As a follower of Martí, he knew that to be free, one had to be cultured. Culture was one of the names of the happiness the Revolution longed to give its people
In the scope of Cuban culture and its depth is Fidel’s legacy
Culture, in its broadest concept, was a permanent obsession for Fidel, who was convinced of the crucial role it played in the transformation of a society that was making its debut in Revolution. Without it, he said, “there is no possible freedom”.
Aware of the spiritual sustenance that culture provides, and of the strength it brings to a people, Fidel would have it among the top priorities of the Revolutionary Government, which had to sow the ideals that the new times were demanding.
Although -and recalling Cintio- it was astonishing “the fertilization erasing the countless frustrations, the unspeakable humiliations, the meticulous nightmares!”, it was also true that “other combats were beginning then”.
Led by its leader, the young Revolution was a titanic undertaking that, three months after its triumph, founded the National Printing House of Cuba and made its debut, not for nothing, with an edition of one hundred thousand copies of The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha.
The Summer Beach and Sea Sports Festival is taking place on Havana’s beaches until August 13
It will be possible to compete in volleyball, field hockey, wrestling, badminton and soccer, all in their sand version, as well as sailing, apnea, aquathlon and other modalities. Photo: ACN
A party is going on these days on the beaches of Havana’s coast, with the celebration of the First Summer Sea and Beach Sports Festival, which will be held until August 13.
The inauguration took place at the Gerardo Abreu Fontán Social Worker’s Circle, in the municipality of Playa, and will also see action at the Félix Elmuza and Otto Parellada entities, and at the Villa Bacuranao and Guanabo beaches.
The activities are aimed at healthy leisure and recreation for the Cuban family during the summer season, and will include volleyball, field hockey, wrestling, badminton and soccer, all in their sand version, as well as sailing, apnea, aquathlon and other modalities.
The Festival will not only have a sports section, but will also be useful for technical training, with workshops and educational spaces.
The program, sponsored by Inder, responds not only to the promotion of a new summer initiative, but also to the precept of sport for all, always defended by our social project.
Sport is making a comeback in this summer 2025, along with other options for enjoyment, and as a platform for physical wellbeing and social cohesion.
In addition to the sports activities, ecological workshops, artistic presentations and spaces for local art have been announced, in order to guarantee options for all ages and social sectors.
The project will also be valid to promote environmental care, as it will develop sanitation and cleaning initiatives in the natural scenarios chosen as venues.
The first edition of this event will conclude with a tribute to our greatest athlete, Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, on the 99th anniversary of his birth; a well-deserved recognition to the man who put all his efforts to bring ideas like this to the people.
The national ensign in the hands of the future champions
The Cuban delegation that will participate in the Junior PanThe Cuban delegation that will participate in the Junior Pan American Games in Asuncion was flagged American Games in Asuncion was flagged
The athletes will defend their flag in each of the facilities in Asunción. Photo: Ricardo López Hevia
Yesterday was a different experience at the Antonio Maceo Monument Complex in San Pedro. The emblematic site, located in the municipality of Bauta, in the province of Artemisa, served as a stage for the future of Cuban sports to receive the banner that will accompany them in the upcoming Junior Pan American Games in Asuncion.
Deputy Prime Minister Inés María Chapman Waugh and five-time Olympic champion Mijaín López, Hero of the Republic of Cuba, handed over the national ensign to wrestler Yainelis Sanz and rower Roberto Carlos Paz, escorted by Yisnoly López (canoeing) and Emmanuel de la Rosa (weightlifting), in a ceremony that evoked patriotic feelings in the place where the lieutenant general of the Liberator Army Antonio Maceo fell in combat.
In the presence of Yuniasky Crespo Vaquero, head of the Department of Attention to the Social Sector of the Central Committee of the Party, the taekwondoca Elianet María Crespo, and the beach volleyball player, Eblis Verane, laid a wreath in the exact place where Maceo and his aide Francisco Gómez Toro fell in combat.
The 231 talented young people who make up the Antillean delegation were summoned to defend with dignity, and with Maceo’s intransigence, the patriotic colors in each of the competition scenarios.
In Yainelis Sanz’s opinion, “being the Cuban flag bearer represents a great honor and an additional motivation to add my second title in these competitions. We know that the challenge ahead is great, but we have trained hard to achieve the best possible performance,” she told Granma.
On the other hand, the president of Inder, Osvaldo Vento, stated that “we are happy with the representation we are going to have in these Games. In the midst of a very complex scenario, the Revolution has allocated valuable resources for the preparation of our athletes. We cannot create false expectations, but we know that our athletes will give their all for Cuba in Asunción,” he said.
Asunción-2025 will be an ideal scenario to evaluate the Island’s sports reserve and achieve the highest number of qualifiers for the Lima-2027 Pan American Games. Those are the fundamental objectives, confirmed to this newspaper by José Antonio Miranda Carrera, general director of High Performance of Inder.
Cuba will only participate in 56% of the 336 events called, due to the impossibility of covering the entire critical route in most of the specialties. In the Cali-Valle-2021 edition, 29 gold medals were obtained, which meant a 13.6% of effectiveness, given that there were 212 competitors. A better parameter than Colombia (12.6%, with 386 members) and Mexico (12%, with 378).
This time, the studies of opponents and positions in the ranking show that the greatest potential to bring gold medals are centered on athletics, canoeing, wrestling, judo, weightlifting and rowing, with taekwondo, fencing, volleyball, beach volleyball, diving and table tennis, with real possibilities of climbing the podium of awards.
The political-cultural gala was also attended by Meyvis Estévez Echavarría, first secretary of the UJC National Committee, and the president of the Cuban Olympic Committee, Roberto León Richards.
Economic sanctions: a “non-violent measure” that takes lives
In the case of Cuba, only four months of blockade “are equivalent to the financing required to cover the country’s basic medicine needs for one year”
Although the declared objective is to force behavioral changes, economic sanctions especially harm Photo: Granma
Economic sanctions imposed unilaterally by some States do kill. This was recalled by a publication of Misión Verdad, based on a study by the journal The Lancet Global Health.
The analysis – led by economists Francisco Rodríguez, Silvio Rendón and Mark Weisbrot, and supported by data from 152 countries – states that these restrictive measures “imposed by the United States or the European Union were associated with 564,258 deaths per year between 1971 and 2021”.
Although the stated objective is to force behavioral changes, according to the researchers, “all economic sanctions ultimately function as health sanctions,” affecting access to medical services, food security and socioeconomic development, which especially harms “children, women and the most marginalized populations.”
Another article published in the journal reveals that, as a result of sanctions, there has been a “3.1% increase in infant mortality and a 6.4% rise annually in maternal mortality between 1990 and 2019.”
It argues that the increase in sanctions has been steady since 1950, according to the Global Sanctions Database. However, “their success rate in achieving the stated goal remains at around 30%”.
Mission Truth exposes that “Venezuela, subject to sanctions as of 2017, recorded between 2012 and 2020 an economic contraction of 71 %, and shortage peaks that directly affected the availability of oncological treatments and retrovirals. In Iraq, the embargo imposed after the invasion of Kuwait coincided with the death of more than 500 000 children during the 1990s, according to Unicef,” he underlines.
“Syria accumulated successive rounds of sanctions since 2011, reinforced with the Caesar Law, in 2020, and today has 90% of its population below the poverty line.”
In the case of Cuba, according to the latest report presented to the United Nations, just four months of blockade “is equivalent to the financing required to cover the needs of the country’s basic list of medicines for a year”.
“For countries under sanctions, induced shortages are not a surgical intervention but a sustained form of coercion. With an additional 564 000 deaths per year, the label of ‘non-violent measure’ collapses,” the publication reads.
