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| Boakye Agyarko, Minister of Energy |
By Christopher Arko
Mr Kobena Mensah Woyome, Member of Parliament (MP) for South Tongu, has called on the Ministry of Water Resources and the Volta River Authority (VRA) to take a critical look at the problem of aquatic weeds on the Lower Volta Basin.
He said there was the need for inter-ministerial and inter-agency collaboration with the VRA as well as other stakeholders to take a serious view of the aquatic weeds and find a sustainable solution to the difficulty.
Mr Woyome made the pronouncement on the floor of Parliament when he presented a statement on the challenges posed by aquatic weeds in the Lower Volta Basin, which is located in his Constituency.
The Volta Basin holds a man-made lake and also holds most of South-Central Ghana’s highest points including mount Afadjato which is 885m and the Akwapim-Togo range. Some of the communities along the Lower Volta Basin include Torgome, Klamadoboe, Wume-Tefle, Alabonu, Agave Afedume, Kponte etc.
The main land use in the area are cropping, grazing, forestry, recreation, mining, wildlife preservation and the livelihood of a greater number of the population is dependent on the Volta River.
Mr Woyome also stated that one of the major environmental costs, in the Lower Volta Basin communities after the construction of the Akosombo dam, was the invasion and spread of aquatic weeds in the area due to the significant slowing down of the flow of the river.
He said the sprawl of the aquatic weeds in the Lower Volta Basin has become a matter of concern to the communities along the basin whose livelihood depended heavily on the River.
He said a cursory look at the surface of the River revealed vegetative cover rather than water body.
“The Lower Volta Basin is gradually and increasingly being covered by aquatic weeds, and this is posing serious challenges to the livelihoods of the people along the River banks,” he added.
Mr Woyome further explained that aquatic weeds caused harm to aquatic lives, eco-environment, making the water unsafe for fishing, reduction of fish in the river, causing navigational problems along the lake as well as serving as habitats for mosquitoes in communities around the river.
He said despite the fact that compost prepared from aquatic weeds could be used to enhance soil fertility in agriculture, the danger they posed to both human and aquatic lives far outweighed their usefulness.
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| Aquatic weeds on the Volta River |
Mr Woyome said in spite of the various measures by the VRA and the Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing in the past to purchase dredgers and aquatic weeds harvesters as well as mapping out strategies to address its negative environmental impact, the spread of aquatic weeds along the Lower Volta Basin remained an annual nightmare for the people in the area.
He, therefore, stressed the need for sustainable solution to the problem adding that the livelihood of the people was in serious jeopardy.
Mr Frank Annor-Domprey, MP for Nsawam-Adoagyiri in his contribution, said though he identified with his colleague’s statement, the focus should not only be about the removal of aquatic weeds from the Volta River but also the tree stumps that have caused numerous accidents on the Volta Lake.
Mr Alexander Roosevelt Hottordze, MP for Central Tongu, in his contribution to the motion appealed to the VRA to collaborate with other state agencies to find sustainable solution to the aquatic weeds problem which also affected his constituents.
Editorial
PROTECT THE VOLTA RIVER
The Akosombo Hydro-electric project provides the cheapest source of power in Ghana and enables the power authorities to keep electricity tariffs down.
It is therefore absolutely important to protect the Volta River and the dam we have built on it.
Surprisingly, the Ghanaian authorities do not appear to recognise the significance of the river and the need to jealously protect it.
On the front page of this issue is the complaint of the Member of Parliament for South Tongu, Honourable Kobena Mensah Woyome that the Volta River is being threatened by aquatic weeds.
We urge the authorities to take what Honourable Woyome is saying seriously and to take immediate steps to protect the Volta River.
The river is too important for the people of Ghana for it to be ignored.
Local News:
CHRAJ Advocates Guidance and Counselling Units at Basic Schools
By Bertha Badu-Agyei
The Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ has advocated the institution of guidance and counselling units at the basic school level to help correct the children and avoid caning.
According to CHRAJ, caning was not the best way to correct a child because it inflicted pains and bitterness in the children instead of correcting them.
Mr George Ajovie, the acting Eastern Regional Director of CHRAJ, who said this in a public education forum for schools said a well-established guidance and counselling unit was needed at all basic schools to replace corporal punishment.
He said the commission’s main objective was to inculcate the culture of respect for people’s rights in accordance with the law, irrespective of age and gender and to encourage teachers and parents to adopt more acceptable ways of bringing up children devoid of violence and inhuman treatments.
He said most often caning children in schools resulted in scars or defects on children, which was illegal according to article 28 of the constitution which states that “a child shall not be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”.
The acting Director said when caning resulted in scars and pains on the children it constituted a violation of the law whereby such teachers could be held liable.
He noted that parents could take teachers who caned their children to court, particularly when the Ghana Education Service had banned it and urged school heads to rather make guidance and counselling available in the schools to check the behaviour and lifestyles of the children.
CHRAJ in collaboration with the Ghana Education Service (GES), held the public education in various schools in the region including Oyoko Methodist, Pope John, New Juaben and Ghana High Senior High schools and engaged both the students and teachers.
GNA
WHY I LEFT THE NPP-MP
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| Joe Osei Owusu |
By Mohammed Awal
The first deputy speaker of parliament Joe Osei Owusu has said he resigned from the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to contest as an independent candidate for the Bekwai seat in the 2008 parliamentary election because the incumbent MP for the area then was on the verge of losing the seat to the NDC.
Mr. Osei Owusu announcing his decision pledged to wrest the seat from the incumbent Kofi Poku-Adusei who defeated him by a single vote in the NPP primary then.
There was jubilation among a section of the NPP supporters when he made the announcement.
“Before I decided to contest I was thoroughly satisfied that my MP at the time if we presented him the party was going to lose,” Mr. Osei Owusu, who is also the chairman of the Appointments Committee of Parliament, told Bola Ray on Starr Chat.
“Even with that after the primaries I thought I was unfairly treated and I came back and decided let me just go and support the president’s campaign but a group of people [some are very high in security agencies and I won’t mention names] they sent me a letter they have formed a council—the Amansie Council and said listen it is not because of anything that we want you to lead…
“I had actually pointedly declined to attend meetings for which I was invited to contest as independent. In the last meeting they came and one of them is very close to my wife so he went to my wife and told her ‘tell your husband it is not because he is handsome but it is because we know that in every part of Bekwai’s development in a very young age has been part of it…if he fails to face the challenge now he should forever forget about doing politics here,’” he added.
Source: StarrFMonline
Finance Ministry Defends New Tax Exemption Rules
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| Kwaku Kwarteng |
By Jessica Ayorkor Aryee
Despite the increased number of concerns for government to restructure the tax exemption directive for importers, Deputy Finance Minister, Kwaku Kwarteng has stressed that his outfit will not change the decision.
According to him, the reversal will only bring back the numerous illegal acts at the ports.
Importers and exporters called on government to review the directive as it remains unfavorable to them.
The directive which was issued by the GRA stated that “all applicants who qualify for exemptions from import duties and taxes must make prior payments and after, make a claim for refund of the amounts paid.”
Some tax analysts have also described the move as unlawful.
They argue that the decision is unfair to importers who are entitled to tax exemption and must be rectified.
But Mr. Kwarteng explains to Citi Business News the ministry will not scrap the law.
“We are all witnesses to the tax cuts. We know they were not comfortable with the development but we have had to do it because we believe in that deeply. We have not sought to change anything especially those contained in agreement. We have a responsibility to manage this the exemption in a way. What we are saying is simple; if you have exemptions, we will not touch it.” he said.
He adds that a lot of illegalities have been blocked since the commencement of the tax exemption law.
“If the exemptions were illegitimate then by law we are required to stop that and since we started this administrative measure there have been many irregularities that have been stopped. This simple pay and get refund plan has stopped many irregularities. So the objective is not to upset you or hurt your business, the objective is to weed out the bad guys.” he stated.
Africa:
Returning To the Home That Is No More There
An interview with Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
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| Jomo Kenyatta |
For Ngũgĩ, in the struggle against capitalist colonialism there is no home left to return to. Whether within one’s own country or outside, home is the place and space of struggle. Like for Frantz Fanon, for Ngũgĩ the struggle against colonialism is linked to the struggle against capitalism. It is a struggle against the bourgeoisie, both national and international.
Introduction
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (b. 1938), a Kenyan writer, is one of the most prominent African anti-colonial authors. He lived during the British colonial rule in Kenya, and was very young when he experienced the destruction of the village in which he was born, destroyed by the British colonizers. The post-independent Kenya, however, was not a safe place for him as well. He was put in jail and faced violence for his criticisms toward the national bourgeoisie that came to power after independence in 1963. Contrary to his Nigerian counterpart, Chinua Achebe (1930-2013), Ngũgĩ stopped writing his fiction in English in a critical decision in the 1970s, arguing that the English language is a colonial one to African authors. He engaged in writing in Gikuyu, spoken primarily by the Kikuyu people. In 1977, he was detained for a while in Kenya for one of his plays, I Will Marry When I Want (1977). While in Prison, Ngũgĩ wrote the first modern novel in Gikuyu, Devil on the Cross, on prison-issued toilet paper.
In my written interview with Ngũgĩ, I asked him to reflect on the authentic way of an anti-colonial struggle. I asked him to share his thoughts on the duality of “home and the world” in the face of his experience of colonialism and anti-colonial struggle. Some post-colonial thinkers, such as the Indian scholar Partha Chatterjee, intend to foreground home, interior, as the last setting in which the colonial penetration was resisted. Arguing that the public space, the world, was crucially affected by the experience of British colonialism, this argument intends to revive the pre-colonial culture and society by retrieving the culture of the interior spaces of a Hindu home in late 19th century. Anti-colonial thinkers have criticized this post-colonial argument.
According to Himani Bannerji, historical materialist sociologist, in her article, “Projects of Hegemony: Towards a Critique of Subaltern Studies’ ‘Resolution of the Women's Question’” this post-colonial argument is constructing a de-grounded and a-historical narration of the homes of Hindus in late 19th century, and by doing so is assisting Hindu fundamentalism to pursue its cultural nationalism in contemporary Indian politics.
Ngũgĩ’s experience of colonialism in Africa is also in line with this latter anti-colonial argument. For Ngũgĩ, in the struggle against capitalist colonialism there is no home left to return to. Instead of advocating for a home in the past, he argues “But it is a home that has yet to be, for which we must all struggle, within our own countries and in the world.” He contends, “My real home, whether in Kenya, or outside Kenya, is the place and space of struggle.” Similar to Frantz Fanon, for Ngũgĩ the struggle against colonialism is linked to the struggle against capitalism; thus it is a struggle against bourgeoisie, both national and international.
Mahdi Ganjavi (MG): Dear Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o, thank you so much for accepting this invitation. The idea of returning to the homeland is a shared concept among many anti-colonial authors of the twentieth century. Aime Cesaire’s famous poem, Notebook of a return to the native land, meditates on such a moment of going back, such a moment of longing. We can see the same idea in Rabindranath Tagore’s The Home and the World, in which he criticizes the idea of an ideal home to which we can return. There seems no home left for many anti-colonial authors to return to.
In one of your volumes of memoirs you meditate on the day you returned to your village after just a month, just to see that your village was literally destroyed by the British colonizers. If not to home, where can we go in our struggle against imperialism and colonialism?
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (Ngũgĩ): I tell this in my second memoir, In the House of the Interpreter. Home is the site of our sense of being and belonging. The sense of the physical and social space that made me, often the site of our earliest and most formative images and dreams of the future. But we tend to think of home as a stable material and social space, the place of return, or possible return, even if I go to all the corners of the world. My village, in Limuru, Kenya, and where I was born and grew up, seemed such a center. But when I returned after three months away in a boarding school, I found the British colonial forces had razed the entire village to the ground. That was in April 1955 and Kenya was then ruled under State of Emergency laws, meant to suppress the struggle for independence lead by the Kenya Land and Freedom Army, otherwise known as Mau Mau. The impact of returning to a home that was no longer there was huge. It became an important theme in all my novels, particularly in A Grain of Wheat.
But in reality home is never quite that stable. Home is also a place of change. Even within members of the same family, they may have different experiences and hence images of the place they call home. The question is really whether one is part of the changes, part of the agency of change, or a victim of forced change, like when oppressive forces force a people to abandon the place they called home. Home is both physical space and also space of the mind and the soul. My real home, whether in Kenya, or outside Kenya, is the place and space of struggle. I like to believe that I am an integral part of all the struggles in the world, for a people powered world. Imperialism and colonialism, or systems of slavery, were always enemies of the human. I still believe in a world where the condition of my development is the development of all. I am because you are: you are because I am. It is African proverb. It describes my home. But it is a home that has yet to be, for which we must all struggle, within our own countries and in the world.
MG: In your novel, Petals of Blood, meditating on the reasons for why the villages are losing their youth to the cities, Muturi says: “You forgot that in those days the land was not for buying. It was for use. It was also plenty, you need not have beaten one yard over and over again. The land was also covered with forests. The trees called rain. They also cast a shadow on the land. But the forest was eaten by the railway. You remember they used to come for wood as far as here – to feed the iron thing. Aah, they only knew how to eat, how to take away everything. But then, those were Foreigners – white people.” How do you differentiate between criticism of modernism and criticism of capitalist colonialism?
Ngũgĩ: I reject the logic of progress and modernity that decrees that one can only be rich by making another poor; that they can be clean, only by pouring their dirt on another; that they can be healthy only by making another diseased. Look at the world in which we now live, in America, Europe, Africa or Asia, I find it a world in which a handful of nations consume 90 per cent of the resources of all the other nations. The gap of wealth and power between a handful Have-Nations and the majority Have-Not nations is widening and deepening. But within each nation, the gap of wealth and power, between a small group of Haves and the majority of Have-Nots, is widening and deepening. Within nations and between nations splendor is built on squalor. The boundless greed of a few now threatens the environment, the foundation of our lives. A modernity erected on the destruction of the very environment that makes life possible, is barbarism. We poison the air; we poison the earth; we even poison the waters! Then we develop technologies for making the poisoned water drinkable, and sell it in bottles! It’s sheer barbarism when nations pride themselves on the advances in technologies of mass death!
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| Karl Marx |
MG: Your novel, Petals of Blood, is an exemplary narration which gives life to Marx's famous statement, “men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.” Your protagonists join each other to travel from village to city hoping that they would save their village. However, this travel, which is also stressed by the title of the chapters, is not to heaven or redemption. As Muniro says: “We went on a journey to the city to save Ilmorog from the drought. We brought back spiritual drought from the city!” As the novel unfolds the village changes, but not as the protagonists desired.
Once the capitalist relations are developed in the village, your protagonists change too. Every resistance gives rise to a new kind of suppression. Do you think that technologies of governance have become more powerful than the methods of resistance?
Ngũgĩ: In changing the conditions of our being, we also change ourselves, and we own the change. That's why the whole notion that one people can export and force their systems of government to another is inherently alienating. One does not export liberation; people liberate themselves; then they own the outcome. Change comes from struggle. And struggle is inherent in thought and society and nature. Life itself arises out of struggle. The new has always had to struggle with the old, but its newness incorporates progressive elements of the old. Technology, from the natural technology of our hands to the most complex machinery, enhances the human capacity to eke – from nature and the environment – the means of enhancing life.
There is a huge contradiction in the world today. Technology makes it possible to eliminate hunger, homelessness, diseases, and ignorance. And yet thousands still are without access to food, houses, health and knowledge. Technology, able to produce plenty, is used to create scarcity. The rate of profit depends on that scarcity. Technology is good. But technology should be in the service of the human; and not the human in the service technology. Do we really want a paradise of parasites? Paradise for parasites is hell for the host body. Globalization ensures the rule of parasites in paradise. That's why the globalization of the rule of money should be countered by the globalism of working people to free their collective paradise from parasites. This is the theme I try to explore in my novel, Wizard of the Crow.
MG: What Fanon calls “the alienated psyche” is also echoed by Karega. There is a moment in the novel where Karega criticizes those “African brothers and sisters” who change their names to “Western” names. In your own life, you did the opposite; you put aside your Christian name and went back to Ngugi.
According to Fanon one way of enlightenment can be through violence. This is manifested in Abdullah who never forgets the moment when he humiliated the two European oppressors. The novel says: “He had rejected what his father stood for, rejected the promises of wealth and was born again as a fighter in the forest, a Kenyan.” What do you think of “the alienated psyche” and the processes by which an oppressed psyche can reach to enlightenment?
Ngũgĩ: Human liberation should mean the liberation of the wholeness of the environment, economy, power and psyche. These are connected. Colonial conquests of a people and their land are always followed by the imposition of a colonial state and culture. The colonizers arrogated to themselves the right to name the world of the conquered including their bodies. I have talked about the politics of memory in my book, Something Torn and New. Liberation can be summed up as the right to name one’s world. To put it simply, economic, political, social and cultural liberation would be incomplete without the liberation of the mind. Hence the title of my other book: Decolonizing the Mind.
MG: In face of the appeals of the villagers, one of the first thoughts of Nderi wa Riera, the MP, is to use culture as a basis of ethnic unity. This strategy has become more and more common in the contemporary world, especially in countries that have had anti-colonial and anti-imperialist violent resistance.
How can literature assist us in our struggles against forms of oppression that intend to create unity by means of imposing an ahistorical nationalist culture?
Ngũgĩ: Imperialism has always followed the Roman maxim: Divide and conquer. Imperialism and the forces that ally with it, tell the working people that their problems come from the faith or religion or the cultural practices of the other. Does the poor Muslim or Christian or Hindu become less poor because they share the same faith with the wealthy in their community? So while the oppressed fight each other in terms of religion, ethnicity and other marks of cultural difference, the oppressors are very contented. The outlook that says that my God is more of a God than your God, is actually very ungodly. For imperialism, God and Gold are the same thing.
MG: In Petals of Blood, you criticize the idea that there is a neutral body of knowledge. The character lawyer says: “Educators, men of letters, intellectuals: these are only voices – not neutral, disembodied voices – but belonging to bodies of persons, of groups, of interests. You, who will seek the truth about words emitted by a voice, look first for the body behind the voice. The voice merely rationalizes the needs, whims, caprices, of its owner, the master.”
What body creates the voice, the knowledge that you deem beneficial for humanity?
Ngũgĩ: The united body of the working people. Let me try another maxim. Development should be measured not by the condition of those at the mountain top but the condition of those at the bottom of the mountain. Don’t measure progress and development by the number of millionaires in that society but by the conditions of the millions in that society. Education and knowledge can hinder or enlighten, and we want an education and knowledge that enlightens.
MG: You have experienced that anti-colonial projects can go wrong. What is the authentic anti-colonial movement in your view?
Ngũgĩ: That which fights for the liberation of the economy, politics, culture and psyche of a people, that liberates their capacity to make and name their world to empower the least among us.
MG: What do you think African literature can teach Middle Eastern people? There is a critical standpoint in Iran which argues that our literature should open itself to more sounds, not just the Europe and Western literature but should criticize the Eurocentric presumptions behind the so called “canons” of world literature. How do you think the literature of the developing countries can inform each other? Has any Middle Eastern writer had influence on you?
Ngũgĩ: Edward Said, of course, in theory, but also poets like Mahmoud Darwish. All literatures should be in conversation. I come from Kenya, and I know that there have been centuries of cultural contact between the Middle East and the East African coast. There were thousands of Africans relocated to the Middle East as slaves in the past. But there peoples from the Middle East who settled in east Africa. Christianity and Islam – two religions of the Book – are dominant. In my recent book, Globalectics: Theory and Politics of Knowing, I have argued about the centrality of literature from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and that of the marginalized communities in the West, to the conception and practice of world literature.
MG: Do you think that African literature has lost its moment in the world literature in comparison with the seventies? If so, why?
Ngũgĩ: I don't think so. The problem with African literature is that much of it is written in European languages. The new literary movement is toward writing in African languages. I was very happy when my fable, Ituĩka rĩa Mũrũgamo, (The Upright Revolution, or How humans came to walk upright), originally written in Gĩkũyũ, was translated into more than thirty African languages. It has also been translated into Swedish and some languages in India. Check it out on the internet under Jalada Translation issue number 2.
* Mahdi Ganjavi is a Ph.D. student in the department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education, OISE/University of Toronto. A prolific essayist and author, Ganjavi’s criticisms, translations, a book review, and essays have been published in journals/websites such as the International Journal of Lifelong Education, Encyclopedia Irannica, the Global Voices, the Bullet, and Ajam Media Collective. This interview was intended for a Farsi audience as well. The Farsi translation of this interview will be published soon by the quarterly Cinema and Literature in Tehran. This interview first appeared in the Socialist Project.
Cuba:
CUBA CALLS TO ABOLISH MILITARY BASES
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| Raul Castro, President of Cuba |
By Prensa Latina
On April 26, the President of the Cuban Movement for Peace and Sovereignty of the Peoples (MovPaz), Silvio Platero, reiterated in Havana that the U.S. Naval Base in Guantánamo is the only one in the world which exists against the will of the people and government of the land on which it is located.
This is why the island has been chosen to host the International Seminar for Peace and the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases, noted the activist speaking during a press conference regarding the fifth edition of this event, which will take place from May 4-6 in the eastern province of Guantánamo.
So far, over 200 delegates from 25 countries are scheduled to attend the event, which aims to unite forces in the struggle to eliminate military bases worldwide, he noted.
Platero went on to highlight that in addition to foreign military bases and their negative impact, debates will be centered on other issues such as nuclear disarmament and calls to end the interventionist policies of global powers.
The MovPaz President also warned of the danger represented by the increasing number of military bases worldwide, noting that, of the over 1,000 that exist, the United States has 850 located across five continents.
The final declaration of the event will be read out in the town of Caimanera, located only a few meters from the Guantánamo Naval Base maintained by the United States against the will of the Cuban people, stated Platero.
He also highlighted that following the event delegates will pay tribute to the leader of the Cuban Revolution Fidel Castro, at the tomb where his ashes reside in Santiago de Cuba’s Santa Ifigenia Cemetery. (PL)
Cuba and Morocco looking to the future without forgetting the past
By Darcy Borrero Batista
On April 21, at the headquarters of Cuba’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations, the governments of the Republic of Cuba and the Kingdom of Morocco announced and ratified a document reestablishing diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level, while both countries’ have expressed their willingness to develop ties of friendship and cooperation in the political, economic and cultural spheres, among others.
The step taken by Morocco to reestablish diplomatic relations without imposing any conditions was accepted by Cuba, putting an end to 37 years of severed ties announced on April 22, 1980, by the Moroccan government after the Revolutionary Government of Cuba recognized the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) and accredited its first Ambassador in Havana.
That was the second time since diplomatic relations were established between the two countries on December 10,1959, that the Moroccan government had broken ties with Cuba, the first occurring on October 31, 1963, after Cuba showed its support for Algeria during the Sands War. Morocco then restored diplomatic relations with Cuba on January 13, 1964 - marking a stage of fluid relations, with important bilateral commercial exchanges - only to sever them again in 1980.
The recent decision by the Moroccan government, according to Rabat, comes amid efforts to implement Royal guidelines regarding a proactive and open foreign policy.
Cuba values and appreciates Morocco’s support in the United Nations since 2006 voting in favor of the island’s resolution calling for an end to the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States.
Meanwhile, Cuba seeks to establish mutually beneficial ties with the Kingdom of Morocco on the basis of the principles and aims enshrined in the United Nations Charter and international law, and in accordance with the spirit and norms established in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of April 18, 1961.
The reestablishment of diplomatic relations also establishes guidelines to ensure civilized coexistence between the Moroccan and SADR Embassies in Havana, as exists today in the African Union and other countries of the continent and world. The step has also been taken in the spirit of the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace, adopted during the Second CELAC Summit, held in January 2014.
The Cuban government maintains its stanch position in support of the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination and will continue to offer cooperation in the fields of health and education. The island’s authorities have also expressed their gratitude to the Sahrawi people for their unbreakable solidarity toward the Cuban Revolution and its work.
Following the announcement of the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between Cuba and Morocco, SADR Minister for Latin America and the Caribbean, Omar Mansur, speaking on behalf of his people, thanked Cuba, the African Union and other countries “for defending the peoples’ right to self-determination, independence and decolonization, as well as for their loyalty to the guiding principles of international policy.”
The reestablishment of diplomatic relations demonstrates Cuba’s willingness to, without forgetting history, develop bilateral ties on the basis of the unwavering principles of its foreign policy and firm vocation to build bridges between peoples and nations.
Health:
New side effect of antibiotic drugs discovered
The experts experimented with E. coli and doxycycline antibiotic drug from the tetracycline group, which inhibit protein biosynthesis in bacterial cells. E. coli, when exposed to doxycycline, predictably became resistant to the antibiotic. However, the bacteria started growing faster, and their colonies became three times larger than the colonies of the bacteria that were not exposed to doxycycline. The ability to accelerate their growth was preserved even after the antibiotic was removed from the culture medium.
The reason behind the phenomenon is about molecular and genetic tricks. According to Science and Life magazine, the authors of the research managed to find two areas of the genome of doxycycline-resistant E. coli, in which major changes took place. First, the bacteria obtained additional molecular pumps that would suck the antibiotic out of the cell.
Secondly, the pieces corresponding to the "sleeping" virus disappeared from the genome of E. coli. Many viruses can embed themselves into the DNA of the host and stay there, passing from generation to generation, while staying inactive.
Antibiotic drugs can also be powerless. In 2016, there was the first incident recorded when a person died from a microbe that was resistant to the action of almost all antibiotics. A 70-year-old citizen of the United States, returned home in August 2016 from a long trip to India. The woman was soon hospitalized with a "systemic inflammation syndrome," which, apparently, was associated with an infection in the patient's right hip. The woman developed sepsis and died in early September.
The bacteria that was found in the tissue samples of the dead woman is not new to science. However, the bacteria’s new strain that killed the woman, proved to be resistant to all known antimicrobials.
OBAMA GETS RECORD PAY
Obama has thus outstripped former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who in the past was paid the largest-ever fee for a public speech.
Former US President Bill Clinton would be paid up to $200,000 dollars for his public appearances after resignation, whereas George W. Bush - 175,000 dollars.
Forty-fourth US President Barack Obama made his first post-office public appearance on April 24. "I'm always optimistic when things look like they're sometimes not going the way I want," he said.
Pravda.Ru requested an expert opinion on the subject from professor at the Moscow State University named after Lomonosov, Doctor of Political Science at Moscow State University, Andrei Manoylo.
"Obama has broken Clinton's record on the amount of the fee for his speech. Do you think that these enormous amounts for lectures from former leaders could be bribes or a form of money-laundering?"
"I think that this could be a form to cash money. It does not make sense to bribe Obama. He is not going to return to big politics. Asking Obama's opinion on certain issues in the form of lectures does not make any sense either. After all, Obama can hardly teach anyone real politics. Most likely, such a large fee will be awarded to him with a view to cash some money for someone else.
"There is very strict fiscal control in the American financial system, and it is not easy to withdraw money for no particular reason. There are offshore companies that can do this, but this is very risky. Yet, it is possible to pay a fee for a lecture to a former US president, given that he is going to subsequently return 3/4 of the fee that he will need to cash and tax.
"There could be a certain propagandistic effect here too. If Obama starts traveling from one city to another, this could also mean that he was a genius president. The fee worth $400,000 is unprecedented! If you recall the typical size of General Flynn's fee for speaking at very large summits, he would normally receive not more than $30,000-50,000. This is a normal fee for a high-ranking official. Four hundred thousands dollars for Obama is a thing beyond limits."
"Are you sure Obama will never return to big politics? Why?"
"Yes, I am sure. Barack Obama is not an independent figure. He is a protege of the Clintons. He is, in fact, an artificial project, grown in an incubator. They made him president to solve questions in the interests of the Clintons clan, the interests of the Democratic Party were secondary. They needed a switchman, and Barack Obama had become one. Now, when Trump takes office as president, extras are not needed anymore. If there is a new round of political struggle coming, they will hire new people."
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