[NYTr] Cuban Radar Newsbriefs - Aug 9, 2007

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Progreso Weekly - Aug 9, 2007
http://progreso-weekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=94&Itemid=1

Cuban Radar Newsbriefs - Aust 9, 2007
A service by the Radio Progreso Alternativa Havana Bureau

* Searching for oil in the Gulf
* Cuban civilian air fleet grows
* Municipal elections in Cuba
* Members of the European parliament and Ladies in White 
* New Cuban condom
* Granma and The New York Times
* Fidel Castro: A new reflection on the boxers


Translated for Progreso Weekly by Germán Piniella. 


* Searching for oil in the Gulf

The Venezuelan Oil Corporation (CVP), a subsidiary of PDVSA, and
CubaPetróleos (CUPET), began exploration in a 10,000 km area of deep
waters in the exclusive Cuban zone of the Gulf of Mexico.

An official CVP press release expresses its hope of finding light crude
oil in “sufficient volume for maintaining a high production potential.”

For CVP this will be its first experience in this kind of work.

Venezuela and Cuba, which have signed several collaboration agreements
in different economic and scientific areas, have a special interest in
the energy field, not only searching for oil in the Cuban deep waters,
but also to start production next December at the Cienfuegos refinery,
some 250 kilometers southeast of Havana.

The agreements include the construction of a large storage facility
with a 600,000 barrel capacity.

Venezuela is the island’s number one trading partner. In 2006, trade
between the two countries reached $2.6 billion dollars.


* Cuban civilian air fleet grows

A new TU-204 airplane bought from Russia arrived in Havana’s
international airport. The aircraft is one of three purchased in Russia
several months ago, said the official daily Granma on Monday, August 6,

According to Granma, the TU-204 will haul cargo in medium range routes.
The other two airplanes are IL-96-300s and will be used for passenger
long range flights.


* Municipal elections in Cuba

Candidates will be nominated next September for the entire 50,635
electoral districts for the upcoming municipal elections. In order to
be a candidate, a citizen must be nominated and approved by direct vote
of the majority of voters in the electoral district meetings. No
organization nominates the candidates, only the voters can.

Subsequently, on October 21, voters will choose among candidates who
will represent them in the Municipal Assemblies of Popular Power. The
elected delegates are the equivalent of aldermen or commissioners in
other countries and are empowered with electing the Assembly’s
president.

Later on in the year there will be a summons for elections of delegates
to the Provincial Assemblies and of deputies to the National Assembly
of Popular Power (Cuban parliament).


* Members of the European parliament and Ladies in White 

The Ladies in White, wives, mothers and relatives of prisoners, hear
Mass every Sunday at Saint Rita Church and afterwards march a few
blocks through the walkway that divides Fifth Avenue in the Miramar
neighborhood.

Last August 5 they made their regular tour accompanied by three members
of the European Parliament, representatives from Hungary, Holland and
Estonia, countries that have an aggressive attitude towards Cuba. The
parliamentarians, who apparently arrived in Cuba with tourist visas,
have also met with opponents of the Cuban revolution. 


* New Cuban condom

A report by Radio Habana Cuba informs that “Vigor”, a new condom
produced in Cuba, hit the market last weekend to substitute the “Vives”
brand, whose distribution was forbidden by the government of the United
States.

The national coordinator of the condom line at the National Center for
AIDS Prevention, Luis Enrique Bueno, pointed out that the U.S. Treasury
Department prohibited the NGO Population Services International (PSI)
“the continuation of its collaboration projects with Cuba.”

According to the daily Juventud Rebelde, Bueno said that “when said
NGO’s license was not renewed they had to leave the country.” The order
was given to PSI due to the economic and political blockade that
Washington has imposed on Cuba since 1962.

PSI projects in Cuba included the distribution of “Vives” condoms to
groups in risk of contamination by HIV/AIDS, Bueno said.

He added that Cuba has initially 15 million condoms “from a project
financed by the World Fund for the Struggle against Malaria,
Tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, created by the United Nations with
preventive ends”.


* Granma and The New York Times

The official daily Granma reported on Tuesday, August 7, several
aspects from an article published by The New York Times in which the
influential newspaper approaches the subject of the five Cubans
imprisoned in the United States.

Under the heading “Cracks in the Wall of Silence," Granma stresses the
importance of the NYT piece in spreading the truth about the cases of
Gerardo Hernández, René González, Ramón Lavañino, Fernando González and
Antonio Guerrero, all condemned to prison terms ranging from 15 years
to several life sentences for the “crime” of infiltrating terrorist
exile groups in Miami, with the objective of avoiding attacks against
Cuban territory. The Cuban Five are highly considered by the island’s
population and have been decorated with the title of Heroes of the
Republic of Cuba.

According to Granma, the NYT piece, signed by James McKinley and sent
from Havana, “is objectively balanced. Some readers who are
knowledgeable about the issue could criticize some inaccuracies and
lack of information on the part of the journalist in certain aspects,
but in 1,494 words he reflects almost every aspect of the case, from
the rigged 2001 trial in Miami to a summary of the appeal process; why
the Five are considered heroes in Cuba; as well as the repeated denial
of visas by the U.S. government to Olga Salanueva and Adriana Pérez,
who wanted to visit their respective husbands in jail, René González
and Gerardo Hernández

While the Five are still in prison, Luis Posada Carriles runs free,
which according to the Times has strengthened the argument that the
United States is “hypocritical when it speaks about an alleged war on
terrorism.”

The article was published a scant thirteen days before the Appeal Court
in Atlanta will hear arguments from the defense and the prosecution so
that it can later decide if the Miami trial is thrown out and a new one
is summoned in another Florida county.


* Fidel Castro: A new reflection on the boxers

Under the title “The Written Proof”, Fidel Castro once again deals with
the case of two Cuban boxers, Guillermo Rigondeaux and Erislandy Lara,
who after abandoning the delegation that competed in the 14th Pan
American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, returned to Cuba.  

In his article, printed in all major newspapers, Fidel Castro quotes
some press reports from Brazil that detail aspects of the twelve days
that the boxers were missing.

“The greatest responsibility, I believe, lies with Erislandy Lara, who
was the captain of the boxing team, and in spite of it violated norms
and played straight into the hands of mercenaries,” Castro says in
reference to Turkish-German Ahmet Öner, the organizer of the athletes’
defection 

The Cuban president also pointed out that he will suggest to Granma
that it publish in the sports page an interview with the boxers by
sportswriter and commentator Julia Osendi.

“The athlete that abandons his delegation is like the soldier that
abandons his comrades in the midst of combat”, Castro wrote. “It was
indispensable, of the most elemental justice, to hear their side, to
know the degree of repentance that they claimed for seeing themselves
in such a painful episode,” concluded Castro.

In his article he wrote about the commitment Cuba has of participating
in the coming “World Championship”, one of the three classifying events
for the Olympic Games”. This championship will be held in the U.S. “You
can imagine the mafia sharks demanding fresh meat.” But “we are not
anxious of serving it to them.”

Nevertheless, Castro wrote that “sports authorities are discussing all
possible variants, including changing the list of boxers or not sending
a delegation at all, in spite of the punishment we would be dealt.
Likewise they are studying which strategies and tactics to follow.”