CNN TO OPEN HAVANA BUREAU

By ANDREW PAXMAN

MEXICO CITY --- Scoring a first for U.S. news broadcasters, CNN has received a U.S. government green light to open a bureau in Havana, the news org announced Wednesday.

The government of Fidel Castro approved CNN's application in August 1996, clearing the way for CNN to become the first U.S.-based news org with a Cuban bureau since the Associated Press was expelled in 1969.

"The Cuban government has told us we have unconditional, unrestricted authorization to report from Cuba," Eason Jordan, CNN's exec VP for intl. news, told Daily Variety.

Jordan said CNN did not begin to pursue the U.S. government's approval --- awarded to a total of 10 U.S. news orgs --- until after November's presidential election.

"There's not an issue that arouses more passion in some quarters of the United States than Cuba, so it was important for us and the government to speak with as many folks as possible," Jordan said.

The right-wing Cuban-American National Foundation has voiced concern about CNN's past coverage of Cuba, but Jordan said the association was cautiously supportive of the plan for a Havana bureau.

The office of five staffers will be headed by veteran Latin America correspondent Lucia Newman, from CNN's Mexico City bureau.