• Guests may view all public nodes. However, you must be registered to post.

U.S. Cuts Staff in Cuba & China Over Mysterious Injuries, Warns Travelers

eth32

Member
(Advisory: Strong language in paragraph 16 may be offensive to some readers)

By Arshad Mohammed and Sarah Marsh

WASHINGTON/HAVANA (Reuters) - The United States on Friday cut its diplomatic presence in Cuba by more than half and warned U.S. citizens not to visit because of mysterious “attacks” that have caused hearing loss, dizziness and fatigue in U.S. embassy personnel.

The U.S. embassy in Havana will halt regular visa operations for Cubans seeking to visit the United States and offer only emergency services to U.S. citizens, steps that may further erode the U.S.-Cuban rapprochement begun by former President Barack Obama.

The partial evacuation, while depicted as a safety measure, sends a message of U.S. displeasure over Cuba’s handling of the matter and delivers another blow to Obama’s policies of engagement with Cold War foe Cuba.

The Communist Party-run Cuban government was already dealing with several delicate matters - the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, a steep decline in aid from important socialist ally Venezuela and political transition as President Raul Castro steps down next year.

Cuba’s Foreign Ministry chief for U.S. Affairs Josefina Vidal said: “We consider the decision announced today by the U.S. government through the State Department is hasty and will affect bilateral relations.”

Vidal, in a briefing on state-run television, said Cuba was still keen to cooperate with U.S. authorities to clarify what happened.

Officials in President Donald Trump’s administration stressed the United States was maintaining diplomatic ties with Cuba.

Twenty-one U.S. embassy employees in Cuba have been injured and reported symptoms such as hearing loss, dizziness, headache, fatigue, cognitive issues, and difficulty sleeping, the State Department said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cuba/u-s-cuts-staff-in-cuba-over-mysterious-injuries-warns-travelers-idUSKCN1C4212
 
In what is becoming an increasingly alarming mystery, U.S diplomats and their families are being evacuated out of China after hearing stranges noises and falling ill. The strange sounds have been compared to hearing cicadas, the waving of metal sheets or static. After hearing the sounds, people complain of symptoms similar to a traumatic brain injury, such as headaches, nausea, cognitive issues and hearing loss.

It has happened before in Cuba in 2016 where 24 American Embassy employees fell ill after hearing similar sounds. The unknown reason for the illnesses strained relations with Cuba causing the United States to expel Cuban diplomats.

At the time the Associated Press theorized that the events in Cuba could have been caused by the use of “an advanced sonic weapon that operated outside the range of audible sound.” It was guessed that devices were being placed in the diplomates homes. Others speculate that spy gear placed to close together could interact sending out the strange sounds and causing the illnesses.

The latest reoccurence of this mystery led State Department to issue a health warning for US citizens in China.

The US has also set up a task force to oversee the response to the mystery ailments among diplomats in China and Cuba.

http://www.guacamoley.com/the-scoop/2018/06/07/paKiV/us-diplomats-in-china-are-getting-sick-?utm_content=inf_1124_3742_1&tse_id=INF_147864c06a8111e88bf25767f9c122ea
 
The United States has pulled out two more of its workers from its embassy in Cuba and is testing them for possible brain injury, three U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Friday, amid concerns they may have been affected by mysterious health incidents harming U.S. diplomats in Cuba and China.

The two individuals are considered "potentially new cases" but have not yet been "medically confirmed," a State Department official said. Two other officials said the individuals have been brought for testing to the University of Pennsylvania, where doctors have been evaluating, treating and studying Americans affected in Cuba last year as well as almost 10 new possible cases from a U.S. consulate in China.


The officials weren't authorized to comment publicly and requested anonymity.

If confirmed by doctors to have the same condition, the two individuals would mark the 25th and 26th confirmed patients from the bizarre incidents in Cuba that were first disclosed last year and have been deemed "specific attacks" by the U.S. government. The United States has said it doesn't know who is behind it, but has argued Cuba is responsible for protecting all diplomats on its soil. Cuba has denied any involvement in or knowledge of what may have caused the injuries.

https://apnews.com/amp/3c3603a9de0d461991e3ee628f3e0c58?__twitter_impression=true
 
Cuba's foreign ministry said Sunday that it has not uncovered the cause of mysterious health symptoms that affected an official of the US embassy in Havana last month and characterized the United States' decision to withdraw personnel posted there as "politically motivated."

In a statement, the Cuban ministry said officials launched an investigation after learning an employee had "reported health symptoms as a result of 'undefined sound' in her place of residence." According to the statement, authorities could not find the source of the sound.

"After more than a year of research by the specialized agencies and experts from Cuba and the United States, it is confirmed that there is no credible hypothesis or conclusions adhered to science that justify the actions taken by the government of the United States against Cuba to the detriment of the bilateral relationship and with obvious political motivations," the statement said.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/10/politics/cuba-us-diplomat-sonic-attack/index.html
 
The United States on Thursday renewed calls for the Cuban government to determine the source of health "attacks" on U.S. diplomats in Cuba that have affected some two dozen people. Cuba again denied any involvement or knowledge of any such attacks.

At a senior-level meeting with Cuban officials in Washington, the State Department said it had again raised the issue, which has prompted a significant reduction in staffing at the U.S. Embassy in Havana. It reiterated "the urgent need to identify the source of the attacks on U.S. diplomats and to ensure they cease."

"We also reiterated that until it is sufficiently safe to fully staff our embassy, we will not be able to provide regular visa services in Havana," the department said in a statement.

https://www.mrt.com/news/medical/article/US-renews-call-for-Cuba-to-probe-health-attacks-12995006.php
 
Medical tests have confirmed that one additional U.S. Embassy worker has been affected by mysterious health incidents in Cuba, bringing the total number to 25.

That's according to an unclassified notice sent to congressional officials by the State Department. The notice was described to The Associated Press by a congressional aide who insisted on anonymity because the notice hasn't been made public.

The new "medically confirmed" worker is one of two who were recently evacuated from Cuba after reporting symptoms. The notice says that prior to this development, the most recent "medically confirmed" case from Cuba was in August 2017.

The State Department declined to immediately comment.

https://apnews.com/amp/b0f9488861f5406cbad406bd7b3b28bd?__twitter_impression=true
 
The State Department has evacuated at least 11 Americans from China after abnormal sounds or sensations were reported by government employees at the United States Consulate in the southern city of Guangzhou, officials said, deepening a mystery that has so far confounded investigators.

At least eight Americans associated with the consulate in Guangzhou have now been evacuated, according to one official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

In addition, one employee from the consulate in Shanghai and two from the embassy in Beijing were sent to the United States for further medical tests after undergoing examinations that the department encouraged when the first report of illnesses in Guangzhou surfaced in April, the official said.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raised the issue with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, in a telephone call that otherwise focused on the diplomacy surrounding North Korea’s nuclear program, according to a statement released Friday morning in Beijing.

The cases in Guangzhou — and now possibly Shanghai and Beijing — are similar to a wave of illnesses that struck Americans working at the embassy in Havana, Cuba, beginning in fall 2016. Another American there was reported last week to have symptoms, bringing the total number of those afflicted by what have been described as “sonic attacks” to 25.

It remains unclear whether the cases in Shanghai and Beijing — which have not been previously reported — were related to what officials described as “subtle and vague, but abnormal, sensations of sound and pressure” experienced at an apartment tower in Guangzhou where a number of consulate employees live.

The sounds and sensations in Cuba, and now China, have been variously attributed to sophisticated electronic eavesdropping efforts or a form of aural harassment, with some pointing fingers at Russia or China. Other experts have raised the possibility of environmental factors or even mass hysteria.

American officials in China declined to comment or did not respond to inquiries. But in a written response on Saturday, the State Department said that “several staff and family members” had been sent to the United States for further evaluation. The statement suggested that some might have been evacuated for “other unrelated issues.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/30/world/asia/china-sonic-guangzhou.html
 
Acting Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs Francisco Palmieri, Acting Deputy Under Secretary for Management William Todd and Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security Michael Evanoff traveled to Havana to "visit embassy personnel in light of new health attacks against US diplomats at Embassy Havana," a State Department spokesperson said.

Although the length of the trip was not revealed, CBS News reported that they left Cuba on Tuesday (Jul 24).

"The trip provided an opportunity for our senior officials to gain deeper insight into the unique challenges posed by these attacks and their impact on US operations on the ground," the US official said.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/top-us-diplomats-probe-latest-health--attacks--in-cuba-visit-10561074
 
Doctors and scientists increasingly suspect attacks with unconventional microwave weapons as the cause of the mysterious ailments that have stricken more than three dozen American diplomats and their families in Cuba and China, The New York Times reported Sunday.

The victims reported hearing intense high-pitched sounds in their hotel rooms or homes followed by symptoms that included nausea, severe headaches, fatigue, dizziness, sleep problems and hearing loss.

A medical team that examined 21 of those affected in Cuba did not mention microwave weapons as a cause in a study published in March in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

But its lead author, Douglas Smith, the director of the Centre for Brain Injury and Repair at the University of Pennsylvania, told The Times that microwave weapons are now considered a main suspect and that the team is increasingly sure the diplomats suffered brain injury.

“Everybody was relatively sceptical at first,” he was quoted as saying, “and everyone now agrees there’s something there.”

Neither the State Department nor the FBI has publicly pointed to microwave weapons as the culprit, and The Times said there were many unanswered questions as to who might have carried out the attacks and why.

 https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/2162447/report-microwave-weapon-suspected-mystery-attacks-us
 
Russia the main suspect in U.S. diplomats' illness in Cuba: NBC report
Russia is the main suspect in U.S. agencies' investigation of mysterious illnesses in American personnel in Cuba and China, NBC News reported on Tuesday.

Evidence from communications intercepts has pointed to Moscow's involvement during the investigation involving the FBI, CIA and other agencies, NBC reported, citing three unidentified U.S. officials and two other people briefed on the probe.

The evidence, however, is not conclusive enough for the United States to assign blame publicly to Moscow, according to the NBC report.

The FBI said it did not have a comment on the NBC report. A U.S. government source familiar with official assessments said intelligence agencies would not confirm the report.

U.S. officials said in July that they are still investigating health problems at the U.S. Embassy in Cuba, and do not know who or what was behind the mysterious illnesses, which began in 2016 and have affected 26 Americans.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told Reuters on Tuesday, "We have made no determination on who or what is responsible for the health attacks."

Symptoms have included hearing loss, tinnitus, vertigo, headaches and fatigue, a pattern consistent with "mild traumatic brain injury," State Department officials have said.

The State Department said in June it brought a group of diplomats home from Guangzhou, China, over concern they were suffering from a mysterious malady resembling brain injury.

Cuban officials, who are conducting their own investigation, have denied involvement.

https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN1LR1GE?__twitter_impression=true
 
This sounds a little petty for Russia. Not discounting it. Could be testing a new weapon, but they have prisoners for that. Seems to be a reckless thing to do.

Cuba yes. Russia?
 
Another Canadian diplomat found health problems after serving in Cuba
Another Canadian diplomat who worked in Cuba has anomalies in the functioning of the brain, according to the Canadian TV and Radio Company CBC on Thursday.

According to her, the victim is currently on treatment, while the Canadian authorities continue to investigate the possible causes of the so-called "Havana syndrome."

CBC notes that this is the third victim since the detection of the first case of health problems among Canadian diplomats in Cuba two years ago. Similar symptoms were found in at least 24 American diplomats working in Cuba - they complained of hearing problems.

https://t.co/khdBlhgcg8

Also: https://t.co/4BcybO5GFf
 
Oh and look what I found.


Statement on the health and security of Canadian diplomatic staff in Havana, Cuba
From: Global Affairs Canada

Statement

November 28, 2018 - Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada

The health, safety and security of our diplomatic staff and their families remain our priority.

The Government of Canada continues to investigate the potential causes of unusual health symptoms reported by some Canadian diplomatic staff and dependents posted to Havana, Cuba.

All potentially affected diplomatic personnel have been offered medical support.

To date, no cause has been identified. This remains the case today.

Medical testing confirmed that an additional employee has been affected. The individual is receiving the necessary medical attention. This incident brings the total number of confirmed cases of affected Canadian diplomats and dependents from 12 to 13.

In light of this new information, a decision has been made to allow staff currently posted to Cuba to return to Canada, if they wish. This was done previously, in April 2018, when the Government of Canada designated our embassy in Cuba as an unaccompanied post, meaning that diplomats posted to Cuba are not accompanied by their dependants.

A delegation of senior Canadian government officials will travel to Cuba next week to review Canada’s current operations and assess how to further reduce risks to our diplomatic personnel.

At this time, there is no evidence that Canadian travellers to Cuba are at risk. Canadian travellers should continue to check the Government of Canada’s Travel Advice and Advisories for the latest updates.

https://www.canada.ca/en/global-affairs/news/2018/11/statement-on-the-health-and-security-of-canadian-diplomatic-staff-in-havana-cuba.html
 
Canada to cut diplomatic presence in Cuba after another diplomat falls ill

https://t.co/2Tfe5FQwWk?amp=1
 
Canadian researchers say they may have identified the cause of a mystery illness which plagued diplomatic staff in Cuba in 2016.

Some reports in the US suggested an "acoustic attack" caused US staff similar symptoms, sparking speculation about a secret sonic weapon.

But the Canadian team suggests that neurotoxins from mosquito fumigation are the more likely cause.

The Zika virus, carried by mosquitoes, was a major health concern at the time.

So-called "Havana syndrome" caused symptoms including headaches, blurred vision, dizziness and tinnitus.

It made international headlines when the US announced more than a dozen staff from its Cuban embassy were being treated.

Cuba denied any suggestion of "attacks", and the reports led to increased tension between the two nations.

In July, a US academic study showed "brain abnormalities" in the diplomats. "It's not imagined, all I can say is that there is truth to be found," one of the authors said.

The Canadian team from the Brain Repair Centre in Halifax thinks it now has the answer

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49770369
 
He was a senior CIA official tasked with getting tough on Russia. Then, one night in Moscow, Marc Polymeropoulos's life changed forever. He says he was hit with a mysterious weapon, joining dozens of American diplomats and spies who believe they’ve been targeted with this secret device all over the world—and even at home, on U.S. soil. Now, as a CIA investigation points the blame at Russia, the victims are left wondering why so little is being done by the Trump administration.

Marc Polymeropoulos awoke with a start. The feeling of nausea was overwhelming. Food poisoning, he thought, and decided to head for the bathroom. But when he tried to get out of bed, he fell over. He tried to stand up and fell again. It was the early morning hours of December 5, 2017, and his Moscow hotel room was spinning around him. His ears were ringing. He felt, he recalled, “like I was going to both throw up and pass out at the same time.”

Polymeropoulos was a covert CIA operative, a jovial, burly man who likes to refer to himself as “grizzled.” Moscow was not the first time he had been on enemy territory. He had spent most of his career in the Middle East, fighting America’s long war on terrorism. He had hunted terrorists in Pakistan and Yemen. He did the same in Iraq and Afghanistan. He had been shot at, ducked under rocket fire, and had shrapnel whiz by uncomfortably close to his head. But that night, paralyzed with seasickness in the landlocked Russian capital, Polymeropoulos felt terrified and utterly helpless for the first time.

A loyal soldier of the CIA even after his untimely retirement, Polymeropoulos has never detailed publicly what he calls his “silent wounds.” But in the year since he left, he has become increasingly frustrated by the Agency’s reluctance to give him and the other CIA officers affected with the medical care they need. “It’s incumbent on them to provide the medical help we require, which does not include telling us that we’re all making it up,” he told me. “I want the Agency to treat this as a combat injury.” He has also grown alarmed that the Agency and this administration are neither investigating nor pushing back against the apparent perpetrators who are targeting his old comrades—and other Americans—in increasingly brazen ways. (In a statement to GQ, CIA representatives said that “the Agency’s top priority is the health and well-being of our officers followed very closely by collecting on hard targets, including Russia, and providing that intelligence to policymakers. Suggestions otherwise in your story are simply not true.”)

“There is a lot of incredible unease and disgust with the Agency leadership and the Office of Medical Services on this issue,” Polymeropoulos told me. That leadership, he says, “has not done right by us.” “There’s a lot of people who are very upset. And how can I say this? The Agency is going to have to answer for this.”

Polymeropoulos arrived in Moscow at the end of Donald Trump’s first, chaotic year in the White House. Shortly before Trump was inaugurated, the intelligence community releasedits conclusions that the Russian government had successfully meddled in the 2016 presidential election. It was the kind of high-confidence, public assessment that rarely came out of the fractious world of U.S. intelligence. Yet the new president dismissed their findings and denigrated intelligence officers as the “deep state” who wanted nothing more than to thwart his agenda. He also seemed determined to make nice with the Kremlin, even going so far as inviting the Russian foreign minister into the Oval Office in May 2017, and using the occasion to mockousted FBI director James Comey and to share highly classified Israeli intelligence with the Russians—without Jerusalem’s sign-off. “I remember thinking this is like George W. Bush inviting bin Laden after 9/11 and saying, ‘Eh, we’re good,’ ” Polymeropoulos told me. “Stuff like that that really alarmed us considerably.” Some of it, he added, made his “head explode.”

Not only were the president’s overtures to Vladimir Putin concerning, they were also in direct contradiction to the work Polymeropoulos was doing at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. In late January 2017, Polymeropoulos had been transferred from the CIA’s counterterrorism division and promoted to a new role: deputy chief of operations for the Europe and Eurasia Mission Center, the EEMC. The CIA’s leadership, along with then director Mike Pompeo, decided that it was time to start pushing back on Russian active-measures campaigns more aggressively and that the best way to show the Kremlin that the Americans were serious was to bring in the tough guys who had spent the past 15 years in the Middle East. These people, like Polymeropoulos, didn’t know much about Russia, its history, or its culture. “We knew nothing on Russia,” Polymeropoulos admits. But, like his Russian counterparts, he and his counterterrorism comrades were fluent in the language of force.

 

US investigating possible mysterious directed energy attack near White House

Multiple sources familiar with the matter tell CNN that while the Pentagon and other agencies probing the matter have reached no clear conclusions on what happened, the fact that such an attack might have taken place so close to the White House is particularly alarming.

Defense officials briefed lawmakers on the Senate and House Armed Services Committees on the matter earlier this month, including on the incident near the White House. That incident, which occurred near the Ellipse, the large oval lawn on the south side of the White House, sickened one National Security Council official, according to multiple current and former US officials and sources familiar with the matter.

In a separate 2019 episode, a White House official reported a similar attack while walking her dog in a Virginia suburb just outside Washington, GQ reported last year.
Those sickened reported similar symptoms to CIA and State Department personnel impacted overseas, and officials quickly began to investigate the incident as a possible "Havana syndrome" attack. That name refers to unexplained symptoms that US personnel in Cuba began experiencing in late 2016 -- a varying set of complaints that includes ear popping, vertigo, pounding headaches and nausea, sometimes accompanied by an unidentified "piercing directional noise."

Rumors have long swirled around Washington about similar incidents within the United States. While the recent episodes around Washington appear similar to the previous apparent attacks affecting diplomats, CIA officers and other US personnel serving in Cuba, Russia and China, investigators have not determined whether the puzzling incidents at home are connected to those that have occurred abroad or who may be behind them, sources tell CNN.

Defense officials who briefed lawmakers said it was possible Russia was behind the attacks, but they did not have enough information to say for sure. Another former US official involved in the investigation at the time said China was also among the suspects.The US has struggled to understand these attacks since 2016 and 2017, when diplomatic and intelligence personnel in Cuba first began reporting alarming symptoms that seemed to appear out of the blue. Intelligence and defense officials have been reluctant to speak publicly about the strange incidents, and some who were impacted have complained publicly that the CIA did not take the matter seriously enough, at least initially.

The attacks eventually led to a dramatic drawdown of staff at the outpost in Havana under the Trump administration. Personnel in Russia and China reported similar, unexplained incidents. Though there's no consensus as to what causes the symptoms, one State Department-sponsored study found they likely were the result of microwave energy attacks.

 
Last edited:
The feds are investigating a pair of mysterious incidents in Washington, DC — including one near the White House — that are similar to attacks that sickened Americans in Cuba, it was revealed Thursday.

The incidents caused government officials to fall ill with symptoms of the so-called “Havana syndrome,” which include unexplained neurological problems, CNN reported.

The more recent of the suspected attacks occurred in November, when a National Security Council official became sick near the Ellipse, the oval lawn south of the White House, US government sources told the outlet.

The other episode involved a White House official becoming ill while walking her dog in a Virginia suburb just outside Washington in 2019, GQ reported last year.

The Pentagon and other agencies have launched investigations into the possible “Havana syndrome” attacks, though they haven’t reached any conclusions on the matter, CNN reported.

Defense officials briefed US lawmakers last week on the investigations and said it was possible Russia was responsible, while another former US official said China could be behind the suspected attacks, CNN reported.

“Havana syndrome” first popped up in 2016 when diplomatic and intelligence personnel in Cuba began reporting concerning symptoms that appeared to start out of nowhere.

Other personnel in China and Russia have since also reported similar, unexplained issues, CNN reported.

Some symptoms associated with “Havana syndrome” include hearing strange noises followed by dizziness, nausea, severe headaches and memory loss.

Though little is known about the strange episodes, a State Department-sponsored study suggested that they’re likely the product of microwave energy attacks, CNN reported.

The Biden administration acknowledged that the US is looking into the health episodes.

“The health and well-being of American public servants is a paramount priority for the Biden administration. We take all reports of health incidents by our personnel extremely seriously. The White House is working closely with departments and agencies to address unexplained health incidents and ensure the safety and security of Americans serving around the world,” a White House spokesperson told The Hill.

“Given that we are still evaluating reported incidents and that we need to protect the privacy of individuals reporting incidents, we cannot provide or confirm specific details at this time.”

https://nypost.com/2021/04/29/us-investigating-possible-energy-attack-near-white-house/
 
If these attacks happened last year, why are they just now investigating them? Shouldn't they have done that as soon as the attacks took place?
 
Top