International
A third total blackout in Cuba in three days thwarts attempts to recover the service
The third total blackout of Cuba’s National Electric System (SEN) in less than 72 hours has once again frustrated this Sunday attempts to restore a basic service that collapsed three days ago after weeks of exacerbation of an energy crisis that has been brewing for years.
“At this moment, steps are being taken to restore the connection,” Félix Estrada, director of the national cargo office of the company Unión Eléctrica, told state television.
The manager of the state company explained that a strategy is currently being followed to reorganize the country’s electricity generating units by regions and then carry out their start-up.
He said that the objective is to restore the SEN connection in the shortest possible time to gradually restore the service of the approximately ten million inhabitants of the island.
Cause of the third blackout in Cuba
He recalled that the cause of this third blackout occurred due to a “transmission failure” when it had been possible to connect in the same subsystem to Mariel (west) and Holguín (east), separated by more than 600 kilometers.
The first total fall of the system that left the country in “zero national energy coverage” was recorded last Friday, after an “unforeseen” exit from operations of the Guiteras thermoelectric plant, considered key to the stability of the SEN.
This Saturday, the actions carried out to re-energize and recover the SEN failed again, which caused the second total disconnection, and in the last hours of that day the subsystem that had been created in the western half of the island collapsed, so the work had to start again.
The Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, acknowledged this Sunday in an appearance that the situation in the electricity system is “very tense.”
Precarious state
But he said that the Government aspires for the SEN to recover within two days the state it had before the first massive blackout and that consequently most consumers will have light again “tomorrow Monday” and that “the last customer may perhaps be receiving (current) next Tuesday.”
The SEN is in a very precarious state due to the shortage of fuel – the result of the lack of foreign exchange to import it – and the frequent breakdowns in obsolete thermoelectric plants, with four decades of operation and chronic lack of investments.
Stocks have been common for years but the situation has worsened in recent weeks. In recent days, days have been recorded with maximum affectation rates of more than 50%, that is, moments when half of the country was simultaneously without electricity.
Affected economy
The frequent blackouts damage the Cuban economy – which in 2023 contracted by 1.9% and boost social discontent in a society affected by an aggravated economic crisis in recent years.
They have also been the trigger for anti-government protests, including those of July 11, 2021 – the largest in decades – those in Nuevitas and Havana in August and September 2022, and those of last March 17 in Santiago de Cuba (east) and other locations.
The last time a similar situation of “zero production” occurred was in September 2022, after the passage of Hurricane Ian with category three through the extreme east of the island. This caused a serious mismatch and the recovery took days.
International
Miguel Ángel Oliver: The EFE Agency is an antidote against racism
The president of the EFE Agency, Miguel Ángel Oliver, said on Tuesday that the EFE Agency is “an antidote against racism” during the presentation of the New Urgent Style Manual at the headquarters of the Cervantes Institute of Rabat.
“EFE, through the new book, is an antidote against racism. When immigrants are rejected for ethnic or social reasons, it is simply racism,” Oliver stressed when closing a round table entitled “The debate on immigration in the media: when the story kills the data.”
Oliver recalled that journalists have the duty to tell the stories of emigrants and to fight that hate speech against these people: “Put names to the drama, faces and voices,” he insisted.
He stressed that there are media that work against this hate speech. In this sense, he pointed out that media such as EFE and RTVE “are an example of responsible treatment of migration information.”
It is important to humanize the stories of migrants
On this issue, the Moroccan and Spanish journalists who participated in the round table agreed on the need to humanize the stories of migrants, give them a voice without entering into controversy, and avoid degrading language.
During the debate, the speakers stressed the need not to neglect the personal stories of each migrant, and not to limit themselves to providing figures of people who tried to cross into Europe.
“Journalists must be on the side of the marginalized who will never make it to the news. The journalist has to be critical of governments. Behind thousands of people crossing, you have to spend time telling the story of Pepe, Fátima…”, said Ana Jiménez, TVE correspondent in Morocco.
The Spanish journalist stressed that the data is forgotten but the personal stories or shocking images, such as that of Luna hugging the migrant Abdou, who went viral during the massive entry of emigrants into the Spanish city of Ceuta in May 2021, reach the consciousness of the viewers.
The EFE Agency’s manual to cover migration issues
One of the points on which the speakers insisted is that of the words used to cover migration issues or to refer to migrants.
Jiménez acknowledged that he learned, thanks to style books – such as EFE – or the work of NGOs to differentiate between “jump” and “assault”: the latter term is usually used in the media to refer to the attempt of migrants to jump the border fence of Ceuta or Melilla but it is a word that is associated with weapons, which migrants do not carry.
In the same sense, Mohamed Ezzouak, director of the Moroccan electronic newspaper ‘Yabiladi’ – which gives special importance to the issues of the Moroccan diaspora abroad – recognized that because of the words we sometimes “animalize” the migrant using degrading words.
Ezzouak recalled some episodes in the past in the Moroccan press where sub-Saharan migrants were labeled “black plague” or even “cockroaches.”
“But the Moroccan media criticized this coverage,” said the journalist, who stressed that these are isolated situations in which it does not reflect the temperament of a country, where there is no polemical debate about emigration, unlike countries like Spain or France.
The correct terms must be used
In the same sense, Ghita Ismaili, journalist of the Moroccan weekly in French ‘Telquel’, stressed the difference between Spain and France, where “emigration is a daily issue” and where there is a political debate animated by the right and extreme right, a point in which he has cited Vox.
“When we refer to emigration in the Moroccan media it is done differently, emigration is very factual, there are not many comments, and the news is more about rescues made by the country’s authorities and the Royal Navy,” he said.
Ismaili recalled that the last time there was debate and the news of migrants monopolized the front pages of the media was after the call for the mass crossing to Ceuta on September 15, which went viral on social networks and led about 3,000 people, mostly Moroccans, to try.
The new EFE Style Book, whose first edition was published in 2011, has a different structure, reviews and rewrites much of its material and incorporates a multitude of aspects that have appeared or gained importance in recent years in the newsrooms of EFE and all media, such as social networks or artificial intelligence.
The coordinator of the guide, Javier Lascuráin, explained during the round table that the work includes the ethical, professional and linguistic principles of the public agency and broke down some of the considerations that are included in the treatment of migration: avoid pejorative terms such as “avalanche” or “mena”, give voice to migrants, among others.
International
Trump gains ground over Harris and the elections are emerging as the closest of the century
The Republican candidate for the White House, former President Donald Trump, has gained ground in the polls of his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, and the selections of November 5 are emerging as the closest of the last century in the United States.
Harris’ candidacy, who replaced President Joe Biden after he threw in the towel in July, initially aroused great enthusiasm that was transferred to the polls, but Trump has managed to pulverize that advantage when there are 16 days left until the elections.
According to the latest forecast of the FiveThiryEight portal based on the average of polls published nationally and in key states, Trump achieves a slight advantage over Harris and has a 52% chance of winning the November 5 elections.
Despite the fact that the Democrat leads the intention to vote at the national level, the Republican is more favored by the Electoral College, the system by which the states grant a certain number of electoral votes to the winning candidate.
Two weeks ago, the forecast of the same portal gave Harris a 58% chance to defeat Trump.
The difference between Harris and Trump
Although the Republican has gained ground in recent weeks, the situation is so tight that the chances of victory of each of the two candidates are practically equivalent to throwing a coin into the air.
The difference between Harris and Trump is less than two percentage points in the seven decisive states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) so that a small statistical error could alter the result.
In addition, at the national level, the vice president only takes two points ahead of the former president, a narrower difference than the margin between Biden and Trump on any of the days of the 2020 campaign.
After those elections, the Republican refused to accept his defeat and promoted the vote count in some key states and several litigations that were dismissed in court.
In 2000, the election result was up in the air until the Supreme Court gave the victory to Republican George W. Busch on the Democrat Al Gore in Florida, which was then a hinge state.
But according to the FiveThirtyEight portal, to find elections as close as what the polls draw, we have to go back to 1876, when the Republican Rutherford Hayes beat the Democrat Samuel Tilden by a single electoral vote: 185 against 184.
Every vote counts
In such a tight scenario, every vote counts and the two candidates are doubling their presence in the seven decisive states, where in some cases the early vote has already begun with a high turnout.
The rhetoric and the crossfire between the two has also intensified with attacks and insults.
Trump suggested this week that he would be willing to deploy the military against the “internal enemies” of the United States, in an apparent reference to his political rivals, while Harris described his rival as “fascist” and “deranted.”
The vice president has decided to raise the tone against Trump in an attempt to revitalize her campaign, to which former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton have also joined, and former first lady Michelle Obama to give her a new impetus.
The Republican is this Sunday in Pennsylvania, where he is expected to visit a McDonald’s and accuse Harris of having invented that he worked for that fast food chain as a young man.
For her part, the Democratic candidate, who turns 60 today, is in Georgia before traveling to Pennsylvania, where tomorrow she will campaign with Liz Cheney, a former Republican congressman facing Trump.
International
The president of Brazil cancels his trip to Russia due to a domestic accident
The president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, canceled this Sunday for “medical guidance” his trip to Russia to attend the BRICS leadership after suffering a “domestic accident” in which he hit his head, government and hospital sources reported.
The Brazilian Presidency said in a statement that it was decided to cancel the trip due to a “temporary impediment for long-term flights,” but that Lula will participate by videoconference in the meeting, which is held between October 22 and 24 in the Russian city of Kazan.
The president, who is 78 years old, was injured on Saturday on the back of his head, which led him to be admitted to the Sírio-Libanês Hospital in Brasilia, according to a medical report that does not go into more details.
Despite not going to the summit, the Government clarified that Lula will comply next week with a “normal” work schedule in the capital.
The meeting in Kazan, hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin, is scheduled to receive more than 30 heads of state and government.
The BRICS, whose original members were Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, are in full expansion, after including four other countries this year: Egypt, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Ethiopia.
During the meeting, the leaders of the member countries must define what will be the criteria for other nations to be part of the bloc as partners.
Brazil wants two of the criteria to be, for example, not supporting economic sanctions applied without authorization from the UN and defending the reform of the Security Council, according to diplomatic sources in the country.
Miguel Ángel Oliver: The EFE Agency is an antidote against racism
Trump gains ground over Harris and the elections are emerging as the closest of the century
The president of Brazil cancels his trip to Russia due to a domestic accident
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