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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 03:55:00 -0500
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Subject: Radio Havana Cuba-18 December 2001
Radio Havana Cuba-18 December 2001
Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit
Radio Havana Cuba - News Update - 18 December 2001
.
*MIAMI 5: FERNANDO GONZALEZ SENTENCED BY MIAMI COURT TO 19 YEARS IN PRISON
*EDUCATION IN CUBA: A REVOLUTION WITHIN THE REVOLUTION
*"MEDAID" DELIVERS MILLION DOLLAR CANCER MEDICINE DONATION TO CUBA
*US ACTIVIST MUMIA ABU JAMAL'S DEATH SENTENCE OVERTURNED
*CUBA-HUNGARY INTER-GOVERNMENTAL COMMISSION CONCLUDES SESSION
*FOOD RIOTS CONTINUE IN ARGENTINA
*US MEDIA ASK WHERE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN IS HEADING
*WHITE HOUSE FINALLY ADMITS PROBABLY DOMESTIC ORIGIN OF ANTHRAX ATTACKS
*FORMER VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT AGAIN FACES CORRUPTION CHARGES
Viewpoint:
*OLDEST PROFESSION INCREASINGLY INVOLVES WORLD'S YOUNGEST INHABITANTS
*THE YEAR ENDS WITHOUT HOPE FOR SEVEN MILLION HUNGRY CENTRAL AMERICANS
*SOCIAL UNREST GROWS IN ARGENTINA; PRESIDENT DE LA RUA DOESN'T KNOW WHY
.
*MIAMI 5: FERNANDO GONZALEZ SENTENCED BY MIAMI COURT TO 19 YEARS IN PRISON
Miami, December 18 (RHC)-- The fourth of five Cuban patriots has been
sentenced by a Miami court after being wrongly convicted for spying
against the United States. Fernando Gonzalez was sentenced Tuesday to
19 years in prison, following last week's sentencing of Gerardo
Hernandez and Ramon Labanino to life in prison, and Rene Gonzalez to
15 years.
All the Cuban patriots have admitted to infiltrating ultra-right wing
Cuban-American organizations in Florida to prevent terrorist attacks
against the island, but have steadfastly denied having spied on US
military installations or engaged in any activity threatening US
national security.
Over the past weeks and months, Cubans have held numerous political
rallies across the island to protest the judicial processes considered
here to have been full of irregularities -- particularly the Miami
court's refusal to grant a change of venue based on the argument that
the five could not possibly receive a fair trail in that biased city
where opposition to the Cuban Revolution is rabid.
During trial proceedings, testimony by US military experts asserting
that Cuba does not pose a threat to US national security, and
recollections of the recent wave of terrorist bombs in Cuban tourism
installations, did not have an impact in efforts to defend the
accused.
*EDUCATION IN CUBA: A REVOLUTION WITHIN THE REVOLUTION
Havana, December 18 (RHC)-- In an effort to continue upgrading its
educational infrastructure, another refurbished high school was
reopened Monday evening in the Cuban capital.
Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, Cuban President Fidel Castro
said that the island is undergoing a virtual revolution within the
educational system -- pointing to thousands of new computers, the
installation of solar panels at schools in remote areas and a new
television channel dedicated to educational programming.
The Cuban leader announced that there are now 201 reconstructed
schools in the capital. Fidel Castro said that by the end of next
month or the first of February, another 100 schools would be ready for
students. And he noted that by September next year, a total of 659
schools will be completed, with some 2000 new classrooms.
The leader of the Cuban Revolution emphasized that Havana's goal of
reducing the number of students per classroom from 35 to 20 is well
underway. He said that islandwide, within the next two years, Cuba
will have an average of no more than 20 students in each classroom.
During his speech Monday evening at the Carlos de la Torre High
School, Fidel Castro referred to an article recently published in The
New York Times, reporting on a series of competency tests carried out
throughout Latin America. The U.S. news daily revealed that the scores
of Cuban grade school students far outstripped those from other
countries in the region, especially in mathematics and speech.
Despite Washington's economic blockade and the loss of the island's
main trading partner -- the Soviet Union -- Fidel Castro said that the
Cuban Revolution remains as committed as ever to education and health
care. And he pointed out that while serious economic problems plague
the world, including Cuba, the island has not cut its budget for
education -- now set at 2.3 billion dollars annually.
*"MEDAID" DELIVERS MILLION DOLLAR CANCER MEDICINE DONATION TO CUBA
Havana, December 18 (RHC)-- A little-known U.S. humanitarian
organization, "MedAid" is in Cuba to deliver a donation of an
expensive medication that relieves cancer patients of the nausea
produced by chemotherapy.
The organization's president, Charles Hornung, told Radio Havana Cuba
that the MedAid donation was enough "Zofran" to be used by all those
who need it on the island for six months. Each tablet of the so-called
"wonder drug" costs $83.00, putting it beyond the means of Cuba's
internationally acclaimed medical system. The 10,000 Zofran pills will
be presented to Cuba's National Cancer Institute in Havana.
On Tuesday, the small delegation, which includes several members of
MedAid and a filmmaker who is documenting the group's time in Cuba,
met with the Cancer Institute's deputy director, Dr. Jesus Blanco.
Blanco escorted the U.S. delegation through the hospital's pediatric
ward, where members spoke with patients and their parents. A number of
small cancer patients were using Zofran, which both they and their
parents described as a godsend because it makes chemotherapy
tolerable. The MedAid delegation also spoke to adult patients who told
the same story: the drug prevents the nausea and vomiting associated
with chemotherapy.
MedAid, based in Austin, Texas, also works with Cuban artists,
exhibiting their works in a local art gallery in Austin as well as
organizing auctions. The proceeds are used for purchasing badly needed
medicines for Cuba.
*US ACTIVIST MUMIA ABU JAMAL'S DEATH SENTENCE OVERTURNED
Havana, 18th December (RHC)--In a surprise move by the man that has
for the last two years been reviewing the case of African-American
activist and writer, Mumia Abu Jamal, US District Judge William Yohn
Tuesday overturned the death penalty conviction in the case although
he refused to grant a re-trial as requested by Abu-Jamal's attorneys.
Black Panther member Abu-Jamal was sentenced to death in a trial
critics said was rife with outright fabrications by the police and
prosecutor's office. Although another person has come forward to take
responsibility for the 1981 death of a Philadelphia police officer,
Judge Yohn refused to set a new hearing or trial and applied a life
sentence instead. He said his decision was based only on errors made
in the penalty phase of the trial, and not on the trial itself.
The State of Pennsylvania now has 180 days to review the sentence or
life imprisonment will automatically apply.
Mumia Abu-Jamal is considered by many activists across the world as a
political prisoner. He was arrested during a time when the US
government's FBI counter-intelligence program against the Black
Panther organization was at its height. In such an atmosphere of
repression, say critics, Abu-Jamal did not receive a fair trial.
*CUBA-HUNGARY INTER-GOVERNMENTAL COMMISSION CONCLUDES SESSION
Havana, December 18 (RHC)-- The 2nd Meeting of the Cuba-Hungary Mixed
Inter-governmental Commission concluded in Havana with the commitment
to work toward expanding bilateral trade relations and reviving
economic links.
Hungarian Assistant Secretary of State for the Economy, Gilyan Giorgy,
told reporters in Havana that in 2001 alone, Hungary's exports to Cuba
were approximately 1,500,000 dollars worth of goods, primarily in
medicine and food.
Agreements signed at the end of the meeting provide for more
strengthened bilateral links in traditional areas of cooperation, as
well as expanding cooperation to other areas, such as health. Accords
also provide for the export of raw materials for the production of
medicine in Cuba and spare parts for Ikarus busses and other vehicles
produced in Hungary, which are still on the streets of Cuba.
*FOOD RIOTS CONTINUE IN ARGENTINA
Buenos Aires, December 18 (RHC)-- The looting of supermarkets in
Argentina continued Monday in three of the country's cities. Rosario,
Mendoza and Concordia were the scenes of lootings or attempted
lootings by desperate unemployed Argentineans, following similar
disturbances over the weekend.
In some cases, hundreds of people gather in front of a supermarket and
merely threaten to break in if they are not given food. In Rosario,
the country's third largest city, socialist mayor Hermes Binner said
the climate is worse than in 1989 when a popular uprising against
then-President Carlos Andres Perez led to violent clashes in which
hundreds were killed.
Clashes were also reported Monday when police opened fire on would-be
food looters with rubber bullets, while riot police were showered with
rocks. Fernando Gerones, mayor of the Quilmes municipality in Buenos
Aires province stated that all the conditions are ripe for a social
explosion in Argentina. For the past five days in Quilmes, police have
been forced to surround several supermarkets.
The governor of Santa Fe province, Carlos Reutemann, traveled Tuesday
to the capital to express concern before federal authorities over the
situation in Rosario. In Mendoza, 1,100 kilometers west of Buenos
Aires, authorities were able stop the lootings by distributing free
food, while in other regions police had to fire their weapons into the
air.
*US MEDIA ASK WHERE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN IS HEADING
Washington, December 18 (RHC)-- Media outlets in the United States are
expressing skepticism over Washington's so-called war on terrorism
amid the failure to capture Osama Bin Laden and top Taliban leaders.
The "Los Angeles Times" Tuesday affirmed that this development could
complicate the campaign in Afghanistan and cause political
repercussions at home.
Reporting from his Washington desk, Times staff writer Paul Richter
wrote that according to experts, a failure to find Bin Laden would be
a political setback for the Bush administration because of the way the
campaign has become personalized -- particularly following last week's
release of a videotape that Washington claimed confirms the Saudi
millionaire's involvement in the September 11 attacks.
The "Washington Post" Tuesday asserted that some experts believe the
war is entering the most dangerous phase for US troops, predicting
that in the weeks to come US soldiers will have to pursue members of
Bin Laden's Al Qaida network and their Taliban allies through
booby-trapped caves and remote areas strewed with land mines. The
influential news daily also affirmed that some experts believe that
Afghan fighters have done about as much as they are willing or able to
do in pursuing members of the Al Qaida network, and that US and
British soldiers will have to carry out many of the risky searches in
the final phase of the war.
Meanwhile, the British news daily "The Guardian" Tuesday noted that
America's two most senior cabinet ministers sent out conflicting
messages Monday about the timescale for ending the war in Afghanistan.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld significantly refused to back up a
comment by Secretary of State Colin Powell that Al Qaida had been
destroyed in Afghanistan and that the country was no longer a haven
for terrorists, stating that Powell knows well there are still any
number of the terrorist network's fighters loose in Afghanistan.
"The Guardian" noted, however, that the Eastern Alliance soldiers who
routed Al Qaida from the White Mountains appear to be holding to the
Powell view by stating that the days of Bin Laden and his followers in
Afghanistan were over.
*WHITE HOUSE FINALLY ADMITS PROBABLY DOMESTIC ORIGIN OF ANTHRAX ATTACKS
Washington, December 18 (RHC)-- Washington has admitted for the first
time that the anthrax used in letter attacks appears to have been
produced in the United States. White House press secretary Ari
Fleischer Monday said the evidence on the anthrax sent to Senators Tom
Daschle and Patrick Leahy is increasingly looking like it was a
domestic source.
Fleischer did not mention, however, revelations last week that the
anthrax made at a military laboratory in Utah is genetically identical
to the organisms mailed to members of Congress. Following an article
in the "Baltimore Sun" news daily last December 12, also affirming
that the anthrax used in those attacks is not similar to the old US
offensive program or the Soviet bio-warfare program, the US Army
admitted for the first time since 1969 that it is in fact producing
anthrax.
It was in 1969 that then-President Richard Nixon ordered the US
offensive bio-warfare program closed. But a statement by the Army
released after the report claimed that all the anthrax produced by
Army scientists at the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah has been
accounted for.
*FORMER VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT AGAIN FACES CORRUPTION CHARGES
Caracas, December 18 (RHC)-- Judicial authorities in Venezuela have
once again brought charges of corruption against former President
Carlos Andres Perez. In 1993 Andres Perez was forced to step down from
the presidency due to corruption charges that resulted in a two-year
house arrest.
He was again incarcerated in 1999, but obtained immunity when he was
elected senator. Venezuelan judicial authorities have accused the
former president and his wife, Cecilia Matos, of stealing close to 2
million dollars in public funds between 1989 and 1993 that were
transferred to the Republic National Bank of New York.
Andres Perez is currently residing in the Dominican Republic, while
Venezuelan judicial authorities are considering an extradition
request. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez rose to popularity when as a
military officer in 1992 he led an uprising to overthrow Andres Perez
due precisely to the corrupt nature of his administration.
Andres Perez, in turn, has become one of the most outspoken critics of
the Chavez administration. Venezuelan district attorney Pedro Sanoja
said the charges are not in reprisal for the former president's recent
verbal attacks against Chavez.
Viewpoint:
*OLDEST PROFESSION INCREASINGLY INVOLVES WORLD'S YOUNGEST INHABITANTS
They say that prostitution is the oldest trade in the world but this
does not grant the profession, which involves some of the most
degrading and desperate acts, any standing or dignity, especially when
children and adolescents are involved.
The Second International Convention on the Commercial Sex Exploitation
of Children and the planet's expanding child sex trade began Monday in
Yokohama, Japan with the participation of 138 countries calling for an
all-out assault on the expanding use of globalized communications to
spread and disseminate pornography and the sale of children as sex
workers.
One of the first questions to arise was why the United States remains
one of the only nations in the world not to have signed the
International Convention for the Protection of Children's Rights.
Another is why any kind of indentured work by children is not simply
tagged for what it is: exploitation of the basest kind.
Child sex work is increasing across the globe with an estimated 125
children caught in its web every hour. Invariably, the children come
from the poorest of their societies and succumb to the desperation
that leads to taking any kind of work to pull themselves and their
families out of the pursuit of cheerless toil and destitution that is
their lot. Wars that involve the displacement of large numbers of
people, hunger, lack of education and government corruption are the
principal causes that lead to child prostitution.
However, it is also undeniable that where there is lots of money there
is also a ready clientele to spend the money to satisfy their every
desire. The majority of this type of monied sex consumers come from
the First World -- the so-called "developed nations."
It is true that global conflicts rarely resolve anything and should be
addressed more firmly by the international community. It is also true
that improving education and local child-protection laws prevent
children from sliding into sex work as a last possibility of
employment. But it is also true that demand must be eliminated. The
international porn rings must be destroyed but this can only be done
with the full participation of all of the nations of the world. The
problem surrounding this is that of money: the trade is extremely
profitable and money generates power. Power to corrupt, power to
prevent such crackdowns.
UNICEF's executive director, Carol Bellamy said Monday that the
commercial exploitation and abuse of children is nothing short of
terrorism -- one whose wanton destruction of young lives must not be
tolerated for another year, another day.
As most of these children sink into death through drugs, AIDS,
violence or suicide, the world must act quickly to impose tougher
penalties on child abusers to prevent the further loss of our youth
through this oldest and most wretched of trades.
*THE YEAR ENDS WITHOUT HOPE FOR SEVEN MILLION HUNGRY CENTRAL AMERICANS
Central America is known as America's Waistline because it is the
continent's thinnest part. But unfortunately the sliminess of Central
Americans is the result of hunger.
Just last September, a television report revealed to Guatemalans that
starving children with swollen bellies and lifeless eyes are not
justfound in African nations. A few months earlier talk had begun of
hunger in Honduras and in the north of Nicaragua, as a result of
Hurricane Mitch.
However World Food Program statistics are more shocking, because they
reveal that seven million hungry people are not produced in just three
or four years, but rather are the results of centuries of inequalities
and problems that will never be solved by simply handing out food.
But to those seven million hungry in Central America must be added
many others who are unable to consume the dietary minimum of 2000
calories daily, mostly because of lack of money to buy sufficient
food.
But when we speak of a minimum diet of 2000 calories, we are referring
to just two meals a day that contain one portion of rice, a portion of
beans, a corn tortilla and a cup of watery coffee with sugar; no meat,
no eggs no milk or milk products and no bread; an unattainable luxury
for millions of human beings. Half of the 36 million Central Americas
are never able to achieve these two humble meals and for the rest,
many experience many difficulties in attaining them and the cause is
not Hurricane Mitch, the drought and earthquakes.
These natural disasters, at the most were catalysts of the problems
whose true roots are to be found in government policies that oblige
poor farmers and peasants to over-use land, rapidly turning the soil
sterile to the point that lands that just 20 years were fertile, today
are practically unusable.
Lack of financial and technical assistance, difficulties in accessing
the domestic market, competition of food transnationals, neoliberal
shock policies applied in countries that lack the most basic
conditions necessary to carry them forward and unfair distribution of
natural resources. Those are among the many causes of hunger in
Central America; a region that paradoxically, is one of the
continent's richest.
If 2001 was the year when hunger was discovered in Central America, we
can only hope that by next year, stupor will give way to action and
that society as a whole, in agreement with the governments, or in
spite of them, will find permanent solutions to old problems. Because
trying to solve the problem of hunger with charity, is like treating a
terminal cancer patient with an aspirin.
*SOCIAL UNREST GROWS IN ARGENTINA; PRESIDENT DE LA RUA DOESN'T KNOW WHY
In a statement right out of Ripley's Believe or Not, Argentine
president, Fernando de la Rua, declared that he doesn't have the
foggiest notion why tens of thousands of people shut down the country
on Thursday in Argentina's seventh general strike against his
government's economic policies.
It seems that the president and his team have ignored some very basic
questions; questions that have filled the front pages of all the
newspapers in Latin America and which have been analyzed ad nauseam by
experts and by common people alike across the continent. For example
the government seems unaware that one out of every three Argentines
has employment problems; or that the number of unemployed is two and a
half million. But if we add to that those who are only sporadically
employed the numbers would be closer to five million people. The truth
is that some 35 per cent of Argentines are on the streets everyday,
waiting for a miracle; for a job to open up, or at least hoping to
find something temporary so their families won't have to go hungry
that particular day.
But the situation isn't any better for who are lucky enough to have a
steady job, because according to statistics, 40 per cent of the
economically active population earn the equivalent of between 400 and
800 a month. The price of the so-called, basic bread basket, that is,
the most basic necessities, like food housing and clothing, cost more
than a thousand dollars a month. That means even with a job, more than
half the Argentine population fails to earn enough to cover their
basic necessities of life. That sad fact is aggravated by the constant
drop in the value of income, which in the last five years has plunged
more than 15 per cent. Barely ten to 20 per cent of Argentine workers
have monthly salaries that range between a thousand and four thousand
per month. Even for this tiny sector, things aren't so great because
with the new banking measures, it is impossible to make withdrawals of
more than a thousand dollars a month and the rest of their expenses
must be paid using credit cards or by some other electronic means.
It is a cruel joke to ask someone who is jobless or hopelessly
underemployed to go to a financial institution to apply for a credit
card in order to comply with this latest government requirement. And
on the other hand, the measure is incapable of remedying the crisis
because it is a case of too little too late. Already by the time the
measure was imposed a few days ago, some 12 billion dollars had fled
the country. Since l999 when Fernando de la Rua was sworn in as
president of Argentina, more than 700 thousand people have lost their
jobs. But still, the president insists that he has no idea why
Argentines are angry. Perhaps one of his many advisors should explain
it to him, before it is too late.
(c) 2001 Radio Habana Cuba, NY Transfer News. All rights reserved.
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