Too many mojitos? A man described by the Russian press as "a slightly intoxicated passenger" on Saturday attempted 
to hijack a Transaero airliner flying from Varadero to Moscow and reroute it to Greece. He attempted to enter the cockpit but was subdued by the crew and tied to a seat. Upon arrival at Domodedovo Airport in Moscow, he was turned over to the police. Later, he was identified as Ilya Chulfa, 31, a tourist-agency manager with dual (Russian-Greek) citizenship. 
An airline representative said the company would not press criminal charges, but it is unlikely the Russian authorities will let the man go unpunished. The plane, a Boeing 767-300, reportedly carried 208 passengers and 11 crew members. Transaero is a major Russian airline that includes Cuba and Canada among its destinations. [UPDATE: On Tuesday, the Greek newspaper Kathimerini reported that Ilias Tsoulfas (that's his Greek name) had been fined and released. No confirmation from Russian newspapers.]
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.
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Medvedev: Consider Fidel's experience
On his way back to Moscow from Havana, 
Russian President Dmitri Medvedev made some comments on his videoblog. Here are some excerpts, translated by The Herald:
• "Latin America is a special region to which, I must acknowledge, we have not paid much attention in past years, and that's a pity. Latin America is a fast-developing region, a region in which important intellectual and natural resources are concentrated. Most importantly, it is home to people who want to develop valuable cooperation with us.
• "This visit was highly useful, all the more so because we were able to renew or restore old relations, and to organize new relations with those nations with whom we had no previous ties.
• "There are many very difficult issues on which there are different points of view. But we must learn to listen to each other, we must use the experience gained over the past decades, both the positive experiences and the very difficult ones. In this sense, what was extremely interesting to me was my conversation with Cuban leader Fidel Castro. This is a politician who has been one of the key political figures in Latin America for 50 years, a man who has seen many different events. And, of course, we must chart our course in light of the experience accumulated by mankind over the past decades. This is what will allow us to prevent political crises and to minimize the consequences of global turmoil, as in the current financial crisis."
To read the entire transcript, translated into English by the Kremlin, click here.
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.
Fidel:Medvedev is smart,sharp,persuasive
So, how does Dmitri Anatolyevich Medvedev 
impress Fidel Castro? "In his appearances, the Russian president is characterized by the precision, clarity and brevity of his words," Castro wrote Friday in the Cubadebate website. "There is no topic he sidesteps, no question he leaves unanswered. He has broad knowledge. Persuades his listeners. Those who disagree with him, respect him.
"He expressed his desire to chat with me during his visit. To me, it was an honor, and I was certain that it would be a pleasant encounter."
The meeting lasted one hour and 15 minutes, Castro wrote, and the topics ranged from U.S.-Cuba relations to "the grave, immediate problems [...] that people face today in their search for a multipolar world that guarantees sustained and peaceful development. [...]
"To me, the encounter constituted a great stimulus. I was left with a high concept of Medvedev's intellectual capacity, which I had already imagined in him. He is the youngest of the most important chiefs of state in the world, leading the country with the largest territory."
Fidel Castro was host to Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2000. During the Soviet era, he was host to presidents Leonid Brezhnev (1974) and Mikhail Gorbachev (1986) and Deputy Prime Minister Anastas Mikoyan (1960).
Blogger again wins award she can't collect
Yoani Sánchez's "Generation Y" blog on Thursday won 
the BOBs Award (for Best Of the Blogs) presented in Berlin by the German broadcast-media company Deutsche Welle. In April of this year, Sánchez's blog, which explores the lives of ordinary Cubans and is often critical of the Cuban government, won the Ortega y Gasset Award presented by the Spanish newspaper El País. In neither case could Sánchez travel abroad to accept her award; the government would not issue her an exit permit. The following is from Deutsche Welle's website:
• "Yoani Sánchez gives voice to an entire generation of Cubans and provides the world with a window into Cuba through her clear and poetic writing, the BOBs international jury of bloggers and media experts said.
"Sanchez called the award a 'personal joy' and added that she hoped it would encourage more Cubans to begin writing and publishing their own independent blogs.
"'The Cuban and international blogosphere will celebrate my award today while Cuban television and newspapers will remain silent,' she said in a video message at the awards ceremony. 'One day, real life will be like cyberspace, and on this island any citizen will be able to express themselves without asking permission. This award is a new push towards accomplishing this goal.'"
Deutsche Welle pointed out that "Sánchez is able to publish her blog [...] only by e-mailing her entries to friends outside Cuba, who put her words online."
Medvedev arrives in Cuba from Caracas
Russian President Dmitri Medvedev arrived in Havana from Caracas on Thursday after signing several agreements with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. The documents include:
• A memorandum of understanding between United Shipbuilding of Russia and Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), involving the construction and repair of oil rigs at sea and naval transportation of oil.
• An agreement between Gazprom, Russia's gas monopoly, and PDVSA, regarding joint exploration of the Ayacucho 3 fields on the Orinoco oil belt.
• An agreement for the use of nuclear energy for civilian purposes.
• An agreement of cooperation on issues involving oil, gas and electric power, aimed at promoting the efficient use of power in Venezuela.
• Agreements on air traffic and visa-free travel between Russia and Venezuela.
Medvedev's visit to Cuba will be the last stop of his Latin American tour. Previous stops were Peru and Brazil. (PHOTO SHOWS: Medvedev and Raúl Castro paying respects at José Martí memorial.)
Cuban Journalist Honored at the Waldorf
Jailed Cuban opposition journalist Hector Maseda was honored last night at the 18th Annual International Press Freedom Awards Dinner in New York. CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour announced the prize.
Maseda Gutiérrez, 65, was one of the 75 members of Cuba’s opposition movement jailed in the so-called “Black Spring” in 2003. He is the oldest of 21 jailed journalists in Cuba and is serving a 20-year sentence. His partner Laura Pollan is one of the founders of the “Ladies in White” dissident group.
An engineer and physicist by profession, Maseda joined the dissident movement in the early '90s and helped organize the illegal Liberal Democratic Party of Cuba. He also wrote articles on history, the economy and culture. A video about him was aired last night at New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel.
He wrote a memoir called Enterrados Vivos (Buried Alive) which was smuggled out of his prison and published last year.
Also honored were: Andrew Mwenda, managing editor of The Independent in Uganda, Farida Nekzad, Pajhwok Afghanistan News executive, Beatrice Mtetwa, media lawyer from Zimbabwe, Danish Karokhel, Pajhwok Afghanistan News executive and Iraqi Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein.
- Frances Robles
Raúl says he would meet with Obama
Raúl Castro says he's willing to meet 
with Barack Obama in neutral territory, according to an interview by actor Sean Penn with the Cuban president, published Wednesday in The Nation. Excerpts:
• "You asked if I would accept to meet with [Obama] in Washington. I would have to think about it. I would discuss it with all my comrades in the leadership. Personally, I think it would not be fair that I be the first to visit, because it is always the Latin American presidents who go to the United States first.
• "But it would also be unfair to expect the President of the United States to come to Cuba. We should meet in a neutral place. Perhaps we could meet at Guantánamo. We must meet and begin to solve our problems, and at the end of the meeting, we could give the president a gift -- we could send him home with the American flag that waves over Guantánamo Bay."
To read the entire interview in English, click here. In Spanish, click here.
Agro and sugar ministries change hands
Politburo member Ulises Rosales del Toro was appointed Minister of Agriculture, the daily Granma announced Wednesday, "in view of his broad experience in management and political authority and of the need to boost agricultural production, a strategic activity of the nation." Rosales, 66, was until this week Minister of Sugar. The shift in chairs was done "at the proposal" of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.
Rosales replaces María del Carmen Pérez Hernández, 
57, First Deputy Minister of Agriculture and the acting Minister. The Politburo "acknowledged the effort displayed by comrade María del Carmen in this task," the official note in Granma said.
Replacing Rosales as Minister of Sugar will be Luis Manuel Avila González, an "agronomy engineer with more than 38 years of experience in the sugar sector," Granma said. Currently, he is First Deputy Minister of Sugar.
For the next six months, the Sugar Ministry's agricultural activities not related to sugar cane will be turned over to the Ministry of Agriculture, Granma added. A statement on government TV said the changes were a "strategic" response to the damage caused by hurricanes Gustav, Ike and Paloma, which struck the island this year.
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.
Merit-pay plan not applied, workers claim
Individual initiative is foundering in the shoals of collectivism, a critical article in the Cuban newspaper Trabajadores (Workers) says. The government's plan to spur production by paying more to workers who produce more is running into "multiple reefs," the paper says, using a bakery in Villa Clara province as an example. 
Workers there are complaining that although their bakery has been highly productive and has surpassed its own sales targets for the past nine months, the government has paid them stimulus wages only on four occasions. Why? Because there are 11 other bakeries in the area and the government rewards the 12 as a group, not each individual bakery or individual baker. So, if a few bakeries slack off, no workers are rewarded, no matter how hard they have worked. Is that fair?, the workers ask.
Labor Ministry Resolution 9, which established the merit-pay system, set Aug. 31 as the deadline for its application nationwide. That deadline was "notoriously unobserved," Trabajadores says. In fact, as of that date, the Labor Ministry "had no reliable information" as to how many companies were linking wages to production. "Faced with this bitter reality, [the ministry] had to extend the deadline for the redesign of the pay-for-results systems," Labor Minister Alfredo Morales Cartaya wrote in a letter to national labor leaders. The redesign is expected to continue until Dec. 31.
"What are the causes of this slowness in establishing forms of payment so beneficial for the nation's economy and for the workers?" the newspaper asks. "What should be done to expedite the application of the pay-for-results systems? And who should be in charge of doing it?" Good questions.
(PHOTO SHOWS: Bakers in the city of Sagua la Grande complain that their extra work is not rewarded.)
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.
