The Cuban president has hit out at the US, alleging it played a considerable role in the first major protests on the island in years by encouraging dissent and causing shortages with its blockade.
Speaking on Monday, President Miguel Díaz-Canel blasted what he described as US interference in fiery remarks, condemning protests which erupted on the island a day earlier. Appearing alongside his cabinet in a televised national address, he stated that the people of Cuba have the right to defend their system and uphold the achievements of the revolution.
Responding to criticism over the country's current economic woes, which have been worsened by the pandemic, Díaz-Canel said that Washington's continuing sanctions against Cuba were causing the shortages, including a lack of medicines and power outages. Washington has pursued, he said, "a policy of economic suffocation to provoke social unrest in the country".
He also claimed there had been a clear and obvious campaign in recent weeks which aimed to provoke the people and undermine the achievements of the government. Díaz-Canel stated that there had been attempts to discredit the nation's handling of the pandemic in an effort to fracture national unity. The president said that the country was still faring well against Covid-19 despite a shortage of medicines.
Also speaking on Monday, US President Joe Biden gave his backing to the protest movement, saying that Cubans' "right of peaceful protest and the right to freely determine their own future must be respected". He said the Cuban government must hear the call of its people and "serve their needs at this vital moment rather than enriching themselves."
"Wikipedia, like many other deeply biased institutions of our brave new digital world, has made itself into a kind of thought police that has de facto shackled conservative viewpoints with which they disagree. Democracy cannot thrive under such conditions: I maintain that Wikipedia has become an opponent of vigorous democracy."
"I'm an old-school kind of guy, and I give every job 110%," he said. "This really upset me because we're talking about my reputation. They say I didn't do the job when I know damn well I did."Normandin's experience is a twist on the decades-old prediction that robots will replace workers. At Amazon, machines are often the boss — hiring, rating, and firing millions of people with little or no human oversight.
"The Moderna COVID-19 vaccine has not been approved or licensed by the Food and Drug Administration, but it has been authorized for emergency use by the FDA under an emergency use authorization to prevent coronavirus disease 2019, for use in individuals 18 years of age and older.The rep also points out that all clinical trial phases are still ongoing, and that long-term protective efficacy against COVID-19 is unknown. When the patient asks whether everyone who gets the COVID shot — even if they did not specifically sign up to be a trial participant — is in fact part of the clinical trial, he replies, with a chuckle, "pretty much, yeah."
There is no FDA-approved vaccine to prevent COVID-19. The EUA for the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine is in effect for the duration of the COVID-19 EUA declaration, justifying emergency use of the product unless that declaration is terminated or the authorization is revoked sooner."
Comment: Explosion and huge blazes appear to be in the news with an increasing frequency these days, and, notably, a number of them have been at hospitals or industrial sites:
- Huge explosion & fire underneath tube station in London (Jun 2021)
- Huge blaze breaks out at Illinois chemical site after enormous explosion, locals evacuated (Jun 2021)
- Fire at martial arts centre in China kills 18, mostly children (Jun 2021)
- Scottish Dark Sky Observatory destroyed in suspicious fire (Jun 2021)
- Major fire hits oil refinery in Syria's Homs (Jun 2021)
- Fire at medical marijuana lab in Italy kills 1, injures 3 (May 2021)
- Fire rips through flat in Canary Wharf tower block which reportedly has same cladding as Grenfell (May 2021
- Fire at Iran chemical factory hours after media reports ANOTHER massive blaze near Bushehr's nuclear power plant (May 2021)
- Massive fire breaks out at Ambernath chemical factory, India (May 2021)
- Despite major fire on hospital roof, medical team stay inside to complete heart operation - Russia (April 2021)
- Fire kills 55,000 animals at one of Germany's biggest pig farms (April 2021)
- Massive fire at Evergreen nursing home kills resident and firefighter (Mar 2021)
- Hundreds of patients evacuated from Chile hospital after fire breaks out (Jan 2021)
- Fire breaks out at world's biggest vaccine maker, India's Serum Institute (Jan 2021
See also: SOTT Exclusive: The growing threat of underground fires and explosions