From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2002 09:17:21 -0500 To: undisclosed-recipients:; Subject: Radio Havana Cuba-01 February 2002 Radio Havana Cuba-01 February 2002 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Radio Havana Cuba - News Update - 01 Febuary 2002 . *NOBEL LAUREATES TO ATTEND ECONOMISTS' CONFERENCE IN HAVANA THIS MONTH *WTO RULES AGAINST US IN HAVANA CLUB TRADEMARK DISPUTE *CASA DE LAS AMERICAS LITERARY PRIZES ANNOUNCED *HAVANA TO HOST CUBA'S FIRST INTERNATIONAL REGGAE CONCERT *BRITAIN TO FUND FOUR DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS IN CUBA *WORLD SOCIAL FORUM OPENS IN PORTO ALEGRE WITH MASSIVE PEACE MARCH *NORTH KOREA FIRES BACK AT BUSH, CALLING SPEECH A THREAT TO WORLD PEACE *THOUSANDS ON VERGE OF DEATH IN AFGHAN PRISON *ARGENTINE DICTATORSHIP'S AGENT RELEASED FROM HOUSE ARREST *CHILD SMUGGLING RING UNCOVERED IN MEXICO . *NOBEL LAUREATES TO ATTEND ECONOMISTS' CONFERENCE IN HAVANA THIS MONTH Havana, February 1 (RHC)-- Four Nobel Prize winners will give masters conferences during the IV Economist's Meeting on Globalization and Problems of Development, which will be held in Havana from February 11th through the 15th. Nobel Laureates for the last three years, Robert Mundel, James Heckman and Joseph Stiglitz will participate in the conference along with Nobel Peace prizewinner, Adolfo Perez Esquivel and some 400 researchers, academicians and professionals from around the world. The organizing committee reports that 160 papers from 37 countries have been received. Esther Aguilera, vice president of Cuba's Association of Economists and Accountants, which is sponsoring the meeting along with the Latin American and Caribbean Association of Economists, announced that World Bank Vice President, Guillermo Perry, and International Monetary Fund official, Claudio Loser would also participate in the five-day gathering. The Inter-American Development Bank, the World Trade Organization, the International Work Organization and the Pan-American Health Organization will also represented. Aquilera told reporters in the Cuban capital that the meeting is unique in the varied schools of thought that will be represented, all concerned about finding solutions to today's pressing problems. The Cuban economist said that in addition to conferences, the meeting would feature round table discussions focusing on the first economic crisis of the millennium, the consequences of the events of September 11 in the United States, the Argentina situation and the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Cuba began hosting economists' meetings on Globalization and the Problems of Development in l999. *WTO RULES AGAINST US IN HAVANA CLUB TRADEMARK DISPUTE Geneva, February 1 (RHC)-- The World Trade Organization has officially adopted the ruling of its Appellate Body report on the Havana Club trademark dispute between the United States and the European Union. The U.S. company Bacardi is illegally using the trademark, arguing that it was confiscated after the 1959 victory of the Cuban Revolution. Havana Club -- jointly owned by Havana Rum and Liquors and the French company Pernod Ricard -- contends that the United States is violating the basic principles of the World Trade Organization. The announcement of the decision was made on Friday by the WTO's Dispute Settlement Body. According to the report, the WTO adopted the appeals decision on the U.S. implementation in the foreign sales corporation dispute with the European Union. In Washington, the U.S. government said they respected their obligation to comply with WTO rules and were working with the EC to resolve the dispute. *CASA DE LAS AMERICAS LITERARY PRIZES ANNOUNCED Havana, February 1 (RHC)-- Writers from Argentina, Spain, Cuba and Guyana are the winners of Latin America's coveted Casa de las Americas literary awards for 2002. It was announced on Thursday night at the cultural institution's headquarters in Havana that the novel "Plop" by Argentine Rafael Pinedo, had won Casa's top prize. The jury said the work was as "strange as it was disconcerting." The first prize for Latin American poetry went to Cuban Luis Manuel Perez Boitel for his "Aun nos pretenece el ontono" or Autumn still belongs to us. Spain was the winner in the best essay category, with "The impure love of cities: Notes on modernist literature and urban space" by Alvaro Salvador Jofre. Argentine Carlos Marianidis won the best children's literature award with his novel, "Nada detiene a las golondrinas" or Nothing stops the swallows. And the Casa de las Americas prize for best Caribbean English language work was awarded to Guyanese, Oonya Kempadoo, for his novel "Tide Running." For the second time honorary awards were made, and this time among the winners was late Cuban author Jose Lezama Lima for poetry. Thursday evening's closing ceremony ended the 43rd Casa de las Americas literary awards that were chosen from among 740 works from 28 countries and were presided over by Colombian Culture Minister, Aracelys Morales Lopez and her Cuban counterpart, Abel Prieto. *HAVANA TO HOST CUBA'S FIRST INTERNATIONAL REGGAE CONCERT Havana, February 1 (RHC)-- Cuba is preparing to hold its first international Reggae Festival on the 5th and 6th of this month. Jamaican Reggae musician, Teddy Josiah Kinlock, told reporters in Havana that the concerts are a homage to the late Reggae star, Bob Marley in celebration of his birthday. Marley, an internationally venerated Reggae performer and songwriter, died of cancer in 1981 at the age of 36. Josiah, who lives in Canada and who has worked with musicians like Ry Cooder, George Harrison and the Rolling Stones, will share the stage in Havana with fellow Jamaican Debby Young and the Cuban groups, Manana Reggae, Onda Expansiva, Gente de Zona and Punto Rojo, which is made up of musicians from Cuba and Martinque. The concert, which will be repeated in the eastern city of Santiago, is a project of Havana's Metropolitan Park. *BRITAIN TO FUND FOUR DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS IN CUBA Havana, February 1 (RHC)-- Cuban senior citizens will soon enjoy a new physical therapy center thanks to a Cuban-British cooperation project. The two countries have signed an agreement to work together on four new development projects in the framework of the British Cooperation Fund-Small Grants Scheme, which was established in Cuba in 1995. Among the projects is a physical therapy center to be constructed in a senior center located in the Belen Convent, in the capital's Old Havana colonial section. *WORLD SOCIAL FORUM OPENS IN PORTO ALEGRE WITH MASSIVE PEACE MARCH Porto Alegre, February 1 (RHC)-- Representing a broad range of social movements worldwide, tens of thousands of activists opened the Second World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil with a massive peace march. Local police estimated as many as 30,000 people joined the march, slightly smaller than the 40,000 people expected by organizers. The six-day conference will feature 700 workshops, 100 seminars and 28 plenary assemblies. More than 13,000 delegates from 150 countries are gathered for the World Social Forum, which is taking place at the sprawling complex of the Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul. The Forum in Brazil is taking place at the same time that the World Economic Forum is being held in New York City. According to Brazilian Worker's Party leader Luis Inacio "Lula" da Silva, the meeting in New York is characterized by exclusion and only the rich and famous need apply. By contrast, the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre is marked by plurality and openness. Da Silva said that participants at the Forum in Brazil will discuss how humans can live with dignity, not how much money they can make. Among session topics at the Brazilian forum are the problems of Third World debt, corporate taxation, cultural diversity, water as a public commodity, food security and the role of women in globalization. The conference runs through Tuesday, the 5th. In other news, 300 homeless families occupied a 14-story abandoned building owned by Sul American Insurance in downtown Porto Alegre on Thursday. Juliana Gonzales, director of the National Movement for the Struggle for Housing, said they wanted to protest the lack of urban reform and a public policy on housing in Brazil. *NORTH KOREA FIRES BACK AT BUSH, CALLING SPEECH A THREAT TO WORLD PEACE Pyongyang, February 1 (RHC)-- North Korea has hit back at U.S. President George W. Bush's State of the Union address, saying it was close to "declaring war." In his address Tuesday before Congress and the world, Bush labeled North Korea -- along with Iraq and Iran -- as an "axis of evil." He said the three countries and their "terrorist allies" were actively seeking weapons of mass destruction, warning that they could find themselves targets of Washington's wrath if they didn't behave themselves. In the first official reaction to Bush's speech, a foreign ministry spokesman in Pyongyang said that North Korea was watching what it called "the disturbing moves of the United States that has pushed the situation to the brink of war." North Korea also revealed that U.S. reconnaissance planes had carried out spy flights over the country during recent weeks, gathering information for a possible attack. Pyongyang condemned Washington's "open disclosure of its intention to attack the Democratic People's Republic of Korea" and said it was justified in arming itself for its own defense. In South Korea, where the government of President Kim Dae-Jung has pinned its hopes on improving relations between the North and South, Bush's State of the Union address has heightened anxiety. The South Korean Foreign Ministry said that increased tensions between the two countries "could bring about unexpected, unhappy results." *THOUSANDS ON VERGE OF DEATH IN AFGHAN PRISON Kabul, February 1 (RHC)-- The lives of several thousand former Taliban fighters who are being held at a prison in northern Afghanistan are in danger due to severe overcrowding, lack of sanitation, inadequate food, and exposure to winter cold and infection. According to a human rights group, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), the U.S. military, which controlled access to the prison until mid-January, should provide supplies and equipment necessary to ensure the health of the more than 3000 men who are held at the prison. Jennifer Leaning, a PHR board member who visited the Shebarghan Prison near the northern provincial capital of Mazar-I-Sharif, told reporters that the situation was "a quiet atrocity." She said that the prison warden told her that many prisoners had already died at the facility, primarily from dysentery and pneumonia. Leaning said that the United States "cannot wash its hands of responsibility for prisoners whose fate from the start it has been in a position to influence or determine." Leonard Rubenstein, the Director of Physicians for Human Rights, said there are thousands are dying in Shebarghan and that more will die if Washington does not take action to stop it. He added that the prisoners are worthy of the full force of protections provided by the Geneva Conventions -- including adequate nutrition, sanitation and health care. According to reports from the prison, inmates are divided into three cell-blocks, with about 1000 held in each block. Individual cells, which were built to house ten to fifteen prisoners each, currently hold more than 80. Food, according to the report, was "insufficient in quantity and nutrition, the water supply unclean, sanitation virtually absent, clothing meager, and barred walls open to the elements expose the inhabitants to winter conditions. Disease is rampant." The Physicians for Human Rights report stated that there was evidence of deliberate abuse or torture at the prison -- emphasizing that the U.S. military was well aware of the conditions at the prison, because they had controlled access to it until they left the area on January 14th. The director of the human rights group said that aside from its legal responsibility as a party in the war that led to the capture of the prisoners, Washington has a moral responsibility to provide assistance. He concluded that those who have custody of the prisoners have no capacity to meet their needs, while "the United States has that capacity." *ARGENTINE DICTATORSHIP'S AGENT RELEASED FROM HOUSE ARREST Buenos Aires, February 1 (RHC)-- Retired Argentine Navy Captain Alfredo Astiz has been released after the government in Buenos Aires rejected an extradition request from a Swedish court accusing him of human rights violations. Astiz was released after being held for 32 days at the Mar del Plata Naval Base, located some 250 miles south of Buenos Aires. He is charged in Sweden with the January 1977 disappearance of Dagmar Hagelin, a 17-year-old Swedish girl living in Buenos Aires during the country's military dictatorship. Alfredo Astiz, dubbed "the Blond Angel of Death" by victims of the repression, faces international arrest warrants in France, Spain and Italy -- which means he could be arrested if he leaves Argentina. Active and retired military personnel involved in human rights violations are immune from criminal prosecution in Argentina under amnesty laws signed by former president Carlos Menem. *CHILD SMUGGLING RING UNCOVERED IN MEXICO Mexico City, February 1 (RHC)-- Mexican police have announced that they uncovered a ring that was smuggling children from Central America to the United States. The Federal Police said it had freed six Salvadoran infants from "deplorable conditions" at a house in Naucalpan, a suburb of Mexico City, and had arrested three people. According to authorities in the United States, two other suspects from the same child smuggling gang were arrested in Los Angeles, and authorities took six children found with them into protective custody. Mexican authorities said they believe "a significant number of children may have already been sent to the United States." Police are investigating the possibility the children were destined for adoption-for-money, child prostitution or organ trafficking. (c) 2002 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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ================================================================= nytcari-02.02.02-09:17:16-19038 _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________