Miami, May 20 (EFE).- The leader of the Cuban opposition group Ladies in White, Berta Soler, said here Monday that the Cuban government is "desperate" to improve its image abroad and would not have allowed acknowledged dissidents to leave the island were it not for international pressure. "We're here thanks to international pressure. The Cuban government is desperate. It wants to give a different picture of Cuba to the international community," said Soler on Cuban Independence Day at a press conference in Miami.

Playa Giron, Cuba, May 13 (EFE).- The Bay of Pigs, so historically symbolic for Cubans, is today an area developed for tourism that combines a key battleground of the revolution with beautiful undersea landscapes. Posters and a museum recall the failed 1961 invasion by U.S.-backed exiles two years after Fidel Castro took power. The victory of the socialist revolution in Cuba disturbed the United States, foreign visitors are told here.

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.

By Jeff Franks HAVANA (Reuters) - A Cuban agent who served 13 years behind bars in the United States for his role in an espionage ring began the process of renouncing his U.S. citizenship on Monday so he can stay in Cuba in a case that has long plagued U.S.-Cuba relations. Rene Gonzalez, who was born in Chicago and held dual U.S.-Cuba citizenship, told reporters after emerging from the U.S. Interests Section in Havana that he had filled out forms and answered questions, and that the process was not yet complete.