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December 11, 2002



Cuba News / Yahoo!

Yahoo! December 11, 2002.

Cuban Dissidents Hold Meeting

Tue Dec 10, 9:04 PM ET

By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ, Associated Press Writer

HAVANA (AP) - About 50 Cuban dissidents held a meeting of what a leader called an "alternative parliament" on Tuesday in celebration of international Human Rights Day.

Marta Beatriz Roque, who hosted the event in her home, said the Assembly to Promote Civil Society was meant to unite 341 small dissident groups across Cuba.

"This is the first time that the assembly has had a mass meeting," she said. "But the objective is to join the 341 organizations so that, in a democratic way, these associations elect someone to lead them." Roque estimated the groups together have about 5,000 members.

The loosely organized gathering lasted a few hours, with people coming and going, and broke up around noon. Reporters saw about 50 people. Even at that size, it was an unusually large and public gathering of dissidents in Cuba.

"It is an achievement to be able to gather such a large force of the opposition," Roque told reporters.

Roque herself was among four dissidents arrested in July 1997 for publishing a document that criticized Cuba's Communist Party and President Fidel Castro (news - web sites)'s government. Convicted of incitement to sedition, Roque was freed in May 2000

She announced formation of the assembly in October, saying it was open to all dissident groups in Cuba.

Among those on hand Tuesday was Gonzalo Gallegos, the press attache from the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.

Cuba's government routinely accuses the Interests Section of financing and organizing dissent. Roque insisted that Gallegos' presence would not reinforce the official accusations, which she and most other dissidents deny.

"We invited a lot of diplomats. Our relations are with the world, not only with the United States," she said. "But unfortunately they have not been able to be with us."

Roque said a security official visited her on Monday night and asked her to "maintain discipline." She said she took that as official permission for the meeting.

Train wreck reported in Central Cuba

HAVANA - Five cars of a passenger train derailed near a station in west-central Cuba, killing 14 people and injuring more than 70, Cuban news media reported Wednesday.

Radio Rebelde said 800 people were aboard the train when the accident occurred at 6:55 p.m. (1855 EST) in the town of Coliseo, near Jovellanos, some 125 kilometers (75 miles) southeast of Havana.

It said that the train, bound from Havana to Santiago, had about 12 cars and that five of them derailed.

Among those reported killed was a medical student from El Salvador (news - web sites). All the rest apparently were from Cuba. The passengers included more than 140 members of the national university students federation who were headed for a gathering in eastern Cuba.

No children were among those reported killed or seriously injured.

Cuba has been trying to restore its deteriorated railroad network and improve service. It has been refunding the price of tickets if a train arrives late. Fare from Havana in western Cuba to Santiago in the far east is about US$ 2.60.

In February 1997, the collision of a passenger train and a locomotive in central Cuba killed 13 people and injured 65.

Fifty-six people died in an April 1991 derailment in Santo Domingo, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Jovellanos.

Cuba names new Cabinet minister, with blast at outgoing official

Tue Dec 10, 1:34 PM ET

HAVANA - Cuban officials announced a change of construction minister on Tuesday with criticism of performance under the outgoing minister.

The Communist Party daily Granma carried a government statement announcing that Juan Mario Junco, 45, had been removed because the "results expected from the organ he directs have not been achieved." It said he would be "assigned to other tasks in the construction sector," which were not detailed.

Replacing him is Fidel Fernando Figueroa, 45, who had been first vice minister of construction since 1997.

Housing and construction have long been a headache for Cuba's government. Older buildings have been decaying while a shortage of materials and funds has hindered new construction.

The government statement acknowledged that the sector suffered from "material restrictions," but said that it "could achieve results which are quantitatively and qualitatively superior if there were greater rigor, discipline, organization and control."

Cuban Stowaway Survives Flight to Canada

Tue Dec 10, 7:24 PM ET

MONTREAL (AP) - A Cuban man who hid in the wheel compartment of a DC-10 jet wrapped his shirt around heating pipes to survive temperatures of nearly 40 below zero and avoid falling out during the four-hour flight to Canada.

"I consider myself very lucky to have survived. Thank God," the stowaway, in his 20s, said Monday evening after his first appearance before the refugee panel.

The man, who cannot be identified by name under a publication ban imposed by Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board, has been ordered held until a hearing Friday.

Robert Gervais, a spokesman for the Citizenship and Immigration Department, said the man could be granted conditional release while he seeks refugee status, similar to political asylum in the United States.

"Concerning his refugee claim, that will be heard by the refugee board probably several months from now," Gervais said Tuesday.

Canada adheres to the U.N. convention on refugees in deciding such cases, requiring a well-founded fear of persecution based on race, nationality, religion, political belief or social affiliation.

An airport worker at the Havana airport, the man climbed into the wheel well of Cubana Flight 170 before it departed for Cayo Coco resort en route to Montreal last Friday.

During the flight, he said he embraced a heating pipe, wrapping his shirt around it to hold on and get as much warmth as possible. Aviation experts say the temperature in the hold was likely around minus 40 degrees with little oxygen at an altitude of 30,000 feet.

"I kept my face close to it (the pipe), and that helped me to breathe," he told the all news channel LCN. "I thought that certain parts of my body would freeze. But when the airplane descended, I warmed up."

Gervais said workers at Dorval Airport saw the man stumbling on the runway after the flight landed. He was hospitalized and treated for hypothermia and exhaustion, then placed in immigration custody.

In most cases, people attempting to hide in the wheel well of large jetliners like a DC-10 die from the cold and lack of oxygen.

Last week, two boys believed to be as young as 12 were found dead in the wheel compartment of a Ghana Airways DC-10 that flew from Ghana's capital, Accra, to London.

High-profile effort to produce medicine-yielding cow so far fails

By Paul Elias, Ap Biotechnology Writer Mon Dec 9, 8:17 PM ET

HAVANA - Even though Cuba boasts some of the world's best-equipped laboratories and most talented scientists, its high-profile efforts to clone a cow are proving much more difficult than originally imagined.

"I am worried," Fidel Ovidio, who oversees the project, told a group of international scientists in Havana last week for a biotechnology conference. "Anyone have a magic bullet?"

The Cuban scientist's goal is to someday clone a cow with the seemingly magical ability to produce human medicines in its milk. Cuba's communist government — which is far from unique in such research — hopes it brings scientific prestige, and leads to inexpensive medicines it can dispense to its people for free and export for badly needed cash.

There are also hopes the project will produce a line of prodigious dairy cows in a country that rations its milk.

Ovidio is under enormous political and scientific pressure to succeed. But because this poor country is barred from buying vital research tools directly from U.S. manufacturers, the task is downright Herculean.

Cuba's cattle herd diminished from 10 million head in the 1980s to less than half of that today, most starving to death for lack of feed.

Forty years of U.S.-enforced economic isolation, dubious breeding decisions and the Soviet collapse motivated Cuba to seek creative means of self-sufficient food production, including permitting a small number of private farms nearly 10 years ago.

After the birth of Dolly the sheep in Scotland in 1997, Cuba saw great potential in biotechnology. So far, though, the high-profile cloning project has been a failure.

Despite continued encouragement and advice from some of the world's most experienced experts, Ovidio and his colleagues on the project remain frustrated. For each of the past three years, Cuban scientists have announced they were close to producing Latin America's first cloned cow. But Brazil beat them to it last year.

One major hurdle for Ovidio is, in fact, the nation's cow shortage. Because Cuban officials are loath to sacrifice young and healthy cows needed for the food supply, Ovidio and his colleagues are limited to using eggs culled from only the oldest and sickest donors.

Ovidio has smelled success — once losing a cloned embryo after 55 days of pregnancy.

"They're close to getting a cloned calf on the ground," said Steven Stice, a University of Georgia cloning expert who consults with Ovidio. "All they really need is a little luck."

Cuba boasts one of the most advanced biotechnology programs in the developing world. It has created marketable vaccines and is working on two promising cancer drugs.

But cloning is another story. The technology is expensive, risky and continues to meet with mixed results in the world's laboratories.

In the United States, about 500 cows have been cloned — and most are nothing more than scientific novelties. Just one in 10 cloned embryos yields a live birth, each at a cost of about US$20,000. Many of those calves develop serious health problems.

And while Cuban scientists proudly showed off their cloning project to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter when he visited Havana's Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology in May, some are now echoing foreign colleagues in downplaying its value.

"It's a big milestone in biotechnology," said Carlos Borroto, the center's vice director. "But it's not a priority."

Cuba's quest to clone the perfect cow began not with medicine, but with Ubre Blanca, a spectacularly impressive animal that had Cuban officials salivating over the promise of a herd of major milk producers.

In 1982, Ubre Blanca, Spanish for White Udder, produced 241 pounds (108 liters) of milk in a single day. That's four times more than the average cow and was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records.

Castro referred to Ubre Blanca's prodigious output in speeches as evidence of communism's superior breeding skills, and the cow's triumphs were splashed throughout Cuba's government-controlled newspapers.

Before Ubre Blanca died, eggs and tissue samples were taken from her and frozen. Cuban scientists studied her DNA under microscopes to see if they could find the milk genes that set Ubre Blanca apart.

"We're not cloning Ubre Blanca," Borroto said. "But she was a motivation to start the project."

Yet nobody anywhere has reported producing viable medicines ready for human use from cows, and U.S. companies that have sunk millions of dollars into cloning are now struggling for survival.

"The applications aren't as broad as once thought," said James Robl, president of South Dakota-based Hematech LLC, which is cloning genetically engineered cows to produce medicines in their blood. "The cost of cloning is high and its not moving as fast as some would like."

And though many international scientists question the project's wisdom, Cuba remains intent on cloning a cow — and is looking for partners in the effort.

The co-founders of Canadian company TGN Biotech Inc. were among scientists who traveled to Havana for the recent conference. TGN is genetically engineering pigs to create human fertility drugs in their semen and wanted to talk to Cuban officials about moving some of their pig-breeding facilities to Cuba.

Instead, all the Cuban delegation wanted to discuss was how to clone a cow, said TGN's Marc-Andre Sirard.

"They didn't like what we had to tell them," Sirard said. "Cloning cows is not the solution for Cuba."

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