Friday, October 29, 2004

Aluta Continua: Cuban Updates... issue #4

AND SO THE STRUGGLE GETS DEEPER IN THIS ISSUE LOVELY PEOPLE READ AND YOU'LL SEE...

First I have me here a poster from Trinidad (yup, thats right an authentic TnT poster) care of Alicia Ganess, showing what???

Next we have UN resolutions on Cuba... In there favour for a change!!!

UN Condemns U.S. Cuba Embargo
HAVANA, Oct. 28, 2004
(CBS) By CBS News Producer Portia Siegelbaum


The U.S. economic embargo of Cuba jumped to the top of the Castro government’s agenda on Thursday. For the 13th year in a row, the United Nations General Assembly approved a resolution condemning the U.S. embargo. The vote in favor of the Cuba-sponsored resolution was 179-4. The four opposing votes came from the United States, Israel, Palau and the Marshall Islands. The vote last year was almost identical, 179 in favor, 3 against with two abstentions. The embargo has been in effect since 1962. The U.N. condemnation has become an annual event in Cuba. Students and countless workers across the island stopped their regular activities at 1l a.m. to watch a special one-hour feature prepared by Cuba's State-run television and then follow the voting at the General Assembly session. In addition, Cuban TV began broadcasting the U.N. debate live at 9 a.m. In Washington, however, approval of the resolution produced little more than yawns at the Bush White House. "It's true, this is an administration that has proven it doesn't care about it [the vote]," said Gustavo Machin, head of the North America Division of the Cuban Foreign Ministry. But despite what he sees as Washington's disregard for the United Nations, Machin told CBS News: "Every day the United States is more and more isolated by its policy ... It's worth the effort ... just to make clear the opposition to this kind of policies."

OAS head supports Cuba's membership
The Washington Times, October 28, 2004.
Mexico City, Mexico, Oct. 27 (UPI)

The head of the Organization of American States' says it is "inconceivable" Cuba is not a member, El Universal reports.

Luigi Einaudi, who became the interim head of the organization after former Costa Rican President Miguel Angel Rodriguez resigned Oct. 8 amid fraud charges, was in Mexico City Tuesday for a government-sponsored forum on children.

"It's inconceivable in today's world to keep isolated or outside of the organization a nation for reasons of incongruent ideologies," Einaudi said at a news conference. "But the charter of the OAS and the slow process of democratic jurisprudence has changed very little."



Anti-Bush sentiment permeates life in Cuba
Associated PressHavana, October 28

A general dislike of US President George W. Bush permeates daily life in communist Cuba, where the American leader is mocked as a fascist at government rallies and called a belligerent bully by the state-run media.

So it's no surprise that Cubans who follow the US presidential campaign clearly prefer Democratic challenger John Kerry in hopes he would ease the current US administration's hardline policies toward the island.

"Kerry would be better than Bush, any day," 65-year-old textile worker Arnaldo Negrin said in his one-room Old Havana apartment, where he listened to the government's nightly political discussion show on a small radio because his television was broken.

"He is defending the lower classes, working for social issues," Negrin said of Kerry. "And he has a better understanding of developing countries."

The general dislike for Bush heightened on the island this summer when his administration implemented new measures aimed at squeezing the Cuban economy in an effort to undermine President Fidel Castro. US authorized visits by Cuban-Americans to the island were slashed from one annually to one every three years. Limits were placed on how much money the Cuban-Americans can send to relatives here, and to which relatives.

The measures, which critics said pandered to right-wing Cuban exiles in Miami, provoked outrage here and among some Cuban-Americans as well. Negrin, a self-described "militant communist," said he thought Kerry would be more likely to eventually ease US restrictions on trade and travel that date to the 1960s and have been steadily strengthened under Bush.



Summary: Cuba Does Away With Dollars
Tue Oct 26, 4:25 PM ET
By The Associated Press


BUCK STOPS HERE: Cuba announces that as of Nov. 8, U.S. dollars will no longer be accepted in stores and businesses, saying it is trying to regain control of its economy as Washington cracks down on the flow of American currency to Cuba.

SEND EUROS: President Fidel Castro
asks Cubans to tell relatives abroad to send them euros, British pounds or Swiss francs instead of dollars.

HARD CASH: Castro legalized the U.S. currency in 1993 to cope with the loss of Soviet aid and trade.

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