Chronicle on Cuba - September 2005

Highlights

Domestic Affairs: Cuba is a country rated "high" in human development, the UN Development Program reports. The Cuban government announces the creation of a group of doctors ready for dispatch to natural disasters around the globe. Political prisoner Victor Rolando Arroyo is critically ill after being on a hunger strike for over 20 days.

Economy: Cuba’s vice president, Carlos Lage, announces a plan to build 150,000 houses. Cuba plans to shut down more sugar mills and replace them with food processing facilities, the Sugar Ministry says. Cuba and Canada sign a memorandum of understanding for cooperation in the sector of agriculture.

Foreign Affairs: Cuba calls the UN summit an "unforgivable sham". Fidel Castro meets an important Chinese delegation led by China's vice-president for development and reform, Zhang Xiao Giang. The European Union says it is seriously concerned about three political prisoners in Cuba who have been on hunger strike and demands the liberation of all political prisoners in the island.

US-Cuba Relations: Fidel Castro offers to send medical aid to the United States in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, but the US government rejects the offer. The number of Cubans leaving the island illegally by sea to the US is at its highest since the 1994 rafters' crisis. Cuba accuses the US government of protecting Luis Posada Carriles.