Cuba cracks down on dissidents after Castro death

December 19, 2016

Havana, Dec 19: Authorities across Cuba have cracked down on dissidents, arresting dozens, keeping others from marching in Havana, and detaining an American human rights lawyer, activists have said.

Cuba

In the first such anti-dissident operation since Fidel Castro's death last month, President Raul Castro seemed to indicate the Americas' only one-party communist state was in no mood for dissent.

A roundup in the country's east snared dozens and derailed street protests planned to demand that political prisoners be freed.

"There was a joint operation at 6:00 am in Santiago and Palma Soriano. They searched four homes, and so far we have 42 reported arrests -- 20 in Santiago, 12 in Palma and 10 in Havana," Jose Daniel Ferrer yesterday told AFP by phone.

The 46-year-old, who heads the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu), had called the demonstrations to demand that political prisoners be set free. Castro insists there are no political prisoners, just lawbreakers.

Ferrer said he was detained in Santiago, Cuba's second biggest city, at a police unit known as Micro 9.

"They threatened me, and said by calling the demonstration I was facilitating public disorder.... disobedience and espionage," Ferrer said.

Most arrests of dissidents in roundups are brief. Sometimes, the authorities prevent them from leaving their homes to attend a protest or march.

In Havana, the award-winning Ladies in White group, which presses for the release of jailed dissidents who are their relatives, said that at least 20 of its activists were "under siege," kept from attending their weekly march.

"At least 20 homes were blocking the residents to keep us from marching today," said group leader Berta Soler.

It was a step backward for the Ladies in White. They long have been considered the only dissidents the Cuban government allowed to march regularly; they hold one weekly protest outside a church in Havana.

But not yesterday, Soler said.

Kimberley Motley, an American human rights lawyer, was briefly detained on Friday along with Cuban activists Gorki Avila and Luis Alberto Marino when they planned to visit graffiti artist Danilo Maldonado, known as "El Sexto," in jail.

Maldonado was also arrested on November 26, a day after the death of Cuban revolutionary icon Fidel Castro, after painting on a wall in Havana the phrase "He's gone," her relatives say.

According to online newspaper 14 y medio, Motley left Cuba at the request of the government.

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News Network
April 17,2020

The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 2,425,000 people, according to official counts. So far at least 164,000 people have died, and the virus has been detected in at least 177 countries, as the following table shows.

United States 

780,330

37,782

Spain

200,210

20,852

Italy 

181,228

24,114

Germany

141,672

4,404

U.K.

124,743

16,509

France

114,657

20,265

Turkey

90,980

2,140

Mainland China

88,466

4,632

Iran

83,505

5,209

Russia

47,121

405

Brazil

40,743

2,587

Belgium

39,983

5,828

Canada

36,823

1,690

Netherlands

33,405

3,751

Switzerland

27,944

1,142

Portugal

20,863

735

India

18,539

592

Peru

16,325

445

Ireland

15,652

687

Austria

14,795

470

Sweden

14,777

1,580

Israel

13,713

177

Japan

10,915

168

South Korea

10,674

236

Chile

10,507

139

Saudi Arabia

10,484

103

Ecuador

10,128

507

Poland

9,593

380

Romania

8,936

478

Mexico

8,772

712

Pakistan

8,418

176

Singapore

8,014

11

Denmark

7,515

364

U.A.E.

7,265

43

Norway

7,156

181

Czech Republic

6,900

194

Indonesia

6,760

590

Serbia

6,630

125

Australia

6,625

71

Philippines

6,459

428

Belarus

6,264

51

Qatar

6,015

9

Ukraine

5,710

151

Malaysia

5,425

89

Dominican Rep.

4,964

235

Panama

4,467

126

Colombia

3,977

189

Finland

3,868

98

Luxembourg

3,558

75

Egypt

3,333

250

South Africa

3,300

58

Morocco

3,046

143

Bangladesh

2,948

101

Argentina

2,941

136

Thailand

2,792

47

Algeria

2,718

384

Moldova

2,548

70

Greece

2,245

116

Kuwait

1,995

9

Hungary

1,984

199

Bahrain

1,907

7

Croatia

1,881

47

Kazakhstan

1,852

19

Iceland

1,773

10

Uzbekistan

1,627

5

Iraq

1,574

82

Estonia

1,535

40

New Zealand

1,440

12

Azerbaijan

1,436

19

Oman

1,410

7

Armenia

1,339

22

Slovenia

1,335

77

Lithuania

1,326

37

Bosnia and Herzegovina

1,309

49

North Macedonia

1,225

54

Slovakia

1,173

13

Cameroon

1,163

42

Cuba

1,087

36

Ghana

1,042

9

Afghanistan

1,026

36

Hong Kong

1,025

4

Bulgaria

929

43

Tunisia

884

38

Ivory Coast

847

9

Djibouti

846

2

Cyprus

772

12

Latvia

739

5

Andorra

717

37

Lebanon

677

21

Nigeria

665

22

Costa Rica

662

6

Niger

648

20

Guinea

622

5

Albania

584

26

Burkina Faso

581

38

Kyrgyzstan

568

7

Bolivia

564

33

Uruguay

535

10

Kosovo

510

12

Channel Islands

488

24

Honduras

477

46

San Marino

462

39

West Bank & Gaza

449

3

Malta

431

3

Jordan

425

7

Taiwan

422

6

Georgia

402

4

Senegal

377

5

Congo

332

25

Mauritius

328

9

Montenegro

312

5

Sri Lanka

304

7

Isle of Man

300

9

Guatemala

289

7

Kenya

281

14

Vietnam

268

Venezuela

256

9

Tanzania

254

10

Mali

246

14

Somalia

237

8

Jamaica

223

5

El Salvador

218

7

Paraguay

208

8

Faroe Islands

185

Republic of the Congo

160

6

Rwanda

147

Brunei

138

1

Gibraltar

132

Cambodia

122

Madagascar

121

Gabon

120

1

Myanmar

119

5

Trinidad and Tobago

114

8

Ethiopia

111

3

Sudan

107

12

Liberia

99

8

Aruba

97

2

Monaco

94

3

Bermuda

86

5

Togo

84

6

Liechtenstein

81

1

Equatorial Guinea

79

Barbados

75

5

Maldives

69

Cape Verde

67

1

Sint Maarten

67

10

Cayman Islands

66

1

Guyana

65

7

Zambia

65

3

Bahamas

60

9

Haiti

57

3

Uganda

56

Benin

54

1

Libya

51

1

Guinea-Bissau

50

Macau

45

Sierra Leone

43

Eritrea

39

Mozambique

39

Syria

39

3

Chad

33

Mongolia

33

Nepal

31

Zimbabwe

25

3

Angola

24

2

Eswatini

24

1

Antigua and Barbuda

23

3

Timor-Leste

22

Botswana

20

1

Laos

19

Belize

18

2

Fiji

18

Malawi

17

2

Dominica

16

Namibia

16

Saint Kitts and Nevis

15

Saint Lucia

15

Curaçao

14

1

Grenada

14

Central African Republic

12

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

12

Falkland Islands

11

Greenland

11

Montserrat

11

Seychelles

11

Turks and Caicos Islands

11

1

Gambia

10

1

Nicaragua

10

2

Suriname

10

1

Vatican City

9

Mauritania

7

1

Papua New Guinea

7

Western Sahara

6

Bhutan

5

British Virgin Islands

5

1

Burundi

5

1

South Sudan

4

São Tomé and Príncipe

4

Anguilla

3

Yemen

1

 

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Agencies
March 25,2020

Beijing:  Around 5,000 people have signed up for the phase I clinical trial of recombinant novel coronavirus vaccine in Chinese city Wuhan where the virus first emerged late last year.

The recruitment for participants ended this week with nearly 5,000 volunteers signing up for the trial, state-run Beijing News reported on Wednesday.

A single-centre, open and dose-escalation phase I clinical trial for recombinant novel coronavirus vaccine (adenoviral vector) will be tested in healthy adults aged between 18 and 60 years, according to the ChiCTR (China Clinical Trial Register).

The trial, led by experts from the Academy of Military Medical Sciences, gained its approval on March 16 and the research is expected to last half a year.

Requiring at least 108 participants, the trial will be conducted in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, the region worst-affected by the virus in the country, state-run China Daily reported.

Participants will experience 14-day quarantine restrictions after being vaccinated and their health condition will be recorded every day.

Chinese scientists are hastening the development of COVID-19 vaccines through five approaches --- inactivated vaccines, genetic engineering subunit vaccines, adenovirus vector vaccines, nucleic acid vaccines and vaccines using attenuated influenza virus as vectors.

So far, most teams are expected to complete preclinical research in April and some are moving forward faster, Wang Junzhi, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering said.

Wang noted that research and development of COVID-19 vaccines in China is not slower than foreign counterparts and has been carried out in a scientific, standardised and orderly way.

China has stepped up the process to finalise vaccines to counter COVID-19 after Kaiser Permanente research facility in Seattle and Washington stole the march and began human trials.

China lifted tough restrictions on the Hubei province on Wednesday after a months-long lockdown as the country reported no new domestic cases.

But there were another 47 imported infections from overseas, the National Health Commission said. In total, 474 imported infections have been diagnosed in China -- mostly Chinese nationals returning home.

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Agencies
January 9,2020

Washington, Jan 9: The U.S. and Iran stepped back from the brink of possible war Wednesday as President Donald Trump signaled he would not retaliate militarily for Iran's missile strikes on Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops. No one was harmed in the strikes, but U.S. forces in the region remained on high alert.

Speaking from the White House, Trump seemed intent on deescalating the crisis, which spiralled after he authorized the assassination of Iran's top general, Qassem Soleimani. Iran responded overnight by firing more than a dozen missiles at two installations in Iraq, its most direct assault on America since the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

Trump's takeaway was that “Iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned and a very good thing for the world.”

The region remained on edge, however, and American troops including a quick-reaction force dispatched over the weekend were on high alert. Hours after Trump spoke, an ‘incoming’ siren went off in Baghdad's Green Zone after what seemed to be small rockets “impacted” the diplomatic area, a Western official said. There were no reports of casualties.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the overnight strike was not necessarily the totality of Iran's response. “Last night they received a slap,” Khamenei said. “These military actions are not sufficient (for revenge). What is important is that the corrupt presence of America in this region comes to an end.”

The strikes had pushed Tehran and Washington perilously close to all-out conflict and left the world waiting to see whether the American president would respond with more military force. Trump, in his nine-minute, televised address, spoke of a robust U.S. military with missiles that are “big, powerful, accurate, lethal and fast.'' But then he added: “We do not want to use it."

Iran for days had been promising to respond forcefully to Soleimani's killing, but its limited strike on two bases--one in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil and the other at Ain al-Asad in western Iraq--appeared to signal that it too was uninterested in a wider clash with the U.S. Foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted that the country had “concluded proportionate measures in self-defence.”

Trump said the U.S. was “ready to embrace peace with all who seek it.” That marked a sharp change in tone from his warning a day earlier that “if Iran does anything that they shouldn't be doing, they're going to be suffering the consequences, and very strongly.”

Trump opened his remarks at the White House by reiterating his promise that “Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.” Iran had announced in the wake of Soleimani's killing that it would no longer comply with any of the limits on uranium enrichment in the 2015 nuclear deal crafted to keep it from building a nuclear device.

The president, who had earlier pulled the U.S. out of the deal, seized on the moment of calm to call for negotiations toward a new agreement that would do more to limit Iran's ballistic missile programmes and constrain regional proxy campaigns like those led by Soleimani.

Trump spoke of new sanctions on Iran, but it was not immediately clear what those would be.

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