Lula arrives in Cuba for work meeting with Raúl Castro

<p style="text-align: justify;">The former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is to arrive today in Cuba to meet the island’s mandate Raul Castro in a tour that will also include a visit to Chavez’ Venezuela. According to the Cuban official newspaper Granma, Lula will hold “a work meeting” with Raúl Castro and will visit “sites of economic interest.” Read More

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Gran Caribe merging two hotels

<p style="text-align: justify;">State company Gran Caribe S.A. is merging the operations of two hotels in Havana, a Website of the tourism ministry said, without explaining the reasons. The Vedado and Saint John’s hotels, both aging budget hotels located within a block’s distance in a business district of Havana, will offer a combined 284 rooms and four restaurants, two cafeterias, two lobby bars, and two snack bars, including one on the 15th floor of the Saint John’s. Read More

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Cuban magazine raises issue of exile investments

<p style="text-align: justify;">Palabra Nueva, a magazine of the Archdiocese of Havana, published a lengthy interview with Miami insurance and banking tycoon Carlos Saladrigas, in which he urges the government grant more space to the private sector. Once Cubans living abroad are allowed to invest in the Cuban economy without being treated as foreign investors, money will begin to flow, Saladrigas argued.“I don’t think there is one Cuban abroad who would accept investing in Cuba as a foreign investor,” Saladrigas was quoted by Palabra Nueva. Read More

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Cuban Government Daily Rails Against Bureaucracy

<p style="text-align: justify;">HAVANA – Granma, the official daily of the Cuban Communist Party, exploded Monday against the country’s excess of bureaucratic meetings in an article recalling the need to do real work and “not keep going to meetings as a total reflex.” “It’s not at a meeting, nor with a quota of 15 meetings a month, that the country’s problems will be solved. What we need to do is work,” Granma said.On the island, “too many people jump from one meeting to the next, behind closed doors with nobody allowed to interrupt them, while the needs of life outside seldom coincide with the plans drafted at so many of these eternal discussion groups,” Granma said. Read More

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AMERICA/CUBA- The Catholic Church is not a political party " but "is in the service of the people "

<p style="text-align: justify;">2011-05-30. La Habana (Agenzia Fides) - On the occasion of the 33rd General Assembly of the Council of Latin American Bishops, which has just ended in Montevideo (Uruguay), two Cuban Bishops, Monsignor Emilio Aranguren, bishop of Holguin, and Auxiliary Bishop of Havana, Juan de Dios Hernandez, said in an interview to the Uruguayan newspaper La Republica, released by the CNA: "The country is moving in a different way than before, and this could be a sign of progress and a new way of governing." Read More

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OAS Secretary General Asserts that President Zelaya's Return "Is a Milestone" in the Reconciliation of Hondurans

<p style="text-align: justify;">(Media-Newswire.com) - The Secretary General of the Organization of American States ( OAS ), José Miguel Insulza, arrived at noon today in the headquarters of the Government of Honduras to meet for the second time with President Porfirio Lobo and accompany him during the meeting with the Foreign Ministers of Colombia, María Ángela Holguín, and of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, on the occasion of the arrival of former President José Manuel Zelaya in Tegucigalpa. Read More

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Cuban economy to get a facelift on oil discovery

<p style="text-align: justify;">HAVANA (Commodity Online) : Cuba’s significant oil discovery in the Gulf of Mexico may help its dilapidated economy to recover and even change political scenarios of the region as it may prompted the US to end a 50 year long embargo on Cuba. Cuba is planning to increase its pumped oil output from 21 million to 28 million barrels a year and start oil and gas exploitation in its exclusive economic zone in the Gulf of Mexico . Read More

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President Buchanan contemplated using Brigham Young to acquire northern Mexico, Cuba

<p style="text-align: justify;">Published: Sunday, May 29, 2011 10:46 p.m. MDT. By R. Scott Lloyd, Church News staff writer ST. GEORGE — U.S. President James Buchanan contemplated using Brigham Young and the Mormons in a complex chain of events that would result in the acquisition by the United States of northern Mexico and Cuba, the president of the Mormon History Association said Saturday evening. William P MacKinnon, ending his one-year term as the association head, delivered the traditional presidential address at the closing banquet for its annual conference in St. George over the weekend. Read More

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The Dances of Africa, as Filtered Through the Americas

<p style="text-align: justify;">By GIA KOURLAS.May 29, 2011. There’s nothing like a DanceAfrica performance to send you straight to summer. It has its own flow, and you can’t fight it, no matter how chaotic, raucous and hazily dull it becomes. Chuck Davis, the group’s artistic director, loves to speechify, and during the nearly two-and-a-half hour program at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Friday night — it was so long he had to cut the finale — there were two award presentations and a memorial service to honor those once connected to DanceAfrica. This Image by Andrea Mohin/The New York Times Read More

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Cuba to Host Renewable Energy Event

<p style="text-align: justify;">By PL — last modified May 30, 2011 11:47 AM. Almost 200 scientists, professionals and business people from more than 15 countries are expected to attend the 7th International Conference for Renewable Energy, Energy Conservation and Energy Education, CIER 2011. The conference opens on June 1 and will run for three days at the Havana Conference Center.Participants will debate efforts aimed at strengthening the production of renewable energy technologies and increasing energy efficiency and culture, organizing committee president Tania Carbonell told Prensa Latina. Read More

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