cuba’s victory against the Australian team.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Sartre wanted to read the palm of a country he didn’t understand at all. And as a palmist, he was disastrous.
Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre and Ernesto Guevara in Havana, 1960. / CC
14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 20 November 2024– In these days shaken by earthquakes and cyclones, I have revisited Jean-Paul Sartre’s book Hurricane over Sugar. After finishing it, I could not help but feel a little sorry for the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Sartre wanted to read the palm of a country he did not understand at all. And as a palm reader, he turned out to be disastrous. Often, the greatest stupidity is that which accompanies intellectuals, like a blazer over the shoulders.
In his collection of reports on the nascent Castroite Cuba, Sartre was a victim of the “retinitis pigmentosa” that he himself criticized at the beginning of his articles. He fell into the same trap as those Parisians he describes in his essay Paris Under Occupation, enchanted by their own German executioners, accepting as natural what was not and being complicit in their infamy.
It is not surprising, however. Every dictatorship, however despicable its record, has always found a poet willing to sing its praises. In his book From Benito Mussolini to Hugo Chávez: Intellectuals and a Century of Political Hero Worship, sociologist Paul Hollander offered an interesting study of those romances that have brought the worst autocrats and supposedly lucid thinkers together under the same covers.
Every dictatorship, no matter how despicable its record, always found some poet willing to compose its praises.
Nicolás Guillén, considered Cuba’s National Poet, was once seduced by Machado. And I am not referring to Antonio, the Sevillian poet, but to Gerardo, the dictator born in Las Villas. It is said that Guillén belonged to his censorship corps and that he had to hide from the crowd after the fall of the Machado regime. Later he would be bewitched by another, even worse continue reading
dictator, on the other side of the planet. He himself composed the song to Joseph Vissarionovich “Stalin, captain / whom Shangó protects and whom Ochún protects / at your side, singing.”
Nicolás was named not only Guillén, but also Batista. Perhaps that is why he never became Castro’s favorite. And he worked hard to write the most childish poems anyone could imagine, like the one that said: “Oh, how beautiful my flag is, my little Cuban flag, without being sent from outside.” But the bearded man considered Guillén a drone incapable of producing poems to the rhythm of the harvest, as did, for example, the selfless Indio Naborí.
Cabrera Infante recounted that the poet confessed his panic to him under a mango tree. Fidel had criticized him at one of his university meetings, and the kids improvised a quasi-act of repudiation in front of his house, chanting the conguita: “Nicolá, you don’t work anymore / Nicolá, you are not a poet at all.” One day I asked Antón Arrufat about this anecdote and he told me that the writer could not be given much credit, but he did not doubt that the story was true.
Let us return to Sartre and his trip to Havana in 1960. He and Simone de Beauvoir had already been in an open relationship for just over 30 years. Sartre was her necessary love, although she would maintain countless contingent loves, devouring students, both male and female, without any discrimination. Beauvoir would confess in one of her letters to other lovers that Sartre never satisfied her sexually, but the ugly man was a genius with whom it was worth debating existentialism in and out of bed.
Havana at that time turned them on. She, perhaps, had an orgasm when Fidel Castro first shouted “Patria o Muerte” in front of 500,000 fans. Both of them got hot when Che, a cigar in his mouth, described their relationship as a “revolutionary love.” He, surely, suffered the biggest erection when he got Fidel Castro to sit his buttocks, for the first time, on a theater seat. Especially because it was one of his plays, La puta respeto (The Respectful Whore). The bearded man didn’t understand much about art, but he did about rifles, so his praise was less theatrical and more military: “I just discovered a tremendous weapon,” he told him backstage. And a blushing Sartre answered: “Well, use it.” From then on, perhaps, Fidel would assume his definitive role in the Cuban tragedy.
It is probable that neither Sartre nor his sweet Castor understood that testosterone-saturated island. But the people on the street sensed them immediately, improvising a conga that was much more suspicious and synthetic than the French intellectual’s reports: “Saltre, Simona, un dos, tres / Saltre, Simona, echen un pie.”
Hurricane over Sugar aged quickly and badly. Sartre would break with the Revolution a decade later, after the Padilla case. The employees of official thought try to justify their decision by blaming the bad influence of Carlos Franqui. What we could say is that, if Sartre and Simone were to come back to life and visit Cuba today, neither of them would find any reason to get excited. And the book would be called, without a doubt, Hurricane over Marabou.
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The regime reactivates its Film Commission to “attend” to the island’s filmmakers
The film has been described by European critics as “a Kafkaesque masterpiece.” / Miguel Coyula
14ymedio, Havana, 23 November 2024 — With almost all of its creators in exile or sidelined by the government, Cuban cinema continues to add triumphs abroad. Director Miguel Coyula, whose name is synonymous with independent and unreserved creation, won the Best Film award at the Envisión competition, awarded during the International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam (IDFA), for his film Crónicas del absurdo [Chronicles of the Absurd].
Coyula, whose production is unclassifiable within Cuban cinema, defined Cuba as a “dysfunctional country” during the award ceremony, which he attended with his wife, actress Lynn Cruz. In keeping with his film – he ironically said – his arrival in Amsterdam occurred after “a blackout day and night” in Havana. He also denounced the situation of political prisoners in Cuban jails.
“But we live in Cuba,” he added, “we want to continue making films in Cuba, we want to make them outside the system as the only way to truly have complete independence. Not in the sense that we pay for the films out of our own pockets, but independence in form and content.”
“We want to continue making films in Cuba, we want to make them outside the system as the only way to truly have complete independence”
The jury praised Crónicas del absurdo for being “formally complex and with a cinematic language that emerges organically and directly from its limitations.” The film, they added, is a testimony of “radical” creation similar to that of other artists who “refuse to be silenced.” The film has been described by European critics as “a Kafkaesque masterpiece.” Along with the trophy, Coyula won 15,000 euros. continue reading
For her part, Cruz revealed that IDFA’s artistic director, Syrian documentary filmmaker Orwa Nyrabia, had sent them a letter two months ago congratulating the couple on the film. “The work you have done is outstanding. It is obvious that the personal/political experience that the film shares with us is outstanding. Our solidarity must also be clear,” he said. “The process, the brave artistic choices, the way this enormous pain was shared with us is masterful and organic, deeply honest and loving. All this love and all this anger… is ours now.”
Coyula will be at the Casa de Velázquez in Madrid on Monday 25th and at the Casa de América on Tuesday 26th, also in the Spanish capital, to talk about his latest films. In addition, he will be presenting Nadie, a documentary about the Cuban poet Rafael Alcides, at this venue.
The profile of Coyula collected by IDFA explains that, on the Island, the government controls and censors national film production, a rule against which Coyula and Cruz – along with a new generation of filmmakers – have rebelled with their films. Coinciding with the director’s success, the Council of Ministers published an agreement on Friday to ratify the Cuban Film Commission as the “governmental body” responsible for controlling and financing the Island’s cinema.
The profile of Coyula collected by IDFA explains that, on the Island, the government controls and censors national film production, a rule against which Coyula and Cruz –along with a new generation of filmmakers– have rebelled with their films. Coinciding with the director’s success, the Council of Ministers published an agreement on Friday to ratify the Cuban Film Commission as the “governmental body” responsible for controlling and financing the Island’s cinema.
Alexis Triana, president of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC), said that the Commission already existed but had never had any work objective. Now, he added, there is a “policy aimed at Cuban cinema” supervised by the Council of Ministers, to “attend” to directors and producers with more attention.
The Commission will be composed of several ministerial representatives, including one from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, one from the Ministry of the Armed Forces and one from the Ministry of the Interior.
In addition to the Minister of Culture and Triana himself, the Commission will be composed of several ministerial representatives, including one from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, one from the Ministry of the Armed Forces and one from the Ministry of the Interior. The Minister of Culture, as president of the Commission, may invite any other state official to the sessions.
Among the measures – described in an Official Gazette published this Friday – is to offer “the possibility for independent audiovisual production companies, which currently number 65, to become small or medium-sized film companies if they so wish.”
The Commission also aims to “promote Cuba as a destination for national and foreign audiovisual and cinematographic productions,” help with the paperwork for filmmakers authorized to travel to present their work abroad, and draw up a schedule of permits for producing works and financing them through a Development Fund.
Although neither Triana nor the document mention it, the publication of the agreement comes months after numerous conflicts between the government and the Assembly of Cuban Filmmakers, an initiative to maintain the independence of film creation. Less controversial than at its origins, the Assembly has lowered its tone and quite a few of its founders have left the country.
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A Cuban relates his experience of the orderly admission of migrants on the border between Mexico and Texas
A group of migrants on U.S. soil being processed by the authorities after illegally entering the country / EFE
14ymedio, Lorey Saman, Eagle Pass (Texas), November 24, 2024 — “What is your date of birth?” the American officer with Latin features and in Spanish mixed with English, a legacy of her Hispanic family, asked firmly. “I don’t know,” the Guatemalan whispered, barely understanding what she was asking. “You don’t know the date you were born?” the woman asked. “No. It’s what my document says there.” The man tried to save himself but could not dodge the successive questions of the agent, who arranged her glasses to take a good look at him.
That was the first scare I experienced when, after five in the morning on November 5, I crossed the bridge that divides Mexico and the United States between Piedras Negras and Eagle Pass (Texas) to enter the U.S. with an appointment from CBP One (Customs and Border Protection Office). Below, the Rio Bravo [‘Rio Grande’ in the US] roars between the whirlpools, illuminated from shore to shore. In one part, you can cross freely; in the other, a fence with barbed wire forms other whirlpools and prevents passage. It’s needless to say which side is in the south and which is in the north.
I arrived in Piedras Negras two days before my appointment. I was worried about the rumors of drug trafficking around the border. Luckily, I got one of the quietest points, according to what I read and heard on networks and from acquaintances. However, some migrants did not have the same good luck.
A Venezuelan was robbed in the middle of the street, before arriving at the hotel where most of the applicants were staying, and a Honduran was assaulted and lost all the documents that would prove to the Mexican authorities that he had an appointment for that day in Eagle Pass. It was striking that they let him through, but not without first warning him that if he did not appear on the CBP list, he would be returned and prosecuted for fraud. It was not necessary: he was one of the first to be called by the U.S. authorities. continue reading
We formed a line after 3:00 am in front of the Mexico Customs parking lot in Piedras Negras
We formed a line after 3:00 am in front of the Mexico Customs parking lot in Piedras Negras. There were supposed to be 30 migrants, and only 26 arrived, including seven children. In Eagle Pass they do not process more than 60 appointments per day. Half enter at 5:00 am and the rest at 1:00 pm.
We had to bring five pesos to go through the turnstile on the Mexican side. We began to walk on the right side of the avenue that connects the two countries; that stretch of sidewalk was fenced. From there I could see the Rio Bravo. A very long, slow freight train passed on the railway bridge that was seen in many videos during the exodus of 2021 and 2022. The migrants crossed there, they said, because the water wasn’t as deep. In the middle of the Rio Bravo you could see a small islet, a piece of land where migrants stopped to pluck up their courage to continue their fearful steps toward the American dream.
The CBP agents arrived punctually at the dividing line. We were lined up in the order in which we were called, and, without delaying the process, they took us to their facilities 600 meters away. At that moment we already had our cell phones inside our luggage and couldn’t use them. In the building they took a photo, DNA samples and examined us in an infirmary. We went to another room for another photo and fingerprints. Those who were being processed had to state their date of birth in “the chronological order that is used in the United States,” clarified the CBP agent, which made the Guatemalan nervous: “Here in the United States we say month, day and year,” explained the woman, about 28 years old and who, apparently, was in a bad mood.
Finally, the Guatemalan’s fingerprints were taken, and he was sent to the next room, as happened with everyone. We sat in groups at three tables. At mine there were three Cubans (along with me, a couple from Holguín), the Venezuelan who was robbed as soon as he arrived in Piedras Negras, a Honduran who helped the Venezuelan after being assaulted, a Salvadoran and two Guatemalans. We filled out a form to confirm our data and put down the reason for entering the United States. Many wrote a paragraph; I put only two words: “political asylum.”
The man from El Salvador was my age, 40 years old. Since we were face to face, he was the one I talked to the most. He told me about Nayib Bukele, whom he supported at first but now hates, because, he says, he is a dictator and a white-collar thief. All of the Salvadorian’s brothers are in the U.S., and two of them have gone to the border to receive him. Of all of present, he showed the least concern. He dressed very differently from the rest of the migrants; he had a place to go; he felt confident; and he spoke very good English, he told me.
A 32-year-old Guatemalan mother, exhausted, sat on my left; everything she had experienced in her life made her appear 45. She spent the whole year working outside her home in Guatemala City. Her daughter, just six years old, is being raised by her parents, and she sacrificed herself for the little one. Every time she mentioned her girl, whom she wants to bring to the U.S. when she can, her eyes lit up. I know that look well: it’s one of emigration and pain for departure, for being away from loved ones.
Latin American migrants on Mexican soil ready to cross the Rio Grande to the U.S. / EFE
To the right of the Salvadoran, in front of me, was the other Guatemalan, who intended to work cleaning houses or at whatever job he could do to get ahead. He is 28 years old. He left his parents, his brothers and an adored cat that is now in the care of his a niece. He did not miss a chance to mention God, pray and tell me that in the migrant camp in Guadalajara, where he arrived after a long trek from the south, he spent 36 days with a group that had CBP appointments. This was the same number of days it took for my appointment to arrive. The young woman confided that they all fasted and asked a lot from God; then she began to pray and we all shut up.
I could not talk to the Cuban couple, the Venezuelan and the Honduran. They called them apart and processed them in the first room; they were the last to be called. The CBP agents who processed us next were nicer. There were seven, and each one attended from three to seven migrants; families were processed by a single officer.
After three hours they offered us a small breakfast: a burrito, candy and water. By then four of the seven children who accompanied the group were sleeping on mats in the living room. Tired, many put their heads on the tables and even snored. They again called the Guatemalan who couldn’t read. They asked him several questions. We all got nervous; nobody could understand what he was saying. More agents surrounded him, saying it was to help. The man had misplaced the address at which he was supposed to arrive in the United States, and due to his illiterate condition, he was actually being aided by the staff. Finally they called him for some signatures and in 15 minutes gave him his file. He was the first to leave those desperate walls. He said goodbye to everyone shortly after 10 in the morning
They didn’t ask anyone present about “credible fear” during the interviews. The agent who attended me, along with the Salvadoran and another Honduran, asked me only what I did for work in Mexico and how long I had been there. We were all called little by little, and before 12 pm we were out with our respective paroles. From the Cuban couple, the first to come out was the girl, who was given an entry permit for one year and a month; the husband received a permit for two years and two months. I got a one-year parole. The three of us were relieved: it’s enough time to invoke the Cuban Adjustment Law.
Some of us, without planning it, got together outside the CBP property to blow off some steam]]
Some of us, without planning it, got together outside the CBP building to blow off some steam, and then we began to walk towards a shelter that was a kilometer away to try to spend the night and see what they could offer us. We didn’t make it. On the way we were approached by a Mexican woman who was advising migrants. She took us to her office and charged 50 dollars each for an employee to transport the group to San Antonio. That city has the closest airport to Eagle Pass, and we had to get there to fly to our final destinations, except the Salvadoran who was picked up by his brothers and remained in Texas.
On the way to San Antonio I was able to talk to the Cuban couple. They spent six months in Mexico and were going to Florida just like me. She was 30 years old; he was 34, and they were now overtaken with fatigue. They left us at a shelter in San Antonio around five in the afternoon. My flight was at 10 am the next day, and theirs was at 2 pm. We met several times at that air terminal and also at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, where the three of us made a stopover for a few hours. We told each other our stories, laughed and were silent remembering what we had left behind. They called many relatives in Cuba and friends who stayed in Mexico in the hope of entering before Donald Trump assumes the Presidency next January. At 7 pm, I took a plane to my final destination. It was my first flight within this country, and, surely, it will not be my last.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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14ymedio, Havana, 16 November 2024 — Daynilis Lobaina Torrell, 30, was the victim of a femicide murder on November 10 in her home in the municipality of Maisí, in Guantánamo. According to what her family and other close sources have published on social networks, the woman was attacked by her partner, leaving two girls aged 9 and 14 orphaned
