sxc.hu

Cuba launched its own open, Wikipedia-style online encyclopaedia on Tuesday with an estimated 20,000 articles. The website is www.ecured.cu.

“EcuRed emerges in Cuba and in the Spanish language, with the will to create and spread knowledge from a decolonizing, objective and truthful point of view,” a statement posted on the website said.

The site went down for a while Tuesday, apparently due to excessive demand.

The online encyclopaedia is an initiative of a government-run network with 600 computer centres around the island, and more than 1,150 content developers.

EcuRed refers to the United States as “the empire of our era,” in line with the view expressed by Cuba's communist regime. It says the US has historically “deprived other nations and countries by force of territories and natural resources in order to be able to put them in the service of its firms and monopolies.”

Miami is defined as “the cradle of the anti-Cuban mafia.”

Of former US president George W Bush, EcuRed says he followed on “a long family tradition of dirty business, tricks and government intrigue,” and that “he tried to fight terrorism with more terrorism.”

EcuRed uses a search engine that was made for Wikipedia, which has more than 17 million articles - more than 3.5 million in English - written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Wikipedia, which was launched in 2001, is a free, multilingual project where almost all of articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site. - Sapa-dpa