S. Africa, Cuba Formalize Defense Cooperation

JOHANNESBURG - South Africa and Cuba signed a memorandum Jan. 10 to put a stamp on the cooperation between the two country's armies, a spokesman said.

Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu signed the memorandum of understanding with Ulises Rosales del Toro, the vice-president of Cuba's council of ministers, according to defense ministry spokesman Siphiwe Dlamini.

"We're cementing that South Africa-Cuban defense cooperation," Dlamini told AFP.

The two countries have already worked together in the past, but the agreement formalizes exchanges in the air force, veterans, military health and education, training and development.

"They're bringing their instructors. The main target is military health," said Dlamini. "The memorandum gives a framework on operations, but the details are left to the officials."

"We are looking to introduce Cuba to our defense industry," he said, adding that South Africa could also share its experiences in peace-keeping with Cuba.

The island state supported South Africa's ruling African National Congress during its struggle against apartheid. It opposed the apartheid regime and sent some 50,000 troops to Angola who fought South African apartheid forces until their withdrawal in the late 1980s.

The two countries established diplomatic relations at the fall of white-minority rule in 1994. They set up a joint bilateral commission in February 2001 and have since cooperated in a number of projects including sending South African medical students to study in Cuba. Cuban doctors and teachers have also come to work in South Africa.

A 2004-agreement between South Africa and Cuba resulted in the deployment of 101 Cuban doctors to Mali, with financial backing from South Africa. In 2008 South Africa forgave Cuba's debt of 926.8-million-rand ($117million, 73 million euro).

Venezuelan Navy Chases Off Nuclear Sub: Chavez

CARACAS - The Venezuelan Navy this week chased off a "nuclear-powered submarine" that violated its territorial waters, President Hugo Chavez said, without pointing to any specific country.
In a televised call to state TV on Nov. 9, Chavez said naval forces had detected the submarine on Nov. 8 and pursued it, but "it escaped because it was much faster than ours."

"Obviously, given the speed and the velocity, it was a nuclear-powered submarine, but we are investigating," he added.
Chavez said his government had its "suspicions" concerning the origin of the vessel, but said "we are not accusing anyone" at the moment.
"We cannot say exactly who it was, because we have no evidence, but it was certainly a submarine," Chavez said.
He added that "the imperialists," referring to the United States, "have grown accustomed to strolling around the Caribbean and being all over the place, including by using satellites for espionage."
The fiery leftist Chavez has long accused the United States of meddling in Latin America and has cultivated ties with Washington's arch-foes, including Cuba and Iran.

Cuba's New Defense Minister is an Angola War Vet

HAVANA - Cuba named Gen. Leopoldo Cintra Frias, a hero of military campaigns in Angola and Ethiopia, as the country's new defense minister on Nov. 8.
Cintra, 70, replaces the late general Julio Casas Regueiro - President Raul Castro's right hand man - who died of a heart attack Sept. 3 at the age of 75.

The announcement that Cintra was appointed Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces came in a statement read on state television.
Cintra, a member of the influential Communist Party politburo since 1991, is a symbol of Cuba's military internationalism for his participation in campaigns in Ethiopia and Angola in the 1970s and 1980s respectively.
He has been deputy defense minister since 2008.
Cintra - nicknamed "Polito" by former Cuban president Fidel Castro - was awarded the title "Hero of the Cuban Republic" in 1988.
Cintra joined Cuban rebels aiming to topple dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1957 and is one of the "young" revolutionary leaders: Raul Castro turned 80 in June, while his older brother Fidel is 85; first vice president Jose Ramon Machado is 81, and the historic revolutionary commander Ramiro Valdes is 79.

U.S. Dismantles Last of Big Cold War Nuclear Bombs

WASHINGTON - Nuclear experts in Texas prepared Tuesday to dismantle the oldest, biggest and most powerful bomb in the U.S. nuclear arsenal from the Cold War era.
The last B-53 bomb - built in 1962, the year of the Cuban missile crisis - will be taken apart at the Pantex facility in Amarillo, the only place in the U.S. that builds, maintains and dismantles nuclear weapons.

Grey in color, weighing 10,000 pounds and as big as a minivan, the device had the power to wipe out a metropolitan area with its nine megaton yield when dropped from a B-52 bomber.
By comparison, the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, Japan, in the final days of World War II packed a yield of 12 kilotons, or 0.012 megatons.
"It's significant in the sense that it's the last of these multimegaton weapons that the nuclear powers used to build during the height of the Cold War," said Hans Kirstensen, director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists.
Dismantling the B-53 bomb - retired from service in 1997 - involves separating 300 pounds of high explosive from the uranium "pit" at the heart of the weapon, Pantex spokesman Greg Cunningham told AFP.
"The world is a safer place with this dismantlement," Thomas D'Agostino, director of the National Nuclear Security Administration, said in a Pantex statement.