from: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Radio Havana March 15. Tax cuts won't help US Ec problems
Radio Havana Cuba-15 March 2001
Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit
Radio Havana Cuba - News Update - 15 March 2001
.
*CUBA CONTINUES TO DEMAND EXTRADITION OF POSADA CARRILES
*VENEZUELAN GOVERNOR VISITS PINAR DEL RIO
*MENTAL HEALTH 2001 CONGRESS BEGINS IN HAVANA
*RUSSIA DONATES IMPORTANT MEDICAL EQUIPMENT TO CUBA
*CUBAN WEBSITES RECEIVE MILLIONS OF VISITS EACH MONTH
*INTERNATIONAL FAIR OF THE SEA TO BE HELD IN APRIL
*IMF DELEGATION ARRIVES IN ARGENTINA; NEW "SHOCK THERAPY" EXPECTED
*AMID DEEP DIVISIONS OVER ZAPATISTAS, MEXICAN CONGRESSIONAL SESSION
BEGINS
*BARRAGE OF CRITICISM CONTINUES AGAINST BUSH'S BETRAYAL OF
ENVIRONMENT
*ECUADORAN INDIGENOUS PROMISE NOT TO ATTEMPT TO TOPPLE GOVERNMENT
*Viewpoint: US ECONOMIC PROBLEMS WON'T BE SOLVED BY TAX CUTS
.
*CUBA CONTINUES TO DEMAND EXTRADITION OF POSADA CARRILES
Havana, March 15 (RHC)--Cuba's foreign ministry has reiterated
Havana's insistence on the extradition to Cuba of terrorist Luis
Posada Carriles, currently in prison in Panama in connection with an
assassination plot against Fidel Castro. In response to Panamanian
President Mireya Moscoso's recent affirmation that her country will
not extradite Posada Carriles because Cuba has the death penalty, the
Cuban foreign ministry also reiterated that Havana would not apply
capital punishment in this case and will comply with Panama's penal
code.
The official press release recalled that Cuba has yet to receive a
response to its extradition request from the Panamanian foreign
ministry, which it called the only government agency that according
to Panamanian legislation can accept or reject such a petition.
The Cuban foreign ministry also stated that in recent weeks Havana's
embassy in Panama has warned Panamanian authorities concerning
security conditions in the jails where Posada Carriles and three
other Cuban-Americans are being held. The press release recalled that
Posada Carriles escaped from a prison in Venezuela, while Gaspar
Jimenez escaped from another in Mexico.
The Cuban Foreign Ministry also expressed concern over recent visits
to Panama by members of ultra-right wing groups based in Miami,
including members of the Cuban-American National Foundation, aimed at
pressuring authorities to release the four terrorists.
*VENEZUELAN GOVERNOR VISITS PINAR DEL RIO
Havana, March 15 (RHC)--Pinar Del Rio was the latest stop in Hugo de
los Reyes Chavez Cuban tour. During his visit to the western province
the Governor of the Venezuelan state of Barinas toured the '30 of
November' sugar industrial complex.
The Venezuelan official will get a first-hand look at the main
aspects of Cuba's important sugar industry and the possibilities of
establishing cooperation ties in the sugar sector between the island
and the state of Barinas.
The Governor of Barinas will also tour a cooperative agricultural
project in the province of Havana and will later visit the Computer
Palace and the Training School for Social workers, all located in the
Cuban capital.
The main objective of the Governor's visit is to establish
cooperation ties between Cuba and the state of Barina as part of the
Integral Cooperation Accord signed between both sides last October.
*MENTAL HEALTH 2001 CONGRESS BEGINS IN HAVANA
Havana, March 15 (RHC)--Cuban and foreign specialists are evaluating
the current state of world psychology and exchanging expertise on in-
patient treatment at the Mental Health 2001 Congress that began on
Thursday in Havana.
According to Dr. Maria Julia de Vales Linares, President of the
Organizing Committee, professionals from Mexico, Argentina, Brazil
and Cuba are attending the congress.
Academics with a broad range of experience in mental health will
discuss different issues related to community psychiatry, sexology,
alcoholism, drug addiction, and the effects of natural medicine on
psychiatry disorders.
Mental Health 2001 is being held at Havana's International Convention
Center as part of the activities for the 35th anniversary of the
specialist institution for the treatment and rehabilitation of mental
patients suffering from drug addiction, alcohol and other disorders.
*RUSSIA DONATES IMPORTANT MEDICAL EQUIPMENT TO CUBA
Havana, March 15 (RHC)--A deputy of Russia's Lower House of
Parliament, Ivan Nikchuk, currently visiting the island, made a
valuable donation of equipment for the treatment and physical therapy
of patients with lung, skin and other ailments.
The donation was earmarked for the Almeijeiras Hospital in the Cuban
capital and was designed by Russia's Scientific Researchers of
Experimental Physics.
The equipment has been proven efficient in Russian health centers and
is considered as the most modern that has come out of research
centers.
*CUBAN WEBSITES RECEIVE MILLIONS OF VISITS EACH MONTH
Havana, March 15 (RHC)--Some 50 million users visit Cuban Internet
sites each month to get information directly from Cuban sources.
Developing new technologies for information and communications,
particularly the infrastructure for Internet service, has been a
difficult task for this country because of the U.S. blockade.
Cuba is currently not connected with fiber-optics but by satellite,
which is much more expensive. The national telephone network cannot
support a huge volume of information and the communication system
does cover as wide a band as the majority of other countries,
although work is being done in that direction.
However, despite the limitations that prevent Internet service for
everyone, the Cuban government is making an effort and is currently
looking for resources to enable scientific institutions,
universities, media institutions and cultural entities navigate
through the Internet.
*INTERNATIONAL FAIR OF THE SEA TO BE HELD IN APRIL
Cienfuegos, March 15 (RHC)--The International Fair of the Sea will
start in the central city of Cienfuegos next April 3rd in which
participants will focus their debates on the environment.
The main theme of the event will be "For the Globalization of
Environmental Culture and Solidarity."
A workshop on engineering and coastal management will also be
included in the meeting that will be held at the Union Hotel in
Cienfuegos known as the pearl of the south. This fair will also
include participation by the population in an attempt to protect our
environment.
*IMF DELEGATION ARRIVES IN ARGENTINA; NEW "SHOCK THERAPY" EXPECTED
Buenos Aires, March 15 (RHC)--Just one week after assuming office,
the new Argentinean Minister of the Economy, Ricardo Lopez Murphy, is
facing his first big test with the arrival in Buenos Aires of a
delegation from the International Monetary Fund, the IMF. The
delegation arrived Tuesday in the Argentinean capital and will
examine steps being taken by the government to reduce the country's
fiscal deficit.
While the measures of Argentina's new economic team have yet to be
defined, they have inherited a program that has already spent more
than that allowed by agreements with the IMF.
Reports from Buenos Aires show that the economic shock package put
together by the international lending agency will require the country
-- and more specifically, workers and the poor -- to tighten their
belts even more. Rumors have it that Argentineans will soon see an
almost total privatization of the country, with at least 100,000
workers losing their jobs.
On the agenda: the elimination of the State pension system, raising
the retirement age for women to 65, tax cuts for the wealth and
special privileges for major corporations -- but nothing for the
working class. Analysts also believe that the International Monetary
Fund will require a substantial cut in public spending and an added
value tax on education and transportation.
It was announced that the new IMF measures for Argentina will be
revealed in the coming days. Meanwhile, Ricardo Lopez Murphy, the new
Argentinean economic minister is refusing to comment on what
observers say will certainly be yet another round of financial shock
measures, sending the country into deeper misery and poverty.
In related news, jobless workers in Argentina will take to the
streets next Tuesday, March 20th, to protest the government's neo-
liberal economic policies. A leader of the Movement of Unemployed
Workers, Luis D'Elia, announced that next week's march will close off
the main streets of downtown Buenos Aires on its way to the Plaza de
Mayo.
Organizers of the upcoming mass demonstration told reporters that the
march will demand more jobs and social services. D'Elia noted that
the planned march will come soon after new IMF shock measures are
announced for Argentina and just before trade union groups call a
general work stoppage, slated for April 5th and 6th. He stated that
Argentinean workers want an end to the neo-liberal economic model
that has sent ever-greater numbers into poverty and unemployment.
*AMID DEEP DIVISIONS OVER ZAPATISTAS, MEXICAN CONGRESSIONAL SESSION
BEGINS
Mexico City, March 15 (RHC)--Mexico's Congress today began its
ordinary session amid deep divisions concerning the demands of the
Zapatista leadership. While President Vicente Fox is in favor of
approving the San Andres Accords on Indigenous Rights and Culture,
signed by the Zapatistas and the Congressional Peace Commission in
February, 1996, the leadersof his ruling National Action Party -- PAN
-- insist on modifying theagreement.
PAN president Luis Felipe Bravo and the leaders of that political
party in the Lower House and the Senate, Felipe Calderon and Diego
Fernandez de Ceballos, reject the Zapatista demand that the accords
be approved without changes. Mexican business sectors have also begun
to criticize the pending legislation.
According to observers, the legislation will probably lack
sufficient support to pass, or it will suffer so many modifications
that it will be unacceptable for the Zapatistas, or debates on the
bill will be postponed until September. At the same time, President
Fox has called on Zapatista commander Marcos to abide by the rules of
the democracy game -- in response to the indigenous rebels' refusal
to meet with a small group of legislators instead of with all the
members of Congress during a full floor session.
Marcos called the proposal humiliating. Fox stated, however, that
the decision is not his, but that of the legislators. The Zapatista
Caravan arrived in Mexico City last Sunday, amid massive national and
international support, announcing that it would remain there until
the accords are approved. But observers are somberly predicting that
the 24 rebel commanders will probably have to return to Chiapas
empty-handed.
*BARRAGE OF CRITICISM CONTINUES AGAINST BUSH'S BETRAYAL OF
ENVIRONMENT
Paris, March 15 (RHC)--Criticism continues pouring down on U.S.
President George Bush following his about-face in the issue of
contaminating gas emissions. French Environment Minister Dominique
Voynet warned Washington of its responsibility in the process of
global warming -- pointing out that the United States is the
principle producer of carbon dioxide.
Voynet called on the European Union to respond to Bush quickly
and forcefully. The World Wildlife Fund today accused the U.S.
president of going against a consensus reached by the international
community in the issue of climatic changes. In Brussels, WWF expert
Stephan Singer called Bush's position a threat to humanity and to
nature.
Germany's foreign ministry announced that Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder will try to convince Bush of the necessity of reducing
contaminating gas emissions during his trip to Washington next March
29th. Inside the USA, California democratic representative Harry
Waxman called Bush's decision an astonishing betrayal, in reference
to the president's campaign promise to support contamination controls
in the country's electricity generating plants.
New York republican representative Sherwood Boehlert called Bush's
decision shameful. Boehlert is one of three moderate Republicans who
joined a group of Democrats that have presented a draft bill
demanding contamination control mechanisms in all U.S. electricity
plants by the year 2007.
Numerous critics have accused Bush of catering to the oil industry,
with which he has close ties. Those accusations coincided with a New
York Times and CBS survey which found that 50 percent of Americans
believe that other people, not Bush, are running the country.
*ECUADORAN INDIGENOUS PROMISE NOT TO ATTEMPT TO TOPPLE GOVERNMENT
Quito, March 15 (RHC)--Indigenous activists in Ecuador have promised
to not overthrow President Gustavo Noboa's government. The promise
came at Wednesday's inauguration of the beginning of a dialogue
between the government and the Ecuadoran Confederation of Indigenous
Nationalities, which staged an uprising between January and February
that reminded observers of two other recent uprisings that led to the
downfall of two Ecuadoran presidents.
The powerful indigenous organization organized a massive protest in
February 1997, that ousted then-President Abdala Bucaram, and another
in January 2000, that sparked the demise of then-President Jamil
Mahuad. Last February 7th the government and the indigenous
leadership signed a 23-point agreement that led to the suspension of
massive protests.
The agreements include special credits for small and medium producers
and small and community business enterprises, the participation of
social organizations and the indigenous movement in the elaboration
of social investment projects and solutions to conflicts over land,
water and other natural resources, among others. The two sides will
meet again Friday to begin discussions on methodology before actually
setting up the different negotiation tables.
*Viewpoint: US ECONOMIC PROBLEMS WON'T BE SOLVED BY TAX CUTS
U.S. President George W. Bush gave a brief account in Florida of
his accelerating tax reduction campaign. This is obviously a pacifier
to take the spotlight off the threatening financial crisis that is on
the horizon in the U.S.
Nobody really thinks that the reduction in taxes will have any real
effect, not even as a conciliatory measure, but the new president
doesn't seem to have anything else to offer.
The problems of his country go much further than he is prepared to
admit and pasting over them will not make them disappear. In fact
each time they are pasted over, the accumulative situation becomes
worse.
Already the House of Representatives has given Bush the green light
to launch his program and to bring it to the Senate. Bush wants tax
cuts to the tune of 958 million dollars over the next ten years and
other tax concessions that will total 1.6 billion. Most of his
critics reckon that the figure will multiply much more than that but
Bush insists that his recommendations are correct for the present
times and in agreement with his election manifesto.
However, the tax indicatives proposed by Bush do not have the
blessing of certain analysts and critics, as they feel that the
impact on an already weakening economy has not been thought through
by the Bush administration.
It should furthermore be obvious that tax cuts will only benefit
the wealthy, including the millionaires in the Bush administration,
while depriving the government of federal funds that could be used in
social programs like housing.
(c) 2001 Radio Habana Cuba, NY Transfer News. All rights reserved.
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