Havana, January 31 (Radio Habana Cuba) — The new international system, gender challenges, peace and democracy will be the focus of today’s analysis of the last day of the VI International Conference for the Balance of the World, which is being held in Cuba.
Other topics included in the program are human beings and their relationship with nature, culture for the good of humanity, health strategies and prevention, and there will also be a time dedicated to supporting the anti-colonial struggle of the people of Puerto Rico.
This Friday, the sessions of the International Meeting of Martian Chairs, the World Congress of Poets for Peace in Defense of Life and the Parliamentary Forum for Peace and Democracy will also continue at the Havana Convention Center.
The Argentine researcher Atilio Borón will give the keynote lecture “The transition has concluded. Notes on the distinctive features of the new international system.”
Meanwhile, the Secretary General of the Belgian Workers’ Party, Peter Mertens, will speak on “The rebellion, the working class and the perspective of socialism. How to fight imperialism in 2025?”
Likewise, the president of the Communist Party of Spain, José Luis Centella, will delve into how to “Strengthen multilateralism in times of Trump as president of the USA.”
The day before, in the framework of the international meeting, young people from various latitudes called for the ceasefire in Palestine to be firmly respected and definitive, and to achieve lasting peace.
As part of the Youth Forum, “With All and for the Good of All,” the delegates committed to continue promoting massive solidarity with the Palestinian people on social networks and in public spaces, to demand the end of genocide and to defend the legitimate right to have an independent and sovereign State.
The VI Conference, dedicated to dialogue among civilizations and the culture of peace, was attended by more than a thousand delegates from almost a hundred countries.
Ulan Bator, Jan 29 (Prensa Latina) The Cuban ambassador to Mongolia, Jorge Ferrer, and Altai Khangai, Secretary of Foreign Relations of the ruling Mongolian People’s Party (MPP), discussed today on the interests between both nations.
The two parties discussed the historical and friendly ties between their governments and peoples, as well as the possibilities of continuing to develop them, diplomatic sources reported.
Ferrer conveyed the greetings of the Cuban leaders and congratulated the party and the Mongolian government for the successful economic results of 2024 and their positive effects on the government’s social policies, according to the Cuban embassy.
They also discussed current international affairs and those in their countries.
The MPP secretary was interested in the history and current situation of Cuba and referred to Mongolia’s current challenges such as the need to increase the capacity to generate electricity and the railway transport networks.
Meanwhile, the Cuban ambassador explained the economic difficulties of the Caribbean island, particularly the national electrical system, mainly due to the economic blockade of the United States.
He also addressed the arbitrary inclusion of Cuba in the unilateral list of States that supposedly sponsor terrorism by the United States.
The Cuban diplomat explained that these coercive measures also affect the relations of Mongolian companies and citizens with Cuba, due to their extraterritorial effects, in violation of the sovereignty of third States.
Both parties agreed on the usefulness of dialogue to face current national and international challenges.
Havana, January 30 (Radio Habana Cuba) — Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has condemned Washington’s announcement of imprisoning thousands of migrants at U.S. naval base at Guantanamo.
On the social network X, Diaz-Canel wrote:
“In an act of brutality, the new U.S. government announces that it will imprison thousands of migrants at the Guantanamo Naval Base, located in illegally occupied #Cuba territory, and forcibly expel them, placing them next to the well-known prisons of torture and illegal detention.”
Havana, Jan 30 (Prensa Latina) Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez conveyed condolences from Cuba to the people of the United States, as well as to the families of those who died in the plane crash that occurred over the Potomac River.
Efforts to recover bodies continue in the Potomac River in the northern country after the collision between an American Airlines plane and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter near Ronald Reagan National Airport yesterday.
At least 28 bodies were recovered after the collision, which, according to Washington D.C. fire and emergency medical services authorities, there were no survivors.
Flight 5342 had taken off from Wichita, Kansas, with 60 passengers and four crew members on board and was approaching for landing when the impact with the Black Hawk took place on a training mission with three military personnel, based at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
Rome, Jan 29 (Prensa Latina) With an event in front of the monument to José Martí in Rome, the 17th Meeting of Cuban Residents in Europe (ECRE) was convened in Italy on Tuesday, to be held from October 24 to 26, 2025, in this capital.
The event, which was attended by Cuban Ambassador Mirta Granda and the first secretary in charge of Consular Affairs, Arasay D’Angelo, began with a relay race of Cuban residents here.
The competitors, including the legendary athlete Ana Fidelia Quirót, ran along several of the city’s main avenues carrying the Cuban flag, and arrived at midday at the site in the Lago dell’Eur Park, where the beautiful Martí corner is located, and where they were welcomed by dozens of compatriots, members of the various groups from all over Italy.
Olga Lídia Priel, deputy coordinator of the associations of Cuban Residents in Central and Southern Italy, said, when launching the call, that those who come to this event from all over Europe will do so “united by love for the land where we were born.”
The event will be held within the framework of the 130th anniversary Cuban National Hero José Martí’s death in combat, and participants will be inspired by Martí’s statement that “Homeland is a community of interests, unity of traditions, unity of ends, a sweet and comforting fusion of loves and hopes,” she said.
Havana, Jan 29 (Radio Habana Cuba) Cuba and Angola will mark the 50th anniversary of their diplomatic ties in 2025, which are already being celebrated.
The Cuban ambassador to Angola, Oscar León, emphasized the long-standing relationship between the two countries. These relations were strengthened by Cuba’s involvement in the defense of Angola’s independence and territorial integrity, beginning in 1975, at the request of the nation’s first leader, António Agostinho Neto.
He reflected on milestones such as the military assistance provided for 15 years, with the involvement of Cuban internationalist fighters and collaborators.
He also mentioned collaboration programs in several fields, particularly in healthcare and education, and the training of thousands of Angolan youth in the Caribbean nation.
Likewise, the diplomat referred to the visits by Cuban delegations to Angola in the past two years, including those led by president Miguel Díaz-Canel, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero, and the head of Cuban Parliament, Esteban Lazo.
According to León, this evidences the potential for enhanced collaboration and the commitment of both parties to materialize them.
He expressed his hope for the Sixteenth Meeting of the Intergovernmental Commission on Economic and Scientific Cooperation between Cuba and Angola, which will be held this year, to bring new achievements for the benefit of both peoples. (Source: Prensa Latina)
Havana, January 28 (Radio Habana Cuba) — Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel led the inauguration of the VI International Conference for World Balance on Tuesday, dedicated to the National Hero José Martí.
More than one thousand delegates from 93 countries are participating in the event, held at the Havana Convention Center. As part of the event’s program, this Monday the Brazilian theologian and intellectual, Frei Betto, gave the keynote lecture on “Justice as a path to Peace and World Balance.”
The conference, organized by the José Martí Project of International Solidarity, will take place until Friday, January 31st, and aims to be a meeting for dialogue between civilizations and the culture of peace.
Within the framework of the forum, a meeting of the International Network of Martian Chairs will take place, an initiative of the project since 2003 that already has more than 40 locations in foreign territories.
Also attending the inauguration of the forum were the president of the National Assembly of People’s Power, Esteban Lazo, the Secretary of Organization of the Communist Party of Cuba, Roberto Morales, the Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero, and representatives of organizations in solidarity with the island.
International conference in Cuba dedicated to José Martí
Havana, Jan 28 (Radio Habana Cuba) The 6th International Conference on the Balance of the World, which begins today in Havana, will be focused on the life and legacy of Cuba’s national hero, José Martí.
The program includes a youth forum, several workshops, and a panel discussion on the life and legacy of José Martí, marking the 172nd anniversary of his birth and the 130th anniversary of his death in combat.
It also includes the International Network of Martian Chairs, an initiative of the José Martí International Solidarity Project since 2003, which has already established over 40 locations abroad.
The conference will be a platform for a dialogue between civilizations, where over a thousand delegates from 93 countries will participate, in the pursuit of the advancement of a culture of peace. (Source: Prensa Latina)
Donald Trump threatened Colombia with sanctions and tariffs after it rejected his abuse of immigrants. Colombian President Gustavo Petro hit back, denouncing US “fascism” and declaring, “We are not a colony!”
By Ben Norton – Geopolitical Economy Report January 27, 2025
Donald Trump has kicked off his second administration with a very aggressive foreign policy.
Invoking “Manifest Destiny”, Trump is even attacking Canada and Mexico, the two largest trading partners of the United States.
When Trump selected neoconservative hawk Marco Rubio as his secretary of state, it was a sign that he would be focusing his attention on Latin America, seeking to impose US hegemony in the region — and in particular to prevent China from having close relations with Latin America.
Trump and Marco Rubio revive the colonialist Monroe Doctrine
During Trump’s first administration, Rubio called for the US military to invade Venezuela, to overthrow the government of President Nicolás Maduro.
Rubio likewise wants to impose even heavier sanctions on Cuba, Nicaragua, and other independent leftist governments in Latin America.
In the first week that Trump returned to the White House, one of the nations that he targeted was Colombia.
Historically, Colombia had been one of the closest US allies in the region. Venezuela’s revolutionary President Hugo Chávez famously dubbed Colombia “the Israel of Latin America”. He argued that, just as Israel serves as an extension of US hegemony in West Asia, acting as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” for the US empire, Colombia plays the same role in Latin America, as a base of operations that Washington has used to try to destabilize other countries in the region.
However, the geopolitical situation changed quite dramatically in 2022, when the people of Colombia elected their first ever left-wing president, Gustavo Petro.
Ever since he came to office, the US government has meddled in Colombia’s internal affairs and sought to destabilize him.
Marco Rubio has waged a kind of political war against Petro, fixating on his past as a guerrilla in a revolutionary leftist organization, claiming that he “has put Colombia’s security and stability at risk”.
Rubio has aggressively aimed to cut off Latin America’s relations with China, which has become the largest trading partner of South America, and the number one trading partner of Latin America as a whole, excluding Mexico.
In 2023, Petro visited Beijing, where Colombia and China elevated their relations to the level of a “strategic partnership”. Rubio wrote in outrage on Twitter that “Petro’s new ‘Strategic Partnership’ with the Chinese Communist Party will leave Colombia hostage to their authoritarian grip”.
Rubio was especially furious when Colombia cut off its diplomatic relations with Israel, with Petro comparing Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler and accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.
Trump threatens Colombia with sanctions and tariffs
On 26 January, Trump announced that he would impose sanctions on Colombia, along with initial tariffs of 25%, which would increase to 50% in the following week.
Trump wrote that he would levy “Visa Sanctions on all Party Members, Family Members, and Supporters of the Colombian Government”.
“We have never refused to accept migrants and we have tried to stop migration”, Petro explained. “The stupid [US] blockade of Venezuela was what unleashed millions of migrants into the US”.
“But do not demand that I accept deportees from the US, handcuffed and on military aircraft”, the Colombian president added. “We are not a colony of anyone”.
“US products whose price will rise in the national economy should be replaced by national production”, he said, adding that “the government will help in this goal”.
Right-wing politicians in Colombia, like former presidential candidate Fico Gutiérrez, denounced Petro and obsequiously expressed support for Trump and the United States.
“It doesn’t surprise me that they kneel [before the US]”, Petro shot back at Gutiérrez.
Meanwhile, as the US government was attacking Colombia, China’s ambassador to the South American nation, Zhu Jingyang, emphasized that Beijing supported it and defended its sovereignty.
Trump, I don’t really like traveling to the US, it’s a bit boring, but I confess that there are some things that are worth it. I like going to the Black neighborhoods of Washington. There I saw an entire fight in the US capital between Blacks and Latinos with barricades, which seemed like nonsense to me, because they should unite.
I confess that I like Walt Whitman, and Paul Simon, and Noam Chomsky, and Miller.
I confess that Sacco and Vanzetti, who have my blood, in the history of the US, they are memorable and I follow them. They were murdered, for being labor leaders, with the electric chair, by the fascists who are in the US, as well as in my country.
I don’t like Trump’s oil; he is going to end the human species because of greed. Maybe one day, over a drink of whiskey that I accept, despite my gastritis, we can talk frankly about this, but it’s difficult because you consider me an inferior race, and I am not, nor is any Colombian.
So if you know someone who is stubborn, that’s me, period. You can use your economic strength and your arrogance to try to carry out a coup d’etat, like they did with [Salvador] Allende. But I die on my own terms; I resisted torture and I resist you.
I don’t want slave-owners on the side of Colombia; we already had many and we freed ourselves. What I want on the side of Colombia are lovers of freedom. If you can’t accompany me, I’ll go elsewhere.
Colombia is the heart of the world, and you have not understood it. This is the land of the yellow butterflies, of the beauty of Remedios, but also of the Colonels Aureliano Buendía [a revolutionary leader in the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude], of whom I am one, perhaps the last.
You will kill me, but I will survive in my people, which came before yours, in the Americas. We are peoples of the winds, of the mountains, of the Caribbean Sea, and of freedom.
You don’t like our freedom, fine. I don’t shake hands with white slave-owners. I shake the hands of the white freedom-loving heirs of [Abraham] Lincoln, and of the black and white peasants of the USA, before whose graves I cried and prayed on a battlefield, which I reached, after walking the mountains of Italian Tuscany and after being saved from Covid. They are the United States, and before them I kneel, before no one else.
Overthrow me, President [Trump], and the Americas and humanity will respond.
Colombia now stops looking to the north; it looks to the world. Our blood comes from the blood of the Caliphate of Córdoba, the civilization at that time; of the Roman Latins of the Mediterranean, the civilization of that time, who founded the republic; the democracy in Athens. Our blood has the Black rebels who were turned into slaves by you.
Colombia is the first free territory of America, before Washington, of all America. There I take shelter in its African songs. My land is made of goldsmiths from the time of the Egyptian pharaohs, and of some of the earliest artists in the world, in Chiribiquete.
You will never dominate us. You are opposed by the warrior who rode our lands, shouting freedom, who is named [Simón] Bolívar.
Our people are a bit fearful, a bit timid, they are naive and kind, loving; but they will know how to keep the Panama Canal, which you took from us with violence. Two hundred heroes from all across Latin America lie in Bocas del Toro, now Panama, formerly Colombia, whom you murdered.
I raise a flag and as [Jorge Eliécer] Gaitán said, even if I am alone, it will remain hoisted with the Latin American dignity that is the dignity of America, which your great-grandfather did not know, and mine did; you, Mr. President, who is an immigrant in the United States.
Your blockade does not scare me; because Colombia, in addition to being the country of beauty, is the heart of the world. I know that you love beauty as I do; do not disrespect it and it will give you some of its sweetness.
COLOMBIA FROM TODAY ON OPENS ITSELF TO THE WHOLE WORLD, WITH OPEN ARMS; WE ARE THE BUILDERS OF FREEDOM, LIFE, AND HUMANITY.
I am informed that you are putting a 50% tariff on the fruits of our human labor that enter the US. I am doing the same.
Let our people plant corn that was discovered in Colombia and feed the world.
Havana, January 27 (Radio Habana Cuba) — The President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel, expressed our country’s support for Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in the face of a new manifestation of arbitrariness and blackmail by the Donald Trump administration.
“Our support for President Gustavo Petro in his dignified defense of the rights of Colombians and his response to the discriminatory treatment and blackmail with which they intend to pressure his people and Our America,” Díaz-Canel wrote on the social network X.
During the day, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla also spoke out, who described the deportation in the conditions in which it is being carried out by the Trump administration as unacceptable and assured that Cuba will support the initiatives of CELAC to confront a new abuse against the region.
“The violent, indiscriminate deportation of illegal immigrants in the United States, violating the most basic human rights, is unacceptable,” the Cuban foreign minister wrote on the social network X.
