Radio Havana Cuba-15 August 2001 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Radio Havana Cuba - News Update - 15 August 2001 . *THOUSANDS OF HEALTH PROFESSIONALS GRADUATE ON TUESDAY *CUBAN PRESIDENT RECEIVES RUSSIAN ENVOY *SANTIAGO DE CUBA PRAISED FOR SURGICAL ADVANCES *CUBAN FISHING FLEET UPGRADED *MEXICO: INDIGENOUS ACTIVISTS OUTRAGED BY CONTROVERSIAL LAW ON INDIGENOUS *ARGENTINA REFUSES TO EXTRADITE NOTORIOUS TORTURER AND ASSASSIN *DISSIDENT ARGENTINE RESIGNS FROM PARLIAMENTARY ANTI-CORRUPTION COMMISSION *Viewpoint: RACISM - U.S. WANTS TO BURY THE PAST, IGNORE THE FUTURE . *THOUSANDS OF HEALTH PROFESSIONALS GRADUATE ON TUESDAY Havana, August 15 (RHC)--More than 3,600 graduates of medicine received their degrees in a ceremony performed at the José Martí Tribune here in Havana Tuesday night. Cuban President Fidel Castro was present to hand out those diplomas for the doctors, nurses, dentists and technicians who had achieved the highest grades. The doctors will now go on to a mandatory two-year program under supervision at a family doctor's office, before choosing whether to become a full family physicians or to go into a specialty or research. The nurses will go to family doctors' offices and neighborhood clinics, known in Cuba as polyclinics. Cuba has one of the highest concentrations of doctors and nurses to inhabitants in the world. *CUBAN PRESIDENT RECEIVES RUSSIAN ENVOY Havana, August 15 (RHC)--Cuban President Fidel Castro received the personal envoy of Russian premier, Vladimir Putin, Tuesday, at the close of the Russian's visit to the island. Alexander Voloshin, who serves as the head of the Russian presidential administration in Moscow, gave the Cuban leader a message of congratulations on the occasion of his 75th birthday on August 13. The special envoy had previously met with Defense Minister Raul Castro, to whom he gave the Russian award named the "Order of Friendship," as well as Vice President Carlos Lage during a tour of cultural, historic and economic sites of the capital. The Russian thanked his hosts for the hospitality and attention he had received during his very pleasant visit. *SANTIAGO DE CUBA PRAISED FOR SURGICAL ADVANCES Santiago de Cuba, August 15 (RHC)--The Cuban province of Santiago de Cuba has been praised for its advances in minally invasive surgery by Dr Armando Lopez Perez, Professor of General Surgery at the country's Higher Institute of Medical Sciences. The technique is being increasingly used by Cuban surgeons to avoid general anesthetics and large incisions with their resulting trauma to the human body. Instead, local anesthetics are used in less-invasive procedures, involving small incisions and advanced precision equipment such as lasers and imaging monitors, along with electro-coagulants. Using this technique, abdominal incisions rarely exceed two centimeters, thereby reducing post-operative pain and making more rapid recuperation possible. Santiago de Cuba uses some 15 different types of minimal-access surgery in operations on the stomach, esophagus, intestines, lungs and liver, as well as on ulcers and in gynecology. Such operations, which are free to Cubans, cost from $2,000 to $30,000 in the United States. *CUBAN FISHING FLEET UPGRADED Havana, August 15 (RHC)--A total of 255 new fishing boats have been added to Cuba's fishing fleet as part of the island's program to replace its obsolete vessels, reports Cuba's daily Granma. The new boats were all built in Cuba, and are made of fiberglass and special plastics, requiring less maintenance than their predecessors and are also more durable and cheaper to build. The new vessels are lighter in weight, requiring less ballast and are thus able to sail in shallow water. Seafood, especially lobster and shrimp, is one of Cuba's main exports, along with sugar, nickel and tobacco. Cuba's excellent fresh seafood supply is also an important asset to the tourist industry, the island's chief source of income. *MEXICO: INDIGENOUS ACTIVISTS OUTRAGED BY CONTROVERSIAL LAW ON INDIGENOUS Mexico City, August 15 (RHC)--Indigenous activists throughout Mexico have reacted with outrage to the government's implementation of controversial legislation on indigenous rights and culture. An amended version of the law, negotiated in 1996 between the Zapatista National Liberation Army and members of the Congressional Chiapas Peace Commission, was rejected early this year by all of Mexico's indigenous ethnic groups, by nine state legislatures and by the left-of-center Party of the Democratic Revolution. The law was approved on Tuesday, however, by 17 of Mexico's 31 states, allowing President Vicente Fox to give his seal of approval. Amendments to the legislation inclined more towards individual rights and national sovereignty, as opposed to the rights of indigenous communities to govern themselves in accordance with their customs. The Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center, headed by renowned Bishop Samuel Ruiz, stated that implementation of the law indefinitely postpones peace and the true recognition of Mexico's indigenous culture, and threatens more violence and social degradation, calling the move a historic error. The nine Mexican state legislatures that rejected the law include Chiapas, Oaxaca and Guerrero, containing the bulk of the country's indigenous population. Mexico's National Indigenous Congress, a group of more than 50 indigenous organizations throughout the country, is planning to gather in Mexico City on August 22 and 23 to define a plan of protest action. The Zapatistas have yet to issue a public statement. *ARGENTINA REFUSES TO EXTRADITE NOTORIOUS TORTURER AND ASSASSIN Buenos Aires, August 15 (RHC)--In a move that has surprised no one, authorities in Argentina have refused to extradite one of the most ferocious assassins and torturers of the country's former military dictatorship. Alfredo Astiz, known as "the blond angel of death," has been released from detention following the Argentine foreign ministry's official denial of extradition requests from Italy and France. A federal judge ordered his arrest in early July following an extradition request from Italy in the case of three Italian citizens forcibly disappeared by the Argentine dictatorship. Italian judicial authorities say he will be tried in absentia, as he was in France in 1990 -- making him the first agent of the Argentine dictatorship to be tried abroad. Following Italy's petition, France again requested Astiz's extradition in the case of two French nuns who were tortured and disappeared. Judicial authorities in Spain have also requested his detention, while Sweden has opened an investigation into Astiz in the forced disappearance of a young Swedish woman. During the Carlos Menem administration, Astiz was discharged from the navy and spent a brief period in military detention for having publicly justified the dictatorship's repression. In a 1998 interview with a local weekly magazine, Astiz said he felt no remorse for what he had done, and said that he is the person in Argentina "best prepared" to assassinate a politician or a journalist. On several occasions he has been physically attacked on the streets by people who recognized him -- some of them his former victims. *DISSIDENT ARGENTINE RESIGNS FROM PARLIAMENTARY ANTI-CORRUPTION COMMISSION Buenos Aires, August 15 (RHC)--Dissident Argentine legislator Elisa Carrio has resigned as head of a parliamentary anti-corruption commission whose explosive preliminary report has been severely questioned by the government and its allies. Carrio, considered the most popular political leader in Argentina, presented the preliminary report last Friday. It implicates high-ranking members of President Fernando de la Rua's administration, and members of the former Carlos Menem government, in money laundering, capital flight, financial speculation that artificially sky-rocketed the country's foreign debt and irregularities in privatizations. According to the report, the irregular operations were carried out by local firms and financial institutions in the United States, Uruguay, Panama and the Bahamas, involving various Latin American dictators and a Syrian arms dealer, among others. The investigation had its origin in a US Senate report on money-laundering involving the US entity Citicorp and a phantom bank in the Bahamas belonging to Argentine banker Raul Moneta. Carrio has not only been criticized by the Fernando de la Rua administration -- which she recently said would try to sweep the scandal under the rug -- but also by most of the members of the parliamentary investigative commission. She also noted that Argentine media have centered their debate of the report more on her style of work than on the abundant information made public. Carrio, a dissident Argentine House Deputy from the president's Radical Civic Action Party who has founded her own political organization and plans to participate in the 2003 presidential race, said she will nevertheless continue forming part of the parliamentary commission. *Viewpoint: RACISM - U.S. WANTS TO BURY THE PAST, IGNORE THE FUTURE The United Nations commission on racial discrimination, which has denounced the Bush Administration for its threat to boycott the coming international conference on racism in Durban, South Africa, has also condemned the U.S. for its history of discrimination, which continues to this day. The commission of 18 international experts has demanded an end to excessive police violence especially toward African Americans and Latinos. It also condemns the death penalty and its enormous bias against young, black males in the United States. Some 54% of prisoners on death row are from minorities whereas they represent only 20% of the population as a whole. Washington is threatening to boycott the Durban conference for two reasons. One, because it refuses to condemn Israel for its overt racist policies against the people of Palestine, and two, because it wants nothing to do with demands for slavery reparations that some African nations are considering making against nations that profited the most from the colonial slave trade. The truth is that -- unlike the UN Security Council and Human Rights Commission, the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund -- Washington has neither the buying power nor the political power to control what takes place in Durban. And nothing could be worse for the "global cop" than to find itself in the dock, standing accused of some of the worst crimes against humanity, past and present. (c) 2001 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-28453 2001-Aug-16 03:00:09