Viewing from December 2010

Jamaica to serve as Cuban eye care hub

News from Cuba | Friday, 31 December 2010

JAMAICA is to serve as the Caribbean hub for the Cuban eye care programme, which has reached out to thousands of people in the region, Cuba's minister of foreign affairs has said.The main eye operating centre located at St Joseph's Hospital in the eastern section of Kingston has already served ... read more

Cuba vows to continue support, despite economic squeeze

News from Cuba | Wednesday, 29 December 2010

DESPITE the harsh economic conditions that have flattened some world economies and placed enormous pressure on others, Caribbean island Cuba will not reduce its generosity to dependent countries, its foreign minister has said.In a wide-ranging interview with the Business Observer during a trip to Jamaica recently, Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla ... read more

Cuban Doctors Save 250000 people in Haiti

News from Cuba | Wednesday, 29 December 2010

Cuban doctors have saved over 250000 Haitians during the twelve years of medical cooperation in Haiti, which was devastated in 2010 by a strong earthquake and after that by the cholera pandemic.Cuban Health vice Minister Marcias Cobas said that international cooperation with Haiti began in December 1998; it was never ... read more

Why update instead of reform the Cuban economy?

News from Cuba | Sunday, 26 December 2010

Interview in Juventud Rebelde by José Alejandro RodríguezEconomist Hugo Pons sees the recently begun transformation of the Cuban economy as a process of continuity and discontinuity that has brought us to where we are now.“We are producing a bonsai in this small island,” economist Hugo Pons tells me when I ... read more

Cuban medics in Haiti put the world to shame

News from Cuba | Sunday, 26 December 2010

Castro's doctors and nurses are the backbone of the fight against cholera, by nina Lakhani for the IndependentThey are the real heroes of the Haitian earthquake disaster, the human catastrophe on America's doorstep which Barack Obama pledged a monumental US humanitarian mission to alleviate. Except these heroes are from America's ... read more

Radio 2 tribute to Kirsty MacColl - listen before 27 December

Campaign News | Friday, 24 December 2010

Listen before 27 December when the programme will be taken down from the Radio 2 site - follow the link at the bottom of this articleTen years after her death, Billy Bragg looks at the life of the singer and writer Kirsty MacColl, with much of the programme focussing on ... read more

¡Viva WikiLeaks! SiCKO Was Not Banned in Cuba

News from Cuba | Friday, 24 December 2010

Guardian retracts article which reported US diplomats lies about Sicko being banned in CubaOn 17 December Wikileaks released a State Department cable from 2008 which reported that Michael Moore's film 'Sicko' had been banned in Cuba for depicting a 'mythical' healthcare system.Media outlets around the world depicted the report as ... read more

Cuba puts 'imperialist' US Wikileaks online

News from Cuba | Friday, 24 December 2010

Cuba says it will publish on the internet more than 2,000 US diplomatic cables released by the website Wikileaks.The aim is to highlight US "imperialist" policy and efforts to "subvert" the Cuban revolution, the official Cubadebate.cu website said.The first seven documents, translated into Spanish, are already on the site.In some ... read more

US Congress blocks Guantanamo closure

News from Cuba | Thursday, 23 December 2010

WASHINGTON - US lawmakers have effectively blocked President Barack Obama's efforts to close the controversial terror prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by approving a Pentagon budge that forbids spending money on the move.After months of wrangling, both the House and Senate Wednesday approved a 725.9-billion-dollar defense spending plan for the ... read more

Ricardo Alarcon addressing the National Assembly

News from Cuba | Friday, 17 December 2010

I'm going to be loyal to my exhortation [for deputies to be succinct in their interventions].Really, I only want to say the following. We are in the midst of a national process of debate, of discussion in which everyone needs to study. We must all make an effort to learn, ... read more

'No upheaval' likely from Castro death

News from Cuba | Thursday, 16 December 2010

Cuban exiles may be eagerly awaiting the death of Fidel Castro, but US diplomats in Havana do not expect the revolutionary icon’s passing to generate any immediate unrest on the communist-run island, or even an upsurge in people seeking to leave, according to a newly released diplomatic cable.Another cable from ... read more

Latin America 2010 Conference report

Campaign News | Tuesday, 14 December 2010

The sixth annual Latin America ‘Adelante’ conference packed out Congress Hall on Saturday 4 December, despite a snow struck morning in London. Possibly in respect of this year being the 200th centenary year of many Latin American countries independence and that in 1810 Simon Bolivar travelled to London to enlist ... read more

Cuba Seeks to Normalize Relations with EU

News from Cuba | Sunday, 12 December 2010

Cuba has expressed to the European Union its interest in reaching a bilateral accord and in normalizing relations, though it insists that the 27-member bloc eliminate its hard-line “common position” toward the government in Havana, according to an internal EU document, to which Efe had access.The document, the result of ... read more

Raul Castro sees off South African President

News from Cuba | Thursday, 9 December 2010

Cuban President Raul Castro saw off his South African counterpart Jacob Zuma who said he was very impressed by the spirit of internationalism of the Cuban people.Zuma, before departing from Havana airport, said internationalism sets Cubans apart from the rest of the world and that he will tell South Africans ... read more

LA 2010 - Beating the blockade seminar report

Campaign News | Wednesday, 8 December 2010

CSC Campaigns Officer Dan Smith reports from the Latin America 2010 ConferenceIn a lively discussion on the US blockade of Cuba, Steve Ludlam, lecturer at the University of Sheffield, denounced the embargo as the “relentless strangulation of Cuba”. As Ludlam contended, the blockade of Cuba constitutes just one facet of ... read more

CARICOM Celebrates 38 Years of Relations with Cuba

News from Cuba | Wednesday, 8 December 2010

The Caribbean Community (Caricom) and Cuba celebrate on Wednesday 38 years of relations that have become stronger with the solidarity cooperation Cuba has provided and the bloc's support in the international arena.Both sides are hosting activities to celebrate the decision of Trinidad & Tobago, Barbados, Guyana and Jamaica of establishing ... read more

Cubans a boon in Haiti cholera outbreak

News from Cuba | Tuesday, 7 December 2010

Cuban medics are proving more useful than citizens of any other country, where Haiti's cholera outbreak is concerned.So far, more than 2,000 people have died of cholera in Haiti, with nearly 90,000 cases recorded there and a rising death toll.It has been six weeks since the first outbreak, and the ... read more

It is the People Who Decide - Granma editorial on 6th Communist Party Congress

News from Cuba | Monday, 6 December 2010

The process of discussions on the Draft Guidelines for the Economic and Social Policy of the Party and the Revolution begins today, December 1st, and runs until February 28, at every PCC organization, workplace and union across the country's municipalities and provinces.What does this discussion process mean?It means the Cuban ... read more

Cuba Jewish groups deny work with jailed American

News from Cuba | Thursday, 2 December 2010

By Peter Orsi for the Associated PressThe leaders of Cuba's two main Jewish groups both denied having worked with a jailed American contractor whose family says he was on the island to hand out communication equipment to Jewish organizations.Cuban authorities have accused Alan Gross of espionage, though they have not ... read more

Cuba begins public debate on economic reforms

News from Cuba | Thursday, 2 December 2010

from BBC NewsCuba has launched a public debate on plans to transform its socialist economy by reducing the role of the state and boosting private enterprise.Ordinary Cubans are being encouraged to discuss the changes so their views can be taken into account at a ruling communist party congress next April.The ... read more

Ireland and Cuba get together in London

Campaign News | Wednesday, 1 December 2010

Cuban Ambassador Esther Armenteros joined celebrity guests and politicians at the anual Sinn Fein dinner in London.Among the wide array of people present, from the Irish community and wider, included leading figures from the world of politics, trade unions, sport, arts and media, academia and legal and human rights fields. ... read more