Embassy of Cuba in New Zealand Newsletter

Embassy of Cuba in New Zealand Newsletter

9th - 13th International Radio and Television Fair Cuba

16th - 20th XVII Congress of the Mesoamerican Society for Biology and Conservation

November 3rd - 9th Havana International Fair

In this issue

Cuba reiterates need for total nuclear disarmament

Santiago de Cuba to host assembly of the World Council of Civil Engineers

Cuban women are the majority in scientific sector

Cuban doctors train in Brazil to offer medical service

Statement from the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Syria

Cuban writer Jaime Sarusky dies in Havana

Over 85,000 medical students attend schools in Cuba

Over 3000 shipwrecks reported in Cuban waters

Cuba allocates over 1.5 billion Pesos to fund loans

Reflections by Fidel Castro

Cuba reiterates need for total nuclear disarmament

August 23rd

The only way to guarantee that humanity will not again undergo the terrible impact by nuclear weapons is through the prohibition and total elimination of such weapons, said Cuban representative Rodolfo Benitez at an important forum on nuclear disarmament.

Addressing the General Conference of the Organization for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (OPANAL), underway in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Benitez said that nuclear disarmament cannot continue to be a delayed and postponed objective and he called on the regional organization to set a concrete timetable for the complete implementation of the objective in a verifiable, irreversible and transparent manner.

Cuba will also stress at the forum the exclusive use of atomic materials and facilities with peaceful means under the jurisdiction of the parties and will call for the prohibition and prevention of tests, use, manufacture, production or acquisition of nuclear armament through any means, PL news agency reported from Buenos Aires.

The Cuban representative alerted that humanity continues to be under serious risk given the existence of over 17 thousand nuclear weapons in the world. The use of just a very small portion of such arsenal would lead to catastrophic consequences for the planet, he warned.

The huge resources currently being allocated to producing weapons, including atomic armament, could be used instead to fight extreme poverty, which is affecting 1.4 billion people in the world, he pointed out, and went on to say that those resources could also be used to feed the over 1 billion people that go hungry on the planet, avoid the death of 11 million children that die from hunger or preventable diseases every year, or to teach some 759 million illiterate adults how to read and write.

The Buenos Aires forum is being attended by delegates from 33 countries of this part of the world, along with representatives of nuclear-free zones and of civil society organizations involved in the issue of nuclear disarmament.

Santiago de Cuba to host assembly of the World Council of Civil Engineers

August 26th

Santiago de Cuba will be the venue in October of the 8th General Assembly of the World Council of Civil Engineers, based at the Colegio de Caminos, Canales y Puertos in Madrid, Spain.

The annual meeting took place in Mexico on the previous occasion, where Cuba was proponed to host the 2013 edition, coinciding with the carrying out in Santiago de Cuba of the workshop Tourism and Quality, sponsored by the National Association of Architects and Construction Engineers of Cuba (UNAICC).

The meeting of the Council of Professional Associations of Civil Engineers of Portuguese and Spanish Speaking Countries will be held parallel to the meeting of the WCCE.

At present, the organization has members representing 50 nations from all parts of the world.

Cuban women are the majority in scientific sector

August 26th

By the end of 2012, the number of women in the Cuban science and technology sector was reported at 47,609 out of a total of 89,947 workers, which showed a majority of Women, according to data collected by the National Statistics Office.

Women in the scientific sector currently are researchers, technicians as well as staff members, according to the office, which also said that out of the total number of workers 69,803 are university graduates, including researchers.

The number of publications was reported at 149 with a large part of them in the Internet. The largest number of publications (46) belongs to medical sciences, followed by Agronomy (27), Technology (17), and Social sciences (17).

Cuban doctors train in Brazil to offer medical service

August 26th

A 644-member medical contingent, including 400 Cuban professionals, are taking a training course on the Brazilian health system and Portuguese Language in several Brazilian cities, before they begin offering medical services in September.

Brazilian Health minister Alexandre Padilla will inaugurate the course during a meeting with physicians from Cuba, Spain and other countries. The courses will be given in the cities of Fortaleza, in the state of Ceara; Recife, Pernambuco and in Salvador, in Bahia, as well as in Porto Alegre, in Rio Grande do Sul, Belo Horizonte, in Minas Gerais, and in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.

Following the conclusion of the training initiative in different public universities, the professionals will go to the zones where they will work, as of September 16. They will go to 701 municipalities, where most residents live under extreme poverty, said the deputy labor and education secretary with the Health Ministry, Fernando Menezes.

The contingent of foreign doctors began to arrive in Brazil last Friday with 244 from Spain, Argentina, Uruguay and 400 from Cuba. They were taken to different state city capitals in the northern and northeastern areas of the country.

Another group of 1096 Brazilian physicians will join the contingent, which responded to the call by the federal government to boost its More Doctors Program, which was launched last July by President Dilma Rousseff. The program aims at improving healthcare in the country.

Statement from the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Syria

August 28th

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba issued the following statement regarding the growing threats against Syria, which is reproduced below:

The recent pronouncements of the U.S. government and several NATO allies urging military action in Syria, ignoring the efforts of some states to reach a political solution to the conflict that is bleeding that Arab nation are alarming.

It is necessary to remember that those who today advocate military action against Syria are the same that launched bloody wars without a mandate from the Security Council of the United Nations, under the deliberate lie about the existence of weapons of mass destruction or the pretext of civil protection, which caused substantial deaths of innocent people including children, who they qualify as "collateral damage".

There is a call to attack Syria, just as his government has authorized the UN Research Mission into the alleged use of chemical weapons in the country and this has begun work on the ground.

Cuba condemns any use of chemical and other weapons of mass destruction and is firmly committed to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction and with the strict compliance of its provisions.

The available information on the crisis in Syria is fragmented, imprecise and subject to frequent manipulation.

An aggression against Syria would cause serious consequences for the already troubled region of the Middle East, would be a flagrant violation of the principles of the United Nations Charter and international law and increase the dangers to international peace and security.

Cuba reiterates its conviction that it is necessary to find a political solution and expresses its strong opposition to any attempt to undermine the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria and the self-determination of its people.

Cuban writer Jaime Sarusky dies in Havana

August 29th

Cuban writer Jaime Sarusky Miller, winner of the 2004 National Literature Prize, died on Thursday in Havana.

He published his first novel La Busqueda in 1961. He also wrote texts like the novel Rebelion en la octava casa and the reports El tiempo de los desconocidos, as well as El unicornio y otras invenciones, Diario de una revolución, Cuba: La imagen y la Historia, La aventura de los suecos en Cuba and the novel Un hombre providencial, which won the Alejo Carpentier Prize, among other books.

As a journalist, he worked for the Revolucion newspaper and later La Gaceta de Cuba (1965), as well as for Granma newspaper (1967) and Bohemia magazine (1971).

Due to his intellectual work, the 2011 edition of Havana’s International Book Fair was dedicated to him and among prizes received we find the National Culture Medal.

He also wrote for the Cubarte digital newspaper and was a member of the Editorial Board of the Lettres de Cuba magazine.

Over 85,000 medical students attend schools in Cuba

August 30th

About 85,871 Medical Sciences students will go to school in the 2013-2014 school year that begins in Cuba on Monday, September 2, according to preliminary data released today.

According to information provided to by the Vice Ministry for Teaching at the Ministry of Public Health, this will cover two teaching levels: higher education with 13 careers, and technical education with 24.

Only in medicine, in the six years of study, registration rises to 47,676, 37,302 of which are Cubans and 10,374 are from other countries, the daily reported.

This Caribbean country has 36,353 teachers and a network of medical sciences universities in all provinces, except Mayabeque, Artemisa and the Isle of Youth municipality, with independent faculties.

In statements to the newspaper, Jose Emilio Caballero, head of the Department of Revenue and Teaching Processes Control at the Ministry, said this period is characterized by the strengthening of strategies to improve quality of the teaching learning process.

Over 3000 shipwrecks reported in Cuban waters

August 31st

About 3000 shipwrecks have been reported in Cuba, including the Spanish Navegador Frigate, sank in 1814 after a strong winter storm near Santa Cruz del Norte, Mayabeque province.

The frigate was sailing to Havana from England with a shipment of English porcelain dishes, apart from other objects.

Due to its geographical position, the Caribbean country became a commercial route all of kind of products between America and Europe during the colonial period, chiefly the Havana Harbor, revealed a Granma daily report today.

The Cuban coasts and its surroundings sea waters were the stage of an undetermined number of shipwrecks, including ships, frigates, schooners, and other naval transport from the 16th to the 19th century.

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Cuba allocates over 1.5 billion Pesos to fund loans

August 31st

The vice president of the Central Bank of Cuba, Francisco Mayobre, announced that the country has allocated over 1.5 billion pesos to finance loans to the population, reported the local media.

Since Law 289 came into force in December 2011, about 271 loan requests have been approved.

The majority of those requests are related to construction works in houses, including the purchase of building materials and the payment to the labor force, said the vice president of the Central Bank.

According to Mayobre, the loans given to the self-employed, as the private sector workers are known in Cuba, have increased due to the facilities granted to the trade banks to give loans.

The vice president of the Central Bank announced the approval of 91 grants for non-agricultural cooperatives, chiefly for initial working capital, which is expected to promote those new ways of businesses in Artemisa, La Habana, Mayabeque, and Sancti Spiritus provinces.

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