Caribbean leaders this week rejected US accusations of Cuban labor exploitation after the United States announced it will restrict the visas of officials tied to a Cuban government program that sends medics abroad.
The US announced the measure late last month, arguing that the labor export programs run by Cuba’s government, which include many medics, “enrich the Cuban regime.” It further argued that those involved are complicit in the “exploitation and forced labor of Cuban workers.”
Cuba’s leaders, however, reject the US stance as Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s “personal agenda... based on falsehoods” and said the measure could affect millions of health care beneficiaries.
Rubio is the son of Cuban immigrants who fled the island to Florida, where President Donald Trump’s top diplomat would later win a Senate seat.
Since Cuba’s 1959 revolution, its medics have been dispatched to countries around the world, treating diseases that wreak havoc on poor countries, from cholera in Haiti to Ebola in West Africa. The program is also a key source of hard cash as the island nation endures its latest deep economic crisis.
Cuba says a decades-long US embargo, opposed by the vast majority of the United Nations, is the key driver of the crisis.
“Out of the blue now, we have been called human traffickers because we hire technical people who we pay top dollar,” said Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Keith Rowley at a hospital event.
Rowley added that he was prepared to lose his US visa.
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves noted at least 60 people in the small island nation are on a Cuban-run haemodialysis program used to treat kidney failure.
“If the Cubans are not there, we may not be able to run the service,” he said, adding Cuban personnel are paid the same as locals. “I will prefer to lose my visa than to have 60 poor and working people die.”
Last week, Jamaican Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smith told reporters that her government views Cuban medics as important.
“Their presence here is of importance to our health care system,” she said, pointing to 400 doctors, nurses and medical technicians currently working in the country.
In a social media post, Bahamian Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell also vouched for the program, saying his government “follows all international best practices in the recruitment of labor.”
Defiant Caribbean leaders dismiss trafficking accusations as US targets Cuba’s doctor diplomacy
https://arab.news/g8sgc
Defiant Caribbean leaders dismiss trafficking accusations as US targets Cuba’s doctor diplomacy
- Trinidad and Tobago PM Keith Rowley: ‘Out of the blue now, we have been called human traffickers because we hire technical people who we pay top dollar’
- Jamaican FM Kamina Johnson Smith: ‘Their (Cuban medics) presence here is of importance to our health care system’
’Albania belongs in EU,’ von der Leyen tells re-elected PM Rama
- EU and French leaders congratulated Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama Wednesday after his party’s electoral victory
“Let’s keep working closely together on EU reforms. Albania belongs in the EU!” von der Leyen said on X. French President Emmanuel Macron also hailed Rama’s win, writing on X: “France will always stand alongside Albania on its European path.”
Germany arrests three Ukrainians suspected of spying in exploding parcel plot
BERLIN: Germany has arrested three Ukrainian nationals on suspicion of foreign agent activity linked to the shipment of parcels containing explosive devices, prosecutors said on Wednesday.
The suspects are believed to have been in contact with individuals working for Russian state institutions, federal prosecutors said in a statement.
France says to expel Algerian diplomats in tit-for-tat move
PARIS: France will expel Algerian diplomats in response to plans by Algiers to send more French officials home, Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said Wednesday, as relations between the countries deteriorate.
Barrot told the BFMTV broadcaster that he would summon Algeria’s charge d’affaires to inform him of the decision that he said was “perfectly proportionate at this point” to the Algerian move, which he called “unjustified and unjustifiable.”
Japanese military training plane crashes with two on board
TOKYO: A Japanese military training plane crashed shortly after takeoff, authorities said Wednesday, with reports saying two people were on board the aircraft which appeared to have fallen in a lake.
“We’re aware a T-4 plane that belongs to the Air Self-Defense Force fell down immediately after taking off at Komaki Air Base” in central Japan, top government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi said.
“Details are being probed by the defense ministry,” he told reporters.
The T-4 seats two and is a “domestically produced, highly reliable and maintainable training aircraft... used for all basic flight courses,” according to the defense ministry website.
The aircraft was flying around Lake Iruka near Inuyama city north of Nagoya, according to media outlets including public broadcaster NHK.
“There is no sight of the plane yet. We’ve been told that an aerial survey by an Aichi region helicopter found a spot where oil was floating on the surface of the lake,” local fire department official Hajjime Nakamura told AFP.
He said his office had received unconfirmed information that there were two people on board but that they had not been able to independently verify this.
Aerial footage of the lake broadcast by NHK showed an oil sheen on its surface, dotted with what appeared to be various pieces of debris.
Just after 3:00 p.m. (0600 GMT) the local fire department received a call saying it appeared that a plane had crashed into the lake, the reports said.
The reports added, citing defense ministry sources, that the training plane had disappeared from the radar.
The defense ministry was not able to immediately confirm details to AFP.
Jiji Press said the local municipality had said there had been no damage to houses in the area.
Kabul says ready for ‘dialogue’ with US on Afghan refugees
- Over 11,000 Afghans in the US risk deportation after losing temporary protected status this month
- Many of them backed the US during the 20-year war in Afghanistan and fled in fear of the Taliban
KABUL: The Taliban government said Tuesday it was ready for “dialogue” with the Trump administration on the repatriation of Afghan refugees whose legal protections in the United States will be revoked in July.
Citing an improved security situation in Afghanistan, Washington announced Monday that the temporary protected status (TPS) designation for Afghanistan would expire on May 20 and the termination would take effect on July 12.
Kabul is “ready to engage in constructive dialogue with the US & other countries regarding repatriation of Afghans who no longer meet criteria to remain in host countries,” said Abdul Qahar Balkhi, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on X.
The Taliban government has already offered assurances that those Afghans who fled the country as they stormed back to power in 2021 could safely return.
However, the United Nations has reported cases of executions and disappearances.
Taliban authorities have also squeezed women out of education, jobs and public life since 2021, creating what the UN has called “gender apartheid.”
The move by Washington could affect more than 11,000 Afghans, many of whom supported the United States during two decades of war and fled Taliban persecution, according to Shawn VanDiver, president of AfghanEvac.
“Afghanistan is the shared home of all Afghans, & all have the right to free movement,” Balkhi said in his statement.
The country has faced a major economic crisis since 2021 and is enduring the second worst humanitarian crisis in the world after Sudan, according to the United Nations.
More than 100,000 Afghans have returned home since neighboring Pakistan launched a new mass expulsion campaign in April.
More than 265,000 undocumented Afghans also returned from neighboring Iran between January and April, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
US federal law permits the government to grant TPS to foreign citizens who cannot safely return home because of war, natural disasters or other “extraordinary” conditions.
But since taking office President Donald Trump has moved to strip the designation from citizens of countries including Haiti and Venezuela as part of his broader crackdown on immigration.
