According to an analysis by Reuters, Cuba has vaccinated more than 90 percent of its population with at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, while 83 percent of the island’s population has been fully vaccinated. That puts Cuba second in place globally in vaccination rates among countries with at least 1 million people.
According to Reuters, nearly all children aged 2 to 18 have been vaccinated in Cuba through the island’s own vaccine. The World Health Organization (WHO) also says that Cuba has had fewer than 1 million cumulative COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began and administered around 257 vaccine doses per 100 people.
William Moss, director of the Johns Hopkins International Vaccine Access Center, told Reuters that “it is a truly remarkable accomplishment, given the size of Cuba, and also the U.S. embargo, that restricts their ability to import.”
On this day, 22 December 1946, bisexual Black liberation activist Kuwasi Balagoon was born in Maryland.
He joined the military, and faced violent racism both from officers and his fellow servicemen, as a result of which Balagoon and some Black comrades formed a collective called De Legislators: “From then on, every time a racial situation appeared, we did. Every time white G.I.s ganged a black G.I., we moved to more than even the score. One at a time we would catch up with them and beat and stomp them so bad that helicopters would have to be used to take them to better hospitals than the ones in the area. We were not playing. We would plan things so that we could kick something off inside a club that would instantly turn into a riotous condition—once everything was in chaos it was impossible to pick us out. We then broke faces and bodies of whoever we planned to get, and made our escape. Afterward we would have critiques, just like in the end of war games; get our alibis together; and keep the whole thing under our hats.”
Later returning to civilian life, Balagoon moved to New York City and got involved in grassroots tenant organising. He soon became involved in the Black Panther Party, and was subsequently arrested and put on trial as part of the notorious Panther 21 case, who were all later acquitted.
Balagoon then joined the urban guerrilla group the Black Liberation Army, and was imprisoned and escaped various times. He was eventually convicted and jailed for life for participation in the $2.8 million robbery of a Brink’s security outlet.
Balagoon kept up his radical activity in prison, authoring a number of texts, until his death from AIDS-related illness in 1986.
We have made available a collection of his writings, and the autobiographies of all of the Panther 21, here: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/books/kuwasi-balagoonhttps://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1881815385336936/?type=3
Coal workers have already suffered from the decline of fossil fuels. Build Back Better would have helped, union says.
Coal miners are imploring Senator Joe Manchin to reconsider his opposition to the Build Back Better Act, citing parts of the legislation that would benefit industry workers.
“[W]e are disappointed that the bill will not pass,” Cecil Roberts,
president of the United Mine Workers of America International, said in a
statement.
“We urge Senator Manchin to revisit his opposition to this legislation
and work with his colleagues to pass something that will help keep coal
miners working, and have a meaningful impact on our members, their
families, and their communities.”
According to the union, elements
of the bill that would help coal industry workers include tax
incentives to encourage clean-energy companies to build facilities in
coalfields; an extension of fees paid by coal companies to workers who
contract Black Lung; and financial penalties for companies that block
their workforce from unionizing.
Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, said on Sunday that he couldn’t support the legislation, an ambitious package
of social policies including prolonging the Child Tax Credit, expanding
Medicare to cover more services, instituting paid employee leave,
subsidizing child care and early-childhood education, and investing in
clean energy. …
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