Cuba government stated that the establishment of a new world information and communications order is a matter of urgency, and denounced the radio electronic aggression of our nation by hostile and blockade policy of the U.S.

No one can talk seriously about a global informed and participatory society, without first ensuring a world free of hunger, illiteracy, poor health and exclusion, said Deputy Permanent Representative of Cuba in the UN, Rodolfo Benitez.

The diplomat took part on Wednesday in a debate at the Information Committee of the General Assembly and warned against the growth of the digital divide that affects developing countries.

He also asked what these new information technologies and communications represent to the 759 million adults who can not read or write and 72 million children without access to education.

What can the 1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty do with a computer, or the 759 million hungry and the 1.5 billion without electricity? he asked.

He also indicated that nearly 63 percent of Internet users connected, live in industrialized countries that own three-quarters of the Internet infrastructure and where only 15 percent of the population resides.

These nations also control the industry of hardware, software and content production, 70 percent of them in English, when more than six thousand languages are spoken in the world.

Benitez warned that more than 90 percent of the news circulating in the world comes from a small group of transnational companies that distort misrepresent or silence the achievements of the South countries.

Telling lies has become a daily practice. They try to interpret and write history from the perspective of the powerful nations. They place labels, and stereotypes are created for convenience. They turn people into zombies and they lie. The filters of modern censorship are sophisticated, he said.

Faced with this situation, the Cuban representative stressed the establishment of a new world order of information and communications and the coordination of multinational projects at regional and international level.

He highlighted the experience of Telesur, boosted by several Latin American governments, as proof that it is possible to construct an alternative.

Later, Benitez reiterated the denunciations of Cuba about the radio-electronic aggression (radio and television) as part of the U.S. policy of hostility and blockade.

He explained that television and radio programming is transmitted to the island with premeditated lies, and incites the overthrow of the constitutional order established by the Cuban people.

He noted that the International Telecommunication Union confirmed that such transmissions U.S. cause harmful interference to stations in Cuba and called for their removal, "but the aggression is maintained."

The diplomat stressed that "no other country in the world has been transmitted to by a foreign power for so long, with so many lies and incitement to destruction and hatred."

And he said that several of these stations belong or lend their services to organizations linked to known terrorists who live and act against Cuba from U.S. territory, with the consent of the authorities.

He also denounced that the U.S. Congress approves an annual budget of more than 30 million dollars in federal funding for such actions against Cuba.

Translated by: Daysi Olano

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