Cuban Radar
Cuban Radar
A
service offered by the Radio Progreso Alternativa Havana Bureau
Fidel Castro returns
Cuba’s
leader Fidel Castro reappeared on Cuban TV on Tuesday, January 30. A video
broadcast, which appeared in the Round Table program, shows Castro
receiving visiting President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez.
Castro, who is seen on his feet and wearing the official track suit of the Cuban
Olympic team, was greeted with an embrace from Chávez.
“This
embrace is not from me only, but from the millions of us that love you and need
you,” said Chávez.
During
the visit, which lasted about two hours, from one to three in the afternoon, as
later Chávez said, international issues and problems of climate change were
discussed. The latter, according to Castro, “endangers the human species”.
Shortly after, television stations from all over the world reproduced the video.
In Miami, home of the Cuban exiled extreme right, the Spanish speaking media
attempted to invalidate, or make slight of, what was obvious: Castro, taking
into account his condition, seemed healthier.
For
Miami Cubans, the video comes at a time when city authorities are readying the
Orange Bowl to celebrate Castro’s death. The video also disqualifies the
predictions made by Cuban exile analysts who claimed that the revolutionary
leader had terminal cancer.
In
Havana, Cubans were surprised. Except for brief commentaries from top government
officials there had been no news of Catros health since last October.
“He
looks better, standing up, firm, and that’s good,” said Leonel Chaviano, who
works at a cafeteria in Havana’s La Rampa.
“Yes,
he looks better, but far from well,” answers Juan Losada, 64, a retiree.
“If
you compare it with the last time we saw him, he is better,” said Olga Rivalta,
a housewife.
“They
shouldn’t force him. He should be resting, because he is 80. And what 80 years!”
said Rafael Domínguez while waiting for the bus at L and 23 Streets.
The
return of Fidel Castro to the presidency depends on two factors: good health and
political evaluation; but many believe that even if he makes a comeback he won’t
be able to do it with the heavy workload of the past years.
Change of sex will be free
According to the latest edition of the newsletter Diversidad (Diversity),
the National Assembly of Popular Power (parliament) will discuss the issue of
free sex change surgery, meaning that the health care public system will treat
all persons who apply.
The
measure would complement the present Identity Law that already acknowledges the
right of citizens to change name and sexual identity. This places Cuba at the
vanguard of the legislations that acknowledge the rights of transvestites,
transsexuals and transgender in Latin America.
“We
have decided to begin with transsexuals because they are the most vulnerable
from the point of view of physical and psychological health,” said Mariela
Castro Espín, director of the National Center of Sexual Education (CENESEX).
According to the publication, Cuba’s parliament will present several favorable
measures for the LGTB (Lesbians, Gays, Trans and Bisexuals) community in 2007,
including the legalization of same sex unions.
Nickel enterprise will be energy self-sufficient
René
Estévez Soto, general manager of the Comandante Ernesto Che Guevara Nickel
Enterprise, told the National Information Agency that in the first months of
2007 “two new steam boilers will start generating power, reducing (fuel)
consumption and making the plant more efficient.”
When
the new boilers begin generating steam and electric power “it will translate to
a savings of 10,000 tons of fuel and that in practice (the plant) will no longer
be hooked to the national power system.”
The
facility that produces nickel sinter plus cobalt is locate in the town of Moa,
in the eastern province of Holguín, and its output is over 30,000 tons a year.
“Pedagogy 2007” international congress
Some
4,400 educators representing thirty countries from Latin American, Africa, Asia,
Oceania and North America, together with some 1,300 Cubans, gathered in Havana
to inaugurate the International Congress “Pedagogy 2007”, which will run until
February 2 at the Palace of Conventions.
Since
1986, Cuba has been hosting these meetings among educators, and its central
theme this year will be “Latin American and Universal Pedagogical Thinking.”
Cuban drugs against HIV lower mortality rate
Dr.
Jorge Pérez Ávila, vice director of the Pedro Kourí Institute of Tropical
Medicine, informed the National Information Agency (AIN) that Cuban
anti-retroviral drugs lowered the mortality rate among VIH carriers from 24 per
100,000 inhabitants to 5 per 100,000 in 2006. Pérez Ávila also said that the
nationally produced drugs decreased by 70 percent the onset of the more than 600
opportunistic diseases that attack patients. Data in both cases is for a period
spanning the last five years.
The
scientist also said that during this period “the mortality rate for 100 cases of
AIDS decreased to 6 percent. Mortality in absolute values also decreased, while
opportunistic diseases, which deteriorate patients and may cause death,
decreased from 623 cases in 2001 to 152 in 2006.”
HIV-AIDS incidence on the island is 0.09 percent, a figure that places Cuba
among the 18 nations with the lowest rate in the world and number 1 in the
Caribbean.
A
mass dedicated to Cuba’s patron saint
Misa Cubana
(Cuban Mass), dedicated to the Virgin of Charity at El Cobre, written by Cuban
pianist José María Vitier, was presented in Santiago de Cuba on January 27,
conducted by its composer, as an expression of national cultural identity.
According to the National Information Agency, “soloists, a choir, a string
orchestra, organ, harpsichord and percussion were used by the composer for the
performance of three chants in Spanish to the Virgin, together with traditional
parts of the mass, such as Salve Regina, Hosanna and Ave Maria in Latin.”
The
audience also enjoyed the performance in Latin and Yoruba of “Hail Mary for
Cuba”, sung by soprano Bárbara Llanes and the Exaudi Choir, which became the
most moving and well received piece of the program.
The
mass was also presented at the Dolores Concert Hall and at the Cathedral of
Santiago de Cuba.
Ten
years ago Vitier conducted its premiere at the Cathedral of Havana.
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