The draft bill was ratified by 126 votes in favor and four against. It should be now debated in the Senate of the Republic.

The voting occurred after an explosion in the capital against former State Minister Fernando Londoño, and some hours before a car bomb was desactivated.

Meanwhile, President Juan Manuel Santos expressed gratitude to the Congress on his Twitter account for the approval of the draft bill despite the attack.

For the government, that draft bill will provide the president with the necessary tools to seek a possible end to the internal armed conflict through negotiations with armed groups.

America.What does the news say?

“MONTERREY, Mexico (AP).- Forty-nine decapitated and mutilated corpses were found abandoned in a pool of blood in a highway connecting the Mexican metropolis of Monterrey to the US border in what seems to be the latest in an escalation war between drug cartels.

“The corpses of 43 men and 6 women were found at about 4 a.m. Sunday in the town of San Juan on a non-toll highway that leads to the border city of Reynosa. A white stone arch welcoming visitors was spray-painted with black letters: “100% Zeta.”

“At a news conference in Nuevo Leon state security spokesman Jorge Domene stated that along with the decomposing bodies, a ‘narcomanta’ had been found at the scene, in which authorship is attributed to the group “Los Zetas.”

“The victims could have been killed as long as two days ago, so authorities believe they were not murdered on the spot. ‘Identifying them will be a difficult task because all of them were beheaded and hacked off their hands and feet’, the official said.

“The state Attorney-General, Adrián de la Garza, said that no reports of local missing people had been received in recent days, so the victims could be persons from other Mexican states or even US-bound Central American immigrants.”

“Mexican drug cartels have been waging and ever bloodier war seeking to take control over trafficking routes as well as the local drugs market and extortion, whose victims include US-bound immigrants.”

“So far in May, 18 bodies were found in a tourist area near Guadalajara; 23 people were found decapitated or hung from a bridge in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, where violence among cartels has escalated. This year alone, cadavers have been found in the states of Veracruz, Guerrero, Morelos, Jalisco, Tamaulipas and Nuevo León.

“He stated that there were no clues indicating that the new wave of violence is linked to the presidential elections to take place this July. ‘It has the dynamic of a war between cartels’, he said.”

For its part, the Internet portal ‘BBC World’ reported as follows:

“The scene of decapitated and mutilated bodies in Nuevo León, where 49 bodies were dumped on the road this Sunday, shocked many for the extreme barbarity displayed by the killers. Even in Mexico, where after five years of intense war among drug cartels it seemed like they had seen it all.”

Not a few countries of Our America have been affected by these problems.

In our homeland, the problems described here do not exist: would this be the reason why the empire is trying to make it surrender by starvation and hostility? Half a century has not been enough, and I very much doubt that the empire can wait for another half a century before it sinks deep in its own mire, sooner than later.

Fidel Castro Ruz

May 14, 2012

4:36 p.m.

The privilege of having known persons, even the locations where some of the events related to the historic battle took place, augmented the interest with which I awaited the anniversary this year.

The colossal deed was fruit of the heroism of a group of peoples that the revolution and socialism had united and intertwined to put an end to the brutal exploitation that the world had been putting up with throughout the millennia. The Russians were always proud of having headed that revolution and of the sacrifices they were capable of in bringing it to fruition.

This very important anniversary of the victory could not be understood under the colours of a flag or a name other than the one that presided over the heroism of the combatants of the Great Patriotic War. Without a doubt, something untouchable and unforgettable remained: the anthem whose unforgettable notes accompanied millions of men and women to challenge death and to crush the invaders who wished to impose a thousand years of Nazism and holocaust on all humanity.

With those ideas in mind, I enjoyed the hours I dedicated to the most organized and martial procession I could ever imagine, whose protagonists were men formed in the Russian military universities.

The Yankees and the blood-thirsty NATO armies could not imagine that the crimes committed in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, the attacks on Pakistan and Syria, the threats against Iran and other Middle Eastern countries, the military bases in Latin America, Africa and Asia could take place with absolute impunity, without the world becoming aware of the unusual and crazy threat.

How soon do empires forget the lessons of history!

The military technology exhibited in Moscow on May 9th demonstrated the impressive capacity of the Russian Federation to provide a proper and varied response to the conventional and nuclear resources of imperialism.

It was just the ceremony we were waiting for on the glorious anniversary of the Soviet victory over fascism.

Fidel Castro Ruz

May 10, 2012

8:14 p.m.

Men and women of different ages paraded on May Day down the most symbolic squares in all provinces of the country.

Our Revolution emerged where it was least expected by the empire, in a hemisphere where it was used to act like an all-powerful master.

Cuba came to be the last country to get rid of Spanish colonialism and the first to shake off the heinous imperialist tutelage.

Today I am thinking particularly about the sister Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and its heroic struggle against the ruthless plunder of the resources with which Nature has endowed that noble and self-sacrificing people who one day sent their soldiers to faraway places in this continent to bring the Spanish military power to its knees.

Cuba has no need to explain why we have been in solidarity not only with all the countries of this hemisphere but also with many others in Africa and other regions of the world.

The Bolivarian Revolution has also been in solidarity with our homeland. Its support was transcendental during the years of the Special Period. That cooperation, however, in no way came up at Cuba’s request. Neither did we demand any condition from any of the peoples that required our educational or medical services. We would have offered Venezuela our maximum support no matter the circumstances.

For revolutionary Cubans, to cooperate with other poor and exploited peoples has always been a political principle and a duty towards humanity.

I feel great satisfaction to watch, as I did yesterday, through Venezolana de Televisión and Telesur, the profound impact that the adoption of the Labor Organic Law enacted by the Bolivarian leader and president of the Republic, Hugo Chávez Frías, caused among the people. I had never seen anything like that in the political landscape of our hemisphere.

I paid attention to the huge crowds that gathered in the squares and avenues of Caracas, particularly the spontaneous comments made by the citizens who were interviewed. I had hardly –ever, perhaps- seen the level of emotion and hope that transpired in their statements. It became evident that the overwhelming majority of the people are humble workers. A true battle of ideas is being powerfully waged.

Rafael Correa, President of Ecuador, courageously stated that we are living through a change of times rather than through times of change. Both Rafael Correa and Hugo Chávez are Christians. But, Obama, what is he? What does he believe in?

One year after the murder of Bin Laden, Obama is competing with his rival, Mitt Romney, to justify that action which was perpetrated at a facility close to the Military Academy of Pakistan, a Muslim country allied to the United States.

Marx and Engels never talked about murdering the bourgeois. According to the old bourgeois concept, the judges were the ones who judged and the executioners were the ones who executed.

There is no doubt that Obama was a Christian; one of the facets of that religion helped him to learn the trade of conveying his ideas, an art that meant a lot to him during his meteoric rise to the upper echelons of his party.

The principled declaration of Philadelphia of July of 1776 stated that all men were born equal and free and that they were all endowed by their Creator with certain rights. As far as we know, three quarters of a century after independence the black slaves, with their wives and children, continued to be sold at public squares; and almost two centuries later, Martin Luther King, a Nobel Peace Laureate, had a dream, but he was murdered.

The Oslo Nobel Committee awarded Obama his prize, and he almost became a legend. However, millions of persons must have watched the images. Nobel Laureate Barack Obama traveled hurriedly to Afghanistan as if the world ignored the mass murders, the burnings of Muslims’ sacred books and the desecration of the corpses of murdered persons.

No honest person will ever assent to the perpetration of terrorist actions. But, has the US president any right to judge or kill, to become both the judge and the executioner and commit such crimes in a country and against a people on the opposite side of the planet?

We watched the US President in shirtsleeves, running up a steep staircase, walking at quick pace down an overhead corridor and stop to give a speech to a large military contingent that applauded unwillingly the words of the illustrious President. Those men were not all American-born. I thought about the colossal expenses this meant, whose burden is being borne by the world. After all, who is bearing the burden of that huge cost which exceeds already 15 trillion dollars? That is what the illustrious Nobel Peace Laureate offers humanity.

Fidel Castro Ruz

May 3, 2012

7:50 p.m.

Sean Clancy for Cubadebate

It was during the 7th colloquium in Holguin, Cuba for the liberation of the 5 Cuban patriots unjustly imprisoned in the US for their counter terrorist activities that friend – a well-known comrade, veteran campaigner and documentary film-maker- explored concepts of what heroism in the 21st century might mean. We were in Bayamo on a fringe meeting about media and tactical economic shock warfare and we were in the company of Cuban and international men and women of considerable courage and experience. As our meeting began news was filtering through about the first incidents of US backed imperial aggression against Syria in the present ongoing regime change intervention.

One member of the Lebanese resistance with our group, inspired by el Che and his older brother had, at the tender age of seventeen survived a gun battle with the invading Israeli armed forces in which three of his comrades had fallen dead. Alone he took out four of the Israeli troops including their battalion officer but was later captured when his escape was hampered by a bullet wound he had received. He subsequently spent 17 years in prison without medical treatment or even one visit from family and were it not for being “fostered” by the mother of a Palestinian prisoner he would have been even more desperately alone and isolated. The tale and circumstances that lead to his eventual release are equally enthralling, as is his present serene and almost spiritual disposition, but those tales are for another day.

My interest in and knowledge of the Case of the Cuban 5 increased and developed in tandem with my knowledge of and interest in the country itself and by the time I had become active in a campaign for their liberation, albeit in a somewhat isolated and limited way, I was for all intents and purposes living here in Cuba. There are many Irishmen and women who identify with prison struggles and savage miscarriages of justice.

I have been in communication with the 5 since 2007 and as my activity and comprehension increases with time so does my regard for each of these individually and collectively remarkable and magnificent men (amazingly despite their absolute isolation from each other consistent with Guantanamo torture manual guidelines). I am at ease with my understanding of true heroism in this regard.

It will be hard be hard to communicate so in words, perhaps even harder to conceptualise it without some direct experience, but the following might give some idea as to what I mean.

It is heroic to volunteer for national service in times of conflict and need and to willingly and comprehensively prepare yourself for whatever you might be called upon to do.

Fully briefed and aware of the risks, it is heroic to undertake dangerous missions behind enemy lines and to infiltrate hostile terrorist cells selflessly in the service of your homeland to protect her citizenship from attack.

It is heroic to respond with dignity, clarity, patriotism and unflinching courage to unjust and horrendously excessive political sentences, despite understanding what they will mean to family and personal life. The dock speeches of each of these five patriots are moving and profoundly insightful and important. Gerardo Hernandez’s words, that his only regret was that he had only one life to offer in the service of his homeland, ring as true today as they did then. Throughout the years and at regular intervals all the sentiments expressed at those first sentencing hearings have been heroically reiterated and reinforced without the slightest hint of dilution or disillusionment.

It is heroic to not be even slightly bitter or pessimistic despite being victims of unspeakable injustice, abuse, torture and imprisonment for in excess of 13 years.

It is heroic and patriotic to emerge from a prolonged spell of solitary confinement in the “hole” in Victorville high security penitentiary and say that, despite being physically ill at the time this arbitrary punishment was imposed without reason, it was worth it simply to have heard your Commander in Chief speak on your behalf.

It is heroic to not have cried when faced with the deportation of your beloved wife, unable to embrace or console her despite her being almost within your grasp but to have shed tears openly and unashamedly when in the presence of the children’s theatre group who performed about and for you.

It is heroic to have expressed for Valentines Day 2012, in a surprise TV programme for your respective wives or mother true, profound, tender, romantic and enduring love of a type it would be easy to be cynical about had it not been so undeniably moving and authentic to the many fortunate enough to have witnessed its beautiful expression.

It is heroic to unceasingly resist the most powerful, evil and harmful empire humanity has ever confronted with smiles, poetry, paintings, learning, political cartoons, self-development, love, truth, insight, teaching, graduation and potent writings through which the truth does indeed set yourself, spiritually, if not physically free.

It is heroic to dedicate a life to the right of nations to be sovereign, independent and free to exercise their chosen systems of governance and rule.

It is heroic to stand up, cost what it may, for what you know and believe to be good and true and it is heroic also to never speak of or advocate vengeance or armed reprisal despite suffering cruel oppression and incarceration.

It is heroic to face daily sacrifice, struggle and hardship with manly and patriotic stoicism and strength.

Heroism is not a word that, outside of Hollywood or Marvel Comic books, ought be used lightly or thoughtlessly. But it is a word that ought be uttered when it is what only and best describes remarkable acts of courage, decency and dignity in the face of unimaginably dangerous and hostile odds and circumstances. It is a word that rightly belongs with the names of Ramon, Rene, Gerardo, Antonio and Fernando. It is an honour and a privilege to have been present to know of and act for such men, whose greatness and heroism is often manifest in humility, normality and dignified silent fortitude.

VOLVERAN.

END.

In a statement made public this weekend, the president argued that the strong International Security Assistance will transfer full responsibility in the provincial capitals of Parwan, Kapisa and Uruzgan now in charged to protect the 75 percent of the population of the country.

The transfer began on July 2011 and the two first phases led the handing over to the Afghan forces of the 50 percent control of the Afghan population.

However, new tensions emerged with the murder of the Taliban negotiator, Arsala Rahmani, and at least two soldier from the International Force Security Assistance in an attack with explosives carried out on the east of Afghanistan, the authorities reported.

Rodriguez arrived on early Wednesday in the Egyptian coastal resort near the Red Sea, where the Cuban delegation that negotiated for two days the documents to be discussed on Wednesday and Thursday by the foreign ministers from over 100 countries was expecting him.

Cuban Ambassador to Egypt Otto Vaillant told Prensa Latina that Deputy Foreign Minister Abelardo Moreno presided over the Political Committee of the meeting of experts that analyzed the conflict in Syria.

In addition to Rodriguez, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, whose country is part of the NAM troika, along with Cuba and Egypt, which will host the 16th Conference Summit of heads of State and Government this summer, arrived in Wednesday night.

According to MENA news agency, Salehi stated that there is no obstacle so that Teheran and Cairo can reestablish relations, which were broken in 1979, after Egypt granted asylum to overthrown Iranian Shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi.

Yemeni SABA news agency noted that the Third World forum will promote sustainable development, dialogue between civilizations and religions, peace, security and disarmament, as well as the Palestinian cause, a historic priority.

BUJ President Anatoly Lemeshenok said that lies, manipulation and distortion, as well intellectual mercenarism of the media that attack Cuba and Belarus, are far from ethics, truth and principles.

The Belarusian leader reaffirmed that the journalists of his nation express their repudiation of that immoral media campaign and demand the end of the US blockade against Cuba, which has caused great suffering and hardships to the people.

Cuban Ambassador Alfredo Nieves Portuondo gave an update about the practice of journalism in his country and congratulated on behalf of Cuban journalists their Belarusian counterpart on Press Day in this nation.

In the gathering, Nieves also referred to the role played by multinational hegemonic media and the radio and television aggression against Cuba and explained that the permanent media campaign against his nation is aimed at triggering a negative change in the country’s political system.

During a meeting in Ciego de Avila with Cuban and foreign students, and civil society organizations, Serrano pointed out that the support for the cause of Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labañino, Fernando Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero and Rene Gonzalez grows every day.

The Five, as they are known internationally, are currently serving harsh sentences for alerting Cuba on terrorist actions by Florida-based terrorist groups.

Serrano said that there are Committees of Solidarity with the Five in 111 nations, but we should be more energetic, because the struggle for their return home will not cease until they are in their homeland along with their relatives.

Serrano described as very positive the world campaig “Five Days for the Five”, held recently in Washington and involving hundreds of activities in several U.S. states and European and Latin American countries.

During that campaign, some 300 friends of Cuba demanded justice for the Cuban antiterrorist fighters in front of the White House, and took actions in over 20 countries, indicating the maturity of the call for support in the world.