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29 April 2015 by Cuba News
HAVANA, Cuba, Apr 29 (acn) In Cuba there are more than two million people over 60 years of age, 19 percent of the total population, and is the first Latin American country with the oldest population, announced an expert in this capital on Tuesday.
Doctor Alberto Fernandez, head of the National Group for the Care of the Elderly, of the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) told ACN in an exclusive interview that the rapid population aging is largely due to the low birth rate, the increase of life expectancy and social development.
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Published on April 21 2015, Granma
Author: Livia Rodriguez Delis
Some 88.3% of eligible voters cast ballots during the first round of mid-term elections, on April 19, to select delegates to Municipal Assemblies of People’s Power.
This April 19, Cubans participated in another historic event reflective of the times. More than 7.5 million voters, 88.3% of eligible voters, exercised their right to vote to reaffirm their commitment to the future of the Revolution, on a day when the country also celebrated the 54th anniversary of Cuba’s victory over the U.S. backed invasion at Playa Girón, on the Bay of Pigs.
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Published on 14 April 2015 by teleSUR English
U.S. President Barack Obama said Tuesday that he intends to remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism list. In a brief statement, the White House said it no longer considers Havana a state sponsor of terrorism. “The Government of Cuba has not provided any support for international terrorism during the preceding 6-month period; and ... the Government of Cuba has provided assurances that it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future,” the statement reads.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest commented that Obama's decision is in line with U.S. “interests and values.” “We will continue to have differences with the Cuban government, but our concerns over a wide range of Cuba’s policies and actions fall outside the criteria that is relevant to whether to rescind Cuba’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism,” he said.
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Published on 2 April 2015 by ACN
Experts of the Pan-American and World Health organizations praised the results of the program of eastern Santiago de Cuba province to prevent and eliminate the mother-child transmission of HIV/AIDS and syphilis.
Doctor Maria Dolores Mafran, responsible of the Department for Prevention and Control of Infections by Sexually Transmitted Diseases/HIV-AIDS in the territory, told ACN that the specialists visited health centers as part of actions to validate the vertical elimination of these diseases in Cuba.
Likewise, she pointed out, they showed interest in the structures of these centers, at the level of doctor's offices, in which they verified prenatal care from Primary Health Care, serology for syphilis and HIV in pregnant women's registers, and the experience of the staff in communities.
Exchanges with civil society were significant, underlined Mafran, represented in members of the Federation of Cuban Women, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, transsexual and homosexual persons living with HIV, and in the project of youngsters and adolescents promoting health care.
Mafran conveyed the opinion of Adele Benzaken, co-president of the Regional Committee of Experts that visited the country, who, during her visit to Santiago de Cuba expressed that the assessment was yet another opportunity to know more about eh island's public health system, in addition to the hospitality, transparence and dedication to work of specialized staff. The verification exercise was also carried out in the provinces of Havana and Villa Clara, and results will be presented in Geneva, headquarters of the WHO.
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Published on 2 April 2015 by ACN
The last group of Cuban doctors and nurses that fought Ebola in Sierra Leone arrived this Wednesday in Cuba from that Western Africa country,
The 64 health workers arrived at night at the Juan Gualberto Gomez International Airport in Varadero, after spending six months in a risky mission to save the lives of those people afflicted with the disease.
A 310-300 aircraft, from the Portuguese airline Whyte, landed at 10:12 pm with such precious human cargo, and the joy and satisfaction for the accomplishment was evident on the face of each of them.
The workers of the airport gave them an enthusiastic reception on behalf of all Cubans and they were immediately transported to the hospital where will undergo the process of surveillance and control established for all those arriving from countries affected by Ebola.
On Sunday, March 23, a first group of 150 health staff, 98 of them from Sierra Leone and Liberia 52, returned to the country
Over 250 Cuban doctors and nurses are members of the Henry Reeve contingent, who at the call of the Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki Moon, and the World Health Organization, traveled in October 2014, to fight the virus also in Guinea Conakry.
In these three countries in West Africa, the most affected by the disease, the Cuban health staff played not only a major role in curing Ebola, but on prevention, as recognized by the authorities of those nations and international organizations.
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Published by La Alborada on 31 March 2015
The US and Cuba have recently met to exchange concerns about the observance of human rights in the respective countries. Following are some differences between the two countries that may be mentioned. Because the concepts of civil and human rights are often confused, we include also some of the former.
Political systems
Cuba has a one-party system that is focused on building socialism. In the last few years, however, it has fostered a new private sector of agricultural and non-agricultural cooperatives and individual businesses. The US, on the other hand, has a two-party system (with a few other micro-parties that do not make a difference at any higher level of government) that is focused on maintaining capitalism.
Cuba's legislative assembly generally follows the lead of the Communist Party, as is in fact provided in the Constitution. The legislature of the US generally follows the lead of banks and corporations and of the industrial-military-security complex, which is not in the Constitution. Cuba's elections to the assembly are low-cost, while elections in the US are highly dependent on financial contributions, as are legislative initiatives.
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Published on 20 march by TeleSUR English
The World Health Organization is set to confirm Cuba as the first country in the world to have eliminated the STI transmission from mother to child. Experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) will visit Cuba soon to review if the country can be certified to have eliminated the transmission of HIV and syphilis from mother to child.
In order to receive the certification from the WHO, a country must have a transmission rate in less than 0.5 percent of live births in the case of syphilis and less than 2 percent in the case of HIV. Medical care for pregnant women and access to HIV tests must exceed 95 percent and antiretroviral treatment must be available for 95 percent of seropositive pregnant women. “We believe Cuba meets the indicated requirements and we hope to receive certification,” said Dr. Rosaida Ochoa, director of the Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Unit.
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Cubans continued the process of nominating candidates Thursday for the upcoming municipal elections.
The selection process for candidates began nationwide Tuesday, and will continue until March 25.
According to the National Electoral Council (CNE), 167,263 Cubans have already stepped forward as potential candidates. Around 44 percent of the hopefuls are women. The final candidates will vie for positions in Cuba's 12,589 municipal councils, with between two and eight candidates required by law for each position.
Any of Cuba's roughly 8 million eligible voters can run, but not along party lines. Municipal elections are strictly non-partisan and very little campaigning takes place. Instead, candidates are expected to woo voters familiar with their track records as responsible members of the community, rather than through the types of expensive publicity campaigns common in Western nations.
After candidates have been selected, voting will take place on April 19. Runoff votes will be held on April 26 for any positions where no candidate secured more than 50 percent of the vote.
The municipal elections are one of three tiers of voting in Cuba's government, along with provincial and national elections. Municipal level voting takes place once every two and a half years.
Since the mid 1970s, all municipal elections have had turnouts above 90 percent of eligible voters, though voting isn't compulsory in Cuba. According to government figures, the last municipal level elections in 2012 saw turnout just over 90 percent – similar levels to the national and provincial elections of 2013.
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Published on 8 March 2015 by Prensa Latina
The Cuban social process that started in 1959 includes, among its priorities, maintaining public policies in favor of inclusion and development of the potentialities of women, who are broadly represented in today''s society.
Since the beginning of the revolutionary project, some measures have been adopted to eliminate problems such as prostitution and gender discrimination, and to boost family planning, among other issues.
An important step was the adoption of a Family Code, establishing absolute legal equality of women and men in marriage.
At the same time, the Family Code defines equal duties and rights by married couples with their children and development at home.
The government also implemented actions to recognize equal rights in the economic, political, cultural, social and family aspects included in the Constitution.
According to statistics published by Granma newspaper, on the occasion of Women's International Day, there are 5,620,719 women in Cuba and until 2013, life expectancy for Cuban women was 80.4 years.
Women in Cuba represents 48.8 percent of lawmakersds in the People's Power National Assembly (Parliament), 41.9 percent of the members of Council of State and 66.6 percent of the presidents of People's Power Provincial Assemblies.
According to statistics from the latest Population and Housing Census released by the newspaper until 2012, about 44.2 percent of women were heads of household.
In the social-productive sphere, there are 1,838,600, 31,200 of whom are members of cooperatives and 175,500 are self-employed workers. About 1,631,900 women work in the state sector.