TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO – FAVORITE EUROPEAN DESTINATION FOR 2012

On 9^th of October 2011 in a public séance of the European Union Council on Tourism and Trade gathering, representatives of tourism organizations from EU members country it was debated the list of candidates for WORLD BEST TOURIST DESTINATION for 2012.

Professor Dr. Mircea Constantinescu, Director of European Tourism Academy, had presented a report on the last year situation of the Award for WORLD BEST TOURIST DESTINATION that was dedicated to United Arab Emirates and it was used accordingly with rules and regulations and have being proving highly efficient in attracting new tourists and investor attentions as United Arab Emirates was the ONLY country in the region that registered an increase in number of visitors despite tensions in the region.

On the debate for WORLD BEST TOURIST DESTINATION  AWARD FOR 2012 professor dr. Anton Caragea , President of European Union Council on Tourism and Trade ( ECTT) presented the report titled : TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO : A SUCCESS STORY IN TOURISM proposing TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO as the winner of WORLD BEST TOURIST DESTINATION FOR 2012.

Among the reasons for awarding WORLD BEST TOURIST DESTINATION FOR 2012 to TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO the report outlined:

   –  Respecting cultural patrimony and traditions in offering to tourists a possibility to participate in impressive paraphernalia festivals such as: Holi, Hosay, Divali, Corpus Christi, Eid Al Fitr and special Tobago Heritage Festival Tobago Fest and Trinidad GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH etc.

Keeping alive spiritual traditions , integrating tourist and visitors in the atmosphere of the islands , offering possibility of an enriching cultural experience are achievements that transform Trinidad and Tobago in a spiritual destination of first hand.

–                      Promoting Trinidad and Tobago environmental protection, especially East Coast natural patrimony of wetlands, beaches and ecological and geographical biodiversity that make Trinidad and Tobago unique in the region. Supporting a new concept of tourism friendly to nature, with low nature impact and preservation of natural biodiversity and protection of endangered species and areas, especially rainforest eco-climate.

–                      Offering to tourists not only cultural experience or relaxation opportunities but also the possibility to explore nature , to contribute to ecological preservation and the opportunity to observed in Tobago the impressive Forest Reserve are model achievements in ecological tourism that must be world appreciated.

–                      The continuous development and protection of cultural and historical patrimony of Trinidad and Tobago, the transformation of Port of Spain in an historical center offering to the visitor a glimpse into rich culture of Trinidad and Tobago and Caribbean heritage.

–                      Offering to the tourist a large area of cultural and ecological impressive programs such as: Wildlife Photography in places such El Tucuche Reserve, Valencia Wildlife Sanctuary, Caroni Bird Sanctuary. Cave exploration (in splendid places such as Gasparee Caves).Cycling, Hiking (Argyle Waterfall –a special destination), Kayaking (Paria bay and Tobago area).

For all this reasons European Union Council on Tourism and Trade decided, unanimously, to award WORLD BEST TOURIST DESTINATION FOR 2012 TITLE TO TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO and to declare TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO- FAVORITE CULTURAL DESTINATIONS in 2012.

It was also presented the Official Invitation, on behalf of Ministry of Tourism of TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO for a delegation of European high ranking official of European Union Council on Tourism and Trade, to present the WORLD BEST TOURIST DESTINATION AWARD in Port of Spain, in person, to His Excellency Minister of Tourism DR. RUPERT GRIFFITH.

Awarding the highest tourism distinction of European Union Council on Tourism and Trade, the invitation for an working visit of high ranking members of European Union Council on Tourism and Trade in TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO are estimated by European tourism experts as a good example of close tourism relations and mutual appreciation   between European Union and Trinidad and Tobago, said at the end of the meeting Professor Anton Caragea, President of European Union Council on Tourism and Trade.

SUPPORT LIBYA INDEPENDENCE DEMANDS FIDEL CASTRO

The NATO Plan is to Occupy Libya by Fidel Castro

Oil has become the principal wealth in the hands of the great Yankee transnationals; through this energy source they had an instrument that considerably expanded their political power in the world.  It was their main weapon when they decided to easily liquidate the Cuban Revolution as soon as the first just and sovereign laws were passed in our Homeland: depriving it of oil.

Upon this energy source today’s civilization was developed.  Venezuela was the nation in this hemisphere that paid the highest price.  The United States became the lord and master of the huge oil fields that Mother Nature had bestowed upon that sister country.

At the end of the last World War, it started to extract greater amounts of oil from the oil fields ofIran, as well as those in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the Arab countries located around them.  These became the main suppliers.  World consumption progressively increased to the fabulous figure of approximately 80 million barrels a day, including those being extracted on United States territory, to which later gas, hydro and nuclear energies were added.  Until the beginning of the twentieth century, coal had been the basic source of energy that made industrial development possible, before billions of automobiles and engines consuming the liquid fuel were produced.

The squandering of oil and gas is associated with one of the greatest tragedies, not in the least resolved, which is suffered by humankind: climate change.

When our Revolution arose, Algeria, Libya and Egypt were not yet oil producers and a great part of the abundant reserves of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and the United Arab Emirates were still to be discovered.

In December of 1951, Libya becomes the first African country to attain its independence after WW II, during which its territory was the stage for important battles between the troops of Germany and theUnited Kingdom, conferring fame and glory on Generals Erwin Rommel and Bernard L. Montgomery.

Ninety-five percent of its territory is completely made up of desert.  Technology permitted the discovery of vital oilfields of excellent quality light oil that today reach one million 800 thousand barrels a day along with abundant deposits of natural gas.  Such riches allowed it to reach life expectancy that is almost at 75 years of age and the highest per capita income in Africa.  Its harsh desert is located over an enormous lake of fossil waters, equivalent to more than three times the land area of Cuba; this has made it possible to construct a broad network of pipelines of fresh water that stretch from one end of the country to the other.

Libya, which had a million inhabitants when it attained independence, today has somewhat more than 6 million.

The Libyan Revolution took place in the month of September of the year 1969. Its main leader was Muammar al-Gaddafi, a soldier of Bedouin origin who, in his early years, was inspired by the ideas of the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser.  Without any doubt, many of his decisions are associated with the changes that were produced when, as in Egypt, a weak and corrupt monarchy was overthrown in Libya.

The inhabitants of that country have age-old warrior traditions.  It is said that ancient Libyans were a part of Hannibal’s army when he was at the point of destroying Ancient Rome with the troops that crossed the Alps.

One can agree with Gaddafi or not.  The world has been invaded with all kinds of news, especially using the mass media.  One has to wait the necessary length of time in order to learn precisely what is the truth and what are lies, or a mixture of events of every kind that, in the midst of chaos, were produced in Libya.  For me, what is absolutely clear is that the government of the United States is not in the least worried about peace in Libya and it will not hesitate in giving NATO the order to invade that rich country, perhaps in a matter of hours or a few short days.

Those who with perfidious intentions invented the lie that Gaddafi was headed for Venezuela, just as they did yesterday afternoon on  Sunday the 20th of February, today received an fitting response from Foreign Affairs Minister  Nicolás Maduro when he literally stated that he was “wishing that the Libyan people would find, in the exercise of their sovereignty, a peaceful solution to their difficulties, that would preserve the integrity of the Libyan people and nation, without the interference of imperialism…”

As for me, I cannot imagine that the Libyan leader would abandon his country; escaping the responsibilities he is charged with, whether or not they are partially or totally false.

An honest person shall always be against any injustice being committed against any people in the world, and the worst of all, at this moment, would be to remain silent in the face of the crime that NATO is getting ready to commit against the Libyan people.

The leadership of that war-mongering organization has to do it.  We must condemn it!

Fidel Castro Ruz

February 21, 2011

 

WORLD REPORT IN 2011 by Professor Anton Caragea

It is in human nature to search for answers regarding the shaping of the future. It is a natural impulse that today science is offering a response by such disciplines as futurology and political science. 2011 it is in many respects just a continuation of 2010 evolution in economy and foreign affairs and is creating the path for 2012 when new and decisive election will be held in United States, Russia and across the world.

Homeless in United States: a common faith for 10 million people.

The economic crisis will worsen.

A regular companion of world economy in the last 3 years was the economic crisis. The crisis that unlashed over United States in 2007 and soon consumed the all world. 2011 will be still a year of the crisis. United States fails to be the engine for recovery in economy is fighting a record public deficit of   over 14 trillion dollars, more than 47 million americans living below poverty line and consumer confidence hitting record low. In politics a time and resource consuming battle between democrats and republicans in Congress and a paralyzed presidency of a crippled Barrack Obama , all this show that United States are far away not only from any recovery chance,  but also for a stagnation that will be more favorable that the present day gloomy economic outlook.

European Union is also confronting severely battled economy .Public record deficits in Ireland, Greece, Spain and Portugal (famous PIGS of European economy) are hindering EU image as an economic powerhouse. France and Great Britain are far from being out of recession and Germany fantastic growth figures are regularly downgraded, making a shame of the famous German punctuality and honesty. Germany has long receded from being the leader and acumen of Europe to be the problem child of Europe economy. With record deficits, rampant inflation, record dropping life standards, Germany is looking set in becoming the next bailout candidate of Europe not the pillar of Europe recovery.

India and China also experienced a halt in their record growth figures and 2011 will see this figures rapidly diminished. China economy ,  is growing now only on internal market demand at the expense of here competitivity  . Growing salaries and improving life conditions in China are surely positive news for Chinese people, but this is reflecting in a 35% increase in Chinese products prices in 2010. These tendencies will continue in 2011 and will reduce Chinese goods appeal in the world market.   China and India are not in the position to drag alone the world economy out of the precipice.   The economic crisis is here to stay in the next five years.

Pressure on China .

The most interesting political game of 2011 will be the cat and mouse game that Washington is playing with Beijing. In 2010 Washington wanted China`s alignment on anti-Iran resolution in the Security Council. It was enough for United States to play the economic card, agitating measures such as nominating China as a currency manipulator and imposing unilateral economic sanctions for China to back down and to support the US sponsored resolution in United Nations Security Council. In late 2010 when United States decided on a show of force on China Sea, at the door step of China, it was enough to describe China as a menace for the Far East region and to support Japan military resurgence for China to back down. It was reportedly that the December military exercises held by South Korea and US in East China Sea have being proven so efficient that China was put on a defensive posture.

In 2011 China will face new decisions: a new anti-Iran resolution that is drafted by US and will be put before Security Council in the spring of 2011, clearing the way for a military action against Iran. If China joins this resolution, his stance in the third world as an alternative power to United States and an agent of multilateralism will fade away definitively. Also United States are decided to support South Korea pressure against  North Korea, pressure that will be efficiently only if China goes on board. In a word China is confronted  in 2011  with the same decision as in 2010: should it be content with the stature of a middle power, as Great Britain or France ,and take care of his regional agenda or maintaining a great power profile embarks himself in a confrontation policy with United States ? Regional politics or big player, this is the alternative that Beijing is had to make.

Iran: new sanctions.

In December 2010 after failed talks, Iran and P+5 decided on a last ditch attempt in January 2011 to lift up the dialogue in Istanbul on Iranian nuclear issue. The rift between the parties is clearer than ever: Iran hold us up to his right on peaceful nuclear development while United States is determined to see Iranian nuclear program dismantled. Under this conditions is not difficult to predict the failure of the talks. United States have  already drafted a resolution, clearly laying out the path for military action against Teheran. Last year Russia and China with Brazil and Turkey intercession, succeeded to amend the draft, excluding the key phrase of -by every dint necessary. This year Russia will not oppose this green light for military action , while China stance is yet unclear. The battle around this new United Nations resolution will be undoubtedly the main diplomatic event of 2011.

Putin and Medvedev: a love-hate relation ?

Russia: fight for power.

In Russia the power struggle between the make shift President, Dimitry Medvedev and his benefactor, omnipotent prime-minister Vladimir Putin, is taking epic  and opera type proportions. Until now the battle between President  and Prime Minister was held on the streets of Moscow ,where Kremlin backed supporters tacking  to the streets against the Prime Minister administration. This battle in the street was won by Medvedev, that obtain on grounds of police brutality against manifestant`s, the removal of Putin rock-stone allied, Yuri Rajkov, mayor of Moscow. With the battle for Moscow won, Medvedev started two more fronts: a public offensive against the corruption and inefficiency of Putin government and on the world stage a battle for a new Russia image. Inflaming the rage of Putin, Dimitry Medvedev launches his new vision on Lisbon Treaty backstage. A Russia led by Medvedev ,without the omnipresent Putin , will support US efforts in controlling Iran and China , will assure a steady supply of raw materials to US and Europe economy and will request only a regional influence. Medvedev went as far as asserting that Russia relations with Georgia could be massively improved.    As naturally US and Europe force pledge support for the democratic vision of President Medvedev in contrast with authoritarian past of Russia, a diplomatic phrase describing Vladimir Putin policies. Vladimir Putin opera style response: in Sankt Petersburg a giant show on Christmas with him as a super star, congratulated as the greatest man that ever lived by Alain Delon, Sharon Stone, Kurt Russell and Gerard Depardieu. The star of the show-Putin even made a public performance and sings on the piano. 40 millions Russian have watch the show live on television. Score 1-1 for Putin.  The battle for Russia will be another interesting event of 2011.

Israel: a new aggression?

For Tel Aviv 2011 is starting under negative auspices: a frozen relation with White House after the illegal settlements build on Palestinian soil continued controversy and Barrack Obama support for an independent Palestinian state. The Israel international isolation after Mavi Marmara attack in international waters and Turkeys movement to isolate the hebrew state and illegal Gaza blockade made even European Union to start swaying away from Israel position.  After all this failures Benyamin Netanyahu extreme right government has only one solution to galvanize public opinion on his side: a new conflict either by unleashing a new attack on Gaza or on Lebanon. In 2010 Israel violated daily Lebanon air space, sponsored spy infiltration rings in the Cedar country and created a strong pressure to further weaken the country. But anew attack on Lebanon risk to alienate even further the western supporters of Israel and the lessons of 2006 defeat of Israeli military at the hands of Hezbollah is not easy forgotten. In Gaza ,also Hamas has survived blockade and daily attack by Israel in 2010 and even grow in popularity and capitalized on the international humanitarian effort for the people of Gaza in 2010. Gaza is a more labile target; with light weaponry could not stand efficiently against Israel war machine. But a small military victory will compensate the political storm that such an attack will unleash? Benyamin Netanyahu seems to think that this wage worth tacking it.

Savage german police brutality images.

Europe: fight for democratic system.

Europe is having a lot of problems to sort off in 2011. The economic crisis that is engulfing the continent is already described. Another ugly head that is appearing on the continent is sectarian divisions. Nobody forgets the Switzerland vote in banning minarets, the France ban on Muslim scarf, the closing of hundreds of mosques in Europe in the last year and the vicious attack on Tony Blair sister in law that converted to Islam and was nearly to be killed by British extremists. These anti-minority events will repeat and inflammatory statements like Angela Merkel opinion that multiculturalism have failed will support this kind of attacks. Europe is having in this moment more than 40% of population living below poverty line of 500 euro’s per month , increase unemployment’s ,  social and cultural amenities incapable in supporting European population needs, a medical system in grip and a deficit of democracy. As states are finding difficult to cope with this problems an easy escape is the time old remedy of anti-immigration rhetoric.

After being championship of democracy in the last 50 years, European democratic system is starting to show his wrinkles.  Great Britain police resulted to argentine style suppression of mass student demonstration in December 2010 against tuition fees rise. In France against anti-pension reform demonstrators were halted by armed forces and in Germany government resorted to pointing out in a 30`s style the immigration and failed multiculturalism as the culprits behind economy collapsed. The fight for maintaining a viable and democratic system in Europe is a difficult one that 2011 will just be a step.

 

ANDERS RASMUSSEN IS A LITTLE NAZI FUHRER SAY`S FIDEL CASTRO

NATO – A MILITARY MAFIA – SAY`S FIDEL CASTRO

Many people feel nauseous when they hear the name of that organization.
On Friday, November 19 in Lisbon, Portugal, the 28 members of that aggressive institution, engendered by the United States, decided to create something that they cynically call “the new NATO”.
NATO was born after WW II as an instrument of the Cold War unleashed by imperialism against the USSR, the country that paid for the victory over Nazism with tens of millions of lives and colossal destruction.
Against the USSR, the United States mobilized, along with a goodly portion of the European population, the far right and all the neo-fascist dregs of Europe, brimming with hatred and ready to gain the upper hand for the errors committed by the very leaders of the USSR after the death of Lenin.
With enormous sacrifice, the Soviet people were able to keep nuclear parity and to support the struggle for the national liberation of numerous peoples against the efforts of the European states to maintain the colonial system which had been imposed by force throughout the centuries; states that, in the post-war period, became allies of the Yankees who assumed command of the counter-revolution in the world.

In just 10 days –less than two weeks –world opinion has received three great and unforgettable lessons: G-20, APEC and NATO, in Seoul, Yokohama and Lisbon, in such a way that all honest persons who can read and write and whose minds haven’t been warped by the conditioned reflexes of the imperialist mass media machine, can have a true idea about the problems affecting humankind today.
In Lisbon, not one world was said that was capable of transmitting hope to billions of persons suffering from poverty, under-development, shortages of food, housing, health, education and jobs.
Quite the opposite: the vainglorious character who is the head of the NATO military mafia, Anders Fogh Rasmussen declared, in tones reminiscent of a little Nazi Fuhrer, that the “new strategic concept” was to “act anywhere in the world”.  Not in vain was the Turkish government about to veto his appointment when the Danish neo-liberal Fogh Rasmussen, as premier of Denmark, using the excuse of freedom of the press, defended, in April of 2009,  the authors of serious offences against the prophet Mohammed, a figure much respected by all Muslim faithful.
There are quite a few in the world who remember the close relations of cooperation between the Danish government and the Nazi “invaders” during WW II.
NATO, a bird of prey sitting in the lap of the Yankee empire, even endowed  with tactical nuclear weapons that could be up to many times more destructive that the one that obliterated the city of Hiroshima , has been committed by the United States in the genocidal Afghanistan war, something even more complex than the Kosovo exploit and the war against Serbia where they massacred the city of Belgrade and were about to suffer a disaster if the government of that country had held its ground, instead of trusting in the European justice institutions in The Hague.
The ignominious declaration from Lisbon, vaguely and abstractly states in one of its points:
“I support regional stability, democratic values, the security and integration of the Euro-Atlantic space in the Balkans.”
“The Kosovo mission is oriented towards a lesser and more flexible presence.”
Now?
Even Russia cannot forget it so easily: the actual fact is that when Yeltsin broke up the USSR, the United States moved NATO boundaries and its nuclear attack bases forward from Europe and Asia to the heart of Russia.
Those new military installations were also threatening the Peoples’ Republic of China and other Asian countries.
When that happened in 1991, hundreds of SS-19, SS-20 and other powerful Soviet weapons were able to reach, in a matter of minutes, the US and NATO military bases in Europe.  No NATO Secretary General would have dared to speak with the arrogance of Rasmussen.
The first agreement on nuclear weapons limitations was signed as early as May 26, 1972 between President Richard Nixon of the United States and Communist Party Secretary General Leonid Brezhnev of the USSR with the aim of limiting the number of antiballistic missiles (ABM Treaty) and to defend certain points against missiles having nuclear payloads.
Brezhnev and Carter signed new agreements in Vienna, known as SALT II in 1979, but the US Senate refused to ratify those agreements.
The new rearmament promoted by Reagan, with the Strategic Defence Initiative, ended the SALT agreements.
The Siberian gas pipeline had been blown up already by the CIA.
A new agreement, on the other hand, was signed in 1991 between Bush Sr. and Gorbachev, five months before the collapse of the USSR. When that happened, the socialist bloc no longer existed. The countries that the Red Army had liberated from Nazi occupation were not even able to maintain independence.  Right-wing governments that came to power moved over to NATO with weapons and baggage and fell into the hands of the US.  The GDR which, under the leadership of Erich Honecker had made a great effort, was unable to overcome the ideological and consumerist offensive launched from the same capital that had been occupied by the Western troops.
As the virtual master of the world, the United States increased its mercenary and warmongering policy.
Due to a well-manipulated process, the USSR fell apart.  The coup de grâce was dealt by Boris Yeltsin on December 8, 1991 when, in his capacity of president of the Russian federation, he declared that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist.  On the 25th of that same month and year, the red flag bearing the hammer and sickle was lowered from the Kremlin.
A third agreement about strategic weapons was then signed by George H. W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin, on January 3, 1993, that prohibited the use of multiple-warhead Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (the IBMs). It was passed by the US Senate on January 26, 1993 with a margin of votes of 87 to 4.
Russia was the heir to USSR science and technology – which, in spite of the war and the enormous sacrifices, it was able to bring its power up to the level of the immense and wealthy Yankee empire – the victory over fascism, the traditions, the culture and the glories of the Russian people.
The war in Serbia, a Slavic country and people, had severely sunk its fangs into the security of the Russian people, something no government could allow itself to ignore.
The Russian Duma – outraged by the first Iraq war and the war in Kosovo where NATO had massacred the Serbian people – refused to ratify START II and didn’t sign that agreement until 2000 and in that case it was to try to save the ABM Treaty that the Yankees were not interested in keeping by that date.
The US tries to use its enormous media resources to maintain, dupe and confuse world public opinion.
The government of that country is going through a difficult phase as the result of its war exploits.  In the Afghanistan war, all the NATO countries, with no exception, are committed along with several others in the world, whose people find hateful and repugnant the carnage that rich industrialized countries such as Japan and Australia and others in the Third World are involved in to greater or lesser degrees.
What is the essence of the agreement approved in April of this year by the US and Russia?  Both parties commit to reduce the number of strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550. About the nuclear warheads in France, the United Kingdom and Israel, all capable of striking Russia, not one word is spoken.  About the tactical nuclear weapons, some of them much more powerful than the one that obliterated the city of Hiroshima, nothing. They do not mention the destructive and lethal capacity of numerous conventional weapons, the radio-electric and other systems of weapons to which the US dedicates its growing military budget, greater than those of all the other nations together.  Both governments are aware, and perhaps many of them that met there also, that a third world war would be the last war.  What kind of delusions can the NATO members be having?  What is the tranquility that humankind can derive from that meeting?  What benefit for the countries of the Third World, or even for the international economy, can we possibly hope for?

They cannot even offer the hope that the world economic crisis will be overcome, nor for how long that improvement would last.  The US total public debt, not only of the central government but of all the rest of the public and private institutions in that country, now totals a figure equal to the world GDP of 2009, totalling 58 trillion dollars. Have the persons meeting in Lisbon even wondered about where those fantastic resources would be coming from? Simply, about the economies of all the rest of the peoples of the world, to whom the US handed over pieces of paper transformed into currency that over the last 40 years, unilaterally, ceased to be backed by gold and now the value of that metal is 40 times as much. That country still has veto power in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.  Why didn’t they discuss that in Portugal?
The hope of pulling out US, NATO and their allies’ troops from Afghanistan is idyllic.  They will have to leave that country before they hand over the power to the Afghan resistance, in defeat. The self-same US allies are beginning to acknowledge now what could happen decades before the end of that war; would NATO be prepared to stay there all that time? Would the very citizens of each of the governments meeting there allow that?
Not to be forgotten that a vastly populated country, Pakistan, shares a border of colonial origin with Afghanistan, as well as quite a large percentage of its inhabitants.
I do not criticize Medvedev; he is very correctly trying to limit the number of nuclear warheads that are pointing at his country.  Barack Obama can make up absolutely no justification. It would be a joke to imagine that the colossal and costly deployment of the anti-nuclear missile shield is to protect Europe and Russia from Iranian rockets, coming from a country that doesn’t even own any tactical nuclear devices.  Not even a children’s comic book can make such a statement.
Obama already admitted that his promise to withdraw US soldiers from Afghanistan may be postponed, and the taxes for the richest contributors suspended right away.  After the Nobel Prize, we would have to award him with the prize for “the best snake charmer” that has ever existed.
Taking into consideration the G.W. Bush autobiography now on the best seller list and that some smart editor pulled together for him, why didn’t they give him the honour of being a guest in Lisbon?  Surely the far right, the “Tea Party” of Europe would be happy.

MAN OF THE YEAR AWARD FOR 2010 SURPASS NOBEL PEACE PRIZE IN IMPORTANCE

Foreign dignitaries , academic corp. member , professors warmly greeted professor Anton Caragea , president of European Council on International relations and director of Institute of International Relations and Economic Cooperation of Romania on the decision of awarding MAN OF THE YEAR title to President of Turkmenistan , H.E Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov . Professor Shirin Akiner from Cambridge University went as far as observing that MAN OF THE YEAR award has become this year more influential and less controversial than the Nobel Prize congratulating Romania for this decision.

Professor Shirin Akiner congratules prof.dr.Anton Caragea and Ambassador Shohrat Jumayev of Turkmenistan to Romania for MAN OF THE YEAR AWARD

 

OSCE Secretary General Marc Perrin de Brichambaut,

Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), had arrived in Ashgabat to attend the OSCE Secretary General Marc Perrin de Brichambaut. The head of the authoritative international organisations congratulated the Turkmen leader on receiving the diploma of the title of honour of “The Man of the Year” of Institute of International Relations and Economic Cooperation of Romania and Professor Anton Caragea presence on the 15th anniversary of neutrality and the great success of the international forum dedicated to the national holiday.

Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey

Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey Ahmet Davutoglu, had arrived in Ashgabat to participate in the celebration of the 15th anniversary of neutrality of Turkmenistan. Minister Ahmet Davutoglu congratulated the Turkmen leader on receiving the diploma of the title of honour of “The Man of the Year” of Institute of International Relations and Economic Cooperation of Romania and Professor Anton Caragea presence and the great success of the international forum dedicated to the national holiday. In this regard, the distinguished guest said that Turkey was proud to be one of the first states in 1995 to support the adoption of the United Nations Resolution on the Permanent Neutrality of Turkmenistan, the constructive foreign policy strategy of which due to President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov’s prudence stood today as a critical factor for peace and stability in the region.

Chairman of the CIS Executive Committee

Chairman of the Executive Committee, Executive Secretary of the Commonwealth of Independent States Sergei Lebedev, had arrived in Ashgabat to attend the International Conference on Permanent Neutrality of Turkmenistan: Cooperation for Peace, Security and Progress and the celebrations in honour of the 15th anniversary of neutrality of Turkmenistan, at the Ruhiyet Palace. Expressing gratitude for the heartfelt welcome extended in the Turkmen land, the guest congratulated the President on receiving the diploma of the title of honour of “The Man of the Year” of Institute of International Relations and Economic Cooperation of Romania and Professor Anton Caragea presence and emphasized that he was glad to visit again Turkmenistan, which due to the Turkmen leader’s innovative, prudent policy had gained the reputation of being a dynamically developing country with the great future in the world arena. Another evidence for this was the high-level forum organized in Ashgabat, which had provided an open platform for an exchange of views on new approaches and forms of interstate cooperation, including issues of stability and security in Central Asia and all over the world.

ECO Secretary General

Mohammad Yahya Maroofi, Secretary General of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), who had arrived in Ashgabat to attend the International Conference on Permanent Neutrality of Turkmenistan: Cooperation for Peace, Security and Progress, at the Ruhiyet Palace. Expressing gratitude for the opportunity of a personal meeting, the distinguished guest heartily congratulated the leader of the Turkmen state and the Turkmen people the 15th anniversary of neutrality of Turkmenistan. Mr Mohammed Yahya Maroufi emphasized that Turkmenistan’s open door policy and the Turkmen leader’s constructive initiatives on wide international cooperation had earned Turkmenistan the high international prestige. Another evidence for that was the presence of Professor Anton Caragea awarding the title of honour of “the Man of the Year” of Institute of International Relations and Economic Cooperation of Romania to President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov and the presence of the Executive Committee of the Institute of International Relations and Economic Cooperation of Romania, said the ECO Secretary General.

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan Vladimir Norov,

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan, had arrived in the Turkmen capital to participate in the International Conference on Permanent Neutrality of Turkmenistan: Cooperation for Peace, Security and Progress, at the Ruhiyet Palace. Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan congratulated President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov on receiving the title of honour of “The Man of the Year” awarded by the Executive Committee of the Institute of International Relations and Economic Cooperation of Romania and Professor Dr. Anton Caragea presence at the meeting noting that this award vividly testified to worldwide recognition of the outstanding achievements of the Turkmen leader, the author of the foreign policy neutral Turkmenistan and the strategy for fundamental progressive reforms, which had won the country had the high international prestige by the community.

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan Republic ,

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan Elmar Mamedyarov, who had arrived in Ashgabat to participate in the International Conference on Permanent Neutrality of Turkmenistan: Cooperation for Peace, Security and Progress. The meeting took place in the Ruhiyet Palace, which had become the venue for the conference. The Azerbaijani Foreign Minister congratulated the Turkmen leader on receiving the prestigious title of “The Man of the Year” , of Institute of International Relations and Economic Cooperation of Romania and Professor Anton Caragea presence. He said that Institute of International Relations and Economic Cooperation of Romania, one of the major research centres in Europe.

UAE Minister of Culture, Youth and Community Development Abdul Rahman Mohammed Al Owais,

Minister of Culture, Youth and Community Development of the United Arab Emirates, who arrived in Ashgabat to attend the International Conference on Permanent Neutrality of Turkmenistan: Cooperation for Peace, Security and Progress, in his residence at the Oguzkent Hotel. Emphasizing that the United Arab Emirates took great interest in large-scale progressive reforms launched in Turkmenistan on the initiative of the national leader and were sincerely proud in the achievements gained by Turkmen brothers, the guest congratulated President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov on receiving the title of honour of “The Man of the Year” by the Executive Committee of the Institute of International Relations and Economic Cooperation of Romania and on the presence of professor Anton Caragea on the event .

Shanghai Cooperation Organization Secretary General ,

Muratbek Imanaliev, Secretary General of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), who had arrived in Ashgabat to participate in the International Conference on Permanent Neutrality of Turkmenistan: Cooperation for Peace, Security and Progress and the celebrations to mark the 15th anniversary of neutrality of Turkmenistan, at the Ruhiyet Palace. Greeting the leader of the Turkmen state, the distinguished guest congratulated Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov on the organisation of the high-level international forum in Ashgabat dedicated to the landmark date in the history of independent Turkmenistan as well as awarding the diploma of the title of honour of “The Man of the Year” to the Turkmen leader. The SCO Secretary-General noted that by pursuing the active, consistent peacekeeping policy, Turkmenistan demonstrated a responsible approach to international cooperation as illustrated by the Turkmen leader’s statement at the conference opening ceremony.

Organization of Islamic Conference

Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu at the Ruhiyet Palace, where the ceremony of opening the International Conference on Permanent Neutrality of Turkmenistan: Cooperation for Peace, Security and Progress had taken place. The head of the largest international organisation congratulated President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov on the success of the statement at the International Conference, the high level of which was another bright evidence for the growing prestige and role of Turkmenistan in the world arena and the 15th anniversary of neutrality of Turkmenistan celebrated widely in the country. taking an opportunity, Mr. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu congratulated the leader of the Turkmen state on receiving the title of honour of “The Man of the Year” warded by the Executive Committee of the Institute of International Relations and Economic Cooperation of Romania and emphasized that this event was a sign of wide recognition of an invaluable contribution made by President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov to strengthening peace, security and sustainable development.

 

WHAT IF SARKOZY GOES CRAZY ? ask FIDEL CASTRO

THE INFINITE HYPOCRISY OF THE WEST by Fidel Castro

In defence of humanity

Although several articles on this subject were published before and after September  1st, 2010, on that day the Mexican daily La Jornada published one of great impact entitled El holocausto gitano: ayer y hoy (The gypsies’ holocaust: yesterday and today) which reminds us of a truly tragic history.  Without adding or deleting a single word from the information contained in the article, I will quote some lines referring to some events that are really touching. Neither the West nor -most of all- its colossal media apparatus have said a single word about them.

“1496: boom of humanist thinking.  The Rom peoples (gypsies) from Germany are declared traitors to the Christian nations, spies paid by the Turkish, carriers of the plague, witches and warlocks, bandits and children kidnappers.

“1710: century of Enlightenment and rationale.  An edict ordered that adult gypsies from Prague be hanged without any previous trial.  Young persons and women were mutilated. In Bohemia their left ear were cut off; in Moravia, their right ear.

“1899: climax of modernity and progress.  The police of Bavaria founded the Special Section for Gypsies’ Affairs.  In 1929, the section was promoted to the category of National Central section and was moved to Munich.  In 1937 it was based in Berlin.  Four years later, half a million gypsies died in the concentration camps of Central and Eastern Europe.”

“In her PhD’s thesis, Eva Justin (assistant of Dr. Robert Ritter of the Racial Research Section of the Ministry of Health of Germany), asserted that gypsies’ blood was extremely harmful to the purity of the German race. Someone called Dr. Portschy sent a memorandum to Hitler suggesting that gypsies should be submitted to forced labor and mass sterilization because they jeopardized the pure blood of the German peasantry.“The gypsies, who were labeled as inveterate criminals, started to be arrested en masse, and as from 1938 they were put into special blocks at the Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Gusen, Dautmergen, Natzweiler and Flossenburg camps.“In a concentration camp he owned in Ravensbruck, Heinrich Himmler, chief of the Gestapo (SS), created a space to sacrifice gypsy women who were submitted to medical experiments.  One hundred and twenty zingari girls were sterilized.  Gypsy women married to non-gypsy men were sterilized at the Dusseldorf-Lierenfeld hospital.“Thousands of gypsies were deported from Belgium, the Netherlands and France to the Polish concentration camp of Auschwitz.  In his memoirs, Rudolf Hoess (commander of Auschwitz) wrote that among the gypsies deported there were old people almost one hundred years of age, pregnant women and a large number of children.“At the ghetto of Lodz (Poland) […] none of the 5 000 gypsies survived.”“In Yugoslavia, gypsies and Jews were equally killed in the forest of Jajnice.  Farmers still remember the cries of the gypsy children who were taken to the places of execution.” “At the extermination camps, only the love of gypsies for music was at times a source of comfort.  In Auschwitz, starving and infested with lice, they gathered together to play music and encouraged children to dance.  But the courage of gypsy guerrillas who fought alongside the Polish resistance in the region of Nieswiez was also legendary.”Music was the factor that kept them together and helped them to survive, just as much as religion was for Christians, Jews and Muslims.

The successive articles published by La Jornada as from the end of August have reminded us of events that were almost forgotten about what happened to the gypsies in Europe.  After having been affected by Nazism, they were consigned to oblivion after the Nuremberg trials in the years 1945 and 1946.The German government headed by Konrad Adenauer declared that the extermination of the gypsies before 1943 was a result of the State’s legal policies.  Those who had been affected on that same year did not receive any compensation. Robert Ritter, a Nazi expert in the extermination of gypsies, was set free.  Thirty nine years later in 1982, when most of the affected persons had already passed away, the government recognized their right to compensation.More than 75 per cent of the gypsies, whose total number is estimated to be between 12 and 14 million, live in Central and Eastern Europe.  Only in Tito’s socialist Yugoslavia, gypsies were recognized the same rights as the Croatian, Albanian and Macedonian minorities.The Mexican newspaper described as “particularly perverse” the mass deportation of gypsies to Romania and Bulgaria ordered by the government of Sarkozy –a Jew of Hungarian descent-; these are the exact words used by the newspaper.  Please do not take this as an act of irreverence on my part.

In Romania, the number of gypsies is estimated to be two million.The president of that country, Traian Basescu, a US ally and an illustrious member of NATO, called a woman journalist a “filthy gypsy”.  As can be observed, this is an extremely delicate person who speaks in a polite language.

The website univision.com posted some comments about the demonstrations against the deportation of gypsies and the “xenophobia” in France.  According to AFP, around “130 demonstrations should take place in France as well as in front of the French embassies in several European Union countries, with the support of tens of human rights organizations, trade unions and left wing and ecologist parties”.  The extensive report refers to the participation of well known cultural personalities such as Jane Birkin and the film-maker Agnes Jaoui and reminded readers that Jane “together with Stephane Hessel, a former member of the resistance against the Nazi occupation of France (1940-1944), was part of the group that later on met with the advisors to the minister of Immigration Eric Besson.

“‘It was a dialogue of the deaf, but it is good that this took place, for it showed that most of the population was enraged at that nauseating policy’, said a spokesperson of the network ‘Education Without Borders…” Other news about this thorny issue come from Europe: “Yesterday the European Parliament put France and Nicholas Sarkozy on the spot for having deported thousands of Romanian and Bulgarian gypsies during a tense debate in which the attitudes of  José Manuel Durão Barroso and the Commission were described as  scandalous and ridiculous for their apparent pusillanimity and for failing to condemn Paris decisions as illegal and contrary to community rights”, according to an article by Ricardo Martínez de Rituerto published by El País.com.

La Jornada published in another article impressive social data.  Neo-natal mortality among the gypsy population is nine times as much the European average and the life expectancy rate is hardly above 50 years of age. Before that, on August 29, it had reported that “although there have been plenty of criticisms –from the European Union institutions as well as from the Catholic church, the United Nations and the broad spectrum of pro-immigrants organizations- Sarkozy insists in expelling and deporting hundreds of citizens from Bulgaria and Romania –and therefore, European citizens- using as an excuse the alleged ‘criminal’ character of these citizens.”

“It is difficult to believe that in the year 2010 –concludes La Jornada- after the terrible past Europe had with racism and intolerance, it is still possible to criminalize an entire ethnic group by labeling it as a social problem.” “Indifference, or even consent towards the actions carried out by the French police today and the Italian police yesterday –more European, in general terms- leave the most optimist analyst speechless.”

Suddenly, while I wrote this Reflection, I remembered that France is the third nuclear power in the planet, and that Sarkozy also had a briefcase with the keys required to launch one of the more than 300 bombs he had.  Is there any moral or ethical rational in launching an attack against Iran, a country condemned for its alleged intention of manufacturing this kind of weapon? Where are the good sense and the logic of that policy?

Let us assume that Sarkozy all of a sudden goes crazy, as it seems to be the case.  What would the UN Security Council do with Sarkozy and his briefcase?

What will happen if the French extreme right decides to force Sarkozy to maintain a racist policy, opposite to the norms that prevail within the European Community?

Could the UN Security Council respond to those two questions?

The absence of truth and the prevalence of deception is the biggest tragedy in our dangerous nuclear age.

 Fidel Castro Ruz

BRADLEY MANNING – A TRUE AMERICAN HERO

FIDEL CASTRO SPEAK ABOUT OBAMA , WIKILEAKS AND A US HERO: BRADLEY MANNING

A few days now an article that contained a number of facts related to the oil spill that occurred 105 days ago was published. President Obama had authorized the drilling of that well because he trusted the capabilities of modern technology to produce oil –which he wanted to be available in abundance- thus relieving the United States of the dependence on the foreign supplies of such a vital product for the present civilization.  The excessive consumption of oil had already led to a vigorous protest by the environmentalists. Not even George W. Bush ever dared to take that step, given the bitter experience in Alaska with a tanker that carried the oil extracted from that area. The accident had occurred while searching for the product that is desperately needed in the consumers’ society that the newer generations inherited from the preceding ones, the only difference being that now everything moves at an unheard of speed. Scientists and environmentalists have explained the theories related to the catastrophes that occurred during hundreds of millions of years with the so called huge bubbles of methane that caused the gigantic tsunamis that swept across much of the planet.  Their winds, which reached twice the speed of sound, and their waves, which were 1 500 meters high killed 96 per cent of all living species.

They expressed their fear that in the Gulf of Mexico, which for some cosmic reason is the region of the planet where karstic rocks separate us from the enormous methane layer, the latter could be drilled, in this desperate quest for oil, with the very modern equipment used by the technology available today. After the oil spill caused by British Petroleum, the news agencies reported as follows:

“…The [US] Federal Government has warned people to keep away from the epicenter of operations, threatening to impose a 40 000 dollar fine for every transgression and carry out arrests in case there is any felonious act.

“…The EPA [The United States Environmental Protection Agency] has officially pointed out that Platform No. 1 is releasing methane, benzene, hydrogen sulphide and other toxic gases. Workers on the ground are now using modern protection means which include state- of- the art gas masks supplied by the military.”

Extremely transcendental events are becoming unusually frequent. The first and most imminent is the risk of a nuclear war after the sinking of the sophisticated flagship ‘Cheonan’ which, according to the South Korean government, was torpedoed from a Soviet-made submarine –both the torpedo and the submarine were manufactured more than 50 years ago- while other sources point to a unique possible and non-detectable cause: a mine planted by the US intelligence services on the Cheonan’s hull.  The government of the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea was soon to blame for that. This weird occurrence was followed a few days later by the adoption of Resolution 1929 of the UN Security Council, which called for an inspection of all Iranian merchant ships to begin in no later than 90 days.

A second event, which in part is already rendering its demolishing results, has been the progressive advance of  climate change, whose impact is even worse, which led to a denunciation contained in the documentary film “Home” produced by Yann Arthus-Bertrand with the participation of the most prestigious environmentalists of the world.  And now there is this oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a few miles away from our homeland, which has given rise to all sorts of concern. On July 20 a report by the EFE news agency referred to the statements made by the already well known Admiral Thad Allen, coordinator in charge of the oil spill cleanup in the Gulf of Mexico, who said he had authorized British Petroleum, the owner of the well and the one responsible for the spill, to continue for another 24 hours the tests to determine the soundness of the ‘Macondo’ structure after the installation, 10 days ago, of a new containment cap.” “According to official data, there are around 27 000 abandoned oil wells in the sea bed of the Gulf of Mexico…” “Ninety two days after the BP platform accident, the US government main concern is that the underground structure of the well is damaged and leaking oil through the rocks and flowing in multiple end points of the seafloor”It is the first time an official statement refers to the fear that the oil may start to emanate from the wells which are no longer productive.

Readers showing interest on the issue are now able to make a difference between the sensationalist and the scientific data. To me there is no satisfactory explanation for some facts.  Why Admiral Allen stated that “the main concern of the US Government is that the underground structure of the well is damaged and leaking oil through the rocks and flowing in multiple end points of the seafloor?   Why did BP state it can not be blamed for the crude that gushed 15 kilometers far from the blown out well? We will have to wait another 15 days for a relief well to be drilled, following a trajectory that is almost in parallel with the one that caused the spill, at a distance of no less than 5 meters one from the other, according to the Cuban group that analyzes the problem. Meanwhile we, as well educated children, should keep on waiting. If there is so much confidence in the well in parallel, why didn’t they resort to that measure before? What shall we do next if that action fails, as it has happened with all others?

In a recent exchange I held with a person too well informed about the details of the accident, given his country’s interests, I learned that because of the characteristics and the situation around the well, in that case there is no risk of a methane emanation there. No news on the subject was published on July 23. On the 24th, the news agency DPA stated that a “prominent US scientist had accused British Petroleum of bribing the experts that investigate the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico to delay the publication of data, as was denounced by the scientist to the BBC network”, but it establishes no connection between that immorality and any possible damage in the structure of the sea floor, the oil emanations and the unusual levels of methane. On July 26, London’s most important media –BBC, Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph, among others- reported that the “Board of Directors” of British Petroleum would “discuss today the timing of Chief Executive Hayward exit “over his handling of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.” Notimex and El Universal of Mexico published that British Petroleum “…has not decided on any change among its executives”, and adds that “a meeting of the Board of Directors is due to take place this afternoon.” On the 27th, news agencies reported that the British Petroleum Chief Executive had been fired.

July 28: Twelve wire services and 14 countries, among them the US and several of its most important allies, made some embarrassing statements over the publication by Wikileaks of secret documents about the war in Afghanistan. Although Barack Obama admitted to be ‘concerned’ about the leak, […] he pointed out that the information is old and contained nothing new.”

That was a cynical statement.

“The founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, said that the documents are an evidence of the war crimes committed by the US troops.”

And they evidenced them so accurately that they have shaken the very foundations of American secrecy.  Such documents refer to the “deaths of civilians, which were never accounted for publicly”. This has created conflicts among the parties involved in the commission of such atrocities.As for the risks of methane emanations from the wells that are not in production, there is a complete silence. July 29: AFP reports the unimaginable.  Osama Bin Laden used to be a man of the US intelligence services:  “…Osama Bin Laden appears in the secret reports published by Wikileaks as an agent that is active, present and praised by his men in the Afghan-Pakistani border.”It was known that, during the Afghan war against the Soviet occupation, Osama collaborated with the United States, but the whole world thought that in his struggle against the foreign invasion he had accepted the support offered by the United States and NATO out of necessity and that, after that country was liberated, he refused foreign interference and created Al Qaeda to combat the United States.

Many countries, Cuba among them, condemn his terrorist methods which do not exclude the death of countless innocent victims. Just imagine how surprised the world’s public opinion was when it learned that Al Qaeda had been a creation of the government of that country.It was the justification used to launch the war on the Taliban in Afghanistan and one of the motives, among others, for the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the US troops later on.  These have been two countries where thousands of American youths have been killed and a great number of them have been maimed.  More than 150 000 American soldiers –joined by the members of the units of the belligerent NATO and other allies such as Australia and South Korea- have been indefinitely deployed in these two countries.

On July 29, the picture of a 22 year-old American youth, Bradley Manning, an intelligence analyst who leaked 240 000 classified documents to the website Wikileaks, was published. He has not pleaded guilty or innocent. However, nobody will be able to lay a finger on him.  The Wikileaks members have sworn they will spread the truth throughout the world. On July 30, the Brazilian theologian Frei Betto published an article entitled “Grito de la Tierra, Clamor de los Pueblos” (Cry of the Earth; Clamor of the Peoples).Two paragraphs summarize the essence of its content: “The Greeks of ancient times had already noticed it: Gaia, the Earth, is a living organism.  We all come from it, after 13 700 million years of evolution.  However, during the last 200 years, we have not learned how to take care of it; we turned it into a merchandise in exchange for which we hope to get maximum profits.” “Today, all forms of life in the planet, including the human species –two thirds of the world population survive under the poverty line- and the Earth itself are threatened.  To prevent the anticipation of the Apocalypse it is necessary to question the myths of modern times –such as market, development, nation States- all of them based on an instrumental rationale.”

On that same day, AFP published the following: “The People’s Republic of China disapproves of the unilateral sanctions adopted by the European Union against Iran, said today  Juang Yu, the spokesperson of the Chinese chancellery.” Likewise, Russia strongly protested against the condemnations that resulted from the sanctions adopted by that region that is in close alliance with the United States. On July 30, AFP reported that the Minister of Defense of Israel stated the following: “The sanctions that the United Nations adopted against Iran […] will not force that country to suspend its uranium enrichment activities aimed at manufacturing an atom bomb.”

On August 1st, AFP reported that “a top military official of the Guardians of the Revolution warned the United States today against a future attack against Iran.”“Israel did not rule out the possibility of a military action against Iran aimed at halting its nuclear program.”“The international community headed by Washington recently increased its pressure on Iran, which is accused of trying to equip itself with a nuclear weapon by means of a covert civil nuclear program.”“Javani’s assertions preceded a statement by the Chief of the US Joint Chiefs of Staffs, Michael Mullen, who reaffirmed this Sunday that the US has a plan to attack Iran to prevent it from getting nuclear weapons.”On August 2, a news published  by AFP, whose content was similar to the ones published by all other news agencies, read as follows:

“I have to travel to New York on September to attend the UN General Assembly.  I am ready to sit down with Obama, face to face, man to man, to talk freely about world issues in front of the media and find the best solution”, said Ahmadinejad during a speech broadcast by state television.”“But President Ahmadinejad warned that the dialogue should be based on mutual respect.”

“If they think they can swing around a wand and tell us that we should accept everything they say, this will never happen”, he added.  Western powers ‘do not understand that things have changed in the world’, he said.”

“You are supporting a country that has hundreds of atomic bombs; but you say you want to stop Iran, which could eventually have them some day…”The Iranians have declared that they would shoot one hundred missiles against each of the US and Israel ships that  blockade Iran as soon as they start inspecting an Iranian merchant ship.Thus, by the time Obama gives the order to comply with the Security Council Resolution, he would also be ordering the sinking of all US warships in that area.

No other US President has been faced with such a dramatic decision.  He should have foreseen that.

On this ocassion, for the first time in my life, I address myself to Barack Obama, the President of the United States:

You should know that it is in your power to offer humankind the only real possibility of peace.  Only once will you be able to make use of your prerogatives to give the order to open fire.It is quite possible that later on, after this traumatic experience, the solutions found will not lead us again to this apocalyptical situation. Every citizen in your country, even your worst left wing or right wing adversaries, will most certainly appreciate it, as will the people of the United States, which is in no way to blame for the situation created.I am asking you to deign to listen to this appeal  I am making to you on behalf of the Cuban people.

I understand that a quick response is not to be expected; nor will you ever give one.  Think it over and consult your specialists; ask your most powerful international allies and adversaries for their opinion about the subject.

I am not interested in honors or glory. Just do it! The world could truly get rid of both nuclear and conventional weapons.

The worst variant of all will be a nuclear war, which is already virtually inevitable.

PREVENT IT! 

Fidel Castro Ruz

August 3, 2010

Support Bradley Manning – support a liberty hero.Make your voice heard

THE VOICE OF FREEDOM IN CUBA : FIDEL CASTRO SPEAKS AGAIN

The Source of Wars by FIDEL CASTRO

 

On July 4, I said that neither the United States nor Iran would give in: “one, prevented by the pride of the powerful, and the other because it has the capacity and the will to fight oppression, as we have seen so many times before in the history of mankind.” In nearly every war, one party wishes to avoid it and, sometimes, the two parties do.  This time it will happen although one of the parties does not wish it. That was the case of the two World Wars of 1914 and 1939, only 25 years one from the other. The carnage was awful in both wars, which would not have erupted had it not been for previous miscalculations. Both defended imperialist interests and believed they could accomplish their goals without the exceedingly high price finally paid.  In the case in question, one of the parties involved advocates absolutely fair national interests. The other pursues illegitimate and coarse material interests.  An analysis of every war fought throughout the recorded history of our species shows that one of the parties has pursued such goals.

            It’s absolutely wrong to entertain the illusion that this time such goals will be attained without the most dreadful of all wars. In one of the best articles ran by the Global Research website, on Thursday July 1, signed by Rick Rozoff, the author offers plenty of indisputable arguments, which every well-informed person should be aware of, about the intentions of the United States.       

According to the author, the United States believes that “…you can win if the adversary knows that it is vulnerable to a sudden and undetectable, appalling and devastating strike that it has no possibility to respond to or to defend from.”   “…a country with the aspiration of continuing as the only one in history with full military predominance all over the Earth, in the air, the sea and in space.”  “A country that keeps and expands military bases and troops as well as fighting-groups of aircraft carriers and strategic bombers on practically every latitude and longitude, and which does so on a record war budget after World War II amounting to 708 billion dollars next year.” It was also “…the first country to develop and use nuclear weapons…” “…the United States has deployed 1,550 nuclear warheads while keeping 2,200 in storage (or 3,500 according to some estimates) and a triad of ground, air and submarine delivering vehicles.”  “The non-nuclear arsenal used to neutralize and destroy the air and strategic defenses, and potentially all the major military forces of other countries, will consist in intercontinental ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and hypersonic bombers, and super-stealth strategic bombers that can avoid radar detection and the ground- and air-based defenses.” Rozoff enumerates the numerous press conferences, meetings and statements given in the past few months by the chiefs of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the senior executives of the US administration. He explains the NATO commitments and the reinforced cooperation with the Near East partners, meaning Israel in the first place. He says that “the US is also intensifying the space and cyber war programs with the potential to paralyze other nations’ military command and surveillance, control, communication, information and intelligence systems rendering them helpless except in the most basic tactical field.”

            He refers to the signing by the US and Russia, on April 8 this year, in Prague, of the new START Treaty, “which contains no restriction as to the actual or planned potential for a US conventional prompt global strike.”   He also reports a number of news on the issue and offers a most striking example of the US objectives.

            He indicates that “…the Defense Department is currently examining the entire range of technologies and systems for a Conventional Prompt Global Strike that could offer the president more credible and technically adequate options to tackle new and developing threats.”  I sustain the view that no president –and not even the most knowledgeable military chief– would have a minute to know what should be done if it were not already programmed in computers.   Rozoff proceeds undisturbed to relate what Global Security Network states in an analysis from Elaine Grossman under the title, The Cost of Testing a US Global Strike Missile Could Reach 500 Million Dollars.

            “The Obama administration has requested 239.9 billion dollars for research and development of the prompt global strike by US military services in fiscal year 2011…if the level of funds remains as anticipated for the coming years, by the end of fiscal year 2015 the Pentagon will have spent 2 billion dollars in prompt global strike, according to budget documents introduced in Congress last month.”  “A comparable terrifying scenario of the effects of a PGS, in this case of the sea version, was described three years ago in Popular Mechanics:   “An Ohio-type nuclear submarine emerges in the Pacific ready to execute the President’s order for launching. When the order comes, the submarine shoots to the sky a 65-tons Trident II missile. Within 2 minutes, the missile is flying at 22,000 km/h. Over the oceans and out of the atmosphere it speeds for thousands of kilometers.  “At the top of its parabola, in space, the four warheads of the Trident separate and start descending on the planet.   “The warheads flying at 21,000 km/h are full of tungsten rods with twice the resistance of steel.           “Once on target, the warheads explode and thousands of rods fall on the area, each carrying 12 times the destructive force of a .50 caliber bullet. Everything within 279 square meters of that whirling metal storm is annihilated.”

            Then Rozoff explains the statement made this year, on April 7, by the chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, General Leonid Ivashov, under the headline Obama’s Nuclear Surprise, where he refers to the US President remarks in Prague last year with the following words: “The existence of thousands of nuclear weapons is the most dangerous legacy of the Cold War,” and about the signature of the START II in that same city on April 8, the author points out:

            “In the history of the United States during the past century, there is not one example of sacrifice of the US elites for humanity or for the peoples of other countries. Would it be realistic to expect that the arrival of an African-American president to the White House might change the political philosophy of that nation traditionally aimed at achieving global domination? Those who believe that something like that could happen should try to understand why the US  –the country whose military budget exceeds that of all the other countries of the world combined–  continues spending huge amounts of money in war preparations.” “…the concept of Prompt Global Strike envisions a concentrated attack with the use of several thousand conventional precision weapons that within 2 to 4 hours would destroy the crucial infrastructure of the targeted country and force it to capitulate.”

            “The concept of Prompt Global Strike is aimed at ensuring the US monopoly in the military field and to widen the gap between that country and the rest of the world. In combination with the defensive deployment of missiles that should supposedly preserve the US from retaliatory attacks from Russia and China, the Prompt Global Strike initiative will turn Washington into a global dictator of the modern era.”  “Essentially, the new US nuclear doctrine is part of the new US security strategy that could more adequately be described as a strategy of complete impunity. The US increases its military budget, gives free rein to NATO as a global gendarme, and plans exercises in a real situation in Iran to prove the efficiency of the Prompt Global Strike initiative.”   In substance, Obama intends to mislead the world talking about a world free of nuclear weapons that would be replaced with other extremely destructive weapons designed to terrorize the leaders of other States and to accomplish the new strategy of complete impunity.

            The Yankees believe that Iran will soon surrender. It is expected that the European Union will inform about a package of its own sanctions to be signed on July 26.  The latest meeting of 5 plus 1 was held on July 2, after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated that “his country will resume the talks by the end of August, with the participation of Brazil and Turkey.”

            A senior EU official warned that “neither Brazil nor Turkey will be invited to the talks, at least not at this point.” “Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki remarked that he is in favor of challenging international sanctions and proceeding with the upgrading of uranium.”  Since Tuesday July 5, and in view of the European insistence in promoting additional measures against Iran, this country has responded that it will not negotiate until September.

            Thus, with every passing day there are fewer possibilities to overcome the insurmountable obstacle.

            What will happen is so obvious that it can be exactly foreseen.   As for me, I should be self-critical since I made the mistake of affirming in my Reflections of June 27, that the conflict would break out on Thursday, Friday or Saturday at the latest. It was known that Israeli warships were moving toward their target alongside the Yankee naval forces. The order to search the Iranian merchant ships had been issued. However, I lost sight of a previous step: Iran’s continued refusal to allow the inspection of a merchant ship. In the analysis of the Security Council’s intricate language to impose sanctions on that country, I overlooked the detail of that previous step for the inspection order to be enforced. It was the only required step.

            The 60-days period assigned by the Security Council on June 9, to receive information on the implementation of the Resolution, will expire on August 8.

            But something more unfortunate still was happening. I was working with the latest material on the issue produced by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cuba and the document did not include two crucial paragraphs which were the last of said Resolution and which literally read: “It requests that, in a 90 days period, the Director General of the IAEA submits to the IAEA Board of Governors and, simultaneously, to the Security Council for its examination, a report indicating whether Iran has carried out the complete and sustained suspension of all the activities mentioned in Resolution 1737 (2006), and if it is implementing every measure demanded by the IAEA Board of Governors and observing the remaining provisions of Resolutions 1737, 1747, 1803 and the current Resolution;

            “It affirms that it will examine Iran’s actions in the light of the report mentioned in paragraph 36, which shall be submitted in a period of 90 days and that a) it will suspend the implementation of the measures provided that Iran suspends every activity related to upgrading and reprocessing, including research and development, and while the suspension stands, the IAEA will verify, to allow the celebration of negotiations in good faith to reach a prompt and mutually acceptable result; b) it will cease to implement the measures specified in paragraphs 3,4,5,6,7 and 12 of resolution 1737, as well as in paragraphs 2,4,5,6 and 7 of resolution 1747, in the paragraphs 3,5,7,8,9,10 and 11 of Resolution 1803 and in paragraphs 7,8,9,10,11,12, 13,14,15,16,17,18,19,21,22,23 and 24 of the current resolution, as soon as it determines, after receiving the report mentioned in the previous paragraph, that Iran has fully observed its obligations in compliance with the relevant Security Council resolutions and the requisites of the IAEA Board of Governors, a determination to be confirmed by the Board itself; and c) in case the report indicates that Iran has failed to abide by the provisions of Resolutions 1737, 1747, 1803 and the current resolution, it will adopt, in accordance with article  41 of chapter vii of the UN Charter, other appropriate measures to persuade Iran to do as provided in said resolutions and the requisites of the IAEA, and underlines that other decisions shall be adopted if such additional measures were necessary…”

            Apparently, after many hours of hard work making copies of every document, somebody at the Ministry fell asleep, but my eagerness to seek information and exchange views on these sensitive issues enabled me to detect the omission.  From my viewpoint, the United States and its NATO allies have said their last word. Two powerful states with authority and prestige failed to exercise their right of vetoing the perfidious UN Resolution.   It was the only possibility to gain time in order to find a formula to save peace, an objective that would have given them more authority to continue struggling for it.

            Today, everything hangs by a thread.

            My main purpose was to warn the international public of what was developing.

            I have done so partly watching what was happening as the political leader that I was for many long years facing the empire, its blockade and its unspeakable crimes. I’m not doing it for revenge.

            I do not hesitate to take the risk of compromising my modest moral authority.

            I shall continue writing Reflections on the subject. There will be others after this one to continue delving in the issue on July and August, unless an incident occurs that sets in motion the deadly weapons that are today aiming at each other.

               I have greatly enjoyed the final matches of the Football World Cup and the volleyball matches, where our brave team is leading its group in the World League.

           Fidel Castro Ruz

AN ATTACK ON IRAN IS IMMINENT SAYS FIDEL CASTRO

I WOULD SO MUCH LIKE TO BE WRONG 

 

            When these lines are published in the Granma newspaper tomorrow, Friday, the date of July 26, when we proudly remember the honor of having resisted the imperialists’ attacks, will be felt distant, despite the fact that it is only 32 days away. Those who determine every step of humanity’s worst enemy –the US imperialism, a combination of miserable material interests, contempt and underestimation of the other peoples who inhabit this planet—have calculated everything with mathematical precision.

            In the Reflection of June 16, I wrote: “The diabolic reports slide down little by little in between matches of the Football World Cup, so that nobody takes notice.” The famous sports contest is now in its most exciting moment. For 14 days, the teams with the best players from 32 nations have been competing to advance to the stage of quarter-finals, semi-finals and then the final competition.   The sports enthusiasm grows constantly attracting hundreds of millions or perhaps even billions of people worldwide.

            But, we should be wondering how many are aware that from June 20 US warships, including the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman, escorted by one or more nuclear submarines and other warships carrying missiles and cannons more powerful than the old battleships used during the last World War between 1939 and 1945, have been moving towards the Iranian coasts via the Suez Canal.

            This movement of the Yankee naval forces is accompanied by Israeli military ships, carrying equally sophisticated weaponry, intended to supervise any vessel involved in the import or export of commercial products required by the Iranian economy for its operations.

            Following a US proposal supported by the United Kingdom, France and Germany, the UN Security Council passed a tough resolution which was not vetoed by any of the five countries with the right to do it.  Another tougher resolution was adopted by the US Senate.   Later, a third and even tougher resolution was approved by the member countries of the European Community. All of this happened before June 20, which motivated French President Nicolas Sarkozy to make an urgent trip to Russia –according to press reports– to meet with the head of Sate of that powerful country, Dmitri Medvedev, in hope of negotiating with Iran and preventing the worst from happening.

            Now, it’s a matter of calculating when the American and Israeli naval forces will be deployed off the coasts of Iran joining there the aircraft carriers and other US military ships already on watch in the region. It is still worse that, the same as the United States, Israel –its gendarme in the Middle East—has state-of-the-art fighter planes and sophisticated nuclear weapons supplied by the United States, which have turned it into the sixth nuclear power on Earth, in terms of its fire power, and one of eight such powers that include India and Pakistan.

            The Shah of Iran was overthrown by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979 without firing one shot. But then the United States imposed on that nation a war with chemical weapons whose components it supplied to Iraq along with the information required by this country’s combat units; such weapons were used against the Guardians of the Revolution. Cuba knows this because, as we have said before, our country chaired the Non- Aligned Movement at the time. We know very well the damage done to the populations. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, currently the head of State of Iran, was chief of the sixth army of the Guardians of the Revolution and chief of the Guardians Corps in the western provinces, which carried the bulk of that war.

            Today, in 2010, thirty-one years later, both the United States and Israel underestimate the one-million men that make up Iran’s Armed Forces and their fighting capacity on the ground as well as the air, sea and ground forces of the Guardians of the Revolution. These forces are compounded by 20 million men and women, ages 12 through 60, selected and systematically trained by their various armed institutions, from the 70 million people who live in that country.   The US administration worked out a plan to promote a political movement that based on capitalist consumerism would divide the Iranians and overthrow the government.

            Such hope is now harmless. It’s simply ridiculous to think that the US warships and Israeli forces combined could win the sympathies of even one Iranian citizen.   I initially thought, as I analyzed the current situation, that the conflict would start at the Korean peninsula, where the second Korean War would break out, and that another war would immediately follow; the one that the United States would impose on Iran.

            Now, we are witnessing a different turn of events: the war in Iran will immediately spark off that of Korea.

            The leadership of North Korea, which was accused of sinking the ‘Cheonan’ and which knows only too well that said ship was sunk by a mine attached to its hull by the Yankee intelligence services, will not miss a second to act as soon as Iran is attacked.    It is only fair that football fans freely enjoy the competitions of this World Cup. I simply fulfill my duty of informing our people, as I think mostly of our youths, full of life and hopes, especially our wonderful children, so that the developments do not catch them by surprise.

            It hurts to think of the dreams conceived by human beings and the amazing things they have created in barely a few thousand years.

            At a time when the most revolutionary dreams are coming true and our homeland is firmly on the path to recovery, I would so much like to be wrong! 

Fidel Castro Ruz

June 24, 2010

THE US HEALTHCARE REFORM by FIDEL CASTRO

Barack Obama is a zealous believer in the imperialist capitalist system imposed by the United States to the world. “God bless the United States,” is the final phrase of his speeches.

Some events hurt the sensitivity of the world public which sympathized with the victory of the African-American over the far-right candidate in that country. On the basis of one of the deepest economic crises the world has known, and on the pain brought on by the young Americans who lost their lives or were injured or maimed in the genocidal wars of conquest unleashed by his predecessor, he won with the vote of the majority of the 50% of Americans who cast a vote in that democratic nation.

Out of an elementary sense of ethic, Obama should have refrained from accepting the Nobel Peace Prize when he had already decided on sending forty thousand troops to an absurd war in the heart of Asia.

The warmongering policy and the plundering of natural resources, as well as the unequal terms of trade of the current administration toward the poor countries of the Third World are no different from those of his predecessors, most of them from the far-right, –with few exceptions—throughout the past century.

The antidemocratic document imposed at the Copenhagen Summit on the international community, which had given credit to his promise to cooperate in the struggle against climate change, was another one of those events that disappointed many people around the world. The United States, the largest producer of greenhouse-gas emissions, was not willing to make the necessary sacrifices despite the flattering previous words of its president.

The list of contradictions would be endless between the ideas defended by the Cuban nation for five decades with great sacrifices and the selfish policies of that colossal empire.

Still, we don’t feel any animosity toward Obama, much less toward the American people. We feel that the Healthcare Reform has been a significant battle and a success of his administration. However, it is really amazing that 234 years after the Declaration of Independence proclaimed in Philadelphia in the year 1776, which drew inspiration from the ideas of the great French encyclopedists, the government of that country has approved medical care for the overwhelming majority of its citizens, something that Cuba accomplished for its entire population half a century ago despite the cruel and inhuman blockade imposed –and still in force– by the mightiest country that has ever existed. In the past, it was only after almost a century of independence and following a bloody war, that Abraham Lincoln could obtain the legal emancipation of the slaves.

On the other hand, I can’t help but think of a world where over one-third of the population have no access to medical care or the basic medicines required to ensure health. 

And this situation will be aggravated as climate change, and water and food shortage worsen in a globalized world where the population grows, the forests disappear, the arable land decreases, the air is more polluted, and the human species inhabiting it –which emerged less than 200 thousand years back, that is, 3.5 billion years after the first forms of life on the planet—is running the real risk of annihilation.

Even conceding that the Health Reform comes as a success to the Obama administration, the current President of the United States cannot ignore that climate change poses a threat to health, and worse still, to the very existence of every nation in the world, as the rise in temperature –beyond critical limits which are already in sight—melts down the water of the glaciers, and the tens of millions of cubic meters contained in the enormous ice caps of the Antarctic, Greenland and Siberia melt down within a few decades leaving under water every port facility in the world and lands where a large part of the world population lives, works and eats today.

Obama, the leaders of the wealthy nations and their allies, as well as their scientists and sophisticated research centers are aware of this; they cannot ignore it.

I understand the satisfaction expressed in the presidential speech and his recognition of the contribution made by the members of Congress and the administration to make possible the miracle of the Health Reform, which strengthens the government’s position vis-à-vis political lobbyists and mercenaries that curtail the authority of the administration. It would be worse if those responsible for tortures, murders on contract and genocide were in charge of the US government again. As a man unquestionably smart and sufficiently well informed, Obama knows there is no exaggeration in my words. I hope the foolish remarks he sometimes makes about Cuba do not cloud his mind.

In the aftermath of his success in this battle for the right of every American to healthcare, 12 million immigrants, most of them Latin American, Haitian and from other Caribbean countries are demanding the legalization of their presence in the United States where they do the hardest work and the American society cannot do without them, but where they are arrested, separated from their families and sent back to their countries.

The overwhelming majority migrated to America escaping the tyrannies imposed by the United States on the countries of the region and the dire poverty these have endured as a result of the plundering of their resources and the unequal terms of trade. Their family remittances make up a high percentage of the GDP of these countries’ economies. Now, they expect an act of basic justice. If the Cubans have been singled out with an Adjustment Act which promotes brain drain and the enticement of their educated youths, why are such brutal methods applied to the illegal immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean?

The devastating earthquake that battered Haiti –the poorest nation in Latin America, hammered by an unprecedented natural catastrophe that took the lives of more than 200 thousand people—and the terrible economic damage that a similar phenomenon brought on Chile are eloquent proof of the dangers looming over the so-called civilization and of the need for dramatic measures that can give the human species the hope to survive.

The Cold War failed to benefit the people of the world. The huge economic, technological and scientific power of the United States would be unable to survive the tragedy hovering on the planet. President Obama should look up in a computer the relevant data and talk to his most outstanding scientists; then, he will see how far his country is of being the model it promotes for humanity.

As an African-American, he suffered the offense of discrimination, according to his own narrative in the book “Dreams From My Father.” He was acquainted with the poverty of tens of millions of Americans; educated in that country and as a successful professional he has enjoyed the privileges of the rich middle class and ended up idealizing the social system where the economic crisis, the lives of Americans uselessly sacrificed and his undisputable political talent gave him political victory.

Yet, to the most intractable right-wing Obama is an extremist; and they threaten to continue fighting in the Senate to neutralize the effects of the Health Reform and to openly boycott it in several States of the Union by declaring it an unconstitutional law.

The problems of our times are much more serious.

The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other international financial institutions strictly controlled by the United States –the creators of tax havens and the culprits of the financial chaos in the planet– allow the bailout of the big American banks by their government every time one of the frequent and increasingly intense crises of the system hits that country.

The United States Federal Reserve capriciously mints the hard currency that pays for the wars of conquest, the profits of the Military Industrial Complex, the military bases distributed around the world, and the large investments used by the transnational companies to control the economy of many countries worldwide. 

Nixon unilaterally suspended the gold standard while the vaults of the New York banks keep seven thousand tons of gold, little over 25% of the world reserves in that metal, a figure that at the end of World War II was in excess of 80%. It is said that the US public debt exceeds 10 trillion dollars, which is more than 70% of its GDP and stands like a burden for the new generations. This is said when the truth is that the world economy is the one paying that debt with the huge amounts of US dollars spent in purchasing goods and services, the same dollars that the large transnationals of that country use to buy a considerable portion of the world riches and to sustain that nation’s consumer society.

Anyone understands that such a system is unsustainable and also why the wealthiest sectors in the United States and their allies in the world advocate a system that can only be sustained with ignorance, deception and the conditioned reflexes created in the world public through the monopoly over the mass media, including the main networks of the Internet. Today, the structure is crumbling with the accelerated advance of climate change and its disastrous consequences which are placing humanity face to face with an exceptional dilemma.

The wars between powers seem no longer a possible solution to the great contradictions as they were until the second half of the 20th century. Still, they have had such an impact on the elements that make human survival possible, that they could prematurely put an end to the existence of the current intelligent species that populates our planet.

A few days ago I expressed my firm belief that, in light of the scientific knowledge prevailing today, the human beings will have to solve their problems on planet Earth since they will never be able to cover the distance separating the Sun from its closest star located four light-years away, –one light-year equals 187,500 miles per second, as our high school students know—provided a planet similar to our beautiful Earth existed around that sun.

The United States invests huge amounts of money to confirm the presence of water on planet Mars, or if there was or is any elementary form of life there. No one knows what for, if not out of mere scientific curiosity. Millions of species are disappearing from our planet at a faster pace and its enormous water sources are constantly being poisoned.

The new laws of science –following Einstein’s formulas on energy and matter, and the big-bang theory as the origin of the millions of constellations and infinite stars and/or other theories—have given rise to deep changes in such basic concepts as space and time, which draw the attention of and are subjected to analysis by theologians. One of them, our Brazilian friend Friar Betto, deals with the subject in his book “The Work of the Artist: A Holistic Vision of Universe,” presented in the recent International Book Fair held in Havana.

The advancement of science in the past one hundred years has had an impact on the traditional approaches that prevailed through thousands of years in social sciences and even in Philosophy and Theology.

The most honest thinkers are paying significant attention to the new knowledge but we know absolutely nothing of how President Obama feels about the compatibility of consumer societies with science.

In the meantime, it is worthwhile meditating about these subjects now and then; this will certainly not prevent human beings from dreaming and from taking things with due serenity and steely nerves, but it is the duty of at least those who chose to become politicians and who sustain the noble and unwavering objective of a human society where justice and solidarity prevail.

Fidel Castro Ruz

March 24, 2010