HAVANA — Cuba and Qatar signed an agreement Wednesday to build a $75 million, 450-room resort on a cay south of the island.

The two parties will spend 14 months hammering out financing details for the five-star Gran Paraiso, or “Great Paradise,” said Ghanim Bin Saad al-Saad, president of state-owned Qatar Diar Real Estate Investment Co. Construction would take another year and a half.

The joint project with the communist government’s tourism concern, Gran Caribe, sends “a clear message to the world that Qatar is on Cuba’s side and supports its politics with respect to the rest of the world,” he told reporters.

The resort is planned for Cayo Largo Sur, a strip of white sand, coral reefs and warm, calm waters 105 miles (170 kilometers) south of Havana that is already home to a cluster of high-rise hotels.

The Gran Paraiso will also include 60 retreat villas, and Gran Caribe president Luis Miguel Diaz said it could be expanded in the future.

Tourism is Cuba’s second-largest moneymaker behind nickel exports.

A record 2.35 million foreigners visited last year, mostly from Canada and Europe. That was a 9.3 percent increase over 2007.

Foreign arrivals are up another 2 percent so far this year despite the global economic slowdown.

Music as a weapon. Yes! Send A Piana To Havana has shown a way. Use a piana to protest the embargo on cuba by America. Music speaks here. Read here…

There’s an aspect of the U.S. embargo on Cuba that we don’t consider: Cuban musicians struggle on antique American pianos, strings rusted through, or on Russian pianos half-eaten by termites. Cuba’s music pedagogy produces famous results, but as few new pianos are imported to Cuba, and parts are unavailable, Cuba’s musical community suffers.

In 1995 we began rounding up used pianos – plentiful in the USA – and sending them to Cuban schools. We’ve sent 237 used upright and grand pianos and tons of related supplies, donated from across the USA. The instruments are distributed to the wonderful broken-down music schools that dot the island. Occasionally they’re awarded to individual students.

We’ve established the Havana Workshop/School of Instrument Repair at the National School of Art. Visiting experts train students in modern rebuilding techniques. The school ensures that the instruments we bring will last, that existing pianos will be saved, and that young Cubans learn tuning. In the fall of 2001 our school was inaugurated when twelve students from six provinces began to learn piano and woodwind repair.

-Ben Treuhaft

Cuban Children’s Theater Company Receive UN Award

Havana, (acn)- The Cuban children’s theater company “La Colmenita”
has been appointed as Good Will Ambassadors of the UN Children’s Fund
(UNICEF).

“We owe this recognition to Commander in Chief Fidel Castro,” said the
director of the company, Carlos Alberto Cremata, upon receiving the
award on Wednesday during a ceremony held at the San Francisco de Asis
Convent in Havana.

Cremata praised the support of the Cuban leader and the contribution
made by the ministries of Culture and Education and the Office of the
Havana Historian. He added that this award commits them to continue
working in the defense of children’s rights and for a better world.

For his part, the UNICEF regional director for Latin America and the
Caribbean, Nils Kastberg, recognized the contribution made by “La
Colmenita” to world culture and peace.

The UN official noted that “La Colmenita” is the first theater company
that receives this award and urged them to continue their work in favor
of the new generations.

Others who praised the work of “La Colmenita” were Jose Juan Ortiz, the
UNICEF representative in Cuba, and Havana Historian Eusebio Leal.

The ceremony concluded with the exhibition of Cremata’s most recent
play: “Cinderella… according to the Beatles.”

Few groups have been awarded with that distinction so far, as Spanish Los Lunnis puppeteer group and the Venezuelan National System of Children’s and Youth Orchestras.

It will be another opportunity to keep giving honey hugs around the world, Juan Carlos Cremata, director of La Colmenita theater company, said.

Mon Jul 17, 2006 5:37 PM GMT

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa’s Nelson Mandela said on Monday he “never imagined” reaching the age of 88 as he received one of his first birthday presents — a shipment of rum and cigars from Cuban President Fidel Castro.

As well wishes poured in ahead of the anti-apartheid icon’s birthday on Tuesday, Mandela held a private party with the staff of his foundation and blew out candles on a giant birthday cake.

La Grange said presents for Mandela were beginning to arrive from around the world, including a pair of hand-made sheepskin slippers from village women in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province and the special birthday shipment from Cuba’s Castro.

“The president kept his promise and sent the rum and cigars,” La Grange said of Castro. Mandela, however, is a committed anti-smoker and not known as a drinker.

The No War on Cuba Movement is a coalition of groups and individuals in the Washington DC metro area dedicated to improving ties between the peoples of the US and Cuba and committed to bringing about a peaceful and respectful U.S. policy towards Cuba. We say NO to all forms of U.S. intervention in Cuba and support Cuba’s sovereignty. We demand an end to the blockade on Cuba, support the normalization of relations with Cuba, and support the right of all to travel to Cuba. We propose to do this by:

• Organizing to end the U.S. blockade on Cuba and promoting the normalization of relations with Cuba.
• Opposing all forms of economic, military, and political intervention in Cuba. This includes exposing and working to end the illegal acts of the U.S. government like: supporting and training terrorists, carrying out sabotage and espionage, organizing assassination attempts and generally trying to destabilize the government of Cuba through the Helms-Burton Act and an immoral blockade.
• Educating and informing our communities about the realities of U.S.-Cuba relations in order to organize an effective campaign to change U.S. policy towards the island.
• Proclaiming our human rights to travel to Cuba and exchange goods with the Cuban people.
• Maintaining remittances to the Cuban people. We have the right to send money to anyone in Cuba.

Visit- http://www.nowaroncuba.org