Radio Havana Cuba-04 December 2001 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Radio Havana Cuba - News Update - 04 December 2001 . *10th SAO PAULO FORUM UNDERWAY IN HAVANA *VIETNAM AND CUBA SIGN NEW TRADE AND COMMERCIAL ACCORDS *FIDEL SPEAKS ON AIDS, DENGUE AND REDUCED INFANT MORTALITY RATE *NEW BALLET COURSE PLANNED FOR TELEVISED "UNIVERSITY FOR ALL" *CUBA INTENSIFIES ANTI-DRUG TRAINING AND ENFORCEMENT *WIDE CONDEMNATION OF HEIGHTENED ISRAELI VIOLENCE IN OCCUPIED TERRITORIES *AFGHAN FACTIONS REACH TENTATIVE AGREEMENT IN BONN; OBSTACLES REMAIN *US REPUBLICANS USING 'TERRORISM' TO PUSH OIL DRILLING IN ALASKA REFUGE Viewpoint: *SAO PAOLO FORUM EMBRACES THE LEFT AND REGIONAL INTEGRATION . *10th SAO PAULO FORUM UNDERWAY IN HAVANA Havana, December 4 (RHC) -- The 10th Sao Paulo Forum is underway here in Havana with the participation of Cuban President Fidel Castro. Nearly 400 delegates from regional, left and progressive movements and parties are attending the gathering. RHC's Ed New is covering the even at Havana's International Convention Center and filed this report. The leader of the Cuban Revolution was on hand for the inauguration of the Sao Paulo Forum, which will run through Friday. The Forum was created in 1990, when Brazil's Worker's Party sponsored the first meeting of leftist and political forces of Latin American and the Caribbean. This morning's inaugural session was opened by Jose Ramon Balaguer, head of the International Relations Department of the Cuban Communist Party. Balaguer noted that this is the second time that Cuba hosts the Sao Paulo Forum, the first time being in 1993. He said that the Forums serve as opportunities to analyze political, social and economic issues among many different political points of view. The head of the Cuban Communist Party's Department of International Relations announced that as of this meeting in Havana, there are 112 member parties and political organizations of the Sao Paulo Forum. During the inaugural session, representatives from progressive and revolutionary movements from Guatemala, Haiti, Colombia and Brazil spoke to the nearly 400 delegates. They unanimously condemned Washington's plans to impose a Free Trade Area of the Americas on the region, calling for increased collaboration among the many groups represented at the four-day meeting. *VIETNAM AND CUBA SIGN NEW TRADE AND COMMERCIAL ACCORDS Havana, December 4 (RHC)--Cuban President Fidel Castro and Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister, Nguyen Tan Dung, signed three important trade and commercial accords Monday night between both nations. The agreements include a provision for Vietnam to supply Cuba with 55% of the island's rice needs in 2002, and cooperation in introducing digitalized television into Cuba as well as the manufacture of TV sets for sale elsewhere in the Caribbean and Latin America. Both countries' agricultural sectors also came to an agreement on a joint project to improve the island's fuiture rice production. The rice accord is especially important in light of the losses experienced by Cuba as a result of Hurricane Michelle. Vietnam has always been rigorous in fulfilling any pact or any commitment it has made with Cuba in the past, so the potential problems of rice supply for the Cuban population has been largely solved for the coming year. *FIDEL SPEAKS ON AIDS, DENGUE AND REDUCED INFANT MORTALITY RATE Havana, December 4 (RHC)--Cuban President Fidel Castro Monday accused the world's multi-national pharmaceutical companies of making huge fortunes off the backs of those who suffer from HIV/AIDS. In a speech delivered at the Latin American School of Medicine celebrating Latin American Medicine Day, the Cuban leader said that from the outset of what he termed "this diabolical plague" the pharmaceutical companies had immediately begun producing medicines to combat the effects of HIV/AIDS. However, he added, this had been done at inflated prices at the cost of hundreds of millions of lives. Cuba, said the President, has managed to control the spread of the virus and has one of the lowest infection and mortality rates in the world. He assured those present that Cuba now has the resources and the medicines to combat the virus, adding that in the last six years not a single newborn child had been infected with HIV via the mother. Fidel Castro touched on the resurgence of dengue fever in Cuba, affirming that the island has the organization and the experience to prevent an epidemic of the kind that hit the country in 1981 which, he reminded everyone, was later discovered through declassified CIA files to have been deliberately introduced to Cuba by CIA operatives. Of the 350,000 people infected, 158 died -- 101 of them children. Currently, mosquito-borne dengue fever has infected the entire region, but the mosquito population in Cuba is one of the lowest thanks to constant fumigation and education of the population requiring the covering of water tanks and the draining of stagnant ponds. Finally, the Cuban leader congratulated the island's medical profession for further reducing this year the nation's infant mortality rate down to 6.29 per one thousand live births. *NEW BALLET COURSE PLANNED FOR TELEVISED "UNIVERSITY FOR ALL" Havana, December 4 (RHC)--Cuban television is to introduce yet another course in it's "University for All" programming, this one entitled "History and Appreciation of Ballet". The "University for All" programs are full courses on anything from Spanish Language Literature to Art Appreciation, French and English Language, and Geography. The courses run at two times of the day to enable teachers in schools to use the programs in class as well as those at work during the day to follow the courses at night. The new ballet class will comprise the development and advance of ballet since the 18th century; romanticism in ballet; Russian ballet; classicism; historical styles in ballet; ballet in the 20th century; contemporary ballet designs; music and, finally, ballet in Cuba. The TV course will be complemented by a 32-page booklet on sale at all newspaper outlets in Cuba for 2 Cuban pesos. Ballet in Cuba is a universal craze with all ages of both genders attending some of the best ballet in the world. Cuba's National Ballet Company is world renowned and in spite of the limited resources imposed upon it by the country's economic constraints, still manages to put on what international critics describe as spectacular performances for the cost of only 5 pesos entrance to Cubans. *CUBA INTENSIFIES ANTI-DRUG TRAINING AND ENFORCEMENT Havana, December 4 (RHC)--More than 22,800 Customs and Immigration officials have been trained in drug detection and interdiction since the island introduced improved measures to counter narcotics trafficking in the country. Colonel Oliverio Montalvo, chief of the Interior Ministry's Antidrug Unit, reports that a further 5,300 personnel in Public Health and Education, as well as 155 judges, have received similar training. A number of Montalvo's employees have attended courses abroad in cooperation with nations such as England, France, Canada and Spain, with whom Cuba holds anti-drug accords. One of these accords, signed with London, involves Cuba in maritime cooperation with other Caribbean nations, specifically Barbados in a project named the Barbados Plan of Action. In comments related to this new Plan of Action upon which Cuba has embarked, the British Ambassador to Havana, Paul Hare, complimented Cuba's cooperation in the fight against regional drug trafficking which should, he added, become a global fight. *WIDE CONDEMNATION OF HEIGHTENED ISRAELI VIOLENCE IN OCCUPIED TERRITORIES Tel Aviv, Paris, Washington, December 4 (RHC)--Israel's renewed military assaults in occupied Palestinian territories are sparking criticism and condemnation from virtually the entire international community, with the exception of Washington, as well as a serious crisis within Tel Aviv's governing coalition. Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, along with seven other ministers from his Labor Party, have announced that they are considering whether they will remain in the coalition. Peres announced that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's decision to define the Palestinian National Authority as an entity that supports terrorism, and President Yasser Arafat's Al-Fatah organization as terrorist, is a reiteration of Tel Aviv's support of the use of force without leaving any hope for diplomacy and negotiations. He said the decision is also a de facto effort to destroy the Palestinian Authority. Meanwhile, the European Union has called Israel's new attacks disproportionate and counter-productive, though acknowledging Israel's right to defend itself. But French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine went further, accusing Sharon of deliberately attempting to eliminate the Palestinian National Authority. He said Arafat has been weakened internally in Palestinian public opinion by the Israeli army's constant military assaults against autonomous territory, and that Israel is using this weakness to claim that the Palestinian leader is unable to establish order. The French foreign minister said this policy seems to be premeditated, constituting an effort to create a situation in which the Palestinian masses increasingly support radical organizations like Hamas -- providing Tel Aviv with justification for its violence in occupied territories. Washington, however, has given full support to Sharon, terming as "fully appropriate" the prime minister's reprisals for last weekend's suicide attacks against Israelis. US Secretary of State Colin Powell has placed all responsibility for the violence on the shoulders of Yasser Arafat. Among the approximately 150 Palestinians wounded and several killed in attacks against Arafat's headquarters Tuesday, some 60 were children from a nearby school. *AFGHAN FACTIONS REACH TENTATIVE AGREEMENT IN BONN; OBSTACLES REMAIN Bonn, Kabul, December 4 (RHC)--Talks in Bonn, Germany among Afghan factions Tuesday finally produced results, as the US and some of its western allies brought pressure to bear against the Northern Alliance. Northern Alliance leader and former President Burhanuddin Rabbani finally released a long-delayed list of candidates for the interim administration, according to US envoy James Dobbins. With little to lose, since it controls Kabul and put in place some sort of "caretaker" government, Burhanuddin had instructed his delegation from Kabul not to agree to any names at the Bonn gathering, reportedly hoping that this could instead be finalized at a follow-up meeting in the Afghan capital. The text of the agreement established a 29-member interim governing council, though haggling over who is to sit on the council was expected to continue for at least another 24 to 48 hours. Thus far, the Northern Alliance has agreed to four candidates to chair the 5-member executive -- including members of the majority Pashtun ethnic group -- which would leave the way clear for the mainly Tajik and Uzbek members of the Alliance to claim the bulk of other posts in a 29-member interim administration. And Rabbani wants all the other posts to be agreed to in Kabul, though the United Nations and other delegations want a full administration to be named in Bonn, lest the Northern Alliance exploits its position in Kabul to squeeze out other groups. The UN and western nations also want agreement on the immediate deployment of a UN-mandated force to guarantee the security of other participants in an interim government, but Rabbani has repeated his position that as few as 200 UN troops would be sufficient to provide security for any summit meeting in Kabul. But with the threat of withholding billions of dollars for the reconstruction of Afghanistan, western diplomats believe that the Northern Alliance will have to bow to their demands. In other news, the British humanitarian organization Save The Children has warned that small Afghan children were dying even before the cold set in, but that now temperatures are plummeting. An estimated 150,000 people are living in flimsy tents in a refugee camp near Mazar-I-Sharif, where snows have arrived and temperatures are dropping below freezing every night. Mazar-I-Sharif, close to the border with Uzbekistan, is a key distribution point for aid agencies trying to deliver food and clothing to the rest of the north and down to the central highlands, which Save The Children said will soon be totally cut off by the snow. But the humanitarian effort is being severely hampered by the refusal of the Uzbek government to re-open the Friendship Bridge leading into the zone until Washington provides military security at the border crossing -- which US troops have refused to do. Save The Children's Brendan Paddy told the BBC that a journey which should take 40 minutes is taking up to 10 days, as agencies try to find alternative routes through Turkmenistan and Pakistan. And according to Paddy, temperatures could still drop another 20 degrees-- to the point where warm clothing will take priority even over food. *US REPUBLICANS USING 'TERRORISM' TO PUSH OIL DRILLING IN ALASKA REFUGE Washington, December 4 (RHC)--Republicans in the US Congress are now using the September 11 terrorist attacks to defend the necessity of oil drilling in the Arctic national wildlife refuge in Alaska. As the battle over the controversial plan returned Monday to the Senate floor, Democrats warned that the drilling would endanger one of the world's greatest environmental treasures. The Senate's democratic majority is arguing that a final vote should be delayed until next year, but influential Republicans are saying it can't be delayed when the country is at war and suffering a recession. Majority leader Tom Daschle, the South Dakota Democrat, affirmed that greater concentration on conservation was needed as a way of reducing the US's dependence on foreign oil. Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman said drilling would mean an environmental treasure permanently lost, hundreds of species threatened, international agreements jeopardized and oil spills further endangering the Alaskan landscape. Some trade unions back the bill, claiming it would create 700,000 news jobs, but environmental activists say the drilling would put at risk one of the few refuges protecting polar bears and caribou. A report from the US General Accounting Office solicited by Democratic Congressman Edward Markey asserted that drilling in the Alaska refuge would break with a government practice of the past 35 years, and constituted a Trojan horse that could be used to permit drilling in 297 other refuges. Viewpoint: *SAO PAOLO FORUM EMBRACES THE LEFT AND REGIONAL INTEGRATION Ten years have passed since the fall of the Soviet Union and the eastern European socialist countries, when the Latin American and Caribbean parties of the left suddenly found themselves alone. Nonetheless, in spite of the obstacles, the most progressive forces of the region continued their fight against the exploitation and misery that exists across the globe. Although the extreme right has proclaimed the end of history, and the manifest destiny of the destruction of the left, progressive forces are regaining their strength and will never go like sheep to the slaughter. As such the Sao Paolo Forum, which is currently in its tenth session here in Havana, represents the hundreds of organizations and political parties of the Latin American left, including representatives from the US, Canada, Europe, Africa and Asia. Since September 11, imperialism has found another pretext to extend its power throughout the world, resulting in its traditional trail of violence, hunger, sickness and death. The danger of the Free Trade Area of the Americas and its beach heads, the Panama People Plan and the much-criticized Colombia Plan, as well as the defense of our identity, culture and spirit are some of the themes of the meeting in Havana. Aside from debating the challenges that our people face, the Forum also has space to discuss the struggle of the people of Puerto Rico for their independence and a demand for the withdrawal of the US Navy from Vieques. Over the years, the Sao Paul Forum has little by little offered space for the left to demonstrate that history does not lie, and that if we do not struggle as one, we are destined for eternal slavery. Many important things will come from this gathering, but without doubt, the best of these will be that the world has recovered from its paralysis. We reclaim the right to continue living and fighting for our identity and culture. (c) 2001 Radio Habana Cuba, NY Transfer News. 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