News

More Cell Phones in Cuba

Mobile 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.

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Cuba: Jailed US Agent Investigated

The 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.

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Cuba Temps Dip to 4.5 C (40 F)

Playa 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.

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Spain’s Gov. Party Cuba Visit On

The 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.

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Cuba Has Costly HIV/AIDS program

The 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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EU Deputy’s Expulsion a “Mistake,” says FM

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.”

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Nicaraguan Press Publishes Photos of Castro

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.

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Date Set for Cuba Municipal Elections

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.

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Cuba Tells US, Don’t Panic

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.

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