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In statements to the press in Madrid, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos described as a “mistake” the expulsion of Spanish European Parliament Deputy Luis Yáñez on his arrival to the Cuban capital’s José Martí Airport, reported IPS. In a communiqué, the Spanish Foreign Ministry requested that the island not repeat similar events, since “they do not help the development of relations between the two countries.”

Several Nicaraguan newspapers published photos of former Cuban President Fidel Castro taken during the meetings he held in 2009 with Daniel Ortega, president of the Central American country, reported IPS on Tuesday. Castro has not appeared in public since he retired from government in July 2006.

The Cuban Council of State, the island’s top governing body, established the dates for the next municipal (city council) elections for April 25, 2010, reported IPS. Municipal elections in Cuba take place every two and a half years. Elections for the national and provincial legislatures take place every five years.

Cuba is the country in the America’s that has been the victim of the largest number of terrorist attacks including the bombing of a Cubana Airlines plane that killed 73 persons back in 1976. The attacks against the island and its leaders were mostly plotted from safe havens in Miami.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez expressed his concern “that socialism in Cuba or the Revolution can be as distant a reference point to young people as life before 1959 is to me.” Rodriguez made his statement in an interview in Spanish with Trabajadores weekly newspaper.

Spain’s Foreign Ministry has called in the Cuban ambassador to Madrid, Alejandro Gonzalez, to explain why Spanish European Parliament member Luis Yañez, a socialist, was not allowed to enter Cuba. Yanez is president for delegations dealing with Latin American trade group Mercosur and is a member of the parliamentary assembly covering European-Latin American relations.

Cuba closed 2009 with an infant mortality rate of 4.8 per 1,000 live births, slightly higher than the previous year, which was 4.7, reported IPS. According to data from UNICEF, this figure is the lowest in the hemisphere, including the United States and Canada.

Some 150,000 persons in Cuba (1.3% of the total population) could obtain Spanish nationality in the next three years thanks to the so-called Grandchildren’s Law, which recognizes that status for descendants of emigrants from the European country, affirmed Spain’s El País daily, which cited consular sources. It is estimated that the island, with 11.2 million inhabitants, is the nation where there will be the most applications.

The feature titled Cuba Seeks Sustainable Socialism quotes Mariela Castro, the daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro, Rafael Hernandez, editor of Temas (issues) magazine, and Dr Rolando Perez, a key research director at the islands state-of-the-art Centre of Molecular Immunology (CIM).