Cuba Cuba gear up for Reading and Leeds festivals

<p style="text-align: justify;">By David Owens, South Wales Echo. Aug 25 2011. This weekend one of South Wales’ finest new bands will be playing on the biggest of stages at the Reading and Leeds festivals. Cuba Cuba’s Morgan Isaac tells Dave Owens why he can hardly wait for the momentous day to arrive. Read More

---

Hamilton airport resumes Cuba flights; adds Vegas

<p style="text-align: justify;">Fri Aug 26 2011. Winter flights to Cuba will resume at John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport starting this year. Flights will be introduced to Varadero in December, and flights to Holguin, Cuba will take off in February. These flights, through Canadian tour operator Hola Sun Holidays, will run until April 2012. “We had Cuba for the first time last year; they’ve switched up the destinations a little this year and have gone with Holguin and Varadero,” said Karen Medweth, director of service development for the airport. “Those two destinations work a bit better with the family market around here. Read More

---

New Vaccine Developed in Cuba

<p style="text-align: justify;">Havana, August 25 (KCNA) -- Cuba has recently developed new vaccine to prevent five diseases.The new vaccine named Heberpenta can prevent diphtheria, tetanus, tosferina, hepatitis B and influenza B. It has been jointly developed by the Cuban Genetic Engineering and Bioengineering Center and other scientific research institutes. It is being applied in across the country. Read More

---

Nicknamed '24,' Cuban man considers his 4 perfectly formed extra digits a blessing

<p style="text-align: justify;">By: FERNANDO GONZALEZ , Associated Press.August 26, 2011 - 5:18 PM. BARACOA, Cuba - They call him "Twenty-Four." Yoandri Hernandez Garrido's nickname comes from the six perfectly formed fingers on each of his hands and the six impeccable toes on each foot. Hernandez is proud of his extra digits and calls them a blessing, saying they set him apart and enable him to make a living by scrambling up palm trees to cut coconuts and posing for photographs in this eastern Cuban city popular with tourists. One traveler paid $10 for a picture with him, Hernandez said, a bonanza in a country with an average salary of just $20 a month. Read More

---

Cuban Ballet Dancer to Receive National Dance Award 2011

<p style="text-align: justify;">By: Ana Julia Suarez Cruz. Havana, Aug 26 (Prensa Latina) Cuban ballet dancer Carlos Acosta will be awarded with the National Dance Prize 2011 next Monday, becoming at his 38 years old the youngest artist to receive this award. The gala to honour Acosta at Garcia Lorca auditorium of Havana´s Grand Theatre will be led by choreographer Alberto Mendez with the performance of dancers from the Contemporary Dance Company and the group lead by Santiago Alfonso, and other famous dancers. Read More

---

Cuban Singer Will Campa and His Band to Perform in Canada

<p style="text-align: justify;">2011.08.25 - 17:05:22 / radiorebelde.icrt.cu. Will Campa and his band Gran Union (Photo: Juventud Rebelde) Havana, Cuba.- Cuban singer Will Campa and his band Gran Union will perform on Friday at the Calgary Hispanic Festival Expo Latino 2011, which is under way in that Canadian city, where he will share the stage with American salsa singer Michael Stuart and Dominican Carlos Cruz. Read More

---

Women Rappers a Vocal Minority

<p style="text-align: justify;">By Patricia Grogg. HAVANA, Aug 25, 2011 (IPS) - Women are still a small minority on Cuba’s hip hop scene. "If the situation is hard for us nationwide, imagine what it’s like in the eastern region, where this genre has very little recognition," says Yaneidys Tamayo, leader of the group Las Positivas. Tamayo, Irina Rodríguez and Orielis Mayet, who have the only all-woman rap group in Cuba, swim against the tide in Santiago de Cuba, a province at the eastern tip of the island marked by musical preferences that range from reggaeton to rumba and are directed at a public that is more interested in dancing than in hearing the messages these women want to send from the stage. Read More

---

Cuba announces to support Cambodia's candidacy for UNSC seat: ambassador

<p style="text-align: justify;">English.news.cn. 2011-08-25 21:35:26. PHNOM PENH, Aug. 25 (Xinhua) -- Cuba will support Cambodia for the post of a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in 2013 and 2014 mandate, the outgoing ambassador of Cuba to Cambodia Gilda Lopez Armenteros said Thursday. The ambassador said so during a farewell call on the President of Cambodian National Assembly Heng Samrin. Read More

---

Puerto Rico-Cuba flights resume after decades

<p style="text-align: justify;">By Associated Press. FRIDAY Aug 26, 2011 14:20 ET. Flights between Cuba and Puerto Rico have resumed nearly 50 years after service between the islands was severed due to bad blood between Washington and Havana. A Cuban travel official says the American Eagle charter flight from San Juan arrived in the eastern city of Santiago on Friday. Elizza Cabezas says the passengers are mostly Puerto Rico residents of Cuban origin visiting relatives back home. Read More

---

House Rep Slams U.N. After Cuba Succeeds N. Korea at Helm of Nuclear Panel

<p style="text-align: justify;">Published August 26, 2011. Reuters. In this Nov. 10, 2010 photo, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen speaks with Reuters at her office in Miami. A top House lawmaker ridiculed the United Nations after Cuba assumed the rotating presidency of a nuclear arms control panel, replacing North Korea at the helm of the group. Cuba succeeded North Korea on the 65-member U.N. Disarmament Conference in Geneva. Read More

---