From: NY Transfer News <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Date: Tue, 15 May 2001 23:01:13 -0400 (EDT)
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Subject: [CubaNews] NY Transfer's RHC News Update-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.
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