Merged US may close Cuba Embassy over 'health attacks'

[Orphia Nay]

Thank goodness we can finally put this issue to rest!

5-year study finds no brain abnormalities in 'Havana Syndrome' patients

An actual paper here:

Neuroimaging Findings in US Government Personnel and Their Family Members Involved in Anomalous Health Incidents

If only.

 

[dann]

Once again, it has been stressed that the symptoms of the 'syndrome' sufferers are real, but since one can't prove a negative they avoid saying outright that even though the symptoms are real, the alleged sonic and/or microwave DEW attacks aren't:

Symptoms of the mysterious ailment, first reported by U.S. embassy officials in the Cuban capital Havana and later afflicting diplomats, spies and other personnel worldwide, have included hearing noise and experiencing head pressure followed by headache, migraines, dizziness, and memory lapses.
"These individuals have symptoms that are real, distressing and very difficult to treat," Dr. Leighton Chan, NIH Clinical Center acting chief scientific officer and lead study author, said on a call to discuss the findings published in JAMA.
(...)
The MRI brain imaging results "should be some reassurance for patients," since researchers did not find a link between unusual symptoms and neurodegenerative changes, said Louis French, study investigator from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
“The post-traumatic stress and mood symptoms reported are not surprising given the ongoing concerns of many of the participants,” he said.
No evidence of Havana syndrome brain injury, US studies find (Reuters, Mar 18, 2024)

People with 'Havana Syndrome' Show No Brain Damage or Medical Illness (Scientific American, Mar 18, 2024)
New study finds no brain injuries among 'Havana syndrome' patients (Washington Post, Mar 18, 2024)
NIH probe of 'Havana Syndrome' finds no sign of brain injuries (MSN.com, Mar 18, 2024)

For some reason, CNN's article about the NIH reports is accompanied by an old video with the first CIA investigator of the 'syndrome' to arrive in Cuba where he stayed at the Hotel Nacional:
CIA doctor investigating mysterious injuries suddenly injured himself (CNN, Sep 25, 2024)

Dr. Paul Andrews: I hadn't seen this before: Between every set of rooms there was a service chase. It was unusual.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta: Did you think there was somebody in that space?
Dr. Paul Andrews: I don't know.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta: This is that service chase. Potentially big enough for a person to stand inside.
Dr. Paul Andrews: I looked out the window. I was on a high floor. And I saw nothing out there to concern me. There was no other building at a height that would have a direct ability to shine something in my room, say.
I think I went to bed probably around 11:30. I slept in my jeans and a T-shirt, in case I had to evacuate quickly.
Despite symptoms, NIH research finds no evidence of ‘Havana syndrome’ in brain scans (CNN, Mar 18, 2024)

It's reminiscent of the story about the white van told by Adam Entous and Jon Lee Anderson: It is possible to imagine that a Russian might be able to hide in a service chase like that, wielding a directed-energy weapon, aiming it (blindly!) through two doors at the CIA doctor in the room across the hallway.
We don't even know if the service chase is actually big enough since the footage doesn't show how much space is actually there. The door remains closed! (Why didn't they ask a Cuban maid or janitor to open it? I assume they didn't since that would have been a story in and of itself: 'Cubans refuse to open a broom closet full of Russian agents and ray guns!') But as long as the door remains closed, it's possible to imagine that anything might be hiding behind it.

I find it more interesting to hear about the CIA doctor's state of mind as he comes down with the 'syndrome': "I slept in my jeans and a T-shirt, in case I had to evacuate quickly."

How do you say that the suffering of the AHI victims was mass psychogenic illness, caused by stress and the idea of an attack rather than by a real attack - without actually saying so?!

Forty-one percent of participants in the AHI group, from nearly every geographic area, met the criteria for functional neurological disorders (FNDs), a group of common neurological movement disorders caused by an abnormality in how the brain functions, or had significant somatic symptoms. FNDs can be associated with depression and anxiety, and high stress. Most of the AHI group with FND met specific criteria to enable the diagnosis of persistent postural-perceptual dizziness, also known as PPPD. Symptoms of PPPD include dizziness, non-spinning vertigo and fluctuating unsteadiness provoked by environmental or social stimuli that cannot be explained by some other neurologic disorder.
“The post-traumatic stress and mood symptoms reported are not surprising given the ongoing concerns of many of the participants,” said Louis French, Psy.D., neuropsychologist and deputy director of the National Intrepid Center of Excellence at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and a co-investigator on the study. “Often these individuals have had significant disruption to their lives and continue to have concerns about their health and their future. This level of stress can have significant negative impacts on the recovery process.”
NIH studies find severe symptoms of “Havana Syndrome,” but no evidence of MRI-detectable brain injury or biological abnormalities (National Institutes of Health, Mar 18, 2024)

FND according to Wikipedia:

Functional neurologic disorder or functional neurological disorder (FND) is a condition in which patients experience neurological symptoms such as weakness, movement disorders, sensory symptoms, and blackouts. As a functional disorder, there is by definition no known disease process affecting the structure of the body, yet the person experiences symptoms relating to their body function. Symptoms of functional neurological disorders are clinically recognisable, but are not categorically associated with a definable organic disease.
The intended contrast is with an organic brain syndrome, where a pathology (disease process) can be identified which affects the body's physiology.
Functional neurologic disorder (Wiki)

So real symptoms but no sign of actual brain injury or any other kind of physiological damage.

As could be expected, David Relman isn't pleased with the new NIH reports about what he likes to call "abrupt-onset, location-dependent sensory phenomena" (i.e. the scary sound of crickets). He writes a much-too-long editorial about how awfully complicated the whole thing is, referring primarily to his own NAS and 'expert panel' reports and ignoring the JASON reports.
This is how he summarizes the ODNi report:

The US Intelligence Community has discounted this possibility [i.e. "pulsed radiofrequency energy as a plausible mechanism"] and concluded that reported symptoms were probably the result of “preexisting conditions, conventional illnesses, and environmental factors,” influenced by their assessment that no foreign adversary played a role in these cases.
Neurological Illness and National Security - Lessons to Be Learned (JAMA, Mar 18, 2024)

In other words, he insinuates that the result of the ODNI investigation was biassed ('influenced') by their assessment as if the assessment wasn't a result of the investigation but was the established bias guiding the investigation - the way Relman would do it.

But mainly the whole thing is all so very complex that it is almost impossible to understand for mere mortals:

Third, the effort to explain AHIs, as with other enigmatic and highly publicized clinical syndromes such as Gulf War syndrome, has been hampered by our collective difficulty in dealing with uncertainty, complexity, the need for transdisciplinary approaches, insufficient information or misinformation, and a topic that is politically charged and divisive, in part because of the implications of different explanatory hypotheses, especially the possible involvement of malefactors.

Whereas David Relman's superiority made him not only willing but eager to expose "the possible involvement of malefactors" from the get-go.


It's worth remembering this WP article from as long ago as 2018:
Scientists and doctors zap theory that microwave weapon injured Cuba diplomats (Washington Post, Sep 6, 2018).
It is one of the mainstream-media articles that have aged well.

 

[dann]

From the article mentioned in the post above, People with 'Havana Syndrome' Show No Brain Damage or Medical Illness (Scientific American, Mar 18, 2024):

The largest and most comprehensive studies of 'Havana Syndrome' point to stress or group psychology as likely explanations for most 'anomalous health incidents'
(...)
The JAMA findings follow the 2023 release of an intelligence community assessment that found that the injuries were not the result of foreign attacks. More likely, the assessment suggested, they were tied to previous injuries, stress, environmental concerns and "social factors" such as group psychology, in which illness symptoms reported by one individual in a community can spread serially among its members.

It is obvious that "group psychology" is a reference to mass psychogenic illness, which is only explicitly mentioned once, in the title of Robert Baloh and Robert Bartholmew's book, Havana Syndrome: Mass Psychogenic Illness and the Real Story Behind the Embassy Mystery and Hysteria (Goodreads).

The article quotes objections to the new study from both David Relman and 'Havana syndrome' lawyer Mark Zaid, but it lets Bartholomew have the last word:

"They have essentially said, 'We have not found any compelling evidence for Bigfoot', but of course, Bigfoot could be there; we just didn't see it," he says.

The next time I go to Havana, I'll ask the management of the Hotel Nacional if they'll let me see what's behind that door to the service chase. It's probably the last place Bigfoot can still be hiding.


The Scientific American article also contains a list of recommended articles:

Curated by our editors

A 'Havana Syndrome' Investigation in Congress Rests on Politics, Not Science
Robert Bartholomew

How 'Anomalous Health Incidents' in Cuba Sidelined Science
Mitchell J. Valdés-Sosa

"Sonic Weapon Attacks" on U.S. Embassy Don't Add Up--For Anyone
R. Douglas Fields

The Science of Mysteries: For Whom the Bells Toll
Jennifer Ouellette

 

[dann]

David Relman revisited

I have mentioned David Relman's theory of sound dissipation a couple of times, for instance in post 1,306:

The injured officials we spoke with said the sound or a feeling of pressure came from one direction and focused in one location.
Miles Taylor: It was a continuous sound and one that only changed based on my location.
Dr. David Relman: They left, it dissipated. They returned, it recurred. That to us was something that we had never heard of, we could not explain by known medical or environmental conditions, and to us deserved our special attention in an effort to understand what might be the plausible mechanism.
That mechanism, Dr. Relman's committees concluded, was most likely "pulsed electromagnetic energy." In other words, a focused beam of microwaves fired from a distance.
Havana Syndrome: High-level national security officials stricken with unexplained illness on White House grounds (CBS News, 60 Minutes, Feb 20, 2022)

Really?! You have never ever heard of this phenomenon? You hear a sound in a room, then you leave the room, and the sound dissipates. When you return, you hear the sound again. Where's the mystery? It is how acoustics usually works. Why would you need to resort to microwaves to explain it?
Zebras and horses ...

David Relman mentions it again in the new JAMA editorial:

A subset of individuals described the abrupt onset, sometimes in the middle of the night, of a loud, grinding, clicking, buzzing, or high-pitched piercing sound inside the head, occasionally likened to a slide whistle, and a sensation of pressure, sometimes in one ear, on one side of the head, or in the face or chest. Most strikingly, these phenomena often displayed strong location dependence, in that they quickly dissipated when the individuals vacated their initial location, and then returned when the location was revisited. In some cases, this location dependence was reported to occur repeatedly by the same individual or by multiple individuals as they moved away from and then returned within minutes to a specific location, such as part of a room.
Neurological Illness and National Security - Lessons to Be Learned (JAMA, Mar 18, 2024)

Over the years, the descriptions of this experience have been adapted to the respective narratives they are meant to support. Notice, for instance, how it was described when the general public first heard about it.
From the OP, Sep 17, 2017:

Some felt vibrations, and heard sounds — loud ringing or a high-pitch chirping similar to crickets or cicadas. Others heard the grinding noise. Some victims awoke with ringing in their ears and fumbled for their alarm clocks, only to discover the ringing stopped when they moved away from their beds.

Inside the head is an adaptation to the microwave/Frey effect narrative. It is inconsistent with the cricket recordings, which made it obvious that it couldn't possibly be the Frey effect: It was not a 'sound' inside the head. It was an actual, physical sound outside the head. Otherwise, it would not have been recordable.

Does David Relman mention crickets or recordings in the new JAMA editorial? No, of course he doesn't!

Does actual, physical sound exhibit a "strong location dependence"? Yes, of course it does, and we all know that it does. The closer you get to the source of a sound, the louder the volume is. And when you move away from it, it "dissipates." Even children know this, but researchers are unaware of this phenomenon - or at least they appear to be when they are trying to make sound sound much more mysterious than it actually is.

Another adaptation to the narrative of a DEW attack is this: "a sensation of pressure, sometimes in one ear, on one side of the head, or in the face or chest."
After all, sound can't cause pressure in the face or chest, can it?!

Well no, not in and of itself, but Anxiety May Be Causing Your Chest Pressure (CalmClinic, Oct 10, 2020) and A tingling, number, or burning face is symptom of anxiety that can cause a great deal of fear. (CalmClinic, Mar 1, 2021).

So the cricket sounds didn't cause the sensation of pressure felt by the 'Havana Syndrome' suffers. The interpretation of the cricket sounds did - whether or not the anxiety victims came up with that interpretation on the spot on their own or had been instructed to look out for these alleged brain-damaging and life-destroying symptoms of alleged directed-energy attacks.

'Mystery' solved! No need for microwaves or "the possible involvement of malefactors."

 

[dann]

A new article by Robert Bartholomew in Scientific American. I don't have access, so no quotation or summary. I assume that it adresses the health bill mentioned in post 2,131.

A 'Havana Syndrome' Investigation in Congress Rests on Politics, Not Science (ScientificAmerican, Mar 15, 2024)

As could be expected, Targeted Individual Len Ber doesn't like Bartholomew's article:

Dr Bartholomew brings up the infamous “cricket” report, while completely ignoring more recent and substantive report with a different conclusion, congruent with the conclusion of the National Academy of Sciences consensus report.
A Very Polite Response to the Latest Insanity by Dr. Robert Bartholomew (Substack, Mar 17, 2024)

Len Ber is thinking of the report from David Relman's so-called 'expert panel' in 2022 "while completely ignoring" the much more recent and substantive report with a different conclusion, i.e. the ODNI report from March 1, 2023, which concluded:

As part of its review, the IC [Intelligence Community] identified critical assumptions surrounding the initial AHIs reported in Cuba from 2016 to 2018, which framed the IC’s understanding of this phenomenon, but were not borne out by subsequent medical and technical analysis. In light of this and the evidence that points away from a foreign adversary, causal mechanism, or unique syndrome linked to AHIs, IC agencies assess that symptoms reported by US personnel were probably the result of factors that did not involve a foreign adversary, such as preexisting conditions, conventional illnesses, and environmental factors. IC confidence in this explanation is bolstered by the fact that we identified medical, environmental, and social factors that plausibly can explain many AHIs reported by US officials.
Updated Assessment of Anomalous Health Incidents (Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Mar 1, 2023)

Len Ber is enthusiastic about David Relman's JAMA editorial (mentioned in previous posts in this thread):

As you probably read in the Editorial written by Dr Relman preceding the 2 most recent JAMA papers, we need “new, more sensitive non-invasive methods” of detecting AHA resulting in NKBI.
Len Ber (X, Mar 23, 2024)

Much like astrologers and other new-wave communities, the argument of TIs (and David Relaman) is that, whatever their preferred belief is, it does not conflict with real (i.e. imaginary) science. There's just the slight current problem that actual science isn't quite there yet, but some day in the near future when science has acquired the necessary tools and skills, it will align with ideas like Saturn's impact on personal growth or the impact of DEW attacks on the brains of U.S. intelligence agents and diplomatic staff stationed in Havana and elsewere.
Any day now ...
The truth is out there!

 

[dann]

'Havana syndrome': FND but not MPI?!

A short podcast about the two new NIH reports and their implications:

In late 2016, US officials in Cuba’s capital began experiencing a mysterious and often debilitating set of symptoms that came to be known as Havana syndrome. As two new studies into the condition are published, Ian Sample speaks to the Guardian’s world affairs editor, Julian Borger, who has been following the story, and to the consultant neurologist Prof Jon Stone, about what could be behind the condition
Havana syndrome: will we ever understand what happened? – podcast (Guardian, Mar 21, 2024 - 16:12 min.)

Jon Stone describes functional neurological disorder (FND) as "a software problem of the brain."

Ian Sample: So, given what we know, and obviously there is plenty that we don't know right now, but what we do know so far, I mean, do you think functional neurological disorder could be a good explanation for what we are seeing in these people? And have you got any thoughts on what might have been that triggering event?

Jon Stone: I think it was always a possibility based on the description of the symptoms I was hearing. One of the things that I was particularly struck by was that the patients, and this was in the original report, many of the patients describe symptoms that got worse over time.
Now that simply doesn't make sense ... when you're thinking about brain injury. Because, you know, that if you had an injury, and the symptoms are worse at the time of the injury, then they slowly improve. They might plateau. They don't get worse over time. Getting worse over time is typical of a functional disorder.
We know that functional disorders are usually triggered by some unusual sensory experience. And talking to people who know about directed-energy weapons, I understand that it's much easier to produce an abnormal or unpleasant sensory experience from a distance, than it is to actually cause brain damage. It was the causing brain damage that was really difficult for people to understand.
So it is possible, I think, that a device could cause an unpleasant sensory experience from a distance. It wouldn't cause brain damage, but enough to trigger functional disorder. I don't think that third option has been particularly thought about.
I think we desperately need to destigmatize and understand these conditions as genuine medical conditions that can happen to anyone.

It makes me wonder if Julian Borger never heard about the cricket recordings. It is obvious that the cricket sounds were enough to trigger an "unpleasant sensory experience."
Otherwise, the 'Havana syndrome' sufferers wouldn't have played them for each other and on TV as evidence of an attack:
'Seized by some invisible hand': What it feels like to have Havana Syndrome (NBC News, Oct 13, 2021)


I wonder if Julian Borger would have been as dismissive of MPI as the explanation for the incidents in Havana if the people afflicted had been schoolgirls instead of CIA agents and diplomats.

Julian Borger: Both answers seem far-fetched:
One, that there is a secret weapon out there that we have not yet discovered but that can cause these terrible symptoms. That seems far-fetched.
But on the other hand, that diplomats and spies would be laid low by a psychogenic illness that affected such a large number of government employees. That sounds far-fetched as well.
So it does remain a real mystery

Julian Borger (unlike Jon Stone?!) seems to find it hard to believe in "these conditions as genuine medical conditions that can happen to anyone."

 

[dann]

A new article by Robert Bartholomew in Skeptic focusses on the two recent NIH studies* in JAMA and on how they have been received by people like David Relman and James Giordano:

It is noteworthy that mass psychogenic illness, which some skeptics have long tied to the episode, is a form of FND. The presence of functional disorders is not surprising because they are commonly triggered by stress and the American staff in Havana were, by any definition, under exceptional stress. They had been counselled that they would be under surveillance 24/7 once they arrived in Havana and later told that they may be targets of a mysterious weapon and to be vigilant for strange sounds and symptoms. They were even warned not to stand or sleep near windows as it could render them vulnerable to an attack.
THE GAME IS UP: NEW STUDY FINDS NO EVIDENCE FOR HAVANA SYNDROME (Skeptic, Mar 27, 2024)

An article that Bartholomew's article links to mentions James Giordano's response to the NIH studies:

Dr. James Giordano, who teaches neurology at the Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington DC, was more cautious about the syndrome's exact cause. 'Let's not call it a weapon,' Dr. Giordano told DailyMail.com. 'One of the considerations, here, was that if, in fact, these individuals were exposed to some form of electromagnetic and/or acoustic stimulus,' Dr. Giordano explained, 'the nature of the damage would be functional, rather than structural.'
New NIH study sheds light on mysterious 'Havana Syndrome' (DailyMail, Mar 19, 2024)

It's safe to say that I don't remember ever hearing or seeing Giordano describe the 'syndrome' as a functional neurological disorder (FND) until the Daily Mail quotation. In order for me to claim that he actually never did, it would require that I went through all his articles and interviews, which I have no intentions of doing.

However, I do remember his conversation with Len Ber in October '23:

James Giordano appears to believe in nano-materials that can penetrate the walls of cells and then "self-assemble" to nano-machines within the cells.
"These types of aerosolizable nanomaterials, we can spray them into the air." People who already fear 'chem-trails' will feel vindicated by this idea, so it's no wonder that (some) targeted individuals love him.

Other claims: "We can zap the brain and modify the mind. ... Nanotechnology enables real-time reading from and writing into the brain. ...State of the art is now for next generation non-surgical neuro-modulation inhalables, ingestables, deliverables via very very small-scale units at the nano scale that can then be segued to where they have to go in the brain and form literally vast arrays of sensors and transmitters to be able to real-time remotely read from the living brain and write into the living brain. That sounds like sci-fi, doesn't it?! It's not. This is a project that DARPA, that I have the honor and privilege of working on, called the NCBE."

These ideas would have been enough to inspire people prone to paranoid ideas to develop FND, and they no doubt were an inspiration for Len Ber's attempts to find nanobots in medicine and blood samples. Len Ber seems to have given up on this quest after members of ISF came up with a much more likely explanation for what he saw in his microscope.

I doubt that James Giordano will ever give up his dream of "literally vast arrays of sensors and transmitters to be able to real-time remotely read from the living brain and write into the living brain." The brain-computer interface (BCI) idea is popular on X and in TI circles. It's sometimes also referred to as digital or synthetic telepathy!
I don't know that you have to inhale in order to come up with this stuff, but I hope that an FFP2 filter will offer enough protection.

*
Clinical, Biomarker, and Research Tests Among US Government Personnel and Their Family Members Involved in Anomalous Health Incidents (JAMA, Mar 18, 2024)
Neuroimaging Findings in US Government Personnel and Their Family Members Involved in Anomalous Health Incidents (JAMA, Mar 18, 2024)

 

[dann]

Correction from the previous post:

However, I do remember his conversation with Len Ber in October '23:

I shouldn't trust my memory! What I thought was a conversation between Len Ber and James Giordano was actually Len Ber's conversation with Don Prosser. However, the quotations were correctly attributed to James Giordano. They were excerpts from HDIAC Podcast - Weaponizing Brain Science: Neuroweapons - Part 1 of 2 (YouTube, June 19, 2020) and McCain Conference 2022 Panel: Brain Computer Interface (YouTube, Sep 1, 2022) played during Len Ber's conversation with Don Prosser.

 

[dann]

Michael Shermer linking to Robert Bartholomew's article:

Havana Syndrome has now been definitively debunked. There are no sonic weapons, no secret technologies. Just human psychology. Read our definitive report by Robert Bartholomew, world expert on mass hysterias, psychogenic illnesses & pathological science:
Michael Shermer (X, Mar 27, 2024)

 

[dann]

60 Minutes may be about to repeat the stunt they pulled immediately after the CIA interim report in early 2022.
New teaser from their show on Sunday - and I fear it's not meant as an April Fools' Day joke. (I just noticed that it's also one day too early for that.)

The TIs will love the title!

For the first time, sources tell 60 Minutes they have evidence that a U.S. adversary may be involved in attacks on American government officials and a condition known as Havana Syndrome. Scott Pelley reports, Sunday.

A car chase in Florida may have provided the vital clue - Police: "Pull over! Pull over!" - to a national security mystery.
Many U.S. officials and their families believe they've been injured by a secret weapon in the hands of a foreign adversary.
Woman: "It's devastating. It's absolutely devastating."
For the first time, we have evidence of who might be responsible.
Scott Pelley: "Are we being attacked?"
Man: "My personal opinion? Yes!"
Scott Pelley: "By whom?"
Targeting Americans (CBS 60 Minutes, Mar 29, 2024 - 36 sec)

The first bit has footage of a car chase, but the masterpiece is the footage of a woman with an actual scar above one ear! It's not something I've ever heard mentioned in the 'syndrome' cases.

I think they also used the combination back in 2022: evidence that something might have happened.

 

[dann]

The 'Havana Syndrome' in Germany: Soft-boiled brains

The German skeptics in GWUP write about a recent episode of the crime-fiction series Tatort:
Geschmolzene Gehirne: Das Havanna-Syndrom im „Tatort“ (GWUP blog, Mar 20, 2024)
Melted brains: The Havana Syndrome in "Tatort" (Tatort = crime scene)

In the episode, the murder victim's brain is also described as "soft-boiled."

The conclusion of the GWUP piece is that "As always, "psychogenic mass psychology effects" are the best explanation for the Havana syndrome."
German is usually a pretty precise language, so I don't think that the translation of MPI would usually need two references to psychology.

Earlier in the short article, Relman and his 'expert panel' are criticized:
"However, skeptics dismissed the report as "junk science".

The last one of the seven comments so far is a link to Bartholomew's most recent article in Skeptic.

On Facebook.

 

[dann]

Despite clashes over reality of Havana Syndrome, CIA agents have been paid for injuries (Miami Herald, Mar 29, 2024)

The CIA agents and U.S. diplomats were harmed by the DEW-attack narrative.
So were all the TIs.
They still are.
Would people like Karen Coats and Kate Husband (post 1,677) have developed EHS if 'syndrome' doctors hadn't first convinced them that their brains had been damaged by DEWs?

 

[dann]

A longer teaser for the upcoming CBS 60 Minutes episode about the 'syndrome':

A Florida car chase may have revealed a possible connection to the mysterious Havana Syndrome. Police body camera video shows what was in the car — and who was behind the wheel. 60 Minutes reports.
Connection revealed between Havana Syndrome, speeding Mustang in Florida (CBS Mornings on YouTube, Mar 29, 2024 - 2:20 min.)

It doesn't look like a smoking ray gun to me.
The Russian's name is Vitali Kovalev (spelling according to the subtitles). I don't know if this may be the guy: Vitaly Nikolayevich Kovalev (SecretService.gov)
Maybe it's just a common name. This is a Russian soccer player: Vitali Kovalev (Bold.dk)

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Cubans want electricity and food.

Free Cuba from the tyranny of communism. Then there will be electricity and food.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. Cuba wasn't exactly a paradise under Batista.

Cuban Agriculture Before 1959: The Social Situation

In 1956–1957, the ACU study found that 43% of rural workers were illiterate and that 44% of them had never attended school...

Housing, including water supply and electricity, was not any better than employment, income, and education for the rural population. The 1953 Population, Housing, and Electoral Census provides useful data from which to draw some conclusions about the state of rural housing at that time. Almost 47% of the total number of dwellings nationwide was classified as either in ruinous or bad shape (30% urban and 75% rural), housing 53% of the Cuban population at the time of the 1953 Census...

Concerning electricity, only 5.8% of the housing that received that service at the national level was found in rural areas...

The ACU reported an index of malnutrition of 91%, which is questioned by Gordon (1983, p. 8). Benjamin et al. (1986, pp. 95, 203) provide a description of the methodological flaws, leading them to consider the 91% index an inflated figure, but they also recognize that it nevertheless conveys the magnitude of rural malnutrition...

The lack of a sufficient diet and sound sanitary conditions brought about a series of diseases that , which were very difficult to eradicate because of the scarcity of medical assistance in rural areas. ACU's study mentioned that 14% of the participants suffered, or had suffered, from tuberculosis and 13% from typhus. In addition, 36% of rural workers in the sample had parasites and another 31% had malaria...

It is clear that viewing the aggregated statistics for Cuba as a whole does not give an accurate picture of the conditions among Cuba's rural population and agricultural workers. For example, Cuba's per capita income figures ignore the critical question of distribution of that income. Statistics on the value of imports per capita are deceiving because these imports went exclusively to urban areas with the necessary purchasing power. As we have seen previously, per capita caloric consumption data ignore the nutritional deficiencies experienced by Cuba's rural populace. Finally, statistics, such as per capita number of televisions, telephones, automobiles, hospitals, and schools, tend to mask the basic fact that much of rural Cuba at that time had no electrical or telephone service and that automobiles, hospitals, and schools were concentrated in the city of Havana and other urban areas.

Freeing Cuba from the 'tyranny of communism' would almost certainly improve relations with the US, which should then allow their economy to improve through trade. OTOH there is no guarantee that the people most in need would benefit from it.

The big question you didn't address is - what are you going to replace it with? Our efforts to free other countries countries from tyranny have not turned out as well as expected. IMO it would be better to improve relations and let Cubans 'free' themselves. Unfortunately a certain vindictive US president was only interested in ripping down anything Obama did - and that got us here.

 

[dann]

Please don't jump onboard Random person's attempts to derail this thread. There is another thread Protests Erupt in Cuba where the lack of food and electricity in Cuba would be a relevant theme of discussion, but for some reason nobody is interested. People prefer to mention Cuba in threads where it's entirely irrelevant instead of in the thread where it might be.
Besides, take a look at Random person's body of work! The point of those posts are never about the themes of the respective threads.

 

[dann]

A third teaser for the CBS 60 Minutes episode about 'Havana Syndrome' tomorrow:

For the first time in a five-year investigation, sources tell @60minutes they have evidence suggesting a U.S. adversary may be involved in attacks on hundreds of American government officials who served overseas and reported a neurological condition known as Havana Syndrome.
Foreign adversaries may be involved in Havana Syndrome, sources say (CBS Evening News on X, Mar 30, 2024 - 1:29 min.)

Once again, the combination of the words evidence and may. Apparently, there was "an incident at last year's NATO summit in Lithuania. ... Multiple sources tell us that a senior official of the Department of Defense was struck by the symptoms and sought medical treatment."
The NATO summit in Vilnius took place on July 11-12, 2023.
So four months after the ODNI investigation of 1,500+ cases concluded this:

As part of its review, the IC identified critical assumptions surrounding the initial AHIs reported in Cuba from 2016 to 2018, which framed the IC’s understanding of this phenomenon, but were not borne out by subsequent medical and technical analysis. In light of this and the evidence that points away from a foreign adversary, causal mechanism, or unique syndrome linked to AHIs, IC agencies assess that symptoms reported by US personnel were probably the result of factors that did not involve a foreign adversary, such as preexisting conditions, conventional illnesses, and environmental factors. IC confidence in this explanation is bolstered by the fact that we identified medical, environmental, and social factors that plausibly can explain many AHIs reported by US officials.
Updated Assessment of Anomalous Health Incidents (Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Mar 1, 2023)

Four months after the ODNI report, one new U.S. official came down with the symptoms (without the cricket sound, I assume!) of AHI:

What are the symptoms of AHI?
Symptoms can vary but include:
Dizziness (unsteadiness or vertigo)
Emotional distress
Headache
Hearing loss
Insomnia
Mild confusion
Nausea
Slowed thinking
Anomalous Health Incidents: FAQ (Tricare.mil)

I wonder what Vitali Kovalev (see post 2,154), the guy who was pulled over in Florida, has to do with this. Did he happen to be in Vilnius at the time?! Did one of the notes of bank accounts found in his car have a reference to Lithuania? Or can the "device that looks like a walkie-talkie [and] can erase the car's computer data including its GPS record" also be used to cause mild confusion, nausea and slowed thinking in senior DoD officials?

All of this and more on CBS 60 Minutes tomorrow, I assume.

 

[dann]

New podcast:

Who has it? Where did they get it? Is it real? (with Jon Lee Anderson)
Havana Syndrome: Part One (Mission Implausible, Mar 27, 2024 - 32 min.)

Jon Lee Anderson repeats his favorite hypotheses from his and Adam Entous's VICE podcast series, i.e. that Castro got upset by the many Americans coming to Cuba after the 'Cuban thaw' (Wiki) and then had a faction attack U.S. spyplomats with ray guns. Unlike most others, Anderson thinks that the Cubans would have been able to make the imaginary directed-energy weapons themselves.

Earlier posts about the VICE podcast series: 1,642, 1,646, 1,656, 1,657, 1,658, 1,662, 1,679 + 1,816 1,705 1,817, 1,818, 1,819, 1,822 & 1,823.

 

[Orphia Nay]

The CBS trailer isn’t viewable in my country.

However, if the show is anything like Australia’s 60 Minutes, it’ll be 45% TDI interviews and believers, 10% Bartholomew et Al, and a 5 minute wrap-up of “you decide”. (Not counting time for ads.)

 

[dann]

Can't you access it on YouTube?!

I can guarantee you that there will be no Bartholomew. And I don't think that there'll be any et al either. There was not the least bit of skepticism in 60 Minutes' last episode about the 'syndrome' two years ago - soon after the CIA interim report.

I don't think that it's a coincidence that this one comes immediately after the two NIH studies. Mark Zaid seems to be involved. He has been busy posting and reposting teasers on X for a couple of days:

Marc Polymeropoulos @Mpolymer (Mar 30)
Worth paying attention when the former senior investigator on Havana Syndrome for DoD-the actual chief of the DoD unit, one of the five 'leads' in the overall IC-one who had access to everything the US IC collected-finally speaks....
CBS Evening News

Mark S. Zaid @MarkSZaidEsq (X, Mar 30, 2024)

Oh, the country shall be named and quite evident from the evidence. Tune in.

Jeff Stein @SpyTalker (Mar 29)
Report: 'Adversary' Responsible for Havana Syndrome Attacks. 60 Minutes says it has new 'evidence' of foreign adversary attacks on US officials, but it can't name who or why.
Report: 'Adversary' Responsible for Havana Syndrome Attacks (SpyTalk, Mar 29)

Mark S. Zaid @MarkSZaidEsq (X, Mar 30, 2024)

But both country and perpetrator have already been revealed since Vitali Kovalev was the guy driving the Mustang in Florida, and he had a (gasp!) Russian passport!!!

 

[dann]

60 Minutes has combined its episodes about the 'syndrome' from 2019 and ´22:

From 2019 and 2022, Scott Pelley's investigation into neurological symptoms and serious brain injuries reported by U.S. diplomats, intelligence agents and troops around the world and even on the grounds of the White House.
0:00 Intro
0:11 Targeting Americans (2019)
13:48 Targeting Americans (2022, Part 1)
30:11 Targeting Americans (2022, Part 2)
41:18 Inside the story
"Havana Syndrome" (60 Minutes on YouTube, Mar 30, 2024 - 47:40 min.)

So line up the shot glasses, lean back and take a drink every time a skeptic appears! If there are more of you, rest assured that you won't need a designated driver!

The closest thing to a skeptic is CIA Director William Burns (beginning at 36:35). The interview with him must have taken place after the CIA interim report on Jan 20, 2022, but before the ODNI report on Mar 1, 2023, obviously. At that point, he was aware that not a trace of a foreign adversary with a ray gun had been found, but he appeared to hope that something would still turn up in the ongoing investigation.
Apart from that, crickets and psychogenic illness are both mentioned once in a dismissive tone: How could they treat the poor victims with such a lack of compassion!
There was no need for a "5 minute wrap-up of “you decide”" then. There probably won't be this time.