Almodóvar, Ana Belén and Victor Manuel sing the ‘I Accuse’ against Cuba
March 15, 2010 by
Filed under Politics
Pedro Almodovar, Ana Belén and Victor Manuel had joined representatives of the culture that, last Friday, joined the campaign I accuse the Cuban government to uphold respect for human rights in the country and demand the release “immediately and unconditional release “of political prisoners of the regime.
The Spanish filmmaker’s own production company confirmed its support for this campaign while the singers joined anonymously by completing the registration form from the website where the incentive was launched last Friday.
According to the Web, as are 5,000 people “worldwide” who have signed “for a democratic horizon for Cuba in which there is no place for persecution for political reasons.”
The director and singers join other cultural personalities like Fernando Savater, Elvira Lindo, her husband, Antonio Munoz Molina and Juan Marse.
The letter published on the website calls for “the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners in Cuban jails” and “respect for the implementation, promotion and defense of human rights anywhere in the world.”
Also expressed condemnation to death of opponent Orlando Zapata, on 23 February, following a hunger strike.
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Cuban dissidents labeled the excellent decision to lift restrictions on Obama
April 22, 2009 by
Filed under Politics
The Cuban internal dissent described today as “excellent” by the news that the U.S. president, Barack Obama, decided to lift restrictions on travel and remittances from those who have relatives in the island. Opposition representatives said that now the ball is on the roof of the Government chaired by General Raúl Castro, who claimed to release political prisoners and allowing the departure of the Cubans on the island freely.
“I think a good thing, very positive, that the Cuban people will receive with joy,” he told Efe the economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe, one of the 75 caught in the “black spring” of 2003, which now has a non-licensed .
Obama ordered the Departments of State, Treasury and Commerce to launch delay, the lifting of restrictions on family travel and remittances to Cuba, said today in Washington Efe a senior.
In addition, the U.S. Administration will issue to facilitate communications with the island and make an appeal to the Government of Havana not to interfere with shipments.
“I expected this because I believe a man of honor and he said it was going to do,” Espinosa said in reference to Obama’s decision.
“Now we expect the Cuban government, which is a new situation and has no speech for President Obama,” he said.
He added that the “logic” says that Havana should respond with an attitude of “softening, flexibility, these new circumstances,” although Cuba has often gone against that. ”
To Elizardo Sanchez, a Cuban Commission for Human Rights recognized by the government, the step taken by Obama’s “Chronicle of a decision announced” that can “facilitate the process towards normalization of bilateral relations.”
Sanchez believes that the decision to Obama now demand a determination “similar” in Havana with the application of Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on freedom of transit, so that Cubans can come and go “free of island. ”
“Hopefully at least a symmetrical response of the Government of Cuba, although I must confess my skepticism,” said Sanchez.
He added that measures taken in Washington and announcements from General Castro on his willingness to talk are still “modest steps” to normalize relations.
Miriam Leiva, a founder of the Ladies in White (relatives of those imprisoned in 2003), noted that Obama’s decision “very important” because it removes an artificial separation of families and helps those who desperately need help here. ”
But it thinks that would require that “the Congress (U.S.) to allow Americans to travel freely to Cuba,” not only to those who have relatives on the island, “because that would create a contact that will allow an exchange very beneficial. ”
He insisted that now “there has to be positive steps” in Havana, to “show goodwill” as “lift the blockade that the government has for the Cubans.”
“I applaud the move by Obama,” he told Efe in turn Hector Palacios, another prisoner of the group of 75 with a non-licensed, and added that Cuba has to take the next step with the release of political prisoners.
The Cuban government also has to get out of the trench and allow people to travel if you want, said Palacios, who last week presented a paper of three opposition groups are demanding that Obama’s arrival to ensure that money intended to Washington internal opposition on the island.
Vladimiro Roca, the Agenda for the Transition, said that the measure of Obama’s “positive” and said that the decision taken in 2004 by then-President George W. Bush to increase the period to three years between trips to the island Cuban-Americans “do not hurt the people and the Cuban government.”
However, Rock did not see “for now” an eventual normalization of relations between the two countries.
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Obama today signed a budget law that relaxes restrictions on travel to Cuba
March 13, 2009 by
Filed under Politics
Washington, 11 mar (EFE) .- The U.S. president, Barack Obama, is scheduled to sign today the relaxation of restrictions on travel and remittances to Cuba, a measure contained in a budget law that passed the Senate last night. The White House confirmed to Efe that “expects” Obama sign today so far, something that could at 1120 local time (15.20 GMT), when according to his official schedule has scheduled an announcement on the specific budget items that Congress added to the law, often to benefit their constituency.
The law passed last night by the Senate reversed a series of measures that the former president, George W. Bush had adopted in 2004 and tightened the conditions for sending remittances or traveling to the island, against the U.S. maintains an embargo for over 45 years.
Now, Americans can visit their relatives in Cuba once a year by the time they want, instead of once every three years and only for fourteen days as was the case since 2004.
From now on, these people may also spend on the island up to $ 170 per day, instead of the 50 authorized by Bush.
In addition, more flexible regulations governing the export of medicines and food to the island, which until now were limited to one hundred U.S. dollars a month.
It also expands the definition of family to include cousins, aunts and uncles. So far only one could visit relatives or to rescue up to second degree: parents, siblings, children, grandparents or grandchildren.
This means that many more U.S. citizens may travel to the island and many more Cuban citizens may receive assistance from their relatives in the U.S.
The law is expected to adopt today Obama may be a prelude to a deeper review of its policy towards Cuba.
“We review our policy towards Cuba in order to determine how best to encourage democratic change on the island and improve the lives of its people,” he said on Tuesday the U.S. Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner.
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Obama creates a new post responsible for information technology
March 6, 2009 by
Filed under Politics
The U.S. president, Barack Obama, on Thursday created the new post of responsibility for the information, by the investment policy and control of federal spending on information technology, announced the White House.
Obama appointed Vivek Kundra, the current strategy and operations officer of technology in the municipality of Washington, for the position of federal chief information at the White House.
Obama and meets one of his campaign promises of bringing the government in the twenty-first century “to use new technologies to reform and encourage exchanges between Americans and their executive.
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Chinese governor of Tibet said that it needs more law enforcement
March 6, 2009 by
Filed under Politics
“We demand more (players) for the armed police, police and security,” the governor said, warning that “further incidents could erupt promoted by the Dalai Lama clique”, the spiritual leader of Tibetans.
Although said to fear that exiled Tibetans attempting to incite unrest in the region, Qiangba expressed his confidence that the riots are not repeated last year, which began on March 14 in Lhasa and then spread to other areas on the eve of the Olympics Beijing.
Tibetan exile says that 200 people died in the violent repression of those demonstrations, but Beijing claims that there were only 21 victims who died at the hands of “agitators” Tibetans.
In the months before the Olympic Games in Beijing, the Province of Xinjiang, a Muslim majority region of China, was the scene of protests by the ethnic Uighur and a strong repression.
The chairman of the regional government of that province, called the East Turkestan independence movement, also spoke on Friday of security.
“The situation is more severe, the task harder and fight more fiercely in the region this year,” said Nur BEKRI, quoted by the New China News Agency.
“Independence of Taiwan, East Turkestan, Tibet and other separatist forces represent a greater security threat to the unity of our nation,” he said last January, the Chinese spokesman for the ministry of Defense, Hu Changming.
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Sarkozy to Mexico to join forces in the international arena
March 6, 2009 by
Filed under Politics
PARIS (AFP) – French President Nicolas Sarkozy, begins Sunday in Mexico for an official visit “to join forces at the international level, especially in the upcoming G20 summit in London on the global crisis and the relationship with Cuba as a source of Elysée.
A case of a French woman convicted of the Mexican justice to 60 years in prison for kidnapping will also be addressed in the talks with President Sarkozy of Mexico Felipe Calderón, told the press the same source of the palace. France has “the desire to strengthen cooperation and join forces in the international arena” with Mexico, a country with which it maintains a “political no clouds,” said the source who requested anonymity.
He stated that France is working “shoulder to shoulder” with Mexico for the G8 to become G13 on a permanent basis and recalled that Mexico is currently the coordinator of the G5 (China, Brazil, India, Mexico and Argentina).
The next meeting is April 2 in London’s G20 summit, the G8 together with the major emerging countries, to which Mexico and Paris seek “closer together”.
We also talk about Cuba after the “starting point” meant that the recent mission in Havana, former French Socialist minister Jack Lang, said the source who denied that Paris is preparing a presidential trip to the island. “No visit to Cuba in preparation,” he said.
On Wednesday, after reporting to Sarkozy on his mission, Lang said that “prepares a presidential visit” but clarified that the president “has not yet taken any decision.”
“Mexico has always had a very careful policy towards Cuba, and President Sarkozy will listen carefully to” what you say Calderon, said the source of the Elysée questioned whether France and Mexico are working together on Cuba.
In any case highlighted the “unanimity” of Latin America to demand the lifting of the embargo the U.S. imposed on Cuba since 1962.
Sarkozy and Calderon, who will meet Sunday night at a “private and relaxed” along with his wife, Carla Bruni, Margarita Zavala, will meet four times on Monday, during the official agenda of the visit.
The case of Florence Cassez, the French 34 years on appeal on Tuesday sentenced in Mexico to 60 years in prison for kidnapping, is also among the topics the two leaders discussed.
“Florence Cassez can choose between an action on appeal or request a transfer to a French prison, as permitted in international force, said the source.
This visit, Sarkozy will go with three contracts under the arm, one on building a factory for vaccines and another on installing security cameras in the City and a third on the sale of helicopters.
In Australia-France relations “everything is perfect but there is an achievement gap,” said the source.
Mexico is the fourth largest trading partner of France in the entire Western Hemisphere, behind the United States, Brazil and Canada, with a volume of 2660 million in bilateral trade (according to 2006 figures).
A total of 300 French firms established in Mexico registered a turnover of 12,000 million dollars and generates about 80,000 jobs.
The official agenda will start on Monday, when Sarkozy, who will be accompanied by several ministers, including Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, is received at the National Palace in Mexico.
Then attend a formal sitting of the Senate and will meet with the mayor of Mexico City, Marcelo Ebrard.
Responsible for large French companies will be part of the delegation will attend a bilateral business meeting.
