Your Weekly Summary of 11 to 16 October 2021

In a scenario in which infection figures show a downward trend, while vaccination is progressing, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero and Health Minister Jose Angel Portal insist on the importance of continuing to improve these indicators.
Avoiding overconfidence is the reiterated call in the meetings of the Temporary Working Group on the behavior of Covid-19 in Cuba, as it is easy to go with positive results.

NEMO rejects misrepresentation of Cuba’s patriotic dates

 The movement against the U.S. blockade of Cuba, known as NEMO, reiterated its rejection of attempts to use patriotic dates of the island in exactly the opposite way to their meaning.

 According to NEMO’s co-founder José Oro, through digital networks, this solidarity movement is imbued with the same spirit of the Cuban heroes and will never accept that enemies of the Caribbean nation try to appropriate or distort historical dates.

Long live October 10, symbol of our struggles and our Independence, said the activist.

Cuba exercises its right to defend itself

An editorial in the Granma newspaper underlined the right of Cuba to protect its independence from foreign intervention.

The official organ of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) explained the reasons why the island’s municipal authorities denied permission to a march initially called for November 20 in several localities, which they considered part of destabilizing plans promoted by the United States.

The president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel participated on the Eurasian Supreme Economic Council

The newspaper published the Article 45 of the Constitution, according to which ‘the exercise of people’s rights is only limited by the rights of others, collective security, general welfare, respect for public order, the Constitution and the laws’.

The president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, highlighted  that from November 4 to 7, Havana will host the 11th session of the Joint Commission for Collaboration with the Eurasian Economic Commission.

Last Thursday, the Cuban president participated online in the meeting of the Eurasian Supreme Economic Council, made up of heads of state and government of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, as well as Moldova, Uzbekistan and Cuba that have observer status. 

In his speech reaffirmed his country’s will to continue promoting bilateral ties in areas of common interest and to work together to strengthen this integration project.

Cuba’s FM denounces US smothering and subverting policy

The US Government is employing a multidimensional strategy against Cuba, which includes economic pressure and financing those who support its destabilizing agenda, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez denounced.

 ‘The US combines a policy of maximum pressure to smother Cuba and a brutal misinformation campaign, with the financing and open promotion of those who lend themselves to its destabilizing agenda of ‘regime change’,’ the foreign minister tweeted.

The minister warned that the right to demonstrate cannot be used to subvert the political system, to overthrow the socialist project or to establish alliances with groups and organizations that receive financing from the United States

Encouraging results of the Abdala de Cuba vaccine in a pediatric trial 

Cuba’s Covid-19 vaccine, Abdala, showed encouraging preliminary results in the more than 500 children who participated in the Ismaelillo clinical trial in children ages three to 18 in Camagüey. 

The main researcher of the studies with this vaccine, Sonia Resik, highlighted that more than 80 percent of the adverse events reported in the young vaccinated were mild and the rest of the indicators were comparable to the data obtained in adults, which shows that it is effective. 

It was possible to complete the total number to complete the trial, which was 547 volunteers, said the also head of the Virology Department of the Pedro Kourí Institute of Tropical Medicine. 

Cuba advocates in UNESCO for a world of social justice

Cuba defended at the UNESCO Executive Council the building of a post-Covid-19 world dominated by social justice and equality of rights among human beings, an increasingly distant scenario.

 The Cuban ambassador to UNESCO, Yahima Esquivel, called for speaking of a normal betting on a future that is different to the foreseeable one, a world defined by more unjust and unsafe societies.

According to the diplomat, the international community should make come true the ‘better world’ that humanity needs.