U.S. fugitive Charles Hill, left, walks with his lawyer Jason Flores Williams

HAVANA, june 12th  (AP) –  Two American fugitives who fled to Cuba after they were accused of killing police officers said Friday that Cuban officials have assured them that detente with the United States will not lead to their extradition.

The United States and Cuba held a second round of law-enforcement talks last month dedicated partly to resolving the fate of scores of fugitives after more than a half century with almost no cooperation. The talks are part of a series of U.S.-Cuba negotiations aimed at normalizing relations after the two countries declared an official end to Cold War hostilities on Dec. 17, 2014.

The discussions have raised U.S. law enforcement hopes that fugitives living in Cuba for decades will return to the United States to face trial or serve prison under plea deals.

Charles Hill, a black militant wanted in the 1971 slaying of a New Mexico state policeman, told The Associated Press that Cuban government contacts had recently reassured him he was at no risk of extradition. Nehanda Abiodun, another black militant wanted in a 1981 armored car robbery that left two police offers and a security guard dead, told the AP she had recently received a similar promise.

Cuba is home to dozens of people wanted in the United States on charges ranging from Medicare fraud to killings committed in the name of black and Puerto Rican revolution movements in the 1970s and ’80s. Cuba has asked the United States to return a smaller number of people, including Luis Posada Carriles, the alleged mastermind of a series of terror attacks against Cuba, including the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed all 73 people on board.

Cuba’s head of U.S. affairs told the AP shortly after the declaration of detente that Cuba was entitled to grant asylum to U.S. fugitives, a sign that people the country once saw as fellow revolutionary fighters will remain safe. The most prominent is Assata Shakur, who is on the FBI’s list of most-wanted terrorists. She broke out of a prison where she was serving a conviction for murdering a New Jersey state trooper. She was regularly spotted in Havana after fleeing to Cuba but has not been seen here in public in recent years.

Hill said he had contacted his Cuban government handlers about three weeks ago after seeing reports that progress was being made in negotiations that could lead to his extradition.

“My people assured me that no, that’s not going to take place,” Hill said. “I said what’s the status and they said there’s no problem.

“The future is very difficult,” he said. “I don’t know, but I think the Cuban government is going to maintain their position. I feel very tranquil.”

Abiodun said Cuban agents recently told her she’s still safe on the island.

“I feel good,” she said. “I have been assured that my safety is secure.

“I am very, very thankful for their generosity, not only for me but for other comrades that have unfortunately had to leave the United States because of political oppression.”

New Mexico State Police Chief Pete Kassetas said the thaw of U.S. relations with Cuba has increased his hope that Cuba will facilitate the transfer home of Americans accused of violent crimes, including Hill.

He called fleeing the country a cowardly act on Hill’s part and said that “if any country can afford him a fair trial, it is the United States.”

Kassetas said he would expect Hill to face federal charges in connection with a 1971 hijacking of a plane that brought him to Cuba, along with murder charges at the state level. Hill denies killing State Police Officer Robert Rosenbloom during a traffic stop.

U.S. Sen. Tom Udall said Thursday that he wants to “leverage the re-opening of relations with Cuba to finally bring Charlie Hill to justice.”

The Democratic senator for New Mexico traveled to Cuba in March with President Barack Obama and said he met with Cuban officials to discuss the possibility of returning Hill to the United States. He said the case was brought up during two past dialogues on law enforcement issues.

“I have heard reports that Charlie Hill wants to return to the United States,” Udall said in an email. “And I would encourage him and his attorney to work with law enforcement and the United States government to facilitate the transfer.”

Hill’s lawyer, Jason Flores-Williams, said Hill was confident about his client’s ability to stay in Cuba but the new era of U.S.-Cuba normalization had created some uncertainty.

“With the normalization of relations we have concerns that the U.S. may be, as they have in the past in Latin America, using monetary leverage to try to get in so that they can appease the law-and-order forces in America currently via the extradition of Mr. Hill,” he said.

A spokesman for the FBI in Albuquerque declined to comment on Hill and prospects for his return.

Update from our article  “Entrenar a un perro para pelear, ¿otro tipo de abuso animal ?”
ANSWER of The Association of animals and plants in Cuba (Aniplant)

Havana, 8 June from small and even before birth these dogs are used by their owners to fight. Their lives are summarized in strong training and fighting to the death in the clandestine fences. Their masters aims to make money on betting, for others it is just fun.

Pit bulls is the most visible face of animal abuse in Cuba, not only because of the violence of which animals make sample during combat but also because they are badly wounded and often lose their lives due to the fact that many of these clashes will only end when one of the two opponents die.

Adrian Gomez, vet and trainer of dogs for fighting, says one of its methods. “I specialize in the care and training of dogs. I am a graduate of veterinary at the Agrarian University of Havana, I found the dogs fight in a way of life. Train, care for, and prepare a dog for fighting is an investment that is recovered in the betting. Supply dogs ideally calculated doses of steroids and hormones, such as testosterone. In this way increase the aggressiveness of the animal in combat, as well as all their physical capabilities; strength, speed and endurance. Ephedrine also helps optimize the qualities of the dog.”

A normal training session can begin forcing the dog to hang a tire of automobile with its jaws, for as long as possible. “In this way it increases considerably the bite force”.

“Exercises special weight, run the dog in the sand of the beach for more than 45 minutes, swim sessions and race for more than 8 km pulling me mounted on a bicycle, part of special exercises for strength and resistance training.” Up and down bleachers in a stadium also is necessary for dog take ‘bomb’ (resistance). “One of the final stages is to take to fight the dog with another, but with a muzzle in the mouth that you learn to resist the bites of his opponent and learn to sidestep, to put the body”, added Raúl Santos, colleague of Adrian.

All of these methods are used by several months. The special diet of red meat as the beef or the RAM in the initial stage, and the fish and chicken in the final stage of training, form part of the “investment” which talked about Adrian.

When the owners of dogs considered that these do not apply to fights, they end up being abandoned, strangled, or even degollados.

“The best trainers of dogs in Cuba have come to the conclusion that the more suffers the dog in its training, stronger becomes, and therefore best fighter. It’s better train the animal for their own benefit, in this way will stay alive longer,”says other preparers, who did not want to reveal his identity.

Authorities that bark but not bite

Noel Hernández, active captain of the PNR (National Revolutionary Police) in San José de las Lajas, speaks on the topic:

“The NRP works continuously to try to eradicate the problem of dogfighting. It is very difficult because clandestine fences are constantly changing place and even have people watching several kilometres with mobile phones that warn if a police operational approaches. Then it is very difficult to fight them, we have arrested several people who we know are dedicated to that but only puts them a fine and remain at liberty. I think that if a stronger measure applies to this serious problem is it eradicated once and for all.”

The protection of animals of the city (PAC) is an organization that does not have legal recognition, formed by a group of activists. They have managed to collect 8 thousand signatures of the 10 mil required to submit to the Committee on constitutional and Legal Affairs of the National Assembly of people’s power a proposal of law that protect animals from abuse.

According to Sucel jury, main organizer of PAC, the usual acts of cruelty and abuse that can be seen on the Cuban streets, as well as clandestine fights, are sufficient arguments to demonstrate the urgent need to legislate in this area.

The Association of animals and plants in Cuba (Aniplant) has also exposed this serious situation on different occasions. In the 1980s, Aniplant presented a draft law on welfare and even animal protection in 2016 has not received response from the Cuban Government.

HAVANA, June 7th Japan’s largest trading houses are positioning themselves in Cuba before any easing of U.S. sanctions, seeking opportunities in infrastructure, resources and automobiles as the Caribbean nation emerges from near-isolation.

Mitsubishi Corp., the nation’s largest trader, opened an office this month in Havana and is currently researching potential business deals, according to a spokesman. Mitsui & Co. will open an office as soon as September and is considering exporting Cuban nickel, according to a spokesman. Marubeni Corp. expects the removal of sanctions to unleash pent-up demand for cars and industrial machines, and the company also plans to open an office, it said earlier this year.

President Barack Obama is seeking to normalize relations and establish closer ties with Cuba, signaling an end to five decades of sanctions that left the country starved of cash and little changed since Fidel Castro’s revolution in 1959. Moody’s Investor Servicesexpects Cuba to grow 3 percent in 2016. That would be a bright spot in Latin America, which is forecast to contract 1.4 percent this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

First Movers
“If there are opportunities, they would be the first ones to go in,” said Polina Diyachkina, an analyst at Macquarie Group Ltd. who covers the Japanese trading houses. “It’s the job of trading companies to find new markets. Cuba has been closed for so many years and has been a market that has been very poor. There must be rich opportunities on the industrial side and infrastructure, as well as consumer products such as automobiles.”

Profits at the companies known as “sogo shosha” hit record lows in the latest fiscal year on a drop in commodity prices. Mitsubishi and Mitsui reported their first ever annual losses due primarily to writedowns on energy and metal assets. Now they arestrengthening non-resource business units including health care and consumer-goods manufacturing.

Mitsubishi is currently exporting coffee beans from island and will hire two Cuban nationals for the new office, a spokesman said Monday. The company supplies beans and coffee products, including soluble coffee and extract, to roasters and instant-coffee makers, according to the company’s website.

Cuba Confidence
Trading houses are eyeing Cuba as Japan’s confidence in the rest of Latin America wanes. Business confidence of Japanese companies in Latin America fell last year due to the drop in oil prices and a worsening political environment, according to a government survey. That compares to 2011, when their confidence in the regionexceeded that of India and China.

Switzerland’s Nestle SA entered Cuba in 1996 and Brazil’s Odebrecht SA led the $1 billion expansion of the island’s Mariel port. Meanwhile, many U.S. companies remain wary of investing in an economy hobbled by the trade embargo, restrictive labor laws and a currency system that uses a convertible and non-convertible peso. Only the U.S. Congress has the ability to remove the U.S. trade embargo with Cuba, and the Republican majority has blocked any attempt to do so.

Cuba is hoping to increase foreign direct investment and has set a target of $2.5 billion a year, according to Richard E. Feinberg, a professor at the University of California San Diego, who recently published a book on the new Cuban economy.

“Trading companies are looking for emerging markets that can deliver growth significantly higher” than the global average, said Tom O’Sullivan, founder of Tokyo-based consultant Mathyos. “Cuba must be a possibility given the rapprochement with the U.S. and possible easing of sanctions.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-07/japan-trading-houses-knocking-on-cuba-s-door-amid-u-s-opening

Puerto Rico’s Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla (C), talks to journalists in Havana, Cuba, June 4, 2016. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini

HAVANA ,june 5th (Reuters)  Puerto Rico has taken the first steps toward opening a commercial office in Cuba, Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla said on Saturday, on the sidelines of a Caribbean summit in Havana.

Garcia Padilla is the first sitting Puerto Rican governor in history to visit Cuba, a “privilege” he said, telling journalist that local officials and the public had treated him warmly.

Garcia Padilla arrived in Havana on Thursday to attend as an observer Saturday’s summit of the Association of Caribbean States, which includes as members and associate members virtually all Caribbean Basin nations, as well as a number of islands that are not independent.

“We have had meetings with various ministers, and last night I had the opportunity to share some words with President Raul Castro,” Garcia Padilla said. “We had on the agenda and achieved taking the first steps to open an office of Puerto Rico in Havana. What these offices do is promote trade and cultural exchanges,” he said.

Puerto Rico has experienced a decline in tourism due to the Zika epidemic. It is expected to suffer further when U.S. tourism opens up with Cuba. Garcia Padilla said while Zika was a threat to pregnant women and those planning to become pregnant, it otherwise represented no danger for visitors,

Public health, and in particular efforts in both countries to stem the spread of the Zika virus, was nevertheless on the governor’s agenda. “We had some initial discussions about how we can help each other … as we always do with Caribbean countries to deal with natural disasters,” Garcia Padilla said.

Although a number of U.S. governors have visited Cuba since the two countries announced détente in December 2014, restored diplomatic relations six months later and began talks on a multiple of issues, Puerto Rico has a special significance for both countries.

The two Caribbean islands were Spanish colonies until the Spanish-American war of 1898, when they passed over to the United States. Cuba was quickly granted independence, while Puerto Rico remained an unincorporated territory and in 1952 became a commonwealth of the United States.

Since the 1959 Revolution, Cuba has made support for Puerto Rican independence a key part of its foreign policy despite repeated votes in Puerto Rico to maintain its status. “The future of Puerto Rico depends on Puerto Ricans, just like Cuba’s future depends on what the Cubans decide,” said Garcia Padilla, who does not favor independence.

HAVANA, june 4th (AFP) If you can’t beat your enemies, eat them: That’s the strategy Cuba has adopted to respond to an invasion of lionfish, a poisonous predator that has strayed far from its home waters in the South Pacific and Indian Oceans.

A favorite in aquariums for its flamboyant spines and vibrant orange and red stripes, the lionfish is wreaking havoc on ecosystems in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, where it showed up about a decade ago.

The fish is hanging out around the region’s coral reefs, living large as it feasts on smaller species and scares off its own potential predators with its venomous spines.

Defying the invasion and fear of those intimidating spines, Cubans have begun serving up lionfish for dinner — a tasty meal and act of ecosystem conservation all in one.

Delmis Cabrera, a marine biologist at the National Aquarium in Havana, said lionfish were first recorded in Cuba in 2007, apparently after being introduced to Caribbean waters accidentally.

Within two years, the fish surrounded the island. Even sharks won’t go near them, giving them free rein to feed and spread. The problem has gotten so bad that combating the lionfish is the top item on the agenda at a summit of the Association of Caribbean States on Saturday in Havana.

Bad reputation 
But Cuba isn’t waiting for regional governments to come up with a plan. It is catching lionfish and putting them on the menu. “We know it’s a poisonous species that has its risks… but it’s also delicious,” said Cabrera.

Lionfish has been eaten in Japan for years. And, like Cuba, a number of countries on the other side of the world are starting to experiment with it in the kitchen, including Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico and the southern United States. Cuba now holds an annual fishing tournament for the species.

“It has practically been decimated,” Cabrera told AFP. Professional diver Enrique Valdes backed that up. “Now you usually only see little ones,” said the 55-year-old SCUBA pro. Restaurants are trying to create a buzz around the new protein-rich fish, even if some customers are reluctant at first.

Besides scaring off predators with its spines, the lionfish is also known for stinging bathers and fishermen who come into contact with them, with symptoms that include pain, swelling or an allergic reaction.

“We are trying to introduce it on the menu, but since it’s a fish everyone knows as venomous,” it is difficult, said Santy Pescador restaurant manager Carlos Fonseca.

Possible cancer drug ? 
Preparing lionfish requires just a little caution. “The spines have venomous glands that can cause respiratory paralysis, muscle pain and fever for up to three days if you prick yourself,” said Noriesky Gao, 30, a chef at Santy Pescador.

Since it is an invasive species that only recently arrived, he and his colleagues are still figuring out what to do with it. He has been experimenting with lionfish sushi. “Customers really enjoy it. It has white, juicy flesh. Here, people usually eat it raw,” he said.

Cuban biologists are also studying the lionfish’s venom as a possible cancer-fighting agent, said Cabrera.

HAVANA, may 31th (WJS) The distillery that converts Cuban molasses to Havana Club rum beneath palm trees here is about to undergo a major expansion.

A multimillion-dollar expansion of warehouses and bottling lines anticipates a reopening of the American market to the Cuban brand, said Asbel Morales, rum master at Havana Club International, a joint venture between the Cuban government and Paris-based distiller Pernod Ricard SA. “We just need to know when we can enter.”

But that very prospect has inflamed a decades-old battle between Pernod Ricard, the world’s second-largest spirits producer behind Diageo PLC, and Bacardi Ltd. over ownership of the Havana Club name.

Pernod says a 1993 deal with the Cuban government gives it rights to sell the Cuban-made rum around the world, including the U.S., where sales of the brand currently are blocked by the 1962 trade embargo.

Bacardi, started in 1862 by one of Cuba’s oldest families, says it owns rights to the brand after buying it from Havana Club’s founding family, the Arechabalas, who, like the Bacardis, fled Cuba when Fidel Castro’s government nationalized the island’s distilleries in 1960. The distiller has sold rum under the brand name and made it in Puerto Rico off and on since 1995.

As Pernod charges ahead with its distillery expansion in Cuba, Bacardi is ramping up its U.S. distribution and offerings of its Puerto-Rican-made Havana Club rum. Both have designs on the U.S. rum market, which accounts for about 40% of international sales.

“It is going to be an interesting battle,” said Fabio Di Giammarco, vice president of rum at closely held and family-controlled Bacardi.

Pernod spokesman Olivier Cavil said, “At the end of the day, if the embargo is lifted, the final judge will be the American consumer. What does he prefer: a Havana Club brand produced in Cuban tradition with pure Cuban sugar cane or a me-too rum produced in Puerto Rico?”

The trademark row, now in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., is just one of the challenges Cuba faces in the U.S. There are some 6,000 U.S. property claims worth more than $2 billion filed against the Cuban government, according to the U.S. State Department.

The Havana Club clash is one of the most highly charged Cuban trademark disputes, involving two big-name and well-financed distillers with broad U.S. distribution. Bacardi’s namesake rum dominates the U.S. market with a 30% market share, according to industry tracker Impact Databank. Outside the U.S., Bacardi faces tough competition from Pernod. Its Havana Club brand last year accounted for 4 million nine-liter case sales, up from 400,000 cases in 1994.

The conflict is commercial and personal: Bacardi family members lost their homes, and the company lost its distillery to Castro’s government after the revolution. Its rum once was synonymous with Havana nights and Ernest Hemingway’s daiquiris.

Now, “very few Cubans even know about Bacardi,” said Guillermo Maestre Busto, a Havana resident surveying the company’s old Havana office building last month. “They just disappeared.”

The Pernod-Bacardi feud began in 1994. Before that, the family-led companies were partners. Pernod says it distributed Bacardi rum in several markets, including France. The relationship ended after Bacardi gained its own distribution system to compete against Pernod in 1992.

A year later, Pernod and the Cuban government struck their Havana Club partnership.Patrick Ricard, then the French company’s chairman, was transforming the company and needed a big-name rum like Havana Club.

Before completing the deal, Pernod determined Cuba held Havana Club trademarks in key markets, including the U.S., where the Arechabala family had let its trademark lapse in 1973, said Pernod’s Mr. Cavil.

The Pernod-Cuba partnership rattled the Arechabalas which, unlike the Bacardi family, had lost their rum business and livelihood. The Bacardis survived, having built distilleries in Puerto Rico and Mexico before Cuba’s revolution.

When Ramón Arechabala learned that Pernod had joined with Cuba, he protested in a letter, telling Mr. Ricard the trademark was “owned, as it has been for 60 years, by [him] and members of [his] family,” according to a copy of the 1993 letter. Mr. Ricard replied, saying the partnership was legal and his position prevented him “from adopting management decisions purely based on political considerations.”

Unable to afford a fight, the Arechabalas sold the brand to Bacardi. It soon manufactured a version of Havana Club for the U.S. using the Arechabala recipe. Pernod and Cuba’s Havana Club International sued Bacardi in the U.S. for trademark infringement in 1996, losing the suit. Later, in a separate matter, Havana Club International’s affiliate, Cubaexport, lost its U.S. trademark for the rum.

In January, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office reinstated the Cuban government’s trademark for Havana Club. The U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., is now weighing a case brought by Bacardi that seeks to have Cuba’s trademark canceled.

Rick Wilson, a Bacardi executive who married into the Bacardi family, says the Arechabalas and Bacardis have common-law rights to the Havana Club trademark. Earlier this year, Bacardi filed a Freedom of Information request for all U.S. records related to the mark’s registration to the Cuban government. But Pernod’s Mr. Cavil says the Arechabala family let the trademark lapse and Cuba now is its rightful owner.

As the court deliberates, Bacardi expects new styles of Puerto-Rican-made Havana Club to score with U.S. consumers while the embargo blocks Cuban-made Havana Club from entering the U.S. The embargo can only be lifted by an act of Congress. If that happens, Bacardi plans to deliver the message that “rum is made in other interesting places that can play to origin as well,” said Bacardi’s Mr. Di Giammarco.

Pernod is taking a different stance. “The only Havana Club Rum I know comes from Cuba,” Mr. Cavil said.

HAVANA, May 29 (Xinhua) Cuba seeks to expand Internet access throughout the island, particularly with public Wi-Fi spots and selected private businesses.

“We have taken important steps to expand Internet access with significant investments to have a favorable penetration rate in our country and making these services accessible to the majority of the Cuban population,” Tania Velasquez, business and marketing director of the island’s telecommunication company ETECSA told Xinhua.

Last year, ETECSA implemented 65 public Wi-Fi areas all over the Caribbean nation, mainly in parks and popular areas, along with 118 cybercafes that met the increasing demands of the population to have greater access to the web.

Since then it has become a popular sight in streets and parks to see Cubans of all ages with their cellphones, laptops and tablets searching the web, talking to their relatives abroad and interacting over different social networks.

“I think these areas are a positive first step but we need more access to the Internet. Today in Cuba young people are eager for information and greater knowledge,” said Jesus Vivero, a 20-year-old college student.

In one of the most popular Wi-Fi areas in Havana, Vivero along with other university friends use their Internet time to video chat with family members or make new friends over Facebook.

Cubans must buy cards worth 1 hour or recharge their permanent Internet accounts at a cost of 2 CUC an hour (2 U.S. dollars) to connect to the web, an amount that for many is considerably high because the average salary for a state worker is around 24 U.S. dollars per month.

“The service has to be provided in better places and the cost must decrease taking into consideration how expensive it is for the average Cuban,” added Alejandro Torres, a recently graduated journalist who works for state media.

According to ETECSA, this year 80 new Wi-Fi spots will be implemented not only in public spaces but also in recreational and sporting areas with more comfort for those who wish to connect, nonetheless the rate will remain the same.

“In the coming months there’s an opportunity to diversify the services to access Internet in our country taking into consideration of people’s demands and our economic possibilities,” added Velasquez.

The senior official at ETECSA said the most urgent demands are to have an Internet connection on cellphones and at home, projects in which the Cuban company works along with other international telecommunication providers.

“We’ve publicly committed to work in these two areas to provide Cubans with services similar to what many countries currently offer but we must make changes to our connectivity platforms and replace old technologies to progressively increase our Internet penetration rates which are actually still very low,” she said.

For many Cubans access to an affordable and comfortable Internet connection in the future should be a reachable life goal.

“We would like to have service at home and at reasonable prices according to our economic reality because the Internet is something necessary today for everyday life,” said Andres Perez, a 30-year-old computer scientist.

Official data provided by ETECSA showed that in 2012 around 5 percent of the population had access to the Internet, however that figure has increased since the Wi-Fi areas, public cybercafes and hotel connections opened over the last two years.

Cuba’s Internet connection until 2013 was through satellite leading to high costs but a joint fiber optic cable with Venezuela and Jamaica started providing higher connectivity speeds and new development possibilities.

Another initiative the Cuban telecom monopoly will implement in the coming months is to set up Wi-Fi areas along with private business owners as a way to diversify the service to different segments of the population.

“We started providing the service in public places to reach as many people as possible but in the short term and in a gradual form the private sector along with ETECSA will have the possibility to set up Wi-Fi spots at their businesses,” added Velasquez.

Since the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with the United States many Cuban state companies have held talks with their counterparts and ETECSA hasn’ t been the exception.

The Obama administration loosened certain trade restrictions in the telecommunications sector but according to ETECSA these are very “limited” and “unsafe” for both parts.

“The U.S. blockade on Cuba is still in place and that represents the main obstacle towards a normal relation in any economic field, thus so far we have signed agreements with telecommunication companies only to provide services in the island,” said the executive.

Velasquez acknowledged that ETECSA has held various meetings with U.S. telecom companies and is looking forward to establishing cooperation agreements in several areas regarding Internet connectivity.

“These companies are very interested in jointly working with ETECSA and we’re assessing the exchange mechanisms we can put into action according to what U.S. and Cuba regulations allow,” she noted.

In the coming months Wi-Fi and broadband Internet access should increase in this nation, meeting the widespread demands of Cubans and raising the island’s connectivity rates.

According to the first vice president of the Cuban Council of State and Council of Ministers, Cuban government highly appreciates the country’s economic and political relations with Russia.

HAVANA, may 27th (Sputnik) The Cuban government highly appreciates the country’s economic and political relations with Russia, Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, the first vice president of the Cuban Council of State and Council of Ministers, said Friday.

“These relations are outstanding both from a political and economic perspective. These relations are maintained by our governments. They are based on strong friendship and love between our people. It strengthens them further and allows for the development of ties of another nature than those which are usual today,” the official said at a meeting with the speaker of the lower house of Russian parliament, Sergei Naryshkin.

He added that Moscow had always supported Havana in its efforts to shut the US-run Guantanamo Bay prison camp, located on the island.

Cuba and Russia have enjoyed warm relations since Soviet times. Moscow has moved to boost ties with Havana in recent years in the spheres of transport, pharmaceutics, communications and technology.

Russian has written off most of Cuba’s Soviet-era debt, estimated at about $30 billion. Moscow has also expressed interest in investing some $1.35 billion in the construction of thermal power plants in Cuba.

Des Cubains s’entraînent dans une salle de gym à La Havane le 17 mai 2016 afp.com/ADALBERTO ROQUE

HAVANA, may 24th (AFP) Inside Armando Yera’s gym, toned Cubans in tight spandex are pumping iron in front of mirrored walls and pedaling furiously on stationary bikes, a scene that looks more Miami than Havana.

Yera is one of Cuba’s first competitive bodybuilders and part of its budding class of entrepreneurs. Both activities were long frowned on by the communist regime but are slowly gaining space on a changing island.

Visitors to Yera’s two-story establishment, Mandy’s Gym, in central Havana, are greeted by a brightly colored sign that says: “This will increase your opportunity to be a success.”

In the entryway, there are before-and-after photos of clients whose sagging bodies Yera has helped turn into chiseled statues. Those changes are just about as gradual, painstaking and yet transformative as the ones taking place in Cuba itself, as the island opens up to the world.

The bodybuilding craze started to grow after President Raul Castro launched tentative free-market reforms when he took over in 2008. Last year he reestablished Cuba’s diplomatic relations with its old Cold War enemy, the United States-a bodybuilding haven.
Sian Chiong, a 21-year-old pop singer, is a regular at Mandy’s Gym, and gives it credit for his success with the teenage girls who swoon for him and his boy band, Angeles.

Musicians in today’s Cuba have to please a public that “has become a consumer of image as well as music,” said the muscular, immaculately coiffed young star. It’s a thought that could make Che Guevara turn over in his grave. The late revolutionary dreamed of a Cuba of “new men” who would toss aside individualism and materialistic cares to be selfless communist citizens.

The regime disdained the image-conscious culture of places like Yera’s gym, which it derided as “bourgeois.”But like many things in Cuba, that is slowly starting to change. “The trend of wanting to look good arrived here a little late, because they never let you see the reality of what working out in a gym is all about,” said Yera. He started bodybuilding when he was 18 and retired from competitions in 2008, but still has bulging muscles at age 56.

Suspicious muscles
For years, the regime was suspicious of bodybuilders like Yera. His sport was seen as narcissistic and steroid-fueled, he said. A former customs official, he got into bodybuilding back when the only way to do it was with rudimentary equipment and a protein-rich diet-not an easy formula to follow in cash-strapped Cuba.

He is a four-time national champion, but his titles are not recognized by the state, which oversees all formal sport in Cuba and only grudgingly allowed privately organized bodybuilding contests. “A lot of times they would try to pressure theater management not to hold tournaments,” he said.

But working out at the gym is increasingly becoming not just acceptable, but trendy. Yera had 20 clients when he started his business 16 years ago. Now he has quadrupled that number. Most of his clients pay $30 a month to be members-more than the average monthly salary on the island.

Ironically, he owes much of his success to state TV, which invited him to speak about health on one of its programs. He brought along a woman he helped to “transform” her body, plus his before-and-after pictures.

‘Infected by the world’
After that, famous Cubans started showing up. “I train most of the TV show hosts. They feel pressure to be in shape,” Yera said. And state TV has continued to invite him back to speak about health. Despite its much-vaunted state health care system, Cuba is not immune to the international obesity epidemic: nearly 45 percent of its 11 million people are overweight or obese.

But gyms tend to draw mostly healthy young people looking to meet a set “standard” of beauty, said Dayron Delgado, a 30-year-old bodybuilder who works with Yera. Delgado compensates for the lack of state funding for his sport by working as a personal trainer.

“People are more worried about going to the gym for aesthetic reasons than for their health,” he said. Pop idol Chiong agreed. “Cuba has been infected by the way the whole world thinks,” he said, on the way back from working out his abs.

Even if “that’s hard for the higher-ups” to accept, he added.

HAVANA, May 21 (PL) Thrillers, police, biographies, comedies and dramas XIX projected the French Film Festival in Cuba, which concluded here today after ratification as a favorite appointment for moviegoers of this island.

A total of 28 films were exhibited from April 29 on behalf of the seventh art in the European nation, distinguished by its deep content and exquisite sense of humor.

Some of the films shown here arrived with credentials obtained in international competitions, such was the case of the law of the market, awarded the Audience Award at the European Film Festival in Brussels.

Other films like Connection Marseille (Cédric Jimenez) and Professor of History (Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar), touched on viewers to move away from fiction to reflect actual events.

For almost a month, Havana�s cinemas Charles Chaplin, La Rampa, Yara and room one of the Multicine Infanta welcomed the varied program of the festival, which also reserved a space for French classics.

Captain Conan and Life and Nothing but Bertrand Tavernier, and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, directed by Jacques Demy, among others, returned to the big screen with their attractive and romantic stories.

The Outsider releases, Christophe Barratier and filmmaker Hurricane documentary, directed by Cyril Barbançan, Andy Byatt and Jacqueline Farmer, also captured the applause of Havana moviegoers for the duration of their frames and the excellent performance of the actors.

The film festival preceded the Month of French Culture in Cuba, an initiative of President Francois Hollande that will evidence until 31 this month extent of cultivated arts in the European nation.