News

Cuba has a very efficient system to counteract drug trafficking, affirmed Bernard Leroy, higher juridical advisor of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, in statements to the press during a regional seminar on drug control being held in Havana, IPS reports on Wednesday.

The U.S. Department of State kept Cuba on the list of 17 countries in the world that do not comply with the minimum parameters of the fight against human trafficking, reported IPS on Wednesday. Much human trafficking from Cuba originates from traffickers based in Florida or Mexico, often connected to the powerful Miami exile organizations.

The first museum in Latin America dedicated to the Slave Route was inaugurated in the San Severino Fortress in the city of Matanzas. Slavery was officially abolished in Cuba in 1886.

Four new cases of the influenza AH1N1 were confirmed in Cuba by the Pedro Kourí Institute of Tropical Medicine, with which the total amount of cases detected on the island is now 13, announced the Ministry of Public Health in an official note on Tuesday evening.

Cuban authorities said they decided to close the huge Cubalse holding company “to reduce expenses, increase negotiating power, concentrate the administration of service providing entities, and in order to carry these out with greater efficiency.”

The Cuban economy is in a “very deep and difficult” crisis placing the island “in a truly complicated moment” of its history, said Alfredo Jam, a national recognized economist.

“Based on the experience that we have had, I am not surprised by the Supreme Court’s decision. I have no confidence at all in the justice system of the United States,” said Gerardo Hernandez, one of the imprisoned Cuban Five.

The European Union (EU) foreign ministers expressed today in Luxembourg their desire to deepen the dialogue with Cuba including concerns over human rights issues, reported IPS.