Cuba Archives - Voice of the Cape

Health Ministry negotiating with Cuba for lesser punishment for SA students over kidnapping incident

Deputy Health Minister Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo says his department is in talks with the Cuban government to impose a lighter punishment for an Eastern Cape medical student who studied in Cuba. Last month, the Villa Clara University of Medical Sciences in Cuba suspended the student from Ngqamakhwe, near Butterworth, for three years. He is accused of kidnapping two young Cuban women along with a fellow student from KwaZulu-Natal. The student […]

16 July 2022

International News

Elsa strengthens to hurricane, heads to Florida’s Gulf Coast

Tropical Storm Elsa strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane on Tuesday, hours before an expected landfall on Florida’s northern Gulf Coast, according to the National Hurricane Center in the United States. The centre of Elsa was about 100 miles (165km) south-southwest of Tampa, Florida, and was moving north at approximately nine miles per hour (15km/h), with maximum sustained winds of 75mph (120km/h), the NHC said in an 8pm (00:00 GMT […]

7 July 2021

Local

Covid-19: Auditor-general looks into SANDF’s ‘dodgy’ Cuban drug deal

The auditor-general is investigating how the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) imported a dubious and unregistered Covid-19 drug, at a cost of more than R200m, despite a warning against its use by a top government advisory committee. So far, only one patient is known to have been treated with 10 vials of the drug - Heberon Interferon-Alpha-2B - leaving the military health service with more than 900,000 vials of […]

15 November 2020

Local

260 soon-to-be-doctors return to SA from Cuba

A total of 260 students sent to study medicine in Cuba have returned to South Africa and will soon be helping with the health of the nation, the KwaZulu-Natal Health Department said on Sunday. “The return of the students is very exciting. It is humbling. You could see the parents crying tears of joy,” said Health MEC Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo in a statement. “They remember how they’ve navigated this journey […]

9 July 2018

International News

Cuba: Three survivors after plane with 110 aboard crashes in Cuba

An aging Boeing 737 with 110 people aboard crashed and burned shortly after taking off from Havana's airport, leaving three survivors and investigators sifting through debris for clues as to what caused the airliner to go down. It was Cuba's worst aviation disaster in three decades and its third major air accident since 2010. Skies were overcast and rainy at the airport at the time of Friday's disaster and Cuban […]

19 May 2018

Local

SA, Cuba relations described as solidarity in practice

Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa has described relations between South Africa and Cuba as solidarity in practice. He was speaking after meeting his Cuban counterpart Salvador Valdes Mesa in Pretoria on Wednesday night. The two leaders discussed ways of strengthening political, economic and trade relations between the two countries. Vice President Valdes Mesa also paid a courtesy call on President Jacob Zuma. The Cuban healthcare is widely respected and seen as […]

2 February 2017

Local

ANC leaders ‘putting themselves first’ – Yengeni

ANC NEC member Tony Yengeni says the party needs to learn from the example of Cuba to stop comrades "turning on each other" for positions. "In today's ANC, the leaders put themselves first, and the masses second," he told around 1 000 people at a memorial for late former Cuban leader Fidel Castro in Khayelitsha on Wednesday. Water and Sanitation Minister Nomvula Mokonyane, Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini and ANC […]

1 December 2016

International News

All eyes on Havana as Cuba bids farewell to Castro

The road from the understandably chaotic Havana airport to the city centre takes you down the long straight of Presidential Avenue. On the left is the park where, on a normal Saturday night, groups of young people gather, play music, smoke and tease each other, all competing for the biggest laugh. But normal has changed in Cuba. Normal is knowing that Fidel Castro is there. No longer in power perhaps […]

28 November 2016

International News

Cuba’s former leader Fidel Castro dead at 90

Fidel Castro, a titan of the Cold War who defied 11 American presidents and thrust Cuba onto the world stage, is dead at age 90. Cuban state-run television said the former long-time president died at 7pm local time on Saturday. Castro's brother and current president, Raul Castro, confirmed the news. Al Jazeera's Latin America Editor Lucia Newman, reporting from Santiago, Chile, said Castro's death hardly came as a surprise. "He […]

26 November 2016

Cuba

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