News briefs on Cuba

* The judicial proceedings against suspected terrorists at the U.S. base on Guantanamo Bay “is causing us far more damage than any good we get from it,” said former Secretary of State Colin Powell in a televised interview.

* Cuba's Episcopal Church consecrated its first female bishop over the weekend in “a historic act that demonstrates women's possibilities.”

* Cuba’s “premier sexologist” is gradually working to break down taboos regarding homosexuality and transsexuality. (One of the island’s most popular telenovelas has done so, as we mentioned last year).

* “Human rights expert” Catherine Chanet expressed her “concern” for Cuban dissidents, yet also backed the government’s suggestion to overhaul the review system at the U.N. Human Rights Council.

* Lastly, a glimpse of fast food a la Cubana:

“A basket on a rope drops for payment. Money collected, the basket comes down again, bearing hot pizzas, grease soaking through butcher paper wrapping. There is no soda, or napkins.

The basket-on-a-rope delivery method is popular among those who share and sell goods in apartment buildings without working elevators."

Sources- Guardian UK, Newsday, USA TODAY, International Herald Tribune, The Latin Americanist, Voice of America

Image- TIME (2001 image of Cubans celebrating the country’s revolution)