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Cuban doctors' group would tackle global
disasters
HAVANA, Cuba, 13 (AP) -- Cuba announced
Tuesday it would create an organization
of doctors ready for dispatch to natural
disasters around the globe as it continued
to wait for a response to its offer to send
physicians to the United States to aid the
Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.
The communist country has for decades spent
many of its resources on training doctors,
exporting them to help communities in allied
African and Latin American nations.
The offer to send nearly 1,600 doctors
to the United States was a fresh one, however,
and communicated several times by Cuban
President Fidel Castro himself.
But the U.S. government declined to accept
readily, hinting that there were enough
doctors already helping yet stopping short
of saying no.
The doctors "continue training intensely
at the Latin American Medical School, waiting
for a response that has yet to arrive, and
may never come," said a government
statement on Tuesday's front page of Granma,
the Communist Party daily.
Castro's offer to help the United States
post-Katrina put the U.S. government in
an uncomfortable situation -- to accept
help from a nation it has characterized
as an "outpost of tyranny," or
risk being accused of putting politics before
the lives of its own people.
Several Hispanic lawmakers, including Cuban-born
U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez, have urged the United
States to accept the Cuban doctors, while
other Cuban-American members of Congress
applauded the government for not jumping
at the offer.
The group of Cuban doctors was to be formally
converted into an organization of physicians
specialized in dealing with international
disaster situations as well as serious epidemics,
Granma reported.
Many of the doctors already have experience
practicing medicine in crises worldwide,
including last year's Indian Ocean tsunami,
cholera outbreaks in Africa and devastating
flooding in Haiti.
The group's objective will be to "immediately
cooperate ... with any country that suffers
a catastrophe [like Katrina], especially
those confronting ... hurricanes, flooding
and other natural phenomenon," the
Granma statement said.
The new organization was to be formally
created at a graduation ceremony of Cuban
medical students next Monday.
Tens of thousands of Cuban doctors work
on goodwill missions in other nations, especially
in Venezuela, Haiti and several African
countries.
Zimbabwe President, in Cuba, Decries
IMF
By Andrea Rodriguez, Associated
Press Writer, September 10, 2005.
HAVANA - Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe
arrived in Cuba on Saturday, criticizing
the International Monetary Fund, even though
the organization a day earlier deferred
a decision for six months on whether to
expel the African nation.
Mugabe blames Western sanctions and boycotts
for many of his country's problems, including
255 percent inflation and 80 percent unemployment,
and says powers influential in the IMF have
imposed the strictures.
The international lending organization
is "willed by the big powers which
dictate what it should do," Mugabe
told reporters. "We have never been
friends of the IMF and in the future we
will never be friends of the IMF."
But last week Zimbabwe made a surprise
$120 million payment on its IMF debt of
$295 million and the international lender
deferred for six months whether to expel
Zimbabwe, saying the arrears payment and
economic changes figured in the decision.
In Harare Saturday, Zimbabwe state radio
called the postponement an "achievement
against all odds" because of what it
said was a campaign against the United States
and Britain and others "opposed to
Zimbabwe's economic turnaround."
The European Union, the United States and
leading Commonwealth countries including
Australia and Canada have imposed sanctions
against Mugabe.
The IMF suspended aid to Zimbabwe in 1999
after disputes over unbudgeted expenditures,
the value of its currency and the cost of
its participation in the war in Congo. Within
a year the World Bank and the African Development
Bank followed.
By 2001, Zimbabwe had stopped making payments
on all foreign loans. Two years later, the
IMF suspended the country's voting rights
and began the process that could lead to
the country's expulsion.
"IMF is almost never a real assistance
to developing countries," Mugabe said
after arriving on the communist-run island,
which withdrew its involvement with the
IMF many years ago.
Mugabe, making his ninth visit to Cuba
since 1978, said he was looking forward
to meeting with his ally and "brother,"
President Fidel Castro.
Zimbabwe's economy has been in free fall
since March 31 parliamentary elections,
widely seen as fraudulent, gave Mugabe's
African National Union-Patriotic Front 55
of parliament's 120 elected seats.
The IMF board said the deferral gives Zimbabwe
with a further opportunity to strengthen
its cooperation with the IMF in economic
policies and payments.
S.Korean trade agency opens office in
Cuba
Asia Pulse News , September
13, 2005.
SEOUL, Sept 13 Asia Pulse - South Korea's
main trade promotion agency said Tuesday
it has set up an office in Cuba, paving
the way for more local companies to advance
into the major trade hub of the Caribbean
area.
The trade office opened on Monday in Havana,
the capital of Cuba, with which South Korea
has no formal diplomatic relations, the
Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency
(KOTRA) said.
With the new addition, KOTRA now has a
global network of 105 offices in 75 countries
that help South Korean companies sell more
goods in world markets.
"South Korean companies have high
interest in Cuba, as it is a strong economy
with outstanding expertise in medical, information
technology and biotechnology industries,"
Hong Ki-hwa, the president of KOTRA, said
at a launching ceremony held in Havana.
The new office is aimed at heightening
economic ties and increasing investment
cooperation between the two nations, he
said.
The agency forecast that the establishment
of the trade office would help annual bilateral
trade surge to US$500 million from the current
$150 million.
The socialist country is one of the largest
import markets in the region and is expected
to grow as a trade center linking South,
Central and North America with the rest
of the world in the next five to 10 years,
it said.
South Korean automakers such as Hyundai
Motor Co. (KSE:005380) already account for
30 per cent of Cuba's auto industry, while
electronic goods from LG Electronics Inc.
(KSE:066570) and Daewoo Electronics Corp.
take up nearly 70 per cent of the market,
the trade agency said ,adding that the figures
are expected to grow.
KOTRA said it also plans to launch an office
in Monterey in northeastern Mexico on Oct.
4.
Indonesia, Cuba discuss trade cooperation
Asia Pulse News, September
9, 2005.
JAKARTA, Sept 9 Asia Pulse - Indonesia
and Cuba will discuss their bilateral relations
particularly in the economic and trade sectors
in a meeting of the fourth Indonesia-Cuba
joint commission at the Foreign Ministry
here on September 8-9, 2005.
The working groups of the two delegations
during the first day of the meeting agreed
to enhance direct trade between the two
countries.
Indonesia-Cuba trade in 2004 exceeded US$1.3
million, which included Indonesian exports
to Cuba worth US$1,375,370 and imports valued
at US$2,352.
The balance of trade between the two countries
is in Indonesia's favour with a surplus
of US$1,373,018.
Indonesia's exports to Cuba include iron
pipes, rubber and plywood, while its imports
consist of non-oil/gas commodities like
wine and grape.
The obstacles often faced in enhancing
the bilateral trade include the high transporation
cost because of the great distance between
the two countries, and the lack of direct
shipping routes and corresponding banks.
Cuba plans to follow up on the talks on
banking cooperation with Bank Indonesia
(BI) to support the trade relations between
the two countries, said the chairman of
the Cuban working group, Raul Tores, who
is also acting director for foreign investment
and economic cooperation for Asia and Oceania
at the Cuban Foreign Ministry.
The two sides also discussed cooperation
in the field of investment, healthcare and
biopharmacy, agriculture, sugar industry,
sea transporation, technology, education,
sports, tourism and the mass media.
(ANTARA)
U.S. Defeats Cuba in Women's Volleyball
Sun
PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad, 11 (AP) - The
United States beat Cuba 3-2 to win the NORCECA
Women's Continental Championship final on
Sunday.
The Americans, who lost badly to the Cubans
three days ago, won 25-13, 22-25, 27-25,
20-25, 15-10.
Danielle Scott had 20 points and Nancy
Metcalf was named the tournament MVP for
the U.S. team, which qualified for the Grand
Champions Cup event in Japan in November.
Zoila Barros led Cuba with 21 points.
In the third-place match, the Dominican
Republic defeated Puerto Rico 25-19, 25-19,
25-13.
US to buy Venezuelan gas, mull Cuban
offer of doctors
WASHINGTON, 8 (AFP) - The United States
will pay for gasoline Venezuela offered
after Hurricane Katrina cut US production,
and will examine whether Cuban doctors can
work on US soil without US certification,
a top US diplomat said.
"The government of Venezuela has agreed
to send us gasoline; of course we are going
to pay for it, so we appreciate the opportunity
to pay for gasoline," said Roger Noriega,
the US assistant secretary of state for
Western Hemisphere affairs.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced
that Citgo, the US arm of Venezuela's state-owned
PDVSA oil firm, would provide one million
barrels of gasoline and donate up to five
million dollars to US aid organizations
to help with rescue and recovery efforts
along the US Gulf of Mexico coast.
Chavez, a close friend of Cuban President
Fidel Castro who shares the Cuban leader's
passion for anti-US rhetoric, has slammed
US President George W. Bush for his handling
of the disaster, after which thousands are
feared dead.
"For four days there were warnings
that (Katrina) was going to make a direct
hit, and the king of vacations at his ranch
only said 'you must flee.' He did not say
how," Chavez said late last month,
charging that the United States had no evacuation
plans. "It's the rancher mentality."
Venezuela is the fourth-largest supplier
of oil to the United States, but bilateral
relations between Caracas and Washington
have been tense ever since Chavez came to
power.
"It's very, very inspiring that we
have good neighbors and a lot of them have
offered support in times of need, and we
appreciate that very much," said Noriega,
who will resign from his post later this
month.
Noriega said the Bush administration does
not want to "reject symbolic contributions"
and is currently "looking at what various
folks are offering (and) what we need, and
trying to match that."
Cuba and other Latin American nations,
including El Salvador and Peru, offered
to send doctors to help victims of Katrina.
"Some have offered doctors and, frankly,
we have to look for whether it's possible
for a bunch of medical teams to operate
in US territory without the necessary certification,"
he said.
Castro has offered to send the United States
some 1,600 doctors and 34 tonnes of medicine.
Hurricane Katrina made landfall along the
US Gulf Coast on August 29, thrashing the
states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
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