Construction works of the potable water supply network for Cozumel’s southern hotel area will get underway early next month with an initial investment coming from a program dubbed Prodder.

Besides providing a lousy service, taxi drivers belonging to the Lazaro Cardenas del Rio Trade Union are conceited and racist, according to a poll taken among citizens whose results were disclosed Sunday.

More than 400,000 tourists traveled to the Cuban destination of Jardines del Rey, off the island nation’s northeastern coastline, between January and April this year, a figure that buttresses the North American country’s position as the top tourist sender to this area.

During that span of time, Germany finished as the runner-up market on Guillermo and Coco keys followed by the United Kingdom. Britons are touching down on the Jardines del Rey International Airport on a couple of weekly flights run by JMC, a travel agency also operating in Varadero and Holguin.

American Airlines will improve both its winter and summer schedules to the Caribbean, with the highest number of flights in the last three years, while the next winter schedule will be the biggest in the last five years, said Peter Dolara, AA´s senior vice president for Miami, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Mr. Dolara made the disclosure at the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO)’s 30th annual Governments of the Caribbean State Ball last Friday, where he was presented with CTO’s Lifetime Achievement Award for 2003.

Jazz buffs will huddle in the Cuban destination of Jardines del Rey to attend the Coco Fest or Party of the Cuban Arts that will come to an end on June 26.

As part of the festivities to mark the tenth anniversary of this tourist destination, the festival will gather such top performers as Chucho Valdes, Giraldo Piloto and his Klymax Band, El Greco and Top Secret, Pablo Menendez and the Mexcla Band, Bobby Carcases, Bellita and her Jazztumbata, and the Tres de La Habana.

The different Hispanic minorities hubbed in the English-speaking world tend to look for their own roots, their ethnic pride and the own profile in a number of cultural events. These events also serve to give free rein to those groups’ political and social motivations.

The largest event of the increasingly bigger Latin community on the British islands is the People’s Carnival, Europe’s biggest Latin American festival.