60th Ernest Heminway International Billfishing Tournament

May 24 – 29 2010.

Following the tradition the great northamerican writer Ernest Hemingway represents, we will celebrate the 60th International Billfishing Tournament this year.

Marina Hemingway cordially invites you to fish the annual International Fishing Tournament taking for granted that you will live a different moment.

Registration

450.00 CUC per team from 1 to 3 anglers and 100.00 CUC per an additional angler. Registration fee includes free mooring if you come on your own boat, personal invitations for the Welcoming Cocktail, Closing Dinner and Awarding Ceremony for the teams.

The visa will be able to acquire it to the entrance to the Marina Hemingway, you can get it here, just advice using the VHF Channel 16.

If you rent own boat to the Marina Hemingway the prices include: captain and mate, fishing tackle for every angler, baits, fuel and snack.

Public prices range from 2 250.00 CUC.

Prizes

First, second and third prize consisting on Medals for the Team and a Trophy.

Prize to the first capture.

Prize to the biggest dolphin.

Schedule

May 24th: Registration and Captains’ Meeting

May 25th: First fishing day

May 26th: Second fishing day

May 27th: Lay day. Optional excursion (other persons can also participate in this excursion)

May 28th: Third fishing day

May 29th: Fourth fishing day. Award Ceremony and Farewell Party.

Tournament Rules and Regulations

Rules according to IGFA.

Teams up to 4 anglers.

Tag and Release method.

The line for the “Ernest Hemingway” Tournament is 50 pounds.

Only the Captain and one team representative will attend the Captain’s meeting.

Tag and Release reports or capture reports must be given to the Control Tower of our marina indicating the time, team number and location.

The Jury from the Cuban Sport Fishing Federation, will take irrevocable decisions regarding the validation of Tag and Release capture previously printed in the photographs. Complains due to violation of any of the items will be issued to the Jury into the next 2 hours at the end of each fishing day. If it is not done that way they will not be considered. At the end of each fishing day a report will be delivered to all boats so that any complain that may arise could be issued to the Jury into the next 24 hours.

Pictures and official cameras of the Tournament belong solely to the Jury.

A crew list will be needed at the Registration.

Reservations:

Reservations should be made at least one month before the starting day of the tournament.

The boats to rent are 33′, DC-8 and DC-9 and they have equipments to fish and 50 pound lines.

Public prices range from 2250.00 cuc.

Prices include: captain and mate, fishing tackle for every angler, baits, fuel and snack. If you are coming on your own boat you don´t need to bring visa because you can get it here, just advice using the VHF Channel 16.

For more information contact us:  info@particularcuba.com

Obama extends Cuba embargo one year

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Obama has extended the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba for one year, the White House said in a statement released on Monday.

The extension was expected and has been the practice of all U.S. presidents dating to the 1970s under a section of the so-called “Trading With the Enemy Act.”

Obama extended the embargo even though he has made reaching out to old U.S. foes a key plank in his foreign policy.

There have been signs of a possible thaw in U.S.-Cuban ties since Raul Castro early last year took over as president from his ailing brother Fidel. Fidel Castro had held the post since heading the revolution that ousted the U.S.-backed Batista regime on Jan. 1, 1959.

Obama has sought to reach out to Cuba by easing travel and financial restrictions on Americans with family in Cuba. The two countries have said they will hold talks on resuming direct mail links. But Obama has also said he will not lift the embargo until Cuba undertakes democratic and economic reforms.

In signing the extension, Obama was taking a symbolic step because existing law, the Helms-Burton Act, requires Congress to take action specifically ending the embargo.

But Obama also bypassed an opportunity to suggest a willingness for easing U.S.-Cuban animosity.

The White House statement renewing the provisions was dated Sept. 11 but only released on Monday, when the last extension, issued by former President George W. Bush, was to expire.

“I hereby determine that the continuation for one year of the exercise of those authorities with respect to Cuba is in the national interest of the United States,” Obama said in a memorandum addressed to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

www.particularcuba.com – Travel to Cuba

U.S., Cuba to hold postal service talks – diplomats

HAVANA, Aug 31 (Reuters) – Talks aimed at resuming direct postal service between the United States and Cuba, which has been suspended for decades, are set to be held in mid-September in another sign of thawing U.S.-Cuba relations, Western diplomats said.

Officials from the U.S. State Department and U.S. Postal Service were expected to attend the discussions in Havana, the diplomats, who asked not to be named, said.

No further details were immediately available and there was no immediate confirmation from the Cuban government.

The talks are part of U.S. President Barack Obama’s declared intention to “recast” relations with Communist-ruled Cuba, which for 47 years has been the target of a U.S. trade embargo.

In April, Obama lifted restrictions on travel and remittances sent to Cuba by Cuban Americans with relatives on the island and he has restarted talks on immigration that were suspended by the Bush administration in 2004.

Cuba agreed in late May to resume the immigration discussions and also to a U.S. request for talks on the postal service.

At present, mail between the two countries must go through a third country.

Direct postal service was suspended as a result of the animosity between the United States and Cuba that began soon after the Cuban revolution toppled dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

Diplomatic relations were broken off in 1961 and a year later the U.S. launched a trade embargo that is still in place.

The United States has approached Cuba before about resuming direct postal services but Cuba has insisted in the past that, among other things, this must be accompanied by a resumption of regular scheduled commercial flights between the two nations just 90 miles (145 km) apart. Currently, only charter flights are permitted under U.S. regulations.

Cuba is also said to be concerned about the possible delivery by post of items it views as potentially harmful, including chemicals, firearms, ammunition, and technology such as satellite phones.

U.S. express mail service companies such as UPS (UPS.N) and FedEx (FDX.N) cannot operate in Cuba but German-owned carrier DHL (DPWGn.DE) can.

According to John Kavulich, senior policy advisor at the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council in New York, resumption of direct mail would likely draw interest from UPS and FedEx.

“Pressure might increase for UPS and FedEx to have the right to compete with the U.S. Postal Service,” he said. The two companies “might not want to service Cuba, but they would certainly insist on the right to compete.”

He also said that with direct postal service, Cuba’s government agencies would be expected to respond more promptly to U.S. requests and queries than in the past.

“With normalization comes accountability — a relationship that centrally-planned commercial, economic and political systems are not designed to accept readily,” Kavulich told Reuters.

While Obama has moved to improve U.S.-Cuba relations, he has said the U.S. trade embargo will only be eliminated if Cuba make progress on political prisoners and human rights.

Cuba has said it is willing to discuss everything with Washington but has ruled out unilateral political concessions or any shift to capitalism.

www.particularcuba.com – Online information on Cuba

Juanes receives threats over Cuba concert

(AP) KEY BISCAYNE, Fla. – Latin pop singer Juanes considered canceling a Sept. 20 concert in Cuba because he received what he felt were threatening messages on his Twitter account, according to a police report.

The 17-time Latin Grammy winner is scheduled to hold his Paz Sin Fronteras — Peace Without Borders — concert in Havana. But some Cuban-Americans in Miami have criticized the event, saying that it endorses the Communist-led government of Fidel and Raul Castro.

In a police report dated Aug. 15, Juanes said that someone sent him a message on Twitter, which said, among other things, “I hate what you are saying but you will die for defending your right to say it.”

Key Biscayne Police said that Juanes — whose real name is Juan Esteban Aristizabal — considered canceling the concert and cited “fears for his safety as well as his family.”

Juanes’ manager and the promoter of the concert, Fernan Martinez Maech, also told Key Biscayne Police that he has “experienced hostility” from co-workers at the office regarding the show, who labeled him a “communist.”

Police said they are taking the threats seriously and keeping a watch on both Juanes and Maecha’s homes. Both live in Key Biscayne, an exclusive island enclave southeast of Miami’s downtown.

“We are treating this like any other incident, regardless of how famous he is,” said Key Biscayne Police Chief Charles Press.

Event promoters insist the Havana concert will have no ideological overtones, even if it is being staged in Havana’s Revolution Plaza — with its famed homage to fallen revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara on the side of a building roughly half a dozen stories tall. Among the other acts scheduled to perform are Cuban folk legend Silvio Rodriguez and Cuban salsa stars Los Van Van.

The Grammy-winning Juanes, who is from Colombia, is known for his social activism. His first “Peace Without Borders” concert in March 2008 drew tens of thousands to the border between Venezuela and Colombia when tensions were high over a Colombian commando raid into neighboring Ecuador that killed a leading rebel commander.

John Reilly, Juanes’ New York-based spokesman, said Thursday that plans for the concert have not changed and that “the vast majority of communication Juanes is receiving from both fans on Twitter and everyday people he comes into contact with in Miami continues to be overwhelmingly supportive.”

The statement also said there are “a very small number of extremists who apparently feel threatened by change and have posted or acted in an aggressive manner.”

Juanes has attempted to answer his critics on Twitter, often discussing the controversy in 140-character tweets: “Ninety miles of border, of wall, of lack of communications, of pain and death,” Juanes wrote on Monday, citing the distance between Florida and Cuba. “Don’t you think it would be good that they talk after 50 years?”

www.particularcuba.com – News about Cuba

Cuba cuts international rates to $1 per minute

AVANA (AP) — Cuba says it’s reducing international calling rates for residents with land lines to $1 a minute.

Cuba’s telecommunications monopoly, Etecsa, says the discount applies to all international calls through Dec. 15. Details of the promotion appeared on its Web site and were confirmed Monday by a company representative who did not provide his name.

Residential calls from Cuba had cost $2.45 a minute to the United States and Canada, $3.45 to Central America and $5.85 to Europe. Most Cubans don’t have Internet access and cannot afford cell phones or computers.

Despite the cuts, international dialing remains a costly proposition for most Cubans whose average state wages are $20 a month.

News of the offer hadn’t been published by state media as of Monday. Etecsa said details about the plan will appear on residents’ telephone bills. Residents wanting to call abroad must first request activation of international calling service, the company said.

No reason was given for the discount. But Cuba is dealing with a severe economic crisis that has affected islanders and prompted the government to announce spending cuts for education and health care, two pillars of its communist system.

Three hurricanes last year caused more than $10 billion in damage. The global recession has cut export earnings and caused budget deficits to soar, leaving Cuba short of cash. The government’s most recent forecast puts 2009 economic growth at 1.7 percent, compared to a 6 percent forecast made in December.

Etecsa said it will announce new international rates for cell phone users but provided no details. The government made private service available to all islanders in 2008. Cell phones previously were restricted to foreigners and Cubans with key state jobs.

www.particularcuba.com – Cuba travel services

Chavez back from Cuba for Fidel’s 83rd birthday

AP:  CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez said Friday he found his close ally and mentor Fidel Castro in good health during a visit to Cuba to celebrate the Cuban leader’s 83rd birthday.

Chavez says they shared a cake. He says he also gave Castro Venezuelan products including chocolate and sardines, and two charcoal drawings: one of Venezuelan independence hero Francisco de Miranda, and a second of Cuban hero Jose Marti.

He said Castro “is in absolute use of his mental faculties.”

“You know what the imperialists say,” Chavez said. “Some say that Fidel is crazy. … They create rumors.”

Castro ceded power to his brother, Raul, after he fell ill three years ago and has not been seen in public since. He stepped down as president in February 2008.

Castro marked his 83rd birthday on Thursday out of the public eye but with an essay on the global economic crisis, climate change and immigration that headlined Cuban newspapers.

On Wednesday, Cuba unveiled what it says is a recent photograph of Castro, showing him looking healthier than in other pictures since he underwent emergency surgery.

Chavez said the two leaders talked for some five hours on Friday before he returned to Venezuela.

“Fidel is fine, he’s in his prime,” he said.

www.particularcuba.com – Cuba Travel Specialist

HARLEM-BASED PASTOR MEETS WITH CUBAN LEADERS RAUL AND FIDEL CASTRO

Pasotsofpeace.org:

HARLEM-BASED PASTOR MEETS WITH CUBAN LEADERS RAUL AND FIDEL CASTROON EVE OF 83RD BIRTHDAY, FIRST PUBLIC PHOTOS OF FIDEL SINCE FEBRUARY 2009

Rev. Lucius Walker, Jr., founder and executive director of IFCO/Pastors for Peace, had the unusual opportunity to have extended meetings with Cuban President Raul Castro Ruz and with ex-President Fidel Castro Ruz.  The meetings took place when Rev. Walker was in Cuba recently with the 20th Pastors for Peace Caravan.

Lucius Walker and Raul Castro

Rev. Walker indicated that he came away from these meetings with a renewed sense of the potential that exists for improving US/Cuba relations.  “Both leaders made it clear that Cuba is ready for talks covering any and all points of interest to both parties” said Rev. Walker.

Lucius Walker, Fidel Castro Aug. 2009

The 20th US/Cuba Friendshipment Caravan organized by IFCO/Pastors for Peace returned from Cuba last week.  Its 130 participants successfully delivered 132 tons of humanitarian aid to the people of Cuba.

Since 1992, Pastors for Peace caravans have delivered more than 3132 tons of humanitarian aid to Cuba. The aid includes hurricane reconstruction supplies, medical and educational equipment, computers, and school buses.  Members of the 20th caravan visited Havana and several rural provinces, where they saw and participated in ongoing efforts to recover from the three hurricanes that hit Cuba in the summer of 2008.

Rev. Walker is available for interviews and appearances on talk shows.Pastors for Peace is a project of the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO), which has been working for racial, social, and economic justice since 1967.  Photos, video clips, and more information are available at www.pastorsforpeace.org

www.particularcuba.com – Cuba car rental

Rocker Juanes to offer Sept. 20 concert in Havana

Reuters:

HAVANA — Colombian rocker Juanes wants to hold his second “Peace Without Borders” concert in Havana’s storied Revolution Plaza next month with a host of regional stars — and says he has met with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in hopes that American musicians can join the extravaganza.

In what could be the latest sign the art world is well into a thaw of nearly a half century of icy U.S.-Cuba relations, Juanes’ manager, Fernan Martinez, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the concert will be Sept. 20.

He said organizers are waiting for Cuban government permission to use the sprawling concrete plaza, which is flanked by a huge homage to fallen Argentine revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara and houses offices for Fidel and Raul Castro. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans gather there each May 1 for International Workers’ Day celebrations.

A similarly huge crowd could come to rock, making the event one of the top Cuban concerts in recent memory. The first installment of Juanes’ “Peace Without Borders” concert in March drew 100,000 fans to the border between Venezuela and Colombia.

The Cuba concert coincides with U.N. International Peace Day and could feature up to 12 artists from Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Cuba and, Martinez said, the United States. He refused to divulge all the names.

Washington’s 47-year-old trade embargo prohibits Americans from doing business with Cuba, but performers can get permission to come from the Treasury Department.

For now, Martinez said, the show will feature at least Juanes and Spanish singer Miguel Bose.

“Following the lead of the first concert … the event will use music as a tool to transcend politics and demonstrate unity of peoples beyond borders,” Martinez said.

He said Juanes, who has started a foundation to help land-mine victims, met with Clinton “to present the concept for the concert” and that “the requests for U.S. artists are currently in process with the Treasury Department.”

Martinez said the singer also met recently with Treasury officials and Congress, as well as leaders of key Cuban exile groups in Miami to help ensure U.S. stars come for the show.

Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma carried a small story Tuesday saying Juanes would perform in Havana on Sept. 20, and that the concert would feature an open-air venue and be centered around the color white, signifying peace. It made no mention of Revolution Plaza, however.

The paper quoted Cuban Institute of Music vice president Osmany Lopez in reporting that Cuban folk legend Silvio Rodriguez and local salsa stars Los Van Van would participate.

Lopez told Granma that Juanes visited Cuba in June and met with Rodriguez, a pioneering member of the island’s “New Song” movement who mixes music with staunch defense of the Castro government and Cuban revolutionary politics.

Juanes, whose Spanish-language hits include “A Dios le pido,” “La camisa negra” and “Me enamora,” has won 17 Latin Grammy trophies, more than any other artist.

His “Peace Without Borders” on the border between Colombia and Venezuela featured Bose, Juan Luis Guerra, Alejandro Sanz, Carlos Vives and other stars who wore white and sang on the Simon Bolivar bridge between the two South American countries.

www.particularcuba.com – News and events from Cuba

Fidel Castro, turning 83, still a force in Cuba

HAVANA (Reuters) – Fidel Castro is not the presence he once was in Cuba after three years out of public view but as he turns 83 on Thursday he still has clout and is working to ensure the island stays communist long after he is gone.

Although younger brother Raul Castro, who is 78, replaced him as president last year, Fidel Castro continues to be a powerful international voice for Cuba, through the regular commentary columns he writes for state-run media.

His internal role in Cuba’s government is less clear but it is generally assumed that while his brother runs the show from day to day, he does it in consultation with Fidel Castro.

“It’s still, I think, a partnership but Raul is now the senior partner,” said Brian Latell of the University of Miami’s Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies. “Fidel is not able to be involved in the day-to-day stuff anymore.”

Fidel Castro led the revolution that toppled dictator Fulgencio Batista on January 1, 1959, and ran the country for 49 years before he underwent emergency surgery for an undisclosed intestinal ailment in July 2006.

He ceded power provisionally to Raul Castro and dropped out of sight and in February 2008 officially resigned on health grounds, allowing his brother to take his place as president.

He has been seen only in videos and photographs with visiting leaders since then but has taken on a kind of “conscience of communism” role in the nearly 250 columns he has written from his semi-seclusion in an undisclosed location.

In recent weeks, Castro has written mostly about the coup in Honduras that ousted President Manuel Zelaya and a U.S. plan to use military bases in Colombia. Cuba wants Zelaya reinstated.

Fidel Castro also has played down cautious steps taken this year by U.S. President Barack Obama to improve ties with Havana and has made very clear Washington should not expect concessions from Havana. “The adversary should never be under the illusion that Cuba will surrender,” he wrote in April.

Obama has said he will keep the 47-year-old U.S. trade embargo on Cuba in place to press the Cuban leadership to improve human rights and grant political freedoms.

Fidel Castro’s writings and comments by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez show these two socialist allies still appear to work closely, orchestrating a strategy to counter U.S. influence and promote leftist governments in the region.

“LINES IN THE SAND”

But at home in Cuba, Raul and other leaders are battling the country’s worst economic crisis since the 1990s while they worry that the revolutionaries who transformed the country into a communist state five decades ago are getting old.

Raul Castro has tweaked the state-run economy to try to increase productivity but has also made clear that the goal of the aging leaders is to ensure communism lives on after them.

“We must ensure the impossibility of reversing the socio-political regime of the country, which is the only guarantee of its true independence,” he said in an August 1 speech to Cuba’s National Assembly.

Fidel Castro’s role, Latell said, has been to prevent the government from straying too far from the path of communist orthodoxy as it seeks to strengthen the economy.

“He is laying out prohibitions, lines in the sand, that Raul and successive generations must not cross,” said Latell, author of “After Fidel: The Inside Story of Castro’s Regime and Cuba’s Next Leader.”

But even as Fidel Castro continues to play politics at high levels, there are signs his place in the Cuban public’s consciousness has slipped.

Fidel Castro

His prolonged absence from public view has made him a remote figure for young people, who also tend to be impatient with a government many view as too ideologically rigid.

“Fidel is very intelligent but he can’t admit he made a mistake by giving Cuba a system that never worked,” said 26-year-old construction worker Raul Gonzalez Gonzalez.

Older Cubans, who remember Fidel Castro at the height of his powers, tend to be more positive.

“Fidel Castro has given us stability,” said Cicero Argent, a 63-year-old security guard. “Maybe things are a little difficult right now but we don’t have a drug problem, we don’t have a lot of crime like in other countries.”

That legacy should allow his successors to retain control after his death, said Dan Erikson of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington.

“Though the prospect of his death still generates much speculation and Fidel’s death will be a mega-media event, he will leave behind a Cuban government sufficiently equipped to weather his passing without major disruption,” said Erikson.

“By living long enough to micro-manage the Cuban transition, Fidel has outwitted even his fiercest enemies.”

www.particularcuba.com – Online travel agency in Cuba

Wagon Pars sells 550 wagons to Cuba

Tehran Times:

TEHRAN – Iran’s Wagon Pars Company has exported 550 train wagons for carrying containers, fuel and cement to Cuba Railroad Company, Wagon Pars Company’s managing director said here on Sunday.

The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting quoted Gholam-Reza Razzazi as saying “The wagons were designed and built domestically at the cost of $60 million.”

Wagon Pars Company annually produces 1,500 cargo train wagons, 40 locomotives, and 250 passenger and metro train wagons

www.particularcuba.com – Fly & Drive in Cuba