Havana Cuba Travel, Varadero Cuba Vacation, Cuba Information

Life after Castro. What will happen in Cuba? That is the prevalent question being asked by people in Santiago de Cuba, in Miami, Fla, in Nassau, Bahamas and in many cities and countries around the world. Fidel Castro has been in power and the president of Cuba for longer than many people asking the questions have been alive and he is the only power broker in Cuba they know.

Castro’s power was taking hold in Cuba just about the time John F Kennedy was taking over the presidency of the United States ö following the 1959 Cuban revolution and the US presidential elections ö and 46 years later he is still being railed against and threatened by the US Government. He has survived the administrations of eight American presidents and has outlived three of those who would have wished to take him out: Kennedy, Lynden Johnson and Richard Nixon.

But at long last, the end of Castro’s days might indeed be numbered, although he has been reported dead many times over the years and even more often since the July abdominal surgery, which led to him handing over power temporarily to his brother Raul Castro, and which has kept him from public view except for a few photographs in which Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez also appeared. He was missing from the Dec 2 official celebrations to mark his 80th birthday.

In South Florida the authorities expect radical changes and are bracing for massive migration numbers from Cuba, similar to that of the 1980s Mariel Boat Lift, when tens of thousands of Cubans took to the seas in whatever could float in efforts to escape the island.

On Friday the largest US congressional delegation to visit the island arrived for three days of talks with government leaders, foreign diplomats and others, in what some hope could be a first step toward normalizing relations with Cuba.

The 10-member bipartisan delegation was led by Representatives William Delahunt, (D-Mass.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) who have criticized the four-decade economic embargo against Cuba.

“We sense this is an important time, and we hope to be able to meet with officials here and others and hopefully launch a new era in US-Cuba relations,” Saturday’s Sun Sentinel reported Flake as saying Friday afternoon, as the group arrived at the Hotel Nacional.

Earlier this year a report released by the US Presidential Commission for Assistance to a free Cuba, indicated that $80 million would be available to help pro-democracy leaders after the demise of Castro. The US does not favor a planned succession from Fidel to 75-year-old Raul.

According to the most recent Gallup Poll, 67 per cent of a targeted group of Americans favored the re-establishment of diplomatic relations with the communist Island while 27 per cent opposed the move. The Gallup News service says that over the past 32 years, a majority of Americans have consistently said they support establishing diplomatic ties with Cuba, with the exception of one poll conducted in 1996.

The Bahamas solidified its diplomatic ties with Cuba in July, opening an Embassy in Havana with Carlton Wright as the Ambassador. At the time Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell said that there is considerable demand for consular and diplomatic services and that the embassy is expected to meet that demand.

Cuba’s presence in The Bahamas was also upgraded from Consulate to Embassy with former Consul General Felix Wilson being named to the post of Ambassador.

Courtesy of The Nassau Guardian

The Second International Event for the Release of the Cuban Five antiterrorist fighters unjustly imprisoned in the US starts Thursday in Argentina.

Organized by the Movement of Solidarity with Cuba and by the Cuban embassy, it will take place in the city of Cordoba.

Cuban ambassador Aramis Fuente Hernandez will give a lecture on the world campaign for the release of Rene Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernandez, Fernando Gonzalez and Ramon Labanino.

The event coincides with the fifth anniversary of the application of the excessive sentences by the judge Joan Lenard and eight years after the unjust imprisonment.

Fuente Hernandez will also hold talks with members of the Cordoba Attorneys Department and will be received at the municipal Direction of Human Rights.

Meanwhile, in Rosario, the presentation of the Argentine edition of the Granma International newspaper will take place in an act also devoted to the International Event for the Release of the Five.

Over 27,400 young people, most of them from Third World countries, are currently training as professionals in Cuba, sources from the island’s Higher Education Ministry (MES) reported.

MES Collaboration director Raul Hernandez, also told “Juventud Rebelde”

newspaper that over 47,000 foreign students have graduated from Cuban university institutions since 1961.

The information was revealed on occasion of an international workshop to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the creation of the University in Granma, located 455 miles east of Havana.

Cuba’s collaboration with Third World countries is not only limited to universities, because over 10 nations apply the literacy Cuban method “Yo Si Puedo” (Yes, I Can), with the island’s academics.

Experts from Mexico, Spain, Ecuador and Germany attended the workshop, which was part of celebrations for the foundation of the ancient Higher Institute of Agricultural Sciences in Bayamo, created in December 1976.

Sandinista deputy Tomas Borge announced a free concert at the Nicaraguan School of Dance next week to honor Cuban President Fidel Castro, who is recovering from abdominal surgery.

Borge, the only surviving FSLN (National Sandinista Liberation Front) founder and a personal friend of the Cuban Revolution leader, told journalists that the exact date is not set, but it will be around December 21-23.

According to Borge, singer song-writer Carlos Mejia Godoy, Misa Campesina, author of the FSLN anthem and other emblematic 1979 Sandinista Revolution songs, will perform in the concert together with other Nicaraguan artists and Peruvian singer Marcela Perez.

Exhibitors from 51 foreign companies and 16 national companies attend in this capital to 7th International Symposium of the International Urban Planning and Environment (EXPOAGUA), Wednesday inaugurated at Conventions Palace.

Entities from Germany, Colombia, China, Spain, France, Italy, Iran, Mexico, Panama, Turkey, among others perform in the exhibition, National Institute of Hydraulic Resources President Jorge L. Aspiolea Roig announced during the opening ceremony.

Some of these entities have been present during all exhibition editions since the first one in 2000, and together to Cuban ones take up an area that outnumbers in 200 cubic meters the one of 2004, the official said.

A common factor in all these encounters of this kind, is the dialogue among businessmen, experts and Cuban technicians, who control drinkable water services, treatment and introduction of new technologies in the nation, where 95 percent of the population receive cleaning up benefits.

Rate is equivalent to a figure superior to 1, 6 million inhabitants, according to INRH statistics, organism that sponsors EXPOAGUA together to Foreign Trade Ministry and Chamber of Commerce of the Republic of Cuba.

With the purpose of initiating also investigators and professionals interchange on water services issue, began 2nd S