After battling for 16 days at the 2010 FIVB Men's World Championship in Italy, the Cuban team returned to their country heads high having captured a silver medal at the highest level of international volleyball. The youngest team at the competition somehow managed to overcome their lack of experience to dramatically catapult Cuban men's volleyball back into world stage, capturing the attention and heart of fans from around the globe.

Another controversial and popular Cuban soap opera is fueling debates among Cuban audiences. Bisexuality, alcoholism, drug addiction, prostitution, crime, mental illness all feature.

BBC Radio 4 programme: Really happening!

Watch the first take of the first track recorded by AfroCubism here plus short films of performances. This is World Circuit's dream project – the original intention for Buena Vista Social Club was a stellar collaboration of musicians from Mali and Cuba. Now the original plan has finally been realised with an incredible line-up including Eliades Ochoa, Bassekou Kouyate, Djelimady Tounkara, Toumani Diabaté, Grupo Patria, Kasse Mady Diabaté and Lassana Diabaté.

An Ecological meeting took place September 15 in Havana: the rap singers from 'Cubanos en la Red' and several institutions celebrated an ecological encounter in this capital.

The Cuban Music Institute and the National Center of Popular Music are honored to present the 26th Edition of the International Jazz Festival ¨Jazz Plaza 2010¨ that is chaired by Chucho Valdés and will be held in Havana from December 16th to December 19th, 2010 with the participation of famous artists from Cuba and abroad.

The Creole Choir of Cuba are such a potent force of positivity, their government dispatched them to Haiti to help out after the earthquake. Dorian Lynskey meets a group on a musical mission.

The American Ballet Theatre company is to perform in Cuba later this year for the first time in 50 years.

Barack Obama's administration has given the troupe permission to dance at the Havana International Ballet Festival at the Karl Marx Theatre.

Enter the competition to win one of five DVDs of the new film: Sons of Cuba, released 20 September.

One of Cuba's most talented film makers, Fernando Perez, has selected a challenging topic for his new film. It features Jose Marti, the Cuban revolutionary (1853 – 1895) during his early years, as he observes the many injustices perpetrated by the Spanish colonial power.

As a school boy, Marti shows his concern for fairness by refusing to reveal to his Spanish professor, the identity of his cheating class mates. Within Marti's closely knit family there is a parallel dilemma. His Spanish father, a police officer in the colonial force, meticulously enforces the law against a woman aristocrat, that results in his dismissal. When offered a new job in Havana he accepts taking Marti with him, providing them with many new experiences.

The Cuban Hip Hop Symposium will take place from August 18th to 22nd at the Casa de la Cultura de Plaza (Plaza Cultural House) in Vedado neighborhood, Havana. The event is sponsored by the Cuban Music Institute and the Cuban Rap Agency in cooperation with the Asociación Hermanos Saíz Association and the Culture Houses National Council.

The Maids of Havana
By Pedro Pérez Sarduy
Authorhouse 2010, ISBN 9781449070700

Poet and writer Pedro Perez Sarduy was born in Santa Clara, Cuba in 1943 and is now resident in London. He has devoted much of his life to exploring the complexities of the Afro-Cuban experience.

Carnival in Santiago de Cuba is celebrated every July for about a week, with parades in the streets, conga groups come out of the barrios to parade and invade other barrios.

The short-feature film Haiti (Haiti will come back), a creative symbiosis by Cuban musician and composer Chucho Valdés and documentary maker Roberto Chile can be seen in Youtube, or at www.cubadebate.cu and www.fao.org.

After a year of comings and goings between Cuba and the UK, Cuban Photographer Alejandro Gortazar has finally found a space in London that makes him like home. Having searched across North and East London for a commercial space the last three months, he fell in love with El Pueblito Paisa (Seven Sisters Indoor Market); full of the vibrancy of Latin America and the Caribbean: Colombian, Brazilian, Jamaican, Guyanan, and now Cuban, cultures blend in this very unique Market.

Following an exhausting two weeks, the complete refurbishment of Unit 43 has been acomplished and Alejandro Gortazar has finally opened the doors of his small studio-gallery to the public.