They apparently broke the $2 billion level last year.
Opening up on both shorelines helps increase remittances sent to Cuba in 2011 by about 20%
By Emilio Morales & Joseph L. Scarpaci (THCG).― While Cubans debate the future of their economic model, measures taken by Raúl Castro since the Sixth Cuban Communist Party Congress held last April, are correlated with nearly exponential growth in remittances reaching the island. Nearly $2.3 billion USD entered the island through this venue last year, up about 19.5% over 2010.
Table 1. Remittances sent to Cuba, 2000-2011 (millions USD).
Year Totals
2000 986.96
2001 1,010.87
2002 1,072.15
2003 1,100.46
2004 1,030.84
2005 1,144.12
2006 1,251.15
2007 1,362.71
2008 1,447.06
2009 1,653.15
2010 1,920.44
2011 2,294.54
Source: Calculated by The Havana Consulting Group LLC.
Remittances increased ten fold over the past six years compared to the 2000-2005 period.
A variety of measures confirm that remittances are the main source of hard currency reaching peoples’ pockets.
What factors have unleashed this growth in the past six years?
This time, both the Obama administration’s policy towards Cuba and the measured implemented by the government of Raúl Castro have made this growth possible.
Allowing Cuban Americans to go from visiting the island once every three years, to as often as they want, has been a major driver of these remittance increases. At the same time, the Obama regulations removed the $300 wiring maximum each three months, to sending $10,000 daily.
Factors carrying the greatest weight on the Cuban side include allowing cell phones for a mass market and the sale of private homes and cars.
The six most important factors behind these changes are:
1. Increase in trips to Cuba.
2. Opening the Cuban real-estate market.
3. More space for private enterprises.
4. Growth of cell phone usage.
5. Decreasing wire-transfer and package shipping costs.
6. Out-migration.
Read the full story HERE.
Showing posts with label politics--Cuba. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics--Cuba. Show all posts
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Sunday, March 04, 2012
Cuban Santeros, ignored by John Paul II in 1998, cool to Benedict XVI as his visit nears
Chicago Tribune
Cuban Santeros, ignored by John Paul II in 1998, cool to Benedict XVI as his visit nears
ANDREA RODRIGUEZ
AP
10:49 AM CST, March 4, 2012
HAVANA (AP) — They cast snail shells to read their fortunes, proudly wear colorful necklaces to ward off illness, dress all in white and dance in "bata" drum ceremonies.
But although their Afro-Cuban Santeria religion owes much to Roman Catholicism, many are decidedly unenthusiastic about Pope Benedict XVI's March 26-28 tour of Cuba, even if it is being hailed as a watershed moment for a church seeking to boost its influence on this Communist-run island.
Santero priests still remember the last time a pontiff came to town — and flatly refused to meet with them. They are expecting no better treatment this time, and some are openly disappointed.
Their religion is by far the most popular on the island, with adherents outnumbering practicing mainstream Catholics 8-1. Yet as far as the Catholic church is concerned, "we live in the basement, where nobody sees us," said Lazaro Cuesta, a Santero high priest with a strong grip and a penetrating gaze.
"We have already seen one pope visit ... and at no moment did he see fit to talk to us."
Cuesta's bitterness stems from what many Santeria leaders see as an unforgivable snub by Pope John Paul II during his historic 1998 tour.
Before that visit, Santero high priests, or "babalawo," led a daylong ceremony to ask the spirits to protect John Paul and make his trip a success. As men, women and children danced to the throb of African drums, the priests blew cigar smoke and spat consecrated alcohol to salute the dead.
But while the pope met with Evangelicals, Orthodox leaders and representatives of the island's minuscule Jewish community, he never deigned to meet with the Santeria practitioners who had danced for his good health, nor even to acknowledge their faith.
Experts say as many as 80 percent of islanders observe some kind of Afro-Cuban religion, be it Santeria, which is more properly known as Regla de Ocha-Ifaor, or one of its lesser-known siblings. Practicing Catholics number fewer than 10 percent, and as elsewhere in Latin America, that share is under assault from conversions to Protestant and evangelical denominations.
The 84-year-old pope's schedule is considerably shorter than John Paul's five-day visit was, and it includes no events with Santeros, or leaders of any other religions for that matter.
A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Benedict's schedule could still be tweaked, but he absolutely ruled out a meeting with Santeria representatives.
Lombardi said Santeria does not have an "institutional leadership," which the Vatican is used to dealing with in cases when it arranges meetings with other religions.
"It is not a church" in the traditional sense, Lombardi said.
A decision not to meet with Santeros is in keeping with Benedict's history of vehement opposition to any whiff of syncretism — the combining of different beliefs and practices — on the ground that it could somehow imply that all faiths are equal.
Some also blame historical racism toward Santeria's Native American and African traditions. The pope may oppose these traditions, but they are an integral part of islanders' daily life, even that of its Catholics. All Cubans know that a woman dressed in yellow honors Ochum, a patron of feminine sensuality related in Catholicism to the Virgin of Charity. Believers crawl on hands and knees in processions of homage to Babalu-Aye, or St. Lazarus, protector of the sick.
Relations between Santeros and Catholics have improved since the early days of the island's 1950 revolution, when Afro-Cuban worshippers were ostracized by both the church and the Communist Party, and those who dared to attend Mass decked out in all-white Santero garb were routinely ejected. However, priests still give homilies critical of Afro-Cuban religious tradition.
The two faiths have arrived at a tense coexistence while inhabiting dramatically different spaces in island society. Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the head of the Catholic church in Cuba, consults with President Raul Castro on weighty political matters; Santero babalawos tend to the spiritual needs of the majority. Neither side talks to the other.
Scholars say Santeria, which was imported to Cuba through slaves brought from the Yoruba tribe of Nigeria, remains on the political margins due to its scattered, nonhierarchical nature, centuries of taboo and the latent racism that keeps Afro-Cuban faiths from being fully accepted in the fraternity of religions.
"Santeria is as much a religion as any other," said University of Havana ethnologist Maria Ileana Faguaga Iglesias. But "its structure is not vertical; it does not have a maximum leader, it has no buildings and it has never been part of any political power."
When it first emerged on the island, prohibitions forced Santeria practitioners to hide their worship of "orishas," or spirits, behind the names of Catholic saints.
During Spanish rule and in the early years of the republic, Santeros had no choice but to accept Catholic baptism since church parishes were the only ones keeping birth registries.
"Historically, at some point all Santeros had some Catholic practice. The Catholic Church was power and was official, and others were persecuted," Faguaga said.
By the end of the 19th century, Santeria began emerging from underground. Today, it flourishes openly and has spread through emigration to the U.S., Puerto Rico, Venezuela and elsewhere.
Santeria "is very extended among the people, more so than when I was young," said Monsignor Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, vicar general of Havana and great-grandson of one of Cuba's founding fathers. "Not just in people of African origin, but also in people of European origin, whites, who today are also Santeros."
In the 1960s and 1970s, as the Communist government promoted atheism, Santeros risked jail if caught practicing rites. Like members of other religions, they were denied party membership until the 1990s.
Lawyers, doctors, engineers and blue-collar workers learned to hide their ancestral beliefs and traditions.
But the 1990s saw a boom in Santero consciousness, and for many it is now a focus of national pride and a fundamental part of the Cuban identity.
Though the Cuban Catholic Church acknowledges Santeria as a mass phenomenon, John Paul's decision not to meet the high priests reflected a judgment that since the faiths overlap, there was no need to treat them separately, according to church expert Tom Quigley.
"At the time of the 1998 visit, the official line of the cardinal, and I think the church generally, was that people who practice Santeria are Catholics," said Quigley, a former Latin America policy adviser at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "They are just another — maybe deviant, but not absolutely heretical or schismatic — form."
Santeros nevertheless took it as just another sign that on an island with a white majority, some still see it as a slave-barracks faith, an idea that goes against Cuban ideals of respect for diversity.
John Paul's decision to ignore the Santeros, Cuesta said, was a decision "to deny our national patrimony ... brought to us by men in chains who arrived as slaves in this country."
___
Associated Press writers Peter Orsi in Havana and Victor Simpson in Rome contributed to this report.
read the story HERE.
Cuban Santeros, ignored by John Paul II in 1998, cool to Benedict XVI as his visit nears
ANDREA RODRIGUEZ
AP
10:49 AM CST, March 4, 2012
HAVANA (AP) — They cast snail shells to read their fortunes, proudly wear colorful necklaces to ward off illness, dress all in white and dance in "bata" drum ceremonies.
But although their Afro-Cuban Santeria religion owes much to Roman Catholicism, many are decidedly unenthusiastic about Pope Benedict XVI's March 26-28 tour of Cuba, even if it is being hailed as a watershed moment for a church seeking to boost its influence on this Communist-run island.
Santero priests still remember the last time a pontiff came to town — and flatly refused to meet with them. They are expecting no better treatment this time, and some are openly disappointed.
Their religion is by far the most popular on the island, with adherents outnumbering practicing mainstream Catholics 8-1. Yet as far as the Catholic church is concerned, "we live in the basement, where nobody sees us," said Lazaro Cuesta, a Santero high priest with a strong grip and a penetrating gaze.
"We have already seen one pope visit ... and at no moment did he see fit to talk to us."
Cuesta's bitterness stems from what many Santeria leaders see as an unforgivable snub by Pope John Paul II during his historic 1998 tour.
Before that visit, Santero high priests, or "babalawo," led a daylong ceremony to ask the spirits to protect John Paul and make his trip a success. As men, women and children danced to the throb of African drums, the priests blew cigar smoke and spat consecrated alcohol to salute the dead.
But while the pope met with Evangelicals, Orthodox leaders and representatives of the island's minuscule Jewish community, he never deigned to meet with the Santeria practitioners who had danced for his good health, nor even to acknowledge their faith.
Experts say as many as 80 percent of islanders observe some kind of Afro-Cuban religion, be it Santeria, which is more properly known as Regla de Ocha-Ifaor, or one of its lesser-known siblings. Practicing Catholics number fewer than 10 percent, and as elsewhere in Latin America, that share is under assault from conversions to Protestant and evangelical denominations.
The 84-year-old pope's schedule is considerably shorter than John Paul's five-day visit was, and it includes no events with Santeros, or leaders of any other religions for that matter.
A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Benedict's schedule could still be tweaked, but he absolutely ruled out a meeting with Santeria representatives.
Lombardi said Santeria does not have an "institutional leadership," which the Vatican is used to dealing with in cases when it arranges meetings with other religions.
"It is not a church" in the traditional sense, Lombardi said.
A decision not to meet with Santeros is in keeping with Benedict's history of vehement opposition to any whiff of syncretism — the combining of different beliefs and practices — on the ground that it could somehow imply that all faiths are equal.
Some also blame historical racism toward Santeria's Native American and African traditions. The pope may oppose these traditions, but they are an integral part of islanders' daily life, even that of its Catholics. All Cubans know that a woman dressed in yellow honors Ochum, a patron of feminine sensuality related in Catholicism to the Virgin of Charity. Believers crawl on hands and knees in processions of homage to Babalu-Aye, or St. Lazarus, protector of the sick.
Relations between Santeros and Catholics have improved since the early days of the island's 1950 revolution, when Afro-Cuban worshippers were ostracized by both the church and the Communist Party, and those who dared to attend Mass decked out in all-white Santero garb were routinely ejected. However, priests still give homilies critical of Afro-Cuban religious tradition.
The two faiths have arrived at a tense coexistence while inhabiting dramatically different spaces in island society. Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the head of the Catholic church in Cuba, consults with President Raul Castro on weighty political matters; Santero babalawos tend to the spiritual needs of the majority. Neither side talks to the other.
Scholars say Santeria, which was imported to Cuba through slaves brought from the Yoruba tribe of Nigeria, remains on the political margins due to its scattered, nonhierarchical nature, centuries of taboo and the latent racism that keeps Afro-Cuban faiths from being fully accepted in the fraternity of religions.
"Santeria is as much a religion as any other," said University of Havana ethnologist Maria Ileana Faguaga Iglesias. But "its structure is not vertical; it does not have a maximum leader, it has no buildings and it has never been part of any political power."
When it first emerged on the island, prohibitions forced Santeria practitioners to hide their worship of "orishas," or spirits, behind the names of Catholic saints.
During Spanish rule and in the early years of the republic, Santeros had no choice but to accept Catholic baptism since church parishes were the only ones keeping birth registries.
"Historically, at some point all Santeros had some Catholic practice. The Catholic Church was power and was official, and others were persecuted," Faguaga said.
By the end of the 19th century, Santeria began emerging from underground. Today, it flourishes openly and has spread through emigration to the U.S., Puerto Rico, Venezuela and elsewhere.
Santeria "is very extended among the people, more so than when I was young," said Monsignor Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, vicar general of Havana and great-grandson of one of Cuba's founding fathers. "Not just in people of African origin, but also in people of European origin, whites, who today are also Santeros."
In the 1960s and 1970s, as the Communist government promoted atheism, Santeros risked jail if caught practicing rites. Like members of other religions, they were denied party membership until the 1990s.
Lawyers, doctors, engineers and blue-collar workers learned to hide their ancestral beliefs and traditions.
But the 1990s saw a boom in Santero consciousness, and for many it is now a focus of national pride and a fundamental part of the Cuban identity.
Though the Cuban Catholic Church acknowledges Santeria as a mass phenomenon, John Paul's decision not to meet the high priests reflected a judgment that since the faiths overlap, there was no need to treat them separately, according to church expert Tom Quigley.
"At the time of the 1998 visit, the official line of the cardinal, and I think the church generally, was that people who practice Santeria are Catholics," said Quigley, a former Latin America policy adviser at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "They are just another — maybe deviant, but not absolutely heretical or schismatic — form."
Santeros nevertheless took it as just another sign that on an island with a white majority, some still see it as a slave-barracks faith, an idea that goes against Cuban ideals of respect for diversity.
John Paul's decision to ignore the Santeros, Cuesta said, was a decision "to deny our national patrimony ... brought to us by men in chains who arrived as slaves in this country."
___
Associated Press writers Peter Orsi in Havana and Victor Simpson in Rome contributed to this report.
read the story HERE.
Thursday, November 03, 2011
Story on New Housing Regulations in Cuba
Cuba legalizes sale, purchase of real estate
Much-despised ban on these transactions took effect in stages over the first years after Fidel Castro came to power in 1959
MSNBC
By PAUL HAVEN
HAVANA — For the first time in a half-century, Cubans will be allowed to buy and sell real estate openly, bequeath property to relatives without restriction and avoid forfeiting their homes if they abandon the country.
The highly anticipated new rules instantly transform islanders' cramped, dilapidated homes into potential liquid assets in the most significant reform yet adopted by President Raul Castro since he took over the communist country from his brother in 2008.
But plenty of restrictions remain.
Cuban exiles continue to be barred from owning property on the island, though they can presumably help relatives make purchases by sending money. And foreigners can also hold off on dreams of acquiring a pied-a-terre under the Caribbean sun, since only citizens and permanent residents are eligible.
The law, which takes effect Nov. 10, limits Cubans to owning one home in the city and another in the country, an effort to prevent speculative buying and the accumulation of large real estate holdings. While few Cubans have the money to start a real estate empire, many city dwellers have struggled over the years to maintain title to family homes in the countryside, and the new law legalizes the practice.
The change follows October's legalization of buying and selling cars, though with restrictions that still make it hard for ordinary Cubans to buy new vehicles. The government has also allowed citizens to go into business for themselves in a number of approved jobs — everything from party clowns to food vendors and accountants — and permitted them to rent out rooms and cars.
While Castro has stressed that there will be no departure from Cuba's socialist model, he has also pledged to streamline the state-dominated economy by eliminating hundreds of thousands of state jobs and ending generous subsidies the state can no longer afford.
Cuba's government employs about 80 percent of the workforce, paying wages of just $20 a month in return for free education and health care, and nearly free housing, transportation and basic foods.
Economists and Cuba experts say the new property law will have a profound impact on people's lives, though probably will not be enough by itself to transform the island's limping economy.
>>>>>>>>
Read the full post HERE.
Much-despised ban on these transactions took effect in stages over the first years after Fidel Castro came to power in 1959
MSNBC
By PAUL HAVEN
HAVANA — For the first time in a half-century, Cubans will be allowed to buy and sell real estate openly, bequeath property to relatives without restriction and avoid forfeiting their homes if they abandon the country.
The highly anticipated new rules instantly transform islanders' cramped, dilapidated homes into potential liquid assets in the most significant reform yet adopted by President Raul Castro since he took over the communist country from his brother in 2008.
But plenty of restrictions remain.
Cuban exiles continue to be barred from owning property on the island, though they can presumably help relatives make purchases by sending money. And foreigners can also hold off on dreams of acquiring a pied-a-terre under the Caribbean sun, since only citizens and permanent residents are eligible.
The law, which takes effect Nov. 10, limits Cubans to owning one home in the city and another in the country, an effort to prevent speculative buying and the accumulation of large real estate holdings. While few Cubans have the money to start a real estate empire, many city dwellers have struggled over the years to maintain title to family homes in the countryside, and the new law legalizes the practice.
The change follows October's legalization of buying and selling cars, though with restrictions that still make it hard for ordinary Cubans to buy new vehicles. The government has also allowed citizens to go into business for themselves in a number of approved jobs — everything from party clowns to food vendors and accountants — and permitted them to rent out rooms and cars.
While Castro has stressed that there will be no departure from Cuba's socialist model, he has also pledged to streamline the state-dominated economy by eliminating hundreds of thousands of state jobs and ending generous subsidies the state can no longer afford.
Cuba's government employs about 80 percent of the workforce, paying wages of just $20 a month in return for free education and health care, and nearly free housing, transportation and basic foods.
Economists and Cuba experts say the new property law will have a profound impact on people's lives, though probably will not be enough by itself to transform the island's limping economy.
>>>>>>>>
Read the full post HERE.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Viva la evolucion (Cuban private market story)
Globe and Mail
Capitalism
In Cuba, it's Viva la evolucion!
sonia verma
HAVANA— From Thursday's Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2011 8:42PM EDT
Last updated Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2011 9:49PM EDT
Barbershops, beauty salons, restaurants and car washes have sprung up across Cuba in the year since the Communist Party allowed citizens to open small, private businesses in an effort to save the country from ruin.
The government says more than 157,000 people have qualified for business permits and are currently self-employed. This new generation of Cuban entrepreneurs is quietly reshaping the island’s stagnant revolution in a way that was inconceivable when Fidel Castro was in control. The economic changes brought about by his brother Raul, however, are proving slow to take hold.
Many are being implemented by young Cubans with virtually no memory of life before communism. Some new entrepreneurs are struggling to understand how to pay small-business taxes or navigate the country’s labyrinthine bureaucracy. With virtually no access to bank loans or credit, most are relying on family living abroad to float their new ventures.
Still, Cuba is buzzing with new energy as people attempt, for the first time in their lives, to make money outside of the underground economy. Business owners are experimenting with novel concepts, such as advertising and open competition. It’s unclear, however, how far the Cuban authorities will allow the reforms to go – whether small business owners will be permitted to accumulate vast amounts of wealth, for example, or build empires.
At the moment, however, these new entrepreneurs seem content enough to turn a profit they can officially pocket.
Read the four profiles HERE.
Capitalism
In Cuba, it's Viva la evolucion!
sonia verma
HAVANA— From Thursday's Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2011 8:42PM EDT
Last updated Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2011 9:49PM EDT
Barbershops, beauty salons, restaurants and car washes have sprung up across Cuba in the year since the Communist Party allowed citizens to open small, private businesses in an effort to save the country from ruin.
The government says more than 157,000 people have qualified for business permits and are currently self-employed. This new generation of Cuban entrepreneurs is quietly reshaping the island’s stagnant revolution in a way that was inconceivable when Fidel Castro was in control. The economic changes brought about by his brother Raul, however, are proving slow to take hold.
Many are being implemented by young Cubans with virtually no memory of life before communism. Some new entrepreneurs are struggling to understand how to pay small-business taxes or navigate the country’s labyrinthine bureaucracy. With virtually no access to bank loans or credit, most are relying on family living abroad to float their new ventures.
Still, Cuba is buzzing with new energy as people attempt, for the first time in their lives, to make money outside of the underground economy. Business owners are experimenting with novel concepts, such as advertising and open competition. It’s unclear, however, how far the Cuban authorities will allow the reforms to go – whether small business owners will be permitted to accumulate vast amounts of wealth, for example, or build empires.
At the moment, however, these new entrepreneurs seem content enough to turn a profit they can officially pocket.
Read the four profiles HERE.
Monday, September 05, 2011
Sunday, September 04, 2011
NYT: The Stomachs of Strongmen
NYT
August 20, 2011
The Stomachs of Strongmen
By ANN LOUISE BARDACH
Ann Louise Bardach is a writer at large for Newsweek and the author of “Without Fidel: A Death Foretold in Miami, Havana and Washington.”
Santa Barbara, Calif.
THE tribute concert Aug. 12 for Fidel Castro’s 85th birthday, at the Karl Marx Theater in Havana, was billed as the Serenata de la Fidelidad (the Serenade to Fidelity). In terms of flat-footed plays on the name of Cuba’s maximum leader, I prefer “The Fideliad” — which speaks to his epic, exhausting and endless run, which began in 1959.
Some 5,000 concertgoers turned out for the homage by 22 singers, including Omara Portuondo of the Buena Vista Social Club, but the guest of honor was not present. Instead, he settled for a quiet celebration with family, his 80-year-old brother and presidential successor, Raúl, and his devoted disciple, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. The irrepressible Mr. Chávez broke the news on Twitter late Saturday: “Here with Fidel, celebrating his 85th birthday! Viva Fidel!”
Over the last decade, the two leaders have celebrated quite a few birthdays together. For his 75th in 2001, Mr. Castro trooped to Caracas for a bash with Mr. Chávez, who hosted a Champagne gala, followed by a nautical tour of Venezuela’s rainforests. The visit, Mr. Chávez said, “gives us an opportunity to let him know how much we love him.”
It’s unclear how many birthdays are left for either leader. Both are now facing their greatest challenges yet, not from opposition movements or dissidents, but from their own failing bodies. Mr. Castro nearly died in 2006 during a botched colon surgery to treat a pernicious case of chronic diverticulitis. He passed his 80th birthday lying in a hospital bed, connected to an antibiotic and nutrient drip. Sitting beside him was Hugo Chávez, who has been there at every stage of Mr. Castro’s five-year convalescence, casually jetting into Havana as if it were a stroll around the block.
Now the 57-year-old Venezuelan is fighting for his own life, after a baseball-size tumor was removed from his abdomen in Havana’s top hospital in June. It was Fidel Castro, not an oncologist, surgeon or family member, who delivered the bad news to Mr. Chávez post-surgery, and who outlined his prognosis and treatment — along with his usual tips on public relations and political strategies. It is likely, based on his surgeries, symptoms and treatment, that Mr. Chávez has metastasized colorectal cancer. After surgery and radiation, he is probably undergoing at least six months of chemotherapy, again in Havana, where he just finished his second round.
As it turned out, Mr. Castro spent much of his birthday giving his friend a pep talk. “We spoke about everything,” Mr. Chávez related upon his return to Caracas. “He said to me: Chávez, ‘You yourself can begin to convince yourself that everything’s over. ... No, no, it’s not over.’ ”
Ironically, the hemisphere’s most indomitable strongmen and determined foes of the United States and free market economics have both been felled, at least for now, by abdominal woes — their guts, as it were. It’s just one more anomaly shared by the leader of the country with the world’s largest reserve of oil and that of a debt-saddled island in the Caribbean.
The symbiosis between Cuba’s emeritus or former (and in most ways, still de facto) commander in chief and the Venezuelan colonel-turned-oil-sultan is the most powerful and fascinating political alliance in the Americas. Five years before becoming president in 1999 and two years after a failed coup attempt, Mr. Chávez was released from prison and flew to Havana in hopes of meeting his revolutionary hero. Waiting to welcome him at the airport was the man himself. It’s been a lovefest ever since, with Mr. Chávez declaring that Venezuela is sailing in Cuba’s “sea of happiness.”
More crucially, after Cuba lost its Russian patron and plummeted into economic free fall, Mr. Chávez gave his friend one of the most magnanimous gifts in history — around 100,000 barrels of oil every day, gratis, with no strings attached — for as long as Cuba wanted it. In exchange, Mr. Castro sent thousands of doctors to Caracas — a deal derided by some critics as “oil for ointment.” No one doubts who got the better deal.
Unlike the quid-pro-quo-demanding Soviets, who picked up most of Cuba’s tab for three decades, Mr. Castro now receives adoration from a leader who happily calls him “mi padre.”
Not without reason. In 2002, when a coup appeared to have dislodged Mr. Chávez from power, it was Mr. Castro who spent night after night on the phone, tutoring his charge in a strategy to regain power and dispatch his enemies. “Don’t resign! Don’t resign! I kept telling him,” Mr. Castro recounted in his autobiography.
Since then, Ramiro Valdés, Cuba’s pre-eminent policeman and spymaster, has made Caracas a second home, reorganizing Venezuela’s military, police force and Internet services (a fiber-optic cable connects the two countries like an umbilical cord). Cuban advisers are dotted throughout Venezuela’s ministries, offering counsel on everything from literacy to opposition movements and elections. There will not be another coup, or many more elections.
“Deep down,” says the Venezuelan convalescent in chief, “we are one government.” They don’t call it “Venecuba” for nothing.
Hence, if the health of either man further fails — and both are walking the razor’s edge — all bets are off.
Read the full story HERE.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Cuba's black-market housing trade to go legit
MNBC/AP
Cuba's black-market housing trade to go legit:
Castro vows to end law prohibiting sale of private property
updated 7/24/2011 5:30:26 PM ET
By Peter Orsi
Each morning before the sun rises too high, Cubans gather at a shaded corner in central Havana, mingling as though at a cocktail party. The icebreaker is always
the same: "What are you offering?"
This is Cuba's informal real-estate bazaar, where a chronic housing shortage brings everyone from newlyweds to retirees together to strike deals that often involve thousands of dollars in under-the-table payments. They're breaking not just the law but communist doctrine by trading and profiting in property, and now their government is about to get in on the action.
President Raul Castro has pledged to legalize the purchase and sale of homes by the end of the year, bringing this informal market out of the shadows as part of an economic reform package under which Cuba is already letting islanders go into business for themselves in 178 designated activities, as restaurateurs, wedding planners, plumbers, carpenters.
An aboveboard housing market promises multiple benefits for the cash-strapped island: It would help ease a housing crunch, stimulate construction employment and generate badly needed tax revenue. It would attack corruption by officials who accept bribes to sign off on illicit deals, and give people options to seek peaceful resolutions to black-market disputes that occasionally erupt into violence.
It's also likely to suck up more hard currency from Cubans abroad who can be counted on to send their families cash to buy, expand and remodel homes, especially since President Barack Obama relaxed the 50-year-old economic embargo to allow unlimited remittances by Cuban-Americans.
"All these things are tied in," said Sergio Diaz-Briquets, a U.S.-based demography expert. "They want expatriate Cubans to contribute money to the Cuban state, and this is one big incentive for people who want to help their families."
But few changes are likely to be as complex and hard to implement as real estate reform.
Read the full post HERE.
Cuba's black-market housing trade to go legit:
Castro vows to end law prohibiting sale of private property
updated 7/24/2011 5:30:26 PM ET
By Peter Orsi
Each morning before the sun rises too high, Cubans gather at a shaded corner in central Havana, mingling as though at a cocktail party. The icebreaker is always
the same: "What are you offering?"
This is Cuba's informal real-estate bazaar, where a chronic housing shortage brings everyone from newlyweds to retirees together to strike deals that often involve thousands of dollars in under-the-table payments. They're breaking not just the law but communist doctrine by trading and profiting in property, and now their government is about to get in on the action.
President Raul Castro has pledged to legalize the purchase and sale of homes by the end of the year, bringing this informal market out of the shadows as part of an economic reform package under which Cuba is already letting islanders go into business for themselves in 178 designated activities, as restaurateurs, wedding planners, plumbers, carpenters.
An aboveboard housing market promises multiple benefits for the cash-strapped island: It would help ease a housing crunch, stimulate construction employment and generate badly needed tax revenue. It would attack corruption by officials who accept bribes to sign off on illicit deals, and give people options to seek peaceful resolutions to black-market disputes that occasionally erupt into violence.
It's also likely to suck up more hard currency from Cubans abroad who can be counted on to send their families cash to buy, expand and remodel homes, especially since President Barack Obama relaxed the 50-year-old economic embargo to allow unlimited remittances by Cuban-Americans.
"All these things are tied in," said Sergio Diaz-Briquets, a U.S.-based demography expert. "They want expatriate Cubans to contribute money to the Cuban state, and this is one big incentive for people who want to help their families."
But few changes are likely to be as complex and hard to implement as real estate reform.
Read the full post HERE.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Havana: The State Retreats
New York Review of Books
Havana: The State Retreats
May 26, 2011
José Manuel Prieto, translated from the Spanish by Esther Allen
1.
When I picked up my ticket for the only nonstop New York–Havana flight, I was given a list of the goods I could take: ten kilos of medicine and up to twenty kilos of food, duty free. While it’s true that Cuba suffers from the US embargo, it’s also the US and its Cuban exile community that keep the country afloat. The day of the flight, many of my fellow passengers were loaded down with heavy bundles of food and medicine, plasma TV sets in their original packaging, audio equipment, and domestic appliances. In 2010, 324,000 visitors arrived in Cuba on direct flights from the United States like this one, and several economists calculate that remittances to Cuba from the US total more than a billion dollars annually, about 35 percent of the country’s annual foreign exchange inflow.
All that help still isn’t enough. After landing at José Martí International Airport, I find the city in a virtual state of blackout, the celebrated corner of 23rd and L, Havana’s Times Square, empty at 10 PM. It’s as if a catastrophe has struck. There is a constant, ominous feeling of abandonment and crisis. My impression doesn’t much differ from the diagnosis delivered on December 18—days after my arrival—to the Cuban Parliament by the country’s current leader, Raúl Castro: “Either we rectify our course or the time for teetering along on the brink runs out and we go down. And we will go down…[with] the effort of entire generations.”
Certainly the signs of this deep crisis have been in the air for at least twenty years. What’s clear now is that it’s not enough to go on blaming the American bloqueo or the fall of the Soviet Union. Something is wrong with the system itself. This could be glimpsed in the startling comment made by Fidel Castro to the US journalist Jeffrey Goldberg and the Latin American scholar Julia Sweig last August: “The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore.”
NYR / NYR Tote Bag
Advertisement
What model is he talking about? The Soviet model of forced nationalization. The Cuban Revolution was among other things a cure for the chronic weakness of the Cuban state prior to 1959. The new, postrevolutionary state would take upon itself all that previous governments of Cuba had done so badly. The example of the Soviet Union, with triumphs such as the 1957 launch of Sputnik, seemed to indicate that this was a promising way forward, and it had the added appeal to Cuba’s unelected rulers of calling for government by a single party, virtually without opposition, and the pulverization of civil society.
Now, on my first visit to Cuba in ten years, I had the chance to observe the first signs of the inverse process: the dismantling of this gigantic state, visibly in retreat. I saw the detritus left behind: the disaster of a dysfunctional economy and a deep financial crisis aggravated by a dual currency system. All amid the growing discontent of the population and surging dissidence.
2.
In Havana I buy every bit of printed news on sale at the kiosk near the casa particular where I’m renting a room. Such an unusual interest in publications almost no one reads immediately gives me away as a visitor from abroad. I ask for the recently released official publication “Proyecto de Lineamientos de la Política Económica y Social” (“Draft Guidelines for Economic and Social Policy”), but it’s sold out, the elderly vendor informs me: “All Havana is reading it.” In the end, I buy it secondhand, for ten times the original price, from a passerby who has overheard the conversation.
It’s a twenty-nine-page pamphlet whose 291 points set forth the coming “update” of the Cuban model. These points, the Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma affirms, were distilled from the vast consulta, or survey, Raúl Castro declared would take place on July 26, 2007, when “more than four million Cubans raised more than a million points.” By and large, the guidelines attempt to reduce the cumbersome size of the state to make it more compact and less costly.
The crux of the debate, I gather, after penetrating the technical jargon all Havana is reading and discussing as if it were a best-selling novel, is whether a new role can be assigned to the state: Can it be imagined more as referee than as star player while ensuring that it doesn’t lose control? There is of course no question that the governing party must remain in power and “safeguard the conquests of the revolution.”
I come to see that in fact the Party is trying to adjust to a transformation that began without much government participation, something the Cuban people started doing on their own. The government is like a general who mandates an “orderly retreat” when his army is being crushed. The “Guidelines” are for keeping up appearances.
............
Read the full story HERE.
Havana: The State Retreats
May 26, 2011
José Manuel Prieto, translated from the Spanish by Esther Allen
1.
When I picked up my ticket for the only nonstop New York–Havana flight, I was given a list of the goods I could take: ten kilos of medicine and up to twenty kilos of food, duty free. While it’s true that Cuba suffers from the US embargo, it’s also the US and its Cuban exile community that keep the country afloat. The day of the flight, many of my fellow passengers were loaded down with heavy bundles of food and medicine, plasma TV sets in their original packaging, audio equipment, and domestic appliances. In 2010, 324,000 visitors arrived in Cuba on direct flights from the United States like this one, and several economists calculate that remittances to Cuba from the US total more than a billion dollars annually, about 35 percent of the country’s annual foreign exchange inflow.
All that help still isn’t enough. After landing at José Martí International Airport, I find the city in a virtual state of blackout, the celebrated corner of 23rd and L, Havana’s Times Square, empty at 10 PM. It’s as if a catastrophe has struck. There is a constant, ominous feeling of abandonment and crisis. My impression doesn’t much differ from the diagnosis delivered on December 18—days after my arrival—to the Cuban Parliament by the country’s current leader, Raúl Castro: “Either we rectify our course or the time for teetering along on the brink runs out and we go down. And we will go down…[with] the effort of entire generations.”
Certainly the signs of this deep crisis have been in the air for at least twenty years. What’s clear now is that it’s not enough to go on blaming the American bloqueo or the fall of the Soviet Union. Something is wrong with the system itself. This could be glimpsed in the startling comment made by Fidel Castro to the US journalist Jeffrey Goldberg and the Latin American scholar Julia Sweig last August: “The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore.”
NYR / NYR Tote Bag
Advertisement
What model is he talking about? The Soviet model of forced nationalization. The Cuban Revolution was among other things a cure for the chronic weakness of the Cuban state prior to 1959. The new, postrevolutionary state would take upon itself all that previous governments of Cuba had done so badly. The example of the Soviet Union, with triumphs such as the 1957 launch of Sputnik, seemed to indicate that this was a promising way forward, and it had the added appeal to Cuba’s unelected rulers of calling for government by a single party, virtually without opposition, and the pulverization of civil society.
Now, on my first visit to Cuba in ten years, I had the chance to observe the first signs of the inverse process: the dismantling of this gigantic state, visibly in retreat. I saw the detritus left behind: the disaster of a dysfunctional economy and a deep financial crisis aggravated by a dual currency system. All amid the growing discontent of the population and surging dissidence.
2.
In Havana I buy every bit of printed news on sale at the kiosk near the casa particular where I’m renting a room. Such an unusual interest in publications almost no one reads immediately gives me away as a visitor from abroad. I ask for the recently released official publication “Proyecto de Lineamientos de la Política Económica y Social” (“Draft Guidelines for Economic and Social Policy”), but it’s sold out, the elderly vendor informs me: “All Havana is reading it.” In the end, I buy it secondhand, for ten times the original price, from a passerby who has overheard the conversation.
It’s a twenty-nine-page pamphlet whose 291 points set forth the coming “update” of the Cuban model. These points, the Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma affirms, were distilled from the vast consulta, or survey, Raúl Castro declared would take place on July 26, 2007, when “more than four million Cubans raised more than a million points.” By and large, the guidelines attempt to reduce the cumbersome size of the state to make it more compact and less costly.
The crux of the debate, I gather, after penetrating the technical jargon all Havana is reading and discussing as if it were a best-selling novel, is whether a new role can be assigned to the state: Can it be imagined more as referee than as star player while ensuring that it doesn’t lose control? There is of course no question that the governing party must remain in power and “safeguard the conquests of the revolution.”
I come to see that in fact the Party is trying to adjust to a transformation that began without much government participation, something the Cuban people started doing on their own. The government is like a general who mandates an “orderly retreat” when his army is being crushed. The “Guidelines” are for keeping up appearances.
............
Read the full story HERE.
Wednesday, May 04, 2011
Young Cubans deal with the unimaginable: pink slips
Young Cubans deal with the unimaginable: pink slips
'We have to think differently' to deal with new reality brought in by reforms
By Mary Murray
NBC News
updated 5/4/2011 9:15:41 AM ET
HAVANA — Last hired, first fired – one of those golden laws of free market economies most workers know by heart.
But not Adrián Chacón and Alejandro Ortega, two young repairmen who found themselves on the losing end of the fight for their jobs. The best friends were knocked off balance when the Cuban government changed what had been a hard-and-fast rule for the last 50 years.
Like all Cubans their age, these young men were told all their lives that a tough job market had nothing to do with the Cuban reality – that only capitalist workers faced layoffs. That, under the island’s state controlled socialist economy, work was a guaranteed right.
Sure, the state might not pay people enough to put much food on the table, but anyone looking for work would always be welcomed at some public company or government ministry.
Not so fast …
That promise went out the window last year when Cuban President Raul Castro told people to take a hard look around them.
Cuba, he said, must stop being the “only country in the world where it is not necessary to work.” The only way to heal Cuba’s battered economy, he insisted, was to start producing more, and with fewer people.
Castro first took aim at Cuba’s bloated state payrolls and state-run companies failing to turn a profit. Both drain the public treasury, he argued, at a time when the country’s very survival was at stake.
While promising a wholesale overhaul of Cuba’s financial system, Castro had the state start by laying off workers in droves. His plan was to cut 500,000 jobs by the first quarter of 2011 and more than one million by 2015 – effectively eliminating one in every five jobs.
While that frenetic pace has slowed considerably (perhaps someone figured out that throwing so many people out of work in such a concentrated time could end up fueling social unrest), thousands of younger workers, including Chacón and Ortega, were among the first to go.
Initially, both had similar reactions to the layoffs: anger. Months later, the friends have adapted differently to their circumstances.
Read the full post HERE.
'We have to think differently' to deal with new reality brought in by reforms
By Mary Murray
NBC News
updated 5/4/2011 9:15:41 AM ET
HAVANA — Last hired, first fired – one of those golden laws of free market economies most workers know by heart.
But not Adrián Chacón and Alejandro Ortega, two young repairmen who found themselves on the losing end of the fight for their jobs. The best friends were knocked off balance when the Cuban government changed what had been a hard-and-fast rule for the last 50 years.
Like all Cubans their age, these young men were told all their lives that a tough job market had nothing to do with the Cuban reality – that only capitalist workers faced layoffs. That, under the island’s state controlled socialist economy, work was a guaranteed right.
Sure, the state might not pay people enough to put much food on the table, but anyone looking for work would always be welcomed at some public company or government ministry.
Not so fast …
That promise went out the window last year when Cuban President Raul Castro told people to take a hard look around them.
Cuba, he said, must stop being the “only country in the world where it is not necessary to work.” The only way to heal Cuba’s battered economy, he insisted, was to start producing more, and with fewer people.
Castro first took aim at Cuba’s bloated state payrolls and state-run companies failing to turn a profit. Both drain the public treasury, he argued, at a time when the country’s very survival was at stake.
While promising a wholesale overhaul of Cuba’s financial system, Castro had the state start by laying off workers in droves. His plan was to cut 500,000 jobs by the first quarter of 2011 and more than one million by 2015 – effectively eliminating one in every five jobs.
While that frenetic pace has slowed considerably (perhaps someone figured out that throwing so many people out of work in such a concentrated time could end up fueling social unrest), thousands of younger workers, including Chacón and Ortega, were among the first to go.
Initially, both had similar reactions to the layoffs: anger. Months later, the friends have adapted differently to their circumstances.
Read the full post HERE.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Raul Castro proposes term limits in Cuba
And the Communist Party Congress looms large....
MSNBC/AP
By PETER ORSI
The Associated Press
updated 4/16/2011 12:53:17 PM ET 2011-04-16T16:53:17
HAVANA — Raul Castro proposed term limits for Cuban politicians on Saturday, a remarkable gesture on an island ruled for 52 years by him and his brother, but one unlikely to have a major effect on his own future.
The 79-year-old president told delegates to a crucial Communist Party summit that Cuban politicians and other important officials should be restricted to two, five-year terms. Castro officially took over from his brother Fidel in 2008, meaning he'd be at least 86 when his second term as Cuban leader ended, depending on how the law is written.
The proposal for two terms of five years each was made at the latter stage of a long speech in which the Cuban leader forcefully backed a laundry list of economic changes that together represent a sea change for the country's socialist system, including the eventual elimination of the ration book and other subsidies, the decentralization of the economy and a new reliance on supply and demand in some sectors.
Still, he told party luminaries that he had rejected dozens of suggested reforms that would have allowed the concentration of property in private hands.
Castro said the country had ignored its problems for too long, and made clear Cuba had to make tough decisions if it wanted to survive.
"No country or person can spend more than they have," he said. "Two plus two is four. Never five, much less six or seven — as we have sometimes pretended."
As with the proposals on economic changes, the idea does not yet carry the force of law since the party gathering lacks the powers of parliament. But it is all but certain to be acted on quickly by the national assembly. Fidel Castro was not present for the speech, but a chair was left empty for him near his brother.
.....
HAVANA — Cuba kicked off a crucial Communist Party congress Saturday with a big military and civilian parade to mark 50 years since the defeat of CIA-backed exiles at the Bay of Pigs, still celebrated here as a landmark triumph over the island's powerful neighbor to the north.
Thousands of soldiers high-stepped through sprawling Revolution Plaza as a military band played martial music, not far from an iconic sculpture of Ernesto "Che" Guevara that gazes down from the side of the Interior Ministry building. Helicopters whirred and jet fighters in combat formation roared overhead while freshly painted amphibious assault vehicles and rocket launchers rumbled past.
"Long live Fidel! Long live Raul! Long live the Communist Party of Cuba!" a female announcer shouted, and participants responded with shouts of approval.
Tweaking a theme from Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, a male announcer declared Cuba's revolution to be "Of the humble, by the humble, and for the humble."
...........
Articles in state-run media called the youthful presence a symbol of the continuity of the 1959 revolution — an important theme for Cuban leaders these days, with President Raul Castro at 79 years old and his brother Fidel at 84.
Castro family's aging empire
Raul has acknowledged that this year's Communist Party gathering is likely to be the last overseen by the brothers and those who fought with them a half century ago. In speech after speech, he has lamented that the time the revolutionary generation has left is short, but the work needed to put Cuba's economy on track immense.
............
Since taking over the presidency permanently in 2008, Raul has turned over tens of thousands of acres of fallow government land to small farmers, opened the economy to a limited amount of free enterprise, and gradually cut some of the generous health and food subsidies Cubans have come to expect in return for working for extremely low wages.
He also has repeatedly warned Cubans that they must work harder if the island's moribund economy is to survive. Plans to lay off hundreds of thousands of state workers have been delayed indefinitely, but Raul has insisted they are still part of a larger five-year reform plan.
Moving away from Marxism
More details of that plan are expected to emerge from the four-day congress, which was scheduled to open with a speech by Raul after the parade. Many Cubans are hoping the congress will expand the list of approved private enterprises and relax rules on buying and selling homes and automobiles, among other measures.
The changes announced by Raul so far have already been a significant departure for a Marxist system where the government employs four-fifths of the work force and dominates nearly the entire economy.
Yet Castro has vowed the changes are meant to improve Cuba's socialist system, not toss it out.
Story: '61 Bay of Pigs victory still inspires Cubans
It's no accident that the congress, the first since 1997, is being held on the anniversary of the Bay of Pigs triumph and Fidel Castro's April 16, 1961, announcement that the revolution would forever be socialist in nature.
"It sort of emphasizes where they've been and where they're going now," said Wayne Smith, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington who was chief of the U.S. diplomatic mission on the island from 1979 to 1982. "It'll be very interesting to see what comes out of this congress. Just what kind of a new system are we going to see?"
In addition to the economic changes, delegates are expected to vote in new party leaders after Fidel Castro's announcement last month that he is no longer first secretary. With Raul all but certain to take up his brother's mantle, all eyes will be on who is named to the No. 2 spot — a graying revolutionary comrade, or a fresh new face.
Read the full post with images and links http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42620105/ns/world_news/
MSNBC/AP
By PETER ORSI
The Associated Press
updated 4/16/2011 12:53:17 PM ET 2011-04-16T16:53:17
HAVANA — Raul Castro proposed term limits for Cuban politicians on Saturday, a remarkable gesture on an island ruled for 52 years by him and his brother, but one unlikely to have a major effect on his own future.
The 79-year-old president told delegates to a crucial Communist Party summit that Cuban politicians and other important officials should be restricted to two, five-year terms. Castro officially took over from his brother Fidel in 2008, meaning he'd be at least 86 when his second term as Cuban leader ended, depending on how the law is written.
The proposal for two terms of five years each was made at the latter stage of a long speech in which the Cuban leader forcefully backed a laundry list of economic changes that together represent a sea change for the country's socialist system, including the eventual elimination of the ration book and other subsidies, the decentralization of the economy and a new reliance on supply and demand in some sectors.
Still, he told party luminaries that he had rejected dozens of suggested reforms that would have allowed the concentration of property in private hands.
Castro said the country had ignored its problems for too long, and made clear Cuba had to make tough decisions if it wanted to survive.
"No country or person can spend more than they have," he said. "Two plus two is four. Never five, much less six or seven — as we have sometimes pretended."
As with the proposals on economic changes, the idea does not yet carry the force of law since the party gathering lacks the powers of parliament. But it is all but certain to be acted on quickly by the national assembly. Fidel Castro was not present for the speech, but a chair was left empty for him near his brother.
.....
HAVANA — Cuba kicked off a crucial Communist Party congress Saturday with a big military and civilian parade to mark 50 years since the defeat of CIA-backed exiles at the Bay of Pigs, still celebrated here as a landmark triumph over the island's powerful neighbor to the north.
Thousands of soldiers high-stepped through sprawling Revolution Plaza as a military band played martial music, not far from an iconic sculpture of Ernesto "Che" Guevara that gazes down from the side of the Interior Ministry building. Helicopters whirred and jet fighters in combat formation roared overhead while freshly painted amphibious assault vehicles and rocket launchers rumbled past.
"Long live Fidel! Long live Raul! Long live the Communist Party of Cuba!" a female announcer shouted, and participants responded with shouts of approval.
Tweaking a theme from Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, a male announcer declared Cuba's revolution to be "Of the humble, by the humble, and for the humble."
...........
Articles in state-run media called the youthful presence a symbol of the continuity of the 1959 revolution — an important theme for Cuban leaders these days, with President Raul Castro at 79 years old and his brother Fidel at 84.
Castro family's aging empire
Raul has acknowledged that this year's Communist Party gathering is likely to be the last overseen by the brothers and those who fought with them a half century ago. In speech after speech, he has lamented that the time the revolutionary generation has left is short, but the work needed to put Cuba's economy on track immense.
............
Since taking over the presidency permanently in 2008, Raul has turned over tens of thousands of acres of fallow government land to small farmers, opened the economy to a limited amount of free enterprise, and gradually cut some of the generous health and food subsidies Cubans have come to expect in return for working for extremely low wages.
He also has repeatedly warned Cubans that they must work harder if the island's moribund economy is to survive. Plans to lay off hundreds of thousands of state workers have been delayed indefinitely, but Raul has insisted they are still part of a larger five-year reform plan.
Moving away from Marxism
More details of that plan are expected to emerge from the four-day congress, which was scheduled to open with a speech by Raul after the parade. Many Cubans are hoping the congress will expand the list of approved private enterprises and relax rules on buying and selling homes and automobiles, among other measures.
The changes announced by Raul so far have already been a significant departure for a Marxist system where the government employs four-fifths of the work force and dominates nearly the entire economy.
Yet Castro has vowed the changes are meant to improve Cuba's socialist system, not toss it out.
Story: '61 Bay of Pigs victory still inspires Cubans
It's no accident that the congress, the first since 1997, is being held on the anniversary of the Bay of Pigs triumph and Fidel Castro's April 16, 1961, announcement that the revolution would forever be socialist in nature.
"It sort of emphasizes where they've been and where they're going now," said Wayne Smith, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington who was chief of the U.S. diplomatic mission on the island from 1979 to 1982. "It'll be very interesting to see what comes out of this congress. Just what kind of a new system are we going to see?"
In addition to the economic changes, delegates are expected to vote in new party leaders after Fidel Castro's announcement last month that he is no longer first secretary. With Raul all but certain to take up his brother's mantle, all eyes will be on who is named to the No. 2 spot — a graying revolutionary comrade, or a fresh new face.
Read the full post with images and links http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42620105/ns/world_news/
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
Fidel Castro Interview in the Atlantic
The Atlantic
In reaction to Jeffrey Golderg's article on conflict between Israel and Iran, Fidel Castro invites the author to Havana to discuss it. An excerpt:
Castro opened our initial meeting by telling me that he read the recent Atlantic article carefully, and that it confirmed his view that Israel and America were moving precipitously and gratuitously toward confrontation with Iran. This interpretation was not surprising, of course: Castro is the grandfather of global anti-Americanism, and he has been a severe critic of Israel. His message to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, he said, was simple: Israel will only have security if it gives up its nuclear arsenal, and the rest of the world's nuclear powers will only have security if they, too, give up their weapons. Global and simultaneous nuclear disarmament is, of course, a worthy goal, but it is not, in the short term, realistic.
Castro's message to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, was not so abstract, however. Over the course of this first, five-hour discussion, Castro repeatedly returned to his excoriation of anti-Semitism. He criticized Ahmadinejad for denying the Holocaust and explained why the Iranian government would better serve the cause of peace by acknowledging the "unique" history of anti-Semitism and trying to understand why Israelis fear for their existence.
He began this discussion by describing his own, first encounters with anti-Semitism, as a small boy. "I remember when I was a boy - a long time ago - when I was five or six years old and I lived in the countryside," he said, "and I remember Good Friday. What was the atmosphere a child breathed? `Be quiet, God is dead.' God died every year between Thursday and Saturday of Holy Week, and it made a profound impression on everyone. What happened? They would say, `The Jews killed God.' They blamed the Jews for killing God! Do you realize this?"
He went on, "Well, I didn't know what a Jew was. I knew of a bird that was a called a 'Jew,' and so for me the Jews were those birds. These birds had big noses. I don't even know why they were called that. That's what I remember. This is how ignorant the entire population was."
He said the Iranian government should understand the consequences of theological anti-Semitism. "This went on for maybe two thousand years," he said. "I don't think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews. I would say much more than the Muslims. They have been slandered much more than the Muslims because they are blamed and slandered for everything. No one blames the Muslims for anything." The Iranian government should understand that the Jews "were expelled from their land, persecuted and mistreated all over the world, as the ones who killed God. In my judgment here's what happened to them: Reverse selection. What's reverse selection? Over 2,000 years they were subjected to terrible persecution and then to the pogroms. One might have assumed that they would have disappeared; I think their culture and religion kept them together as a nation." He continued: "The Jews have lived an existence that is much harder than ours. There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust." I asked him if he would tell Ahmadinejad what he was telling me. "I am saying this so you can communicate it," he answered.
Read the entire first installment HERE.
In reaction to Jeffrey Golderg's article on conflict between Israel and Iran, Fidel Castro invites the author to Havana to discuss it. An excerpt:
Castro opened our initial meeting by telling me that he read the recent Atlantic article carefully, and that it confirmed his view that Israel and America were moving precipitously and gratuitously toward confrontation with Iran. This interpretation was not surprising, of course: Castro is the grandfather of global anti-Americanism, and he has been a severe critic of Israel. His message to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, he said, was simple: Israel will only have security if it gives up its nuclear arsenal, and the rest of the world's nuclear powers will only have security if they, too, give up their weapons. Global and simultaneous nuclear disarmament is, of course, a worthy goal, but it is not, in the short term, realistic.
Castro's message to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, was not so abstract, however. Over the course of this first, five-hour discussion, Castro repeatedly returned to his excoriation of anti-Semitism. He criticized Ahmadinejad for denying the Holocaust and explained why the Iranian government would better serve the cause of peace by acknowledging the "unique" history of anti-Semitism and trying to understand why Israelis fear for their existence.
He began this discussion by describing his own, first encounters with anti-Semitism, as a small boy. "I remember when I was a boy - a long time ago - when I was five or six years old and I lived in the countryside," he said, "and I remember Good Friday. What was the atmosphere a child breathed? `Be quiet, God is dead.' God died every year between Thursday and Saturday of Holy Week, and it made a profound impression on everyone. What happened? They would say, `The Jews killed God.' They blamed the Jews for killing God! Do you realize this?"
He went on, "Well, I didn't know what a Jew was. I knew of a bird that was a called a 'Jew,' and so for me the Jews were those birds. These birds had big noses. I don't even know why they were called that. That's what I remember. This is how ignorant the entire population was."
He said the Iranian government should understand the consequences of theological anti-Semitism. "This went on for maybe two thousand years," he said. "I don't think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews. I would say much more than the Muslims. They have been slandered much more than the Muslims because they are blamed and slandered for everything. No one blames the Muslims for anything." The Iranian government should understand that the Jews "were expelled from their land, persecuted and mistreated all over the world, as the ones who killed God. In my judgment here's what happened to them: Reverse selection. What's reverse selection? Over 2,000 years they were subjected to terrible persecution and then to the pogroms. One might have assumed that they would have disappeared; I think their culture and religion kept them together as a nation." He continued: "The Jews have lived an existence that is much harder than ours. There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust." I asked him if he would tell Ahmadinejad what he was telling me. "I am saying this so you can communicate it," he answered.
Read the entire first installment HERE.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Church: Cuba to free dissident, transfer six others
CNN
Church: Cuba to free dissident, transfer six others
By David Ariosto, CNN
June 12, 2010 9:42 a.m. EDT
(CNN) -- In the latest sign of compromise between Cuba and church leaders, Cuba's Roman Catholic Church says the government has agreed to free one jailed dissident and relocate six others to prisons closer to their homes.
Ailing political prisoner Ariel Sigler, who has been in jail since a 2003 government crackdown, is set to be freed, the church said late Friday evening.
His release and the six other prisoner transfers follow a series of inmate transfers to prisons closer to their homes announced earlier this month.
The Cuban government could not immediately confirm the transfers.
Earlier in June, the church announced that longtime dissident Diosdado Gonzalez was being moved from a maximum-security prison in Cuba's western Pinar Del Rio province to a prison closer his home in Matanzas province.
He and others were set to be transferred earlier this month, according to a church statement made in early June.
In May, Cuba's Roman Catholic cardinal, Jaime Ortega, described a rare four-hour meeting with President Raul Castro as a "magnificent start" to talks centered on the potential release of some of the island's jailed dissidents.
Ortega also successfully negotiated an agreement with government authorities last month that allowed a group of women protesters to march.
Church: Cuba to free dissident, transfer six others
By David Ariosto, CNN
June 12, 2010 9:42 a.m. EDT
(CNN) -- In the latest sign of compromise between Cuba and church leaders, Cuba's Roman Catholic Church says the government has agreed to free one jailed dissident and relocate six others to prisons closer to their homes.
Ailing political prisoner Ariel Sigler, who has been in jail since a 2003 government crackdown, is set to be freed, the church said late Friday evening.
His release and the six other prisoner transfers follow a series of inmate transfers to prisons closer to their homes announced earlier this month.
The Cuban government could not immediately confirm the transfers.
Earlier in June, the church announced that longtime dissident Diosdado Gonzalez was being moved from a maximum-security prison in Cuba's western Pinar Del Rio province to a prison closer his home in Matanzas province.
He and others were set to be transferred earlier this month, according to a church statement made in early June.
In May, Cuba's Roman Catholic cardinal, Jaime Ortega, described a rare four-hour meeting with President Raul Castro as a "magnificent start" to talks centered on the potential release of some of the island's jailed dissidents.
Ortega also successfully negotiated an agreement with government authorities last month that allowed a group of women protesters to march.
Monday, June 07, 2010
Silvio Rodriguez: Nostalgia Merchant
Cuban singer Silvio Rodriguez is touring the US for the first time in thirty years. Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez has an blog post at HuffPo
Silvio Rodriguez: Nostalgia Merchant
Yoani Sanchez
Award-Winning Cuban Blogger
Posted: June 2, 2010 09:52 PM
While young people around the world enjoyed the music of the sixties, for Cubans it was forbidden to hear anything that had imperialist echoes, including the Beatles. Just at that time there appeared in our island what ended up being called the Nueva Trova -- New Minstrel -- Movement. Silvio Rodriguez has been its signature performer with songs full of poetic lyrics and music that mixes the tonalities of our traditional minstrel songs with the chords of Bob Dylan.
Silvio's generation, touched by the euphoric effects of the Revolution, was considered anti-establishment, based on between-the-line meanings one could read into his lyrics. He was banned on some television programs and many of his songs were never broadcast. Little by little, before the eyes of followers and detractors, the Movement was absorbed by the ruling ideological apparatus to the point where there came a time when no political event lacked the accompaniment of his songs. He won admirers and spawned imitators, girls swooned over him, and requests for concerts came from all over Latin America.
.....
The 1980s, when at any hour of the day or night, you could turn the radio dial and hear Silvio's songs, are long gone. In those days he won every popularity contest and seemed like a star whose light would never fade. But the demands of tourism and Cubans' own weariness with protest songs, set the stage for the creation and spread of danceable music which, in all its rawness, is the anthem of these times: reggaeton. While Nueva Trova still has its adherents, it has been relegated to niche audiences.
Today, Silvio Rodriguez is the living representative of nostalgia for a utopia that never materialized. Some of his fans come to his concerts decked out in their Che Guevara T-shirts and sing the choruses as if they could roll back history; it's as if they are saying, "This is not dead." Increasingly rare are those who can reconcile his musical expression with his civic behavior, as few can forgive the many years he has been sitting in parliament without raising his hand to ask for an end to the immigration restrictions, the elimination of the dual currency system, or the decriminalization of political dissent.
......
Read the full post HERE.
Silvio Rodriguez: Nostalgia Merchant
Yoani Sanchez
Award-Winning Cuban Blogger
Posted: June 2, 2010 09:52 PM
While young people around the world enjoyed the music of the sixties, for Cubans it was forbidden to hear anything that had imperialist echoes, including the Beatles. Just at that time there appeared in our island what ended up being called the Nueva Trova -- New Minstrel -- Movement. Silvio Rodriguez has been its signature performer with songs full of poetic lyrics and music that mixes the tonalities of our traditional minstrel songs with the chords of Bob Dylan.
Silvio's generation, touched by the euphoric effects of the Revolution, was considered anti-establishment, based on between-the-line meanings one could read into his lyrics. He was banned on some television programs and many of his songs were never broadcast. Little by little, before the eyes of followers and detractors, the Movement was absorbed by the ruling ideological apparatus to the point where there came a time when no political event lacked the accompaniment of his songs. He won admirers and spawned imitators, girls swooned over him, and requests for concerts came from all over Latin America.
.....
The 1980s, when at any hour of the day or night, you could turn the radio dial and hear Silvio's songs, are long gone. In those days he won every popularity contest and seemed like a star whose light would never fade. But the demands of tourism and Cubans' own weariness with protest songs, set the stage for the creation and spread of danceable music which, in all its rawness, is the anthem of these times: reggaeton. While Nueva Trova still has its adherents, it has been relegated to niche audiences.
Today, Silvio Rodriguez is the living representative of nostalgia for a utopia that never materialized. Some of his fans come to his concerts decked out in their Che Guevara T-shirts and sing the choruses as if they could roll back history; it's as if they are saying, "This is not dead." Increasingly rare are those who can reconcile his musical expression with his civic behavior, as few can forgive the many years he has been sitting in parliament without raising his hand to ask for an end to the immigration restrictions, the elimination of the dual currency system, or the decriminalization of political dissent.
......
Read the full post HERE.
Monday, April 05, 2010
Elian Gonzalez update
Elian Gonzalez attends Cuba Youth Meeting
Huffpo
First Posted: 04- 5-10 05:04 PM | Updated: 04- 5-10 05:41 PM
Read More: Cuba, Cuba Communists, Elian, Elian Gonzales, Elian Gonzales Photos, World News
(AP) HAVANA — Cuba has released photos of one-time exile cause celebre Elian Gonzalez wearing an olive-green military school uniform and attending a Young Communist Union congress.
Gonzalez, now 16 with closely cropped black hair, is shown serious-faced with fellow youth delegates during last weekend's congress at a sprawling and drab convention center in western Havana. The images were posted Monday on Cuban government Web sites, then widely picked up by electronic, state-controlled media.
When he was 5, Elian was found floating off the coast of Florida in an inner tube after his mother and others fleeing Cuba drowned trying to reach the U.S. Elian's father, who was separated from his mother, had remained in Cuba.
U.S. immigration officials ruled the boy should return to Cuba over the objections of his Miami relatives and other Cuban exiles, creating a national furor that caused even presidential candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore to weigh in on the matter.
His relatives refused to give him up. Federal agents raided the Little Havana home of his uncle with guns drawn 10 years ago this month and seized the boy from a closet to return him to his father.
Elian was celebrated as a hero in Cuba upon his return and his father, restaurant employee Juan Miguel Gonzalez, was elected to parliament – a seat he retains today.
Cuba usually marks Gonzalez's birthday every Dec. 7 with parades and other local events, but such activities are not open to foreign reporters.
Gonzalez formally joined the Young Communist Union in 2008, making headlines across Cuba.
The green uniform with red shoulder patches he is seen wearing is common among island military academies. There is a military school in the city of Matanzas, near the boy's hometown of Cardenas, but it was unclear where he is attending school. Reports in state media provided no details.
"Young Elian Gonzalez defends his revolution in the youth congress," read the headline over Monday's photo posted on Cuba Debate, the same Web site where Fidel Castro has posted his regular essays since ceding power to his younger brother, Raul, for health reasons in 2006.
Revolution is what Cubans call the rebellion that toppled dictator Fulgencio Batista and brought Castro to power on New Year's Day 1959.
Elian and his father are closely watched by state authorities, who restrict their contact with the international press.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Cuban prison hunger striker dies
BBC
Cuban prison hunger striker dies
Leading Cuban political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo has died in hospital after 85 days on hunger strike, opposition sources say.
Mr Zapata, 42, had been admitted to Havana's Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital after his condition deteriorated.
Amnesty International declared him a prisoner of conscience after his arrest in March 2003 in a crackdown on opposition groups.
He had been calling for the release of political prisoners.
He died between 1530 and 1600 local time (2030-2100 GMT) on Tuesday, Efe news agency reports.
'Murdered'
His death marks the first time in nearly 40 years a Cuban activist starved himself to death to protest against government abuses.
His mother, Reina Luisa Tamayo, told the Miami newspaper El Nuevo Herald by telephone that her son had been "murdered" by Cuba's authorities.
"They managed to do what they wanted," she said. "They ended the life of a fighter for human rights.''
According to the paper, the last political prisoner to die on hunger strike in Cuba was Pedro Luis Boitel, a poet and student leader, who died in 1972.
Cuba's illegal but tolerated Human Rights Commission says there are about 200 political prisoners still held in Cuba, about one-third less than when Raul Castro took over as president from his brother Fidel.
But if anything harassment of dissidents has increased over the past year, the group says.
Cuba designates prisoners of conscience as mercenaries sympathetic to the United States.
Cuban prison hunger striker dies
Leading Cuban political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo has died in hospital after 85 days on hunger strike, opposition sources say.
Mr Zapata, 42, had been admitted to Havana's Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital after his condition deteriorated.
Amnesty International declared him a prisoner of conscience after his arrest in March 2003 in a crackdown on opposition groups.
He had been calling for the release of political prisoners.
He died between 1530 and 1600 local time (2030-2100 GMT) on Tuesday, Efe news agency reports.
'Murdered'
His death marks the first time in nearly 40 years a Cuban activist starved himself to death to protest against government abuses.
His mother, Reina Luisa Tamayo, told the Miami newspaper El Nuevo Herald by telephone that her son had been "murdered" by Cuba's authorities.
"They managed to do what they wanted," she said. "They ended the life of a fighter for human rights.''
According to the paper, the last political prisoner to die on hunger strike in Cuba was Pedro Luis Boitel, a poet and student leader, who died in 1972.
Cuba's illegal but tolerated Human Rights Commission says there are about 200 political prisoners still held in Cuba, about one-third less than when Raul Castro took over as president from his brother Fidel.
But if anything harassment of dissidents has increased over the past year, the group says.
Cuba designates prisoners of conscience as mercenaries sympathetic to the United States.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Cuba shuts factories, cuts energy to save economy
Yahoo/AP
Cuba shuts factories, cuts energy to save economy
By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer Will Weissert, Associated Press Writer 1 hr 1 min ago
HAVANA – It's hard to find a spare tire in Cuba these days, or a cup of yoghurt.
Air conditioners are shut off in the dead heat. Factories close at peak hours, and workers go without their government-subsidized lunches.
Cuba has ordered austere energy savings this summer to cope with rising budget deficits and plummeting export profits, and the Communist Party Central Committee on Friday lowered 2009 economic growth projections by nearly a full percentage point. The committee also announced that it was suspending plans for the first Communist Party congress in 12 years in order to deal with the financial crisis.
A report in official Cuban newspapers cited President Raul Castro as saying the island is struggling through a "very serious" crisis and hinted that further belt-tightening was on the way.
The government already has imposed conservation measures even as it continues to get free oil for services from Venezuela, fueling rumors that Cuba is selling President Hugo Chavez's crude on the side to raise cash.
More likely, the shortages result from a global recession that hit an already struggling economy still reeling from last year's hurricanes. President Raul Castro scolded Cubans in a national address Sunday to work harder because they have no one to blame but themselves.
"The only thing I know is that this is lousy," said one 27-year-old who only gave the name Raul because he sells cement and housing materials on the black market. "I don't work. I find a way to survive."
The latest cuts are small compared with strict measures imposed during the so-called special period, when Cubans nearly starved after subsidies dried up with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nor are they as severe as the blackouts of 2004, when technical problems at power plants left much of the island in the dark for hours at a time. Fans and water pumps were idled. Milk and food spoiled, while electrical surges damaged refrigerators, televisions and other costly appliances.
Still, every bit of belt-tightening stings in a country where almost everyone works for the state and average wages are less than $20 per month.
The price of nickel, Cuba's chief export, is down more than 50 percent from last year, according to Toronto-based Sherritt International Cooperation, Cuba's largest energy partner.
The company's oil production on the island was down 19 percent last quarter compared to the second quarter of 2008, mainly because Sherritt suspended drilling earlier this year when Cuba fell behind on its payments.
The government and Sherritt have worked out a plan to pay down the debt, and the company says Cuba has been sticking to it. But the situation could have spurred the mandatory energy savings. Neither Sherritt nor the Cuban government would provide more details.
Or Cuba may be trying to save unused oil to bolster strategic reserves while prices are still relatively low, said Dan Erikson of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington.
But he also said the strict measures lend credence to whispers that Cuba is selling Venezuelan oil overseas — something the communist government did with some of the discounted oil it got from the Soviet Union.
"It's been alleged they've been selling Venezuelan oil on the side. They've denied that, but if they are open to doing it, now would be the time," Erikson said. "Cuba's in a real cash crunch."
Beginning June 1, the government ordered energy conservation measures as part of a broader plan to cut the national budget by 6 percent. Central planners also announced Friday they were revising their economic growth projections downward, from 2.5 percent to 1.7 percent. As recently as December, they had projected 6 percent economic growth in Cuba.
These days, most countries would cheer any economic growth. But Cuba counts what it spends on free health care and education, monthly food rations and other social programs as production — making economic growth figures dubious.
The island's economic woes began in earnest with three hurricanes last summer that caused more than $10 billion in damage and wiped out some of the food and grains the government had stockpiled to insulate itself from rising commodities prices.
How much Cuba has spent on hurricane recovery is unclear. But Castro said the government has rebuilt or repaired 43 percent of the 260,000 homes damaged or lost in the storms.
Cuba consumed about 150,000 barrels of crude oil a day in 2008, of which 52,000 were produced domestically and 93,000 imported from Venezuela, said Jorge Pinon, an energy fellow at the University of Miami's Center for Hemispheric Policy. Half is used to generate electricity, according to Cuba's Ministry of Basic Resources.
Though the numbers leave the country 5,000 barrels a day short, Pinon said natural gas production last year covered the energy equivalent of 20,000 barrels of oil daily and kept the power plants running smoothly.
"Cuba, from a petroleum point of view, is balanced," he said. "It's not running out of oil."
So far the power-saving measures have been confined to state-run businesses and factories, though many Cubans fear they will soon hit residential users as well.
Workers at a tire factory in San Jose de las Lajas, a rugged farming town 30 miles (50 kilometers) south of Havana, said production is down and the factory goes dark when demand for electricity is high — leaving gas stations and mechanics short on spare tires.
In the central province of Cienfuegos, a large dairy that supplies ice cream and other products to much of the country and exports cheese has been ordered to cut production, according to the Communist Youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde. Yogurt is scarce in Havana — sold only in upscale grocery stores that cater to tourists and are too expensive for most Cubans.
Some government office workers say their hours have been cut to between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m., and others are being told to come in only twice a week.
State companies also have stopped offering employees low-cost lunches in worker cafeterias to save power.
Other government offices, businesses, banks and stores have ordered air conditioners turned off for much of the day, rather than close early.
Customer service, never stellar in state-run institutions, has suffered even more. In the sweltering banks, barbershops and boutiques, listless employees are more interested in fanning themselves than serving sweating customers.
Cuba shuts factories, cuts energy to save economy
By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer Will Weissert, Associated Press Writer 1 hr 1 min ago
HAVANA – It's hard to find a spare tire in Cuba these days, or a cup of yoghurt.
Air conditioners are shut off in the dead heat. Factories close at peak hours, and workers go without their government-subsidized lunches.
Cuba has ordered austere energy savings this summer to cope with rising budget deficits and plummeting export profits, and the Communist Party Central Committee on Friday lowered 2009 economic growth projections by nearly a full percentage point. The committee also announced that it was suspending plans for the first Communist Party congress in 12 years in order to deal with the financial crisis.
A report in official Cuban newspapers cited President Raul Castro as saying the island is struggling through a "very serious" crisis and hinted that further belt-tightening was on the way.
The government already has imposed conservation measures even as it continues to get free oil for services from Venezuela, fueling rumors that Cuba is selling President Hugo Chavez's crude on the side to raise cash.
More likely, the shortages result from a global recession that hit an already struggling economy still reeling from last year's hurricanes. President Raul Castro scolded Cubans in a national address Sunday to work harder because they have no one to blame but themselves.
"The only thing I know is that this is lousy," said one 27-year-old who only gave the name Raul because he sells cement and housing materials on the black market. "I don't work. I find a way to survive."
The latest cuts are small compared with strict measures imposed during the so-called special period, when Cubans nearly starved after subsidies dried up with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nor are they as severe as the blackouts of 2004, when technical problems at power plants left much of the island in the dark for hours at a time. Fans and water pumps were idled. Milk and food spoiled, while electrical surges damaged refrigerators, televisions and other costly appliances.
Still, every bit of belt-tightening stings in a country where almost everyone works for the state and average wages are less than $20 per month.
The price of nickel, Cuba's chief export, is down more than 50 percent from last year, according to Toronto-based Sherritt International Cooperation, Cuba's largest energy partner.
The company's oil production on the island was down 19 percent last quarter compared to the second quarter of 2008, mainly because Sherritt suspended drilling earlier this year when Cuba fell behind on its payments.
The government and Sherritt have worked out a plan to pay down the debt, and the company says Cuba has been sticking to it. But the situation could have spurred the mandatory energy savings. Neither Sherritt nor the Cuban government would provide more details.
Or Cuba may be trying to save unused oil to bolster strategic reserves while prices are still relatively low, said Dan Erikson of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington.
But he also said the strict measures lend credence to whispers that Cuba is selling Venezuelan oil overseas — something the communist government did with some of the discounted oil it got from the Soviet Union.
"It's been alleged they've been selling Venezuelan oil on the side. They've denied that, but if they are open to doing it, now would be the time," Erikson said. "Cuba's in a real cash crunch."
Beginning June 1, the government ordered energy conservation measures as part of a broader plan to cut the national budget by 6 percent. Central planners also announced Friday they were revising their economic growth projections downward, from 2.5 percent to 1.7 percent. As recently as December, they had projected 6 percent economic growth in Cuba.
These days, most countries would cheer any economic growth. But Cuba counts what it spends on free health care and education, monthly food rations and other social programs as production — making economic growth figures dubious.
The island's economic woes began in earnest with three hurricanes last summer that caused more than $10 billion in damage and wiped out some of the food and grains the government had stockpiled to insulate itself from rising commodities prices.
How much Cuba has spent on hurricane recovery is unclear. But Castro said the government has rebuilt or repaired 43 percent of the 260,000 homes damaged or lost in the storms.
Cuba consumed about 150,000 barrels of crude oil a day in 2008, of which 52,000 were produced domestically and 93,000 imported from Venezuela, said Jorge Pinon, an energy fellow at the University of Miami's Center for Hemispheric Policy. Half is used to generate electricity, according to Cuba's Ministry of Basic Resources.
Though the numbers leave the country 5,000 barrels a day short, Pinon said natural gas production last year covered the energy equivalent of 20,000 barrels of oil daily and kept the power plants running smoothly.
"Cuba, from a petroleum point of view, is balanced," he said. "It's not running out of oil."
So far the power-saving measures have been confined to state-run businesses and factories, though many Cubans fear they will soon hit residential users as well.
Workers at a tire factory in San Jose de las Lajas, a rugged farming town 30 miles (50 kilometers) south of Havana, said production is down and the factory goes dark when demand for electricity is high — leaving gas stations and mechanics short on spare tires.
In the central province of Cienfuegos, a large dairy that supplies ice cream and other products to much of the country and exports cheese has been ordered to cut production, according to the Communist Youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde. Yogurt is scarce in Havana — sold only in upscale grocery stores that cater to tourists and are too expensive for most Cubans.
Some government office workers say their hours have been cut to between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m., and others are being told to come in only twice a week.
State companies also have stopped offering employees low-cost lunches in worker cafeterias to save power.
Other government offices, businesses, banks and stores have ordered air conditioners turned off for much of the day, rather than close early.
Customer service, never stellar in state-run institutions, has suffered even more. In the sweltering banks, barbershops and boutiques, listless employees are more interested in fanning themselves than serving sweating customers.
Cuba Cancels Plans for Communist Party Congress
AP
Cuba nixes plans for party congress
Economic woes foil plans for congress to chart island’s post-Castro course
The Associated Press
updated 7:47 a.m. PT, Fri., July 31, 2009
HAVANA - Cuba on Friday suspended plans for a Communist Party congress and lowered its 2009 economic growth projection to 1.7 percent — nearly a full percentage point — as the island's economy struggles through a "very serious" crisis.
In a closed-door meeting of the Communist Party Central Committee, officials agreed to postpone indefinitely the first congress since 1997, which had been announced for the second half of this year.
The gathering was to chart Cuba's political future long after President Raul Castro and his brother Fidel are gone. Instead, top communists will try and pull their country back from the economic brink.
Second downward revision of 2009
Cuba lowered its 2009 growth estimate from 2.5 percent to 1.7 percent, but even that figure is dubious given that it includes state spending on free health care and education, the food Cubans receive with monthly ration booklets and a broad range of other social services.
The revision downward was the second of its kind this year. As recently as December, central planners said they thought the Cuban economy would grow by 6 percent in 2009.
The country's economic problems began last summer, with three hurricanes that caused more than $10 billion in damage. The situation has worsened with the onset of the global financial crisis and subsequent recession.
Break with tradition
The 78-year-old Raul Castro succeeded his brother as president more than 18 months ago, but it's the soon-to-be 83-year-old Fidel who remains head of the Communist Party.
Party congresses historically have been held every five years or so to renew leadership and set major policies, but the government has broken with that tradition over the past decade.
Information about the Central Committee meeting occupied the entire front page of the Communist Party daily Granma and a full page inside cited Raul Castro as reporting that "things are very serious and we are now analyzing them."
"The principal matter is the economy: what we have done and what we have to perfect and even eliminate as we are up against an imperative to make full accounts of what the country really has available, of what we have to live and for development," the newspaper said, citing the president.
It said authorities would postpone the sixth Party congress "until this crucial phase ... has been overcome," but did not say when that might be.
Waiting for his copy of Granma when it hit newsstands at 7 a.m., Raul Salgado, a 72-year-old retiree, said, "I want to know what's happening, or better yet, what's going to happen."
"I don't think it matters much to the people if there is a congress or not. What the people want here in Cuba is to know what the government is going to do to get out of such a terrible situation like the one in which we're living," Salgado said.
More cutbacks likely
Cuba has begun a major push to conserve energy in an attempt to save some of the imported oil it uses to run power plants. State-run factories have been idled during peak hours, air conditioners have been stilled at government offices and some work hours shortened.
Granma made it clear more cutbacks were coming, but did not give details. Cuba's rubber-stamp parliament convenes Saturday for one of its two full sessions a year and could unveil new energy-saving plans then.
Cuba nixes plans for party congress
Economic woes foil plans for congress to chart island’s post-Castro course
The Associated Press
updated 7:47 a.m. PT, Fri., July 31, 2009
HAVANA - Cuba on Friday suspended plans for a Communist Party congress and lowered its 2009 economic growth projection to 1.7 percent — nearly a full percentage point — as the island's economy struggles through a "very serious" crisis.
In a closed-door meeting of the Communist Party Central Committee, officials agreed to postpone indefinitely the first congress since 1997, which had been announced for the second half of this year.
The gathering was to chart Cuba's political future long after President Raul Castro and his brother Fidel are gone. Instead, top communists will try and pull their country back from the economic brink.
Second downward revision of 2009
Cuba lowered its 2009 growth estimate from 2.5 percent to 1.7 percent, but even that figure is dubious given that it includes state spending on free health care and education, the food Cubans receive with monthly ration booklets and a broad range of other social services.
The revision downward was the second of its kind this year. As recently as December, central planners said they thought the Cuban economy would grow by 6 percent in 2009.
The country's economic problems began last summer, with three hurricanes that caused more than $10 billion in damage. The situation has worsened with the onset of the global financial crisis and subsequent recession.
Break with tradition
The 78-year-old Raul Castro succeeded his brother as president more than 18 months ago, but it's the soon-to-be 83-year-old Fidel who remains head of the Communist Party.
Party congresses historically have been held every five years or so to renew leadership and set major policies, but the government has broken with that tradition over the past decade.
Information about the Central Committee meeting occupied the entire front page of the Communist Party daily Granma and a full page inside cited Raul Castro as reporting that "things are very serious and we are now analyzing them."
"The principal matter is the economy: what we have done and what we have to perfect and even eliminate as we are up against an imperative to make full accounts of what the country really has available, of what we have to live and for development," the newspaper said, citing the president.
It said authorities would postpone the sixth Party congress "until this crucial phase ... has been overcome," but did not say when that might be.
Waiting for his copy of Granma when it hit newsstands at 7 a.m., Raul Salgado, a 72-year-old retiree, said, "I want to know what's happening, or better yet, what's going to happen."
"I don't think it matters much to the people if there is a congress or not. What the people want here in Cuba is to know what the government is going to do to get out of such a terrible situation like the one in which we're living," Salgado said.
More cutbacks likely
Cuba has begun a major push to conserve energy in an attempt to save some of the imported oil it uses to run power plants. State-run factories have been idled during peak hours, air conditioners have been stilled at government offices and some work hours shortened.
Granma made it clear more cutbacks were coming, but did not give details. Cuba's rubber-stamp parliament convenes Saturday for one of its two full sessions a year and could unveil new energy-saving plans then.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Castro calls for tight finances in Cuba
CNN
Castro calls for tight finances in Cuba
From Shasta Darlington
CNN
HOLGUIN, Cuba (CNN) -- Sunday was a day of commemoration in Cuba -- the 56th anniversary of the start of the Cuban Revolution -- but the message from President Raul Castro was not all celebratory.
The island nation will face a second round of belt-tightening as a result of the global financial crunch, Castro said in a speech marking Revolution Day.
He said that on Tuesday he would hold a meeting of the Council of Ministries "dedicated to the analysis of the second cost adjustment in this year's plan, due to the effects of the global economic crisis, especially on the reduction of revenues from exports and the additional restrictions on accessing external financing."
The global economic downturn has hit Cuba hard. Revenues from key exports like nickel are down. The price of imports, like food, is up.
Castro said he would also meet with the central committee of the Communist Party this week to discuss the situation.
Any proposed cuts will affect a Cuban population already feeling the squeeze.
Public transport has been reduced as part of austerity measures. The government has ordered factories and businesses to cut energy consumption or face sanctions.
Castro took a few swipes at the U.S. trade embargo that has been in place since 1962, but made it clear Cubans have only themselves to blame for agriculture shortages.
"The land is there. We Cubans are here. We'll see if we get to work or not, if we produce or not, if we keep our words or not," he said, pounding his fist on the podium.
"It's not just a question of shouting 'fatherland or death, down with imperialism, the blockade knocks us out' when the land is there, waiting for our sweat."
Cuba has seen hard times before and has always worked to pull through, Castro said in front of the 200,000 people packed into the parade grounds of Holguin, about 500 miles southeast of Havana.
Castro calls for tight finances in Cuba
From Shasta Darlington
CNN
HOLGUIN, Cuba (CNN) -- Sunday was a day of commemoration in Cuba -- the 56th anniversary of the start of the Cuban Revolution -- but the message from President Raul Castro was not all celebratory.
The island nation will face a second round of belt-tightening as a result of the global financial crunch, Castro said in a speech marking Revolution Day.
He said that on Tuesday he would hold a meeting of the Council of Ministries "dedicated to the analysis of the second cost adjustment in this year's plan, due to the effects of the global economic crisis, especially on the reduction of revenues from exports and the additional restrictions on accessing external financing."
The global economic downturn has hit Cuba hard. Revenues from key exports like nickel are down. The price of imports, like food, is up.
Castro said he would also meet with the central committee of the Communist Party this week to discuss the situation.
Any proposed cuts will affect a Cuban population already feeling the squeeze.
Public transport has been reduced as part of austerity measures. The government has ordered factories and businesses to cut energy consumption or face sanctions.
Castro took a few swipes at the U.S. trade embargo that has been in place since 1962, but made it clear Cubans have only themselves to blame for agriculture shortages.
"The land is there. We Cubans are here. We'll see if we get to work or not, if we produce or not, if we keep our words or not," he said, pounding his fist on the podium.
"It's not just a question of shouting 'fatherland or death, down with imperialism, the blockade knocks us out' when the land is there, waiting for our sweat."
Cuba has seen hard times before and has always worked to pull through, Castro said in front of the 200,000 people packed into the parade grounds of Holguin, about 500 miles southeast of Havana.
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