What's New

Resources updated between Monday, January 27, 2020 and Sunday, February 2, 2020

January 31, 2020

Ambulance (File photo courtesy United Hatzalah Sderot)

Tiny Israeli Infant Hurt in Mom's Race for Shelter from Hamas Rocket Fire Document

January 29, 2020

U.S. soldiers in Iraq (File photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

U.S. says 50 troops now diagnosed with traumatic brain injury after Iran strike Document

Burkina Faso security forces (File photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Thirty-nine killed in terrorist attack on Burkina Faso village Document

January 28, 2020

U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unveiling the details of the peace plan (Screenshot)

President Trump's Middle East Peace Plan: Peace to Prosperity Document

January 27, 2020

The Pan American Health Organization building in Washington DC (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

"Cuba's military dictatorship sent Ramona Matos Rodriguez to Brazil in September 2013 as part of its foreign 'medical missions.' Posted to the Amazonian state of Pará, Dr. Matos Rodriguez was to be paid by Brazil for her services. But she says she received only about 10% of the salary Brazil allocated.

In a 2018 class-action lawsuit filed in federal court in Miami, Dr. Matos Rodriguez and three other Cuban doctors claim that 85% of the money went to Havana via the Pan American Health Organization, or PAHO, which acted as the go-between. By gaining PAHO's cooperation, Brazil's then-President Dilma Rousseff was able to conceal the illegal arrangement from the Brazilian Congress, other federal institutions and the international community, the suit alleges.

PAHO is a United Nations outfit, and member countries pay its annual budget, with the U.S. providing more than half. But the lawsuit claims that in its secret agreement with Cuba, the organization was also taking a 5% cut of the doctors' salaries as they passed through Washington.
...
The story of how Brazil, Cuba and PAHO allegedly conspired to traffic Cuban medical professionals may never have come to light if Dr. Matos Rodriguez hadn't made a dramatic escape to Brasília in January 2014. There she asked the Brazilian Congress for protection and spilled the truth about the plight of the Cuban doctors in the country.

Cuba has been trafficking people for decades, and thousands of Cubans have told similar stories after fleeing their captors and making it to freedom. According to the World Trade Organization, in 2018 Cuba generated $10.7 billion from 'exports of commercial services.' The bulk of this income came from its foreign servitude scheme.

The difference in this case is the charge in federal court that a U.N. agency played a pivotal role. In their lawsuit the Cuban doctors allege that PAHO 'has collected over $75 million since 2013 by enabling, managing and enforcing illegal human trafficking of Cuban medical professionals in Brazil.'..."

The U.N. and Human Trafficking Article

A suspected explosive device which looks like an rocket-propelled grenade, found connected to a bunch of balloons, in southern Israel, January 25, 2020 (Social media)

2 balloon batches carrying suspected Gaza bomb, incendiary device land in Israel Document