The special assistant for Latin America of the president of the United States, Daniel Restrepo, in statements to the press in Washington ruled out that the White House would lift the blockade against Cuba, claiming the government of Raúl Castro has not carried out positive steps regarding the fundamental rights of the Cuban people.
Read MoreTop Cuban singer/songwriters are performing these days in the United States with Silvio Rodriguez set to bring his music to Carnegie Hall, NY on June 4th and Carlos Varela is on the venue this weekend in Oakland and Sonoma California.
Read MoreThis weekend the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba will be visited by some 130 journalists specializing in tourism as part of the International Tourism Fair being held in the island’s capital. This city, the second in importance in the country, has 24 hotels and 1,800 rooms.
Read MoreCuban specialists have treated close to a million handicapped persons in the countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), reported Marcia Cobas, deputy minister of collaboration, international relations and information of the Ministry of Public Health. The Cuban brigade deployed in Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Venezuela and St. Vincent and the Grenadines have also handed over wheelchairs, mattresses, medicines and other means to improve the patients’ health.
Read MoreAgriculture bureaucrats responsible for allowing much of Cuba’s farmland to be invaded by the marabu bush weed are losing ground in the countryside, while campesino families are beginning to take control over their own properties. Land in Cuba is changing hands and the effect is immediate: food production is increasing.
The authorities have taken a first step toward transforming land tenure, but they also need to change the distribution and commercialization system. Otherwise, all the efforts of farmers in the field will never be reflected on Cuban tables.
Read MoreHoly See Foreign Minister Dominique Mamberti will travel to Cuba to participate in the tenth Catholic Social Week, to be held next June 16-20, announced a note from the Archdiocese of Havana, which is organizing the event. The meeting will discuss “the need for dialogue and reconciliation between Cubans and the challenges of the national economy,” among other issues.
Read MoreCuban specialists expressed their will to turn the country into an exporter of flowers, a product that used to be exported to the United States before 1959, it was reported to the press during the FLORIMAT 2010 First National Workshop, being held in the western city of Matanzas. The participants favored opening up to the introduction of clones and using the areas with microclimates in the island.
Read MoreCuba’s coasts will not be affected by the oil slick that is advancing in the Gulf of Mexico toward the United States due to the explosion of an oil rig Last April 20, affirmed Orlando Rey, a specialist with the Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment (CITMA). Nevertheless, the region’s biodiversity will suffer the effects of the oil spill, pointed out the expert.
Read MoreThe Cuban tourism authorities are negotiating 13 investment projects in marinas, golf courses and other tourist installations, announced Minister of Tourism Manuel Marrero, who affirmed that the juridical instrument that regulates those agreements will come out soon. Marrero also recognized that tourism from the United States will be important “when the travel ban is lifted.”
Read MoreHalf of Cuba’s idle farmland still hasn’t been handed over for agricultural production under the government program to do so, said Orlando Lugo, president of the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP). Nonetheless, according to Lugo, more than 60,000 persons have been incorporated to agricultural work and are already reaping benefits from a million hectares which had previously been invaded by shrubs such as marabú.
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