Radio Havana Cuba-20 September 2000 (late) Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Radio Havana Cuba - News Update - 20 September 2000 (Transmitted midday Thursday, 21 September) *OFFICIAL STATEMENT ON HIJACKING OF SMALL CUBAN AIRCRAFT *SINCE COLD WAR'S END, US BLOCKADE OF CUBA LACKS EVEN A PRETEXT *CUBA AND THE UNITED STATES TO RESUME MIGRATION TALKS ON THURSDAY *CUBA NAMES NEW CUBAN AMBASSADOR TO HUNGARY *CUBAN FOREIGN INVESTMENT MINISTER VISITS GERMANY *CUBAN INDUSTRY STANDARDS GET BOOST WITH NEW TRAINING CENTER *SOYBEAN PROCESSING PLANT TO BE COMPLETED SOON IN SANTIAGO *TROPICAL STORM WEAKENS *4TH INTERNATIONAL TRANSPORTATION FAIR BEGINS IN HAVANA *PERFECTING CUBA'S EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM, TOP PRIORITY ON THE ISLAND *OFFICIAL STATEMENT ON HIJACKING OF SMALL CUBAN AIRCRAFT Havana, September 20 (RHC) -- The Cuban government issued an official statement on Tuesday's hijacking of a small duster aircraft that crashed into the Gulf of Mexico en route to Florida. Published on the front page of the Cuban news daily Granma, the statement informs that according to official information received Tuesday afternoon -- following reports since Tuesday morning by diverse international media outlets -- Havana learned that 9 wounded and one deceased person had been rescued from the aircraft by a Panamanian merchant marine vessel and that they are now in the custody of the U.S. government. The official note says the pilot of the aircraft, after telling his flight technician to wait for him at the La Herradura runway in Pinar Del Rio, headed for another destination where he picked up a group of persons. Once in the air heading north, the pilot radioed that he was being hijacked and that the aircraft was en route to Florida with children aboard. The official statement in Cuba's Granma newspaper says that Cuban authorities do not know the exact number of persons who were travelling in the plane or the identity of those rescued, and has not received further information. *SINCE COLD WAR'S END, US BLOCKADE OF CUBA LACKS EVEN A PRETEXT Havana, September 20 (RHC) -- The U.S. blockade of Cuba has always been unjustifiable, but with the end of the Cold War it now lacks even a pretext, asserted Tuesday Cuba's chief diplomat in Washington, Fernando Remirez de Estenoz. The statement came in what many observers are calling an unprecedented debate in the U.S. Congress concerning Washington's Cuba policy. The two-day hearing, which began Tuesday, is part of an International Trade Commission study requested by the House Ways and Means Committee last March, and described by experts as the most comprehensive effort by a federal agency to determine how the embargo has affected the Cuban and U.S. economies. Remirez de Estenoz, one of 36 participants at the hearing, said Cuba is willing to discuss any issue with the U.S. government, but always based on the respect for Cuba's dignity, freedom and sovereignty. Business and agricultural groups favoring the lifting of sanctions against Cuba are also present at the hearing. Remirez de Estenoz, the head of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, pointed out that this year Cuba will spend one billion dollars in food that is also produced in the United States. Nelson Denlinger, of the Association of Wheat Exporters, and Richard E. Bell, of the United States Rice Federation, pointed out that the big losers in the blockade policy are the U.S. food industry and Cuban consumers. Democratic Senator Max Baucus and Democratic representative Charles Rangel argued that unilateral sanctions don't work. Rangel said the logic that convinced Congress and the U.S. government that the country must trade with China and Vietnam, should also be applied to Cuba. *CUBA AND THE UNITED STATES TO RESUME MIGRATION TALKS ON THURSDAY Havana, September 20 (RHC)-Cuba and the United States will resume talks in New York Thursday to assess the fulfillment of migration accords between the two countries. The talks had been suspended since last December. The Cuban delegation will be headed by the President of the Cuban National Parliament Ricardo Alarcon, who was recently denied a visa by the US Department to attend an Inter Parliamentary Union Conference in New York, held under the umbrella of the UN Millenium Summit. The US delegation will be presided over by William Brownfield, a high-ranking official of the U.S. State Department Inter American Division. Cuba and the United States signed migratory accords in September of 1994 and in may of 1995, which called on the two parties to hold talks every six months in Havana and New York to evaluate the implementation of the accords. The talks were not held in June, as a result of the illegal retention in the United States of six-year old Cuban Elian Gonzalez, one of the victims of the Cuban Adjustment Act. The Cuban government has decried the Cuba Adjustment Act, which guarantees Cubans permanent residence in the United States no matter how they reach U.S. territory. Cuba has also criticized Washington's failure to grant 20 thousand visas a year for orderly migration to that country. *CUBA NAMES NEW CUBAN AMBASSADOR TO HUNGARY Havana, September 20(RHC)--The Cuban Council of State has appointed Alfredo Leon Alvarez as the island's new ambassador to Hungary. Prior to his appointment, Alvarez was head of the European branch of the International Relations Department of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party. *CUBAN FOREIGN INVESTMENT MINISTER VISITS GERMANY Berlin, September 20(RHC)--Cuban Foreign Investment Minister, Marta Lomas, is in Germany to attend the German-Cuban Economic Forum that convened in Berlin on Wednesday. Lomas, who is accompanied by a group of experts from her ministry, briefed the forum on the island's interest to reinforce trade relations with Germany. The Cuban official filled in participating business representatives on investment opportunities in Cuba . She mentioned biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, alternative energy, tourism, transportation and construction as some of the sectors which German companies may find interesting for investment. At the end of the forum, participants saw a video-taped conference of Cuban Vice President, Carlos Lage, in which he explained changes that have taken place in the Cuban economy. The chair of the German Industrial Confederation, Hans Olaf Henkel, told the forum that an increase in German investment on the island should occur because last July the government of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder included Cuba in its program of soft credits to finance imports. *CUBAN INDUSTRY STANDARDS GET BOOST WITH NEW TRAINING CENTER Cienfuegos, September 20(RHC)-A new national center for industrial certification has been opened in the central province of Cienfuegos. A pet-project of the island's Basic Industry Ministry --the institution that funded the center-- it seeks to increase productivity, reduce production costs, and promote industrial quality islandwide. To attain its goal the center will certify and homologue the knowledge of skilled workers and technicians in Cuba's industrial sector in specialties such as electricity, industrial maintenance, and welding, among others. The center is equipped with top-notch laboratories in each of those specialties. Mario Miranda, head of the Basic Industry Training Branch , who is in charge of the development of the project, said that the center will have an initial enrollment of 80 students, and eventually hopes to graduate between 300 and 350 students a year. He noted that the curricula for the specialties to be taught in the institute, are similar to those currently used by the prestigious Technological Institute of Northern Alberta, in Canada. *SOYBEAN PROCESSING PLANT TO BE COMPLETED SOON IN SANTIAGO Santiago de Cuba, September 20(RHC)- A soybean processing plant will be completed in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba in October. According to an article in Wednesday's edition of Granma newspaper, the 27 million-dollar plant, which is a joint venture between Cuba and Canada, will have an output of 89 tons of crude soybean oil daily. The product will then be shipped through a pipeline to a refinery adjacent to the new facility. With the new plant, Cuba will produce 30 thousand tons of cooking oil annually for the national market. At the initial stage, the plant will operate with imported soybeans. That will be gradually replaced by local production of the vegetable in the eastern part of the island *TROPICAL STORM WEAKENS Havana, September 20th(RHC) Cubans in the western provinces have sighed in relief with the news that Helene, the twelfth tropical storm in the current hurricane season has weakened. The storm, which developed in the western portion of the Caribbean, prompted Havana's Meteorology Institute to issue a hurricane alert, but as of early afternoon Wednesday, the storm was merely expected to dump heavy rains on western Cuba, and the Isle of Youth. Civil defense authorities have issued the usual instructions for these circumstances, aimed at protecting human lives, crops, cattle, and property. *4TH INTERNATIONAL TRANSPORTATION FAIR BEGINS IN HAVANA Havana, September 20(RHC)-- The 4th International Transportation Fair ,FIT'2000, began on Wednesday at Havana's Pabexpo Exhibition Pavilion with the participation of 220 exhibitors from 23 countries. During the 4-day event, goods and services representing some 20 themes, will be exhibited for consideration by potential clients. The Havana International Transportation Fair includes exhibitions of vehicles for the industrial and trade sectors, railway equipment and tools, as well as equipment for maritime use and ports. A distinctive feature of this year's event is that 50 percent of all exhibitors are representing Cuban entities, including the prestigious Cuban firm Marex, which demonstrates Cuba's advances in areas such as exports of non-traditional goods and the substitution of imports with domestic products. The 4th edition of the Havana International Transportation Fair is dedicate to the railway, given its importance to the Cuban economy and as transportation for the public sector. The event's agenda includes lectures and workshops on transportation safety, as well as exhibitions. Viewpoint: *PERFECTING CUBA'S EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM, TOP PRIORITY ON THE ISLAND Cuba is continuing the massive education campaign it began in the l960's when it declared war on the illiteracy that affected more than 20% of the population . That task fell on the islands students, who had to face terrorist mercenaries supported by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, and their labor coincided with the CIA sponsored Bay of Pigs mercenary invasion. These young people had to first teach themselves and then teach others while the country was immersed in hand to hand combat at Playa Giron, on Cuba's southern coast. Having won that first battle, the island set out to fill the desperate need for a skilled labor force for every social and economic activity. From high school to university, the most advanced students became the teachers of their younger counterparts. At that time the country lacked the necessary teachers needed to massively educate all those who wished to advance. Those years were very difficult until the system finally was able to graduate specialists in diverse sectors of production and services. Now, after 40 years of every kind of adversity, Cuba possesses the necessary intellectual talent to develop the country as well as to assist other nations on the road towards development. Cuba is now focused on perfecting its educational system by working in a systematic way to see to it that the highest quality culture and arts are accessible to all segments of the population. To carry out that task, Cuba today has at its disposal the necessary teaching resources, including highly qualified scientists, technicians and artists trained by the Revolution and who feel a commitment to serve others. The fact is that the great majority of Cuban artists have spent time in the most remote corners of the island performing and exhibiting their art for local residents. Thanks to the country's sophisticated electrical system, Cuban television and radio reaches many of the distant mountain areas as well as all the rest of the country. Cuba's goal is to achieve the massive participation of all sectors of society in all aspects of culture. It is like a great process of refining education, aimed at turning the Cuban people into the world's most cultured. It is an ambitious plan undertaken in the spirit proclaimed by Cuban president, Fidel Castro, who speaking to the UN Millennium Summit, said that great things are achieved when the spirit to struggle against the impossible prevails. Cuba has become among the best examples of that philosophy in achieving and maintaining that which many thought impossible. (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-8361 2000-Sep-21 22:15:32