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Spains IU party (Izquierda Unida) has denounced plans by German Chancellor Angela Merkel to promote a medium and long-term anti-Cuba strategy during her European Union leadership.

Germany, to lead the 27-strong Union for six months, will promote an agreement passed June 12, 2006 by the EU Council of Foreign Ministers to which Poland and the Czech Republic are trying to add a list of sanctions against Cuba.

This hostile battery of economic and diplomatic sanctions is based on the so-called Bush Plan, including the secret sections, and would intensify the EU Common Position on Cuba, in effect since December 1996.

Chancellor Merkel hopes to reach an agreement by month’s end, but is under pressure from Spain, France, Italy, Belgium and Portugal to retain cooperation with the Island.

The IU called on the Spanish government to oppose the current anti-Cuba maneuvers that also affect Cuba-Spanish traditional ties.

The International Committee for the release of five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters unfairly imprisoned in the US for over eight years called for worldwide women to demand the right of visits for their wives.

That committee exhorted to carry out an international campaign of solidarity from March 8 to May 14, in agreement with International Women’s Day and Mother’s Day.

The Five, as Ramon Labanino, Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero, Rene Gonzalez and Fernando Gonzalez are universally known, were detained in Miami in 1998 for monitoring terrorist groups responsible of violent actions against Cuba.

Criminal activities of those anti-Cuban organizations have killed almost 1,500 people, injured over 2,000 and left considerable material losses over more than four decades.

To those unfair and excessive sentences against the Cuban Five, four life imprisonments and 74 years of hard time, is included a cruel punishment to their relatives, impeding mothers, wives and children from visiting them, the Committee stated in a document.

The International Committee for the release of the Five aims to demand visas for Adriana Perez and Olga Salanueva on occasion of International Women’s Day.

Argentinian famous piano player Miguel Angel Estrellas concert will close on Sunday the capital´s section of the 16th Cuban International Book Fair, sources told Prensa Latina on Saturday.

Argentina is the honorary guest to the fair, which started on February 8, and the musician is a member of his country´s delegation.

Estrella has been greatly acclaimed in the musical world for 40 years, because he is considered an exceptional virtuoso of the piano.

The great musician created the Musica Esperanza Foundation in 1982, and his sacred objective is taking his art to all social sectors.

The interview that Cuban President Fidel Castro offered to the New York Times daily 50 years ago will be recalled on Saturday with a ceremony in the same place where it was staged in Sierra Maestra (Maestra Mountain Range).

The event will be recalled with the laying of a marble plaque in the place where farmer Epifanio Diaz lived, who offered his farm for the interview of the then young Fidel Castro with the US daily in 1957.

In occasion of that anniversary, Granma daily reproduces today part of the book published in the Caribbean country in which vicissitudes prior to that conversation are told, and whose interview was reproduced by the New York Times with the Title “Visit to a Cuban Rebel in his Refuge.”

The meeting with US journalist Herbert Mattews was very important because it help to deny the statements of Dictator Fulgencio Batista about the alleged death of Fidel Castro after the disembarkation of Granma yacht in 1956.

A Cuban TV broadcast with President Fidel Castro welcoming Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez reminded Cubans of their leader s strength and will to win battles.

Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez in Cuba
Fidel Castro´s Recovery Highlighted in Peru

Forced to refute overseas rumors, namely in the US, on his severe health condition, the Cuban statesman also made the Cuban people rejoice.

Everyone commended the head of states recovery after six months from a complex surgical procedure and Chavez statements that confirmed this joy.

They talked of global energy problems due to capitalist squandering, the energy revolution in Venezuela and Cuba, positive development of ALBA and US threats against the peoples.

Fidel turned the military defeat of the Assault of the Moncada barrack in 1953 into an engine for the struggle against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and led 82 men aboard Granma Yacht to the birth of a victorious revolutionary army.

Also significant was evicting illiteracy in less than 12 months, the nationalization of companies under foreign control and his stand during the dangerous Missile Crisis of October 1962.

Cuba also participated in the struggle in Africa that marked the end of apartheid, and has resisted a near 50-year blockade from the most powerful world superpower.

Evoking such victories, under the most adverse conditions and under his leadership, and watching the broadcast, Cubans join their good wishes to the certainty that Fidel Castro will score more wins.