WORLD IN BRIEF : CUBA : Spain Lodges Protest in Rift Over Refugees

The Spanish Foreign Ministry called in a senior Cuban diplomat and lodged a formal protest in a deepening rift over refugees sheltering in the Spanish Embassy in Havana. Spain had recalled its ambassador in Havana after Cuba accused Foreign Minister Francisco Fernandez Ordonez of acting like a “pained colonial administrator (suffering from) historical amnesia.” The ministry issued a formal protest of the statement. The ministry also said a Cuban nuclear physicist, his wife and child requested political asylum at a Madrid airport during a stopover on a Moscow-Havana flight.