For the US, a spectacularly embarrasing vote at the UN

<p style="text-align: justify;">La Alborada - October 27. After last year, it seemed that the annual vote at the UN could not get worse for the US. This year, it did just that: the vote was 187 against the blockade,two in favor. Palau, a Pacific micro-island that has supported the US in the past, decided to abstain, following the prior example of its neighbor Marshall Islands. Taking that stand is no small matter for an isolated nation in a commonwealth with the US. Read More

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Cuba Defeats Chinese Taipei at Baseball Intercontinental Cup

<p style="text-align: justify;">The Cuban baseball squad defeated their rivals from Chinese Taipei at the Intercontinental Cup, currently underway in Douliou City, Yunlin County. Read More

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Nestor Kirchner dies suddenly

<p style="text-align: justify;">Néstor Kirchner, Argentina’s president from 2003 to 2007, the husband of the incumbent, Cristina Fernández and the man widely considered the country’s most powerful politician, died suddenly on Wednesday after a heart attack. He was 60. Read More

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Jose Manuel Carreño to Retire from the American Ballet Theatre

<p style="text-align: justify;">10/27/2010. Principal dancer of the National Ballet of Cuba and of the American Ballet Theatre (ABT) Jose Manuel Carreño announced he will retire from the American company on June 30, 2011. Carreño said he will continue his dancing career and hopes to do some choreography and to create a work of his own. The artist, who joined the ABT 15 years ago, said it is a great opportunity to be in Cuba with the US company for the first time to participate in the 22nd International Ballet Festival of Havana, scheduled for October 28 to November 7. Read More

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Jazz In Cuba Is music helping shred a senseless Cold War remnant?

<p style="text-align: justify;">Is music helping shred a senseless Cold War remnant? 10/27/10 • By Ken Franckling. After all these years, is there anything more senseless than the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba? I think not, but some are bound to disagree. But the arts are thawing the iceberg a bit – and jazz is at the forefront of that relaxation. rturo O'Farrill leads his Arfo-Latin Jazz Orchestra at Litchfield Jazz Festival 2010. Right now, pianist Chucho Valdés and his Afro-Cuban Messengers are in the midst of a 12-city U.S. tour that included two nights at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Room in Manhattan and hop-scotched around the Northeast and West Coast. Read More

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BLOOMBERG: Obama Is Urged to End Cuba Trade Embargo

<p style="text-align: justify;">Cuba's margin of victory actually incresed this time as Palau - population 20,000 - which voted against Cuba last time abstained this time. Obama Is Urged to End Cuba Trade Embargo in 187-2 UN General Assembly Vote. By Bill Varner - Oct 26, 2010 10:12 AM. The United Nations General Assembly voted for the 19th consecutive year to urge an end to the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, which the government in Havana has labeled an "act of genocide." Read More

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Indonesian tsunami kills 272; help finally arrives

<p style="text-align: justify;">Planes and helicopters packed with rescue workers and supplies landed for the first time on Wednesday on remote Indonesian islands that were pounded by a 10—foot (three—meter) tsunami, sweeping away villages and killing at least 272 people. Read More

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Woman whose husband is jailed in Cuba now speaks to him more often

<p style="text-align: justify;">By JESSICA GRESKO , Associated Press. WASHINGTON - The wife of a Maryland man jailed in Cuba as an accused spy said Tuesday that she and her husband have been able to talk on the telephone more regularly after she wrote an August letter to Cuban President Raul Castro, but that her husband's health is "not great." Read More

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Change with Obama ?

<p style="text-align: justify;">In the Cubaminrex' 2010 United Nations report on the effect of the U.S.blockade, it's pointed out that the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) has announced that, effective March 2012, it will no longer accept payment from Cuban banks because the software update has U.S. components. While researching SWIFT -- the nub of contention over a U.S. "anti-terror" data mining treaty the EU is resisting -- I found this interesting article that shows the pressures against the blockade are stirring up controversy. Read More

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Cuban Visual Arts Salon to be Inaugurated in Mexico

<p style="text-align: justify;">10/26/2010. A Cuban Visual Arts Salon was inaugurated in front of many people in the Granma Room, from the Cuban Embassy in Mexico, in memory of the Cuban Culture Day. The show, includes 37 original pictures by a group of the most important contemporary Cuban creators, such as Roberto Fabelo, Nelson Domínguez, Kcho, Agustín Bejerano, Adigio Benitez and Pedro Pablo Oliva, among other painters and engravers from the Caribbean island, according to a report by Prensa Latina. Read More

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