Important Takeaways:
- 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of eastern Cuba on Sunday, causing material damage in several regions as the island continues to recover from widespread blackouts and the impact of two hurricanes over the past few weeks.
- The earthquake was reported about 39 km (24 miles) south of Bartolomé Masó before noon local time, about an hour after a 5.9 magnitude quake rocked the area, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said.
- “There have been landslides, damage to homes and power lines,” Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said, adding that authorities are evaluating the situation to start recovery efforts.
- Residents in eastern Cuba told Reuters that the tremor was as powerful as any they’ve felt before.
- The quake was also felt in the eastern provinces of Santiago de Cuba, Holguin and Guantánamo, where the deadly Hurricane Oscar struck last month.
- Another storm, Rafael, slammed into western Cuba on Wednesday as a Category 3 hurricane, knocking out power across the island, in the latest major blackout in recent weeks.
- The quake was apparently not felt in the capital Havana, but shockwaves did reach southern Florida, with footage on social media showing swaying ceiling lights from a tower in Miami.
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Important Takeaways:
- Residents in the Florida Keys have been warned that powerful storm surges could be headed their way as Hurricane Rafael barrels across the Gulf of Mexico.
- Rafael, which is currently a Category 2 hurricane with wind speeds of 100 mph, will make landfall in Cuba today before sideswiping the Florida Keys on its journey northwest toward the Louisiana coast.
- Up to 2 feet of storm surge is forecast for the Lower Florida Keys, which may cause some destruction along the coast due to flooding.
- “Prepare for locally hazardous surge having possible limited impacts across the Florida Keys,” the National Weather Service (NWS) Key West said in a local statement.
- Potential impacts may include “localized inundation with storm surge flooding mainly along immediate shorelines and in low-lying spots, or in areas farther inland near where higher surge waters move ashore,” as well as damage to marinas and piers, and moderate beach erosion.
- Rafael is due to possibly reach Category 3 strength today before it makes landfall along the coast of Cuba. Hurricane warnings are in place in the Cayman Islands and several Cuban provinces, with tropical storm warnings across more Cuban provinces, Dry Tortugas, and the Lower and Middle Florida Keys from Key West to the west of the Channel 5 Bridge.
- The hurricane is anticipated to bring up to 10 inches of rain in some regions of Cuba, which may trigger flash flooding or mudslides.
- Up to 3 inches of rain are forecast for Jamaica and in the Lower and Middle Florida Keys, and there is also some potential for tornadoes in the Florida Keys.
- The storm will then carry on across the Gulf of Mexico heading northwest, possibly making landfall in Louisiana at the weekend or early next week. Exactly how strong it will be and where it will make landfall is still unclear this far out, however.
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Important Takeaways:
- The country’s adversaries are stepping up efforts to influence the U.S. election, including down-ballot races, intelligence officials told the press on Monday.
- Officials said China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba have sought to “launder their narratives” into election discourse, as well as aggravate divisions among Americans through hot-button issues such as immigration.
- Though four weeks remain before Election Day, more than 16 million Americans had requested mail-in ballots or opted for early in-person voting as of Tuesday, according to an NBC News poll sourced from state officials and market research firm TargetSmart.
- One official said agencies have been privately briefing candidates for president, congress and local elections about foreign influence efforts.
- More of these notifications have already been carried out than during any past election, according to another official, who said suspected cases of foreign influence campaigns against public officials have seen a “more than threefold increase.”
- China-linked actors were said to have directly interfered in “tens” of down-ballot races, particularly when it comes to issues that most concern the Chinese Communist Party, Reuters reported.
- Russia and Iran have been focused on shaping the views of the U.S. electorate,” the intelligence officials said.
- Moscow’s efforts have reportedly been to drive down support for Ukraine, which is struggling against invading Russian forces in the eastern part of the country. Iran has been covertly seeking to drum up support for Democratic candidate and current Vice President Kamala Harris, according to officials.
- They believe Cuba has concentrated on giving a boost to its preferred candidates by swaying Spanish-speaking voters on social media.
- The news follows a report released last month by social network analysis firm Graphika that detailed a Chinese “spamouflage” operation attempting to sow division in U.S. social media spaces through fake accounts.
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Important Takeaways:
- Without giving any further details, South Korea’s spy agency the National Intelligence Service confirmed an earlier report by the Chosun Ilbo newspaper, which said that a counsellor responsible for political affairs at the North Korean embassy in Cuba had defected.
- Among Ri Il-kyu’s jobs at the embassy was to block North Korea’s rival South Korea and old ally Cuba from forging diplomatic ties
- Details on North Koreans defections often take months to come to light, with defectors needing to be cleared by authorities and going through a course of education about South Korean society and systems.
- “Every North Korean thinks at least once about living in South Korea. Disillusionment with the North Korean regime and a bleak future led me to consider defection,” he told the paper.
- “In fact, North Koreans yearn for reunification even more than South Koreans. Everyone believes that reunification is the only way for their children to have a better future. Today, the Kim Jong-un regime has brutally extinguished even the slightest hope left among the people.”
- He said he flew out of Cuba with his family but he did not elaborate further on how he pulled off the high-risk escape.
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Important Takeaways:
- Russian naval vessels practiced hitting targets with long-distance missiles in simulated drills in the Atlantic Ocean ahead of a planned visit to Cuba.
- The nuclear-powered Kazan submarine and Admiral Gorshkov frigate, which carries hypersonic Zircon missiles, staged the computer drills with high-precision weapons against “naval groups of a mock enemy” over a distance of 600 kilometers (373 miles), the Defense Ministry in Moscow said in a statement Tuesday.
- The vessels are due to arrive in Cuba on Wednesday, Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti news service reported, citing Russian Navy chief Alexander Moiseyev.
- None of the Russian vessels is carrying nuclear weapons and they pose no threat to the region, the Cuban Foreign Ministry said on its website June 6. The visit to Havana from June 12-17 is in line with the historically friendly relations between Cuba and Russia, it said.
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Important Takeaways:
- Havana says fleet does not have nuclear weapons, but arrival comes amid rising tensions between Russia and the United States over Ukraine
- “This visit corresponds to the historical friendly relations between Cuba and the Russian Federation and strictly adheres to the international regulations,” said the ministry in a statement.
- But the unusual deployment of the powerful nuclear submarine Kazan and three other naval vessels so close to the United States comes amid major tensions over the war in Ukraine
- Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested this week that Moscow could take “asymmetrical” steps if Western countries like Germany and the US were to supply Ukraine with weapons that were then used on Russian soil
- During the Cold War, Cuba was an important client state for the Soviet Union. The deployment of Soviet nuclear missile sites on the island triggered the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when Washington and Moscow came close to war. The incident led to the US imposing a trade embargo on Cuba, which remains in force.
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Ecclesiastes 5:8 If you see the poor oppressed in a district, and justice and rights denied, do not be surprised at such things; for one official is eyed by a higher one, and over them both are others higher still
Important Takeaways:
- A retired American intelligence official told the Miami Herald in a report published Wednesday that China has been conducting espionage activities in Cuba since at least 1992, taking advantage of the fall of the Soviet Union to forge a closer relationship with the fellow communist nation.
- The base, Simmons claimed, is located in Bejucal, a suburb of the greater Havana area.
- Simmons described the base as a “signals intelligence facility,” meaning a base to intercept American communications for espionage purposes
- John Kirby, national security council coordinator, called it “shameful” that anonymous sources were informing the public of potential Chinese espionage activity 90 miles from U.S. soil.
- It’s shameful that somebody, or somebodies, somehow think it’s okay to put this kind of information in the public bloodstream,” Kirby scolded reporters, “Clearly, there’s a source or sources out there that think it’s somehow beneficial to put this kind of information into the public stream, and it’s absolutely not …
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- China in high-level talks for military training facility in Cuba to station troops off US shores: report
- The Wall Street Journal first reported Tuesday that U.S. intelligence suggests talks about a facility on Cuba’s northern coast “are at an advanced stage but not concluded,” as the Biden administration has contacted Cuban officials to stall the agreement and dissuade any course of action due to concerns the Communist nation might have about ceding sovereignty.
- Citing current and former U.S. officials, the Journal reported that the proposal for the China-Cuba military training facility was referenced “in highly classified new U.S. intelligence, which they described as convincing but fragmentary.”
- The sources reportedly said the prospect of a facility could mean China permanently hosting troops in Cuba and broadening intelligence gathering against the United States.
- One current and one former U.S. official told the Journal the proposed military facility is part of “Project 141,” an initiative by China’s People’s Liberation Army to set up a global network of military outposts. The Journal said the White House declined to comment.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- Cuba, Iran presidents meet in Havana, vow to confront ‘Yankee imperialism’
- Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi met with Cuban counterpart Miguel Diaz-Canel on Thursday, his last stop on a three-nation Latin American tour aimed at shoring up support among Latin American allies saddled, like Iran, by U.S. sanctions.
- Raisi told reporters at a trade forum in Havana early on Thursday that Cuba and Iran would seek opportunities to work together in electricity generation, biotechnology, and mining, among other areas.
- “The conditions and circumstances in which Cuba and Iran find themselves today have many things in common,” Raisi said in a conversation with Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel. “Every day our relations grow stronger.”
- Raisi earlier this week visited with leaders of fellow oil-producer Venezuela, where he pledged to ramp up bilateral trade and expand cooperation in petrochemicals. Prior to arriving in Cuba, the Iranian president also met with Nicaragua´s Daniel Ortega in the Central American country.
- “Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Iran are among the countries that have had to heroically confront sanctions (…) threats, blockades and interference by Yankee imperialism and its allies with a tenacious resistance,” Diaz-Canel told his Iranian counterpart.
- Raisi´s visit comes as Cuba also moves to bolster ties with distant, but critical, allies like Russia and China, both subject to U.S. sanctions.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- China is establishing a spy base in Cuba, according to information first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
- It would be focused on the United States and give Chinese intelligence agencies a way to track electronic communication in the southwestern U.S.
- China already may have a listening post in Bejucal, a town south of Havana.
- China will reportedly pay billions of dollars to Cuba for the ability to set up this spy base.
- The Biden administration must act with urgency to help governments in the region succeed so they don’t need to turn to China for help.
- Simply allowing China’s bold step to proceed without answering it, strongly, is no option at all.
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