----- Original Message -----
From: LizSAllen@...
Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2003 10:32 PM
Subject: BOOK: US MILITARY DRAFTED PLANT
TO TERRORIZE US CITIES AND PROVOKE WAR
WITH CUBA

Same plan just different country!

====================================================

  http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/jointchiefs_010501.html

"Friendly Fire"
Book: U.S. Military Drafted Plans to Terrorize U.S.
Cities to Provoke War With Cuba

N E W Y O R K, May 1 — In the early 1960s, America's top
military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent
people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to
create public support for a war against Cuba.

Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly
included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés,
sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking
planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating
violent terrorism in U.S. cities.

The plans were developed as ways to trick the American
public and the international community into supporting a
war to oust Cuba's then new leader, communist Fidel Castro.

America's top military brass even contemplated causing U.S.
military casualties, writing: "We could blow up a U.S. ship
in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba," and, "casualty lists in
U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national
indignation."

Details of the plans are described in Body of Secrets
(Doubleday), a new book by investigative reporter James
Bamford about the history of America's largest spy agency,
the National Security Agency. However, the plans were not
connected to the agency, he notes.

The plans had the written approval of all of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff and were presented to President Kennedy's
defense secretary, Robert McNamara, in March 1962. But they
apparently were rejected by the civilian leadership and
have gone undisclosed for nearly 40 years.

"These were Joint Chiefs of Staff documents. The reason
these were held secret for so long is the Joint Chiefs
never wanted to give these up because they were so
embarrassing," Bamford told ABCNEWS.com.

"The whole point of a democracy is to have leaders
responding to the public will, and here this is the
complete reverse, the military trying to trick the American
people into a war that they want but that nobody else
wants."

Gunning for War

The documents show "the Joint Chiefs of Staff drew up and
approved plans for what may be the most corrupt plan ever
created by the U.S. government," writes Bamford.

The Joint Chiefs even proposed using the potential death of
astronaut John Glenn during the first attempt to put an
American into orbit as a false pretext for war with Cuba,
the documents show.

Should the rocket explode and kill Glenn, they wrote, "the
objective is to provide irrevocable proof … that the
fault lies with the Communists et all Cuba [sic]."

The plans were motivated by an intense desire among senior
military leaders to depose Castro, who seized power in 1959
to become the first communist leader in the Western
Hemisphere — only 90 miles from U.S. shores.

The earlier CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by
Cuban exiles had been a disastrous failure, in which the
military was not allowed to provide firepower.The military
leaders now wanted a shot at it.

"The whole thing was so bizarre," says Bamford, noting
public and international support would be needed for an
invasion, but apparently neither the American public, nor
the Cuban public, wanted to see U.S. troops deployed to
drive out Castro.

Reflecting this, the U.S. plan called for establishing
prolonged military — not democratic — control over the
island nation after the invasion.

"That's what we're supposed to be freeing them from,"
Bamford says. "The only way we would have succeeded is by
doing exactly what the Russians were doing all over the
world, by imposing a government by tyranny, basically what
we were accusing Castro himself of doing."

'Over the Edge'

The Joint Chiefs at the time were headed by Eisenhower
appointee Army Gen. Lyman L. Lemnitzer, who, with the
signed plans in hand made a pitch to McNamara on March 13,
1962, recommending Operation Northwoods be run by the
military.

Whether the Joint Chiefs' plans were rejected by McNamara
in the meeting is not clear. But three days later,
President Kennedy told Lemnitzer directly there was
virtually no possibility of ever using overt force to take
Cuba, Bamford reports. Within months, Lemnitzer would be
denied another term as chairman and transferred to another
job.

The secret plans came at a time when there was distrust in
the military leadership about their civilian leadership,
with leaders in the Kennedy administration viewed as too
liberal, insufficiently experienced and soft on communism.
At the same time, however, there real were concerns in
American society about their military overstepping its
bounds.

There were reports U.S. military leaders had encouraged
their subordinates to vote conservative during the
election.

And at least two popular books were published focusing on a
right-wing military leadership pushing the limits against
government policy of the day. The Senate Foreign Relations
Committee published its own report on right-wing extremism
in the military, warning a "considerable danger" in the
"education and propaganda activities of military personnel"
had been uncovered. The committee even called for an
examination of any ties between Lemnitzer and right-wing
groups. But Congress didn't get wind of Northwoods, says
Bamford.

"Although no one in Congress could have known at the time,"
he writes, "Lemnitzer and the Joint Chiefs had quietly
slipped over the edge."

Even after Lemnitzer was gone, he writes, the Joint Chiefs
continued to plan "pretext" operations at least through
1963.

One idea was to create a war between Cuba and another Latin
American country so that the United States could intervene.
Another was to pay someone in the Castro government to
attack U.S. forces at the Guantanamo naval base — an act,
which Bamford notes, would have amounted to treason. And
another was to fly low level U-2 flights over Cuba, with
the intention of having one shot down as a pretext for a
war.

"There really was a worry at the time about the military
going off crazy and they did, but they never succeeded, but
it wasn't for lack of trying," he says.

After 40 Years

Ironically, the documents came to light, says Bamford, in
part because of the 1992 Oliver Stone film JFK, which
examined the possibility of a conspiracy behind the
assassination of President Kennedy.

As public interest in the assassination swelled after JFK's
release, Congress passed a law designed to increase the
public's access to government records related to the
assassination.

The author says a friend on the board tipped him off to the
documents.

Afraid of a congressional investigation, Lemnitzer had
ordered all Joint Chiefs documents related to the Bay of
Pigs destroyed, says Bamford. But somehow, these remained.

"The scary thing is none of this stuff comes out until 40
years after," says Bamford.

KCNA


Floral Baskets to Cuban Embassy.

      Pyongyang, December 31 (KCNA) -- DPRK ministries and national
institutions sent floral baskets to the Cuban embassy in Pyongyang on the
occasion of the 45th anniversary of the victory of the Cuban revolution.
Floral baskets in the name of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry
of Foreign Trade and the Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign
Countries were respectively conveyed to Cuban Ambassador Esteban Lobaina
Romero on December 30


------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anniversary of Victory of Cuban Revolution Marked.

      Pyongyang, December 31 (KCNA) -- A meeting and a photo exhibition took
place here on Dec. 30 on the occasion of the 45th anniversary of the victory
of the Cuban revolution. Kim Yong Jin, minister of Education who is chairman
of the DPRK-Cuba Solidarity Committee, speaking at the meeting, said that
the Cuban people toppled the pro-U.S. dictatorial regime and won victory in
the revolution under the leadership of Fidel Castro Ruz 45 years ago.
    The Korean people rejoice as over their own over the victory won by the
Cuban people in the confrontation with the United States and extend full
support and solidarity to the Cuban people in their just cause of defending
the motherland, revolution and socialism, he stated.
    Cuban Ambassador to the DPRK Esteban Lobaina Romero in his speech
expressed deep thanks to the Workers' Party of Korea, the government and the
people of the DPRK for rendering support and solidarity to the Cuban people.
The relations between Cuba and the DPRK provided by President Kim Il Sung
are today further developing thanks to Fidel Castro Ruz and leader Kim Jong
Il, the supreme leaders, he noted.
    He extended hearty congratulations to Kim Jong Il on the 12th
anniversary of his assumption of the supreme commandership of the Korean
People's Army. And he extended full support and solidarity once again to the
fraternal Korean people in their struggle to defend the sovereignty of the
country, build a great prosperous powerful nation and achieve the
independent and peaceful reunification of the country.
    Before the meeting, the participants saw pictures displayed on the
occasion of the 45th anniversary of the victory of the Cuban revolution.


KCNA


http://www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm


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Havana. December 30, 2003

Culture is incommensurate

• 2003 ends with palpable successes in music, the visual
arts, cinema, literature and theater • Many festivals
extended throughout the island • Key anniversary: 55 years
of the National Ballet

BY MIREYA CASTAÑEDA—Granma International staff writer—

ONE could make an annual relation of the festivals,
encounters, popular fiestas, or the launches of books, CDs
and exhibitions. That would allow us an approximation to
the cultural reverberation existing in Cuba, which is in no
way coincidental, as our most faithful readers know. Behind
it there is a whole educational policy, of those jewels
that are the colleges of art, but equally a educational
integrality that has given rise to a public capable of
appreciating any manifestation, genre, fashion or code.

2003 has been notable for one of the unarguable highlights
of national and even universal culture, the foundation in
1948 of the Alicia Alonso Ballet which, at the express wish
of the diva, assumed the name of the Cuban National Ballet
in 1959. This was not about the creation of yet another
dance company; the point being that with it was created a
unique school – in its method and style – of 20th century
ballet.

Going backwards through the calendar, and reaffirming the
passion for Silvio Rodríguez, (as it is a phrase from his
Jerusalem año cero CD [Jerusalem, Year Zero]), who launched
a new CD Cita con ángeles (Appointment with Angels) this
year, I put forward December, when the Festival of New
Latin American Cinema also celebrated with a round date the
25th anniversary of the Havana convening of the best of
continental cinematography and, in its universal vocation,
the best from other regions. Some 600 films were screened,
close to 200 of them (features, documentaries, cartoons) in
competition.

One cause for satisfaction is that Cuban cinema has
returned to the festival, plus the fact that one of its
four fiction films, Suite Havana, by the very eminent
director Fernando Pérez, swept up the Coral prizes.

November is marked by the Havana Biennial, in which the
pulse of contemporary art was taken with the presence of 45
countries from all latitudes. But the visual arts had their
privileged space throughout the year, with magnificent
exhibitions from Choco and Fabelo, and also visiting
artists such as Viggo Mortesen (the Aragorn of Lord of the
Rings), which the artist himself inaugurated in the
Fototeca de Cuba.

September is the month for the International Festival of
Theater, attended this year by companies from some 30
countries, plus a wide-ranging representation of the
national scenario and the presence of eminent Spanish
dramatist Alfonso Sastre.

Dispensing with the calendar, January has to be mentioned,
when literature, in the hands of the Casa de las Américas
Prize, takes over. Moreover, the Casa received three
illustrious visitors, Augusto Roa Bastos, Ernesto Cardenal
and Margaret Atwood. Also in Havana were Thiago de Mello
and Danny Rivera, defending the planet Earth in the UN
Conference on Desertification and Drought.

Staying with literature, one cannot overlook what happens
in February, when the International Book Fair opens in the
San Carlos de la Cabaña Fortress, with stands from 21
countries and thousands of Cuban readers buying the most
diverse titles. This year, the “lions” to capture were U.S.
writers Russell Banks and William Kennedy.

There was great mourning in September over the death of
ballerina Mirta Pla, one of the jewels of the Cuban
National Ballet, and sculptor José Delarra, and in July
that of Compay Segundo, the already legendary son
troubadour.

National culture, moreover, has its special day on October
20, the date in 1868 when what would become the national
anthem was sung for the first time.

Those events all reveal a secular cultural tradition
dedicated in 2003 to the birth of two exceptional figures:
the 200th anniversary of that of the poet José María
Heredia, and the 150th of the likewise poet and national
hero, José Martí.

--------------------

SYNTHESIS CUBA

Thursday, January 1, 2004

--------------------

- Cuba Repeats Offer to Help US with "Mad Cow" Problem

- Cuba Denies Being Indebted to Italian Firm Parmalat

- Congratulatory Message from One of Imprisoned Five

- Argentineans Celebrate 45th Anniversary of Cuban Revolution

- MAS Celebrates 45th Anniversary of Cuban Revolution

- Cuban Dancers and Maitres to Be Decorated in Havana

- Cuba Closes 2003 with 700 Collaboration Projects

- Cuba's Friends in Spain Celebrate 45th Anniversary of Revolution

- Uruguayans Send Congratulatory Message to Cuba

- Cubans Celebrate Victory of Revolution with Cultural Activities

- Cuba to Seek Qualification in Men's Volleyball in Puerto Rico

---------------------------------------------------

Cuba Repeats Offer to Help US with "Mad Cow" Problem

Havana.- Cuba ratified in writing its verbal offer to help in the
investigations on the mad cow disease detected in the United States, while
it reiterated its intention to respect the cattle purchase contracts with
that country. "Our research institutions and development in the field of
livestock health, as well as the people who work there, are willing to
cooperate with their US counterparts," expressed Alimport director Pedro
Alvarez in a letter sent to the US Meat Export Federation President and CEO
Phillip M. Seng. In the letter, also addressed to the US National
Cattlemen's Beef Association President Eric Davis, the executive of the
Cuban food import company also emphasized that Cuba will not cancel any of
its commitments with US suppliers. Cuba is prepared to buy up to 100,000
head of cattle from the US under competitive conditions when the bilateral
relations in commerce and travel return to normality, the text added,
alluding to the financial, economic and commercial blockade imposed by
Washington on Havana for more than 40 years.

Cuba Denies Being Indebted to Italian Firm Parmalat

Havana.- The Cuban food importer Alimport strongly denied being indebted to
the Italian food multinational company Parmalat, which is amid a huge
financial scandal. "We have rigorously complied with our commitments to
Parmalat, and currently the only contract in force involves the supply of
600 tons of powdered milk a month, which is executed by the company's branch
in Chile," Alimport Director Pedro Alvarez told Prensa Latina. After
describing stories on Cuba's alleged debt to the Italian company as "ill
intentioned", Alvarez repeated that that contract is the only link between
the two firms. "It is the only thing we have with Parmalat," stressed
Alvarez, for whom such slanders attempt against the ethics that must prevail
in commercial relations.

Congratulatory Message from One of Imprisoned Five

Havana.- A congratulatory message to all Cubans on the 45th anniversary of
the Revolution was sent to the people of Cuba by Gerardo Hernandez from his
jail cell in Lompoc, California. Gerardo is one of the five Cubans unjustly
imprisoned in the US for political reasons. His message was read on
Thursday's TV and radio Roundtable broadcast. The letter also thanked all
who have shown solidarity with the Five: Gerardo, Fernando Gonzalez, René
Gonzalez, Ramón Labañino and Antonio Guerrero, arrested in 1998 and
sentenced in 2001 after a rigged political trial to harsh terms ranging from
15 years to double life imprisonment for conspiracy and being foreign
agents.

Argentineans Celebrate 45th Anniversary of Cuban Revolution

Buenos Aires.- The Argentinean Movement of friendship and solidarity with
Cuba stressed that the Cuban Revolution's example shows that "construction
of a better society not only is necessary but possible". A congratulatory
message on the 45th anniversary of the triumph of the revolution highlights
the Cubans' effort to "face the aggressions and threats by the most powerful
empire we have ever known, with dignity, courage, conviction and a
tremendous arsenal of ideas loaded with humanism, solidarity and justice".
Cuba "tells us that building a better society not only is necessary but it
is possible, and that dream can come true if we commit ourselves to the
ideas for a better world and get together as actors for our future".

MAS Celebrates 45th Anniversary of Cuban Revolution

La Paz.- A delegation from Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) congratulated
Cuban Ambassador to Bolivia Luis Felipe Vázquez for the 45th anniversary of
the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. The delegation also expressed
solidarity with Cuba on behalf of MAS, one of Bolivia's major political
forces. Ambassador Vázquez thanked the gesture from the Bolivian
organization. Representatives of the Democratic Federation of Bolivian Women
and the Cuba Solidarity Movement also visited the Cuban Embassy to express
congratulations.

Cuban Dancers and Maitres to Be Decorated in Havana

Havana.- Over 30 dancers, maitres and designers of the National Ballet of
Cuba (BNC) will be decorated in this capital, as part of the festivities on
the 55th anniversary of the company directed by Alicia Alonso. The ceremony
will be held at the José Martí Memorial, at Revolution Square, and will be
attended by the honored artists, some of whom will receive the Félix Varela
Order, created in 1979 and the highest decoration granted by the Council of
State in the fields of Arts and Literature. Nine dancers will receive the
Alejo Carpentier Medal, while 19 others will be granted the National Culture
Medal, as an acknowledgement of their outstanding career. The BNC, one of
the most prestigious ballet companies in the world, according to
international critics, was founded in 1948.

Cuba Closes 2003 with 700 Collaboration Projects

Matanzas, Cuba.- Cuba closed 2003 with nearly 700 collaboration projects
with foreign institutions, according to the Ministry for Foreign Investment
and Economic Collaboration (MINVEC). In statements to Prensa Latina, MINVEC
Deputy Minister Eduardo Santos said that those programs total 230 million
dollars and mainly benefit the sectors of education and health, and
municipal governments. He added that 46 percent of those projects are being
carried out in eastern Cuba, as part of authorities' policy to favor social
and economic development throughout the country.

Cuba's Friends in Spain Celebrate 45th Anniversary of Revolution

Madrid.- Cuba friendship and solidarity groups in Spain celebrated the 45th
anniversary of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution with a political-cultural
event. At the meeting, held at the Cuban embassy here, Ambassador Isabel
Allende recounted the 45 years of the Cuban revolutionary process and the
people's permanent efforts to meet development challenges and face
aggressions by the enemies of the Revolution. She underlined that despite
the blockade the US has imposed on the Caribbean Island almost since the
triumph of the armed insurrection led by Fidel Castro, the country has made
and maintained major social achievements that prove the viability of the
Cuban political project.

Uruguayans Send Congratulatory Message to Cuba

Montevideo.- Victor Licandro, president of the Uruguayan Frente Amplio (FA)
coalition sent a message of congratulations to President Fidel Castro for
the 45th anniversary of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. Licandro spoke
with the Cuban General Consul, Raul Cortazar Marrero, requesting he transmit
his congratulatory message to the Cuban people, "for reaching a new
anniversary fighting for a better world." The National Committee for the
Release of the Five -the Cuban anti-terrorist fighters imprisoned in the US-
also sent a congratulatory message.

Cubans Celebrate Victory of Revolution with Cultural Activities

Havana.- Cubans celebrate the 45th anniversary of their Revolution with
cultural activities throughout the nation and continue the persistent fight
against the US blockade. The entrance of the Rebel Army into Havana not only
meant the overthrowing of Dictator Fulgencio Batista, but also the beginning
of a process of social changes that elevated the quality of life of most
Cubans. January 1, 1959 ended a period of struggle initiated six years
before when a group of youths led by Fidel Castro attacked the Moncada
Garrison in Santiago de Cuba. The anniversary is celebrated with art shows
and concerts in the 169 municipalities of Cuba.

Cuba to Seek Qualification in Men's Volleyball in Puerto Rico

Havana.- Despite strong rivals, Cuba is optimistic about qualifying for the
Olympic Games in the men's volleyball tournament of the North, Central
America and the Caribbean (NORCECA), scheduled from January 4-11 in the
Puerto Rican city of Caguas. "We are going to the Olympic qualifier to
qualify," said Roberto García, the newly elected coach of the Cuban team,
shortly before boarding the plane that would take him and the team to the
neighboring Caribbean island. He added hat "there is no other choice than
winning", since only one team will qualified for Athens'2004.

END

Copyright© Prensa Latina, It is prohibited to copy or distribute this
material in any form without prior permission from PL Broadcasting Board

(difusion@...)

CubaNews Notes from Havana, January 1, 2004
by Walter Lippmann

It is the first day of a new year, the forty-fifth since
the Cuban people overthrew Washington's preferred regime,
that of dictator Fulgencio Batista. His heirs and forces
dreaming of a return to capitalist dictatorial rule still
fantasize as best they can, but since Washington has been
using every trick in the book for over now into forty-five
years to bring capitalism back. So far, they've failed.

This list will continue to provide readers with a range of
news and analysis from and about Cuba. When my working
conditions are more difficult, I've had to make choices
as to what to share with you. New readers are always very
welcome to join in the work of making this list at once
more informative and more interesting to the reader. I've
gotten regular messages of encouragement to write more of
what I see and do myself, beyond sending out the frequently
tedious stuff from the US media with critical introductions.
That has to be done to inform everyone of what's being said.

Particularly welcome would be comments from people who have
visited and spent time here in Cuba who can add their own
first-person reports. Everyone always likes that a lot.

The new materials I've forward to you from the Prensa Latina
agency are very helpful and I'm glad to get them. I'm still
working on getting them posted directly to the list. I very
much want to encourage you to check each of these items out
since they often cover stories we don't get from either the
foreign press or Granma International, or else they come to
us more quickly from there. SYNTHESIS, BRIDGES, CUMBANCHA
and FEMINAS are adding to the range of materials we get and
share. I hope you will look at these items carefully and in
some cases, subscribe directly. FEMINAS, for example, has a
very jazzy visual side which just cannot be even suggested
in a plain-text environment.

After writing yesterday's Notes, I wrote took the lobster
to my friend Dania's place in Central Havana. (Those who
have seen the movie SUITE HABANA know the neighborhood.)
Other food was prepared in a typically Cuban way. Since
many Cubans don't have large ovens, and probably close
to none have ovens big enough to cook an entire pig's
leg, the two pigs legs we had, along with that turkey
we'd picked up at the shopping store were all cooked at
the neighborhood bakery, where such things have been
done for years.

Can readers in the United States or other supposedly
"advanced" capitalist countries imagine taking their pig
legs to the local bakery to get them cooked? First, there
isn't likely to be a neighborhood bakery in the same way
as they function in Cuba, in every single neighborhood.
Cuban never fail to go to their bakery every single day
since they each are eligible to a large and tasty bread
roll for the price of five Cuban centavos. (This is an
amount so small it cannot even be registered in Yankee
money.)

Further, every Cuban knows the staff at their bakery in
person, since they (or at least one person from each and
every household) sees them every day and therefore knows
them in person. In Dania's case, her downstairs neighbor
Martica works at the bakery and did the cooking. She and
her family came to the party later and joined in what I've
taken to call the feastivities.

In many Cuban households, New Year's Eve is spent quietly
at home watching television and making calls and having a
drink to quietly mark the new year's initiation. Early in
the evening yesterday there was extended coverage of the
island's struggle to free its five heroes, Cuban activists
imprisoned in the US for monitoring rightist Cuban exile
terrorist groupings. We saw many familiar faces from among
the wives, mothers and children of the Cuban Five, as well
as Juan Miguel Gonzelez, Elian's father, who'd played such
a pivotal role in the successful struggle to win Elian's
freedom. Otherwise there was lots of music on Cuban TV.

Dania doesn't have a TV, so the program for her party was
eating, drinking, dancing and socializing. I'm not the fan
of very loud music as I was at a younger age, and the music
listened to here was VERY LOUD indeed. Let's just say that
listening to LOS VAN VAN at a conversation-stopping volume
is an acquired taste, but one I've personally not acquired.
Everyone else, friends, neighbors and family, seemed to be
having a great time. At midnight everyone rushed around to
hug or kiss or shake hands and wish one another Felicidades
for the new year.

There's an aspect of the dancing I'd like to tell you about,
an amazing dance form called the CASINO. My friend Esther
Perez tells me that this dance actually began in a Mira Mar
night club in the fifties and is experiencing a revival at
the moment. It's mostly a dance performed by two partners,
a male and female who dance together, and those arms both
intertwine in very complex ways, and who turn in carefully
choreographed ways. It's so complex, and pairs of dancers
have to be very closely attuned to one another or else a
step would be missed. People of all ages perform this dance
and none seem to miss a step. I get dizzy and stand in awe
just watching people do this. There are also competitions
where teams dance against one another. A few nights ago we
had a competition between two teams of dancers who were set
up in a large circle. Partners danced with one another and
then switched off consecutively going around the circle.
In some cities this is performed as a processional. And a
further amazing aspect is that no one seems to be sweating
as I know I'd do if I were performing this.

The party went on until around 2AM, though I flaked out at
12:30, amazed to have stayed up that late myself, since I'm
traditionally a very early riser.

Today the city was quiet until mid-day as people were either
sleeping off the evening's festivities, or cleaning up what
hadn't been picked up the night before. Friends and neighbors
came to visit during the day. Unlike Los Angeles where I live
and am registered to vote, and neighbors have little to do
with one another, Cubans know one another and relate to one
another. This isn't to say aren't all sorts of petty frictions
between individuals, because there are, but as a rule I'd say
Cubans are far more closely connected than people in the US.

This afternoon a big surprise took place when a drag queen in
the neighborhood, Farah, began performing in the living room
of one of our neighbors. A black male probably in her forties,
Farah danced to some of the hottest tunes of the day, such as
LOS CUBANITOS in incredibly suggestive ways. After awhile she
went down to the street to perform. People came out of their
apartments to cheer her on and applaud. A few gave her a small
donation, a dollar or two. At one point she was followed down
the block by a dozen young boys who changed and sang along
with her good-naturedly. Though some people thought all this
was weird, as you could see from some of their expressions,
no one thought really badly about this. AT one point a large
police van drove by and I wondered, since this was going on
in the middle of the street, would the cops stop and take any
measures. They didn't. Given all the bad rap Cuba has received
in the past for some of the things which has happened to gays
here, this was a surprising and completely spontaneous thing
to observe.

Each of the city's eight-page tabloids, Juventud Rebelde and
Granma published regular editions. Among the points made was
a report in Granma on the progress of expanding telephone
service to the population. Over 60,000 new lines were put in
this year, of which 47,000 were added to family residences.
Here in this neighborhood, many who'd been waiting for years
to get their own service finally got it. This will save lots
of time and effort, and will presumably cut down as well on
the practice many Cubans have of using illegal extensions in
cases where they can't get their own phones. Those who have
seen the Cuban movie ENTRE CICLONES will recall that one of
the key characters is a young man working as a line installer
for the Cuban phone company. At one point there's scene where
a massive system of illegal extensions is found and everyone
loses their (illegal) telephone. Movies are one of the ways
Cubans talk about such social problems as the difficulties
they have with telephone service.

Unlike in the capitalist countries, telephone service isn't
available to people just because they might have money. My
friend Dania, for example, who got her first phone yesterday,
previously had to receive messages and use the phone of a
neighbor in another building on the next block. She had to
yell over to see if that neighbor was home, and then run
four flights down and around the corner to make or take a
call. (The illegal extension that had been operating in the
building was discovered and the person with the original
phone lost her service. No one was criminally charged.)

Spanish-speaking readers might enjoy this article from GRANMA
describing the expansion of telephone service:
http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/2004/01/01/nacional/articulo01.html

Since most readers of this mail cannot pick up a copy of the
daily Cuban media, one convenient device they've developed here
is to make the full front page available as a PDF file, so any
reader of the web-edition can at least see what's being sold on
the streets of Havana. The front pages of today's papers were
particularly attractive, with the Juventud Rebelde beating the
Granma graphically, in my opinion. Here's the JR front page,
though what you will see looks even better than what we have
in the physical copy which is only colored in blue and black:
http://www.jrebelde.cu/2004/enero-marzo/ene-01/portadab.html

Cuban newspapers, let me remind you, normally are eight page
tabloids, though the Sunday edition of Juventud Rebelde, the
weekly Trabajadores and the weekly Orbe, a Prensa Latin
publication focusing on interntional issues are larger than
eight pages. People here in Cuba, especially those who have
either never traveled outside the country, or even foreigners
who have been here for a long time may forget the blessings
Cubans have. THERE ARE NO ADS IN CUBAN NEWSPAPERS AND THERE
ARE NO COMMERCIALS ON CUBAN TELEVISION. Sometimes we are now
getting short public service announcements about saving light
or not smoking and so on, but no ads is the rule. In the US
and other capitalist media, information is normally a second
priority to selling advertising space. Indeed, selling ads is
the main reason for those newspapers to exist, and whatever
political ideas they're selling are normally subordinated to
selling advertising. The physical space used in a capitalist
paper is normally divided between the advertising space and
then news columns, normally far smaller than the ads. Having
been here now for nearly two months, one tends to forget the
important difference.

OK, OK, enough for one day.

The message below came a couple of days ago from the First
Secretary of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, DC,
and I'm pleased to share it with everyone.

==============================================
From: Lázaro Herrera
Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2003 6:46 PM
To: walterlx@...
Subject:

Dear Walter,

In the eve of the New Year I'd like to express specially to
you but also to all members of the network group sharing
information on Cuba my profound gratitude for the important
contribution and arduous work in favour of the truth about
my country. At the same time I want to send to all of you my
best wishes for a Happy and even more successful New Year.

Best regards from a friend,


Lazaro
================================================


FOR MORE NEWS, VIEWS AND INFORMATION ON CUBA:
http://groups.yahoo.com/CubaNews

Exile on Main Street
A thorn in the side of both el exilio and the regime,
Eloy Gutierrez-Menoyo waits for U.S.-Cuba relations
to thaw even as his assets are frozen
BY KIRK NIELSEN

From miaminewtimes.com
Originally published by Miami New Times Jan 01, 2004
©2003 New Times, Inc. All rights reserved.

On a recent afternoon on the busy central Havana street
known as La Rampa, Eloy Gutierrez-Menoyo ducks into the
back seat of a taxi, one of the plethora of boxy old
Russian-made Ladas that careen through the Cuban capital.
The pudgy driver, who barely fits into the tiny vehicle,
turns to ask for his passenger's destination but recoils,
starstruck. "Oh! I'm very honored, very honored," the
driver says to Menoyo, noting that he saw his passenger on
television in August. That is when Menoyo, president of the
Miami-based pro-democracy group Cambio Cubano, ended a
vacation to the island with a stunning news conference at
Havana's international airport. With CNN, Reuters TV, and
Associated Press TV rolling tape, the former revolutionary
commander, political prisoner, and exile announced he was
staying in Cuba to work for peace and reconciliation and to
claim a "legal space" for his organization. Back in Miami
some hard-line anti-Castro folks derided Menoyo's move but
most preferred simply to disregard him ("Our Man Back in
Havana," August 28, 2003).

Cuba's national media, all still government-controlled,
have also chosen to ignore Menoyo, who just turned 69. In
the seven months since his relocation to Cuba they have
made no mention of it. So how did this taxi driver see
foreign television reportage of Menoyo's airport news
conference? By watching CNN en Español, Univision, or
Telemundo via satellite dish, commonly referred to as a
parabólica. The dishes are illegal in Cuba but seem as
widespread as the old Chevrolets and Ladas that rumble
through Havana's streets.

While Menoyo is enjoying the traction of his newfound minor
celebrity status, his message isn't exactly sticking.
"Pardon my curiosity," the taxi driver says, the Lada now
rattling up La Rampa, "but you came back to join the
opposition?"

Menoyo leans forward from the back seat. "I've come to
start the new revolution," he happily clarifies, adding
that he hasn't received a negative word from anyone in
Havana. Rather, many Habaneros, including ex-colonels and
other retired officers of Cuba's Revolutionary Armed
Forces, have encouraged him. The driver does as well.
"Usted se ha comportado en una manera tan vertical!" he
exclaims. "You have conducted yourself in such an upright
manner."

"I know he is here," says one aging woman, a former
revolutionary militant whose clandestine activities four
decades ago included hiding dynamite for use against the
Batista dictatorship. At first she says she heard of
Menoyo's presence by word of mouth, but later admits she
also has an illegal satellite dish on the roof. "There are
many facets of him I don't know," she cautions. She is not
sure that Menoyo would be a strong enough figure to fill
the void that Fidel would leave behind. "I'm not sure he
has the charisma to get through to the people," she says.
But then she doesn't think anyone on Cuba's political stage
does, except Fidel, whom she thinks should have retired
years ago. "That's our dilemma," she adds.

Menoyo has dilemmas, too. He will open a Cambio Cubano
office only if it's legal, but in Cuba opposition parties
are illegal. To grow as a political figure he needs to be
on state television, but opposition leaders are only on
state television when they are arrested or exposed as CIA
agents. He must also contend with official history, which
tends to overlook certain facts about him. Like this one:
As an anti-Batista revolutionary, Menoyo formed the Second
Front of the Escambray in November 1957. A year later Fidel
Castro, then-commander of the July 26 Movement in the
Sierra Maestra mountains, deployed Che Guevara and Camilo
Cienfuegos to the Escambray Mountains two months before the
Batista regime fell on January 1, 1959. This past November
government-organized ceremonies across Cuba marked the 45th
anniversary of the founding of the Northern Front of Las
Villas by Guevara and Cienfuegos. There was no mention of
Menoyo. "If we could, we'd be celebrating the forty-sixth
anniversary," Menoyo grumbles. "The winners write history.
But they distort it in their own way, too."

But Menoyo has unique name recognition among Cubans old
enough to remember one of his earlier returns from exile in
1964, as leader of a group of Alpha 66 commandos intent on
igniting an insurgency against the Soviet satellite state
the Cuban dictator had by then engineered. Menoyo was
captured and spent 22 years in prison. After his release he
renounced violence and embraced dialogue and peaceful
change, saying reconciliation was the only path to
democracy in Cuba.

Also going for him: In 1995, while in Havana with hundreds
of exiles for a conference to discuss migration issues,
Menoyo met with Castro for three hours. Then, as now,
Menoyo had come to demand "legal space" for Cambio Cubano
in a land where all opposition parties are illegal. He is
still waiting.

He has submitted a request with an official from the
Ministry of External Relations (MINREX) for permission to
open a legal Cambio Cubano headquarters, but so far that
has been denied. Shortly after Menoyo's July surprise, the
Castro government offered him a 90-day visa, then a
two-year multiple-entry visa and a house. He refused all of
them. Accepting a house from the regime would be political
suicide for an opposition leader. Because he is a citizen
of Cuba, the Cuban government should not require him to
have a visa, he argues.

So far, Menoyo says, his contacts with the government have
been limited; he speaks with the MINREX official regularly,
usually on the phone. Once Menoyo chanced upon the official
in a restaurant and they simply exchanged pleasantries.
"We're studying each other," Menoyo says of his
relationship with the regime.

For now his strategy is to take very small steps. His next
goal: to obtain an identification card and a food ration
book, just like every Cuban citizen. Like many of his
island compatriots, he now subsists on money sent from
friends and relatives in the United States.

Since his arrival Menoyo has stayed at the homes of friends
in various Havana neighborhoods. His leisurely schedule is
punctuated by appointments with old friends and
acquaintances, including men who fought alongside him in
the Escambray. He has also met with "five or six"
ambassadors from European and Asian embassies (which he
declines to identify). At one reception at the Spanish
Embassy he mingled with other opposition figures, including
Oswaldo Payá, whose now-defunct Varela Project called for a
plebiscite on electoral reforms. But he will avoid
launching formal political activities of his own until
Cambio Cubano is legal.

Seven months in Havana limbo has given Menoyo plenty of
time to analyze Cuba's bleak economic situation and hone
his message. "The nation requires that you liberate the
creativity of the people," he declares. He would start by
allowing free enterprise and "good salaries, not the hunger
salaries like those of today." What else would be on a
Cambio Cubano platform? "Peace, freedom, social justice,"
he replies.

With the help of friends, Menoyo has also done some opinion
polling in Havana, Pinar del Rio, Las Villas, and
Matamoros. According to these "limited surveys," he says, a
little more than 80 percent are aware of his arrival. He
can also tell when he's entered a Havana neighborhood that
has a lot of satellite dishes because more people come up
to greet him.

"I still haven't encountered anyone who has given me a look
of disgust or rejection," he marvels.

Unfortunately, that is not the case with executives at
Ocean Bank, who looked askance at Menoyo's move and froze
Cambio Cubano's $10,000 bank account last October.
Miami-based Ocean Bank acted on instructions from the U.S.
Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control,
according to a statement signed by a bank vice president.
"It's a dirty trick," Menoyo says. "What animals."

(You have to like fruity-flavored drinks to enjoy
something like this. I happen to like them and if
you do, why not come to Cuba and have a drink?)
===============================================

GRANMA INTERNATIONAL
Havana. December 31, 2003

New “Havana Loco” cocktail
BY ORLANDO GOMEZ BALADO

ON sale from this December in Havana is the new cocktail by
the Cuban-French joint venture, Havana Club International –
Pernod Ricard, named the “Havana Loco” (Crazy Havana). A
refreshing drink from the tropics, it is low in alcohol
(5.5%) and made from a mix of authentic “Añejo Blanco”
Cuban rum, natural fruit juices and carbonated water. The
“Loco” was launched in Italy where, in just five months, it
achieved explosive sales figures: some eight million
liters. It’s a ready-to-drink cocktail currently available
in two flavors: lemon and passion fruit.

This and more information was provided at the cocktail’s
launch before the national and international press at the
Rum Museum in Old Havana, by Alexander Sirech, general
director of the firm, and Manuel Arias, director of its
Cuban Division.

“Havana Loco” comes in a simply designed bottle and costs
$1 for consumers in Cuba. The cocktail was created by a
team of Cuban bartenders and French technicians. Initially,
Italian technology was used in the process but, as Sirech
pointed out, plans are already underway to begin
manufacturing in the Cuban capital from 2004 with a range
of new flavors based on Cuban tropical fruits.

Both Sirech and Arias explained that next March the joint
venture celebrates 10 years of success in which the
prestige and sales figures of this brand of rum have grown
tremendously both within the country and around the world.
They also commented Havana Club Rum Week is scheduled for
March 8-11 with the participation of traders,
entrepreneurs, distributors, bartenders and drinkers of the
prestigious Cuba rum.

Walter, et al -

You are distributing disinformation re: Casino and la Rueda. (Next thing someone
will claim that Casino  was invented in Coral Gables!). Casino began in Miramar
in the 50s? No way! They wish.

Casino (like the tango) is the product of the lower classes (be Argentina or
Cuba).  Miramar was watching black and white TV when the working class danced
Casino )including rueda) to the sound of "la Aragon" and Fajardo. Miramar - a
thoroughly Americanized area of Havana was into Elvis and his pelvis and wearing
black leather jackets in Cuba's mild winters. El Benny, La Lupe, Rolando
Laserie, guaguancó, et al, was beneath the bourgeoisie. [Note- NO CASINO was
danced in Miami in the period 1959-1970s. It was "imvented" (?) ONLY when
balseros began to arrive in the 1980s and the 1990s.

Thus, to those who claim that Miramar (i.e. the 50s upper class) invented la
rueda and Casino there is ONLY one answer: BS!!!

Where then? La Polar! La Tropical! El Cerro! Luyanó! Cuatro Caminos! Colón!
Pogolotti! Then it moved to Matanzas, to Trinidad, and elsewhere.

I was dancing rueda-Casino in 1954 when I was 9 years old in the streets of
Fomento and Atarés en el mismo meollo de la riquísima ciudad de La Habana.

Nelson P Valdés



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Feliz Año Nuevo - Happy New Year!

Cuban Daily News Digest  -  " A compilation of
news articles about Cuba - distributed since 1993
in an effort to promote investment opportunities
in the Republic of Cuba "

The Associated Press - HAVANA - Communist Cuba
said it will postpone planned purchases of
American cattle after last week's announcement
that a Holstein cow in Washington state tested
positive for mad cow disease. Pedro Alvarez, head
of the Cuban food import company Alimport, said
earlier planned sales would go ahead only after
authorities here are confident that the outbreak
of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, has
been controlled. The decision could delay
purchase and delivery of up to 500 American
cattle scheduled to be shipped to the Caribbean
island during the first quarter of 2004 under an
exception to the U.S. trade embargo. ''There is a
postponement, but not a cancellation'' of earlier
signed contracts,'' Alvarez said in a telephone
interview.
The first shipment of Florida-born cattle to Cuba
in more than 40 years had been expected in the
next few months. It wasn't known Tuesday if that
deal, which was to involve 250 head, was being
blocked by the mad cow concerns. J.P. Wright &
Company Inc. of Naples said in October that Cuba
agreed to buy $450,000 worth of beef cattle from
Florida ranchers. The agreement followed the
first shipment of dairy cattle from other states
through Florida ports to Cuba this summer. Parke
Wright, chairman and CEO of the Naples company,
was traveling Tuesday and not available for
comment. An outside spokesman for the company did
not know the status of the Florida deal. Although
Cuba has imported cattle, it has not imported
beef since late 2001 when it began taking
advantage of a U.S. law allowing direct
commercial sales of American farm products to the
island on a cash basis. About 500 American dairy
cattle, imported to Cuba in recent months, remain
in quarantine on a ranch in the island's western
end. All were checked by Cuban veterinarians and
none were found to carry the disease, said
Alvarez.

SINGAPORE - (Reuters) - A Singapore company
linked to a fraud investigation at Italian food
conglomerate Parmalat <PRFI.MI> has no knowledge
of selling millions of dollars of the group's
powdered milk, a key official said on Tuesday.
Parmalat, until two weeks ago one of Italy's most
important companies, has been rocked by scandal
since the discovery of a multi-billion-euro hole
in its accounts. One case under investigation
involves tens of millions of dollars worth of
powdered milk that Parmalat subsidiary Bonlat
claims to have sold Cuba through Singapore-based
Camfield Pte Ltd. Camfield's company secretary,
Lawrence Kwan, said he had never heard of that
deal. "We don't know about that powdered milk,"
he told Reuters.
Cuba's only bulk food importer said Parmalat's
claim that the nation owes it tens of millions of
dollars for powdered milk was false. Reuters on
Monday obtained part of transcript of an
interrogation by Milan prosecutors of a Parmalat
accountant, Gianfranco Bocchi, in which he
admitted the milk sales to Cuba were phoney. "We
used to buy fictitiously from Camfield in
Singapore (after a while I understood it was
connected to Parmalat) ... to then sell
fictitiously to the Cuban company," Bocchi told
the prosecutors. Parmalat's founder Calisto
Tanzi, under arrest for suspected financial
crimes at the insolvent dairy firm, has admitted
to misappropriating hundreds of millions of euros
of company funds, one of his lawyers said on
Monday.
The shock admission came after authorities had
accused him of embezzling more than 800 million
euros ($1 billion) from his food conglomerate
over the past decade. The Singapore address and
phone number of Camfield, which Kwan said was set
up five or six years ago, are the same as an
affiliate of Foo Kon Tan Grant Thornton, the
Singapore unit of U.S. auditors Grant Thornton. A
magistrates' order named two former Parmalat CFOs
as well as two executives from the Italian unit
of Grant Thornton as having masked the company's
problems. Grant Thornton International has begun
an internal investigation into the Italian unit,
a spokeswoman for the accounting firm said. The
Singapore affiliate, Kon Choon Kooi Pte Ltd,
conducts corporate secretarial services, a common
practice for services firms in Singapore. Kwan is
also employed by the company. "Camfield uses my
office as its working address. Notifications are
received and forwarded to Italy," he said. "I
don't prepare any statements. Essentially we file
the annual returns for them. But the people who
do the audit, who should know something about
their accounts in Asia, should be Foo Kon Tan
Grant Thornton," he said. "They are the auditors
so they would have access to the figures."
Officials at Foo Kon Tan Grant Thornton referred
queries to a public relations firm in London. The
Grant Thornton SpA executives, Lorenzo Penca and
Maurizio Bianchi, on Monday denied any wrongdoing
and said they wanted to present their side of the
story to the prosecutors. Singapore, positioning
itself as a regional financial hub, said in July
this year it planned to tighten anti-money
laundering regulations by moving to implement
global standards.

Ha Noi - (Vietnam News Agency) - A meeting to
mark Cuba's 45th Liberation Day (Jan. 1) was held
at the Ha Noi Opera House on Tuesday. Phan Dien,
Politburo and permanent member of the Secretariat
of the Communist Party of Viet Nam Central
Committee and Vu Xuan Hong, President of the Viet
Nam Union of Friendship Organisations were on
hand. Addressing the function, Vo Thi Thang,
member of the Party Central Committee and
President of the Viet Nam-Cuba Friendship
Association, expressed joy at the socio-economic
achievements the Cuban people have recorded in
almost half a decade while maintaining its
principles of independence, sovereignty and
self-determination while implementing a  foreign
policy of openness and dynamism.
Thang expressed her belief that with their
traditional undauntedness and heroism as well as
the support of peace and justice lovers, the
Cuban people,  under the leadership of the Cuban
Communist Party, will certainly overcome all
difficulties and challenges to continue their
achievements made over the past 45 years on its
way to advance toward socialism. Cuban Ambassador
Fredesman Turro Gonzalez said that Viet Nam
remains an endless source of encouragement to the
Cuban people in its struggle for national
independence as well as for people's advancement
and happiness. The Cuban diplomat thanked the
Vietnamese people for their special solidarity,
valuable support and assistance to the Cuban
people.

The Journal-Standard - Denise Padfield of Ridott
recently returned from a 10-day educational trip
to observe Cuba's health care system. Padfield is
a cardio-pulmonary services nurse at FHN Memorial
Hospital. Denise Padfield, of Ridott, came away
from a recent 10-day educational trip to observe
Cuba's health care system with two prominent
perceptions. First, Cuba's health care system is
not necessarily worse or better than ours - just
different. And second, the people who live in
Cuba are no different than the people who reside
in the United States.
The FHN Memorial Hospital cardio-pulmonary
services nurse, who was surprised last March by
an invitation for the trip from her nursing honor
society, joined 35 others - most of whom were
doctors and nurses - in the educational
observance of several of Cuba's health care
facilities. Beginning on Nov. 30, the delegation
visited the cities of Havana, Cienfuegos and
Trinidad. Between the three cities, they toured
one orthopedic hospital, one multi-specialty
clinic, two family doctors' offices (one in a
city and one in a rural area), one maternity home
and one seminary. Because of the current
political climate between the United States and
Cuba, the focus of the tour was strictly
observational in nature.
"We were right in the room as they were doing
procedures or counseling the patients and were
included in what was going on, we just didn't
have any hands-on participation," Padfield
explained. According to Dawn Davis, executive
director for Professional Programs with the
People to People Ambassador Program, the group
had very little opportunity to spend time with
their Cuban counterparts outside of a clinical
setting. "Their contact had to be in a very
structured educational environment where we could
document what was happening," Davis said. The
delegation itself was also required to make notes
on what they saw and heard during their tours of
the different facilities. "We had a scribe that
each day our group had to write down the
information we got because this all becomes part
of a written report that is submitted to the
government," Padfield said.
Some of the objectives for Padfield and the other
nurses in the group were to examine the role of
traditional Cuban medicine in the care of
patients, compare treatment options for various
conditions looking at traditional Cuban and
Western medicine approaches, to observe patients
and the role of nurses in caring for the them and
to learn about the educational standards and
opportunities available to nurses in Cuba.
One of the main dissimilarities Padfield noticed
during the tours of the facilities was a lack of
some of the modern medical equipment we have
available to us in the U.S. "The biggest
difference, I think, is that they don't have a
lot of the technology we have. This is because
the equipment and the people to teach them how to
use it are so far away," Padfield said. She went
on to say that because Cuba owes the United
States money, most American companies won't ship
equipment to the country unless it is paid for
up-front. Cuba generally does not have the money
to do that. Instead the country relies on getting
technology from Japan, Latin America and South
America - countries that are more likely to deal
with the Cuban government, but it takes a long
time for those arrangements to get worked out.
"One other thing I observed, which was so totally
fascinating to me, was that they use a lot of
alternative medicine," Padfield said. She told of
seeing a little boy who had surgery for hip
dysplasia the day prior to the delegation's
visit. "On his ear he had seven little beans or
pebbles - I'm not just sure what they were -
placed on pressure points in his ear. They had
been placed there since the day before his
surgery and they released endorphins. On the day
after surgery, when we saw him, he was having no
pain and had had no pain medications whatsoever.
He was sitting on his bed playing and laughing
and giggling. It was so cool," Padfield said.
According to Marilyn Duitsman, a nurse in the
Orthopedics Department at FHN Family Healthcare
Center on Stephenson Street, if that little boy
had surgery here, he would most likely have been
given something fairly strong for pain.
"We would probably have given him a narcotic pain
medication," she said. With such a difference in
pain management techniques between the United
States and Cuban medical communities, many may
stop to ponder just which way is preferable for
the patient. Padfield offered her thoughts on the
subject. "It's not that you can say that what
they do is better or what we do is better, it's
just you weigh the differences. It's not like
there is a right or a wrong way, it's just two
different ways," Padfield said.
While the average Cuban citizen's life is very
different in some ways than the lives of U.S.
citizens, in other ways it is much the same. For
example, there are no taxes of any kind in Cuba.
Every bit of medical care is free including any
medications. Education is free - from grade
school all the way on up through college or
vocational school. Cubans pay $1 a month for
electricity, but all other utilities (other than
phone) are free, and Cubans have ration books so
food is inexpensive.
The downside of this though, is that the people
have to give the government almost all the money
they make. A housekeeper at one of the hotels
told Padfield that they give 95 percent of their
salary to the government. But, despite these
fundamental differences, Denise said, the people
still seemed to be very content. "'Don't worry,
be happy' was pretty much the way everyone was,"
Padfield said. "You saw the same kinds of things
you do here, like couples holding hands walking
along the beach, kids flying kites and playing
baseball, older people sitting on their front
porches rocking and visiting with the neighbors."
And everyone Padfield met was very nice - both on
the street and in the health care facilities.
"All of the people were so friendly and eager to
talk to us," she said. "They just so want to get
to know Americans and be our friends."
One moment that really touched Padfield was an
experience she had with a Havana cab driver. She
had been shopping downtown and had an arm-full of
bags, so she decided to take a cab back to the
hotel. There were two men who worked together as
a team in their private car taxi, a 1964 Chevy in
immaculate shape. One drove and the other sat in
back with the passenger and visited with them
during the ride. When Padfield reached her hotel,
she got a request from her back-seat companion
she wasn't expecting. "As I got out of the car,
he said to me, 'Will you write to me when you get
home?' I said I would and he gave me his address.
He was so excited that he had made a friend and
was going to be getting some mail from the United
States," Denise said. And that desire for
dialogue and a friendship was the norm with all
of the people Padfield encountered during her
days in Cuba. "That was the thing about the trip
that really came home. People are people,"
Padfield said, "They just happen to live south,
that's all."

Naples Daily News - On an early Sunday morning,
near the entrance of the provincial airport of
Cienfuegos in south-central Cuba a crowd gathered
in the warming sun, showing the personal effects
of two countries at odds politically for more
than 40 years. Here were tears of joy and
excitement for those Cubans lucky enough to win a
lottery to secure visas to visit family in the
United States. Here were tears of division from
families saying so long to loved ones who had
fled the Communist regime of Fidel Castro and had
been able to return, however briefly, for a rare
visit. And here were tears of a father from Key
West who came home for the funeral of his son.
At this entrance to the airport in Cienfuegos an
awakened yellow three-legged dog who had seen it
all before quickly tired of the scene and loped
off in his own direction. Soon to be heading off
in their own directions as well were Americans -
businessmen, scientists, environmentalists - who
had gathered in Cuba for more than a week because
they had not seen it all before. They had been
visiting to explore opportunities in a country
just 90 miles south of the United States with
which the U.S. government has had no formal
diplomatic ties for four decades. Their visit for
an international trade fair and a conference on
coastal ecosystems, while coincidentally a
biennial arts and music festival was taking
place, would bear little notice in almost any
other country. But Cuba is one of the few
countries in the world with such strained
relations with the United States, and this
group's presence - along with as many as 200,000
other Americans in the last year - indicates what
may someday be a thawing in official relations.
Enacted after a failed invasion at the Bay of
Pigs in 1961, a U.S. embargo on Cuban trade
prevents most U.S. citizens from spending money
in - and therefore traveling to - the island
nation of 11 million that was taken over in a
1959 socialist revolution led by Castro.
Journalists, scientists, those with close family
ties and those with special U.S. Treasury
Department licenses are some of those people
exempted from the travel ban. The hard currency
that has come with as many as 1.9 million
tourists a year has created a dual economy of
valuable U.S. dollars and next-to-worthless Cuban
pesos, giving Cuba outward appearances of
embracing capitalism. On these outward
appearances, a bipartisan group of U.S.
politicians has pounced, maintaining that the
surest way to a change Cuba is through the mighty
dollar.
Democratic and Republican congressmen and
senators used these arguments to pass a provision
that would remove enforcement of the ban on
travel to Cuba. While this virtual elimination of
the travel ban passed comfortably in both houses,
it was removed in conference committee on Nov. 12
under threat of veto from President Bush. Despite
the travel ban, money between Cuba and U.S.
interests is still changing hands. Since 2001,
when the Cuban government began acting on a bill
passed late in the Clinton administration that
allows cash-only sales of food and humanitarian
supplies, U.S. companies have sold more than $260
million worth of goods to Cuba.
Michael Mauricio, president of Florida Produce in
Tampa, Fla., looks at Cuba's 11 million residents
as a valuable market. His company was the first
to put American onions in Cuba in more than 40
years when his first shipment went out in 2002.
At the recent Havana International Trade Fair, 71
companies from 19 states participated in the
weeklong fair, resulting in more than $160
million in new contracts. While Americans are
approaching on the economic and environmental
fronts, the Cubans are readying themselves for
more open relations on a variety of levels,
notably tourism. At one of 18 schools of tourism
nationwide, this one near the fishing hamlet of
Casildas in south-central Cuba, students are
trained to supply the demands of a growing
international tourism market. Students from 17 to
35 years old learn languages other than their
native Spanish. They train to work as maids,
cooks, bellhops, receptionists, entertainers -
every position that might need filling at one of
the many Spanish, Italian and German resorts
opening throughout the country.
Budding performers recently practiced a bizarre
collection of musical entertainment - from Latin
dance to rap to traditional Cuban "son" music -
that is endemic to all-inclusive resort stage
shows throughout the Caribbean. Principal Miriam
Fernandez gave a tour of the school's facilities
after the show held on an outdoor stage between
classrooms. The classrooms resembled a resort in
microcosm: In the Lab de Recepcion, a young man
stood ramrod straight behind a hotel reception
desk. He looked nervous, as any student might be
on his first time on the job. Farther down the
building were hotel rooms, their beds made tidily
by housekeeping students. In so preparing
themselves, and in the Americans attending
conservation conferences and trade fairs, the
people of the two nations have begun acting as
the ambassadors their two governments are not yet
willing to appoint. And in the process, they,
like the people gathered in front of the
Cienfuegos airport hugging goodbye, brought the
sticky issues of international politics and
diplomatic relations down to a one-on-one
personal level. "We try to leave the politics out
of it," said David Guggenheim, vice president for
conservation policy of The Ocean Conservancy in
Washington, D.C. "But it's getting harder and
harder to do that."

HAVANA - (AP) - A decade after many predicted
Cuba's economy would collapse as it struggled
with the abrupt loss of critical Soviet aid and
trade, the communist island continues its
recovery and registered 2.6 percent growth in
2003, economic planners said. Economics Minister
Jose Luis Rodriguez credited this year's marked
improvement in Cuban tourism for much of the
growth as he gave his annual year-end report to
the Cuban parliament. President Fidel Castro, and
his younger brother and designated successor,
Defense Minister Raul Castro, attended the
session along with other high-ranking government
officials. The Castro brothers, along with
virtually all other high-ranking members of the
Cuban government, also sit on the parliament.
Speaking to nearly 550 Cuban lawmakers at the
session, Rodriguez noted that Cuba's estimated
growth for this year was far better than the 1.5
percent growth registered across Latin America
and Central America during the same period.
Cuba enjoyed particular economic success in
tourism, with a 16 percent increase in income for
2003 over the previous year, he said. Tourism
throughout the Caribbean plummeted last year as
people cut back on air travel after the September
2001 terror attacks on the United States. But
Rodriguez said 1.9 million people visited Cuba in
2003 - up 12.7 percent from the previous year -
as travelers shook off their earlier fears and
Cuba continued to promote tourism as its No. 1
source of foreign currency needed for
international trade. Rodriguez projected
continued growth in tourism for 2004. Osvaldo
Martinez, head of the parliament's economics
committee, recalled that in December 1993 many
had predicted Cuba's imminent collapse as it
wrapped up "its most difficult, most anguished
year" economically. "For traditional political
and economic thinking, it was impossible that a
small, underdeveloped nation that from one day to
the other had lost 85 percent of its commercial
trade, its petroleum supplies ... could survive,"
Martinez said.
Since, Cuba has replaced sugar with tourism as
its primary source of hard currency. It also now
produces much of its own natural gas and
petroleum, along with much of its own food. With
the focus on tourism, almost four times as many
people now visit Cuba as they did a decade ago,
when less than 550,000 traveled to the island
annually. The island also has nearly quadrupled
the number of its hotel rooms, to 41,600. "From
an economy traditionally structured around the
production and exportation of sugar and some
other basic products, we have gone in 10 years to
a more modern and less vulnerable structure,"
Martinez said. Along with tourism, Cuba also is
now developing its scientific and technical
sectors, especially in biotechnology, and the
production of medicines and medical equipment, as
potential sources of foreign income, he said. But
sugar, once the locomotive that ran this
Caribbean nation's economy, in 2003 still
struggled with an ongoing restructuring of the
industry, Rodriguez said. He said the annual
harvest for the 2002-2003 year was just 2.2
million metric tons, far smaller than other
recent harvests averaging around 3.5 million
metric tons. Harvests more than a decade ago were
commonly 6 million to 7 million metric tons a
year, but they slowly declined over the years and
the Soviet Union's collapse erased what was once
Cuba's most lucrative market for sugar.

Camagüey, Cuba - (PL) - The year about to end
witnessed numerous and resounding victories for
Cuba in the international arena, Cuban Foreign
Affairs Minister Felipe Perez Roque stated here.
In his opinion, one of the main battles Cuba won
in 2003 was a glaring erosion of the commercial,
economic and financial blockade imposed by
Washington on Havana for more than 40 years.
Perez Roque recalled that in November, 179 States
approved a resolution in the United Nations
condemning the blockade, leaving the United
States in the diminished company of Israel and
The Marshall Islands. "If we were to catalogue
the event in baseball terms," he added "we would
call it a perfect game, something very difficult
to repeat in the future."
As a sign that the blockade is frayed, he cited
the growing interest among US businesses to
continue and even promote food sales to Cuba,
authorized by the US after the severe damage
caused by hurricane Michelle to Cuban agriculture
in November 2001. "We don't think the blockade is
going to be lifted tomorrow," said the Cuban
Foreign Minister, "but it is clear that in the US
people's perception, and even in some Government
circles, it is useless in its objectives as well
as harmful for the US economy." In that context
Perez Roque noted the growing number of US
citizens challenging the travel ban to Cuba, and
stated that only a twisted move by a Committee,
mostly conformed by Republicans, killed an
initiative passed by the House of Representatives
and Senate aimed to eliminate travel
restrictions. Perez Roque's statements came as
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs offered
information on its work in 2003 to the People's
Power National Assembly (unicameral Parliament)
International Relations Commission.
The Cuban Foreign Affairs Minister stated that
other Cuban victories were the failed attempts by
Washington to condemn the Island at different
international forums including the Organization
of American States (OAS) and the 12th Ibero
American Summit. He also highlighted the
strengthening of Cuba's image in different world
scenes, especially during the visit of President
Fidel Castro to presidential inaugurations in
Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina and Paraguay, as well
as to the Non-Aligned Countries Summit in
Malaysia. He noted that in 2003, eight Heads of
State, and 16 Foreign Affairs Ministers visited
Cuba. Perez Roque highlighted that there are
currently 1,806 organizations of solidarity with
Cuba in 143 nations worldwide, plus 202 groups
working on the liberation of Gerardo Hernandez,
René Gonzalez, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero
and Fernando Gonzalez. The Five, as they are
known worldwide, were arrested in the US in
September 1998 and later sentenced by a biased
Miami court to sentences ranging from 15 years to
double life imprisonment. The group was accused
of conspiracy, carrying false documents and
acting as foreign agents, but what they were
really doing was gathering information on
anti-Cuban organizations with long records of
terrorist activities against Cuba.

Havana - (Vietnam News Agency) - The Cuban
Ministry of Labour and Social Security has issued
a decision to rearrange enterprises in order to
increase their economic efficiency and raise
their workers' income. The decision said that the
management of enterprises should be strengthened
and their human and financial resources should be
tapped better. The decision also emphasized the
need for reducing production costs, increasing
the quality of goods and services, and improving
professional skills for managers.

Farm and Ranch Guide - Ag News - For the second
time in two years North Dakota officials have
signed contracts with Cuban officials to send
them ag products grown in North Dakota. North
Dakota delegates participating in a food trade
mission in Cuba said a pea contract valued at
$750,000 was signed and that most of the peas for
the contract will be provided by North Dakota
producers. Later, Cuba indicated it wanted an
additional 20,000 metric tons of peas, but North
Dakota simply doesn't have that amount of supply
readily available and could not fulfill the
contract. "They offered 20,000 metric tons, but
we just didn't have it," said Larry White of
Paulson Premium Seed of Bowman, N.D., who
traveled to Cuba as one of the North Dakota trade
delegates. Cuba, instead, made the purchase from
Canada, which provides the biggest competition
for the Cuban pea market, according to Jerome
Knudson, president of Superior Grains in Crosby,
N.D., one of the trade delegation. North Dakota,
he added, has an advantage on freight costs and
is usually more competitive, he added.
North Dakota Ag Commissioner Roger Johnson, who
led the North Dakota delegation, said Cuba is
potentially a very good market for North Dakota
peas, as well as other ag products like beans and
lentils and wheat, despite U.S. trade
restrictions, according to Johnson. "They want to
trade," Johnson said. "They indicated they may be
in the market for 8,000 to 10,000 metric tons of
peas this spring." Current trade restrictions
placed by the U.S. government make trade
difficult. But still, the Cubans have made
efforts to trade with North Dakota because they
like the quality of the North Dakota product,
according to trade delegates. The North Dakota
participants have used PS International Ltd., an
export trading firm based in Chapel Hill, N.C.,
to broker their deals, according to Johnson,
adding that there hasn't been a problem
collecting from Cuba in these transactions.
"Every contract has been honored that we've
entered into with Cuba," Johnson said, "and
that's a credit to the Cuban officials given the
restrictions placed on them by the United
States." Wayne Schmitz, operations manager at
Premier Pulse International Inc., in Minot, N.D.,
said North Dakota produces a good product which
the Cubans want. "They like what they're getting.
It's good quality," said Schmitz.
Knudson also sees Cuba as having the potential to
be a big market for the U.S., and North Dakota in
particular, as peas and lentils are a major
market in Cuba. The island nation buys about
2,000 rail cars each year, he said. "They're
looking to increase that considerably," Knudson
said. "It's important to develop this market in
Cuba because we need to find a home for these
additional peas that will be grown." Schmitz, who
was also part of the first Cuban trade trip made
last year, said the Cubans remembered them from
the prior trade mission and are "connecting our
product." He, too, sees potential for Cuba as a
good market. "They're looking for large volumes,"
he said. The way production has taken off in
North Dakota, that's a good sign for producers
here. "The potential for peas and lentils and
chickpeas raised in North Dakota is tremendous,"
Knudson said, adding that federal price supports
for these crops were made possible in the 2002
farm legislation which provide new incentive for
farmers to grow them.
Last year North Dakota, whose growers supply
about half of the United States' pea production,
planted about 156,000 acres to peas, according to
Eric Bartsch, administrator of the North Dakota
Pea & Lentil Association. Because of the price
supports, plus the burgeoning Cuban market and
the fact that pulse crops fit well into farmers'
crop rotations, pea acreage could grow
significantly next year. "We're seeing a lot more
interest," Bartsch said. "But the jury's still
out on the number of acres we'll see." One early
estimate pegs acreage at 250,000 acres. "We'll
have to wait and see," he added. Besides pulse
crops, Johnson said they were also trying to
interest the Cubans in dry edible beans, hard red
spring wheat, and semolina - an ingredient made
from durum that is used to make pasta. "We know
that there's substantial importation of wheat and
flour and semolina, and they historically have
not used much hard red spring wheat in that whole
mix," Johnson said. "We're trying to talk to them
about the value of beefing that up." Johnson and
Chuck Fleming, ND Ag Department marketing
director, were among a group of U.S. farm
officials who met with Cuban president Fidel
Castro for nearly four hours. Johnson said Castro
expressed an interest in buying U.S. sugar. That
was a bit of a surprising development considering
Cuba exported large amounts of sugar just a few
years ago. In recent years, however, the Cuban
sugar industry has declined considerably because
of a decaying infrastructure and other
inefficiencies.
Johnson said he has talked with North Dakota
sugarbeet growers about possible sales to Cuba,
but because of higher shipping costs, any
significant U.S. sugar exports are likely to come
from Florida or Louisiana. If any sales did
happen, any sugar from North Dakota would likely
be a small, symbolic gesture, Johnson said. The
trade mission drew delegates from nearly 30
states, including 13 from North Dakota. That
represented the third largest delegation. A
delegation from Minnesota also attended which
included two persons from North Dakota State
University.

International Association of Air Travel Couriers
- Habana, Cuba - The name "Habana" slides off the
lips with a smooth slur while the sound of the
country, Cuba, contains a certain staccato strut.
I seized an opportunity to go to the Twentieth
International Habana Jazz Festival that only
happens in Havana (how we Americans - North
Americans - spell the name) every two years.
Booking the journey through a specialized tour
was the easiest way to obtain the license
necessary to slink into this forbidden tropical
isle. I imagined sexy steaming salsa, huge
aromatic cigars, swaying handsome Cubanos (Cuban
men), and ornate grand buildings all stirred up
with tropical rainstorms. I was not disappointed.
When I first saw an advertisement for the
International Jazz Festival last autumn, I
searched out and interrogated several companies
that were U.S. based in order to travel there in
legal fashion. Jazz Times
(http://www.jazztimes.com) and Plaza Cuba in New
Jersey (http://www.plazacuba.com; E-mail:
plazacuba@...; Tel: 201-840-6711) were the
main tour operators. Though the tour I chose was
scheduled for December 9-19 and very near to the
holidays, I decided to go anyway in order to
experience the Jazz Festival.
I chose the company of Plaza Cuba because of the
personal and quick response to my queries, the
reasonable price compared to the other
monopolies, and because the company offered 10
days to roam the island. Plus the itinerary
included salsa dance lessons, side trips to other
parts of the island, and many lively activities
embracing the Cuban music and arts.  The last
three days of the 10-day tour, the remaining
dozen of us extended tour takers were able to
choose which activities to embark upon - whether
it was to visit the Botanical Gardens, see a
museum, etc. Though sometimes buses were late and
plans went astray, it was as much a Latin time
frame issue as anything. The buses were modern
and air-conditioned. Plaza Cuba Tours goes to the
island several times a year for educational trips
related to dance, music and the arts. The
emphasized focus of the tours is to study Cuba's
exciting popular music and dance styles, such as
Salsa, Rumba, Son, and Latin jazz. The group
leaders are well connected in the areas of music,
dance and any other Cuban question that you may
inquire of their services!
I used frequent travel miles to fly to Miami,
then contacted Marazul Charters
(http://www.marazulcharters.com), as recommended
by Plaza Cuba, to fly the forty-minute flight to
Habana. That particular flight was expensive:
$400. But the only way quickly becomes the
accepted route for the serious traveler; so I
gulped and plunked down my credit card to
purchase the flight. That would be the last time
I would flash any credit card for the next ten
days, as U.S. credit cards are not accepted at
all since that would clearly state that we were
"trading with the enemy." Now if I had a Canadian
credit card, that would have been a different
storyŠ..   The Marazul charter company arranged
the airline ticket and Cuban visa, plus
coordinated with the Plaza Cuba educational and
fully-hosted license under which we traveled. The
unique aspect, unlike other licenses, was that we
could bring back any art, music, books, etc.,
related to education with NO LIMIT on the
purchase price. The narrowest limit was the
maximum amount one was allowed to spend to
purchase cigars and liquor, which was $100.
The toughest rule, however, was the baggage limit
of 44 pounds. Since my over-packer ancestry never
has detoured to succumb to mere lightweight
carry-on luggage, I vainly thought I could be an
exception to the rule. Hah! In spite of the fact
I was toting toothpaste, pens and other sundries
to give to the people as gifts, the staunch and
greedy Miami airport staff did not bat one
sympathetic eyelash. It cost me $120 extra in
penalty fees to finance my inherited character
flaw. But later I admitted (only to myself) that
it was well worth the extra expense to experience
the people's response to the wares. It took me
all of 15 minutes to give everything away. Our
initially-planned abode, the Hotel Riviera, was
under renovation; so for a small upgrade, we
could stay at the famed Hotel Naciónal de Cuba
(http://www.hotelnacionalde cuba.com). "Gorgeous"
is the adjective to describe this hotel, which is
five-star and a chandelier monument right out of
a Robert Redford Cuba film clip. However, the
hotel was filled with guests from the
International Film Festival, which happened to
overlap with the Jazz Festival.
So the first four days we stayed at the Habana
Libre, which was modern and bright and a former
Hilton, but which was not full of the Naciónal's
character or opulence. Finally, after almost
pummeling down the bell boys with hard-sided
luggage and stubbornly pleading with the front
desk staff, we were able to register at the Hotel
Naciónal.  With two pools, seven bars, several
restaurants and spacious rooms, the movie-set
hotel was just as stunning as we had imagined.
There was even a photo gallery room with photos
of stars and musicians streaming back into time
from 100 years ago. The stars and other famed
characters who had visited the island in the
not-so-distant past was mind boggling. By the end
of the trip, the fact was riveted into my mind
that Habana had truly been the Hollywood of the
Caribbean Sea.
Before I departed America, I knew that my fantasy
of Cuba was as much woven with fear as curiosity.
I remember seeing Fidel Castro on the television
news as a little girl, when I watched him
verbally tear America to shreds. I thought, "He
must be 100 years old by now. Is he just a silly
character that U.S. media transformed into a
wicked dictator? Or is he a serious control freak
who has decided that an entire population was
created for his wicked whims?" Unfortunately, the
underlying truth is more defined than one can
imagine. The chasm between the Cuban people and
the tourist (who is now beckoned, lured, enticed
and snared into the dollar economy) is widening
into an earthquake crack. Do not slip and fall
into the ditch. Yes, buildings are being
renovated. Yes, construction work is everywhere.
But the people have no fresh food or clothing of
quality. All the fine theaters and hotels and
remodeling is solely being created to tempt the
tourist dollar.  Yes, the people are very
literate. Books line an entire square of the
large Plaza de Armas several days a week.
Beautiful books, bound in leather - even first
editions of Hemingway and Gabriel Marquez - are
stacked beside old piles of cigar box labels
engraved in gold and silver with stunning damsels
and full-sailed ships floating upon the sea. The
vendors will even pull out cardboard boxes hidden
behind the stands and offer old photos of both
1950s American movie stars and 1950s Buick cars
sitting in Old Habana.  Several vendors invited
me to later enter their homes and see even more
objects available for purchase. The people are
selling their familial treasures to survive. Some
of the wares were so personal that I simply could
not buy them and keep any innocence of my own
intact. Two Plaza de Armas market book sellers
that particularly impressed me were Julia Muñoz
(Tel: 537-879-3779) and Fidel Gonzalez (Tel:
537-878-2342).
I do not smoke cigars, but I questioned two cigar
experts before I departed and noted some famed
names for sale: Monte Cristo, Partagus, and
Cohiba. Lured by the gorgeous antique cigar box
labels that I saw in the street book market, I
decided to go on a cigar factory tour. I liked
walking into a leathery, wood, smoky factory to
watch the ritual of cigar rolling. Supposedly,
during work or rolling cigar break times in days
gone by, "readers" would quote from books written
by governmental leaders to the workers young and
old. They were "educating the people" so to
speak. The actual tobacco leaves are huge: maybe
a foot long and six inches across. The cigar
maker's chubby fingers deftly hand roll each
cigar, then chop off one edge. The date of
creation and certain symbols on the box and label
stamp actually detail the history and "birth
date" of the cigars. One can buy a box of 25
Monte Cristo #2 for about $180, or a box of
Cohiba Esplendidos for $350. Under the tour
company's educational license you're traveling
by, you can only include cigars and rum or other
liquors in the $100 limit. Buying cigars on the
street from someone who claims his brother works
in the factory is usually a farce. Though it
costs a bit more, the government stores and
tobacco factories are much more reliable.
Though I was weighed, analyzed, judged and
convicted to an overweight fee/penalty upon
entrance to Cuba, nobody seemed to notice my
return to the United States. However, by then my
baggage burden - minus the gifts to the people -
was considerably diminished. Another interesting
tobacco-related purchase is to walk into Old
Habana to the Habana 1791 perfume shop, where
natural perfume essences are created in custom
scents. I chose a $5 bottle mixture of the scents
of vetiver and, yes, tobacco! The scent is truly
enticing!
I met the masses. I was astounded at the sheer
knowledge and education of the professors,
engineers, and translators that were offering
their business services now only as tourist
guides. Several Cubans I encountered that spoke
fluent English and were absolutely professional
in demeanor were: Silvia Guerra, a music composer
(Tel: 91-0119; E-mail: mc@...); Dania
Hidlago (Tel: 537-40-5723); and Joaquin (E-mail:
vmgasc@...; Tel: 537-886-2290). Any of the
above persons can tell you vast and interesting
information about the island. For information on
Salsa and other Latin dance aspects, one can
contact Maria de Los Angeles Gonzalez (Tel:
537-262-5621).
Most hotels and public buildings are lined with
photos of Fidel Castro and Ché Chevara. The huge
billboard signs lining the highways advertise no
household wares. Instead, slogans and rhymes
applauding work and service for the country line
the roads. Whether drinking, smoking, munching or
walking, the images of intended idolatry were
visually present. Some Cubanos who have met
Castro have stated that his intensity and
powerful personality is still spell-entrancing,
even though he is now 76 years old. He appears to
be forever young, yet nobody knew if Castro was
even married. And all seemed to feel that his
private life was none of their affair.
If one looks closely at a map of the Caribbean,
one will be astounded that Cuba is huge. When I
return next time (and I will), I would like to
visit two other major cities in Cuba: Trinidad
and Santiago. Santiago was 900 kilometers away,
so no time emerged to fly to that city on this
trip - and fly one must. Nobody dares take the
train, for the cars and tracks are dilapidated
and truly dangerous. (A train crashed with
fatalities even while I was in Cuba.) If Cuba
ever does become an open trade arena, I imagine
the other islands in the Caribbean Sea might not
be so thrilled. Cuba has beaches. Cuba has
culture. Cuba has Hispanic and African art. Cuba
has rhythm to rival any other island destination.
Yes, trading with the "old friend" (instead of
the "enemy") might turn into sharp-edged jealousy
from the other islands when the surging splendor
finally splashes out of this 40-year hostage
paradise.
Now I am no jazz aficionado, but I love Latin
music and dance. The initial impetus (or
justifiable excuse) that matched my desire to
infiltrate Cuba with my presence was to attend
the International Jazz Festival. The festival
lasts four nights and musicians are playing in
various venues of theaters, clubs and concert
halls throughout the city. Beautiful concert
halls, wooden benches in outdoor clubs, and
velvet seats at opulent theaters were only some
of the locations where the musicians offered
music. The most difficult daily decision was
deciding which concerts to attend each night!
Trumpet, piano, saxophone, xylophone, steel pan,
and bongo drums soared in sound as musicians from
Brazil, America, Cuba, Italy, and other nations
pounced onto the stage. Festival passes were $120
to attend the entire four nights of festival.
This was a wise purchase (and was included in the
price of the Plaza Club Tour), as I noticed that
people who sought to buy individual tickets the
same evening of a particular concert were turned
away because the events were usually sold out.
Some of the theaters were small, seating no more
than a few hundred guests. Most concerts began at
8:30 p.m. and the jamming embers burned until
3:00 a.m.
I could have recorded the concerts, but I soon
discovered that my pitiful new recorder was less
than professional. Fortunately, CDs were
plentiful. What was truly wonderful was that CDs
were available at the concerts for $4 rather than
the usual $15 in the stores. And copies of CDs
were up for purchase at just about any street
seller in Cuba. One does not have to go to the
jazz festival to hear fine live Cuban salsa and
jazz just about any night of the week. Some of
the clubs regularly invite world-renowned
musicians: La Zorra y el Cuervo, Jazz Café, and
Habana Café were just a few of those places. One
could also wander the neighborhoods and hear
rhythm and jazz echoing off the wrought iron
gates and bouncing off the ornate cement columns
below the balconies.
No story of mine would be complete without this
section! I stuffed my now near-empty suitcases
with music, cigars, photos, and art. What
magnificent art exists in Cuba! Paintings of
vibrant colors and swaying torsos of voluptuous
Cubans literally ran like a river over two blocks
of sidewalks at the weekend arts market. I
noticed, too, that tourists were buying and
rolling those canvases up as fast as the paint
dried. We went with Plaza Cuba to a small town
called Viñales for a day trip and saw the
beautiful countryside. Another day the group went
to Ernest Hemingway's home.
Though no death wish is within my soul, I was
told that the Cristóbal Colón Cemetary is matched
in splendor only to the grand graveyards in
Barcelona and Paris. So off I went. Would that my
home looked like one of those mini-mansions! The
guide spoke fluent English and was quite
knowledgeable about the miraculous and strange
stories of the families who built the dwellings
for death. The guided tour was actually one of
the most interesting hours of that day. Sadly
though, the guide mentioned that the majority of
the rich families who built those enclosures for
their ancestors had now fled the country never to
return; so many of the dwellings of the dead no
longer had family masses during holidays. Lonely
ancestors resided in granite, marble and gold
cages of splendor without visitors. Another must
see was the Museo de Belles Artes. One building
is entirely filled with Cuban Art. The museum
rivals any New York museum in elegance and
content. Stroll also through the lobbies of both
Hotels Inglaterra and Sevilla. The elaborate and
art deco décor surround your senses.
The best food was any fresh Cuban fish, black
beans, and rice. Even Castro's Tropicola soft
drink was not so horrid. Drink only bottled
water! I became ill the second day of the trip,
but only for 24 hours. I brought antibiotics and
other medicines in the event any more serious
illness should occur. Fresh fruit and green
vegetables are scant. Cuba is a great place to
begin a diet, as you walk a lot and eat very
little. We ate in several "Paladares," which are
private family homes that are now government
licensed to serve food and whom pay a commission
to the government. Some were superb; and even
though the limit was three tables per licensed
home, several abodes looked like an authentic
restaurant had been stashed within the home's
courtyard. I highly recommend La Cocina de
Lilliam (Calle 48 y 15; Tel: 209-6514) and El
Cangrejo Viejo (Calle 21 y F; Tel: 832-6150), and
La Fontana (Calle 3A #305 esq. Calle 46; Tel:
202-8387). La Guarida restaurant, where the movie
"Fresa y Chocolate" was made, is in a very ornate
building up four flights of stairs (Concordia
418,  Gervasio y Escobar; Tel: 862-4940).
"Casas Particulares" are private, licensed homes
in which one can stay for about $25/night. The
problem for us Americans is that because we
cannot "trade with the enemy" so to speak, and
are permitted to spend no more than a certain
amount of U.S. dollars daily, we must follow the
guidelines and rules of the license of the tour
company under which we travel to Cuba. I found
some lovely small hotels like Villa Colonial
Tommy. The owner is a former male ballet dancer
with a very unique and bohemian home offering
five bedrooms for rent at $20/night (E-mail:
higss@...; Tel: 537-860-6764). Another
is the Hostal Los Friales, a former monastery
that is now renovated with elegant furniture and
lovely bathrooms for between $50-100 a night
(E-mail: comercial@...; Tel:
537-862-9510). However, booking these hotel stays
would be quite difficult unless one were under an
individual license, which is quite difficult to
obtain.
The first few days, our group of 40 kept close to
the buses and the orientation of the guides. But
after a few long nights of concerts and restless
legs that wanted to wander the streets, most of
us began to ramble. I spent three days walking
the alleys, streets, and markets. I clicked
incessant photos with my cameras. Four main
plazas (Plaza de Armas, Plaza Vieja, Plaza San
Francisco and Plaza de la Revolución) exist and
the blocks between are brief as well as a
photographer's dream. Between these huge squares
lie narrow, cobblestone alleyways and streets
such as Calles Obispos, Mercrederes and Oficios,
which are lined with ornate buildings. The
colorful dwellers of Habana can be found standing
on any street corner.
I loved the Old and Central Habana parts of the
city the best. These areas were bordered on one
side by the Malecón, which lies alongside the
sea. If a storm had passed by at night, one could
drive by and see the waves crashing over the long
wall and onto the sidewalk. The beautiful deep
blue sea was on one side of the broad highway,
while crumbling, decadently huge buildings lined
the other side. I am no architect, but my eyes
feasted upon the Moorish mosaics, the Roman
columns, the mazes of wrought iron doors and
gates, and the cherubic faces of stone gazing
above doorways. Some of the buildings were
inhabited, and the people waved as they peered
over balconies so ornate and large that they
looked like opera seats where bespectacled
onlookers could applaud to the stage of life
below. Other buildings had no ceilings, or the
structures barely stood at all with their
half-crumbled walls or loose and obviously
dangerous wires that dangled every which way,
crossing over the eaves and doorways. The
buildings' pastel colors and intricate designs
were just as magnificent as I had imagined. When
I asked one taxi to drive me to the beautiful
buildings, he proceeded to show me the modern
area of town. "Oh no," I said, "please take me to
the crumbling edifices." When I picked up a piece
of one loose, broken blue and yellow mosaic tile
lying outside a restaurant, he wanted to abandon
me as a crazy woman. I had to explain to him that
ancient is beautiful.
In December, the days' temperatures are in the
70s and the nights are in the 50s. Sometimes the
breeze is even chillier if one drinks a Mohito by
the sea at a waterfront bar. A Mohito, potent and
refreshing and served in a glass painted "Havana
Club", is the most famous Cuban liquor. It is a
light rum drink complete with sugar, lime, ice
and crushed green mint leaves. I drank more than
several during my all-too-brief stay in Habana.
The other drink, the Daiquiri - concocted with
white rum, lemon, frappé ice, and sugar - became
world renowned when espoused by Ernest Hemingway,
a much-extolled writer who lived in Cuba for
several decades. To sip a Mohito while puffing
upon a smoldering cigar in a sunlit outdoor café
while a salsa quartet plays three steps away can
only be described as "Paradise in Cuba." The
summers, I am told, are muggy and sultry. Then
the Cubanos head for the beaches of Veradero,
East Beach, and countless other sandy stretches.
I cannot emphasize in enough words the sheer
large size of the island of Cuba. I think it
would take at least two weeks to see the island,
and one would have to earmark one entire week to
just meander through Habana.
There were many museums I wish I had seen but
never strode into, as my most burning urge was to
roam the streets. I wanted to see and talk and
mingle with the people. Knowing Spanish and
looking a bit Latina smoothed the path in my
quest for answers to my urgent questions
regarding the true thoughts and emotions of the
people about a system that is supposedly an enemy
to all that America represents. The people, I
soon recognized, had the same spirit and emotions
as anyone anywhere in the world.
However, the hot Latin music and the striking
Cuban art (drawings, paintings, and wood
carvings) displays a vibrant colorful spirit that
seems to have sprouted out of a fragmented,
overgrown flowerpot whose stems reach far above
for even a few streams of sunlight. Cuba is warm,
sad, and magical. Despite any difficulties that
crept behind me down the cobblestone path as I
strolled through Old Habana, my sense of intrigue
about Cuba never dissolved, and my delight in the
people's warmth never stumbled. But I sense
drastic change in the breeze. Would I return?
Yes. Should one go to Cuba soon? Definitely, for
the Cuban soul is heartbreakingly beautiful. The
women never walked without swaying their hips,
the men never stopped humming a tune. The lust
and love is palpable between the Cuban men and
women. I could feel the moist sensation of
sensuality everywhere. I can only imagine how a
summer night would be in the torpid, scantily
clad heat of a July day. The salsa-spiked air
soaked in the drenched magical spell of Habana
might melt away any hesitation for one to want to
belong there forever.

Havana - (Vietnam News Agency) - Education in
Cuba has recorded major achievements over the
last 45 years,  which "no force in the word can
deny and turn around", said Cuban President Fidel
Castro at a National Assembly session. Cuba,
which will celebrate its 45th National Day on
January. 1, always considers educational
development, healthcare and social welfare its
top priorities. Next year, 12 billion pesos will
be earmarked for social development, representing
59 percent of national budget. Of this, more than
3.8 billion will go to educational sector, up by
600 million compared to 2003. Cuba ensured that
all children of school age go to school. The
Government provides free textbooks and partially
funds meals for pupils at boarding schools. Free
accommodation were provided to 424,799 students
except for those at university education. At the
primary level, the number of pupils per class
declined from 37 to 18. Basic educational reform
is underway, beginning at the 7th, 8th and 9th
grades. Distance education, via television and
radio broadcasts has been broadened.
In the 2003-2004 school year, more than 300,000
students were enrolled in universities and high
schools. Cuba has strived to provide access to
higher education to every pupil having fulfilled
their general education and is broadening the
model of "district-level universities"
emphasizing that in every one of the country's
169 districts, there is a university or a
faculty, with education quality comparable to
that in central university. In Cuba, more than
14,000 teachers ensure education for more than
50,000 disabled children. Since 1960, over 17,000
foreign students have studied in Cuba, most of
them from African and Latin-American countries.
Many of them are holding key positions in their
home countries upon returning. In the 2003-2004
school year, 13,000 foreign students are enrolled
in universities and high schools, most of them
enjoyed free educational services. Cuba helped
train more than 1,000 Vietnamese officials. At
present, 200 of them study various subjects in
Cuba including journalism, architecture, health
care, pharmacology, literature, law, history,
computer science, economics and sports in nine of
Cuba's 14 provincial universities. Cuba also
helped about 50 Latin-American countries
eradicate illiteracy. It is preparing for an
international conference on higher education with
the theme "University for a better world"
scheduled in early February.

AFP - Mexico and Cuba, whose historic ties
suffered a war of words in 2002, would like a
meeting between Presidents Vicente Fox and Fidel
Castro to usher in renewed relations, a top
official said. "We both have decided to work from
top to bottom," Mexican vice minister of foreign
relations Miguel Hakim told Formato 21 radio.
"When we see improvement and the level has risen,
we will think about a meeting between the
leaders." Hakim said that Mexican foreign
minister Luis Derbez and his Cuban counterpart
Felipe Perez Roque would meet in the first half
of next year. After evaluating those meetings,
they would determine whether Fox and Castro
should meet. Mexico and Cuba have long enjoyed
warm relations as Latin American neighbors across
a narrow stretch of the Gulf of Mexico --
especially in light of the four-decade US embargo
of the island.
But in 2002, Castro revealed that Fox had asked
him to keep his participation to a minimum at a
UN-sponsored conference in Monterrey, Mexico that
year. Fox also asked Castro not rub US President
George W. Bush the wrong way at the development
meeting. Mexico's vote against Cuba at the UN
Human Rights Commission in Geneva sank relations
even further. Since that time, Mexico's warm
relations with the United States have also cooled.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In 1999, OFAC (The Office of Foreign Assets
Control of the United States Department of the
Treasury in Washington, D.C.) confirmed that it
had previously issued an opinion in 1994 which
stated that a U.S. company or individual could
make a secondary market investment in a
"third-country company" that had commercial
dealings with the Republic of Cuba as long as the
investment in the "third-country company" was not
a controlling interest and the "third-country
company" did not derive a majority of it's
revenues from operations in Cuba.  (therefore, in
many cases, U.S. citizens and companies can
invest in a private or public Canadian company
doing business with Cuba)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
James Hitchie
Cuban Daily News Digest
email: info@...
Web site:  http://www.cubaninvestments.com

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

THIS CAN BE HEARD ON THE INTERNET

-----Original Message-----
From: Netfa Freeman [mailto:netfaf@...]
Sent: Friday, January 02, 2004 4:42 PM
To: S.A.L.S.A.
Cc: shofar_angelique@...
Radio show this Sunday -
"When Africa Called, Cuba Answered"


Dear Friends,

Please listen, this Sunday, January 4th at 9 pm, to Africa
Meets Africa's, first show of this new year! As the New
Year also mark's the independence of both Cuba and Haiti,
the significance of these two islands to Africa will be
showcased on this year's first show. In the first half of
the show Cuba will be covered in the spirit of the slogan
"When Africa Called Cuba Answered".

A representative from the Cuban Interest Section in
Washington DC, Bro. Eugene Godfried of Radio AfroCuba in
Havana and Obi Egbuna from the Pan-African Liberation
Organization (PALO) will talk to us about the history of
Cuba's African roots, the evolution and rational of Cuba's
contemporary policies in Africa, and race relations and the
conditions of people of African descent in Cuba.

Please tune in promptly at 9 pm and also help us enhance
the show by calling in with your valuable questions and
comments. Remember to mark your calendars, set your palm
pilots or set your alarm for this Sunday, January 4th at 9.
Remember that you can also listen LIVE from anywhere in the
world via websteam at http://www.wpfw.org/listenonair.html!

Please share this notice with any interested people.

THANKS!

netfa freeman,

associate producer


AFRICA MEETS AFRICA

WPFW 89.3 FM Pacifica Radio
Washington, DC  20009
202-588-0999 ext 360
202-588-0561 fax
email: africameetsafrica@...
www.wpfw.org

Tune in Sundays at 9:00pm - 10:00pm



"...the acquired knowledge of African history must be seen as directly
relevant but secondary to the concrete tactics and strategy which are
necessary for our liberation.  There must be no false distinctions
between reflection and action, because the conquest of power is our
immediate goal, and the African population at home and abroad is
already in combat on a number of fronts."
-Walter Rodney-

.

CUBANEWS NOTES FROM HAVANA, January 2, 2004
by Walter Lippmann

Life in this nation's capital city continues quietly at least
during the daytime. At night sometimes here are loud, noisy
neighborhood parties. Last night there was one so loud that
I had to put earplugs in to try get away from the massive
amount of ruido (Spanish for "noise").

--------------------------------------------------------
These CubaNews notes are an occasional and unpredictable
form I use for various reasons at different times. I like
to try to assemble the day's materials in a coherent way
and to share them in a reasonably logical sequence. Some
days just documents and news articles seem most important.
Other days I prefer to make observations and comments as
at the year's end and yesterday. Sometimes I make none of
these comments, as long-time readers know. All of this is
a volunteer effort on my part and by the others who share
their interest, time and enthusiasm for the subject. None
receive payment. Our only compensation is appreciative mail
and the knowledge that we're providing a useful service to
those who believe Cuba has a right to determine its own
form of society and government free of outside intervention
by a hostile foreign power. I now descend from the platform.
-------------------------------------------------------------

Today's issues of Granma and Juventud Rebelde feature their
responses to US Secretary of State Colin Powell's statement
of the goal and objectives of the Bush administration many
foreign policy objectives. Cuba is targeted, though not at
the center of what Powell lays out. He focuses on the US
efforts to crush the Iraqi resistance. It's almost funny
to read the words of the US Secretary of State describing
how Iraq will regain its sovereignty when Washington's
occupation forces decide that it should. It's all drearily
reminiscent of the way Washington granted the people of
Cuba "independence" through its 1902 constitution, the one
which included the Platt Amendment authorizing the US to
intervene militarily in Cuban independence at any time of
its choosing. It "chose" to do so three times in the next
few years. One wonders how a similar provision will be put
into the constitution Washington will approve for Iraq?

Those who haven't read Julie Pullman-Webb's wonderful essay
called September 11 Remembered - A Cautionary Tale for Iraq:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0309/S00093.htm

Juventud Rebelde features an interesting commentary on the
decision of Miami, Florida's Channel 22 to drop the comedy
show of Argentine performer Guillermo Francella. He had come
to Cuba and met with Fidel Castro (gasp!), so his television
show had to walk the plank in Miami. It's often been said,
by me and others, that the world we see in Miami, dominated
by a small wealthy minority ultra-rightist exiles whose dream
is to restore Cuba to the way it was in 1958, under Batista.
Francella has a comedy show in Argentina which is broadcast
here in Cuba. It's been broadcast here for years and he's
got such a following that since meeting Fidel we now see
him also performing from time to time on a Cuban comedy
show as a guest performer. I suppose it's this that was the
reason why the fanatics in Miami demanded his show be dumped.
Read the Juventud Rebelde commentary on Miami here:
http://www.jrebelde.cu/2004/enero-marzo/ene-02/opinion.html

What we see in Miami, and what was most pronounced when we
saw those lunatic mobs in front of the home of Elian Gonzalez'
uncle Lazaro, his sleazy daughter and her silent mother was
a perfect image of the Cuba they would create if they could.
Not surprisingly the rightwing made a big campaign after the
child was rescued claiming that their "democratic rights"
had been violated. They never explained, however, just what
"rights" kidnappers actually have.

There's a tangential link to Cuba in the new Italian scandal
involving the food sales firm Parmalat. I don't really know
the details of the scandal beyond that it seems to be another
Arthur Anderson or Enron or such. Those accounting firms are
supposed to guarantee that financial arrangements of their
clients are on the up-and-up, but it seems so often that the
accountants are helping the corporations to cook the books.

(Cuba and Italy have important links which have only been
upset a bit by the stupid attacks on Cuba by the Italian
Prime Minister Burlesconi, a fascist-minded politician if
there ever was one. Cuba's much-improved phone company is
a joint venture with Italian investors. There's a large
Cuba solidarity movement in Italy. Granma International
is put out in Italian as well as English, French and
German. As you'll recall last June that a million Cubans
marched against the Italian and Spanish embassies here in
Havana, so relations with Italy are important for Cuba.
I was here for those demonstrations and attended one of
them - at the Spanish embassy. You can read my report at
this url: http://www.walterlippmann.com/50years.html )

Cuba was listed as a country to which sales of powdered milk
were supposed to have occurred. Pedro Alvarez, the had of
Alimport, the island's food importing agency denied having
any contracts or debts to Italy. At least seven of the
executives of the Parmalat company have now been arrested.
I've got several news articles about this which will go out.
Some, from the Wall Street Journal, are very long, so they
will only to go CubaNews list. If you get these reports on
another list, you'll need to go to CubaNews to get them.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/messages
----------------------------------------------------

After wrapping up the old year with a long commentary and
a raft of news articles, I closed the year out with that
sweet commentary from SOMOS JOVENES on masturbation which
my neighbor Damian Donestevez translated exclusively for
CubaNews. I've long believed that there's a great deal of
wisdom to that old feminist saying that "the personal is
political" and "the political is personal". Looking at
some of the ways Cuba handles its more challenging issues
in personal and intimate life you get an idea of what kind
of society is being constructed here.

Today I'm going to share another two articles which were
translated specially for CubaNews by Damian Donestevez
from a recent issue of Juventud Rebelde. Every Sunday the
paper has an advice column called "Sexo Sentido" ("Sexual
Common Sense") and another "Pregunta Sin Pena" (roughly
"Ask Without Embarassment") The first of these deals with
domestic abuse, specifically the beating of women by their
male partners. The second is a response to a young man who
thinks he may be homosexual. I'm sure you'll find these of
interest.

Longer term we're going to find more and more items from
the Cuban press to bring to you in addition to the many
pressing items about the Cuban Five, Washington's attacks
on the island, and domestic developments as seen in both
the Cuban and the foreign media. Any of you who can help
translate, your assistance would be very much appreciated.
Perfection is hoped for, but competent and accurate ones
are what we need most of all. Thanks in advance.

There's a great deal more as well today, but I have to at
times remind myself that I'm a retired person and have to
relax once in awhile.

The article speaks of "Cuba-style military blockade."
Some people continue to discount the obvious political
differences within the Bush administration and between
parties and candidates, saying "they're all cut from
the same cloth". Whatever might divide them isn't
worth

DAILY TELEGRAPH (UK)
31/12/2003
 
HAWKS TELL BUSH HOW TO WIN WAR ON TERROR
By David Rennie in Washington

President George W Bush was sent a public manifesto
yesterday by Washington's hawks, demanding regime change in
Syria and Iran and a Cuba-style military blockade of North
Korea backed by planning for a pre-emptive strike on its
nuclear sites.

The manifesto, presented as a "manual for victory" in the
war on terror, also calls for Saudi Arabia and France to be
treated not as allies but as rivals and possibly enemies.

The manifesto is contained in a new book by Richard Perle,
a Pentagon adviser and "intellectual guru" of the hardline
neo-conservative movement, and David Frum, a former Bush
speechwriter. They give warning of a faltering of the "will
to win" in Washington.

In the battle for the president's ear, the manifesto
represents an attempt by hawks to break out of the
post-Iraq doldrums and strike back at what they see as a
campaign of hostile leaking by their foes in such centres
of caution as the State Department or in the military top
brass.

Their publication, An End to Evil: How to Win the War on
Terror, coincided with the latest broadside from the hawks'
enemy number one, Colin Powell, the secretary of state.

Though on leave recovering from a prostate cancer
operation, Mr Powell summoned reporters to his bedside to
hail "encouraging" signs of a "new attitude" in Iran and
call for the United States to keep open the prospect of
dialogue with the Teheran authorities.

Such talk is anathema to hawks like Mr Perle and Mr Frum
who urge Washington to shun the mullahs and work for their
overthrow in concert with Iranian dissidents.

It may be assumed that their instincts at least are shared
by hawks inside the government, whose twin power bases are
the Pentagon's civilian leadership and the office of the
vice-president, Dick Cheney.

Such officials prevailed over invading Afghanistan and
Iraq, but have been seen as on the back foot since the
autumn as their post-war visions of building a secular,
free-market Iraq were scaled back in favour of compromise
and a swift handover of power next June.

The book demands that any talks with North Korea require
the complete and immediate abandonment of its nuclear
programme.

As North Korea will probably refuse such terms, the book
urges a Cuba-style military blockade and overt preparations
for war, including the rapid pullback of US forces from the
inter-Korean border so that they move out of range of North
Korean artillery.

Such steps, with luck, will prompt China to oust its
nominal ally, Kim Jong-il, and install a saner regime in
North Korea, the authors write.

The authoritarian rule of Syria's leader, Bashar Assad,
should also be ended, encouraged by shutting oil supplies
from Iraq, seizing arms he buys from Iran, and raids into
Syria to hunt terrorists.

The authors urge Mr Bush to "tell the truth about Saudi
Arabia". Wealthy Saudis, some of them royal princes, fund
al-Qa'eda, they write.

The Saudi government backs "terror-tainted Islamic
organisations" as part of a larger campaign to "spread its
extremist version of Islam throughout the Muslim world and
into Europe and North America".

The book calls for tough action against France and its
dreams of offsetting US power. "We should force European
governments to choose between Paris and Washington," it
states. Britain's independence from Europe should be
preserved, perhaps with open access for British arms to
American defence markets.

January 1, 2004 7:26 p.m. EST
Russia To Forgive Mongolia's Soviet-Era Debt - FT
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

SINGAPORE -- Russia has agreed to forgive a substantial
part of the 11.4 billion convertible roubles in Soviet-era
debt owed to it by Mongolia, the Financial Times reports on
its web site.

The move marks the largest debt forgiveness by Russia of
loans provided by the former Soviet Union. Mongolia was
third behind Cuba and Syria in debt obligations to Russia.

A Mongolian government official said the country would pay
Russia less than $300 million, which will be partly
financed through the issue of new treasury bills. "This is
a gift to all Mongolians," the official said, according to
FT.

Standard & Poor's estimated the Mongolian debt to Russia as
being equivalent to $10 billion, or 10 times Mongolia's
annual gross domestic product.

The new Mongolian treasury bills are denominated in U.S.
dollars and mature on Dec. 31, 2004. They bear an annual
interest of 3%.

(Hard to know why they call this an
op-ed since it's really nothing more
than a press release and he supports
the editorial line of the paper.)
======================================

THE NEW YORK TIMES
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
What We Will Do in 2004
By COLIN L. POWELL

Published: January 1, 2004

WASHINGTON - As we Americans turn the last page of our
calendars, many of us are moved to review the achievements
of the year gone by and to make resolutions for the year
ahead. This can be a frustrating business if one dwells on
subjects like exercise and dieting, but the twin task of
stock-taking and resolution-making is a worthy discipline -
and not just for individuals.

We in the Bush administration have also taken stock and
made resolutions. We do so with confidence because
President Bush's vision is clear and right: America's
formidable power must continue to be deployed on behalf of
principles that are simultaneously American, but that are
also beyond and greater than ourselves.

We resolve, of course, to expand freedom, and we are
focused in particular on Afghanistan and Iraq. The Afghan
people now have a constitution, a rapidly advancing market
economy, and new hope as they look toward national
elections. The aspirations of a free and talented Iraqi
nation are also taking wing, now that Saddam Hussein's
murderous and dangerous regime is no more. We are working
to return sovereignty to the Iraqi people through a fair
and open process and to ensure that the country receives
the maximum feasible debt relief. As the Coalition
Provisional Authority closes its doors on June 30, in
accord with the Nov. 15 transition plan, we will open an
embassy in Baghdad.

While our efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq will continue in
2004, we are resolved as well to turn the president's goal
of a free and democratic Middle East into a reality. We
will expand the Middle East Partnership Initiative to
encourage political, economic and educational reform
throughout the region. We will also stand by the Iranian
people, and others living under oppressive regimes, as they
strive for freedom.

This struggle will not be confined to the Middle East. We
are working for the advent of a free Cuba, and toward
democratic reform in other countries whose people are
denied liberty. And we are resolved to support the young
democracies that have risen in Latin America, Europe, Asia
and Africa. The consolidation of freedom in many new but
often fragile democracies will shape the aspirations of
people everywhere, assuring that the 21st century will be a
century of liberty worldwide.

Our efforts will apply to individuals as well as nations.
In 2003 we freed thousands from oppression through
President Bush's program to combat human trafficking -
whether for prostitution or forced labor or to turn
children into soldiers. We have saved lives and redeemed
the enslaved, and we will do more in 2004. Also in 2004,
the president's plan for H.I.V. and AIDS relief will help
free millions worldwide from the devastation of this
horrible disease.

We resolve to promote prosperity, too. A new international
consensus is helping poorer countries develop themselves
through good governance, sound economic, trade and
environmental policies and wise investments in their
people. The centerpiece of our program for development, to
be started in 2004, is the Millennium Challenge Account -
an incentive system that makes assistance contingent on
political and economic reform.

We also made important strides in 2003 toward a more open
international trade and investment climate, signing free
trade pacts with Chile, Singapore and the countries of
Central America. In 2004 the president will lead the effort
to reinvigorate our global free trade strategy, and to
advance regional and bilateral free trade as opportunities
arise. His proposal to develop a Middle East free trade
agreement is high on the agenda.

We are resolved, as well, for peace. Freedom cannot
flourish and prosperity cannot advance without security,
and this we are determined to achieve. Americans are safer
as 2004 begins than they were a year ago. Afghanistan is no
longer a devil's playground for terrorists, nor is Iraq an
incubator for weapons of mass murder that could have fallen
into terrorists' hands

(From ABC, the Australian Broadcasting Company.
Cuba isn't mentioned in this report which gives
a general overview of the scandal as of today.)
===============================================

Arrests follow Parmalat collapse
Friday, 2 January , 2004 08:08:00 Reporter: Fran Kelly

DAVID HARDAKER: And still overseas, it's shaping as
Europe's Enron, and this morning the shockwaves from the
collapse of the Italian food giant, Parmalat, continue to
ripple though the world's financial community.

Two senior partners from the major accounting firm of Grant
Thornton International were arrested on New Year's Eve over
their role in auditing Parmalat's books over the last
decade. A number of financial and legal executives are
behind bars, and the collapse has meant a searching look at
Italy's regulatory system.

London Correspondent Fran Kelly reports.

FRAN KELLY: Yesterday, the Australian management of
Parmalat broke its silence, reassuring its 1,400 staff,
that Parmalat Australia, which owns dairy processor, Paul's
Limited, operates independently of the Italian parent
company, requiring no support for its day-to-day
operations.

And that's just as well, because back in the Italian
regional city of Parma, head office is distracted - the
number of Parmalat executives and former office holders
being dragged off to jail growing steadily, as the scale of
this financial scandal becomes clearer.

First, it was the founder of Parmalat, Calisto Tanzi, held
in police custody for six days now. Under intensive
interrogation he's revealed that he funnelled 500 million
Euros from the company, he says to prop up another family
enterprise.

On New Year's Eve, the police made seven more arrests,
including the two senior partners of the Italian branch of
accounting firm, Grant Thornton, which had audited
Parmalat's books from 1990 to 1999. As with the Enron
collapse in the United States, the Parmalat fraud is now
starting to reverberate through other financial
institutions and corporations.

UMBERTO MOSETTI: In Enron a lot of opaque, non-transparent
financial schemes, as well as a lot of related party
transactions were to blame for Enron's troubles, and the
same seems to be true for Parmalat.

FRAN KELLY: Umberto Mosetti runs the Italian operations of
Deminor International in Milan, a ratings agency catering
mainly for small private investors. He blames those charged
with implementing Italy's financial regulations, primarily
the auditors, for allowing the Parmalat fraud to occur.

UMBERTO MOSETTI: They didn't roll up the sleeves and do the
work properly. Auditors are supposed to be the custodians,
to be the gatekeepers of the completeness of corporate
information. If an auditor relies on documents that turn
out to be cooked up, then what's the purpose of having
auditors in the first place?

FRAN KELLY: The judge sees it even more harshly than that
for the auditors, the arrest warrant accusing them of
suggesting fictitious operations to achieve the fraudulent
aims of the group.

In other words, he accuses the auditors of coming up with
the crooked schemes that allowed Parmalat to woo investors
while claiming major cash assets in overseas accounts that
simply didn't exist.

But some regard this latest corporate collapse, involving
amounts equal to almost one per cent of Italy's GDP, as
having major implications beyond a couple of accounting
firms and legal offices.

Wolfgang Munchau, Deputy Editor with the Financial Times,
says the Parmalat crisis should focus world attention on
Italy's corporate regulatory systems under the Berlusconi
Government.

WOLFGANG MUNCHAU: Italy is essentially a fairly poorly
regulated economy. There's a lot of confusion, who is in
charge, who is allowed to do what. The rules have been
loosened, the prison sentence for accounting fraud has been
reduced under the Berlusconi Government. There is a lot of
uncertainty, a lot of questions to be asked.

DAVID HARDAKER: Wolfgang Munchau, from the Financial Times,
ending that report from our London Correspondent Fran
Kelly.

And Grant Thornton International were unavailable for
comment, but the parent company is currently holding its
own investigation into the operations of its Italian
subsidiary.

Cuba says Parmalat debt claim false
Reuters, 12.29.03, 6:31 PM ET
By Marc Frank

HAVANA, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Cuba's only bulk food importer,
Alimport, said on Monday Italian food conglomerate
Parmalat's <PRFI.MI> claim the Communist-run nation owes it
tens of millions of dollars for powdered milk was false.

"We do not have any debts outstanding with Parmalat," said
Pedro Alvarez, president of state-run Alimport.

Parmalat, until two weeks ago one of Italy's most important
companies, has been rocked by scandal since the discovery
of a multi-billion-euro hole in its accounts.

Italian prosecutors have accused Parmalat founder Calisto
Tanzi of misappropriating 800 million euros ($1 billion)
from the company over the past decade, an order by
investigating magistrates showed.

They also accused Tanzi of working with six current or
former Parmalat executives and two outside auditors to
commit several offenses -- including false accounting and
fraud -- to hide the company's losses.

One case under investigation involves millions of dollars
worth of powdered milk that Parmalat subsidiary Bonlat
claims to have sold Cuba through Singapore-based Camfield
Pte. Ltd.

"We never signed any contract with a Singapore affiliate of
Parmalat," Alvarez said, adding his company recently began
importing around $700,000 a month worth of food through one
of Parmalat's Chilean operations, but was on time with
payments.

Reuters on Monday obtained part of transcript of an
interrogation by Milan prosecutors of a Parmalat accountant
-- Gianfranco Bocchi, in which he admitted the milk sales
to Cuba were phony.

"We used to buy fictitiously from Camfield in Singapore
(after a while I understood it was connected to Parmalat)
... to then sell fictitiously to the Cuban company," Bocchi
told the prosecutors.

Copyright 2003, Reuters News Service

(A peek at the kind of capitalist "freedom"
Washington wants to impose on innocent Cuba.)
============================================

WALL STREET JOURNAL
December 31, 2003 1:44 a.m. EST
PAGE ONE
THE FALL OF PARMALAT
Parmalat Inquiry
Finds Basic Ruses
At Heart of Scandal

Investigators Narrow Probe
To Handful of Executives;
Cut-and-Paste Forgery
Cuba's Pumped Up Milk Order

In late November, Fausto Tonna, finance director of Parmalat SpA, huddled in
an office at the dairy giant's headquarters in northern Italy with one of
his lieutenants and Parmalat's outside lawyer. Parmalat was on the brink of
turning from Italian corporate flagship into Europe's largest corporate
scandal. Mr. Tonna decided it was time for some housekeeping.

By Alessandra Galloni in Milan, David Reilly in London and Carrick
Mollenkamp in Atlanta


He told the lieutenant, Gianfranco Bocchi, to take documents and a computer
disc "to his home to destroy them there," according to two accounts of Mr.
Tonna's interrogation by prosecutors last week. The outside counsel, Gian
Paolo Zini, approved, Mr. Tonna said, adding that Mr. Bocchi duly carried
out his orders. Mr. Tonna said he was acting on behalf of his boss, Parmalat
founder Calisto Tanzi, and characterized the purge as a routine clean-up of
old records, according to one person familiar with the matter.

The meeting marked one of the late efforts by Parmalat executives to cover
their tracks after more than a decade of deceiving investors, regulators,
auditors, bankers and even many of the company's other managers,
investigators say. And it was a typically homespun, off-the-cuff maneuver
that investigators say was a hallmark of the alleged fraud that has scorched
Italy and its reputation as a European corporate center. Mr. Tonna's lawyer
declined to comment, as did Mr. Zini, the Parmalat outside counsel. Mr.
Bocchi couldn't be reached.

The Parmalat affair, investigators say, was astonishing in its simplicity
and amateurishness. Rather than the sophisticated financing vehicles and
partnerships that Enron Corp. used, pieces of it seemed often little better
than slapdash.

Though it did involve some hard-to-decipher financial transfers, the
Parmalat scandal was apparently sustained through very basic techniques.
Over the course of years, investigators say, documents were poorly forged on
a scanner, then run through a fax machine to make them look authentic.
Signatures, they add, were lifted from old letters and copied onto new ones,
and official stamps tampered with. Then four times a year, when quarterly
results were due, they say financial accounts and transactions were
inflated.

An example: A single Parmalat unit claimed to have sold enough milk to Cuba
to provide every Cuban with about 55 gallons of milk a year.

At the heart of much of the tinkering was a Cayman Islands unit of Parmalat
called Bonlat Financing Corp. The structure started to unravel about two
weeks ago when Parmalat said Bank of America Corp. had informed it that an
account purportedly held by Bonlat and containing about $4.8 billion (ˆ3.84
billion) didn't exist. Mr. Bocchi has acknowledged forging the document that
confirmed the bank account existed, according to a person present at Mr.
Bocchi's interrogation.

Mr. Bocchi also said Mr. Tanzi ordered him the day after the Bank of America
revelations to destroy some more documents, something he did only in part,
the person present at Mr. Bocchi's interrogation added.

Since that revelation, Parmalat has been collapsing at lightning speed. More
than $8.5 billion is unaccounted for. The company was declared insolvent on
Saturday.

Mr. Tanzi, who stepped down as chairman earlier this month, is in jail. His
request to be transferred to house arrest was denied Tuesday. (See related
article1.)

Mr. Tanzi has admitted, investigators say, to knowledge of the general
outlines of Parmalat's maneuvers. Italian authorities suspect he siphoned
off at least $1 billion, largely to fund other family ventures. His family
company, La Coloniale SpA, owns 51% of Parmalat.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, meanwhile, has sued Parmalat
alleging that Mr. Tanzi and his son, Stefano, sold about $1.5 billion in
debt securities while engaged in fraud. Neither man nor their lawyers could
be reached for comment Tuesday. Trading in Parmalat's shares is suspended,
and the stock, once valued at a total of $4 billion, is close to worthless.
Debt investors have been left with a total of about $8.5 billion in bonds of
Parmalat and its many units.


Much remains to be discovered, but investigators say the alleged fraud
appears to have been contained to just a few people in the orbit of Mr.
Tanzi -- a soft-spoken but powerful figure who was a major benefactor in the
village of Collecchio and the nearby city of Parma.

Milan prosecutors have a list of about 20 subjects for their investigation.
But prosecutors in Parma appear to have narrowed that to five or six who
they believe were most involved. They include Messrs. Tanzi, Tonna, Bocchi
and Zini, people familiar with the matter say.

Mr. Tanzi, Italian authorities believe, brooked no breaking of the ranks. In
2002, Mr. Tonna told Mr. Tanzi he didn't like what was going on and wanted
to resign, according to two accounts of Mr. Tonna's testimony. The reply:
No, and Mr. Tanzi "couldn't care less" about my concerns, Mr. Tonna
recalled, according to the accounts.

"This can only be understood if you realize that this is a one-boss company
from the provinces, where the boss is surrounded by an isolated group of
people who owe everything to him and not to the markets, and who because of
this isolation can hide everything," says Franco Bernabe, vice president of
Rothschild Europe and a former CEO of Italian giants Eni SpA and Telecom
Italia SpA.

Recent accounts of Mr. Tanzi's testimony to prosecutors suggest he is laying
much of the blame on executives who worked for him. Several such executives
say they were taking orders from above, prosecutors say.

Mr. Tanzi founded Parmalat in 1961. It grew to include a global business
that includes long-life milk, Archway cookies and Santal juices. It employs
36,000 people and has more than 130 units.

The alleged fraud served a simple, two-fold purpose, investigators say.
First, to hide losses being racked up at Parmalat units in Latin America by
inflating the company's purported assets; second, to funnel money to Tanzi
family businesses.

Among the beneficiaries: Holding Italia Tourismo, a travel company owned by
the Tanzi family now called Parmatour. As recently as 1999, it received $188
million from Parmalat, Mr. Tonna told prosecutors, says one person familiar
with the testimony. Mr. Tanzi himself signed most of the documents
authorizing transfers of funds to his family businesses, according to Mr.
Tonna's account.

According to this person, Mr. Tonna said it all began as early as 1990, and
over the next eight years, 500 billion lira, or $325 million at current
exchange rates, was siphoned to Tanzi interests. The vehicles involved were
two companies in Curacao in the Dutch Antilles: Curcastle Corp. and Zilpa
Corp.

One common device was making it appear Parmalat was owed money -- from
fictitious credits at finance units or through supposed debts from
Tanzi-family companies to which Parmalat had sent money. By 1998, Curcastle
and Zilpa had $1.9 billion in these fictitious credits, Mr. Tonna is said to
have told prosecutors. The credits then appeared to be paid off by the Tanzi
family and its companies via payments from fake bank accounts, investigators
say.

In time, Parmalat faced a problem. It had long been audited by Grant
Thornton, but Italian law required a change of auditors after nine years, in
1999. Deloitte & Touche took over.

Someone at Grant Thornton had an idea, Mr. Tonna said, according to the
person familiar with his testimony: Why not create yet another unit to
replace Curcastle and Zilpa and have Grant Thornton audit that? Breaking out
pieces of the audit to a subcontractor is perfectly legal in Italy. In 1998,
Parmalat created Bonlat, made Grant Thornton its auditor, and named Mr.
Tonna a director.

Mr. Tonna suspected Grant Thornton would pay little heed to whatever the
company concocted. So, "I was also examining with Bocchi the possibility of
constructing false documents," Mr. Tonna told prosecutors, according to the
person familiar with his account. "We were sure that Grant Thornton would
not have verified these documents."

Grant Thornton International in London has begun an inquiry into whether its
Italian affiliate followed proper procedures. It says the affiliate "has
consistently denied any participation in any fraud related to the Parmalat
companies." It also says the affiliate hasn't been told it is under
investigation.

Beginning in 1999, Parmalat began putting into Bonlat many of the allegedly
fictitious transactions and credits that sustained it. It also assigned more
and more assets to Grant Thornton to audit. Between 1999 and 2002, Grant
Thorton's share of the auditing process rose to 49% from 22%, even though it
audited just 17 of Parmalat's 137 units, according to Parmalat annual
reports.

Deloitte signed off on the accounts of Parmalat, including the pieces
audited by Grant Thornton, in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002. Deloitte has
declined to comment except to say it behaved properly.

Mr. Tonna told prosecutors that by 2002, Mr. Tanzi had received a total of
$625 million, according to the person familiar with his testimony.

While investigators are still piecing together the alleged scheme, Grant
Thornton's 2002 audit of Bonlat sheds light on one element: the creation of
what prosecutors believe are fake documents related to confirming the
existence of business relationships.

Requests seeking confirmation, although intended for Grant Thornton to mail,
never reached their intended destinations, prosecutors say. They add that a
possible explanation is that Grant Thornton auditors were working at
Parmalat's offices and relied on the company to mail them. Grant Thornton in
succeeding weeks received purported responses by fax -- confirming the
information Parmalat had provided to the firm earlier. In one case, Mr.
Bocchi acknowledged a role in such a ruse, according to a person present at
his interrogation.

On Dec. 20, 2002, Bonlat provided Grant Thornton with a letter giving it
permission to verify what appeared to be a $4.8 billion account with Bank of
America. Prosecutors now believe the auditing firm, after putting the letter
in an envelope, left it for employees in Parmalat's headquarters in
Collecchio to mail. It was supposed to be sent to 100 West 33rd Street in
New York, the address of a Bank of America office.

On March 6, Grant Thornton got a faxed reply seemingly from the bank
confirming Bonlat's account statement. During his interview by Milan
prosecutors, Mr. Bocchi confirmed he had cut out Bank of America's logo,
scanned it in a computer, printed it out and passed it through the fax
machine several times, according to the person who was present at the
interview.

Why Bank of America? "It was completely random," Mr. Tonna told prosecutors,
says the person familiar with Mr. Tonna's testimony.

The letter bore the signature of a Bank of America employee, Agnes Belgrave.
She works as a data processor, according to a co-worker, and lives in
Brooklyn, N.Y. The signature was taken from old documents bearing her name,
one person familiar with the matter said.

Ms. Belgrave says she knows nothing about Parmalat or how her name ended up
on the fax. "I can't tell you because I don't know how," she said in a
telephone interview. Italian prosecutors believe she has played no role in
the Parmalat affair.

As Grant Thornton's audit of Bonlat progressed last winter, investigators
say, more forgeries were concocted. On Jan. 31, letters were purportedly
sent to Empresa Cubana Importadora de Alimentos, a Havana food importer, and
to Camfield Pte Limited, a Singapore company. The letters sought to confirm
the purchase by Empresa Cubana, a state-owned import company, of $620
million of powdered milk via Camfield. The purchase was listed as a credit
on Bonlat's balance sheet, say people familiar with the case.

Bonlat claimed the sale was for 300,000 tons, said a former executive, which
would produce the equivalent of 2.5 billion quarts. Pedro Alvarez, president
of Alimport, as the Cuban company is known, denied the transaction, which
prosecutors say was fake. "That is totally false, untrue and calumnious," he
said. If the figures were true, "we would be swimming in milk."

He added that Alimport had never sent a letter to Grant Thornton confirming
a $620 million debt. Mr. Alvarez said Alimport's only current dealings are
with Parmalat Chile for the importation of 600 to 700 tons of powdered milk
a month. He said the contract, valued at $700,000 to $800,000 a month,
continues.

Mr. Tonna acknowledged the powdered-milk sale claimed by Bonlat was false,
those familiar with his testimony say.

In another instance, Grant Thornton purportedly mailed a letter to Boston
Holding Corp. of Delaware seeking to confirm an account statement for
Bonlat. The letter bore two different U.S. states, Delaware and California.
Grant Thornton got a fax reply back from Boston Holding on March 31
confirming the information. That was a fake, too, prosecutors say.

Investigators suspect there were further forgeries connected to a purported
$620 million investment Parmalat made in late 2002, through Bonlat, into a
Cayman Islands investment fund called Epicurum. Parmalat's inability to
retrieve that money this month helped spark its unraveling. According to a
person familiar with Mr. Tonna's testimony, he said the idea came to him
partly as a possible repository for some of Bonlat's fictitious credits.

"I had the idea of this fund and I spoke to Zini about it," he told
investigators, referring to Parmalat's outside lawyer. "The idea was to
clean up Bonlat." Mr. Tonna is said to have told investigators that Mr. Zini
and Mr. Tanzi approved it, and Epicurum was then established.

Investigators say what are obviously fake stamps of approval purporting to
be from a Cayman Islands regulator were slapped on some of the documents.

The first hint that something might be amiss at the company came in late
August, when Parmalat wasn't able to provide Grant Thornton with a value on
the Epicurum investment. That prompted Deloitte to "qualify" Parmalat's
third-quarter results. Italian markets regulator Consob started to sniff
around, sending an inquiry to the company Oct. 31.

Mr. Tanzi and his son Stefano tried one more way to keep their empire from
coming apart: a sale. On Dec. 9, they met with officials of a New York
private-equity firm, Blackstone Group, to discuss a possible leveraged
buyout, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Parmalat executives admitted to Blackstone that the Italian company lacked
the cash it had reported in financial statements and that its debt was
actually $12.5 billion, much higher than the balance sheet showed, according
to people familiar with the matter and with court documents. A Blackstone
spokesman declined to comment.

People familiar with the matter and court records say Blackstone then
demanded Parmalat publicly disclose those discrepancies. The Tanzis
declined.

--Yaroslav Trofimov, Jose de Cordoba, Michael Schroeder and Robin Sidel
contributed to this article

(Cuba's not mentioned here, either,
but we get a good idea of the kind
of regime they have which Cuba and
for which Cuba has so much contempt.)
====================================

Rome dispatch
------------------------------------------------
Jokes but no punchline

Italy's EU presidency will be remembered for Silvio
Berlusconi's gaffes and the failure to draw up a
constitution, writes Sophie Arie

Thursday January 1, 2004

On July 1, Italy took the helm of the European Union amid
high hopes that it could oversee the signing of a European
constitution. That was meant to put Rome at the heart of
Europe's history again, almost 50 years after the Treaty of
Rome established the existence of a European Community. It
didn't quite work out that way.

Six months and several memorable gaffes down the line, the
draft constitution is in tatters and so, many feel, is
Italy's reputation. At last month's summit in Brussels 25
members and future members failed to agree on a
constitution in what Chris Patten, the European
commissioner in charge of external affairs, described
optimistically as "a fiasco but not a disaster".

But one man came out still smiling: Silvio Berlusconi,
Italy's prime minister, who yesterday completed his
six-month stint as Europe's president. According to Mr
Berlusconi, Italy's presidency was a "triumph". Its
successes were just overshadowed by the much talked-about
constitutional logjam.

Many will remember Mr Berlusconi's presidency, at a crucial
and delicate time for the EU, above all as a series of
unfortunate jokes.

The Italian presidency was characterised by Mr Berlusconi's
disregard for political correctness. On his second day in
the job, he compared a German MEP to a concentration camp
guard. Months later he declared that Italy's fascist
dictator Benito Mussolini, who sent thousands of Italian
Jews to their deaths during the second world war, "never
killed anyone". And last month, as European Union
negotiations over a constitution were collapsing, the
grinning president proposed that leaders should talk about
other things, such as "women and football".

"I have behaviour ... that is not politically correct ...
and I have no intention of changing," Mr Berlusconi
explained amid the public outcry. He insisted he was just
saying what other people thought.

The billionaire prime minister's provocative comments -
always accompanied by a flashing smile - have created a
perception that he is not a serious politician. Many
Italians think his performance has severely dented the
country's international reputation and there will be relief
today as the presidency passes to the Irish and Italy fades
out of the European limelight.

The past six months have served to acquaint the rest of the
world with the day-to-day reality of Italian politics, and
the European media have recorded their dismay at the
Berlusconi government's habit of passing laws that work in
the prime minister's personal favour. Only last week the
cabinet passed an emergency decree to save one of the prime
minister's private TV channels after a court ruled that it
should transfer to satellite and thereby lose millions in
advertising revenue.

Editorials this week in the Financial Times, Le Monde and
the Economist excoriated the media tycoon turned
politician.

Sergio Romano, writing in Corriere della Sera newspaper,
acknowledged the serious allegations against Mr Berlusconi
but said that the foreign press had made unfair accusations
against the prime minister. Mr Berlusconi should not be
blamed for the collapse of European constitution talks or
the multibillion-euro hole in the accounts of the Italian
milk giant Parmalat, Romano argued.

This stance could backfire, he added. "If you want to do Mr
Berlusconi a favour, carry on down this path. You will
guarantee him the support of what little nationalism there
is left in our country."

Email

sophie.arie@...

Life-sized statue of musician Compay Segundo unveiled in
Cuba

Associated Press

January 2, 2004, 12:09 PM EST

HAVANA - With his trademark hat on his head, his guitar
case at his side and a cigar in his slender fingers, a new
life-sized statue of late Cuban musician Compay Segundo was
unveiled in the patio of major hotel.

"We welcome Compay Segundo," Cuban musicologist Lino
Betancourt said Tuesday night at the presentation of the
statue at the historic Hotel Nacional. "We thank him for
his smile, we thank him for his example, we thank him for
his 'Chan Chan,'" Betancourt added, referring to one of the
musician's most popular songs.

Born Maximo Francisco Repilado Munoz in eastern Cuba, the
man later nicknamed Compay Segundo was 95 when he died July
13 of kidney failure.

Compay Segundo had held numerous performances in recent
years at the Hotel Nacional, a towering landmark on a hill
overlooking Havana's famous Malecon coastal highway.

Diplomats, Cuban officials, relatives and fellow musicians
were among about 100 people who gathered for the
presentation honoring the guitarist and singer who
skyrocketed to international fame with his performance 1997
Grammy-winning record "The Buena Vista Social Club."

The statue was created by sculptor Alberto Lescay, a
longtime friend of the musician.

Copyright C 2003, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

FROM THE CUBANOW WEBSITE
===================================

A NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR
An exclusive interview with Danny Glover
By Julian Lombardi

Cubanow.- American actor Danny Glover suggested more US
intellectuals "come here and see Cuba first hand,"
something -he said- which would contribute to
"understanding and cultivating a relationship of caring and
of exchange of knowledge."

Glover was the first American celebrity to be interviewed
by Cubanow, when this digital magazine of Cuban arts and
culture was still in the planning stages. Now, after six
months of on-line journalism, he is back in Havana and he
talked to us.

Born in 1947 and having made more than 40 films, Glover
defines himself more as a "citizen artist" than just an
artist, because of his commitment to several causes,
especially that of peace.

With respect to Cubanow, he said: "I think this is a
wonderful and exciting idea, to have some sort of link
between Cuban and American intellectuals, writers,
professionals, and artists. I couldn't imagine anything
more powerful in terms of understanding and cultivating a
relationship of caring and of exchange of knowledge.
Certainly a magazine affords a certain level of contact,
but to come here and begin to talk and touch and smell and
sniff, which artists and writers do so well, would be
phenomenal."

"I would welcome the idea to go beyond the scope of a
magazine," he said, "inviting as many American
intellectuals and artists as possible to come here and see
Cuba first hand."

He expressed his willingness to help the process along: "I
think these projects need to be encouraged, and to be
developed further. and it would go a long way in terms of
counteracting the kind of false and negative ideas that are
often perpetrated from other quarters."

During his visit to Cuba, Glover met with more than a
hundred actors, filmmakers, students, and critics
interested in his work projects.

After making many commercial films, he is now working to
produce his own projects on subjects which really interest
him, like the history of the Haitian Revolution, Apartheid,
homelessness, and "common people who become extraordinary."

Glover said that for the last 20 years he has been thinking
about doing a film in Cuba, but the project -due to several
obstacles- has just never materialized, although he said he
hasn't given up hope.

Asked about the film on Vietnam veterans (The Woodcutter)
he finished a week ago, he explained that the subject has
permanent importance, because that war left deep scars on
thousands of Americans and millions of Vietnamese. "It will
take a long time to heal," he added.

Glover, who also visited Santiago de Cuba over the weekend,
said the role of an artist in these times of "global
collapse," is to "enlighten, engage, move, elevate the
values of the Human Race", and called for the recognition
of cultural diversity throughout the world.

He said he was sometimes sincerely surprised by his own
popularity around the world and mentioned a conversation
that he had with another great showman, Sammy Davis Jr.,
who told Glover that audiences identified with him because
he looked so much like "the guy next door."

With time, Glover recognized that he could be most
anybody's next door neighbor, be it in an American
community, in Haiti, Africa, Brazil or Cuba.

Dear Walter and Nelson,
I can date back Casino dancing in Miami to1965.  That is the year that I
moved to Miami from New York to attend first Miami Dade Junior College
and later University of Miami.  Two friends from Hialeah taught me the
steps.  I participated briefly in Añorada Cuba and one of the numbers
was Casino.  I was and continue to be a bad dancer but this information
is just for history sake.  In Santa Clara, my birthplace, I was learning
to dance rock and roll and the twist in 1959-1960 and then we left!
Saludos, Feliz Año Nuevo, y Feliz 45 Aniversario.

Julio


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Cuban Daily News Digest  -  " A compilation of
news articles about Cuba - distributed since 1993
in an effort to promote investment opportunities
in the Republic of Cuba "

NOTE: This article appeared on January 2, 1959 in the The New York Times:
Batista and Regime Flee Cuba; Castro Moving to
Take Power; Mobs Riot and Loot in Havana
Rebels Seize Santiago and Santa Clara-- March on Capital
Castro Superior in Arms, Batista Declares in Exile
U.S. Aides Wary On Cuba's Future:
Rebel-Conservative Conflict Envisaged -- Castro
Men Take Over Embassy
Casinos Wrecked: Throngs Sack Hotels, Shops and a Paper During Vandalism

Havana, Friday, Jan. 2 - Fulgencio Batista
resigned as President of rebellion-torn Cuba
yesterday and fled to exile in the Dominican
Republic. The rebel forces of Fidel Castro moved
swiftly to seize power throughout the island. Dr.
Manuel Urrutia, Senor Castro's own choice,
appeared likely early this morning to become the
provisional President. Col. Ramon Barquin, who
had been imprisoned for conspiring against the
Batista Government, was brought here by military
plane from the Isle Pines penitentiary and named
chief of the joint staffs. Colonel Barquin
immediately sent out a call to Senor Castro to
come to the capital with Dr. Urrutia and set up a
new Government. The rebel leader and his forces
had entered Santiago de Cuba late yesterday and
had taken over the Moncado army post without
firing a shot. About 5,000 soldiers there
surrendered.

Key Cities Captured
Truckloads of soldiers moved into Havana last
night to maintain order in conjunction with
militia of Senor Castro's 26th of July Movement,
who were also patrolling the streets armed with
machine guns and rifles. The rebel forces forged
ahead throughout the island. While some
insurgents spread out from Santa Clara, capital
of Las Villas Province, which they had seized
Wednesday, other groups announced the capture of
Camaguey. General Batista led an exodus from Cuba
that has reached a total of perhaps 400 persons
fleeing by ship and plane to the United States
and the Dominican Republic. They included key
political and military leaders and their families.

Piedra Is Rejected
Calling his military chiefs together early
yesterday at Camp Columbia, army headquarters,
General Batista, strong man of Cuban politics for
most of the period since 1933, declared he was
resigning "to prevent further bloodshed." He left
behind a junta headed by Gen. Eulogio Cantillo,
recently the commander in Oriente province, the
center of the Castro revolt. The junta
immediately designated Dr. Carlos Piedra, the
oldest judge of the Supreme Court, as provisional
President in accordance with the Constitution of
1940. General Cantillo took over as chief of
staff of the army. Dr. Gustavo Pelayo was
designated Premier.
But Senor Castro declared that his insurgents
would remain on a "war footing" and refused to
accept the designation of Justice Piedra as
provisional President. The Supreme Court refused
to administer the oath of office to the Justice.
The rebel leader called a general strike for
today in protest against the Piedra regime. He
demanded that Dr. Urrutia, former judge of the
Urgency Court of Santiago de Cuba, be installed
as the provisional President, as he had proposed
a year ago. The Cane Planters Association of
Cuba, speaking for the island's pivotal sugar
industry, last night issued a statement
supporting Senor Castro and his movement. General
Cantillo, as army chief, issued a cease-fire
order to troops throughout the island. Political
prisoners were being freed in Havana and the
interior. Yesterday afternoon several hundred in
Principe Fortress in Havana were released.

Restaurants Barricaded
Since it was New Year's Day, commerce and
industry were halted. Restaurants, cafes and
grocery stores closed their doors as rioting
began. Mobs broke windows and looted some stores.
The police fired on the mobs and a number of
persons have been killed and wounded. A mob set
fire to the plant of El Tiempo, a newspaper owned
by Senator Rolando Masferrer. Senator Masferrer,
an intimate friend of General Batista, had a
private army of some 2,000 operating in Oriente
Province. They were accused by the inhabitants of
many killings and tortures. The office of Dr.
Rafael Guas Inclan, elected Mayor of Havana in
November, was burned. As the news of the fall of
the Government spread early yesterday, the public
poured into the streets. The black and red flag
of the 26th of July Movement, headed by Senor
Castro, appeared on automobiles and buildings.
Cars raced through the streets with horns blowing.

Mob Destroys Gambling Casino
Firing broke out near the docks, but details were
not immediately available. A mob destroyed the
new gambling casino in the Plaza Hotel. Amleto
Battisti, owner of the Sevilla Biltmore Hotel and
its casino and a Representative in Congress, took
refuge in the Uruguayan Embassy. Armed young
rebels seized the radio stations. Broadcasts
called on the people to remain calm and orderly.
Crowds also attacked the Banco de la Construccion
in the Central Plaza. Latin-American embassies
were crowded with officials who had taken
political asylum. Hundreds of others were hiding
in the city. In the afternoon the National
Association of Newspapermen declared a strike
until the situation was clarified. But several
Havana newspapers had published extra editions.

Cruise Ships Leave Port
United States Ambassador Earl E. T. Smith warned
American citizens to take "appropriate
precautions." Two big cruise ships with many
American tourists aboard, in Havana harbor for
the New Year's holiday, left yesterday. Many
tourists were stranded here by the swift fall of
the Government. Plane service was curtailed for a
time and ships arriving at Havana were unable to
dock owing to the strike. The United States
Embassy said it was trying to arrange
transportation for a large number of tourists and
some students who had asked its assistance.
Later, it was announced that it was arranging for
a ship to come from Key West today to pick up
stranded citizens.

City Almost Deserted
Restaurants and other establishments that closed
during the rioting did not open because personnel
heeded the strike call. However, most hotels
supplied their guests with meals. The resistance
movement told the public that the strike would
not include telephones, broadcasting and power
services. At night Havana was almost a deserted
city, the inhabitants remaining in their homes.
Only a few automobiles moved on the streets. The
mobs had disappeared. In the luxurious Miramar
residential section, a few of the homes of high
officials were looted, including that of the
chief of the national police, Pilar Garcia, who
fled in the morning.

No Patrolmen Seen on Street
No policemen on foot were seen patroling the
streets of Havana. Some patrol cars drove about.
The lack of display of force was in startling
contrast with the number of armed forces that
patrolled the city and guarded strategic points
heretofore. Later last night, troops and
militiamen took over the task of guarding the
city. Eusebio Mujal, secretary general of the
Confederation of Cuban Workers, sought asylum in
the Argentine Embassy. Senor Mujal and his labor
leaders strongly supported the Batista regime.

The Dallas Morning News - HAVANA - Ever since
Fidel Castro took power, each new year in Cuba
has been christened with a name. The first year,
1959, was a no-brainer: Year of Liberation. Many
other not-so-catchy tags followed, from Agrarian
Reform to Productivity. And each year the
official name is splashed all over billboards and
banners, newspapers and government stationery.
Castro loyalists who tune in to the propaganda
machine regularly can recite many of the names by
heart. Others are oblivious to official decrees,
and some Cubans howl in laughter when asked to
suggest a name for 2004.  "How about we call it,
'Year of I'm Getting Out of Here and Moving to
Miami?' " joked Ángel, a 24-year-old cigar vendor
who declined to provide his last name.  Or it
could be called "Year of When They Finally Gave
Me A Car," said Andy Parada, who carts tourists
around in his 1953 horse carriage. Others take
the year-naming tradition seriously. Daymara
Ameida, 19, a student, said she favors
Achievements and Ideals of the Revolution. "With
our ideals and with the support of Fidel," she
said, "we will create a better Cuba." Ramon
Rodríguez, 32, a computer specialist, prefers
Year of the Fight Against Terrorism. That's a
name government loyalists like. They've
complained that the United States hasn't done
enough to stop Miami paramilitary groups from
attacking the island.
Fans of Mr. Castro stick to revolutionary themes.
In the 1960s, their picks were quick and
efficient, - Agrarian Reform, for 1960;
Planification in 1962; Organization for 1963;
Economy in 1964; and Agriculture, 1965. Later
names reflected efforts to spread the revolution.
They included Solidarity, 1966; Heroic Vietnam,
1967; and Heroic Guerrilla, 1968, referring to
the legendary rebel Ché Guevara. In 1970,
officials sweetened things up with Year of Ten
Million. They wanted a massive 10 million-ton
sugar harvest that year. Workers didn't make it,
but the message got through. In the 1970s and
'80s, most years were named for key events in the
revolution. Government officials seemed to lose
their creativity from 1988 to 1994, naming each
year for the 1959 victory.
Since the mid-1990s, when the Cuban economy
nearly collapsed after the fall of the former
Soviet Union, it's as if the government has tried
to compensate by giving each year a longer, more
nostalgic label. To wit: Centennial of the Fall
in Combat of José Marti, 1995, honoring the death
of a national hero; 40th Anniversary of the
Decisive Battles of the Revolution, 1998; and
Glorious Anniversaries of Marti and Moncada,
2003. That last year was a toughie, because the
government had to remember both Marti and
Moncada, the rebels' failed 1953 attack that
marked the start of the revolution.  For 2004,
Cuban officials settled on a safe, proven
formula:  Year of the 45th Anniversary of the
Revolution.

HAVANA - Cuba's elderly will account for 18% of
the total of less than 12 million by 2010, said a
study from the Demographic Studies Center at the
University of Havana, exceeding children for the
first time in history. The present level of
elderly is 14%, surpassed, in Latin America, only
by Uruguay with 16%. The study, by Dr. Otilia Z.
Barros, is called "Development and Demographic
Prospects in Cuba. Toward Sustainable Growth" and
was published this year. The study points to a
slowing down of population growth after rapid
growth in the second half of the 20th Century. By
2015, the study predicts, population could
actually start decreasing. Since 1978, Cubans
have not been producing one daughter for every
woman. Dr. Barros attributes the trends to
"first, a decrease in the birth rate, from 18
births per 1000 in 1988, to 13.6 per 1000 in
1998; an increase in life expectancy, and the
effect of migrations, in which mostly the younger
people leave.

The New York Times - Benny Moré y Su Banda
Gigante: Grabaciónes Completas, 1953-1960'
American popular music in the 1950's had Frank
Sinatra's duality - a late-night morbid
depression record followed by a bright swinging
one. At around the same time, Benny Moré, El
Barbáro del Ritmo, the most popular singer in
Cuba, was in the practice of releasing two-sided
78-r.p.m. singles with a dance number on one side
(a son montuno or a guaracha) and a bolero on the
other. After he left Pérez Prado's orchestra in
1952 to return to Havana, his home, and until he
died of cirrhosis in 1963, Moré made his own
records for RCA Victor and established himself as
the greatest male singer in Cuba.  Part of Moré's
champion status was that he excelled at both
romantic and rhythmic songs, could improvise
handily in the sonero tradition, and performed
with legendary tenacity. But 50 years later,
presented with the remarkable box set "Benny Moré
y Su Banda Gigante: Grabaciónes Completas,
1953-1960," we can contextualize some of the
other reasons for his appeal.
For a branch of popular music that has such broad
and deep importance - not just in the world of
Latin music, but the world in general - Cuban
music is still emerging as an archived and
marketed entity. Not having Moré's complete works
available on one well-turned-out box set until
now is a bit like not having a satisfactory CD
retrospective for Sinatra or Billie Holiday.  But
here it is, from the Spanish label Tumbao, and it
is pretty much what one could hope for, with only
a few minor lapses in sound. (The producers,
Jordi Pujol and Tommy Meini, searched for years
to find some of these tracks, and though most are
of high audio quality, a few fall short.) The
remastering is clear, with strong bass and drums
and vocals; the slight studio reverb shrouding
the latter half of the recordings makes the music
shake sexily. The four-disc set collects Moré's
entire output as a bandleader. Moré was one of
the most expressive singers in popular music. As
with the old James Brown records, Moré's voice
nearly burns a hole through the speakers: it is
strong in a remarkably wide pitch range,
continually changing its texture from a hard,
percussive chop to a soft coo, adding bird noises
and shouts and improvisations along the way.
Rhythmically, he was in the top echelon of
popular singers, the one that Mr. Brown belongs
in beside Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole and
Sinatra: his lines are remarkable for how
casually he peels off a phrasing that turns your
head without your even having taken in the words
he has sung.
The material in this set has remarkable
consistency: El Banda Gigante was a 20-piece
orchestra, and its arrangements were sparkling,
with creamy saxophone sections grounded by
baritone lines, and fierce, punctuating tattoos
from the brass; it had much of the harmonic
complexity of the best American jazz orchestras
at the time. Some canonical music is here, songs
that were popular around the entire
Spanish-speaking world. Moré's four tag-team
recordings with the Mexican bolero singer Pedro
Vargas from 1954 are here: "Perdón" and
"Obsesión," written by Pedro Flores; Agustin
Lara's "Solamente Una Vez"; and Arsenio
Rodriguez's "Vida Es un Sueño." So is "De la
Rumba al Chachachá," a fabulous joke song that
switches back and forth from inflammatory,
exciting, ritual drum music to the slower, lusher
Cadillac ride of the cha-cha, and the
incomparable son montunos "Qué Bueno Baila Usted"
and "Marianao."
As with Tumbao's last major reissue - a set of
the complete recordings by the Cuban conguero
Chano Pozo - this set comes with a lengthy
biographical essay in Spanish and English. And
there are lots of pictures, from publicity photos
to snapshots taken at hotels and backstage, that
suggest Moré's magnetism. If stores fail, try
http://www.descarga.com.  But do hear it: this
set, which appeared in the United States just
after The New York Times published its reviews of
the year's best CD box sets on Nov. 30, is
authoritative, reasonably priced for an import
($44.98) and contains some of the strongest, most
vivid popular music ever made.

Escambray Digital - The Cuban Ministry for
Investment and Foreign Collaboration (MINVEC) in
common agreement with its foreign counterparts
has recently approved several projects of
collaboration that demonstrate the very real
support of a great deal of organizations and
progressive movements of several nations for the
Cubans, which undoubtedly will benefit this
central province of Sancti Spíritus. Among such
joint programs, appeared to be by their magnitude
and social transcendence,  the study to increase
the production of the well-known project People's
rice over this central region of Cuba, with the "
Japanese Cooperation Agency", valued at $ 2
million; as well as one to improve Health primary
aid services in Sancti Spíritus municipality of
Yaguajay,  joined with the Belgian Non Government
Organization " Fund of Aid for the third world",
of nearly $300 000 of contribution.
Likewise, the construction of a dozen of rural
schools in Sancti Spíritus that includes  housing
for the teacher, sponsored by the Swedish ONG
Erikshalpen, with a so far budget of $114 000 ;
along with a program to spread Computation
throughout some territories of Cuba, valued at
$87 000, designed in a united work with the
Association of Friendship Italy-Cuba and which
consists of the assembling of computers,
printers, utensils for networks, scanners,
modems, among other accessories. All these
projects are at the implementation phase and
linked up to other 20 at different moments of
their execution, some of them very significant as
the development of an agro-ecological
peasant-to-peasant production, a sustainable
growth of the Polo Viejo area; as well as the
Cuba-Viet Nam cooperation to propelled the
popular and family program to produce rice.

Chicago Tribune - HAVANA - Roberto Gottardi
stands on the edge of a crater-size ditch,
imagining the fulfillment of his dream to build
one of the world's great theaters. There would be
a stage here and an orchestra pit there. The
actors would perform to jubilant crowds, and the
aging, largely forgotten architect and his
colleagues would see brought to completion one of
the stunning projects of their generation. But
Gottardi knows the odds are long that his theater
and drama school -- along with the four other
spectacular buildings known collectively as
Cuba's National Art Schools -- will ever be
created as once planned, even though the Cuban
government is boldly promising to do just that.
"I have a lot of desire and enthusiasm, but there
are a lot of difficulties," says Gottardi, 76,
eyeing a half-dozen columns that have remained
standing since 1965, when four years of
construction on the schools halted. "I have my
doubts."
In the decades since newly triumphant leader
Fidel Castro conceived the five-building complex,
Cuba's National Art Schools have come to
symbolize the arduous path of the Cuban
revolution, according to architecture critics,
diplomats, analysts and other experts. After
deposing dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959,
Castro set out to forge a new, egalitarian
society that would be a model for Latin America.
Cuba's National Art Schools were central to that
utopian vision. Castro reasoned that if art and
culture were to be mainstays of the revolution,
then Cuba -- which had elite private academies
before the revolution -- must create the finest
state-run art schools in the world open to anyone
with talent. And so it was ordered.
During four frenzied years, Gottardi and two
other little-known architects designed and began
construction on whimsical and daring structures
that were in various stages of completion when
the plug was pulled. There was no official
announcement and no public hand-wringing. Some
experts say the new government needed to
concentrate its limited resources on housing,
health care and other basic needs. But the
decision also marked a turning point in the
revolution as the euphoria of the early years
proved unsustainable."In every revolution there
is a heroic period when the new government needs
to demonstrate that it is better than the
previous government," explains Eduardo Luis
Rodriguez, a prominent architecture critic in
Havana. "The most visible way is through
construction programs," he says. "But after a
while, the initial enthusiasm fades and utopian
conceptions are reduced by reality."
However now, nearly 40 years after it was halted,
"there is a great deal of embarrassment that they
allowed such an enormous project to degenerate,
not be finished, or become a ruin," says one
European diplomat in Havana. The original
architects -- now in their 70s -- have been
reunited to help with plans for restoring and
finishing the school complex, which the World
Monuments Fund has listed with China's Great Wall
and Peru's Machu Picchu as among the world's 100
endangered monuments. Workers are clearing debris
from long-abandoned buildings, pulling away vines
and trees, erecting scaffolds and reinforcing or
replacing crumbling columns and walls. Still, the
work is only in its initial stages, and diplomats
and experts say it's unclear how committed Cuban
officials are to completing the project.
The story goes that the idea of Cuba's National
Art Schools came to Castro in 1961 while he was
sharing a round of golf with fellow revolutionary
Ernesto "Che" Guevara at what had been Havana's
Country Club, a symbol of aristocracy in
prerevolutionary Cuba. As they strolled the
grounds, Castro and Guevara discussed how the
tranquil and pristine club would be perfect for a
place where Cubans and students from Third World
nations could study the arts for free. "The idea
was to create an art school for the masses," says
Gerardo Mosquera, an art critic in Havana. "It
was going to be a showcase for the outside
world." Soon after Castro's golf game, Ricardo
Porro -- then a young Cuban architect recently
returned from exile in Venezuela -- was chosen to
lead the project. Porro had designed only a
couple of residential homes on his own. But he
was a staunch revolutionary who saw the art
schools as both an architectural challenge and a
way of shaping revolutionary Cuba. "I was
thinking that I could make poetry with my
architecture," recalls Porro, now 78 and a
resident of Paris. "I also thought that I could
do something for my people."
It was Porro who chose Gottardi and Vittorio
Garatti, two young Italian architects whom he had
met in Venezuela. The two Italians also supported
the revolution but, along with Porro, had no
experience designing major works. The three men
were given a couple of months to draw up plans
for five separate schools -- ballet, fine arts,
music, modern dance and drama. It was a monstrous
task given the architects' inexperience and the
pressure of producing something truly original.
The trio got basic parameters, such as how many
classrooms and exhibition halls were needed, then
were left on their own. "We had complete
freedom," says Gottardi, who still lives in
Havana. "The atmosphere was that everything was
possible." For building materials, the architects
decided to use locally produced bricks and
terra-cotta tiles employed in a building
technique that had been largely eclipsed by steel
and concrete construction.
But in Cuba, steel and concrete were hard to come
by. The Catalan vault, as the technique is
called, made sense; it could be used to fashion
archways and domes out of local materials that
were thin, light and strong. The architects
designed the schools independently but according
to a central principal: The buildings must
integrate with the old country club's beautiful
grounds. "We wanted architecture that was open
and communicating with nature," says Gottardi.
"We weren't thinking of block-shaped buildings
with one entrance, but buildings that were spread
out." Construction began in September 1961 and
continued for several years. Classes began, as
well -- ballet students pirouetted on the putting
greens and music students practiced their congas
as walls and pavilions rose up around them.
Draftsmen riding in golf carts rushed to the
construction sites to deliver the latest plans.
"Sometimes the buildings went up faster than the
drawings, and we'd have to go out and measure
what was done," says David Bigelman, a young
draftsman on the project who now works as an
architect in Paris. "We felt we were doing
something wonderful and new." Porro designed his
rhythmic, multidomed School of Fine Arts to
capture the sensuality of Afro-Cubans. In
contrast, his School of Modern Dance, with its
sharp angles and vaults, expressed the upheaval
wrought by the Cuban revolution. Gottardi's
castlelike School of Dramatic Arts was organized
like a small community, where makeup artists,
stagehands and others would train in rooms that
bordered the main theater, the focus of the
entire structure. The School of Music, designed
by Garatti, is a 360-yard long, snakelike
building that hugs a lush hillside. Garatti also
designed the School of Ballet, which the
architect initially thought of burying
underground. Instead, he placed its cluster of
pavilions in a ravine bordering the Quibu River.
Taken collectively, the five main buildings have
a surreal and sculpted quality that represent a
startling break from the modernist traditions of
the era, according to architecture critics. "It
was a departure from all things that preceded
it," says John Stubbs, vice president of the
World Monuments Fund. Based in New York, the
non-profit group raises money to protect cultural
sites worldwide.
It was not long after the buildings began going
up that verbal attacks began. Critics argued the
art schools were a waste of money and manpower at
a time Cuba was under siege from the United
States' economic embargo, the failed
U.S.-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion and the 1962
Cuban missile crisis. The design itself also came
under criticism. As Cuba forged closer relations
with the Soviet Union, Soviet-style prefabricated
panels became the architectural norm for
constructing massive buildings that were cheap,
uniform and austere. Political hard-liners
denounced the art schools' architects as elitist
and narcissistic and called their work bourgeois
and extravagant. Workers began to be pulled from
the construction site and dispatched elsewhere.
Construction on the complex stopped in 1965.
Porro's schools of modern dance and fine arts
were near completion, as was Garatti's ballet
school. But much of the music and drama schools
was never built.
"The romantic moment of the revolution wanted
something new," says Porro. "After that, they
tried to repeat Soviet values. The first thing
they did was to forbid my architecture. When you
are in a situation like that, you need to look
for another country." Porro moved with his wife
and son to Paris in 1966 and, in exile, became a
successful architect. Gottardi remained in Cuba,
but his career foundered. Garatti, who also
stayed in Cuba, was arrested in 1974 for
espionage, briefly imprisoned and expelled from
the country. The Cuban government later
apologized to Garatti, who moved to Italy and has
struggled professionally. "It was very, very
painful," says Garatti, 76, who nonetheless
remains supportive of the revolution. "It was
difficult." Over time, the school's once pristine
grounds were overtaken by squatters. Walkways
crumbled, roofs caved in and windows shattered.
Some sites were looted, notably the ballet
school, which was 95 percent complete when
construction stopped. The ballet building briefly
housed a circus before being abandoned, leaving
Garatti to quip that he is the only living
architect who designed a ruin.
"People used the ballet school like a free Home
Depot," says John Loomis, a Stanford University
professor and author of the 1999 book, "Cuba's
Forgotten Art Schools -- Revolution of Forms."
"They ripped out the tiles, the beautiful
mahogany wood, and all the toilets and sinks.
It's a very sad situation." Despite their
condition, most of the other existing structures
have remained in regular use. On a recent day,
22-year-old Carlos Alcazar stood in a torn-up
room lacking windows and doors, practicing scales
on his saxophone. Alcazar trains nine hours a day
as a student of the national music school. "It's
different in Cuba," Alcazar says. "We have a lot
of desire but don't have good facilities. It's a
shame the school looks like this."
The long-abandoned project got its unexpected
revival four years ago, when Castro was attending
a meeting of artists and writers, and someone
raised the issue of the disastrous state of the
art schools. "Fidel said, `What are you talking
about?,' recalls Rodriguez, who has written
extensively on the schools. "He said, `How come
they were not finished?'" According to Rodriguez,
the Cuban leader recalled aloud how the schools
had been one of his great dreams at the beginning
of the revolution. He then ordered that they be
repaired and the complex completed. Soon after,
the original architects briefly reunited in
Havana to discuss the restoration effort. But
Cuba's economy is weak, forcing Roberto Sanchez
Lagarza, a state official who heads the project,
to make difficult choices. Working out of a
two-story home near the complex, Lagarza believes
some of the original designs may never be built,
while other structures are in such disrepair that
it may be more cost-effective to scrap them and
construct new, more modest ones.
Lagarza also must contend with what he describes
as serious design flaws in two of the buildings.
The music school's 360-yard length makes it
impractical as a teaching institution and
prohibitively expensive to repair, air-condition
and make acoustically sound, he says. The ballet
school, Largaza says, lies in a flood zone along
the Quibu River and has been repeatedly inundated
by 6 feet of water. A dike is being erected to
see if the building can be saved. Rodriguez and
other experts are concerned the government's
interest in the project may be waning four years
after the initial burst of enthusiasm. They
contend the restoration effort is moving too
slowly and that little has been done to repair
the main structures. Porro, Gottardi and Garatti
fiercely defend their work and say they still
dream their project can somehow be fully
realized. All three architects are participating
to varying degrees in the restoration effort.
Yet, they, too, seem to recognize the limitations
of the times and the need to accept something
less than what the revolution offered them so
long ago. "I am not the same person or architect
as I was 40 years ago, and Cuba is not the same,
either," says Gottardi, who is working on a plan
to finish his drama school. "Things have changed,
and architecture must change, too."

Transfer Point, LLC - Havana, Cuba - Transfer
Point executives returned from their first trade
mission to Cuba, attending the celebration of the
first US sales of food and agricultural products
to Cuba since the embargo was relaxed in these
categories in 2001. The United States first
imposed a trade embargo against Cuba in 1960, to
protest Castro's expropriation of property
belonging to U.S. citizens and companies.
Congress relaxed the trade restrictions two years
ago, allowing U.S. companies to sell a long list
of food and medical products to the island.
Many Americans see great opportunity, even in a
Castro-run Cuba, pointing to nearly $110 million
in new U.S. food sales to the island just this
month. "Ending the embargo is the right thing to
do," said Iowa Agriculture Secretary Patty Judge,
one of the American farm leaders in Cuba last
week. "When Americans can finally come to Cuba on
vacation, they might want steak, and we hope that
steak is sourced from Iowa." The agricultural
commissioners of Alabama, North Dakota and
Virginia; the secretary of agriculture for Iowa;
senior executives of agricultural producers and
exporters associations; agricultural companies
and marketing, shipping and consultancy agents
attended the exchange. President Fidel Castro met
December 16th at the International Conference
Center with more than 250 U.S. businessmen who
had been negotiating contracts with ALIMPORT
since Monday. Among the group of business leaders
from the U.S. was A.J. Lanigan, a leader in the
field of immune supportive dietary supplements
called Beta 1,3- D glucan. Mr. Lanigan had the
opportunity to dine at the Palace of the
Revolution with Fidel Castro, his brother Ramon
Castro, officials from ALIMPORT, and engaged with
top medical officials from Cuba to discuss Beta
1,3-D glucan within the healthcare system in Cuba.
Lanigan stated, "The United States and Cuba will
mutually benefit through the normalization of
trade and travel. I export and can travel freely
into Germany, Japan, China, Korea, etc. If I can
eat Iowa pork and drink California wine in Cuba,
I want my Beta 1,3-D glucan available when it
suits a Cuban or anyone else." Joining Mr.
Lanigan as the company's co-negotiator and chief
advisor is Antonio C. Martinez II, of the firm
Martinez Bass in Washington DC. Martinez is an
expert on Cuba and Food and Drug issues. "Cuba is
interested in obtaining high quality nutritionals
and certain medications. This is the natural
progression of their interest in the food and
medicine markets. We look forward to expanding
our business and having Tony Martinez serve with
Transfer Point as its advisor on our deals with
Cuba."

Escambray Digital - The underway social programs
set into motion in Cuba during the last years,
feature a favorable impact on the population of
Sancti Spíritus province, according to the recent
evaluation made by the Provincial Committee of
the Communist Party, gathered in its last
ordinary assembly of this 2003.  Members of this
political organization acknowledged, among other
things, the social workers' activeness and all
educational changes introduced in schooling
nationwide, mainly, in Basic Secondary level,
constituting this year's national experiment.
When referring to the topic, Miguel Acebo
Cortiñas, first secretary of the Communist Party
in Sancti Spíritus, encouraged all
representatives to maintain the strategy designed
to each one of these programs, whose social
impact on local people turns to be increasingly
huge, but they are needed as well; in first
instance, of an extra effort on the part of the
forces responsible for its insurance. The
gathering also approached some other important
aspects of the economic and political life, and
sent a heartfelt congratulation to the entire
people of this Cuban central province for the
upcoming 45 anniversary of the Triumph of the
Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959.

The Tennessean - After decades as a
controversial Nashville lawyer and suddenly faced
with a month's suspension of your law license for
on-the-job antics, what do you do? You pack up
and head for a hiatus in Havana, Cuba, seeking
out surf, sun and escape from the chilly winds
blowing in Nashville. At least, that's what
Charles Galbreath said yesterday that he plans to
do. Galbreath was a Tennessee legislator in the
1950s, a Metro public defender in the 1960s, a
state appeals court judge in the 1970s, and owns
the historic Elliston Place Soda Shop. The
Tennessee Supreme Court ruled against him
yesterday, upholding a 30-day suspension of his
law license by the State Board of Professional
Responsibility.
So Galbreath said he'll drive to Florida and
arrive alone, in a boat, in Cuba. The trip is
primarily for leisure, he said, but he plans to
broadcast his weekly radio show via telephone
from the Communist island. Galbreath said he
expects no problem getting into Cuba, which
typically is off-limits to Americans. He said he
holds a Tennessee Press Association badge, and
that his credentials are his ownership in a radio
station and his work for a Saturday morning talk
radio show, Your Legal Rights, where he answers
questions on Nashville's WAMB-1160 AM. He said he
was surprised and disappointed by the state high
court's decision to uphold the board's decision
for his squabbling with Davidson County
Chancellor Irvin Kilcrease over a lawsuit that he
filed in 1996 and for calling another Davidson
County chancellor, Ellen Hobbs Lyle, ''Honey''
after the case was transferred to her. ''As for
calling the judge 'Honey,' it just slipped out,''
Galbreath said last night in a phone interview.
''It was not meant to be disrespectful. ''I'm
just a Southern guy and used to calling pretty
ladies 'honey.' I didn't do anything to embarrass
her. I apologized and realized it was something
that shouldn't have happened.''
Galbreath, however, feels he was not wrong for
asking Kilcrease to recuse himself from the case,
and the punishment was too severe. The Supreme
Court said that Galbreath's ''most egregious''
violation was perhaps sending a letter in 1997 to
Justice Riley Anderson, then the chief justice of
the high court, threatening to air his complaints
about the state court system on his weekly radio
talk show if Kilcrease was not taken off his case
and if Anderson did not appoint Galbreath, like
other retired judges, to hear cases from time to
time. Galbreath said last night it was not a
threat, and that he did vent his concerns on the
show.

The St. Augustine Record - The double-masted
Voyager stood awkwardly in dry dock at St.
Augustine Marine, waiting to set sail on a
humanitarian mission to Cuba. Crews were
preparing to put the 100-foot schooner into the
Sebastian River in the dwindling hours of
sunlight. The captain, Jay Scott, said he would
sail with the tide later in the evening. The ship
is carrying 100-150 boxes of medical supplies,
sports equipment and special wheelchairs for
organizations in Baracoa, Cuba, that help the
blind, elderly, handicapped and women with
high-risk pregnancies. Voyager is making its
second humanitarian mission to Cuba, but the St.
Augustine-Baracoa Friendship Association has
already made two dozen trips to Cuba to help
people in need.
"We feel it's important to maintain a
relationship with Cuba because of the isolation
they've suffered for the last 40 years," said
Sali McIntire, a founder of the St.
Augustine-Baracoa Friendship Association. "On a
human level. Putting politics aside." A
delegation of people from the organization plan
to fly to Cuba on Jan. 2 to deliver the supplies
to Baracoa. The mission of the organization is to
foster a friendship with the people of Baracoa,
particularly those who are disadvantaged or
handicapped. For Scott and crew, the trip is more
than a delivery mission. It's also a vacation
with a stopover in the Bahamas. The ship will be
gone for 30 days and then return to Fernandina
Beach for a charter. The Voyager, which was built
in Virginia in 1978, sails out of Fernandina
Beach on chartered trips most of the year. Scott
expects to travel 1,200 miles on this trip. "When
there's no wind, it's really boring, and when
there's too much wind it can really be
terrifying," Scott said.
Last year off the coast of Cuba, the Voyager
experienced two days of heavy weather, Scott
said. The ship was tossed around by 20-foot seas
and 50-mph winds. The mainsail and jib sail blew
away, and the crew fought for an hour to bring
the ship under control. All the while it was
drifting towards shoals, Scott said. He said he
hoped to avoid bad weather this year, but
conceded there was nothing he could do about it.
"If it happens, it happens," Scott said. The
Voyager carries an important cargo. The supplies
include special, three-wheeled, hand-cranked
wheelchairs that Larry Hills invented during his
33 years of missionary work in Africa. Hills
lives in Penney Farms now, a retirement community
in Clay County, and builds the chairs with 40-50
other volunteers. The wheelchairs have wide
wheels and can carry loads. They help people who
previously crawled around in the dirt serve a
function in society, he said "Every person that
gets one literally gets a life," Hills said.
Dr. Donald Winkler donated medical supplies from
the practice that he closed last year. Most of it
is ophthalmologic equipment that can be used to
treat patients with eye problems. "I feel there's
not a very big market for this in this country,
but down there it's very useful, and I think it
will do some good," Winkler said. Joe McIntire,
also a founding member, said Americans should be
happy to hear that their fellow citizens are
serving as ambassadors of goodwill, despite the
fact that the Cuban and U.S. governments aren't
on good terms. The trip is a grass roots effort
to bring aid to the people for Cuba, he said. All
supplies will be donated to non-governmental
agencies, he said. The U.S. government does not
allow Americans to aid the Cuban government, he
said. The Friends of Baracoa Association is
non-partisan organization. It's Web site is
http://www.staugustine-baracoa.org. Baracoa is
the oldest continuously occupied Spanish
settlement in Cuba. Because St. Augustine is its
American counterpart, the organization says the
cities are linked by their Spanish heritage.

Sioux City Journal - Cuba, the Pearl of the
Antilles, has been under a travel ban for United
States citizens for more than four decades.
Except for Sioux City native Jason Kolbe, who
spent the summer of 2002, studying the evolution,
ecology and population of the lizard in the West
Indies island country, located about 90 miles
south of Florida. Kolbe, a graduate student at
Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., spoke
about his research and trip to Cuba during a
visit to his parents' home in Sioux City for the
holidays. He explained that the university has an
arrangement with the State Department which
allows individuals access to Cuba for educational
purposes. Humanitarian groups, journalists and
diplomats are also allowed visits. "It really
wasn't tricky to make the arrangements because we
were working in collaboration with the Institute
of Ecology and Systematics in Havana," he said.
Specifically, Kolbe's research revolves around
the Anolis sagrei, a lizard which is native to
Cuba but is becoming more prolific in Florida, as
well as Taiwan and Hawaii. How this cold-blooded
animal, with dry, scaly skin and clawed toes is
migrating around is the focus of Kolbe's
investigation. "It's easy to figure out how they
arrived in Florida, because it's so close in
proximity," Kolbe said. "The big picture is
trying to determine how they arrived in locations
so far away."
From July 16 to Aug. 13, 2002, Kolbe and fellow
graduate student Rich Glor traveled about 760
miles across the island and back collecting
lizards at some 50 places with two biologists
from the Institute of Ecology and Systematics.
For the first two weeks of the trip they were
joined by two researchers from the University of
California-Berkeley and two other Cuban
colleagues. Lizards thrive in the tropics and
warm parts of the temperate zones. Most people
confuse the species with salamanders, but lizards
are far less spectacular than the moist-skinned,
no-scales and no-toes salamanders. The particular
lizard of study for Kolbe is brown, with
underbellies which may be colored, about 5 inches
long, 6 inches if you include the tail, and about
2 inches wide. Kolbe speculated that the lizard's
mobility has a lot to do with the importation of
tropical plants to the U.S. "They like to live in
the plants which can be found in nurseries," he
said. "Those plants may be shipped to this
country, but then transported to other
countries." The lizards' arrival in their new
homes doesn't appear to be a problem at the
moment, but Kolbe did characterize the species as
"invasive." "It's interesting because the brown
lizard is forcing out the green lizard, which is
native to Florida," the 1991 Sioux City North
High School graduate said. "They seem to be
pushing it out of its native habitat." Despite
the invasive nature of the small creature, at
this point it doesn't appear to be threatening to
crops, other species or humans. "It's not
creating problems for the orange crop or anything
like that," Kolbe said of the brown lizard.
"However, because it is considered an 'invasive'
species, it is being very closely studied."
How Kolbe determines where the lizards are
traveling is based on DNA sequencing. He takes
samples of skin from the captured lizard or cuts
off the tail (which grows back). "That tells me
where the lizard came from in Cuba and their
native area," he said. "That gives me a better
understanding of its genetic structure and I can
compare that to the lizards found elsewhere."
Having that knowledge is "like each one has an ID
card," Kolbe added. "That way if you wanted to
stop the importing of that species or if the
lizard was causing economic problems or
ecological havoc, then knowing where they came
from gives you the ability to stop them," he
said. Kolbe, the son of Bruce and Beverly Kolbe,
was awarded a bachelor of science degree in
biology and political science from Morningside
College in 1995. "I studied zebra muscles,
another invasive species, which had been
introduced into the Great Lakes," he said. "The
economic impact of the muscles is far greater
than that of the lizard." His ecological interest
continued and he was awarded a master of science
degree in ecology and evolutionary biology from
Iowa State in 2000.
"My master's research looked at patterns of
snapping turtle nests in environments at a site
along the Mississippi River," he said. "During my
master's work, I started a side project looking
at the nests of the painted turtle. The potential
exists there for indirect effects on sex ratio
because painted turtles have
temperature-dependent sex determination and
ecological edges can influence temperature
changes." Kolbe estimated he was less than two
years away from earning his Ph.D. at Washington
University. He serves as a teaching assistant
there and for the 2002-03 academic year was
awarded a three-year Environmental Protection
Agency STAR (Science To Achieve Results)
Fellowship. He was also awarded a National
Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation
Improvement Grant to support his thesis work.
When not consumed with investigating the lizard,
Kolbe was able to appreciate the temperate
climate, lush beaches and political climate of
Cuba, which has a long history of struggle for
independence and social reform.
The United States influence there, at Guantanamo
Bay since 1903, was evidenced by its military
presence. "We drove past that area and there is a
huge buffer zone with many soldiers," Kolbe said.
"It was the only place where I witnessed soldiers
or armed military." Although Spanish is the
official language of the country, many people
speak English -- a boon to Kolbe who speaks
minimal Spanish. "The people were more than happy
to talk to us while we were out doing our field
studies," he said. "I didn't see a lot of poverty
among the people, but I didn't notice a high
standard of living either." Gone was the
Americanization found in most countries of the
world. There were no McDonalds, no Wal-Marts and
no Super 8 Motels. "There seemed to be lots of
tourists and resort areas, but they weren't
'American' in any sense of the word," Kolbe said.
"The restaurants were like family restaurants and
the places we stayed more like hotels than
motels." He speculated, "I'm sure if that travel
ban is ever lifted, the country would see a big
change in embracing more of the American culture."

South Florida Sun-Sentinel - HAVANA - Shipments
carrying tons of American food have slipped into
Havana's port this year as trade between the
feuding nations grows. But this month another
kind of U.S. cargo arrived -- not food for the
body, but for the music lover's soul. It is a
container of 27 pianos from Oakland and Brooklyn
destined for conservatories across the island
where pianos are ravaged by the triple threat of
time, termites and humidity. The donations
represent the latest effort by Benjamin Treuhaft:
Piano tuner by trade, anti-embargo activist by
vocation. In 1995 he founded Send a Piana to
Havana, a New York-based organization that has
shipped 237 pianos to the island, despite a
$3,500 U.S. Treasury Department fine for "trading
with the enemy," which Treuhaft has refused to
pay. The son of the late activists and one time
communists Robert Treuhaft and Jessica Mitford,
Treuhaft first came to Havana 10 years ago on a
trip to protest the U.S. travel ban. He brought
along the tools of his trade and "tuned every
piano in sight."
When an official at the Cuban Institute of Music
explained that what the island really needed were
new pianos to replace cacophonous old Soviet
imports, Treuhaft's first response was "that's
easy!" He soon learned that few things in the
U.S.-Cuba impasse are easy. "It's been quite an
odyssey," Treuhaft, 56, said in a phone
conversation from his New York home. "Fund
raising is difficult, collecting the pianos is
difficult and dealing with the American
bureaucracy has been incredibly difficult."
Treuhaft's piano donations are licensed by the
U.S. Commerce Department's Office of Strategic
Trade, but he is not allowed to travel to Cuba
legally to tune them. As part of a crackdown on
illegal travel to Cuba, the Treasury Department,
which enforces the U.S. trade embargo, recently
has begun the first judicial proceedings against
such travelers as Treuhaft who have been caught
visiting the island without a license. While he
has not yet been contacted for a trial, he said
the crackdown will not keep him from coming to
Cuba or from poking fun at pro-embargo
politicians such as Republican Sen. Jesse Helms,
who tightened sanctions against the island.  "I
go anyway because I don't believe in that law,
the travel ban," he said. "I always send a
postcard to Jesse Helms from the José Marti
Airport" in Havana.
Over the years, Treuhaft's donations have
included 1920s Steinways, baby grand pianos too
big for their tiny New York apartments and
uprights donated by parents or spouses of players
who have passed on. Each piano has a story, said
Treuhaft's Cuban partner, Armando Gomez, who
teaches piano tuning and repair at Havana's
prestigious National School of Music and is in
charge of distributing the instruments. "This
project is like our baby," said Gomez, 49, who
works with his wife, Julia, also a tuner at the
school. "All the students have to take piano
lessons here no matter what their specialty. So,
the pianos are used from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. This
is a great help." Since working with Treuhaft,
Gomez has repaired 40 donated pianos for the
National School of Music and delivered dozens to
elementary and high schools across the island. In
one case it took four years just to arrange the
transportation for one piano to a conservatory in
the town of Baracoa, nestled in the mountains 500
miles east of Havana. Some pianos are also
awarded to individual students as prizes in music
competitions.
At Gomez's cramped workshop, the walls are lined
with drawers and shelves full of old ivory keys,
shanks and screws, pedal hardware, springs and
cannibalized parts from pianos that were beyond
repair. With the donated replacement parts Gomez
last year founded a piano repair school,
graduating the first six Cuban piano tuners and
technicians since the 1960s. The latest shipment
of donations includes an entire tuning workshop
willed to the school by a New Jersey piano tuner
who died earlier this year.  Like Treuhaft, Gomez
has also gotten caught up in Cold War politics.
He has twice visited the United States. But in
July, American authorities turned down his
request to travel to a piano tuners convention in
Dallas, marking his passport with a stamp that
claims he is "highly dangerous to the national
security of the United States," he said with a
chuckle.

HAVANA -  (AP) - Cuba charged that the U.S. base
on the east end of the communist island had
become a "concentration camp," deriding its use
as a holding center for terrorism suspects. "In
the territory illegally occupied by the
Guantanamo Naval Base, hundreds of foreign
prisoners are subjected to indescribable
humiliations," said a statement released by
Cuba's National Assembly. Cuba has long opposed
the presence of the American base, which operates
in the eastern part of the island under a treaty
signed long before the 1959 revolution that
brought Fidel Castro to power. But until now,
Cuba had withheld criticism and even offered the
first prisoners medical assistance when they
arrived two years ago. The statement said the
prisoners are "totally isolated, without the
possibility of communicating with their families
or access to appropriate legal defense." It added
that "some of the very few who have been freed
have narrated the horrors of that concentration
camp."
However, U.S. officials have repeatedly argued
that the prisoners were being well treated.
"Should our servicemen and women be in the same
position, I would hope they would be treated in
the same humane manner," Maj. Gen. Geoffrey
Miller, commander of the detention mission at
Guantanamo, told The Associated Press in an
interview earlier this year. The U.S. government
currently holds more than 600 men on the base,
detained in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere
on suspicion of terrorism. Because they are being
held on foreign land, the Bush administration has
maintained the men have no rights to the American
legal system. Miller says that the prisoners are
treated humanely under many of the principles of
the Geneva Conventions. Because the U.S.
government has classified the men as "enemy
combatants" rather than prisoners of war, they
are not entitled to the same protections under
the conventions.

News - Entertainment - Cuba killed the Cohens'
marriage. Channa Cohen and her husband were doing
just fine down in Miami until Channa took a
10-day cruise to Havana and came back a
Cubaphile. Now all she wanted to do was dance
mambo and cha-cha-cha. Now she called her bubele
"Bubalu."  Eli Basse's 1952 klezmer-mambo hit for
the Barry Sisters, "Channa from Havanna," made
Cuba into a place where identities could be
swapped for the price of a bottle of rum, where
American Jews stopped being Jewish and started
being Latino, and in the case of Mr. Cohen (whose
perspective is where the song's sympathies lie),
a place where Jewish husbands lost their nice
Jewish wives to the heat and passion of the
tropical dance floor. A contemporary of Basse's,
Mickey Katz told a similar tale in his "Yiddishe
Mambo" - about a Jewish grandma on an Afro-Cuban
kick who falls for Latin bandleaders. "Her kugel
is hot for Xavier Cugat," Katz winked. "She's
baking her challahs for Noro Morales."
Which isn't to say Jewish men don't get Cubanized
too. In Ruth Wallis's "It's a Scream How Levine
Does the Rhumba" from the '40s, Levine - an
immigrant from Odessa - tackles rumba lessons and
"learns what his maracas are for." And the idol
of young David Kepesh in Philip Roth's novel The
Professor of Desire is Latin drummer Herbie
Bratasky, the MC and bandleader at Kepesh's
Hungarian Royale resort in the Catskills.
Bratasky is a cultural double agent, "our Jewish
Cugat": he sells linoleum for his uncle during
the week and plays in a Latin American band on
the weekend. That, combined with his tanned skin
that never burns and his muscular build, makes
him a "wonder of our tribe."  All this Jewish
Latin-philia - which reached one of its peaks
when salsa giant Larry Harlow released his El
judio maravilloso (The marvelous Jew) album in
1975 - made Latinos answer back. Pupi Campo
covered the Barton Brothers. Tito Puente covered
Irving Fields when he played Grossinger's. Joe
Quijano, who once boasted, "Yo soy el son cubano"
(I am the Cuban son), did Fiddler on the Roof
Goes Latin.  And in the '50s, Ray Barretto,
Willie Rodriguez, and Charlie Palmieri teamed up
with John Cali, Doc Cheatham, and Clark Terry to
form Juan Calle and His Latin Lantzmen, an
alleged Latin-Jewish supergroup that tore up
"Hava nagila" as a cha-cha and made "Die Greene
Koseene" do the merengue. The Latin Lantzmen were
prosthetic Jews in the way that Marc Ribot y Los
Cubanos Postizos - a band of New York City Jews,
blacks, and Latinos who play Latin music through
downtown avant-jazz ears - are prosthetic Cubans,
except that the Lantzmen pretended not to be
postizo and Ribot flaunts Cuban postizismo as an
aesthetic stance.
One of Ribot's band members is ex-Miami Sound
Machine percussionist Roberto Juan Rodriguez, a
Cuban Jew who has just released his own statement
on the Latin-Jewish hookup, El danzon de Moises
(Tzadik). Billed as an excavation of Cuba's
Jewish community and dedicated to Rodriguez's
mother, father, and "all the Jews of Cuba,"
Danzon sounds radically different from much of
its 20th-century, "bagels and bongos"
predecessors. Instead of separating "our tribe"
from "their tribe" and treating "Jewish" and
"Latin" as if they were separate worlds (when
Channa goes to Havana, she might as well be going
to another planet), the music on Danzon is music
born from Latin-Jewish convergence in a community
severed by politics and the sea - an elegant and
thoughtful musical rendering of the 15,000 Cuban
Jews who left the island for Miami and New York
after the revolution and the Jews who stayed, the
Jews some have dubbed "Castro's Jews."  Rodriguez
listens and plays across this divide (tracks have
names like "Danzonette hebreo" and "Shalom a
Shango"), and while Danzon clearly emanates from
New York, it radiates with movement, glides
between eras, and bends cultures into one another
with the fluidity of a musician bending notes.
Part of its success is the instruments that take
center stage: clarinets that channel eastern
European klezmer, percussion that channels
Afro-Cuban rhythmic traditions, and violins and
cellos that belong equally to traditional Jewish
music and Cuban charanga.
"Cuban" and Jewish" don't so much speak to each
other on Danzon as they speak through each other.
"The Shvitz" rests mournful violins atop a clave
beat. "Guahira," with its titular nod to the
country Cuban, flows a guajira shuffle into an
accordion-and-clarinet bulgar bounce that ends up
nodding to the country Jew at the same time.
Rodriguez plays with our expectations like that
throughout Danzon. So by the time we hit
"Jerusalem Market," we're not surprised by what
we hear: an open-air trumpet-and-percussion jam
that isn't necessarily Jerusalem at all. It could
be Havana or Brooklyn or even Channa's Miami
Beach, a mobile meeting of sounds and identities
that can be reached only by following the notes.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In 1999, OFAC (The Office of Foreign Assets
Control of the United States Department of the
Treasury in Washington, D.C.) confirmed that it
had previously issued an opinion in 1994 which
stated that a U.S. company or individual could
make a secondary market investment in a
"third-country company" that had commercial
dealings with the Republic of Cuba as long as the
investment in the "third-country company" was not
a controlling interest and the "third-country
company" did not derive a majority of it's
revenues from operations in Cuba.  (therefore, in
many cases, U.S. citizens and companies can
invest in a private or public Canadian company
doing business with Cuba)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
James Hitchie
Cuban Daily News Digest
email: info@...
Web site:  http://www.cubaninvestments.com

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

(Seeing this in the Vietnamese media it
will be interesting to see how this is
seen in the United States where farm
state politicians are increasingly
looking to Cuba as a market to hike
sales, and one which these politicins
also know is open to friendly invest-
ments from the US, if only Washington
would get out of the way...)
=====================================

Cuba ready to cooperate with US in mad cow research
(01/02/2004 -- 19:11GMT+7)

Havana, Jan. 2 (VNA) - Cuban scientists are ready to
cooperate in research related to mad cows disease, after a
case of the disease was found in the US.

Director of the Cuban state food importer Alimport Pedro
Alvarez said in a letter to President of the US Meat Export
Federation Philip Seng, and Head of the Association of
Ranchers of the United States Eric Davis that

their research and development institutions in the animal
health area were prepared to cooperate with their US
counterparts.

Alvarez added that Cuba will not cancel its cattle purchase
contracts with US suppliers. Cuba will acquire up to
100,000 head of cattle from the US when the bilateral
relations become normalized.

Cuban official figures show that the value of Cuban
purchases amounts to 691 million US dollars at the end of
this year.

The purchases include more than 1,000 head of cattle, of
which 500 are already in Cuba after passing sanitary checks
and remain in quarantine. The rest will arrive once the
United States solves the situation resulting from the mad
cow disease case.-Enditem

(A young Cuban male faces the fact that
he now feels more pleasure in having sex
with men than with his girfriend. Here is
the advice he is given by Juventud Rebelde,
the Cuban daily newspaper. Translated for
CubaNews by Damian Donestevez. Thanks!)
=========================================

(Juventud Rebelde, December 13, 2003)

Ask without shame

A.P: Until not long ago my behavior was heterosexual. My
situation is difficult because I have a girlfriend and
though I love her very much, I don't desire her as I used
to and she doesn't satisfy me in the same way. However, I
feel very pleased when I have homosexual relations. The
point is that it's very hard for me to identify myself as
gay. I always dreamed of having a family and it's not
possible that way. On the other hand, my parents are so
male chauvinist and conservative that I can't think of how
it would be if they learned about it. Identifying myself is
difficult because neither of the two options gives me
everything I'm looking for and If I keep that way I can
damage other people without meaning to do so. I am 22 years
old.

Though it might seem urgent to you, you still have time to
define yourself and to live your life in line with what
might seem more coherent to you. It is ultimately the most
important thing for you, even though you'll find many
conflicts on your way, conflicts that will still be there
if you don't make a decision. Anyway, we always make
decisions, because we are always called to do it and we do
it though we are not aware that we are taking sides.

In order to choose we need to value before what we really
want, how we'll assume decisions and deal with different
situations, respecting our wishes. If this is very hard for
you, you can look for the help of a psychologist in the
process.

It's important for you to analyze very well what is going
on with you and what is your role in it. It would be worth
for you to value why just now you are more inclined to
homosexual relations and if that is what is actually
happening.

Many times when people begin any homosexual practice they
feel doubts, anguish, guilt, fears, remorse, depression,
among other conflicting feelings. But such emotions can be
overcome once we take a decision that represents us. When
you do, you'll be able to decide how to face the situation
with your girlfriend, your parents as well as how to face
your future paternity. Homosexuality can be assumed in very
different ways. You can chose the way in which you want to
define your life and the role you want to give to your
sexuality.

Mariela Rodríguez Méndez, psychologist and counselor on
sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS.

(From the "Sexo Sentido" column in
Juventud Rebelde, this article about
violence against women, translated
for CubaNews by Damian Donestevez,
to whom great gratitude is due!)
======================================

Violence can damage anyone, regardless of his or her sex or
social status, but women and girls are the most affected
ones.

Butterflies under attack

"Man's house is his castle and his wife is his property. We
learn such ideas and if we want to get rid of violence, we
have to forget what we have learned about it." Sonkin and
Durphy

by Aracelys Bedevia

Nothing justifies that a man abuses a woman. But despite
that, many men do it. Alcohol and psychiatric disorders are
known as unleashing factors; however, they are not its main
causes. What really favors the emergence of violence is the
existence of a sexist education in the family and of
patriarchal models that reaffirm a marked difference
between the roles of genres.

The statement was made by expert Iliana Artiles, when she
spoke at the National Workshop "Building a Non-violent
Agenda", recently held at the National Sexual Education
Center (CENESEX).

Myths and bias around the issue contribute to naturalize
this crime as another way in which human beings
communicate.

"There is the notion, for example, that women have to obey
men and the best they can do about it is not to provoke
their anger because men are violent by nature. But were it
really that way, all males would commit such crime and
wouldn't be able to control their violence in places such
as their work centers."

Likewise, some people believe that women who have been
abused don't give up their relationship immediately because
they like to be ill-treated and that is not true either.

"Most of the times women cannot get rid of that cycle
because they economically depend on men, lack options in
terms of where to go or where to live or are afraid being
killed by their partners if they try to give up the
relationship.

"In addition, violence is seen as something so natural that
many times it's not seen as a problem to solve; not to say
that on certain occasions women are manipulated by men in
such a way that men make them feel guilty of the fact that
they are suffering violence.

Concerning the latest assertion, the expert highlighted
that even when women behave provocatively, nobody has the
right to abuse them because they are human beings rather
than another property of men.

Cuban women also suffer violence

The results of a poll conducted by the National Statistics
Office (ONE) reveal that Cuban women recognize themselves
as the ones who are most abused in a relationship and
single out verbal abuse as the cause that originates
violence, according to the Women's News Agency.

The conclusions of the survey that included more than 22
800 people all over the country, of whom 53 percent are
female, reveal that 14 percent of the women and 13 percent
of the men polled have become victims of any type of family
violence.

The women who suffer violence most are formally or
informally married women and the most frequent aggression
is verbal. According to those who conducted the study, 6.5
of women surveyed confessed having been physically beaten
or pushed.

On the other hand, the results of a study published by
Haima Predes Fernández on the 19th issue of the Sexología y
Sociedad magazine, of the National Sexual Education Center
(CENESEX), show that violence has been part of daily
conflicts that emerge in any relationship. 72 percent of
those surveyed perceive so and 88 percent says that men are
the persons par excellence that resort to violence.

According to the poll, one hundred percent of the women who
mention men as the most violence members of a couple offer
arguments that link the causes of violence to stereotyped
elements of masculinity.

The expert who currently works at the Culture Ministry
assures that women justified violent behavior with phrases
such as "males are stronger", "they dominate", "they have
no control", "they are violent by nature", phrases that
show that masculine violence is seen as something very
natural.

More than half of those surveyed perceive stability and the
preservation of family unity as one of the main reasons
that force abused women to keep her links with the man who
abuses her.

Experts say that women endure such situations because they
want to "keep children with their father", "to keep family
unity", and "so that children are not raised by a step
father."

They are also certain that women should give up personal
wellbeing, postpone our needs and prioritize family unity
and single out psychological, physical and sexual violence
as the most frequent violent situations. 62 percent
confessed having been victims of any of such aggressions at
least once.

Such a way of perceiving violence responds to a sexist
education, so deeply rooted in our society that even
ourselves are sometimes surprised by phrases such as "poor
boy, I haven't washed his clothes this week", as if they
were not capable of doing such thing.

They also launch a warning on how necessary it is for us to
look for alternatives that allow us to recognize its
existence and putting an end to this allegedly "private
issue" that, though it has no social impact on our country,
is learned and passed on from one generation to the other,
becoming a real tragedy.

In self-defense

In an interview with the Women's News Agency, criminal
expert Caridad Navarrete said that some women become
violent as a reaction to the abuse they go through.

Following the study of the lives of some women who had been
sentenced and are now on parole after having murdered their
husbands, Navarrete proved that most of them had done it in
self-defense, "not immediately after they were abused, but
as a result of accumulated violence, resorting to it as
their only way out.

"Women who have committed such crimes against their
partners or husbands have generally gone through family
violence and been abused in all possible ways."

(Juventud Rebelde, December 13, 2003)

(Very fair tribunals where the prosecution
gets to listen in as the defense attorney,
appointed by the prosecution, meets with
his client, as the prosecution listens...)
==========================================

December 31, 2003
WORLD NEWS

White House Aims To Make Tribunals More Independent

By JESS BRAVIN Staff Reporter of
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The Bush administration moved to stanch criticism that its
planned military tribunals won't provide fair proceedings
for suspected terrorists, removing Deputy Defense Secretary
Paul Wolfowitz as head of the system and appointing four
prominent civilian lawyers to hear appeals.

Aiming to distance the tribunals from the administration's
political face, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld put in
charge retired Maj. Gen. John Altenburg, a 28-year Army
veteran who retired in 2002 as its No. 2 military lawyer. A
tribunals spokesman said Mr. Wolfowitz had provided "senior
leadership" but that it was time for a full-time
administrator as the U.S. readies prosecutions of the first
detainees ruled eligible for the tribunals.

Mr. Rumsfeld named some people he knows well to the appeals
panel, including William T. Coleman, who served as
transportation secretary in President Ford's
administration, and Griffin Bell, a former federal appeals
judge who was President Carter's first attorney general.
Messrs. Coleman and Bell already serve on another committee
that advises Mr. Rumsfeld on civil-liberties issues.
Joining them are Rhode Island Chief Justice Frank Williams,
a Vietnam veteran, and Edward Biester, a Pennsylvania state
judge who served as a Republican congressman with Mr.
Rumsfeld during the 1960s.

The Defense Department also issued rules fleshing out the
tribunals' appeal system, long a point of contention over
how much would be left to the discretion of President Bush
and Mr. Rumsfeld.

Under the rules, the appeals panel will hold some autonomy,
while Messrs. Bush and Rumsfeld can reduce sentences and
reverse convictions, but not increase punishments or
reverse acquittals.

Panel members will be appointed to two-year, nonrenewable
terms from which they can be removed only for "good cause,"
such as disability or misconduct. Members will hold
temporary commissions as Army major generals. Officials
said one or two other people may be named to the panel.

All tribunal convictions will automatically be appealed to
a group of three panel members. The panel can accept
friend-of-the-court filings, including ones from the
defendants' home countries, and must issue written opinions
that become precedent. Members in the minority may publish
dissenting or concurring opinions.

"We've really tried to build into it independence and
impartiality," said Air Force Maj. John Smith, the
tribunals spokesman. He added that the Pentagon had taken
note of criticism from the American Bar Association,
civil-liberties groups, legal scholars and others in
designing the rules.

Not all critics were mollified. Maj. Michael Mori, a Marine
Corps lawyer assigned to defend Guantanamo prisoner David
Hicks, said tribunal procedures remain slanted toward
convictions, with "ambiguous provisions" that don't
guarantee defendants a right to file submissions or argue
in front of the appeals panel.

But some applauded the latest moves. "When Wolfowitz had
it, I couldn't imagine that it would work. It was a bad
sign," said retired Rear Adm. John Hutson, dean of Franklin
Pierce Law Center in Concord, N.H., and the Navy's former
judge advocate general. "But with John Altenburg running
this thing and people like Frank Williams on it, either it
will get done right or they won't stick around."

Write to Jess Bravin at jess.bravin@...

(Here's an articulate response to Colin Powell's
"op-ed" in the New York Times by a courageous
Cuban American who supports the Cuban Revolution.)
==================================================

From: Cacf2@... [mailto:Cacf2@...]
Sent: Friday, January 02, 2004 11:55 PM
isruiz@...; walterlx@...
Subject: HYPOCRESY AD LIBIDUM

HYPOCRESY AD LIBIDUM
Alberto N Jones
January 2, 2004

On January 1 2004, Secretary of State Colin Powell wrote an
Op-Ed in the New York Times that captures and describes the
inner feelings and values that have guided his life. For
the millionth time in its history, Cuba was once again put
on notice of the incubating plans and imminent dangers of
subjugation or destruction by another high ranking official
from the colossus of the north, if that country persisted
in its misguided policy of operating outside of the sphere
of influence of the United States.

Had Mr Powell and Mr Reich not failed Latin-America His
101, they would have known that Jose Marti warned the Cuban
people in 1895 about the dangers of our powerful neighbor.
They would have known also, that Afro-Cuban General Antonio
Maceo predicted in 1896 that whoever dared to invade that
country would gather the soil of that nation saturated in
his blood, if he did not perish in the attempt. They would
have known that Guarina and Hatuey (native warriors) were
burned alive, rather than renounce their right to struggle
for Cuba's independence from Spain.

How sad is it to see, that after lying to the world about
non-existing WMD in Iraq, purchases of Uranium in Africa or
some murky Polaroid pictures that were presented at the UN,
leading us into the quagmire in which we are now embroiled,
rather than exploring every option capable of extricating
ourselves, stop the maiming, charred bodies and deaths of
victims on both sides, they are now thinking of opening a
new war front, that they will live to regret.

Instead of foolishly attempting to instill fear in the
Cuban people, he should know, that they have proven to the
world during the past 500 years, their willingness to die
for their beliefs and their country, rather than to live on
their knees.

I would strongly suggest to Mr. Powell that he can
demonstrate to the world his new found love for the Cubans,
by unfreezing hundreds of thousands of dollars that his
department have unilaterally withheld for the past 40 years,
from thousands of ex-employees of the United States Naval
Base in Guantanamo, who loyally accrued over 50,000 years
of service before, during and after every war the US have
been involved in since 1903.

I can only imagine what those old, hungry, sick and
betrayed employees may think, of the blatant hypocrisy of
our very articulate Secretary of State, who is directly
responsible for their misery and despair.












b

Filing lawsuits to make a political point didn't begin
with Haiti and won't end with it. In the United States,
class action lawsuits have been around for decades. As
a member of the Socialist Workers Party, I participated
in a lawsuit against US government spying on us back in
the 1970s. It was an effective educational and legal act
we engaged in. Some years later, Cuban organizations
filed a similar lawsuit in Cuban courts demanding major
reparations for actions taken by Washington against it.
And now the Haitian claims are being presented in legal
form and they receive the same dismissive treatment in
the Wall Street Journal which the Cuban lawsuit against
the blockade has received in the US media, with this
difference: the Haitian lawsuit at least receives this
one detailed commentary in the US media while Cuba's
lawsuit has never received any such coverage.

I know very little about Haiti, but this was in Friday's
Wall Street Journal and it has a tangential reference to
Cuba. This week is the 200th anniversary of Haitian
independence. Haiti's ambassador to Cuba gave an extensive
and enthusiastic long interview with Juventud Rebelde
Monday, reflecting the positive relations which exist
between the two countries. You can read that interview:
http://www.jrebelde.cu/2004/enero-marzo/ene-01/nuestras.html

South Africa's Thabo Mbeki, who also participated in some
of the celebrations of Haitian independence, was also the
subject of a sharp political attack by the Democratic
Alliance, the opposition movement he faces in South Africa.
http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?a=11&o=39834 These also
remind me of the relentless international media campaign
against Mugabe in Zimbabwe, too. I'm sure he's no angel,
but it's always striking how the same forces seem to line
up for an against one another, isn't it?


Walter Lippmann, Moderator
CubaNews list
=======================================================

January 2, 2004
PAGE ONE

Impoverished Haiti
Pins Hopes for Future
On a Very Old Debt

French King Demanded Payoff
For Independence in 1825;
Aristide's Legerdemain?
By JOSE DE CORDOBA
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- More than two decades after
rebellious former slaves vanquished troops from Napoleon's
army here in 1803, France's King Charles X made the
fledgling republic of Haiti an offer it couldn't refuse.

In 1825, as the king's warships cruised just over the
horizon from the Haitian capital, a French emissary
demanded 150 million gold francs in exchange for
recognizing the new republic. The implicit alternative was
invasion and re-enslavement.

It was a huge sum, about five times Haiti's annual export
revenue. Haiti's then-president reluctantly agreed, taking
on a crushing debt.

Today, as Haiti celebrates the 200th anniversary of its
independence amid growing political unrest and a collapsing
economy, one of its few glimmers of hope is that long-ago
deal.

Haiti wants its money back -- with interest.

Aided by U.S. and French lawyers, the Haitian government is
preparing a legal brief demanding nearly $22 billion in
"restitution" for what it regards as an act of gunboat
diplomacy. Banners calling for "Reparations and
Restitution" fly over Port-au-Prince's crammed and filthy
streets. "France, pay me my money, $21,685,135,571.48," is
the refrain heard incessantly to carnival music in
government ads on Haitian radio and television.

"It's a historic issue," said Haiti's controversial
President Jean Bertrand Aristide at a recent news
conference.

"It would be nice if we got a fat check," adds Francis
St.-Hubert, a Haitian economist and close adviser to Mr.
Aristide. Haiti's national bank used Mr. St.-Hubert's
research, which included an annual interest rate of 5% to
come up with the multibillion-dollar figure. The clock is
running at a rate of $34 a second, Mr. St.-Hubert says.

Haiti has little choice but to chase the French money, says
Leslie Voltaire, a cabinet minister who oversees Haitian
emigre affairs. The once-wealthy colony is now the poorest
country in the Americas, with a per capita income of about
$480 for its 8.1 million inhabitants. "Our only natural
resource is restitution," says Mr. Voltaire.

France's response hasn't been encouraging. In June, French
President Jacques Chirac addressed the restitution issue by
warning Haitian authorities "to take care over the nature
of the actions of their regime." Herve Ladsous, a spokesman
for France's Foreign Ministry, said this week that "this
case has been closed since 1885."

Instead of cutting a check, France has created a Commission
of Reflection, led by Regis Debray, the left-wing
philosopher and friend of Che Guevara. The commission isn't
supposed to deal specifically with restitution but to
examine the 200 years of often-troubled relations between
the two countries. Two years ago, pro-government mobs
ransacked France's cultural center in Port-au-Prince. Mr.
Voltaire accuses France of orchestrating European policy
against Mr. Aristide. "They are making us look as if we
were barbarians," says Mr. Voltaire.

The commission spent 10 days in Haiti last month meeting
with government officials, intellectuals and opposition
figures.

"The French government doesn't take seriously this
reimbursing of the debt," said commission member Yvon
Chotard, deputy mayor of Nantes, France, while sipping a
rum cocktail by the pool at the Villa Creole, one of
Port-au-Prince's few good hotels. He says Haiti doesn't
have legal grounds to demand restitution from France, since
it signed an agreement. "We try to respect treaties between
states, and this is a treaty that has been negotiated and
re-negotiated many times."

Haiti's modern-day problems stem mainly from the Duvalier
dictatorships, but by most accounts Mr. Aristide has also
contributed to them. Haiti's first freely elected
president, Mr. Aristide was voted in by the masses in 1990.
But he terrified Haiti's traditional light-skinned ruling
elite with his fiery rhetoric and was ousted less than a
year later in a bloody military coup. A U.S. invasion
returned him to power in 1994. He stepped down at the end
of his term in the following year, and was re-elected
president in 2000.

But the legislative elections that year were widely
denounced as fraudulent. Most of Haiti's foreign-aid donors
protested by suspending much of their aid to the Haitian
government and channeling the rest through nongovernmental
organizations. Mr. Aristide says the aid suspension has
cost Haiti about $500 million, a crippling blow for a
country with an annual gross domestic product of only $3.7
billion.

So amid the 200th-anniversary festivities, the mood in
Port-au-Prince is as grim as ever. Haiti invited dozens of
heads of state to its independence bash, but most sent
regrets. Thursday in a speech at Haiti's wedding-cake like
presidential palace, Mr. Aristide pledged to help reduce
poverty as a crowd of about 10,000 supporters chanted
"Aristide is King."

But opposition to the Aristide government has been growing.
Street protests continued this week, and opponents
boycotted the celebration Thursday. More than three dozen
people have been killed in antigovernment demonstrations
since mid-September. There's no way to tell how many
Haitians believe the restitution campaign will bear fruit,
but most have no doubt that daily survival is an
increasingly difficult task.

The initial agreement between France and the young republic
called on Haiti to pay the whole 150 million francs in five
annual payments of 30 million gold francs. That proved
impossible for Haiti, which was forced under the pact to
take out a loan from a French bank to pay the first 30
million francs. In 1838, France agreed to reduce the debt
to 60 million francs to be paid over a period of 30 years.
In 1883, Haiti made the final payment.

Ira Kurzban, a Miami-based lawyer who handles Haiti's
international legal affairs, argues that the treaty was
extortionate and illegal even under 1825 international law
because the presence of the French fleet constituted a
threat to re-enslave the island.

Many educated Haitians, especially in the growing
opposition movement, believe the restitution campaign is
Mr. Aristide's attempt to distract poor Haitians from their
impoverishment and from what they see as the government's
mismanagement, corruption and broken promises.

"Haitians have nothing against the French," says Robinson
Jaquimin, a Haitian student who took to the streets after
Aristide supporters sacked the College of Human Sciences of
the National University of Haiti and broke the dean's legs
with metal bars. "Aristide just wants their money to pay
his goons."

--Charles Fleming in Paris contributed to this article.

Write to Jose de Cordoba at jose.decordoba@...

CubaNews Notes Saturday January 3, 2004
by Walter Lippmann

Fidel will give a major speech tonight marking the 45th anniversary
of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. It will be given at the
Karl Marx Theater in Mira Mar, a large venue holding somewhere in
the neighborhood of 2000 people. It will be broadcast live on the
radio and television here. He sometimes speaks from a written text
now, and if that happens, the transcript and translations should
be available very quickly.
=========================================================

JUVENTUD REBELDE sabado, 03 DE enero DEL 2004

Hablará Fidel esta noche

Acto Político Cultural en ocasión del Aniversario 45 del
Triunfo de la Revolución. Será una gala político-cultural
que se realizará a las 9:00 pm en el Teatro Karl Marx de
esta capital

Después de la gala político-cultural en ocasión del
aniversario 45 del Triunfo de la Revolución, que se
realizará a las 9:00 pm en el Teatro Karl Marx, el
Comandante en Jefe Fidel Castro Ruz pronunciará las
palabras centrales de la importante conmemoración.

En la velada tomarán parte prestigiosas figuras de nuestra
cultura y estarán invitados dirigentes del Partido, el
Estado, el Gobierno, la UJC, las organizaciones de masas,
combatientes de nuestra epopeya revolucionaria, familiares
de mártires, estudiantes y trabajadores destacados,
representantes de los más diversos sectores de la vida
nacional y exponentes de los extraordinarios logros de la
Revolución en estos 45 años de lucha.

Cubavisión, Tele Rebelde, el Canal Educativo, la Cadena
Nacional de Radio y las ondas internacionales de Radio
Habana Cuba transmitirán en vivo este trascendental
acontecimiento.
==================================================

There have been several articles about this anniversary,
which is not being celebrated in the world's capitalist
media. These articles aren't completely negative, either,
except for those in the extremist ultra-right wing of the
media, such as the Miami Herald and other places. All of
the mainstream reports seem to be compelled to report at
least some of the important strides made by this Cuban
Revolution, especially those which were not eliminated
along with the collapse of Cuba's principal trading and
aiding partners in the Soviet Union and its allies from
Eastern Europe. I'll share some of this coverage with
you. I haven't held it until now, but there was simply
so much other material. It's timely now to see these
and to consider them as we prepare for Fidel's remarks
tonight.

There are a few other items of interest from both the
Wall Street Journal and the Cuban media which relate to
Cuba in one or another way. I'll try to get these out
dlater this afternoon.

It's a bright, cool, pleasant morning in Centro Habana.
I wish you all could be here to enjoy the day with the
rest of the people of Cuba. This is the neighborhood in
which SUITE HABANA was filmed. If you can't be here or
get here soon, try hard to see this film, and if it
hasn't been shown in your area, agitate the art house
owners to get it for you.


Walter

(Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid-day sun, but
smart Cuban don't even need to read Dale Carnegie to be
clear that a friend in need is a friend indeed. This is
why Cuba isn't bailing on the friends it's made in the
United States agriculture business. Cuba is the best
friend these businesses have: it pays in cash, in full
and on time. Is there a better customer possible in the
entire planet?

(Fortunately, as this article shows, we're now seeing
some of these busineses stepping up to the plate and
speaking out against the blockade. Granma International,
in the print edition, had a subhead recently in its
coverage of Fidel's most recent meeting with business
representatives from the US. It spoke admiringly about
"the fighting spirit of US business men". He's got a
point here as the role of privite business and material
incentive is playing a powerful role in opposition to
the blockade. Solidarity with and support for Cuba is
very important, but the simple material interest which
these business people have is helpful on another level.
=======================================================

BRADENTON HERALD
Posted on Sat, Jan. 03, 2004

MAD COW DISEASE
Cuba still eyes Florida cattle

NANCY SAN MARTIN
Knight Ridder Newspapers

MIAMI - In an apparent effort to bolster relations with
American ranchers who want an end to the U.S. trade
embargo, Cuba vowed to move forward with plans to purchase
its first supply of Florida cattle, despite expected delays
because of the detection of mad cow disease in the United
States.

"We know that the U.S. beef processing industry is safe and
will remain so in the future," states a letter to a Manatee
County rancher signed by Pedro Alvarez Borrego, head of
Alimport, Cuba's primary food purchasing firm.

Alvarez's letter - addressed to James Strickland of
Parrish, who is supplying Cuba with 80 head of Brangus
heifers and two bulls - states that Cuba will not terminate
any pending agreements.

The letter, released Friday, also states that when the mad
cow issue is resolved, Cuba will become a chief export
market for U.S. ranchers.

"Alimport remains committed to enhancing its business
relations with the beef and dairy farmers, as well as the
cattle ranchers in the U.S.," the letter states. "It is our
strong belief that American cattle have a critical role to
play in increasing our local beef and dairy output."












Over the past year, Cuba has signed contracts for
approximately 1,000 head of American cattle, half of which
were shipped to Cuba over the summer for dairy production.
The first supply of 250 head of Florida-born beef cattle is
scheduled for delivery to the island during the next few
months.

John Parke Wright of J.P. Wright & Co. in Naples said
Friday that he is optimistic that the deals will remain on
course, though a delay in shipment is likely.

"We are in complete agreement with Cuba," Wright said in a
telephone interview. "The national issue, obviously, has to
be resolved. The cattle aren't going anywhere. There is no
need to rush."

Efforts to reach Cuban officials were unsuccessful.

In a jab at the embargo, Alvarez also tempts exporters with
future purchases. Cash sales for food purchases are allowed
under an exception to the four-decades-old embargo.

"Cuba stands ready to purchase up to 100,000 head of cattle
from the U.S. on a competitive basis once trade and travel
relations between our two countries come back to normal,"
the letter states, adding that Cuban animal health
specialists "stand ready to cooperate with their American
counterparts, if deemed appropriate."

U.S. officials could not be reached for comment on Cuba's
offer to provide assistance.

Similar letters expressing support were sent to the U.S.
Meat Export Federation and the National Cattlemen's Beef
Association.

"It's always a welcome letter to receive but especially at
this time," said Lynn Heinze, a spokesman for the
Denver-based federation.