Cuba and the US dialogue on global health and biomedical research
Havana, Feb 23 (RHC) Scientists from Cuba and the United States exchanged in Havana about preparation for pandemic situations and advances in health and biomedical technologies.
At the Second Joint Scientific Meeting between both countries, national and foreign experts shared experiences also related to research on arbovirus diseases, cancer and neurological disorders, data science, chronic conditions, and risk factors throughout life.
According to a statement from the Cuban Ministry of Public Health, the meeting took place from February 14 to 16 and also served as a space to recognize the work and contribution to Science of doctors Christopher Manuel Gómez and Stephen Whitehead, prominent American scientists and researchers who were granted the category of Corresponding Academic of the Cuban Academy of Sciences.
The event was organized by the Pedro Kourí Institute of Tropical Medicine (IPK), in Havana, authorities of Cuba’s Ministry of Public Health and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the United States. (Source: PL)
Ted McKinney, CEO of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA), listens to a Cuban farmer during a visit by NASDA members to a farm cooperative on the outskirts of Havana, Cuba, on Feb. 21, 2024. (REUTERS/Norlys Perez)
Cuba has opened its agricultural sector to foreign investment
The leader of an association of top U.S. state agriculture officials on Wednesday said his country might want to take advantage of reforms underway in Cuba, possibly through investments.
“There seems to be a new Cuba that is emerging and it may represent a pathway toward greater collaboration,” Ted McKinney, chief executive of the Association of State Departments of Agriculture told Reuters at a farm cooperative on the outskirts of Havana.
Cuba is mired in its worst economic crisis in decades, resulting in shortages and soaring prices for food, medicine, fuel and other basics.
The Communist-run country is slowly implementing market reforms in response.
The cooperative was the last stop of a five-day visit by top farm officials from seven states, who met with President Miguel Diaz-Canel and others and visited various sites.
The United States has maintained comprehensive sanctions on Cuba since Fidel Castro’s 1959 Revolution.
However, Congress in 2000 authorized agricultural sales to Cuba for cash which to date have amounted to more than $7 billion.
Commissioners from Louisiana, Indiana, South Carolina, Michigan and Montana all told Reuters at the cooperative they sensed Cuba was changing. They cited the emergence of more than 10,000 non-farm small and medium-sized businesses over the last two years, some linked to farm supply and food processing.
“The trend is a positive one,” Hugh Weathers of South Carolina’s Department of Agriculture, said.
Indiana’s Don Lamb said he viewed Cuba’s emerging private sector as “interesting and exciting.”
Cuba has also opened its agricultural sector, which for decades has included some 200,000 private farms and thousands of cooperatives, to foreign investment.
McKinney said it was not the states’ role to pass bills but that the commissioners would report back to legislators and federal agencies about the market’s potential.
Paris, Feb 23 (Prensa Latina) Cuba’s ambassador to UNESCO, Yahima Esquivel, received today the Simon Bolivar medal, awarded by the Group of Latin American and Caribbean countries (Grulac) in the multilateral organization, in recognition of her work.
In the context of a Grulac-Unesco meeting at the organization’s headquarters in this capital, his colleagues highlighted the work carried out during the last four years at the head of the Permanent Mission of the island, a post from which she promoted regional unity and promoted education, science, culture and information as pillars of sustainable and inclusive development.
Venezuelan Ambassador Rodulfo Pérez presented Esquivel with the special distinction, named after the independence hero Bolívar (1783-1830), an emblematic figure of the struggles in South America for its emancipation from Spanish rule.
Cuban First Secretary Lluraldi Cabas, Esquivel’s husband, also received the Grulac Award for his work at UNESCO.
The ambassador of the Antillean nation thanked the Group for the tribute and the joint work in her period of management.
“Thank you for the cooperation and the opportunity to work together in building a common agenda in UNESCO favoring our peoples and governments. Long live the Latin American and Caribbean unity,” he stressed here.
Havana, Feb 23 (Prensa Latina) Scientists from Cuba and the United States met in this capital to debate on the preparation for pandemic situations and breakthroughs in health and biomedical technologies, the Cuban Ministry of Public Health reported on Friday.
At the 2nd Joint Scientific Meeting between the two countries to “Address Global Health Challenges, through Scientific Innovation and Biomedical Research,” Cuban and US experts shared experiences related to research on arbovirus diseases, cancer and neurological disorders, data science, and chronic conditions and risk factors throughout life.
According to a statement from the Cuban Ministry, the meeting took place from February 14 to 16 and served as a forum to acknowledge the work and contribution to Science by Doctors Christopher Manuel Gómez and Stephen Whitehead, prominent US scientists and researchers who were granted the category of Corresponding Academic of the Cuban Academy of Sciences.
The event was organized by the “Pedro Kourí” Institute of Tropical Medicine (IPK) in Havana, authorities from Cuba’s Ministry of Public Health and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the United States.
Cuba was represented by officials from the BioCubaFarma business group, the Academy of Sciences and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The US delegation was headed by NIAID Acting Director Hugh Auchincloss, and representatives from 23 health institutions in that country, including experts and officials from the National Institutes of Health.
Washington, Feb 23 (Prensa Latina) Three thousand pounds of powdered milk donated by emigrants and friends in the United States who oppose the blockade against Cuba arrived in central Camagüey and Ciego de Avila provinces on Friday.
At Miami International Airport, activist Carlos Lazo, coordinator of the Bridges of Love movement, told Prensa Latina that the shipment of vital food “will account for 50,000 glasses of milk for children in pediatric hospitals in both provinces.”
The group is made up, among others, of Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the pacifist organization CodePink, and Mayte Sosa, a member of Acere, a group that promotes a change in Washington’s policy on Cuba, the Cuban-American professor, who resides in Seattle, noted.
“We will visit medical centers, orphan children’s homes, and nursing homes. It is a modest contribution,” he noted.
On January 27, Bridges of Love, CodePink and Acere were in Havana, where they took 1,000 pounds of powdered milk for the William Soler pediatric hospital and delivered some 71,000 pancreatin tablets for patients suffering from cystic fibrosis.
“We will continue to support the family and the Cuban people. We will continue to open holes in the blockade,” Lazo said from the plane that took them to the Caribbean island at the time.
Bridges of Love, along with CodePink and other organizations, is one of the most active groups within the United States in the fight against the economic, commercial and financial blockade, which has survived 11 administrations, both Democratic and Republican.
Until the blockade falls, “let’s make a lot of holes in that wall,” Lazo stressed in another brief message to Prensa Latina when he arrived in Cuba in the morning of February 23.
“Authorities of the Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) in Camagüey have given us a nice welcome,” he said.
Havana, Feb 22 (Prensa Latina) Writers and intellectuals reaffirmed their solidarity with the people of Palestine at an event held on Thursday within the framework of the 32nd Havana International Book Fair.
The event took place at the Abelardo Estorino Theater, the headquarters of Cuba’s Ministry of Culture, where guests made their position against the genocide committed by the Israeli army in Gaza and the West Bank clear.
The event was chaired by Abdel Nasser, former Palestinian Ambassador to Ecuador and advisor to the Palestinian National Council; Murat Al-Sudanni, general secretary of the Palestinian Writers Union; and Akram Samhan, Palestinian ambassador to Cuba.
Also present were the ambassadors from Algeria, Egypt, Syria and Yemen to Cuba, who expressed their support for the cause of the attacked Gaza.
As part of the cultural event, actors Simon Carlos and Irasema Cruz recited the poems “El pasaporte” (The Passport), “Carnet de identidad” (ID) and “Nosotros amamos la vida” (We Love Life”) by Mahmud Darwish, who is considered the Palestinian national poet.
During the meeting, Nasser reflected on the 1948 incidents in Palestine that led to the creation of the State of Israel and the role played by the United Kingdom and the United States; the latter he described as “the world’s police.”
Why do the Israelis have the right to come to the West Bank and steal my land? Where is justice in this world? Palestinians love peace; they have been fighting for 77 years to live in peace in a free and independent State, he declared.
It is time for the bloodshed to stop; Palestine is the beacon of security in the world and Jerusalem is the gateway to peace; the war in Palestine dates back 70 years and not to October last year, Al-Sudanni noted.
He denounced how Israel’s army is holding even deaths and strongly reaffirmed that “despite this act of savagery, Palestine and its citizens will continue to resist until the establishment of an independent State and the return of the refugees to our beloved land.”
During the meeting, intellectuals Alex Pausides, Basilia Papastamatiu, Jorge Fuentes and Fidel Antonio Orta Perez recited their poems on the situation in Gaza, which they described as “appalling.”
“One cannot renounce to be heard, so that the whole world knows and is on the side of the good, which is the Palestinian side, highlighted Cuban editor and poet Alex Pausides, who presented his poem “Minute of Silence.”
Papastamatiu, in turn, recited “With their Souls Still Undiscovered,” and confessed that she cannot conceive how a people who lived through something as terrible as the Holocaust can repeat the same thing years later against another people.
I find this forgetfulness of history and the total lack of humanity terrible; we will also live with the guilt if we do not manage to unite, peoples and governments, to find a solution and stop this slaughter, the Argentine writer added.
Jorge Fuentes, author of “Gaza,” acknowledged that for Cuban writers and artists it is difficult not to be able to go and help in Palestine and only collaborate with a poem, an action that he described as “a very humble gesture compared to the great tragedy that people are currently living.”
The writers’ presentation ended up with the declamation of the poem “Arde la Franja de Gaza” (The Gaza Strip is Burning), by Fidel Antonio Orta, director of the Jesus Orta Ruiz Research Center.
The event concluded with the interpretation of the song “Palestine” by singer songwriter Ariel Diaz, who noted that one cannot stop singing when there is injustice, and even after the victory one must sing more.
UM-Flint faculty members Stephanie Vidaillet Gelderloos (front) and Thomas Henthorn (rear) will be leading students on a funded trip to Cuba in 2025. They are pictured here near a mural in Viñales, Cuba, approximately 114 miles southwest of Havana.
Despite being just 100 miles off of Key West, Florida, it can seem that Cuba is a world away. Since the U.S. embargo against the island country first began in 1960, the Caribbean nation has been largely isolated – politically and economically – from its neighbor to the north. But despite the embargo and restricted travel opportunities, the Cuban diaspora has made significant contributions to the culture of the U.S. and the world.
Students at the University of Michigan-Flint will have the opportunity to travel to Cuba during spring break 2025 as part of the Wyatt Exploration Program, a unique offering focused on global engagement and learning through faculty-led travel experiences. The program is named in honor of Dorothea Wyatt, who was one of UM-Flint’s original 16 faculty members when the university was founded in 1956. Wyatt served as the first chair of the institution’s history program and after her death in 2007, her estate established an endowment in her name, which funds the program trips.
The 2025 trip will be co-led by Thomas Henthorn, Dorothea E Wyatt Professor of United States History, and Stephanie Vidaillet Gelderloos, lecturer IV in English.
Due to the trade embargo, American cars from the 1950s are a common sight in Cuba.
“This type of experience can really broaden our students’ perspectives in a way that no lesson in class, no book could ever do,” said Gelderloos, who is Cuban-American and has family in the country. “And while I think there’s value in any kind of international travel, Cuba is unique in being so close yet so far away. It’s an experience that most people will never have because of the restrictions. You can only go for certain reasons. Most people, even though it’s so close to us, will never get this opportunity.” Gelderloos and Henthorn traveled to Cuba in February to begin preparing for the trip, some of which can be seen on Gelderloos’ YouTube channel Motor City Migrant.
While in past years eligibility for Wyatt trips has been limited to history majors and minors, a much broader population of students could have the opportunity to join as this excursion is open to any UM-Flint undergraduate student who meets the following criteria:
Enrolled in a history course during the 2024-25 academic year.
Attend at least one Wyatt Exploration event.
Possess a U.S. passport by Dec. 1, 2024.
History majors, history minors, and historic preservation minors are automatically eligible.
A series of on-campus events – open to both students and community members – will help orient potential student travelers to the trip and share important historical context to aid in their experiential learning. The 2024-25 kickoff will be staged during the Latinos United for Advancement Carnaval Ball, which will take place 5:30-9:30 p.m., March 7, in the Northbank Center. Other events will include a film screening and discussion with Cray Novick, director of the documentary series “Re-Evolution, the Cuban Dream”; a salsa dancing social; and a talk from Arlene Díaz, associate professor at Indiana University, who will share details from her latest book project “Espionage, Media Manipulation, and the Forging of the US Empire: A Backstage History of the Spanish-Cuban-American War.”
Henthorn noted that, in addition to the widened eligibility requirements, this trip is notable because of the economic realities present in Cuba.
“The Wyatt Program has hosted trips to Europe and Asia, but all of these have been in highly developed, highly industrialized areas,” he said. “While these trips absolutely introduced students to different cultures and different parts of the world, this Cuba program is going to do so in a different way than in past trips.
“We’re going to spend most of our time in Havana, but we will be getting out of the city to a town called Viñales. Havana is the largest city in the Caribbean, and some of the infrastructure is lagging behind other cities of similar size. But at the same time, it has a rich history that has many facets, from the colonial era to pre- and post-revolution.”
Students who are interested in taking part in this year’s program are encouraged to register for the kickoff event and attend in person. For more information about the Wyatt Program, visit its webpage.
Trade delegation visits could be frequent between Cuba and the United States given their geographic proximity, although the blockade prevents this.
Nevertheless, the persistence of the important agricultural sector in that country to explore possible trade links stands out.
It does so in the midst of the thick legal net inherent to the siege and the harassment of any vestige of negotiation by legislators of alleged Cuban origin.
It is in this context that the visit to Havana of such an important group from the US agricultural sector, organised by NASDA, the National Association of US Departments of Agriculture, takes place.
While businessmen, farmers and other exponents of the North American agricultural industry have travelled to the Caribbean country on several occasions, this is the first time they have done so under the auspices of NASDA.
The Cubans highly value these efforts of northern growers to seek commercial bridges even with so many obstacles and knowing that, as they say, possible sales to the Caribbean archipelago would help business and create jobs there.
Cuba is a market of interest, but 80 percent of the agricultural area is managed by non-state actors, with around three thousand cooperatives.
Businessmen, farmers and officials who have visited Havana in the past, such as the participants in the fourth agricultural conference between the two countries in April 2023, have learned about this.It should be remembered that the activism of the farmers was decisive for the US Congress to pass a law allowing exports to Cuba in 2000.
However, the conditions under this instrument are detrimental, due to the manoeuvres of sectors opposed to bilateral cooperation.This peculiarity is well known to the Secretaries of Agriculture of several states visiting this capital, but they are also aware of the existence of a real potential for careful and mutually beneficial exchanges.
This has been noted by Paul Johnson, co-chair of the US Agriculture for Cuba coalition, now among the travelers. He acknowledges that agricultural relations between the two countries are insufficient and there is a willingness on both sides to do more. But, as Johnson said earlier in Havana, “we are missing opportunities and we are tired of missing them”.
Mexico, Feb 22 (Prensa Latina) Mexican President Manuel Lopez Obrador on Thursday described the United States blockade against Cuba as purely ideological and political charged, while recalling proposals on migration to US President Joe Biden.
“What will happen if the US removes the blockade against Cuba?” The head of State wondered at his morning press conference at the National Palace. “Well, nothing, they say terrorism, but there is nothing like that. It is pure ideology and politicking,” Lopez Obrador replied to the question himself.
The president added that what is happening is that there are Cuban politicians in the US who have taken advantage of that inhumane medieval policy.
“There are four or five million Cubans in the United States, but there are over 40 million Mexicans. However, Cubans have lawmakers, senators, people involved in all governments, they have big influence there,” the president argued.
Lopez Obrador stated, “Why? Well, because they profit from that confrontation, and they are not interested in the Cuban people doing badly as long as they are doing well.”
“But someone has to dare say that all that is going to change. President Barack Obama wanted to do so and even went to Havana, but then they reversed everything,” he recalled.
In that regard, head of State referred to item five and the programs for migrants to enter the United States through legal channels, and to eliminate uncontrolled migrations and described it as a good program that the State Department should generalize to all its embassies in Latin America and the Caribbean, including the one in Havana.
Lopez Obrador said that since it has been pursued, 400,000 Latin Americans and Caribbeans have already entered the US through legal channels without risk to their lives, thus satisfying a reality of the United States, which is its need for labor.
Havana, Feb 21 (Prensa Latina) Palestine’s Secretary General of the Writers Union Murad Sudani provided on Wednesday a lecture on the sisterhood between that nation and Cuba, in addition to explain the fair cause of Gazans.
The University of the Arts (ISA) hosted the dialogue, also chaired by the advisor to the president of the Palestinian National Council, Abdel Nasser H.A. Alaraj, and the Cuban poet Alex Pausides.
In the presence of the Palestinian Ambassador to Cuba Akram Samhan, and the directors and students of the educational institution, Sudani argued that what is happening today in Gaza is the continuation of a long history of assassinations, “it is an open war seen daily on the screens as never before, daily massacres in the face of an absent justice in the world.”
In his opinion, something more than a language is needed, a language to express what is going on in Gaza, “even the fantasy of Palestinian intellectuals will not be able to describe the true reality of what is happening there.”
According to the intellectual, there is a Palestinian resistance that clings to its land and homes. “As for Jerusalem, the closest point between heaven and earth, both churches and mosques are targets of the occupation, there is no distinction, if you are Palestinian, you are a target.”
The leader expressed with determination: it is a national principle that we cannot give up now or in the future, Jerusalem is and will be the capital of Palestine, not of Israel.
