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Venezuela, Cuba Said Invest in Projects
Reoprt Says Venezuela,
Cuba Invest Some $26 Million in Joint Agricultural
Projects
CARACAS, Venezuela, 16 (AP) -- Venezuela
and Cuba invested some US$26 million (euro21.9
million) in joint agricultural projects
last year, the government news agency reported.
Cuban specialists have helped set up chicken,
rabbit and pig farms that have benefited
2,500 low-income Venezuelans, under a series
of cooperative projects, said Francisco
Galan, a vice minister at Cuba's Agriculture
Ministry, in a Bolivarian News Agency broadcast
late Wednesday.
Thirty-three Cuban specialists have also
been training Venezuelans in agricultural
techniques in the cultivation of aromatic
plants and other farming projects, Galan
said.
Relations between the two countries have
tightened under President Hugo Chavez, who
has signed various cooperative agreements
with Cuba involving education, health, sports
and oil since taking office in 1999.
Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil
exporter, began selling to Cuba in December
2000 about 53,000 barrels a day of crude
under favorable financing. It raised those
exports to 90,000 barrels a day in 2004.
The government of Fidel Castro also has
sent 17,000 Cuban doctors to provide medical
attention to Venezuelans in poor neighborhoods
across the country.
Cuban doctor working in E. Timor seeks
asylum in Indonesia
Kyodo News, February 15,
2006.
(Kyodo) - A Cuban doctor, who has been
working in East Timor, has sought political
asylum in Indonesia, an Indonesian police
official said Thursday.
Ramon Escobar, 39, escaped the East Timor
border district of Covalima on Monday by
bus and reached West Timor on Wednesday,
Eko Trio Buniniar, head of the Belu Regency
police headquarters in West Timor, told
Kyodo News.
"He walked through the jungle for
two nights and arrived at an Indonesian
border military post in Atambua" on
Wednesday morning, Buniniar said.
Escobar is one of the doctors the Cuban
government has sent to East Timor to help
the country, which voted to split from Indonesia
in 1999 and gained full independence in
May 2002.
Escobar told military soldiers at the border
that he had received "bad treatment"
in East Timor. The facilities provided for
Cuban doctors are not as promised, Buniniar
said.
He also said if Indonesia refuses to grant
him asylum, he will seek political asylum
from a third country, including the United
States, Buniniar said.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Desra Percaya
said the ministry has neither received reports
from the West Timor police nor any official
request of asylum from Escobar.
Indonesia has diplomatic relations with
Cuba.
2005 Kyodo News ©
Established 1945. All Rights Reserved.
U.S. Pledges Enforcement of Cuba Embargo
By Martin Crutsinger, AP
Economics Writer. February 13, 2006.
U.S. Pledges Enforcement
of Cuba Trade Embargo Despite Diplomatic
Rift With Mexico
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A diplomatic rift with
Mexico will not result in any changes in
how the United States enforces laws that
prohibit U.S. companies from doing business
with Cuba, the Bush administration said
Monday.
But an organization of U.S. businesses
said the administration should rethink how
it enforces the Cuban trade embargo following
a recent incident in which a Mexico City
hotel expelled a Cuban delegation attending
an oil conference.
The order came after the hotel received
a warning from the U.S. Treasury Department's
Office of Foreign Assets Control that it
could be in danger of violating a four-decade
trade embargo against the regime of Cuban
President Fidel Castro.
After receiving the warning from OFAC,
the Hotel Maria Isabel Sheraton in Mexico
City expelled a Cuban delegation that was
meeting with U.S. energy executives in early
February.
That action prompted a leadership body
of Mexico's lower house of Congress to express
the country's "absolute rejection"
of the U.S. trade embargo with Cuba. Mexican
regulators announced they would seek fines
against the hotel for violating Mexican
investment and trade protection laws.
William A. Reinsch, president of the National
Foreign Trade Council, which represents
hundreds of U.S. businesses, said the threatened
use of U.S. sanctions "undermines government-to-government
cooperation on important security and economic
issues and damages the goodwill of the United
States among the people of Mexico."
"Given the wholly negative backlash
from the extraterritorial application of
U.S. sanctions, I hope that OFAC will refrain
from applying such measures in the future,"
Reinsch said in a letter to Treasury Secretary
John Snow.
But Treasury Department chief spokesman
Tony Fratto said Monday that the administration
was not considering any changes in enforcement
activities following the latest incident.
"No one wants to see these kinds of
international tensions over these issues,"
Fratto told reporters. Fratto said OFAC
was simply trying to enforce the laws that
are on the books in a uniform way.
"The law is the law and OFAC is an
enforcement agency and it is statutorily
required to enforce the laws," Fratto
told reporters.
The trade embargo against Cuba began in
1963 when Cuba was added to a list of countries
covered by the 1917 Trading with the Enemy
Act. The law prohibits Americans and American
companies from doing business with countries
on the list.
Jake Colvin, the director of USA Engage,
an affiliate of the foreign trade council,
said that the administration "has continually
looked for ways to step up enforcement and
to apply new sanctions involving Cuba."
By contrast, there are efforts in Congress
to loosen the trade embargo against Cuba
by lawmakers who argue that it has not resulted
in the ouster of the Castro regime and is
only hurting ordinary Cuban citizens.
In 2000, Congress passed a law that allows
cash sales of food and other agricultural
products to Cuba.
Treasury's OFAC: http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/
National Foreign Trade Council: http://www.nftc.org
USA Engage: http://www.usaengage.org
Cuba Sells 160 Million Cigars in 2005
HAVANA, 10 (AP) -- Cuba sold about 160
million of its world-famous cigars last
year, in line with recent years' sales,
a tobacco executive said Friday in announcing
plans for this year's annual international
cigar festival.
Sales numbers in recent years have averaged
around 150 million cigars.
Manuel Garcia, vice president of the island's
cigar-marketing firm Habanos SA, told reporters
that the world market for premium cigars
is about 400 million, about half of which
are sold in the United States. Cuba cannot
legally export cigars or any other products
to the United States under a 45-year-old
American trade embargo against the island.
European countries are the largest market
for Cuba's US$350 million (euro282 million)
annual cigar business, especially Spain
and France, followed by Germany. Asia is
also a growing market for Cuban cigars,
Garcia said.
Cuba commercializes its premium cigars
exclusively through Habanos, a joint venture
between the island's government and the
European firm Altadis.
Now in its eighth year, the Festival del
Habano will be held Feb. 27 through March
3, drawing as many as 1,000 cigar aficionados
from 60 countries to Havana.
New Film Explores Cuban Paticipation
Within America's Negro League Baseball
WOODBRIDGE, Va., Feb. 10 /PRNewswire/ --
A new film explores the baseball industry,
Latin America, Negro Baseball, and its effects
on America today. Destiny International
Films presents the motion picture "For
The Love Of The Game," a film project
highlighting Negro League Baseball. The
film will provide audiences with a modern
depiction of Negro & Latin players'
excitement, highlights, and hardships via
subtle innuendos throughout the film. Featuring
award-winning jazz artists Tito Puente Jr.
and Irvin Mayfield, the film's authenticity
about the era provides audiences with a
modern replica on an exciting era, not a
documentary. Screenwriter and Director Bernard
Bailey said, "Our goal is to introduce
a younger generation to an exciting piece
of American history while maintaining an
entertaining film that a younger audience
can appreciate. Overall our film will give
mature audiences fond memories of an era
almost forgotten."
Logline: In the postwar US they played
hard, they had fun, they struggled, and
they enjoyed the love of the game. An in-depth,
comical film about the lives of key Negro
league players, how it all began, the highlights,
mishaps, and interest of life in this pivotal
era of baseball history. Sit, and relax,
while an all-star, talented cast opens our
hearts and minds to the life, love, and
insights of a group of men that gave their
money, time, strengths and hearts For The
Love Of The Game.
With the strong presence of Major League
Baseball's Latin baseball players, the film's
distribution will cover Central and Latin
American countries simultaneously upon its
North American release. Son of Latin Jazz
great Tito Puente gives an emotional performance
depicting the journey experienced by Latin
baseball players on American soil. While
Grammy- nominated New Orleans jazz great
Irvin Mayfield provides a 4-star performance
for his role as a motivated and determined
young baseball player. Marketing Director
Justin Proctor said, "Our film represents
a piece of American history while offering
non-traditional distributors an opportunity
to broaden and diversify their entertainment
selections for viewers." It's obvious
the soundtrack will be worth a listen to
on your iPod, bringing in an exciting combination
of jazz, a slight change for the youth.
Of note film contributors include Jordan
Brand, Apple, and Budweiser. The film's
scheduled release date for both theater
and DVD is set for April 7th, 2006.
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