The President of Cuba’s Councils of State and Ministers tours areas in Havana hit by a tornado last night
During the dawn hours, the President of Cuba’s Councils of State and Ministers, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, toured areas in Havana hit by a tornado last night.
The municipalities of Regla and Guanabacoa suffered the most damage during the severe storms that formed ahead of a cold front which crossed the provinces of Pinar del Río, Mayabeque, and La Habana.
“We are touring areas affected by the extreme weather phenomenon in Regla. The damages are severe; at this moment we lament the loss of three human lives, and 172 injured are being assisted. Several brigades are already working on the recovery,” Díaz-Canel stated.
According to preliminary data cited by authorities in the capital, on the Cuban television program Buenos Días, the deceased and injured were victims of partial or total collapses of their homes, falling trees, and other events related to the storm.
According to Prensa Latina, a tour of the city’s streets revealed many fallen trees and damage to buildings, partial interruption of electrical service, and closed streets, including the Malecón, due to high waves.
President Díaz-Canel reported on Twitter that a Council of Ministers meeting was held to evaluate the situation and adopt measures to move forward in the recovery from the severe damage left by wind, rain, and a tornado last night.
A stormy night of strong wind and rain hits the capital city
Despite forecasts, a rapid change in the weather surprised many residents of the capital last night. In its last advisory yesterday, the Meteorological Institute stated, “This morning, in the southeastern Gulf of Mexico, an extra-tropical low developed, extending southeast from which is a cold front. Over the next few hours, ahead of this front, a line of thunderstorms could form, and as these systems move east, the western portion of the country will be affected, tonight and into the dawn hours.”
Cubans, accustomed to such advisories were not alarmed, not suspecting the magnitude of the events to come after 8:00pm.
Residents were shaken by the tempestuous roar of the wind, one gust after another, increasingly strong. Telephone calls began to spread the news: A tornado had hit Luyanó; there was a locally severe storm in Cerro; and cars were underwater in flooded streets. The city was left in the dark night without stars…
Amidst the uncertainty, with sirens adding tension, Granma shares a few images of the painful view to which Havana awakens.
Several teams of reporters are on the streets, at this time, seeking more concrete information.
Probably the easiest way for young Jamaicans to understand what’s happening in Venezuela is for them to speak with an honest, objective and informed person who lived in Jamaica in the 1970s and who was old enough then to be aware of the real situation in the country.
If that is not possible, then there is a lot of information on the internet about this period in Jamaica’s life which can allow the honest, non-partisan mind to know the truth of the time. In addition, several informative books and articles, fiction and non-fiction, have been written about the CIA’s role in Jamaica in this period. All one needs to do is google “the CIA involvement in Jamaica”.
The script used then in Jamaica, which was basically the same one used in Chile leading up to assassination of the democratically elected President Dr. Salvador Allende in 1973, had three main components; paramilitary activity; propaganda in the mainstream media; and economic warfare.
This, in essence, is what we now see happening in Venezuela. But of course, the stakes are much higher there, not only because of the huge oil, gas and gold reserves which the country boasts but also because of the leading role that the Bolivarian Revolution has played since Hugo Chavez’ electoral victory in 1998 in transforming the region into an integrated, anti-imperialist bloc. Since Chavez’ victory there have been 15 progressive democratically elected governments in the region.
Michael Manley’s image shown with a death mask in the leading Jamaican daily newspaper, the Daily Gleaner
The violence unleashed in Jamaica in that period had never been experienced on the small, relatively peaceful island before. Socialist Prime Minister Michael Manley was demonized in the media and blamed for all the ills of the country including those manufactured by individuals and organizations trying to destabilize the young nation. Shortages of basic items like soap and toothpaste resulting from hoarding by the suppliers formed part of a broader economic and financial sabotage of the economy which led to the devaluation of the national currency – all occurring under the dictates of the model guided by the words of then US President Nixon for the destabilizing of Chile: “make the economy scream”.
Fortunately for the people of Venezuela, the experiences of Iraq, Afghanistan, and especially Syria and Libya, are too fresh in the minds of the peoples of the world for them to be fooled again. In addition, we are moving towards a multipolar world as the savage warmongering US empire is imploding, being isolated and recognized for what it is, and for its historical role as the purveyor of incessant destruction of other peoples and their lands under the guise of spreading ‘democracy’.
“You can fool some people sometimes
but you can’t fool all the people all the time, so now we see the light,
we gonna stand up for our rights”
OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro and the US Secretary of State,
Mike Pompeo. | Photo: EFE
A total of 18 countries rejected the interventionist statement proposed by Argentina at the OAS.
In a new episode of U.S. Interventionism in Latin America, the Organization of American States (OAS) held Thursday a session to affirm an interventionist declaration against the constitutional government of the president of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro and in favor of the unconstitutional and illegal actions of the Venezuelan right-wing who is supporting the self-proclaimed ” interim president” Juan Guaido.
A total of 18 countries rejected the interventionist statement proposed by Argentina, in a meeting headed by the United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The statement urged the countries members of the OAS to recognize the opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido as president, who proclaimed himself in an act that is unconstitutional and void.
Only 16 out of the 34 countries that are members of the OAS supported the U.S.-sponsored statement. Pompeo gave an interventionist speech alleging that “the time of debate is done,” and called “illegitimate” the presidency of democratically and constitutionally elected President Nicolas Maduro.
In the meeting, “the scene was that of Secretary of State (U.S.), Mike Pompeo, at the head of all alongside the Secretary-General, Luis Almagro, dictating practically the policies that the rest of the allied governments were dedicated to repeating,” said teleSUR correspondent in Washington, Alina Duarte.
The speech given by the U.S. and its right-wing allies is based on an alleged humanitarian help for Venezuela to be given to Guaido, but the sanctions imposed mainly by the U.S. on Venezuela is what has brought a difficult situation to the South American country.
The OAS has been placing pressure on the Bolivarian government of Venezuela for years, and the Secretary-General Almagro, was one of the first officials to recognize Juan Guaido almost immediately after he had sworn himself in.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza thanked U.S. activist Medea Benjamin, member of the non-governmental organization (NGO) Codepink, who denounced the attempted coup against the Bolivarian government when she interrupted the meeting and shouted slogans against the regime change attempt.
“With her protest, she revealed the macabre coup plan against Venezuela, we will always prevail, thank you!” said the Venezuelan diplomat. During Pompeo’s speech, the activist held up a banner that had the message “a coup is not a democratic transition!”
Rick Sanchez reports on the latest developments in Venezuela’s intensifying political crisis. Then RT America’s Dan Cohen reports on the increasingly shrill back-and-forth between Washington and Caracas as well as Russian voices joining the mix, with President Putin denouncing the present US interference in Venezuela as “a gross violation of the fundamental norms of international law.”
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro denounced that the real objective of the United States behind imposing a new government in the South American nation is to appropriate the energy and mineral resources of this country.
“They have the ambition for oil, gas and gold. We tell them: these riches are not yours, they are for the people of Venezuela and that’s how it will be forever,” Nicolas Maduro warned on Wednesday, Jan. 23, in the Venezuelan capital Caracas shortly after opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido illegally declared himself “interim president” and received support for his unconstitutional move from the U.S., Canada and other right-wing governments in the region.
A deeper look into the reasons behind such right-wing flood to support the parliamentary coup reveals that the objective behind such endorsement of an internationally illegal act is behind the publicly stated humanitarian reasons and in fact about robbing the country of its riches after two decades of progressive and sovereign policies by the Bolivarian government that limited Washington’s access to such resources.
Oil
According to the CIA World Factbook, as of Jan. 1, 2017, Venezuela had the largest proven oil reserve estimate of any country, including Saudi Arabia.
As of November 2017, the South American nation had 300,900,000,000 barrels of proven reserves in the “Hugo Chávez” Orinoco Oil Belt. After the inauguration of Nicolas Maduro for a second term, Donald Trump government began to consider expanding its sanctions on Venezuelan crude to add pressure against the constitutional president.
Oil analysts have indicated that the objective, beyond preventing the sale of oil to China, is to ensure a stable source of oil to serve the U.S. market that is increasing and that its own current production can not supply. On Jan. 16, the U.S. Department of Energy revealed that its reserves decreased by 2.7 million barrels, reaching 437.1 million.
In terms of proven gas reserves, Venezuela had 198.3 trillion cubic feet in 2017, according to the Ministry of Petroleum. The new proven reserves are distributed in 2.3 trillion cubic feet of the traditional areas of Maracaibo, Maturin, Barcelona, Cumana and Barinas, and 718.7 trillion that lie in the blocks of the Oil Belt.
Mining resources
Venezuela has denounced the international campaign promoted by the United States against the Mining Arc where the reserves of gold, diamonds and other minerals such as coltan are concentrated.
The campaign against the Mining Arc has sought to increase the levels of economic suffocation in Venezuela by presenting Venezuelan gold as a product of trafficking and corruption.
In 2018 Venezuela advanced in the certification of more than 30 gold fields in the country, with which it aimed to establish itself “as the second largest gold reserve on the planet”.
During 2018 and despite the sanctions, the South American nation received a 200 percent increase in its non-oil exports compared to 2017, mainly gold sold to Holland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States, the United Kingdom and especially to Turkey. In the first months of 2018, Venezuela exported 23.62 tons of gold to the Eurasian nation, valued at US$900 million.
By representing an alternative to oil and one of the largest proven gold reserves in the world, the U.S. has renewed its interest in appropriating this mineral and obstructing the commercial exchange that Venezuela maintains with Russia and Turkey in the Mining Arc.
As President Nicolas Maduro denounced Wednesday, Washington’s real objective in Venezuela is to seize the immense natural and mineral resources of the South American nation.
Political Beacon in Latin America
In 1998, commander Hugo Chavez Frias had a pivotal electoral triumph that changed the fate of Latin America for around 20 years, from that time to this date, there have been up to 15 progressive democratically elected governments in the region.
Commander Chavez and Nicolas Maduro first as foreign affairs minister and then as president have been crucial in the integrationist efforts in Latin American, guided by the ideals of Simon Bolivar of a united continent. With the cooperation of other countries and presidents such as Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Dilma Rousseff, Rafael Correa, Evo Morales, Nestor Kirchner, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Manuel Zelaya, Fernando Lugo, Daniel Ortega, Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, Venezuela pushed forward for the regional integration of the continent.
During these years some bodies of regional integration bodies were created such as the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), The Union of South American Nation (UNASUR), The Bank of the South, the News Network teleSUR, and the Southern Common Market to enforce South American trade bloc (MERCOSUR), all organizations that sought to create a more unified and independent Latin American and the Caribbean community.
From that moment a series of efforts began, in order to destabilize these governments. Soft coups against progressive presidents started, the first one against Chavez in 2002 which failed, then another against Honduras’ Manuel Zelaya in 2010, followed by a parliamentary maneuver against Paraguay’s Fernando Lugo, and partially ending with a parliamentary coup against Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff in 2016.
These processes have been defined as “lawfare”, such as the current legal wrangling against Lula, to which we can add the more recent ones against Rafael Correa and Jorge Glas in Ecuador and a very similar process against Cristina Kirshner in Argentina.
The domino effect rising of right-wing governments in Latin America, and defeating the “National Popular governments” continues in the region, and Venezuela is one of the last standing defenses, along with Bolivia, Nicaragua, Cuba, and El Salvador.
This is why a destabilization mediatic and a political and economic campaign has been unleashed against Venezuela, and all the “National Popular governments” of Latin America, for years. Defeating Venezuela, one of the first progressive countries and governments in the region, is so important for the U.S. and the local right-wing oligarchies. It would be a defeat to progressivism in the region.
It is time to build a universal anti-imperialist movement. The time has come for a universal unity of genuine defenders of the physical and spiritual integrity of peoples who love freedom and justice. – Venezuela is America. Venezuela is the World.
Governments Reiterate Support to Venezuela’s Constitutional President
Caracas, Jan 24 (Prensa Latina) Governments of several countries presented today their position of recognition to president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, regarding actions of the right of that country and the United States to overthrow him and impose an illegitimate one.
In Mexico, president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, reiterated his administration is committed to the Constitution and its four basic principles: non-intervention, self-determination of peoples, pacific solution of controversies and respect for human rights.
The Secretary of Foreign Relations said ‘Mexico will not be part of ignoring the government of a country with which it has diplomatic relations’.
Also, the head of State of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, expressed over phone his support to Maduro, after the self-proclamation of Venezuelan opposer, Juan Guaido as ‘president in charge’.
‘Brother Maduro! Stand tall, we are here!’. Turkey will maintain its principle stand against all attempts of low blows, assured Ibrahim Kalin, presidential spokesperson.
El Salvador‘s president, Salvador Sanchez Ceren, also through his Twitter account joined the international support to Nicolas Maduro and advocated for a peaceful solution to the situation the country is living.
Through a communiqué, his government expressed total support to Maduro, before the tense political situation facing this Latin American nation and said that the Republic of El Salvador absolutely disowned Juan Guaido and rejects his self-proclamation as president in charge of Venezuela.
Also, the Ministry of Foreign Relations of Syria, condemned this Thursday the ‘flagrant interference of the United States’ in the internal situation of Venezuela while he assured the actions of the United States constitute a violation of all norms and international laws’.
For his part, Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves, reiterated his unlimited support to president Maduro.
‘Our position has been and is of unequivocal support to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and its legitimate government’, he said.
Disrespectful of international law and of its principles, what reigns is the law of the jungle, said Gonsalves in an act of solidarity before the embassy of Venezuela in the Caribbean country. The eve, the head of State of Bolivia, Evo Morales, through his Twitter account, assured that the United States is only interested in Venezuela’s oil.
‘#U.S, does not fool anybody. It is not worried about defending democracy in #Venezuela, only in sacking its oil. To achieve this, as it did in #Irak and #Libya, it provokes conflict, destabilizes and intervenes militarily. Attempt against Venezuela is to attempt against #LatinAmerica’, he emphasized.
Morales alerted that the United States withdraws from the Middle East, after planting war and destruction, to transfer its policy of intervention and violence to Latin America.
‘Speaking of democracy and freedom, but promotes a bloody coup on the Venezuelan people. Interventionism will fail’, remarked the indigenous leader, who makes the United States responsible for promoting a coup d’état and brotherly war among Venezuelans.
Also the administration of Nicaragua spoke through a communique, in favor of Venezuelan democracy and respect to sovereignty before the new attempt of coup d’Etat.
‘The Great Homeland does not yield, it stands proud with the Love of its Peoples. No one surrenders here! Viva Venezuela! Viva Chávez! Viva Nicolás! Forward with Faith and Hope!’, said the text.
The Cuban President, Miguel Diaz-Canel ratified the invariable solidarity with the Maduro government and condemned ‘the attempt of imposing through a coup d’Etat, a servile government to the USA in the Bolivarian Government of Venezuela’.
Governments of several countries as Uruguay, Antigua and Barbuda, advocate for a peaceful solution of the crisis in Venezuela and the non-interference in domestic affairs.
China opposes interference in Venezuelan affairs
China on Thursday said it opposes outside interference in Venezuela’s internal affairs, calling upon all parties in the country to seek a political solution through peaceful dialogue within the nation’s constitutional framework.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying made the remarks after Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, announced his decision to break diplomatic ties with the United States following the Trump administration’s recognition of opposition leader, Juan Guaido, as the South American country’s interim president.
China supports the efforts of the Venezuelan government to safeguard national sovereignty, independence and stability, the spokesperson said, calling for all parties in Venezuela to maintain calm.
The US and Venezuela are both important countries in the western hemisphere and enjoy close traditional relations, she said.
“We hope that Venezuela and the United States can respect and treat each other on an equal footing, and deal with their relations based on non-interference in each other’s internal affairs,” she said, adding that it is in line with the interests of both countries and their people, and will help safeguard peace and stability in the American region.
Hua said China opposes “external intervention in Venezuela”. China hopes the international community will jointly create favorable conditions to prevent this, she added.
Outside sanctions and intervention will complicate the situation and would not be helpful resolving the actual problems, she said.
The Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Cuba condemns and energetically rejects the attempt to impose a coup d’etat, a puppet government at the service of the United States, in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, and expresses its unwavering solidarity with the government of Constitutional President Nicolás Maduro Moros.
The true objectives of actions against Venezuela are to control the vast resources of this sister nation and destroy the value of its example, as an emancipatory process defending the dignity and independence of Our America.
As President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez said: “The sovereignty of our peoples is expressed today in one’s attitude toward Venezuela. To support the legitimate right of the sister nation to define its own destiny is to defend the dignity of all.”
Other coup attempts should not be forgotten, such as the military coup of 2002 and the 2003 oil lockout; the aggressive U.S. Executive Order describing Venezuela as “an unusual and extraordinary threat to national security and foreign policy” of the superpower; unilateral coercive measures; the call for a military coup against the constitutional government of Venezuela; the President of the United States’ threat to use “a possible military option” and the August 4 assassination attempt against President Maduro.
The acts of a group of countries and the shameful role of the OAS constitute a new, desperate attempt to implement an unsuccessful policy of regime change, which has not been imposed due to the unwavering resistance of the Venezuelan people and their determination to defend national sovereignty.
OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro and the US Secretary of State,
Caracas, Jan 24 (Prensa Latina) Governments of several countries presented today their position of recognition to president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, regarding actions of the right of that country and the United States to overthrow him and impose an illegitimate one.
China on Thursday said it opposes outside interference in Venezuela’s internal affairs, calling upon all parties in the country to seek a political solution through peaceful dialogue within the nation’s constitutional framework.
JSC: Jamaicans in Solidarity with Cuba 