This year's Biennial of contemporary art in Havana, Cuba, which runs 27 March – 30 April has asked artists to explore the contradictions in the theme Integration and Resistance in the Global Age.

Cuba50 is proud to announce the launch of its showcase event: the Cuba50 weekend at the Barbican 27-28 June, a feast of the very best live Cuban music and dance direct from Cuba.

Yumari Gonzalez of Cuba won a silver in a women's points race that included two crashes at the track cycling world championships held in Poland.

Cuban poet and essayist Roberto Fernández Retamar, President of Havana's Casa de las Américas cultural institution, has been granted the 2008 Arts and Letters Prize given by ALBA, the Bolivarian Alternative for The Americas.

Published on Living.Scotsman.com , By JAN FAIRLEY
IT'S 7AM IN CUBA AND ELIADES Ochoa, the island's king of country music, is on the phone talking to me about his latest projects. Why so early? He laughs and tells me it's the habit of a lifetime; he's been up since 5am.
"I was born in the mountains around Gran Piedra outside Santiago de Cuba on a small farm you could only get to on horseback," he says. "My parents grew coffee and tobacco. My earliest memories are of us up there in that tiny finca on the hill with my father playing the tres guitar under the moon 'cos we didn't have any electricity or even running water. We made our own entertainment at night sitting out on home-made wooden benches, with my mother, uncle and us children all singing."

From The Guardian website 4 March 2009

COMPETITION

January saw the visit to London of 16 young Cuban athletes and 4 teachers from the Deportiva Giraldo Cordaba Cardin Sports College near Havana.

The Cuban bassist Orlando "Cachaíto" Lopez, who has died aged 76 from complications following surgery for pancreatic cancer, gained international fame as the bassist with Buena Vista Social Club. More importantly, Lopez's fluid, supple playing accompanied six decades of exceptional Cuban music-making – jazz, classical, mambo, salsa and fusion.

The "Corazon Adentro" Cultural Mission -a project started by Cuba in April 2008 in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela- is expanding in 2009 in that South American nation, with the involvement of more artists from a wider variety of cultural expressions.

Theme: Integration and Resistance in the Global Age

The 13th Cubadisco International Fair, to be held from May 16th till the 24th will have Puerto Rico as Guest of Honor and will be dedicated to "Music and Children".

The Jose Marti National Library recently granted on a Commemorative Medal of its foundation to Havana Historian Eusebio Leal for a lifetime's work.

Cuba is on top of the world's baseball ranking with 941.50 points, according to a report recently released by the International Baseball Association (IBA).