With these data, the total number of contagions in Cuba since March 2020 has increased to 33,484, and the death toll rose to 240, Dr. Francisco Duran, national director of Epidemiology at the Cuban Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP), said at his regular press conference.

The specialist noted that 5,595 patients remain hospitalized nationwide.

On Sunday, Cuban laboratories made 18,981 PCR tests in real time to detect the presence of the coronavirus, totaling 2,030,386 samples so far.

(Taken from Prensa Latina)

Recent measures adopted by the country’s leadership seek to guarantee an effective control of the health provisions aimed at fighting the SARS CoV-2 coronavirus outbreak.

Since last Saturday, Cuba resumed the institutional isolation of international travelers arriving on the country, for which facilities were adapted in all provinces.

Previously, it was established the total restriction of night mobility for people and vehicles in Havana, among others; while the rest of the country reinforced sanitary control, in line with the epidemiological situation in each territory.

Based on the criteria and demands of the population, Cuba continues the implementation of the Economic Overhaul, which includes monetary unification, the elimination of certain allowances, as well as wage-price reforms.

In response to these opinions, fines were increased to price violators, and for the retention and non-commercialization of merchandise for sale, as well as to those who violated the sanitary measures in force.

Likewise, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel ordered to work with responsibility and make greater efforts to comply with priority programs such as housing and food production.

(Taken from Prensa Latina)

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Photo: AP / Andrew Medichini)

The United States announced today a new measure to tighten the economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba , by sanctioning a company that participates in sending remittances to the Caribbean island.

The Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, said this Monday through a tweet that the sanction against the Cuban remittance company American International Services (AIS) will take effect as of this Tuesday, September 29.

The action adds to Washington’s unilateral siege against the Antillean nation, repudiated by the international community.

Pompeo justified the inclusion of AIS in the List of Restrictions on Cuba, on the pretext that it is a company under the supposed control of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of the island.

According to the official, US citizens and companies are prohibited from conducting financial transactions with these companies.

Fincimex was included in the list of restricted companies in June, and as a result the French bank Credit Mutuel paralyzed services to that entity, which affected the sending of remittances in dollars.

The United States government put into effect on September 24 other measures designed to intensify unilateral sanctions against Cuba despite international rejection of this unilateral siege.

On that occasion, the Treasury Department issued regulations that prohibited imports of rum and tobacco, as well as the lodging of North Americans in hotels or properties controlled by the Cuban government , state officials or the Communist Party and their close relatives.

The announcement of the measures took place shortly after President Donald Trump thanked the leaders of the mercenary brigade that suffered a crushing defeat in Playa Girón (Bay of Pigs) in April 1961 for the support for the November 3 elections. .

This group participated in the invasion against the Caribbean island with the material and financial support of the John F. Kennedy government, destined to overthrow the nascent Cuban Revolution that triumphed on January 1, 1959.

The Treasury Department also eliminated by means of this document a general authorization policy for the participation or organization of conferences, seminars, exhibitions and sporting events in Cuba.

As of this date, citizens, residents and companies subject to US law must request a specific authorization or license for these activities.

In addition, Americans traveling to Cuba will not be able to buy rum or tobacco as souvenirs, nor will they be able to stay in hotels, according to the aforementioned restrictions.

The most recent bans reported by Pompeo, like those that began to be implemented on September 24, take effect a few weeks before the general elections on November 3. Experts on the subject interpret them as part of the Trump campaign, at a time when Florida, where a good part of the Cuban-American far-right figures reside, constitutes one of the key states for said elections.

(With information from PL)

The president pays less taxes than the average citizens of his country. Photo: Reuters

The president of the United States, Donald Trump, paid just $ 750 in income taxes in 2016, when he managed to win the election, and the same amount in 2017, while he did not do it for at least a decade since the year. 2000, according to the newspaper ‘The New York Times.

The New York tycoon has managed to be exempt from paying more taxes since he declared more losses than income during the entrance of the new century , something, points out this media, that has not prevented him from enjoying an expensive lifestyle by “deducting taxes on what some would consider personal expenses, “such as the use of their residences, airplanes and $ 70,000 in hairdressing to go to television and makeup sessions for their daughter Ivanka Trump.

The extensive report published by the newspaper states that Trump managed to reduce the amount of taxes to pay “with questionable measures”, including a refund of almost 73 million dollars, which is being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS, for its acronym in English).

Likewise, the same sources point out, the president of the United States would have used almost 430 million dollars that he obtained from the sale of his image and with his reality show ‘El Aprendiz’, to finance his other businesses, mainly his golf courses, whose millionaire losses are counted by dozens “year after year”.

‘The New York Times’ has indicated that Trump is “personally responsible” for a debt of 300 million dollars , which expires in the next four years.

Trump’s tax return has been a mystery since he ran for the White House, subsequently making him the first US president to not provide details on his finances in decades.

In a press conference held minutes later, President Trump called this information “fake news” and accused the IRS of treating him badly.

“Everything will be revealed. I pay a lot and pay a lot in state income taxes,” said Trump, who has once again insisted that he will make public all the details of his tax returns once the IRS completes its investigations, despite that being subject to the investigations of this entity does not prevent you from publishing information in this regard.

In this sense, the lawyer for the Trump Organization, Alan Garten, has pointed out that the information published by the newspaper “if not all, the majority seems to be inaccurate”, and has requested the documents to which the newspaper has had access, something that it has been denied by the means itself to defend the interests of the sources, which have assumed “enormous personal risks to help inform the public.”

(With information from agencies)

The U.S. State Department has announced that, beginning in June, anyone requesting a visa must submit their social media profiles, their email addresses, and telephone numbers they have used in the last five years. Obviously, passwords are not requested, since the government doesn’t need them, having free, back door access to the servers of the U.S. companies involved.

So, if you’re thinking about traveling to the U.S. – wherever you live, wherever you were born, whatever you think, you are obliged to hand over the U.S. government everything you have done and said on the Internet in the last five years. Of course, this information will be processed by powerful computers with algorithms to determine not only if you are likely to throw a Molotov cocktail at the White House, but to know all about your family history, friends, and personal life.

But there’s more! What’s worse is that a good portion of the planet’s inhabitants are going to think twice about expressing themselves. At least those among the 4.4 billion who use the Internet, who are in fact those who tend to travel, vote in elections, make purchases and socialize online. Those thinking about entering U.S. territory are going to consider limiting their political expression on the Internet, and some, millions, may be tempted to forego criticism and concentrate on praise.

Political expression in general is not being limited, but rather any type that may irritate the government issuing visas; the government whose policies are in fact the most universally denounced; the government of the country which with its economic power and extraordinarily influential cultural industry attracts the most immigrants and visitors.

It is a shame that an ideal space for the exchange of knowledge, for political participation as equals, for the facilitation of economic transactions and social interaction, could become history’s most far reaching instrument of censure, given its increasing concentration in few hands.

It has not been enough for the United States to access the servers of the principal Internet companies; to attack its adversaries’ key infrastructures using global electronic networks, as is the case with Venezuela and Iran; violate the rules of free trade, as with the Chinese company Huawei; to incite subversive behavior on social media to overthrow governments not of its liking; in addition to constructing false leaders, converting the most obvious lies into truths by repeating them endlessly; and viciously persecuting those who use the Internet to disseminate uncomfortable information – remember Snowden and Assange – and even provoke suicide in those who, like Aaron Swartz, advocate a truly democratic internet, at the service of all.

And let us not only blame Trump. Remember that Hillary Clinton’s innovation director at the State Department, Alec Ross, jokingly said that the Internet was the 21st century’s Che Guevara, while his boss used Twitter to provoke a rebellion in Iran, where, according to Business Week, only 1% of the protesters participating in the events were tweeting from inside the country, and “a gay girl in Damascus,” later known to be a student from the United States in Scotland, used her blog to amplify the happenings in the corporate media to help create a climate conducive to unleashing the humanitarian crisis that Syria has faced in the name of freedom of expression.

Today we know that Ross, according to the magazine Foreign Policy, trained Libyan and Syrian “rebels” in the use of information technology and telecommunications.

If Hitler’s propagandist Joseph Goebbels said that a lie repeated many times can become true, let us consider how many times BBC has repeated lines like those saying that Cubans are practically killing each other to buy a pig’s tongue and that police are supervising lines with “high-caliber” weapons.

It has not been enough to have droves of paid trolls – plus the fools who join them voluntarily – filling social media with bald-faced lies. They are also busy lynching poets, musicians, and actors – as in Hitler’s era – who oppose U.S. attacks on Cuba and Venezuela. The machine that feeds virtual harassment and extremism has managed to send Venezuelan youth into the streets capable of burning someone alive for the crime of “appearing” to be a Chavista, and encouraging inhumane behavior in Cuba, like filming the agony of accident victims, to be posted later on the Internet.

If not with repeated lies and the promotion of conditioned reflexes, how was it possible to convert a significant portion of the German people – one of the world’s most literate populations, heir to humanist geniuses like Beethoven and Goethe – into fanatic supporters of the extermination of other peoples?“Lying affects knowledge; conditioned reflexes affect the ability to think. And it is not the same to be misinformed, as to have lost the ability to think, because in your mind, reflexes predominate: Socialism is bad, socialism is bad,” Fidel noted in his celebrated dialogue with Ignacio Ramonet, before Donald Trump would illustrate from the podium of the UN General Assembly and in the White House, what the Comandante was explaining.

While it is true that silence, and delays in reporting, make the dissemination of lies easier, also responsible is our predisposition to react more emotionally than rationally to the first person repeating a piece of fake news, since conditioned responses can outweigh an analysis of how, by whom, and why something is being said, and whose interests are being advanced. Critical thinking, and a culture of resisting efforts to deceive us, are key to separating the chaff from the wheat, in the face of a massive tangle of confusing messages.

It is interesting to note that, beyond political systems, all countries that have long resisted U.S. hegemony, with the exception of Cuba, all have their own language, a critical mass demographically, and a millenary culture. It is usually attributed to Goebbels, precisely, and to another fascist, Herman Goering, a phrase that actually has its origin in a theatrical work applauded by Hitler himself: “When I hear the word culture, I reach for a gun”.

Fidel expressed the exact opposite when he said, “Without culture, no freedom is possible,” and he promoted all means to expand knowledge and democratize access to culture in the broadest sense.

Digital totalitarianism, to which the owners of our internet footprints seek to lead the world, with the United States in the lead, requires a process meant to maintain massive ignorance, to cultivate insensitivity and absolute de-politicization. Only with the fostering of a culture of solidarity, humanism, and knowledge of how these mechanisms operate, that allows us to use these technologies without being used by them, can we young and small peoples survive, at the gates of the new Reich.

IN CONTEXT:

Via videoconference from Moscow, the former U.S. systems analyst Edward Snowden denounced U.S. government efforts to monopolize and militarize innovations in the field of telecommunications, taking advantage of the natural human desire to communicate and exploiting it to attain unlimited power.”It’s through the use of new platforms and algorithms that are built on and around these capabilities that they are able to shift our behavior. In some cases, they are able to predict our decisions and also nudge them to different outcomes,” Snowden said, arguing that modern militarized technology, with the help of social media and corporate giants, is allowing governments to become “almighty” given the magnitude of their ability to monitor, analyze and influence the behavior of people.Snowden believes that the human need to feel part of a social group is being exploited, as Internet users voluntarily consent to provide their private personal data, signing carefully written agreements that almost no one reads.

(Granma)