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Cuban and foreign experts highlighted on Wednesday the importance of the Gulf of Mexico as a regional oil area of potential economic interest.

This thesis was put forward by experts from Mexico, Cuba and Canada during the 1st Congress on Oil and Gas, currently in session in the Havana Convention Center.

Speaking before delegates from 19 countries, Mexican Emilio Miranda explained that only the external limits of the Gulf have been systematically explored in its coastal plain and continental platform so far.

Also Mexicans Arturo Arvate and Felipe Ortuno, and Cuban Mario Ramirez agreed that scientific, technological breakthroughs in hydrocarbon exploration in the last decades gave way to new concepts in geodynamics.

According to them, there is potential for the existence of large oil fields in Cuba’s exclusive economic zone in the Gulf of Mexico.

Geological research deep in the area enjoys the advantages of being reached by current technology, attractive terms of contract and full support from the Cuban government, according to specialists.

Cuba’s minister of Basic Industry, Yadira Garcia, said in the opening session on Tuesday that the government is promoting a program for deep-water oil exploration with foreign investment.

She added that oil exploration under risk contract agreements and the introduction of spearhead technology are main aspects that characterize work in the sector.

This led to a six-fold increase in the country’s crude production in 1991-2004 and a 17-fold increase in natural gas, she said.

There was an increase in the use of natural gas in power generation and domestic consumption, which contributed to curb pollution and recover sulphur in the process.

Cuba is developing an information technology project which represents a superior stage for more rational knowledge of geology, mining, and oil.

The National Program for Geology Computerization will allow the obtention of geological data by interested people and entities, said Ramon Escalona, from the National Office for Natural Resources.

The initiative aims to cover, systematize and put knowledge at the disposal of society, he told Prensa Latina.

The program has been structured on the basis of collaboration between the Basic Industry Ministry (MINBAS), the University for Computer Sciences, the National Office for Natural Resources, the Institute of Geology and Palaeonthology, and Cuban geological enterprises like GEOCUBA.

The project would help achieve a better location for information networks.

Cuba accused the United State at the UN Human Rights Council on Wednesday of systematically abducting people under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

During the afternoon debate on the report condemning forced abductions, Cuban delegate Yuri Gala said that the incumbent US administration has resorted to arbitrary detentions and other cruel treatment.

We must not forget that the United States, and particularly its ill-famed School of the Americas, played a key role in training those responsible for mass and flagrant human rights violations, Gala added.

He noted that the United States imposed and sponsored military dictatorships in Latin America for decades, and that Washington s logistical support and assistance allowed increased coordination among regional intelligence services.

That contributed to improving the exchange of information and prisoners, as well as carrying out joint assassinations, part of the well-known Operation Condor, the Cuban diplomat said.

Unfortunately, people are still abducted and held in secret places, where they are tortured or murdered, Gala said, alluding to Washington’s secret flights and illegal prison camps all over the world.

Cuba grants special importance to the need to strengthen international efforts to fight forced and involuntary abductions by taking actions and measures to prevent those horrible violations anywhere in the world, Gala said.

He called on the Council s working group to continue to follow up on the issue, adding that the General Assembly s International Convention to protect abduction victims was a big step forward.

Gala stressed that Cuba reaffirms the importance that those responsible for such acts should not benefit from amnesty, prescription, caducity, pardon or any similar measure, as impunity prevents truth and justice from prevailing.

Cuba urged the UN Human Rights Council’s working group on mercenaries to visit the United States, which recruits such elements to carry out deadly missions against the Cuban people.

Cuba´s Rodolfo Reyes addressed the plenary meeting of the Council on the mercenary group´s report related to structural adjustment, foreign debt and the special digest on education rights.

The Cuban official urged continued monitoring of classic and traditional mercenary activity, particularly the impact on human rights of private military and security companies.

Nearly 50,000 mercenaries are presently working as contractors in support of the coalition that invaded Iraq, the latest method to back up foreign occupation and imperial conquest, he said.

This serves US hegemonic interests, and some have been direct perpetrators of the most execrable forms of torture in Abu Ghraib, recalled Reyes.

He also stressed the need to monitor terrorist anti-Cuban groups freely operating in the US, and recalled attacks on Cuban hotels by Central American mercenaries recruited by notorious terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, who bombed a Cuban civilian plane in 1976 with 73 aboard.

The US failed in its duty to extradite him to Venezuela or bring charges of terrorism against him, so Cuba considers it critical that the Council´s work group on mercenaries visit the US as soon as possible, he concluded.

Australian Communist Party Central Committee (ACP) President Hannah Middleton reiterated that organization´s solidarity with the Cuban Revolution, sources in this capital reported on Wednesday.

The Australian party leader reiterated, ton the leaders of the Organization of Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia, and Latin America (OSPAAAL) her identification with the solidarity tasks by that organization in t he Island.

Middleton visited the OSPAAAL headquarters, accompanied by Denis Doherty, member of the PCA Central Committee and National Coordinator of the Australian Coalition against Military Bases.

Both visitors highlighted the importance of the International Meeting against Military Bases, held in Manta, Ecuador, from March 5-9.