Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalBook Review - Revolutionary Doctors: How Venezuela and Cuba Are Changing the World’s Conception of H
Book Review - Revolutionary Doctors: How Venezuela and Cuba Are Changing the World’s Conception of Health Care
Written by Ramona Wadi
Tuesday, 27 September 2011 16:51
“Often we need to change our concepts, not only the general concepts, the social or philosophical ones, but also sometimes our medical concepts.” - Ernesto Che Guevara.
Modelled on Che Guevara’s principles and keeping in line with the Cuban revolution, Steve Brouwer’s assessment of Cuba’s health care system in his book Revolutionary Doctors: How Venezuela and Cuba Are Changing the World’s Conception of Health Care (Monthly Review Press, July 2011) stands as a testimony to answer anyone claiming that socialism cannot function. Cuban doctors have regaled people in Latin America and around the world with medical opportunities which, in capitalist ideology and implementation, remain remote. While Cubans are provided free health care provided by medics who are dedicated to science and society, the United States has created a scheme based on profits, which marginalizes a major segment of the population who cannot afford costly treatment.
Che Guevara, himself a doctor, always reiterated the responsibility of helping the oppressed. Having observed the effects of poverty and social class during his travels in Latin America, his revolutionary consciousness stemmed from the concept of restoring dignity to the poor who were oppressed and neglected by dictatorships. Reaffirming Che’s philosophy, at the ELAM (Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina) medical school in Cuba, an inscription of Fidel Castro’s words greets the students. “This will be a battle of solidarity against selfishness.” Striving against the reluctance of the minority who view a career medicine as an opportunity to achieve higher social status, ELAM’s philosophy is “transforming the doctor’s privilege into a doctor’s responsibility.”
Immediately after the triumph of the revolution, the health care system in Cuba underwent major changes. Despite a shortage of doctors, many of them having left to practice in the US and thereby retain prestige and social status, Cuba invested heavily in social welfare. Health care services were nationalized, medicine prices were reduced and treatment fees were gradually eliminated. By the end of 1960, Cuban doctors were employed in a system that provided free health care to all Cubans.
Aspiring doctors in Cuba were able to study medicine for free. In return for free education, doctors were required to relinquish the notion of medicine as an elitist career and work in close contact with the people, travel to rural areas, conduct home visits, and research in rural communities. In 1970, the Ministry of Health pointed out the mistake of valuing specialization over primary health care, given that many medical problems could have been solved by paying special attention to the environment. The study of primary health care and environmental problems proved successful when in Venezuela, it was discovered that apart from the effects of damp weather during rainy seasons, the wood fires which women lighted in their houses were causing lung congestion. The problem was lack of proper ventilation in houses. In 1984, a program of comprehensive general medicine was formulated, enabling medical students to study different areas of medicine in a continuous sequence, rather than separate subjects. The new curriculum was discussed with medics from Canada, Venezuela, Australia and the Philippines, with the director of ELAM stating that comprehensive general medicine allowed students to progress in scientific training whilst at the same time providing the opportunity for students to 'understand the patient as a whole'.
More:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/cuba-archives-43/3231-book-review-revolutionary-doctors-how-venezuela-and-cuba-are-changing-the-worlds-conception-of-health-care-
Colombia’s highest court to investigate Uribe over peace talks wiretapping
Colombia’s highest court to investigate Uribe over peace talks wiretapping
Oct 3, 2014 posted by Adriaan Alsema
Colombia’s Supreme Court has begun a preliminary investigation into former President Alvaro Uribe’s alleged involvement in the wiretapping of ongoing peace talks with the FARC, reported local media on Friday.
The aim of the investigation is to verify the testimony provided by Andres Sepulveda in which he claimed Uribe was aware of the allegedly illegal activity of former Democratic Center candidate Oscar Zuluaga’s presidential campaign, according to Caracol Radio.
~snip~
In his testimony, Sepulveda indicated that Uribe and Democratic Center Director Oscar Ivan Zuluaga paid him to obtain privileged intelligence from rogue elements of the military and monitor the communications of journalists, opposing political figures, and government and rebel delegates to the peace talks.
The politicians then allegedly used the information obtained to try and derail the peace process, which they have staunchly opposed. Sepulveda has also said that cyber attacks against politicians deemed enemies by the party were a key part of the Democratic Center’s strategy in last March’s congressional elections, from which the party emerged as the largest opposition bloc in Congress.
In an unrelated case, it was reported Friday that Uribe was going to be investigated by the Prosecutor General’s Office over his alleged involvement in the psychological torture of journalist Claudia Julieta Duque.
Uribe responded on Twitter, saying: “New accusation against me because supposedly I participated in telephone torture of a member of the Collective that defends FARC.”
http://colombiareports.co/colombias-highest-court-investigate-uribe-peace-talks-wiretapping/
Victims participating in Colombia peace talks receive deaths threats: UN
Victims participating in Colombia peace talks receive deaths threats: UN
Oct 2, 2014 posted by Emil Foget
At least three victims attending peace talks with rebel group FARC and organizers of the victim participation have received death threats, according to the United Nations.
The three victims were part of the first and second round of victims who traveled to the peace talks in Havana. All death threats were allegedly signed by neo-paramilitary groups.
Of the 24 people who have so far told their stories at the talks, three “have appeared on blacklists or received mail with death threats, signed by armed groups launched by ex-paramilitaries,” said Fabrizio Hochschild, the UN’s resident coordinator in Colombia.
Seven other victims have been the target of verbal attacks on social networks, the UN official told reporters at a press conference.
More:
http://colombiareports.co/victims-participating-peace-talks-receive-deaths-threats-un/
Uribe called to trial for accusing TV network of being terrorism facilitators
Uribe called to trial for accusing TV network of being terrorism facilitators
Oct 2, 2014 posted by Nicolas Bedoya
Former president and current senator Alvaro Uribe was called to testify for claiming the capital Bogota’s public television network “serves terrorism.”
During a September debate on Uribe’s alleged links with paramilitaries and the Medellin Cartel of Pablo Escobar, Uribe called Bogota’s Canal Capital and Venezuela’s Telesur “media outlets that serves terrorism.”
The statement has proved to create more problems for the already scandal-plagued ex-president.
Prosecution accepts charges
Prosecutor General Eduardo Montealegre said, “We are going to call Uribe to testify because of the gravity of his statements, and he will have the opportunity to present the evidence with which he sustains his supposed thesis that Canal Capital, a respectable media outlet, is part of terrorist actions.”
Canal Capital is the most threatened news organization in Colombia, according to El Universal. The director of Canal Capital, Hollman Morris, reminded former President Uribe that unsubstantiated words, like those Uribe said in the political debate, have resulted in the death of many journalists.
Morris — a vociferous critic of the Uribe administration’s human rights record — was arbitrarily detained on a number of occasions during the Uribe administration when he was reporting for alternative newscast Contravia. Back then, Uribe and his then-Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos accused the journalist of working together with the FARC.
More:
http://colombiareports.co/former-president-uribe-must-explain-blatant-attack-colombias-press/
(You may recall Hollman Morris has had to keep bullet-proof cars for himself and his family for years by necessity.)
North Colombia victims to flee again after return of death threats force
North Colombia victims to flee again after return of death threats force
Oct 2, 2014 posted by Nicolas Bedoya
“Attention!!! A social cleansing group is requested by good citizens and will begin operations in the municipality,” read the first sentence of a pamphlet which forced the second displacement of at least 20 former victims in the north of Colombia.
The pamphlet, which started circulating in the municipality of Remolinos in the Magdalena state, has led to the displacement of various victim families who had returned to their lands after having been displaced from there once before.
Much of the population of Remolinos has been displaced during Colombia’s civil war, and have recently begun to return. However, the recent developments are forcing families to displace themselves once again to nearby towns and cities like Soledad, Santo Tomas and Barranquilla, according to El Espectador newspaper.
~snip~
“Attention!!! A social cleansing group is requested by good citizens and will begin operations in the municipality,” read the first sentence of a pamphlet which forced the second displacement of at least 20 former victims in the north of Colombia.
The pamphlet, which started circulating in the municipality of Remolinos in the Magdalena state, has led to the displacement of various victim families who had returned to their lands after having been displaced from there once before.
Much of the population of Remolinos has been displaced during Colombia’s civil war, and have recently begun to return. However, the recent developments are forcing families to displace themselves once again to nearby towns and cities like Soledad, Santo Tomas and Barranquilla, according to El Espectador newspaper.
More:
http://colombiareports.co/north-colombia-victims-to-flee-again-after-return-of-death-threats-force/
Colombia worst place to be a journalist after Mexico
Colombia worst place to be a journalist after Mexico
Oct 2, 2014 posted by Joel Gillin
Colombia is the deadliest country for journalists in Latin America after Mexico, according to an infographic released Tuesday by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
While Mexico tops the list of the most dangerous country with 80 journalists killed since 2000, Colombia comes in second with 56 killed in the last 14 years.
RSF describes the numbers as “disturbing because none of these countries is officially at war, despite the continued presence of paramilitaries in Colombia.”
Narrowing in on four keys points since 2000, RSF notes that at the beginning of former President Alvaro Uribe term “both paramilitaries and the government target[ed] the media.” It goes on to say that journalists preactice self-censorship for their own personal safety.
The report also mentions the DAS wiretapping scandal which broke in 2009 that revealed spying operations against journalists, among other targets, orchestrated by the Colombian government.
More:
http://colombiareports.co/colombia-worst-place-journalist-mexico/
What 35,000 Walruses Forced to the Beach Tell Us About Global Warming
Published on Wednesday, October 01, 2014
by Common Dreams
What 35,000 Walruses Forced to the Beach Tell Us About Global Warming
As sea ice recedes amid warming oceans, Pacific walruses crowd onto beaches to rest and forage for food
by Sarah Lazare, staff writer
Federal biologists have discovered an unusual phenomenon on a beach in northwest Alaska: a massive gathering of walruses—35,000 of them—crowded onto a small strip of shore.
This swarm, which was sighted in a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration aerial survey on Saturday, is a direct result of a warming climate and declining sea ice, say scientists.
Pacific walruses, who live in the Bering Sea during winter, require floating sea ice to meet their survival needs, using them for rest in between journeys to forage for food, such as clam, snails, and worms, as well as for giving birth and caring for their young. But as the oceans warm, this sea ice is receding, especially near coastal areas, forcing these walruses to take to the beach for resting and foraging, according to an explanation from the NOAA.
"The walruses are telling us what the polar bears have told us and what many indigenous people have told us in the high Arctic, and that is that the Arctic environment is changing extremely rapidly and it is time for the rest of the world to take notice and also to take action to address the root causes of climate change," said Margaret Williams, managing director of the group’s Arctic program, in a statement.
More:
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/10/01/what-35000-walruses-forced-beach-tell-us-about-global-warming
Terror in Latin America and the Caribbean
October 01, 2014
Sorrow's Season
Terror in Latin America and the Caribbean
by W.T. WHITNEY Jr.
Cuban national hero José Martí referred to land lying between the Rio Grande River and the Straits of Magellan as “Our America.” In an essay with that title published in 1892, Martí evoked the Rio Grande boundary as a divide between peoples with their own history, culture and future and an industrializing, crass civilization to the north promising no good.
Indeed, U.S. agents or proxies would soon be sewing grief and despair. Early in the 20th century they launched military incursions. Subsequently less blatant interventions left terror in their wake. Anniversaries in September and October – a season of sorrow in Our America – recall murder and mayhem. One asks: Can international solidarity prevent victims? Who in North America, epicenter of terrorist plotting, will take on that job?
On September 9, 1954, deposed Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz left for exile. Three months earlier the CIA had colluded with Guatemala’s wealthy elite to engineer a military coup. Civil war between leftist insurgents and the CIA-supported Guatemalan military lasted three decades and took the lives of 200,000 mostly indigenous and poor Guatemalans.
On September 11, 1973, the Chilean military overthrew socialist President Salvador Allende. Speaking to officials plotting against his election three years earlier, National Security Council director Henry Kissinger observed that: “I don’t see why we have to stand by and watch a country go communist by the irresponsibility of its own people.”
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/01/terror-in-latin-america-and-the-caribbean/
Guatemala ex-police on trial in 1980 embassy fire (murders)
Guatemala ex-police on trial in 1980 embassy fire
Published on NewsOK Modified: October 1, 2014 at 3:19 pm • Published: October 1, 2014
GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — A former police officer is on trial in Guatemala for the deaths of 37 people more than three decades ago when the Spanish Embassy burned down during Guatemala's bloody civil conflict.
Pedro Garcia Arredondo is a former special investigations chief for the Sixth Commando of the National Police.
He is accused of homicide and crimes against humanity for allegedly ordering agents to keep anyone from leaving the diplomatic mission as it burned in 1980.
The first witness called Wednesday was 1992 Nobel peace laureate Rigoberta Menchu, whose father was one of those killed in the blaze.
http://newsok.com/guatemala-ex-police-on-trial-in-1980-embassy-fire/article/feed/742398?custom_click=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Newsok%2FNews+%28NewsOK.com+RSS+-+news%29
[center]
Pedro Garcia Arredondo
[/center]
Former Chilean marines sentenced in priest slaying
Source: Associated Press
Former Chilean marines sentenced in priest slaying
8:10 AM Thursday Oct 2, 2014
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) Chile's Supreme Court has sentenced three retired marines to prison terms of three to five years in the torture-death of priest Michael Woodward Iriberry during the country's dictatorship. The government was ordered to pay Woodward's sister $166,000.
The high court increased to five years the sentences imposed in 2013 for Jose Manuel Garcia and Manuel Leiva Valdivieso. It also set a three-year sentence for Hector Palomino Lopez, who was initially absolved due to dementia.
The decision adopted Tuesday was made public by judicial authorities on Wednesday.
The Woodwards' mother was Chilean and their father was British.
Read more: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11335412
[center]
La Esmeralda, one of Pinochet's Chile's three torture ships,
and the last place where Michael Woodward drew his last breath.[/center]
From a blog where I obtained the photo above:
~snip~.....a four masted barquentine of the Chilean Navy named Esmeralda. They call her the White Lady. The steel hulled vessel is the second longest and tallest sailing ship in the world. This boat was built in Cadiz, Spain in 1954 and is the sixth Chilean ship to bear the name Esmeralda.
In fact she has a rather sordid history. According to reports by the United States Senate, Amnesty International and the Chilean Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the Esmeralda was used as a floating torture chamber for dissidents and political prisoners from 1973 to 1980. This is during the reign of Dictator General Augusto Pinochet, who aided by the United States government, successfully plotted and carried out a coup to kill and usurp the democratically elected socialist President Salvador Allende.
In 1973, Maria Comene was held as a political prisoner on the ship for 10 days."It is a bad boat," Comene says. "A boat where blood was spilled."
It is suggested that over 110 prisoners, seventy men and forty women, were kept on board, subject to rape and genital shocks and brutal beatings. It is said that the British priest Michael Woodward died as a result of the brutal interrogation and torture he endured on the rigger. A good synopsis of the ship's bloody history can be found here. The Amnesty International document here.
More:
http://www.blueheronblast.com/2011/07/la-esmeralda-de-sangria.html
[center]~ ~ ~
Michael Woodward[/center]
Saturday, August 28th 2010 - 06:46 UTC
Indictments related to the killing of Anglo Chilean priest in 1973 total 33
Chilean Justice indicted on Friday fourteen former members of Carabineros (militarized police and Navy) for the kidnapping and killing of Anglo-Chilean Catholic priest Miguel Woodward.
He was tortured to death in 1973 by agents from General Pinochet’s military dictatorship on board the Navy school vessel, “Esmeralda”.
“It is with great satisfaction that we have been informed of the indictment which is now completed and closes this line of investigation that has been on-going for years”, said Karina Fernández, solicitor from the Ministry of Interior Human Rights Program which acted as plaintiff.
Magistrate Eliana Quezada from Valaparaíso Appeals Court said that “it was a kidnap, a crime related to crimes coordinated from the very organization of the (Chilean) Navy”.
Contrary to other human rights violations case, the homicide of Father Woodward was not executed by a “repressive organism” from the (Chilean) State but rather by an institution such as the Navy.
More:
http://en.mercopress.com/2010/08/28/indictments-related-to-the-killing-of-anglo-chilean-priest-in-1973-total-33
Profile Information
Member since: 2002Number of posts: 160,516