>from: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>subject: Cuba press release 138, 140
> FOR ALL DIPLOMATIC MISSIONS
>HAVANA, MONDAY, JULY 10, 2000
>
>
>HAVANA.- To oppose the U.S. aggressive policy and make Cuba's
>positions be internationally known are some of Cuban foreign policy
>priorities, yesterday expressed Cuban Foreign Affairs Minister,
>Felipe Perez Roque. In statement to a group of journalists at
>Havana's Conference Centre, Perez Roque said that the main task of
>Cuban diplomacy for the next few months is to face the economic,
>financial and trade blockade imposed by Washington on Havana for
>almost forty years.
>
>HAVANA.- The opening of new embassies and the signing of a trade
>agreement with Caribbean Community members strengthen Cuban relations
>with the states of the region, expressed Cuban Foreign Affairs
>Minister Felipe Perez Roque in Havana on Sunday. The strengthening of
>links with Caribbean nations was amongst the topics discussed by
>Perez Roque in Cuban Parliament's International Foreign Affairs
>Commission during a meeting prior to the 5th Cuban Parliament
>Ordinary Session Period.
>
>HAVANA.- Cuba might enter the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP)
>without being included in any of the European Union (EU)'s
>preferential agreement, expressed Cuban Foreign Affairs Minister
>Felipe Perez Roque in Havana. Cuba reiterated its request to join the
>ACP group this year, before the EU attempt of imposing political
>conditions and rejecting the vote of EU members in favor of a
>condemning resolution on Cuba adopted by the UN Human Rights
>Commission, recalled the Minister.
>
>HAVANA.- Yesterday, Nigerian Foreign Affairs Minister Dubem Onya
>arrived in Cuba for the 2nd Joint Intergovernmental Commission
>Session for Economic and Scientific-Technical Cooperation. Our
>interest is to increase collaboration in such important fields as
>health, education, sports, medicine production and others, Onya
>stated shortly after arriving at Havana's Jose Marti International
>Airport
>
>UNITED NATIONS.- On Saturday, Marti's Program Office President
>Armando Hart met a group of New York based Cuban-Americans, to whom
>he explained Cuba moments of history and every day reality. Over 50
>representatives from this community gathered at the headquarters of
>Cuban mission to the UN for a meeting in which Jose Marti's life and
>work were the main theme, according to sources close to the event.
>
>HAVANA.- The need to provide new ideas in Cuba's current commitment
>for the massification of culture was included among was one of Cuban
>Culture Minister Abel Prieto's main statements. During a debate at
>Parliament's Education, Culture, Science and Technology Commission,
>the minister said that all efforts should be made to achieve a
>cultivated and free people. Prieto noted that culture is constantly
>present in our National Hero Jose Marti and president Fidel Castro's
>ideas. The minister highlighted importance of spiritually enriching
>Cuba using the concept of integral formation.
>
>HAVANA.- The economic growth, foreign affairs, measures
>against deforestation and living standard increase centered debates
>of 10 commissions which revised the work of the Cuban Parliament from
>January up to this moment. Certain economic recovery (an increase of
>4.5 percent) -encouraged by sugar cane production more than four
>million tons and positive indexes in oil refining and tourism- was
>the focus of Economy Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez report to
>Parliament's economy branch.
>
>HAVANA.- According to Granma daily, a governmental commission
>analyzed the effects caused by an intense drought and took emergent
>measures to solve the serious situation in Guantanamo province, 933
>kilometers east of Havana. The decisions include the allotment of
>more than 100 extra fuel tons to the province for agriculture
>irrigation operations and the additional delivery of 50 tons of
>canned fish for the population.
>
>HAVANA.- Cuban oil production should reach 2.8 million tons this
>year, compared to the less than a million produced before the severe
>economic crisis that Cuba faced since the beginning of the decade.
>Cuban Economy and Planning Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez said that
>this oil production is not the result of coincidence, but the
>systematic work carried out for years in the seismic and geologic
>studies and prospection in the most promising oil zones.
>
>HAVANA.- Agriculture Ministry's environmental strategy yesterday
>caught the attention of Cuban Parliament's Environment, Sports, and
>Health Commission at Havana's Conference Center. The measures taken
>by this body to solve four of the main environmental problems that
>Cuba is facing were analyzed in a report presented by Cuban
>Agriculture Vice Minister Alfredo Gutierrez. According to the report,
>the problems are Soil degradation, underground and marine water
>pollution, deforestation and the lose of biologic diversity.
>
> HAVANA.- Cuban health authorities opened a research center for
>bioenergetic and naturalistic medicine in Havana so to add
>alternative medicine's therapeutical benefits to the traditional
>methods. The center, located in Havana's Gastroenterology Institute,
>will be specialized in seeking solutions for the treatment of
>patients affected by gastroduodenal ulcers, gastritis and colds.
>
>HAVANA.- U.S. Olympic Committee president Willian J. HyBl ended an
>official visit to Cuba during which he signed an sports collaboration
>agreement and was received by president Fidel Castro. Shortly before
>returning to the U.S. on Sunday, Hybl valuated his stay in Havana
>as successful and thanked Cuban hospitality. In 48 work hours in
>Cuba, besides the signing agreement ceremony, he visited Cerro Pelado
>and Giraldo Cordova Cardin high performance centers where the Cuban
>preselection team are training for the Olympics.
>
>HAVANA.- Bacardi Transnational's close links with the Cuban-
>American National Foundation (CANF) in the economic war with Cuba
>were revealed by the Juventud Rebelde weekly. In an interview with
>Hernando Calvo Ospina, Colombian reporter and author of the book "Ron
>Bacardi: La guerra oculta", ("Bacardi Rum,: the Hidden War) to be
>sold in various European countries, the weekly shows two pages of
>details on an investigation. Calvo Ospina states he has documents
>which confirms that various stockholder of Bacardi, involved in the
>so-called Rum War to seize the Cuban label Havana Club, are not only
>CANF members, but also officials." JC
>DPTO. INFORMACION/ MINREX
>
> ************
>
>from: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>subject: Cuba press release 140
> FOR ALL DIPLOMATIC MISSIONS
> HAVANA WEDNESDAY, JULY 12, 2000
>
>HAVANA.- Since the triumph of the Revolution in 1959, the U.S.
>blockade on Cuba has been employed through laws, orders and projects,
>said Cuban People's Power National Assembly (Parliament) President
>Ricardo Alarcón yesterday. During a T.V. appearance focused on the
>anti Cuban 1996 Helms-Burton Act, Alarcón stated that this war by the
>U.S. government has been carried out against Cuba, its independence
>and people since its initiation. The Cuban Parliament President
>detailed how in a 1959 U.S. State Department memorandum, the essence
>of U.S. aggressive policy on Cuba was exposed, when it revealed the
>suppression of the sugar cane quota to extinguish Cuba's main
>industry and generate huge unemployment.
>
>HAVANA.- The Helms-Burton Act - called in Havana "an encyclopedia of
>the U.S. blockade to recolonize Cuba" - centered experts' analysis
>yesterday during the now traditional T.V. round table live
>discussions. In Tuesday's program, analysis of this well-known
>legislation, "a fundamental element of the genocidal action carried
>out against our people" continued, taking into consideration the need
>to widen the debate due to an awakened interest in public opinion,
>stated Granma daily. Experts highlighted the extraterritorial
>character of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act since its initiation, as it
>involves legislation affecting third countries. This constitutes
>aggression in trade and international rights.
>
>HAVANA.- Andrew Whisenhut, a U.S. farmer from Arkansas yesterday
>called for an end to the 40 year old U.S. economic blockade on Cuba.
>In a telephone interview during the now traditional T.V. round table
>discussion attended by Cuban President Fidel Castro, Whisenhut
>admitted that the blockade has been affecting the sale of his crops
>for export. These include corn, wheat, rice and soya. "I remember
>that before the embargo we had normal trade with Cuba, and I would
>like these previous relations to exist again", he expressed.
>
>HAVANA.- The Cuban People's Power National Assembly (Parliament) will
>begin the 5th Ordinary Period in its current legislature today.
>Plenary sessions will begin at 10:00 local time at Havana's
>Conference Centre. According to official sources, deputies will
>evaluate the statement of accounts report from the Ministry of
>Fishing Industry and Merchant Marine, amongst others. They will also
>examine a draftbill on popular councils (community government). Since
>Sunday, Cuban parliamentaries have been meeting in 10 permanent
>working commissions, learning of work carried out by the
>numerous ministries and organizations over the current year.
>
>HAVANA.- Honduran President Carlos Flores praised the dedication of
>the Cuban government in its training of thousands of Latin American
>young people in Havana to become future doctors. In a front page
>article, Juventud Rebelde daily highlights President Flores' words at
>the end of a work visit to the Bahia Islands, northern Honduras.
>Flores recalled his visit to the Latin American School of Medicine
>during his trip to Cuba for the 9th ibero American Summit. "Thousands
>of young people from different Latin American countries study, and
>our country is widely represented," he said.
>
>UNITED NATIONS.- The cause of Puerto Rican self determination has
>received its traditional support at the UN Decolonization Committee
>over the past few days, with Cuba promoting a resolution project
>favoring the rights of Puerto Rico. The document, to be debated
>today, urges the U.S. government to end U.S. military exercises on
>the Island of Vieques. This island has been used by Pentagon forces
>for over 50 years to carry out maneuvers, restricting local
>population access to 25 percent of the territory.
>
>HAVANA.- The International Maestro 2000 Workshop will be held in
>Havana on July 17-21, seeking for strategies to improve the training
>of teachers, professors and directors. Presentations, workshops and
>visits to Cuban centers of education, plus special lectures given by
>prestigious professors, will take place during the event that
>promotes regional education cooperation. According to Latin American
>and Caribbean Teaching Institute rector Alfredo Alvarez, the main
>objective of the workshop is to increase the quality of educators in
>the face of current educational challenges.
>
>HAVANA.- Almost totally paralized since the beginning of the 90s,
>Cuba's Light Industry has had an average annual production growth of
>12 percent over the last three years, as published in Havana. In a
>meeting with deputies prior to Parliament's 5th period of sessions,
>Light Industry Minister Jesus Perez Othon stated that the sector is
>in the process of economic recovery.
>
>HAVANA.- As part of European Union (EU) humanitarian aid to Cuba, a
>project to supply Cuban public health centers with eye and kidney
>surgery material was presented yesterday. The E.U. Humanitarian Aid
>Office (EUHAO) representative in Brussels, Santiago Vallejo, pointed
>out that eye and kidney materials, and hospital cloth -green and
>white- will be donated by European Non Governmental Organizations.
>
>HAVANA.- For the first time in Cuba, the female population surpassed
>the male in 1999, due in part to a larger death rate in men, reported
>Granma daily on World Population Day. Population and Development
>Studies Center Director Juan Carlos Alfonso told Granma that the
>difference is not so great, as there were 4,159 more women than men
>last year. According to Alfonso, this demographic situation is not a
>surprising phenomenon, but part of a process already occurring in
>Cuba's major cities, similar to other regions worldwide. " JC
> DPTO. INFORMACION/ MINREX
>
>
__________________________________
KOMINFORM
P.O. Box 66
00841 Helsinki - Finland
+358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081
e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.kominf.pp.fi
___________________________________
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subscribe/unsubscribe messages
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
___________________________________
