Díaz-Canel assured that one day historians will have to write the history of López Obrador as a sincere friend of Cuba. Photo taken from Prensa Latina
Mexico City, October 1 (RHC)– The First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel, highlighted in Mexico City that his counterpart Andrés Manuel López Obrador has been one of the leaders who has most supported Cuba.
“Mexico is a strategic country for Cuba, with many milestones in shared history,” said the Cuban leader during a meeting with representatives of the Cuban state mission in Mexico City.
He said that López Obrador has always been looking for ways through which Cuba can get out of the intensified U.S. blockade of the island, and recalled his ethics and permanent solidarity with the Caribbean nation.
Díaz-Canel assured that “one day historians will have to write the history of López Obrador as a sincere friend of Cuba.”
One of the most outstanding examples of these close bilateral ties was the prompt help of Mexican firefighters and rescuers who arrived in the western province of Matanzas in 2022, to help extinguish the fire at the Supertanker Base.
In addition, Mexico provides constant support to Cuba in its fight against the economic, commercial and financial blockade of the United States, providing help with medical supplies and food to mitigate the combined effects of the coercive measures imposed on the island.
Some three thousand Cuban doctors have been deployed in 23 Mexican states and nearly 200 professors train future health specialists in the sister country.
President Díaz-Canel arrived in Mexico City on Sunday to participate in the inauguration of Claudia Sheinbaum, the first female president of Mexico, who will be sworn in on Tuesday morning. (Source: Prensa Latina)
New York, September 29 (RHC)– The Foreign Ministers of Cuba, Bruno Rodríguez, and of Venezuela, Yván Gil, led a massive solidarity event held at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York on Saturday.
During his speech at the combative event, which was attended by representatives of the solidarity movement and sympathizers with Cuba in the United States, the foreign minister praised the support of African-Americans for the cause of the Caribbean people, as well as the historical support received from Harlem.
In his speech, Rodríguez also called for an end to the war and the crimes of Israel in Gaza and advocated for a free Palestine. “We must mobilize again and again for the freedom of Palestine,” he stressed at the event called Latin America Speaks.
“What can we do?” Bruno Rodriguez asked at one point, to which he replied: “Of course, what we can do is to walk together.”
The Cuban foreign minister spoke about the impact of the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States Government on Cuba.
“Let Cuba live in peace,” was the repeated plea on a night by the rest of the speakers at a time when Rodríguez also urged U.S. authorities to remove Cuba from the list of alleged sponsors of terrorism. “Stop the aggression now and bring down the blockade,” the foreign minister emphasized.
“A better world is possible, but we need to fight,” concluded Cuba’s top diplomat.
At the event Saturday night, the initiative to collect funds for children in Gaza was also held.
The Cuban Foreign Minister brings Cuba’s voice to the UN General Assembly. Photo: UN.
Address by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez / United Nations General Assembly / Saturday, September 28, 2024
Ms. President:
Mr. Secretary General:
Let me first reaffirm Cuba’s solidarity and support for the brother and sister Palestinian people, victim of more than 75 years of colonial occupation, of flagrant violations of their legitimate rights as a nation, subjected to cruelty, aggression, collective punishment and apartheid.
In the last eleven months, the Israeli army has killed more than 40 thousand civilians. More children have died in this indiscriminate and disproportionate massacre than men and women. They die with the complicity and weapons provided by the United States government, with the complicit silence of others. We pay tribute to the more than 220 workers of this Organization, also murdered.
Cuba’s position is clear and unequivocal. President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez has said, and I quote: “History will not forgive the indifferent. And we will not be among them.”
It is a wound in the human conscience.
The genocide against the Palestinian people must cease, unconditionally and without delay!
Israel, with the complicity of the United States, has placed the world before the imminent danger of a large-scale conflagration. The irresponsible aggression against Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and the peoples of the Middle East will have consequences that are difficult to estimate.
Excellencies:
Seventy-nine years after the founding of this Organization, the continuous violations of the Charter of the United Nations and International Law, the aggressions, the interference in the internal affairs of States, and the imposition of unilateral coercive measures for political ends, occur as daily events.
Aggressive military doctrines of domination, expansionism and supremacy, alarmingly undermine international Peace and Security.
The danger of a nuclear holocaust is real and immediate. For the ninth consecutive year, global military spending is increasing, reaching a record $2.44 trillion in 2023, including the development of nuclear weapons.
It has been pushed back despite the enormous efforts of the States, Parties and Signatories of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and of clear-headed and broad sectors of international society.
There will be no “peace without development” either.
Developed countries, inhabitants of the same planet, blindly refuse to invest even minimally in their own prosperity and security, and fail to meet their ever-insufficient commitments to Official Development Assistance. This selfish figure, boastfully promised in 2023 and quickly forgotten, represents less than 0.37 percent of national income.
The illusion of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals has vanished.
According to Forbes, in the last four years alone, the combined wealth of the world’s five richest people has grown by $423 billion, while five billion people remain in poverty.
Oxfam estimates that the richest 1% have almost twice as much wealth as the rest of the world’s population. With a wealth tax on billionaires and multi-millionaires, two billion people could be lifted out of poverty.
The crises are structural, determined by the imperialist system and the international order imposed on us. No problem will be solved by undermining the intergovernmental nature of the United Nations, as some claim, or by weakening its essential role in promoting sustainable development for all.
Climate change is advancing inexorably. It is an irrefutable fact.
In July 2024, scientists announced that there had been 13 consecutive months of record-breaking temperature levels.
If the irrational and unsustainable patterns of production and consumption of capitalism are not changed urgently and significantly, the increase in global average temperature will not be able to be contained to below 1.5 ◦C, with respect to pre-industrial levels.
Responsibilities are shared, but differentiated; they are not the same for everyone, nor could they be fair.
However, a positive step could be taken at the COP 29 Conference of the Parties in Azerbaijan and the adoption of the New Collective Financing Target. The countries of the North would have another opportunity to begin to close the gap in climate financing. Those of us in the South would have to design a sufficient target that responds to the needs, with guarantees for development and social justice, in the face of the enormous obstacles and challenges we face. The solution will inevitably have to include the cancellation of the foreign debt, already paid several times over.
Excellencies and Delegates:
All this confirms the 1992 thesis of President Fidel Castro Ruz: “An important biological species is at risk of disappearing…: human beings.”
Only overcoming imperialism and capitalism can definitively save it, and in that process, the founding of a new international order.
A fair and democratic international order, which guarantees peace and “the balance of the world,” the exercise of the right to development by all States; on conditions of sovereign equality, which broadens and strengthens the participation and representation of developing countries in the processes of governance, decision-making and policy formulation at the global level; provides for the common good and prosperity of all peoples, in harmony with nature and the sustainable management of natural resources, and ensures the exercise of all human rights for all people.
A new civilized coexistence among nations where solidarity, international cooperation, integration and the peaceful settlement of disputes prevail, as alternatives to the “philosophy of plunder,” war, the use or threat of use of force, aggression, occupation; to cultural, political, financial, technological and military domination and hegemony or any other manifestation that threatens the peace, independence and sovereignty of States. An order without blockades or unilateral coercive measures, based on multilateralism and with full respect for the Charter of the United Nations and International Law.
Ms. President:
The United States government continues to clearly demonstrate its impossible but pernicious determination to determine and control the destiny of Cuba. It is an old ambition anchored in the Monroe Doctrine, which defines the imperialist, dominant and hegemonic nature of U.S. policy towards Cuba and towards the region of Our America.
The economic, commercial and financial blockade is also political, technological and communicational.
It has been conceived as one of its main weapons of aggression to destroy the Cuban economy. It seeks to prevent the country’s financial income, cause the collapse of the economy and generate a situation of political and social instability. The damage is visible and indisputable. It has repercussions on the lives of all Cubans.
It is accompanied by the most ferocious campaign of disinformation and slander, by perennial attempts to interfere in our internal affairs and by the complicit tolerance of groups that organize violent and terrorist acts against Cuba from the territory of the United States.
These actions violate International Law. They contravene the purposes and principles of this Organization and numerous resolutions adopted by the General Assembly.
The siege thus conceived has been reinforced by the inclusion of Cuba on the arbitrary list of countries that are supposedly sponsors of terrorism by the U.S. State Department.
This is a fraudulent designation, without moral authority or any international mandate. By virtue of it, retaliatory actions against Cuba are unleashed, which, in an extraterritorial manner, go beyond the framework of the sovereign jurisdiction of the United States and are manifested in and against any country.
Last May, the State Department itself recognized that Cuba fully cooperates in the fight against terrorism. This mere recognition of the truth, universally known, has not made the coercive measures of the blockade more flexible, but it does make Cuba’s presence on this illegitimate list even more incongruous, confusing and unjustifiable.
There will soon be new presidential elections in the United States, a matter that concerns only the Americans. Only them, despite the nefarious and historical habit of the government of that country of interfering in the elections and internal affairs of all the Member States of the United Nations, even its allies.
History has shown us that, regardless of the result of these elections, the anti-Cuban politicians and sectors that have made aggression against Cuba a lucrative business will continue to have a voice and influence. They are those who have learned to manipulate the American political system based on a narrow and hostile agenda, very particular, only of interest to a small elite segment.
They do not represent the will of the majority of the people of the United States, nor of the Cubans who live there.
Whatever the electoral result, Cuba will continue to defend its sovereign right to independence and to build socialism, as we Cubans have decided, without foreign interference. We will also continue to advocate for a respectful and constructive relationship with the United States.
Ms. President:
In 2014, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) decided in Havana to proclaim our region a Zone of Peace. That historic commitment gains greater validity every day.
We defend peace and multilateralism against unilateral coercive measures that seriously harm Syria, Belarus, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Iran, Russia, Cuba and other nations.
We strongly reject any attempt to undermine the legitimate constitutional order in our countries through coup methods. This already happened in Bolivia in 2019 and on June 26th, and it is intended to happen again in Honduras.
We denounce the attempts to generate violence and destabilization in Venezuela. We reiterate our firm support and solidarity with the Bolivarian, Chavista government and the civic-military union of the Venezuelan people, led by President Nicolás Maduro Moros. The calls to ignore the election results are irresponsible and disrespectful of the popular will and its legitimate institutions.
The destabilizing actions against the Government of Reconciliation and National Unity of Nicaragua must cease. The brotherly people of Sandino will continue to have our full support.
We reiterate our support for the legitimate right to self-determination and independence of Puerto Rico.
The Caribbean countries deserve fair, special and differentiated treatment to face their challenges. We support their fair claim for reparation for the damage caused by colonialism and slavery.
We welcome the efforts of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to find a sustainable solution to the dramatic situation in Haiti, which respects the independence and sovereignty of that sister nation.
The international community has a historical debt to Haiti, protagonist of the first independence and anti-slavery revolution on the continent.
We support the legitimate right of sovereignty of the Argentine people over the Malvinas, South Sandwich and South Georgia Islands and the surrounding maritime spaces.
We reaffirm our support and commitment to the peace efforts in Colombia, to which Cuba will continue to contribute in every way possible in its capacity as Guarantor.
Africa, the cradle of humanity, can always count on Cuba in its efforts to advance on its path to development.
We reaffirm our unwavering solidarity with the Sahrawi people and the exercise of their self-determination.
Cuba expresses its firm rejection of actions aimed at harming the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the People’s Republic of China, condemns interference in its internal affairs and reiterates its unwavering support for the principle of “One China” in accordance with the decision of this General Assembly in its historic resolution 2758, recognizing the People’s Republic as the sole and legitimate representative of the Chinese people.
We advocate a serious, constructive, realistic diplomatic solution through peaceful means to the current war in Ukraine in accordance with International Law that guarantees the security and sovereignty of all. In this context, Cuba supports the joint proposal presented by China and Brazil for the political solution to this crisis.
Ms. President:
Let us join forces to achieve the effectiveness of multilateral institutions and ensure that they respond to the interests of the humble, the poor, the needy and the exploited, who are the vast majority, on the basis of fair equality, the exercise of human rights by all human beings and respect for the sovereign rights of each nation.
Mexico City, September 30 (RHC)– Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez arrived in Mexico City on Sunday morning, to participate in the inauguration of Claudia Sheinbaum, the first woman to occupy the head of state in the Latin American country. The inauguration ceremony will take place on Tuesday, October 1st.
Upon arriving on Mexican soil, at the Felipe Ángeles international airport, the Cuban president was received by Dr. David Kershenobich, who will assume the Ministry of Health in the incoming government.
The Cuban delegation to Claudia Sheinbaum’s inauguration includes Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Emilio Lozada García; Head of International Relations of the Central Committee of the Party, Eugenio Martínez Enríquez; Director General of Latin America and the Caribbean of MINREX and Marcos Rodríguez Costa; Cuban ambassador to the United Mexican States.
The Cuban president, in addition to participating in protocol activities, will hold a number of meetings while in Mexico.
Mexico City, September 30 (RHC)– The Cuban Embassy in Mexico hosted a meeting on Sunday between President Miguel Díaz-Canel and representatives of the state collaboration of our country, businesspeople and doctors and medical specialists who provide services to the population in more than twenty states.
The meeting took place a few hours after the arrival of the Head of State to the Mexican capital to participate this Tuesday, October 1st, in the inauguration ceremony of the new president-elect, Claudia Shienbaum Pardo.
On a cool Sunday night in Mexico City, the president began his speech by acknowledging the attitude maintained by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador towards our country during his six-year term in office, whom he once again described as a brother and a sincere friend of Cuba.
“It was a necessity for us to go to Mexico now (he said in reference to the inauguration ceremony of the newly elected President). Andrés Manuel López Obrador asked us to be at a meeting before handing over the Presidency,” he said.
He added that AMLO, as he is known in the sister Aztec nation, “is one of the presidents who has done the most for Cuba, and has behaved as a true brother and friend of Cuba in the midst of the most difficult conditions.”
As usual when he makes a visit abroad, Díaz-Canel updated our compatriots on the complex situation that the country is experiencing, and the strategies that the Party and the Government are implementing to reverse the situation, despite the intensified blockade of the US administration that impacts areas such as food production, infrastructure, national electro-energy system and macroeconomic balances.
He considered that Mexico is a strategic nation for Cuba, with deep roots that mark the link between the two countries, milestones that unite us from history and culture.
He especially spoke of our doctors, who are distinguished by the passion with which they work “our doctors have given a lesson in altruism and professionalism, we know that many are in difficult conditions. There is a population that had never received medical services like you have done, that loves and recognizes you,” he commented.
Far from the Homeland, Cuban doctors today form part of a contingent that integrates some 35 specialties. That is why they speak with pride of the work they do, as expressed by Alfredo González Lorenzo, the Head and national coordinator of the medical Brigade that works in the Mexican country.
After two years and two months of the arrival of the first group of specialists to Mexican soil, today there has been an important growth in the presence of doctors in this nation, by decision of the government of the sister country to complete 3,482 specialists who are present in basic community hospitals and also in health centers of 562 municipalities.
Compatriots who work in different missions in the sister Mexican nation, ties that consolidate the friendship and brotherhood between two peoples, to make Martí’s thought that Homeland is Humanity a reality.
At the meeting of the Cuban President with a representation of our compatriots in Mexico, his first activity since his arrival this Sunday, several members of the Cuban delegation to the inauguration of the new president-elect of Mexico, Lis Cuesta, were present; the Head of the Department of International Relations of the Central Committee of the Party, Emilio Losada; Eugenio Martínez, Director for Latin America and the Caribbean of the Foreign Ministry and the ambassador of our country in the Aztec country, Marcos Rodríguez.
Brazilian doctors who studied in Cuba launch solidarity campaign against blockade
Gabriel Vera Lopes
Brasil de Fato | Havana (Cuba) |
27 de setembro de 2024
Brazilian doctors who graduated from the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) in Havana have launched a solidarity campaign to collect medicine donations for Cuba.
This initiative comes in the context of the 25th anniversary of ELAM, a medical school based in Havana that has helped thousands of people from different regions of the world, especially from the most disadvantaged places, study medicine to help their communities.
In an interview with Brasil de Fato, Carmen Diniz, a jurist and coordinator of the Comitê Carioca de Solidariedade a Cuba e às Causas Justas (Carioca Committee for Solidarity with Cuba and Just Causes in a rough translation) says that the campaign is motivated by a “feeling of gratitude to Cuba” because the vast majority of young Brazilians who went to study medicine at ELAM “could not have studied medicine here in Brazil, because it is an elitist and expensive career.”
“ELAM is very important, especially in poor places with no access to health care. The medical course in Cuba teaches, above all, humanism. It’s different from other courses in capitalist countries. Fidel Castro used to say: ‘Let’s train men of science with a conscience.’ I think that defines ELAM well,” she adds.
The school opened its doors for the first time in 1999 after hurricanes George and Mitch caused a catastrophe in the Caribbean region that resulted in the loss of more than 10,000 lives. Cuba’s initial aim with the creation of ELAM was to help train doctors in the countries hit by hurricanes. Over time, the project spread to different regions of the world, and students came from other parts of Latin America, expanding to Africa—an area in which Cuba has historically forged ties—and even from the United States.
ELAM has trained around 31,000 doctors from almost 120 countries, including more than a thousand Brazilians.
“Righteous action supporting the country that has always supported everyone”
From 2007 to 2013, Leandro Nascimento studied medicine at ELAM. Prior to this, he had never left Brazil. Just as he was about to finish high school, he received a scholarship to study in Cuba. Thanks to a grassroots movement that recommended him, Leandro was given the opportunity, and currently, he is one of the doctors coordinating the solidarity initiative for ELAM’s 25th anniversary.
In an interview with Brasil de Fato, Nascimento recalls the period in Cuba as “very enriching years” during which he had the opportunity to “experience the Cuban revolution with all its social proposals that we don’t see in our capitalist countries.”
“Cuba has always had a proposal of collaboration and solidarity for the world, which has always made it a reference point. So, living this experience of solidarity, communion, and collaboration from the inside was very enriching. I think it was an experience that filled our dreams that a better world is possible.”
“Cuba needs support” Leandro Nascimento affirms due to the island’s current economic crisis.
“After the Covid-19 pandemic took away the country’s main economic income, which is tourism, and in a context where the blockade continues to suffocate the island, with the measures that Trump has implemented, there is a scenario of scarcity. I believe that after everything Cuba has done for so many people worldwide, today, it’s our turn to take righteous action, supporting the country that has always supported everyone,” he adds.
The Cuba solidarity campaign collects donations to send medicines and medical supplies to the country. The donations will be delivered during Havana’s 1st International Congress of Graduates of the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM), held between November 11 and 15, 2024.
Guyana and Dominica reaffirm support for Cuba at the UN
Havana, September 26 (RHC) Guyana and Dominica renewed before the UN their condemnation and the demand that the US economic, financial and commercial blockade against Cuba be immediately ended.
In his speech at the 79th General Assembly of the United Nations, the Guyanese president, Irfaan Ali, denounced that the island sees the right to development diminished by the coercive measure, after reaffirming the call for the lifting of the system of sanctions and also for remove Cuba from the list of states that allegedly sponsor terrorism.
Meanwhile, the president of Dominica, Sylvanie Burton, advocated continuing the fight to end the long-standing siege because “it harms the people of Cuba and also damages the image of its sponsors.”
“The trade embargo (…) continues to be a cause of great concern for us in the Caribbean. Its uprising is increasingly urgent. Therefore, the Commonwealth of Dominica once again adds its voice to the overwhelming majority of members of this global organization to call for the immediate withdrawal of trade restrictions and export bans,” she stated, and added that these are unjustified and unjustifiable measures, outdated and belonging to a bygone era.
The representatives of Suriname, Dominica, Brazil, Namibia, Honduras, Angola, Guinea Bissau and Colombia also spoke against the North American blockade and the demand for the elimination of Cuba from the State Department’s list of countries who allegedly sponsor terrorism. (Source: Prensa Latina)
Havana, September 27 (RHC)– The leader of the Cuban Revolution, Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, held a meeting this Friday with the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (PCV) and president of that nation, To Lam, who is in Cuba on a state visit.
During the dialogue, Raúl — in visibly good health, despite reports from Miami that he passed away last week — highlighted the importance of Vietnam’s participation in the National Economic and Social Development Plan of the Caribbean nation until 2030.
One political observer jokingly quipped that Raul looked really good for someone who was reported to be dead just a few days ago.
Both Raul and To Lam referred to the historic ties of friendship and the excellent state of relations between their peoples, Parties and governments. In addition, they ratified the common will to strengthen them.
Lam was accompanied by Nguyen Hoa Binh, member of the Political Bureau and first vice prime minister; Le Hoai Trung, member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPV and head of the Foreign Relations Commission, and Bui Thanh Son, member of the Central Committee of the CPV and vice prime minister and minister of foreign affairs.
Present on the Cuban side were members of the Political Bureau, Army Corps General Álvaro López Miera, Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, and Division General Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas, Minister of the Interior, as well as Gerardo Peñalver Portal, Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Cuban officials and intellectuals will hold meetings with Colombian university students starting today in Bogotá, with the purpose of strengthening the historical and academic ties between both nations.
The meetings are part of the activities prior to the celebration of the 33rd National Meeting of the Colombian Solidarity Movement with Cuba to be held in the coming days, and will extend until September 30.
Today includes a discussion at the Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá, in which Elier Ramírez, deputy director of the Fidel Castro Center and deputy to the Assembly of People’s Power of Cuba and Yara Valero, official of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with Peoples (ICAP), will participate.
Meanwhile, the conversation Latin America and US imperialism, a historical perspective will take place tomorrow, in which Ramírez and the Colombian intellectual Renán Vega will participate, at the Francisco José de Caldas District University.
Next Monday, September 30, Fernando González, president of ICAP and Hero of the Republic of Cuba, will deliver the conference The economic blockade and its impact on Cuban education, at the La Macarena headquarters of the Francisco José de Caldas District University.
González, Ramírez and Valero will also participate in the sessions of the National Meeting of the Colombian Movement of Solidarity with Cuba, which will take place from the 27th to the 29th at the Gabriel García Márquez Cultural Center.
Havana, September 26 (RHC)– The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cuba, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, ratified today at the United Nations the rejection of tax measures and interventionist campaigns against Venezuela and Nicaragua.
Speaking at the XXIV Political Council of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-People’s Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP), the Cuban Foreign Minister reiterated the firmest support for the Government of President Nicolás Maduro, of Venezuela, and for the civil-military union of his people.
As reported in X ALBA-TCP, Rodríguez Parrilla stated that it is only up to Venezuelans to settle their own affairs, free from external interference.
At the meeting taking place today in New York, within the framework of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly, the Foreign Minister stressed that, like the aforementioned South American nation, Nicaragua is the target of unjust, unilateral tax measures and fierce interventionist campaigns by the Washington government.
He also assured that the Caribbean community has and will always have a sister in Cuba who accompanies them in their right to receive fair and special treatment. (Source: ACN)
