[NYTr] Cuban Radar Newsbriefs - Dec 20, 2007
 
Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 16:20:29 -0600 (CST)


Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
Progreso Weekly - Dec 20, 2007
http://progreso-weekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=272&Itemid=1

Cuban Radar Newsbriefs - December 20, 2007
A service by the Radio Progreso Alternativa Havana Bureau

* Cuba to sign UN conventions
* Demonstration broken up
* New provocations
* Oil production close to 1 million tons in central Cuba
* Guilty of damaging public property

* Cuba to sign UN conventions

In a Dec. 10 press conference, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe PC)rez
Roque announced that the island will bsoonb sign the International
Agreement on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the
International Agreement on Civil and Political Rights.

"The decision attests to the fact that our country will always have a
close cooperation with the United Nationsb system, on the basis of the
right to our national sovereignty and the right of the Cuban people to
free determination,b Minister PC)rez Roque said.

In a clear reference to the situation caused by the U.S. at the former
UN Human Rights Commission, PC)rez Roque added that Cuba does not bend
to impositions of any kind, and that the government decided to sign now
because the present Human Rights Council, which substituted the extinct
Commission, had acted to end the discriminatory tactics against Cuba
and Third World countries advocated by the U.S. and its unconditional
allies.

The subjects contained in the documents that Havana will adhere to
include, among other things, the rights to freedom of association,
residence, speech and peaceful meeting. The issue has caught the
attention of diplomats on the island.

Susan McDade, UN coordinator in Cuba, said that Cubabs action on the
matter is bquite a significant signal.b

Observers noted that the signing of the agreements is part of the
delicate and sometimes imperceptible process of change occurring in
Cuba which should be speeded up next year.

* Demonstration broken up

Around 11 a.m. on Monday, December 10, a demonstration of some 14
dissidents was broken up by government supporters.

Physician Darsy Ferrer had called for a protest in a park at Calzada
Street in the El Vedado neighborhood, across the street from the Cuban
seat of UNESCO. The protest was in relation to the commemoration of
International Human Rights Day.

Since early morning, government supporters were waiting close to the
park. Meanwhile, the police detained some of the protesters.

At the park, the few remaining demonstrators were called bmercenariesb
and btraitorsb by government followers and were violently expelled from
the area.

Manuel del Valle, a Spanish citizen who participated in the protest,
was detained by the police and whisked away in a car. Shortly
thereafter, del Valle was freed together with Cubans Fidel Mojena and
JosC) RodrC-guez.

This is the third public demonstration by dissidents in less than a
week. The first was on December 4 at the eastern city of Santiago de
Cuba. The second took place on Sunday, December 9, when the Ladies in
White called for the freedom of their relatives at the doors of the
National Assembly of Popular Power (Cuban parliament).

* New provocations

The official newspaper Granma in its December 11 edition accuses the
Bush administration of fostering bnew provocations against the dignity
of the Cuban people.b

Under the title bNew Provocations by the U.S. Government,b the article
claims that the dissidencebs latest demonstrations, such as the one by
the Ladies in White in front of the National Assembly of Popular Power,
and the protest in at El Vedado park on (December) the 10th, are
promoted by the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.

"Throughout the year, Interest Section officials have had over 300
contacts of different kinds in order to insure the submission of
mercenary elements,b says the article. A box shows a photo of a group
of dissidents outside the home of an Interest Section official.

In reference to the photo, the article reports that bHours after the
latest incident (December 10), the connivance between Washington and
its lackeys on the island was shamelessly obvious. About 60 mercenaries
flocked obligingly to the home of one of the Interest Section
officials, at 7th on 24th Streets, Miramar, to pick up their
invitations and board the vehicles that took them to the residence of
Michael Parmly, chief of the U.S. mission. Once there, they were warmly
feted for their services and Parmly encouraged them to persevere in
their servile and annexationist attitudes.b

* Oil production close to 1 million tons in central Cuba

Reynaldo RuC-z, general manager of the Oil Drilling and Extraction
Enterprise in Central Cuba announced that on Monday, December 10, his
organization reached 948,755 tons of crude oil. The figure meets the
enterprisebs yearly expectation for the entity that operates in that
region of the island.

Ruiz said the 1 million tons will be produced before the end the year.

* Guilty of damaging public property

The official daily Granma reported Wednesday, December 12, that the San
Miguel del PadrC3n Municipal Court, a suburb of Havana, handed down a 4
year sentence for vandalism against Roylan F AlcalC!.

AlcalC! threw a rock that shattered a glass section of a public busb
middle door because he was unable to get on it, causing the loss of
several trips by the public transport.

In the past weeks the courts have tried and sentenced numerous people
for similar actions. 

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