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The Dominican Campaign of Solidarity with Cuba called all its grass roots groups to activities demanding the United States free the five Cuban anti-terrorists imprisoned in that country.

The culminating point of the campaign will be on September 12, which marks nine years of unjust imprisonment of the Cuban Five: Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labanino, Antonio Guerrero, Rene Gonzalez and Fernando Gonzalez.

Ivan Rodriguez, president of the campaign, announced activates in different provinces of the country until conclusion on the 12th with a concentration in Plaza Bolivar and a march on the US embassy in the capital.

He recalled the double standard of the Washington government, which liberated a confessed and convicted terrorist, Luis Posada Carriles.

That outrage will be condemned during the same activities demanding the release of the Cuban anti-terrorists.

A Cuban-American businesswoman in Havana censured trade and travel bans on Cuba by the government of US President George W. Bush, and explained they harm the US economy as well.

In statements for Granma daily, Maria Conchita Mendez, official of the Alabama port, lamented that US politicians are the ones who oppose beneficial exchange with Cuba.

Mendez, who attended the recent business round between Cuban and US firms, pointed out that Washington s official bans have reduced sales to Havana that are valuable to improve the situation of sectors in crisis.

“Bush s rhetoric does not match reality, and compassion toward Cuban families does not exist,” she said referring to prohibitions on the acquisition of Cuban biotechnological products that could save lives.

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.

Signs of notable interest in over 15 French cities, repercusión in Belgium and several colloquiums which close tonight in Paris, are witness to the red carpet treatment given to the book on President Fidel Castro written by Ignacio Ramonet.

Biographie á deux voix, French edition of “100 Hours with Fidel”, attracted over 100 persons today to the Cuban embassy here to meet with Ramonet and talk about the book.

“I am really impressed on how the book is arousing more interest every day. I have already talked in 15 French cities that invited me to talk about the book and there are still several more invitations to attend”, he commented to Prensa Latina.

Very impressive was the launching of the book in Brussels and shortly I´ll do the same in Switzerland, where I will tour the French-speaking part of the country to promote a volume which as I have stressed “allows the defense lawyer of the Cuban Revolution to take the floor”, he added.

Claimed by the friendship association CUBA SI, France and the Newspaper Trade Union of Paris, member of the General Central of Workers (CGT in French), the Hispanic-French writer stressed his book´s attraction.

It will have the virtue of becoming an essential reference and balance about the Cuban reality, he said.

In an unusually full house in the Hall Alejo Carpentier, the director of Le Monde Diplomatique explained that before starting on the project of interviewing the Cuban leader, he had three great motivations.

The first was to give President Fidel Castro the floor, the best witness to the evolution of the Revolution, when I was intensely shocked by the ill-intended version of Cuba published by big French media, repeating baseless reports, fabricated and without support, he explained.

“Then I thought it transcendent that the new generations knew first hand of Fidel´s personality, the truth about his work, in a Latin American surrounding where the leftwing movement offers a ray of hope”, he underlined.

We see Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, inside a political map that begins to answer to the expectations of those peoples and there are a lot of interesting realities told by Fidel Castro, he added.

Born in Redondela, Pontevedra, Spain and a long career in France, Ramonet pointed he also made it a goal to spread the personality of a human being, his family origins and his evolution.

Also in the book are revealed several passages not only of Fidel Castro´s life but also of the Cuban Revolution and his collaboration to other processes “unpublished until now.”

Former Spanish President Jose Maria Aznar not only sent police officers to Guantanamo naval base, but also intelligence agents to interrogate prisoners with US authorization, El Pais daily revealed Tuesday.

The daily provides evidence that only two months after the US began locking up detainees from Afghanistan and Pakistan, Spanish intelligence agents travelled to the base.

The accomplished goal was to interrogate several prisoners of the US government, as confirmed in the telegrams the foreign ministry of the Aznar government received since March 2002.

The information reads that the interviews with the prisoners were also in the presence of a US military representative and members of the intelligence service.

Abderrahaman Hamed (born in Ceuta), and Redwan Abdusalam, whose real name is Lahcen Ikassrien, a Moroccan residing in Spain, were the prisoners interrogated by the Spanish intelligence.

A US general in charge of the Guantanamo US naval base, an illegally occupied Cuban territory, said since the beginning that the visit was far from being a diplomatic one.

The intelligence videoed all the interviews and gave copies to US authorities, as they had requested, according to the official reports.

More interrogations followed the first visit to Guantanamo. The Aznar government never told Congress that intelligence agents, along with officials from the interior ministry, visited the supposed Spanish prisoners.