reading the world

I was very impressed when I read that the author Ann Morgan had managed to read one book from each of the 196 countries represented at the 2012 Olympics in London. Her list of books read and others that were recommended to her is here, and the book she wrote about the experience is reviewed here.

Thinking about how embarrassingly far I would fall short of that figure I estimated I would be lucky to make it to 50 countries (in my life so far, not in a year) and started my own list to prove it. If and when I've reviewed a book on this list, I've included a link to the review. If I can't remember whether I've actually read it (even though it's on my shelf), I've marked it with CR. NFY means not finished yet. Still struggling to get to 50 though.

1. Algeria – Mehdi Charef: Thé au harem d’Archi Ahmed (CR - saw the movie though)
2. Argentina – Federico Andahazi: El anatomista (The anatomist)
3. Austria – Daniel Kehlmann: Die Vermessung der Welt (Measuring the world)
4. Belgium – Amélie Nothomb – L’hygiène de l’assassin
5. Brazil – Paulo Coelho: Der Alchemist (The alchemist)
6. Canada - L. M. Montgomery: Anne of Green Gables
7. Chile – Isabel Allende: La casa de los espiritus (The house of the spirits)
8. China – Hong Ying: K – the art of love
9. Colombia – Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Cien años de soledad
10. Congo, Republic of the – Alain Mabanckou: Verre Cassé (Broken Glass)
11. Cote d'Ivoire – Fatou Keita: La rebelle
12. Cuba – Zoe Valdes: La nada cotidiana
13. Ecuador – Alicia Yanez Cossio: El cristo feo
14. Equatorial Guinea – Guillermina Mekuy: El llanto del perro
15. France – Anna Gavalda: Ensemble, c’est tout (Hunting and gathering)
16. Germany – Charlotte Roche: Feuchtgebiete (Wetlands)
17. Guatemala – Miguel Angel Asturias: Leyendas de Guatemala (CR)
18. India – Ruth Prawer Jhabvala: Heat and dust
19. Iraq - Weam Namou: The feminine art
20. Israel – Ephraim Kishon: Oh, oh, Juliet
21. Italy – Umberto Eco: Der Name der Rose (The name of the rose)
22. Kyrgyzstan – Chinghiz Aitmatov: Jamila
23. Lebanon - Vénus Khoury-Ghata: Les fiancés du Cap-Ténès (CR)
24. Madagascar – Michele Rakotoson: Dadabé
25. Mexico – Laura Esquivel: Como agua para chocolate
26. Mongolia – Galsan Tschinag: Die Karawane (NFY)
27. Morocco – Tahar Ben Jelloun: Harrouda (CR)
28. Netherlands – Anne Frank: Das Tagebuch der Anne Frank (Diary of a young girl)
29. New Zealand - Katherine Mansfield: Stories
30. Nicaragua – Gioconda Belli: El pergamino de la seduccion (The scroll of seduction)
31. Nigeria – Sefi Atta: Swallow
32. Peru – Mario Vargas Llosa: El sueño del Celta (The dream of the Celt)
33. Poland – Stanislaw Lem: Stories
34. Russia – Mikhail Bulgakov: Master and Margerita
35. Senegal – Ousmane Sembene: Guelwaar
36. Sierra Leone - Aminatta Forna: The memory of love (NFY)
37. Spain – Almudena Grandes: Castillos de carton
38. Sweden – Astrid Lindgren: Pippi Longstocking
39. Switzerland – Max Frisch: Homo faber
40. Syria - Rafik Schami: Die dunkle Seite der Liebe (NFY)
41. United Kingdom – Esther Freud: Lucky break
42. United States – Megan Clark: Seduce me
43. Vietnam - Kim Thuy: ru (NFY)

Own photo of my reading pile some time in early 2014.

PS: I'll keep updating this with any further reading adventures, hoping that one day I can travel around the world in 80 books ... So this post will also serve as a directory to my reviews of world fiction.

7 days in Havana

I'm hoping to catch Julio Medem's latest work, which is a seventh of the 7-episodes film 7 days in Havana, at some time this year. Medem's contribution is the Wednesday, and it's called La tentación de Cecilia. Am a bit nervous as his last two feature films didn't get cinematic releases in the UK, but let's wait and see.

UPDATE 21.7.2012): in theory, the film was released in the UK at the beginning of July, but a check at our local indpendent cinema revealed they are planning to show it "off-release" i.e. later ...

In the meantime we can enjoy the rather lovely official website of the film co-sponsored by my favourite rum, Havana Club. What's not to like?

Just keeping all limbs crossed and hoping that I actually get to see the movie.



official poster of the movie

light up (the world)

You can't have too many music videos filmed in Cuba, and I'm loving the latest one, by Yasmin ft. Shy FX & Ms Dynamite, Light up (the world):

seven days in Havana

I hear that my all time favourite film director, Julio Medem, has started filming a short feature which will be 1/7th of a movie called "Seven days in Havana" (7 dias en La Habana). His contribution is called 'La tentación de Cecilia' (The temptation of Cecilia), and it stars German actor Daniel Brühl. The other 6 parts are from colleagues including Benicio del Toro and Gaspar Noe.

There is preliminary information available from IMDB and spanish cinema blogs (such as this one), hoping to find out more soon, watch this space!


Picture from official website: www.juliomedem.org

oddbins run dry

the Guardian reports it's the end of the road for mildly eccentric wine merchants chain OddBins, which happens to be my age. I loved their crazy catalogue graphics and used to buy my Havana Club (Cuban rum) from there, but I have to say that at least in the last three years, when I did some exploratory wine shopping, they never had any Cotes du Rhone bottles that might have tempted me. I mostly ended up importing them from the continent or buying them at M&S.

Just recently, I picked up brochure called "Oddyssey" from one of the branches (we have three within easy cycling distance), which relates the intriguing history of the chain, now looking certain to be coming to an end.

Here is a photo of the branch on Oxford's High Street,taken just a few days ago:



PS Possibly one of the last bottles they sold before going into administration arrived at my house just yesterday, it was the prize for spotting the odd book title that won the Diagram Prize.

20 años de Ecos

Ecos de España y Latinoamérica, the magazine for learning Spanish, is 20 years old this month (as is a member of my family). Funny that. I've already praised the magazine here, so I'll just add "many happy returns" to that. Our household does in fact have a subscription at the moment, so long may it prosper.



Ecos Online


PS in other Latinamerican news, biochemist Alberto Granado, Che Guevara's travelling companion of Motorcycle Diaries fame, has died aged 88. There is an interesting obituary in the Guardian

movies we're not allowed to see

-- last updated 25.06.2015 --

NB: for more recent updates see my new blog post on this issue.

I've been catching up on some European movies from the last years that for some reason or another didn't get a cinema release in the UK (criteria: no release date listed on IMDB and film didn't show up here). There is a growing collection of recent films that I really liked and that didn't get shown in this country, so I'm compiling a commented list here:

Mädchen Mädchen (Girls on top) - Germany 2001, Dennis Gansel.

Juana la loca - Spain 2001, Vicente Aranda - it's just a straightforward period drama based on the same events as Gioconda Belli's more ambitious novel El pergamino de la seducción (which I reviewed here) but I love the story so it doesn't harm to have a second view on it. It's nicely done and should interest people outside Spain too. (It has in fact been released in the US as "Mad Love", but not here.)

800 balas (800 bullets) - Spain 2002, Alex de la Iglesia - surprisingly brilliant film, see my review.

El otro lado de la cama (The other side of the bed) - Spain 2002, Emilio Martínez Lázaro - starring Paz Vega, Natalia Verbeke.

Suite Habana (Havana Suite) - Cuba 2003, Fernando Pérez - not European, but still interesting.

L'esquive (Games of love and chance) - France 2003, Abdellatif Kechiche - only shown at the London film festival.

Dot the i - UK 2003, Matthew Parkhill - this one puzzles me, actually, it's made in Britain, with funding from UK film council, in English (though with stars better known in Spanish speaking countries), all nipples carefully covered up, and it still went straight to DVD (more here).

Tout le plaisir est pour moi (The pleasure is all mine) - France 2004, Isabelle Broué, starring Marie Gillain - comedy around libido lost and found, a bit painting by numbers and too americanised for my taste, but apparently not enough to get a UK release.

En la cama - Germany / Chile 2005, Matías Bize starring Blanca Lewin, Gonzalo Valenzuela - the film that inspired Julio Medem's "Room in Rome" (2010, see below). See my review.

Melissa P - Italy / Spain 2005, Luca Guadagnino - a difficult topic handled tactfully, see my review.

Ensemble c'est tout - France 2007, Claude Berri - ok, I wasn't really overwhelmed by this one, see my review of the book (by Anna Gavalda) with post-script on the film here. The film was only shown at a festival here and hasn't even seen a DVD release (my DVD is from Germany).

Caótica Ana - Spain 2007, Julio Medem - maybe not his best work but still worth watching, see my review here.

Les anges exterminateurs - France 2006, Jean-Claude Brisseau - although part one of the trilogy, Les choses secretes, was shown in UK cinemas, this second part and the final one, A l'aventure, weren't.

Tangerine - Germany 2008, Irene von Alberti - German musicians try and fail to connect with the culture of Morocco ...

A l'aventure - France 2008, Jean-Claude Brisseau - third part of the trilogy, of which only the beginning, Les choses secretes made it to UK cinemas.

LOL (Laughing out Loud) - France 2008, Lisa Azuelos - a teenage comedy with a twist, as Sophie Marceau, who shot to fame with La Boum in the 80s, plays the mother of the lead girl this time round. Looking this up on IMDB, I found out that a US remake starring Miley Cyrus and Demi Moore is due to be released on 1.6.2012. Oh, and there hasn't even been a DVD release in the UK, another movie I had to import from Germany.

Française -France 2008, Souad El-Bouhati - shortish film about being a foreigner and choosing your country, starring Hafsia Herzi from Couscous (La graine et le mulet), review to follow.

Soul kitchen - Germany 2009, Fatih Akin - review to follow.

Castillos de cartón - Spain 2009, Salvador García Ruiz - charming film based on novel by Almudena Grandes, about three art students in 1980s Madrid who find their ways in art, love, and life. See my review of the UK DVD edition trying to mis-sell it as porn.

Je te mangerais - France 2009, - girl-on-girl obsession complete with harrassment and a background of classical music. Love the setting (in Lyon) and the views, but there are some disturbing things going on that aren't really addressed. Also, the link between emotions and their musical expression wasn't easy to catch for mere mortal non-pianists like me. Went straight to DVD in the UK in 2010 (title: Highly Strung, cert. 15).

Now & later - USA 2009, Philippe Diaz - free love vs. the power of military and financial oppression, heart-warming stuff, read my review here.

Mentiras y gordas (Sex, party & lies) - Spain 2009, Alfonso Albacete - superficially, this is sex and drugs and techno all the way through, so don't be surprised at the knee-jerk reaction from some quarters and the 18 certificate on the DVD. If you can look beyond that, however, there are interesting subtleties (the lies are in the title for a reason), characters likeable with all their flaws, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of drugs and falling in love.
UPDATE December 2023: rewatched this after realising that it features a young Ana de Armas (who since then moved on to Hollywood and played Marilyn Monroe). Hadn't remembered much after 14 years, so I had great pleasure in rediscovering it.

Happy Few - France 2010, Antony Cordier - starring Elodie Bouchez - I missed La vie rêvée des anges when it came out, and generally hadn't seen a movie with Bouchez since Les roseaux sauvages (1994), so I made a note regarding this one when I heard about it in France. Needless to say, it didn't get a UK release (not even as DVD) so I imported the DVD from Germany. One might question whether the news that two couples have merged into a foursome is material enough to fill two hours, but I really liked the general feel and atmosphere of it.

L'âge de raison - France 2010, Yann Samuell - starring Sophie Marceau - what happens if the letters a clever 7-year-old girl writes to her future, 40-year-old self actually get delivered? Good question, slightly muddled in the answer but still interesting and moving to a degree. Further proof that de-frenching French films by bringing in a bit of English dialogue and leaving out all nipples doesn't guarantee cinematic release in the English-speaking world. Neither does the presence of a huge star like Marceau ... It was shown in cinemas in Germany, where a DVD is available under the title Vergissmichnicht.

Balada triste de trompeta - Spain 2010, Alex de la Iglesia - shown at Edinburgh Film Festival only.
A complex and difficult movie on the trauma caused by the Spanish civil war, read my review here

Vénus noire - France 2010, Abdellatif Kechiche - epic and profound biopic of an African woman shown around as "Hottentot Venus" in European cities in the 19th century. See my review here

Mes chères études - France 2010, Emmanuelle Bercot - now this alternative approach to student finance might have caused scandal around here, so better not show it.

678 / Les femmes du bus 678 - Egypt 2010, Mohamed Diab, starring Nahed El Sebai, Boushra, Nelly Karim - very timely and relevant film on the everyday harassment of women, see my review here.

still from "Habitación en Roma": official site.

Habitación en Roma (Room in Rome) - Spain 2010, Julio Medem - read my review here.

I love Périgord - France 2011, Charles Nemes – it’s a cliché-laden comedy about an Anglo-French culture clash and I wouldn’t normally make a fuss about it, but given the topic, a no-show in UK cinemas might of course be read as censoring the opinion of the other side in this age-old cultural conflict.

Q - France 2011, Laurent Bouhnik – What if relationships between people were driven by rampant female desire, what might this alternative to the testosterone-soaked world we live in look like? The (male) writer/director seems to think that it would be a better world, as the desire of the female protagonist, although a bit disconcerting at first, ends up being a force for good, fixing troubled relationships and strengthening the community. Sadly, censors and marketing people are unable to ignore the bare chests for long enough to work out what a film is actually about, so we have another interesting film that didn’t get a UK release and went straight to DVD with a blurb that essentially tries to sell it as posh porn. When will they ever learn?

Memoria de mis putas tristes - Mexico/Denmark 2011, Henning Carlsen - lovely adaptation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez' eponymous short novel from 2004. Review to follow.

Camille redouble (Camille rewinds) - France 2012, Noémie Lvovsky - Charming if slightly illogical time travel story featuring the director in the lead role. It was - released in around a dozen countries but no UK date in sight.

La fille de nulle part - France 2012, Jean-Claude Brisseau - this low-budget ghost story looks like poor old Brisseau is now reduced to filming in his own flat and playing the lead himself, but it is still interesting.

Mapa para conversar (A map for love) - Chile 2012, Constanza Fernandez, starring Andrea Moro, Mariana Prat, Francisca Bernardi - three women in a cute little chamber piece mostly set on a small boat. Restrictions clear the mind, as one of the characters says. Available on DVD from the lovely peccadillo pictures.

---

PS: I am, of course, a bit biased in favour of Spanish and French cinema, but I'm sure there are similarly neglected films from other European countries, and indeed from around the world as well. I'll also acknowledge bias towards vaguely intelligent films, which excludes some German comedies that were extremely successful on the domestic market but didn't get exported.

---

"Endangered List" of films that may or may not end up on the list above (as I haven't seen them yet, and/or they may still turn up):


Flores raras (Reaching for the Moon) - Brazil 2013, Bruno Barreto
Landes - France 2013, François-Xavier Vives, starring Marie Gillain
Ayer no termina nunca (Yesterday never ends) - Spain 2013, Isabel Coixet - shown at the Berlin International Film Festival 2013, and at the London Spanish Film Festival 2013

Una pistola en cada mano - Spain 2012, Cesc Gay - Shown in Germany (Ein Freitag in Barcelona), and at the London Spanish Film Festival 2013.

Die Vermessung der Welt (Measuring the world) Germany 2012, Detlev Buck.
Klip (Clip) - Serbia 2012, Maja Milos
Weil ich schöner bin - Germany 2012, Frieder Schlaich
El amigo aleman (The German friend) - Germany, Argentina 2012, Jeanine Meerapfel
3 - Uruguay, Argentina, Germany 2012 - Pablo Stoll - oops, there are too many movies called 3, I was looking for this one and first found the one below, and got all confused.
Tres - Ecuador, Argentina, Germany 2012
3 Zimmer/Küche/Bad (Move) - Germany 2012
Baad el Mawkeaa (After the Battle) - France / Egypt 2012
Después de Lucía - Mexico / France 2012
A perdre la raison - Belgium 2012, Joachim Lafosse, starring Emilie Dequenne
Buscando a Eimish - Spain 2012, Ana Rodríguez Rosell, starring Manuela Vellés, Emma Suárez - shown at the London Spanish Film Festival 2012
Joven y alocada - Chile 2012, Marialy Rivas

Lo mejor de Eva - Spain 2011, Mariano Barroso - starring Leonor Watling, Adriana Ugarte
Un été brûlant - France 2011, Philippe Garrel - starring Monica Bellucci
Violeta se fue a los cielos (Violeta went to heaven) - Chile 2011, Andrés Wood - a biopic of the Chilean folk singer, song writer Violeta Parra
Graba - Argentina 2011
Lo contrario al amor - Spain 2011 - shown at the London Spanish Film Festival 2012
Verbo - Spain 2011 - shown at the London Spanish Film Festival 2012
Karen llora en un bus - Colombia 2011
Abrir puertas y ventanas (Back to stay) - Argentina 2011, Milagros Mumenthaler
La chispa de la vida (As luck would have it) - Spain 2011, Alex de la Iglesia
Poulet aux prunes (Chicken with plums) - France 2011, Marjane Satrapi
3 - Germany 2011, Tom Tykwer
I phone you - Germany 2011, Dan Tang
Almanya - Willkommen in Deutschland - Germany 2011, Nesrin Samdereli, Yasemin Samdereli

Amador - Spain 2010, Fernando Leon Aranoa, starring Magaly Solier
Le sentiment de la chair - France 2010 - (slightly scared of this, plot summary sounds like it may be taking "anatomical detail" a little bit too literally?)
Marieke, Marieke - Belgium 2010, Sophie Schoukens
Die Fremde (When we leave) - Germany 2010, Feo Aladag - starring Sibel Kekilli
Le nom des gens - France 2010, Michel Leclerc
Flamenco, flamenco - Spain 2010, Carlos Saura -
Un homme qui crie - France/Belgium/Chad 2010, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun -
Joseph et la fille - France 2010, Xavier de Choudens - starring Hafsia Herzi, Jacques Dutronc


La fille du RER (The girl on the train) - France 2009, André Téchiné, starring Emilie Dequenne
Eloise - Spain 2009, Jesús Garay
Io, Don Giovanni - Spain / Italy 2009, Carlos Saura
Anonymes (Buried secrets) - France 2009, Raja Amari - starring Hafsia Herzi
El último verano de la Boyita - Argentina 2009, Julia Solomonoff - shown at the Viva Festival, Manchester only.
La Yuma - Nicaragua 2009, Florence Jaugey -

El juego del ahorcado - Spain 2008, Manuel Gómez Pereira - starring Adriana Ugarte
La journeé de la jupe (Skirt day) - France 2008, Jean-Paul Lilienfeld - starring Isabelle Adjani, who won a César for this role
L'aube du monde (Dawn of the world) - Iraq, France, Germany 2008, Abbas Fahdel - starring Hafsia Herzi
Le premier venu (Just anybody) - France 2008, Jacques Doillon -
Arráncame la vida (Tear this heart out) - Mexico 2008, Roberto Sneider - Adaptation of Angeles Mastretta's novel, shown at the Viva Festival, Manchester only.

Les filles du botaniste - France / Canada (2006) but dialogue in Mandarin
Short order (Life is a buffet) - Ireland, Germany, UK 2005 - starring Emma de Caunes

Perder es cuestión de método - Colombia 2004, Sergio Cabrera - an adaptation of Santiago Gamboa's eponymous novel

Petite Lili - France 2003 - starring Ludivine Sagnier; an adaptation of Chekhov's The Seagull, apparently

Solino Germany 2002, Fatih Akin

---

Finally, films from the watch list that did get a UK release after all, hooray:

Alceste a bicyclette (Bicycling with Moliere) - France 2013, Philippe Le Guay - Note the predictable replacement of the name of Alceste (the lead character in Le misanthrope) with the author's name in the international title. UK release on July 6th, 2014.
El artista y la modelo - Spain 2012, Fernando Trueba, starring Claudia Cardinale - one-off showing at the London Spanish Film Festival's Spring Weekend, April 2013, then release of around a dozen copies in September 2013, details here
La vie d'Adèle (Blue is the warmest colour) - France 2013, Abdellatif Kechiche - winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes 2013, and I was still worried it might not get a release here. That's how bad things have become. It was released in November 2013.

Paris-Manhattan - France 2012, Sophie Lellouche - French reflections on Woodie Allen - UK release 5.7.2013, apparently, although it hasn't shown up in our local cinemas. Got DVD via Germany and really liked it.
Les femmes du 6ème étage (The women on the 6th floor) - France 2010 - UK release in July 2012
Elle s'appellait Sarah - France 2010, Gilles Paquet-Brenner - starring Kristin Scott-Thomas
UK release 5.8.2011 as "Sarah's Key"

---

Further reading:

1. An interesting piece from a movie professional who had a few fights with the UK censors appeared in the Guardian film section on 1.10.2010.
2. 100 years of film censorship (slash classification): Kira Cochrane in the Guardian on the BBFC's anniversary, 27.7.2012.
3. BFI statistical yearbook 2013: According to the country of origin stats on page 17, 151 (23%) of the movies released in the UK in 2012 came from other European countries. Also see the chapter 5, "Specialised Films", which includes stats on foreign language films. Apparently, 230 films in 32 foreign languages were released in 2012, accounting for 35.5% of all releases but taking only 2% of the box-office. I'll prepare a separate blog entry on these stats.

"opportunities to learn from Cuba"

[deutsche Version]

The US trade embargo against Cuba is turning 50 this year, and one should hope that after half a century of watching this policy fail to achieve its goals, even the most blockheaded lobbyists should start to scratch their heads and have a good re-think. But then again, one should have hoped that, too, after a whole century of catastrophic failure in the “war on drugs.”

Anyhow, very subtle signals seem to indicate that the US are slowly but surely beginning to move on this issue. Among the signals is the recent publication of a “Policy Forum” piece by Paul Drain and Michele Barry in Science magazine (vol 328, p 572, 30.4.2010), analysing the effect of the embargo on public health in Cuba and the reasons why Cuba’s health system has been spectacularly successful in spite of it.

One particularly insidious part of the story, I learned from the Science piece, is the “Torricelli Bill” of 1992, which suppressed the export of medical supplies to Cuba and did have a measurable impact on public health in the country. (I really can’t get my head round this – the lobbyists in Miami must have been twisting lots of people’s arms to ensure that their relatives back home don’t get medical supplies when they need them. Does anybody understand this?) Apart from the blip following that law, however, life expectancy in Cuba has risen steeply in the 50 years since the embargo began, and has drawn equal with the US, even though health spending in Cuba is by orders of magnitude less than in the US. It is tempting to cast a cynical eye at the data and conclude that the Torricelli Bill was a desperate attempt to stop Cuba from overtaking the US on health indicators such as life expectancy, and as such it has, just about, worked.

But how could Cuba achieve what has been described as “developed world outcomes at developing world prices”? The article highlights the Cuban emphasis on disease prevention and primary health care. Educating people about health risks is relatively cheap. Letting them run the risk and then trying to cure the diseases with pharmaceuticals, as done in the US, is much more expensive. In terms of access to primary medical care, Cuba has a very large number of physicians per capita, and even in remote rural areas, access to medical care isn’t much of a problem. And, unlike the UK’s NHS, they do believe in checkups. Every Cuban citizen, I learned, is expected to see a physician at least once a year.

Disease prevention also depends on vaccination programs, which in turn depend on the manufacturing and indeed invention of affordable vaccines. When I visited Cuba in 2004, I was fortunate to catch the story of the new, affordable HiB vaccine developed at Havana just before this advance was published in Science. This was an outstanding success, but more generally, the biomedical research institutes in Havana are widely recognised for their world-class research, which directly leads to effective and affordable vaccinations for the Cuban people.

Sensationally for a publication that is kind of a flag carrier for US science, the article concludes that in the wake of the US healthcare reform “there may be opportunities to learn from Cuba valuable lessons about developing a truly universal health care system that emphasizes primary care. Adopting some of Cuba’s successful health-care policies may be the best first step toward normalizing relations.”

Call me crazy, but I am feeling cautiously optimistic that the embargo madness won’t last for another 50 years.

Reference:
Paul K. Drain and Michele Barry
Global Health:
Fifty Years of U.S. Embargo: Cuba's Health Outcomes and Lessons
Science 30 April 2010:
Vol. 328. no. 5978, pp. 572 - 573
DOI: 10.1126/science.1189680
summary and access to PDF file (PDF access may be restricted, not sure)

cuban cancer success

Following my visits to Cuba in 2004 and 2005, I wrote a few pieces about the spectacular successes of the medical biotech research going on there. At the time the affordable HiB vaccine was a major story.

Since then, I've lost track of developments there, so I was pleased to learn from Clare Sansom's excellent article in ecancermedicalscience that the immunology institute CIM at Havana (which I also visited at the time) has been very successful in the development of cancer vaccines and other immunological cancer treatments.

I should explain that, unlike vaccines against infectious diseases, cancer vaccines are for treatment, not prevention. Essentially, they train the immune system to recognise cancer cells as intruders and deal with them the same way they would with a microbial infection. CIM has developed a vaccine called ClimaVax that is already in clinical use for lung cancer.

I understand they also have an antibody that works on the same principle as Herceptin (i.e. by blocking the receptor of the epidermal growth factor, EGF), but may have fewer and less serious side effects.

More details in ecancermedicalscience.

science in Latin America

Ten years ago, when I set out as a full-time freelancer, I was hoping to make science in Latin America a geographic focus of my work. I set up a web portal called "ciencia sin fronteras" (the domain name is now used by somebody else for a different project), and I did cover some science stories over the years, but it didn't really take off.

I'm now hoping to revitalise this side of my work a little bit (although on a modest scale) by introducing a new tag for this blog, indicating all science news that is related to Latin America, i.e. both research performed there environmental issues that affect Latin America, like rainforest conservation. The tag is LA_ciencia (though blog entries will also be tagged by country).

To start things off, I I'm compiling here a list of some of the relevant pieces I have published over the last 6 years, sorted by country (will add items to the list as and when I remember them!):


Bolivia

--2008--


1. Gross M:
   Chemistry World 11.08. (online only)
   Hot chillis evolved to kill fungi
   [free access]

Brazil

--2009--


1. Gross M:
   Current Biology 19, No 11 (09.06.), R427-28
   Embryonic development
   As the UK updates its pioneering Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, legal boundaries for research in the life sciences are redrawn in other countries as well.
   [restricted access]
   

Colombia

--2006--


1. Groß M:
   Biologie in unserer Zeit 36, Nr 4, 17
   Humanevolution: Kolumbien nach Kolumbus
   An English version of this piece appears in The birds,the bees and the platypuses, page 154: Colombia after Columbus
   

Costa Rica

--2009--


1. Gross M:
   Current Biology 19, No 21 (17.11.), R965
   Coffee growers feel the heat
   Coffee and tea farmers already appear to be suffering from the effects of climate change.
   [environment]
   
   [abstract and restricted access to PDF]

Cuba

--2004--


1. Groß M:
   Nachrichten aus der Chemie 52, Nr 7/8, 812-814
   Die zweite Revolution: Biotechnologie in Kuba
   
   [@][@]
   
   

2. Gross M:
   Current Biology 14, No 11, R401-R402
   Fighting isolation
   





3. Gross M:
   Darwin No 2, 22-26
   Biotecnologie -- l'altra rivolucione cubana
   





4. Gross M:
   Chemistry World 1, No 9, 19
   Cuba synthesises blockbuster vaccine





5. Groß M:
   Spektrum der Wissenschaft Nr 10, 23
   Kommentar: Der Fall Kuba. Der Inselstaat konnte sich mit Biotechnologie aus der Isolation befreien.





6. Groß M:
   Chemie in unserer Zeit 38, Nr 5, 306-307
   Biotechnologie in Kuba: Mangomittel gegen Altern und Aids





7. Gross M:
   Chemistry World 1, No 11, 38Biotechnology: the second Cuban revolution
   



--2005--



8. Groß M:
   Biologie in unserer Zeit 35, Nr 4, 227
   Arzneimittelforschung: Impfstoffe aus Kuba





9. Gross M:
   Chemistry & Industry No. 15 (01.08.), 16-17
   Fortress of success: Biotech companies in Cuba are making the best of what they have



--2006--



10. Gross M:
    Chemistry World 3 No. 1, 7
    Chemists queue up for Cuban collaboration





11. Groß M:
    
    Chemie
    in unserer Zeit 40, Nr 1, 68-71
    Kuba -- Improvisationstalent gefragt





12. Gross M:
    Current Biology 16, No 3 (7.2.), R66-R67
    Cuban efforts bolstered





13. Gross M:
    Oxford Today 18, No 3 (Trinity 2006),
    Chemistry in Cuba





14. Gross M:
    Chemistry World No 10, 23 (online: 4.9.)
    Antibodies in the greenhouse
    [@@]

Dear Mr President

It's more than a year since that "historic vote" that made Barack Obama president, and I was shaken out of my illusion when I read that on October 28th the UN general assembly has for the 18th year running voted to condemn the US trade embargo against Cuba (187 votes for, 3 against lifting the embargo, two abstentions).

So hang on, he's been president for the best part of the year, he's due to pick up a Nobel peace prize next month, and that stupid embargo is still being upheld ? I mean by now even the nice people who financed hundreds of assassination attempts against Fidel Castro (which strangely isn't included in the US definition of terrorism) should have figured out that the embargo isn't getting them any nearer to their goal.

So what's taking Obama so long? This doesn't require him to find or print money, send troups, or twist arms, it only needs a signature. Why can't he just stop it before it turns 50 next October (surely that anniversary would be a nice PR opportunity for the Cuban government). Can't the Norwegians just withhold that Nobel certificate until he's called off the embargo ?

PS, ok, I know it's enshrined in law, but laws can be both changed and bypassed if they are manifestly stupid.

chernobyl -- the next generation

I was amazed to learn from the Guardian last week that there are still children with radiation-related diseases in the Ukraine, a generation after the Chernobyl disaster. Something to consider before we solve our CO2 problems by switching everything to nuclear. Equally amazing the fact that they still get treated in Cuba, for free:

Revolutionary care: Castro's doctors give hope to the children of Chernobyl

miscellaneous news

re-emerging from a phase where all my newspaper reading time was absorbed by trying to understand each day how the UK government survived the previous 24 hours, I'm rediscovering there is a world out there, though it hasn't changed all that much:

* the Miami 5 are still in jail

* Roman Abramovich is still obscenely rich, even with the financial crisis and all that. Btw, I completely missed that part of recent history after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when all those billions were handed out to those people we now call "Russian Oligarchs". Does anybody understand why and how that happened ?

* oh, and the heir to the throne is still making life hell for architects

very depressing all that. Maybe the recent political crisis with its duck houses and failed coup attempts was more entertaining after all.

a new beginning

After the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution, and the much-anticipated change at the White House, will it be too much to hope for an end to a US policy that has created most of the problems that it pretends to solve ?

Nature magazine, which normally supports scientific revolutions, not political ones, praises Cuban biotech and calls for an end to the blockade of scientific collaboration with Cuban scientists:

Cuba's biotech boom
The United States would do well to end restrictions on collaborations with the island nation's scientists.

That's in today's editorial, page 130.

10 years miami 5

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the arrest of the Miami Five, and there have been whole-page ads in the papers to draw attention to their plight. Essentially, they were arrested for spying on the Cuban exiles in Miami hatching plots to overthrow the Cuban regime. Various sources including Amnesty International and the UN have concluded that they did not have a fair trial. article in today's Guardian

The case has a very high profile in Cuba, I've seen posters and calendars with the pictures of the Miami Five everywhere, but I have hardly ever heard it mentioned elsewhere, so it's definitely a good thing if all the Nobel laureates and other celebrities can raise some awareness. I reckon this is one thing the next US president may want to look at.

cuban cancer vaccine

Cuba has approved a therapeutic cancer vaccine developed by the Centro de inmunologia molecular in Havana. The general idea, pursued by many research groups, is to teach the immune system to recognise and attack an existing cancer. So unlike vaccines against infectious diseases, this one doesn't prevent the disease, but it may help to cure it. The breakthrough, believed to be a world first, is reported in yesterday's edition of the Guardian.

biofuels from waste materials

As the hype around farmed biofuels (such as corn ethanol) turns to autocombustion, it is important to remember that there is another way, namely to make biofuels from agricultural waste materials. As these materials will be of different nature in different climate zones, many different approaches are needed around the globe.

In Cuba, for instance, the major agricultural waste is bagasse from sugar cane. Researchers are developing ways of "cracking" cellulose in the bagasse in order to produce bioethanol. A recent paper from the university of Matanzas has looked at the best way of doing this pretreatment:

Martín, C., Marcet, M., and Thomsen, A. B. (2008). "Comparison between wet oxidation and steam explosion as pretreatment methods for enyzmatic hydrolysis of sugarcane bagasse," BioRes. 3(3), 670-683.

The full text of the paper should soon appear in BioResources.

aqui creemos en suen~os

Much of what was said this week about Cuba in the wake of Fidel's resignation was of course unpalatable for someone who believes in a society not driven by runaway greed. But here are some pieces that I found readable / relevant:

Guardian report, Feb. 21

comment by Ignacio Ramonet

Fidel's resignation letter in the English translation ...

... and in Spanish

our man in havana

The former CIA agent who revealed to the world exactly what the agency did to Latin America, Philip Agee, has died aged 72. In recent years he lived in Germany and Cuba and ran a travel agency specialising on travels to Cuba (obviously). Read his obituary here -- it's more interesting than most.

books for cuba

on my visits to Cuba I was impressed by the high level of scientific research conducted there in spite of extremely difficult conditions. The advanced biotechnology R&D in Cuba represents a real opportunity for the country to overcome isolation and poverty by exporting products that the majority of the world population desperately need but can’t afford to buy from the big pharma corporations (Current Biology vol. 14, no. 11, pp R401-R402, 2004). Surprisingly for me, the access to information (both electronic and printed) was at least as significant a problem for researchers in Cuba as the shortage of hard currency for the import of instruments.

It occurred to me that I have lots of scientific books that I don’t really need, e.g. books that I reviewed, or ones that I once needed for a long-forgotten research project. I have therefore taken up the monthly (or so) routine of sending one of these books to a friend in Cuba who has agreed to make sure that each book is made accessible and useful for as many researchers as possible. (It appears that the copies of my own books which I brought on my visit are now making a complete tour of the island!)

If you have any science books (in English) that you no longer need and that take away precious shelf space, I encourage you to do the same. A typical book (800g) will cost around GBP 3 to send (surface mail from the UK) and it will be immensely valuable and useful for scientists there. (The packaging comes free as I recycle cardboard boxes and jiffybags in which I have received books myself.) If you would like to send some books too, please contact me and I can provide suitable mailing addresses.