Matanzas, Cuba, Feb 27 (Prensa Latina) More than 17,000 children will receive the oral anti-poliomyelitis vaccine in its first stage between today and next March 4 in the Cuban province of Matanzas as part of the 62nd National Campaign.
The person in charge of the immunization program in the province, Lissy Vega, said that in the first stage of the process the dose will be applied to children between one month of age and those who have not yet reached three years of age.
Throughout the province, the necessary conditions exist to carry out the 62nd National Oral Anti-Polio Campaign with the rigor and planning that this type of activity to fight against the poliomyelitis disease demands, she said.
Vega commented that those infants who are sick during the vaccination period and cannot be immunized at that time will acquire their dose from March 6 to 11 in the same places to which they correspond by health area.
According to the doctor, like all the country’s provinces, Matanzas will implement the second stage of inoculation between April 24 and 29 with recovery between May 2 and 6.
Polio, or commonly called polio, is a highly contagious disease caused by the poliomyelitis virus and although the vast majority of poliovirus infections cause no symptoms, according to the World Health Organization, five to 10 out of 100 people are infected. They may present some signs similar to those of the flu.
According to statistics published by the Pan American Health Organization, the last case of polio in Cuba was reported in 1962 as evidence of the effectiveness of national anti-polio campaigns.
Pretoria, Feb 27 (Prensa Latina) A delegation from the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (Icap) paid tribute today in this capital to the more than 2,200 Cuban internationalist fighters who have fallen for the freedom of South Africa.
Víctor Gaute, vice president of that organization, and Yahimi Rodríguez, director for Africa, laid a floral offering before the Wall of Memory, in Freedom Park, where the names of the Cubans who died in southern Africa are engraved, where it is also located, in his own right, that of the historic leader of the Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro.
Upon receiving the representation of Icap at the memorial, Jane Mufamadi, its director, explained how the names of Cubans make up the largest number (as a group) of those inscribed on those walls, which perpetuate the memory of the people who offered their lives for the freedom of South Africa from colonial times to the present day.
There is no other country like Cuba that has contributed more to the freedom of South Africa, without asking for anything in return, the official highlighted.
With their actions, the Cubans have shown us the highest form of internationalism and solidarity, she added, Mufamadi.
That is why you, she emphasized, are our brothers and remain in our hearts.
Beside her, Gaute remembered the Africans who in the past lost their lives in America fighting against slavery.
Africa, she maintained, is the region in the world that has the largest number of people who gave their lives for the liberation of Latin America, who gave their lives working, fighting and, above all, setting an example.
This is a place that honors us as Cubans, she highlighted, where the names of the best of our homeland are inscribed, who in an act of absolute altruism gave their lives for the freedom of the African continent.
On the occasion, the Icap leaders also held a meeting with representatives of the Youth League of the South African Communist Party (Yclsa) focused on issues of mutual solidarity.
In this regard, Tsietsi Letsebe, YCLSA’s first national deputy secretary, expressed his gratitude for Cuba’s participation in the struggles for the liberation of South Africa.
We will always be very grateful to the Cuban people, he said, for their sacrifice, not only in the past, but also for the help they give us in the present.
A similar message was also transmitted by Mzwandile Thakhudi, general secretary of that organization, when speaking at the meeting.
As the Youth League, he ratified, we are committed to denouncing the US blockade (economic, commercial and financial) against Cuba, as well as against Washington’s sanctions against Venezuela, while we work to strengthen bilateral relations with the island.
At that meeting, Gaute initially conveyed a greeting sent by the Union of Young Communists of Cuba (UJC), and agreed on the importance of strengthening the ties between both organizations, in whose future I trust, he said.
Likewise, he mentioned the possibility of resuming the South African solidarity brigades with Cuba that at the time made productive political visits to the island, where they were able to learn first-hand about the Cuban reality.
The greater the attacks by imperialism, he concluded, the stronger will be the response from youth groups such as the UJC and the Yclsa,
The organizer of the Puentes de Amor solidarity project, Carlos Lazo, denounced today the violence against activists who organized a peaceful caravan in the US city of Miami to ask Washington to cease coercive measures against Cuba.
According to what the Cuban professor living in Seattle disclosed on his official Facebook account, people threw themselves against the cars that were participating in the demonstration and ripped off the Cuban and American flags they were carrying.
Lazo mentioned that at that time no police officer was around to guarantee the protection of the group, although the members of Puentes de Amor constantly receive threats for their solidarity with the largest of the Antilles.
He added that in the middle of the incident there was even someone who pushed an old man who joined the peaceful protest.
Despite this, the coordinator stressed that this type of posture is not going to stop the actions or intimidate them.
“They will not intimidate us! The family is sacred! Long live Cuba! ”, he emphasized.
On this day, emigrants from the island and people of good will attended a demonstration to demand the removal of the Caribbean nation from the list of alleged sponsors of terrorism arbitrarily prepared by the White House.
From Miami, Seattle, New York, Minneapolis, in this North American nation, and other cities around the world, there were messages in favor of rapprochement between the two peoples.
The activists sang the Cuban national anthem and insisted on the need to put an end to the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by Washington on the island more than six decades ago.
While defending the love between the people of the two countries and asking the US government to let Cubans live in peace, the activists were targeted with obscene gestures and shouted “terrorists.”
Lazo described these attackers as “haters” and said that many people are confused by irrationality.
He also declared that the people who reject this type of initiative want to prevent ships with fuel, medicine and food from reaching the island, and “bring the Cuban people to their knees.”
The solidarity caravans take place on the last weekend of each month and, among other demands, they defend the family reunification program, the sending of remittances and trips to Cuba, affected by the more than 240 measures imposed by former US President Donald Trump (2017 -2021).
According to the Cuban Foreign Ministry, the inclusion of the island territory in the United States list of supposed sponsors of terrorism reinforces the dissuasive and intimidating impact of the blockade, as well as the difficulties of the Caribbean nation to enter international trade and carry out financial operations. .
Several sectors of North American society, international organizations and countries demanded that the White House remove Cuba from that list, without the Joe Biden administration announcing steps in this regard until today.
Washington, Feb 27 (Prensa Latina) After another global caravan for the end of the blockade against Cuba and its removal from the list of alleged sponsors of terrorism, US President Joe Biden continues today without announcing any steps in this regard.
In several cities, some of this North American nation, they expressed their rejection of the coercive measures imposed by Washington on Havana and the construction of “Bridges of Love.”
In Miami, for example, emigrants and friends from the island toured the streets in cars that waved the Cuban and American flags.
Shouts of “Cuba yes, blockade no” broke the routine of that city, as well as the claims for the family reunification program, the sending of remittances and trips to the Caribbean territory.
The organizer of the Puentes de Amor solidarity project, Carlos Lazo, denounced the violence against participants in the peaceful protest, who were the object of offenses and criticism from people he described as haters because they want to maintain the blockade and “bring the Cuban people to their knees.” .
Despite the threats to the safety of the activists, the coordinator of the initiative stressed that these positions are not going to stop the actions.
“They will not intimidate us! The family is sacred! Long live Cuba! ”, Lazo emphasized in a live broadcast from his official Facebook account.
The caravans take place on the last weekend of each month and their requests reinforce the demands of international organizations, personalities and countries, which also insist on the need to annul the economic, commercial and financial siege imposed by Washington on Havana more than six decades.
Members of North American civil society, the city council of cities such as Minneapolis (in Minnesota), faith-based institutions and world leaders also urged Biden and Congress to remove Cuba from the arbitrary list of alleged sponsors of terrorism.
“Half his term has elapsed and there is no external gesture or recognition that the inclusion of Cuba in this designation was deserved,” said more than a hundred lawyers in a letter to the occupant of the Oval Office and called for a review of the issue. .
Meanwhile, former US analysts and officials who worked on Havana policy in Republican and Democratic administrations acknowledge that the Caribbean nation’s permanence on that list becomes a fiction created to reinforce the logic of the blockade.
Cuba appeared on this list for the first time in 1982, under the mandate of Ronald Reagan (1981-1989), until in 2015 the administration of Barack Obama (2009-2017) decided to remove it as part of the process of normalization of relations between the two countries. .
But on January 11, 2021, the Government of Donald Trump (2017-2021) announced the reincorporation of the island territory.
In the opinion of the American linguist Noam Chomsky and the Indian historian Vijay Prashad, Trump’s decision in the last days of his administration was an act of revenge, and Biden maintains that resentful policy that punishes Cuba, not for terrorism, but for promoting peace.
Havana, (Prensa Latina) The resumption of the war for the independence of Cuba from Spain, on February 24, 1895, materialized the efforts of José Martí on the path towards a free nation and “with all and for the good of all ”.
By Rafael Calcinés
Journalist for the National Newsroom of Prensa Latina
The disunity was one of the essential factors in the failure of emancipatory attempts, such as the 1868 war, which ended 10 years later with the surrender of the Zanjón Pact, which was unable to ward off the historic Baragua protest, led by General Antonio Maceo.
The so-called Little War and other episodes had an unfavorable outcome, also marked in some way by the disunity of the groups in favor of Cuba’s freedom, a ballast that Martí noticed and endeavored to transform into unity through a titanic proselytizing work abroad and abroad. The inside of the country.
A decisive moment was the founding of the Cuban Revolutionary Party (PRC) on April 10, 1892, whose bases from the first article made it clear that “it is constituted to achieve with the united efforts of all men of good will, the absolute independence of the Island of Cuba and promote and assist that of Puerto Rico”. Martí defined it on April 3, 1892 in the Patria newspaper, founded by him: «One was born, from all parties. And it would be wrong, from outside or inside, who believed it extinguishable or despicable. What a group covets, falls. Endures, what a people wants. The Cuban Revolutionary Party is the Cuban people”.
THE “SHOUT OF DANCE”
The uprising for the “necessary war” on February 24 was not without calamities, especially when on January 10 of that year the United States authorities seized three ships in the port of Fernandina with a large shipment of arms and necessary men. to start hostilities.
But that heavy blow did not postpone the decision made, and on January 29 Martí, in his capacity as Party Delegate, and General Mayía Rodríguez, in the name of Generalísimo Máximo Gómez, and Enrique Collazo, as representative of the Cuban Revolutionary Junta They signed the uprising order.
According to historiographic records, she arrived in Havana hidden inside a cigar and was received by Juan Gualberto Gómez, PRC representative in Cuba.
The message spread immediately, although for different reasons the simultaneous uprising planned for the entire nation did not take place, since only the eastern zone achieved the uprising on the scheduled date.
Although it remained for posterity as the Grito de Baire, the uprisings were recorded in some thirty towns in the territory that today includes the provinces of Granma, Santiago de Cuba and Guantanamo, and also in western Matanzas, although the latter was crushed by the Spanish forces.
The subsequent landing also in eastern territory of the great figures of the previous wars, Antonio Maceo, for Duaba, and Máximo Gómez and José Martí, for Playitas de Cajobabo, gave the definitive impetus to the emancipatory feat.
The outcome of the contest is known. With Spain exhausted and the insurgent troops on the verge of achieving victory, this was taken from them with the opportunistic intervention of the United States in what was called the Spanish-Cuban-American War, which led to the materialization of Washington’s historic plans of impose their domination.
The deaths in combat of José Martí, on May 19, 1895, and General Antonio Maceo, on December 7, 1896, also contributed to this outcome, whose absences left the field free for other manifestations of division and disunity among the independence forces .
128 YEARS LATER
Although the effort to achieve the definitive independence of Cuba was once again postponed, due to his teachings, February 24 remained as a key date in the history of Cuba.
It turns out -after 128 years- a reliable proof of the unwavering desire of the majority of Cubans to obtain total independence even at the price of enormous sacrifices, as was verified even when, faced with the expansion of the armed struggle, Spain decreed the forced reconcentration of the population peasants in towns and cities, resulting in the death of thousands of people and enormous hardship.
On February 24, he demonstrated that the achievement and preservation of unity is an essential condition for maintaining the integrity and independence of the nation, a teaching that was permanently preached by the historic leader of the Revolution, Fidel Castro, considered by many to be the most advanced disciple of Martian ideas.
In his advanced vision of contemporary reality, Martí tried with the necessary war to put an end to the tendencies that aspired to autonomy, or worse still, those who encouraged annexationism with the United States, and in his libertarian crusade he went beyond the independence of the colony to fight with the PRC for founding “a new people and sincere democracy.”
Furthermore, he saw in that fight the wall to “prevent in time with the independence of Cuba that the United States spread through the Antilles and fall, with that more force, on our lands in America. What I have done up to now, and what I will do, is for that ”, as he expressed to his Mexican friend Manuel Mercado in the unfinished letter that he began to write the day before he died in combat.
For all this, this day became a symbol. It was not by chance that he was chosen in 1976 to proclaim the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba, the first of a clearly socialist nature in the Western Hemisphere, and that likewise, in 2019, the majority of Cubans said yes to the current magna carta, which constitutes a step forward in the achievement of the republic that Martí dreamed of “with all and for the good of all”.
Havana, Feb 20 (Prensa Latina) The majority presence of women in the candidacies for the X Legislature of the National Assembly of People’s Power (ANPP, Parliament), expresses their performance today in all spheres of Cuban social and economic life.
If the proposed candidacy is approved in the elections on March 26, this nation will maintain a milestone reached in 2018, since it will again have the second Parliament with the most women in the world: 55.3 percent of deputies out of the total of 470 legislators. .
The leading role of women is also evident in the scientific and technological activities of the country, in which more than 50 percent of its members are of that sex, as well as in the labor force, hence their parliamentary candidacies include representatives from sectors various.
The participation of women due to their merits and capacities in the island’s Parliament has been increasing: in the VII Legislature, which was in session from 2008 to 2013, they constituted 43.32 percent of the total number of its members, while in the VIII Legislature (2013 to 2018), that figure reached 48.86 percent.
In the IX Legislature, which will cease its functions in 2023, a 53.4 percent female representation was reached.
These figures are results of the existing policies to guarantee the development of women, expressed in the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba, and the promotion of initiatives to eliminate gender gaps.
The advances experienced in this matter in the last decades are considered one of the most successful social phenomena that occurred in the Cuban Revolution.
The 44th conference of heads of government of the integrationist community, held in Nassau, Bahamas, from 15 to 17 last, had among its main topics the situation in Haiti.
The participants agreed to build international alliances in support of the efforts to restore peace and stability to that Caribbean country as essential mechanisms to achieve free, fair and credible elections.
They also analyzed aspects of food security, energy and financing for climate and health, among other issues.
Founded in 1973 in Trinidad and Tobago, and made up of 15 member states and five associates, CARICOM promotes economic and trade union, foreign policy coordination, and cooperation in various areas of common interest.
Bogotá, Feb 20 (Prensa Latina) The Minister of Foreign Trade of Cuba, Rodrigo Malmierca, will hold an official meeting today with the Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism of Colombia, Germán Umaña, to strengthen bilateral ties.
Other authorities from that portfolio and from the National Institute for Food and Drug Surveillance (Invima) will participate in the meeting.
The Cuban official, who arrived this Sunday in the South American country on an official visit to strengthen trade, cooperation and brotherhood ties between the two countries, will meet with Carmen Caballero, president of Procolombia, and will be accompanied by Umaña.
Procolombia is the government agency in charge of promoting Colombian exports, international tourism and foreign investment to this South American country.
According to the program of his visit, which will last until next Wednesday, the head of Foreign Trade of Cuba will also hold a meeting with the authorities of Bancóldex, the development bank for business growth in Colombia.
Later he will participate in a conversation with businessmen, Umaña and Caballero with the theme Prospects of commercial relations between Colombia and Cuba and a look from Colombia towards the Caribbean.
The two nations established diplomatic relations in 1902, after reaching their final independence and are based on mutual respect and observance of international law.
In commercial matters, they have an Economic Complementation Agreement, in force since July 2001, which covers some 1,500 products with tariff preferences in favor of Colombia and almost 1,000 in favor of Cuba.
Last November, the island and Colombia relaunched from Havana the XII Mixed Economic and Scientific-Technical Commission, which includes 20 initiatives on climate change, gender, inclusion, innovation and risk management. At the end of last year, as a result of an audit carried out by the National Animal Health Center of Cuba, Colombia obtained the authorization to export beef, pork, poultry, dairy products and meat derivatives, after the recognition of the Colombian official inspection system. as equivalent to Cuban.
For Minister Umaña, this authorization “will allow the promotion of economic and commercial relations based on the existing strengths and the opportunities identified between the two countries and, without a doubt, will benefit our peoples.”
The Cuban delegation that attends the World Government Summit in Dubai will present their experiences regarding the role of Higher Education in the generation of capacities for the strengthening of States.
The presentation will be in charge of the director of Training of Cadres and Management Studies of the Ministry of Higher Education (MES), Gerardo Montenegro, who is part of the representation of the island that attends this event inaugurated the day before at the Madinat Convention Center Jumeirah, in this city in the United Arab Emirates, which will end the day after tomorrow.
Cuba currently has 112 university degrees, of which 87 are studied in the centers belonging to the MES, in addition to 58 programs of higher level technicians, closely linked to the demands of the central administration of the State.
The current course that began on February 6, this ministry applied new modifications in search of flexibilities so that a greater number of young people access the university, remain in it and graduate as professionals, but also to guarantee a higher quality of graduates. , experiences that will be exposed here.
The tenth edition of that summit, sponsored by the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Governor of Dubai, Mohamed bin Rashed, opened its work sessions with a minute of silence for the victims of the earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria.
Topics such as technological development and artificial intelligence, climate change and sustainability, economic development or action regarding problems such as illegal immigration, violence or natural disasters, are among a long list of issues that will be addressed by dozens of panels and forums of the “World Summit of Governments”.
Entrepreneur Elon Musk will be among the global experts meeting at the World Government Summit (WGS) in Dubai.
In addition, the summit will present 20 presidents; 250 ministers; 10,000 government officials, opinion leaders, celebrities, 80 international, regional and government organizations; 220 sessions and 300 speakers.
The conclave is attended by 20 heads of state and government, more than 250 ministers and close to 10,000 government officials, opinion leaders and global experts from around the world, who debate issues of global attention such as the sustainable future, climate change, the incorporation from science to decision-making, transparency in government management, among other aspects that concern nations and their governments.
Havana, Feb 15 (Prensa Latina) President Miguel Díaz-Canel recalled today the explosion of the battleship Maine, an event that 125 years ago triggered the intervention of the United States in the war for Cuban independence.
On his Twitter account, the head of state noted that “125 (years) ago today since the explosion of the Maine in Havana Bay. It was the Yankee pretext to intervene in the war that Cuba was already winning against Spain”.
He then pointed out that “they took over the country until 1959. Today they do not forgive us for independence.”
Historians have verified that the United States Government used that event as a pretext to declare war on Spain and interfere in the war that Cuba was waging against the colonial regime.
A report by President William Mackinley requesting authorization to go to war with Spain was approved by Congress.
At the same time, a draft joint resolution was presented in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in which Spain’s resignation of its sovereignty over Cuba was demanded and McKinley was authorized to use force to achieve the stated objectives.
On April 25, 1898, war was officially declared, although a naval blockade was already established on the 22nd and on June 22 the first landing of American soldiers took place east of the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba.