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Cuba: Countries
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The Miami-based group, Democracy Movement, said 22 Cuban men were on hunger strike at the Migrant Operation Center at the base in southeast Cuba. A US official said... that there were 17 strikers. The hospitalized man remains on strike, said Ramon Saul Sanchez, president of Democracy Movement. The protesters are among 44 Cubans who were captured at sea by the US Coast Guard but could not be returned to Cuba because authorities determined they had a credible fear of persecution. They have been detained at Guantanamo -- some for more than two years -- while the US seeks to settle them in a third country. Sanchez said they began the strike to protest their conditions and the length of their confinement.
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The Cuba national football team is the national team of Cuba and is controlled by the Asociación de Fútbol de Cuba. They were the first Caribbean team to make the World Cup, which they did in 1938. There, they defeated Romania in a replay 2-1 after tying them 3-3. They were then eliminated in the second round by Sweden, 8-0. The Cuban team has not returned to the World Cup since. Football (soccer) is not followed as strongly in Cuba as it is in many other countries, as baseball is the national sport.
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Historically, Cuba has had some of the highest rates of education and literacy in Latin America, both before and after the revolution. Before the revolution its literary rate of 76% ranked fourth in the region (50 percent in rural areas). By 1995, and after a literacy campaign coordinated by the Cuban government, rates had risen to 96%. Alongside Argentina, this was the highest of the thirteen Latin American countries surveyed. A 1998 study by UNESCO reported that Cuban students showed a high level of educational achievement. Cuban third and fourth graders scored 350 points, 100 points above the regional average in tests of basic language and mathematics skills.
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Cuba considers baseball its national sport. Since approximately 1865 or 1866 this sport has been practiced and has become part of the lives of most Cubans. On December 27th,1874, the first baseball game in Cuba took place in a field known as Palmar de Junco, in the province of Matanzas. In the match, the Habana team defeated that of Matanzas with the unbalanced score of 51 to 9 runs. Merely four years after that event, Cuba became the second country in the world to organize a professional baseball championship. It was played in a park located in today's intersection of Avenues Línea and G, current location of the hospital "América Arias". In the opening game, played on December 29th,1878, the Habana team defeated the Almendares team with a score of 21 to 20.
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The U.S. initially welcomed what looked like a democratic Cuba, but a rude awakening came within a few months when Castro established military tribunals for political opponents and jailed hundreds. Castro disavowed Cuba's 1952 military pact with the U.S., confiscated U.S. assets, and established Soviet-style collective farms. The U.S. broke relations with Cuba on Jan. 3, 1961, and Castro formalized his alliance with the Soviet Union. Thousands of Cubans fled the country.
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Although Cuba was once almost entirely forested, by the late 1950s only 14 percent of the country remained under forest cover. As a result of reforestation efforts, this figure had risen to 24.7 percent by 2005. Reforestation efforts are still under way. Deforestation and agriculture contribute to soil erosion, another environmental challenge in Cuba. Agriculture is vital to Cuba’s economy. Cuba’s integrated pest management program, an alternative to pesticide use, has made environmental gains while maintaining agricultural output and reducing costs.
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