News

The Cuban government will release all the political prisoners and not just the 52 that remain of the 75 sentenced in 2003, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said when speaking in the European country’s parliament. The first seven released dissidents arrived yesterday in Spain with their families.

In one of its most embarrassing outings on record the Cuban baseball team was defeated 10-0 by host The Netherlands on Tuesday, losing its undefeated status at the Haarlem Baseball Week.

UNICEF representative in Cuba Juan José Ortiz recognized the island’s policy for children on Monday. Despite the blockade, of barely being a developing economy, and of the crisis, there isn’t a single child that is not fully cared for, pointed out Ortiz when speaking at the ninth International Congress of Initial and Preschool Education, being held in the capital of the Caribbean country.

Eighty-one per cent of the human immunodeficiency (HIV, which causes AIDS) seropositive persons in Cuba are men, affirmed Rosaida Ochoa Soto, director of the National STD/HIV/AIDS Prevention Centre. According to Soto, 99 per cent of the diagnosed cases reported sexual relations as the means of virus transmission.

Former Cuban President Fidel Castro went on a live TV program Monday eveing for the first time in nearly four years to restate his concern that the United States and Israel are planning for a war on Iran. He also warned of a similar danger on the Korean peninsula.

Cuba and The Netherlands meet on the baseball field on Tuesday with the two teams so far undefeated in the Haarlem Baseball Week.

The Cuban parliament (National Assembly of the People’s Power) will hold an ordinary session on August 1 at the Havana Convention Center, the place where its meetings usually take place. Except for those with specific responsibilities who get time off from work, Cuban legislators maintain their regular jobs and take part in the occasional sessions when convoked by the parliament chair, Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada.

Five days after his first public appearance in four years former Cuban President Fidel Castro will reappear this evening live on the Round Table program broadcast by Cuba’s state-run television. The show will be dedicated to the situation in the Middle East. Castro has dedicated several of his Reflections to the issue of a possible war between Iran, the United States and Israel.

The drought present in Cuba since November 2008 continued during June, despite the increased rainfall, since barely 69 per cent of the historical average fell during that period. The country’s dams accumulate 43.1 per cent of the total capacity, a situation that is especially tense in the capital of the Caribbean nation.