UN affiliate may sponsor ‘modern-day slavery’

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is doing great things in Latin America, but I wonder whether its latest role as a middleman to help place 4,000 Cuban doctors in remote areas of Brazil does not amount to sponsoring slavery.

Under a deal between Brazil and Cuba that was brokered by the Washington-based PAHO, the Latin American branch of the UN World Health Organization, the Brazilian government will pay Cuba the equivalent of US$4,080 a month — or nearly US$49,000 a year — for each of the Cuban doctors.

The Brazilian government says the Cuban doctors are needed in remote areas of northern and northwestern Brazil, because no