Radio Havana Cuba-17 August 2000 23:30 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Radio Havana Cuba - News Update - 17 August 2000 23:30 *CUBA WILL NOT GRANT OLYMPIC CONCESSIONS TO 3 ATHLETES *CHILDREN IN HOLGUIN UNDERGO surgery WITH NEW VIDEO-ASSISTED TECHNIQUES *OVERTIME IN SANCTI SPIRITUS PRODUCING NOTEBOOKS FOR THE NEXT SCHOOL YEAR *"DOWN WITH THE BLOCKADE" TABLOID AVAILABLE ON NEWSTANDS ACROSS THE ISLAND *WHILE THE RICH SPEND BILLIONS ON WEAPONS, 20 MILLION AFRICANS STARVE TO DEATH *CUBA WILL NOT GRANT OLYMPIC CONCESSIONS TO 3 ATHLETES Madrid, August 17 (RHC)-- The vice president of Cuba's Sports Institute, Alberto Juantorena, announced Wednesday that Cuban athletes Niurka Montalvo, Ivan Perez and Liliana Allen, will not be allowed to participate in the Sydney Olympic Games. The former Olympic champion runner told reporters in Madrid that Havana will grant no special concessions to the three, who became citizens of other countries by marriage. Juantorena explained that under Rule 46 of the Olympic Charter, the country of origin has the power to veto athletes' participation in the Games if they have been naturalized for less than three years. The rule is meant to discourage the buying of athletes from poor nations for competition on behalf of their newly-acquired developed countries. Cuba has often complained that after training athletes, often from the time they are children, the rich nations want to buy them to compete on their national sports teams. World champion long-jumper Niurka Montalvo defected to Spain in 1997, three months before the World Track and Field Championship in Athens, where she won a medal for Spain. She later married a Spaniard and became a citizen of Spain. Ivan Perez, waterpolo world champion, also became a Spanish citizen through marriage. Runner Liliana Allen married a Mexican and became a citizen of that country. Alberto Juantorena stressed that the problem is not that the athletes are married to foreigners and he pointed out that other Cuban athletes have married foreigners, including internationally-known sprinter Ana Fidelia Quirot, who is married to an Italian. The vice president of the Cuban Sports Institute said that Cuba doesn't get involved in the private lives of its athletes, nor is Cuba opposed to free travel. However, Niurka Montalvo was under a ten year contract when she left Cuba. Juantorena stated that Montalvo left the island, well aware of the possible consequences, asking the question: So why is she presenting herself as a victim? Alberto Juantorena explained during a news conference in Madrid that Cuban athletes -- after receiving free training -- are the subject of constant offers of large amounts of money and promises of fame, if they abandon Cuban sports and compete in developed nations. *CHILDREN IN HOLGUIN UNDERGO surgery WITH NEW VIDEO-ASSISTED TECHNIQUES Holguin, August 17 (RHC)-- In the eastern province of Holguin, some 60 children have been operated on through the use of newly-implemented video endoscope surgery. The video-assisted surgery was performed in the provincial Octavio de la Concepcion Pediatric Hospital where the technique was introduced last February. According to Dr. Rafael Trinchet, who heads the team that performs the new procedure, the hospital is making use of 13 new video techniques, including treatment for gastro- esophaghical reflux syndrome. The results, which have been achieved in a short time, noted Dr. Trinchet, have placed Holguin in the vanguard of this new specialty of pediatric video-assisted surgery. The minimum-access technique provides many advantages for the treatment of infants, including less trauma than conventional operations, a faster recuperation period, shorter hospital stays and reduced costs. *OVERTIME IN SANCTI SPIRITUS PRODUCING NOTEBOOKS FOR THE NEXT SCHOOL YEAR Sancti Spiritus, August 17 (RHC)-- Workers in the Panchito Gomez Toro paper factory in central Sancti Spiritus are working overtime to insure that next year's school children will have their notebooks. So far, in July and August, the plant has produced more than one million notebooks. The paper factory, located in Jatiboinco, is the island's largest and expects to complete two and a half million books by the time school starts in early September. For that reason, employees are working two 12-hour shifts, turning out some 60,000 notebooks daily. *"DOWN WITH THE BLOCKADE" TABLOID AVAILABLE ON NEWSTANDS ACROSS THE ISLAND Havana, August 17 (RHC)-- A compilation of the seven televised roundtables, held in Cuba between the 5th and 13th of July - dealing with the U.S. blockade and Washington's economic war against Cuba -- is now available on newsstands across the country. According to a front-page announcement in today's Granma newspaper, the special 32-page tabloid includes an analysis provided by Cuban journalists, specialists and government leaders on Washington's policy of blockading Cuba since the l959 triumph of the Revolution. The special tabloid covers events from the imposition of Washington's blockade against the island in l962 to the passage by the U.S. Congress of the extraterritorial Toricelli and Helms-Burton Laws. "Down with the Blockade" also carries a complete examination of the costs of Washington's aggressive, anti-Cuba policy and international condemnation of the United States. *Viewpoint: WHILE THE RICH SPEND BILLIONS ON WEAPONS, 20 MILLION AFRICANS STARVE TO DEATH West Africa is living an indefinitely prolonged drama: some twenty million human beings die of starvation and curable diseases there every day. Although we are on the threshold of a new millenium, what many would call "civilization" -- which in realty constitutes modernization -- has yet to reach Africa. Scientific and technological advancements continue to widen the gap between developed and underdeveloped countries, ensuring supreme economic and military power to First World nations. Meanwhile, a small nation like Cuba, which has had to confront an economic blockade imposed by the United States for more than 40 years, continues to make every possible effort to help its sister Third World nations. If an impulse of generosity and humanity somehow miraculously overcame the hearts and minds of the few that control the world's vast resources and wealth and, hence, the political distribution of those resources, two-thirds of humanity affected by starvation and curable illnesses would suddenly see the light at the end of the tunnel. The fact that there are fewer telephones in all of Africa than in New York's Manhattan neighborhood, delineates the massive discrepancies exaggerated by exploitative relations of dependency between the rich and poor nations of the world. The technological advancements positively affecting First World nations only serve to further marginalize underdeveloped countries. The problem of maintaining vast deposits of raw materials, without the capital to extract and refine them, leaves the poor nations of the world in what continues to be a deadly dependency related economic cycle. Thus, the rich get richer at the expense of the poor, affected by ever worsening structural conditions, attributing their misfortunes to the wrath of God and a vast array of superstitions. The lack of educational institutions only serves to reinforce this mentality, rather than enlighten poor people to the real causes of their suffering. During his visit to Cuba in January 1998, Pope John Paul II expressed the idea of global solidarity with the world's popular sectors. Both the Cuban people and President Fidel Castro embraced the idea with enthusiasm. Cuba has been a bastion of internationalism for decades, despite being affected by difficult socio-economic conditions. Cuba's present emphasis on internationalism lies in health care, in which the island has sent thousands of medical and health care experts to Latin America, Africa, and the Caribbean. Cuban doctors and nurses have saved thousands of lives by donating free and quality medical care to some of the most remote sectors of these developing countries. A small Caribbean nation like Cuba has been able to help others in time of need, even in light of a severe economic crisis and an economic war imposed on it by the United States. Imagine if Cuba's example could be multiplied among the rich nations of the world. If the First World earmarked just a fraction of what it spends on arms and Hollywood-style electoral processes that only serve the interests of the rich, many of the sources of international conflict would diminish and peace might just have a chance. The most powerful countries of the world talk about democracy and human rights, while their so-called democracies continue to line the pockets of the both the rich and their military industrial complexes. Their prisons are full of political prisoners who espouse ideas contrary to the very systems that continue to impoverish and repress the world's poor. The underdeveloped peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America continue to wait for answers that respond to the real sources of their problems. (c) 2000 Radio Habana Cuba, NY Transfer News. All rights reserved. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= rhc-eng-13217 2000-Aug-18 16:43:30