Radio Havana Cuba-05 October 2000 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Radio Havana Cuba - News Update - 05 October 2000 . *CUBA CALLS CONGRESSIONAL EFFORTS TO EASE WASHINGTON'S BLOCKADE A "SHAM" *CUBAN VICE PRESIDENT CARLOS LAGE WRAPS UP OFFICIAL VISIT TO JAPAN *SIX INTERNATIONALISTS TO BE BURIED IN ERNESTO "CHE" GUEVARA MEMORIAL *CUBAN AND SPANISH CUSTOM AGENCIES SIGN BILATERAL AGREEMENT *NEW BOOK ON HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND EQUITY IN CUBA *CUBAN WOMEN SUPPORT WORLD WOMEN'S MARCH AGAINST POVERTY AND VIOLENCE *Viewpoint: IN TODAY'S WORLD, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT MUST INCLUDE INFORMATICS . *CUBA CALLS CONGRESSIONAL EFFORTS TO EASE WASHINGTON'S BLOCKADE A "SHAM" Havana, October 5th (RHC) -- Cuba's Foreign Ministry has termed as a sham the alleged efforts in the U.S. Congress to ease restrictions in Washington's blockade of the island. Referring to reports in diverse media outlets concerning an agreement in Congress to allow the sale of food and medicines to Cuba, an official Foreign Ministry statement Thursday insisted that these reports give the impression that the measure implies a substantial change in the blockade, when in reality it does not. The statement explains that the proposal could be included in an agricultural funding bill, whose House and Senate versions are currently being reconciled in Conference Committee. This proposal, says Cuba's Foreign Ministry, has nothing to do with the constructive amendments to allow the sale of food and medicines to Cuba that were promoted with ample support in Congress following efforts by American farmers associations and other sectors of U.S. society that are increasingly questioning Washington's sanctions against Havana. Without sufficient support to defeat these amendments, continues the official statement, Cuban-American legislators and the Republican congressional leadership have violated the legislative process in order to impose, through underhanded and anti-democratic tactics, a version that annuls any positive effects of the original amendments. The version now under consideration demands that all U.S. companies obtain special authorization from Washington for the sale of food and medicines -- even if it's one grain of rice or one aspirin. Moreover, says the Cuban Foreign Ministry, it excludes any public or private financing in the United States to carry out these transactions. Even worse, says the official statement, it would convert into law the violation of the constitutional right of Americans to freely travel, in this way perpetuating the prohibition against U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba. If this maneuver is successful, Washington's blockade against Cuba would remain intact. The U.S. market would remain closed to Cuban products and services, and a prohibition on financial flow between the two countries, as well as on maritime and air traffic and universal norms of foreign trade support, would be maintained. Cuba's Foreign Ministry points out that the blockade would remain in effect relative to the finance sector and the prohibition against vessels docking in Cuban ports to also dock in U.S. ports within a period of 6 months after that vessel has dropped anchor in Cuba. U.S. investment would not be allowed in Cuba, and the anti-Cuba Helms-Burton and Torricelli laws would be kept on the books -- as well as the numerous anti-Cuba amendments that have been attached to diverse U.S. legislation that has become law. Cuba's Foreign Ministry warns the international community that the amendments proposed by U.S. legislators with the support of farmers associations -- which would have been a step in the right direction -- have been dismantled through the pressure and anti-democratic maneuvers of Cuban-American lawmakers and extremist sectors on capital hill that oppose any modification in Washington's hostile Cuba policy. For Cuba, continues the Cuban Foreign Ministry statement, the real solution is a normalization of relations between the two countries and a total lifting of the genocidal blockade unilaterally imposed on Cuba. Cuba, says the official statement, will not cooperate with those who try to strengthen the blockade, nor will Cuba participate in a public relations ploy used by these sectors in order to appear as if they were easing the blockade. The Cuban Foreign Ministry states that if this discriminatory and humiliating legislation is passed, the Cuban government -- while reiterating its disposition to maintain normal trade relations with U.S. firms -- will not carry out any type of commercial transaction with the United States. *CUBAN VICE PRESIDENT CARLOS LAGE WRAPS UP OFFICIAL VISIT TO JAPAN Havana, October 5 (RHC) -- Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage has wrapped up an official visit to Japan expressing his satisfaction over Tokyo's interest in enhancing bilateral ties with Cuba. In statements to Japan's NHK TV station and Kyodo news agency, the highest ranking Cuban government official to be invited to the Asian nation said his hosts clearly demonstrated a willingness to broaden bilateral relations in all spheres, including in the political arena. The Cuban Vice President said this willingness is reflected in Japan's invitation to Cuban Parliament President Ricardo Alarcon, who will visit the Asian country next month. Lage and his delegation headed to Iran for another official visit at Tehran's invitation. *SIX INTERNATIONALISTS TO BE BURIED IN ERNESTO "CHE" GUEVARA MEMORIAL Havana, October 5 (RHC)-- The mortal remains of six members of the internationalist troop commanded by legendary guerrilla fighter, Ermesto "Che" Guevara, will be buried in Santa Clara, in central Cuba on Sunday. The chests holding the remains have been kept in the Granma Hall of the Revolutionary Armed Forces Ministry in Havana since they arrived in Cuba from Bolivia. They will be taken to the Jose Marti Library in Santa Clara where local residents will have the opportunity to pay tribute to the internationalist fighters from 10 o'clock a.m. until midnight Saturday. On Sunday, on the 33rd anniversary of the death in combat of Commander Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the chests will be buried alongside their chief, in the memorial. The remains are those of Cubans: Eliseo Reyes Rodriguez, Antonio Sanchez Diaz, and Jose Maria Martinez Tamayo; Bolivians: Casildo Condori Vargas and Serapio Aquino Tudela, and Peruvian, Retituto Sose Cabrera Flores. With the new entombments, the remains of 23 fighters, including those of their leader, will be buried in the Ernesto "Che" Guevara memorial. All were recovered from disperesed areas in Bolivia after years of painstaking research and excavation conducted by Cuban doctors and forensic experts and their colleagues from other nations. *CUBAN AND SPANISH CUSTOM AGENCIES SIGN BILATERAL AGREEMENT Havana, October 5th (RHC)-- The director of the Customs Office and Special Taxes of Spain, Francisco Javier Goizueta, has praised a bilateral mutual assistance agreement signed between Spain and Cuba.. The accord, which will shortly receive Madrid's stamp of approval, paves the way for common actions leading to the exchange of information on all types of crimes, among them drug trafficking. According to Goizueta, the protocol makes official a relationship that already exists between Spain and Cuba's Custom offices. Speaking in Havana, the Spanish official commented on the progress being made by the Cuban Customs Office, which is proceeding in accordance with the island's new business trends. During a brief stay in Cuba, Goizueta Sanches visited customs facilities at the Juan Gualberto Gomez International Airport in Matanzas, and commended the technology the center uses for data exchange. *NEW BOOK ON HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND EQUITY IN CUBA Havana, October 5 (RHC)-- A book on a study done on human development and equity in Cuba in 1999, was launched in the Master Lecture Hall of Havana University on Tuesday. The publication reveals the results of research conducted by the Havana-based Research Center on the World Economy. It was published with the sponsorship of the regional office of the United Nations Development Program. According to its authors, the book's purpose is to contribute to national and international debate on the issues of human development and equity. The book provides insight into concepts and the main trends on equity and human development and the dilemma that globalization poses to those concepts, among other topics. In illustrating the Cuban social system the authors point out that during the economic crisis, between 1990 and 1998, due to loss of jobs, some 155 thousand Cuban workers were sent home while receiving 60% of their salaries. By the end of 1998, only 3 044 of those workers were still awaiting placement in other jobs. *CUBAN WOMEN SUPPORT WORLD WOMEN'S MARCH AGAINST POVERTY AND VIOLENCE Havana, October 5 (RHC)--Cuban women from all walks of life are expressing their support for the World Women's March against Poverty and Violence 2000. The campaign is seeking to generate a women's drive to claim international vindication and is slated to wind up with a huge parade in front of UN Headquarters in New York on October 17th. Tamara Columbie, of the Federation of Cuban Women -FMC- told the Granma daily newspaper that the organization is participating in an action plan in support of the plight of millions of women who live in dire poverty worldwide. Women workers from the tourism, cigar manufacturers, arts sectors, and others, have signed declarations condemning globalization, neoliberalism, child abuse and violence against millions of women internationally. An important moment in the plan, said the FMC official, will be celebration held on October 15th for Rural Women's Day. The celebration will acknowledge the work done by Cuban women agricultural workers, and will be used to disseminate information about the October 17th World March. Viewpoint: IN TODAY'S WORLD, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT MUST INCLUDE INFORMATICS Not long along, we mentioned the incredible fact that there are more telephones in the New York City's borough of Manhattan, than on the entire African continent. That is disturbing in an era in which the technology of informatics and instaneous communications, has placed the whole world, literally, at our fingertips. But the great majority of the users of these new machines, reside in the rich, developed world; in the countries that are in the process of globalizing the neo-liberal economy in order to consolidate their domination. They are the first to find out in minute detail what is happening in the world and they are also the first to take decisions and disseminate them instantaneously over their national networks. The three-fourths of humanity that suffers from poverty, disease, and ignorance, only has access to a fifth of what is produced worldwide and is every day more marginalized from scientific and technological advances. The problems of development are exacerbated by the ever-widening breach in technology between the rich and the poor nations. A recent report reveals that inside the United States, the center of the super industrialized world, some 50% of homes boast computers and have direct access to the Internet. If in Africa and other underdeveloped regions, which contain the majority of the world's population, few have telephones, which were invented more than a hundred years ago, what is there to say about computers and informatics? The report continues that within just five years, three-quarters of U.S. residents will have full access to the Internet. In that great nation and in the other economic powers it associates with, the people are quickly leaving behind the rest of humanity. The focus of so-called, "sustainable development," must be expanded to include access to the latest audiovisual means and electrification, without which, those magic machines cannot function. What's more, the level of education must be elevated to create educated and cultured populations. However, the question we must now ask is: Are those great powers willing to share their advantages with the Third World? Thus far, there is little evidence to show that they are. (c) 2000 Radio Habana Cuba, NY Transfer News. 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