Ciego de Avila Last Cuba Semis Qualifier

<p style="text-align: justify;">HAVANA TIMES, April 3 — Ciego de Avila won a tense 1-0 pitching duel Sunday afternoon with Villa Clara to move on to the semifinals of Cuba’s Eastern Division baseball playoffs against Granma. In the West, Cienfuegos will clash with Pinar del Rio.Ciego de Avila got the game’s lone run in the bottom of the first inning scored by Rusney Castillo with the RBI credited to Yorelvis Charles. Vladimir Garcia pitched a complete game allowing only three hits and striking out eight to get the win. Read More

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Uruguay Hosts 2nd ALBA Film Festival

<p style="text-align: justify;">Por Dayami Interián García.Montevideo, Apr 3 (Prensa Latina) Films from Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, and Venezuela, the four ALBA countries accredited in Uruguay, are shown as part of the 2nd Film Festival of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, taking place in Florida department until April 8.Thanks to contributions by the diplomatic representations of those countries, the festival was inaugurated Friday with the film "Los Andes no creen en Dios," by Antonio Equino. Read More

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Carter issues report on Cuba visit

<p style="text-align: justify;">Through the Carter Center, Jimmy Carter has released a report on his trip to Cuba. Excerpts follow: [Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez] acknowledged some positive steps taken by the Obama administration but maintained that the overall impact of recent policies had been very damaging to Cuba, primarily because of a tightening of financial transactions through foreign banks. Also, the continuing Helms-Burton program for "democracy promotion," which is a regime change strategy funded at $20 million, remains a serious source of concern.• There seems to be minimal direct contact between American diplomats and top Cuban officials. Read More

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Conference to look at Cuba's oil prospects

<p style="text-align: justify;">Havana, Apr 3 (EFE).- The prospects for oil exploration and production in Cuba will be at the center of discussions this week during the 4th International Earth Science Convention and Fair in Havana.The event, which begins on Monday, is expected to draw experts from 15 countries in the Americas, Europe and Africa.One workshop will examine the geology and petroleum potential of the southeastern Gulf of Mexico.Cuba plans to discuss the oil potential of its Exclusive Economic Zone in that part of the Gulf of Mexico, Cuban Geology Society president and lead event organizer Manuel Iturralde said. Read More

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Cienfuegos, Granma & Pinar in Cuba’s Semifinals

<p style="text-align: justify;">HAVANA TIMES, April 3 — Cienfuegos, Granma and Pinar del Rio are set for the semifinals of Cuba’s baseball playoffs with the last ticket to be determined on Sunday in game seven between Ciego de Avila and Villa Clara.Cienfuegos was the first team to qualify with an easy four games to one series win over Habana. Then on Saturday Pinar del Rio finished off Sancti Spiritus 2-1 in game six and Granma ended Guantanamo’s hopes winning game seven by a score of 10-2. Read More

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Rare Napoleonic museum opens in Cuba

<p style="text-align: justify;">AFP. Sunday, 3 April 2011. Napoleon Bonaparte goes on display in Cuba Friday with the reopening of the Napoleonic Museum of Havana, which boasts the largest collection of French revolutionary and imperial items outside of Europe.Napoleon never set foot in Cuba but his physician, Corsican-born Francesco Antommarchi, who treated him during his last days in exile on Saint Helen, moved here after the emperor died in 1821, bringing with him the French icon's death mask. Read More

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Los Muñequitos de Matanzas keep rumba flame alive

<p style="text-align: justify;">Chuy Varela, Special to The Chronicle. San Francisco Chronicle April 1, 2011 04:00 AM. Los Munequitos Once an all-male ensemble, Los Muñequitos de Matanzas now.On their last visit to San Francisco, in 1992, Cuban folkloric troupe Los Muñequitos de Matanzas did a rumba version of Scott McKenzie's "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)." At the standing-room-only show at Mission High School, it brought the house down."This music has a spiritual element that creates unity, peace and tranquillity," says Diosdado Ramos Cruz, director of Los Muñequitos de Matanzas. Read More

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Travel columnist explores Cuba

<p style="text-align: justify;">By Janice Law. Contributor. Published April 3, 2011. HAVANA — As evening pedestrians, we stepped cautiously around and into alarmingly large holes packing nearly ink-black downtown streets, lit only every other block or so with the dimmest of lights.As night bus passengers, we marveled how our driver navigated the same areas where vehicles, bikes and human shapes, indistinct in the darkened roadways, converged.We traveled to Cuba on a charter flight from Miami as U.S.-sanctioned delegates from the American Association of Museums with a mission to meet for six days with Cuban museum personnel on issues of mutual concern. Read More

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Cultivate Cuba for peace

<p style="text-align: justify;">3 April 2011, Cuba has been an issue of US conscience. Washington’s desire to see democracy take roots in its backyard communist nation-state had come at a cost for the islanders. Trade and travel embargoes, coupled with political discord of the highest order, had only bred discontent.This is what former US president and mentor of human rights doctrine Jimmy Carter said when he toured Cuba. He said the decades-long trade embargo and travel ban have damaged the Cuban people and hindered rather than help reform Read More

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Cuba’s Most Longevous Flutist Passed Away

<p style="text-align: justify;">CIENFUEGOS, Cuba, Apr 2 (acn) Efrain Loyola, Cuba’s most longevous flutist, died on Friday in this city, at the age of 94.Born on December 18, 1916, in Cienfuegos, he grew up as a poor black child who loved music, so his passion for playing an instrument accompanied his work as a shoeshine boy and a baker.Loyola was part of important groups, among them the Conjunto Tradicional de Sones Los Naranjos, the Ritmica 39 –the embryo of the Aragon Orchestra- and the centenarian Municipal Concert Band of Cienfuegos, in which he performed since 1937. He also founded his own group, called The Efrain Loyola Orchestra. Read More

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