ISSUE 3 - OCTOBER 2019 - 250 COPIES
Cuban hitchhiking scheme is worth picking up
Mary Brown recalls an old Cuban practice, which she hopes could catch on elsewhere
Mon 30 Sep
2019 12.51 EDT Last
modified on Mon 30 Sep 2019
13.40 EDT
‘We could carry a sign with our desired
destination and “cuttin
We could carry a sign with
our desired destination and “cutting emissions” clearly on it,’ says Mary
Brown. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian
I was delighted to read Daniel Boffey’s article on hitchhiking (Hitchhiking revival given the thumbs up to cut emissions, 28
September). I do hope this may catch on in the UK.
I have been thinking for some time that we need a campaign to bring back
hitchhiking. Many years ago (before the death of Castro) I had a holiday in Cuba.
There was a severe fuel shortage, due to the US
blockade. There, we were told, it was an offence not to pick up hitchhikers.
Travellers could buy a token which they gave to the driver who redeemed it to
help to pay for the petrol. Could such a system, or the Brussels
one, catch on here? We could make a start if we all began hitchhiking, and
revealed why. Perhaps we could carry a sign with our desired destination and
“cutting emissions” clearly on it?Mary Brown
Stroud, Gloucestershire
GE pays $2.7 million fine for Cuban sanctions violations
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said three GE subsidiaries failed to use “reasonable care” by accepting payments from a Cuban entity associated with a Canadian customer.
GE
settles on $2.7 million civil penalty from OFAC for alleged violations of the Cuban
Assets Control Regulations. Photo credit: Flickr/Chuck Miller
Between December 2010 and February 2014, three GE subsidiaries—Getso Technical Services, Bentley Nevada and GE Betz—violated the Cuban sanctions regulations on 289 occasions by accepting payments from The Cobalt Refinery Co. for goods and services provided to a Canadian customer of GE.
Cobalt, which has connections to the mining industry, was placed on OFAC’s Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) List in June 1995 for its ties to the Cuban government.
In February 2014, GE Working Capital Solutions discovered that its three subsidiaries received “numerous payments” from Cobalt for invoices issued to GE’s Canadian customer and self-disclosed the violations to OFAC. The invoices totaled more than $8 million over the four-year period.
“The GE Companies failed to take proper and reasonable care with respect to their U.S. economic sanctions obligations—particularly given GE’s commercial sophistication,” OFAC said.
The company was also negligent in its “restricted party” screening. The checks should have contained Cobalt’s full legal entity name and the acronym for the company, Corefco, as it appears on the SDN List. However, the sanctions screening software used by the GE companies to screen names against the SDN List only picked up Corefco and not Cobalt, according to OFAC.
“The GE Companies approved Cobalt as a third-party payer and, over a four-year period, failed to appropriately recognize the significant and widely published relationship between Cobalt and their Canadian customer and did not undertake sufficient diligence into their customer’s activities,” the agency added.
The maximum civil penalty for the violations was $18,785,000, but OFAC considered mitigating factors, including GE’s self-disclosure and cooperation with the investigation, and the conclusion that alleged violations constituted a “non-egregious” case, in reducing the fine to $2.7 million.
However, the agency chastised GE for failing to provide “clear and organized” information related to the alleged wrongdoing, adding “the submissions contained numerous inaccuracies, placing a substantial resource burden on OFAC during the course of its investigation.”
On Feb. 26, 2019, OFAC’s Office of Compliance and Enforcement published its Data Delivery Standards Guidance: Preferred Practices for Productions to OFAC. “Every party that conducts international business needs to review this document to ensure compliance with these standards,” Paul DiVecchio, a 40-year export compliance consultant based in Boston, told American Shipper.
OFAC said this enforcement action demonstrates the sanctions risks associated with U.S. companies and their foreign subsidiaries accepting payments from third parties, as well as the need to conduct “appropriate due diligence on customers and other counterparties when initiating and renewing customer relationships.”
The Havana Syndrome: Why Canadian diplomats have accused their government of abandoning them
Updated: February 28, 2019
This is Part 1 of a special series
For many Canadian diplomats with young families, it was a dream posting. Life in Havana was busy, pleasant and generally sunny.
Diplomats and their families enjoyed year-round sports — tennis, golf, swimming, snorkelling, sailing and horseback riding. Diplomatic staff played ultimate frisbee in neighbourhood parks.
There were minor complications. They had to spend part of their annual leave back home doing rounds of medical appointments and stocking up on supplies, for example. But life in the upscale Havana neighbourhood of Miramar, where many international diplomats lived — a community dotted with colonial homes, embassies and palm trees — was family friendly.
Their children attended the International School of Havana, founded by a British ex-pat in 1965. It was a progressive school that emphasized academics and sports and catered to children of the diplomatic community.
Such was the life Diplomat Allen, his wife and their two teenage sons were living in 2017, on their second posting to Cuba. They frequently socialized. Their boys went to a good school, they were involved in sports and their buddies were in and out of the house. “We had a nice house, we had a good life down there,” Allen said.
Then everything changed, in ways that, at first, the family didn’t understand.
Allen, as he is identified in legal documents, is one of 15 people, including five diplomats and their families from the Ottawa area, who are suing the federal government for $28 million in connection with mysterious health issues they suffered when they were posted to Cuba.
The suit alleges the Canadian government failed to properly inform, protect, treat and support the Canadians.
“Throughout the crisis, Canada downplayed the seriousness of the situation, hoarded and concealed critical health and safety information, and gave false, misleading and incomplete information to diplomatic staff,” the suit alleges.
During the past few years, the lawsuit contends, Canadian diplomatic families in Havana “have been targeted and injured, suffering severe and traumatic harm by means that are not clear but may be some type of sonic or microwave weapon.”
The brain injuries they’ve experienced, similar to injuries suffered by American diplomats posted to Cuba, are now known as Havana Syndrome.
The complainants’ allegations have not been tested in court.
In the wake of the lawsuit, this newspaper spoke to a number of the diplomats now home in the Ottawa area.
The spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying they still fear for their security and that of their families. Many of the Canadian diplomats are struggling not only with health issues, but with anxiety and fear.
Diplomat Allen, which is the pseudonym he uses in the lawsuit, admits he is shaken by some of the negative comments people have posted on the bottom of stories about the case suggesting the symptoms are invented.
At the start of a lengthy interview, he asked this newspaper: “What did you think the first time you heard about this. Did you believe it?”
Go to Pay # 6
Russia vows
to develop Cuban energy sector strangled by US
blockade
4 Oct, 2019 14:53 /
Moscow is planning to cooperate on nuclear energy
with Havana, and wants to help develop Cuba’s oil and gas resources, a government official
said as PM Dmitry Medvedev visited the country for the first time in 11 years.
The head of the Russian government began his two-day trip to Cuba
on Thursday amid escalating tensions between Washington
and Havana. Both Russia
and Cuba are
under Western pressure, Medvedev said, slamming the US
for trying to create a “toxic atmosphere” and an “energy blockade”
of the island.Russia closely cooperates with Cuba in the energy sector, and year-on-year oil exports to the country increased nearly four-fold in the first half of 2019, according to Russia’s First Deputy Chief of Staff Sergey Prikhodko.
Moscow is also ready to boost efforts to reduce Havana’s import dependence and raise energy security as the two states’ energy ministries signed a roadmap for the participation of Russian companies in the program to develop Cuba’s energy sector.
Moscow is also ready to help with the development of nuclear energy on the island if the Cuban government decides to build nuclear power plants. Meanwhile, the two sides are also working on other possible ways to use nuclear-powered technology.
“At present, we are discussing a wide range of so-called non-energy use of peaceful atoms. More specifically, we are discussing the use of nuclear technologies in medicine and agriculture,” Prikhodko said.
In attempt to revive the Cuban energy sector, Russia plans to invest up to €700 million ($769 million) to overhaul 10 power generation units at three thermal power plants in Cuba. The official said that borrowed capital will be attracted to implement the project. Russia’s Inter RAO – Export and Cuba’s state electricity company Energoimport have already agreed on the project’s roadmap and are expected to sign the contract next year.
Medvedev became the highest-profile Russian official to visit Cuba since 2014, when President Vladimir Putin visited the country. Last time Medvedev himself visited Cuba was back in 2008, when he was the Russian president.
“We knew there was something, but we just couldn’t figure out what was going on.”
And then, one evening in early April, there was a knock on their door. An American diplomat who lived across the street asked if Allen would go for a walk. “Living in Cuba, we understood that our houses were bugged.”
What Allen learned shook him.
His neighbour told him a dozen Americans had already been evacuated from Havana after suffering from symptoms including nausea, headaches, nosebleeds, hearing and eye problems.
He told Allen the symptoms were believed to be the result of attacks with some kind of a weapon, maybe sonic.
“It just hit me, ‘Holy crap, this is going on in my house.’”
The American diplomat was upset that the U.S. government had not told the Canadians about the situation. His colleagues had been sworn to secrecy, but he hadn’t yet been “gagged,” so he took the opportunity to warn Allen, “because we lived so close and he thought we were in danger.”
The next day, Allen went to the ambassador who began high-level talks but warned Allen not to tell his Canadian colleagues, allegedly saying: “We don’t want to start mass hysteria.”
On June 1, 2017, Allen woke up around 3 a.m. to a “grinding, screeching metallic noise” that filled the bedroom of their home and lasted about 30 seconds. As it faded, the sound slowed down and became lower. He was paralyzed with nausea.
“At the low point, I thought I was going to throw up. I was nauseous like you wouldn’t believe. I don’t know whether I went back to sleep or passed out.”
His son came into the bedroom upset and covered in blood from a severe nosebleed. His wife took him back to his room where she changed his bloody sheets and clothes.
Allen woke up in the morning feeling awful.
The next day, Allen went to tell the ambassador what had happened. On the way up the stairs at the embassy, a colleague jokingly asked if he was drunk because he was stumbling.
When he got to a high-security zone inside the embassy, Allen swiped his card and looked at the keypad but couldn’t remember his code. He began randomly punching numbers. “It wasn’t like me. I had never done that.” He told officials he could no longer wait for the Canadian embassy to take action.
Two days later, the family was sent to the University of Miami to undergo testing with a doctor who had examined at least 20 Americans who had been based in Havana. All four members of the Allen family were diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries akin to concussions.
The physician recommended the children not return to Cuba, saying: “They need to be away from Cuba for awhile.” Allen asked the Canadian embassy if he could send his sons directly to Ottawa from Miami, but that request was denied, according to the statement of claim.
•
The family returned to Cuba
but quickly sent the boys ahead to Ottawa
to stay with relatives. Allen and his wife followed soon after for a three-week
holiday.That break left them feeling refreshed and optimistic. Their health, which had been a worry for months, seemed better after the break in Canada. Since the Canadian diplomatic staff had not been allowed to talk to each other about their experiences and they weren’t aware of any other affected Canadians, the Allens hoped maybe it was a “one-off thing” and agreed to return to Cuba. They were hopeful their lives could return to normal, but cautious. “If we heard another family was pulling out, we were gone.”
They did not return to Havana for long. By October they were back in Ottawa for good, coping with worrisome symptoms and waiting for medical assistance and information.
Meanwhile, other Canadians in Havana were suffering mysterious and debilitating symptoms
“I no longer knew where was up and where was down,” she told her concerned husband of the fall.
The Davies family was sent back to the Ottawa area in August 2017.
Mrs. Davies was diagnosed as having damage to her vestibular system — which includes parts of the inner ear and brain that processes sensory information.
She was hypersensitive to light and noise, suffered from headaches, dizziness and muscle twitching that would last for days. She often spent long parts of the day sleeping.
She now works part time, has to wear special glasses because of sensitivity to light and vestibular damage and continues to suffer from headaches and to be easily overwhelmed by light and sounds.
Their daughter had difficulty concentrating at school and had sudden nosebleeds, nausea and light sensitivity, among other symptoms. She had tinnitus and heard three distinct sounds. Those sounds were so persistent that the little girl gave each one a name.
Davies has since had testing that has shown he has visual impairments and “fusional facility problems,” which are associated with brain injuries and can result in blurred vision, headaches, eye fatigue, motion sickness and loss of concentration. He has had several strange episodes involving visual impairment and confusion, including one in which he could no longer see what he was writing in a notebook and another in which he experienced confusion, flashbacks and a sense of deja vu.
The Davies are among diplomats undergoing testing at Dalhousie University’s Brain Repair Centre. Some of that research, he said, has identified leakages in the groups’ blood brain barriers consistent with concussions.
The statement of claim contends that Global Affairs “actively interfered with the plaintiffs’ attempts to receive proper health care, including going so far as instructing hospitals to stop testing and treating them.”
That happened, according to the suit filed by the former diplomats, when two members of the group, frustrated with lack of information and delays, travelled on their own to the University of Pennsylvania, which had been treating affected U.S. diplomats and had developed an expertise on Havana Syndrome.
•
Diplomat Baker, who was posted to Havana
with her two young children, began experiencing symptoms of Havana
syndrome in early 2017, including tinnitus, headaches and vertigo. Her
elementary school aged daughter was nauseous, had headaches and heavy
nosebleeds.Baker underwent medical testing that confirmed balance and vestibular issues and suggested the need for further investigation early in 2017, but was told follow up testing would not take place for months.
Distressed about the symptoms and lack of medical attention, Baker and Mrs. Davies went to the University of Pennsylvania at their own expense after officials there offered to assess and treat Canadians but were turned down by the federal government.
While there, the medical team confirmed Baker had a brain injury that was visible on MRI and similar to those suffered by affected American diplomats. Testing on her daughter disclosed post-concussion symptoms. Her son was cleared.
And then testing was interrupted according to the statement of claim, when Canada used diplomatic channels in the United States to instruct the University of Pennsylvania Centre for Brain Injury and Repair to “stop testing Canadians.”
But the assessments on the Canadians sparked action from the federal government, says Baker, who pushed for all the Canadian cohort of diplomats to get tested.
Shortly after the women and children returned from Pennsylvania, the Canadian government pulled diplomatic families out of Cuba and told those back in Canada suffering symptoms that they would all get assessed and treated.
Today, Baker does not work, undergoes cognitive therapy and still must live “a very cocooned life” because of ongoing symptoms and sensitivities. Her daughter, who was the first child tested at the University of Pennsylvania to show clear evidence of concussion, according to her mother, has visual impairment and other ongoing symptoms.
While the Ottawa five wait for some resolution, many of them remain anxious, even angry. Before taking legal action, they wrote to the prime minister, among others, looking for better care and support. Some have speculated that the federal government didn’t want to jeopardize its long-standing diplomatic relationship with Cuba.
“My belief, 21 months later, is that decisions were made that simply did not prioritize us, not our health, not our safety and not that of our families.
“I am angry, yes,” she says. “I am disappointed and I am sad. I am sad because there is no justification for not having considered the personal and lifelong impact this was going to have on us.”
•
Members of all five families, including young children, suffer from
neurological symptoms. Some are still unable to work full time, many have
long-term effects including cognitive vestibular and ocular motor dysfunction
requiring therapy, special glasses and special accommodation. One young child
had such severe tinnitus that she was hearing three distinct sounds. She gave
each of them a name. One was Emile.Allen recounts receiving a tearful phone call from his wife who had gone to the grocery store and couldn’t find her way home.
The lawsuit claims that Canada “badly mishandled” the crisis as it grew and failed to ensure the safety of the diplomats and their families.
“Despite knowing of the risks of Havana Syndrome early on, Canada continued to put its diplomats and their families in harm’s way by sending them to Havana and requiring them to stay there despite becoming aware of the high and growing risk that they would sustain the brain injuries associated with Havana Syndrome.”
The government has confirmed 14 cases of diplomats and their families who have been affected while in Havana. With the latest confirmed case in January of this year, staff at the Canadian mission in Havana has been reduce from 16 to eight, and families are no longer permitted as part of the posting.
Allen, meanwhile, is back to work for Global Affairs Canada, but his wife is unable to return to the kind of life she led before the mysterious attacks.
“She is not the same person who went to Cuba,” says Allen. “She used to love to read. She can’t stand reading now. She used to be a whiz with numbers, not anymore. She can’t work. She is suffering from PTSD.”
The government has confirmed 14 affected Canadian employees and relatives.
Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland has said the affected diplomats have Canada’s “utmost sympathy and support.”
Last month, the government said in a statement: “The health, safety and security of our diplomatic staff and their families remain our priority. The Canadian government continues to investigate the potential causes of the unusual health symptoms experienced by some Canadian diplomatic staff and their family members posted in Havana, Cuba. To date, no cause has been identified. … There is no evidence that Canadian travellers to Cuba are at risk.
“Canada has a positive and constructive relationship with Cuba. We have had close co-operation with the Cuban authorities since the health concerns of our employees posted in Havana first surfaced in the spring of 2017.”
Havana Syndrome, Part 2: How a dog’s brain may help solve the mystery of Canadian diplomats’ Cuban nightmare
Havana Syndrome, Part 3: Insiders say ordeal has ‘struck a nerve’ in Canada’s diplomatic community
Havana Syndrome, Part 4: What it could be and how experts will try to crack the case
epayne@postmedia.com
U.S. Restricts Leasing of Commercial Aircraft to Cuban State-Owned Airlines
The U.S. has ramped up pressure on Cuba, saying the country is supporting Nicolás Maduro’s government in Venezuela
By
Mengqi Sun
6:49 pm ET
The Trump administration has restricted the leasing of commercial aircraft
to Cuban state-owned airlines, a move intended to further pinch revenue to the
Cuban government.The move, announced last week by the U.S. Commerce Department, follows U.S.-imposed travel curbs on Cuba in June, barring American cruise lines, yachts, sailboats and private flights from going to the island in an attempt to dry up income derived from visitors.
The U.S. in recent months has ramped up pressure on Cuba, which it says is supporting Nicolás Maduro’s government in Venezuela. The Trump administration has said Maduro’s government is illegitimate and corrupt, and that Cuba has been providing support to the Maduro regime in exchange for oil.
The U.S. has placed substantial trade restrictions on Cuba since the early 1960s. The export or re-export of goods and services to Cuba, except for food and medicine, is generally prohibited or requires a license from the U.S. government.
The U.S. said it would revoke existing licenses for aircraft leases to Cuban state-owned airlines and will deny future applications for aircraft leases, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security said Friday.
The Commerce Department said it is making the changes because the Cuban government allegedly has been transporting tourists on leased aircraft to generate revenue.
“This action by the Commerce Department sends another clear message to the Cuban regime—that they must immediately cease their destructive behavior at home and abroad,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement. “The Trump administration will continue to act against the Cuban regime for its misdeeds, while continuing to support the Cuban people and their aspirations for freedom and prosperity.”
John Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, said the action is another way for the Trump administration to discourage commercial transactions with Cuba and Venezuela.
Cuban airlines have had trouble getting newer aircraft because of the trade restrictions, and Cuban tourism industry could take another hit from this change in regulations, said Jose Fernandez, a partner at law firm Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP who previously served as an assistant secretary of state under the Obama administration.
“Anything that targets tourism is a major concern for Cubans,” Mr. Fernandez said.
Write to Mengqi Sun at mengqi.sun@wsj.com
Cuba deepens oil austerity to counter US sanctions
Cuba will adopt further belt-tightening
measures to cope with a fuel shortage exacerbated by a widening of US
sanctions on the island and its oil supplier Venezuela, Cuban president
Miguel Diaz-Canel said yesterday.
The US is blaming Cuba for its
failure to overthrow the Venezuelan government, Diaz-Canel said. "The
fuel problem is not of Cuba's making, but has to do with the arbitrary
US measures."Domestic production meets 48pc of Cuba's oil demand, and the island has been unable to import adequate supply to meet the balance, Diaz-Canel said. Cuba's demand is 160,000 b/d, according to state-owned oil company Cupet.
Cuba's close political ally Venezuela remains the island's main source of crude and refined products, although volumes have plummeted off of around 100,000 b/d in 2015 in response to a sharp decline in Venezuelan state-owned PdV's domestic production and refining. The latest estimates of Venezuelan oil supply to Cuba are around 40,000 b/d.
Washington imposed an economic embargo on Havana in the 1960s, and more recently expanded sanctions as an offshoot of its campaign to oust Venezuela's president Nicolas Maduro.
Washington levied oil sanctions on Caracas in late January. The sanctions were later tightened to encompass shipping companies and tankers that transport Venezuelan oil to Cuba, but some supply is still getting through.
The new sanctions expanded Cuba's oil deficit to about 30,000 b/d compared with 25,000 b/d in January, Cupet says.
Throughput at the 65,000 b/d Cienfuegos refinery fell "slightly" in January-April compared with 2018, according to government officials.
The impact of the US sanctions is reflected in more frequent and longer power blackouts, and an expanded black market for oil and theft of scarce gasoline and diesel.
"Cuba has been constantly negotiating to guarantee fuel supply, but despite its efforts, it was not possible to secure the timely arrival of oil tankers," Diaz-Canel said.
No fuel has arrived in Cuba since 10 September and none will arrive before 14 September, the president said, without indicating the origin of the incoming shipment. "All fuel shipments during the month of October are guaranteed," he said in a nationally televised broadcast.
The shortage is evident in Cuba's public transportation and power generation. "We must maintain measures of savings and efficiency so that this fuel lasts us until the end of the month when the other ships enter and we can stabilize the situation," the president said. "The challenge is to guarantee fuel for our power plants."
He predicted that Cuba would experience no blackouts before 15 September, but promised that planned outages would be announced in advance.
Cuban utility UNE has been unable to meet demand over the past six weeks, with many parts of the island blacking out for extensive periods. The island has operational oil-based generating capacity of around 3,200MW, according to UNE.
Washington's latest round of Cuba sanctions, due to take effect on 9 October, limit private remittances and financial transactions by the Cuban government through banks in third countries.
The White House is seeking to financially isolate Havana by blocking access to hard currency, with the aim of pressuring the island to distance itself from the Maduro government. Cuba has a longstanding agreement with Venezuela to exchange oil supply for advisers in a range of areas, including security, health care and sports. Washington says Havana is propping up Maduro, whom most Western countries no longer recognize as president.
The latest sanctions will make it harder for the island to import oil from alternative sources such as Algeria, Russia, Iran and Angola because the supplies must be paid in cash at a time of reduced foreign earnings from tourism, nickel and sugar.
Diaz-Canel vowed that the unspecified austerity measures will not put Cuba through another "special period" of economic dislocation reminiscent of the 1990s collapse of the Soviet Union, which was Cuba's previous international patron.
Dragged Down By The Venezuela Crisis, Cuba Seeks Dollars To Stay Afloat
By NORA GÁMEZ TORRES
•
Oct 17, 2019
On Tuesday, Cuban Vice President Salvador Mesa and several ministers announced on television that the government was going to lower the prices of household appliances and other items on the condition that Cubans pay in dollars.
The move is an attempt to obtain a larger percentage of remittances sent from abroad.
From The Miami Herald
