Popular Resistance (John Perry, Roger Harris): Washington Targets Achievements Of Cuba, Nicaragua, And Venezuela Health missions, like Mision Milago, has treated over seven million patients in 33 countries since 2004. Misión Milagro is despised by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Washington has imposed sanctions on officials in countries using this and other Cuban medical missions. Supposedly aimed at stopping the “trafficking” of medical staff, the real intent is to destroy services that have proved immensely popular for their free, high-quality treatment, often in remote areas with few health facilities.
Rubio labels the three countries as “enemies of humanity.” In reality, all three have made major advances in human development, albeit constrained (most heavily in Cuba’s case) by Washington’s attacks. And all guarantee free education at all levels, including university. The three have also been international leaders in support of Palestine. Cuba was the first country in Latin America to sever diplomatic relations with Israel in 1973. Nicaragua severed relations in 1982. These were temporarily reinstated by the neoliberal government in 1993, only to be again severed in 2010 after the Sandinistas returned to power. Venezuela severed relations with the Zionist state in 2009.
Sanctions on Venezuela have led to the deaths of over 100,000 Venezuelans by 2020. The blockade of Cuba, costing the country $13.8 million daily, is so destructive that nearly one in ten Cubans has left the country in the last three years. Nicaragua is losing $500 million in development funding annually because the US is blocking loans from the World Bank and other institutions.
FAIR (John Perry): When Media Tell Us Who ‘Won’ a Latin American Election, Start to Ask Questions How the corporate media reports the recent election of Noboa in Ecuador to the 2019 re-election of Evo Morales in Bolivia. “Voting in Central and South America often offers starker contrasts: An anti-imperialist candidate in the mold of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez might be up against a neoliberal such as Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro. It could hardly be otherwise, in a region with the world’s biggest gap between the richest and poorest. North American and European corporate media are conscious of this complexity, but rarely convey it to their readers.”
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Venezuela
TeleSur: Venezuela Condemns Israeli Military Aggression Against Iran Venezuela has strongly condemned Israel’s military assault on the Islamic Republic of Iran, as “a criminal, illegitimate, and unjustified aggression” and a serious violation of international law. “This is an act of war,” Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry declared, citing Israel’s continued record of impunity under Prime Minister Netanyahu. “The Israeli war machine operates outside the bounds of all legality…Israel has turned its foreign policy into a permanent threat to peace in West Asia.”
Orinoco Tribune: Venezuela Condemns Hijacking of Freedom Flotilla and the Genocide Against Palestinians Venezuela “strongly condemns the hijacking of the Madleen, intercepted in international waters by the Israeli occupation forces while transporting humanitarian aid to Gaza. This is an act of piracy and aggression against international solidarity, which sought to deliver food, medicine, and hope to the Palestinian people. This latest outrage occurs within the framework of the ongoing genocide that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is carrying out with total impunity against the Palestinian civilian population. Israel is carrying out a planned and sustained massacre, protected by the complicit silence of the Western powers. Preventing the entry of humanitarian aid is not only a violation of international law: it is part of the framework of systematic extermination that Israel imposes on a people who resist. Venezuela demands the immediate release of the kidnapped activists, an end to the blockade of Gaza, and an end to the criminal Israeli aggression against Palestine.”
TeleSur: President Maduro Denounces U.S. Plan to Overthrow Gustavo Petro’s Government and Strengthens Defense of Zulia President Maduro denounced the destabilization plan targeting Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro. Maduro identified US Senator Marco Rubio as a key figure behind efforts to undermine Petro’s administration and reinstate far-right policies in the region. “This is a clear attack on the sovereignty and democratic will of the Colombian people.” He warned that these external interventions threaten the entire region’s stability and called for vigilance and unity to resist imperialist aggression.
TeleSur: Venezuela Condemns Political and Judicial Coup Against Cristina Fernández de Kirchner Venezuela “firmly denounces the political and judicial coup against former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, historic leader of Peronism, the opposition, and the Argentine people, who today is the victim of a brutal persecution driven by a judiciary subordinated to the authoritarian project of Javier Milei. This illegitimate and illegal ruling seeks to forcibly disqualify the person who represents the political and emotional heart of millions of Argentine women and men. This is not about justice; it is about erasing the adversary through colonial methods, imposing by blood and fire an economic and social model designed to subject Argentina to international financial capital. But this is not an isolated event. It is part of a single geopolitical coup against Latin America. We have seen it in the blatant electoral fraud in Ecuador and the seizure of power by criminal gangs; in the unleashed violence against President Gustavo Petro in Colombia; and now in the judicial assault against the Argentine people. The same script, the same strategy: reconquer and recolonize the continent, annihilating every popular and sovereign project. From Venezuela, we call on the peoples, governments, and movements of our America to understand and confront this offensive for what it is: a comprehensive war against the dignity and self-determination of the region.”
TeleSur: Venezuelan Non-Oil Exports Grow for 16th Consecutive Quarter Over the past 16 quarters, Venezuela’s non-oil exports have continued to grow. In the first four months of 2025, they rose by 87.7% compared to the same period in 2024.
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Cuba
PeoplesDispatch (Manolo De Los Santos): Trump & Rubio tighten the noose on Cuba Cuba is again facing a severe crisis from the relentless and suffocating pressure exerted by the US blockade. The US has been meticulously constructing and enforcing even greater barriers that threaten the very survival of the Cuban people. The economic devastation since the mid-2010s has been profound. Cuba’s GDP shrank by 15% in 2019 and an additional 11% in 2020. Imagine a country unable to purchase basic necessities due to banking restrictions, its public services and industries crippled. Today, State-owned enterprises, the bedrock of Cuba’s socialist economy, are crumbling under the inability to fund much-needed maintenance or generate enough foreign currency reserves, due to the blockade.
It is in this context that the solidarity of people in the world and in the US must be forged anew. We must go beyond raising awareness and take actionable steps to support the Cuban people.
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Nicaragua
Black Agenda Report (Jill Clark-Gollub): Daniel Ortega is no Bukele Opposition media from both Nicaragua and El Salvador, along with the Washington Post, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch, all vilify Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega by equating him with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. In March 2022, Bukele instituted a state of exception which has led to the imprisonment of 85,000 people, giving El Salvador the highest incarceration rate in the world. Several social movement leaders are among those detained without trial.
Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega focuses on human dignity and rehabilitation—particularly through education. Some 8,400 inmates enrolled in university studies, vocational programs, and completing primary and secondary schooling. Inmates are allowed to work if they choose, and their earnings are sent to their families. This article also compares country differences in handling NGOs, treatment of migrants, handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, Israel/Palestine, and government social spending.
Daniel Ortega Speech on June 2, 2025 Health care is “the first duty that we have as revolutionaries, as Sandinistas, as Nicaraguans, is… to take care of the lives of Nicaraguans, to watch over the lives of children,” young people and adults.
“the Government of Israel…They want to make the Palestinian people disappear and they kill whoever they find along the way.”
“Thousands of Nicaraguans are working… in the United States, because they work in jobs US citizens no longer work in; Salvadorans, Venezuelans, Haitians, Guatemalans, Mexicans alike. But there the President of the United States issued a decree [on] the expulsion from the US of over 500,000 Venezuelan, Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, Salvadoran citizens, and those poor people are fleeing from there, persecuted. This is like the persecutions that the Nazis did looking for how to hunt down Jews in the different European countries that they occupied. They went looking for them everywhere, people in civilian clothes, working people, and where they discovered families there they entered with great violence, forced them out with their rifle butts and sent them to concentration camps. And this is happening now in the United States, a brutal, inhuman persecution, which has nothing democratic or Christian about it, but is fascist behavior, simply fascist behavior.
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Bolivia
Resumen Latinoamericano: Grave Dangers Loom over Bolivia The division within the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) poses an enormous danger to the democratic forces and, if no change occurs, opens the door for the right-wing opposition to win the presidential elections on August 17…While Bolivian forces bleed internally, the US waits to effortlessly take over the country’s enormous natural wealth, especially lithium and hydrocarbons, as well as its strategic position in the center of South America. It is not only the future of Bolivia at stake, but also that of the peoples of Latin America. However, the below happened a week after this was written:
TeleSur: Three Police Officers Killed in Bolivia Amid Roadblock Clashes President Luis Arce confirmed the deaths of three police officers during an operation to clear roadblocks set up by supporters of former President Evo Morales (2006–2019) – two Second Lieutenants and a Sergeant. Evo’s supporters are demanding that authorities allow him to register as a candidate for the Aug. 17 presidential elections. To pressure the government, they have maintained roadblocks in the departments of Cochabamba, Potosi, and Oruro. Evo said Bolivia criminalizing protest and warned that the crackdown on roadblocks would spark “greater rebellion and greater uprising against the government.”
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Events
June 15: Global March to Gaza (WhatsApp Video 2025-05-19 at 21.59.06_a6365d9e (1).mp4 This is a call for many participants to join a peaceful march at the Egyptian border with Gaza, with the aim of negotiating the opening of the Rafah terminal with the Egyptian authorities, in collaboration with NGOs, diplomats, and humanitarian institutions.
June 22, 3 pm ET Nicaragua Webinar: Our Time in Nicaragua: Veterans for Peace Report Back With Gerry Condon (delegation leader, VFP national Board Member and past President); Josh Shurley (VFP national Vice President); Michael Kramer (President, Northern New Jersey VFP); Douglas Ryder (President, Raleigh/Durham, NC VFP); Dan Shea (President, Portland, Oregon VFP); Al Glatkowski (At-Large VFP member in Virginia); Chris Smiley (VFP Communications Director, Managua). Webinar Co-moderator: Camilo Mejía, Nicaraguan citizen, US veteran, former prisoner of conscience.
June 22: Belgium – Protest for Peace and Justice: No to NATO War Summit An international protest will take place in The Hague in response to the upcoming NATO Summit (June 24 and 25). A protest against the increasing militarisation of Western powers and their support for the ongoing Israeli offensive in Palestine. June 23: Peace Conference in Brussels
June 29: Webinar on Venezuela election: Chavistas Sweep Elections while US Silent Sonya Surabhi Gupta, Mohammad Marandi (University of Tehran),Jesus Rodriguez(Orinoco Tribune), Cira Pascual Marquina, Arnold August, Alison Bodine, Diego Sequera (Mision Verdad)
July 4: International Rally: Sanctions Kill – US out of Venezuela & Latin America Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental//Carlos Ron, Vice-Minister, Foreign Affairs, Venezuela//Alicia Castro, former Argentinian Ambassador to Venezuela & UK//Fravia V.Marquez Silva, International Summit for Anti-imperialist Africans & Afro-Descendants, Venezuela // Dáire Hughes MP, Sinn Fein, Ireland//Felix Plasencia, Venezuelan Ambassador//Kate Hudson, CND//Francisco Dominguez, VSC//Gawain Little, GFTU//Fiona Sim, Black Liberation Alliance//Sarah Woolley BFAWU
Monday, July 8, at 2:30 pm ET. Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition monthly meeting on Zoom. Email NicaraguaSolidarityCoalition@gmail.com for zoom access.
NSCAG Webinar, Tuesday, July 9, 6:30 pm BST (1:30 pm ET): Nicaragua’s free education for all: A right, not a commodity.
Nicaragua Webinar Sunday, July 27, 3 pm ET: Features two groups of visitors exploring the Nicaraguan health system and Solidarity in Action: Nicaragua’s Popular Revolution. Speakers will also share their experiences from the July 19 celebration.
Nicaragua Webinar Sunday, August 24, 3 pm ET: Will focus on SINAPRED, Nicaragua’s highly successful National System for Prevention, Mitigation and Attention to Disasters.
Nicaragua Webinar Sunday, September 21, 3 pm ET: Speakers from Nicaragua and Venezuela will discuss the remarkable affordable housing programs in these two countries.
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Delegations to Cuba, Nicaragua:
Cuba
Witness for Peace delegations to Cuba
July 7-24: Visit Cuba with Helen Yaffe
November 15-23: Cooperatives & 10 Best Practices in Cuba
Friendly Planet delegations to Cuba
Nicaragua
Casa Ben Linder Email casabenjaminlinder@gmail.com to apply:
July 2025: Solidarity in Action: Nicaragua’s Popular Revolution
November 2025: Salud & Solidaridad: Hands-On Healthcare in Nicaragua
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Chicago ALBA Solidarity 