The curtain has already fallen on yet another scintillating calendar year of Cuban baseball-one of the most exciting dozen months of recent history. See Peter C. Bjarkman’s top highlights of Cuban baseball in 2009.
Read MoreTornatore has come to in Havana for the presentation of a few of his films. In a press conference Friday he said his work had prevented him from coming to Cuba until now. Nonetheless, this country sparked a great deal of curiosity in him and he feels completely privileged to be here.
Read MoreThe European Union (EU) policy toward Cuba “is not a priority under our presidency,” affirmed Spanish President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Spain holds the rotating chair of the 27-member EU for the next six months. Hopes had risen in recent months that the Spanish government would use that position to attempt to improve EU relations and cooperation with Cuba.
Read MoreUS authorities are ready to talk with Cuba on the visas for the island’s participation in the next Central American and Caribbean Games, to be held in the Puerto Rican city of Mayagüez starting July 17, announced Puerto Rican Secretary of State Kenneth McClintock.
Read MoreWhile the bidding war continues to try and sign Cuban lefty Aroldis Chapman, a lesser known exile, Noel Arguelles, also a southpaw, has signed a five year major league contract with the Kansas City Royals for US $7 million, plus $2 million in further incentives. The Cuban press does not report on the island’s nationals who abandon their country’s amateur teams to play professional sports in foreign countries.
Read MoreMobile telephone service in Cuba closed 2009 with 600,000 clients (of the 11.2 million Cubans), said First Deputy Minister of Communications Ramón Linares Torres. Nonetheless, obtaining and using a cell phone is only in CUC, the island’s hard currency, not the regular pesos which Cubans earn for their salaries.
Read MoreThe US agent arrested in Cuba last month when he presumably was distributing communication equipment to Cuban opposition groups is under investigation. The Obama administration denies the charge that the unidentified US citizen is an agent, preferring to call him a “contractor”, the term used for private agents in Iraq to distinguish them from being above board government employees.
Read MorePlaya Giron, the hottest spot in Cuba during the April 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, was the coldest place on the island on Thursday as temperatures dipped to 4.5 Celsius (40 F). The cold snap on the island is expected to last through the weekend and into the beginning of next week.
Read MoreThe governing Spanish Workers Socialist Party (PSOE) will not cancel the visit to Cuba by its secretary of international relations, despite the conflict over the expulsion from the island of European Parliament Deputy Luis Yáñez last Sunday.
Read MoreThe Cuban Ministry of Public Health’s program for the promotion, prevention and free treatment for persons HIV-positive and suffering AIDS costs US $216 million per year, reported Luis Estruch Rancaño, deputy minister for hygiene, epidemiology and microbiology.
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