News

Railroad accidents in Cuba left losses for more than 2.4 million dollars in 2010, José Rafael Araújo, director of Inspection and Auditing of the Railroad Union, announced. The principal causes of these events, which cost the life of 19 persons, were the bad state of the tracks and negligence when driving the equipment.

Opponents of the Cuban government coincided on the possibility that there occur social riots similar to those in Egypt and Tunisia, in statements to the Miami-based El Nuevo Herald. “One sees the Cuban people apparently calm, but anything can set off an explosion,” Félix Bonne said. On the other hand, Philip Peters, analyst from the Lexington Institute of Washington, considered that emigration to the United States is a factor against anti-establishment political movements.

However, others involved in the hotel bombings have previously fingered Posada as the ringleader. Posada had also boasted about the attacks and justified them saying that everything goes in the war against the Cuban government.

Spain will receive in the next weeks Cuban political prisoners not included in the group of 75 imprisoned in 2003, according to El Pais newspaper. In 2010 the European country received 11 dissidents sentenced in other judicial processes, who, like the others, have received emigration status that gives them residence and work permits.

Forest fires could increase in Cuba due to the shortage of rain, caused by cooling of the waters of the Equatorial Pacific, known as La Niña phenomenon, affirmed Raúl González Rodríguez, a Cuban Forest Ranger official. Ninety-five per cent of the fires in 2010 were due to human actions.

Former Cuban President Fidel Castro has come out with a sharp attack on deposed Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak accusing him of massive corruption and plundering his country with the complicity of several United States governments.

Former Cuban President Fidel Castro expressed his support “for the Egyptian people and their brave struggle for their political rights and social justice.” In one of his usual Reflections, Castro strongly criticized deposed President Hosni Mubarak, who “was oppressing and plundering his own people, was the enemy of the Palestinians and an accomplice of Israel” and the “principal ally of the United States in the ranks of the Arab countries.”

Five former Cuban political prisoners left Spain for the United States, which will offer them legal residence in the country, the press in Madrid reported. With this group eight are the number of released dissidents who have decided on a different destination to that agreed by the island’s authorities, the Spanish government and the Catholic Church.