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Josefina Vidal of the North American desk at the Cuban Foreign Ministrys said in response to a report drafted by the US State Department that in Cuba “there is no trafficking of minors for sex, only an exemplary protection of children, teenagers and women.”

“The International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5 will present the art exhibit, From My Altitude; the original paintings of Antonio Guerrero, one of the Cuban Five, serving long sentences in the US for defending their country against terrorism. Through the paintings participants at the USSF will be able to learn about the case of these brave men,” states the Committee press release.

Officials of Cuba and the US meet later this week in Washington to talk immigration, the third time under President Obama that they have met to monitor the 1994 agreement under which the US is supposed to issue 20,000 visas to Cubans each year.

The average minimum temperature has increased in Cuba by 1.4 degrees Celsius in the last 40 years, while precipitations have gone down by 10 per cent and drought periods have become more frequent, according to a research by Braulio Lapinel, Virgen Cutié and Cecilia Fonseca, of the Climate Center of the Institute of Meteorology.

The Cuban government has decided to release one sick political prisoner and will move six others to jails closer to home on Saturday, reported IPS quoting Orlando Marquez, spokesperson from the Havana Archdiocese.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez reiterated to his Spanish counterpart Miguel Angel Moratinos in a meeting in Paris that the Common Position “is the principal obstacle for the full normalization of relations” between the European Union and the island, reported a Foreign Ministry press release. The 27 nation EU will approve next week the conclusions of their annual review of ties with Cuba.

The National Electoral Commission affirmed in a report handed over to the Council of State that it was not satisfied with the presence of women, young people and black and mestizo persons among the elected in the recent partial elections because they are below their weight within the Cuban population.

In a letter to the US Congress seventy-four of Cuba’s dissidents have asked that the legislators lift the travel ban on US citizens visiting the island, in place for most of the last half century.