|
CUBA
NEWS
Yahoo!
US says Cuba not meeting migration accord
commitments
WASHINGTON, 22 (AFP) - The United States accused
Cuba of failing to live up to its commitments
under joint migration agreements by refusing to
issue exit visas to some citizens granted permission
to leave the country.
The State Department said Washington was adhering
to the accords and had issued more than 20,000
immigrant visas to Cuban citizens during the past
year but claimed that Havana was preventing those
people from leaving.
"The burden is now clearly on the Cuban
government to grant exit permits to all those
Cubans who have received US travel documents and
to remove impediments it has placed to full implementation
of the accords," said deputy spokesman Adam
Ereli.
"In particular, we call on the Cuban government
to cease its discriminatory practices of denying
such permits to doctors, information technology
professionals, and family members of Cubans who
have sought freedom in the United States,"
he said in a statement.
Ereli said that US officials had complained to
their Cuban counterparts about more than 600 cases
in which US visa holders had been denied permission
to leave the country, when they last met to discuss
the migration issue in June.
Almiqui found in Cuba
HAVANA - A living example of an insectivore native
to Cuba - but believed for years to extinct -
has been found in the island's eastern mountains,
a Cuban news agency reported.
The discovery of the male insect-eating mammal
known as an almiqui (pronounced ahl-mee-KEE) raises
hopes "that it will not wind up in the catalog
of the irretrievable animals disappearing from
the face of the Earth," Prensa Latina said
in reporting the discovery.
The creature looks like a brownish woolly badger
with a long, pink-tipped snout and can measure
up to about 19 inches, according to Prensa Latina's
Monday dispatch.
The nocturnal animal burrows underground during
the daytime, explaining why it is rarely seen
by people. After the sun goes down, it emerges
to root out worms, larvae and insects.
Named "Alejandrito" by the farmer who
found it, the living almiqui weighed 24 ounces
and veterinarians declared the animal in perfect
health.
"Alejandrito" was held in captivity
for two days of study and medical tests, then
marked and let free in the same general area it
was found, Prensa Latina said.
The almiqui was described for the first time
in 1861 by the German naturalist Wilham Peters,
who wrote of the difference between the Cuban
animal and a similar one found in neighboring
Haiti.
Since, only 37 of the animals known by the scientific
name Solenodon Cubanus have been captured, including
"Alejandrito."
The last reported sightings of the creatures
were in 1972 in the eastern province of Guantanamo,
and 25 years later in 1999 in the eastern province
of Holguin.
|
