WASHINGTON, CMC – The United States has changed its mind in allowing the daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro to attend a gay rights forum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, reversing a previous rejection. Sexologist Mariela Castro, the director of Cuba’s National Center for Sex Education and a vocal proponent of same-sex marriage and gay rights, has received a US visa to attend several gatherings in May at the United Nations headquarters in Manhattan in New York.
Cuba
Cuba and Venezuela have signed accords for 51 joint projects worth $2 billion US dollars in Havana, local media reported Sunday. At the close of 13th Cuba-Venezuela Intergovernmental Meeting Saturday night, Cuban President Raul Castro and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced the deals for projects in such areas as education, health, sports, culture, food production, construction, transport, communications, energy and support of social missions.
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - Visiting Moroccan tertiary education expert Dr Jamil Salmi says UWI should reach out to its French and Spanish speaking neighbours like Haiti, Dominican Republic and Cuba to truly establish the academic institution’s reputation as a regional and international giant. Salmi made this comment during a Distinguished Open lecture at Daaga Auditorium, St Augustine campus last week Wednesday. Its theme was The Challenge of Establishing World-Class Universities.
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts, CMC – The Government is exploring the possibility of establishing an embassy in Cuba next year in an effort to strengthen the existing relationship between both Caribbean nations.
ST JOHN’S, Antigua – Jeffrey Robinson, considered the world’s leading financial crime author, is warning the nation and all Caribbean countries that a “financial tsunami” will hit the region in a few years and the time to plan a response is now. “In the next three to five years, Fidel Castro will die and when he does Raul (Castro) will not be able to hang on,” he said. “The invasion of Cuba is now being planned and it will be massive. It will be something the likes of which no one has seen before.”
HAVANA, Cuba, CMC – The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) says no Caribbean student had been killed in a vehicular accident here over the last weekend.
“The CARICOM Heads of Mission in Havana seeks to clarify that news reports which claim that five students had been killed in a vehicular accident in Cuba are misleading,” according to a statement issued by the grouping here on Tuesday.
“The Caucus further wishes to assure the parents of students on scholarship in Cuba that no Caribbean student died in the accident,” the release said.
HAVANA, Cuba, CMC - At least five Caribbean Students studying in Cuba are dead and others were hospitalized after a truck slammed into the bus in which they were traveling.
According to media reports the students were returning home from a night of partying when crash took place.
The nationalities of the students are not yet known.
Hundreds of Caribbean nationals are pursuing university education in Cuba as a result of an agreement between several CARICOM member states and the Cuba Government. (Full article)
HAVANA, Cuba, CMC – Russia’s Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov says his country will forgive part of Cuba’s US$25 billion Soviet-era debt and restructure the rest as part of agreements that include Havana getting Russian jetliners worth US$650 million. On an official visit here, Manturov told reporters that Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and Ricardo Cabrisas, vice president of the Council of Ministers, had initialed the debt agreement, adding that the details would be worked out by the end of the year.
WASHINGTON, CMC – The United States has denied reports that it plans to remove Cuba from a list of countries that support terrorism. “I saw that report. Let me say firmly here it is incorrect,” US State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland told reporters here. “This department has no current plans to remove Cuba from the state sponsor of terrorism list. “We review this every year, and at the current moment when the last review was done in 2012, we didn’t see cause to remove them,” she added.
Cuban President Raul Castro has been re-elected for a second five-year term. The 612-member National Assembly of People's Power Sunday elected Castro, who turns 82 in June, as president of the State Council, Xinhua reported. "The National Assembly of People's Power today approved, in this capital, Army General Raul Castro Ruz as president of the Council of State, and elected Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, as its first vice president," Cuba's state-run National Information Agency (AIN) said.