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Cuba launches program with Canadian
firm to increase nickel and cobalt production
HAVANA, 19 (AP) - Cuba, among the world's
largest nickel and cobalt producers, has
launched a program with Canadian mining
firm Sherritt International Corp. (TSX:S)
to increase output by about half to 49,000
tonnes annually, state media said Wednesday.
The government's Cubaniquel and Sherritt
are now in the "construction phase"
of their expanded production program at
the Moa mining facility in the eastern province
of Holguin, the Communist Party newspaper
Granma reported.
The daily quoted Cuban Basic Industries
Minister Yadira Garcia as saying that the
expanded production program was "the
toughest goal the Canadians and the Cubans
have faced" in the mining program.
According to Cuban figures released when
the plan was announced a year ago, the expansion
will increase nickel and cobalt production
at the plant by around 50 per cent, from
about 35,000 tonnes in 2004.
Nickel is needed to produce stainless steel
and cobalt is used for creating alloys necessary
for jet engines and in high technology components.
The $450-million-US expansion project was
announced in Havana in March 2005 by Cuban
President Fidel Castro and Sherritt International
President Ian Delaney.
Ex-Caracas Oil Head: Don't Invest in
Cuba
By Fabiola Sanchez, Associated
Press Writer. April 17, 2006.
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuela's
plans to refurbish an idled Soviet-era refinery
in Cuba represent a lost investment for
this oil-rich South American nation, a former
president of the state-run oil company said
Monday.
The Cuban government and state oil company
Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, announced
an agreement last week for PDVSA to invest
US$83 million (euro69 million) to rehabilitate
the facility in the southern coastal city
of Cienfuegos to refine, store and distribute
crude oil.
But former PDVSA president Guaicaipuro
Lameda criticized the deal, saying the refinery
is too old to run profitably and too many
of its Russian-made parts would have to
be replaced.
"Making an investment to make that
refinery function doesn't permit recovering
the investment," said Lameda, who resigned
in 2002 and quickly became one of the government's
most outspoken critics.
Lameda accused Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez of investing in the aging refinery
as a means of giving economic support to
his close ally, Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
The rehabilitated refinery would produce
about 15,000 barrels of gasoline, 14,000
barrels of diesel, 7,000 barrels of jet
fuel, 33,000 barrels of fuel oil and 1,000
barrels of liquefied petroleum gas per day,
according to PDVSA.
Production is expected to meet local demand,
plus a surplus of about 9,000 barrels of
gasoline and 600 barrels of aviation fuel
to be exported each day to the Caribbean
market.
Cuba will control 51 percent of the new
joint venture, called PDV-CUPET SA, with
Venezuela holding the rest.
Lameda said a 2001 economic-risk study
showed that revamping the refinery would
be a bad investment.
"Today it's less profitable because
it's passed more time inactive," he
said.
Since taking office in 1999, the left-leaning
Chavez has moved to strengthen ties with
communist-led Cuba.
Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil
exporter, ships roughly 100,000 barrels
of oil a day to Cuba under preferential
terms, while Castro's government has sent
thousands of doctors to treat the poor in
this South American nation.
Venezuela is expanding its refining operations
throughout Latin America. PDVSA plans to
build a refinery in Brazil and increase
output at refineries in Jamaica and Uruguay.
Demonstrators Bring 'Vamos A Cuba' Protests
To School Board
WPLG Click10.com, April
19, 2006.
Demonstrators convened outside the Miami-Dade
County school board building Tuesday to
protest a Spanish-language travel book about
Cuba that some Cuban immigrants feel doesn't
belong on school shelves.
"Vamos a Cuba" was pulled from
Marjory Stoneman Douglas Elementary School
earlier this month after a parent who emigrated
from the communist country complained to
school administrators that the book doesn't
accurately represent life there.
The book is geared toward second- and third-grade
readers, and details the events and institutions
in Cuba born under Fidel Castro's regime.
School officials said the book includes
images of smiling children wearing uniforms
of a communist youth group and a carnival
celebrating the Cuban revolution of 1959.
In a letter to the school board, Superintendent
Rudy Crew states that the book paints those
events in a benign way and has called for
the removal of the book from all schools.
But the school board voted 6-3 against
yanking the book from school shelves, instead
leaving it up to individual schools to decide.
The English-language edition of the book
is titled "A Visit to Cuba."
Chavez Seeking to Militarize Venezuela
By Fabiola Sanchez, Associated
Press Writer. April 18, 2006.
CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez
constantly warns Venezuelans a U.S. invasion
is imminent. Now he's begun training a civilian
militia as well as the Venezuelan army to
resist in the only way possible against
a much better-equipped force: by taking
to the hills and fighting a guerrilla war.
Supporters of the president, a former paratroop
commander, are increasingly taking up his
call. Chavez wants 1 million armed men and
women in the army reserve, and 150,000 have
already joined, surpassing the regular military's
force of 100,000. Now Venezuelans are also
organizing neighborhood-based militia units
for Chavez's Territorial Guard.
Critics of Chavez say the real goal of
the mobilization is to create the means
to suppress internal dissent and defend
Chavez's presidency at all costs. Thousands
of Territorial Guard volunteers - housewives,
students, construction workers - are undergoing
training, earning $7.45 per session.
"We're going to be a country of soldiers,"
declares Roberto Salazar, an unemployed
49-year-old, after scrambling under barbed
wire, wading through a mud trench and skirting
burning tires with other volunteers.
Venezuela's citizen-soldiers come mostly
from the slums where Chavez draws his fiercest
support. They train on weekends, learning
how to handle assault rifles and run obstacle
courses through clouds of tear gas.
"Venezuelans need to know how to be
military people so that we can defend our
fatherland and our president," Salazar
says.
Chavez insists the plotters of a 2002 coup
that briefly unseated him had Washington's
blessing. The United States quickly recognized
the interim leaders; U.S. intelligence documents
indicate the CIA knew dissident military
officers were plotting against Chavez.
Chavez now says all Venezuelans must be
prepared for a "war of resistance,"
and has noted that the hills around Caracas
provide excellent cover.
U.S. troops would "bite the dust,"
he maintains, if they try to oust him and
seize Venezuela's vast oil reserves. Top
defense officials say Venezuela must prepare
for "asymmetrical" war - military
parlance for using non-conventional means
against a traditional army.
Venezuela's army reserve has grown from
30,000 in 2004, says Gen. Alberto Muller
Rojas, a top military adviser to Chavez.
The reservists are to be issued some of
the army's older Belgian FAL assault rifles
once Venezuela receives 100,000 new Kalashnikovs
from Russia - approximately one for every
regular soldier.
U.S. officials express concern that Chavez
could be trying to export revolution. Chavez
calls that an invention, and says the weapons
will be needed for the 1 million Venezuelans
he wants to arm. The civilian militias will
not be issued firearms but their commanders
say weapons would be made available in an
emergency.
Critics also accuse Chavez of trying, Cuban-style,
to consolidate power by assigning soldiers
community tasks like serving as crossing
guards and treating the poor in health clinics.
"The military devotion to Chavez is
one of two keys to Chavez's survival. The
other is the devotion of the poor,"
says Larry Birns of the Washington-based
Council on Hemispheric Affairs. "It's
an act of desperation to form an armed civilian
militia. He may have reached that point
where he feels a faction of the military
is untrustworthy."
Rather than trying to topple Chavez with
an invasion, it's more likely Washington
is trying to undermine him by courting potential
rivals within the military, Birns says.
Chavez has in turn sought to reward loyalty,
granting handsome pay raises throughout
the military. He expelled a U.S. military
attache in February, accusing him of espionage.
Washington expelled a Venezuelan diplomat
in retaliation and has denied any attempts
to overthrow Chavez.
In a recent interview, U.S. Ambassador
William Brownfield resisted making judgments
about the reserve force.
It's up to Venezuela's government and people
to decide "how big a reserve force
they want, what sort of chain of command
they believe this reserve force should have,
whether this reserve force should in fact
be located in each and every block or town
or village throughout the country,"
Brownfield said.
Chavez reminds his people the United States
invaded Grenada and Panama to topple regimes
it considered hostile. In both cases, resistance
quickly crumbled.
Cuba's defeat of a CIA-trained force at
the Bay of Pigs in 1961 is the model Chavez
wants to follow.
The national guard has even enlisted an
army of 500 Indians to defend the country
with poison-tipped arrows, Chavez said recently,
adding: "If they had to take a good
shot at any invader, you'd be done for in
30 seconds, my dear gringo."
Associated Press writer Natalie Obiko
Pearson contributed to this report.
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