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Yahoo!
April 29, 2002.
Seven immigrants sent back to Cuba
Sat Apr 27,10:26 PM ET
MIAMI (AP) - The Coast Guard rescued seven Cuban immigrants on a homemade
sailboat and returned the men to Cuba on Saturday, authorities said.
The immigrants were rescued Wednesday, 250 miles west of Fort Myers, and
given food, water and medical treatment. Officials said they were returned to
Bahia de Cabanas, Cuba.
Generally, Cubans who reach U.S. soil are allowed to stay while those
intercepted at sea are sent back.
Uruguay to keep consular relations with Cuba
By Raul Garces, Associated Press Writer. Sat Apr 27, 5:39
PM ET
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) - Uruguay's President Jorge Batlle said Saturday
his country will maintain consular relations with Cuba, despite a deep row
between the two countries in recent weeks.
On Tuesday, Batlle announced diplomatic ties with the Caribbean nation
would be broken after a war of words between Cuban President Fidel Castro and
the Uruguayan head of state.
The Cuban ambassador to Uruguay was later told to leave in 72 hours.
However on Saturday, Batlle told reporters that consular relations would
continue.
"We aren't going to ask any other country to look after our concerns,"
Batlle said.
The souring of relations started in the run-up to a U.N. vote on Cuba's
human rights record, sponsored by Uruguay.
The resolution invited the communist-run country to provide its people with
greater civil and political rights. It also exhorted Cuba to allow a U.N.
representative to visit the island — an idea Havana rejected.
The resolution was eventually passed April 19 by the U.N. Human Rights
Commission in Geneva, by a tight 23-21 with nine abstentions.
That caused Castro to label Batlle "a lackey" of the United
States. On Monday he said the president was a "hungover, abject Judas who
presides over Uruguay."
Batlle cut ties the next day, complaining that insults by Cuban leaders "continued
to escalate in tone" to the point that Uruguay was forced to act.
"The rupture will remain until it is clear that the Cuban people have
peace and liberty," Batlle said at a news conference.
Diplomatic relations between Uruguay and Cuba were restored in 1986, a year
after the end of 12 years of right-wing military-dictatorship in Uruguay that
had interrupted ties.
Nor is Uruguay the only Latin American nation whose ties with Cuba are under
heavy strain.
Relations between Cuba and Mexico plunged to one of their lowest points in
100 years of diplomacy when Castro aired a tape recording that he said made
Mexican President Vicente Fox sound like a liar.
Both sides, however, have insisted that relations will not be severed.
Alfredo Leiseca, beloved Miami poet, killed in hit and run
Sat Apr 27, 8:17 PM ET
MIAMI - Police are still searching for the hit-and-run driver who killed one
of Miami's most revered Cuban poets.
Alfredo Leiseca, 58, was run down while standing on the corner of a Miami
intersection April 8. He was in a coma until he died April 19 at Jackson
Memorial Hospital.
Friends and family of Leiseca said the poet was on his way to visit friends
the night of the accident.
Leiseca is remembered most for his poetry. Several of his books were
published. His latest work, "Absent and Present," is a satire about
Cuba's political regimes.
Leiseca came to Miami from Cuba when he was 15 and graduated from Lindsey
Hopkins Technical Education Center. He then received a bachelor's degree from
Mexico's University of the Americas. He returned to Miami and got an economics
degree from Florida International University.
A witness to the accident said the driver of the car briefly looked back at
Leiseca's body before driving off. | 
