News

Cuba In As ALBA Currency Takes Effect

A ledger book currency called the SUCRE took effect Wednesday among the countries belonging to the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) and has a value of US $1.25, announced Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

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Lobo Sworn In; Zelaya Leaves Honduras

Porfirio Lobo, who was sworn in Wednesday as president of Honduras, urged the people of his country and the international community to “forget the past” and move ahead towards reconciliation. Shortly after Lobo’s inauguration, Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted as president in a Jun. 28 coup, boarded a plane to the Dominican Republic, where he will stay briefly before settling in Mexico with his family.

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US Sen. for Ending Cuba Shows

Senator Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin democrat, wrote President Obama on Wednesday calling on him to end the US government funding of Radio and TV Marti, stations beamed illegally from the United States to Cuba.

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Cuba’s Émigrés: The Absent Voice

If this conference translates into true dialogue, and not a monologue or secret meetings of the privileged, the forum will discuss issues of the normalization of immigration, which is a concern to most Cubans and whose reform is a matter under the exclusive authority (in the sense of power and capacity) of the Cuban state.

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Women in Cuba Knitting a New Order

A neighbor started calling Andrea del Sol “Persistent,” and the nickname stuck. Since 1998, she and her small team of women in Alamar (a large housing district on the outskirts of the Cuban capital) have put their energy behind a common purpose: “To change the order of things.”

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U.S. Programs for Cuban Dissidents Lack Funds

U.S. aid programs to finance the opposition in Cuba don’t have sufficient funds due to bureaucracy and political obstacles, reported IPS citing the Miami-based El Nuevo Herald on Tuesday. According to the source, the U.S. Agency for International Aid US-AID, which is responsible for the largest part of the financing, has not been asking for new initiatives to assign resources since March 2009.

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Fidel Castro on Haiti Two Weeks After

Over the weekend, Cuban President Fidel Castro published his third commentary since the January 12 earthquake in Haiti. The senior advisor to the government of his brother Raul Castro writes on the work of the Cuban medical brigades including the participation of doctors from Haiti and other countries.

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Los Van Van Begin U.S. tour

The popular Cuban salsa group Los Van Van were schedule to arrive Monday in Miami, where they will begin on January 28 the prelude to their tour of the United Status, which will begin in May, announced the bands director, Juan Formell. The musician said he saw little possibility that the concert will be boycotted by anti-Castro groups in Florida and thanked Washington for the speed with which they were given the visas.

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ALBA asks UN to Coordinate Work in Haiti

The Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) asked the UN to assume the coordination of the international aid for the recovery of Haiti, devastated by last January 12 earthquake. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and other ALBA leaders have criticized the motives of the United States military in the post-earthquake relief effort in Haiti.

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