A CIA officer has a headache. Media blame Russia.

More plausible explanations for these maladies include headaches, crickets, paranoia, mass hysteria or simply lying, rather than a vast global conspiracy using heretofore unknown science fiction weapons in order to mildly inconvenience a few American operatives | ALAN MACLEOD

Julia Ioffe (GQ, 10/20/20) reported that “dozens of American diplomats, spies and government employees” were “targets of what some experts and doctors now believe were attacks perpetrated by unknown assailants wielding novel directed energy weapons.”

A 9,000-word story for GQ (10/20/20) about the mystery ailment of a CIA officer in Moscow has become the unlikely subject of a weeks-long media storm.

An Open Letter to party leaders in the 2019 federal election of Canada

Re: Canada-Cuba Relations

I am writing to you on behalf of the Canadian Network On Cuba (CNC), which represents Canada-Cuba friendship and solidarity organizations across Canada, ranging from Vancouver to Halifax and with over 50,000 in membership. One of the CNC’s principal objectives is advocating that Canadian foreign policy regarding Cuba remains based on equality and respect for sovereignty and the right of selfdetermination. Consequently, the CNC is deeply concerned by recent decisions and actions of the Government of Canada. Canadians are very worried that recent developments in Ottawa-Havana relations could lead to the mirroring of the policy of the United States.

The hooliganism of the US imperialists knows no bounds

Canadians pay utmost attention to developing anti-imperialist solidarity

By NICK LIN

Working people across Canada continue to pay attention to the unfolding events internationally that require them to take a stand to uphold the international rule of law and organize actions in solidarity with the peoples of the world who have courageously set independent paths for themselves, for which they are increasingly being targeted by U.S. imperialism. Canadians must not accept U.S. dictate in world affairs which seeks to overturn the principles and norms of international relations. These have been expressly codified so as to maintain peaceful relations between countries and to find diplomatic means to settle disputes between countries.

What is the US Helms-Burton Act? How will it affect Canada?

Interview with Isaac Saney, Co-Chair and Spokesperson, Canadian Network on Cuba

Vancouver monthly picket, April 17, 2019, demands end to blockade of Cuba.

The U.S. Helms-Burton Act was conceived to codify and tighten the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed on Cuba in 1962 for the purpose of subverting and overthrowing the Cuban government and imposing a regime to the liking of the U.S. government.

TML Weekly interviewed Isaac Saney, Co-Chair and Spokesperson of the Canadian Network on Cuba (CNC), to explain for readers what is the Helms-Burton Act and its Title III and what is at stake.

US sanctions violate human rights and international code of conduct

Illegal economic sanctions as collective punishment

UN Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights

An independent expert appointed by the Human Rights Council [of the United Nations] has expressed deep concern at the recent imposition of unilateral coercive measures on Cuba, Venezuela and Iran by the United States, saying the use of economic sanctions for political purposes violates human rights and the norms of international behaviour. Such action may precipitate man-made humanitarian catastrophes of unprecedented proportions.

US lies to justify further attacks on Cuba

In statements to the press on Wednesday afternoon, the Cuban Foreign Ministry’s Deputy Director for the United States, Johana Tablada, reiterated that “Cuba does not participate with military troops or personnel in military operations in Venezuela”

By Bertha Mojena Milián

 

Statements on US enactment of the Helms-Burton Act

On April 17, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the Trump Administration will end the suspension of Titles III and IV of the Helms-Burton Act. The implementation of the Helms-Burton Act is a further intensification of the all-sided economic, commercial and financial blockade of Cuba by the U.S. This action is not only an attack on the Cuban people but also a direct attack on the sovereignty and well-being of third countries including Canada. As such it is an additional serious violation of international law. Statements by Cuba, Global Affairs Canada, European Union, Ottawa Cuba Connections, Venezuela and Mexico on the aggressive measure against Cuba.

Where is Canada’s backbone in standing up to the US on Cuba?

By JOHN KIRK and STEPHEN KIMBER*

In June 1996, mere months after the U.S. Congress passed the Helms-Burton Act to tighten the screws on Cuba’s economy, Canada became the first country to publicly say “no” to Washington’s plan.

Back then, Ottawa announced it would introduce new legislation to blunt the bully-boy impact of Title III – an extra-territorial section of that law that prohibits non-U.S. companies from “trafficking” in what the United States claims is American property confiscated after the 1959 Cuban revolution – and threatened to take the United States to international arbitration.

Let us make sure the Government of Canada does not appease the US in its attempt to strangle Cuba!

Monthly picket at U.S. embassy in Ottawa April 17, 2019, demands end to the criminal blockade of Cuba.

On January 17, the U.S. State Department announced its intention to enforce Title III of its criminal Helms-Burton Act  “[…] in light of the national interests of the United States and the efforts to expedite a transition to democracy in Cuba, and include factors such as the Cuban regime’s brutal oppression of human rights and fundamental freedoms and its indefensible support for increasingly authoritarian and corrupt regimes in Venezuela and Nicaragua.”

Trump’s depraved doctrine paves way for more chaos, violence and war

Trump’s warmongering speech in Miami

Demonstration in Edmonton, February 16, 2019, one of many across Canada condemning U.S. plans for military intervention and the despicable role of the Canadian government in supporting it.

On February 19, U.S. President Donald Trump delivered a speech at the International University of Miami in which he threatened to intervene militarily in Venezuela and as much as said Cuba and Nicaragua were next on his list for regime change. The speech elaborated Trump’s depraved doctrine which advocates immorality, corruption, anarchy, violence and war on a grand scale.

A failed policy dusted off

Twenty-three years have passed since the Helms-Burton Act was approved. Its authors are barely remembered, but Cuba is still here, free and sovereign, and more committed than ever to our social project | Elson Concepción Pérez

Trump threatens ‘second embargo’ of Cuba

By MARJORIE COHN

The Trump administration is threatening to unleash a flood of lawsuits involving Cuba, which no U.S. president has ever done. It has set a deadline of March 2 to announce whether it will create, in the words of the National Lawyers Guild, “a second embargo” of Cuba — “one that would be very difficult to dismantle in the future.”

This day. US blockade of Cuba came into effect 57 years ago

Havana, Feb 7 (Prensa Latina) – The United States’ economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba celebrates today 57 years of its official enactment, repudiating the international community which considers this policy anachronistic and a violation of human rights.

Chronology of recent actions and escalated rhetoric of the US against Cuba

At the evening gathering in Montreal, the Consul General of Cuba Mara Bilbao Diaz, read a chronology of recent hostile actions taken by the U.S. against Cuba. It is printed below.

The amoral US economic blockade of Cuba must be ended

ISAAC SANEY, CNC Spokesperson, October 27, 2018

The blockader gets blockaded

On October 31st, for the twenty-seventh successive year the General Assembly of the United Nations will vote on the resolution, Necessity of Ending the Economic, Commercial and Financial Embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba. There is no doubt that given the immense global respect and stature that Cuba enjoys, the world will once again resoundingly reject Washington’s more than five decade long economic war against the revolutionary island and its heroic people. Last year, on November 1st, 2017, by the massive vote of 191 to 2, for the 26th consecutive time, the international community repudiated this ongoing economic aggression against Cuba.

What the US government is not telling us about those ‘sonic attacks’ in Cuba

The key victims were CIA agents. Not a single tourist was affected, and the island remains among the safest countries in the world to visit | PETER KORNBLUH*

Tourists ride classic convertible cars on the Malecon beside the US Embassy last October in Havana, Cuba | AP Photo / Desmond Boylan

(March 7) – When the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) recently published a preliminary clinical evaluation of health problems suffered by US embassy personnel in Havana, the State Department seized the opportunity to reiterate a countrywide “health alert” on Cuba.

FBI finds no evidence of “sonic attacks” in Cuba

Following months of investigations and four visits to the island the FBI has uncovered no evidence of the alleged “sonic attacks” against U.S. diplomatic personnel in Cuba

On Visit of US President Obama to Cuba

Ottawa picket, March 17, 2016.

• US announces partial changes to sanctions against Cuba
• U.S. blockade against Cuba continues contact – Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Cuban foreign minister
• Statement by Federation of Cuban Women
• We will never renounce the unity achieved by our workers – Cuban Workers’ Federation

Naked science: US crime against Cuba in 1981

Biological warfare is a crime against humanity. Irrefutable scientific evidence corroborating Cuba’s accusation made in 1983 that the virus of hemorrhagic dengue was introduced deliberately to the island republic.

Lab researchers IPK arbovirus delve into the study of the Cuban strains isolated during epidemics of dengue in search of new answers. | BENITEZ Leyva

The year was 1983. Cuban scientist Gustavo Kouri attended a Congress of Tropical Medicine held in Calgary, Canada, at which he offered data on the epidemic of dengue hemorrhagic fever that occurred in Cuba just two years earlier in 1981. It caused 158 deaths, of whom 101 were children . The attack caused an epidemic that affected 344,203 people. Total government spending devoted to deal with the epidemic amounted to 103.2 million dollars.

Study confirms that US introduced dengue fever in Cuba in 1981

Biological warfare is a crime against humanity.

Cuban medical personnel lived very tense days during the epidemic of hemorrhagic dengue in 1981,which broke out across the country | Juventud Rebelde FILE photo

According to the Cuban magazine Bohemia, the epidemic of dengue hemorrhagic fever that occurred in Cuba in 1981 was deliberately introduced in the country by the United States.

The bio-attack triggered an epidemic that affected 344,203 citizens, killing 158 including 101 children, and costing the government 103.2 million dollars.

UN General Assembly calls for end to US economic blockade against Cuba

The world has spoken: The US embargo against Cuba is immoral, illegal, and must be dismantled!

Today, October 27 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted in a record vote of 191 in favour and two against, with no abstentions Cuba’s resolution Necessity of Ending the Economic, Commercial and Financial Embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba. This is the twenty-fourth successive year in which the UN has adopted the resolution condemning the economic sanctions and other punitive measures imposed on the Republic of Cuba by the government of the United States.

Event. Cuba, Today & Tomorrow: Exploring the Future of the Cuban Revolution

7pm, Wednesday, March 11
Room 105, Schulich School Of Law,
Dalhousie University, Halifax
6061 University Avenue

H.E. Julio Garmendia, Cuba’s Ambassador to Canada, will discuss the current challenges and developments facing and affecting Cuba, especially the meaning of the steps towards establishing full Cuba-U.S. diplomatic relations, and what further obstacles lie in the way of the actual normalization of relations between the two countries.

For my Federation of University Students classmates

The historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz, sent a message to the Federation of University Students on the occasion of an event commemorating the 70th anniversary of his admission to the University of Havana.

The US ruling elite proposes catching up in Cuba by ignoring its government

A group of former diplomats – including some very interventionist ones – former members of the US legislative and executive branches, retired military officers, current bankers and corporate officials, NGO heads, and some others, have sent an open letter to President Obama asking that he take action to facilitate the penetration of the Cuban economy through actions that are within his power to take.

Unrelenting persecution of Cuba

By RANDY ALONSO FALCÓN

(Cubadebate) – THE central command of United States imperialism may not be focused on Cuba at the moment, with so many internal problems and international conflicts requiring attention, but the machinery already in place, designed to continually hound the country, remains at work.

The overstaffed Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) takes care of implementing this policy, supervising all financial and commercial transactions with Cuba. More people are assigned to this task than to the finances of Al Qaeda.

A recent communiqué from the Cuban embassy in the Dominican Republic reported that its account with the discount supermarket PriceSmart had been cancelled, as a result of the extraterritorial implications of the blockade.

Cuba forced to suspend US consular services

As a new Gallup poll shows that a majority of Americans and even higher proportion of Floridians support re-establishing relations with Cuba

THE Cuban Interests Section in Washington, D.C., has suspended consular services for the second time in less than three months because it has not been able to find a U.S.-based bank to handle its transactions. The Cuban government said Friday, Feb. 14, in a statement:

“In spite of the ​​huge efforts made, as a result of the restrictions in force, derived from the policy of economic, commercial and financial blockade by the U.S. government against Cuba, it has been impossible for the Interests Section to find a U.S.-based bank that could operate the bank accounts of the Cuban diplomatic missions.

Reporters Without Borders unmasked: Its well-financed private arrangement with Otto Reich to destroy Cuba’s economy

By DIANA BARAHONA*, Council on Hemispheric Affairs

• Robert Ménard, founder of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), is out to bring down Castro rather than protect journalists.
• Tens of thousands of U.S. taxpayer dollars go to finance an organization that critically misuses its calculated similarity to the name of a highly regarded group, Doctors without Borders (MSF).
• Rather than a bona fide NGO, RSF is an extremist anti-Castro shock brigade.
• Ménard is a propagandist extraordinaire and committed zealot on taxpayer funds.
• Saatchi and Saatchi teams up with Bacardi in an attempt to trash the Cuba tourist industry.
• Vivendi Universal provides hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of in-kind resources to Ménard.
• Concern about journalists is an afterthought.