UNICEF confirms that Cuba only Latin American country w/o infant malnutrition (nowhere in English)

[flamingdem]

Try searching for this headline / article in English. I couldn't find it. Interesting how that works. It's been out for a few days.

http://www.politicaymedios.com/internacional/UNICEF_confirma_que_Cuba_es_el_unico_pais_de_America_Latina_sin_desnutricion_infantil_20120817214058.php

En el último informe del Fondo de las Naciones Unidas para la Infancia (UNICEF) titulado de “Progreso para la Infancia un Balance sobre la Nutrición”, determinó que actualmente en el mundo existen 146 millones de niños menores de cinco años con problemas de graves de desnutrición infantil. De acuerdo con el documento, 28% de estos niños son de África, 17% de Medio Oriente, 15% de Asia, 7% de Latinoamérica y el Caribe, 5% de Europa Central, y 27% de otros países en desarrollo.

Cuba sin embargo no tiene esos problemas, siendo el único país de América Latina y el Caribe que ha eliminado la desnutrición infantil, todo esto gracias a los esfuerzos del Gobierno por mejorar la alimentación, especialmente la de aquellos grupos más vulnerables. Además, la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Alimentación y la Agricultura (FAO) también ha reconocido a Cuba como la nación con más avances en América Latina en la lucha contra la desnutrición.

Esto se debe a que el Estado Cubano garantiza una canasta básica alimenticia y promueve los beneficios de la lactancia materna, manteniendo hasta el cuarto mes de vida la lactancia exclusiva y complementándola con otros alimentos hasta los seis meses de edad. Además, se les hace entrega diaria de un litro de leche fluida a todos los niños de cero a siete años de edad. Junto con otros alimentos como compotas, jugos y viandas los cuales se distribuyen de manera equitativa.

No por nada la propia Organizacion de las Naciones Unidas, (ONU) sitúa al país a la vanguardia del cumplimiento de materia de desarrollo humano. Y por si fuera poco para el año 2015, Cuba tiene entre sus objetivos eliminar la pobreza y garantizar la sustentabilidad ambiental.

[riverbendviewgal]

1. go to article and right click. there is a translation to English

easy!!!!

To me Health is the most precious thing we all have. without it...what is life? more bearable if you have money and can try to get better.

The Cubans are better off now than when they had Batista in control.

[efhmc]

2. Not sure that is true. Had a hairdresser who

bragged about the wonderful education one received in Cuba, especially free higher education. I wanted to ask why then she was in the US, but since she had my hair in her hands, I thought it best to keep quiet.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Most of the population depended upon seasonal work, and had NO income otherwise,

They had an enormous number of people infected with internal parasites, desperately bad nutrition, no running water, no electricity, no medical treatment available to the poor, which was the majority of the population. They were kept paralyzed with fear by paramilitary death squads, one with more than 2,000 men, "Masferrer's Tigers", controlled by a personal friend of bloody dictator, Fulgencio Batista, Cuban publisher, and Senator Rolando Masferrer, who was murdered himself with a carbomb when he escaped the retribution of the revolution by running off to the United States, taking with him millions of stolen Cuban dollars. Masferrer's Tigers and Batista government forces tortured and murdered political opposition relentlessly, and publicly, leaving bodies hung from light-posts and torn apart and hung in trees in smaller cities like Santiago de Cuba.

When the mothers of murdered young men in Santiago de Cuba marched through the streets of Santiago de Cuba,
then approached the U.S. ambassador to beg him to intercede with Batista, the Cuban cops used their powerful fire hoses and turned them on the mothers.

[center]

From 1957, their sign says "stop assassinating our sons"

[/center]

[flamingdem]

7. We can't erase their history - it's the only way to understand the situation

I had to look up Masferrer. I thought the bombs usually were thrown by the Bastianos but this time the reverse. I'll have to look up Guillermo Novo next! Imagine if he was around now he'd have a think tank and funding from USAID, ouch, maybe.

I found this about him:
Rolando Masferrer was born in Cuba. He became a successful newspaper publisher. Masferrer was a strong supporter of Fulgencio Batista and helped organize a private army, Los Tigres, to deal with the dictator's critics. When Fidel Castro gained power it is claimed that Masferrer fled to the United States with $10 million.

Masferrer settled in Miami where he established an anti-Castro organization called the 30th of November. He also had links with Alpha 66. Masferrer attempted to organize the assassination of Castro. He also remained in contact with Santo Trafficante and Jimmy Hoffa who provided funds for his activities. According to William C. Bishop: "Hoffa gave Masferrer $50,000... expense money... to partially set up the assassination team."

Rolando Masferrer was killed in Miami, Florida, on 31st October, 1975, as a result of a dynamite bomb being placed in his car. FBI Agents Robert Scherrer and Carter Cornick believed that Guillermo Novo played a key role in the murder of Masferrer. According to Saul Landau: "Masferrer, a master of anti-Castro slogans, supported violence against the Cuban revolution. But his efforts had brought no results and the more ambitious exiled Cubans began to think of his rhetoric and his purported militant actions as a front for his “business” activities. Masferrer stood as an obstacle to Mas Canosa’s plans to forge an effective and unified counter revolution".

[Judi Lynn]

9. Interesting! Never have heard the possible motive.

Guillermo Novo and his brother have had notorious careers, themselves. I spent some time fruitlessly looking for the article carried in the Miami Herald concerning the fact _{George W. Bush} released Ignacio Novo Sampol, brother and co-assassin of Guillermo Novo, and Virgilio Paz early from prison so they only served a few years for their part in the assassination of Orlando Letellier. It was one of the pResident's early actions, getting those two out of jail and on the way to Miami in no time at all. Creepy, isn't it?

If I see it later, I'll post it. In the meantime, here are info. bits on Guillermo Novo:

Guillermo Novo



Ignacio!



Guillermo Novo:

~snip~
In 1964 Novo bought a bazooka, a portable rocket launcher, for $35 in an Eighth Avenue shop and rebuilt it.” He planned to use it to kill Che Guevera, who was scheduled to address the UN General Assembly. He fired the shell from the East River waterfront in Long Island, facing the UN building across the river. According to the New York Times the shell “landed in the East River about 200 yards short of the 38-story United Nations Secretariat building, sending up a 15-foot geyser of water.”

FBI Agents Robert Scherrer and Carter Cornick claimed that Novo played a key role in the murder of Roland Masferrer in Miami on 31st October, 1975. Later he worked for General Augusto Pinochet of Chile. The following year Novo was suspected of being involved with Luis Posada, Orlando Bosch, Herman Ricardo and Freddy Lugo in the Cubana Airlines plane that exploded killing all 73 people aboard. This included all 24 young athletes on Cuba's gold-medal fencing team.

When Posada was arrested he was found with a map of Washington showing the daily route of to work of Orlando Letelier, the former Chilean Foreign Minister, who had been assassinated on 21st September, 1976. Novo and Alvin Ross were arrested and found guilty of conspiring to murder Letelier. In 1981 he obtained a retrial and was acquitted on a technicality. The jury had also acquitted Ignacio Novo, Guillermo’s younger brother, of aiding and abetting the conspiracy.

Saul Landau reported at the time: "As the courtroom emptied, the two Novo brothers, Ross, their families and supporters used the hallway to continue their buoyant celebration. Then Guillermo saw me staring at them - in dismay, since I could not understand how the jury could have come to such a verdict in light of the overwhelming evidence presented. Looking at me murderously, he hissed and then, as if continuing his conversation with Ignacio, said in Spanish “Now we can finish off the rest of these communist pigs.”

More:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKnovoG.htm

[center]~ ~ ~ ~ ~[/center]
The two were involved in Orlando Letelllier, Ronnie Moffit's (and her husband's injuries) assassinations:

~snip~
On 18th September, 1976, Orlando Letelier, who served as foreign minister under Salvador Allende, was traveling to work at the Institute of Policy Studies in Washington when a bomb was ignited under his car. Letelier and Ronni Moffitt, a 25 year old American involved in the campaign to bring democracy to Chile, both died of their injuries.

The director of the CIA, George H. W. Bush, was quickly told that DINA and several of his contract agents were involved in the assassination. However, he leaked a story to members of Operation Mockingbird that attempted to cover-up the role that the CIA and DINA had played in the killings. Jeremiah O’Leary in the Washington Star (8th October, 1976) wrote: “The right-wing Chilean junta had nothing to gain and everything to lose by the assassination of a peaceful and popular socialist leader.” Newsweek added: “The CIA has concluded that the Chilean secret police was not involved.” (11th October).

William F. Buckley also took part in this disinformation campaign and on 25th October wrote: “U.S. investigators think it unlikely that Chile would risk with an action of this kind the respect it has won with great difficulty during the past year in many Western countries, which before were hostile to its policies.” According to Donald Freed Buckley had been providing disinformation for the General Augusto Pinochet government since October 1974. He also unearthed information that William Buckley’s brother, James Buckley, met with Michael Townley and Guillermo Novo Sampol in New York City just a week before Orlando Letelier was assassinated.

The FBI eventually became convinced that Michael Townley was {Sic} organized the assassination of Letelier. In 1978 Chile agreed to extradite him to the United States. Townley, a CIA contract agent, confessed he had hired five anti-Castro Cubans exiles to booby-trap Letelier’s car. Guillermo Novo Sampol, Ignacio Novo Sampol, Virgilio Paz Romero, Dionisio Suárez, and Alvin Ross Díaz are indicted for the crime.

More:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/09/14/justice-dept-mulls-charges-cleric-cia-kill-list/

[center]~ ~ ~ ~ ~[/center]
Operation Condor:

~snip~
Operation 40 was not only involved in sabotage operations. In fact, it evolved into a team of assassins. One member, Frank Sturgis, claimed: "this assassination group (Operation 40) would upon orders, naturally, assassinate either members of the military or the political parties of the foreign country that you were going to infiltrate, and if necessary some of your own members who were suspected of being foreign agents... We were concentrating strictly in Cuba at that particular time."

Over the next few years Operation 40 worked closely with several anti-Castro Cuban organizations including Alpha 66. CIA officials and freelance agents such as William Harvey, Thomas Clines, Porter Goss, Gerry Hemming, E. Howard Hunt, David Morales, Carl E. Jenkins, Bernard L. Barker, Barry Seal, Frank Sturgis, Tosh Plumlee, and William C. Bishop also joined the project.

Cuban figures used by Operation 40 included Antonio Veciana, Luis Posada, Orlando Bosch, Rafael Quintero, Roland Masferrer, Eladio del Valle, Guillermo Novo, Rafael Villaverde, Carlos Bringuier, Eugenio Martinez, Antonio Cuesta, Hermino Diaz Garcia, Barry Seal, Felix Rodriguez, Ricardo Morales Navarrete, Juan Manuel Salvat, Isidro Borjas, Virgilio Paz, Jose Dionisio Suarez, Felipe Rivero, Gaspar Jimenez Escobedo, Nazario Sargent, Pedro Luis Diaz Lanz, Jose Basulto, and Paulino Sierra.

More:
http://www.truthseekersvideo.com/articles/OperationCondor.htm

[center]~ ~ ~ ~ ~[/center]

Counterpunch
September 20, 2003
The Assassination Geezers: Guillermo Novo and Me

By SAUL LANDAU

~snip~
The four men (Guillermo, Luis Posada Carriles, Pedro Remon and Gaspar Jimenez) claim that Fidel had set them up for a frame. Their lawyers argued that the ever wily Fidel lured them to Panama because he knew that these old geezers shared common obsessions: they had all sworn to kill him and had participated in previous assassinations. They justified their lethal deeds as necessary steps in their holy war against the Caribbean demon.

Guillermo Novo reminds me of Jason or Freddy, except that his violence took place in real life and not in movies. I remember the cold chill of that morning in the courthouse hall in 1981. An appeals court had reversed on procedural grounds his conviction for eight counts of conspiracy to assassinate Orlando Letelier. At the new trial, the jury had just acquitted him and co-defendant Alvin Ross of conspiracy charges (Letelier, a former Ambassador and Cabinet Minister in the government of Salvador Allende, died along with Ronni Moffitt, his colleague at the Institute for Policy Studies, when a bomb planted under his car exploded on September 21, 1976).

The jury had also acquitted Ignacio Novo, Guillermo's younger brother, of aiding and abetting the conspiracy. The panel did convict Guillermo of lying to the grand jury about his knowledge of the murder plot. The judge ruled, however, that he had already served the time he would have been given.

As the courtroom emptied, the two Novo brothers, Ross, their families and supporters used the hallway to continue their buoyant celebration. Then Guillermo saw me staring at them--in dismay, since I could not understand how the jury could have come to such a verdict in light of the overwhelming evidence presented.

Looking at me murderously, he hissed and then, as if continuing his conversation with Ignacio, said in Spanish "Now we can finish off the rest of these communist pigs."

More:
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/belligerence/landau.htm

[efhmc]

8. Not disputing the past, talking about now.

[Demeter]

3. This gives the United States Something to Aspire to

wankers

[Judi Lynn]

5. Google translation of the article:

17/08
UNICEF confirms that Cuba is the only Latin American country without child malnutrition

The United Nations Organization for Food and Agriculture has also recognized Cuba as the nation with more advances in Latin America in the fight against malnutrition.

(Kaosenlared) In the latest report of the United Nations Fund for Children (UNICEF) entitled "Progress for Children A Report Card on Nutrition" found that in the world today there are 146 million children under five years with problems of severe malnutrition. According to the document, 28% of these children are in Africa, 17% of Middle East, Asia 15%, 7% in Latin America and the Caribbean, Central Europe 5%, and 27% in other developing countries.

Cuba however has no such problems, the only country in Latin America and the Caribbean that has eliminated child malnutrition, all thanks to the efforts of the Government to improve the food, especially the most vulnerable groups. In addition, the United Nations Organization for Food and Agriculture (FAO) has also recognized Cuba as the nation with more advances in Latin America in the fight against malnutrition.

This is because the Cuban state guarantees a basic food and promotes the benefits of breastfeeding, keeping up the fourth month exclusive breastfeeding and supplementing with other foods until six months of age. Moreover, they are made ​​daily delivery of a liter of fluid milk to all children up to seven years old. Along with other foods such as jams, juices and meats which are distributed equitably.

No wonder the very organization of the United Nations (UN) puts the country at the forefront of compliance with human development. And to top it off by 2015, Cuba's objectives is to eliminate poverty and ensure environmental sustainability. And all this despite 50 years of embargo, economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States ... http://old . kaosenlared.net /

Thank you, flamingdem. OUTSTANDING evaluation from the United Nations. Of COURSE we wouldn't expect to see it in English for common consumption here. Amazing! Only 90 miles away, too. Always the case.

[flamingdem]

6. Really this is something the whole country and the diaspora (!) can be proud of

The real numbers are so helpful to get past distortions. Thanks for the translation! This is really their gift to the world and I'm guessing they are implementing these ideas in many other countries.

[joshcryer]

11. You do realize that Chile was ahead of Cuba in that report, right?

So not only is it misleading, it's arguing that Chile fell behind Cuba on these metrics.

It's possible. But I don't see evidence for that.

[joshcryer]

10. I see plenty of English language reports for this, going back to 2010.

It comes from here: http://www.unicef.org/progressforchildren/

English version is here: http://www.unicef.org/progressforchildren/2006n4/index.html

You'll note, it's en Español here: http://www.unicef.org/spanish/progressforchildren/2006n4/

Look at the title of the page "Progreso para la Infancia un Balance sobre la Nutrición."

So, not only is this report 6 years old, it doesn't actually say what is being portrayed by English sites like Pravda English or Gramna English.

It says that Cuba was, in 2006, on track.

There is no new data being reflected by this report (which itself is a year old on top of the 2 year old Pravda article), it's just extrapolating.

Cute though. Shows how propaganda is used.

[flamingdem]

12. Yes I think that was purposefully pushed on the web, they left the year off

That's okay. I didn't know about it and for that reason it's still news to me, and most others.

ha ha Cuba is getting better at the information war

[joshcryer]

13. The OP article is actually from 2008. ;)

And it still neglects that Chile was a head of Cuba at the time and doesn't explain why Cuba leap frogged Chile (I'm fully open to that possibility). The report does say that Cuba made extremely good reductions in poverty in a 4 year period but it'd be wrong to take that one sentence and extrapolate.

For what it's worth I eagerly look for UNICEF reports and when I went to the UNICEF page and there wasn't actually a new report it got me digging. Reports like that tend to cross my radar. The latest big report I can think of is the Ethos Poverty Index but it doesn't include Cuba.

[roody]

14. High quality sex Ed and

reproductive rights are part of this success.