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Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa will travel to Havana next Monday to attend the 10th International Meeting on Globalization and Development Problems, official sources confirmed.

Accompanied by Foreign Minister Maria Isabel Salvador, several ministers and officials, the statesman will speak in the meeting, to be run March 3-7 with the attendance of 1,000 experts from 52 nations.

This is the second time Correa will participate in an event like this in Havana. The first was in 2006.

His agenda here also includes meeting with Ecuadorian youth studying medicine free in Cuba.

His return to Ecuador is slated for Monday night.

Cuban communists were called to be in the vanguard, give firm steps, detect and recognize difficulties to later solve them.

At a meeting with members of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) in the Havana municipality of Cerro, PCC Political Bureau member Jose Ramon Machado Ventura stated that the work and courage can not fail to face those problems.

Machado Ventura said that the political organization expands its role and its members are more self-critically aware than some years before, although there are still a lot of things to do to improve its training as for the duties with the Revolution.

The also Cuban first vice president pointed out that the Party work can not be evaluated by the quantity of members but the quality of its work, “Granma” newspaper reported.

Machado Ventura said that all changes in the island will be within the socialism and are precisely the Party, workers and people in general those who will lead that battle.

“Mozart in Havana,” eight live concerts by 11 Cuban pianists on three DVDs by the Cuban pianist Ulises Hernandez, will go on sale in Havana sponsored by Colibri Records to commemorate the 250th birth anniversary of the Austrian musician.

The DVD was launched by Ulises Hernandez on January 27 at the house where Wolfgang Amadues Mozart was born in Salzburg and includes all sonatas and fantasies composed for piano by this musician.

Colibri director Marta Bonet told press that the work is a combination of images of the piano players interpreting Mozart’s compositions with sequences of this city.

The participant musicians are Victor Rodriguez, Roberto Urbay, Ileana Bautista, Elvira Santiago, Maria Victoria del Collado, Marita Rodriguez, Yanet Bermudez, Pedro Rodriguez, Fidel Leal, Leonardo Gell and Ulises Hernandez.

All concerts were held in the Amadeo Roldan Theater in Vedado and in La Basilica of San Francisco de Asis in Old Havana.

Sunday, the 614 deputies-elect are meeting here to constitute the seventh legislature of the Cuban National Peoples Power Assembly.

This will be the first time since 1976 that the leader of the Revolution, Fidel Castro, will be absent from candidacy for the position of president of the nation”s State Council.

Five days ago he announced that he neither aspires to nor will accept reelection.

Thus, the nomination and election of who will be the new president of the leadership of the Cuban state for the next five years is of special relevance. .

The present system of governance of Cuba was approved by 97.7 percent of voters in the referendum of February 24, 1976 and December 2 of that year the first legislature was installed.

This seventh session began at 10:00 AM at the Havana International Conference Center under the direction of the (CEN) National Electoral Commission President Maria Esther Reus.

Reus and the other CEN members will examine and validate the certificates of election of each of the deputies.

When this is accomplished, she will declare the legislature”s validity, inform of its social composition and validate quorum. When the National Anthem plays, the deputies will be sworn in and the National Assembly officially constituted.

The new deputies will then nominate and elect those among them who will occupy the posts of president, vice president and secretary of the assembly.

Later they will nominate and elect from among themselves those who will hold the positions of president, first vice president, five vice presidents, secretary and other members of the State Council.

The candidates for these great responsibilities come also from the extensive consulting process made by the National Candidates Commission (CCN) composed of representatives from Cuban NGOs.

CCN President Amarilys Perez will present the two candidacy proposals for the deputies” consideration and explain the basis guiding their elaboration. The president of the Electoral Commission will submit both candidacy proposals for the deputies” scrutiny and approval by secret and direct vote.

According to the electoral law, those obtaining more than 50 percent of the votes will be declared elected. The Cuban Constitution establishes “in the Republic of Cuba sovereignty resides in the people, from whom flows all State power.” It adds that “this power is exercised directly or through the Peoples Power Assemblies and other State organs derived from them, in the form and according to the norms established by the Constitution and the law.” In the same way, the State Council is the organ of the National Peoples Power Assembly which it represents between sessions, executing its accords and complying with other constitutionally attributed functions.

It also is inferred to represent the Cuban State nationally and internationally.

In all battles waged, Cuban leader Fidel Castro has always had the conviction of winning, Guatemalan veteran revolutionary Ricardo Rosales affirmed Sunday.
Cuban Grassroots Orgs Extol Fidel Castro

Rosales told Prensa Latina that Fidel Castro has been able to turn setbacks into victories, even in the most difficult times.

He recalled the attack on the Moncada Garrison in 1953, when many combatants were killed and others arrested, however it led to Fidel Castro”s “History Will Absolve Me” speech where he outlined the Revolution”s program.

Years later, when the Granma yacht touched land, Batista”s air force dispersed the members of the expedition, and with only a few men, the chief of the rebel army decided to continue fighting, he pointed out.

The former member of the General Command of the Guatemalan guerrillas also recalled crucial times after the triumph of the Revolution in 1959, such as the Bay of Pigs invasion and the October Crisis, where Fidel Castro”s stature was manifested.

“The leader of the Cuban Revolution has been able to face the world”s most powerful country for over half a century,” he asserted.

Referring to Fidel Castro”s decision not to aspire to re-election, the Guatemalan revolutionary declared he has always been realistic, conscious and lucid enough to make decisions in the interest of his people.

Rosales expressed his certainty that the Cuban leader”s thoughts will be a source for strengthening the ideological and political force, not only in Cuba but in all countries of the world.