March 29, 2006

UNPRODUCTIVE SUGAR CANE CROP

      Camagüey – Nearly two months after concluding the sugar cane crop, Castro’s government has acknowledged that this is going to be the worst crop in more than a century. At a sugar experts meeting in the Vertientes region, where two years ago operated the Panamá sugar mill, now discontinued, more than a hundred technicians acknowledged the industry’s collapse, its decay, as well as the improbability of recovering, in a short term, the efficiency and quality of the Cuban sugar cane production, which was the main motor of the island’s economy in almost three centuries. It is expected that at the end of the crop, production will amount to one million and a half tons, a figure incapable of fulfilling all internal needs and commitments. It is presumed that the government will have to buy sugar in order to satisfy the population.

JUVENILE DELINQUENTS

      Havana – A group of juvenile delinquents attacked four independent investigators who were studying police corruption and its connection with organized crime, in this capital’s Cerro Municipality, as informed by the ¨George Washington¨ Center of Studies and Investigations. According to the report, observers Ernesto Ponce de León, Santiago García Cárdenas, Alejandro Hernández Becerra and Héctor Alonso Santos, were surprised by hoodlums as they were watching them in the process of coordinating their activities, at the corner of Calzada del Cerro and ¨Aguila¨ Streets, on the Havana Center neighborhood, before several uniformed police agents, who did not dare to intervene in the struggle. ¨Ernesto was thrown to the ground, as they threw bottles to Santiago and Alejandro was beated with a stick, while two of them tried to kick me¨, said to Carta de Cuba Héctor Alonso Santos, National Coordinator of the ¨30 de Noviembre Frank País¨ Democratic Party. At the Cerro Municipality, there are more than ten gangs of juvenile delinquents operating, assaulting in broad daylight both natives and tourists on Monte Street, very close to Fraternity Park, as well as on such main streets as Belascoaín, Reina and Carlos III Avenue. Likewise, thugs operate in the Cuatro Caminos Marketplace, in Vía Blanca and Calzada de 10 de Octubre and other areas in the municipalities around Havana Center, 10 de Octubre and Old Havana, without the police being able to control or arrest them

ONE OF THE MORE SEVERE DROUGHTS IN A HUNDRED YEARS

      Havana – Cuba is facing a severe drought situation, considered as the fifth worst in the last hundred years, according to an analysis from the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources, reported by the Cuban press. Between November, 2005 and the past month of February, there was an acute descent in the precipitations in twelve of the fourteen provinces in the country, and the registered rains represent only 64% of the historic average on a national scale. The most worrying situations with the water supply to the population are being reported in the cities of Holguín, whose dams are only full at 28% of their capacity, and Camagüey (at 38%), both located on the western part of the island.

CUBA IS THE NATION SUFFERING MOST PRESS RESTRICTIONS

      Quito, Ecuador – According to the final conclusions on the middle of the year meeting of the Inter American Press Society, Cuba is the country in America where the independent press is suffering more restrictions. The document summarizing the meeting states that Cuba ¨continues being the most repressive nation in this continent, with scarce possibilities of change under Fidel Castro’s regime¨. At present, 25 independent journalists are on jails in the Caribbean island, in such deplorable conditions that some of them have resorted to hunger strikes.

POSTAL WORKERS UNDER COERCION

      Ciego de Avila – The Cuban post office company in this province, which is in charge of the new facility giving e-mail services to the city of Morón, is obliged to inform to the political police about the presence there of independent journalists and on the correspondence they are transmitting. State security officers working under the façade of ¨Palmares¨ corporation, an hotel institution operating with foreign capital and in whose installations operates the e-mail station, guarantee such vigilance, in violation of the contract established with the main firm. The reading of private correspondence violates Article 12 of Human Rights Universal Declaration, signed and ratified by the Cuban government.

REPRESSIVE WAVE’S ANNIVERSARY REMEMBERED 

      Ciego de Avila – Independent journalists and collaborators from the free press agency in this city remembered the third anniversary of the repressive wave of March 18, 2003, in a ceremony in which Psalm No. 9 from the Bible, ¨God, refuge of the oppressed¨, was read. At the conclusion, everyone agreed that the whole world should know the truth of what is going on in the country. At the same time, they demanded the liberation of their incarcerated colleagues, remembering the phrase of Cuban national hero José Martí when he said: ¨It seems that a son of mine is killed whenever a man is deprived of thinking freely¨.

AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN FIRMS IN AGRICULTURAL & CATTLE FAIR

      Havana – Around twenty American, Canadian and European firms participate in the International Commercial Fair ¨Fiagro 2006¨, which takes place in Havana, organized by the Cuban Ministry of Agriculture. Since 2001, when agricultural imports from United States were authorized, Cuba has contracted the purchase of more than 6,6 million tons of products from 37 states of the American union, with a total value of 1,757 million dollars.

REPUDIATION ACT TO OPPOSITIONIST LEADER

      Havana – Dozens of Fidel Castro’s followers prevented a meeting of members from an oppositionist group, which was to take place at the dissident leader Vladimiro Roca’s home. ¨Since the night before they had mounted the operative and nobody could enter or leave the house¨, said Roca, by phone, to the international press agencies, from his residence located in the centric area of Vedado. ¨The government keeps aiming towards a violent solution. They try to terrorize the dissidents and their relatives¨, added Roca, who presides the Cuban Social Democratic Party (illegal), which forms part of the ¨Todos Unidos¨ (All United) Movement.

¨INTERNATIONAL WATER DAY WITHOUT THE PRECIOUS LIQUID

      Morón – A great part of this city, on the eastern side of the country, was without any drinking water supply, precisely during the celebration of the ¨International Water Day¨. The aqueduct company excused itself saying that ¨repairs are taking place in order to improve the service¨, which for years has been considered deficient, by the very own municipal officers.

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