Radio Havana Cuba-05 February 2001 (Delayed) Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Radio Havana Cuba - News Update - 05 February 2001 (Delayed transmission, 06-Feb-2001 06:00 EST) . *SIXTH ORBIS OPHTHAMOLOGY PROJECT BEGINS IN CUBA THIS WEEK *THE REVOLUTION WILL CONTINUE AFTER FIDEL CASTRO: ALARCON *COMPAY SEGUNDO SENDS MEXICANS DANCING INTO THE STREETS *HUGE EDUCATORS' CONGRESS BEGINS IN HAVANA *INDIGENOUS ACTIVISTS IN ECUADOR SUSPEND NEGOTIATIONS WITH GOVERNMENT *LEGISLATORS IN PERUVIAN LEGISLATORS SAY *PERU: US CIA REFUSES TO HELP CAPTURE FUGITIVE SPY-CHIEF, SAY LEGISLATORS *SWISS BANKS TO RESTORE FUNDS CONFISCATED FROM JEWS BY NAZIS *Viewpoint: FOREIGN DEBT CONTINUES BLOCKING DEVELOPMENT . *SIXTH ORBIS OPHTHAMOLOGY PROJECT BEGINS IN CUBA THIS WEEK Havana, February 5 (RHC)-For the sixth time the U.S. based Orbis Project has sent a team of ophthalmology experts to Cuba to supply the island's doctors with state of the art equipment for the treatment of cataracts, glaucoma, infections of the cornea, and reconstructive eye surgery. Orbis sends a DC-10 around the world with the equipment on board ready for immediate use. Under the direction of Elizabeth Robinson from England, representatives from 12 countries will work for one week out of a hospital in the city of Camagüey alongside a rotation of 5,000 Cuban ophthalmologists, nurses, anesthesiologists, and technicians. Last year the chartered plane carrying the equipment flew to the Cuban cities of Matanzas and Holguín. *THE REVOLUTION WILL CONTINUE AFTER FIDEL CASTRO: ALARCON Havana, February 5 (RHC)-The president of the Cuban parliament, Ricardo Alarcón, said last week that the death of President Fidel Castro would not in any way signify the end of the Cuban Revolution. In statements to the Brazilian daily Jornal do Brasil, Alarcón said that while Cuba would lose the intelligence, brilliance and moral authority of the island's leader, his country would maintain its path and further develop the socialism it currently practices. Referring to the end of socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, Alarcón said that Cuba had the advantage of seeing what happened to those nations and can thus avoid making errors. Ricardo Alarcón participated in the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, last week which was designed as a Third World answer and challenge to the First World forum being held concurrently in Davos, Switzerland. The Brazilian forum proved to generate a great deal of international support and solidarity for Cuba. *COMPAY SEGUNDO SENDS MEXICANS DANCING INTO THE STREETS Havana, February 5 (RHC)-On Sunday the Cuban performer who is synonymous with the Buena Vista Social Club, offered a free concert to the people of Mexico City on their most famous square, the Zócolo. Compay Segundo unleashed the rhythm of Afro-Cuban son on the Mexican capital to the delight of those present. In spite of a light rain and the cold, the 94 year old musician got couples across the square to move to the old sounds of danzón before moving their bodies to rumba and bolero. The event took place after Compay Segundo presented his album "Las Flores de la Vida" or Flowers of Life in the Hard Rock Live nightclub the night before. He is on a whirlwind tour of Latin America with Argentina his next stop. *HUGE EDUCATORS' CONGRESS BEGINS IN HAVANA Havana, February 5 (RHC)- Some 5,000 delegates from 33 different countries along with 1,000 Cuban delegates are taking part in Havana's huge congress entitled Pedagogía 2001 which began on Monday. The five day event which will focus on the difficulties and challenges faced by teachers across the globe includes some 600 Venezuelan teachers as special guests. The World Education Forum that took place in Dakar, Senegal last April, reported that more than 113 million children lack access to primary education on the planet and 880 million adults are illiterate. The lack of instruction of human values and the aspirations of students will also be addressed in different sessions during the week. Cuba's gains in the field of education are legendary and many of the countries attending will be further studying the island's pedagogical system. *INDIGENOUS ACTIVISTS IN ECUADOR SUSPEND NEGOTIATIONS WITH GOVERNMENT Quito, February 5 (RHC)-- Indigenous activists in Ecuador have suspended negotiations with the government that began Sunday following repression of a protest that left three activists dead and nine wounded by gunfire. According to Ecuador's Permanent Human Rights Assembly, soldiers opened fire onindigenous and campesino activists blocking a bridge some 120 kilometers south of the capital, Quito. There are also unconfirmedreports of several indigenous activists wounded by gunfire in anotherprotest. The Ecuadorian Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities had begun talks with government after yielding in their demand that recent price hikes in transportation, fuel and domestic gas be immediately repealed. Confederation vice president Ricardo Ulcuango, at the head of the indigenous commission that was negotiating with authorities, stated that the protesters are willing to discuss a revision of the price hikes -- though without specifying what kind of revision. Indigenous leader Antonio Vargas accused the government of wanting to provoke a civil war. Meanwhile, some 5000 indigenous activists continue occupying the private Polytechnic Salesian University in the capital, Quito, while road blockages continue in many regions in the south, north and center of the country -- which have sparked an acute shortage of basic products. And Ecuador's United Workers Front, grouping all the country's trade unions -- along with student and grassroots organizations -- have vowed to massively take to the streets on Wednesday to protest the price hikes. *PERU: US CIA REFUSES TO HELP CAPTURE FUGITIVE SPY-CHIEF, SAY LEGISLATORS Lima, February 5 (RHC)-- The president of Peru's Congress, Carlos Ferrero, has accused the U.S. CIA of refusing to collaborate in the capture of fugitive, former national intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos. Pointing toMontesinos' well-documented close ties with the Central Intelligence Agency, Ferrero charged that a sector of the U.S. intelligence apparatus doesn't want him freely talking. Over the weekend, Peruvian legislator Robinson Rivadeneyra asserted that the CIA used Montesinos in an illegal weapons trafficking operation from Jordan tothe leftist rebels of the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces. He said the CIA's active participation in the trafficking operation was aimed at justifying Washington's military aid to the Colombian government in the program called Plan Colombia. Montesinos' close ties with the CIA date back to at least the mid-1970s when he was an official guest of the U.S. government, met with high-ranking CIA officials and gave a talk at Washington's Inter-American Defense College. *SWISS BANKS TO RESTORE FUNDS CONFISCATED FROM JEWS BY NAZIS Havana, February 5 (RHC)--Banks in Switzerland have begun the process of restoring hundreds of millions of disinherited dollars from bank accounts of Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust. A list of 21,000 such accounts was published today on the Internet, according to Paul Volcker -- who investigated the Swiss banks. Volcker said the reconciliation process following the 1998 agreement between the banks and the international organization Claims Conference. According to that agreement, the banks will have to pay a total of $1.25 billion to Holocaust victims and their family members. Slave workers in Swiss firms in Germany during the Third Reich will also be compensated. At a press conference in New York, Volcker described the difficult investigation process that preceded publication of the list. It began with the gathering of information concerning some four million bank accounts that dated from the period 1933 to 1945. *Viewpoint: FOREIGN DEBT CONTINUES BLOCKING DEVELOPMENT Two major economic powers -- the United States and the European Union -- are struggling for control of the world market. Unrestricted free-market globalization is really nothing more than the beginning of a movement to gain economic control as a prelude to political domination over the countries that have the most natural resources. The direct effects of that policy have begun to be manifested in Latin America in the so-called NAFTA or North American Free Trade Agreement. The process in this hemisphere is the result of a conspiracy to definitively annex Latin America. That is the opinion of Professor Hans Dietrich Guenscher, of Mexico's Autonomous University. Professor Dietrich Guenscher told the Cuban press in an interview, that there is an annexation process underway, but it is dollars that is fueling it rather than military might. However, he stressed, the process ignores the region's pressing problems. Celebrated economists debated this and other issues at the recently concluded International Conference on Globalization and Problems of Development, which was held in Havana. The experts took a close look at statistics supplied by the World Bank, which show that in l996 the 41 poorest nations had a foreign debt of some $205 billion, which by last year had risen to $215 billion. In Latin America alone, the total is nearly a trillion dollars, a sum equal to the combined personal wealth of the 400 magnates who control most of the world's riches -- the majority of them from the United States. The figures clearly demonstrate that neo-liberal policies are counterproductive. Debt servicing fees -- that is, the annual interest payments -- hit 25% last year. Debtor countries must spend more each year on debt payments than they invest in social and economic development. As long as nations must pay such huge chunks of their GDP on debt payments, they will never have the chance to advance or improve. If neo-liberal globalization continues, the United States will swallow up most of the Western Hemisphere to be used as a reservoir of U.S. production necessary to compete with the European Union. And once again, solutions to the plethora of problems plaguing the Third World will be left aside. (c) 2001 Radio Habana Cuba, NY Transfer News. 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