In an act of pure hypocrisy and obsessive cruelty, GOP Senators Marco Rubio, Rick Scott and Ted Cruz joined together to penalize developing nations who seek to take advantage of Cuba’s hands-on humanitarian work.

The bill, if passed, will require the U.S. State Department to publish a list of nations contracting with the Cuban government for their medical services and consider that as a factor to include said nations in the Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report; opening the door for further economic sanctions and other measures against any country on that list.

Given the very noticeable rise in threatening rhetoric focused on Iran over the past week, it seems thoughts of regime change in Tehran are once again top of the agenda. Or perhaps simultaneously the administration needs a significant distraction of sorts amid the coronavirus pandemic, and the persistent national reopening question and agenda.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went gloves off on Twitter, attacking Iran's 'Supreme Leader' Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, blasting him as “anti-Semitic”, “disgusting” and as someone representing “hate speech,” according to Pompeo's remarks.

Reuters reports based on a Trump administration source that the White House plans to return Cuba to its official list of state sponsors of terrorism, following Obama's 2015 delisting of the country as part of a broader attempt to normalize ties.

Over the past years tensions have soared over Havana's backing socialist Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro as well as the outlawed Colombian group ELN. There's of course also the allegations that Cuban intelligence or some other nefarious entity was using super sonic sound waves to sicken US embassy personnel in the recently reopened building in the capital.

It's not a done deal, but appears to be headed that way, Reuters strongly suggests:

There is a “convincing case” that Cuba should be placed back on the U.S. blacklist, in part because of its continued backing for socialist Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and the refuge it gives to leaders of Colombia’s ELN rebel group, the official said.

Since the appearance, March 11, of the first cases of COVID-19 in Cuba, the country’s Ministry of Public Health (Minsap) has reported that the inclusion of Recombinant Human Interferon Alpha 2b in treatment protocols for these patients has shown positive results.

Details on the effectiveness of the product were presented by Dr. Eulogio Pimentel Vázquez, director of the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB), affiliated with the BioCubaFarma Enterprise Group, where the medication was first produced in the late 1980s.

“The strength of the Cuban health system, and its close ties with the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, in our social system that prioritizes the people’s health, makes possible the medication’s availability for all Cubans.”

The Cuban biotech industry has offered its own tool to fight the coronavirus disease. Dr. Manuel Limonta, one of the founding fathers of Cuba's biotechnology initiative, has explained how the island nation has mastered itself in producing interferon, a drug chosen by a number of countries to treat COVID-19.

Amid the media buzz about hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug lauded by Donald Trump as a potential cure against COVID-19, recombinant interferon remains neglected despite being one of medicines which have proven effective in curbing China's coronavirus epidemic.

The Cuban biotech industry has offered its own tool to fight the coronavirus disease. Dr. Manuel Limonta, one of the founding fathers of Cuba's biotechnology initiative, has explained how the island nation has mastered itself in producing interferon, a drug chosen by a number of countries to treat COVID-19.

Amid the media buzz about hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug lauded by Donald Trump as a potential cure against COVID-19, recombinant interferon remains neglected despite being one of medicines which have proven effective in curbing China's coronavirus epidemic.

Cuba complained recently that a shipment of test kits, masks and respirators, donated by the Chinese Alibaba group, didn’t arrive because the American company tasked with transportation feared breaching U-S sanction rules. Washington imposed an embargo on Cuba in 19-62 after the island nation nationalized its oil industry. The measures have been denounced by the United Nations 28 years in a row.

The coronavirus pandemic is exposing the cruelty of US imperialism to the world as Washington’s crippling economic sanctions remain in full effect. The decades-old US embargo on Cuba blocked a coronavirus aid shipment from a Chinese entrepreneur last month, another example in a long list of US policies hampering the world’s efforts to combat the virus. On top of the blocked aid, the State Department is urging other countries not to accept help from Cuba’s state-run international medical program.

For 40 years, Cuba has been using a molecule named Interferon Alpha 2B , which has successfully been used to combat the new Coronavirus in China and elsewhere.

"The world has an opportunity to understand that health is not a commercial asset but a basic right," Cuban doctor Luis Herrera, the creator of the Interferon Alfa 2-B medication, one of the most successful medications in the fight against COVID-19 told teleSUR Tuesday.

Interferon has been known for more than 40 years: first, it was produced from original sources in local sites, then nationally and later in the United States and even Finland.

"At the beginning of the 80s, an important professor from Houston came to Cuba and advised our President Fidel Castro than the Interferon we had here was a very interesting molecule for a different purpose," Herrera told teleSUR.

SOURCE: PEPE ESCOBAR VIA THE ASIA TIME
Fallout from Covid-19 outbreak puts Beijing and Washington on a collision course...

Among the myriad, earth-shattering geopolitical effects of coronavirus, one is already graphically evident. China has re-positioned itself. For the first time since the start of Deng Xiaoping’s reforms in 1978, Beijing openly regards the US as a threat, as stated a month ago by Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the Munich Security Conference during the peak of the fight against coronavirus.

Beijing is carefully, incrementally shaping the narrative that, from the beginning of the coronovirus attack, the leadership knew it was under a hybrid war attack. Xi’s terminology is a major clue. He said, on the record, that this was war. And, as a counter-attack, a “people’s war” had to be launched.

COVID-19 surged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late December 2019 and by January 2020 it had hit Hubei province like a tidal wave, swirling over China and rippling out overseas. The Chinese state rolled into action to combat the spread and care for those infected. Among the 30 medicines the Chinese National Health Commission selected to fight the virus was a Cuban anti-viral drug Interferon Alpha 2b. This drug has been produced in China since 2003, by the enterprise ChangHeber, a Cuban-Chinese joint venture.

Dominic Raab, the UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, thanked the Cuban Government today in parliament for their assistance with the stricken British cruise ship the MS Braemar which had passengers with possible coronavirus infections.

He made the ministerial statement to MPs in parliament today

“I spoke to the Cuban Foreign Minister twice over the weekend and we are very grateful to the Cuban government for swiftly enabling this operation and for their close cooperation to make sure it could be successful.”

Cuban medicine could treat thousands of coronavirus patients as production of a “flagship” drug known to combat the disease is set to increase significantly, pharmaceutical bosses said at a press conference on Friday.

President of the BioCubaFarma group Eduardo Martinez explained that the socialist island has developed 22 drugs that are set to be used to contain the outbreak.

So far it is known that one of the drugs manufactured by Cuba, Interferon B, has managed to effectively cure more than 1,500 patients from the coronavirus and is one of 30 drugs chosen by the Chinese National Health Commission to combat respiratory disease.

This is sanction number 191 imposed by the U.S. government on the Cuban people, with the purpose of causing discouragement and despair, while portraying revolutionary authorities as responsible for the damage caused by its aggressive policy

The corporate media have long been looking for ways to discredit Bernie Sanders, and they settled on a surprising statement he made in the 1980s during his tenure as mayor of Burlington when he said, “We have a lot to learn from Cuba.”

Now, they have latched onto a statement he made about Cuba during an interview on “60 Minutes” after winning the Nevada caucuses: “We’re very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba but you know, it’s unfair to simply say everything is bad,” Sanders said. “When Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing?”

Ironically, several years earlier, in 2016, President Obama said something quite similar, expressly celebrating Cuba’s hard-won national education system.

SOURCE: MIDDLE EAST MONITOR
The Israeli government is aiming to increase the volume of Israel’s defence exports, reported Globes, which has revealed the main points of the plan for the first time.

The project, being overseen by the Defence Ministry’s International Defence Cooperation Directorate (SIBAT) led by Brigadier General (Res.) Yair Kulas, will begin to be rolled out in early 2020.

According to Globes, the plan is based on “focused seminars for senior commanders in foreign armies”, Israeli military “assistance for promoting sales of Israeli weapons”, and “subsidising small and medium-sized defence companies seeking to sell arms around the world”.

Speaking this week, Kulas said that SIBAT favours a major expansion of agreements between countries, resulting in significant deals for the large defence companies, especially Elbit Systems, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Rafael Advanced Defence Systems.

Operation Timber Sycamore

Operation Timber Sycamore is the codename of a covert operation officially authorized by Obama in June 2013 to train and equip the anti-Assad rebellion, but which actually started in October 2011, when the CIA was operating via Britain’s MI6 to avoid having to notify Congress that it was arming the rebels in Syria. Originally, the CIA and MI6 (the British foreign intelligence service) set up a rebel arms supply network in Syria from Libya — a plan that involved intelligence agencies of 15 countries.

Intervention in India

The Pentagon project Operation Timber Sycamore that spawned ISIS was the brainchild of former CIA Director General David Petraeus. It is now coordinated by the investment fund KKR, established by Henry Kravis and whose military activities are led by Petraeus.

Cuba’s President, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, presided the 20th anniversary celebration of the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM), which he described as “a visionary project founded to improve the quality of life of those who were born and died without having the opportunity to see a doctor.”

Minister of Public Health José Ángel Portal Miranda recalled that, since ELAM opened its doors, the staff has welcomed thousands of low-income youth, who were able to realize their dreams of becoming excellent health professionals.

SOURCE: JACK BURNS @ THE FREE THOUGHT PROJECT
(Support Free Thought) - Lost Angeles, CA — LA County sheriff’s deputies have divided allegiances according to several police officers who just filed a lawsuit against their fellow cops for beating and choking them nearly to death.

As TFTP repeatedly claims, many law enforcement agencies resemble gangs more than a peacekeeping entity. There are the blue lives matter stickers, the code of silence and the thin blue line. However, many who hear claims such as police are “gang members” who steal from the public often do not investigate such a strong position. Not only do whole police departments get caught up in corruption, but individual gang members can become police officers as well, and control the entire department.

Essentially, Google purports to have pulled off a stunt on a quantum computer that no classical machine—not even the world’s most powerful supercomputer—can replicate.

Fortune obtained a copy of Google’s paper, which was posted to NASA.gov earlier this week before being taken down. The Financial Times first reported the news.

A Google spokesperson declined to confirm the authenticity of the paper and its results. NASA did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

A source at Google familiar with the situation suggested, however, that NASA accidentally published the paper early, before its team’s claims could be thoroughly vetted through scientific peer review, a process that could take anywhere from weeks to months.

If the paper holds up under the scrutiny of the scientific community, it will herald a watershed moment in quantum science. Its central claim counters doubt that some unforeseen law of nature may prevent quantum computers from operating as hoped.

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

Twitter has suspended multiple large Cuban media accounts for reasons the social media platform has yet to explain as of this writing, a move which journalist Dan Cohen has described as “the equivalent of silencing CNN, Fox, WaPo and NPR’s accounts” for that nation. The Union of Cuban Journalists has denounced the move as censorship.

The US withdrawal from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty is raising concerns in Russia that it would lead to the deployment of land-based US missiles along their borders in Eastern Europe. Russian officials warn this could create a crisis comparable to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

This is not a totally unfounded concern. The INF treaty’s dissolution, and the expansion of NATO all the way to Russia’s border indeed would create such a possibility. Russian officials have made clear they would respond to try to maintain deterrence, and prevent NATO having an overwhelming nuclear advantage. Though there are no formal plans for such deployments by NATO announced publicly yet, the Eastern European members are overwhelmingly hostile to Russia, and would endorse such deployments.

At the very moment a Russian warship has docked in Cuba — a mere one hundred miles off the American coast, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov has slammed US build-up of its weapons systems in Europe by invoking comparisons to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

Ryabkov made his comments early Monday, the same day the frigate Admiral Gorshkov, armed with Kalibr missiles, entered the port of Havana.

As international condemnation of the unilateral sanctions imposed by the United States on Cuba June 5 continues to grow, the measures have already had an impact. Three of the four U.S. cruise lines operating on the island, began to withdraw and apologize to their guests for changes in itineraries. The largest cruise ship operator in the world, Carnival, well known for its customary stops in Cuban ports, informed clients that it was forced to cancel visits to Havana and apologized for “the unexpected change.”

Thus customers who were on board the Carnival Sensation, which departed two days before the ban and was set to travel to Havana, was obliged to continue on to Cozumel, Mexico. The company said it regretted the change and recognized Havana as a “unique destination,” offering “a full refund” to those who decided to cancel the trip.

The Trump administration on Tuesday ended the most popular forms of U.S. travel to Cuba, banning cruise ships and a heavily used category of educational travel in an attempt to cut off cash to the island's communist government.

Cruise travel from the U.S. to Cuba began in May 2016 during President Barack Obama's opening with the island.

It has become the most popular form of U.S. leisure travel to the island, bringing 142,721 people in the first four months of the year, a more than 300% increase over the same period last year.

The Trump Administration has made clear that their anger toward Venezuela’s government also extends to Cuba, and this was shown again today with the administration imposing new restrictions to prevent Americans ever setting foot on Cuban soil.

The new restrictions target educational trips as well as cruise ships, forbidden all cruises from stopping in Cuba for recreational purposes. There was no grace period for ships already en route.

This created immediate chaos among cruise operators, and a number of scheduled cruises that were to stop in Cuba as part of their voyages have uncertain futures, with Carnival Corp saying they won’t be going to Cuba, but they will be going someplace in the future.

Daniel Llorente, an independent Cuban dissident who has repeatedly protested the communist regime by waving a U.S. flag in public, told the Cuban-American news outlet Radio Martí this weekend that police forcibly expelled him to Guyana in the dead of night, threatening to “disappear” him if he ever returned.

No, it doesn't appear to be mere hyperbole, considering it's the well-known neocon uber-hawk senator from South Carolina, who like the late John McCain would never waist precious opportunity to put the USA firmly on the war path.

Addressing recent reports that Cuba and Russia have sent troops to Venezuela to prop up embattled President Nicolas Maduro, Sen. Lindsey Graham angrily tweeted Friday, "Where is our aircraft carrier?"

Full implementation of US embargo law on Cuba is illegal under international law, the EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini said as she promised retaliatory measures amidst yet another row between Brussels and Washington.

The “full activation” of US embargo legislation against Cuba is “contrary to international law” and goes against the previous US-EU agreements, Mogherini said on Thursday, promising to apply “all appropriate measures” to defend European interests.

National Security Adviser John Bolton continued to push accusations that Cuba is behind the failed US-backed coup in Venezuela, now claiming that 25,000 Cuban troops are in the country, and Venezuela would fall by midnight if they left.

Cuba has denied having troops in Venezuela, or engaging in any military operations there. Bolton provided no evidence that the 25,000 troops are there, and there are some serious reasons to doubt it.

President Donald Trump is threatening a “full and complete embargo” and sanctions on Cuba if its troops do not “immediately” cease operations in Venezuela.

Trump’s Twitter missive to the longtime U.S. foe comes amid his swift embrace of a Venezuelan opposition effort to spark a military uprising against embattled President Nicolas Maduro.

Cuba is among Maduro’s staunchest backers amid a U.S.-led effort to recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as the nation’s legitimate president.

As it becomes clear that the Trump Administration support, so far unsuccessful, for regime change in Venezuela is also very much about targeting the huge financial presence of China with the Maduro regime, recent news of a major Chinese oil success in Cuban waters will clearly deepen the geopolitical tensions. And it involves not only Venezuela, Guyana and Brazil.

China’s major state-owned oil company, CNPC, through its subsidiary, Great Wall Drilling, has begun exploring for oil off Cuba’s coast in a joint venture with state-owned oil firm Cuba Petroleum Company (CUPET), according to an April 16 report in the China state news agency, Xinhua. Great Wall has been engaged in oil exploration in Cuba since 2005, but this is the most promising result to date. Advanced drilling technology from CNPC has opened the prospect of major oil off Cuba for the first time.

President Donald Trump and his administration have decided to cancel a December deal that would have allowed MLB teams to sign Cuban players, according to the Washington Post.

The White House argued that the Cuban Baseball Federation was part of the Cuban government, which caused the deal to be nullified because trade with Cuba is currently banned.

The initial deal, which was expected to run through October 2021, allowed Cuban players to sign with clubs under similar rules as other international players from Japan and South Korea.

Players who were over 25 years old would be free to sign with organizations that paid a "release fee" to the Cuban club. Other players could sign minor league deals.

The Cuban Armed Forces expressed their support for the Government of Nicolás Maduro, after the United States threaten a military intervention to Venezuela.

In ceremonies, held this Saturday in different barracks, chiefs, officers, non-commissioned officers, sergeants, soldiers and civilian workers of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) of Cuba, dressed in military green, have ratified their support to the Venezuelan Executive with their signature on the campaign “Hands out of Venezuela!”

According to the state news agency Agencia Cubana de Noticias , which includes images in this regard, the Cuban military has launched its traditional slogans of “Hasta la Victoria, siempre!” Or “Patria o muerte, conquer!”.

“The US action is interventionist, to attack and invade a country. Only they (Venezuela) are responsible for resolving their internal problems, “said FAR Lieutenant Colonel Ignacio Ariosa, at an event in the city of Matanzas, 83 kilometers east of Havana, the capital.

After debunking Washington’s lies about the burning of “humanitarian aid” trucks on the Venezuelan/Colombian border (more than two weeks after being scooped by independent journalists), the New York Times quickly reverted to form in an article by Nicholas Casey headlined “‘It is Unspeakable’: How Maduro Used Cuban Doctors to Coerce Voters” (3/17/19).

As the title not-so-subtly suggests, Casey claimed to present bombshell revelations regarding the Nicolás Maduro government’s alleged weaponization of Cuban medical personnel as a means of holding on to power. On closer inspection, however, the article is riddled with factual inaccuracies, omissions and misrepresentations.

US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joe Dunford issued a statement Monday denying weekend media reports that the US plans to leave around 1,000 troops in Syria, saying the reports are “factually incorrect.”

Dunford presented the current planned “residual force” as 200, saying that this hadn’t changed since February. The US announced 200 would stay on February 21, but on February 22 officially increased that number to 400.

It’s not clear from Dunford’s statement where the “incorrect” aspect of the new report, which came out of a Wall Street Journal, exists. That report suggested that the 1,000 figure was not yet finalized, but was being discussed. Dunford’s comments didn’t include any details on what is actually being discussed, but just that nothing was finalized.

Shipping companies and insurers that take part in sending crude oil from Venezuela to Cuba have been “put on notice,” U.S. national security adviser John Bolton said in a tweet, following a declaration by the Venezuelan opposition-dominated National Assembly that all oil exports to Cuba must be suspended in the wake of the five-day blackout that wreaked havoc on the already struggling South American country.

“The Venezuelan National Assembly has decreed the suspension of crude exports to Cuba following the collapse of the national electrical grid. Insurance companies and flag carriers that facilitate these give-away shipments to Cuba are now on notice,” Bolton tweeted.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Cuba and Russia on Monday of propping up President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela in the Trump administration’s most explicit argument yet that his government is a dictatorial regime kept alive by two American adversaries.

Mr. Pompeo’s comments came amid a devastating power outage that has plunged many of Venezuela’s most populous areas into darkness, spoiling food in a nation where little is available.

He denied Mr. Maduro’s accusation that foreign powers — a clear reference to the United States — had any role in creating the blackout that has brought the country to the brink of social implosion. Instead, Mr. Pompeo said, the blame lies squarely with Havana and Moscow.

“When there is no electricity, thank the marvels of modern Cuban-led engineering,” Mr. Pompeo said in comments laced with sarcasm. “When there’s no water, thank the excellent hydrologists from Cuba. When there’s no food, thank the Cuban communist overlords.”

If this sort of extreme censorship continues, pretty soon anybody that has anything even remotely important or interesting to say will be completely banned by Facebook. As you will see below, Facebook has just banned Zero Hedge, and they have also just announced that they will be systematically censoring any content that has “misinformation” about vaccines. Of course this is just the latest chapter in a relentless campaign by the social media giants to censor alternative sources of information. Since Donald Trump’s victory in November 2016, the social media crackdown has just gotten worse and worse, and it has gotten to the point where we can now safely say that free speech is dead on the major social media platforms.

Retired U.S. Army General Robert Scales told FOX Business’ Trish Regan Opens a New Window. that the United States military is indeed operating in the region of Venezuela Opens a New Window. . He says U.S. forces have been active for some time in Colombia attempting to thwart the drug trade.

“Let's be very clear. The military is involved. We have had a Special Forces group in Colombia for almost 60 years fighting against the terrorist groups in Colombia” Major Gen. Scales said on “Trish Primetime Opens a New Window. ” Monday. “But they are purely on the periphery. They are helping facilitate the delivery of aid. They are training the Colombian army. They are keeping watch electronically over the border with Venezuela.”

The State Department on Monday announced it would allow lawsuits to be brought against Cuba companies and individuals by people whose property was seized by the communist government during and after Fidel Castro's revolution in the late 1950s.

In the United States' latest move to punish Cuba and encourage democracy in the communist nation, the State Department announced it would suspend for 30 days part of the 1996 Libertad Act, also known as the Helms-Burton Act, and allow some lawsuits to be brought against companies using properties confiscated by the Cuban government after its 1959 revolution.

"Even under a new president in Cuba, nothing has changed," a senior State Department official said Monday. "The U.S. is holding the Cuban regime responsible."

In a landmark - if widely expected - decision, the Department of Justice in Ottawa has ruled that extradition proceedings against Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested on the same day that President Trump and President Xi struck their trade truce in Buenos Aires, will proceed.

Though whether or not she will face trial in the US must still be determined by a Canadian court, a process that could take months or even years, the fact that her extradition is moving forward is still a big moment in a case that has captivated investors and elicited threats of retribution against Ottawa from Beijing.

Meng is wanted in the US on charges of fraud and sanctions violations for her alleged role in deceiving HSBC and other banks into processing transactions for Huawei that were purportedly linked to Iran. US prosecutors filed roughly a dozen charges against Meng and Huawei in January, as well as a formal request for her extradition, according to the BBC.

he Trump administration is threatening to unleash a flood of lawsuits involving Cuba, which no U.S. president has ever done. It has set a deadline of March 2 to announce whether it will create, in the words of the National Lawyers Guild, “a second embargo” of Cuba — “one that would be very difficult to dismantle in the future.”

Trump may give current U.S. citizens standing to sue in U.S. courts even if they were Cuban citizens when the Cuban government nationalized their property after the 1959 Revolution. They would be able to bring lawsuits against U.S. and foreign companies that allegedly profit from the nationalized properties.

In accordance with international law, the Cuban government had offered compensation to U.S. nationals for the taking of their property, as I explain below. If Trump permits myriad new lawsuits to proceed, it would unleash a tsunami of litigation that would harm U.S. companies and punish the Cuban people even more.

The Trump administration is threatening to unleash a flood of lawsuits involving Cuba, which no U.S. president has ever done. It has set a deadline of March 2 to announce whether it will create, in the words of the National Lawyers Guild, “a second embargo” of Cuba — “one that would be very difficult to dismantle in the future.”

Trump may give current U.S. citizens standing to sue in U.S. courts even if they were Cuban citizens when the Cuban government nationalized their property after the 1959 Revolution. They would be able to bring lawsuits against U.S. and foreign companies that allegedly profit from the nationalized properties.

At a Havana press conference Tuesday, the Cuban government accused the Trump administration of preparing a military operation against Venezuela, suggesting that humanitarian aid is a pretext for intervention.

"You're starting to see American military transports that originate in U.S. military installations, where marine infantry and special forces operate and plan covert action," Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said in Havana.

Rodriguez told journalists that the US military is quickly building up assets unbeknownst to Caribbean governments where their bases are located.

Journalists questioned what evidence Cuba has the US is preparing to stage a military operation to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Rodriguez told Local 10's Cuba correspondent Hatzel Vela to examine the airports where he would uncover evidence of the buildup.

The United States will help the people of Nicaragua and Cuba to resist “non-democratic regimes” in their countries, Mike Pompeo has said. His comments come as Washington steps up calls for a new government in Venezuela.

The secretary of state responded in the affirmative when asked during an interview with Telemundo if the US would “help” people living in “non-democratic regimes” in South America.

“Yes, President Trump’s administration has done so and will continue to do so. Not just in Venezuela but certainly in Nicaragua and Cuba,” Pompeo said, adding that the Washington is “working diligently to achieve good outcomes for those people.”

President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia is militarily ready for a Cuban Missile-style crisis if the United States wanted one, and that his country currently has the edge when it comes to a first nuclear strike.

The Cuban Missile Crisis erupted in 1962 when Moscow responded to a U.S. missile deployment in Turkey by sending ballistic missiles to Cuba, sparking a standoff that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.

Cuba said on Thursday the United States was moving special forces closer to Venezuela as part of a covert plan to intervene in the chaotic South American country using the pretext of a humanitarian crisis.

On this day in 1898, the USS Maine blew up in Havana harbor.

No one reading this is old enough to remember the “Remember the Maine” campaign.

It started with a spectacular explosion in Havana harbor and the sinking of the USS Maine.

It was blamed on “bad guys” who the US conveniently already had detailed plans of attacking.

The real story only came out 90 years later and it probably wasn’t in your school history book.

The parallels with 9/11 are chilling.

Just got this video from a friend in #PinardelRio who says they think the trail in the sky was left by a #meteorite, which shattered windows and made extremely loud sounds. Sounded like two #explosions. #cuba @WPLGLocal10

That section of the 1996 anti-Cuban Helms-Burton Act known as Title III allows Cuban exiles or their families and a few U.S. companies to seek remedies in U.S. courts for properties they lost in Cuba due to nationalization by the revolutionary government. Ever since, the U.S. government at six month intervals has announced that Title III would not be taking effect during the following six months. But on January 16 U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo indicated that suspended implementation that begins on February 1 will last only 45 days and not the usual six months.

He explained that during that time a “careful review” would take place in order “to expedite a transition to democracy in Cuba.” He cited “the Cuban regime’s brutal oppression of human rights and fundamental freedoms and its indefensible support for increasingly authoritarian and corrupt regimes in Venezuela and Nicaragua,”

Don’t count on the news media to tell you about this one.

Even before he Bay of Pigs the CIA waged a not-so-covert war against Cuba.

George Bush Sr. was known by the FBI to run with violent Cuban exiles as documented in a memo written by none other than J. Edgar Hoover.

For decades, CIA-supported Cubans committed acts of terror in Cuba and around the globe attempting to destabilize the Castro government and put the island back under US government and organized crime control.

When a number of US diplomats and their families in Cuba reported hearing bizarre noises in 2016 and 2017-- and experienced a range of symptoms such as dizziness, vertigo, and pain and ringing in the ears — US Department of State officials feared they might have fallen victim to an "acoustic attack" by sonic devices.

In October 2017, the Associated Press obtained and released the first publicly reported audio sample said to be related to the incidents. But US officials have been unable to definitively identify the source or cause of the symptoms, and Cuban officials have denied any attack.

But now, after analyzing the recording, scientists say the source of the piercing noise said to be a "sonic attack" — described by the diplomats' as "buzzing," "grinding metal" and "piercing squeals" — could be an echoing call of a cricket. Specifically, the Indies short-tailed cricket, Anurogryllus celerinictus.

A senior Cuban official says the country is looking closely at the Special Purpose Vehicle the EU is creating for Iran, because Havana may benefit from a similar mechanism.

Cuba is watching closely the development of the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), which the EU is crafting to circumvent US sanctions on Iran, senior Cuban foreign ministry official Rodolfo Reyes said in an interview with AFP. According to Reyes, Cuba thinks a similar mechanism might be created in the future for Havana to avoid the US embargo on the island.

"There was a mention of this instrument, and we of course also raised the interest that we would have in any solution of this kind that would allow European companies to become increasingly involved in foreign investment and bilateral trade with Cuba," Reyes told AFP.

Concern has been raised among the West that the plans are Russian retaliation after the US announced it was pulling out of the bilateral Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

According to The Jamestown Foundation – a Washington DC-based institute for research and analysis, founded in 1984 as a platform to support Soviet defectors – the re-opening of the base would "duplicate rather than significantly add to Russian abilities to monitor US activities in the Caribbean".

ast week, the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to condemn the US embargo against Cuba. A total of 189 member-nations said Cuba did not deserve this embargo, which began in 1961 and has continued unabated to this day. Only two countries – the United States and Israel – voted against the motion. No country abstained.

Cuba’s minister for foreign affairs, Bruno Eduardo Rodríguez Parrilla, has said the US embargo has cost the small socialist island state upwards of US$933.678 billion, with the losses in the past year amounting to $4.3 billion (twice the amount of foreign direct investment into the island). This embargo, Rodriguez Parrilla said as he put the resolution forward, is an “act of genocide” against Cuba and its people.

Russia may provide a 38 mln euro credit to Cuba in the military technical cooperation line, Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak said on Friday.

"There are unapproved parts that remain to be agreed, the Cubans plan to come here with a professional delegation in the near future and I think the agreement will be signed during that visit. The Cuban delegation that will be involved in expansion of military technical cooperation intends to arrive in two weeks," he said, adding that the credit is worth 38 mln euro.

Russia is considering plans to restore military bases in Vietnam and Cuba that had served as pivots of Soviet global military power during the Cold War, Russian news agencies quoted Russian Deputy Defence Minister Nikolai Pankov as saying on Friday.

“We are dealing with this issue,” the agencies quoted Pankov as saying in Russia’s parliament.

One can only marvel at the blatant, outrageous hypocrisy of the United States. This is on clear display in many areas: proclaiming support for self-determination while financing the oppression of the Palestinians; citing international law when it suits its needs, but violating international law, such as in the U.S. withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and stating that ‘all men are created equal’, as U.S. police officers gun down unarmed people of African descent. Multiple examples abound.

The government’s officials do nothing to hide this hypocrisy; rather, they seem to seek opportunities to flaunt it.

The most recent opportunity came when the U.S. called a special meeting of the United Nations to spotlight, it said, Cuba’s political prisoners. According to the U.S., Cuba has imprisoned 130 political prisoners. The U.S. called this a “blatant affront” to basic democratic freedoms.

A senior Russian official proposed that his country is seriously considering establishing a military base in Cuba in response to Trump’s plan to quit the INF treaty, predicting that "a new Cuban crisis" could erupt if the US and Russia fail to come to terms.

According to General Vladimir Shamanov, the head of the Russian lower house of parliament's defense committee and a former airborne troops commander, with the US planning on walking away from the Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force (INF) treaty, Russia's response should be in the "spirit of those times", by reactivating Russian military facilities in Cuba.

The U.S. and Russia have accused one another of violating the agreement, but President Donald Trump has announced his intention to now end it, paving the way for new nuclear and conventional weapons systems at a time of heightened tensions, Newsweek reported.

The only promise that is new about the promised peace plan is the way it will be forced on the Palestinians: no one has promised that the plan itself will be new. With Saudi Arabia and Egypt—the outside—brought onside with the promise of continued military aid despite their crimes against humanity and violations of international law and the Palestinians weakened by being silenced, economically crushed and stripped of any friends to help them, the United States and Israel are now free to attempt to impose a peace plan on the Palestinians.

It’s well known at this point that just under 30 percent of Americans ages 17 to 24 ? the prime age to join the Army ? aren’t eligible to join.

But beyond that, almost a third of those who sit down with a recruiter to take the first steps are immediately disqualified.

Why? Because of their weight.

“Out of all the reasons that we have future soldiers disqualify, the largest – 31 percent ? is obesity,” Maj. Gen. Frank Muth, head of Army Recruiting Command, said Wednesday at AUSA’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

A freshly published study, “Unhealthy and Unprepared” concludes that America’s rising numbers of overweight youth are going to have real impacts on the military’s ability to maintain effectiveness.

“We’ve got to make sure that message gets out, because our concern is what happens when that percentage that qualify … potentially goes down?” Muth said. “Or if the obesity, if that starts to go up.”

There’s no conclusive evidence that US diplomats stationed in Cuba were injured by a futuristic weapon, Kenneth R. Foster, a professor of bioengineering, told RT, adding that theories involving microwaves were “science fiction.”

NBC published an explosive report earlier this week claiming that several anonymous US officials suspect that Russia was behind a series of unexplained “attacks” on US diplomatic personnel in Cuba and China, leaving the victims with injuries ranging from hearing loss to “problems with cognition.”

But Foster, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who studied microwave phenomena while working at the Naval Medical Research Center in Bethesda, told RT that the evidence that these purported injuries were caused by some kind of microwave weapon – which the NBC article alleges – is “science fiction.”

The advisory also warns military activities linked to the bloody conflict in Syria have been ramped across Iran's airspace.

Tensions between Tehran and Washington are running high following Donald Trump’s controversial decision to pull out of the landmark Iran nuclear deal re-introduce economic sanctions last month.

Flight Service Bureau, which provides safety information on airspace to airlines, said "without seeming alarmist", the deteriorating relationship between the US and Iran must be taken into account when planning flights in Iran's airspace.

Nearly two years since State Department employees (and some CIA spies) began suffering from a mysterious acute illness that left some victims with permanent brain damage and hearing loss, the US State Department is inching closing to a conclusion that anyone paying attention could have easily anticipated...

That's right...

Putin

...it looks like this guy is at it again.

To wit, NBC News reported Tuesday morning that the State Department believes Russia is the prime suspect in a series of mysterious attacks using concentrated sound waves or microwaves (the US still isn't certain of the exact nature of the attacks) that seriously injured 26 "diplomats" (many of whom were CIA spies) working at the US embassy in Havana.

The U.S. blockade on Cuba, imposed for more than 60 years, cost the tiny Caribbean island US$4.2 billion between April 2017 and March 2018, bringing Cuba’s total losses over six decades to US$134.5 billion.

In an annual report detailing the impact of Washington’s ongoing financial and trade policy, Cuba’s Foreign Ministry branded the blockade “the most unfair, severe and prolonged system of unilateral sanctions that has been applied against any country.”

The report, published Friday, noted that bilateral relations between the two nations – which had begun to thaw under the Barack Obama administration – experienced “a serious setback” in June 2017, when new U.S. President Donald Trump signed a memo strengthening the blockade.

Over the past two years there have been increasing reports of supposed “sonic injuries” among US diplomats. First in Cuba and more recently in China. Controversial implications are that the US officials may have been maliciously targeted by a “sonic weapon” in host countries. However, a more likely explanation is that the alleged victims are the result of US attempts to create “super spies”.

Some 250 US diplomats in China are reportedly undergoing neurological medical tests to ascertain if they have succumbed to the same kind of brain trauma diagnosed in other colleagues. A study of 21 diplomats evacuated from Cuba found last year that they had incurred brain injuries, but, it was diagnosed, not from physical impact to their heads.

Some factors so far missing from the subject need to be addressed.

First, it seems strange that the mysterious brain injuries are only reported by US diplomats. No other country has reported similar incidents among their diplomatic staff.