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CUBA
NEWS
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Cuba Agrees to Buy $13M in Food From
U.S.
By Anita Snow, Associated
Press Writer.
HAVANA, 13 (AP) - Moving to cement trade
ties with U.S. business, Cuba on Tuesday
agreed to buy $13 million in food from American
companies and reached a tentative deal for
up to $10 million in farm goods from California.
Cuban said that by the time talks end late
Thursday they hope to contract to buy as
much as $100 million more in American farm
products. More than 300 people from about
150 U.S. companies attended the gathering.
The biggest contract announced Tuesday
was with Archer Daniels Midland of Decatur,
Ill., for $9 million in corn. The other
contracts were for $3.4 million in rice
from Riceland Foods Inc. of Stuttgart, Ark.,
and nearly $1 million for peas from PS International
Ltd., of Chapel Hill, N.C.
Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif, signed a letter
of intent with Cuba for the sale of up to
$10 million in farm goods to Cuba, including
dairy products, eggs, lumber, produce, and
cattle.
"It is my pleasure to try to advance
the exchange to the benefit of people in
both places," Linda Sanchez told the
gathering in Spanish.
Other American officials at the event were
Idaho Republicans Rep. Butch Otter and Lt.
Gov. Brian Dubie.
"We look forward to the opportunity
to have investments here ... and have uninhibited
trade between our two countries," said
Gregory Webb, vice president for the Illinois
agribusiness giant known as ADM.
Investments by American firms in Cuba as
well as two-way trade between the two nations
currently are prohibited under American
trade sections in place for more than four
decades.
But an exception to the U.S. trade embargo,
created by a 2000 U.S. law, allows for the
direct, commercial sales of American farm
goods to Cuba on a cash basis.
Among American farm interests participating
in the talks is the USA Rice Federation,
which represents about 85 percent of rice
producers in the United States. A number
of Florida firms were represented, including
those that have done business with Cuba
before, including Splash Tropical Drinks
of Fort Lauderdale.
Since Cuba took advantage of an exception
to the U.S. trade embargo allowing the direct,
commercial sales of American farm products
to the island, it has contracted to buy
about $716 million in goods.
The U.S. Cuba Trade and Economic Council,
which tracks business between the two countries,
estimates the value of American farm products
purchased by Cuba thus far at about $430
million.
Bush, Fox, discuss UN rights meeting
WASHINGTON, 13 (AFP) - US President George
W. Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox
agreed that the United Nations' human rights
body should condemn alleged human rights
abuses in Cuba, the White House said.
"The two leaders discussed the current
(UN) Human rights Commission meeting that
is underway in Geneva. They agreed on the
importance of passing a Cuba resolution
at that meeting and working together to
improve the human rights situation in Cuba,"
said spokesman Scott McClellan.
In Mexico, Fox's office said they had broached
the topic of the UN rights meeting during
their seven-minute conversation, without
offering further details.
The United States has tried to win support
in Geneva for a Honduras-proposed resolution
condemning the government of Cuban leader
Fidel Castro (news - web sites), who oversees
the last one-party communist system in the
Americas.
Cuba last April launched its toughest crackdown
against dissidents in years, netting 75
opponents who were given summary trials,
convicted and sentenced to lengthy jail
terms. The move brought an outcry from the
United States and the European Union.
Fox's office also said that the two leaders
had discussed the International Court of
Justice (ICJ) order that the United States
must review and reconsider the cases of
51 Mexicans on death row in US prisons.
McClellan said Bush also offered his condolences
to Fox "for the losses suffered by
families in the recent floods in Mexico."
HBO to air Oliver Stone's revamped documentary
on Castro
WASHINGTON, 12 (AFP) - The cable channel
Home Box Office will Wednesday air a revised
version of Oliver Stone's controversial
documentary on Fidel Castro, after the director
returned to Cuba to update his work with
the results of last year's crackdown on
dissidents.
"Looking for Fidel" contains
new material culled from 30 hours of interviews
with the Cuban leader and others in the
wake of the crackdown and the summary execution
of three Cubans convicted of hijacking a
ferry with the intent of fleeing to the
United States.
HBO pulled the documentary, then known
as "Commandante," in May after
Castro jailed 75 dissidents and ordered
the executions.
The 53-minute revised version is "very
complete," HBO spokeswoman Lena Iny
said.
"Oliver Stone returned to Cuba to
re-interview Castro after the first film
he did. That one, yes, was incomplete because
there were no mention" of the crackdown,
she said.
"This film was intended initially
as just a 10-minute update ... but in the
end he came back with 30 hours of material
and he was able to question him on dissidents,
on the crackdown, and he challenges him
pretty well, I think."
Stone had intended his documentary to be
a humanized portrait of Castro, who has
ruled the Americas' only communist country
with an iron fist since 1959, defying a
40-year-old US embargo and attempts by Cuban
exiles to overthrow him.
The original version of the film aired
earlier this year on the Canadian Broadcasting
Company.
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