El caso de la estudiante boliviana muerta en Cuba

RAFA

Beatriz Porco Calle de 22 años de edad, era una bella, saludable e inteligente joven estudiante aventajada boliviana de origen indígena, nativa de Oruro, Curahuara de Carangas, Bolivia. La joven Beatriz obtuvo una beca para estudiar en Cuba. Antes del viaje y como requisito, a Beatriz le hicieron un completo examen médico, y llena de ilusiones partió rumbo al "paraíso" comunista. En Cuba ("la autodenominada potencia médica") al llegar también le realizaron exámenes de salud. , GRACIAS A CIRCUITO SUR .

Strike of medical students in Cuba sparks controversy

Nicola Jenvey/

The detention of South African medical students in Cuba, following their decision to embark on an ‘illegal’ hunger strike over food, low stipends and calls for a health attaché, has opened a debate over privilege versus expectations.

The students were released, but last week the South African government warned that they could be deported if agreement on disputed matters could not be resolved.

On 7 February, 187 of 1,200 South African students studying medicine in Cuba launched a strike, demanding a more than 300% stipend increase, the appointment of a South African health attaché in Cuba and that they not be served pork meals.

University food typically includes beef, chicken or pork, but the Cuban government has struggled to acquire beef and chicken, and so consequently has only been serving pork.

The students, completing their final year at a Cuban medical school, boycotted classes and threatened to abandon their studies and return home should their demands not be met. The Cuban authorities later intervened when the students gathered outside the South African embassy in Havana.

Some students complained to South African media that payments of food bills had been held up, leaving them without meals for days.

South Africa has a long-standing agreement with Cuba for the training of local doctors. Universities in this country are able to graduate only around 1,200 medical doctors a year – a number insufficient to fill vacant posts and alleviate a critical shortage of doctors.

The two governments jointly sponsor the students' accommodation, food, transport and tuition, with students receiving a US$200 monthly stipend. The students are demanding $700 to bring them “in line with diplomats' children”.

In all, South Africa invests about R500,000 (US$60,000) per student over the six-year training for a Spanish language course, medical education and living costs.

Department of Health spokesperson Joe Maila claimed that the students wanted more money to buy food rather than eat what was on offer. They wanted to buy “goodies and party” and were “spoilt”.

The move prompted Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi to write the students letters, suspecting that their issues arose from cultural differences, adaptability and “perhaps psychosocial changes”.

The health department therefore dispatched a team including a social worker, psychologist, human resources manager and doctor to “assist the students”. The team joined the South African ambassador in Cuba, university staff and the Cuban government in negotiations with the students. 

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South African medical students in Cuba may be deported

amsterdamnews

Medical students are pictured at East London airport in September, 2011,
as they prepare to depart for Cuba. Of the 1,200 South African students studying
medicine in Cuba, 187 have gone on strike, demanding that their monthly
stipend be increased. Picture: DAILY DISPATCH.

Feb. 26 (GIN) – South Africa’s Education Minister, Blade Nzimande, has called for the deportation of over a hundred South African medical students in Cuba who launched a hunger strike over conditions they considered unacceptable.
“The sense of entitlement and lack of gratitude displayed by these students who come from a country with such high levels of desperate need for higher education and training, and limited state resources, is totally unacceptable. I condemn it in the strongest terms,” Minister Nzimande said. “If they are threatening to come back home, then maybe they should do just that.”’
But emails sent to the South African daily City Press painted a different picture. A bottleneck apparently held up payment of student food bills which left the students without meals for four days. Meals are primarily pork, not acceptable to some students. The stipend is insufficient, they say, to cover incidental expenses and amounts to a third of what children of the South African diplomatic corps receive.
“The department of health might say our demands are unreasonable, but, honestly, we wouldn’t go to such lengths for something we didn’t believe in,” said one student who asked to remain anonymous.
“None of us are trying to be heroes here, and none of us want to go home and lose our careers,” he added in an email.
Some 2,000 South African medical students are enrolled in the 6 year program which includes one year of practical work in South Africa. This week, about 187 of the student doctors staged a protest outside the South African embassy in the Cuban capital of Havana and were arrested.
They were detained overnight but have refused to give up their fight over food and money.
Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi’s spokesman, Joe Maila, initially promised a “fact-finding mission” to look into the complaints. “We really want to find out what is happening with the food. Where there are serious concerns we will do something immediately. We want these students to succeed. We need more doctors.” According to the students, the mission never arrived.
He defended the pork diet. “Our students are usually served alternate meals consisting of beef, chicken or pork but for the past two or three weeks the Cuban government had problems acquiring beef and chicken. They could only serve what was available, which was pork.”
The students responded: “Whenever we ask for change we are reminded of the fact that we are from poor families, squatter camps, that we are women and men with difficulties, children of the storm and we should be grateful for the little we have."
The father of a student detained this week told City Press it was unfortunate the department felt this way.
“When our kids complete their studies they return to serve South Africans. In many cases, they work in rural areas where local doctors refuse to go.

Estudiantes de la Universidad de Iowa no quieren estudiar en Cuba

these guys are smart. who wants to get brainwash and support a 54 years old dictatorship.  well done. kubiche, do you heard it?
------------------------------------

UI The Daily Iowan/ RISHABH R. JAIN

No students have registered for the University of Iowa’s Overseas writing program in Cuba 10 days before the deadline, despite program managers opening its gates to graduate and non-degree seeking students.

Leslie McNelius, a study-abroad adviser and one of the pioneers of the UI’s program in Cuba, said she was not too concerned because she expects a lot of last-minute applications.

“We’ve had quite a few email and phone inquiries from potential participants in the last weeks," she said. "There’s an info session coming up … so some may turn in apps after that."

The Sept. 28 deadline is also a flexible one, and it will be extended if need be, said John Rogers, assistant director of the UI Study Abroad Office.

UI started the study-abroad program in Cuba last January, after President Obama lessened travel restrictions on university-sponsored trips to Cuba in January 2011. Thirteen students participated in the two-week excursion.

While the courses offered in Cuba remain the same as last year–travel and ethnographic writing–students will experience an added two-night excursion to the city of Trinidad, a United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization World Heritage Site.

“How can someone not be interested in Cuba,” said Robin Hemley, the director of the Nonfiction Writing Program. “It is so close to the U.S. geographically, yet so distant in terms of its politics and accessibility.”  More >>

Get it: Thirteen Tufts students will study in Cuba for six weeks

Tufts Daily 

Thirteen Tufts students will have the opportunity to study abroad in Cuba this summer through Norfolk State University's (NSU) six-week program.

The program will award two course credits to Tufts students and is offered in Havana at Casa de las Américas in the Academic Unit of the Schools of Letters and Art History at the University of Havana. Both undergraduate and graduate students can enroll.

"[Casa de las Américas is] one of the biggest intellectual centers historically in Cuba," Nina Gerassi-Navarro, an associate professor of Latin American literature and culture and director of the Latin American studies program, said. 

Professor emeritus Claudia Kaiser-Lenoir, a former associate professor in the Department of Romance Languages and coordinator of the trip, suggested that Tufts students be invited on NSU's program after a recent regulation change allowed universities to include students from other universities on their Cuba programs.

Kaiser-Lenoir taught classes in Cuba last summer when NSU first brought students to Cuba in a ten-week program.

Lodging will be in the Casa de las Americas dormitories, and the program will have an estimated twenty-four participants in total, Director of International Programs at NSU William Alexander told the Daily. 

Courses, including Kaiser-Lenoir's "Special Topics in Cuban Culture and Society Since the 1959 Revolution," will give students access to local experts. 

"I taught a similarly organized course at Tufts, but we didn't have any Cuban experts, just experts on Cuba," Kaiser-Lenoir explained. "Cuba attracts people from all over the world that flock there to see how things are put together. It's not that everything works well, but there are some things that work intriguingly effectively, so it's an interesting laboratory… [Cuba has] very impressive records in many key areas that are of central importance to people like health, education, and the environment."

Chinese students' applications to US colleges skyrocket

By Adrienne Mong

BEIJING – Wenzy Duan dreams about becoming a delegate to the United Nations.

“I know this [ambition] is pretty high,” said the 17-year old Beijing native.  “But I think I can give it a shot.” 

To prepare, Duan wants to study international relations at an American college – someplace like the University of Washington. “I hear [it] is good at social science," she said.

The University of Washington is one of approximately 10 U.S. universities Duan plans to apply to in the coming year with the help of an education consultant she hired last summer.

“I know that the scores is not the only thing that the university will consider whether you can get in or not,” said the high school senior.

Duan is not alone.  Today, China sends more of its students to America than any other country. During the 2010-11 academic year, 157,588 Chinese students were studying in the U.S. – an increase of 23 percent from the previous year, according to the Institute of International Education.

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Mas sobre la represion a los estudiantes de medicina paquistanies

Cercada escuela de medicina por tropas antimotines en Jaguey Grande

Desde Cuba Out



Tropas antimotines en Cuba cercan escuela de medicina en Jagüey Grande, Matanzas