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Mexico is going to have to improve greatly if it wants to play with the big boys. After a 16-4 thrashing from Cuba on Thursday night, the team that had scored 37 runs in its first three games of the 2nd World Baseball Classic was held to five hits.

More than 1.5 million persons in 35 countries have benefited from a Cuban-Venezuelan eye surgery and rehabilitation program which began more than four years ago. Out of this total, 266,743 underwent surgery at specialized centers in Cuba and the rest in the 60 institutions donated by the Caribbean nation to Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Panama, Nicaragua, Paraguay and Uruguay, among other countries, reported IPS.

The US Congress just approved a bill that could be the beginning of some movement on its time-worn Cuba policy. However, nearly at the same time it was announced that the Lactalis American Group, Inc., affiliate of Groupe Lactalis of France, was being fined US $20,950 by the US Treasury Dept. over transactions related to Cuba or Cuban interests.

A bill that will allow Cuban-Americans to travel to Cuba once every year instead of every three years was approved by the US Senate on Tuesday. The legislation, attached to a $410 billion appropriations bill, also passed by the House of Representatives. It is expected to be signed into law by President Obama.

Yosvani Peraza stepped into the batters box with Cuba down 4-3 and two out in the bottom of the eighth inning against Australia late Tuesday. Yulieski Gourriel was on first having led off the inning with a single. With one swing the game was suddenly 5-4 and Cuba is headed for San Diego.

HAVANA TIMES, March 9 – The number of women in leadership posts increased by barely six per cent since 2000, an increase considered insignificant for the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), noted the organization on International Womens Day on Sunday. The figure is considered to be paradoxical because around 60 per cent of the country’s technical workforce is made up by women.

Cuba opened won its first game of the World Baseball Classic II, 8-1 over South Africa on Sunday afternoon in the Foro Sol Stadium in Mexico City. The score might have been even more lopsided if it hadn’t been that South Africa managed three double plays and picked off two fast Cuban base runners, Olivera and Paret off first base.

New Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez reiterated to his Spanish counterpart Miguel Angel Moratinos his government’s desire to continue with the reestablished dialogue and speed up the agreed upon bilateral agenda for 2009. Rodriguez spoke by telephone with Moratinos just days after replacing Felipe Perez Roque as Cuba’s top diplomat.

The US Congress put off until next week a vote on the new national budget which includes a bill tacked on that would lift some restrictions on sales of food and medicines to Cuba as well as allow Cuban-Americans to travel more frequently to the island than the once every three years allowed under President Bush, reported IPS.

Two of Cuba’s younger top leaders, not long ago both considered possible presidential material, admitted to errors that led to their destitution on Monday. In letters to President Raul Castro, ex-VP Carlos Lage, 57, and ex-Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque, 43, both admitted to having made mistakes and resigned their seats in the Cuban parliament and on the Council of State. No details about the errors were revealed by either of the former officials.