Nearly 30 Groups Have Been Authorized To Bring Tourists To Cuba

<p style="text-align: justify;">Robert Johnson. Jul. 27, 2011, 9:06 AM. With a clock counting down the number of days minutes, and hours until their first tour begins, Insight Cuba, will be the first organization to bring general American tourists to Cuba in more than seven years.According to The Miami Herald, Cuba Insight will be the first of&nbsp; nearly 30 groups approved by the Treasury Department to bring tourists to America's neighbor to the east. Read More

---

Giant portrait of Eva Perón unveiled in Argentina ministry

<p style="text-align: justify;">Associated Press in Buenos Aires.guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 27 July 2011 09.40 BST. President Cristina Fernández iinaugurates the artwork in front of the social development ministry in Buenos Aires Photograph: Juan Mabromata/AFP/Getty Images. A giant portrait of Eva Perón was unveiled Tuesday on the front of Argentina's social development ministry, where she gave a historic speech prior to her death from cancer in 1952. The 31m-high , 24m-wide (79ft by 102ft) work weighing 15 tonnes resembles the iconic portrait of Argentine revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara in Havana, Cuba. Read More

---

Int'l tourism to Cuba rises 10.6 pct in first half of 2011

<p style="text-align: justify;">Published July 27, 2011. EFE. Havana –&nbsp; More than 1.5 million foreign tourists visited Cuba in the first six months of this year, a figure that represents an increase of 10.6 percent compared to 2010, according to a report by the National Statistics Office cited Tuesday by the official AIN news agency.Canada headed the list of the countries sending tourists to the island, followed by Russia, Argentina, Britain, Chile and France, AIN reported. Read More

---

The door opens for people-to-people exchanges with Cuba

<p style="text-align: justify;">BY MIMI WHITEFIELD.MiamiHerald.com. Travel providers and other groups are scrambling to secure licenses and organize people-to-people exchanges in Cuba after the U.S. government relaxed restrictions and decided to allow a wider variety of Americans to visit the Caribbean island for the first time in 7 1/2 years. Since the Obama administration loosened restrictions on Cuba travel, nearly 30 groups have been authorized to offer people-to-people exchanges. The first trips leave in August.So far, the Treasury Department has issued nearly 30 licenses to organizations that say they will provide “purposeful travel.’’ Read More

---

Anti-speculation Law Comes into Effect in Venezuela

<p style="text-align: justify;">By. Dayami Interián García.11:32Caracas, Jul 19 (Prensa Latina) The Law on Fair Costs and Prices, recently promulgated as enabling act by President Hugo Chavez, takes effect Tuesday to fight speculation, an initiative that stirs up disagreements between the government and the opposition.Once enforced, the law has 90 days to fix cost structures with the participation of private and state sectors, as well as the population. Read More

---

Susana Baca becomes Peru's first black government minister

<p style="text-align: justify;">Singer, known as the voice of Afro-Peruvian music tradition, given culture portfolio by president-elect Ollanta Humala. Associated Press in Lima.guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 26 July 2011 16.01 BST. Susana Baca won a Latin Grammy in 2002 for an album she recorded nearly 20 years earlier in Cuba. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian. Read More

---

National Geographic’s map of Cuba is labor of love for Cuban American mapmaker

<p style="text-align: justify;"><br /> By David Montgomery,Squint at this map just right, with a pair of wistful eyes — Juan Jose Valdes’s eyes — and it reveals more than shapes and symbols on a grid of latitude and longitude.There is the warmth of the setting sun splashing gold over the sugar cane fields. The smell of coffee and the sea. The sound of the wind in the palms. Somewhere, also, is a little boy who loved maps in Havana, plotting the location of revolutionary battles on his Esso gas station road guide — until one day, the boy was put on a plane, alone, bound for colder places he knew only from maps. Read More

---

Cuban Tourism: A Single Strategy of Stability and Growth

<p style="text-align: justify;">By: Roberto F. Campos. lunes, 25 de julio de 2011.08:53. Havana (PL) The development of the Cuban tourist industry is a focus of attention for the government on the island, and its impressive growth was recently reiterated by Carmen Casals, director of communications of the Ministry of Tourism.During a meeting with communicators from six Latin American countries at Havana´s José Martí International Institute of Journalism, the expert predicted a promising future for this sector. Read More

---

José Martí Revolution Square is becoming 50 years old

<p style="text-align: justify;">By: Angel Rodríguez. 07/26/2011. The idea of building a square to pay tribute to our national hero, Jose Marti, goes back to 1935. However, it was only in the beginning of the 40’s that people started to work in its conception and was defined where would it placed: the Catalanes Hill.The project was taken to competition and was won by the sculptor Juan Jose Sucre and the architect Aquiles Maza, who had finished in the third place. The government of Fulgencio Batista ordered the public employees to give to working days and was held a postage stamp emission with obliged contribution, with which were collected millions of pesos, a good part of them, however, were misappropriate. Read More

---

Cuba cigar factory 'readers' keep oral tradition smoking

<p style="text-align: justify;">AFP. Tue Jul 26 2011. Cuba: Perched on a wooden dais in front of 600 workers rolling Cuba's legendary cigars, Grisel reads aloud -- poems, novels and even sex tips from the newspaper -- keeping workers entertained, their attention rapt, just the way it has been done for 150 years.Grisel, 55, a petite former teacher who wears reading glasses she adjusts frequently, may have a job that predates electricity.But nobody in Cuba seems to have any interest in replacing her with a transistor radio or TV. Read More

---