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Cuba’s President Raul Castro repeated Monday his willingness to hold talks with US President-elect Barack Obama to try and improve US-Cuban relations. The Cuban leader had made an initial overture in an interview by Sean Penn shortly before Obama was elected. Numerous US business groups are calling for a new Congress and administration to drop the travel ban on US citizens wanting to visit Cuba and to allow for normalized trade between the two neighboring countries. Obama takes office on January 20, 2009.

After wrapping up his 3-day visit to Venezuela, Cuban President Raul Castro arrived Monday afternoon in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil to attend the First Latin America and Caribbean Summit for Integration and Development. The trip is Castro’s first abroad since he took office in February 2008.

The Summit, which begins Tuesday, is seen as an attempt to discuss major world problems -the food, financial, energy and climate change crises- in a regional setting without the overbearing presence of either the United States or Europe.

While in Venezuela, Castro and his delegation signed new accords valued at US $2 billion. Venezuela is Cuba’s leading trade partner. The wide-ranging agreements include projects in agriculture, education, health and sports in Venezuela with Cuban assistance, and joint ventures to help Cuba increase its oil-refining capacity and telecommunications.

The governments of Cuba and Venezuela signed 137 development projects and 36 new programs valued at more than two billion USD, reported IPS on Monday. The agreements include joint ventures in the oil and gas sectors and the establishment of software plants in both countries.

Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo thanked Cuba on Sunday for its backing for that South American country’s healthcare system. He spoke at the inauguration ceremony of the expansion of accommodations for patients at the Operation Miracle vision restoring eye surgery program in the department (state) of Itapúa. “It is not often that Paraguay recognizes the great solidarity of the Cuban government and people, and we do so without blushing, we do so with our heart,” said Lugo.

Three Russian warships will arrive in Cuba on December 19th after having carried our joint maneuvers with the Venezuelan Navy, announced Igor Digalo, spokesperson for the Russian Navy. It will be the first time that Russian military ships arrive in the island after the disappearance of the Soviet Union (USSR) back in 1991, reported IPS.

Cuba has invested more than US $400 million in the purchase of heavy machinery to overhaul the country’s highly deteriorated road system, greatly affected by the economic crisis that began in the early 1990s, reported IPS quoting Vice President Carlos Lage. The country is also in the midst of renovating both its bus fleet and railway system.

Cuban President Raul Castro begins an official visit to Venezuela on Saturday as the guest of President Hugo Chavez. The two leaders are then expected in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil for the Latin American and Caribbean Summit on Integration and Development on December 16-17. Venezuela is Cuba’s leading trade partner and the two countries have some 300 joint projects. The visit is Raul Castro’s first trip abroad as Cuba’s president.

The Cuban tourist industry is ready to receive considerable more visitors from the United States, said vice president Carlos Lage. Nonetheless, Lage recalled that President-elect Barack Obama has so far only promised to lift travel restrictions on Cuban-Americans and not the rest of the US citizenry, reported IPS. Cuba expects to receive over 2.3 million tourists this year, mainly from Canada and Europe.

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill in Washington, numerous initiatives are expected in the first months of the new administration that could rally bipartisan support for totally lifting the travel ban and dropping some of the blockade’s trade barriers. If passed they would need the president’s signature.

In the first months of 2009 the laying of the fiber optic sea cable that will unite Venezuela and Cuba will begin now that the technical design aspects of the project are about to conclude by Telecommunicaciones Gran Caribe, a joint Cuban-Venezuelan firm, and Alcatel Shanghai Bell, a Chinese-French Company, reported IPS. Unable to connect to existing sea cables, in part because of the US blockade, the Venezuela-Cuba effort is expected to greatly increase Cuba’s limited telephone and Internet capabilities.

The price of a cell phone line for Cubans was lowered by nearly half to 60 CUC (US $75), according to an official announcement on Thursday from the Cuban Telecommunications Enterprise (ETECSA). The company said that a greater capacity to offer the service had made it possible to drop the price.