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Cuba, Nebraska Sign Trade Deals
CUBA, March 27, 2007.- Authorities from Cuba and the US State of Nebraska are due to sign two trade agreements in this capital on Tuesday in the agricultural sphere, to make viable the island´s purchase of grains and other foods.
The two accords are due to be inked at the Havana´s Palco Hotel today, in the presence of Nebraska governor Dave Heineman, who arrived in Havana Monday along with 30 businesspeople from his State.
In statements to press, Heineman termed very significant the two accords to be signed here with executives of the Cuban Food Importing Company ALIMPORT, to give a boost trade in this sector, as he previously did in 2005 and 2006.
The US politician stated that this "mutually advantageous" society with Cuban authorities has particular importance for Nebraska farmers, although he condemned restrictions imposed by the US economic blockade.
Due to the blockade, Cuba is obliged to pay in cash and in advance for all goods imported from the US.
Members of the US delegation confirmed to Prensa Latina that prior trade contracts between Nebraska and Cuba hover around $60 million for the purchase by the Caribbean country of beans and other cereals, turkey and pork. |
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Cuba Wins 12 Medals at International Trade Fair
CUBA, November 3, 2006.- "The Havana International Trade Fair (FIHAV) will continue to be the expression of the sustainable increase of the Cuban economy," said Abraham Maciques, president of the FIHAV Organizing Committee during the awards ceremony of the 24th edition of this event.
Cuba won 12 Gold Medals for quality including for the products Puritos Montecristo de Internacional Cubana, of the Tabacos S.A. company; and Toronjas Frescas, of the Victoria de Giron Citrus Company, which also won in the category of Design and the Grand Prize for Universal Communication.
Other nations that were awarded Golden Medals included Iran, Spain, Italy, Panama, Russia, Venezuela and Liechtenstein.
The Cuban telephone company ETECSA won an award for its stand; Legendario S.L., Habanos S.A., BRASCUBA S.A, and Havana Club International all won in the Free Design category; and Colombia won for Best Pavilion .
This year, 1,125 firms from 48 nations participated occupying a total space of 16,400 square meters at the EXPOCUBA grounds. There were 14 official delegations and 25 Chambers of Commerce represented at the fair, a strong indication of the growing trade and economic relations that Cuba is establishing as its economy grows. "This demonstrates a failure of [US] attempts to isolate the Cuban economy with its economic blockade," said Maciques. (Cubaminrex-PL). |
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Cuba's Foreign Trade Continues to Grow
Havana, October 31 .- Cuba's commercial exchange with the world grew 27 percent during the first nine months of this year, compared to same period in 2005, according to Cuba's Foreign Trade Minister, Raúl de la Nuez. He spoke during the inauguration of the 24th Havana International Trade Fair on Monday, which was attended by Vice President Carlos Lage Davila.
By the end of the year, Cuba expects to close commercial operations valued at 10 billion dollars, the largest figure reached over the past 15 years, said Raúl de la Nuez, who noted that such an achievement is due to an increase in imported products to help improve the quality of life of the Cuban people.
The foreign trade minister underscored the advancement made by the island following the most recent programs launched by the Cuban Revolution in the fields of energy, public health and transportation. Exports also contributed to that achievement and they are growing and diversifying with outstanding results in the areas of genetics and biotechnology.
Although Cuban traditional goods keep their presence in the world market, other products derived from scientific and technical research, as well as professional services, are experiencing growing world demand, said the Cuban Minister. He announced that 45 percent of Cuba's foreign trade exchange during that period included commercial operations with countries in the Americas, followed by Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
Havana's International Fair promotes the island's foreign trade and setting up of joint ventures, said de la Nuez during the fair's inaugural ceremony, which was also attended by Government Minister Ricardo Cabrisas and Economy and Planning Minister José Luis Rodríguez. (Cubaminrex-RHC). |
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Havana International Fair Opens
CUBA, October 30, 2006 .- With the presence of 1,125 companies from 48 countries, the 24th International Havana Fair (FIHAV 2006) began in Expocuba, Havana on Monday.
Carlos Lage Davila, secretary of the Cuban Ministers Council, attended the opening activity in which Cuban Foreign Trade Minister Raul de la Nuez announced this time there are 186,215 square feet for foreign firms, the largest in the last four years.
Other Cuban officials, such as Government Minister Ricardo Cabrisas, Foreign Investment and Collaboration Minister Marta Lomas, and Economy Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez, were at the activity.
More than 700 foreign firms are taking part, showing the unanimous rejection of the US government’s blockade of the island.
Eleven official pavilions and 20 national Chambers of Commerce represent their respective countries.
The Cuban representation is distributed into 87 stands, of 300 entities, among them machinery, equipment, technology, and the medical and pharmaceutical industry.
For 23 years, FIHAV has been an important link to promote export products and has contributed to strengthen relations with commercial partners. (Cubaminrex-PL). |
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Havana Trade Fair, XXIV Editions in 23 Years
CUBA, 30 October, 2006 .- Havana s International Trade Fair, FIHAV 2006, began its 24rd edition Monday with the presence of 750 foreign firms and diverse trade prospects.
More than 40 countries are present in the biggest cuban trade show, celebrating now its 23 anniversary.
With ever-increasing exhibits and EXPOCUBA exhibition center as its traditional headquarters since 1987, the fair is a sing of economic development and a door open to world trade.
China, Spain and Russia are the countries most represented along the over 107.6 square-feet display, of which, only 21.5 square feet are for Cuban stands.
Official delegations from Bulgaria, Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, Ghana, Guatemala, Argentina, Angola, Nigeria, Algeria and South Africa, Venezuela, Canada, Italy, South Korea, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Iran, Czech Republic, Turkey and Japan are also attending FIHAV 2006. (Cubaminrex-PL). |
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US Students Praise Cuban Med Training
Havana, Jul 12, 2006. (Prensa Latina) During a meeting with members of the 17th Caravan of Pastor for Peace on Wednesday, US citizens matriculating at the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) highlighted the qualified-integral training they are receiving in Cuba.
The group, representing the 75 US students at the important center, demonstrated for Pastors for Peace the scientific and technical excellence conceived by the institution’s program of studies and referred to the solidarity and humanist principles under which they will serve once they graduate.
Dr Juan Carrizo Estevez, ELAM rector, noted that the very first graduation in 2005 contributed 1,610 professionals to the nations of the so-called Third World, a similar figure to that expected for the second graduation.
According to Dr Estevez, this project of free medical training of human resources has benefited 28 nations, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean.
In immediate response to the disastrous situation provoked in Central American and Caribbean nations by Hurricanes George and Mitch in 1998, Cuba created an Integral Medical Assistance Program, a cooperation project that includes sending medical brigades to affected regions.
In that context, Cuban President Fidel Castro conceived the creation of ELAM to train young people of those countries as health professionals, to return to their nations to contribute with the medical systems in their respective communities after graduating.
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Yale Donates Films to Cuba
Havana, Jun 16, 2006. (Prensa Latina) The US University of Yale has donated to Cuba a collection of unpublished documentary films shot on the island between 1964 and 1969 and several movies filmed from 1957 to 1959.
These historic documents, work by US filmmaker David Stone, were delivered to the History Institute in Cuba, Granma newspaper reported.
Together with the 62 digital films, another 5,000 photos, most of them unpublished, were also donated.
These snapshots were taken by journalist Andrew St George and they include the time since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution January 1, 1959 to the nationalization of US companies in 1961.
The quality of those films, information, interviews and photos has incalculable value for this country's history, said IHC president Raul Izquierdo.
These historic testimonies, stated Izquierdo, will enrich the Institute and Cuba's documentary heritage, as well as foster ties of exchange and solidarity between experts from both countries.
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Despite US Blockade, Cuba Opening Doors To Internet
By Angel Rodriguez Alvarez
Taken from Cuban News Agency
June 8, 2006
If someone in any part of the world is told that in Cuba one cannot have free access to the Internet, one would think that it was simply a violation of individual freedom – unless they were offered a full explanation.
What is important is to understand is the digital disparity between the First and Third Worlds, a situation greatly worsened on the island due to Washington’s economic blockade.
In addition to financial restraints increasingly being placed on Cuba by Washington, the island is not allowed to connect to underwater optic fibre cables through which the overwhelming bulk of worldwide information flows.
Internet reception and transmission on the island is therefore reduced to satellite communication. This substantially limits the country’s connectivity capacity, causes the transmission of information to slow down and makes the process much more expensive.
For these reasons, the country set out to a development strategy to forge ahead in the ‘informatization’ of society. This is seen as the only way to have technology reach the broadest sectors of the nation and a larger number of people worldwide.
The informatization of society is defined in Havana as “the process of orderly and massive use of information and communication technology to satisfy the information and knowledge needs of all people and spheres of society.”
The issue has been touched upon on various occasions in speeches by Cuban President Fidel Castro, who recently expressed the official objective: “Millions of Cubans could communicate with millions of people in the world through the Internet”.
The first step in that direction took place in 1996 when the Ministry of Communications—which until then had been devoted to traditional postal work, telephone links and radio and television transmissions— was transformed into the Informatics and Communications Ministry.
A decade later, the island is showing notable advances in this important sector, as demonstrated by the growing number of citizens and institutions with Internet access and by in massive training of highly specialized engineers and technicians.
The scope of this effort would seem inconceivable in not only Third World nations, but in many First World countries.
So as not to offer an image that might seem overly optimistic, we can make reference to concrete aspects which are easily verifiable by any interested visitor to the country.
In Cuba, computer courses are included in the national education programs starting at the first grade level.
There are 26 Informatics Polytechnic Institutions in the provinces; these are equipped with modern digital technology and have an enrollment of 40,000 students of whom the first class will graduate in 2008.
In addition to the existing programs in the universities, in mid-2002 the Computer Sciences University (UCI) was created. It has 8,000 students selected from among the most talented and hard working in this specialty.
Complementing this effort are the over 600 Computer Clubs established and operating throughout the country’s 169 municipalities.
This project is important due to its egalitarian character: everyone can have access regardless of their age or occupation.
Some 800,000 people have graduated from universities, mainly young people. Up until today, over 200 of these facilities have Internet access and there are plans of extending this service to all of them.
We can also mention the INFOMED network, which belongs to the Health Ministry. Academics and professionals can also navigate with a personalized Internet access through special connections. This also includes doctors, journalists, artists and scientists.
Interviewed by the Cuban press, Engineer Roberto Santiesteban, director of the Data Business Unit which belongs to the island’s telecommunication company, offered a panorama of the future.
“The more we develop our Internet and more possibilities for connections, the service will spread nationally. This is conditioned by the cost and technological availability to Cuba, which is advancing on a yearly basis through the import of computers and making agreements with other nations,” said Santiesteban.
“Without a doubt these are the guidelines that will make it possible for any Cuban to have Internet access,” he concluded.
This and no other is the truth in what is happening in Cuba with the present and future of Internet access.
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US Operation Walk and Cuban Doctors Working Together
Havana, April 26, 2006 (ACN) The US medical brigade «Operation Walk» and Cuban doctors are jointly carrying out orthopedic surgery on Cuban patients on the island.
The director of Cuba’s Frank Pais International Orthopedic and Scientific Complex, Dr. Rodrigo Alvarez Cambras, told ANC that during 24 Cuban patients were operated on and provided with hip and knee prostheses during the first two days of the joint cooperation. The first 12 patients that submitted to surgery are already walking, said Dr. Cambras.
This is the third occasion that the US medical group cooperates with the Cuban scientific-orthopedic institution, a joint action that takes place every two years.
The US doctors have been applying knee, hip and ankle surgery on Cuban patients and they are scheduled to carry out a total of 56 such operations.
The medical group, made up of surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses and other experts, is headed by renown US Professor Merill Ritter. Operation Walk also includes a medical course, which is being attended by 60 Cuban orthopedists.
Operation Walk is a private, not-for-profit, volunteer medical services organization which provides free surgical treatment for patients in developing countries and in the US. Operation Walk also educates in-country orthopedic surgeons, physical therapists and other healthcare professionals on the most advanced treatments and surgical techniques for diseases of the hip and knee joints. This is done in conjunction with surgeries to help create a lasting contribution to patient care in developing countries. |
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I Really Love Cuba, Says US Surgeon
Taken from AIN
April 28, 2006
One of the top American surgeons at implanting hip and knee prostheses, Professor Merrill Ritter, has avoided many of the obstacles to traveling to Cuba. Since 2000, every three years he has come to share science and knowledge with his Cuban colleagues. "I truly love Cuba," he says.
In this occasion he met up with 63 professionals and health technicians --including surgeons, specialists in intensive care, nurses-- and performed around fifty operations on patients who needed prostheses of the knee and hip, or both.
The presence of this medical team in the Frank Pais International Orthopedic Scientific Complex, in Havana, has become an educational exercise, because the operations are transmitted on closed circuit television and followed by 80 orthopedic surgeons coming from all over the country.
These trips to Cuba are supported by the non-profit organization Operation Walk, which also successfully obtains the required donations of prostheses, medicines and other provisions for the operations and the convalescence of the patients.
Living with eight teams of doctors Professor Merrill says smilingly - gives him the "authority" to declare that the main virtues of a health professional are humanism and solidarity, and declared that the team of six surgeons that traveled in his delegation has the common denominator that "they are humble and kind."
On the doctor-patient relationship he says that before exchanging even the first words, it is indispensable for the specialist to sit on the bed and hold the hands of the patient.
Professor Merrill had many words of praise for the surgeons at Frank Pais who participated with them in the operations and boasted of their high scientific qualifications and good training.
A native of Indiana, a state located in the central plains of the United States, Dr. Merrill is director of the Hip and Knee Center of the St. Francis Hospital. "This is the best trip which we have made to Cuba," he says, "because our friendship has grown, and all of us that come do it for free, as a proof that, truly, we give our heart to the Cubans ". ( Taken from GRANMA)
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Another group of U.S. young people join ELAM contingent
By Joaquin Rivery Tur
Taken from Granma International
March 2006
Nine more young people. Well, actually, eight new ones and one returning after special permission to be absent due to her mother’s illness have just arrived in Cuba, joining a contingent of more than 80 young people from the United States who are studying medicine at the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM).
There were smiles and optimism. They were welcomed by José Miyar Barruecos, secretary of the Council of State, and Juan Carrizo, ELAM dean, and – no big surprise – Lucius Walker and Ellen Bernstein of Pastors for Peace, who accompanied them on the trip.
Walker happily explained his mission of bringing the new students who come from six different U.S. states, including one from California who has Native American roots, and noted the determination of all of them to "take advantage of Cuba’s incredible offer to train them as doctors to care for their own communities, humble ones that do not have access to healthcare."
While the government in Washington is looking for ways to bring more pressure against the Revolution, Cuba is responding with love and revolutionary commitment, and offering young U.S. citizens attention that they cannot receive in their own country, the reverend commented. "This is a revolutionary expression of love," he emphasized.
At his side, Janice Verbosky was in a wheelchair with a broken tibia, but with a smile on her face. She is going to heal here on the island and study; the same enthusiasm was expressed by Mayada Holt, who is returning after caring for her sick mother. |
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U.S volunteers build playgrounds for Cuban children in Havana
by Rose Ana Dueñas
Taken from Granma International
October 6, 2005
"WHEN people ask me why I go to Cuba to build playgrounds for children, I say to them, ‘you’ve never been to Cuba, and you’ve never seen a Cuban child,’" says Bill Hauf, a tall, affable businessman from San Diego, California.
Hauf is founder and director of a non-profit group, It’s Just the Kids, "dedicated to the needs of Cuban children," according to its website, www.itsjustthekids.org. The group has built seven playgrounds in Havana city parks since 2003 and is planning to build four more.
The U.S. does not allow its citizens to travel to Cuba without a special U.S. Treasury license, and the Bush Administration imposed further restrictions in 2003 and stepped up persecutions and fines of those who travel "illegally." Since then, such visits have dropped by almost half, according to a Cuban government report last week.
However, Hauf’s group obtained a license, and has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars – much of it personally contributed by Hauf – to buy top-of-the-line playground equipment, and about 100 volunteers have traveled to Cuba to help put up swings, slides, climbing walls, and other kids’ delights.
However, from September 24-October 1 this year, 49 people from all over the U.S. sweated for a full 40 hours, side-by-side with workers from the Havana Parks & Sanitation Department and neighbors from local Committees for Defense of the Revolution (CDR), digging holes and assembling equipment.
They put up playgrounds in Las Madres Park in Cotorro, San Agustín Park in San Agustín, Antiguo Champagne Sport Park in Guanabacoa, and Santa Amalia Park in Arroyo Naranjo, building each in about a day and a half. "Part of the satisfaction of this is they see the results really fast," Hauf noted.
They also repaired swings and other playground equipment put up in 2003 in Regla, Plaza and Marianao. All of the park sites, chosen from a list provided by Havana city authorities, are in working-class neighborhoods full of children.
The U.S. volunteers came from 17 different states and all different backgrounds, ages 17-74. Many of them raised money for the project from family and friends. Joe Stolkovich, 28, a hospital lab technician from Baltimore, Maryland, had studied for a semester in Cuba in college, and said those who donated money included some of his former classmates.
As the week went by, volunteers made friends with neighbors who brought sandwiches and opened their houses to the volunteers when it rained.
Francisco Mathews, president of a CDR in Cotorro whose members worked on the park, commented, "They worked really well and until late, in spite of the sun." The U.S. volunteers, in turn, praised their Cuban hosts.
"I’ve never seen this much concrete get moved so fast," said Dan Casey, 29, a playground installation manager from Chicago. "They’re tireless, and they do everything with a smile on their face. They’re definitely the hardest-working people I’ve met."
Maritza Rosario, 32, works for the Chicago public schools system, teaching people how to design and build playgrounds. Originally from Hatillo, Puerto Rico, she says she felt right at home in Havana. "We make sure that even though this equipment is put together by volunteers, the quality is not lost, and everything is installed correctly."
During a September 29 ribbon-cutting ceremony in Cotorro, Ernesto Torres Vázquez, president of the Municipal Assembly of People’s Power in Cotorro, commented, "They came with one goal in mind, and they made this dream come true – a very concrete one. We have never had this opportunity to work together in solidarity with 50 people from the United States."
John Cosentino, 36, a plumber from Salem, Massachusetts, agreed: "I love how the project is bridging the gap between Cuban and American people," he said. "It’s a wonderful country. I wish I could come here more often."
Forrest Stuart, 23, a political science major at American University in Washington, D.C., says he had read about Cuba before he came, but wasn’t sure how much of it was true, and was surprised at how warmly he and other volunteers were received by the Cubans. "The picture that’s painted for us in the U.S. is inaccurate in every way," he says. "I definitely want to come back."
Jerry Kallman, 74, came with his wife Lorraine, 63, from New Jersey. He had been in Cuba before, to organize the US Healthcare exhibition in 2000. "There’s a warmth and a joy here that’s very special, working together with the Cuban people," he commented, as Lorraine agreed. "We put in our sweat equity," he laughed.
The group’s license is good for another 18 months, and Hauf says they plan to be back soon.
"There are days I get stressed: so many people, two different cultures, two different governments," Bill comments. "But in the end, I see the smiling faces of the children, and feel really good." |
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