Geography Archives: Cuba

  • The goal that cannot be renounced

    Around 35,000 Cuban health specialists are providing free or paid services in the world. Furthermore, some young doctors from countries such as Haiti and others among the poorest of the Third World are working in their homelands thanks to the assistance provided by Cuba. In Latin America, our main contribution has been the ophthalmologic surgeries that will help to preserve the eyesight of millions of people. In addition, we are assisting in the training of tens of thousands of young medical students from other nations, both in and outside Cuba.

  • What is true and what is false

    The news agencies are reporting that Chávez will visit Cuba tomorrow on his way to China, Russia, Belarus, France and Portugal.

    Watching Venezolana de Televisión I learned that he was signing energy investment agreements in Caracas with important businessmen from Japan, Russia, Malaysia, Italy, Argentina, the United States, Qatar, and Portugal. The deals are for the extraction of gas from one of the reserves located in an area of 500,000 square kilometers of territorial waters.

  • Vices and virtues

    Yesterday we were talking about the Financial Ike that is driving the empire mad. America can’t find a way of reconciling consumerism with unjust wars, defence spending and the massive investments in the arms industry, which kill peoples, rather than feeding them or otherwise satisfying their most basic needs.

  • The same lie twice over

    Reading the cables will suffice.

    In the reflection I wrote the day before yesterday I stated that Cuba would not accept any donation from the government that is blockading us and that, in the Verbal Note handed over to the U.S. Interests Section, we had requested authorization so that U.S. companies could sell us construction materials; that same Note made no reference whatsoever to foodstuffs. There was an additional request for trade in those materials to take place under normal conditions, including credits, something that is only logical considering that, for eight years, our country has been paying in cash for the few commodities that U.S. companies are authorized to export to Cuba.

  • In Support of Cuba

      Our country is facing a dramatic situation.  We have suffered the wrath of two powerful hurricanes, Gustav and Ike, in just eight days.  These natural disasters have seriously affected food production and essential sectors of the economy throughout the country.  Although very few human lives were lost, a massive amount of houses, schools and […]

  • The good-guy role, at whose expense

    When the U.S. government hypocritically offered $100,000 as aid in the face of the disaster brought about by Hurricane Gustav, subject to an on-site inspection to confirm the damage, the response was that Cuba is unable to accept any donations from the country that is blockading us; that the damage had already been calculated and that what we were calling for was that it not prevent the export of essential materials and credits associated with commercial operations.

  • Letter to Randy Alonso

    Dear Randy,

    Yesterday’s “Roundtable” program was particularly interesting and the information provided was extremely valuable. It is a pity that at that time the whole island was without electricity, from Punta de Maisí to Cabo de San Antonio. Just a few family homes in the Camilo Cienfuegos district that were able to resist the fierce winds had power. An underground cable connected to the generator at the Luis Díaz Soto Hospital reached that area.

  • A nuclear strike

    It is not an overstatement. This is the general expression of many compatriots. It was the impression of the Revolutionary Armed Forces Chief of Staff Major General Alvaro Lopez Miera, an experienced soldier, when he saw the twisted steel towers, the shattered houses and the devastation everywhere in the Isle of Youth.

  • The hurricane

    In my last reflection of Tuesday afternoon, August 29, when Hurricane Gustav unexpectedly formed and started to threaten our country on the same day when our Olympic delegation returned, I wrote: “We are lucky to have a Revolution! It is a fact that nobody will be neglected…Our strong, forceful and farsighted Civil Defense protects our people…The growing frequency and intensity of these natural phenomena show that the climate is changing due to the actions of human beings. The current times demand ever increasing dedication, steadfastness and conscience. It doesn’t matter if the opportunists and traitors also benefit without contributing anything to the safety and well-being of our people.”

  • What went unsaid about Cuba

    I have carefully followed the Western media’s reaction to my Sunday reflections on the Olympic Games in China. Actually, rather sensitive events were overlooked while others were highlighted ad libitum by the advocates of world plunder and exploitation.

  • Memory of Fire: Bringing Embers of Hiroshima to Cuba

    炎の記憶 原爆の残り火をキューバへ 炎の記憶 − 原爆の残り火をキューバへ (Memory of Fire: Bringing Embers of Hiroshima to Cuba) was produced by 広島ホームテレビ(Hiroshima Home TV) and first broadcast in 2007.  The documentary tells the story of Ernesto Che Guevara’s thoughts on Hiroshima and their relation to the Cuban Revolution’s commitment to humanism, for example, its humanitarian aid and protection of […]

  • Machiavelli’s Strategy

    Raul was right to keep dignified silence over the statements published last Monday, July 21st, by Izvestia on the eventual installation of strategic Russian fighter-planes bases in our country. The news came up from a certain hypothesis elaborated in Russia associated with the Yankees obstinacy in setting up radars and launching pads for their nuclear shield close to the borders of that great power.

  • Education in Cuba

    It would seem our country has the most educational problems in the world. All of the cables that reach us report the many and difficult challenges we face: a deficit of over 8,000 teachers, disrespectful and ill-mannered students, lack of training, in short: problems of all sorts.

  • Sincerity and the value of being humble

    Any autobiographically-tinted writing forces me to clear up any doubts about decisions I made more than half a century ago. I am talking about subtle details, since the essential points are never forgotten. This is true for what I did in 1948, sixty years ago.

  • A rest

    Yesterday, Tuesday, I had a large pile of cables with news on the meeting of the most industrialized powers in Japan. I will leave the material for another day, if it doesn’t go cold. I decided to rest. I preferred to meet with Gabo (Gabriel García Márquez) and his wife, Mercedes Barcha, who are visiting Cuba until the 11th. How much I longed to talk with them, to recall almost 50 years of sincere friendship!

  • CUBA: Toward Gay Marriage

      Shasta Darlington, CNN Maylin Alonso, TeleSur Broadcast on the occasion of International Day against Homophobia (17 May) in 2008. | | Print

  • The elephant and the ant

    It would seem there’s no topic worthy of addressing that would not bore our patient readers, after the Round Table program of June 12, which dealt with the new edition of a book published in Bolivia 15 years ago, featuring now a prologue I wrote. During this program, an introduction was also read written at a later date by Evo Morales and a message from the prestigious Argentinean writer Stella Calloni, to be included in an upcoming edition. I had carefully chosen the information I used for that prologue.

  • An Open Letter on US Policy for Cuba

    Every May 21st President George W. Bush declares a day of “solidarity” with Cuba and repeats the lies of nearly half a century trying to de-legitimize Latin America’s most successful social revolution in history.  This year, the leading US presidential candidates chimed in, but a potentially explosive scandal involving an axis of US-based terrorist groups, […]

  • The empire’s hypocritical politics

    It would be dishonest of me to remain silent after hearing the speech Obama delivered on the afternoon of May 23 at the Cuban American National Foundation created by Ronald Reagan. I listened to his speech, as I did McCain’s and Bush’s. I feel no resentment towards him, for he is not responsible for the crimes perpetrated against Cuba and humanity. Were I to defend him, I would do his adversaries an enormous favor. I have therefore no reservations about criticizing him and about expressing my points of view on his words frankly.

  • Martí’s immortal ideas

    Just a few days ago, a friend of mine sent me the text of a report from Gallup, the well-known U.S. opinion pollster. I started to leaf through the material with the natural lack of confidence given the lying and hypocritical information usually used against our nation.

    It was a survey on education in which Cuba was included…