Festival gives Cuba a window to the world

<p style="text-align: justify;">The NewsHour's Global Health Unit kicked off a three-part series from Cuba on Monday, reporting on the country's economy and health care system. NewsHour producer Cat Wise filed this additional report for Art Beat about Cuba's highly regarded film festival.The grand lobby of Havana's historic Hotel Nacional de Cuba was humming with activity earlier this month as documentary filmmakers, directors, actors and producers from around Latin America gathered to pay homage to their craft at the the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema. Read More

---

B.H. Carroll Theological Institute has eye on expansion, accreditation

<p style="text-align: justify;">Monday, Dec. 20, 2010. By Jim Jones. Special to the Citizen-Journal. B.H. Carroll Theological Institute is plunging into a new era of expanded ministry training in Texas, Cuba and other parts of the world, its leaders say. Read More

---

Cuba celebrates ballet legend Alonso's 90th b-day

<p style="text-align: justify;">By JENNY BARCHFIELD, Associated Press. HAVANA – Cuba feted the 90th birthday of dance legend Alicia Alonso with a ballet and music-filled gala dedicated to the island's prima ballerina assoluta.The audience at the gilded Gran Teatro in Old Havana broke into a standing ovation when the sprightly diva&nbsp; considered a living legend of international ballet and a national treasure in her native Cuba — swept in and took the place of honor ahead of Monday night's performance on the eve of her birthday. Read More

---

In Cuba, Questions About Economic Change Persist

<p style="text-align: justify;">Ray Suarez's three-part Cuba series begins Monday night on the NewsHour.When I returned from Cuba recently, I was struck by the intense level of curiosity about the place, and the air of mystery the United States trade embargo and travel ban have created around a place 90 miles from the U.S. mainland."What was it like?" "Was it easy to get around" "Were you followed? Or were you just able to go about your business?" Read More

---

Government will let loss-making state companies falter

<p style="text-align: justify;">During a frank, four-day exchange with deputies of the national parliament about economic reform projects, Raúl Castro and Marino Murillo, Cuba’s point man of the reform, said that loss-making state companies are running out of time and will be gradually stripped of subsidies. Read More

---

Night of One Thousand and One Texts

<p style="text-align: justify;">By Dalia Acosta. HAVANA, Dec 20, 2010 (IPS) - The legendary Scheherazade has exchanged her enthralling tales of "One Thousand and One Nights" for a compact disc with 1,001 academic articles, essays and books, giving Cubans access to materials that would otherwise be very difficult to obtain.The initiative of the Criterios Theoretical-Cultural Centre is to provide "the greatest amount of international information. Read More

---

Urban Tribes Prowl Havana Nights

<p style="text-align: justify;">By Dalia Acosta. HAVANA, Dec 17, 2010 (IPS) - A different city emerges on the weekends in Havana. Young people, whose faces are as strange as they are common, take possession of the city and reinvent it. They are the "urban tribes," a global phenomenon that has made its mark on Cuba. A stretch of about 700 metres of Calle G, one of Havana's main avenues, is a meeting site for these informal networks. Read More

---

Cubans lead campaign to fight cholera in Haiti

<p style="text-align: justify;">BY SETH GALINSKY.THE MILITANT. Vol. 74/No. 48. The Cuban government has more centers to treat cholera in Haiti than any other government or non-governmental organization there. Now it is greatly expanding its medical mission.An additional 300 doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel are joining the 965 members of the Cuban Medical Brigade. Read More

---

Cuba parliament meets ahead of big party gathering

<p style="text-align: justify;">AP. By PAUL HAVEN, Associated Press Paul Haven, Associated Press – Wed Dec 15. HAVANA – Cuba's parliament convened Wednesday to discuss the government's make-or-break plans to retool the island's economy. Read More

---

Defining Cuban identity and Cuban Folklore Society

<p style="text-align: justify;">The African Diaspora and their descendants have been fully researched in Cuba, because its influence on folklore is such that it is associated with almost all the artistic and cultural expressions in the country. By: Mildrey Ponce. The term folklore is associated with the whole set of traditions, beliefs, customs and popular knowledge of any culture that is transmitted generation to generation, mainly orally, which makes it the most direct way to know the idiosyncrasy of any nation. Read More

---