Llama la Unión de Jóvenes Comunistas a eliminar los métodos burocráticos
Julio Martínez Ramírez, primer secretario de la organización en el país se reunió con los dirigentes juveniles de la oriental provincia de HolguínPor: Héctor Carballo Hechavarría - Correo: digital@jrebelde.cip.cuHOLGUÍN.— A despojar de la Unión de Jóvenes Comunistas todo método o estilo de trabajo burocráticos, incompatibles con el momento histórico, e incluso a extinguir algunos vocablos inaceptables dentro de la misión política e ideológica que corresponde a sus integrantes, llamó ayer el primer secretario de la organización en el país, Julio Martínez Ramírez, en reunión con los dirigentes juveniles de esta provincia.
A tono con las reflexiones de las asambleas municipales de la UJC y el compromiso expresado en reciente declaración de su Buró Nacional en apoyo a las reflexiones del Comandante en Jefe, los presentes coincidieron en que el fortalecimiento de la labor en cada estructura demanda, sobre todo, de un eficiente desempeño de los cuadros y de la calidad de los procesos políticos que lidera la organización.
Entre otras direcciones, el dirigente convocó a desarrollar un mayor vínculo con los comités de base, y desde allí, con todos los jóvenes sin excepción, para responder al verdadero cometido que le interesa como vanguardia de la juventud cubana.
Exhortó a batallar porque a la UJC no se le vea como a una organización enfrascada más en el procesamiento de cifras, que en las propias y trascendentales misiones políticas que le conciernen en la formación de las nuevas generaciones, en la defensa de las conquistas de la Revolución y como cantera del Partido Comunista.
«Tenemos que desechar de nuestro lenguaje el término “pronósticos”. No todo se puede manejar a partir de datos estadísticos. Debemos preferir más las vivencias cotidianas del trabajo político, prestar atención especial a la manera en que nuestros dirigentes se relacionan con la base, analizan, discuten y deciden sobre las inquietudes del resto de los jóvenes», puntualizó.
En cuanto al crecimiento a las filas, Martínez agregó que la organización patentiza su condición de vanguardia, pero ello no puede ser en virtud de la cantidad, sino de la calidad de su membresía, por lo que se estimulará a crecer principalmente en aquellos lugares donde se constaten buenos resultados en el funcionamiento.
«No quiere decir esto que habrá una disminución de las filas. Ese principio siempre ha estado presente. Una organización de vanguardia debe prestarles especial interés a la calidad y el rigor de sus nuevos ingresos.
Al término del encuentro, y en unión de Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, miembro del Buró Político y primer secretario del Partido en la provincia, Julio Martínez sostuvo un encuentro con 25 dirigentes de la Unión de Jóvenes Comunistas de las cinco provincias orientales y Camagüey, quienes voluntariamente ingresaron al Servicio Militar Voluntario femenino, e integran el pelotón de las Marianas, como gustan llamarse.
La soldado Irasbel Martínez, integrante del Buró Provincial de la UJC en Santiago de Cuba, expresó a nombre de todas que la preparación militar y política que actualmente reciben les servirá de mucho tras su reincorporación al trabajo de la organización.
Closest CIA bid to kill Castro was poisoned drinkBy Anthony Boadle HAVANA (Reuters) - The closest the CIA came to killing Cuba's Fidel Castro was a 1963 attempt with a poison pill delivered by American mobsters that was to be slipped into a chocolate milkshake, a former Cuban intelligence chief said.
But the capsule stuck to the freezer where it was hidden in the cafeteria of the Havana Libre (ex Hilton) Hotel and ripped open when the would-be assassin waiter went to get the poison.
Cuban leader Fidel Castro holds a newspaper in Havana in this footage released October 28, 2006. The closest the CIA came to killing Castro was a 1963 attempt with a poison pill delivered by American mobsters that was to be slipped into a chocolate milkshake, a former Cuban intelligence chief said. (REUTERS/Government TV/Files) "That moment was the closest the CIA got to assassinating Fidel," retired state security general Fabian Escalante told Reuters in an interview this week.
Castro, who seized power in a 1959 revolution that turned Cuba into a communist state 120 km away from the United States, has survived hundreds of attempts on his life by his enemies, from car ambushes to grenade attacks in baseball stadiums, Escalante said.
Some of the most imaginative cloak-and-dagger plots were the brainchild of the Central Intelligence Agency, he said.
They included poisoned cigars, an exploding shell meant to be planted in his favorite underwater fishing location and a scuba diving wet suit tainted with toxins.
Among early attempts devised by the CIA to discredit Castro was a plan to place chemical powders on his boots that would cause his beard to fall out when he was in New York to speak at the United Nations in 1960.
When that failed, the CIA planned to slip him a box of cigars tainted with LSD so that he would burst into fits of laughter during a television interview, said Escalante, author of a book that documents 167 plots against Castro.
But it was the CIA's plans to poison Castro with botulinum toxins in the early 1960s that came closest to succeeding.
The agency acknowledged last week for the first time that the plot to assassinate Castro was personally approved by the Kennedy administration's CIA director Allen Dulles.
"FAMILY JEWELS"
The CIA declassified nearly 700 pages of secret records detailing some of its illegal acts during 25 years of overseas assassination attempts and domestic spying.
The agency's so-called "Family Jewels" describe the initial efforts to get rid of Castro by using a go-between to convince two top mobsters, Salvatore Giancana and Santos Trafficant, the head of the Mafia's Cuban casino operations, to assassinate Castro. Giancana suggested poisoning him.
Six potent pills were provided in 1961 to Juan Orta, identified as a Cuban official who had been receiving kickback payments from gambling interests, who still had access to Castro and was in a financial bind. But Orta got cold feet.
Escalante said more poisoned pills, one batch disguised in a bottle of Bayer aspirins, were delivered through the Mafia to an opposition group that almost succeeded in March 1963 when Castro went for a milkshake.
Much of the information declassified by the CIA had been released in congressional investigations in the past.
Escalante, who detailed the poison pill plot in his book "The Secret War" published in 2005, said the agency was trying to "purify" itself but continues its skulduggery today.
While there is no evidence that the CIA has plotted to kill Castro since the Ford Administration banned assassination plots against foreign leaders in 1976, Escalante sees the hand of the CIA in more recent attempts by anti-Castro militants trained by the agency for the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961.
Despite U.S. hostility, Castro remains Cuban leader at age 80, although bowel surgery forced him to hand over formal power to his brother Raul last July.
Escalante said effective Cuban security measures around Castro and the Cuban leader's intuitive "nose" for danger has kept him alive.
To this day, few Cubans know Castro's whereabouts, whether he is in a hospital or at home in a residential compound in western Havana called "Point Zero."
fabian escalante
Cuba Presents Adaptation Strategies to Climate Change (Trabajadores.cu)Cuba already reports an annual average temperature increase of 0.5° C and a greater frequency of extreme events, including drought
Francisco Rodríguez CruzProtection and better use of water, increase of forests, as well as improvement of the agricultural systems, human settlements and healthcare system, are some of the adaptation strategies planned by Cuba to face climate change.
In his speech of this Tuesday during the Sixth International Convention on Environment and Development taking place in Havana’s Convention Center, Dr. Luis Raul Paz, specialist from the Cuban Meteorology Institute, said that Cuba already reports an annual average temperature increase of 0.5° C and a greater frequency of extreme events, including drought and a greater influence of the phenomenon called El Niño.
Another strategy mentioned by Paz in the “Climate Change: facing the greatest environmental challenge of the 21st century” panel is the reduction of the vulnerability of beaches and mangrove swamps through protection and preservation measures.
Cuba has been studying the effects of climate change since 1991. It is part of the UN Convention on the issue since 1994 and has a National Group in charge of this phenomenon, since 1997.
According to the studies on vulnerability and adaptation to Climate Change carried out by Cuban experts, the foreseen increases of the sea level could cause a reduction of water availability and quality, negatively affect 35 percent of the country’s area and increase the vulnerability of 185 settlements and some five million people, just under half of the Cuban population.
Other possible impacts forecast by scientists are strong affectations in mangrove swamps and coastal ecosystems, an increase in evaporation and the aridity processes related to it, reduction of the forest area, loss of biodiversity and decrease of harvests and areas for agriculture.
Cuba is now strengthening its capacity to develop climate prediction and early warning systems, including more research on climate variability and improvement of the observation system, the development of solutions for human health, agriculture and water resources, as well as the possibility of pre-empting potential extreme events through a centralized response system.
For Castro, there was always tomorrowJul 06,2007 00:00 by Lionel_Van_Deerlin "One day the good Lord will take Fidel Castro away."
With these words, uttered in the presence of TV cameras at the Naval War College, President George W. Bush responded to queries about the newest revelation in a half century of troubled U.S. relations with Cuba.
He spoke what many will acknowledge as a simple truth. Yet some may wish the president had added, "Such matters are better left to the Lord than to the CIA."
At issue, as the president spoke, was an unprecedented CIA acknowledgment of its own sordid past - the revelation of repeated efforts to assassinate Castro. Our secret intelligence agency has at last admitted to a series of aborted attempts on the bearded Cuban's life - incidents that have long soured U.S. diplomatic initiatives in Central and South America. Along with countless U.S. citizens, Latin nations were left to wonder why this all-powerful government, through 10 administrations beginning with Dwight Eisenhower's, not only denied recognition to an offshore entity the size of Ohio, but tried repeatedly to kill its leader.
Modern history offers no comparable example of a great power investing so much effort, treasure and prestige to humble a tiny rival. Castro was an annoying gadfly, all right. By playing a Soviet card in defiance of the Monroe Doctrine, he made his island a willing conduit for the Kremlin in Cold War days. But Washington's response was always out of proportion to the threat.
First was a fiasco called the Bay of Pigs - a military invasion plotted under Eisenhower and carried out by the Kennedy administration just over 45 years ago. It was destined to leave 1,150 brave Cuban expatriates abandoned in Havana prison cells until Robert Kennedy bargained their release with $28 million worth of tractors and bulldozers.
Events that followed - first revealed by a Senate select committee in 1975-76 and now confirmed in large part by last month's tell-all on matters the CIA incredibly calls "family jewels" - uncovered evidence of at least eight U.S.-sponsored assassination attempts against Castro in the 1960s. Were it not for their evil intent, the merry mix-up of those efforts suggests a Marx Brothers comedy.
Examples: Knowing the man's fondness for cigars, the CIA arranged to provide some choice stogies packed with deadly botulism. When these initial gifts didn't get through, our agents bought off Castro's Cuban mistress, supplying her with poison capsules to use in bumping him off. These, we learn, melted unexpectedly in a jar of cold cream. Next, divers were dispatched to plant rare seashells underwater in an area where the dictator often snorkeled - and rigged to explode if he sought to extract them. Again, the best laid plans of our intelligence experts went awry.
Convinced, perhaps, that their problem called for more accomplished assassins, those wily ones turned to the underworld. John Roselli, a Mafioso marked for deportation on gambling fraud, was told his ouster could be stayed if he removed Castro. Roselli's eager acceptance marks him as a baseless fellow unworthy of our sympathy. But we now know that Cuban agents in this country smelled out the plot. Roselli was found hacked to pieces, his remains stuffed into an oil drum floating in Dumfounding Bay outside Fort Lauderdale.
As the late wordmaster Casey Stengel might have inquired, "Can't anybody here play this game?"
Castro, some may have chosen to forget, replaced an American-supported despot, Fulgencio Batista, in a 1959 revolution that cost several large corporations their Havana holdings and halted a $100 million-a-year casino, bordello and drug operation run by the mob. Indeed, Batista and the underworld's notorious Meyer Lansky fled to U.S. soil on the same day.
It is depressing to note that Cold War fears, combined more recently with a politically significant concentration of anti-Castro emigrants in and around Miami, has prompted almost every president to treat the guy like dirt. A possible exception might be made for Gerald R. Ford. Appalled as most Americans must have been by those earlier revelations of CIA malfeasance, Ford issued the celebrated Executive Order 11905 in February 1976. Its pertinent wording: "No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination."
Ford's order was reaffirmed by President Carter two years later, and again by Ronald Reagan. Today we must make do with the pious hope of our top leader that the good Lord will not bungle things as outrageously as the CIA has done.
From "Waste him" to dominus vobiscum (The Lord be with you) in a little less than 50 years. Maybe that's progress.
Lionel Van Deerlin represented a San Diego County district in the U.S. House of Representatives for 18 years.
Cuba opening boutique hotels in bid to rekindle tourism
Cuba opening boutique hotels in city centers By Doreen Hemlock - South Florida Sun-Sentinel
When university professor Santiago Gonzalez travels the world, the native Spaniard prefers to stay at small hotels, the kind that reflect the local character of the place he's visiting.
In Cuba, he recently checked into the 27-room Hotel Santa Isabel, a former colonial mansion in the heart of Old Havana, complete with an inner courtyard garden and high-ceiling rooms with colonial-style furniture. The deluxe hotel blends in well with the cobblestone streets and leafy plaza out front.
"In big chain hotels, I feel like I'm part of a machine, like a number," said Gonzalez, 52, in the marble-floored lobby of his hotel near a stately courtyard fountain. "Here, it's a different atmosphere, more humane."
As Cuba strives to regain momentum in its stumbling tourism industry, the communist-run nation is looking to lure more guests like Gonzalez. It aims to build 50 more boutique hotels in historic areas and city centers to diversify from larger hotels common on the island's beachfronts, mainly all-inclusive resorts in tourist enclaves.
Many employees of small hotels back the boutique push. They say smaller properties allow more personal exchanges with guests, more like family.
"You can really feel like it's your own house," said Marcela Morales, 43, a veteran employee at Hotel Santa Isabel, who rattles off the building's century-plus history from its days as home to the Count of Santovenia to its recent hosting of such guests as former U.S. President Carter, singer Sting and actor Jack Nicholson. "I'm proud to work here."
Tourism experts see promise in the small hotels, a push that will spur more visitors to spread around the island. But they caution that 50 boutique properties won't be enough to energize Cuba's tourism industry, beset with woes from rising prices to weak service.
Even guests at boutique hotels can attest to deficiencies.
British executives Julie Connery, 37, and Richard Foster, 40, said they asked to stay an extra night after a week at the art nouveau-style Hotel Raquel in colonial Havana, but staff said the room rate would double: The new reservation did not come through their travel agency. The couple moved out, disappointed that managers would not accommodate them at the same rate.
"They just haven't bought into customer service," said Foster, who visited Cuba to experience one of the world's last socialist nations and would gladly return. "They're friendly. But whereas in the United Kingdom it seems as if everyone is aspiring to be the CEO, here it's just a job."
Cuba's government is hot on boutique hotels in city centers for several reasons.
For starters, the cash-strapped government need not build new buildings; it can renovate existing ones, often in disrepair today. The government also can more easily run smaller hotels on its own; larger ones tend to require foreign partners, such as Spain's Melia, which charge management fees. Plus, the boutique properties often charge top prices — $200-plus a night at the Santa Isabel, for instance.
Tourism already ranks as Cuba's top foreign-exchange earner, raking in more than $2 billion a year for the island.
In Havana's colonial area, smaller hotels began sprouting a decade ago, thanks to a plan which reinvests a portion of the area's tourism earnings into restoration. Popular spots include the 52-room Ambos Mundos, where American novelist Ernest Hemingway wrote chapters of For Whom the Bell Tolls; and the 25-room Hotel Florida, a restored colonial mansion on pedestrian-friendly Obispo Street.
Yet reviews on tripadvisor.com highlight problems, too.
An April 27 review of Hotel Florida cited five burned-out light bulbs in the room, "not good for putting on makeup," and decried "the Soviet-era bed, with the springs jabbing my back." While staff were friendly, the San Diego reviewer questioned "value" at the hotel, where prices start at $130 a night rack rate.
Doubts about value are among the reasons that Cuba's visitor tally slipped by about 4 percent last year to 2.2 million, short of government projections of 2.5 million.
Tour operators bemoan the higher cost for the Cuban peso since 2005, when the island government also imposed an extra 10 percent fee on changing U.S. dollars. The new charges often make a Cuban holiday more expensive than the nearby Dominican Republic, tour operators have said.
To stem the slide, Cuba announced plans to spend $185 million by 2010 to upgrade resorts, plus golf courses and marinas.
Mathaba News Network Free the Cuban Five Movement Stirring the US from Within
Non-stop protests are expected throughout the United States prior to September 12, which will mark the ninth anniversary of the arrest of the Cuban Five, political prisoners incarcerated in the US for protecting Cuba from US-backed terrorist actions.
July 23-29 will be the “Free the Five Week”, said organizers of the Popular Education Project in an article published this Wednesday by NY Transfer News Collective at freethecuban5.com.
Scheduled activities during that week will include a “National Call-in Day to the New York Times” on July 23, encouraging people to telephone the editor and suggest that the newspaper publish an article on the Cuban Five.
A “Picket the New York Times rally” is scheduled for July 26 at 5 pm. at The New York Times Building, where participants will demand the paper stop ignoring over 650 petitions calling for an article on the Cuban detainees.
Activities will continue until Sunday July 29, when they will wrap up with a “Unity Brunch in Support of the Cuban Five”, organized by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement at 1:00 pm. Invited speakers include Benjamin Ramos, a representative from the Popular Education Project to Free the Cuban Five and an official from the Cuban Mission in New York.
Last year, Ricardo Alarcon, president of the Cuban Parliament, declared September 12 through October 6 to be a period for raising awareness about the case of the five Cuban anti-terrorist activists.
The Popular Education Project to Free the Cuban Five has raised their demand as a call to action and has so far organized a series of events throughout the US, Latin America and the Caribbean as its members are committed to building an international movement in support of the prisoners.
The Project will be organizing a special kick-off event on Wednesday September 12 for what it has dubbed "Free the Cuban Five Month."
Black women define a shared agenda
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (IPS/GIN) - Fewer than 50 Black women hold high-level political or administrative posts in Latin America and the Caribbean, a region that is home to at least 75 million Black women.
Activists met to discuss this state of affairs recently in Panama, at an Intergenerational Conference of Afro-descendant Women of Latin America, sponsored by the United Nations Children’s Fund.
Latin America’s 150 million descendants of the African Diaspora have struggled to make inroads against the marginalization and segregation that they have historically suffered. As a result, they have not gained a significant role in politics or the public administration.
By contrast, Indigenous people in the region, who number around 40 million, have become increasingly organized in countries such as Ecuador and Bolivia, where they have begun to gain political representation.
Dorotea Wilson, head of the Network of Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Latino Women, said the conference in Panama was aimed at networking, strengthening ties and defining a shared agenda for Black women, “who have been dispersed.”
The participants plan to present a common position at the 10th Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, which is scheduled to be held Aug. 6-9 in Quito, Ecuador, by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
“We must urgently come together as Afro-descendant women, because we are separated and have not even gotten our governments to count exactly how many of us there are in the region,” Ms. Wilson said.
At the August regional conference in Quito, one of the central focuses will be the question of female domestic service. Half of the region’s domestic employees work more than 48 hours a week, receive inadequate pay and have no access to social security coverage, ECLAC reports. In fact, there are millions of domestic workers who are not even paid.
A large part of the region’s domestic workers are Black or Indigenous women. Studies show that more than 90 percent of people of African descent in the region are poor, have access only to the worst-paid jobs and have a low level of education.
In Brazil, for example, 71 percent of Black women work in the informal sector of the economy, compared to 65 percent of Black men, 61 percent of White women and 48 percent of White men. Whites in Brazil are 2.5 times richer than Blacks on average.
In Colombia, meanwhile, 80 percent of Blacks live in extreme poverty. And in Cuba, the only socialist country in the region, people of African descent live in the worst housing and have the lowest-paid jobs.
“It is very difficult to be Black in our region, and even more so if you are a woman,” Ms. Wilson said. “I know that because I myself have often had to suffer degrading humiliations.”
Ms. Wilson is from Puerto Cabezas in Nicaragua’s North Atlantic Autonomous Region.
“My father worked as a miner for over 48 years. My mother was a homemaker and raised nine children. It was hard for us— six girls and three boys—to make it in this society, but we fought and we did it,” she said.
In 1975, as a nun and missionary, Ms. Wilson joined the Sandinista National Liberation Front and later took part in the leftist group’s armed struggle, which overthrew dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979.
That year, she became the first female mayor of Puerto Cabezas and was later elected to parliament, representing the Caribbean coastal region.
She remains a member of the Sandinista front, which, after losing the 1990 elections, returned to power this year under President Daniel Ortega.
Cuba, Russia sign air transport agreement Havana, Agencies: Cuba and Russia signed an air transport agreement Thursday, which Moscow hopes will help develop Havana into a junction for Russian aircraft heading for central and Latin America.
"Russia today is increasing passenger transportation and the number of Russian tourists going to central and Latin America is annually growing by 20 percent. We need a partner in the region to jointly operate and service our aircraft. Cuba may develop into a transportation junction through which the planes of Russian passenger and cargo airlines will fly," said Russian Transport Minister Igor Levitin, who signed the agreement.
He stressed that the air deal opened a new stage in bilateral relations. "We believe Cuba is our partner in developing civil aviation in central and Latin America. That concerns supplies of Russian civilian aircraft and re-training of pilots," Levitin said.
The chairman of the Cuban Institute of Civil Aviation Rojelio Asevedo Gonzales, who signed the agreement, said bilateral relations were strong and recalled the contracts for the purchase of Russian Il-96 and TU-204 aircraft.
The agreement "will help in using aviation for tourism, for transportation of passengers and cargo, and it offers major possibilities for expanding relations between Cuba and Russia," he said.
Punta del Este, el balneario mas internacional de Suramérica, cumple 100 años (EFE).- Punta del Este, el balneario más internacional de Suramérica, por el que han pasado desde John Kennedy y Che Guevara hasta María Félix, Mike Jagger y Shakira, celebró hoy sus 100 años con un amplio programa de festejos.Los actos conmemorativos se iniciaron con un desfile militar por la Avenida Gorlero, la calle principal de esta ciudad uruguaya enclavada en una franja de tierra a orillas del Atlántico, muy cerca de la desembocadura del río de la Plata.
En 1516, el español Juan Díaz de Solís le dio a la punta de esa franja el nombre de Cabo de Santa María.
Antes de ser conocida con el nombre de Punta del Este y convertirse en balneario de lujo, era un caserío de pescadores artesanales con el nombre de Villa Ituzaingó.
Las celebraciones no se limitan al día de la fundación de la ciudad, sino que se extenderán a lo largo de todo julio, un mes en el que en muchos países de Sudamérica hay vacaciones escolares y, por consiguiente, un aumento del turismo, una de las principales fuentes de ingresos de este país.
El programa para hoy incluye la presentación del libro oficial del Centenario, "Cien años de Punta del Este" escrito por el historiador uruguayo Fernando Cairo, y la inauguración de una muestra fotográfica.
Para los próximos días está prevista una cena oficial del Centenario, a la que están invitados los mas destacados veraneantes de la ciudad, como la diva de la televisión argentina Susana Giménez, y el premio "100 años" en el hipódromo local San Fernando.
Además se celebrará el día 10 una reunión empresarial encabezada por el secretario general iberoamericano, Enrique Iglesias, ex presidente del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (BID), y un encuentro internacional de chefs, entre otras actividades.
Entre los turistas extranjeros que visitan la ciudad situada a poco más de 150 kilómetros de Montevideo, la mayoría son los argentinos, que han tenido un peso decisivo en el desarrollo de este centro turístico desde sus orígenes.
No hay famoso del mundo del espectáculo y la cultura de Argentina que se precie que no tenga una mansión o se desplace en verano al balneario uruguayo. Muchos políticos argentinos son veraneantes asiduos de Punta del Este, pero eran más numerosos aun en la época en que Carlos Menem gobernaba (1989-1999).
Otros políticos de la región también han sido vistos paseando por las playas Mansa o Brava de Punta del Este, como los ex presidentes Ricardo Lagos, de Chile, y Juan Carlos Wasmosy, de Paraguay.
Además, otros muchos mandatarios han asistido a las numerosas reuniones internacionales que han tenido sede en este rincón del Cono Sur caracterizado por sus playas de arena blanca, sus puestas de sol, un verde paisaje y la tranquilidad de un país como Uruguay sin graves problemas de seguridad en comparación con sus vecinos.
La famosa "Ronda Uruguay" del GATT, antecedente de la Organización Mundial de Comercio, tuvo lugar en Punta del Este a partir de 1986, y en esta misma ciudad, en 1962, la Organización de Estados Americanos excluyó a Cuba de participar como miembro.
Por la península esteña pasaron a comienzos de los años 60 el revolucionario argentino Ernesto "Ché" Guevara y el presidente John Kennedy, de Estados Unidos.
También estuvieron en distintas épocas el poeta español Rafael Alberti, el músico brasileño Vinicius de Moraes, la actriz italiana Silvana Pampanini, la española Sara Montiel y la mexicana María Félix, el ex futbolista argentino Diego Armando Maradona, la cantante colombiana Shakira y la banda de rock The Rolling Stones.
Para hacerse una idea de la larga lista de visitantes famosos de la ciudad basta con recorrer Casa Pueblo, un singular edificio-escultura construido por el artista uruguayo Carlos Paéz Vilaró que constituye uno de los iconos de Punta del Este.
Los muchos pasillos y callejuelas de Casa Pueblo llevan cada uno el nombre de un visitante ilustre.
España: El secretario de Emigración viaja a Cuba y Venezuela para "estrechar" los lazos de cooperación institucional El secretario general de Emigración, Manuel Luís Rodríguez, viaja a Cuba y Venezuela para mantener entrevistas con diferentes autoridades, "estrechar" los lazos de cooperación institucional y evaluar, la situación de los ciudadanos de origen gallego y el funcionamiento de los programas sociales de la Xunta en estos países.En un comunicado, Emigración señaló que Rodríguez permanecerá en La Habana por espacio de cinco días y mantendrá reuniones con el embajador de España, Carlos Alonso Zaldívar; el viceministro de Cultura, Fernando Rojas y el vicepresidente del Instituto Cubano de Música, Jesús García Cairo, además de con diferentes asociaciones de emigrantes gallegos.En Venezuela, en donde estará cuatro días, el secretario general se entrevistará con el gobernador de Aragua, Didalco Antonio Bolívar, a quien agradecerá su papel en la resolución de los últimos secuestros de gallegos. También se reunirá con los representantes de la Hermandad Gallega en este estado.
Ibrahim Ferrer Jr. editará disco de música cubana grabado en Argentina Buenos Aires, (Reporter). El músico cubano Ibrahim Ferrer Jr., hijo del legendario integrante de Buenavista Social Club, editará en julio "Al son de un homenaje", su primer disco grabado en el país.
En la placa, el artista y el grupo Clave Cubana interpretan exquisitas canciones del repertorio de la música popular cubana. El trabajo contó con la participación de Rafael de la Torre, cofundador de la Nueva Trova Cubana junto a Silvio Rodriguez y Pablo Milanes.
Para acompañar el lanzamiento del álbum, Ferrer realizará un ciclo de presentaciones los viernes de julio a las 23.30 en el Velma Cafe de Palermo Hollywood (Gorriti 5520).
Ibrahim Ferrer Jr nació en Santiago de Cuba el 4 de mayo de 1957. Graduado como Ingeniero Naval en la Academia Naval del Mariel en La Habana, en 1975 obtuvo el Grado de Capitán de la Marina Mercante.
Pero desde niño Ferrer mostró su inclinación por las artes musicales, participando en festivales intercolegiales a nivel primario y secundario. Además, durante sus estudios universitarios, se presentó con sus diferentes agrupaciones en festivales de aficionados y, más tarde, se dedicó de lleno a la actividad.
Radicado en Argentina desde diciembre de 1999, el artista se incorporó a la agrupación de músicos cubanos Son de Cuba, que habitualmente participan en eventos culturales organizados por entidades oficiales y por la embajada de la isla.
El músico también colaboró con varios artistas del proyecto Buena Vista Social Club, como su padre, Ibrahim Ferrer; Omara Portuondo y Ruben González.
Zapatero promete a la oposición cubana insistir en el diálogo UE-Cuba (AFP) - El presidente del Gobierno, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, aseguró a un grupo opositor cubano que promoverá un diálogo entre la Unión Europea y la isla, a fin de cumplir con las metas de una posición del bloque en favor de cambios democráticos y que La Habana rechaza.
En su misiva dirigida al ilegal Partido Solidaridad Democrática (oposición moderada), divulgada el miércoles, Rodríguez Zapatero expresa que su gobierno está "firmemente convencido" en la "vía del diálogo" con Cuba.
"Es voluntad del gobierno español extrapolar la vía del diálogo al conjunto de la Unión Europea (UE), para lograr una plena normalización de las relaciones entre Cuba y la UE, que permitan el cumplimiento de los objetivos contenidos en la Posición Común aprobada en 1996", subrayó la misiva.
"El gobierno de España está firmemente convencido de que la vía del diálogo, tanto con las autoridades cubanas como con el resto de la sociedad cubana, es la única posible para poder acompañar al pueblo cubano en aquellas decisiones que pueda tomar sobre su futuro", destacó.
En su misiva, con fecha del 3 de julio, Rodríguez Zapatero dice que su Gobierno cree que "los mecanismos de los que se ha dotado España son los mejores instrumentos para conseguir ese objetivo".
Rodríguez Zapatero, que envió a principios de abril a su ministro de Asuntos Exteriores, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, para tender puentes de diálogo, respondió con su carta a una misiva del 21 de mayo en la que el grupo opositor le expresa apoyo a la actual política de España con respecto a Cuba.
La UE adoptó el 18 de junio un documento en el que invitan a Cuba al "diálogo político integral y abierto", pero La Habana respondió advirtiendo de que no existe esa posibilidad mientras los 27 no eliminen la llamada Posición Común de 1996, que exige a la isla cambios políticos y democráticos como condición para recibir cooperación.
Cuba también reclama que sean eliminadas las sanciones que la UE le impuso en 2003 por la detención y condena de 75 disidentes, y que permanecen en suspenso desde 2005 a instancias de España.
Les droits de l'Homme toujours "systématiquement violés" à Cuba (CCDHRN))Le Monde.fr La violation "systématique et institutionnalisée" des droits de l'Homme persiste à Cuba onze mois après l'instauration du gouvernement provisoire de Raul Castro, selon le rapport annuel de la Commission pour les droits de l'Homme et la réconciliation nationale (CCDHRN, illégale)."Il est indiscutable que persiste la violation systématique et institutionnalisée de tous et chacun des droits civiques, politiques, économiques et y compris culturels", écrit la CCDHRN, une organisation illégale mais tolérée, présidée par Elizardo Sanchez, un opposant qui a passé huit ans dans les prisons du régime.
Au terme du premier semestre 2007 et "après 11 mois d'un gouvernement provisoire qui gère les affaires publiques sous la forme d'une espèce de double autorité" entre Raul Castro et son frère Fidel convalescent, la situation des droits de l'Homme "est restée la même que dans les décennies précédentes, soit une situation clairement défavorable", souligne la commission."Les libertés d'opinion, d'association, d'information, de la presse, d'expression et le droit à organiser des syndicats ou des formations politiques (...), entre autres droits, continuent d'être expressément criminalisés par le code pénal draconien en vigueur", selon elle.
"Sous le gouvernement provisoire" de Raul Castro, "pas un seul pas n'a été franchi pour entamer la modernisation du système légal", poursuit le rapport.
Bien que le nombre de prisonniers politiques soit passé de 283 à 246 au cours du premier semestre, la CCDHRN considère cette réduction comme "non significative", ce chiffre "alarmant" demeurant "le plus élevé au monde pour 1.000 habitants".
Les autorités soutiennent qu'il n'y a pas de prisonniers politiques à Cuba mais seulement des "mercenaires" au service des Etats-Unis.
La CCDHRN a dénombré "73 prisonniers de conscience" adoptés par Amnesty International.
Le nombre de prisonniers de droit commun "est en baisse ces deux dernières années" et "pourrait être de 60.000 à 80.000", dans un "système carcéral hypertrophié, formé de quelque 200 prisons et camps de travail" qui demeure "hors de toute forme d'inspection par la Croix-Rouge internationale et autres organismes".
"Les mauvais traitements, verbaux ou physiques, y règnent", les détenus "manquent de toute protection juridique", y sont "très mal alimentés et reçoivent de l'eau contaminée", selon la commission.
L'"Etat policier", selon la CCDHRN, "réprime toute la société", notamment en menant "une campagne répressive particulière et permanente contre ceux qui cherchent à naviguer sur Internet" ou cherchent "à capter les signaux des télévisions internationales par satellite", tandis que "dans la rue, les cas d'abus policiers sont innombrables".
Pour le gouvernement, les limitations d'accès à Internet sont dues à l'embargo américain qui empêche Cuba d'accéder librement aux télécommunications internationales.
Rights abuses unabated in Raul Castro's Cuba: group
Reuters - Washington Post
Eleven months after Cuban leader Fidel Castro handed over power to his brother, Cuba continues to trample on civil liberties, though the number of political prisoners has fallen, a rights group said on Thursday.
The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation said the number of Cubans in jail for political reasons dropped from 283 to 246 in the first half of the year.
But the rights situation has not improved under acting President Raul Castro, who took over the government on July 31 after his 80-year-old brother underwent bowel surgery, the commission said in a biannual report.
"The systematic and institutional violation of each and every civil, political and economic right listed in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights persists," it said.
Freedom of expression and association, and the right to form labor unions or political organizations, remain suppressed and criminalized under a draconian penal code, the group said.
The commission, led by veteran rights activist Elizardo Sanchez, is illegal but tolerated by Cuba's communist state.
The decline in the number of political prisoners continues a two-year trend, the report said. Many of those released had served their prison terms. The releases this year have not included leading dissidents rounded up in a 2003 crackdown.
The rights group said Cuba has 200 prisons and labor camps, and is the only country in the Western Hemisphere that does not allow the International Red Cross to visits its jails.
Prison conditions are "subhuman and degrading" with bad food and inadequate medical and dental treatment, and brutal beatings of inmates, the report said.
It cited the case of Manuel Acosta Larena, a dissident who was arrested last month and died in a police station in the province of Cienfuegos. Police said he hung himself. His family has written to Raul Castro requesting an investigation.
The rights group criticized U.S. sanctions against Cuba for causing hardship to the Cuban people and providing the government with a justification for its economic failures.
It also added its voice to international criticism of the United States for the continued detention of some 375 suspected al Qaeda and Taliban members at the Guantanamo Bay prison, calling for its immediate closure.
The U.S. camp was at least open to outside inspection, the Cuban rights group said.
"The only prison on the island of Cuba that is permanently under international scrutiny is the prison camp set up by the United States in the naval base at Guantanamo," it said.
Les dilemmes de la transition cubaine : l'heure des changements révolutionnairespar Pablo Stefanoni (El Diplo)
« Commandant en chef, à vos ordres ! » . La consigne de la crise desmissiles de 1962 est toujours en vigueur. Cependant, ni Cuba, ni le mondene sont les mêmes qu'à cette époque de Guerre froide et d'enthousiasmedébordant devant une révolution qui faisait ses premiers pas. 48 ans aprèscette geste, la « génération héroïque » s'éteint peu à peu et lesnouvelles portées et les imaginaires et valeurs de la société sont trèsdifférents de ceux de 1959. (...)Lire l'article : http://risal.collectifs.net/article.php3?id_article=2114
+++ Mark Weisbrot : « L'influence du FMI ne cesse de décliner »par Fernando Krakowiak (Página 12)
Mark Weisbrot est économiste et codirecteur du Center for Economic andPolicy Research, dont le siège est à Washington. Au plus fort de la criseargentine, en 2002, il a été l'un des rares économistes à recommander aupays de ne pas signer d'accord avec le Fonds Monétaire International(FMI). Selon lui, la décision de l'Argentine a été clé pour réduirel'influence de l'organisme au niveau international parce qu'elle adémontré aux autres pays qu'il était possible de connaître la croissanceet d'avoir accès au marché des capitaux sans le FMI. Au cours d'unentretien avec Cash, supplément économique du quotidien argentin Página12, il a affirmé que les Etats-Unis ne pourront pas recréer uneinstitution similaire. Il a également mis en valeur le processusd'intégration auquel s'attèlent les pays d'Amérique latine et la décisionde Chavez d'utiliser les pétrodollars pour se transformer en prêteur de larégion, mais il affirme que le Venezuela n'est pas le leader du nouveauprocessus : « Tous contribuent à changer les relations entre la région etles Etats-Unis ».(...)Lire l'article : http://risal.collectifs.net/article.php3?id_article=2294
+++ Radiographie de la Banque du Sudpar Fernando Krakowiak (Página 12)
La Banque du Sud devrait officiellement être lancée à la rentréeprochaine. En effet, selon la ministre de l'Économie argentine, FelisaMiceli, le document de fondation et les statuts seront prêts pour le moisd'août, quand les ministres de l'Économie des pays membres serencontreront à nouveau à Rio de Janeiro pour finaliser les derniersdétails. Préalablement à cet événement, le quotidien argentin Página 12 enprofite pour dresser le portrait de cette nouvelle institution régionalesur base d'un brouillon du document de fondation qu'un « vent favorable »lui a apporté.(...)Lire l'article : http://risal.collectifs.net/article.php3?id_article=2295
+++ Crise du FMI et de la Bm , lancement de la Banque du Sudconsultez le dossier : http://risal.collectifs.net/mot.php3?id_mot=1036
+++ L'ALBA : du rêve à la réalitépar Emir Sader (ALAI, Agencia Latinoamericana de Información)
Lorsqu'en décembre 2004, Fidel Castro et Hugo Chávez ont lancél'Alternative Bolivarienne pour les Amériques (ALBA), l'initiativesemblait représenter le cadre institutionnel des accords que Cuba et leVenezuela étaient en train de développer. Cela représentait un grandexemple de commerce équitable, que le Forum social mondial prônait depuisplusieurs années. Chaque pays fournit ce qu'il possède : du brutvénézuélien, non pas au prix du marché, mais en échange de la seule choseque Cuba peut donner : le meilleur personne en santé publique, enéducation et en sport. D'autres accords - signés en avril 2005 -annonçaient la disposition d'intégration structurelle et stratégique entreles deux pays, vers l'anti-capitalisme et vers le « socialisme du XXIesiècle ». (...)Lire l'article : http://risal.collectifs.net/article.php3?id_article=2292
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