by Stephen Lendman
In September 2006, four original BRIC nations met in New York. On May 16, 2008, Yekaterinburg, Russia hosted a full-scale diplomatic meeting. In June 2009, Brazil, Russia, India and China again met in Yekaterinburg. Early steps were taken to end dollar supremacy. Eventual plans may replace it with a global currency or basket of major ones. Continue reading »
The Summits of the Americas began in 1994 as forums to promote free trade. In 2009 the Summit’s focus shifted to demands for the inclusion of Cuba in regional political bodies and the end of the U.S. economic embargo, a debate which continued in this month’s Sixth Summit in Cartagena.
But a new topic made its way into the news from the April 14 and 15 Summit in Cartagena, the call to discuss ‘decriminalization’ of drugs. Strangely, the call was launched by precisely the presidents which have most embraced militarization under the guise of the drug war. Though spearheaded by Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina, reportedly a former CIA asset and former general accused of carrying out crimes against humanity, Perez Molina claims he thought of the proposal together with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos. Continue reading »
04.17.2007 :: Latin America
In reality there are four competing blocs of nations in Latin America, contrary to the highly simplistic dualism portrayed by the White House and most of the Left.
Pres. Chavez: among the “pragmatistas”?
Introduction
Each of these four blocs represents different degrees of accommodation or opposition to US policies and interests. Moreover much depends on how the US defines or re-defines its interests under the new realities.
The radical left includes the FARC guerrillas in Colombia, sectors of the trade unions and peasant and barrio movements in Venezuela; the labor confederation CONLUTAS and sectors of the Rural Landless Movement in Brazil; sectors of the Bolivian Labor Confederation (COB), the Andean peasant movements and barrio organizations in El Alto; sectors of the peasant-indigenous movement CONAIE in Ecuador; sectors of the teachers and peasant-indigenous movements in Oaxaca, Guerrero and Chiapas in Mexico; sectors of the nationalist-peasant-left in Peru; sectors of the trade union and unemployed workers in Argentina. In addition, there are numerous other social movements in Central and South America and a plethora of small Marxist groups in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and elsewhere. Together these organizations form a heterodox, dispersed political bloc, which is staunchly anti-imperialist, rejects any concessions to neo-liberal socio-economic policies, opposes debt payments and generally supports a socialist or radical nationalist program. Continue reading »
Cuba’s doctors also treat foreigners either in Cuba or as part of Cuba’s wordlwide system of medical missions to the poorest countries. As part of the aptly named “Operation Miracle”, targetting eye diseases, the Cuban physicians have treated more than 750,000 people for eye conditions like cataracts and glaucoma since the program started. And it’s all free, calibrated on the basis of need.
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What is being done, in Cuba and Venezuela puts to shame the dysfunctional healthcare system of the US and exposes the Coalition government in Britain as it steers the NHS towards the profit-driven American model. Peter Arkell reports.
Of the many statistics in Steve Brouwer’s book, Revolutionary Doctors: How Venezuela and Cuba are changing the World’s Conception of Health Care, one in particular stands out. There are more students, about 73,000, in medical school in Cuba and Venezuela, with a combined population of 39 million people, than there are in the whole of the US with a population of 300 million. Continue reading »
By Stephen Gowans (See article criticized at bottom, under “ADDENDUM”)
New York Times reporter Damien Cave has written an article about changes that will allow Cubans to buy and sell their homes.
Cave seems to criticize the plans because they’ll likely outlaw real-estate-related social parasitism, limit “opportunities for profits and loans,” and prohibit foreign ownership.
Havana, 2011. Stephen Gowans.
“The plan outlined by the state media,” he writes, “would suppress the market by limiting Cubans to one home or apartment and requiring full-time residency.”
Gasp! Continue reading »
Regime-Change in a Box
The malicious intrigues and hypocrisy never stop in Washington and the Republic of Miami to topple socialist Cuba, or damage the socialist project enough to insure a return to full-fledged capitalism, or something in between, as the “Chinese road.” The next decade will be critical for the people of Cuba if they wish to prevent the complete dismantlement of their revolution.
By ROBERT SANDELS
Fidel and kid brother Raul, longtime head of the army. How will they play their cards to salvage at least a portion of true socialism?
In March, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, placed a hold on a $20 million appropriation for the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The money is for democracy promotion schemes in Cuba. Kerry’s purpose was to hold the funds hostage until the State Department responded to a series of questions he had about waste, mismanagement and the general ineffectiveness of the program to actually bring about democracy in Cuba.
USAID grantees in Cuba are soft-power agents engaged in covert subversion. Soft power, as described by its leading academic proponent Joseph E. Nye, Jr., is “getting others to want what you want.” His ideas, however, fell short of assisted regime change. Continue reading »
