This rare footage from 60 years ago shows quite clearly why Benny More is still regarded by Cubans as the greatest of them all. He was a brilliant singer, composer, bandleader and showman, and many consider that he represents the absolute peak of Cuban popular music- and all this despite the fact that he could not read a note of music.

Review of CD: The Havana Suite: Ahmed Dickinson & Trio Mestizo
Cubafilin Records 2011

In a short space of time Ahmed Dickinson Cardenas has deservedly gained a reputation as a brilliantly gifted Cuban guitarist. He qualified a year early at Havana's top music school, went on to study in London at the Royal College of Music and the Guildhall and has already produced two fascinating albums both as a solo artist and in collaboration with others.

Review of new CD: A Beginners guide to Timba – Salsa Cubana
3 x CD, Nascente NSBOX081, 2011

Carnival time in Santiago de Cuba begins July 21 and runs until July 27, an emblem of traditional popular culture and one of the most famous carnivals in Cuba.

The main areas for these celebrations were ready: Trocha, Marti, Santa Ursula, and the neighborhood of Sueño, while the neighborhood of Victoriano Garzon was set to host the jury that will judge the traditional comparsas (parade groups), floats and congas (music groups).

Cuban guitarist and composer Manuel Galban, founder of Los Zafiros quartet and featured guitarist of Buena Vista Social Club, died on Thursday in Havana at 80. His ashes will be buried Friday at the Colon Cemetery in Havana.

Cuba beat Chinese Taipei 10-5 on Sunday and in the process took the crown of the World Baseball Challenge tournament that concluded in the Canadian city of Prince George.

Last week Cuba launched the interactive forum 'El engaño de las razas' ('Deceit of races' ) at www.foroscubarte.cult.cu which has been organized by CUBARTE and the Cuban Association of Artists and Writers, UNEAC, in the context of the celebrations for the International Year of the Afro-descendants.

The United Nations General Assembly 64th period session declared 2011 as the International Year of the Afro-descendants with the object to strengthen national measures and international and national cooperation for the benefit of the Afro-descendants regarding the total enjoyment of their economic, cultural, social, civil and political rights, their participation in all fields of society and the promotion of a greater respect and knowledge of their diversity, their heritage and their culture.

The United Nations on Thursday acknowledged progress made in the struggle against racial discrimination in Cuba, thanks to state policies aimed at benefiting all sectors of the society.

In statements to Prensa Latina, UN Population Fund assistant representative Rolando Garcia stated that the country's achievements are an example for the world, and Cuba now leads Latin America in terms of equal opportunities for its citizens. Those developments are a result of policies promoting citizen and inclusion promoted by the nation's leadership, said Garcia, speaking as part of Cuba and People of African Descent in America.

A previously unpublished diary by the Argentine-born revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara has been unveiled in Cuba.

His widow, Aleida March, said she had decided to publish the writings unedited.

Carlos Acosta is one of the world's greatest dancers. He was born in Cuba; his father was a truck driver. For the last two decades he has been thrilling audiences around the world with his power and his grace. He says that in ballet there is beauty and freedom but there is also pain and sacrifice. Could that be a sign that Carlos Acosta's career is about to move in a different direction? He tells BBC HARDtalk's Stephen Sackur.

Eliades Ochoa was a guest of honor in Cubadisco 2011, an event devoted to son held in Santiago de Cuba this May. He is the troubadour of the Buena Vista Social Club and one of the most outstanding musicians in Cuba today, a real ambassador of Santiago's son in the world.

In 2010, his CD Afrocubism was chosen the Best Album. Ochoa's international concerts have kept him on the stage for more than two hours.

A new book, Buena Vista in the Club: Rap, Reggaetón, and Revolution in Havana (Duke University Press) traces the trajectory of the Havana hip hop scene from the late 1980s to the present and analyzes its partial eclipse by reggaetón.

"This masterful portrait of the rap and reggaetón scenes in modern Cuba surpasses existing work in its level of insight, depth, and contemporaneity. Geoffrey Baker offers a thoroughly original street-level ethnography of the local rap scene and illuminates the often contradictory workings of the various bureaucratic institutions involved in popular music. He also develops a significant critique of foreign portrayals of contemporary Cuban music culture and of the local/global dynamics of ‘imitating' foreign rap (or another genre) as opposed to ‘nationalizing' it with sprinkles of local musical flavor."-Peter Manuel, author of Caribbean Currents: Caribbean Music from Rumba to Reggae

Eugenio Selman, president of the 9th Congress on Satisfactory Longevity underway in Havana, said Cuba had surpassed Japan as the country with the highest number per capita of people over 100 years old.
Selman pointed out that Cuba has 1,551 living people who are 100 years old or more on an 11.2 million population, which represent a higher percentage than of Japan's, former leader in this parameter worldwide.

Mariela Castro Espin, Director, National Centre for Sex Education (CENESEX), began the IV Cuban Day Against Homophobia with a press conference. There will be educational and cultural activities until 17 May, to celebrate the World Day Against Homophobia.

Cuban cyclists Lisandra Guerra, Yoanka Gonzalez and Marlies Mejias won gold medals on the third and fourth days of the Pan-American Cycling Championship in Medellin.

Guerra was determined to win her second gold of this tournament, and defeated Canadian Monique Sullivan, a Pan-American record-holder, in the women's speed final, the Cuban News Agency reported.