Cuba announced Monday it had re-established formal contacts with European nations including France, Germany and Britain in a quest to normalize relations after a nearly two-year-long freeze.
Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said the decision was made after an EU commission recommended that member states work to improve relations with Cuba's communist government, in part by ending the practice of inviting dissidents to national holiday celebrations at their embassies in Havana.
"Due to these pronouncements, Cuba has made the decision to re-establish formal contacts with a group of countries from the European Union," Roque told a news conference.
Roque said Cuban authorities would immediately start meeting with ambassadors from eight European countries: France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Austria, Greece, Portugal and Sweden.
Relations between Cuba and Europe chilled after Cuba cracked down on the island's opposition in March 2003, rounding up and sentencing 75 dissidents to long prison terms.
European nations were also troubled by the firing-squad executions of three men who tried to hijack a ferry to the US.
EU members responded by unanimously agreeing to reduce high-level governmental visits and participation in cultural events in Cuba and to invite dissidents to embassy gatherings.
But some EU nations, led by Spain's new Socialist government, say the EU sanctions have had little effect. In mid-December, an EU commission recommended member states work out a new policy encouraging the Caribbean island to open up.
Martha Beatriz Roque, one of 14 dissidents from the original group of 75 released from prison last year, said she was disappointed.
"We are going to continue working to achieve democracy in Cuba, despite the European Union turning its back on us and supporting the Cuban government," Roque said in a telephone interview.
Monday's announcement came about a month after formal contact was re-established with Spain, Belgium and Hungary. Perez Roque declined to comment on the EU countries with which contact has not been resumed.
By late November, as the EU reviewed diplomatic sanctions against Cuba, the government started releasing some of the 75 dissidents from prison.
Including an earlier release of dissidents for health reasons, 14 of the original 75 have now been freed, leaving another 61 still behind bars.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
China has built a land-based prototype nuclear reactor for a large surface warship, in the clearest sign yet Beijing is advancing toward producing the nation’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, according to a new analysis of satellite imagery and Chinese government documents provided to The Associated Press. There have long been rumors that China is planning to build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, but the research by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California is the first to confirm it is working on a nuclear-powered propulsion system for a carrier-sized surface warship. Why is China’s pursuit of nuclear-powered carriers significant? China’s navy is already
‘SIGNS OF ESCALATION’: Russian forces have been aiming to capture Ukraine’s eastern Donbas province and have been capturing new villages as they move toward Pokrovsk Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi on Saturday said that Ukraine faced increasing difficulties in its fight against Moscow’s invasion as Russian forces advance and North Korean troops prepare to join the Kremlin’s campaign. Syrskyi, relating comments he made to a top US general, said outnumbered Ukrainian forces faced Russian attacks in key sectors of the more than two-and-a-half-year-old war with Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a nightly address said that Ukraine’s military command was focused on defending around the town of Kurakhove — a target of Russia’s advances along with Pokrovsk, a logistical hub to the north. He decried strikes
RSS