The 30th Fiesta del Fuego (Caribbean Fiesta of Fire), which takes place 3-9 July in Santiago de Cuba will be a reflection of the current cultural diversity of the Caribbean region.
Orlando Verges, director of the Casa del Caribe, one of the institutions responsible for this event, explained to the press that the Festival of the Caribbean will have a broad national and international presence, this time with representatives from no less than 18 countries.
This time the festival is dedicated to culture from Pernambuco (brazil) and Curacao (Dutch Antilles) and there are artistic delegations from both zones.

Cuba50 has two pairs of free tickets to see

Silvio Rodríguez talks with Puerto Rican newspaper and website El Nuevo Día about Cuba, the United States, Fidel, the Revolution, the blockade, Chavez, freedom…

Interview with Esteban Morales, researcher of the University of Havana

"Every time we sang to people in Haiti it was like they were reborn," says Teresita Miranda, a member of a Cuban Creole choir which has just returned from a tour of the country.

"Just looking at their faces as they listened to our songs was extremely moving," Ms Miranda told BBC World Service.

The representative of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Havana, Ana Maria Navarro, congratulated Cuban researcher Humberto Rios Labrada who last week became the first Cuban to receive the Goldman Environmental Prize, sometimes called the Green Nobel and the largest prize in the world given to grass-roots environmentalists.

Liverpool Biennial has announced the artists participating in Touched, the International exhibition for the 6th Liverpool Biennial International Festival of Contemporary Art, 18 September – 28 November 2010.

"Governments cannot wait for a social consensus in order to guarantee respect for people's rights," Mariela Castro, head of Cuba's National Centre for Sex Education (CENESEX), told IPS on the occasion of the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia in Cuba on 17 May.

State institutions, non-governmental and religious organisations, academics, artists and above all gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transvestites and transsexuals marked the Day Against Homophobia with a full two weeks of activism, celebrations, workshops, demands for full respect for sexual diversity, a street procession of conga dancers and bands in central Havana, and an ecumenical celebration in defence of the Christian principle of non-discrimination.

Five girls and five boys are taking time to remember the hurricane that devastated their home town of Gibara in eastern Cuba two years ago, mingling their memories with their dreams, and filming images to make a video message for children in Haiti.

"What I like best is learning through playing," said one of the primary school children selected to take part in an audiovisual production workshop in Gibara.

Cuban artists and academics have spoken out against the Spanish Platform for democratization of Cuba, whose recent document was termed an act of interference that recalls the worst years of the Island's colonial history.

"It's a clear attempt to keep the anti-Cuban campaign spread by the most powerful media against our country from dying", a declaration by the Hermanos Saiz Association (AHS) stresses.

Over 1,240 poets from 41 countries, including 80 Cubans, will participate in the 18th International Poetry Festival scheduled for Havana from May 24 to the 30.

Cuban folk icon Silvio Rodriguez has been booked to play at Carnegie Hall during his first U.S. tour in more than 30 years, but his office said Thursday that Washington has yet to approve his visa.

The Cuban government Web site Cubadebate, where Fidel Castro posts his written essays, announced that the U.S. tour would also take Rodriguez to Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Puerto Rico.

Cuban-American singer CuCu Diamantes will finish her Cuba tour with a concert on Sunday in Havana's National Theater.

To Mezclao: Hibrid
CD on one side, DVD on the other TUMI 156, 2008
To'Mezclao means ‘all mixed up' in Spanish – an apt name for this new young Cuban pop band, who mix salsa, reggaeton (Cuban style dancehall) , Latin house plus cumbia from Colombia and merengue from Dominican Republic, with soulful singers and conservatoire musicians playing real instruments, to make great music to dance to. Put your hands in the air and move your hips: it's the sound of young Cuba right now.
The name of the album Hibrid not only refers to the mix of styles but also the fact that the CD is audio one side and has a fascinating short film of the band in Cuba on the other side, performing, rehearsing and chilling out together in the countryside. The film is made by the Cuban DJ/band musical director Lyng Chang: a lovely project by UK-based TUMI music.

Alicia Alonso was in conversation with psychoanalyst Luis Rodriguez de la Serra while Alonso was in London with the Ballet Nacional de Cuba this April.