Cuba resumes official contact
with eight EU countries
Cuba
announced Monday it has resumed
official contacts with the eight
European Union countries of
France, Britain, Germany, Italy,
Austria, Greece, Portugal and
Sweden.
Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe
Perez said the decision was made
after an EU commission
recommended that member
countries work to improve
relations with Havana, in part
by stopping inviting dissidents
to national holiday celebrations
at their embassies in Havana.
"Due to these pronouncements,
Cuba has decided to resume
official contact with a group of
EU countries," Perez told a news
conference, which was attended
by ambassadors of these European
countries in Havana.
Relations between Havana and the
EU were frozen since
mid-2003,when the EU applied
diplomatic sanctions to the
island country in response to
its arrest of 75 dissidents and
sentencing them to prison terms
of six to 28 years.
Among the measures adopted by
the EU were the ending of
political dialogue, limiting of
high-level government visits and
reduction of member states'
participation in cultural events
in the country.
Cuba responded by relinquishing
all economic aid from the EU,
its officials stopped
participating in EU receptions,
and its foreign minister refused
to receive EU ambassadors who
sought to see him.
By late November as the EU
reviewed its sanctions against
Cuba, Havana began releasing
some of the dissidents from
prison.
Fire leaves 175 dead in
Argentina
At least 175 died and 889 were
injured in a fire that broke out
during a rock concert in a night
club in Buenos Aires Thursday
night, Mayor of Buenos Aires
Anibal Ibarra said Friday.
Of the injured in the Republica
Cromagnon night club, 514
received attention in public
hospitals, and 105 in private
medical centers. Among the
injured there "are seriously
injured individuals," who are
likely to pass away, said
Ibarra.
The club was crowded with 1,500
youngsters, including minors,
who had fun during a rock
concert of the band "Los
Callejeros."
The fire that started at
midnight Thursday seemed to be
caused by fireworks that formed
part of the show, said the
police. Other versions indicate
that the fire was caused by a
flare ignited among the public.
Tens of corpses were placed
outside the place of the
incident, in Once neighborhood,
in downtown Buenos Aires.
The number of the dead include
victims who died in the night
club and hospitals where they
had been hospitalized.
Interior Minister Anibal
Fernandez, said the "youngsters
were doomed in a mortal trap" in
the night club.
"The night club had only two
entrances, plus another which
were blocked," he added.
The minister said if the gates
had worked properly, the
night-club would have been
evacuated in two minutes.
Nobody would have died as a
consequence of the accumulation
of smoke inside the place, said
the minister.
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EU foreign policy chief to
visit Colombia
European Union Foreign
Policy Commissioner Javier
Solana will visit Colombia
in early January, during
which he will hold talks
with Colombian President
Alvaro Uribe, officials said
here Wednesday.
The meeting will focus on
the statement issued two
weeks ago by the 25
countries of the European
bloc, pledging political and
economic support for the
peace process between the
Colombian government and the
paramilitaries.
Nevertheless, the EU has
asked Colombia to adopt as
soon as possible "a global
legal framework" for the
peace process with theUnited
Self-Defense Forces of
Colombia (AUC) and with the
other illegal armed groups.
Solana, who is expected to
be in Colombia for only
eight hours, will travel to
Colombia from Mexico and go
to Brazil on the same night,
where he will meet with
President Luiz Inacio Lula
da Silva.
The peace process between
the Colombian government and
the AUC has allowed
demobilization of about
2,500 paramilitaries. But
the lack of a legal
framework led the far-right
illegal organization to
claim there will be no more
demobilization so long as
the legal guarantees for the
paramilitaries are not
defined.
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