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Bulletins and News Discussion from June 10th to June 16th, 2024 - Havana Derangement Syndrome - COTW: Cuba

Image is of Cuba's National People's Power Assembly.

The most recent geopolitical news around Cuba is the arrival this week of four Russian vessels, including a nuclear submarine - not carrying any nukes, (un)fortunately - to Havana. This will, in Putin's words, merely be a visit celebrating historical ties and no laws are being broken. Nonetheless, it's not hard to imagine how American politicians and analysts are taking the news, especially as it comes shortly after Russia promised an "asymmetrical" response to further NATO involvement in Ukraine (notably, officially allowing the use of US weapons such as missiles in Russia, albeit in a small part of Russian territory, near the border).

Meanwhile, China has been increasingly co-operating with Cuba to overcome the economic hardship created by American sanctions. China has recently re-allowed direct flights to Cuba and has recently donated some small photovoltaic plants as part of an initiative to eventually boost the Cuban energy grid by 1000 MW - and any electrical expansion helps as Cuba is plagued by blackouts which last most of the day. Additionally, the EU has made meaningful contributions to Cuba's energy situation too, with large solar installations. Hopefully, the Belt and Road Initiative will help preserve the Cuban revolution against reactionary forces as the power of US sanctions wanes. The proximity of Cuba to the United States makes this much more challenging than it would be for countries elsewhere, however. Similarly to the situation in Mexico, it seems unlikely that the US's influence over Cuba will massively diminish for decades to come unless there is a catastrophic internal collapse in the American authoritarian regime.

The Havana Syndrome will continue until American morale declines.

The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.

The Country of the Week is Cuba! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.

Please check out the HexAtlas!

The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.

1K comments

  • We need to integrate a doomsday clock into the website that changes depending on how many new comments were made in the news mega in the past hour

  • Did anyone else have the idea drilled into their head during school that Communism created mass poverty and a failed state? I’ve noticed that a lot of European countries that view Communism as a failed relic to leave behind are okay with the failed ideology of fascism.

    I think a part of it has to do with fascism not having the same “failed state” stereotype given to it. I remember hearing implications that Nazi Germany was an evil place but had a strong economy. Something you won’t hear being said about the USSR. At least at the basic public school levels.

    Wouldn’t surprise me if intellectually incurious people just assume that fascism will create a strong economy that will wipe out undesirables while Communism will make everybody equally poor.

  • Havana syndrome is 100% real. Last night I was hanging out at a Latin club with a few friends and we met a few new acquaintances there, some of which were Cuban. The party was great, we danced a ton and drank even more. I had maybe 5 mojitos. Then today, boom. I wake up almost completely incapacitated. There’s this nonstop buzzing that is so aggravating and giving me a headache, plus I feel sick to my stomach despite having nothing to eat or drink since last night. I now have reason to believe these so-called acquaintances we met were Cuban government agents, and they were sent on a mission to make me have a bad Wednesday.

    Thank god the government is looking out for people like me and will pay me between $150K and $200K for my suffering.

  • The more I learn, and get invested, about Cuba the worse I feel, because it genuinely feels like that is the AES state most committed to international socialism but it's also going through a very hard time right now. Let's hope multipolarity results in some unembargoable (new word I invented) trade block that Cuba can join.

  • When imperialist ghouls feel they can start saying the quiet part out loud after they realize that most Westerners have been sufficiently propagandized at this point for it to not be an issue anymore.

  • Looks like Western governments and Western media have finally gotten their ducks in a row w/r/t Biden’s “peace plan”. Olaf Scholz, the US ambassador to the UN, and others now saying “it’s on Hamas to accept this deal”. Despite the fact that Israel hasn’t agreed to shit and Hamas is politely asking that language in the agreement that obviously allows Israel to resume the genocide once they get their hostages back (which they will even more obviously taken advantage) be clarified and changed.

    It’s gaslighting right before our very eyes.

  • Here's a bit idea: Israeli settlers who fled Israel back to their homes in America lobby Biden's government to cancel 4th of July on the ground that fireworks triggers their PTSD

  • EU is finally giving Russian frozen assets to Ukraine. Quite nice since it's the final nail in the coffin for Europe since lose any trust when it comes to finances of any other country outside NATO.

  • The War is Costing the Israeli Economy $600M a Week Due to Absences of Palestinian Workers

    The ongoing war between Israel and Hamas has laid bare the Israeli economy’s heavy reliance on Palestinian labor, with the absence of these workers costing the Israeli economy an estimated $600 million per week, equivalent to about 6% of its weekly GDP.

    Prior to the outbreak of hostilities on October 7, 2023, around 100,000 Palestinians from the West Bank held permits to work in Israel, primarily in construction and agriculture. However, shortly after the initial Hamas attacks, Israel restricted entry for these Palestinian employees.

    To fill the gaps, Israel has recruited workers from India and Sri Lanka, but the labor shortages have still taken a major toll. In Q4 2023, the Israeli economy contracted by 19.4% compared to the same period in 2022, the biggest drop in nearly four years. Private consumption plunged 26.9%, business investment fell 67.8%, and exports declined 18.3%

  • Not news I'm going to Cuba in a couple months and I'm very excited. Been learning Spanish for a while now and can understand shows and everyday speech. (Though uh, admittedly I have a hard time with Cuban accents lmao)

    Any recommendations? Going to Havana for just 4/5 days.

    • No recommendations, but please come back here and post about your experiences.

    • No recommendations, just pure jealousy. Bet it will be an awesome trip!

      Any recommendations for studying Spanish? That seems like a fast pace to get to that level of fluency.

      • Sure. The method I use is called "Comprehensible Input". To start I used/use Dreaming Spanish.

        Basically you just kinda... Watch stuff in Spanish. That's it. No translation. To start you begin with really simple stuff with tons of hand gestures and visual aids, so you don't really need the words to understand.

        Then you move on to less and less visual aids. Then you can do podcasts and other audio only stuff. Then you can move on to just watching whatever you normally would but in Spanish. The beginning is a bit of a slog because the stuff you can understand really isn't very interesting but you'll get through it. Now I listen to audiobooks and watch dubbed TV series. It really works. I've been at it 9 or 10 months or so. I can get by with basic speaking and can get my point across (if in a very roundabout way sometimes) but I definitely need much more practice there. I have about 750 hours worth of watching/listening to stuff in Spanish. The method says English speakers need about 1500 hours to get to a practical fluency. (Plus a few dozen hours speaking practice, which you don't do until the later parts.)

        If you spend a lot of time watching or listening to random stuff online, you can totally just replace that with this and learn Spanish in 1-3 years. It's almost magic tbh.

        Here's a playlist that explains it (turn on English subtitles)

        https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlpPf-YgbU7GrtxQ9yde-J2tfxJDvReNf

    • Had a friend who went recently. He said cash tips in usd are always welcome, but physical goods are harder to come by due to the embargo. In particular, he got requests for the Hawaiian shirts he was wearing, and said he later saw high prices on them in shops.

    • Very cool, just for travel? Are you going in through a different country or something?

      • Pretty much for travel. I wanted to go to a Spanish speaking country, living in Florida makes Cuba one of the cheapest to get to and also very safe for foreigners (which helps get my GF on board). Plus being communist well... Kinda makes it top choice lol

        I'm just flying straight from Miami. There's definitely restrictions and rules but they are very easy to meet. Can't stay in pretty much any hotel. (Have to stay in a "Casa Particular" which is just like an AirBnB - quite literally most of them). Because the hotels are state run and the US wants you to not give them money. Then you need to eat at the private restaurants and have "meaningful interactions with the people" it's really not a big deal for Americans to go anymore. Of course all these rules on what I can and cannot do are the rules of the "land of the free" not Cuba's rules.

        But here straight from the US govt is an example of how to comply:

        Example 1 to § 515.574:

        An individual plans to travel to Cuba, stay in a room at a rented accommodation in a private Cuban residence (casa particular), eat at privately-owned Cuban restaurants (paladares), and shop at privately-owned stores run by self-employed Cubans (cuentapropista) during his or her four-day trip. While at the casa particular, the individual will have breakfast each morning with the Cuban host and engage with the Cuban host to learn about Cuban culture. The traveler will not lodge, or pay for lodging, at any property on the CPA List to the extent prohibited by § 515.210. In addition, the traveler will complete his or her full-time schedule by supporting Cuban entrepreneurs launching their privately-owned businesses. The traveler's activities promote independent activity intended to strengthen civil society in Cuba. Because the individual's qualifying activities are not limited to staying in a room at a rented accommodation in a private Cuban residence (casa particular), eating at privately-owned Cuban restaurants (paladares), and shopping at privately owned stores run by self-employed Cubans (cuentapropista) and the traveler maintains a full-time schedule that enhances contact with the Cuban people, supports civil society in Cuba, and promotes the Cuban people's independence from Cuban authorities, and that results in meaningful interaction between the traveler and Cuban individuals, the individual's travel qualifies for the general license.

        https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-31/subtitle-B/chapter-V/part-515/subpart-E/section-515.574

        Of course, the one and only department that actually enforced this is the Treasury department. I've heard some formerly Cuban immigration agents in Miami get huffy about it on the way back but they literally can't do anything. The treasury has the right to request your receipts and records from the trip for 5 years. AFAIK they've never done this to individual travelers. So people can and have just flagrantly violated these rules with no consequences. Not that I would of course.

    • Visit the yacht and throw a rock at the guards at Guantanamo

    • If you can make a stop in Viñales for a day or two. The sights are beautiful.

  • It's hard for me to put into words just how much I despise Israel. I had to deal with some product in the back at my job today from there. I tucked it away in the back, hopefully nobody ever finds it.

  • I am not ready for the absolute wanking of Carter's image after he dies. I don't care if he was the "least violent" US president, he's a mass murderer! I am glad he attempted penance the rest of his life and called Israel an apartheid state, but he was a fucking rube used to overthrow communism and crush working people and willingly went along with it. I will piss peanut farmer piss directly on his fucking grave

  • What do hexbears think about Putin's recent peace offering?

    All the major MSM had a headline story for Putin's speech but didn't go into any details and all rejected it out of hand. I had to go back to Mercouris june 14 video and transcribe them:

    1)All Ukrainian troops completely withdraw from annexed territories - they are Russia now

    Donetsk Luhansk Kherson Zaporizhzhia

    -Russia will guarantee Ukrainian troops safe passage out of the territories

    2)Formally declare abandonment of Ukrainian plans to join NATO, no nukes in Ukraine, de-militarisation, de-nazified leadership, non aligned with West

    3)Drop all financial sanctions against Russia

  • When you're just trying to browse geopolitics news on Twitter, and you have to run into straight up reactionary garbage. Wtf does a trans Olympic athlete losing an appeal and being disqualified have to do with BRICS news? Stop trying to associate us with Western imperialism. Fuck offfffffff.

  • https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/13/europe/ukraine-prison-soldier-recruitment-intl-cmd/index.html

    From prison to the trenches: Inside Ukraine’s attempt to turn inmates into soldiers

    The push to recruit inmates into the military appears at first glance to parallel a campaign of prison recruitment by Russia’s mercenary company Wagner early in the war, and continued by the Ministry of Defense since last year. The lives of thousands of Russian convicts have been expended in so-called “meat grinder” assaults, particularly in the fighting for the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.

    But Ukraine’s Minister of Justice Denys Maliuska, speaking to CNN in Kyiv, rejected the comparison.

    “In Ukraine, motivation is largely based on patriotism. Our prisoners join the army voluntarily. In Russia, it was voluntary and forced. I personally saw (Russian) prisoners who were forced to join Wagner,” he said, adding that in Russia, inmates were recruited into the notoriously brutal private military company, whereas in Ukraine, they are joining the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

    “This is a regular state military service with all the guarantees: salary, social insurance, payments in case of injury, death, and so on. This is a completely different story in terms of motives and mechanisms.”

    patriotism

  • studentsforpalestinefinland
    URGENT! COME SUPPORT OUR ENCAMPMENT TOMORROW
    The University of Helsinki is planning to evict us tomorrow under the pretext of a greenwashing conference. They have given us until noon to leave.
    Join us at 10.00 at the encampment for a briefing on how the demonstration will proceed and to show your support for Palestine and the global student movement!

  • One week without Suriyakmaps and life has never felt this empty, I need to know which wheat field Russians have taken or I'm going crazy

    Don't tell my wife this Hexbros, but I need name suggestions for my soon to be released son. We're both Arab for context. She wants to name him something cool and hip like Rayyan, but I want to give him a powerful name like Fahad (leopard) or Hassan (Nasrallah reference), or maybe even Qassam (no I won't do this)

1037 comments