Cuba’s contribution of hundreds of doctors and nurses to fight Ebola puts the nation at the forefront of the international response and is even thawing relations with sworn enemy the US.
Despite its small population and strapped economy, Cuba has sent 165 medical professionals to Sierra Leone, a larger contingent than most Western countries.
A further 91 Cuban doctors and nurses are to begin work shortly in Liberia and Guinea, and Cuba has pledged to send more than 200 others.
The island’s response to the epidemic has won plaudits from humanitarian workers who say the international community’s reaction has otherwise been lacking.
“The international response has been slow.... The virus is spreading faster than we’re all setting up,” said Sean Casey, director of the International Medical Corps’ emergency response team in Liberia, where Cuban advance teams have been laying the groundwork for the new medical team’s arrival.
“It’s good that the Cubans are coming. We need more countries to step up,” he said.
Cuba’s contribution has also won plaudits on the international stage — even in the US, where Cold War bitterness toward the island still lingers, more than 50 years after the Cuban missile crisis and the severing of diplomatic ties.
US Secretary of State John Kerry paid Cuba a rare compliment last week, singling out the country for its “impressive” response to the Ebola outbreak.
Kerry, whose country has pledged 4,000 troops to combat the disease — by far the largest international contingent — pleaded for greater mobilization against the epidemic.
“Cuba, a country of just 11 million people, has sent 165 health professionals and it plans to send nearly 300 more,” he told foreign diplomats in Washington.
A New York Times editorial on Sunday praised the island’s “impressive role,” calling the Cuban doctors “an urgent reminder... that the benefits of moving swiftly to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba far outweigh the drawbacks.”
And on Tuesday, the US welcomed having the chance to cooperate with its old Cold War rival Cuba in the fight against Ebola, a US Department of State source said in Washington.
“We welcome the opportunity to collaborate with Cuba to confront the Ebola outbreak. Cuba is making significant contributions by sending hundreds of health workers to Africa,” the source said.
These rare displays of warmth have been reciprocated on the Cuban side.
Former Cuban president Fidel Castro, the retired father of the nation’s communist revolution, said Cuba “will gladly cooperate with American personnel” on Ebola, in an article published in state media on Saturday.
His brother, Cuban President Raul Castro, who succeeded him in 2006, echoed the sentiment at a regional Ebola summit on Monday in Havana, the first of its kind in Latin America.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion