International
Cuba blames the United States for the instability in the delivery of subsidized food
The president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, blamed on Thursday the “regrowth” of the economic embargo of the United States for the “difficult situation” in the delivery of the subsidized products through the ration card.
The president dedicated the second broadcast of the program ‘Desde la Presidencia’ – broadcast on YouTube – to the “difficulties” in acquiring from abroad the products that are distributed in the so-called supply book, in force for more than 60 years on the island.
According to Díaz-Canel, the island government spends about 230 million dollars a month to guarantee the products – rice, coffee, sugar, beans, among others – and distribute them in the more than 12,000 wineries (local state shops located in the neighborhoods).
“It is a titanic task that the country does,” said Díaz-Canel, accompanied by the head of Internal Trade, Betsy Díaz, and the first deputy minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga.
Díaz-Canel acknowledged that people’s opinion about the primer is “very critical and very negative,” especially due to the delays in deliveries and the decrease in quantities.
In the last 20 years, the rations that have decreased the most have been coffee and sugar, both domestically produced, according to a study recently carried out by EFE.
In this regard, Díaz stated that “the last two years have been very complex for distribution” due to “the lack of financing to pay the freight with the loads and the lack of fuel to distribute the products once they are in Cuban port.”
In this regard, the first Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade commented that “the inclusion of Cuba in the list of states that sponsors terrorism – prepared by the U.S. Department of State – has been a strong blow to the country’s finances.”
Cuba has been plunged into a severe crisis for four years, which translates into a shortage of basic products, frequent blackouts and strong inflation, in conjunction with the pandemic, the tightening of US sanctions and errors in national economic policy.
The Caribbean country spends $2 billion annually on the import of food.
Recently, Cuba formally requested milk powder from the UN World Food Program for the first time to continue subsidizing this product to children under seven years of age, according to EFE.
The Cuban authorities have assumed in recent weeks problems to produce the subsidized bread from the basic basket due to lack of imported flour.
The shortage of food was one of the triggers of the massive anti-government protests of July 11, 2021, the largest in decades, and the most recent of March 17 of this year in several cities of the country
International
Trump could testify next week in the final stretch of his criminal trial
The defense of the former president of the United States. Donald Trump (2017-2021) said on Thursday that the tycoon has not yet decided if he will go up to the stand to testify next week, the date that the judge of the case wants it to be the final stretch for this criminal trial that began a month ago with the jury selection.
On Friday there will be no session and next Monday it is expected that Michael Cohen, who was a lawyer and right-hand man of the former president and is the last witness of the Prosecutor’s Office, will continue with his testimony after having already spent three days on the stand.
Trump’s lawyers also left the door open to summon more witnesses and said that it would not take “long” to make the announcement of who they would be.
For his part, Judge Juan M. Merchan considered it appropriate to warn both parties that they were prepared for the final allegations on Tuesday. That could mean that the case will reach the jury to pronounce its verdict next week.
This week, Cohen testified that Trump ordered him to pay $130,000 to silence Stormy Daniels during the campaign, a porn star who claims to have had relations with Trump in 2006, and detailed how he later reimbursed him for his expenses.
During the examination of the star witness of the Prosecutor’s Office this Thursday, Trump’s chief lawyer, Todd Blanche, was more agitated than the witness, who, for his part, answered serenely and sometimes extremely slowly.
Trump’s defense focused on questioning Cohen’s honesty and morality before the jury and on reviewing in detail some of the evidence that has been shown so far in the trial.
Thus, he asked Cohen to tell the lies he told the Intelligence Committee of the 2017 House of Representatives, where he lied under oath, which cost him to be accused of perjury in 2018.
The defense also analyzed the relationship with Cohen’s press, who explained that journalists came to him to ask him to confirm or deny information about Trump during the almost ten years he worked for him, and acknowledged that with some of them he came to establish a friendly relationship.
The former lawyer said that he never made any statement without first consulting the Republican politician.
Blanche attacked Cohen’s professionalism by pointing out that he secretly recorded some of his conversations with the press, including about forty with The New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman, who has written 38 articles about him and was in the Manhattan Criminal Court room today following the case.
To which the former lawyer, who can no longer practice, justified – without receiving the question – that in the state of New York they consider it legal to record a phone call without letting the other person know.
However, Trump’s lawyer reproached him for also recording conversations with clients, something that is not allowed for lawyers in this state.
He also recorded conversations with Trump, one of them in 2016 that he used as evidence in this trial.
With regard to other conversations with the former president and his circle during the last stretch of the 2016 presidential elections, in which Cohen points out that the issue of payment was discussed to silence the extramarital relationship, Blanche questioned Cohen’s memory by pointing out that at that time he received an average of 50 calls a day.
Trump, who is in the middle of the electoral campaign but has to attend the trial four days a week, paid attention during the testimony of his former employee, thus breaking with his habit of “listening to the testimonies with his eyes closed”, especially after lunch.
Today the news was not only inside the room, but also outside, where dozens of large penis-shaped pink balloons flew over the vicinity of the court.
The balloons overprinted the faces of people like Merchan or that of the Manhattan prosecutor, Alvin Bragg, who has filed the accusation that Trump has in the dock.
International
Colombia is willing to join a UN peacekeeping force in Palestine
The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, assured that his country is willing to integrate a “UN peacekeeping force” in Palestine and to bring medical personnel to care for the wounded left by the war.
“A UN peacekeeping force in Palestine. The Arab League has decided to support it, and it should also be supported by Africa and Latin America. Colombia would be willing to integrate it and bring medical personnel for the care of the injured population,” the president said in a message published on the social network X.
Petro refers to the decision made by the Arab League at its summit in Bahrain to call for a deployment of United Nations peacekeeping forces in the occupied Palestinian territories until the two-state solution is implemented.
The draft of the final statement of the summit of the pan-Arab entity, to which EFE had access, includes this call to the UN of the Arab countries, as well as “set a time limit for the political process and negotiations” to move forward on that path for the two States.
Petro, a defender of the Palestinian cause, was very critical of Israel, which is a traditional supplier of weapons, military equipment, medical devices, machinery, security systems and chemicals to Colombia, which in turn exports mainly coal, coffee, flowers and candies.
In fact, at the beginning of May, the president announced the breakdown of diplomatic relations with Israel in rejection of what the president considers a “genocide” in Gaza.
International
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Trump could testify next week in the final stretch of his criminal trial
Colombia is willing to join a UN peacekeeping force in Palestine
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