jueves, 26 de marzo de 2009

Havana Visual Arts Biennial Kicks Off Friday

HAVANA, Cuba, March 26 (acn) The 10th Havana Visual Arts Biennial opens on Friday at the San Carlos de la Cabaña Fortress in Havana, with considerable international turnout that speaks for itself of the prestige of the event.

All museums and art galleries in the city will be serving as venues for the Biennial, organized by the Wilfredo Lam Center, an institution affiliated to the National Arts Council, reported Granma newspaper.

The program includes performances, art exhibits, forums, among other activities of diverse nature, which will turn Havana into the world's capital of visual arts through April 30, when the event concludes.

Expositions will open saturday morning in Old Havana and in the afternoon at the Pabellon Cuba fairground in Vedado, organized by an international collective project “Tales from the New World.”

One of the most expected activities is a forum promoted by Cuban plastics artist Alexis Leyva Machado (Kcho) under the title Punto de encuentro (Meeting place), with artists from around the globe in attendance. The forum will take place at the San Francisco de Asis Convent.

Another important event within the Biennial is an exhibit named “Chelsea Visits Havana” that will be brought by American artists from New York.

(A partir de mañana, Décima Bienal de La Habana)

U.S Group Calls for Caravan against All Cuba Travel Restrictions

HAVANA, Cuba, March 26 (acn) The association of Christian women in defence of the family, and other organizations that make up the Florida- based Alianza Martina organization, have made a call to carry out a car caravan in protest against all travel restrictions to Cuba. The caravan will take place on March 29.

Earlier this month, the U.S Treasury Department put an end to Cuba travel restrictions imposed by the Bush administration in the year 2004, however, measures that limit trips to Cuba issued before that year are still in place.

We can't allow any restrictions to our right to travel to Cuba, says the call quoted by Florida-based Areito magazine.

We have to stay firm in our claim for President Obama to keep his vow made during the presidential campaign to lift all family travel restrictions to Cuba, it says.

The Areito report quotes the call as noting that not only Cuban American residents have the right to travel to Cuba but also all U.S citizens do.

(Caravana en contra de todas las restricciones de viaje a cuba, este Domingo 29 de marzo)

Canadian Youths Happy to Be in Cuba

Bayamo, Cuba, March 26 (acn) Canadian youths visiting Cuba expressed today their great sympathy for the people of the island, after touring historical sites of the Sierra Maestra mountain and other places of interest in the eastern province of Granma.

Members of the group made up of theater students and professors from the city of Trois Rivieres, Quebec, told ACN that they were happy for having been able to talk with Cubans of different ages and occupations, which allowed them to learn about the culture and history of the island.

Amelia Langlois, member of the Trois Rivieres Solidarity Committee spoke to ACN on behalf of the rest of the visitors, who in general expressed their interest in studying Spanish and travelling to the island again in the future.

She said the group loved the Sierra Maestra tour, where they met with children and adults in the communities of Providencia and Boca del Salto, scenarios of battles fought by the Rebel Army, under the leadership of Fidel Castro, during National Liberation War.

Langlois said they walked around the Revolution square in Bayamo and visited the museums of the National Anthem and the Motherland, as well as the Los Dolores chapel, which is a real architectural jewel in the main catholic church of the city.

The Quebecois committee has been organizing trips for community-based cultural exchanges to Cuba since 2006 with the Cuban theatre troupe La Guerrilla de Teatreros, explained Langlois, and added that the project seeks to introduce young Canadians to international actions of solidarity and increase their knowledge about other nations.

The Canadian group arrived in Cuba on March 15 and will conclude its visit on the 29th, coordinated by the Cuban Friendship Institute delegation in Granma.

(Expresan jóvenes canadienses simpatía por Cuba)

Lies at the Service of the Empire

Yesterday Reuters headed the list of the international news agencies that mention Pedro Miret and Osmany Cienfuegos as two historical figures who have been dismissed from their posts by Raúl Castro.

The EFE Agency follows stating, verbatim: “Last March 2nd, they were dismissed as Vice Presidents of the Council of Ministers.”

The excuse for this thriller, widely circulated throughout the world, was the March 24th publication in the Official Gazette of the Decree about the restructuring of the Council of Ministers of the Government of Cuba, passed on the 2nd of this month.

Pedro Miret is a magnificent comrade, having great historical merits and whom we all respect and for whom I have a lot of affection. For several years now, for reasons of health, he is unable to occupy any post. The slow progress of his illness led to the gradual cessation of his political activities. It is not fair to describe him as having been “fired”, without any consideration whatsoever.

Osmany Cienfuegos, the brother of Camilo, carried out important tasks not only as Vice President of the Council of Ministers but also as Party member or fulfilling my instructions while I was Commander in Chief. He has always been, and still is, a revolutionary. His functions were gradually ceasing from a time much earlier than that of my illness. He no longer held the post of Vice President of the Council of Ministers. Comrade Raúl Castro, President of the Council of State, has absolutely no responsibility for any of this. In both cases, it was a matter of purely legal procedures.

Reuters and EFE are two of the western news agencies closest to the United States’ imperialist policy. The latter behaves more poorly even though it is much less important than the former.

In another cable on March 24th, making use of a customary technique, EFE takes the words of Joaquín Roy, director of the European Union Center in Miami, to print the following: “Spain has been rediscovered as a key country in certain regions of the world that are of interest to the United States such as Latin America, and in two countries in particular: Cuba and Venezuela”.

Right away, EFE adds: “The expert believed that the United States’ major interest, more than pressuring for an opening, changes, etc, is the stability on the Island.

“For years now, he explained, studies made by the U.S. security agencies do not indicate Cuba to be a military threat, but they remain alert to the development of changes in order to avoid eventual internal friction destabilizing the region.

“The United States is not interested for the result of an opening to be civil war in Cuba”.

The European Union and Spain, according to Roy, have no problem working alongside the United States but, ‘with caution’ so that from Cuba it is not understood to be, or is accused of being, following Washington’s lead.

It couldn’t be more crystal clear: the ideas of the old Spanish empire on crutches, trying to assist the corrupt, tottering and genocidal Yankee Empire.

Nothing has been learned by the United States superpower and the Spanish mini-power about the heroic resistance of Cuba

Fidel Castro Ruz

March 25, 2009

3:02 p.m.

Cuba’s La Colmenita Receives Saharan Culture Minister

HAVANA, Cuba, March 26 (acn) The Culture Minister of the Democratic Arab Saharan Republic, Jadiya Hamdi, met on Wednesday in this capital with the members of the children’s theater group La Colmenita.

During her visit to the headquarters of this company, the Minister toured the areas of work, recreation, rehearsal, and recording of the young artists and learned more, from the troupe’s director Carlos Alberto Cremata, about the beginnings, development and successes of this praiseworthy Cuban project created in 1990.

Hamdi, who is also a member of the POLISARIO Front, or Movement for the Liberation of Western Sahara, enjoyed the children’s performances, and expressed her emotions at visiting the company and living this experience.

She stressed that this is, undoubtedly, the extension of the ideas of the Cuban Revolution, the Party, Fidel Castro, and of those that Cuba’s National Hero José Martí conceived in his time for all Cubans.

The Saharan Minister also praised Cremata’s initiative in creating this world for children, a world of conscientious children, where human values are fostered by way of artistic creation.

The top official underlined that she came representing thousands of Saharan children that are deprived of their land and their rights, imaginations, and living a happy life.

The meeting sealed, as an agreement, the creation of a Colmenita Company in the African sister nation, as a symbol of the resistance of its people for self-determination.

Also attending the exchange were members of the Pinocchio Puppet Theater Group from the Republic of Serbia, the director of which, Igor Bojavic, described the theater project created by Cremata as marvellous, and said he would echo this experience in his country.

(Ministra de cultura saharaui visita sede de La Colmenita)

Bolivian Women Demand the Release of the Cuban Five

HAVANA, Cuba, March 26 (acn) The release of the five Cuban antiterrorists unjustly incarcerated in the United States was demanded in La Paz by the Bartolina Sisa Confederation of Indigenous Women Farmers Native to Bolivia

In a letter sent to the US First Lady, Michelle Obama, the farmworkers, headed by Senator Leonilda Zurita, demanded the cessation of legal violations in this cause, Granma newspaper reports.

Moreover, the Bartolina Sisa Confederation, a battle-hardened group among Bolivian social organizations, asked Washington to grant humanitarian entry visas to Adriana Pérez and Olga Salanueva, the wives of two of the Cuban Five, Gerardo Hernández and René González, respectively.

Gerardo and René, together with Ramón Labañino, Fernando González and Antonio Guerrero, internationally known as The Five due to the international campaign in favor of their release, have been imprisoned over the last ten years, serving long and unjust sentences.

They were condemned in a biased trial held in the US city of Miami, for the only crime of warning their government and people about terrorist actions against Cuba carried out by anti-Cuban groups from south Florida.

The injustice committed against these antiterrorism fighters was also denounced by Alberto García, representative of the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) during the First International Meeting on Alternative Communications, held in Seville, Spain.


(Mujeres bolivianas demandan liberación de Los Cinco)

New Cuban Medicine to Supplement Lack of Calcium

HAVANA, Cuba, March 26 (acn) Researchers from the Chemistry Department of the National Center for Scientific Research (CENIC) have created a new bio-product called Suplecal, capable of supplementing insufficient calcium in the bones.

The natural product has the therapeutic action of serving as a supplement to the human diet and contains 500 milligrams of calcium carbonate without the presence of other chemical substances, according to statements made by Yarelys Martín, MSc. to Juventud Técnica magazine.

It’s made from fragments of the Porites-porites coral species remaining from the first production stage of Coralina biomaterials, destined for bone implants.

The medicine, approved for sale in 2008, is useful in the treatment of patients at risk of calcium deficiencies or in patients with insufficient calcium, and it is also very helpful to treat and prevent osteoporosis. The specialists recommend taking one or two capsules a day with meals.

We expect to produce and distribute some 2,000 bottles in different Havana drugstores this year, and our desire is to extend this result to the entire country, pointed out the researcher.

(Crean fármaco cubano para suplir deficiencia de calcio)

NAM Condemns Israeli Occupation of Gaza Strip

HAVANA, Cuba, March 26 (acn) On behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), Cuba condemned on Wednesday at the United Nations the continual Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territory, in violation of international law.

Cuban ambassador Abelardo Moreno, in his capacity as President of the NAM Coordination Bureau, participated in an open debate on the issue at the UN Security Council, where he demanded Israel to put an end to the inhumane and illegal closure and blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Likewise, on behalf of NAM’s 118 member states, he condemned the recent Zionist military aggression against the civilian population in the Gaza Strip, killing 1,400 Palestinians and resulting in over 5,000 people being injured, as well as generalized displacement.

The diplomat expressed great concern about the critical political, economic, social, humanitarian and safety conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory, including Eastern Jerusalem, Prensa Latina news agency reports.

Moreno made reference to the unnecessary destruction caused by Israel of thousands of Palestinian homes, commercial establishments, vital civilian infrastructure, hospitals and ambulances, mosques, and public institutions.

He regretted the lack of progress in the peace process in the Middle East and stated that this regional issue continues to be of great concern to the Non-Aligned Movement s, due to the continual Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian territory and other Arab areas since 1967.

(Condena Movimiento No Alineado ocupación israelí en Gaza)