International educators conference held in Cuba [Full Text] HAVANA - President Fidel Castro told a group of educators from around the world that education can create a better world by helping to resolve social problems, such as the nagging racial discrimination that still exists in Cuba. Closing the international educators conference here on Friday night, Castro told hundreds of participants that over four decades his socialist government can boast high marks for its primary school programs. But he said secondary education here needs serious improvement.
Beginning in early 2002, Cuba launched a campaign to improve conditions at its primary schools, but reforms for the older students are still pending. Cuba's secondary school program will be radically improved, Castro declared. "The future developing of our education will have enormous political, social and human connotations," the Cuban leader said.
Despite the huge changes that the 1959 revolution made in Cuban society, some social problems have not been completely eliminated, including racial discrimination, Castro acknowledged. "While science shows unquestionably the real equality that exists among human beings, discriminations lives on," especially among the island's poorest groups, Castro said. [End]
NYTimes - Behind the Upheaval in Venezuela *** Mr. Chávez, with his tan skin and curly dark hair, embodies the racial mixture of Venezuela. Some 67 percent of the people here are mestizos, a mixed race of the whites, blacks and Indians who are the nation's minorities.