Havana, Dec 1 (AIN) Award winning US filmmaker Oliver Stone has sent Cuban President Fidel Castro a letter wishing him a fast recovery from a knee operation following his accidental fall last October.

In his correspondence published Wednesday by Juventud Rebelde and Granma newspapers, Stone calls Fidel an incredible man, "first you fall and fracture your knee and instead of relaxing and allowing doctors to administer anesthesia, as most people would do, you keep on working during surgery."

"If I was looking for Superman’s grandfather to make a film, I would pick you. I wish you a speedy recovery. I miss you and look forwards to seeing you as soon as I return to Cuba," concluded Oliver Stone in his letter to the leader of the Cuban revolution.

 Artists and Intellectuals Meet in Venezuela

Havana, Dec 1 (AIN) Nearly 400 artists and intellectuals from the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa open their World Summit in Defense of Humanity in Caracas, Venezuela on Wednesday.

The gathering brings together personalities from the fields of culture and the sciences to discuss issues including globalization, the Free Trade Area of the Americas and alternatives to neo-liberalism.

Participants will also analyze the effects of the Bush administration policies on Latin America and the defense of natural resources.

The Cuban delegation to the Caracas forum is headed by Culture Minister Abel Prieto and is made up of thirty poets, novelists, historians and economists.

The event was announced last January by Cuban and Venezuelan intellectuals and its large attendance is considered an expression of solidarity with the Venezuelan people and their Bolivarian Revolution.

As part of the Summit program, participants will tour rural communities, settlements and cities targeted for ongoing Venezuelan social programs, such as the literacy campaign and free health care.

 Family Doctor Program: A 20-Year Success Story

By Iris Armas and Francis Norniella

Havana, Nov 30 (AIN) Twenty years after its modest beginning, the Cuban Family Doctor program has received the praise of international health organizations, while the successful experiment has extended beyond the island’s borders.

Panelists on the Tuesday evening edition of the nationally broadcast The Round Table program credited the original idea to President Fidel Castro and noted how it has created a new vision of community medicine and primary healthcare in Cuba.

In a special edition of the broadcast, one of the founders of the program, Dr. Jose Rodriguez, told the audience that more than 99 percent of the Cuban population benefits from this project that - according to Dr. Hiroshi Nakajima, former

Director General of the World Health Organization - is a model to be emulated by other nations.

The Family Doctor Program is one of the backbones of the public health care system in Cuba. Its role in improving sanitary conditions and healthcare are accomplished through integrated actions focusing on illness prevention at the community level, according to Professor Rodriguez.

The family doctor has turned into the health guardian for every person in our country, providing personal care to each patient. This is done through regular home visits to the sick, infants and the elderly, and by medical personnel accompanying people to clinics and hospitals whenever a higher level of medical attention is required.

One of the health care programs that received a tremendous stimulus with the implementation of the Family Doctor Program has been the national vaccination campaign. Just two years after the program started, 98 percent of the Cuban population was immunized - a level greater than ever before achieved. This was said to have dramatically reduced communicable diseases in the country.

Six communicable diseases have now disappeared in Cuba due to the comprehensive coverage provided by family doctors. Currently, communicable disease control is approaching levels of coverage at theoretical limits, according to epidemiologists.

The Family Doctor Program serves the entire nation and has demonstrated its effectiveness in ensuring healthcare for everyone, according to Dr. Jose Ramon Balaguer, the Cuban Minister of Public Health, who gave a special presentation on The Round Table broadcast

Dr. Balaguer pointed out that Cuba is the only nation in the world that has such a humanitarian health care system, one which is coherent and highly organized.

In many parts of the world, healthcare has a private or cooperative character - very distinct from the Cuban model, which places special emphasis on preventive medicine and community healthcare education, according to Dr. Balaguer.

If Cuban healthcare statistics are among the world's best, this is due in large part to the outstanding efforts of physicians and nurses that staff the Family Doctor Program. Such Cuban healthcare workers also provide services in remote places around the world, Balaguer noted.

The Cuban Public Health Care Minister made reference to the importance of the program at the grassroots level indicating how this has led to reductions in infant mortality rates to extremely low levels and much lower death rates of women in childbirth.

Dr. Tania Perez Xiques, the national director of the Family Doctor Program, emphasized the importance of family nurses, who constitute roughly half of the nation's 82,000 nurses .

Dr. Perez Xiques also highlighted transformations initiated in 2002 that have increased primary-care levels in the community as part of socialist Cuba’s ongoing health programs.

Services now provided in easily-accessible community clinics include ultrasonic scanning, electrocardiography, endoscopy, physical rehabilitation, specialized care for allergic patients, and others services formerly available only at larger more distant hospitals.

During the Round Table broadcast devoted to the 20th Anniversary of Cuba's revolutionary Family Doctor Program, participants also mentioned unique possibilities for further education and training of healthcare specialists that includes possibilities of obtaining Masters and Ph.D. degrees

 Solitary Confinement for Cuban Prisoner in US Penitentiary

Havana, Dec 1 (AIN) One of the five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters unjustly held in US prisons has undergone severe in- jail restrictions over the past few weeks.

Gerardo Hernández is not allowed to leave his cell, receive visits or phone calls, is provided only cold food and a short time to bathe, reported the Cuban newspaper Juventud Rebelde on Wednesday.

The Cuban anti-terrorist, who was unfairly condemned to two life sentences plus 15 years imprisonment by a biased Miami court, is being kept in solitary confinement at the Victorville

penitentiary in California, although he has committed no indiscipline to be punished for, the newspaper article explains.

In a recent letter to his wife Adriana Pérez in Cuba, Gerardo said "I can’t talk to you because I’m still kept in "locked down". I don’t know how long this will take, but don’t you worry about it. Everything’s fine."

US authorities continue to deny Adriana an entry visa to visit her husband under the pretext that she represents a danger to US national security, meanwhile the couple continue to be separated and suffer psychologically.

A similar situation faces Olga Salanueva, wife of René González, another of the Cuban Five. November 22 marked the fourth year since her deportation from the US. Since then, Rene’s wife has also been denied an entry visa. Their small daughter Ivette González is also affected, since she too is prevented from seeing her father.

 8th Congress of Cuban Youth Begins Thursday

Havana, Dec 1st (AIN) Representing a generation that has carried out a singular battle for the future of the nation, 1,200 Cubans will begin the 8th Congress of the Young Communist League (UJC) on Thursday.

 At a decisive moment for humanity, -Five years of the Battle of Ideas, challenges and realizations- will be the central theme of the meeting, with the slogan "Un mundo mejor es posible" ("A better world is possible").

 During six working commissions, the delegates will exchange views on the work of the UJC as an organization, the role of the youth in the educational revolution, health and economic activity, the impact of social workers and their participation in the defense of the nation.

 The 8th congress train will travel the length of the nation picking up delegates and will arrive in Havana City on Thursday morning. They are staying on the campus of the "Eduardo Garcia Delgado" Art Instructors School.

During the event, the ¨Joven Clubs¨, youth clubs for computing and electronics, will make a Multimedia presentation that illustrates the main tasks of the organization, its history and a brief review of all their congresses.

 The "A better world is possible" exhibition that covers the most relevant works presented in the events of the Youth Technical Brigades will open on Friday in the Pabellón Cuba in Havana.

 Cuba Thanks Bolivia for Opposition to US Blockade

By Juan Diego Nusa Penalver

 Havana, Dec 1 (AIN) Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque thanked Bolivia for its vote of support on a UN resolution against the US economic blockade of the island when meeting today with his Bolivian counterpart, Juan Ignacio Siles.

At the start of official talks at the Cuban Foreign Ministry in Havana, Perez Roque highlighted the nation's friendship and respect for the Bolivian people and government and the two nation's existing relations of mutual understanding and cooperation.

The senior-level Cuban diplomat reaffirmed Havana's position of unequivocal support for Bolivia's demand for sovereign access to the sea, referring to Bolivia becoming a landlocked country over 100 years ago when Chile seized control over its Pacific port.

The island's Cuban diplomat indicated that support on the matter is noted in an act passed by the Cuban National Assembly.

On his part, Siles pointed to the deep friendship between peoples of both nations emerging "from the ideas of Jose Marti and the struggles for each nation's respective independence."

After reasserting the Bolivian government's opposition to Washington's economic blockade of the island, the Bolivian foreign minister praised the work of Cuban healthcare workers serving in remote areas of Bolivia and their efforts to train Bolivian youth in those regions.

During the meeting, perspectives on regional and international issues were analyzed, in addition to the strengthening bilateral relations. Ties between the two countries were reestablished at a diplomatic level on January 11, 1983.

Previously, the distinguished guest and his delegation placed a floral wreath at the monument to Jose Marti, in Revolution Square, and visited the memorial to the work and life of the Cuban apostle.

 In the afternoon, Minister Siles will attend the opening of the fifth meeting of the Cuba-Bolivia Joint Intergovernmental Commission, among other activities.