U.S. SEIZES HEALTH FUNDS ALLOCATED TO CUBA BY “GLOBAL FUND TO FIGHT AIDS, TUBERCULOSIS AND MALARIA”

Havana has denounced that the United States of America following its inhuman blockade against Cuba has seized 4.207 million USD in funds assigned to this country for the first quarter of 2011.

Eduardo Hernández, deputy minister of foreign trade and investment, also added that this was just one more step in the extraterritorial application of the financial, economic and commercial blockade imposed on Cuba by the U.S. more than fifty years ago.

“The seizure of funds is an illegal action that seriously obstructs the international cooperation provided by the United Nations system through its funds and programs. Worse still, the seized funds are for combating and preventing pandemics that the Cuban government and the international community are devoting their greatest efforts to eradicate”, also declared the Cuban official.

The U.S. Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control froze the funds in January 2011, according to a report by the UN Developing Program.

source: Prensa Latina

JAPAN'S QUAKE MAGNITUDE UPGRADED TO 9.1

• It may have displaced Japan 2.4 meters

Japan's mega quake, the fourth most powerful ever recorded in human history, has been upgraded from the original 8.9 magnitude to an astounding 9.1, said yesterday Gerard Fryer, a geophysicist with the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

According to this scientist only other three larger quakes have been registered, humans started recording seismic movements by the end of the year 1800. Those three major telluric adjustments  were: Chile - 1960 - 9.5; Alaska - 1964 - 9.2 and Sumatra - 2004 - 9.1.

This  massive quake may have displaced Japan 2.4 meters, said U.S. Geological Service (USGS) seismologist Paul Earle on Saturday. The Pacific fault lines adjusts itself by only 88 mm every year.

source: http://www.cubadebate.cu/

MORE THAN SEVEN MILLION CUBANS HAVE DEBATED NEW STRUCTURE OF SOCIALISM IN CUBA

More than seven million people have participated in the meetings where the Draft Economic and Social Policy Guidelines for the Party and the Revolution (Proyecto de Lineamientos de la Política Económica y Social del Partido y la Revolución) is being debated, told Inter Press yesterday Marino Murillo, vice president of the Council of States. This Draft document is the central theme of the Sixth Party Congress to be held in Havana next month.

The Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba is expected to redefine the structure of the kind of socialism that Cuba wants to build. Preliminary results of the debates name the calls for more popular participation at all levels, a more practical approach to the solution of our problems, more accountability of officials in their responsibilities, and the realization that the Cuban state cannot afford the large subsidies that it has offered its citizens for more than fifty years no matter how precarious the economic situation may have been.

Representatives of Cuban civil society have also had the opportunity to circulate their opinions through alternate means such as blogs, social networks and e-mail lists reaching a wide audience, continues Inter Press.

Mariela Castro, head of the National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX) also talking to IPS said that “the only guarantee of democracy in a society is people’s participation, the fact that this is being given the importance it deserves fills me with hope that we will follow the path to a kind of socialism that is closer to the one I imagine.

Granma, the official Communist Party newspaper, has reported that 619, 387 proposals for deletion, additions and modifications, and expectations of doubts and concerns, regarding the Draft Guidelines have been duly gathered for reference. It also promises detailed information about the final results of the discussion process.

source consulted: Inter Press Service

Lizt Alfonso Dance Cuba in Welland

Fuerza y Compás: A Magic Evening With Cuba's World-Famous Dance Ensemble

There is no cure for the frigid winter blues. But a serious helping of Cuba's finest music and its rich, exhilarating dance rhythms goes a long way to warm the coldest night and inspire the Canadian soul. And that is exactly what the spectacular Fuerza y Compás recital accomplished on the evening of March 6 before a standing-room only, sold-out crowd at Dr. J.M. Ennis Auditorium in Welland Centennial Secondary School.

Performed by the world-renowned Lizt Alfonso Dance Cuba ensemble under the masterful artistic direction and coreography of its creator Lizt Alfonso, Fuerza y Compás turned the event into a marvellously enchanting evening. 

The audience realized they were in for a rather unique treat as soon as the live music of flamenco guitars, percussion instruments and piano, superbly played by consummate Cuban musicians, raised the curtain with composer Ernesto Lecuona's Malagüeña.

The haunting melody ushered in the all-women cast. Fourteen of the most elegant, stunningly beautiful dancers anywhere in the world took the stage to the sounds of castanets and the pounding of heels in a precise, intoxicating display of gypsy passion. 

Centuries before fusion became a music novelty in the modern age, Cuba had fashioned as its own the inspired musical marriage between the Cuban "son" and the traditional African and Spanish guitar sounds. At Welland's J.M. Ellis Auditorium the public witnessed the delightfully sensuous, visually stunning, sophisticated tour de force of Cuba´s rich musical and cultural history in all its splendour. 

For the next two hours, the professional dancers brought the public to their feet as they offered rousing renditions of Cuban-style fusion, a combination of flamenco, ballet, afro-Cuban and Cuban rhythms. 

In her opening introductory remarks Ms. Stella B. Crouch, artistic director of the Welland Port Colborne Concert Association, welcomed the Cuban performers and promised "a wonderful, unforgettable evening." Ms. Crouch was just as absolutely right as she was thrilled with the Lizt Alfonso Dance Cuba ensemble. Entranced by every perfectly executed movement, the audience cheered, applauded and rewarded their efforts with well-deserved, prolonged standing ovation. 

Somehow, the magic of the Cuban dancers managed to dissipate the winter cold. It transformed the evening into a warm and wonderful love affair between Cuba and Canada. 

Publicado: 11 de marzo, 2011
Reportaje: Pastor Valle-Garay
Fotos: Ángela Bocchicchio

Promotional video.

Largest earthquake in Japan’s recorded history hits its northeast coast

Today’s earthquake in Japan, which registered 8.9 and has caused catastrophic damage and death, has prompted the government to declare a national state of emergency. An international tsunami warning has been issued affecting Canada, the U.S. Latin America and Taiwan.

Reports still sketchy from the battered area talk of more than 1 500 dead, more than 88 000 missing and a gigantic tsunami that swept 100 kilometers inland destroying everything in its path. So far, around thirty aftershocks have followed the main tremor which struck at 2:46 PM local time, on Friday, March 11th.

News agencies are also reporting that Hawaii's coast has already been slammed by two meter waves that has not caused major damage or loss. The southern California coast is now bracing for the impact of the tsunami generated by the Japan earthquake.

It is believed that this earthquake will impact the economies of the Pacific Rim when those countries are still under the effects of the current economic crisis. Asian stocks fell into red today losing more than one percent as an aftershock of the disaster.

This massive earthquake, the seventh largest ever recorded, may have displaced the rotation axis of the earth by 10 cm., according to a preliminary study conducted by the Italian National Institute of Volcanology and Geophysics.

Elusive justice “made in USA”

No wonder Justice is not served

If it were not because so many innocent lives were lost, and the damage inflicted to Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Panamá is still so fresh, the farce that main stream media insists on calling "the trial" of the assassin Luis Posada Carriles in El Paso, Texas, would be a perfect comedy.

What disdain for the pain and the suffering of those who have patiently waited for justice!

Black flags in Havana in remembrance of the 1976 Cubana bombing victims

In the latest episode, a federal judge has ruled that jurors will not be allowed to see a fax that the prosecution was going to use as evidence because it links the defendant to a series of hotel bombings in 1997 in Havana.

Experts consider this incident as a setback for the prosecutors who now will have to do without that important piece of evidence. This fax contains indications that Posada “was discussing payments for the bombings”, they argue.

This is only another obstacle of the many placed on the way to sabotage the prosecution in this masquerade (as if someone high up somewhere were plotting to prevent justice from being served). Posada Carriles served the U.S. government and the CIA doing their dirty work in Latin America. A CIA asset (see Ex-CIA agent and professional assassin…, a previous entry in this blog) until 1976, the ex-agent is responsible, among other crimes, for the bombing of a Cubana airliner that year that killed all 73 people on board. However he is being prosecuted for obstruction, perjury and immigration fraud, as if the lives of his victims did not count.

The truth is that Posada Carriles enjoys extra-official protection of the government of the United States of America for what he knows and for services rendered in their dirty war against Cuba and the movements of liberation in Latin America.

What will be the next delay in this mockery, so that the assassin evades justice?

A professor from the School of Medicine in Bayamo collaborates

Professor Bárbara Ramírez

It is with great pleasure that Dignidad Cuba posts this collaboration from Prof. Ramírez, directly from Bayamo, via email.  Bárbara teaches English at Bayamo's School of Medicine. Thank you Bárbara for your opinion.

Here's the message.

It was marvelous to see what was published in this blog to honor women on
their day, and it is very sad to see how some women put a price to themselves and betray their country.

However, most Cuban women deserve a special honor because of their daily efforts to fight the U.S. blockade.

There are women scientists in their labs trying to find substitutes for some medications or products that cannot be brought into the country, due to the blockade and are necessary to save children’s lives.

Main stream media will never talk about our young women who once graduated as medicine doctors or nurses and go to work under difficult conditions in Latin American countries, in Haiti or in Africa, no matter how far they are from their families or the danger of getting infected by a disease they continue to offer their time and their knowledge. 

While the enemies of Cuba praise traitors, they do not mention  how Cuban women share their  responsibilities in their jobs with the daily tasks at home taking care of their children and also working actively in the construction of a new world. And also this is very important:  how Cuban men have changed their minds and how they help at home doing what is necessary.

No matter the awards given under obscure circumstances and the money that comes with it for those individuals: the presence of other Cuban women, side by side with men, all over the world is bringing positive change to the forgotten.
Barbara Ramírez Pantoja.

Tell me who honors you and I will tell you who you are

Today U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has presided, together with First Lady Michelle Obama, over a celebration to mark the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day and to honor 10 women who have been chosen to receive the 2011 Women of Courage Award.

Among those women honored with this award are Roza Otubayeva, President of the Kyrgyz Republic, Maria Bashir, Prosecutor General in Herat Province in Afghanistan; Ghulam Sughra, head of the Mavi Rural Development Organization in Pakistan, and ...hold on to your seats...yes... (the State Department could not have forgotten one of their assets in Cuba), Yoani Sanchez, Cuban blogger and fifth columnist, for "showing exceptional courage and leadership in advocating for women's rights and empowerment, often at personal risk".

Secretary Clinton is only following the guidelines that her government has decided to use with Cuba and ignores this way the many worthy women who really fight day by day for a better future, in the Arab world, in Africa and in Latin America, and who really deserve an award, rather than Yoani who has sold her soul to the Devil for a handful of dollars. Her blog, Generation Y, continues to play the game directed from Washington against the people of Cuba.

Her entries on that blog, contrary to what the fabricators of her notoriety claim, are intended to distort Cuban reality, ignoring the constant aggression exercised by all U.S. governments towards Cuba. She does not tell, as if following a script written somewhere, about the 50 year old U.S. blockade against our country that violates the rights of every Cuban. She ignores on purpose the illegal occupation of a piece of land in Guantánamo by the United States of America who has turned it into a center of international torture and violation of human rights, the very rights she claims to defend. And of course, she has never mentioned our Five Brothers unjustly imprisoned in the country that today honors her, for defending the right of Cuba to defend itself against the terrorist actions planned in Miami with total impunity by extremists. Her view of every day life in Cuba could not be farther from the truth. She does not tell about our hopes, our dreams and our achievements. She does not live like the rest of Cubans, her problems and difficulties are not those of the average Cuban.

But Yoani does deserve an award, if one were given to shrewdness, she has managed to live in a poor blockaded country like a millionaire, due to the "awards" arranged and negotiated by the U.S.A. as payments for her continued service, carrying a lifestyle that is above he vast majority of Cubans, who she claims to represent.

Yoani, (la pobreza pasa, lo que no pasa es la deshonra) poverty passes but dishonor does not. The people of Cuba will not forget.

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL WOMEN ON THIS INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

Dignidad Cuba celebrates this International Women's Day advocating for the total emancipation of women all over the world, standing against any kind of discrimination and/or abuse against women, and demanding the right of every woman (and man) to a free and good education.

For all women, here is a Cuban classic, La Bayamesa. This song was first composed in 1851 by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes and José Fornaris. This was done to fulfill a request of their friend Francisco Castillo, who was in love with Luz Vazques, a local beauty. On a warm evening March of 1851, Francisco and his friends stood outside Luz's window and serenaded her with the new song. The tradition was that if the girl opened the window and appeared, she accepted the suitor. She did, and years later they got married and had many children.

Some time before Carlos Manuel de Céspedes took Bayamo (see earlier entry, Touching history in Bayamo, on this blog), Francisco got sick and left for Spain for treatment. He died in Madrid in 1867. Luz actively supported the revolutionary cause and was among the very first to set her house on fire when it was decided that the city would be burned. She left for the manigua (scrubland) as all the other Bayameses, where she tended the sick and wounded until she was captured by the Spaniards.

Here's a version of that song dedicated to all women.

Cuban television special reveals U.S. plans to subvert the Cuban Government through Cyberwar. Watch videos of the program

         EVIDENCE OF U.S. AGGRESSION AGAINST CUBA 

Cuban Television has broadcasted a special program VERDADES Y PRINCIPIOS from the serie Las razones de Cuba, with declassified information about the subversive plans of the United States of America against the island.

The program showed how the U.S. organizes in Cuba illegal information networks for the transmission and reception of coded data. It disclosed the identity of Cuban Security agent Raúl, a youth by the name of Dalexi González Madruga, "Alejandro" for the CIA, who had recruited him for a subversive operation.

Dalexi González Madruga

Josefina Vidal, director of the North America Department of the Foreign Ministry stated in the program that “the subversive policy (of the U.S.) has been for 50 years a permanent instrument of pressure against the Cuban government”.

Link to Cuban Television:

 http://wwitv.com/tv_channels/7516.htm

Watch two videos of the special program aired on Cuban television and see the evidence. You can access more information on You Tube searching Verdades y Principios.

From a previous program of the series Las razones de Cuba.

Michael Parmly, former Head of the US Interests Section in Havana poses proudly with a fabricated "independent journalist", who happened to be a Cuban Security agent.

Cuban "dissidents" leave US diplomatic headquarters in Havana with their respective  handouts consisting of money and subversive material.

Cuba’s own Wax Museum is not in Havana but in Bayamo

Strolling on the always neat General García Walk, a central street turned into a boulevard, always busy with pedestrians going about their business, you can’t help but noticing with surprise the Wax Museum, the only one in Cuba in a beautiful new building.

This museum first opened on July 14, 2004 and three years later, on December 29, 2007, the original gallery became a real museum in a more spacious building on the same walk. There are several wax pieces on permanent exhibition ranging from reproductions of Cuban birds and reptiles to important characters of the region.

First and foremost and to the left is our José Martí, sitting at a desk, writing on a document, simple and great in his humbleness, slight and pure in his appearance.

Rita la Caimana’s reproduction is fascinating with its life-like facial expression. She was an eccentric character loved by everyone in the city, whose celebrity reached national proportions when she was immortalized in the lyrics of a famous son by the popular Los Compadres duet.

 There are also sculptures of celebrated Cuban musicians, such as the peerless Benny Moré, known as El Bárbaro del Ritmo (the master of the rhythm), Compay Segundo, Polo Montañes (Cuba’s guajiro natural), Sindo Garay and Carlos Puebla. Bola de Nieve, a glory of our music is sitting in front of his inseparable piano and it looks as if the singer is going to start his classic: “ay mamá Iné, todo’ lo negro’ tomamo’ café”.

Bola de Nieve

Cindo Garay

Polo Montañés

One piece is particularly moving, that of Fabio di Celmo, another victim of US backed terrorism against Cuba (find more about di Celmo in an earlier entry on this blog), wearing a football outfit he actually owned, sent by his father Giustino from Italy.

But, without doubt, the most convincing piece of all, is of course US writer Ernest Hemingway sitting on a chair his legs extended as if resting and ready to stand up any minute.

According to ACN, statues of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes (the Father of the Homeland) and  Argentinean-Cuban Ernesto “Che” Guevara will soon enrich the present exhibition.

The artists of all this work are Rafael Barrios and his two sons Rafael and Leander.

Gaddafi accepts Hugo Chávez’s proposal for an International Peace Commission to mediate in Libya

While the United States of America, its satellites and the European Union escalate the rhetoric in favor of military intervention and hover like vultures over a moribund animal over Libya, Venezuela has put forward a plan for the creation of an International Peace Commission to find a negotiated political solution to the violent crisis underway in this nation.

This afternoon, Al Jazzera is reporting that Muammar Gaddafi has accepted Chávez’s proposal and the Arab League is considering the plan. This mediation plan will respect both national sovereignty and the Libyan people’s right to self-determination.

The world must say no to another military intervention. No more pillage wars to steal resources. Libya must find a peaceful solution to this conflict. Remember Iraq.

Touching history in Bayamo

Bayamo shines under the hot sun of a Cuban February at a glorious 31°. The bright light blinds our eyes, used to darker winter days in the North. The cleanliness of its streets is impressing, houses and buildings are all impeccable, well painted and preserved. Under the intensely blue sky, Bayamo appears as in a postcard.

San Salvador de Bayamo, the second village founded in Cuba by Diego Velázquez in 1513, is not just looks, it exudes history, and plaques all over town tell the stories behind old colonial buildings, parks and plazas.

 It was here where the Cuban national anthem was composed and first interpreted on October 20, 1868 by Perucho Figueredo, when Carlos Manuel de Céspedes took the city in the first frontal battle and victory against the colonial power of Spain. Ten days earlier, Céspedes had freed his slaves at La Demajagua, many of whom joined him in his struggle against the Spanish occupiers. For three months Bayamo was the first capital of the Republic in Arms.

On January 12, 1869, under the possibility of falling into the hands of the Spanish troops advancing towards the city, the mambises (rebels) and all the citizens of Bayamo decide to burn the city and only leave the ashes to the enemy.

Bayamo preserves with jealousy its place in history and its traditions.