Brazil’s ‘More Doctors‘ program,”

“Today, if Brazil has a different primary health care system, we owe it to Cuba”

“Today, if Brazil has a different primary health care system, we owe it to Cuba”

In the morning of June, 7th, Dilma Rousseff, president of the New Development Bank of the BRICS Group, conveyed her message of gratitude to the Caribbean island

Author:  | internet@granma.cu

july 8, 2025 08:07:25

Photo: Estudios Revolución

RIO DE JANEIRO. –”My message to the Cuban people is one of immense gratitude,” said Dilma Rousseff, current president of the New Development Bank (NDB) of the BRICS Group, to the press team of the Presidency of the Republic of Cuba.

An economist by profession and former president of Brazil, Dilma held a meeting with Cuban Head of State Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez in the context of the 17th BRICS Summit. At the end of the meeting, the special friend—who was elected in March 2023 to her current position and ratified in 2025—shared a message with journalists for the people of the largest of the Antilles.

“I have a great debt to Cuba. A debt to a country that has always been supportive of Brazil, that has been supportive of the Brazilian people in a very sensitive area, which is public health,” Dilma said.

She said she felt indebted to Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro, to comrade Raúl, to President Díaz-Canel, and to the Cuban people. The reason? During her administration, the South American giant had “primary health care, which is fundamental basic health care.”

“We didn’t have enough doctors,” she said. “The Cuban doctors arrived in Brazil and were very well received, totally, because the Cuban doctor model is a direct and personal relationship, in which illness is seen not as a problem, but as a way to understand how to treat the person.”

Dilma stated that “today, if Brazil has a different primary healthcare system, we owe it to Cuba, because for a time Cuban doctors were essential. They left behind a model of medical conduct, in which the patient is treated by recognizing the human being whose medical history must be understood.”

Rousseff argued that, in addition to having physical contact with patients, professionals on the island lavish humanistic care on the sick: “And only a people like Cuba, with all of Cuba’s political history, is capable of creating a form of medicine, a form of health care that is centered on the human being and not on the disease.

“They treat everyone,” the dignitary acknowledged with admiration.

She shared with reporters the beautiful anecdote that “on many occasions, in my country, in the municipalities in the interior of Brazil, they wanted to elect Cuban doctors as mayors and deputies, because (the people felt that) they represented them.”

U.S. sanctions on Cuba

Speech by Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez at BRICS Summit

The commitment of BRICS countries to building a fairer and more inclusive international order is inspiring

Speech by Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, at the XVII BRICS Summit, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on July 6, 2025, “Year 67 of the Revolution”

Author:  | internet@granma.cu

july 7, 2025 09:07:14

We are honored to join with the noble aspiration of contributing and learning Photo: Estudios Revolución

(Shorthand Versions – Presidency of the Republic)
Dear President Lula;
Dear Heads of State and Heads of Delegations:
I believe I must begin by thanking you, on behalf of my country and my people, for our integration into BRICS as a partner.  BRICS today is synonymous with hope.  The hope that multilateralism will be saved from the chaos and ineffectiveness into which the arrogance of a few has plunged the UN, which 80 years ago was born to prevent war from being an alternative for the solution of conflicts, urgently in need of the profound reforms that the Global South has been demanding for more than half a century.
The octogenarian organization is dangerously fragmented and seriously threatened by a progressive erosion of multilateralism that translates into high risks for international peace and security.
The horror of the last weeks and months clearly shows where the diplomacy of force leads.  The Government of the United States, using and abusing its undoubted military, economic, financial and every other kind of power, except moral, constantly acts with absolute disregard for the principles and norms of International Law and the Charter of the United Nations.  It withdraws from various international organizations and forums; declares plans for land usurpation and annexation of territories; justifies and promotes supremacist ideas; carries out massive, violent and racist deportations of migrants, and no longer even hides its ambitious and spurious geostrategic interests.
It is the same power that supported the recent aggressions of the Government of Israel against Iran and carried out a direct attack on the Persian nation with the bombings perpetrated against three nuclear facilities.

Continue reading Speech by Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez at BRICS Summit →

Blockade of Cuba

United States fines company for sending food to Cuba

United States fines company for sending food to Cuba

Once again, OFAC punishes, which shows that the real objective is to asphyxiate Cuba and generate suffering among its people

Author:  | internet@granma.cu

july 4, 2025 08:07:09

Photo: AP

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), of the U.S. Treasury Department, imposed a fine of 608,825 dollars to the company Key Holding, LLC, owner of Key Logistics Colombia S.A.S., for making 36 shipments to Cuba between 2022 and 2023, valued at more than three million dollars. Most of these shipments consisted of foodstuffs, along with oil well machinery, towels and electric forage choppers.

The case – disseminated by media financed by U.S. government agencies such as USAID and NED – is presented as a “violation of the embargo”, deliberately omitting that the U.S. economic blockade against Cuba is a criminal policy that directly affects the Cuban people, preventing the entry of medicines, food and essential resources.

Once again, OFAC punishes even the shipment of food, which shows that the real objective is to suffocate Cuba and generate suffering among its people.

The blockade is not a simple “bilateral measure”, it is a system of extraterritorial coercion that persecutes any company or country that tries to trade with Cuba.

Cuban Solidarity

Cuba vigorously condemns the attacks perpetrated by Israel against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The United States and Israel will have to respond to the consequences of an unjustified war against Iran

Declaration of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba

Author:  | internet@granma.cu

june 14, 2025 13:06:37

Cuba
Photo: Taken from Cubaminrex

Cuba vigorously condemns the attacks perpetrated by Israel against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The Cuban Government observes with extreme concern the events taking place in the Middle East and strongly condemns the attacks perpetrated by Israel in the early hours of morning on June 13, 2025 and the threat of war against the Islamic Republic of Iran, in flagrant violation of the United Nations Charter and International Law, including the principles of sovereignty and the no threat or use of force against the territorial integrity of any State.

The aggressive policy of the State of Israel and its reprehensible and irresponsible actions are only possible thanks to the military, financial, logistic and political support granted by the government of the United States, thus placing international and regional stability and security in greater danger, with unforeseeable consequences for humanity.

Cuba reaffirms its solidarity with the people and the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and alerts to the danger of a further escalation in the region and a larger conflagration and calls on the international community, particularly the Security Council and the United Nations General Assembly, to exercise their primary responsibility to maintain international peace and security and put an immediate end to this aggression and the impunity with which the Zionist regime is acting.

The ceasing of the genocide against Palestine is of the essence.

Once again, we reiterate that peace in the Middle East should be based on a comprehensive, fair and lasting solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which includes the creation of a sovereign and independent Palestinian State based on the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Havana, June 13, 2025