Cuba Begins Intensive Anti-Dengue Campaign

<p style="text-align: justify;">By: Ileana Ferrer Fonte. 09:05Havana, Aug 15 (Prensa Latina) A one-month intensive fumigation and clean-up campaign begins Monday in various provinces to prevent the proliferation of the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, which carries dengue fever. Deputy Public Health Minister Luis Estruch stated that the campaign will be carried out in Havana and the cities of Pinar del Rio, Santa Clara, Camaguey, Santiago de Cuba, Bayamo and Guantanamo, and the municipality of Mariel, in Artemisa province. Read More

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Canadian Line to Launch Round-Cuba Cruises

<p style="text-align: justify;">(12:00 p.m. EDT) -- In a new chapter of the on-off love affair between cruise lines and Cuba, a Canadian tour operator has announced that it will launch week-long voyages out of Havana for the winter season. Toronto-based Cuba Cruise will start service December 4 and use the 1,200-passenger Louis Cristal, which was built in 1980. This announcement comes a year after the launch of Belize-registered Tropicana Cruises, which also offers round-Cuba holidays, although mainly to Russian guests. Read More

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German entreprenuers sue Paypal for having suspended its accounts to traders selling Cuban products

<p style="text-align: justify;">Agencias. Havana. 15.08.2011. More than ten German entrepreneurs sued the online payment company Paypal for having lifted the accounts to several traders who were selling Cuban products in Germany, Prensa Latina state agency reported. Paypal belongs to the selling and buying enterprise eBay since 2006, with a California venue and subject to the USA's embargo rules which ban trade with Cuba. According to attorney Andreas Eberl, who represents the entreprenuers at the Munich Court, the lifting of accounts by Paypal' side is illegal. Read More

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Dispatches from Cuba: Pre-1959 American cars common in Cuba

<p style="text-align: justify;">HAVANA -- Did I mention the cars? I will write more about this later, but pre-1959 American cars are indeed common -- not just 1950s cars but even 1940s or older. One man showed me under the hood of his 1956 De Soto -- it has a 2-liter Toyota engine in it. After 59 years, it doesn't look too bad, does it? This is a 1956 De Soto -- with a a 2-liter Toyota engine in it. / ELLEN CREAGER/DETROIT FREE PRESS. Free Press travel writer Ellen Creager is with the first American tourists on a new "people-to-people" cultural tour that started Thursday. Except for a brief window 2000-2003, it is the first time in 50 years the average American can travel to Cuba. Read More

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Ecuador to purchase Cuban Medicine Imports

<p style="text-align: justify;">By:Fany Rodríguez. 01:00Quito, Aug 14 (Prensa Latina) Ecuador will prioritize imports of medicine from Cuba, which sells internationally renowned products, over those offered by transnational corporations, President Rafael Correa announced. During his weekly Saturday radio and TV address, Correa said the Public Health Ministry would invest 1.3 billion USD in medicine, prioritizing domestic suppliers, and followed by Cuban imports. Read More

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Dispatches from Cuba: Little to buy for American tourists in Havana

<p style="text-align: justify;">Creager is with the group of the first American tourists on a new “people-to-people” cultural tour that started August 11. Except for a brief window 2000-2003, it is the first time in 50 years the average American can travel to Cuba. HAVANA -- Someone please tell my family that my gift to them will be photos, postcards and the smell of Cohiba smoke on my clothes.That’s because the hardest part for American tourists here in Havana is the shopping – or more accurately, the lack of shopping. Read More

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Sumbe, New Cuban Film on Angola Epic

<p style="text-align: justify;">By: Ileana Ferrer Fonte.A new film about the Cuban presence in the war in Angola, this time focused on the battle carried out by teachers, construction workers and doctors in Sumbe, will premier Thursday in the capital´s Charles Chaplin movie theater.Directed by filmmaker Eduardo Moya, the film is the second part of a trilogy begun in 2008 with the film Kangamba, by Rogelio Paris, which closes with the battle in Cuito Cuanavale (1987-1988). Read More

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Cuba transgender wedding shows shifting attitudes

<p style="text-align: justify;">AP.By PETER ORSI. HAVANA (AP) — A gay man and a woman whose sex-change operation was paid for by the state tied the knot Saturday in a first-of-its-kind wedding for Cuba, a sign of how much the country's attitude toward sexuality has changed since gays and transsexuals suffered persecution in the early years after the revolution.Bride Wendy Iriepa, 37, arrived at a Havana wedding hall in the afternoon in a vintage Ford convertible and a full white wedding gown, flowers in her hair and holding a rainbow flag. Neighborhood residents came out of their homes to gawk at the wedding party and the journalists mobbing the car. Read More

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Colombian FARC Willing to Talk with Gov´t

<p style="text-align: justify;">Bogota, Aug 14 (Prensa Latina) The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)&nbsp; reaffirmed its political will to take the necessary steps toward an eventual peace process that will end the internal armed conflict. In a message signed by the FARC National Secretariat and addressed to participants in a national peace conference, the guerrilla group maintained its willingness to explore the path to dialogue with the government. Read More

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Singer Pablo Milanes urges more freedom in Cuba

<p style="text-align: justify;">Miami's Spanish language El Nuevo Herald newspaper published an interview on Sunday with the 68-year-old two-time Grammy award winner, whose melodic and evocative ballads are well known in Latin America and internationally.Milanes' planned August 27 concert in Miami, a bastion of anti-communist Cuban exiles in the United States, has touched off a storm of discord between those who criticize him as a stooge of the communist government in Havana and many fans and supporters who defend his right to perform in Miami. Read More

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