BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil plans to hire 6,000 Cuban doctors to serve in remote parts of the country where medical services are deficient or nonexistent, despite controversy over the quality of their training. Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota said on Monday negotiations were under way involving the Washington-based Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) to allow the Cuban doctors to practice in Brazil.

Pelicans and their prey are back in Havana Bay in a sign that efforts to clean up the historic and once splendid port of the Cuban capital are paying off. "They disappeared long ago but because of the cleanup the fish have returned -- and therefore so have the pelicans," said fisherman Eduardo Lozano who spends every day out on the sheltered expanse of water.

Havana, May 10 (EFE).- Rene Gonzalez, currently on probation after spending 13 years behind bars in the United States for espionage, received on Friday formal certification of his renunciation of U.S. citizenship. "The (U.S.) Interests Section (in Havana) gave me the certificate of loss of United States citizenship," Gonzalez told a press conference in the Cuban capital.

Havana, May 7 (EFE).- Brazil will finance a project to expand and modernize Cuba's airports, state media on the Communist-ruled island said Tuesday. Brazil's development, industry and foreign trade minister, Fernando Pimentel, and Cuba's head of foreign trade and foreign investment, Rodrigo Malmierca, signed a memorandum of understanding regarding the project. They also reviewed "the positive progress of bilateral economic relations," in particular the progress of work at the port of Mariel, near Havana, the Prensa Latina news agency said.