U.S.-Cuba COOPERATION: A news chronology

(From stories compiled by FOCAL, the Canadian Foundation for the Americas)

2007

January 18: Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman will make another trade trip to Cuba in March. He announced his third visit to the country and the fifth trade mission of his administration during a conference call with reporters. A delegation that also is expected to include Greg Ibach, state agriculture director, and Richard Baier, director of the Nebraska Department of Economic Development, will be on the trade trail March 25-28. Taking advantage of an exception to a US trade embargo that allows for delivering agricultural commodities, Nebraska has already filled a $30 million order for dry edible beans and other entries on the Cuban shopping list. Lt. Gov. Rick Sheehy led a trade group to Cuba in 2006 that ended with a memorandum of understanding and prospects for another $30 million in sales. (The Lincoln Journal Star, 19/1/07)

February 13: State Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson said he has been invited to bring a delegation of North Dakota food exporters and processors to Cuba in May. "The Cubans are very interested in the commodities and products that North Dakota has to offer," Johnson said in a statement. He is organizing a trip to Havana May 21-25, to finish signing contracts for a $20 million purchase agreement. So far, $10 million worth of products has been contracted and delivered by North Dakota producers, Johnson said. "We hope to finish contracting the remaining $10 million and act on any future sales contracts," Johnson said. (AP, 13/2/07)

February 14: Visiting Canadian and US chefs highlighted the Cuban traditional cuisine, during a 10-day tour of several provinces. During a meeting with members and directives of Cuba's National Culinary Association, the visitors said they found delightful and magnificent dishes and very creative and high-skilled cooks on the island. The 15-member delegation called for the strengthening of bilateral relations among Canadian, US and Cuban cuisine professionals, Trabajadores newspaper reported. The US and Canadian visitors were awarded the Culinary Friendship Award by the The Chef's House, a social institution in the Cuban capital. (CAN, 14/2/07)

March 1: US State Department released its 2007 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, which acknowledged that Cuban law enforcement tipped US antidrug patrols off to more than 30 drug shipments last year. While recognizing the island's efforts in preventive measures and tough penalties, the report portrayed the cooperation as inconsistent. "Certainly in the last 10 years, the Cubans saw drugs as a threat to their own kids and a corrupting influence on their government," former White House drug czar Barry McCaffrey said. "There is every indication that they cooperate in general, tipping us off to intelligence and taking our intelligence and acting on it." But McCaffrey cautioned against giving too much credence to Cuban government statistics, which experts say are often manipulated. During a news briefing, Anne Patterson, the State Department's top anti-drug trafficking official, congratulated Cuba for deporting trafficker Luis Hernando Gomez-Bustamante to Colombia after holding him in prison for several months. He is expected to be extradited soon from Colombia to the United States.   "There is not a major trafficking issue through Cuba," she added. The Cuban government has long maintained that it is carrying on a strong fight against illicit drugs, despite past US allegation that government officials there were involved in protecting foreign traffickers. [International Narcotics Control Report: Caribbean, Cuba] (The Miami Herald, 2,3/3/07)  

March 5: US-born University of Miami students are helping pay homage to their roots by promoting "A Week of Cuban Culture" on campus, an annual event sponsored by the Federation of Cuban Students. "I think it's important to have events like this to keep the culture alive for us -- a generation of Cuban Americans who have not had the privileges of experiencing it first-hand," said Stephanie Fojo, 21, president of the club. The group launched the celebration of food, music, history and dance in front of the Whitten University Center Rock Plaza by handing out guava pastries, bocaditos, croquetas and churros. They even brewed Cuban coffee for students and faculty. As part of the festivities -- this year, they expanded from three days to seven -- the group also presented the club's award, the YUCA -- which stands for Young, Urban, Cuban Americans -- to several prominent, local Cuban Americans who have made an impact. (The Miami Herald, 6/3/07)

April 25: A Delaware poultry business signed an agreement with Cuba to ship its products there. Mountaire Farms will begin shipping containers of chicken to the country in May. The company's president, John Wise, said he worked with Delaware Agriculture Secretary Michael Scuse. He said it was a challenge that required negotiating and building relationships with Cuban officials. Scuse said a March trip to Cuba was very helpful to find other avenues for exporting Delaware goods to the country. 38 other states export goods to Cuba. (AP, 25/4/07)

May 2: The FBI office in Miami has been quietly gathering evidence on a 1997 bombing that killed an Italian man at a Havana hotel, with agents traveling to the Cuban capital recently to see if they can link Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles to the attack.  The extraordinary effort at cooperation between the two countries underscores their shared goal to pin the plot on Posada, the focus of a federal grand jury probe in Newark, N.J. Posada, a former CIA operative trained in explosives, is under house arrest at his wife's West Kendall apartment as he awaits trial on immigration fraud charges unrelated to the bombing. "Anything that comes from Cuba is fruit of the poisonous tree," said Posada's attorney, Arturo Hernandez. "We deny these charges, and we will vigorously defend Mr. Posada against them if they ever come to fruition. This is part of the Castro regime's full-court press against my client." Human rights and exile groups ask how Cuba's justice system can be trusted when it routinely jails dissidents and journalists with scant evidence. The Cuban Interests Section in Washington did not return phone calls seeking comment. (The Miami Herald, 2/5/07)

May 22: Another Alabama trade mission is scheduled to arrive in Cuba with several legislators planning to accompany officials from the state Department of Agriculture and Industries. Department spokeswoman Christy Rhodes Kirk said the state-funded delegation will assist Alabama companies in negotiations for the sale of a variety of products, including poultry, lumber, utility poles, cotton, peanuts, fish and snack foods.   Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks has led some trade missions in the past, but Kirk said this one will be led by the department's director of international trade, John Key. (AP, 22/5/07)  

May 22: North Dakota wants to ship potatoes to Cuba, and was looking for ways to get the highly perishable vegetable to the island without spoiling. Representatives from two potato producing companies, as well as state experts on plant diseases and varieties of potatoes were meeting with top representatives from Alimport, Cuba's food import company. "If we can begin sales of North Dakota potatoes and do it in a way that gets them down here in good shape, that would be a very successful trade mission because we've been talking about it for five years and so far it hasn't happened," said Roger Johnson, the state's agriculture commissioner. Johnson, making his sixth trip to Cuba, said North Dakota has sold about $30 million worth of products to the communist country since 2001, mostly peas, as well as garbanzo and lentil beans. He is heading an 18-member delegation that includes producers of those products, as well as the potato experts and wheat and dry bean suppliers. (AP, 22/5/07)

May 22: Communist Cuba expects to sign contracts for as much as $150 million in American agricultural goods next week at the largest gathering of US farm producers in Cuba since Fidel Castro fell ill last summer. Pedro Alvarez, chairman of the island's food import company Alimport, said that talks beginning on May 28 should produce enough deals to ensure Cuba buys as much US goods in 2007 as it did last year. About 100 American farm groups and companies from 22 U.S. states are participating. In 2006, Cuba spent $570 million for US food and agricultural products, including shipping and banking costs, Alvarez said in an interview with the press. So far this year, his government has spent $225 million to purchase and import American goods. "We are hoping that by the end of the coming week, we will have between $100 million and $150 million in new contracts," Alvarez said, adding he expects as many as 250 Americans at the talks that will wind up with contract signings on May 30. (The Miami Herald, 23/5/07)

May 27: A non-official meeting on the prevention of hurricanes was carried out in Monterrey, the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, with the participation of experts from Cuba and the United States. The informal forum, which ran until May 25, was promoted by Wayne S. Smith, former chief of Washington’s Interest Section in Cuba, and host Victor Lopez Villafane, director of the Monterrey Technological Institute. The Cuban delegation was led by Dagoberto Rodriguez, chief of Cuba’s Interest Section in Washington, along with meteorologist Jose Rubiera and two physicians of the Henry Reeve Medical Brigade, who worked in Indonesia and Pakistan. Meanwhile, the United States representation was made up of experts from the states of Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, as well as other members of non-governmental entities of the neighbour country. (Prensa Latina, 27/5/07)

May 30: A little-noticed passage in two State Department reports says Havana has stated that it will no longer provide safe haven to US fugitives who enter Cuba -- a promise the Castro government has met twice since September. The promise and deportations amount to a rare sign of cooperation by Havana. A brief passage in the State Department's voluminous 2005 and 2006 Country Reports on Terrorism -- the 2006 report was released April 30 -- that went largely unnoticed until now said Cuba "has stated that it will no longer provide safe haven to new US fugitives who may enter Cuba." State Department spokesmen declined comment on who made the promise, when or whether it involved any US counter-promise. Some 70 US fugitives are believed to be living in Cuba, including Joanne Chesimard, convicted in the 1973 murder of a New Jersey state trooper. Cuba has refused to return them, generally arguing that the US charges against them are "political." The refusals were among the reasons the State Department used for including Cuba in its list of nations that support international terrorism. [2006 Country Report on Terrorism: Cuba] (The Miami Herald, 29/5/07)

May 30: Cuba’s food import company signed a deal to buy about USD 118m in American food products ranging from pork and corn to soybeans. "The sales this week went beyond all of our expectations," said Jim Sumner of the US Poultry and Egg Export Council, one of more than 200 Americans from 25 states who visited Havana for talks with the Cuban officials. "When the embargo is lifted, which we hope will be very soon, these deals will be much greater." "The active and massive participation of the American business community makes us very happy," said Alvarez, chairman of the Cuban food import company Alimport, who organized the latest round of negotiations with US farm producers. US providers include the firm Bunge, of Florida, which will supply 30,000 metric tons of soybean flour and Pilgrims Pride, of Georgia, which will sell Cuba 4,200 tons of chicken meat. The island will also purchase 25,000 tons of corn from the Connecticut Corporation, whose president Louis Dreyfus called for an expansion of the bilateral trade exchange in the benefit of both nations. It is expected that Cuba's expenditure on food from US in 2007 would match the $570 million it spent on American food and agricultural products the previous year. Cuban Commerce Minister Raul de la Nuez said most of the food would be sold at heavily subsidized prices, on the government's food ration and at public schools and workplace dining rooms. "This will help feed our people," De la Nuez said. (AP, ACN, 31/5/07)

May 30: Matt Lauer and NBC's "Today" show will broadcast live from Cuba to report on the political and economic climate there. Although Lauer is a frequent round-the-world traveler for "Today," it took 18 months to arrange the visit to a country only 90 miles from the United States, said Jim Bell, the show's executive producer. Bell used his ability to speak Spanish in the negotiations. "It's always timely to go to Cuba," Bell said. "There's always news there. Being there is news in itself." Besides examining Cuba's political future, "Today" plans stories on the impact of the US embargo on both countries. (AP, 30/5/07)

June 29: More than $140 million worth of agricultural and forest products travel to Cuba from Alabama, and state officials are hoping to increase the figure, according to a report by the Huntsville Times. Everything from state-produced catfish to newsprint is delivered to the communist nation through the Port of Mobile. In total, the goods account for about a third of all goods Cuba imports from the United States. "Alabama exports to Cuba have become an impressive addition to our state’s economy," said state Agriculture and Industries Commissioner Ron Sparks. "I want to be sure that Alabama maintains its position as a trade leader with Cuba and that we are able to continue to promote Alabama products." The state has aggressively marketed its products to Cuba, sending delegations to Havana to trumpet state goods and lobbying federal and state leaders to expand trade sanctions. (Gulf Shipper, 29/6/07) 
July 2: One of 14 buses carrying "friendshipments" to Cuba is slated to depart from Seattle. The Friendshipment Caravan program — in its 18th year — will make more than 120 stops throughout the US and Canada collecting medical supplies and journals before the goods are flown to Havana from Tampico, Mexico. Many people don't understand the shortages the U.S. embargo on Cuba has created, said Mark Koenig, director of Providence Health International. Koenig's organization collects medical supplies in Lacey for distribution, and has done so for years. "What I experienced was very well-trained people very committed to helping people and not being able to get what they needed to do it," Koenig said. (Seattle Times, 2/7/07)

July 4: Cuba marked the 231st anniversary of the US's Independence Day, July 4th, with a jazz concert that was led by renowned trumpet player José Miguel Crego, El Greco, who was accompanied by other renowned jazz players at the Amadeo Roldán Theater in Havana. Laura Vilar, director of the Center for Research and Development of Cuban Music, noted that the US independence, declared by the Congress of Philadelphia in 1776, was being celebrated by both the people of Abraham Lincoln and also by the people of José Martí and Fidel Castro. Vilar also mentioned the ties that have existed for centuries between the Cuban and American cultures, particularly in the field of music and stressed that the concert was dedicated to the jazz players of New Orleans. (ACN, 4/7/07)

July 23: Cuban inspectors are flying to North Dakota to look at seed potato fields in the Red River Valley. North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson, through a spokeswoman, confirmed the visit but said he could not provide details under conditions of the inspectors' visas. M. Marie Martin, a trade director with the federal Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment. Duane Maatz, president of the Northern Plains Potato Growers Association, said the two Cuban inspectors were to arrive on July 24 and stay in the region until July 27, touring fields in eastern North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota and possibly an ethanol plant in the region. "I think it will be the start of building some relationships," he said. "The point of this trip is to look at the growing crop. They may very well return in October" during harvest. Cuba announced in May that it would send experts to North Dakota this summer as the communist island closes in on a deal to buy about 100 tons of seed potatoes. It would be the first time Cuba has bought US seed potatoes, Maatz said. (Forbes, 23/7/07)

July 24: Eight Americans graduated from a Cuban medical school after six years of studies fully funded by Fidel Castro's government. They plan to return home, take board exams for licenses to practice and provide cheap health care in poor neighborhoods. "Cuba offered us full scholarships to study medicine here. In exchange, we commit ourselves to go back to our communities to provide health care to underserved people," said Carmen Landau, 30, of Oakland, California. The program is part of Castro's pet project to send thousands of Cuban doctors abroad to tend to the poor in developing countries, such as Venezuela and Bolivia, and train tens of thousand of medical students from developing countries in Cuba. Officials in Cuba's communist government relish the idea of training doctors for the United States, its arch-enemy since Castro took power in a leftist revolution in 1959. There are 88 Americans studying medicine in Cuba. The first to graduate two years ago was Cedric Edwards, who is now working at Montefiore Hospital in New York City's Bronx borough. (Reuters, 24/7/07)

July 29: Over the past several years, Florida ranchers - some from famous old families - have toured ranches on the communist island and saddled up with their cowboy-hatted counterparts. They also have shipped heifers and breeding bulls to those Cuban "friends" to help replenish the island's depleted cattle supply. They have even hosted Cuban officials on their Florida ranches to select the animals. These ranchers are among a growing number of US business owners who want to trade with Cuba. Some of them favor an out-and-out end to the 45-year economic embargo and travel restrictions against the island so they can form closer business ties with Cuban cowpokes. And they don't see the Cuban government as a barrier. "When we go to Cuba, we don't talk politics," says Jim Strickland, 52, owner of the 6,000-acre Strickland Ranch in Manatee County, who has been to the island at least eight times. "We're just vaqueros and ganaderos - cowboys and cattle ranchers - talking about our animals and our ranches with cattle people down there," he says. "We speak the same language. Cattlemen historically have always looked for new markets, and that's what we're doing." (Palm Beach Post, 29/7/07)

July 30: The US Commerce Department estimates Cuba will import $300 million to $350 million in goods from the USA this year. Alabama will provide about a third of that, at $100 million to $120 million in goods, according to the state's Department of Agriculture and Industries. That's consistent with recent history. Alabama businesses exported $100 million or more of goods to Cuba in each of the past three years, according to state figures. A 2005 Texas A&M study showed Arkansas leading the nation with exports to Cuba, with an estimated $167 million in trade a year. Alabama was second at $120 million, followed by California ($98 million), Iowa ($71 million) and Texas ($54 million). Many Alabama farmers would like to see that business expand further. Last year, 66% of the wheat imported by Cuba came from the USA. Other staples imported included: corn, 71%; rice, 77%; poultry, 65%; pork, 42%; soybeans, 100%; and animal feed, 76%, according to a July US International Trade Commission report. (USA Today, 30/7/07)

August 1: North Dakota will ship 100 tons of seed potatoes to Cuba, marking the first time the communist country has bought US seed potatoes in decades. The deal calls for the seed potatoes to be sent to the island in time for farmers there to plant this year, North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson said. "It's a very small amount - only about $15,000 worth - but it is significant in testing the waters," Johnson said. (Buffalo News, 1/8/07)

August 24: Private exporters reported the sale of 100,000 tonnes of US hard red winter wheat to Cuba for delivery this marketing year, said US Agriculture Department. The 2007/08 marketing year for wheat opened on June 1. (Reuters, 24/8/07)  

September 7: At the cactus-dotted fenceline where US and Cuban military officers meet face to face on the edge of the Guantanamo Bay naval base, Fidel Castro's name does not come up in official conversations. The base commander, Capt. Mark Leary, said he discusses mundane things like brush fires and construction work at monthly meetings with his Cuban military counterpart. "We haven't done anything differently really since his (Castro's) illness," Leary told the press at the only US military base on communist turf. "Nothing has changed at the fence line meeting even, and really, I wouldn't expect it to. It really is kind of a military-to-military relation and really only a local kind of thing." Firefighters from both sides joined up for their annual drill in June to practice for cross-border brush fires and other emergencies. Leary notified the Cubans that there would be an influx of construction workers for runway repaving and other work on the U.S. side. A year-old agreement to allow emergency medical flights to cross Cuban airspace was recently and uneventfully put to the test when a man at the base was flown to Miami for treatment unavailable on the base, Leary said. Residents on both sides of the fence can listen to each other's radio stations. A U.S. caller to an afternoon radio talk show on the navy base recently suggested that the Cuban soccer team be invited over for a match. Leary called that "a nice thought" but said there were no plans to carry it out. "That's really making policy. We don't do that," he said. (Reuters, 7/9/07)

September 12: Fidel Castro claims Cuba's government saved the life of President Reagan by giving American officials information about an assassination plot in 1984. Castro had mentioned the episode in a 1989 speech to Cuba's Council of State, without providing details. Castro’s new essay seemed aimed at showing Cuba has cooperated with the United States in the past. Castro, who has not appeared in public for more than a year, wrote that a Cuban security official stationed at the United Nations told the then US mission security chief about an extreme right-wing group that was planning to kill Reagan during a trip to North Carolina. [The Empire and Its Lies] (The New York Times, 12, 14/9/07)

September 17: A Nebraska delegation will be making another trade trip this fall to Cuba. Governor Dave Heineman said he's going to lead the agriculture-based group to the island nation in November. This would be Heineman's fourth trade trip to Cuba. Since 2005, Cuba has bought 60 million dollars in Nebraska commodities, including dry edible beans, corn, wheat, turkey, pork, beef, soybeans and other soy products. (Chrom.Com, 17/9/07)

October 4: The mortal remains of American pacifist Jane Jackson were buried at the Santa Ifigenia cemetery, Santiago de Cuba, at the request of her family in honor to the love she felt for the Santiagueros. The American pacifist, who passed away last September 27 in Santiago de Cuba, received posthumous honors at the Cuban friendship Institute (ICAP), with the presence of local authorities and her brothers and sisters from the Episcopal Church. Also at the ceremony were members of the Cuban Association of People with Physical and Motor Disabilities and the people of the community where she lived during her stay in the city. The US and the Cuban flags waved together at the funeral by a photo or her hugging Fidel Castro. Floral wreaths from Cuban parliament president Ricardo Alarcon, and the secretary of the Cuban Communist Party on the province, were sent to the ceremony. (ACN, 5/10/07)

October 11: Cuba handed over an American wanted for fraud and theft in Utah to US authorities, the third fugitive it has returned to the United States in one year, US officials said. John Bradley Egan was detained by Cuba at the end of June when his 30-foot (9-metre) yacht developed engine trouble off Havana's Marina Hemingway. Egan had no documents and the Cubans contacted the US diplomatic mission, which determined there was a warrant for his arrest in Utah for bank fraud and ID theft. "The US Coast Guard, our mission and the Cuban Foreign Ministry managed get him into US custody and he was taken back to the United States this morning," a US diplomat said. "We seem to have had good cooperation from the Cubans on these law enforcement and drug issues. It is not given much publicity," the diplomat said. (Reuters, 11/10/07)

October 15: Since 2003, Cuba and the United States have cooperated closely to settle lawsuits and cases of inheritance involving more than $50 million and hundreds of Cuban families on both sides of the Florida Straits. The increasing paperwork and the transfer of inheritance money to Cubans on the island are generating an inevitable interaction by lawyers and legal aides in Miami with their counterparts at Bufete Internacional de la Habana, the International Law Bureau of Havana, and other government agencies. Pragmatism has triumphed over political impediments. And the Cuban heirs on the island can now receive -- in periodic remittances made through Western Union -- their money, which until now had been frozen in the United States. "We're in the presence of a peculiarity in US-Cuba relations, because both parties are very interested in settling the litigation ahead," said Cuban-American lawyer Enrique Zamora, who travels to Cuba every six weeks, representing about 20 cases. ``These are strictly familial -- not political -- affairs." In coordination with the 11th Judicial Circuit in Miami-Dade, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, established more than a decade ago a standard procedure to identify and process the cases of succession that involve Cuban heirs on the island. (The Miami Herald, 15/10/07)

October 17: Cuba can become a more important market for Iowa 's agricultural commodities, say representatives of the Iowa Corn Growers Association and the Iowa Corn Promotion Board who traveled to Cuba with Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey. They were in Cuba from October 1 to October 5. "For the last decade, Iowa Corn and the Iowa Department of Agriculture have led a sustained effort to increase food and feed sales to Cuba," says Craig Floss, chief executive officer for ICGA and ICPB. "In the last marketing year, 95% of Cuba 's corn imports came from the US. That is real progress, given the legal restrictions on US-Cuba trade." Cuba's corn purchases this year could be nearly 40 million bushels, but Floss is even more enthusiastic about Cuba 's development as a market for distillers dried grains, or DDGs from Iowa 's ethanol industry. "Distillers dried grains was unknown in Cuba before 2004. Our work to introduce its use is paying off. Last year, the Cubans bought about 100,000 metric tons, and this year that is expected to double." (Farm Progress, 17/10/07)

October 21: Fifty-six Cuban migrants interdicted at sea in four incidents were repatriated, according to the US Coast Guard. Three suspected smugglers from those incidents were turned over to US Customs and Border Enforcement in Key West. The vessels were stopped south of Big Pine Key and Key West. (The Miami Herald, 23/10/07)

December 6: Washington's trade embargo bars almost all Americans from coming to Cuba -- but it can't keep US films out. Twenty-one full-length US movies and 22 experimental American shorts are being shown as part of Havana's international film festival, which will run through December 14 at 23 movie theaters and video clubs across the city. Most are independent flicks focusing on illegal immigration and the problems Latinos face in America, but movies by Hollywood heavyweights Brian De Palma and David Lynch are also being screened. ''You make an American film and you never expect it to be shown in Cuba,'' said Vivien Lesnik Weisman, a Cuban-American who will travel to Havana to present her documentary, “The Man of Two Havanas”. Finished prints of the US films were sent to Cuba through Mexico or Canada, or through European distribution companies. But the US government makes it quite difficult for American directors to present their work on the island. (The Miami Herald, 6/12/07)

December 13: Cuban and American speleologists are working side by side in the study of caves located in the Caguanes National Park of the central province of Sancti Spíritus, trying to make accurate maps of the caves. Five teams made up of 21 experts, including members of the speleological group SAMA in Sancti Spiritus, worked together for ten days in the study of six caves of the ten known in the region, which included the Boquerones Cavern, the largest, in the center of Cuba. (ACN, 13/12/07)

December 26: Conservationists, environmental lawyers and other experts, from Cuba, the US, and elsewhere, met in November in Cancun, Mexico, to discuss protecting the island's resources. Cuba has done "what we should have done — identify your hot spots of biodiversity and set them aside," said Oliver Houck, a professor of environmental law at Tulane University Law School who attended the conference. In the late 1990s, Houck was involved in an effort to advise Cuban officials writing environmental laws. But, he said, "an invasion of US consumerism, a US-dominated future, could roll over it like a bulldozer" when the embargo ends. By some estimates, tourism in Cuba is increasing 10 percent annually. At a minimum, Orlando Rey Santos, the Cuban lawyer who led the law-writing effort, said, "we can guess that tourism is going to increase in a very fast way" when the embargo ends. (The New York Times, 26/12/07)

December 26: The Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Football (CONCACAF) announced that for the first time Cuba's under-23 men's soccer team will play in Florida. The island's squad will debut on March 11 against the US squad, favorites to win the Olympic qualifying tournament. (ACN, 26/12/07)