F R O M   O U R   M A I L B A G

• MARADONA
September 2, 2004
• NATALIE Blanc from Argentina’s Revista Veintitrés writes to ask us about the repercussions in Cuba (in the press, on the streets and on television) to the photos published in a Mexican daily in which Diego Maradona is allegedly seen in La Pradera clinic in compromising situations; that is to say, with evidence of sex and drugs. In truth, there have been no repercussions. In Cuba, we have become accustomed to whatever pretext is used in an attempt to malign us and our press chooses not to repeat the accusations.

July 9, 04
• FRIENDS of Cuba in Vancouver wrote to us with details of a pro-Cuba rally and march on June 26, to express their rejection of the blockade and Bush’s new measures. We received the poster and message, signed by José Ostorga. Thank you very much. To Alfonso Rojas Quezada in Chimbote, Peru who wrote to us requesting a back issue of the magazine Cuba Internacional, I suggest you contact the Prensa Latina news agency (www.prensa-latina.cu) that currently edits that publication. To our Chilean brother Iván Canales in Concepción, you can find the information you need regarding travel promotion by following the links on our home page. Thank you for your comments on our country and the Revolution. To Freddi - a Cuban resident in Spain - people interested in subscribing to Granma International should send a postal or cable money order to the value of $40 to Ediciones Cubanas, Apartado 6260, CP:10699, Havana, Cuba along with your name and address and the language edition you want.

FOREIGN STUDENTS IN CUBA
July 2, 04
THE Cuba Solidarity Brigade of Foreign Students studying on scholarships at the University of Pinar del Río sent us a press release that, because of its currency and synthesis, we have seen fit to share with you:

• STUDYING AT ELAM
June 23, 2004
A number of readers, including Adrián González, have asked us about how to study medicine at the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM). To enroll at ELAM, those interested should direct themselves to the Cuban diplomatic missions in their respective countries and request the desired information. This project has be founded basically for young people from low-income families who need to meet the following prerequisites:

• MESSAGE TO THE INTERNATIONAL NAUTICAL COMMUNITY
June 23, 2004
Twelve years ago, the Hemingway International Nautical Club of Cuba was created. On anniversary of that event, the club sends out a greeting to all of the clubs and individuals of the world who have enjoyed and participated in its activities.

• HOW DID THE NEWSPAPER GRANMA COME TO BE?
June 23, 2004
Grisel, who is studying journalism at UNAM, asks how the newspaper Granma came to be. Here is a little part of that history.

• REGARDING THE DIPLOMATIC CRISIS BETWEEN MEXICO AND CUBA
May 18, 2004
DURING this week, we have received numerous messages from Mexico related to the controversial decision of that country’s government to reduce diplomatic relations with Cuba to a business attaché level. And here are some of their opinions.

• ON THE NURSING EVENT
April 23, 2004
R.A. O’Connell, the leader of a nursing association in Britain, comments to us that they are studying possibilities for visiting different countries as part of a Nursing Management course. The three proposals are Cuba, California (U.S.A.) and Canada.

• From Our Mailbag
April 16, 2004
A number of readers, including businesspeople, officials from private and public enterprises, and others who are simply starting their own web page would like to foster exchanges of links with our Internet site.

• Chess in Cuba
April 8, 2004
IVAN Chalupa from the Czech Republic requests information on the history of chess in Cuba and would like to make contact with the national federation for this game.

• From our mailbag
March 24, 2004
THE history of tobacco in Cuba goes right back to the island’s original inhabitants. They say that it was Rodrigo de Xerez, one of Christopher Colombus’ sailors, who discovered how the indigenous population smoked the leaves of the tobacco plant and relayed this discovery to his admiral.

• MUSICIAN AND COMBATANT IN THE SPANISH CIVL WAR
March 18, 2004
From Spain, Javier requests information on Cuban musician Julio Cueva. Julio Cueva was born in 1897 and entered the world of music as a child. Beginning in the 1930s, with the Don Aspiazu band, he played all over: New York, London, Lisbon, Zurich, Paris, Madrid, Tripoli and Beirut. In the French capital, he participated in the filming of the movie Orquidea Negra (The Black Orchid), starring Carlos Gardel.

• ON THE WALL ISRAEL IS RAISING
February 26, 2004
"The Israeli government affirms that submitting the subject of the ‘wall of separation’ to the International Court at The Hague is not a legal question, but a political one. They are right, the wall is a political issue. They are wrong, ‘the wall’ is also a legal issue.

• REGARDING THE INFORMATION SUMMIT
Dezember 18 2003
"I cannot wait to read your country’s contribution to the Geneva conference on the Information Society. And that the developed world thinks the least of developing countries’ potential of contributing to the 21st century information age is a foregone conclusion.

• UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN CUBA
November 28 2003
SEVERAL readers – including Kimberley Mark from the UK and Milton Reyes in Honduras – have requested information about pursuing a university career in Cuba.

• Letter from one of the five
November 4 2003
GERARDO Hernández Nordelo, one of the five Cubans imprisoned in U.S. jails for defending Cuba against terrorism, has written a letter to our photographer Ahmed Velázquez in which he shares his feelings on seeing one of his photos in the September 7 edition of Granma International.

• Terms of the Guantanamo Naval Base
October 22 2003
I have a debt to some of our readers who requested information about the terms of the U.S. occupation of the Guantánamo Naval Base, a polemic that has lasted to the present day, and of which I promised to write a week ago.

• From our mailbag
September 22 2003
SWEDISH journalist Johan Malmberg tells us that he’s writing various articles about different countries’ bestsellers and would like to know what books are currently selling well in Cuba.

• REGARDING THE COMPLETE WORKS OF JOSÉ MARTÍ
September 11 2003
DR. Martin Alberto Peña from Mexico asks where he can find quotes by Cuban national hero José Martí in Spanish. I’d like to take the opportunity to inform our readers that the Center for Martí Studies in Havana has produced a CDRom containing the complete works (in Spanish) of the distinguished Cuban thinker, poet and writer who died in combat on May 19,1895 in a battle between the Liberation Army and Spanish troops in the eastern region of Cuba.

• SHARED SENTIMENTS IN ARGENTINA
June 20, 2003
FROM Argentina, various readers have written to us to describe what they felt and saw during the recent visit by President Fidel Castro.

• Anti-Fascist sentiments in Canada
May 14, 2003
FROM Canada, Archie Kennedy wrote to us: "We have been arguing recently regarding the plight of the five Cuban heroes that have been jailed in U.S. prisons. I am grateful for the Internet and my ability to access Granma. I expect that they (the United States) will find a means to cut Granma off from international access.

• FROM OUR MAILBAG
May 14, 2003
THE Honduran-Latin American Medical School Family Association has sent us a statement written in Tegucigalpa on April 27, signed by its president, Vilma Díaz Bonilla, referring to the current harassment campaign against Cuba:

• Tourism confronts its worst enemy: war
April 28, 2003
Under this same title, the Association for Tourism and Touristic Press of Uruguay (APPTUR) unanimously approved a statement on behalf of the organization that was sent to us by its president Julio César Debali on March 23, a few days after the start of the war against Iraq.

• Confessions of a young Cuban-American
April 14, 2003
"As a second generation Cuban-American, my family deprived me of the opportunity to learn about the heroic struggle of the Cuban people to build a just society free from capitalist exploitation. As a child, my parents taught me to believe that socialism was evil.

• Against the genocide in Iraq
April 2, 2003
"Bush, the world is not full of idiots; no one believes in the "Iraqi freedom" story. What you want is hegemony, power and the region’s oil and you don’t care about the lives of all these people.

• FROM OUR MAILBAG
March 20, 2003
DAN Dolt from the United States sent us his thoughts on the underlying interests of Washington’s warmongering attitude. "George Bush has used the tragic events of September 11 to push his conservative policies on the American people and, through the UN, has attempted to force his agenda on the world.

• AGAINST THE WAR
February 19, 2003
AFTER accessing our web site and reading about the February 15 protests around the world, Manuela Cedarmas from Italy sent us a message regarding international opposition to the war against Iraq.

• ITALIAN EDITION VERY WELCOME
January 30, 2003
Luca Pagliani writes to say that he’s a diehard reader of Granma International and congratulates us on the new Italian online edition of our newspaper. "I’d like to thank you for the excellent articles you publish. For me, it’s the only way to obtain accurate news on Cuba and Latin America. As you know, in Italy information is in the hands of capitalists who publish highly manipulated news on Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil, etc."

• WORKSHOP ON "THE FIVE"
January 16, 2003
A solidarity workshop paying tribute to the five political prisoners of the U.S. government is to take place from January 23 until 28 as part of the 3rd World Social Forum in Porto Alegre. The meeting will also focus on the Cuban people’s long struggle against terrorism.

• U.S. JOURNALIST DETAINED FOR ATTENDING FTAA CONFERENCE IN HAVANA
December 20,  2002
Martin Koppel, director of the Spanish-language magazine Perspectiva Mundial (World Perspective), sent us a message calling for solidarity with journalist Roger Calero, detained by the U.S. Naturalization and Immigration Service (INS) on December 3 after attending the FTAA conference in Havana.