News

The right-wing Spanish Popular Party (PP) will request today before Spain’s Senate the end of the bilateral dialogue with the Cuban government begun three years ago in response to the death of oppositionist Orlando Zapata and as a form of pressure for the release of political prisoners, reported the press in Madrid. Meanwhile, the ruling Spanish Workers Socialist Party (PSOE) will propose a motion to maintain the talks in order to “create the bases for a future of national reconciliation, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms,” reported IPS.

Cuban President Raúl Castro visited the family of a teenage boy injured after a partially constructed wall collapsed in his home from last Saturday’s 5.6 magnitude earthquake in the far eastern province of Guantánamo, reported IPS. The president also toured hydraulic works being built in that area, which will benefit agricultural areas in the Valley of Caujerí.

Cuba’s Attorney General, Juan Escalona Reguera is leaving his post for health reasons, reported the Cuban press on Wednesday.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed his deep sorrow over the death of Orlando Zapata in Cuba, affirmed Martin Nesirsky, spokesperson of the multilateral organization. Zapata died in a hospital in the island’s capital last month after a 85-day hunger strike.

The US Amistad schooner arrived Monday in the port of Matanzas, some 100 kilometers east of the Cuban capital, on its last leg of a tour of the Caribbean to commemorate the abolition of slavery, reported the local press. The vessel is a replica of a similar one that left in 1839 from the port of Matanzas with a shipment of slaves, who rebelled and finally obtained their freedom by decision of the US Supreme Court.

The US government says that since its previous report in 2009, “the Cuban government has made no has made no effort to expand political freedoms. One party rule remains the law of the land, and when elections are held they are neither free nor fair.”