Difficult times bring Russia and Cuba closer together

HAVANA, Cuba—For the first time since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia is taking an intense interest in Cuba as Moscow has become increasingly isolated over its invasion of Ukraine.

Top Russian officials have flocked to the island nation this year, starting in March with Nikolai Patrushev, Moscow’s secretary of the Security Council, alongside the executive director of state oil company Rosneft, Igor Sechin.

A representative of Russian business owners, Boris Titov, also visited.

The most high-profile visit was from Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in April on a week-long trip to Latin American allies, including Venezuela and Nicaragua, which like Cuba and Russia are the subject of Western sanctions.

“Russia needs trading partners and political allies, with Latin America offering the possibility of both,” Mervyn Bain, from Aberdeen University in Scotland, told AFP.

Last week, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko drew up a road map to accelerate cooperation with

Cuba, which is mired in its worst economic crisis in three decades, with chronic shortages of food, fuel and medicines. The two countries have signed around a dozen agreements to relaunch trade relations in construction, information technology, banking, sugar, transport and tourism.

“But to what level” this cooperation can go “is unclear,” said Bain, an expert in Russia’s relationships with Latin America.

Chernyshenko’s plan also referenced Cuba’s need to change certain laws to loosen restrictions on private enterprise.

Communist Cuba had already been forced to open up its centralized economy to small and medium-sized private businesses due to its increasing economic woes.

Cuba has announced the reopening of direct flights between Moscow and the seaside resort of Varadero, and Russian tourists have been able to use the Russian Mir payment system in the country since March.

‘Unconditional support’

The Russian visits to the Caribbean island nation have come only months after Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel

Havana visited his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow. The two communist entities were close allies during the Cold War, but that cooperation was abruptly halted in 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet bloc.

Until then, 75 percent of Cuba’s commercial exchanges were with its communist ally. Having almost ended completely, relations started picking up again from

2005, with the current levels of exchange the highest since then. According to Russian figures, commercial exchanges between the two countries reached $450 million in 2022, with 90 percent of that in sales of oil and soybean oil to the island nation.

The strengthening of ties is paying off for Russia in geopolitical ways.

Havana had maintained a position of neutrality over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, abstaining from United Nations votes on the issue.

But this week, Diaz-Canel assured Chernyshenko of “Cuba’s unconditional support” in its “clash with the West” and on Wednesday, Havana voted against a World Health Organization resolution condemning Russian attacks on Ukrainian health systems.

The West has been taking note.

The EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Thursday urged cash-strapped Cuba to “reinforce the economic ties with the European Union,” which is its main trade partner.

During a visit to meet private business part is the reward, monetary as well as ‘saving’ a huge chunk of the drug haul, as another form of rewarding themselves. This drug haul is called savings and end up being recycled back in the streets.” tity of the indigenous population.

The Senate committee on public order has a continuing probe of the 990 kilos of shabu seized in a lending office owned by a former police officer.

The P6.7-billion drug haul’s origin remains unknown because PNP officers supposedly involved in the confiscation could not provide any information.

With the apparent refusal to provide appropriate information, the Senate committee on public order, chaired by Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, cited dismissed M/Sgt. Rodolfo Mayo and his boss, PNP Drug Enforcement Group National Capital Region officer-in-charge Lt. Col. Arnulfo Ibañez, in contempt for not telling the truth.

“We’ve been holding several hearings and Mayo has been very uncooperative – he refused to cooperate with this committee and did not want to say anything. I think it is better if somebody will move to cite him in contempt,” Dela Rosa said in English and Filipino. Something wrong really. We must support authorities on the right track.

Given the crimes against indigenous peoples around the world, from the Tulsa Massacre to the Holocaust of the Jews in the hands of the Nazis, the author is convinced of the need to decolonize our spirituality and recover our indigenous roots in order to attain emancipation and achieve liberalization.

This approach has also the effect of remembering the wisdom of our ancestors but likewise heeding the call by the philosophers for respecting historicity.

In the chapter on the quest for Mindanawon indigenous philosophy, the author gives us an overview of indigenous philosophies and their importance and the need to fully understand the full dynamics of this residue and how Christianity in fact became a tool for advancing the colonial agenda.

The book subscribes to the need to bridge decolonize theology with the spirituality discourse relevant to us Filipinos.

The author expresses the hope that this challenge will give birth to a new way of understanding our faith.

Verily, Roman Catholic Church’s promotion of spiritual growth norms in the Philippines is heavily influenced by the country’s colonial past and the introduction of Hispanic Catholicism during the Spanish occupation.

While the Church has contributed positively to Filipino society by shaping its religious and cultural identity and providing social and political support, criticisms have been raised about the relevance of some religious practices and beliefs in the modern era.

The Church’s association with colonialism has also sparked tensions and conflicts, with some accusing it of perpetuating inequalities and promoting a colonial mentality.

Therefore, it is important for the Church to evolve its teachings and norms to meet the changing needs of contemporary society and promote inclusivity and cultural relevance.

Part 2 of this review continues on Saturday.

Website: tonylavina.com. Facebook: tonylavs Twitter: tonylavs leaders, Borrell reminded Cuba that it does twice as much business with the EU as it does with Russia and China combined.

Indeed, the aid that Russia can supply Cuba is limited and “nothing like” that which the Soviet Union furnished during the Cold War, according to Vladimir Rouvinski, an academic at the ICESI university in Cali, Colombia.

“Putin’s Russia is not the USSR ... nor is Putin interested in spending millions of dollars keeping Cuba within the Russian orbit, and Russia doesn’t have the money to do so anyway,” said Rouvinski, another expert on Russia’s relations with Latin America.

While Moscow may not be spending the big bucks any time soon, Rouvinski said that the West’s unconditional support for Ukraine means “the attraction of Cuba for Putin’s Russia is its geographic proximity to the United States.”

“It’s the logic of symbolic reciprocity,” because “any mention of the possibility of having a Russian military presence on the island provokes great nervousness on the other side of the Florida Strait.” AFP

Hong Kong treads line to regulating retail crypto trade

HONG KONG, China—Retail investors in Hong Kong may soon be able to buy popular cryptocurrencies like bitcoin at government-licensed exchanges, thanks to new rules meant to bolster the city’s standing as a digital asset hub.

Global crypto markets have yet to recover from a string of high-profile failures in recent months, including the spectacular downfall of trading platform FTX and crypto-friendly US banks Signature and Silvergate.

But the so-called “crypto winter” has not deterred Hong Kong authorities from embracing the sector, a pivot that began last October and culminated with new laws for crypto exchanges starting June 1.

Officials are also hoping the shift will be a boon for the city’s economy, which continues to struggle in the wake of the pandemic, social unrest, and the impact on business confidence from a Beijing-imposed national security law.

Crucially, observers say it will cement Hong Kong as a key route for mainland Chinese investors looking to trade crypto, which is outlawed in the country.

Regulators are hoping to woo firms with favorable business conditions but must balance that against the need for investor protections -- a well-developed area in traditional finance but less so in the virtual-asset space. “There is an explicit acknowledgment that these products are becoming more and more part of our economy,” Giuliano Castellano, a law professor at the University of Hong Kong, told AFP.

The city has had a voluntary licensing system for crypto trading platforms since 2019, but licensees could only service professional clients with portfolios of at least HK$8 million ($1 million).

Without licensed local options, Hong Kong’s retail crypto traders are relegated to offshore websites such as Binance and Coinbase, or a raft of brick-and-mortar shops that buy and sell tokens for cash. AFP