The station was born shortly after the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961. Shortly afterwards, on 1 May 1961, Radio Havana Cuba began broadcasting in Spanish and English for two hours daily. Now it broadcasts 30 hours daily, having added French, Arabic, Creole, Portuguese, the South American Indian languages of Quechua and Guarani, and Esperanto to its original two languages. Radio Havana Cuba's output is a blend of national and foreign news, praising the country's achievements with little or no criticism of its shortcomings while taking an internationalist, often anti-US line in its reporting of world affairs. It is quick to highlight the shortcomings in its giant neighbour and adversary to the north west.
Much emphasis is placed on the economic and racial inequalities in the United States.
Much of its venom is reserved for the current White House incumbent, George W. Bush. Hardly the type of language designed to win over the present White House incumbent. BBC Monitoring , based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages. .