Cuban immigration authorities gave exit permits to 13 relatives of Orlando Zapata, the dissident who died in February 2010 after a hunger strike, so they can travel to the United States as political refugees, announced Reina Tamayo, the dissident’s mother.
Read MoreThe US government authorized eight airports to offer charter flights to and from Cuba, the US Customs and Border Protection services reported. Before that, only Miami, New York and Los Angeles had air links with the island. Those benefitting by the new exceptions in the travel ban include Cuban Americans in general as well as academics, students, artists and organized groups with educational and religious ends.
Read MoreForty-three per cent of the places set aside by the Ministry of Higher Education for the next school year will be for pedagogy careers, announced René Sánchez, director of the ministry’s enrolment and labor placement. Meanwhile, according to the official, the careers in humanities will decrease due to a lesser demand for labor force in that area.
Read MoreA new cultural center dedicated to The Beatles was opened in the Havana district of El Vedado, just a few meters from the park where there is a statue of John Lennon. The installation, named El submarino amarillo (The Yellow Submarine) is a tribute to a song by the British group, and will offer music from the 1960s and 70s.
Read MoreThe airport of the US city of Tampa was authorized by the Barack Obama administration to carry out flights to Cuba, according to the Chamber of Commerce of that city, where a community of around 100,000 persons of Cuban origin live. Cuban-Americans can travel freely to Cuba while ordinary US citizens need a special license from the US Treasury Dept. to legally visit the island.
Read MoreProfessor Marta Hernández was elected president of the Cuban capital’s Provincial Assembly of People’s Power, replacing Juan Contino, who had been heading the Havana city hall for eight years. Hernández, born in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba, is a member of the ruling Communist Party.
Read MoreCuba’s agriculture authorities will try to re-launch in the next five years coffee production on the island, which dropped from 60,000 tons in 1961 to ten times less at present. The collapse of this sector is due, among other reasons, to the lack of qualified labour force, the poor care of the crops and insufficient payment to producers.
Read MoreThe Cuban medical brigade deployed in Haiti has treated 30 per cent of the persons with cholera in that Caribbean country, Lorenzo Somarriba, chief of the medical mission. Last year the Cuban doctors saw 1.7 million patients and they are present in dozens of health installations of the Haitian healthcare system.
Read MoreCuba’s agricultural and food industry authorities expect this year’s tomato harvest will meet the demand of the canning industry and distribution in the markets. In 2010 the island had to resort to imports to supplement its needs, while in 2009 it lost a great deal of the harvest due to problems with collection and distribution.
Read MoreCuba’s state-run television will broadcast tonight a documentary on the U.S. backing for the creation of informatics networks outside the control of the island’s authorities, in another chapter of the series Las razones de Cuba (Cuba’s Reasons), which last Feb. 26 revealed the infiltration of state security agents into opposition groups like Ladies in White.
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