Searching for oil in the Gulf
Cuban Radar Read Spanish Version
Searching for oil in the Gulf
A service by the Radio Progreso Alternativa Havana Bureau
The Venezuelan Oil Corporation (CVP), a subsidiary of PDVSA, and CubaPetróleos (CUPET), began exploration in a 10,000 km area of deep waters in the exclusive Cuban zone of the Gulf of Mexico.
An official CVP press release expresses its hope of finding light crude oil in “sufficient volume for maintaining a high production potential.”
For CVP this will be its first experience in this kind of work.
Venezuela and Cuba, which have signed several collaboration agreements in different economic and scientific areas, have a special interest in the energy field, not only searching for oil in the Cuban deep waters, but also to start production next December at the Cienfuegos refinery, some 250 kilometers southeast of Havana.
The agreements include the construction of a large storage facility with a 600,000 barrel capacity.
Venezuela is the island’s number one trading partner. In 2006, trade between the two countries reached $2.6 billion dollars.
Cuban civilian air fleet grows
A new TU-204 airplane bought from Russia arrived in Havana’s international airport. The aircraft is one of three purchased in Russia several months ago, said the official daily Granma on Monday, August 6,
According to Granma, the TU-204 will haul cargo in medium range routes. The other two airplanes are IL-96-300s and will be used for passenger long range flights.
Municipal elections in Cuba
Candidates will be nominated next September for the entire 50,635 electoral districts for the upcoming municipal elections. In order to be a candidate, a citizen must be nominated and approved by direct vote of the majority of voters in the electoral district meetings. No organization nominates the candidates, only the voters can.
Subsequently, on October 21, voters will choose among candidates who will represent them in the Municipal Assemblies of Popular Power. The elected delegates are the equivalent of aldermen or commissioners in other countries and are empowered with electing the Assembly’s president.
Later on in the year there will be a summons for elections of delegates to the Provincial Assemblies and of deputies to the National Assembly of Popular Power (Cuban parliament).
Members of the European parliament and Ladies in White
The Ladies in White, wives, mothers and relatives of prisoners, hear Mass every Sunday at Saint Rita Church and afterwards march a few blocks through the walkway that divides Fifth Avenue in the Miramar neighborhood.
Last August 5 they made their regular tour accompanied by three members of the European Parliament, representatives from Hungary, Holland and Estonia, countries that have an aggressive attitude towards Cuba. The parliamentarians, who apparently arrived in Cuba with tourist visas, have also met with opponents of the Cuban revolution.
New Cuban condom
A report by Radio Habana Cuba informs that “Vigor”, a new condom produced in Cuba, hit the market last weekend to substitute the “Vives” brand, whose distribution was forbidden by the government of the United States.
The national coordinator of the condom line at the National Center for AIDS Prevention, Luis Enrique Bueno, pointed out that the U.S. Treasury Department prohibited the NGO Population Services International (PSI) “the continuation of its collaboration projects with Cuba.”
According to the daily Juventud Rebelde, Bueno said that “when said NGO’s license was not renewed they had to leave the country.” The order was given to PSI due to the economic and political blockade that Washington has imposed on Cuba since 1962.
PSI projects in Cuba included the distribution of “Vives” condoms to groups in risk of contamination by HIV/AIDS, Bueno said.
He added that Cuba has initially 15 million condoms “from a project financed by the World Fund for the Struggle against Malaria, Tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, created by the United Nations with preventive ends”.
Granma and The New York Times
The official daily Granma reported on Tuesday, August 7, several aspects from an article published by The New York Times in which the influential newspaper approaches the subject of the five Cubans imprisoned in the United States.
Under the heading “Cracks in the Wall of Silence, Granma stresses the importance of the NYT piece in spreading the truth about the cases of Gerardo Hernández, René González, Ramón Lavañino, Fernando González and Antonio Guerrero, all condemned to prison terms ranging from 15 years to several life sentences for the “crime” of infiltrating terrorist exile groups in Miami, with the objective of avoiding attacks against Cuban territory. The Cuban Five are highly considered by the island’s population and have been decorated with the title of Heroes of the Republic of Cuba.
According to Granma, the NYT piece, signed by James McKinley and sent from Havana, “is objectively balanced. Some readers who are knowledgeable about the issue could criticize some inaccuracies and lack of information on the part of the journalist in certain aspects, but in 1,494 words he reflects almost every aspect of the case, from the rigged 2001 trial in Miami to a summary of the appeal process; why the Five are considered heroes in Cuba; as well as the repeated denial of visas by the U.S. government to Olga Salanueva and Adriana Pérez, who wanted to visit their respective husbands in jail, René González and Gerardo Hernández
While the Five are still in prison, Luis Posada Carriles runs free, which according to the Times has strengthened the argument that the United States is “hypocritical when it speaks about an alleged war on terrorism.”
The article was published a scant thirteen days before the Appeal Court in Atlanta will hear arguments from the defense and the prosecution so that it can later decide if the Miami trial is thrown out and a new one is summoned in another Florida county.
Fidel Castro: A new reflection on the boxers
Under the title “The Written Proof”, Fidel Castro once again deals with the case of two Cuban boxers, Guillermo Rigondeaux and Erislandy Lara, who after abandoning the delegation that competed in the 14th Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, returned to Cuba.
In his article, printed in all major newspapers, Fidel Castro quotes some press reports from Brazil that detail aspects of the twelve days that the boxers were missing.
“The greatest responsibility, I believe, lies with Erislandy Lara, who was the captain of the boxing team, and in spite of it violated norms and played straight into the hands of mercenaries,” Castro says in reference to Turkish-German Ahmet Öner, the organizer of the athletes’ defection
The Cuban president also pointed out that he will suggest to Granma that it publish in the sports page an interview with the boxers by sportswriter and commentator Julia Osendi.
“The athlete that abandons his delegation is like the soldier that abandons his comrades in the midst of combat”, Castro wrote. “It was indispensable, of the most elemental justice, to hear their side, to know the degree of repentance that they claimed for seeing themselves in such a painful episode,” concluded Castro.
In his article he wrote about the commitment Cuba has of participating in the coming “World Championship”, one of the three classifying events for the Olympic Games”. This championship will be held in the U.S. “You can imagine the mafia sharks demanding fresh meat.” But “we are not anxious of serving it to them.”
Nevertheless, Castro wrote that “sports authorities are discussing all possible variants, including changing the list of boxers or not sending a delegation at all, in spite of the punishment we would be dealt. Likewise they are studying which strategies and tactics to follow.”
Translated for Progreso Weekly by Germán Piniella.
