CUBANEWS FROM RADIO HAVANA CUBA E-mail: rhc@radiohc.org May 9th, 1997 The following items are taken from RADIO HAVANA CUBA's International Shortwave Service in English for Friday, May 9th, 1997. Today's stories: 1.- CUBAN PRESIDENT FIDEL CASTRO MEETS WITH CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY LEADER HUANG JU IN THE CUBAN CAPITAL 2.- DANISH GOVERNMENT RATIFIES INTEREST IN TIGHTENING RELATIONS WITH CUBA 3.- LATIN AMERICAN AND CUBAN TOURISM CONGRESSES OPEN MONDAY IN HAVANA 4.- HEALTH AUTHORITIES STRATEGIZE TO PROVIDE ADEQUATE CARE TO THE GROWING POPULATION OF ELDERS 5.- HIGH INCIDENCE OF BREAST CANCER IN CUBA CUBAN PRESIDENT FIDEL CASTRO MEETS WITH CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY LEADER HUANG JU IN THE CUBAN CAPITAL Havana, May 9 (RHC)-- Cuban President Fidel Castro met Thursday evening with visiting Chinese official Huang Ju, member of the Chinese Communist Party's Political Bureau and the Party's General Secretary in the Province of Shanghai. The meeting took place during a reception offered by the Chinese Embassy in Havana, with the participation of Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage and other high-ranking members of the Cuban government. Hung Ju began his official visit to Cuba last Tuesday and has toured the provinces of Santiago de Cuba and Matanzas. The Chinese official is the top Communist leader in one of China's most developed provinces and was one of the hosts to President Castro during the Cuban leader's 1995 visit to China. DANISH GOVERNMENT RATIFIES INTEREST IN TIGHTENING RELATIONS WITH CUBA Copenhagen, May 9(RHC)-- Denmark's Foreign Minister says his government will strengthen relations with Cuba. At a meeting with outgoing Cuban ambassador in Copenhagen, Martin Mora, the Danish Foreign Minister, Niels Halveg reiterated an official invitation to his Cuban counterpart, Roberto Robaina, to visit Denmark. In the opinion of the two government representatives Fidel Castro's visit to Copenhagen in 1995 meant a change in bilateral relations. LATIN AMERICAN AND CUBAN TOURISM CONGRESSES OPEN MONDAY IN HAVANA Havana, May 9(RHC)-- The month of May could mark an extra boost for tourism in Cuba after more than one thousand Latin American and local travel agents and tour operators meet in Havana next week. The visitors will be on hand for the 40th Congress of the Confederation of Latin American Tourism Organizations -COTAL- and the 18th Cuban Tourism Convention -slated from May 12th through 16th at Havana's Convention Center. Debates on the evolution of tourism during the past 40 years, a review of tourism in Latin America and a master conference by the Secretary General of the World Tourism Organization, Spaniard Antonio Enriquez Sauvignac top COTAL's congress agenda. Meanwhile, the 18th Cuban Tourism Convention is designed to promote the island's attractive offers with 45 tourism resorts, two hundred sites of interests and more than two hundred fifty kilometers of white-sand turquoise-water beaches. The convention's organizers say emphasis will be placed on promoting Cuban tourism resorts practically unknown abroad, like those of the eastern provinces of Holguin and Santiago de Cuba, keys north of central Ciego de Avila province, Cienfuegos central province and the westernmost province of Pinar del Rio. Last year the island received more than a million visitors, a relevant figure for a country that entered the international tourism market only a decade ago. HEALTH AUTHORITIES STRATEGIZE TO PROVIDE ADEQUATE CARE TO THE GROWING POPULATION OF ELDERS Havana, May 9(RHC)-- Cuba's Health Ministry has plans to implement a special program for the treatment of the elderly. Cuba - with its population ranking as the fourth most aged of Latin America- is giving top priority to find more effective ways to assist senior people. In its Friday edition, Cuba's Granma newspaper mentions the creation of community-based gerontology cabinets to meet the most urgent needs of the aged. The pledge -says Granma- will mean a remarkable effort amidst current hardships because one out of nine Cubans are more than 60 years old and the number of senior people continues on the rise. Granma points to the island's high life expectancy and womens' low fertility rate -the lowest on the continent- as the reasons behind the aging of Cubans. The daily says the Havana-based Iberoamerican Center for the Aged is training the first 14 teams of physicians, nurses and psychologists among other experts, that will be assigned to work in the new gerontology cabinets. Granma quoted Cuba's Deputy Health Minister, Luis Cordovez, asserting that of the island's 80 thousand hospital beds, 14 thousand are part of the national welfare program for the elderly. Cordovez said the number of senior homes have increased five fold since the triumph of the Revolution in 1959. HIGH INCIDENCE OF BREAST CANCER IN CUBA Havana, May 9(RHC)-- Breast cancer is being reported as the first cause of death among Cuban women. Cuban oncologist and head of the National Anti-breast cancer program, Maria Luisa Buch, told Prensa Latina news agency that currently there are three main diagnostic procedures to screen this type of cancer on the island, the yearly clinical exam provided by the family doctor every year, the self-exam and mammographies. Dr. Bush, one of the experts present at the 10th Congress of Gynecology and Obstetrics that wound up Friday in Havana, said that 37 out of 100 thousand Cuban women suffer from breast cancer and the figure is expected to grow . In Cuba, the cancer that most affect women are breast, lung, cervix and colon, in that order of morbidity. For the complete RADIO HAVANA CUBA NEWSCAST and other features, please write for our daily broadcast schedule. We welcome your comments and suggestions. [c] 1997. Radio Habana Cuba All rights reserved This article cannot be reproduced, reprinted or published in any system without the consent of RHC. This prohibition includes the distribution of this material via Usenet News, "bulletin board" services, e-mail lists, print media, radio and television. For further information, contact us at Postal Address: Radio Havana Cuba, P.O.Box 6240 Havana, Cuba Telephone: (53) (7) 791053 Fax: (53) (7) 795007 E-mail: rhc@radiohc.org WWW: http://www.radiohc.org