Con el dinero que gana limpiando casas en la mañana y una oficina en la noche, Virgen Elena Pupo, migrante cubana de 47 años, ha logrado sacar adelante a su familia en Washington DC, pero no ha podido ayudar a sus padres en Holguín, separada de ellos por más de 2 mil kilómetros. A la ciudad del noroeste de Cuba, golpeada en estos días con el incremento de casos de Covid-19, no llegan ni vuelos ni remesas de Estados Unidos por las políticas de Donald Trump que ha mantenido Joe Biden.

Una semana antes de las elecciones en Estados Unidos, el 27 de octubre de 2020, Trump emitió su última medida contra la isla. Incluyó entonces en la Lista Restringida de Cuba a la empresa financiera cubana Fincimex, contraparte de Western Union, con el pretexto ridículo de que pertenece a la corporación empresarial cubana Gaesa.

La medida cortó de golpe los canales para remesas, y los ancianos padres de Virgen Elena, en medio de la epidemia, no han podido recibir ninguna ayuda.

Este lunes, Fincimex anunció en un comunicado retrasos en las entregas de remesas que llegan a Cuba por terceros países, debido a la dificultad de encontrar instituciones financieras que autoricen las operaciones. La inclusión de esta empresa en la lista de entidades restringidas por el Departamento del Tesoro estadunidense, “sigue generando en el sector bancario internacional temores a aceptar operaciones dirigidas a la entidad y tendencias a limitar su alcance”.

Es una situación contra toda lógica. Las remesas han salido al rescate de las familias castigadas por el coronavirus en todo el mundo. Según el Banco Mundial, el envío de dinero de los emigrados a sus familiares superó en 2020 la suma de la inversión extranjera directa (259 mil millones de dólares) y la ayuda oficial al desarrollo (179 mil millones) de los países en desarrollo. Por ejemplo, en los primeros seis meses de 2021, las remesas tuvieron un crecimiento histórico en México, como dio cuenta recientemente La Jornada. Alcanzaron 23 mil 681 millones de dólares, 22.4% más que igual periodo del año anterior.

“Mientras el Covid-19 sigue devastando a las familias de todo el mundo, las remesas siguen siendo un salvavidas fundamental para los más pobres y vulnerables”, comentó a propósito Michal Rutkowski, director mundial de Protección Social y Empleo del Banco Mundial. Esto pasa en México y en todas partes. Los envíos regulares que hacen los migrantes latinoamericanos pobres a sus familias se han convertido en vitales para muchas de las economías de la región. Generalmente son los trabajadores pobres quienes mandan hasta ocho veces por año sumas pequeñas sacándolas de donde no tienen. Han sido el segundo ingreso de México durante años y cerca o más de 20% del producto interno bruto de Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala y otros países. Protegen a millones de personas. ¿Por qué lo hacen, por qué tanto sacrificio? Las encuestas dicen que la explicación de este gran gesto solidario de enorme impacto macroeconómico está ante todo en la familia. Lo hacen por inspiración moral, por lealtad a sus padres, hermanos, hijos y sobrinos.

En un estudio realizado en 2006 sobre las remesas y su impronta en la familia cubana, el investigador Edel Fresneda Camacho reconocía que esta ayuda no se destina a la inversión productiva. “Constituye una fuente importante de ingresos para las familias receptoras, de su capacidad de consumo y ahorro e implican un mejoramiento en las condiciones de vida”, que en el caso de Cuba incluye la posibilidad de invertir en un pequeño negocio particular.

Él y otros investigadores han dado cuenta de los escarceos manipuladores de Washington en este frente. En los años 90, durante la crisis conocida en Cuba como el Periodo Especial, Estados Unidos reforzó el cerco económico. Bill Clinton prohibió de agosto de 1994 a 1998 las remesas excepto bajo condiciones estrictamente humanitarias: enfermedad o en casos de personas con permiso oficial de inmigración. Bush impuso restricciones aún más crueles, al permitir sólo visitas a la isla, una vez cada tres años, si se trataba de familiares muy cercanos –los tíos y primos no eran considerados “familia”–.

Aun así, la remesa se las ingenió para continuar llegando a la isla. Hasta ahora. Sin oficinas de Western Union, sin posibilidad de envíos por DHL, con bancos bajo intimidación y vuelos suspendidos a todas las provincias –salvo los muy limitados a La Habana–, a Virgen Elena sólo le queda esperar que sus ancianos padres resistan la pandemia. Y ruega cada día para que el sentido común tome posesión en la Casa Blanca, ubicada a sólo dos cuadras de la oficina que ella limpia en las noches con la terca voluntad de seguir sacando a flote a sus seres queridos.

Biografía de la autora: Este artículo fue producido para Globetrotter y publicado primero en La Jornada. Rosa Miriam Elizalde es una periodista cubana, fundadora de Cubadebate. Es vicepresidenta de la Unión de Periodistas de Cuba (UPEC) y de la Federación Latinoamericana de Periodistas (FELAP). Es autora y coautora de varios libros, incluyendo Jineteros en la Habana y Chávez Nuestro. Por su destacada labor, ha sido merecedora en varias ocasiones del Premio Nacional de Periodismo Juan Gualberto Gómez. Es columnista semanal de La Jornada, México.

It happened with a suddenness that was stunning. The Taliban taking town by town, village by village, province by province until Kabul itself toppled all without virtually firing a shot. The sudden full of the capital caused the falling of alligator tears by the US political class, many of whom demanded that more troops be sent ostensibly to prevent Imperial embarrassment.

Forgotten, of course, was the 20 year project that armed, funded and allegedly trained an army by the Americans. The U.S. trained troops faced with the prospect of fighting the Taliban melted away faster than the ice cream on a summer sidewalk. The Late Palestinian intellectual Edwards Said in a 2003 article taught the following lesson:

“Every empire” he wrote, “however tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control, but to educate and liberate. These ideas are by no means shared by the people who inhabit that empire, but that hasn’t prevented the U.S. propaganda and policy apparatus from imposing its Imperial perspective on Americans, whose sources of information about Arabs and Islam or woefully inadequate.”

– The late scholar Edward Said.

When the Afghanistan War began, it was called “Operation Enduring Freedom”

When the Iraq war began several years later, it was called operation “Iraqi Freedom.”

You can call it what you will but is either nation freer? And what endures after decades of war besides immense loss?

The last Sundays of August are usually days of joy in Cuba due to the contagious excitement of children returning to school and the hustle and bustle of parents to get uniforms, backpacks, notebooks, and snacks ready for the big day.

But this August 29, the reality was different. The island woke up to another six thousand people infected with COVID-19 and 77 deaths due to the disease.

Students did not go back to school this time, and neither did they after last year’s summer vacations in many parts of the country. Today, it is riskier than ever.

However, it was not all bad news for Cubans at the end of August. On Sunday, Cienfuegos, one of the most affected provinces by the pandemic, began to be immunized against the deadly virus with a program that includes the using of Chinese vaccine Sinopharm and the Cuban Soberana Plus vaccine.

“Hope reaches the arms of the people of Cienfuegos” is the headline appearing in local outlets, alluding to the arrival in the territory of the donations made to the island by the Institute of Biological Products of Beijing, China.

“This immunization program has brought us relief after weeks of a hard fight against COVID-19 in the province, which is amid an uncertain epidemiological scenario,” journalist Robert Alfonso Lara reported for 5 de Septiembre newspaper.

In seven out of the eight Cienfuegos’ municipalities, hundreds of immunization centers were set up to immunize all the residents who are over 19 years old.

“We were waiting for this news with anxious anticipation. Everything was organized quickly by local authorities, medical staff, and social workers. If everything goes well, in the first days of October, almost 74 percent of our population will be immunized against the virus,” said Oskeimy Rodríguez, a health official in the province.

For pharmaceutical scientist Dagmar García, this is not a clinical trial but a new vaccination strategy to prompt people’s immunity. This decision, which took place amid an unprecedented economic crisis caused by the US blockade against Cuba that includes placing impediments for the island to access materials needed to produce and deliver the vaccines, fills people with confidence.

The Chinese vaccine is the third most widely used immunogen worldwide. The decision to combine it with Soberana Plus resulted from weeks of research and reviews by the Cuban Ministry of Public Health which concluded that the efficacy of the vaccine combo is above 90%.

“Vaccines have no flag nor nationality when it comes to saving lives. We are going through the worst moment of the pandemic. This strategy will help us overcome the health crisis. That is why I’ll give my arm to receive the Sinopharm doses,” said Yerovia Tirse, a resident of the Cruces municipality.

The news came while the world faces an exponential increase in the number of infections caused by the Delta variant of Sars-coV-2.

Studies show that the new mutation, which has put in check the health systems of several countries in the region, including some states in the US, does not escape the immunity induced by the vaccines known in the world today.

However, “Delta decreases the effectiveness levels of these vaccines and causes many immunized people to become ill. This new strategy will show us what happens when we combine two immunizers. We believe that the response to infection will be more effective,” Dagmar Garcia.

Since January 18, 2021, some 27,000 Cienfuegos students left school not to be back in September, something unprecedented in the province’s history. Today classrooms are empty, but it will not be for long. The return to face-to-face education is just around the corner, thanks to Soberana and Sinopharm, which together may open a new path to immunize millions of people around the world.

Source: Resumen Latinoamericano

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has announced plans to open a “Global Center for Urban Transformation” in Detroit in October 2021. The WEF is an international non-governmental organization (NGO) that describes itself as aiming to improve “the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic, and other leaders of society to shape global, regional, and industry agendas.” It has been in existence since 1971 and is based in Switzerland.

This won’t be the first time the capitalist corporate, banking and political power-brokers have focused on the Motor City to promote their plans to strengthen their exploitative system on the backs of poor and working people.

The Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI) and the Moratorium Now Coalition played a pivotal role in all of these earlier actions and are part of a growing coalition to once again confront them. .

Back in 2005, Detroit hosted a Conference on the Cities that brought together business and banking interests. Activists from a broad range of community and union organizations responded and held a “National Conference to Reclaim Our Cities” from November 11 to 13 at Wayne State University. The focus of this counter-conference was to demand “Feed the Cities – Starve the Pentagon.”

Opposing the 2009 National Business Summit that gathered at Detroit’s Renaissance Center was a People’s Summit that occupied Grand Circus Park in downtown Detroit (two years before the famed “Occupy Wall Street” came to that same location). The park was occupied from June 14 to 17. Hundreds of progressive people gathered daily to hear speakers, discuss strategies and launch marches to oppose the plots being hatched by the rich and powerful. A tent city sprang up for the four days.

In late October of 2017 the World Conference of Mayors met at the MGM Grand Hotel to supposedly celebrate the “revitalization” of Detroit. The mayors and the public were invited to attend a “Real Detroiters Speak Out” that was held on October 26. The Facebook page stated:

We invite all organizations in the City involved in the struggles against water shut-offs, foreclosures and evictions, police brutality, against union busting and for a living wage, immigrant rights, full access for people with disabilities, quality public education, deprivation of voting rights, and who are fighting racism, sexism and LGBTQ oppression in all its forms, to join the World Conference of Mayors, Real Detroiters Speak Out alternative….

The Speak-Out will fully expose the role of the banks, multinational corporations, the business media and political comprador elites in perpetuating the super-exploitation of the people of Detroit. The majority African American, working class and poor residents of the city are being totally left out of the so-called “rebirth of Detroit.”

Detroit’s “rebirth” has meant that the public revenues generated through the process of taxation are being funneled to the capitalist corporations. [We] will discuss a real agenda for the rebirth and rebuilding of our neighborhoods and communities. Real development in Detroit would focus on the rehabilitation of neighborhoods, the guaranteeing of jobs, housing, water services, heating and quality education for all. The banks who are responsible for the destruction of our neighborhoods must be held accountable through criminal prosecution and the payment of reparations.

One year later City Lab Detroit: Global Cities Summit convened. From October 28 to 30, 2018 speakers like Mary Barra, Chairperson of General Motors and Michael R. Bloomberg, multi-billionaire,  put forward their skewed vision of urban revitalization ignoring the real problems of the people of Detroit and other metropolises.

Refusing to allow these ruling class exploiters to define the problems and solutions, the Moratorium Now Coalition held a Teach-In on City Lab: Real Detroiters Speak Out on October 28. Literature to publicize the Teach-In observed:

As Detroiters we know that it is the banks, multinational corporations and their repressive bureaucratic agents which in effect run the city in the interests of ruling class billionaires. Despite its public relations rhetoric which claims that City Lab is concerned about improving conditions in urban areas, we witness on a daily basis the systematic dis-empowerment of the majority African American and working class population of Detroit.

The city has been underdeveloped by the financial institutions, the service sector and industrial plants. Over the last decade or more some 250,000 people have been forced out of Detroit through job losses, mortgage and property tax foreclosures, utility shut-offs involving water, heating and lighting, school closings and environmental degradation.

We have to build fightback movements which challenge the illegitimate right of the ruling class to govern at our expense by placing the interests of the masses at the forefront of any political and social program. We need to be organized at the grassroots levels to defeat the enemies which are continuously exploiting and repressing the people of Detroit and other municipalities throughout the state, the country and indeed the world.

Following the Teach-In the participants marched to the Marriott Westin Book Cadillac Hotel to join in solidarity with striking workers who had maintained picket lines around the clock starting September 18, 2018. Victory in the strike came only one week after the Teach-in.

The plans for the World Economic Forum to open a permanent office for their Global Center for Urban Transformation is a continuation of this series of prominent events promoting a ruling class vision for cities. WEF spokesman Jeff Merritt told the media:

Our view is that there is some great work that is happening, will be happening in Detroit. We want to help tell that story and how Detroit can be a model – an inspiration really – for other cities around the world.

What these vultures really ought to say is that Detroit is an example of how billions of dollars can be milked from the public trough without massive protests or uprisings. The truth is that Detroit’s “renewal” saw the imposition of a dictatorial “Emergency Manager” from Donald Trump’s law firm of Jones Day in March 2013. Then a fraudulent bankruptcy was rammed through Federal Court with the collusion of Judge Stephen Rhodes and his cronies that ended up taking over $8 billion from City of Detroit retirees. An estimated 250,000 people have been forced from the city through criminal predatory lending practices of the banks along with 100,000 water service shutoffs. Important assets owned by the City were taken including the City owned water and sewerage system, Belle Isle Park, the Detroit Art Institute and more. Over $600 million was looted from homeowners in over taxation that those who benefited will never pay back.

These are some of the lessons that are being shared as they revel in a gentrified downtown Detroit while the neighborhoods continue to be devastated and the people suffer.

A mass mobilization of all progressive forces certainly should come together to expose and condemn the WEF’s plans for Detroit. A real program of urban transformation can only come from the grassroots organizers across Detroit’s neighborhoods. Such a program must include the demand for reparations to be paid to Detroit families by the banks and corporations.

Source: Fighting Words

March to Stop Cop City!
25 Peachtree St NE, Atlanta

On September 7, the Atlanta city council is scheduled to vote again on whether to bulldoze our forest to build a police training center. Join us this Friday as we march to stop cop city and defend the forest!

Saturday, September 4, 2021 at 11:00 AM UNK – 12:00 PM UNK

1100 N Eutaw St, Baltimore

The federal pandemic insurance benefits end on September 4th.
Jobs or income now!
Unemployment Benefits are a Right!
Rally & Press Conference
Saturday, September 4, 2 pm
At the MD DOL Unemployment Office
1100 N. Eutaw Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

Join the Unemployed Workers Union in marking this date with a rally & press conference.
Come and speak out.

Workers all across the country are still suffering from unemployment and job displacement.
With the Delta variant on the rise and threatening the health and safety of everyone, hundreds of thousands of workers nationally continue to need assistance. Without benefits and income, homelessness, hunger, and desperation will grow. We need an emergency moratorium on evictions, foreclosures, and utility shut-offs.

In Maryland, the crisis is urgent because thousands of workers have yet to see their benefits. Many have not received a dime in over a year. Time is up for the Department of Labor — pay up now!

Masks & social distancing please!