Fogbow

Raul Castro is stepping down as the head of the Communist Party of Cuba, the most powerful position on the island, with few expectations of significant change among Cubans, despite it being a historic move.

The Communist Party’s eighth congress will begin Friday when it will certify President Miguel Díaz-Canel as the next party secretary-general and set policy guidelines. Castro and his late brother, Fidel Castro, have been in power since the 1959 revolution, and he said in 2018 he expected Díaz-Canel to replace him after his retirement in 2021. Díaz-Canel, 60, represents a new generation and is serving the first of two five-year terms as president.

Many analysts believe Castro, who turns 90 in June, will continue to be the most influential figure on the island until his death.

In Cuba, major events are put together during historic celebrations and this year’s congress is no exception. It coincides with the 60th anniversary of the failed, CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion.

Castro’s retirement comes as Cuba, one of the last communist run-countries in the world, is facing multiple challenges. Its economy shrank 11 percent in 2020 due to the pandemic, and it's been grappling with tightened U.S. sanctions and a decline in aid from its ally, Venezuela. The government lacks hard currency to import food and medicine, which means endless lines outside stores when food becomes available, and one meal a day for some families.

MIAMI — Communist Cuba erupted in its largest-scale demonstrations in decades on Sunday as thousands of people chanting “freedom” and “yes, we can” took to the streets from Havana to Santiago de Cuba in a major new challenge to an authoritarian government struggling to cope with increasingly severe blackouts, food shortages and a spiking coronavirus outbreak.

The protests, from Havana’s famous Malecon to small towns and the island nation’s eastern cities, spoke to the power of social media, as well as discontent that has bubbled to the surface in the worsening pandemic, during which Cuba has already witnessed growing political protests led by artists and musicians.

RTH10260 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 13, 2021 12:17 pm Let's not forget that possibly some of the current plights of the Cuban people can be tracked back to the former impotus who reinstated embargo conditions upon Cuba after the Obama adminsitration had started fresh diplomatic relationship with Cuba.

Slim Cognito wrote: ↑Mon Jul 12, 2021 12:40 pm Just saw a tweet pointing out that Republicans are fully behind Cubans protesting the lack of living wages, housing and human rights, but when Ds and Is protest that the same things are happening here in the US, we're called....Communists.

RTH10260 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 13, 2021 12:17 pm Let's not forget that possibly some of the current plights of the Cuban people can be tracked back to the former impotus who reinstated embargo conditions upon Cuba after the Obama adminsitration had started fresh diplomatic relationship with Cuba.

Lauren Boebert
@laurenboebert
·
5h
I unequivocally condemn Communism.

I wish the administration in charge could say the same and stand by the Cuban people.

President Trump helped weaken this regime & Biden is just letting all that hard work be for nothing.

#StandWithCuba

Cuba’s vaccine success story sails past mark set by rich world’s Covid efforts
The island nation struggles to keep the lights on but has inoculated 90% of population with home-developed vaccines

Ed Augustin in Havana
Wed 5 Jan 2022 10.00 GMT

General Máximo Gómez, a key figure in Cuba’s 19th-century wars of independence against Spain once said: “Cubans either don’t meet the mark – or go way past it.”

A century and a half later, the aphorism rings true. This downtrodden island struggles to keep the lights on, but has now vaccinated more of its citizens against Covid-19 than any of the world’s major nations.

More than 90% of the population has been vaccinated with at least one dose of Cuba’s homegrown vaccines, while 83% have been fully inoculated. Of countries with populations of over a million, only the United Arab Emirates has a stronger vaccination record.

“Cuba is a victim of magical realism,” said John Kirk, professor emeritus of Latin American studies at Dalhousie University, Canada. “The idea that Cuba, with only 11 million people, and limited income, could be a biotech power, might be incomprehensible for someone working at Pfizer, but for Cuba it is possible.”

Like most Latin American countries, Cuba knew it would struggle to buy vaccines on the international market. So in March 2020, with foreign exchange reserves plummeting due to the loss of tourism revenue and ferocious new US sanctions, the island’s scientists got to work.

The gamble paid off: this spring Cuba became the smallest country in the world to successfully develop and produce its own Covid vaccines. Since then its well-staffed, if dilapidating universal health service, has rolled out injections at a fast clip, inoculating even young children (all vaccination on the island is voluntary).

Both vaccines are over 90% effective, according to Cuban-run clinical trials conducted last spring. Successful rollout has brought infection rates down from among the highest in the western hemisphere last summer to low levels today.

Last August the island reported hundreds of Covid deaths per week; last week there were three.




https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... cess-story

At least four people are dead and others are trapped after explosion hit downtown Havana hotel, according to the office of the Cuban president and witnesses.