Buenos Aires, Jun 28 (Prensa Latina) The Union of Cuban Residents in Argentina (URCA) joined the voices that condemn the arbitrary inclusion of Cuba in a report on human trafficking published by the US State Department.

The organization said in a statement that the decision to keep Cuba in the report “is one more way to punish the Cuban people and government for not bowing to imperial designs.” “They use contradictory and not credible arguments to distort and defame the work of Cuban medical collaboration for decades, in more than a hundred countries,” the URCA dispatch says.

“The United States government knows very well that Cuba restored health, saved lives, and restored vision to millions of people around the world. The truth that Washington hides is that this list, like all the others, has a marked political objective,” the organization adds.

The URCA also considers that these reports “only demonstrate the frustrations of the empire in not being able to surrender the Cuban people, even with the most genocidal, anti-human, and cruel policies used to date.”

The URCA went on to speak out against the economic, commercial, and financial war that the United States government is waging against Cuba. “Since January 1st, 1959, Cuba freed itself from the chains that tied it to imperial power and, as a free and sovereign country, it has the right to choose its own destiny,” the statement indicates.

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Havana, Jun 25 (Prensa Latina) Cuban agricultural products can contribute to the sustainability of tourism, an economic segment in recovery, official sources noted.

An article in Granma newspaper pointed out on Tuesday that national productive forms are a viable alternative to guarantee the supplies of fresh and processed agricultural products required by tourism.

The article insists that Cuba’s productive forms might guarantee the supplies of fresh agricultural products that tourism requires, as 65.8 percent of the total purchases from the Cuban tourism system to ensure the sustainability of the sector come from the domestic industry.

The general director of Marketing at the Ministry of Tourism (MINTUR) of Cuba, Pilar Alvarez, assured that such elements demonstrate that the sector continues to be the main driving force of the country’s economy and an important driving force of productive chains.

However, she considered that not all the potential of each territory has yet been exploited to contribute to the country’s tourism development.

She told Granma that imports are reduced in technological system services, as well as in the production of inputs, food and beverages, only importing what is not produced in the country.

She added that the direct effects of the intensified blockade (economic and financial pressure from the United States on Cuba) and the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic affected both tourism and the national industry, due to a lack of financial resources at the right moment.

For this reason, the challenge that the sector faces is to provide a service of excellence and advance in the development of tourism, she stressed.

Alvarez noted that national productive forms are a viable alternative to guarantee the supplies of fresh and processed agricultural products that tourism operations require.

In general terms, she explained that contracts were signed with more than 1,200 of these forms (credit and service cooperatives, agricultural production, independent producers, basic cooperative production units and local development projects), with deliveries of more than 25 percent of what is required by the sector.

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Havana, Jun 25 (Prensa Latina) Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez thanked Trinidad and Tobago on Tuesday for recent statements by his counterpart, Amery Browne, against the United States’ hostile policy on his country.

At a meeting on June 17 with Cuban Ambassador in Port-of-Spain, Gustavo Véliz, Browne reaffirmed his country’s position against Cuba’s inclusion on Washington’s State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT) list and in favor of the definitive lifting of the US blockade against Havana.

The head of Trinidadian diplomacy recalled on the occasion that such a position is defended by Trinidad and Tobago at various international forums such as the United Nations, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).

During the meeting, the parties reviewed several issues on the bilateral agenda and ratified the ties of brotherhood that unite the two Caribbean nations.

According to a press release from the Cuban Embassy, Véliz expressed his country’s interest in further expanding the relations of friendship and solidarity between both countries, and thanked Trinidad and Tobago and the countries of the Caribbean Community for their support against the blockade imposed by Washington for more than six decades.

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