Chronicle on Cuba - November 2005

US-Cuba Relations

November 1: A US trade delegation led by Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman has signed agreements to sell nearly $30 million worth of food to Cuba. The delegation signed the deal in Havana with Cuba's food importing company, Alimport. Nebraska farmers agreed to sell wheat, beans and soy products to the Cubans. The signing took place during Havana's annual trade fair. Governor Heineman said it is a big boost for farmers in his state to find a new market. (VOA, 1/11/05)

November 1: Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman said he met with Fidel Castro after a trade delegation from his state finalized deals to sell wheat, beans and soy products worth about $27 million to the communist-run island. Heineman declined to provide details about the hour-long meeting at Castro's offices, which the Cuban leader requested. The Republican governor has been striving to keep a low political profile during his trip and has steered away from discussing US-Cuba relations, emphasizing instead the economic benefits of the Cuban market for Nebraska farmers. (AP, 2/11/05)

November 2: The state of Alabama clinched deals to sell $19 million worth of chicken, minced meat and wooden utility poles to the Cuban government at the communist country's annual trade fair. Initially, Cuba's food import company Alimport signed an agreement with Ron Sparks, Alabama's agricultural commissioner, to buy $15 million of goods from the state. Shortly after, officials inked the deals surpassing the amount in the agreement. Sparks led the Alabama delegation, which included business representatives and several state lawmakers. (AP, 2/11/05)

November 2: Two Miami men pleaded guilty in federal court to smuggling 29 Cubans in a speedboat that overturned and claimed the life of a young boy who got trapped beneath the capsized vessel. Rather than face trial, Alexander Gil Rodriguez and Luis Manuel Taboada-Cabrera cut quick plea deals with federal prosecutors, who didn't have enough evidence to charge them with the October 13 death of 6-year-old Julian Villasuso. The men, Cuban immigrants who arrived in South Florida during the past year, could face up to six years in prison at a January 24 sentencing hearing before US District Judge K. Michael Moore. The boy's death could be a factor in the sentencing of Rodriguez, 25, and Taboada-Cabrera, 28. (The Miami Herald, 3/11/05)

November 3: A plan to send three American relief specialists to Cuba to assess damage from Hurricane Wilma has been suspended because Cuba wanted to turn the visit into a discussion of unrelated issues, the State Department said. Cuban officials wanted to use the mission to discuss their vision for "regional disaster response," said Sean McCormack, a spokesman. "We are unwilling to turn a humanitarian mission into a political dialogue," he said. Before McCormack's statement, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque told the press in an interview in Havana that his government was ready to issue visas to the US team. "We're still waiting," he said. (The New York Times, AP, 3/11/05)

November 3: Cuba rejected Washington's claim that it wanted to politicize a visit -- now on hold -- by three US relief specialists to tour areas of the island damaged last month by Hurricane Wilma. In a statement defending its position in the dispute, Cuba's communist government said it made clear from the start that it accepted the visit as a way to discuss sharing information about hurricane preparedness and improving disaster assistance among countries in the region -- not as a way to get US aid. "Cuba rejects the accusation of having changed the purpose of the visit (…) as well as the insinuation that our acceptance of the visit means we are seeking to gain political advantage and open a channel for the discussion of bilateral problems between the two countries," said a Foreign Ministry statement published by state-run newspapers. [Declaración del ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores] (EFE, AP, 3/11/05)

November 3: A US Coast Guard cutter docked at a Cuban port to return 25 Cubans intercepted in the Florida Straits during a smuggling voyage last month that ended when the boat carrying them capsized and a six-year-old child drowned. The crew of the Coast Guard cutter Key Biscayne deposited the 25 Cubans at the port of Bahía de Cabañas, in western Cuba, at 10 a.m. Thursday, according to a Coast Guard statement issued in Miami. (The Miami Herald, 4/11/05)

November 3: A Granma daily editorial criticized the judicial decisions made in the United States in two cases involving the island. The newspaper accused President George W. Bush’s administration of "obstructing" justice in an effort to return political favors to Cuban exile sectors of Miami. The editorial alludes to the position taken by the US Attorney General’s Office during the process of the appeal submitted by anti-Castro firebrand Luis Posada Carriles and to the agreement of the Court of Atlanta to review in full the records of five Cuban intelligence agents serving lengthy prison sentences in the US. [Declaración del ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores] (AP, 4/11/05)

November 4: The United States is trying harder than ever to isolate Cuba and is leaning on countries to back its economic embargo on the communist-run island at the United Nations, Cuba's ambassador to Britain said. While the US trade embargo on Cuba has been in place since 1962, three years after Fidel Castro came to power in a revolution, President George W. Bush's administration has been tightening the screws to try and bring about political change. "This is the 10th administration to carry over the blockade measures against Cuba it is certainly the most aggressive and the most explicit about it," ambassador Rene Mujica Cantelar, said in an interview, calling the US steps "economic warfare". (Reuters, 4/11/05)

November 4: The United States will be Communist-run Cuba's biggest food supplier this year, despite trade restrictions and onerous regulations, the head of the state's food importing monopoly said. Alimport Chairman Pedro Alvarez said in an interview that about $500 million of his $1.5 billion budget this year went to buy US cereals, grains, poultry and other products. That compares with second place Vietnam at more than $150 million, in large part due to its sale of 600,000 tonnes of rice to the Caribbean island. China, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela and some European countries were important suppliers as well, Alvarez said, with many at around $100 million. (Reuters, 5/11/05)

November 5: Two Cuban women died when they were trapped underneath a boat that capsized during a suspected migrant smuggling operation in the Straits of Florida, the US Coast Guard said. T he 28-foot speedboat with 37 people aboard was taking on water in 4-to-6-foot seas when a Coast Guard cutter found it, Petty Officer Dana Warr said. A rescue boat was launched, and crew members gave life jackets to everyone aboard, Warr said. The Coast Guard crew removed 15 people from the boat and transferred them to the cutter on the scene, about 65 miles south of Key West. As the rescue crew returned to the boat, it capsized under a wave and dumped 22 people into the water. All but two people were rescued, and the bodies of two women wearing life jackets were found under the boat, the Coast Guard said. [US Coast Guard Press Release] (CNN, 5/11/05)

November 5: The US Interest Section in Havana (USIS) blamed the Cuban government on the death of two women when their overloaded vessel capsized trying to reach the coast of Florida. In an official statement the USIS says that, “The culpable parties in this tragic accident were the smugglers in question, who dangerously overloaded their vessel, and the Cuban regime.” “The regime continues to drive its citizens to risk their lives at sea by denying them economic opportunities and political freedoms. Cubans stream to the United States, and to other democratic countries, because they know they can realize their personal aspirations in a climate of freedom, which does not exist in Cuba”, the statement says. (USIS Press Release, 5/11/05)

November 6: Cuba signed 270 million dollars in contracts with US firms at Havana’s International Trade Fair (FIHAV 05), Cuba's import chief Pedro Alvarez said. Cuba plans to buy 500 million dollars worth of food from the United States this year, Alvarez said. He said the figure could have been bigger without new restrictions imposed in February by President George W. Bush's administration requiring Cuba to pay in advance for US goods. "What we sign today is insignificant compared to what we could sign if trade restrictions did not exist," he said. The fair was attended by 188 US companies with 370 executives from 31 US states, according to organizers. (Business Today Online, 7/11/05)

November 7: Federal investigators interviewed survivors of a botched Cuban migrant smuggling, and the Monroe County medical examiner scheduled autopsies on two women who perished when a speedboat carrying them capsized in the Florida Straits. It was the second time in less than a month when Cuban migrants perished on the high seas after the boat carrying them capsized. On Oct. 13, 6-year old Julian Villasuso died off the Keys. At least one suspected smuggler and 34 passengers remained aboard a Coast Guard cutter off Key West as US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents interviewed survivors. The boat reportedly departed from Havana province on Cuba's north coast. A number of small children were on board, according to sources. It's not clear whether the government will decide to bring any of the survivors into the United States as potential witnesses in a possible criminal case against the alleged smugglers. (The Miami Herald, 8/11/05)

November 8: Cuba received a record UN General Assembly vote of 182 nations opposed to the four-decade US embargo against Havana. Four countries -- the United States, Israel, Marshall Islands and Palau -- voted "no" and Micronesia abstained on the resolution calling for the lifting of the embargo, including penalties against foreign firms. The assembly has adopted such a resolution for the past 14 years. Last year 179 countries voted in favor of it. Introducing the resolution, Cuba's Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said that over the decades-long blockade, the measures had not been enforced with such brutality as in the last 18 months. As a result, for the first time an American would be barred from smoking a Cuban cigar even when traveling to another country. "Such insanity should go into the Guinness Book of World Records," he said. The Foreign Minister claimed the strengthened embargo was an economic war against Cuba, carried out on a global scale. (Reuters, UN News Centre, 8/11/05)

November 8: The United Nations General Assembly voted for the 14th consecutive year to call for an end to the 43- year-old US trade embargo against Cuba, drawing a rebuke from John Bolton, the new US envoy to the world body. "This is a complete exercise in irrelevancy,'' Ambassador Bolton told reporters in New York. "For a General Assembly that has not yet seriously attempted to reform the UN Human Rights Commission to adopt this exercise in Cuban propaganda really tells you something.'' The Bush administration said the resolution was an attempt to shift blame for Castro's shortcomings and that the General Assembly should not deal with the question. “The United States trade embargo is a bilateral issue and should not come before the General Assembly,'' US envoy Ronald Godard said. ``If the people of Cuba are jobless, hungry or lack medical care, as Castro admits, it is because of his economic mismanagement, not the embargo.'' Godard said the US would ease restrictions on trade and travel after Cuba allows "free and fair'' elections and the formation of independent trade unions. He said the US since 1992 has licensed $1.1 billion in sales and donations of medicine and medical equipment to Cuba. In the past five years more than $5 billion in U.S. farm commodities have been exported to Cuba, he said. (Bloomberg, 8/11/05)

November 8: Two more dancers from the Ballet Nacional de Cuba defected. Octavio Martin, a principal dancer, and his wife, Yahima Franco, who ranked slightly above the corps de ballet, left after the company's final performance at a festival in Villahermosa, Mexico. ''I want to begin a new chapter in my career,'' Mr. Martin said by telephone from Miami, where he and Ms. Franco, who uses the stage name Vanessa Franco, are staying with his brothers. He said he had asked Alicia Alonso, the company's general director, for permission to dance abroad permanently, but she said no. Both dancers have applied for asylum and plan to audition for ballet companies in the United States. (The New York Times, 8/11/05)

November 8: The US Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor issued its annual report on International Religious Freedom stating that, “there was no change in the status of respect for religious freedom” during the period covered by the report. However, the report signals that, “There were some tensions among religions, often because some religious groups perceived others to be too close to the Government”. “Tension within the Pentecostal movement continued due to the establishment of house churches, which some religious groups believed was divisive”, the report says. [International Religious Freedom Report 2005] (Washington Files, 16/11/05)

November 10: A Cuban scientist who invented a synthetic vaccine against meningitis could not pick up a prestigious award in California because the State Department denied him a visa, the museum giving him the prize said. Vicente Vérez Bencomo was one of 25 scientists around the world honored by the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose for using technology to benefit mankind. Vérez was among 580 applicants for the award. (The Miami Herald, 10/11/05)

November 10: The US Coast Guard repatriated 79 Cuban migrants. The migrants were taken to Bahia de Cabanas on board cutter Metompkin, according to the Coast Guard. Among the 79 were 34 Cubans on an overloaded 27-foot boat that overturned November 5 in rough seas about 65 miles south of Key West. The bodies of two women who drowned were found beneath the boat. Thirty six others, were interdicted at sea on November 4, south of Marathon, and nine other Cuban migrants interdicted at sea on November 6, south of Key West. Two Cuban migrants associated with these incidents are awaiting transfer to officials at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. (Sun Sentinel, The New York Times, 11/11/05)

November 11: Final negotiations between the Senate and US House of Representatives on a bill to fund the Transportation and Treasury Departments snagged over food sales to Cuba. Representative Joseph Knollenberg, a Michigan Republican and chairman of the House transportation appropriations subcommittee, said the Cuba provision and language on business reforms for the national passenger rail service, Amtrak, were the only outstanding issues in $141 billion legislation. Both houses passed measures this year to overturn a Treasury Department ruling that US farm and trade groups say has slashed agricultural exports to Cuba by making it more difficult for the Communist-ruled nation to pay for shipments. Congress authorized food sales to Cuba in 2000 if Havana paid in cash, an exception to the four-decade-old US trade embargo. But a Treasury Department rule issued in February requires Cuba to pay for American goods before they leave a US port. House members of the transportation conference committee voted overwhelmingly to maintain the rule, while Senate counterparts voted to drop it. The split created deadlock and a new round of closed-door talks. Knollenberg stressed the White House had made it clear President George W. Bush would veto the bill if the pre-payment provision for Cuba was overturned. Senate lawmakers were firm, with Democrats saying Bush has yet to veto a bill and was unlikely to derail the spending plan over one provision. (Reuters, 10/11/05)

November 13: Cuba, now a significant market for US corn, is nearing a new purchasing milestone, according to representatives of the Iowa Corn Promotion Board. Gary Woodley, from the ICPB's grain trade committee, and Don Mason, ICPB staff, said FCStone, a Des Moines-based commodity risk management and trading company, has sold nearly $100 million worth of commodities to Cuba since trade rules were eased in 2000. As corn producers, we've been well aware of the potential in this market," Mason said. "Our checkoff has worked since 1998 to build Cuban contacts that lead to Iowa corn sales." Chris Aberle, FCStone's director of sales, said the ICPB's ongoing participation in trade fairs and missions has been especially valuable in Cuba, where many normal avenues for building business relationships are blocked. Most recently, Mason and Woodley shared a booth with Aberle at the 23rd Havana International Fair. (The Daily Nonpareil, 13/11/05)

November 14: A Cuban woman who arrived in Miami as a stowaway inside a wooden crate on a cargo flight from the Bahamas is being allowed to stay permanently in the United States. Sandra De los Santos was granted political asylum, nearly 15 months after a crew unloading the filing cabinet-sized DHL crate discovered her at Miami International Airport. "Now I really feel that I am firmly here, without fear," De los Santos, 25, said after her hearing in immigration court. "I am still nervous, but today I consider myself touched with happiness." De los Santos said she was studying English and hoped to become an ultrasound technician. (AP, 15/11/05)

November 15: With some Republican lawmakers from Texas taking opposite sides, a clause that could have revived sales of Texas rice to Cuba was abruptly removed from a spending bill. President Bush, whose administration is steadfastly opposed to expanding trade with the communist country, had threatened to veto the measure if House and Senate negotiators let the clause remain. US Representative Ted Poe, (Republican-Humble), whose district includes most of the 41,500 acres of rice farms in Southeast Texas, said the removal of the provision was a mistake: "It doesn't punish the communists in Cuba, it punishes the rice farmers in Texas." "It's devastating," said Ray Stoesser, a third-generation rice farmer who has 3,000 acres of the crop in Liberty County and is president of the Texas Rice Council. "We need that Cuban market and we need it bad. "It was the second-best export market for rice behind Mexico in 2004, and we were growing," he said. "It's silly for us to be so close to people who want our rice, and our government won't let us sell to them." (Houston Chronicle, 15/11/05)

November 16: The CIA has alerted policymakers over the potential eroding of Fidel Castro's health. The CIA recently concluded that Fidel Castro suffers from Parkinson's disease and has warned US policymakers to be ready for trouble if the 79-year-old ruler's health erodes over the next few years. If true, the CIA's assessment of the nonfatal but debilitating condition would mean Castro may be entering a period where doctors say the symptoms grow more evident, medicines are less effective and mental functions start to deteriorate. Although Castro's brother Raúl, head of the armed forces, has been anointed as his successor, Cuba analysts fear the possibility of a tumultuous period during which an incapacitated Castro refuses to give up power but can no longer project his overpowering personality to Cuba's 11 million people. (The Miami Herald, 16/11/05)

November 16: Midwestern lawmakers expressed disappointment after a measure to ease restrictions on agriculture trade with Cuba was dropped -- under the threat of a presidential veto -- from a massive spending bill. The dispute is over a recent Treasury Department rule that requires Cuba to pay in advance for food shipments before they are sent from US ports. The Bush administration wants the stiffer rule to punish Fidel Castro's regime in Cuba, but opponents in Congress say it just hurts farmers. American agriculture sales to Cuba have dropped more than 25 percent since the rule was announced in February, as Cuba turned to other suppliers. "It shows huge hypocrisy," Missouri Representative Jo Ann Emerson said of the White House position. "They say 'we want open markets,' but on the other hand they allow rules to go into effect that prevent the opening of markets." The $140 billion spending bill to fund Transportation, Treasury and Housing programs was held up over the Cuba provision. (AP, 16/11/05)

November 17: The US Coast Guard searched for a Cuban rafter reported missing a few miles off the Lower Keys after five others he had traveled with were found. The migrants were trying to make it to Florida on at least one, maybe two, homemade boats. At least one of the Cubans was found on a flimsy vessel near a reef. (The Miami Herald, 17/11/05)

November 17: Fidel Castro dismissed a CIA assessment he is suffering from Parkinson's disease as a fabrication by his US enemies who wish to see him dead. ``They say Castro has this or that illness. The last thing they invented is that I have Parkinson's,'' he said in a speech to University of Havana students. The 79-year-old Cuban leader spoke for more than five hours standing at a lectern. A recent analysis by the CIA concluded Castro had Parkinson's and could have difficulty coping with the duties of office as his condition worsens, an official in Washington told the press. "They have killed me so many times,'' he said, referring to frequent rumors about his health that originate in the United States, usually in the anti-communist Cuban exile community in Miami. "They kill me every day. The day that I really die, nobody will believe me,'' he joked in the speech marking the 60th anniversary of the day he began his university studies. Fidel Castro blasted US President Bush and the CIA for the war in Iraq and the use of secret jails to house terror suspects. (The New York Times, The Miami Herald, 17/11/05)

November 17: Dozens of US scientists lacked their government's permission to attend a biotechnology conference in Havana, organizers said. "It is a shame what happened, that the US scientists could not come," Carlos Borroto, president of Biotechnology Conference Havana 2005, told reporters. Not to allow scientific interchange "is a crime," he said. Borroto said "dozens" of US biotech professionals who were interested in attending the conference could not obtain US permission, with the sole exception so far professor John Benemann, who will speak about possible biofuel substitutes for petroleum. (AFP, 17/11/05)

November 17: The US Government believes that democracy in Venezuela faces a “serious threat” due to President Hugo Chávez’s actions and his relations with countries like Cuba and Iran. In his first appearance before the Chamber’s Latin America Sub-committee, Thomas Shannon, US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, warned against a growing centralization of power in Chávez’s hands and possible repercussions of his closer ties to countries like Iran or his support to the Iranian nuclear program. Cuban-American Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen warned against the threat that the Chávez-Castro alliance poses for regional stability. (La Hora, 18/11/05)

November 19: Santiago Alvarez, a longtime anti-Castro activist and key supporter of exile militant Luis Posada Carriles, was arrested in Miami on federal weapons and passport charges. Alvarez, a wealthy developer, is charged with possession of automatic weapons, including some with the serial numbers obliterated; a silencer not properly registered; and a false passport, Matthew Dates, spokesman for the US attorney's office in Miami, said. The US government was already in the uncomfortable position of being accused of harboring Posada, who is suspected of terrorism, even as it wages a global war on terrorism. Federal agents arrested Alvarez at his Belle Meade home, just hours after executing a search warrant in his Hialeah office, said Kendall Coffey, Alvarez's lawyer. (The Miami Herald, 21/11/05)

November 20: American companies signed deals worth $259 million to provide food and agricultural products to Cuba at a trade fair, according to the head of the island’s food import company Alimport. Pedro Alvarez said his company expects to sign contracts worth $40 million more by year’s end. Tight US restrictions on trade with the communist–run island make it difficult to do business with the United States, but Cuba has no plans of halting the purchases, Alvarez told the press. (AP, 20/11/05)

November 21: The US government's case against Santiago Alvarez and Osvaldo Mitat, two close allies of Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles, contains the kind of intrigue that turned the terrorism suspect's own life into the stuff of Cuban exile lore. US Magistrate Judge Andrea Simonton refused to release the pair because their mere possession of automatic weapons, grenades and rounds of ammunition amounted to a ''crime of violence'' and posed a danger to the community. Federal agents found some of those firearms at a Broward County apartment complex owned by Alvarez, and other weapons on Mitat himself after a government informant made a delivery to him in Miami-Dade. Mitat's attorney, Dennis Kainen, said that when federal agents arrested his client, he was with Gilberto Abascal, a friend of both Mitat and Alvarez. Kainen said Mitat thought Abascal was arrested along with him -- but that did not turn out to be the case. Abascal, along with Alvarez and Mitat, was one of the five passengers aboard the fishing boat Santrina that Fidel Castro has repeatedly said smuggled Posada into the United States in March. (The Miami Herald, 21/11/05)

November 21: Reverend Lucius Walker, leader of the Pastors for Peace organization, is in Cuba heading a group of relatives of US youths who are studying medicine in Havana. Reverend Walker described his visit as an example of the friendship existing among the people of the US and Cuba. He noted that no measure adopted by the White House will ever damage such bonds. (Ahora, 28/11/05)

November 23: Santiago Alvarez, a permanent resident, could face deportation proceedings and be denied US citizenship if convicted of federal weapons and fraudulent passport charges. Alvarez, a close ally and benefactor of Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles, is being held on charges of possession of a cache of machine guns, grenades, rounds of ammunition and a fake Guatemalan passport and identification papers. His immigration status could be further complicated by a prior aggravated assault conviction stemming from weapons charges, according to experts on US immigration law. Alvarez's attorney, Ben Kuehne, said his client is not ''a convicted felon'' because his 1988 case was settled when the judge withheld adjudication. Immigration attorneys, however, say that such a ruling is considered a conviction for the purposes of immigration law. During Alvarez's bond hearing, Kuehne revealed his client is not a US citizen but was applying for citizenship. Alvarez's co-defendant in the case, Osvaldo Mitat, is a US citizen. (The Miami Herald, 23/11/05)

November 24: Fidel Castro has given the go-ahead for Cuba to play in the World Baseball Classic next March, vowing a clash between Cuban amateur sport and American professionalism that has lured away many Cuban stars. The 16-nation World Cup-style baseball event is the first international tournament to include major-league players and will begin on March 3 in Tokyo and end in San Diego three weeks later. A Cuban team last played in the United States in 1999 in an exhibition game in Baltimore against the major-league Orioles. "Yes, of course, we accept the challenge (…) count on us at the party,'' Castro said in a television appearance. The World Baseball Classic is being organized by the International Baseball Federation, Major League Baseball, and the Major League Baseball Players Association. (Reuters, 24/11/05)

November 26: US authorities blocked dozens of US experts from attending a major Cuban biotechnology conference that opens in Havana, its Cuban chairman said. Carlos Borroto, chairman of the Havana Biotechnology Conference 2005 which opens with some 550 specialists from 35 countries, said US authorities' lone exception was the permission to travel granted renowned US professor John Benemann. The United States and Cuba do not have full diplomatic ties, and the United States has had a full economic embargo on the only communist-ruled country in the Americas since 1962. (AFP, 26/11/05)

November 27: More than a thousand Thanksgiving holiday revelers cruising within view of Cuba had to make an unexpected stop to rescue 10 Cuban migrants from a 15-foot boat foundering in the Florida Straits, passengers said. Among the migrants the crew of the Zenith plucked from the sea was a young girl named Jennifer. The 7-year-old won the hearts of passengers during her 10 hours on board the ship, owned by the Miami-based Celebrity Cruises. But for the girl and her family, the upgrade from a boat powered largely by homemade oars to the luxury liner was brief. The seven men and two women in the group were taken off the cruise ship by a US Coast Guard cutter, where they remained, Petty Officer Dana Warr said. Their names have not been released, and their relatives have not come forward. The group was being questioned by immigration authorities who will determine whether they will be repatriated or eventually allowed to resettle in a third country. (The Miami Herald, 29/11/05)

November 30: Chucho Valdés will pay tribute to New Orleans and the victims of Hurricane Katrina with an original composition during Cuba's annual international jazz festival. The Grammy-winning pianist will host this year's event, Jazz Plaza 2005, Cuba's state media reported. The tribute concert, featuring Valdes' composition "Canto a Dios," will be performed at the event's closing by the pianist, his quartet, Cuba's National Symphonic Orchestra and Cuba's National Chorus. The words to the new song were written by Cuban folk singer Pablo Milanes. (AP, 30/11/05)