Cuba on Monday denounced the targeting of its Paris embassy as a “terrorist attack” encouraged by the US after the building was bombarded with Molotov cocktails.
Firefighters in the French capital said two incendiary devices were thrown at the embassy in the city’s 15th arrondissement, causing minor damage.
“We denounce the Molotov cocktail terrorist attack against our Embassy in Paris @EmbaCubaFrancia,” Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs Bruno Rodriguez wrote on Twitter. “I hold the US government responsible for its continued campaigns against our country that encourage this behavior and for its calls for violence, with impunity, from its territory.”
Photo: AFP
Firefighters said that they were alerted to the attack after midnight and “the devices, which caused minor damage, were extinguished before [firefighters] arrived.”
Police did not immediately provide any more information.
Three Molotov cocktails — two of which reached the embassy’s facade and another that made it into the building — struck the building at 11:45pm and started a fire that was quickly put out by the mission’s employees, the ministry said.
Demonstrators marching in favor of and against the Cuban government took to the streets in cities all over the world this weekend and on Monday, coinciding with Cuba’s July 26 national day commemorations and just two weeks after anti-government protests erupted throughout the nation.
About two dozen nations, including Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador, on Monday joined US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in calling on the Cuban government “to respect the legally guaranteed rights and freedoms of the Cuban people” and to “release those detained for exercising their rights to peaceful protests.”
The “statements of the US secretary of state are based on the support of a handful of countries that have been pressured to accept his decrees,” Rodriguez wrote separately on Twitter.
“#Cuba counts the support of 184 nations that all call to #EndTheEmbargo,” Rodriguez wrote, referring to the US government’s sanctions that have been in place since 1962.
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is constructing a new counter-stealth radar system on a disputed reef in the South China Sea that would significantly expand its surveillance capabilities in the region, satellite imagery suggests. Analysis by London-based think tank Chatham House suggests China is upgrading its outpost on Triton Island (Jhongjian Island, 中建島) on the southwest corner of the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), building what might be a launching point for an anti-ship missile battery and sophisticated radar system. “By constraining the US ability to operate stealth aircraft, and threaten stealth aircraft, these capabilities in the South China Sea send
HAVANA: Repeated blackouts have left residents of the Cuban capital concerned about food, water supply and the nation’s future, but so far, there have been few protests Maria Elena Cardenas, 76, lives in a municipal shelter on Amargura Street in Havana’s colonial old town. The building has an elegant past, but for the last few days Maria has been cooking with sticks she had found on the street. “You know, we Cubans manage the best we can,” she said. She lives in the shelter because her home collapsed, a regular occurrence in the poorest, oldest parts of the beautiful city. Cuba’s government has spent the last days attempting to get the island’s national grid functioning after repeated island-wide blackouts. Without power, sleep becomes difficult in the heat, food
Botswana is this week holding a presidential election energized by a campaign by one previous head-of-state to unseat his handpicked successor whose first term has seen rising discontent amid a downturn in the diamond-dependent economy. The charismatic Ian Khama dramatically returned from self-exile six weeks ago determined to undo what he has called a “mistake” in handing over in 2018 to Botswanan President Mokgweetsi Masisi, who seeks re-election tomorrow. While he cannot run as president again having served two terms, Khama has worked his influence and standing to support the opposition in the southern African country of 2.6 million people. “The return of
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has rejected a plan for the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to visit Kyiv due to Guterres’ attendance at this week’s BRICS summit in Russia, a Ukrainian official said on Friday. Kyiv was enraged by Guterres’ appearance at the event in the city of Kazan on Thursday and his handshake with its host, Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose forces invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Guterres, who called for a “just peace” in Ukraine at the BRICS event and has repeatedly condemned the invasion, discussed a visit to Ukraine with Zelenskiy when they met in New York