Posts Tagged ‘Havana’
Written by admin on 06 February 2012
Havana, Feb 6 (IANS) A Cuban sculptor uses tobacco leaves to create wonderful pieces of art, and has made life-size as well as miniature sculptures of Winston Churchill, Che Guevara, John F. Kennedy, Charles Chaplin, Luciano Pavarotti and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
With his unique work, Janio Nunez Leal has pieces in many private collections around the work, the Prensa Latina news agency reported.
Nunez, who worked as a “torcedor” or cigar twister in many cigar factories, first took up the idea of becoming a tobacco sculptor in 1994.
His work will be on display at the 14th Habano Cigar Festival to be held Feb 27-March 2.
Tourists wanting to know more about Cuban culture and tobacco are flocking to his recently opened studio-workshop in Boca Ciega beach in Havana.
In 2000, Nunez met Celia Sandy, granddaughter of former British prime minister Winston Churchill, who was known for his love for Cuban cigars.
Nunez then created a life-size sculpture of Churchill.
He says his sculptures are made only of tobacco leaves, using only an idea without any mold or frame.
His pieces, however, must be well preserved at 18-24 degrees Celcius and a relative humidity of 60-70 percent.
Tags: Havana
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Written by admin on 06 February 2012
Havana, Feb 6 (IANS/EFE) Cuba has begun to employ a new technology to produce white sugar, a measure that improves its quality, avoids the refining process and reduces the cost of manufacture, a media report said Sunday.
The technology, which to date had never been used in the island’s sugar industry, uses a sulphur salt produced in Guatemala that – once dissolved in water – directly adds to the bleaching, according to official daily Juventud Rebelde.
The procedure replaces the method of “sulphurizing” the sugarcane juice via the combustion of sulphur, which is very damaging to the environment, the report says.
The daily also reported that the sugar produced with this method can be sold for a higher price than either crude or standard refined sugar on the world market and that its use is spreading rapidly.
Rigoberto Toledo, the director of the Melanio Hernandez sugar refinery in central Sancti Spiritus province, the first to use the new technology, said that using it they will be able to optimize the production process and avoid refining the raw sugar, a situation that will reduce production costs.
That refinery is scheduled to produce between 15,000 and 17,000 tonnes of white sugar during the current harvest, all of which will be destined for local consumption.
Cuba is carrying out its current sugar harvest at a time when it is in the midst of restructuring the sector by replacing the Sugar Ministry with the Sugar Agro-industry Business Group with the aim of achieving more efficient management, employing new technologies and generating exports to finance its own expenses.
According to government forecasts, this harvest should see a 20 percent rise in sugar production, after the country in 2011 experienced a slight recovery and after the drastic plunge in the sugar harvest registered in 2010, the worst in 105 years.
–IANS/EFE
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Written by admin on 05 February 2012
Havana, Feb 5 (IANS/EFE) Fidel Castro says he now realises it was a mistake to think that socialism can resolve all economic problems.
Castro made the candid admission during the release of a two-volume memoir here, official media said Saturday.
The leader of the Cuban Revolution, 85, who left office in 2006 due to an illness, conversed for six hours with guests at Friday’s release of “Guerrillero del Tiempo”, written by journalist Katiuska Blanco.
The nearly 1,000-page memoir begins with the first recollections of his childhood and ends in December 1958 on the eve of the guerrilla movement’s victory that brought down dictator Batista.
Blanco is also the author of “Todo el Tiempo de los Cedros” (All the Days of the Cedars), an official history of the Castro family (2003).
Castro spoke of the mistake of believing that socialism can solve all economic problems.
He also outlined his deepest opposition to students having to pay for their education, and about international affairs like the dispute over the Falkland Islands.
Fidel Castro did not rule out continuing to write. “I have to do it now because one’s memory wears out.”
This was Castro’s first public appearance since April 2011 when he attended the closure of the 6th Communist Party Congress where his younger brother Raul Castro replaced him as head of the party.
Fidel Castro spoke on a variety of subjects Friday. The event was attended by Cuban intellectuals and Culture Minister Abel Prieto.
In July 2010 Castro made a surprise return to public life after four years of convalescence from the serious illness that forced him to delegate the Cuban presidency to Raul in 2006.
Since then the Cuban leader has participated with irregular frequency in meetings, visits, ceremonies and press conferences with Cuban and foreign reporters.
–IANS/EFE
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Written by admin on 05 February 2012
Havana, Feb 5 (IANS/EFE) Former Cuban President Fidel Castro presented a two-volume memoir at a public ceremony in Havana, where he referred to the mistake of believing that with socialism all economic problems are solved, official media said Saturday.
The leader of the Cuban Revolution, 85, who left office in 2006 due to an illness, conversed for six hours with guests at Friday’s presentation of the two volumes of “Guerrillero del Tiempo”, written by author and journalist Katiuska Blanco.
This was Castro’s first public appearance since April 2011, when he attended the closure of the 6th Communist Party Congress, at which his younger brother, President Raul Castro, replaced him as head of the organization.
The nearly 1,000-page memoir begins with the first recollections of his childhood and ends December 1958 on the eve of the guerrilla movement’s victory that brought down the dictator Fulgencio Batista.
Wearing an athletic jacket and checked shirt, according to photos published in Cuban newspapers and on the official Web site Cubadebate, Fidel Castro spoke on a variety of subjects during the event attended by leading Cuban intellectuals and by Culture Minister Abel Prieto.
He spoke, according to official media, of the mistake of believing that socialism means all economic problems are solved, of his deepest opposition to students having to pay for their education, and about international affairs like the dispute over the Falkland Islands, “that bit of land snatched from Argentina”, he said.
The “admirable” struggles that today’s Latin American students and students around the world are waging for their rights was another topic he discussed.
Fidel Castro did not rule out continuing to write. “I have to do it now because one’s memory wears out,” he said.
After six hours of conversation, Castro, according to the report in the daily Granma, regretted having to leave but said he is a “collaborator” of the doctors treating him.
In July 2010 Castro made a surprise return to public life after four years of convalescence from the serious illness that forced him to delegate the Cuban presidency to younger brother Raul in 2006.
From that time the Cuban leader has participated with irregular frequency in meetings, visits, ceremonies and press conferences with Cuban and foreign reporters.
His last public appearance was last April at the 6th Communist Party Congress.
“Guerrillero del Tiempo” was written by Cuban journalist Katiuska Blanco, who is also the author of “Todo el Tiempo de los Cedros” (All the Days of the Cedars), an official history of the Castro family published in 2003.
–IANS/EFE
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Written by admin on 03 February 2012
Havana, Feb 3 (IANS/EFE) Singer-songwriter Sara Gonzalez, one of the original voices of the New Cuban Song Movement, has died in Havana, official media reported. She was 60.
The artist revealed several months ago that she had undergone a colon operation, the official web site Cubadebate noted.
Also, Cubadebate reported that Gonzalez had bade farewell last Dec 26 to her fans at Havana’s “El patio de la Gorda” club, an artistic venue where she performed once a month.
There, the artist said that after that appearance “what remains for me to do is to wish you many nice things, a lot of happiness, I wish you health – above all health – for the rest of your lives. Be happy, be as happy as you feel every time you come here. We have to give thanks every day for the life we’re living”.
Gonzalez produced music for film, television and radio as well as her solo albums, and she also participated in several album collections.
She studied guitar and viola and began her professional career in the early 1970s as a member of the musical group Los Dimos and in an occasional duo with singer-songwriter Pedro Luis Ferrer.
During the course of her career, Gonzalez shared the stage with artists such as Joan Manuel Serrat, Mercedes Sosa and Pete Seeger, among others.
She performed throughout Europe and Latin America as well as in the US.
–IANS/EFE
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Written by admin on 31 January 2012
Havana, Jan 31 (IANS/EFE) Puerto Rican reggaeton duo Calle 13 is currently filming a documentary in Cuba, official media said Monday, citing band member Rene Perez, a.k.a. “Residente”.
“We’re filming a big documentary about C-13 in Cuba,” said Perez on his Twitter account, according to a report published on the government Web page Cubadebate.
Perez said that he traveled to Cuba on a motorboat and that it was “a great experience, a little dangerous but nice at the same time”.
Residente and his stepbrother Eduardo Cabra, known as “Visitante”, make up the alternative music band that has won 20 Latin Grammys and two Grammys.
The duo’s new documentary is being directed by Puerto Rican filmmaker Lidy Paoli Lopez.
Residente and Visitante attended a concert offered by Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio Rodriguez last Thursday at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana.
The Puerto Rican band filmed another 27-minute documentary entitled “Calle 13 en La Habana” (Calle 13 in Havana), by Lester Sibila and Frank Fernandez, as a testimony of their visit to the Caribbean country.
Calle 13 performed for the first time in Cuba in 2010 at a huge concert in Havana.
–IANS/EFE
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