Souls

Several meetings have been held between the President of Russia and Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, leader of the Cuban Revolution. Photo: Albi

 When feelings mediate, when in spite of very different landscapes and customs, the souls of two nations seek and understand each other in an admirable way, it can be said that we are facing a twinning, a closeness that cannot be diminished by any mishap. This is the case of the embrace, so heartfelt and firm, that Cuba and Russia are giving each other, two homelands that in decades of relations have lived a very rich common history.

It is worth remembering now November 22, 2022. It was three o'clock in the afternoon and the temperature was almost ten degrees below zero in the Sokol neighborhood in Moscow, when the monument dedicated to Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz was inaugurated, and where dignitaries Vladimir Putin and Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez met.
Outdoors, the cold turned off cell phones, but in Sokol the warmth of feelings forced to be awake and attentive: "The ties between Russia and Cuba are indestructible. Fidel founded their bases, Raúl developed them, and we will give them continuity", expressed President Diaz-Canel; and he also assured that the Eurasian nation "knows that it will be able to continue counting on Cuba."
Everything became shocking when, in a land so distant from Cuba, and yet so dear, the 26th of July March was heard. History emerged with its dazzling transcendence. Fidel was the reason for that encounter. He was no longer alive and yet the results of his robust seeds of friendship provoked admiration.
Fidel, his metallic figure -looking forward and dressed in his combatant suit- worked the magic of the confluence of two statesmen. The host was the first to speak: "We are gathered here, in the square that bears the name of Fidel Castro, to inaugurate a monument to this outstanding public and political personality, the founder of the modern Cuban State".
The President said that "Fidel Castro dedicated his entire life to the struggle for the triumph of ideas of good, peace, justice, for the freedom of oppressed peoples, for a dignified life for ordinary people, for social equality"; that "he is rightly considered one of the most brilliant and charismatic leaders of the 20th century". He defined him as a legendary personality, as the symbol of an entire epoch.
Putin even recalled "a famous Soviet song: Cuba, my love", to emphasize the affection that the island inspires in the Eurasian country. And he went on with magnificent definitions, such as the one according to which Fidel possessed powerful energy and will that "attracted and continue to attract like a magnet".
The Russian-Cuban friendship bequeathed by Fidel Castro is the common wealth of our peoples, he affirmed; and enunciated with emphasis: "Together we will continue to strengthen our alliance, defending the values of freedom, equality, and justice".
On that occasion, President Díaz-Canel recalled that the figure of Fidel Castro "is intimately linked to the friendship that for more than 60 years has been forged between our two peoples and governments". He referred to the admiration that the Commander-in-Chief felt for that nation that knew how to take human beings to the cosmos, and that showed an immense capacity for sacrifice when confronting fascist forces.
He recalled the beautiful words written on behalf of the Russian people by President Vladimir Putin upon Fidel's death: Fidel Castro was a sincere friend on whom Russia could rely, and he made an enormous contribution to the formation and development of Russian-Cuban relations, to the close strategic cooperation in all fields.
There are many beautiful examples that demonstrate the powerful magnet that unites the two countries. In that visit of the Cuban leader to Russia, in November 2022, another transcendental meeting took place: the dignitary was received by His Holiness Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, at the Danilovsk Monastery, seat of the Russian Orthodox Church. And there, an unforgettable gesture took place: Díaz-Canel reiterated to his important host "our eternal gratitude for the proposal you made for the historic meeting with Pope Francis in Cuba in February 2016".
Thanks to that proposal by the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, the largest of the Antilles became a scenario of reconciliation, in a space where, thanks to the meeting of the highest figures of the two churches, a millenary disagreement was overcome.
His Holiness Kirill said in that November: "We Christians know that strength is in the truth, and that Cuba continues its independent and sovereign existence, despite all the external pressure, confirms it".
Such a "beautiful history of relations...". In such terms President Diaz-Canel Bermúdez has referred to the friendship between Cuba and Russia. He has even spoken about the way in which those ties have been strengthened, which have reached the most diverse spheres and "have gone through political and economic-commercial relations, but have also reached family relations, friendship, brotherhood, solidarity and cooperation". And when we dwell on this history, it is so beautiful - said the President - that it can captivate young people; and what better luck than to captivate young people - he proposed - so that they feel responsible for making these relations grow and give continuity to them.
The 65th anniversary of the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the then Soviet Union will be celebrated this May 8. The nascent Revolution and the first socialist state on the planet resumed ties, interrupted in 1952 by the dictator Fulgencio Batista, and began together the path marked by admiration, respect and affection.
Today, bilateral relations are excellent, with solid historical foundations, as well as an undoubted priority given by both governments. It is a friendship that understands a lot about resistance, and also about love for what is worthy.
The fraternal ties overcame the disintegration of the Soviet Union and received a new impulse after the arrival of Vladimir Putin to the highest office of the Eurasian giant. The last few years have witnessed the growth and diversification of bilateral relations. The visits to Russia by Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, in his capacity as President of the Councils of State and Ministers, and Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, since he became head of the Cuban State, the constant exchange of delegations at the highest level and cooperation in areas such as energy, metallurgy, transportation, tourism, climate change, biotechnology and the pharmaceutical industry, confirm this.
A moment of particular significance in the ties was the entry of Cuba -on December 11, 2020, and as an observer state- to the Eurasian Economic Union, an important space that brings together several of the nations that were part of the former USSR.
Bilateral ties between the largest of the Antilles and Russia are significant for Cuba's Economic and Social Development Plan until 2030, in key sectors which, in turn, provide opportunities for Russian companies.
This, Miguel Díaz-Canel's fifth visit to the Eurasian nation as a dignitary, is part of the joint efforts to continue consolidating the high level of political-diplomatic dialogue, the bonds of friendship between both peoples, to pay tribute to the fallen in the Great Patriotic War -on the 80th anniversary of the Great Victory-, as well as the purpose of raising economic, trade, financial and cooperation relations to the excellent level of political and diplomatic ties.
On that cold November afternoon in 2022, when the monument to the Commander-in-Chief was inaugurated, the President of the Russian Federation told citizens of his nation and Cubans present at the ceremony that he had the good fortune to meet Fidel repeatedly, to have long talks with him -the last one in July 2014-. From such closeness, he said, he was "impressed by his encyclopedic knowledge, his deep worldview of events, his sharp mind and accurate assessments", and his deep friendship with the Eurasian nation, which he visited for the first time in 1963, and to which he went "at any time: in summer, in winter, with or without snow".
It seems that those long talks have not come to an end, and that they are having new architects, both on a snowy night and on a morning of burning sun. That will continues to unite souls, and in that union, both the heroic Caribbean Island and the immense Russia find their best voice and disposition.

Photo: Albi

Photo: Albi

Photo: Albi

Global

 

Party Political Bureau member and Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla arrived in Beijing to participate in the fourth ministerial meeting of the China-Celac (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) Forum.
The meeting, scheduled for this week, will bring together almost twenty foreign ministers and other high-level representatives of the region, in addition to the presidents of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva; of Colombia, Gustavo Petro; of Chile, Gabriel Boric, and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who will deliver the opening speech.
The China-Celac Ministerial Forum celebrates ten years since its official launch in 2015, and over the course of this decade it has allowed to raise mutual political trust, align development strategies and promote connectivity between the peoples of both regions.
The event will allow the Asian giant and the Latin American and Caribbean region to address common development strategies and challenges, strengthen the collective voice of the Global South for solidarity and self-sufficiency, and convey stability in a context of uncertainty.
The meeting is seen as an opportunity to strengthen ties and forge new alliances. Beijing is the second most important trading partner of Latin America and the Caribbean, and the main trading partner for countries such as Chile, Brazil and Peru. Five nations in the region (Chile, Peru, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Nicaragua) have free trade agreements with the Asian giant.
Two documents are expected to be approved at the Forum: the Beijing Declaration of the Fourth Ministerial Meeting, and the Celac-China Joint Action Plan for Cooperation in Key Areas during the period 2025-2027.
The Declaration will show the decision of the participating countries to continue with peace, development and cooperation. Moreover, the Plan will include specific measures for cooperation in sectors such as innovation, trade and investment, finance, infrastructure, agriculture, information technology, energy and minerals, and also on cooperation taking place in the context of the Belt and Road initiative.

Brothers

 

Albert Arhó

The First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, received yesterday, at the Palace of the Revolution, the member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Nguyen Xuan Thang, who is in the largest of the Antilles to fulfill an agenda of bipartisan exchange.

The also Chairman of the Central Theoretical Council and Director of the Ho Chi Minh National Political Academy, heads a delegation from the brother country.

"For us it is a source of deep satisfaction the presence of you here in Cuba," said Díaz-Canel in a dialogue that was also attended by the member of the Political Bureau and Secretary of Organization of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Roberto Morales Ojeda.

The President valued that "this visit is an expression of the magnificent level of our relations; and it gives continuity to the high level of political dialogue that exists between our Parties, our Governments, and our nations".

"We would like to congratulate - he added - our Vietnamese brothers on the majestic celebration of the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the South and national reunification, and also in the context of another celebration that we have been commemorating this year, especially in the month of February, which is the 95th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of Vietnam.

"About these commemorations we can tell you that we also celebrated them in Cuba, that events were held here at the headquarters of the Palace of the Revolution," commented the president, who also assured: "We still have important commemorations in the remainder of the year. We will be celebrating the anniversary of Vietnam's independence, and also the 65th anniversary of the establishment of relations between our countries".

Díaz-Canel took the opportunity "to, once again, convey an affectionate greeting to our brother, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, To Lam."

"Inter-party relations are the fundamental basis of bilateral relations between our nations; they are special relations of brotherhood, friendship, respect, solidarity, admiration, and very sincere relations, which allow us, in all honesty, among brothers, to exchange on the challenges and challenges that, from the vision of our parties, we have to face the current problems," he assured.

FIDEL CASTRO AND HO CHI MINH IN THE THOUGHTS OF THEIR PEOPLES

The 2nd Fidel Castro-Ho Chi Minh Scientific Conference was held yesterday to deepen in the life, work and thought of two extraordinary men who cemented the solid friendship between their respective peoples and parties. Vision of Revolution.

The event at the University of the Communist Party of Cuba Ñico López, which takes place within the framework of the 6th Cuba-Vietnam Inter-Party Theoretical Seminar, was attended by the member of the Political Bureau Teresa Amarelle Boué, secretary general of the Federation of Cuban Women; the member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee, Yudí Mercedes Rodríguez Hernández, head of the Department of Services, as well as other leaders of the Party, political and mass organizations, and representatives of various sectors of society.

Jorge Hurtado Pérez, rector of the institution, expressed that history wanted to unite Cuba and Vietnam on the date of May 19. In 1890 the unforgettable and venerated Ho Chi Minh was born, while on the same day, but in 1895, our National Hero fell in combat.

He added that the brotherhood of Vietnam and Cuba transcends time and borders and that "the work of their main leaders guides the most advanced revolutionary thought".

For his part, Nguyen Xuan Thang, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Vietnam, expressed his conviction that Cuba, under the guidance and leadership of the Party, will be able to overcome the difficulties and overcome the current challenges, for which it will always count on the solidarity and firm support of the Vietnamese homeland.

Dairy

 

The signing of several interbank, business and institutional agreements resulted from the 12th session of the Cuban-Belarusian Intergovernmental Commission for economic-commercial collaboration, held yesterday.

 The meeting highlighted “the projects for the joint production of medicines, the development of the Cuban Dairy Complex, with Belarusian raw material and technology; and the second phase of tractor assembly, as initiatives with the highest level of progress for the period 2025-2026,” said the First Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade and Investment (Mincex), Carlos Luis Jorge Méndez.

 He stressed that the formal dialogue has been surpassed, giving priority to the exchange between the business delegations of both sides to agree on future contracts and projects that make effective the participation of Belarusian companies in the National Plan for Economic and Social Development of Cuba until 2030, especially in sectors of mutual interest, such as agri-food, industrial, transportation, health, biopharmaceuticals, among others, in which real potential for economic complementation is observed”.

 The signatures, also presided over by the Belarusian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Evgeni Shestakov, contributed to establishing work priorities to be developed in the short, medium and long term, which confirms the important role of the business sector of both countries in the implementation of the agreements reached.

 The Belarusian Vice-Chancellor, at the closing of the event, emphasized that the work by sector will allow “to achieve all those plans and objectives that have been set in search of new collaboration niches”.

The Truth

 

A lie repeated does not become the truth

The U.S. government once again discredits itself by unjustly including Cuba on the List of countries that "do not fully cooperate with its anti-terrorist efforts".

Once again, the State Department turns the fight against international terrorism into a unilateral political exercise against countries that do not bow to its hegemonic interests.

Exactly one year ago, when the previous U.S. government excluded Cuba from the same list, it recognized the value of bilateral cooperation in law enforcement and compliance, which includes the joint confrontation of terrorism. Nothing has changed since then in Cuba's exemplary performance in this area. What has changed is the U.S. administration and the intention of its new Secretary of State to impose the narrative that Cuba constitutes a threat to that nation, derail bilateral relations and lead both countries into confrontational scenarios, undesirable for our peoples.

The list does not respond to concrete evidence. Neither did the new government present evidence nor did it have any qualms about circumventing and reversing, a few hours after taking office, the process of consultations among specialized agencies that led to the exclusion of Cuba from the list of countries that allegedly sponsor terrorism.

These instruments respond to the design of the policy of "maximum pressure" and economic warfare. Their promoters know the damage they cause to the Cuban population and the intimidating effect they unleash against any State that appears to be affiliated with terrorism, regardless of what the truth may be.

Cuba's commitment to energetic action and condemnation of terrorism is absolute and invariable. It does not respond to the whims of the U.S. Secretary of State in office. Cuba, a victim of terrorist acts, has an exemplary performance in the fight against terrorism.

On the contrary, the U.S. government tolerates or is complicit in this scourge. Confessed terrorists such as Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch Avila lived peacefully in the city of Miami, protected by the US. The Cuban government is still waiting for answers to the request for information on the identity of the author of the terrorist attack against the Cuban Embassy in September 2023, and the requests on 61 persons and 19 organizations based in that country, allegedly linked to violent and terrorist acts against Cuba.

Our country has never participated in the organization, financing or execution of terrorist acts against any country, nor has its territory been used or will be used for that purpose. The same could not be said of the United States. Respect the truth!

Albi Arhó

Human Traffickers

 

Each year, between 14,500 and 17,000 people from some 59 countries are trafficked into the U.S.; however, experts in the field point out that these figures reflect only a negligible part of the reality.

In 2020, a report by the Human Trafficking Institute revealed that 41 percent of the people trafficked to the United States by human traffickers come from Mexico and other Latin American countries; another source is Southeast Asia.

It is estimated that, during 2023, more than one million people were victims of this scourge in the U.S. Fifty-nine percent were U.S. citizens, 90 percent of them women, according to the Anti-Trafficking Data Collaborative.

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But it is immigrants who are most at risk of human trafficking. A high number of the cases are young women, who are not fluent in English and are tricked by criminals with promises of jobs, have their passports taken away, and in many cases are forced to use drugs that make them addicted and dependent.

An unknown number of predators operate independently or through organized crime networks. They mostly use the Internet to lure people, with promises of living the “American dream.”

Another method is deception through close friends, trusted relatives or family friends, especially when minors are involved. Victims end up being forced into prostitution, domestic servitude, factory, farm, ranch or other types of forced labor.

The state of Florida has been at the top of the national trafficking statistics for years in terms of the number of cases reported.

According to the Children’s Report Card, published by the Florida Department of Children and Families, there were nearly 2,100 reported cases in 2023, of which 1,627 involved minors.

In that vein, one in six of the more than 26,500 cases of children reported missing to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children is likely to be a victim of child sexual exploitation. In 2020, the center received more than 17,000 reports of child sex trafficking.

The hunters camouflage themselves. Today, mainly on social networks, they carefully set the trap and wait for the next “dreamer” or desperate person looking to escape from misery.

We are talking about a cruel business that moves hundreds of millions of dollars in the U.S. Organ trafficking, child prostitution and slave labor alone bring great wealth to traffickers.

Meanwhile, the government pretends not to see what is happening in its own house, and places others on lists that should be headed by the U.S., given the records it exhibits in this and other inhumane matters.

Healthcare

Through the platform, services such as teleconsultations, second opinion consultations, case discussion, tele-diagnosis, tele-assistance, among others, can be offered. Through the platform, services such as teleconsultations, second opinion consultations, case discussion, tele-diagnosis, tele-assistance, among others, can be offered. Photo: Albi

 On the road to the development of telemedicine in Cuba, the Defense Information Technology Enterprise (Xetid) is contributing with its own solutions to the implementation of the Virtual Hospital, a project associated with the Ministry of Communications' Sector Program for the Informatization of Society.

Yosney Hernández Hernández, Director of Xetid's basic digital industry unit, commented to Granma that Virtual Hospital is a platform under construction, based on a group of technologies already established at the national level, in which solutions from several entities converge, including inter-hospital and extra-hospital services.

“The idea is to make intensive use of information and communications technologies for healthcare,” he said.

He said that the objective of Xetid is the development of an IT platform in which each of the hospitals can have a cloud-based representation to interact, make requests, and plan and schedule telematic services.

He added that these services could include teleconsultations, second opinion consultations, case discussion, telediagnosis, tele-assistance, among others.

He pointed out that this would help to avoid the need for patients to travel for specialized consultations, from the first assessment to medical follow-up, which can be offered with services such as videoconferencing.

Likewise, it would contribute to inter-consultations between medical specialists at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels of healthcare.

He added that, although the platform is still being perfected, it already allows the generation of procedures associated with contracting, with the aim of creating a network of hospitals and interconnecting them.

Hernández pointed out that the platform will be integrated with the Galen Clínica software, developed by Softel, with Xavia His, from the Computer Sciences University, and the videoconferencing system for Telemedicine developed by Xetid, while mentioning the incorporation of the technologies of the Ticket platform in terms of Healthcare.

Xetid also signed two collaboration agreements with the Cira García International Clinic and La Pradera International Health Center for the implementation of virtual hospitals using the aforementioned technologies.

This system, said Katerin Ortega Rodríguez, Commercial Specialist of Xetid's basic digital industry unit, will serve to support the project for the doctor-patient or doctor-doctor relationship.

Follow Martí's

 

Just meters away from the obelisk that marks the site of the Apostle's fall in combat, the meeting between the Party leadership and a hundred young people took place in a “sacred place for all that it entails”, affirmed the first secretary of the National Committee of the Young Communist League, Meyvis Estévez Echevarría.

The young leader introduced the prestigious historian Eduardo Torres-Cuevas, director of the Martiano Program Office:

“I think today is a very happy day,” he enunciated.” That is to say, that really Martí's passion is here, among all of us; and it has been manifested to the extent that we are getting closer to him and we are understanding him more and more.

“Martí is much more than everything we sometimes think he is”, and he emphasized Marti's idea: ‘Homeland is humanity, it is the part of humanity in which we are born and to which we are most obliged’.

The concept of Homeland, in Martí, is reiterated in numerous writings, commented the expert, who also brought up the concept according to which it is something that merges and is indivisible. “The Cuban is above all a new quality, and that new quality is here, and it will always continue to grow, changing, developing; and then, when we talk about the Homeland, we must take it as it is in its original concept, which means mother earth”.

A very special moment was the narration of the historian of the sacred site, Antonio Espinosa Martínez.

“I have had the opportunity to meditate on the pain, on the traumatic” of that May 19, he said.

On the day of the Apostle's fall “there was a lot of pain in the Mambí camp, practically nobody ate food, they didn't even have the opportunity to have José Martí's corpse, because it had been left in the hands of the Spaniards, who were the ones who buried him in a common grave in the Vuelta Grande cemetery”. And he recalled that, as General Máximo Gómez said, “the most important man for Cuba at that time was lost that day”.

Moving were the words of Lil María Pichs Hernández, deputy director of the Office of the Martí Program, who -recalling on the Apostle's gaze- recalled that there is a sense of life in the homage of May 19; and that, as the National Hero once said, the best tree is the one that has a dead man underneath it. He added that “Martí is nature”.

It is very important to touch the heart, it is very important to touch the heart of human beings, especially if it is about convoking and moving with a cause. This conceptual axis was shared by Tin Cremata, who was there, with La Colmenita.

The director of the Center for Martí Studies, Marlene Vázquez Pérez, spoke of optimism reinforced by everything she had seen and warned that “in the midst of the symbolic war, if they want to take something away from us it is Martí; and we are not going to allow them to falsify him, much less to take him away from us”.

ANOTHER DATE WITH HISTORY

“Once again we are in an appointment with history; and this meeting has been so emotional, so patriotic, so full of teachings, that it deserves to be taken to a podcast From the Presidency, so that we can also share it with other young people in Cuba, and with our people.” This is what President Díaz-Canel said.

He recalled a Martí's maxim: “Honor, honor”. And by the way, he reflected: “That is what we are doing here; and that is what we are trying to do every time we have a meeting of this kind: we honor our history, we honor our heroes, we honor our thinkers, we honor our heroes, we honor our martyrs.

“And we are honoring ourselves because we are growing, we are surpassing ourselves, we are learning, we are getting excited, we are getting more committed, and our convictions with the Homeland, with the Revolution, with that history we have, and with socialism are getting stronger.”

The Head of State made reference to a “significant coincidence”: He recalled the Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, born on May 19, 135 years ago, and highlighted the common points in humanist thought, between Martí and the Asian fighter.

“When we live in difficult times, I believe that it is necessary to bring Martí, to think about him, to believe in him, to assume him”, stressed the Head of State, who shared this conviction: ‘We need every Cuban citizen, every young Cuban to follow Martí’s ideas; and by turning to Martí we can achieve it; first, because of the patriotism and love for Cuba that he always professed; and secondly, because Martí had a clean life’. The ethics, the morality in the Apostle's life, he affirmed, is enough to inspire.

“On the other hand,” he reasoned, “Martí was always resilient in the face of adversity, and he overcame many adversities; and, as he said in many of his writings, he did it without harboring hatred. He went above hatred.

“Let us bring Martí to the current situation, let you young people become the standard bearers of that movement, because we would be reencountering the thought and action of the political poet who knew his people best, and that was José Martí.”

It was recalled that the first cross that marked the place where Martí fell was made of Caguairán; that is why the first of the one hundred Caguairán trees that will be planted there in salute to the centenary of the best and greatest disciple of the Apostle: Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz.  

“THERE IS NO ONE WHO WILL SURRENDER US”.

On a day full of symbolism, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez inaugurated, as a sign of the importance given in Cuba to the preservation of history, the Dos Ríos Museum, an annex to the Monument.

The space, located near the obelisk that honors the hero, exhibits historical objects and recreates scenes of Martí's life in the region, highlighting his independence legacy. At the ceremony, Díaz-Canel highlighted the importance of the site as an educational tool to promote patriotic values.

Accompanied by member of the Political Bureau and Secretary of Organization of the Central Committee of the Party Roberto Morales Ojeda, and by the highest authorities of the province, the inauguration was followed, as has become customary, by an exchange with inhabitants of the community, in which social advances derived from a program of homage to Martí were discussed, such as improvements in access to water, gastronomic services, remodeling of houses affected by the erosion of the river, and medical care. According to Urbano Macías Fajardo, president of the popular council, the actions respond to citizens' demands.

The delegate emphasized that these projects were executed “in times of less cement, fuel and resources”, demonstrating the capacity for collective resilience.

“So the lesson is that there is no one who gives up on us, and that in difficult times we can do things even better than we did at other times,” Díaz-Canel stressed.

The President also visited the Santa Ursula base business unit, key in the production of stallions of high genetic value for livestock.

Its main objective is to improve the genetics of the national livestock by producing high-value bulls for artificial insemination and direct mating, contributing to the efficiency of meat and milk production. Despite its capacity to house 120 bulls, it currently has 54, and is part of a recovery process, reflecting technical and economic limitations extended over time.

“Our commitment is to continue recovering and strengthening this unit, to have good sires and improve the quality of the zebu cattle,” stressed Yunior Milanés Ramírez, director of the UEB.

Leticia Ledea Fernández, director of the Manuel Fajardo Genetics and Breeding Company, emphasized the commitment to behavioral testing projects in other breeds, and the preservation of the livestock mass, despite the drought.

In a context of an intensified blockade and economic tensions, the main message that stood out on the day was Cuba's capacity to promote transforming projects, even in the midst of adversity, as the martyr of Dos Ríos taught us by his example.

Martí

 

In everything José Martí wrote he left his soul; but his life, since he opened his eyes, and until he fell fighting for freedom in the Cuban fields, 130 years ago, was summarized in that kind of lyrical sentence he entitled Yugo y Estrella (Yoke and Star).

He was born “without sun”, and still a child, he knew what to choose between those two insignias, and how sadly comfortable it is to live, if “you serve the lords”; and also the growth, far from any involution, that entails sticking to the star. He was a child when the ignominy of slavery wrung his throat and at the foot of the dead he swore / to wash away the crime with his life; a child when he charted the course of his heroic existence.

Slave of his age and his doctrines, the adolescent paid a very high price for the love of his homeland. At the age of 15, he had created the newspaper La Patria Libre, and in the only issue that would circulate, would burn the verses of Abdala, an epic poem in which its protagonist, in circumstances similar to those of its author, knew that to throw off the yoke that oppressed his country was the only possible destiny.

That was the age of prison, which deprived him of his mother's arms, and threw him into perpetual pain, “because the pain of prison is the harshest, the most devastating of pains, the one that kills the intelligence, and dries the soul, and leaves traces in it that will never be erased”.

The chain on his foot, “the strange clothes”, the cruel blow, the hallucinated fainting, Lino Figueredo and his 12 years old, the old man Nicolás del Castillo, the illness, the cynical laughter of the whip... were the common scenes. His homeland -he said then- had taken him in its arms, kissed him on the forehead, and left again, “pointing me with one hand to space and with the other to the quarries”.

The horror was not enough for the young man to grow abject feelings. Not even having seen his father place, choking with tears, the pads made by Leonor to avoid the rubbing of the shackle, which caused sores “of blood and dust” and “matter and mud”, awakened in him aversion. “And I still don't know how to hate,” he alleged in recounting the dreadful experience.

What a lesson of probity in each page of the hero's life! How much admirable in each gesture! How many astonishing impressions before each picture! How much righteousness and immeasurable humanism in everything that would come later, when the banishment, the death of his sister Ana, the love experience, the unstoppable pen to write beauty and denunciation, fatherhood, the podium of the classroom, the unique oratory, the conspiracy against the master, the second banishment, journalism, diplomacy, the founding of the Party and the Necessary War would be drawing the line of his days!

As a kind of extension of himself he took up friendship, for “great things cannot be done without great friends”; and in love he found “the excuse of life.” Virtue, he said, “cannot understand villainy”; and of glory, he understood that only by assaulting it can it be conquered.

Martí wrote about everything, because nothing was indifferent to him. Notions such as honor and humanity were tenacious in his thinking. Humanity would have its guidelines, but among its laws there would never be room for cowardice or indolence; and of honor only those who were capable of selling it, he said, would have “the courage to propose the sale of the honor of others”.

There was, however, a sweet and guarded word, perhaps the most beloved, which he did not know how to say without trembling and with which he was betrothed forever. Of such a sacred bond he wrote: "I wear an iron ring and have to perform iron feats. The name of my country is engraved on it and I must live or die for my country".

That is why he put at her service his enormous reason, his capacity to unite forces, his diaphanous and incomparable soul. His voice did not tremble nor his pulse to defend, from all the fronts that were given to him, the name of Cuba, when someone dared to stain it.

The document that our history contemplates under the title of Vindication of Cuba, published in The Evening Post on March 25, 1889, and dated four days earlier in New York, is well known -and nowadays more valid than it has always been-.

It would be enough to return to those lines to not only vibrate before Martí's imperturbable defense, but to perceive his legacy in our people, in days when the Island is defamed, distorting and distorting its truths, trying to overshadow his lighthouse light, which continues to be a guide for those with whom Martí wanted to cast his fate.

“(...) The struggle has not ceased (...) The new generation is worthy of its fathers (...) Only with life will the battle for freedom cease among us (...)”.

A few hours before falling in combat, Martí spoke to the Mambi troops and told them: “I want it on record that for the cause of Cuba I let myself be nailed to the cross”.

We are not unaware of these arguments. Every moment of his existence is a lesson and an example. Not a single one escapes his vocation of deeds, the only way to give body to conviction. Martí thought, lived and left for us the score of that music called Homeland.

Apostle

Albi

 Extraordinary talent, children and teenagers singing like angels, art entering through every chink of the soul. It all happened yesterday, May 19, just meters away from the obelisk that marks the place where José Martí fell.

So was the national act that recalled the 130th anniversary of the Apostle's fall in combat, impeccable and emotional, led by First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party and President of the Republic Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez; by member of the Political Bureau and Secretary of Organization Roberto Morales Ojeda, by local authorities and the people.

Among so much life and color, in the same nature and under the same sun that illuminated the face of the good man as he fell, one idea was recurrent: This was what he wanted; beyond any uncomfortable nuance, beyond any pain, beyond all that may be missing, it was this - joy, brotherhood and freedom - precisely what unveiled the man whom the barefoot mambí fighters began to call President, just by listening to his voice as if it were an embrace.

This is how the intense and very clear morning in Dos Ríos began this Monday. If he had seen these moments of the National Anthem sung with pride and without fear; if he had seen how we remember what he said: “no deed without mercy and without cleanliness will ever leave my heart”.

“We are not here to evoke a static past,” said Danhiz Díaz Pereira, deputy to the National Assembly of People's Power and president of the Martí Movement of Young People. “Martí taught us that every Cuban deserves respect.”

Referring to the master, he affirmed that he “is the fire that burns us when we falter,” and that the resistance of now is the reflection of the Martí spirit.

“Sisters and brothers of this heroic Cuba”, first secretary of the Provincial Committee of the Party in Granma Yudelkis Ortiz Barceló began her speech in a fiery, beautiful and patriotic intervention, and spoke about the ‘Martí's perpetuity’ that was born precisely from the fall of the exceptional man.

We are not before a simple memory, we are before a fire that will not be extinguished. In such a way, the party leader affirmed that, “facing the sun” -that Martian phrase- means among Cubans to live with dignity, to embrace the future and to do it without fear, not to give up. “In every Cuban who resists with dignity, there is Martí”.

Socialism

 

Inter-party ties constitute the cornerstone of Cuba-Vietnam relations in all fields. Under that maxim the member of the Political Bureau and Secretary of Organization, Roberto Morales Ojeda, exchanged with Nguyen Xuan Thang, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, director of the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics and president of the Central Theoretical Council.

Photo: Albi

This meeting takes place prior to the celebration of the 6th Inter-Party Theoretical Seminar and the 2nd Fidel Castro Ruz-Ho Chi Minh Scientific Conference, to be held today and tomorrow in Havana.
Morales Ojeda stressed the importance of this seminar, which takes place prior to the Congresses of both Parties, and which will allow addressing issues that are vital in the construction of socialism.
He pointed out that experiences will be shared on how to face a phenomenon that is incompatible with our social system: crime, corruption, illegalities and social indisciplines.

Nguyen Xuan Thang emphasized that the exchange mechanism of the theoretical seminar is very important, as it helps to strengthen the links between both Parties, in addition to promoting cooperation in the implementation of the consensus reached between the leaders of both Parties and countries, especially the agreements reached during the State visit to Cuba of the General Secretary of the Party, To Lam, last September.
At the meeting it was learned that the central theme of the vi Seminar will be Theoretical and practical experiences on the construction of socialism in Cuba and Vietnam.
Three commissions will work: the Party in the conduction of the economic processes; experiences and lessons in the forms of state and non-state management of the economy, and the political-ideological work with the youth.
Theoretical Seminars between both Communist Parties have been held since 2012 and constitute important mechanisms for the exchange of experiences in the process of building socialism with their own characteristics.
Present at the exchange were members of the Secretariat, heads of Departments and Offices of the Central Committee of the Party, as well as leaders of the Young Communist Youth Union, the Ñico López Party University and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Photo: Albi

Photo: Albi

Cohiba

 

Cuba won a new victory in the almost 30-year long legal battle for Cohiba. Photo: Albi

Cuba won a new victory in the nearly 30-year long legal battle over Cohiba, its flagship cigar brand, after a U.S. federal judge ruled in favor of the Cubans once again.
The verdict is the result of a lawsuit filed in February 2023 by General Cigar Company vs. the Cuban Tobacco Company, known as Cubatabaco.
General sought to overturn a decision made by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAH) in 2022, which ruled to cancel the registration of General's Cohiba trademark in the United States.
But this Wednesday, General - which sells versions of the famous brand in the United States - lost the case.
Judge Leonie M. Brinkema of U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia upheld the TTAB's decision three years ago, a matter in dispute in the courts since the William Clinton administration (1993-2001).
According to the magistrate, Cubatabaco's Cohiba was protected by the Inter-American Convention (CIH), a 1929 law that protects international brands.
These cigars - valued among the best in the world - Cuba cannot legally sell them in U.S. territory due to the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by Washington on the Caribbean country more than six decades ago.
Cubatabaco, owner of the Cohiba name and the rights to market it internationally, challenged the legality of U.S. trademark and filed the first lawsuit in January 1997, the year the litigation began.
Cubatabaco applied for the Cohiba trademark in September 1969 and obtained the registration on May 31, 1972. Almost six years later, on March 13, 1978, General Cigar made a similar request before U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which was issued on February 17, 1981, the legal document states.
One of General Cigar's main arguments in the lawsuit was the claim that Cuba allowed the Cohiba trademark to lapse for lack of use in the 1970s, an idea that the court rejected.

Yes

 

First Secretary of the Party's Central Committee and President of the Republic Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez called for the food needed in the Isle of Youth, where some 80,000 people live, to be sown in the shortest possible time in that municipality, at the 15 de Mayo tobacco production center.

After the ceremony for the 70th anniversary of the release of Fidel and Moncada fighters, and prior to the meeting with the young people of the Isle of Youth, the Head of State, together with member of the Political Bureau and Secretary of Organization of the Central Committee of the Party Roberto Morales Ojeda gave continuity, in a second round, to the work system of the Party leadership in the territories.
At the beginning of the working visit, Diaz-Canel toured areas of the Pioneers Palace, which occupies buildings of the former Presidio Modelo, and where the first secretary of the Municipal Committee of the Party, Rafael Ernesto Licea Mojena, informed him about the rehabilitation and operation of an enclosure that is part of the childhood and adolescence of several generations of the Isle of Youth residents.
Already in one of the enclaves of the municipal tobacco company, he learned that the productive pole 15 de Mayo has five caballerias of land (67 hectares), which had been idle for four years; only 1.7 hectares were cultivated.
However, from January of this year to date, the collective, with the support and territorial commitment, has recovered the strategy of self-sufficiency in the lands located on the edge of the Sierra de Caballos.
The landscape in this area of northeastern the Isle of Youth has now acquired a new quality, more beautiful, according to Díaz-Canel, as the most typical of the island's nature and the hard work of its men and women converge.
Of the 67 hectares of the productive pole, only about seven have yet to be planted, the rest is covered by crops such as cassava, which occupies most of the space, banana, pumpkin, vegetables...
After the spring harvest, the company's management and the people of the production pole expect to start planting tobacco in October, initially on ten hectares, to evaluate the results. For this purpose, they are preparing several curing houses.

Tobacco has not been planted here for four years, but the tradition of the crop is still alive in the old farmers and technicians, who also hope that the crop, which pays well - including foreign currency - will allow them to promote other crops, such as miscellaneous crops and vegetables.

The President inquired about the progress of the self-sufficiency program in the municipality, especially the rustic crops, in which cassava and sweet potato have already achieved and overachieved, according to the per capita hectares per inhabitant. The same is not true for plantain, malanga and yam.

He insisted on the concepts to develop these varieties and, at the same time, reviewed the projections for the production of rice, beans, eggs, and oil, from soybean and sesame.

He asked about the income received by the collective from the entity, which is around 8,000 pesos per month, although they plan, after the harvests, with the distribution of profits, to reach an average of 20,000 pesos, according to Raul Fernandez, director of the Tobacco Company.
Before the usual meeting, at the end of these tours with Party cadres and territorial managers of the social and economic spheres, the Head of State visited the Meñique children's circle, inaugurated this school year in a large and airy building recovered by the institutions and enterprises of the territory, for the care of children of working families.

With an enrollment of 150 children, of which 80 are already occupied, the center is attended by educators and assistants committed to provide all the love required by the infants in the different stages of life, including pre-school.

The President wrote in the visitors' book his impressions about the center: “It is important to highlight -he wrote in his own handwriting- how with commitment, effort and dedication they have managed to build and put into operation this beautiful children's center in difficult times and with a lack of resources”.

Fidel Castro

 

It is an instrument of ideological struggle that should not be broken down into its parts, but analyzed in its integrality as an indivisible concept

Today marks the first quarter of a century of the concept of Revolution outlined by Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz. Perhaps no other of his definitions took such a historical dimension as the one pronounced in the Revolution Square, on May 1st, 2000; in the words of Army General Raul Castro Ruz: "the quintessence of the political-ideological work".

But what makes this conceptualization so transcendent?

Throughout his political life, both the construction of the Cuban revolutionary process and its impact on the world, and especially on the peoples of the Third World, were the object of multiple reflections by Fidel Castro. As early as January 1959 he reflected: "It hurts me to think of what would be the destiny of America if this Revolution is crushed, because this Revolution, (...) must constitute for the peoples of America a hope".

And to the extent that the revolutionary project was being consolidated, and that "everything that seemed impossible was possible", the maximum leader of the Revolution realized that "a Revolution greater than ourselves" had been made, much greater than the dreams of justice that led the Centenary Generation to the Moncada in 1953.

After the Bay of Pigs, the Revolution had crossed the threshold of the most basic measures of social justice, and was heading towards the construction of socialism, a project that had no precedents in Cuba or in Latin America to help understand such a social transformation; This fact was aggravated by the Cuban peculiarity of having passed, in a very short historical time, from a Spanish colony -together with its inheritance of underdevelopment, racism, etc-, to a new system of much stronger and more subtle dependencies, based on economic, political and cultural ties that aggravated the deformations inherited from the colony.

Although the main thinkers of Marxism were invaluable references, not as dogma, but as a method, the "Soviet manuals" did not fit the Caribbean reality that the Revolution intended to transform, so it had to think for itself, being aware of its own "sense of the historical moment", without following schemes or imported manuals; and it was Fidel, as a first-rate intellectual, who led that battle.

To be genuine will be one of the keys to the survival of the Cuban Revolution in the following decades, especially to face the Special Period.

A REVOLUTION FOR ALL TIMES

Fidel, a profound connoisseur of our history, knew firsthand that the term "revolution" was manipulated and stripped of its ideological essence during the first half of the 20th century. Grau, Prío and Masferrer, to cite a few examples, defined themselves as revolutionaries, and in the same way Batista tried to manipulate the barracks coup of March 1952, which had the energetic reply of the young Fidel Castro in Not a Revolution, but a swipe!

For Fidel, Martí, Maceo, Mella or Guiteras did not fit in the same concept with the lukewarm and genuflecting politicians of the Republic, even if they had had some participation in the deed of the 1930s.

This justifies, from the historical, political and theoretical point of view, its conceptualization of the year 2000, and therein lies one of the greatest values of the fidelist concept: its capacity to distance itself from the bourgeois and colonialist revolutions engendered from the entrails of capitalism. Because of its content, Fidel's concept of Revolution is incompatible with these and their individual spawns of any epoch.

"Revolution" is an advanced concept, which beyond the particular historical conjuncture in which it is expressed, transcends the frameworks of a particular epoch or socialist process. More than a look to the past, it is a projection to the future, a political reference for the leftist forces and a reflection of the humanism of the Cuban Revolution, as well as the result of the coherent union of Marti's and Marxist thought as a peculiarity of the Cuban process.

Although on multiple occasions Fidel conceptualized the Cuban political project, the definition of 2000 is the result of the definitive maturation of an idea whose author had had the rare privilege of remaining in the leadership of Cuban society for more than four decades, and of having been able to study and observe various revolutionary processes in the Third World, most of which were unable to sustain themselves over time in their struggle with imperialism and their own contradictions.

In addition to its humanist and philosophical value, "Revolution" is an instrument of ideological struggle that should not be broken down into its parts, but analyzed in its integrality, as an indivisible concept. It does not pretend to be a recipe of what to do, but a reference of what it is essential not to ignore; to assume otherwise would be to tarnish Fidel's ethical and anti-dogmatic thought and conduct.

It is an instrument to sow ideas and consciences as weapons against imperialist aggression; and this is precisely the idea defended by Fidel, as a preamble to his historic statement: "Our weapons have been the conscience and the ideas that the Revolution has sown for more than four decades". Immediately after reading his concept of Revolution, he added: "In real and concrete terms, we have faced for 41 years the most powerful power that has ever existed in the world (...)", a statement through which he made it clear that the ideas expressed above went beyond the particular context of the battle for the return of the child Elián González, one of the most grotesque aggressions of imperialism, and in which the island was involved at that time.

Twenty-five years have not been enough to take a reflective look at the concept of Revolution from every possible angle, but that time is enough to consider it a classic text of Latin American political literature.

CONCEPT OF REVOLUTION

"Revolution is a sense of the historical moment; it is to change everything that must be changed; it is full equality and freedom; it is to be treated and to treat others as human beings; it is to emancipate ourselves by ourselves and with our own efforts; it is to challenge powerful dominant forces within and outside the social and national spheres; is to defend values in which we believe at the price of any sacrifice; is modesty, selflessness, altruism, solidarity and heroism; is to fight with audacity, intelligence and realism; is to never lie or violate ethical principles; is a deep conviction that there is no force in the world capable of crushing the force of truth and ideas. Revolution is unity, it is independence, it is fighting for our dreams of justice for Cuba and for the world, which is the basis of our patriotism, our socialism and our internationalism".

Cuban

 

José Angel Portal Miranda, Cuba’s Minister of Public Health. Photo: Facebook.com

 Micky Albi

The Cuban health system is not a set of scattered institutions, but a coherent community-based network, and its axis, Primary Health Care, transverses all levels of medical care and focuses on individuals and families through integrated networks that reach the entire territory, said José Angel Portal Miranda, Cuba’s Minister of Public Health, in his inaugural lecture at the 5th Cuba Health 2025 International Convention.

At the opening, which was attended by the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, the minister referred to the Island’s medical collaboration in the world, and meant that our cooperants have reached the remotest corners, bringing not only medicine, but also comfort, hope and dignity.

“International medical cooperation is perhaps the most concrete expression of Cuba’s commitment to global health,” he said.

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Also on the opening day, the National Health System exhibition was inaugurated, a space to present the main indicators and achievements of the sector in recent years.

Ileana Morales Suárez, director of Science and Technological Innovation of Minsap, pointed out that this 5th Cuba Health 2025 Convention has more than 5,000 participants from 88 countries.

In addition, the scientific program includes more than 1,670 activities that will allow for the discussion of topics focused on models of integral health strategies, artificial intelligence in health, transformations in Primary Health Care, universal access and equity of medical services and products, among other topics.

The opening ceremony was attended by members of the Political Bureau of the Party’s Central Committee, Esteban Lazo Hernández, president of the National Assembly of People’s Power and the Council of State;

Manuel Marrero Cruz, prime minister, and Teresa Amarelle Boué, secretary general of the Federation of Cuban Women, as well as other government and Party leaders.