Radio Havana Cuba-06 August 2001 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Radio Havana Cuba - News Update - 06 August 2001 . *SUMMITS WILL HAVE TO MOVE TO SPACE TO AVOID PROTESTS - FIDEL *UN FAO DEPLORES CUT IN AID TO FIGHT HUNGER *CUBA, ITALY SIGN ACCORD TO RESTORE HAVANA'S HISTORIC BUILDINGS *CUBAN SCIENTIST WARNS OF DESERTIFICATION IN LATIN AMERICA *CUBAN COMPLETES 33,000 HOURS OF VOLUNTARY LABOR *U.S. PROFESSOR TO GIVE COURSE ON HEMINGWAY IN HAVANA *HIROSHIMA COMMEMORATES 56th ANNIVERSARY OF US ATOMIC BOMBING OF JAPAN *SLAVE TRADE IS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY - BEN BELLA *AFTER GENOA, ITALY RELUCTANT TO HOST WORLD FOOD SUMMIT IN ROME Viewpoint: MULTINATIONAL CUBAN DELEGATION TO ATTEND WORLD YOUTH FESTIVAL . *SUMMITS WILL HAVE TO MOVE TO SPACE TO AVOID PROTESTS - FIDEL Havana, August 6 (RHC)--Cuban President Fidel Castro has asserted that rich nations will have to hold their summits on an orbiting space station to avoid protests. Speaking Sunday in Havana to the 750 youths forming the Cuban delegation to this week's World Youth Festival in Algeria, the Cuban leader said the world is already destabilized and that hundreds of thousands are going to protest with increasingly less fear and more audacity. He said hundreds of thousands are recognizing that imperialism and the free market neo-liberal trend are carrying humanity to the brink of extinction. President Castro ridiculed plans to hold the next G8 Summit in 2002 in a small town in the mountains of Canada. The Cuban leader called on the delegation to contribute their grain of sand to unmask the lies and hypocrisy and reveal the truth. In reference to the festival site in Algeria, the leader of the Cuban Revolution said that Africa, with a legacy of centuries of injustice, exploitation and crimes, is the first region where humanity should begin to find solutions to the world's problems -- the region that is in most need of solidarity. President Castro also made reference to the five Cuban patriots wrongfully convicted in Miami of spying against the US government, stating that this is another injustice that will eventually be recognized as such, and that this recognition will come sooner rather than later. *UN FAO DEPLORES CUT IN AID TO FIGHT HUNGER Havana, August 6 (RHC)--In Havana, the director general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Jacques Diouf, has deplored the reduction in international aid to fight hunger. In statements to the local and foreign press Monday in the Cuban capital, following his arrival here Sunday, Diouf said the international community has reduced its aid to fight hunger by 15 percent between 1990 and 1999. He also criticized the 40 percent reduction in loans to fight hunger made by international financial institutions like the World Bank. The UN official is on a tour to promote participation from this region at the upcoming World Food Summit tentatively to be held in Rome. Following his 2-day visit to Cuba he will travel to Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia and Venezuela, among other countries. Diouf called Cuba a bastion of the work carried out by the FAO, noting that the island is cooperating with other Third World nations in the war against poverty with the transfer of technology in the agricultural, pharmaceutical and public health sectors. *CUBA, ITALY SIGN ACCORD TO RESTORE HAVANA'S HISTORIC BUILDINGS Havana, August 6 (RHC)--An accord between Cuba and representatives of the Italian province of Lombardy will make possible restoration of a number of historic buildings in Havana. The agreement was signed by Alessandro Moneta from Italy and Havana's city historian Eusebio Leal. The buildings slated for restoration are currently protected by UNESCO as part of humanity's heritage. Roberto Formigoni, the governor of Lombardy, explained to the press that the restoration project was part of an overall economic package that his province was offering Havana. *CUBAN SCIENTIST WARNS OF DESERTIFICATION IN LATIN AMERICA Guantanamo, August 6 (RHC)--A Cuban scientist has spoken before the European Union on the destructive effects of desertification on Latin America. Antonio Rodriguez who is a Doctor of Sciences and also the representative of the Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment in the state of Guantánamo, announced that a full 300 million hectares of degraded soil exists in the region, with the fertility of the soil decreasing steadily. He said that Cuba is seeking to convert the semi-desert area in the south of his province to a regional model of sustainable development. He added that a third of all land in the Americas is in danger of becoming desert from over exploitation and abuse. The Guantanamo project has been approved by the EU and will begin in the early part of next year. It is expected to substantially increase food production as well as provide jobs for many of the 30,000 residents in the area, which has one of the most fragile ecosystems of the Cuban coastal archipelago. More than a sixth of Cuba is either partially or totally uncultivable. The island is the first country in Latin America to receive the United Nations prize for the preservation of arid land. *CUBAN COMPLETES 33,000 HOURS OF VOLUNTARY LABOR Havana, August 6 (RHC)--Cuba's daily newspaper of record, Granma, Monday congratulated Antonio Morales for completing 33,000 hours of voluntary labor since 1975. For the last 26 years the tobacco worker has offered his services as a bus and truck driver to an estimated four million Cuban passengers -- and this in spite of the fact that he had to take off two years to complete military service in Africa. Morales is pictured by Granma wearing so many medals on his guayabera shirt that it covers the entire front. When asked when he planned to retire from working for free, he replied that he will keep going as long as his health holds out. *U.S. PROFESSOR TO GIVE COURSE ON HEMINGWAY IN HAVANA Havana, August 6 (RHC)--The José Martí International Institute in Havana will be holding a summer course on the writings of Ernest Hemingway. Organized by the Hemingway Faculty of the Institute, which specializes in journalism, the classes will include thirty hours of conferences given by U.S. professor Douglas LaPrade from the University of Illinois. He will lecture in Spanish. LaPrade, one of the foremost experts on Hemingway in the United States, taught North American literature for eight years at the University of Barcelona in Spain. His course is titled "Hemingway and Journalism" and will explore the writer's work as a journalist. *HIROSHIMA COMMEMORATES 56th ANNIVERSARY OF US ATOMIC BOMBING OF JAPAN Tokyo, August 6 (RHC)--More than 50,000 people in Hiroshima Monday participated in commemorations of the 56th anniversary of the US government's launching of an atomic bomb over the city. Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba stated during the ceremony that the end of the century of war has not automatically placed us on the path of peace and humanity, deploring what he called efforts to extend battlefields to space, an allusion to Washington's Star Wars Program. A new list of the bomb's victims was presented, adding the 4,757 people who died in the past 12 months as a result of the fallout, bringing to 221,893 the total number of victims. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi asserted that Japan will remain in the vanguard of the world movement in favor of disarmament, but several pacifist organizations accused Tokyo of not demonstrating sufficient firmness regarding Washington's threat to abandon the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Seven associations of atomic bomb victims in Hiroshima also called on Koizumi to refrain from visiting the Yasukuni Temple next August 15th, dedicated to the 2.5 million Japanese soldiers killed in diverse armed conflicts initiated by Japan since the middle of the 19th century. Since 1979, the Temple has also honored seven Japanese war criminals condemned by Tokyo's International Tribunal. Both China and South Korea strongly oppose the planned visit, insisting that it would imply the prime minister's acceptance of Japan's ultra-nationalist imperial past. *SLAVE TRADE IS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY - BEN BELLA Geneva, August 6 (RHC)--Former Algerian President Ahmed Ben Bella has called on western nations to recognize that the slave trade as a crime against humanity. At a press conference Monday in Geneva amid negotiations on the final document to be adopted at the upcoming International Conference on Racism in Durban, South Africa, Ben Bella denounced what he called the bloodletting of the human and material resources suffered by the African continent. He added that impunity for these crimes continues to atrociously corrode the African continent. Leader of the non-governmental organization North South XXII, Ben Bella and other African NGO leaders rejected the most recent proposal in Geneva made by the European Union. The EU condemned the slave trade and colonialism, expressed its condolences to the victims and admitted that some effects of colonialism persist and continue to cause immense suffering. But the document does not define the slave trade and colonialism as crimes against humanity, leading the African activists to condemn the proposal for not going far enough. Participants in the press conference said the lack of an explicit recognition of the crimes is due to the fears of Europeans and North Americans of the economic cost that this recognition could have in terms of reparations. *AFTER GENOA, ITALY RELUCTANT TO HOST WORLD FOOD SUMMIT IN ROME Rome, August 6 (RHC)--Following the violent confrontations during the G8 Summit in Genoa, the government of Italy does not want to host the international conference on hunger scheduled for Rome next November. Italian Foreign Minister Renato Ruggiero has warned that as many as 500,000 anti-globalization protesters could converge on the Italian capital. The opposition has criticized the government's attitude, stating that it would send a message of incompetence and would portray Italy as a country incapable of organizing an important international conference. Changing the site of the conference, organized by the Rome-based United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, would reportedly be extremely costly, though its cancellation is not possible. Thus far 180 heads of state and government have been invited. *Viewpoint: MULTINATIONAL CUBAN DELEGATION TO ATTEND WORLD YOUTH FESTIVAL Cuba will be participating in the 15th World Festival of Youth and Students, scheduled to begin in Algeria on August 8th. In an unprecedented move, Cuba has brought together, under the same flag, youngsters from 57 nations with the same slogan in favor of peace, solidarity, and development. A total of 750 young people from four different continents will have the chance to be in Algeria raising their voices for the survival of humankind. And there is probably no better place to hold the World Youth and Students Festival than on a continent in which humanity's very existence is in danger. As Cuban president Fidel Castro put it when he presented the island's delegation with the national flag they will take with them, Africa has suffered the calamities and unfair practices of colonization and capitalism like no other region in the world. The Cuban leader added that Africa desperately needs world support and solidarity. The Festival is the appropriate framework to voice the truth and put an end to the fallacies that affect the world and threaten its existence. It will also be an appropriate forum to denounce those responsible for inequalities and injustice. The younger generations have the responsibility to lay the foundations for a better world. They represent hope of a better future. This festival consolidates a tradition that was about to be lost, until Cuba offered to hold the previous festival four years ago. And to make this solidarity a reality, Cuba has now helped youngsters from other nations to join the Cubans to be present at the festival. This is their chance to speak out. Tens of thousands of young people have come out to express their disagreement and resistance to all that denigrates them and blocks their potential. Their voices were heard in Davos, Gutenberg, and Seattle -- and more recently in Genoa. Whenever the super-industrialized powers meet, young people come out to denounce and condemn globalization and neoliberal policies. Algeria further paves the way for them to demonstrate their strength in their effort to spread the spirit of change, for a more peaceful and different world. (c) 2001 Radio Habana Cuba, NY Transfer News. 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