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Cuban Radar                                                                             Read Spanish Version
 
Raúl Castro presides over Guerrilla Front anniversary

A service by the Radio Progreso Alternativa Havana Bureau
 
On March 11, President Raúl Castro presided over the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Frank País Second Front. The commemoration took place before the mausoleum where the remains of combatants from those troops are buried.

In February 1958, after then Captain Raúl Castro was promoted to Commander, No. 6 Column, under his command, left for their new positions to create the 2nd. Front in the Crystal Mountain Range. This front, together with the one set up by Commander Juan Almeida at Cruce de los Baños, marked the spreading of war to areas distant from the Rebel Army’s Central Headquarters in the Sierra Maestra Mountains, and made a significant contribution to the victory against Fulgencio Batista’s army.

The creation of those guerrilla fronts and the later invasion to the West by columns headed by commanders Camilo Cienfuegos and Che Guevara, were part of Fidel Castro’s strategy that eventually allowed the Rebel Army to defeat Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship on January 1, 1959.

Fidel Castro chastises the US for blocking Cuban information on the Internet

In an article he wrote for Cuban media which appeared Monday, March 10, and which he dedicated to Cuban youth, Fidel Castro chastised the United States government for its efforts to block Cuba’s access to Internet.

"At present, the greatest effort of the decadent and unsustainable empire is to deprive us of the right to know and to think," Castro pointed out while referring to a recent article in a Cuban newspaper that accused Washington of having "global control" of the Internet and of blocking 3,719 sites linked to Cuba.

"Think for a minute of the petty effort by the chieftain of that empire in order to prevent our people to access Internet,” added the 81-year-old leader who has been recovering for the past 19 months from intestinal surgery which caused him to resign his post in the Cuban government.

Last week Juventud Rebelde reported that the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) blocked "3,719 domains dot-coms" without a warning to its owners for the simply promoting Cuban culture and tourism to Cuba.

In response, the United States accuses the Cuban government of limiting Internet access to the population and violating freedom of information.

Italian award to Eusebio Leal

The Sebetia-Ter Center for Art and Culture Studies in Naples has granted its International Prize for 2007, in the category of Architecture, to Dr. Eusebio Leal, City of Havana historian.
 
For over two centuries, this award has promoted values, traditions and identity of that city, the largest in the Italian southern region of Campania.

The Center is sponsored by the President of the Republic of Italy, who has bestowed it the Silver Plaque as acknowledgement for its cultural work.

Cuba, 5th place at Indoor World Athletics Championship

Cuba finished at the top spot for Latin American countries at the Indoor World Athletic Championship held in Valencia, Spain, when it finished fifth in the competition, won by the U.S. and Russia.

Yargelis Savigne, a triple jumper, won the gold medal in the women’s event, in which her compatriot Anay Tejeda achieved the bronze, while David Giral obtained silver also in triple jump, but in the men’s category.

Both the U.S. and Russia won five gold and three bronze medals each. The U.S. won an additional silver which decided the final standings.

The championship was no easy matter, for a total of 35 countries won at least one medal. Much attention was placed on Ethiopia which finished in 3rd place.

Once again Ethiopian athletes mastered the long distances (3,000 meters in both sexes and 1,500 meters in the men’s competition) to become, together with the U.S. and Russia, the only countries to win more than one gold medal.

Young Havanians in symposium with the Pope

More than 500 young Havanians took part in a Havana broadcast from the Vatican’s Television Center that linked, by satellite, Catholic university students from five European cities and from five in the Western Hemisphere in an emotional encounter of prayer and reflection with Pope Benedict XVI.

Students from 5 European cities — Avignon (France), Bucharest (Romania), Minsk (Byelorussia), Naples (Italy), and Toledo (Spain) — were spiritually linked, thanks to satellite television, with those from 5 Western Hemispheric cities: Aparecida (Brazil), Mexico City, Havana, Loja (Ecuador), Washington D.C., and with the Roman group gathered with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican.

On two large screens at the Havana Cathedral, the Cuban students were able to follow the broadcast from the Vatican’s Television Center while witnessing the happenings in the other participating cities, while the cameras from a remote control unit of Cuban State TV broadcast, by the same link, parallel actions in Havana.

The symposium ended with the symbolic giving to the participants of the Spes Salvi. The delivery was made at the Vatican by the Pope, while in each of the cities it was made by the local bishop. In closing, Benedict XVI gave to all his apostolic blessing.

Once the broadcast had ended, an audiovisual presentation was screened at the Havana Cathedral on the coming celebration of Young Easter 2008. Finally, Cardinal Jaime Ortega, Archbishop of Havana, thanked those present for their enthusiastic response to the Youth Pastoral’s summoning, acknowledged the organizers’ good work and the valuable collaboration by the Cuban TV remote control unit. Lastly, he wished everyone a good ending of Lent and a happy Easter celebration.