Yoani Sánchez denies that she is in the CIA

The controversial Cuban 'blogger' Yoani Sánchez, darling of the western media and the White House, is currently enjoying the liberty to travel afforded by recent changes to the migration regulations in order to make a much publicised tour of Brazil.
So far it has all been a bit of a circus. In Brazil, pro-Cuban supporters have hounded the 'bloguera' and unsurprisingly the media spotlight has focused intently upon her. At one press conference (see film above), when she was asked if it was true that Wikileaks had revealed she was an agent of the CIA, she denied it saying: "I well remember the Wikileaks documents in which my name is mentioned and there is not one that says 'Yoani Sanchez is CIA.' That is totally false, it does not exist. It could not exist because I am not in the CIA." 
She chose her words carefully. There is, after all, a distinction between being IN the CIA and working FOR the CIA or, for that matter, in the interests of the United States.
In fact her name crops up in many Wikileaks documents linking her to the US Interests Section in Havana. One for example, that Yoani did not mention, reveals that in 2011 she and her husband, Reynaldo Escobar, were guests at the home of Michael Parmly, then Head of the US Interests Section in Havana:

http://www.cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=07HAVANA622&q=parmly%20sanchez%20yoani

This report is interesting. For example it openly states:

"HUSBAND-AND-WIFE TEAM REINALDO ESCOBAR AND YOANI SANCHEZ VISITED THE U.S. CHIEF OF MISSION'S RESIDENCE TO SHARE THEIR IMPRESSIONS OF CUBA'S MEDIA ENVIRONMENT AND EXPOUND UPON THE UNIQUE POSITION THEREIN OF THEIR ON-LINE PUBLICATION, CONSENSO.

The US Interests section cable describes Consenso as "GROUNDBREAKING IN CUBA AND POSES A THREAT TO A CUBAN GOVERNMENT," and goes on to say this about Yoani and her partner:

"THE DUO IS UNIQUE AMONG CUBA'S INDEPENDENT JOURNALISTS IN THAT THEY VOLUNTARILY RETURNED TO CUBA TO HELP EFFECT CHANGE AFTER HAVING ESTABLISHED SUCCESSFUL CAREERS IN EUROPE. INDEED, CITING THE FACT THAT "THE BATTLE MUST TAKE PLACE IN CUBA," MS. SANCHEZ CLAIMS TO HAVE DISCARDED HER PASSPORT."

Evidently, Yoani still has her passport and the strategy of  fighting the battle inside Cuba appears to have been abandoned. Shortly after her Brazil trip we can expect the 'I am not Yoani CIAnchez' to pop up in the United States, where she is due to make a tour of universities, apparently organised by a professional acquaintance of mine, Ted Henken, whose own blog, El Yuma, I notice is following her progress with a dedicated interest...

In all this Humbert Wolfe's rhyme about British journalists comes to mind:

You cannot hope
to bribe or twist,
thank God! the
British journalist.
But, seeing what
the man will do
unbribed, there's
no occasion to.

 

US Senators in Cuba - talk grows of change

If today's Boston Globe is to be believed the earth must be beginning to shake beneath the feet of the far right in Miami. There's talk of Cuba being taken off the list of terrorist states - a move that could have significant effects on the relationship between the two countries and signal a seismic shift in attitudes.
Here is what the Globe reporter Bryan Bender reports: "High-level US officials have concluded that Cuba should no longer be designated a state sponsor of terrorism, raising the prospect that a key obstacle to restoring diplomatic relations with the Cold War foe could soon be removed."
Meanwhile, the San Francisco Chronicle reports that the group of U.S. senators and congressmen currently visiting Cuba had confirmed  yesterday that they visited an Alan Gross, the American whose detention for spying in Cuba has been a bone of contention between the two countries, but they gave no details on his condition or what was said.
The seven-member delegation led by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., also met with Cuban President Raul Castro (pictured above) and other senior officials. Leahy apparently said the two sides "discussed the continuing obstacles and the need to improve relations," adding that a rapprochement "is in the interest of both countries." The meeting was also covered in the Cuban press, with a front-page photo of a smiling Leahy and Castro seated at a small table in front of a thick clutch of palm fronds.
Two diplomatic sources on the island told the SFC that the meeting with Castro went on for about three hours, and that the American politicians said the Cuban leader made a concerted effort to speak individually to each of them. The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the visit publicly.
The State Department has declined to comment on any of this but if Gross is released and Cuba comes off the list of terrorist states (something the president can do without permission of Congress) then the game will have changed and perhaps even an end to the embargo will be in sight.

What could/should Obama do? A view from Cuba

There is a lot of debate at present regarding the direction  the Obama administration might take Cuba policy during its second term. Inevitably, the debate is focused on what politicians are saying in the United States. So it is good to see the folks at the International Institute for the Study of Cuba, have provided a view from the other side of the Florida Straits.

They have posted a translation of a lecture on the topic of US-Cuba relations given by Dr. Néstor García Iturbe one of the Cuban Communist Party’s leading academics and experts on foreign affairs.

Dr García views the state of the relationship to be one of "crisis or conflict" and makes it clear that a "normalization" of relations will be difficult because what the US views as "normal" is not shared by the revolutionary government. He explains well how the Cubans regard their northern neighbour to be at fault and why its behaviour must change if any meaningful way out of the impasse between them can be found.

However, he posits a number of positive ways in which the Obama administration could move gently to build trust and develop proper relationships by using his powers as Executive and without having recourse to Congress.

Well worth reading...The full text is HERE.

Good news from Equador

Here's proof if one needs it that governnment can intervene in the economy for the benefit of society as a whole. A new report by the Center for Economic Policy Research  has just been published on the policies of the Ecuadorean government of Rafael Correa (pictured) in regulating the financial sector and how they have been remarkably successful. Ecuador is a key ally of Cuba in the ALBA project:

"Overall, it appears that the Correa government’s sweeping financial reforms have been successful, not only in achieving their intended goals but in aiding macroeconomic stability, growth, employment, and very significant improvements on a range of economic and social indicators. What is most remarkable is that many of these reforms were unorthodox or against the prevailing wisdom of what governments are supposed to do in order to promote economic progress. Taking executive control over the Central Bank, defaulting on one-third of the foreign debt, increasing regulation and taxation of the financial sector, increasing restrictions on international capital flows, greatly expanding the size and role of government – these are measures that are supposed to lead to economic ruin. The conventional wisdom is also that it is most important to please investors, including foreign creditors, which this government clearly did not do. While not all of Ecuador’s reforms went against orthodox policy advice – its measures to resolve insolvent banks, anti-trust legislation and the creation of an enforcement body, and deposit insurance reforms, for example, are widely accepted – the bulk of them clearly did, and yet they succeeded."

Get Cuba off the terrorism list

A petition has been launched on SignOn.org to the President of the US, the National Security Council, and the Cuba Desk at the US Dept. of State asking for the removal of Cuba from the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism. 

At the moment of posting, it already had nearly 2,000 signatures and is growing by the minute. 

You can see the petition here: http://signon.org/sign/cuba-is-not-a-sponsor-1.fb23?source=c.fb&r_by=5758107  

The rationale and background for the petition are also found at this link but for a convincing mainstream argument as to why the US should make this change to its policy one should look no further than this editorial in the Boston Globe.

What you can do

• Please sign the petition.
• Forward it to your lists and everyone else you can think of - with your endorsement and request for signatures
• Share it on your websites and Facebook pages
• Tweet it
• Include it in your newsletters (on-line, especially) - we expect the petition to be active for months, as long as it keeps growing
• Help in any way that you can to reach the benchmark of 25,000 signatures, which is when the White House might start paying attention.

The terrorist list is housed at the Dept. of State and it doesn't require congressional approval to remove (or add) a country to the list.
This is something the President can do, and should do, in the first year of his second term.

It needs 25,000 signatures before the White House will take any notice.

Hookergate they're calling it: Things you should know about Bob Menendez

FBI agents carry out boxes as law enforcement officials investigate the medical office complex of Dr. Salomon Melgen, who has ties to Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) on January 30, 2013, in West Palm Beach, Florida.

1) Who is Robert Menendez and why is everyone in the Washington, Miami, Havana triangle talking about him?

Robert Menendez is a US born son of Cuban immigrants and a Democratic senator from New Jersey where a large Cuban-American community resides. He is viciously anti-Castro and an outspoken supporter of the embargo on Cuba. He is slated to replace John Kerry as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee if Kerry gets appointed as Secretary of State. He has become the subject of  two potentially career-ruining scandals.

2)Scandal no 1.

Scandal No. 1 involves 18-year-old Luis Abrahan Sanchez Zavaleta—an illegal Peruvian immigrant, registered sex offender, and former unpaid intern for Menendez’s 2012 Senate reelection campaign. Sanchez was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials on December 6, 2012, but the Associated Press reported that ICE had planned to arrest him previously on October 25 but was asked by the Department of Homeland Security to hold off till after the election. A DHS spokesman dismissed the report as “categorically false,” and Menendez’s office denied knowing anything about DHS’s alleged interference or the intern’s legal status.

3) Hookergate Scandal No.2

In early November last year—before the Sanchez case was reported and just days before the election—the Daily Caller, a conservative blog, reported that the divorced father-of-two had made several trips via private plane to the Dominican Republic for rendezvous with underage prostitutes, citing interviews with an anonymous Dominican Republic official and local women—also unidentified. Menendez’s office promptly denied the allegations and his reelection was unhampered.

The rumour resurfaced on January 24, when an anonymous blogger posted emails between the FBI and a tipster going by the name of Peter Williams. The emails referenced conversations Williams said he had with women in the Dominican Republic who said they attended sex parties with Menendez at a house and on a yacht both owned by Florida opthalmologist Salomon Melgen. Williams had initially emailed the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, which forwarded the emails to the FBI and to ABC News. On January 25, the Daily Caller ran a story on the leaked emails, prompting CREW to publish its correspondence with the tipster on its own website.

4) The Salomon Melgen connection

Melgen is a south Florida opthalmologist who owns the yacht and home where Menendez’s alleged Dominican sex parties reportedly took place. He is also a longtime friend and donor of the senator’s and since last year has been the subject of an FBI investigation. Two years ago, Melgen bought an ownership stake in a company with a dormant contract with the Dominican Republic to provide border security; Menendez then urged officials to enforce the contract, worth about $500 million. Menendez also failed to report two round-trip flights to the Dominican Republic on board Melgen’s jet in 2010. Menendez reimbursed Melgen as required last month, his spokeswoman calling the matter an “oversight.”

5) How reliable are all these reports?

Hardly any of this information is confirmed, nor has it been verified by sources who are willing to be named. As the FBI investigation continues, more concrete facts can be expected to surface, but at this point the most incriminating accusations against Menendez have come from tips—mostly anonymous—to blogs. 

But mud has a habit of sticking...

Cuban biotech is winning the cancer war, says WHO

Cuba's Centre for Molecular Immunology

Despite the idiotic and inhumane US embargo against Cuba, it is really impressive to see how the island continues heroically developing new methodologies in healthcare and exporting this wisdom to developing countries, providing excellent healthcare and educational services.

Though it receives almost zero coverage in the western media, Cuba's strength in primary healthcare does not go unnoticed by world bodies such as the World Health Organization, whose website currently carries this article on the introduction of biotechnology in cancer treatment in Cuba, which indicates just how far Cuba has gone in turning cancer from a deadly into a chronic disease.

Cuba, it says, is following the WHO's guidelines and is implementing a national cancer plan which provides universal access to all approaches to the disease, from prevention, diagnosis, treatment and palliative care.

According to the WHO article "Cuba- Battling cancer with biotechnology," the plan is underpinned by a strong primary health care system that enables doctors to see their patients regularly and catch health problems at an early stage.

The article refers to the Cuban government's Centre for Molecular Immunology, a "major investment in biotechnology" and says that "Cuban researchers and scientists have recently made significant progress in their search for new cancer treatments and tools to improve diagnosis and prevention". Among these was the register in 2008 of the first vaccine for the therapeutic treatment of advanced lung cancer developed by the Centre for Molecular Immunology, Havana. In 2013, a second vaccine for the treatment of advanced lung cancer was patented.

The General Director of the Centre for Molecular Immunology, Dr Agustin Lage Davila, says that "Biotechnology is key to transforming cancer from a deadly disease into a chronic one" and adds that the new technologies support chemo and radio therapy making them less toxic.

The Centre has also developed the anti-cancer drug nimotuzumab, to treat advanced tumours, for example in the head, neck and brain. Nimotuzumab is a “monoclonal antibody” that mimics human immune cells and binds to specific target molecules of cancer cells. It targets a protein that can cause uncontrolled cell division and growth. The drug is currently going through clinical trials in Japan and Europe.
Even in times of economic hardship, the Cuban Government has thus remained constant in its political and financial support for biotechnology. In the last 20 years it has invested around one billion US dollars in research and development. Today, the Cuban biotech industry holds around 1200 international patents and markets pharmaceutical products and vaccines in more than 50 countries. Exports are soaring and generate yearly revenues of several hundred million dollars. More than 90 new products are currently being investigated in more than 60 clinical trials.
The tremendous benefit from this is that Cuba is producing more affordable drugs to tackle diseases that run rampant in low- and middle-income countries.

Obama sparks war of words as Cuba prepares for invasion

As Cuba began military manoeuvres on Friday that are aimed at making the country ready to repel a US invasion, a war of words erupted between the two countries centred around some injudicious remarks by President Barack Obama last week.
Josefina Vidal, the head of the Foreign Ministry's North American affairs division, sharply criticized  Obama for suggesting that Cuba was stuck in the past, saying the only anachronistic element of the relationship is Washington's half-century-old economic embargo.
Josefina said Obama was poorly informed if he thought Cuba had not changed in recent years (no one who knows the island could possibly disagree with her on that one). She said her country has always been willing to negotiate improved relations with the U.S.
"It's unfortunate that President Obama continues to be poorly advised and ill-informed about the Cuban reality, as well as the sentiments of his own people who desire normalization of our relationship," Vidal said in a statement sent to foreign media on the island.
She said Cuba was "changing and advancing," a reference to economic and social policies enacted in recent years under President Raul Castro.
In an interview with the Spanish news channel Telemundo broadcast last Wednesday, Obama said his administration is open to better ties with Cuba but that "it's got to be a two-way street."
He said Cuban jails were "still filled" with political prisoners and that the island's leaders are clinging to a failed model.
"It's time to join the 21st century," he said. "It's one thing to have cars from the 1950s. It's another thing when your whole political ideology is 50 years or 60 years old and it's been proven not to work."
Now anyone seriously wishing to improve ties with Cuba would not have chosen those words. Nothing could be more insulting or more telling of a lack of real interest in bettering the relationship. I mean how would President Obama like it if Cuba were to tell him that he presides over a politcal system that is over 200 years old and is proving daily that it does not work?

Incidentally, just how much Cuba is changing was evidenced on Thursday when the troublemaking alleged "blogger" Yoani Sanchez's request for a new passport was granted . Last year, she was denied a "white card," or exit permit, when she tried to travel to Brazil for a film festival, something she claims has happened to her about 20 times in recent years. (Notwithstanding the fact that she used to live in Germany where her so-called blog is sited). She tweeted that she is planning a trip to Germany - no doubt to meet her financiers. Hopefully she'll stay there.