Radio Havana Cuba-26 February 2002 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Radio Havana Cuba - News Update - 26 Febuary 2002 . *UNRELENTING CAMPAIGN AGAINST DENGUE FEVER CONTINUES *CIGAR FESTIVAL, AGRICULTURE FAIR OPEN IN HAVANA *KOFI ANNAN CHALLENGES RICH NATIONS TO MAKE SUBSTANTIAL CHANGES *ISRAEL WELCOMES SAUDI PEACE PROPOSAL, BUT SUCCESS NOT GUARANTEED *PENTAGON AGAIN DENIES MISTAKEN KILLING OF AFGHAN VILLAGERS WAS ERROR *US SENATE LEADER JOINS LAWSUIT AGAINST RICHARD CHENEY OVER ENRON *AMID RUMORS, US GOVERNMENT DENIES THEY HAVE ANY ANTHRAX SUSPECTS *Obituary: MIGUEL DE LA GUARDIA, 74, FORMER HEAD OF RHC ENGLISH DEPARTMENT *Viewpoint: USA's DOUBLE STRIKE AT LATIN AMERICA . *UNRELENTING CAMPAIGN AGAINST DENGUE FEVER CONTINUES Havana, February 26 (RHC)--Last night's round table on Cuban TV focused on the nation's campaign to eradicate dengue fever, which has hit Central America and the Caribbean. The importance of the campaign is such that President Fidel Castro, who has been closely following its progress, attended the round table. The mosquito-borne disease has been especially prevalent in the capital and areas in the provinces of Pinar del Río, Las Tunas and Guantánamo, but is being successfully brought under control reported Dr. Elia Rosa Lemus, who is in charge of the campaign on a Council of State level and Dr. Damodar Peña, who is involved in the campaign on a provincial level. The numbers of those infected has dropped to well below the 4% of the population where the outbreak would be considered an epidemic. Those infected by the least dangerous non- hemorrhagic strain of dengue fever numbered 10,000 in the city of Havana at the beginning of the campaign on the 12th January but have now dropped to only 18 cases. Two weeks of rest at home with treatment by the family doctor is all that has been needed to cure most patients. Nonetheless, said health experts on the round table, the campaign must continue unrelenting. The mosquito larvae is far from being completely destroyed and can survive up to 18 months even in conditions that are far from ideal. Aside from the unpleasant necessity of fumigation the campaign has brought about a very successful clean up of the city. It has also brought about an excellent level of education relating to hygiene that is expected to last long after the campaign is officially brought to a close. *CIGAR FESTIVAL, AGRICULTURE FAIR OPEN IN HAVANA Havana, February 26 (RHC)--The Fourth Habano Cigar Festival opened yesterday at the La Cabaña Fortress overlooking Havana. More than 600 participants from 48 nations representing 34 commercial outlets were on hand in a completely smoke-filled atmosphere, which was, thankfully for the journalists covering the event, outdoors. The Eighth International Agricultural Fair also opened over the weekend in Havana at the Rancho Boyeros exhibition grounds where representatives from 19 different countries were in attendance. Major European corporations such as Bayer, Mercedes-Benz, Big Bitchman and Pulsfog were also present. Although the fair is essentially for professionals, public entertainment is included such as afternoon and evening rodeos, food booths, gift stands that sell animal husbandry products such as saddles, and farm animal exhibitions. For the first time the fair also has a fish-farming exhibit. *KOFI ANNAN CHALLENGES RICH NATIONS TO MAKE SUBSTANTIAL CHANGES London, February 26 (RHC)--United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan Monday called on rich nations of the west to open their markets, increase their aid budgets and change their lifestyles as part of a renewed effort to achieve sustainable development. Speaking at the London School of Economics, Annan said there had been a loss of momentum in the decade since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, urging the developed world to end "business as usual." The UN secretary general is reportedly hoping that next month's conference on financing development in Monterrey, Mexico, and the world summit on sustainable development in Johannesburg, South Africa deliver more than rhetoric. He said that though attention has been focused on conflict, globalization and terrorism, the international community has often failed to see how these issues are connected to the issue of sustainability. Annan said sustainable development has become a pious invocation rather than the urgent call to concrete action that it should be. He urged people in developed countries to change their lifestyles if the planet was to be inhabitable for the number of people likely to live on it in the decades to come. The head of the world body said the poor are not looking for a handout, but rather, a hand up, and that they constitute enormous, untapped reservoirs of initiative and entrepreneurship, but that there energies are often held in check by poverty, misrule or conflict. *ISRAEL WELCOMES SAUDI PEACE PROPOSAL, BUT SUCCESS NOT GUARANTEED Jerusalem, February 26 (RHC)--Tel Aviv has reportedly welcomed a Saudi Arabia-sponsored Middle East peace proposal as the spasm of violence continued in occupied Palestinian territories. Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah has called on Arab states to recognize Israel and normalize relations with Tel Aviv in return for a full Israeli withdrawal from Arab lands occupied in the 1967 Middle East war. Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer reportedly said the plan should be looked at positively, that it has new elements and should therefore be encouraged and not rejected. The plan has also been hailed by Palestinians, praised by Washington and is gaining international momentum at a moment when the spiral of violence in occupied Palestinian territories seems unstoppable. In the past, however, Israel has firmly stated that it will never return to pre-1967 borders, considering it too dangerous for the country's security. Some observers are also pointing out that such a plan would necessarily have to include the dismantling of Jewish settlements in occupied territory, which Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has not only ruled out, but has also beefed up and extended those settlements during his mandate. Sharon has made no public comment on the plan. Influential Israeli news dailies, like "Ma'ariv" and "Ha'aretz," Tuesday came out in support of the Saudi plan in their editorial pages. Observers are commenting that while Sharon has fiercely opposed a total pullout, he knows that Israelis are despondent over 17 months of a dead-end conflict and eager for a ray of hope. At the same time, any discussion of significant concessions to the Palestinians could undermine the prime minister's government coalition, which is a patchwork of parties with widely divergent positions on the land-for-peace idea. *PENTAGON AGAIN DENIES MISTAKEN KILLING OF AFGHAN VILLAGERS WAS ERROR Washington, February 26 (RHC)--Still on the defensive, the US commander of the war in Afghanistan has reiterated that the mistaken killing of some 17 Afghan villagers later determined to be friendly forces was not an error. General Tommy Franks Monday said there had been no intelligence failure in the raid, even though those killed and captured turned out not to be the hostile forces that the US soldiers had been told they were. In a videoconference from Tampa, Florida, with reporters at the Pentagon, Franks disputed suggestions that US troops had erred. He said he intended to take no disciplinary action against any US forces involved, adding that while the deaths of friendly forces was "unfortunate," he is satisfied with the operation and would not characterize it as a failure of any type. And amid on-going reports of warlord rivalries, ethnic persecution and lawlessness in Afghanistan, Franks confirmed speculation that the United States would probably not send US peacekeepers to the country. He said Washington would like to see security improved in Afghanistan by having the Afghans do it - though it's not clear how an Afghan national army can be built amid so many rivalries for power and ethnic tensions. *US SENATE LEADER JOINS LAWSUIT AGAINST DICK CHENEY OVER ENRON Washington, February 26 (RHC)--The second-ranking Democrat in the US Senate has joined a lawsuit seeking to compel Vice President Dick Cheney to release information related to the Enron scandal. The General Accounting Office, a government oversight agency, wants to know the details about Cheney's meetings with executives from the energy sector when he worked on the administration's energy task force. Senate Assistant Majority Leader Harry Reid said he hoped to learn if the meetings influenced President George W. Bush's decision to abandon his campaign promise to base any decision an a national nuclear waste repository on "sound science." Bush recently decided to establish the nuclear waste dump inside Yucca Mountain in the state of Nevada, where citizens and authorities have pledged to fight the move in court. Friday, the General Accounting Office filed its first-ever lawsuit against the government as the Enron scandal continues to unravel. The scandal prompted Tuesday another round of congressional hearings and testimony. Former Enron chief executive Jeffrey Skilling told Senators, in his second appearance before lawmakers, that he hasn't lied to anyone - contradicting testimony earlier in the day from company vice president Sherron Watkins. As Skilling reportedly sat without expression, lawmakers denounced Enron's conduct, pointing to the huge losses in public pension funds in their states. Senator Jean Carnahan told Skilling that if he didn't understand Enron's true financial condition he will have to explain why he failed to understand things any diligent chief executive officer would have understood. During his first testimony, Skilling claimed that he knew nothing about the company's financial straits that eventually led to bankruptcy and the loss of the life savings of thousands of employees - but not before Enron's top executives cashed in their stocks for tens of millions of dollars. *AMID RUMORS, US GOVERNMENT DENIES THEY HAVE ANY ANTHRAX SUSPECTS Washington, February 26 (RHC)--The White House and US federal authorities have affirmed that there are still no suspects in the anthrax case, despite speculation to the contrary. Amid increasing concern on Capital Hill and among some scientists over an apparent lack of progress in the FBI's anthrax probe, public comments from one prominent expert prompted authorities to take their case to the media to argue that the investigation is complex and extensive. Prominent US news dailies Tuesday published extensive articles on the probe, one day after White House spokesman termed as "erroneous" affirmations that authorities do have a suspect but that he's untouchable due to his knowledge of secret US biological warfare research. Doctor Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a university professor and prominent bioterrorism expert, last week raised many eyebrows when she affirmed that the FBI has a suspect but is dragging its feet because he knows something that he believes to be sufficiently damaging to the United States to make him untouchable by the FBI. During a speech at Princeton University, Doctor Rosenberg said that according to reliable government sources that she would not name, the suspect, who worked at an army medical research laboratory, has already been interrogated on two occasions. *Obituary: MIGUEL DE LA GUARDIA, 74, FORMER HEAD OF RHC ENGLISH DEPARTMENT Havana, February 26 (RHC)--Radio Havana Cuba regrets to announce the unexpected death of the former head of its English Language Service, Miguel Angel de la Guardia, who was injured in a car accident last week and died in hospital Monday night at the age of 74. Although long past the age of retirement, Miguel continued working at the station writing many of its editorials as one of Radio Havana Cuba's deputy directors. He was well known and well liked in the field of journalism in Cuba and his gentle presence will be missed by all of us here. Miguel was part of the Cuban Revolution from the outset. In January 1959, days after the ousting of Batista and the arrival of Che and Fidel in Havana, he appeared on television and radio programs for the rebel army. In 1966 he joined Radio Havana Cuba in its fifth year of existence where he became head of the English Department before moving on to become deputy general director of the station. Following work in Vietnam, Miguel was awarded the Ho Chi Minh medal of friendship. He also received numerous awards for his journalism in Cuba. Miguel Angel de la Guardia, friend and colleague of us all here at Radio Havana Cuba, dead at the age of 74. *Viewpoint: USA's DOUBLE STRIKE AT LATIN AMERICA Corn is one of the most essential foods in the Mexican diet. Until the beginning of the 1990's, Mexico had enough corn to export and feed its own population with the grain that it produced. Today it imports five million tons of corn from the United States. The balance began to change after 1994, when the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, came into force between the US, Canada and Mexico, and the opening of national borders to the importation of corn from the US resulted in more than 15 million Mexican farm laborers abandoning the countryside in order to survive. According to a study done by the U.S. organization Public Citizen, NAFTA has dismantled the self-sufficiency and social fabric of rural communities in Latin America. The research points out that in the case of Mexico, it has brought about the ruination of farmers and resulted in danger to the genetic diversity of the corn that they cultivate, prompting the entrance of various genetically-modified cross-genetic strains. But the free market advocates argue that the commercial exchange between Mexico and the United States has proven to be prosperous and that the American Union is the natural destiny of the majority of exported Mexican products. The neoliberalist apologists affirm that the northern business agreement is the ideal mirror in which to reflect the people south of the Rio Bravo, and add to the Free Trade Area of the Americas proposal, the annexationist project designed by Washington. It is nothing less than a fatal proposal. As Jose Marti said more than a century ago, "the excessive influence of a country in the business of another changes the political influence... a people that wish to be free, must be free in business...to develop a union with the world and not only with a part of it." The proponents of a big open market from Alaska to Patagonia wrongly believe that the elimination of tariffs and duties will guarantee, per se, the development of all. However, they conveniently forget the profound disproportion between the economies of the United States, Canada and Latin America. Recently, the Brazilian Minister of Agriculture emphasized that if the United States did not accept an opening for agricultural products, there will be no Free Trade Area of the Americas. If they do not want to open their markets, "neither will we open ours," he added, because the FTAA must not only favor one member country, but all of them. The producers of Brazilian citrus fruits have also suffered the consequences of the double strike that the United States has applied to the political economy. Brazil had reached the figure of supplying 60% of the orange juice consumed in the United States but today it only supplies 15% because of a measure that obliges them to pay a duty of 415 dollars per ton. Free trade doesn't turn out to be so free, but in fact, is very costly for those on the bottom rung of a playing field that is far from level. (c) 2002 Radio Habana Cuba, NY Transfer News. 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