"We are here for the music and it is a message of peace and unity, not only for Cuba, but for the entire region," said Latin Grammy winner Juanes.

…a welcome revival of this thoroughly delightful, engaging and deeply humane film from 1993 by the late Tomás Gutiérrez Alea.

HAVANA BAD DAY – life's tough in the Cuban capital

Cuban filmmaker Gerardo Chijona will begin filming "Boletos al paraiso" (Tickets to Paradise) on September 19, a film based on the book "Confesiones de un medico" (Confession of a Doctor) which gathers testimonies of AIDS patients and HIV seropositive.

The film, written by Chijona, along with Francisco Garcia and Maykel Rodriguez, is based on the book by scientist Jorge Perez during the time he was the director of the hospital.

London's Cuban dance scene has massively grown over recent years, with dedicated Cuban nights available throughout the city more or less every night of the week – including a few larger 'super club' venues, which have dedicated Cuban rooms.

Omar Puente releases his debut solo album"From There to Here"
(Destin-E World Records, 777-G20011962)
on Monday 5 October 2009

Argentine poet Jorge Boccanera interviewed Silvio Rodríguez following the publication of the Cuban singer's book Cancionero (Songbook) in June, 2009. Cubadebate was granted the exclusive right to publish the unabridged text of their dialogue.

Some reactions in Miami to the Colombian singer Juanes publicized concert in Havana, next September, seem to revive the era of the most accentuated MacCarthysm.

As if we were in the late 50s, when GOP Senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy, promoted incriminations, gossips and black lists against people suspicious of being communist, now the so called "voices of the Cuban exile", some show and music managers and TV and radio presentators question Juanes for what he wants: to play one of his Peace concerts in a communist country. Some have even called for boycotting his records sales in Florida.

American rapper Lumidee was recently in Cuba to shoot a video with Iranian-born signer Arash Labaf. Colombian rocker Juanes is organizing a new festival for late September in Havana, when he wants to hold his second "Peace Without Borders" concert with a number of US musicians. According to sources, Juanes "has met with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in hopes that American musicians can join the extravaganza." The long-awaited cultural thaw is yet to come.

Mexico: Cuban cyclist Yumary Gonzalez won another gold medal in the Pan-American Cycling Championship, currently held in this country until July 30.

Yumary, who won on Tuesday the 6-mile scratch race, in which she holds the world record, showed her superiority over US racer Cari Higgings and Chilean Paola Munoz, who reached the second and third positions in that category.

Aleida Guevara talks about having to share her 'Papi' with the world – and on seeing newly discovered colour photos of him, pulbished in The Guardian today.

The UK's Royal Ballet has arrived in Havana for its first visit to Cuba where it is putting on five days of shows featuring the company's Cuban star Carlos Acosta.

Tickets sold out within hours as Cubans looked forward to seeing the first major ballet company in the country since the Bolshoi almost 30 years ago.

In the year of the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution, BBC Radio programme World Routes features a specially recorded studio session by Cuban five-piece Changui de Guantanamo. Presenter Lucy Duran first encountered this group on the road as part of her World Routes report from Cuba in June 2007.

Changui is an old style from the Eastern Guantanamo province dating back to the 19th century and combining elements of Spanish guitar and African traditions. The songs are played on instruments such as the marimbula thumb piano, the tres (a kind of three-stringed guitar), and an array of percussion including the guiro, maracas and bongos.

It is a country that follows ballet as zealously as it does more muscular national sports, yet Cuba has rarely hosted a performance by a foreign dance company in the years since Fidel Castro came to power in 1959.

More than 40,000 people attended the Cuba50 festival events in June at London's Barbican Centre, 27 & 28 June , Gillett Square in Hackney 27 June, Hackney Empire 25 June and Victoria Park 21 June . They were privileged to see Cuba's finest acts including Pablo Milanés, Harold Lopez Nussa and Son del Tropico, Yoruba Andabo and Oscar d'Leon, Changui de Guantanamo, Orquesta Aragon, Kumar, Osvaldo Chacon, Tumbao Tivoli, Omar Puente, London Lucumi Choir, Charanga del Norte and lots more.