H.E. Mr Ramón LINARES TORRES Viceministro Primero, Ministerio de la Informática y las Comunicaciones Distinguished Mr. Chairman: On behalf of the Republic of Cuba we congratu-late the Americas and in sixth place on a world ranking in preparation for the use of ICTs; even though develop-ment of these technologies has been seen to be no-tably affected by the economic, commercial and fi-nancial embargo imposed by the government of the United States for 50 years, that up to 2009 has caused losses to the national economy surpassing 100 billion dollars and around 4 thousand 300 million dollars in the telecommunications sector. Since 1992, the United Nations General Assembly has approved a Resolution condemning this practice that last year attained a vote of 187 countries in favour and only 3 countries against; but until today its application remains intact, constituting a massive, flagrant and systematic violation of human rights, typified in the Geneva Convention of 1948 as an act of genocide. In the case of communications, the embargo has also been directed to prevent Cuba’s access to the ICTs, prohib-iting you for having been elected to chair this meeting, and we extend our thanks to the authorities of this country and this lovely city of Guadalajara for the hos-pitality we have been shown; we also greet the delega-tions present here today, assuring all of the commit-ment to contribute to the success of this meeting. This conference begins with the vestiges of the effects of a global crisis still present, a crisis that has caused significant harm to the world economy and unemploy-ment rates greater than 15% of the active manpower of some countries; in the midst of a string of natural disasters caused by irrational exploitation of the plan-et’s resources and the accelerated damage to the envi-ronment, worsening the living conditions of more than supplies of cutting edge systems and technologies 1,200 million inhabitants who live in extreme poverty, with survival priorities that are more immediate than communicating via the Internet. Despite these difficult conditions, communications show signs of moving forward in services such as cellu-lar and the acquisition of internationally recognized soft-ware such as Windows, as well as preventing the coun-try’s access to sites and public services on the Internet. In spite of these actions Cuba is making an effort to develop these technologies, prioritizing their use for education, public health, scientific and cultural devel-opment, mobile telephones, now reaching world penetration values of around 80%, even though they are affected by unequal Access possibilities that characterize users in developing countries where the possible expenses to be met are notably less than in the developed world. Even in the midst of the world crisis, Cuba has at-tained services destined for the population and for economic growth, and at the close of 2009 there were more than 700,000 computers, with 65% of them con-nected to the Internet, 2,331 .cu domains and more than 500,000 Web pages. We have prioritized access of the youth to the ICTs via the schools, cyber centres for youth access of which there are more than 600, universities, hospitals, librar-ies significant achievements in the fulfillment of the Millennium Development Goals, analyzed and acknowledged a few days ago at the United Nations, and Cuba continues obtaining results in education and health that are equivalent to those in developed countries, and in some cases superior, as recently con-firmed and research centres which have facilitated the or-ganization of practices for the protection of children and youth as recommended by the ITU in the face of threats that can derive from these connections. by an ITU study which puts it in first place in 124