AN ACID TEST

By Cuban Agency News | 2 May 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | While our people on May Day, the workers’ day, joyfully celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the Triumph of the Revolution, and the seventieth anniversary of the creation of the CTC, the sister nation of Bolivia, fully dedicated to the preservation of health, education, and ensuring the safety of all its citizens, is only a few days, perhaps hours, ahead of going through tragic events.

OUR SPIRIT OF SACRIFICE AND THE EMPIRE’S BLACKMAIL

By Cuban Agency News | 25 April 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | The first news on the case I read reached us through the Italian news agency ANSA, on April 22. According to the article (dated April 22, La Paz), a Commission of Deputies was to investigate the case of a female Bolivian boarder student who died in Cuba, whose body was repatriated with several vital organs, including the brain, missing.

THE LIVING AND THE DEAD

By Cuban Agency News | 24 April 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | You may be thinking that your little boat is making its way upstream, but if the current is stronger, you will be going backwards.

PEACE AND PROSPERITY

By Cuban Agency News | 22 April 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | Pope Benedict XVI outsmarted Brown, the British Prime Minister, who replaced Blair, whom I met and spoke with for a few minutes during a recess at the WTO Second Conference in Geneva 10 years ago; it was following his speech and I was expressing my disagreement on the matter of an incorrect sentence he used about the social situation of British children. Brown’s voice, positions and tone at his press conference in the presence of Bush, gave me the impression that he is self-assuming as his predecessor in the leadership of the Labor Party. The activities of the new British Prime Minister, coinciding with the Pope’s visit, were just like those of a leader of the government of a banana republic.

MAKING NO CONCESSIONS TO THE ENEMY’S IDEOLOGY

By Cuban Agency News | 16 April 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | I have decided to write this reflection after listening to a public comment disseminated by one of the media of the Revolution, which I will not specifically mention.

BUSH, MILLIONAIRES, CONSUMPTION AND UNDER-CONSUMPTION

By Cuban Agency News | 14 April 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | No one requires additional proof of the growing hatred that drives the slaughter in Iraq, a country where 95 percent of the population is Muslim —of these, over 60 percent are Shiites and the remainder Sunnis—or the killings in Afghanistan, where over 99 percent of the population is also Muslim —80 percent Sunni and the remainder Shiite. The two nations are also made up of nationalities and ethnic groups of diverse origins and locations.

BUSH, WAR AND THE DESPERATE STRUGGLE FOR A SLICE OF LIFE

By Cuban Agency News | 9 April 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | In the reflection titled “Bush in the Sky”, published by our newspapers this past March 23rd, I claimed Bush would get up to his old tricks during the NATO meeting in the Romanian capital of Bucharest, held from the 1st to the 3rd of April.

Letter from Fidel to the 7th UNEAC Congress

By Cuban Agency News | 4 April 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | Dear Miguel Barnet and all the other UNEAC members: I cannot be with you in the debates. I am aware of the concerns of some of the organization’s members – above all yours, Miguel – due to my traditional presence at the congresses of our writers and artists.

THE CHINESE VICTORY(Part II)

By Cuban Agency News | 2 April 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | When the First World War broke out in 1914, China joined the allies. As recompense, China was promised that the German concessions in the province of Shandong would be returned at war’s end. After the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, which President Woodrow Wilson imposed on friends and foes alike, the German colonies were transferred to Japan, a more powerful allied than China.

THE CHINESE VICTORY(Part I)

By Cuban Agency News | 31 March 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | Without some basic historical knowledge, the subject I am dealing with would not be understood. In Europe, people had heard about China. In the autumn of 1298, Marco Polo told marvelous tales about an amazing country he called Cathay. Columbus, an intelligent and intrepid sailor, was aware of the Greeks’ knowledge about the roundness of the Earth. His own observations led him to coincide with those theories. He came up with the plan of reaching the Far East sailing westward from Europe. But, he calculated the distance with far too much optimism, for it was several times greater. Unexpectedly, between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, this continent loomed up on his route. Magellan would make the journey conceived by him, even though he died before reaching Europe. Still, the voyage was paid with the value of the spices gathered, and the trip begun with several vessels, out of which only one returned, was a prelude of future colossal (...)

THE DETACHMENT RETURNS, UNDEFEATED

By Cuban Agency News | 31 March 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | This past Wednesday, March 26, 20-year-old Lisandra Guerra became the 500-meter time-trial cycling world champion in the World Track Cycling Championship held in Manchester, Great Britain, following intense competition with athletes from 37 different countries. Fruit of our educational and sports system, of our talented youth and women, we can sincerely and legitimately feel proud of this victory. Credit where credit is due!

BUSH IN HEAVENS (II)

By Cuban Agency News | 25 March 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | Tuesday March 18th marked the fifth anniversary of the arrests of more than 70 quislings, the ringleaders of imperialism’s fifth column in Cuba who, paid by the U.S. government, violate the laws of the land and share the opinion that this dark corner of the world should be swept off the map. On this date, a Department of State spokesperson described the event as the “Black Spring”, a term having racist overtones. We could call it “White Spring”. Darkness does not exist in space, only in the mind. What a huge difference between the methods used by the government of the United States and those used by Cuba! Not one of the mercenaries was tortured or deprived of lawyer or trial, even if it was of a summary nature, provided by the law in the case of danger of aggression; they have the right to receive visits, access to family facilities as well as the other legal prerogatives of all prisoners; and if at any time their health seriously requires it, they are released without the demands (...)

BUSH IN HEAVENS (Part I)

By Cuban Agency News | 24 March 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | In this reflection I will go by the news received from different sources, including international cable services, –without specifically recognizing any of them as the information source, but strictly abiding by the text of the news— books, documents, the Internet, and even questions asked to well-documented sources.

THE VICTORIOUS TRIP

By Cuban Agency News | 18 March 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | The cable agencies were quick to get the news out, news which, though not exactly laughable, are indeed ironic. Everyone said their share. There was competition, that is to say, they competed with one another. Videos of Dick Cheney, the war’s intellectual author, and his disciple McCain, also reached us. They appear, with a disciplined air about them, among numerous people, in a kind of classroom fitted with simple chairs, where all manner of military chiefs trained in the art of killing are gathered. I will use a straightforward language and quote the opinions of students, teachers, reporters and institutions to reflect the ugly truth of the situation.

THIRST FOR BLOOD (II)

By Cuban Agency News | 17 March 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | I promised I would continue the reflections today, using textual news and adding pertinent commentaries. “NEW YORK, March 13 (ANSA) – The absence of Argentina in the itinerary of the new trip by the U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to South America is another sign of Washington’s annoyance with the authorities in Buenos Aires, according to the New York Times today.

THIRST FOR BLOOD (I)

By Cuban Agency News | 17 March 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | The empire is not resigning itself to being the only loser at the Rio Group meeting held in Santo Domingo on March 7th. It wants to set up the bloody mess once more. It is not difficult to demonstrate it.

EVER ONWARDS AND UPWARDS

By Cuban Agency News | 11 March 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | Secondary Education students met: their XI Congress was the occasion. Listening to them, I felt wholesome pride and justifiable envy. What a privilege at that fertile age! If today university education has become massive, so too a more important activity is massive: the battle of ideas before starting university.

CHAVEZ’ VISIT

By Cuban Agency News | 10 March 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | Raúl had invited him. He replied he didn’t want to come see me so I wouldn’t catch the flu he had. That was nothing but a pretext to avoid the torture of my habitual questions. “What am I taking vitamin C for?” I told him in a message. Should we expect all the heads of State who attended the Rio Group’s warm and successful last meeting to get sick?

THE ONE AND ONLY LOSER

By Cuban Agency News | 10 March 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | The knock-out took place in the capital of the Dominican Republic. We followed every second of the match on Telesur. Nearly all of the Latin American presidents from the Rio Group were there. Ecuadorian President Correa had announced it the day before. I underscored the importance of this meeting in one of my reflections. It did not take place within the OAS. Most importantly, US diplomats were not in attendance. In one way or another, despite the profound ideological and tactical differences, everyone shone and showed the virtues that earned them important positions in office.

THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNAL

By Cuban Agency News | 10 March 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | For the past months and ending yesterday on March 5th, La Hojilla, a Venezolana de Televisión programme, took on the task of selecting facts and sentences that exactly reveal the imperialist scheme of doing to Chavez what was done to Milosevič after the genocidal Kosovo Conflict: to have him tried by the International Criminal Tribunal.

RAFAEL CORREA

By Cuban Agency News | 4 March 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | I remember when he visited us, months before the electoral campaign when he was thinking of running as a candidate for the Presidency of Ecuador. He had been the Minister of the Economy in the government of Alfredo Palacio, a surgeon with professional prestige who had also visited us as Vice President, before becoming the President in an unexpected situation that took place in Ecuador. He had been receptive to a program of ophthalmologic operations that we offered him as a form of cooperation. There were good relations between our two governments.

CHRISTIANS WITHOUT BIBLES

By Cuban Agency News | 3 March 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | Our doctors and all the other Cuban health professionals and technicians are an exceptional powerhouse. No other country has anything like it; just like our island’s internationalist soldiers, they were trained in combat. Their missions overseas abide by strict ethical standards. Their services are offered free of charge, or they are commercialized according to the host country’s circumstances. They are not exportable.

I Hope I Never Have A Reason To Be Ashamed, Reflections By Comrade Fidel

By Cuban Agency News | 3 March 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | These words will be published tomorrow, on February 29th. A great many tasks lie immediately ahead of us. The 10th International Gathering of Economists on Globalization and Development Problems, a conference I have always attended and in which I have always expressed different points of view, will begin on Monday the 3rd. Judging from the international developments we’ve witnessed, this conference will doubtless be of great importance, owing to the presence of prestigious economists, some Nobel Prize laureates and two eminent heads of State.

WHO WANTS TO BE IN THE GARBAGE DUMP?

By Cuban Agency News | 24 February 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | Today, by mere chance, I remembered that the OAS still exists, when I read a cable posted on the Internet which contained an article by Georgina Saldierna, published in La Jornada, titled “Insulza rules out the possibility of re-admitting Cuba into the OAS”. No one even remembered the OAS. Note how retrograde this line of reasoning is.

What I Wrote on Tuesday 19

By Cuban Agency News | 22 February 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | That Tuesday there was no fresh international news. The modest message I wrote to the Cuban people on Monday, February 18, was widely and easily disseminated. As from 11 o’clock in the morning I started to receive concrete news. The previous night I had slept like never before. I had a clear conscience and I had promised myself a vacation. The days of tension, awaiting the proximity of February 24, had left me exhausted.

Message from the Commander in Chief

By Cuban Agency News | 19 February 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | Dear compatriots: Last Friday, February 15, I promised you that in my next reflection I would deal with an issue of interest to many compatriots. Thus, this now is rather a message.

THE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE(Fifth and Last Part)

By Cuban Agency News | 18 February 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | The articles introduced in yesterday’s reflection, on February 14th, were written in the last two or three days. More than two weeks ago, on January 27, 2008, the digital publication Tom Dispatch reproduced an article translated for Rebelión by Germán Leyens: Why The Debt Crisis is Now the Greatest Threat to the American Republic, by Chalmers Johnson. This American author has not been awarded the Nobel Prize, as has Joseph Stiglitz, the famous and well-known economist and writer, or even Milton Friedman himself, who inspired neoliberalism and led many countries down that disastrous path, including the United States.

THE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE(Part Four)

By Cuban Agency News | 15 February 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | When in the previous reflection I asked McCain what he thought of the Five antiterrorist Cuban Heroes, I did so because I remembered what he had published on page 206 of his book Faith of My Fathers, co-written with his assistant Mark Salter:

THE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE(Part Three)

By Cuban Agency News | 13 February 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | Yesterday, I said that while Bush was speaking to Congress, McCain was being honored at the Versailles Restaurant of Little Havana. It was there that most of the fiercest enemies of the Cuban Revolution and their families took up residence, Batista’s followers, the big landowners, owners of apartment buildings and millionaires who tyrannized and plundered our people. The United States government has used them at will, to organize invaders and terrorists who have shed our people’s blood through almost 50 years. Later, illegal emigrants joined that stream, along with the Cuban Adjustment Act and the brutal blockade imposed on the people of Cuba.

THE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE(Part Two)

By Cuban Agency News | 12 February 2008 | Agencia Cubana de Noticias | One of the most hostile U.S. newspapers when it comes to Cuba, headquartered in Florida, offers the following report: “Taking advantage of the negotiations to free the Bay of Pigs’ prisoners, the CIA tried to use a key person in the talks, American lawyer James B. Donovan, to deliver a lethal gift to Fidel Castro: a wetsuit contaminated with a fungus that lacerates the skin and an underwater breathing device infected with tuberculosis...the gear in fact was given to the Cuban leader in November 1962.