HeraldLink - Americas

Published Friday, May 10, 1996, in the Miami Herald.

IN THE AMERICAS

From Herald Wire Services

CUBA

IAPA rebukes Havana on press clampdown

The Inter-American Press Association has rebuked Cuba for shutting down the Independent Press Bureau of Cuba (BPIC) last week and forbidding its writers to transmit news reports overseas.

The IAPA sent a letter to Cuban President Fidel Castro on Wednesday asking him to end his government's ``intimidation'' of independent journalists.

It also deplored the seizure on April 26 of BPIC's files and office equipment, as well as the 11-hour detention on May 2 of Julio Suarez, father of BPIC's founder Yndamiro Restano.

Rafael Solano, president of another independent Cuban news agency, Habana Press, arrived in Madrid on Thursday and said he would ask for political asylum in Spain.

Solano was arrested in Havana Feb. 27 and accused of ``criminal association.'' He was released April 8, pending trial, but given the choice of leaving the island.

``Faced with jail, I chose exile,'' he said.

ETC.

ARGENTINA -- Leah Rabin, widow of slain Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, urged Argentine Jews on Thursday not to be demoralized by the bombings in Buenos Aires that killed 29 people at the Israeli Embassy in March 1992 and 87 at a Jewish cultural center in July 1994. ``It is possible to rise above these attacks and go forward by being strong-willed and composed,'' she said during a two-day visit.

U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS -- A hydrofoil captain swerved to avoid a whale last week, putting his vessel out of commission and interrupting ferry service between St. Thomas and St. Croix for up to three weeks, the hydrofoil company said.

© 1996 The Miami Herald. The information you receive on-line from
The Miami Herald is protected by the copyright laws of the United States.
The copyright laws prohibit any copying, redistributing, retransmitting,
or repurposing of any copyright-protected material.
Send questions and comments to feedback@herald.com