Cuba News Headlines. Cuban Daily News

Cuban writer Miguel Barnet was granted Juan Rulfo Prize 2006 in the story category for his book Fátima o el parque de fraternidad as organizers announced. Barnet, holder of the National Literary Award 1994, won over other 6 thousand candidates taking part in this edition.

Granma newspaper spoke with Yanet Moreno Mendinueta, the first female umpire in the Cuban Baseball League, who made her debut behind the plate in a Wednesday night game between Matanzas and Villa Clara.

Yenier Marquez, a defender from the central province of Villa Clara, was named the best Cuban soccer player of 2006, in a ceremony that ended local Soccer Day festivities, held on the 95th anniversary of the first soccer match held in Cuba on December 11, 1911.

Classical music lovers in the Cuban capital will be treated with a series of concerts during the Third National Meeting of Symphonic Orchestras from December 16 to 23.

Drama Mex, film by Gerardo Naranjo of Mexico and La Perrera, by Uruguayan Manuel Nieto, compete on Tuesday at the 28th Havana Film Festival, which entered its eighth day.

Cuba's Working Group for Havana Bay (GTE-BH) will hold an international workshop for the treatment of wastes in 2007, it was announced on Tuesday. At the workshop, Cubans involved in the project will exchange experiences with foreign experts about the future of the sea floor, the last stage in the cleanup.

Former Czech president Vaclav Havel called on people to boycott tourist trips to Cuba in a video recording presented at a conference held by Lech Walesa, former Polish president and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, in Warsaw today.

Cuba has pledged to send additional doctors and medical specialists to Zimbabwe in a bid to alleviate the crippling shortage of manpower in the health sector. Visiting Cuban Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs responsible for International Co-operation Cde Yillian Jiamenz yesterday told Health and Child Welfare Minister

The executive officer of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) helped Cubans celebrate the 100th anniversary of the opening of the capital's first Protestant temple on Sunday, giving a sermon in which he urged all Christians to do more to eliminate global inequality.

Cayman traveled to Havana Cubs to take on a select Cuban club side on December 2nd to renew relationships between the two countries for the first time since 1999. In fact Cayman played in the first ever rugby international match in Cuba in 1991 so is fondly remembered by a few Cuban veterans.

As part of the restructuring process of the sugar industry, which Cuba has been undertaking over the past few years, the workers of that sector in eastern Las Tunas province have begun planting timber-yielding trees on more than 10,200 hectares of land previously dedicated to sugar cane plantations.