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Cuba is due to open three ophthalmologic hospitals in Nicaragua, to provide free surgery to patients with cataracts, a project to start in this capital.

According to statements by the island’s new ambassador to this Central American country Luis Hernandez the first four Cuban physicians will open the first ophthalmologic center in the outskirts of Managua, and are expected to arrive in next days.

Hernandez, who presented their credentials on Tuesday, said that the other two clinics, with a capacity for 80 patients daily, are located in the main cities from both autonomous regions of North and South Atlantic, Puerto Cabezas and Bluefields.

These eye centers will avoid to transfer Nicaraguan patients to Havana and Caracas, as part of the Operation Miracle, which has benefited so far over 2,000 people since its beginning in the Central American nation in June.

As part of the strengthening of bilateral relations after the arrival of the Sandinista government to power, Cuba also collaborates in eliminating illiteracy, with the “Yo Si Puedo” (Yes, I Can), recalled the ambassador.

Over 4,300 activities for the release of five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters unfairly imprisoned eight years ago in the US have been carried out by Cuban youth, it was reported in this capital on Tuesday.
Cuban 5 Unfairly Tried, Lawyer Says

Cuba”s Young Communist League (UJC) first secretary Julio Martinez told local press that since the juvenile campaign for the freedom of the Five was convened; over 174,000 youth have attended those meetings.

Other 151 activities have been held in 41 countries and 34 organizations have confirmed their participation, along with the UJC, in the international meeting of solidarity with the Cuban Five, to be run in the island on April 29-30.

The Five, as Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez, Ramon Labañino, Rene Gonzalez and Gerardo Hernandez are universally known, are serving long and harsh sentences in United States for monitoring terrorist groups responsible of violent actions against Cuba.

Several criminal actions organized in the US against Cuba have killed about 3,500 people and wounded over 2,000.

On Sunday, March 25, said Martinez, the island”s young people will carry out a day for voluntary work throughout the country, coinciding with the 104th anniversary of the birth of outstanding Cuban revolutionary Julio Antonio Mella.

The same day, there will be a cultural event to reveal results of a contest to elect the song that will celebrate the 45th anniversary of that young organization.

The occasion will be used to honor those who lost their life for the Revolution and the whole people, said Martinez.

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.”

The Jose Marti Solidarity Project World Council, made up of academics from several countries, is due to analyze in Zaragoza this weekend the labor of international promotion of Marti thinking.

The information was given to Prensa Latina by Hector Hernandez Pardo, coordinator of that organization and Cuban ambassador at the UN Science, Culture and Education Fund (UNESCO).

The meeting was presided over by Armando Hart Davalos, director of Cuba s Marti Program Office, and attended by Federico Mayor Zaragoza, former UNESCO general director, Grabriela Andrade, social development secretary of the Michoacan government in Mexico, and French deputy Oliver Giscard D Estaing, among others.

The event’s agenda includes a report on arrangements for the 2nd International Conference “For World Equilibrium,” sponsored by UNESCO, will be run in Havana in January 2008.

The Council, Hernandez Pardo explained, is expected to analyze growth and development of Marti departments in universities, the creation of the Project’s national and regional chapters, and the Council s expansion and working methods and issue a Final Declaration.

Members of the World Council are due to lay a wreath, on February 24, 112th anniversary of the beginning of independence war led by Marti and the Cuban revolutionary Party, at the plaque that recalls the Cuban Hero s stay in Zaragoza.

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.