Radio Havana Cuba-15 May 2001 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Radio Havana Cuba - News Update - 15 May 2001 . *PRESIDENT CASTRO ARRIVES IN SYRIA FOR OFFICIAL VISIT *MEDICATION AND INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTS DEVELOPED FROM TOBACCO *CUBAN BIOSPHERES PROTECT INDIGENOUS WILDLIFE *MEDICAL EXCHANGE PROGRAM WILL TREAT 600 VENEZUELANS THIS YEAR *SIX PALESTINIANS DEAD, AT LEAST WOUNDED ON ISRAELI STATEHOOD ANNIVERSARY *GROWING, DEEP-SEATED RESENTMENT OF US, WARNS SENATOR LEAHY *POLICE IN DOMNICAN REPUBLIC "OUT OF CONTROL" Viewpoint: *ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT: A SOLUTION DEPENDS ON US . *PRESIDENT CASTRO ARRIVES IN SYRIA FOR OFFICIAL VISIT Damascus, May 15 (RHC)--Cuban President Fidel Castro has arrived in Syria for a brief official visit, the fifth leg of a tour that has taken him to Algeria, Iran, Malaysia and Qatar. Official media outlets in Damascus Tuesday called President Castro the leader of a revolution that sent shock waves throughout Latin America and that gave back to the Cuban people their independence and dignity. Fidel Castro was also praised for having never made concessions regarding the rights of his people, and for having turned Cuba into a refuge for those who struggle against colonialism. Relations between Syria and Cuba have traditionally been close, resulting in bilateral cooperation projects like the recent construction of a pharmaceutical laboratory in Syria with Cuban assistance. *MEDICATION AND INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTS DEVELOPED FROM TOBACCO Havana, May 15 (RHC)--Cuban experts have managed to develop a drug that reanimates patients who comatose or suffering from severe post-traumatic stress. In an unlikely scenario, the drug was developed by the island's Tobacco Research Institute. The essential protein that makes up the medication comes from the green tobacco leaf and is called "Fraccion 1" (F1). It possesses all the essential amino acids in a concentration that is comparable to the soy bean. F1 can be used as an additive in food, but its most important use is therapeutic in reanimating patients suffering from coma or post-traumatic stress. It can also be used to treat patients suffering from chronic kidney failure. The absence of sodium and potassium in F1 also makes it useful to considerably reduce the frequency of hemodialysis. This extraction of proteins from green tobacco leaves is still in its laboratory stage, say investigators from the Tobacco Research Institute, but they are confident of excellent results as more tests are carried out. Other unconventional uses for tobacco have been by-products that can be used in finishes for furniture, doors and walls. The finish has a high resistance to fungus and insects. *CUBAN BIOSPHERES PROTECT INDIGENOUS WILDLIFE Camaguey, May 15 (RHC)--Cuba today announced that a colony of a pink flamingos, of a species indigenous to the island, has grown ten times in the last decade. International environmental organizations are praising this development as an excellent example of government protection of natural habitats. The colony can be found in the wildlife preserve of the Maximo River in the north of the province of Camaguey. It groups 180,000 flamingos in the most important congregation of the bird on the island. The refuge is part of a project to protect the biodiversity and sustainable development of the Sabana-Camaguey archipelago. Thanks to the efforts of a team of specialists permanently stationed in the region, comprising 227 square kilometers, other species such as the crocodile and the manatee have also thrived. Cuba has a number of biospheres that are sponsored by UNESCO. *MEDICAL EXCHANGE PROGRAM WILL TREAT 600 VENEZUELANS THIS YEAR Havana, May 15 (RHC)--Some 600 Venezuelans have received or will be receiving medical attention in Cuba this year as part of the exchange program set up by both nations in accords signed in October last year. Approximately 50 patients are flown to Havana from Caracas twice a month with a similar number of family members to accompany them. They are treated by 21 institutions in the Cuban capital. The head of the program in Venezuela, Marta Bolivar, told the press on a recent trip to Cuba that so far the island has treated 403 Venezuelans for various illnesses and surgeries. She said that the great majority of her people support the program, in which Cuba receives oil in exchange for the medical help. Other aspects of the program involve Cuban medical personnel working in Venezuela to improve its public health care system by offering training in medical institutions as well as sending doctors into the countryside in areas where access to medical assistance is almost impossible. *SIX PALESTINIANS DEAD, AT LEAST WOUNDED ON ISRAELI STATEHOOD ANNIVERSARY Gaza/Ramallah, May 15 (RHC)--On the anniversary of the declaration of the Israeli state, called by Palestinians the "Nakba," or "day of disaster," Israeli troops killed six Palestinians and wounded more than 150. Israeli soldiers -- using tear gas, rubber encased bullets and other ammunition -- clashed with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians throughout Gaza and the West Bank who mostly threw rocks and molotov cocktails. During the day of disaster, Palestinians remember their 700,000 compatriots converted into refugees after being forced from their homes and land in 1948. The number of Palestinian refugees in the diaspora is now close to 4 million. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat stated Tuesday that there will never be peace until the refugees are allowed to return home and until the Israeli army and Jewish settlers withdraw from Palestinian territory. Last year, eight Palestinians were killed and 600 wounded during a week of clashes on the occasion of "Nakba." *GROWING, DEEP-SEATED RESENTMENT OF US, WARNS SENATOR LEAHY Washington, May 15 (RHC)--U.S. Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy contends that behind Washington's exclusion from two important United Nations agencies is an increasing and deep-seated resentment against the United States. The statement came as U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell urged the Senate to refrain from supporting an amendment adopted by the House of Representatives to freeze payment of part of Washington's UN debt. Leahy said the votes that excluded the United States from the UN Human Rights Commission and the International Narcotics Control Board did not occur in a vacuum, asserting that for years Washington has been imposing norms on the rest of the world that the U.S. itself doesn't always comply with. Leahy, a member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign operations, added that despite President George W. Bush's promise to be more humble, the U.S. is increasingly accused -- by its friends and allies, not only by its detractors -- of being arrogant and abusive. The measure recently adopted by the House doesn't interfere with the $582 million to be paid this year to the world body, but freezes a $244 million payment scheduled for fiscal year 2002, beginning next October. According to observers, the amendment has met a lukewarm reception in the Senate. *POLICE IN DOMNICAN REPUBLIC "OUT OF CONTROL" Santo Domingo, May 15 (RHC)--Police in the Dominican Republic have gunned down another two people protesting against police brutality, sparking a widespread demand for an investigation. A Dominican worker and student were shot to death Tuesday during protests against an earlier another police slaying during a protest last Saturday. The country's National Human Rights Commission has vowed to denounce before the Inter-American Human Rights Commission what it calls the systematic police practice of extrajudicial executions. The organization is also planning to bring charges in Dominican courts against the police chief, Major General Pedrode Jesus Cadelier. The country's major newspapers, including El Siglo, Hoy and "Listin Diario, have denounced 400 extrajudicial executions of suspects since 1999, 42 of them in the past two months. National Human Rights Commission president Manuel Maria Mercedes characterized the average of 12 police murder a month a "national shame." Dominican President Hipolito Mejia has promised to set up a special commission to investigate the killings, but came under fire when he proposed that the police chief himself, along with the country's armed forces secretary, form part of the commission. . Viewpoint: *ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT: A SOLUTION DEPENDS ON US A true solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is in the hands of the United States, the principal promoter of Israel's aggressive policy that has most recently cost the lives of nearly 500 Palestinians. The Arab people have been defending themselves, without weapons, from an external aggression. Israel is today a military power created in the Mid-East to represent U.S. interests. The nation is located in a strategic center of petroleum production and distribution. Maintaining a presence in the region is Israeli's primary function, though it claims to be simply a safe haven for those who were the victims of the horrors of Nazism during the Second World War. Unfortunately, Israel was born out of U.S. might, aggressive policies and expansionism. Because of that policy, the Israeli people have been unable to establish the truly fair social system they deserve. Eating away at Israeli society is the mistreatment of minorities and permanent fear and insecurity about the future. The Palestinians, who were dislodged from their lands by U.S. interest in their territory, have been forced to choose between two paths for survival: that of rebellion and combat under the worst imaginable circumstances to defend their national interests -- or of exile where they live in a state of anticipation that one day a Palestinian nation will be declared and they will be allowed to return to their lands to work and live like human beings. Since l948 Palestinians have been subjected to Israeli aggression. Palestinians also wanted to establish themselves as a Middle Eastern state, but with the same rights as the Israelis. It is the United States that is making peaceful co-existence impossible by converting Israel into an aggressive, expansionist military power and a sworn enemy of the native Arab peoples. This has condemned the region to live in a state of war, in order to maintain an artificial situation created by forces that have nothing to do with ethnic and national differences. This makes the road to peace more difficult, especially given the quantity of weapons and resources and the wealth bestowed upon Israel by Washington, all of which is being used against the Palestinians who have risen up in an Intifada. If the United States would exert its powerful influence to resolve the dangerous situation that threatens to destroy the entire region, it could make significant advances or, at the least, it could calm the area so that a true agreement could be reached that would finally end the bloodshed that is of so much concern to the rest of the world. (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-27798 2001-May-15 23:00:34