Posted on Mon, Dec. 24, 2007Makeover designed for Havana's Malecón
Havana's famed Malecón could become the future site of seven public gathering places that could modernize the popular avenue, yet still protect its urban tradition. The idea to reconstruct seven kilometers of the Malecón -- from a castle at one end to where it feeds into the mouth of the Almendares River -- is the final chapter of ''Havana and its Landscapes,'' a study aimed at the architectural rescue of the capital city under the auspices of Florida International University in Miami-Dade County.In charge of the project is prominent Cuban architect Nicolás Quintana, a professor at FIU who has become an expert on the way Cuba looks today by poring over textbooks, photos, illustrations, maps and virtual images of island scenes.
The result will be a two-volume book of almost 500 pages. It will first be published in English and later in Spanish by the end of next year, when an exposition is planned at FIU of 32 mock-ups of the Havana of the future. It will include 28 minutes of ''virtual reality'' footage showcasing local landscapes. There is also a symposium on the subject planned for November 2008.
Last week, Quintana put the final touches to the history of Havana in 38,000 words. He also evaluated the 12 mock-ups of the face-lift planned for the Malecón, done by a group of design school alumni.
''What we have done is find the seven points where people can congregate and will allow visitors and residents to enjoy the Malecón like the great urban icon that it is, and should continue to be in the future,'' said Quintana, 82.
The sections of the Malecón selected as potential popular gathering spots are those that intersect with well-known avenues: Prado, Belascoaín, Galiano, La Rampa, Línea, Calle G and Paseo. Quintana considers that this concept will allow the Malecón to continue as ''Havana's great sofa,'' a place where people gather to socialize or eat an ice cream cone.
Begun in 2004 with a budget of $325,000, the project was conceived as a ''comprehensive and multifaceted'' study dealing with what is needed to rescue the city of Havana from its ruin without impacting its architectural flavor or urban identity.
The idea for the architectural probe was conceived by Cuban-American urbanization experts Sergio Pino and Anthony Seijas.
''The radicalization of reconstructing everything can be as dangerous as actual destruction,'' Quintana said, noting that was one of the disciplines of modern architecture that flourished in Cuba in the middle of the last century.
The architect insists the investigation will net ''a wealth of ideas, not definitive solutions'' to rescue and protect the city of Havana once democratic change takes hold on the island.
''This will be an invaluable reference document, but we won't pretend to impose our vision on the architects and urban planners that will assume the revitalization of the that city,'' he said.
For guidance, the architectural study will be based on the study of geographical plans of the city and information culled via satellite, complemented with recent photos of the facades of buildings and entire neighborhood blocks in Havana.
For the historical data, they have scoured copies of the Archives of the Indies, Cuba's national library and the University of Havana, and they have numerous anonymous collaborators on the island.
Before launching the project, its supporters said they were open to input from professors, architects and individuals, but they never imagined the positive response they received from residents.
''The cooperation of the people of Cuba has been very touching,'' said Quintana, who left the island in 1960 and has never returned to his native country.
''More than 500 photographs have been sent to us by different means and sometimes in blind e-mails, or a CD is dropped in the mail,'' he said. ``We've had many people offer their help. In reality, the help of my fellow countrymen has touched me and has made me push harder for this study.''
To prepare the mock-ups of the Malecón, Quintana used photos of the area, building by building, that surrounds the Malecón in the neighborhoods that border Old Havana and the tunnel leading to Almendares.
The study's promoters admit that Cuban authorities have been aware of the project since its inception. In November, the University of Alicante in Spain announced that Cuba's historical society had viewed proposals to modernize the Malecón.
''We have not hidden information about our study,'' Quintana said. ``We have only refused to cooperate with the destroyers of the Cuban way of life, because this project is to develop freedom and I believe that's how the project is viewed by the young people inside the island who are helping us.''
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Wednesday, 26 December 2007
Makeover designed for Havana's Malecón
25 feared dead in Cuba-to-USA voyage
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WSJ.com - Cuban Revolution
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Dec. 26, 2007 Cuban Weekly News Digest
Cuban Weekly News Digest - "A compilation of news articles about Cuba, distributed since 1992 in order to encourage a balanced understanding of the Cuban situation and to promote investments in the Republic of Cuba"
The Daily Telegraph – UK - Fidel Castro's successor could be one of two younger officials, dubbed "good cop" and "bad cop" by US intelligence analysts. The Cuban dictator, 81, said in a letter read out on state television last week that he had a duty not to hold on to power nor to obstruct the rise of the "younger generation". It was the first time he had conceded that he might never return to power after he was taken ill with intestinal bleeding last year. Since then, his brother Raul, 76, has been in command of the Caribbean island.
American spy chiefs have now begun to rethink their previous assumption that Cuban communism will collapse after Castro's death, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. Instead, they expect the future of the nation to be decided by a power struggle between two younger men. The "good cop" is Carlos Lage Davila, 56. As his country's economics tsar, the former doctor is credited with negotiating the favourable deal with Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, to import oil to Cuba - an arrangement that has mitigated the effects of the US economic embargo against the island.
His rival is Felipe Perez Roque, 42, the foreign minister. He is the "bad cop", regarded as a firebrand more likely to fight real reforms. An intelligence source said: "It will come down to Lage or Roque. Whoever wins will determine the speed and nature of reforms in Cuba." Dan Erikson, a Cuba specialist at Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think-tank, said: "Lage is seen as being more sophisticated, mature and diplomatic. Perez Roque is younger and likely to play the role of attack dog. "If you want someone to do a trade deal, you send Lage. If you want someone to deliver a tirade at the UN, you send Perez Roque."
The US government remains committed to the view that Cuban communism will disintegrate when Castro dies, but CIA analysts and the state department are now preparing plans to deal with slower political change. Central to this is an assessment that Cuba's leaders have persuaded Castro that if he wants his revolution to survive his death, he needs to help the handover of power. In his letter, Castro said: "My basic duty is not to cling to office, nor obstruct the rise of people much younger."
Emirates Business 24/7 - Leisure Canada (LCN), a Vancouver-based developer of luxury resorts in Cuba, said its board has approved a deal to sell 46 per cent of the company to Profile Investments, a firm based in Dubai. The two-step transaction, announced on Friday, is valued at C$20 million (Dh74m). Under the deal, Leisure will issue 60m shares and half-warrant units to Profile at 25 cents each to raise C$15m (Dh55.5m). In addition, Profile and affiliates have agreed to invest C$5m (Dh18.5m) in the company's operating subsidiary, Wilton Properties.
Profile Investments is an investment company with global interests in real estate and related services. "This agreement will provide Leisure Canada with the backing of a vertically integrated global real estate developer," said Walter Berukoff, executive chairman of the Canadian developer. "All of the elements are now in place to accelerate development of our world-class asset base in Cuba and become that nation's premier hospitality and real estate development company."
Profile Investments is a member of the Profile Group, which has substantial interests in Dubai, including projects on the Waterfront and The World development of manmade islands. Its interests range from real estate consulting and engineering, design and architecture as well as partnerships with global real estate sales and development operations. The group is active in the UAE, Oman, Morocco, Spain and Cape Verde. In Dubai, its projects include five residential towers at Dubai Sports City; 12 residential, commercial and hotel towers at Dubai Waterfront; 10 residential buildings in International City (pictured above); four buildings in Dubailand; the development of the Island of Thailand on The World into a spa and residential resort; development of the Island of Ireland as an up-market retreat; and six villas in Emirates Hills.
The transaction envisions Profile and its associates buying 46 per cent of Leisure Canada's issued capital on a fully diluted basis at the time of closing. This will result in the issuance of 60m units at 25 cents each for aggregate proceeds of C$15m. Each unit would be composed of one class 'A' share (common share) plus one-half warrant. One full warrant would entitle the holder to purchase one additional common share of Leisure Canada for a period of 24 months after the closing date at a price of 35 cents per warrant share. The company will extend the term of the warrants for a further 24 months at an exercise price of 40 cents in the third year and 45 cents in the fourth.
Profile and its associates will also acquire a 25 per cent holding of the outstanding capital of Wilton by means of the subscription of new shares in Wilton for C$5m. Two Profile directors will sit on the Leisure Canada board, while Berukoff remains as chairman for at least the next five years. Hanif Patel, founder and chairman of the Profile Group, said his company is "extremely excited about the synergies that will arise from this investment". "We can help them market their products and, at the same time, offer this exotic market to our client base of more than 30,000 investors. With almost C$20m in new capital, and with further capital injections planned, Leisure Canada will be extremely well positioned to complete existing projects and acquire new assets in Cuba," he added. The transaction is scheduled to close on February 29, 2008.
(Reuters) - CIENFUEGOS - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez proposed extending a barter scheme used by Cuba to other Caribbean and Central American nations to help them pay for oil supplies with products and services. At a summit of his growing regional energy alliance, Petrocaribe, the leftist firebrand attacked the United States and other rich consumer nations for squandering their unfair share of world resources. "In spite of the Yankees, our oil and gas will always be at the service, first of Venezuela, and at the same time of our brother nations of Latin American and the Caribbean," he said.
"We have begun to create a new geopolitics of oil that is not at the service of the interests of imperialism and big capitalists," Chavez said in a speech. Chavez, the fiercest antagonist of the United States in the region despite being a major US oil supplier, opened a revamped Soviet-era refinery in Cienfuegos, Cuba that will supply diesel, gasoline and jet fuel to members of Petrocaribe.
The Petrocaribe alliance, which has bolstered Chavez's regional influence since it started in 2005, grew to 17 countries with the entry of Honduras, a traditional US ally. Guatemala's president-elect also wants to join. Chavez said the debts of Petrocaribe members to Venezuela has reached $1.16 billion in little more than a year of preferentially financed supplies, and is estimated to rise to $4.6 billion by 2010. He proposed debts be offset by local products and services, following the example of Cuba, which has sent 20,000 doctors and teachers to Venezuela in exchange for crude and refined products now estimated to value $3 billion a year. "We propose adding to the financed portion of the oil bill a method of payment that includes the supply of a series of local products and services," he said.
Venezuelan Energy and Petroleum Minister Rafael Ramirez said the barter scheme had worked very well for Venezuela. "It has allowed us to lift up our health system and education," Ramirez told reporters. Petrocaribe allows members to defer payment on 40 percent of their Venezuelan oil bill for up to 25 years, with interest of only 1 percent. Critics say the deal supplies oil at market prices and is increasing the indebtedness of small Caribbean states. Billboards featuring Chavez and ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro greeted the Venezuelan president in Cienfuegos, a port city 160 miles (256 km) southwest of Havana.
Chavez has helped Cuba's economically battered economy stay afloat with 92,000 barrels per day of crude oil paid for by the medical services of Cuban doctors treating Venezuela's poor. In addition, Cuba has started receiving crude shipments for the 65,000-bpd Cienfuegos refinery, a joint venture between Cuban state oil company CUPET and Venezuelan counterpart PDVSA, which has invested $166 million in restarting the plant. The refinery was mothballed 12 years ago after the Soviet Union collapsed, depriving Cuba of subsidized oil supplies and technology and plunging it into a deep economic crisis.
The Cienfuegos refinery will produce fuel oil, diesel, gasoline and jet fuel for the Cuban domestic market and for export to Nicaragua, Belize, Honduras and Haiti. At its opening, Chavez said Petrocaribe planned to build 10 refineries and refurbish another eight at a cost of $22 billion over the next 10 years to cover the region's supply of refined products. Raul Castro, running Cuba since his brother underwent stomach surgery 16 months ago, said the US trade embargo had prevented Cuba from operating the Cienfuegos refinery since 1995. "It has not been easy to keep our socialist revolution going with a fierce enemy 90 miles (145 km) away, but we are here to stay," he said.
Leaders from Venezuela, Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Guyana, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Haiti, Jamaica, Nicaragua and Cuba attended the meeting, while Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago were for a first time observers. Representatives from the Caribbean Community, the Association of American States and the Organization of East Caribbean States were also present in this port city, 155 miles southeastern Havana.
HAVANA - Fidel Castro remains on the mend, gaining weight, exercising twice a day and continuing to help make the Cuban government's top decisions, his brother Raul Castro says. The island's acting president gave the first clues about his brother's health in weeks, saying during a Monday speech that he has a "healthier mentality, full use of his mental faculties with some small physical limitations." At 76, Raul is five years younger than his ailing brother, who has not been seen in public since announcing he had undergone emergency intestinal surgery and was stepping down in favor of a provisional government in July 2006.
But the younger Castro said his brother remains a key voice in government and that Communist Party leaders support his re-election to Cuba's parliament, the National Assembly — a move that could allow Fidel Castro to keep his post as president of the Council of State. "We consult him on principal matters and that is why we the leaders of the party defend his right to run again as deputy of the National Assembly as a first step," Raul Castro said. Though Fidel Castro's condition and even his exact illness are state secrets, he has officially retained his post atop Cuba's supreme governing body, the Council of State. Parliamentary elections take place Jan. 20.
Last week, the older Castro suggested he would not cling to power forever, nor stand in the way of a younger generation of leaders. It was the first time he hinted at his political future since falling ill, though Raul's comments Monday could indicate his brother has no intention of retiring permanently. Through daily exercise, Fidel "has recovered a lot of weight and muscle mass," he said, speaking to voters in Fidel's voting district in Santiago, an eastern city where the brothers spent part of their youth. He said Fidel asked him to visit voters and trump up support for him because he was unable to personally.
In afternoon remarks that were carried nationwide on Cuban state television Monday evening, Raul said his brother "has more time, he's reading more than ever. He's meditating more than ever and writing almost more than ever." Speaking of Cuba's electoral system, Raul Castro noted that U.S. democracy pits two identical parties against one another, and joked that a choice between a Republican and Democrat is like choosing between himself and his brother Fidel. "We could say in Cuba we have two parties: one led by Fidel and one led by Raul, what would be the difference?" he asked. "That's the same thing that happens in the United States ... both are the same. Fidel is a little taller than me, he has a beard and I don't."
Raul scoffed at the notion Cuba needs to be more like the U.S. But he also acknowledged that the island's communist government has its flaws, saying "our system has to become more democratized." But he did not elaborate on what a more democratic Cuba might look like. "I want to say this: If we only have one party that represents the interests of the people, where we can have differences, we should have them," he said. "Not class clashes, but it's good to have differences."
Havana - (acn) - Cuban Government Minister Ricardo Cabrisas said in Beijing that 2007 was a fruitful year in the development of bilateral economic relations between Cuba and China. Speaking in the plenary session of the 20th China-Cuba Intergovernmental Commission that took place in the Chinese capital, Cabrisas recalled that both countries cooperate and have good relations in many fields such as trade, biotechnology, agriculture, communications, education, public health and science.
According to Prensa Latina news agency, Cabrisas and the Chinese Deputy Minister of Trade, Wei Jianguo, signed the final accord of the meeting that includes the results of bilateral cooperation in 2007 and the priorities for 2008. The Cuban Minister of Information Technologies and Telecommunications, Ramiro Valdes, also participated in the commission. Valdes is in China for a working visit that includes talks with Chinese political and government officials and also with businesspeople. The Cuban delegation also included the island's ambassador to Beijing, Carlos Miguel Pereira and the vice ministers of Information Technologies, Alberto Rodriguez Arufe, and Foreign Investment, Ramon Ripoll.
During the meeting, it was announced that there was a 23% growth in the bilateral trade in the year 2007, which makes China the second commercial partner of Cuba, only behind Venezuela, and the first client of Cuban products. For their part, the Chinese authorities noted that Cuba is their main commercial partner in the Caribbean and is among the top ten in Latin America. In this session, Cuba introduced a formal petition for the use in local projects of soft loans offered by the Asian giant during the 2nd China-Caribbean Forum held earlier this year.HAVANA (AP) - He fled Cuba in 1961, but still calls Fidel Castro his friend. He can't stand communism, but bitterly opposes the U.S. embargo. He lives in Miami, but travels regularly to Havana, even appearing on state-run television. Max Lesnik always has an opinion, and often makes someone mad - no matter which side of the Florida Straits he's on. "It's always been up to me to be critical. I've always been with the opposition, not with one government or the other," says Lesnik, a Cuban revolutionary-turned-South Florida radio commentator, in an interview with The Associated Press. "I don't talk out of both sides of my mouth," he adds. "What I say here, I say in Miami. What I say in Miami, I say here."
'Here' is the sixth-floor executive lounge of Havana's iconic Hotel Nacional. Lesnik slouches in an armchair by a window overlooking sparkling Caribbean waters when his cell phone rings. He laughs, then hangs up. "The deputy director of my radio program says there's a rumor going around in Miami that I had an accident and I've gotten killed," he explains. "I just said, 'Don't deny anything. Say you don't know if I'm in the hospital, or what. See what happens."' There have often been questions about the well-being of Lesnik, now 76. Arriving in Miami nearly 47 years ago, he spent close to two decades publishing "Replica," a Spanish-language magazine whose offices in Little Havana were bombed 11 times, allegedly by anti-Castro hard-liners in the Cuban exile community who opposed his calls to do away with the American embargo.
Lesnik's life and politics are chronicled in "The Man of Two Havanas," a documentary directed by his 45-year-old youngest daughter, Vivien Lesnik Weisman, which screened this month at the New Latin American Cinema festival. Shot over 2 1/2 years in Havana, the Cuban capital, and Little Havana, the Miami Cuban district, the film tells of Lesnik's political activism, friendship with Castro, and early efforts to generate revolutionary propaganda when the bearded rebels took to the mountains of eastern Cuba.
Lesnik hosted a Cuban radio program after Castro's forces toppled dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959, but became disillusioned as Cuba deepened ties with Soviet Union. He finally declared on the air that he was no communist, and motored to the United States in January 1961 aboard a small boat with 13 other former rebel collaborators. His wife and two daughters arrived two months later. Lesnik founded "Replica" in his Miami garage in 1968, gaining readers and detractors as he proclaimed his continued fondness for Castro. "He was a fighter who ended up selling himself to Castroism," said Huber Matos, a former officer in Castro's rebel army who eventually quit, was charged with treason and spent 22 years in prison before seeking exile in the United States.
In a telephone interview from Miami, Matos said he and many other Cuban exiles have "zero respect for Max Lesnik." "The Man of Two Havanas" includes footage of a U.S. television interview where Lesnik shows off the pistol he once carried for protection. His daughter recalls on-screen how he always sat facing the windows in Florida restaurants to spot would-be attackers. Lesnik first returned to Cuba in 1978, and became a frequent visitor after the Soviet Union collapsed. He formally patched things up with Castro, and met many times with him - though he has not seen the Cuban leader since he underwent emergency intestinal surgery and ceded power to his younger brother Raul in July 2006.
Vivien Lesnik Weisman was supposed to have dinner with her father and Castro in 1996, but had to return to the U.S. when her then husband was hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer. Castro later used Lesnik's cell phone to call her. "I remember he made a joke saying U.S. intelligence is now trying to figure out what the code word 'ulcer' means," said the filmmaker, who returned to Havana with her father for the documentary's debut. The elder Lesnik has become increasingly friendly with Cuban officialdom in recent years. He won a Cuban journalism prize this summer, and has appeared on state television's leading news talk show.
Lesnik makes no apologies, noting that he defended the Cuban exile community during one such appearance. "I said it may look like Miami is a slave to the extreme right ... but deep down there is a current of tolerance and support for differing opinions," Lesnik said. "If it were unanimous in Miami, I couldn't live there." His daughter, still shopping for U.S. distributors, hopes her documentary will be shown at the Miami International Film Festival in February. That might enrage some exiles, she says, but "I think it's a dialogue Miami's ready to have."South Florida Business Journal - Florida associations and their members should plan now for the day the United States lifts its embargo on doing business with Cuba, a white paper released by the Florida Society of Association Executives Foundation said. "Associations need to become well-informed about Cuba and possible future developments," author Aida Levitan said in a news release. "They should educate their membership about the challenges and opportunities that may arise in a post-embargo Cuba." Levitan is president and chief executive officer of Miami-based public relations firm Levitan & Palencia.
The white paper lists opportunities for post-embargo businesses, including joint ventures with Cuban counterparts, training and mentoring, and promoting business opportunities in Cuba for members of Florida associations. "Given the possible window of opportunity that may arise after Fidel Castro dies, there is a sense of urgency for those organizations that already know they will want to do business with Cuba," the paper says. "These groups need to examine the situation and prepare a strategic plan that responds to different transition scenarios. Each scenario has different risks, consequences, and rewards and needs that must be examined -- with the clear understanding that there is no certainty about Cuba's future."
Levitan said other states are ahead of Florida in planning to take advantage of a transition to a new government in Cuba, and said U.S. law must be changed before Florida associations can take full advantage of opportunities to do business in a post-Castro Cuba. The paper is based on a FSAE think tank earlier this year that discussed the impact on Florida of a post-Castro Cuba.
Santiago de Cuba - (Prensa Latina) - Three years after Vision Now program (Operation Miracle) began, one million persons have benefited from free eye surgery, said Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage on Sunday. Those free eye surgeries allowed people from 28 countries of the so called Third World to recover their vision or heal from different ophthalmological problems. Lage made the announcement after the signing 14 new Cuba-Venezuela integration agreements, which were attended by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuban First Vice President Raul Castro.
Since July 10, 2004, in which the first eye surgeries were made, Cuba boosted this project to preserve and recover vision of at least six million low income Latin American and Caribbean people. Cuban doctors and technicians, with the support of the leading edge ophthalmologic technology, create conditions to annually operate about one million patients, in the framework of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA).
Meanwhile, Hugo Chavez became the first foreign citizen to receive the replica of the machete of Cuban independence war hero Antonio Maceo, and the shield of Santiago de Cuba Hero City. Both distinctions were awarded to Chavez in a solemn ceremony held at Melia-Santiago Hotel s Libertad Hall. Raul Castro, Carlos Lage, and Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque, as well as other other government officials from both countries, attended the ceremony.
International Herald Tribune - Through accidents of geography and history, Cuba is a priceless ecological resource. That is why many scientists are so worried about what will become of it after Fidel Castro and his associates leave power and, as is widely anticipated, the American government relaxes or ends its trade embargo. Cuba, by far the region's largest island, sits at the confluence of the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. Its mountains, forests, swamps, coasts and marine areas are rich in plants and animals, some seen nowhere else. And since the imposition of the embargo in 1962, and especially with the collapse in 1991 of the Soviet Union, its major economic patron, Cuba's economy has stagnated.
Cuba has not been free of development, including Soviet-style top-down agricultural and mining operations and, in recent years, an expansion of tourism. But it also has an abundance of landscapes that elsewhere in the region have been ripped up, paved over, poisoned or otherwise destroyed in the decades since the Cuban revolution, when development has been most intense. Once the embargo ends, the island could face a flood of investors from the United States and elsewhere, eager to exploit those landscapes. Conservationists, environmental lawyers and other experts, from Cuba and elsewhere, met last month in Cancún, Mexico, to discuss the island's resources and how to continue to protect them. Cuba has done "what we should have done — identify your hot spots of biodiversity and set them aside," said Oliver Houck, a professor of environmental law at Tulane University Law School who attended the conference.
In the late 1990s, Houck was involved in an effort, financed in part by the MacArthur Foundation, to advise Cuban officials writing new environmental laws. But, he said in an interview, "an invasion of U.S. consumerism, a U.S.-dominated future, could roll over it like a bulldozer" when the embargo ends. By some estimates, tourism in Cuba is increasing 10 percent annually. At a minimum, Orlando Rey Santos, the Cuban lawyer who led the law-writing effort, said in an interview at the conference, "we can guess that tourism is going to increase in a very fast way" when the embargo ends. "It is estimated we could double tourism in one year," said Rey, who heads environmental efforts at the Cuban ministry of science, technology and environment.
About 700 miles long and about 100 miles wide at its widest, Cuba runs from Haiti west almost to the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico. It offers crucial habitat for birds, like Bicknell's thrush, whose summer home is in the mountains of New England and Canada, and the North American warblers that stop in Cuba on their way south for the winter. Zapata Swamp, on the island's southern coast, may be notorious for its mosquitoes, but it is also known for its fish, amphibians, birds and other creatures. Among them is the Cuban crocodile, which has retreated to Cuba from a range that once ran from the Cayman Islands to the Bahamas.
Cuba has the most biologically diverse populations of freshwater fish in the region. Its relatively large underwater coastal shelves are crucial for numerous marine species, including some whose larvae can be carried by currents into waters of the United States, said Ken Lindeman, a marine biologist at Florida Institute of Technology. Lindeman, who did not attend the conference but who has spent many years studying Cuba's marine ecology, said in an interview that some of these creatures were important commercial and recreational species like the spiny lobster, grouper or snapper. Like corals elsewhere, those in Cuba are suffering as global warming raises ocean temperatures and acidity levels. And like other corals in the region, they reeled when a mysterious die-off of sea urchins left them with algae overgrowth. But they have largely escaped damage from pollution, boat traffic and destructive fishing practices.
Diving in them "is like going back in time 50 years," said David Guggenheim, a conference organizer and an ecologist and member of the advisory board of the Harte Research Institute, which helped organize the meeting along with the Center for International Policy, a private group in Washington. In a report last year, the World Wildlife Fund said that "in dramatic contrast" to its island neighbors, Cuba's beaches, mangroves, reefs, seagrass beds and other habitats were relatively well preserved. Their biggest threat, the report said, was "the prospect of sudden and massive growth in mass tourism when the U.S. embargo lifts."
To prepare for that day, researchers from a number of American institutions and organizations are working on ecological conservation in Cuba, including Harte, the Wildlife Conservation Society, universities like Tulane and Georgetown, institutions like the American Museum of Natural History and the New York Botanical Garden, and others. What they are studying includes coral health, fish stocks, shark abundance, turtle migration and land use patterns. Cuban scientists at the conference noted that this work continued a tradition of collaboration that dates from the mid-19th century, when Cuban researchers began working with naturalists from the Smithsonian Institution. In the 20th century, naturalists from Harvard and the University of Havana worked together for decades.
But now, they said, collaborative relationships are full of problems. The Cancún meeting itself illustrated one. "We would have liked to be able to do this in Havana or in the United States," Jorge Luis Fernández Chamero, the director of the Cuban science and environment agency and leader of the Cuban delegation, said through a translator in opening the meeting. "This we cannot do." While the American government grants licenses to some (but not all) American scientists seeking to travel to Cuba, it routinely rejects Cuban researchers seeking permission to come to the United States, researchers from both countries said.
So meeting organizers turned to Alberto Mariano Vázquez De la Cerda, a retired admiral in the Mexican navy, an oceanographer with a doctorate from Texas A & M and a member of the Harte advisory board, who supervised arrangements for the Cuban conferees. The travel situation is potentially even worse for researchers at state institutions in Florida. Jennifer Gebelein, a geographer at Florida International University who uses global positioning systems to track land use in Cuba, told the meeting about restrictions imposed by the Florida Legislature, which has barred state colleges from using public or private funds for travel to Cuba.
As a result of this move and federal restrictions, Gebelein said "we're not sure what is going to happen" with her research program. On the other hand, John Thorbjarnarson, a zoologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society, said that he had difficulty obtaining permission from Cuba to visit some areas in that country, like a habitat area for the Cuban crocodile near the Bay of Pigs. "I have to walk a delicate line between what the U.S. allows me to do and what the Cubans allow me to do," said Thorbjarnarson, who did not attend the conference. "It is not easy to walk that line." But he had nothing but praise for his scientific colleagues in Cuba. Like other American researchers, he described them as doing highly competent work with meager resources. "They are a remarkable bunch of people," Thorbjarnarson said, "but my counterparts make on average probably less than $20 a month."
American scientists, foundations and other groups are ready to help with equipment and supplies but are hampered by the embargo. For example, Maria Elena Ibarra Martín, a marine scientist at the University of Havana, said through a translator that American organizations had provided Cuban turtle and shark researchers with tags and other equipment. They shipped it via Canada. Another thorny issue is ships. "If you are going to do marine science, at some point you have to go out on a ship," said Robert Hueter, who directs the center for shark research at the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida, and attended the Cancún meeting. But, he and others said, the United States government will not allow ships into American ports if they have recently been in Cuban waters in the previous six months, and the Cuban government will not allow American research vessels in Cuban waters.
One answer might be vessels already in Cuba, but nowadays they are often tied up in tourism-related efforts, Cubans at the Cancún meeting said. And even with a ship, several American researchers at the conference said, it is difficult to get Cuban government permission to travel to places like the island's northwest coast, the stretch closest to the United States. As a result, that region is the least-studied part of the Cuban coast, Guggenheim and others said. Another big problem in Cuba is the lack of access to a source of information researchers almost everywhere else take for granted: the Internet. Critics blame the Castro government, saying it limits access to the Internet as a form of censorship. The Cuban government blames the embargo, which it says has left the country with inadequate bandwidth and other technical problems that require it to limit Internet access to people who need it most.
In any event, "we find we do not have access," Teresita Borges Hernández, a biologist in the environment section of Cuba's science and technology ministry, said through a translator. She appealed to the Americans at the meeting to do "anything, anything to improve this situation." Guggenheim echoed the concern and said even telephone calls to Cuba often cost as much as $2 a minute. "These details, though they may seem trite," he said, "are central to our ability to collaborate." Gebelein and several of the Cubans at the meeting said that some American Web sites barred access to people whose electronic addresses identify them as Cuban. She suggested that the group organize a Web site in a third country, a site where they could all post data, papers and the like, and everyone would have access to it.
For Guggenheim, the best lessons for Cubans to ponder as they contemplate a more prosperous future can be seen 90 miles north, in the Florida Keys. There, he said, too many people have poured into an ecosystem too fragile to support them. "As Cuba becomes an increasingly popular tourist resort," Guggenheim said, "we don't want to see and they don't want to see the same mistakes, where you literally love something to death." But there are people skeptical that Cuba will resist this kind of pressure. One of them is Houck. The environmental laws he worked on are "a very strong structure," he said, "But all laws do is give you the opportunity to slow down the wrong thing. Over time, you can wear the law down."
That is particularly true in Cuba, he said, "where there's no armed citizenry out there with high-powered science groups pushing in the opposite direction. What they lack is the counter pressure of environmental groups and environmental activists." As Rey and Daniel Whittle, a lawyer for Environmental Defense, put it in the book "Cuban Studies 37" (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006), "policymaking in Cuba is still centralized and top down." But, they wrote, "much can be done to enhance public input in policymaking." Rey said in the interview that Cubans must be encouraged to use their environmental laws. By "some kind of cultural habit," he said, people in Cuba rarely turn to the courts to challenge decisions they dislike. "There's no litigation, just a few cases here and there," Rey said. "In most community situations if a citizen has a problem he writes a letter. That's O.K., but it's not all the possibilities." Rey added, "We have to promote more involvement, not only in access to justice and claims, but in taking part in the decision process." "I know the state has a good system from the legislative point of view," Rey said. But as he and Whittle noted in their paper, "the question now is whether government leaders can and will do what it takes to put the plan on the ground."
Havana - (Prensa Latina) - Spanish companies are reaffirming their choice of Cuba as a favorite tourist destination, with airlines inaugurating trips to the island and companies from diverse spheres publicizing this destination in the world. Company spokespersons gave Prensa Latina the recent example of Spanish Aircomet airline's presentation in the Cuban capital and its journal "Lugares," which, in a a ceremony at Cuba's National Hotel, highlighting its trips as well to Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Italy, England and Spain.
Cuba is now a host to Aircomet, the only Spanish company to buy the new Airbus 380, the largest airplane in the world, to begin providing services by the first quarter of 2010. By 2009, the airline will have a total fleet of 19 top-drawer airplanes and will have 19 international flights by next year, up from 13. The journal "Lugares", produced by the Spanish company "Mas Viajes," intends to be the ambassador publication of Cuban culture in Spain and the world. Spain constitutes one of the main tourist markets for Cuba that for the fourth consecutive year - welcomes more than two million world travelers.
Kiev - (Prensa Latina) - Cuban Ambassador to the Ukraine Julio Garmendia stressed the work done by tourist firms and national media specialized in promoting and sending visitors to the Island. Krilia TV, a promoter of tourist materials in Ukrainian media, was in charge of covering the meeting with the said entities held at the Cuban Embassy. Garmendia, as well as Cuba's Economic-Commercial Counselor to Ukraine Nelida Guerra, and Consular Affairs Chief Miraly Gonzalez awarded prizes to six firms boasting the best results in the commercialization of Cuba as a tourist destination, including tour operators Turisticheski Club, Verano, Tez-tour, Ispatur, Megapolus and Sputnik. The number of Ukrainian tourists who visited the Island grew 36 percent this year.
Santa Clara - (Prensa Latina) - Scientists from the Central University of Las Villas are making fuel from waste of the sugar industry, in a process that does not affect production of food for human consumption. The study, currently in its lab trial phase, envisages obtaining biodiesel from a waxy waste eliminated in the process of clarification of sugarcane juice, Cuban National News Agency (AIN) reported. Director of Las Villas University Analysis and Processes Center, Gretell Villanueva, said the process differs from the normal worldwide manner of producing biofuels from vegetable oils obtained from grains, including corn and soy, which are earmarked for the human diet.
HAVANA - (AFP) - Visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and acting Cuban President Raul Castro signed agreements in the energy, mining and oil sectors, including a 170-million-dollar deal to build a new power plant. The agreements, closing a four-day visit by Chavez to Cuba, also include a 122-dollar loan for Cuba to buy tanker ships to transport crude oil and its derivatives. Two agreements will almost double the new southeastern Cienfuegos oil refinery's capacity from 65,000 to 150,000 barrels per day, and reopen an oil pipeline between the eastern Matanzas and the refinery, located 260 kilometers (160 miles) south of Havana.
Two agreements provide a 170-million-dollar loan to build a new power plant in northeastern Holguin and expand the existing power network supplying Havana. During his visit, Chavez met with ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro, inaugurated the Cienfuegos refinery and attended the fourth summit of Petrocaribe, a Venezuelan initiative to provide oil to Caribbean neighbors at preferential prices. Cuba imports about 92,000 barrels a day of Venezuelan oil, some of it paid indirectly by supplying Venezuela with 36,000 Cuban workers, most of them medical doctors.
COOLIDGE, Antigua - (CMC) - Cuba will not be playing in the 2008 Stanford Twenty20 Cup, organisers announced. Due to the United States embargo against Cuba, organisations and American citizens such as Sir Allen Stanford have to apply and receive special permission from the United States Government to conduct any type of activity with that Caribbean nation. Much to the disappointment of Sir Allen and the West Indies legends working with him, Sir Allen's application was denied.
"We have been anxious to include the entire Caribbean in the Stanford Twenty20 Cup, and I am extremely disappointed that Cuba will not be able to play," Sir Allen said in a news release. "Stanford Twenty20 is requesting that the denial from the United States Government be reconsidered and we are exploring every option to secure their future participation." The news comes as a huge disappointment to the Cuba team as well. It has been training intensely with the help of West Indies fast bowling legend Courtney Walsh for what was to be their first official competition outside of their homeland. "We were looking forward to seeing what the heavily baseball-influenced nation could do with a cricket bat," Sir Allen added.
Cuba was scheduled to play in the first match of the competition against St. Maarten on January 25. As a result of the team being unable to participate, St. Maarten will automatically advance to the second round to face St. Vincent and the Grenadines on February 1. The opening ceremony has been rescheduled for January 26 and will be followed by the second match on the original schedule featuring St. Lucia and the Cayman Islands.
International Herald Tribune - Catching Americans who travel illegally to Cuba or who purchase cigars, rum or other products from the island may be distracting some American government agencies from higher-priority missions like fighting terrorism and combating narcotics trafficking, a government audit to be released Wednesday says. The report, from the Government Accountability Office, says that Customs and Border Protection, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, conducts secondary inspections on 20 percent of charter passengers arriving from Cuba at Miami International Airport, more than six times the inspection rate for other international arrivals, even from countries considered shipment points for narcotics.
The high rate of inspections and the numerous seizures of relatively benign contraband "have strained CBP's capacity to carry out its primary mission of keeping terrorists, criminals and inadmissible aliens from entering the country at Miami International Airport," says the audit, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times. The audit also called on the Treasury Department to scrutinize the priorities of its Office of Foreign Assets Control, which enforces more than 20 economic and trade sanctions programs, including those aimed at freezing terrorists' assets and restricting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, but has long focused on Cuba.
From 2000 to 2006, 61 percent of the agency's investigation and penalty caseload involved Cuba embargo cases. Over that period, the office opened 10,823 investigations into possible violations involving Cuba and just 6,791 investigations on all other cases, the audit found. Critics of the American embargo on Cuba seized on the report as clear evidence that Washington's policy, which began in the Kennedy administration and has grown more stringent ever since, was outdated. "This is not good policy," said Representative Charles Rangel, a New York Democrat, who requested the report a year ago with Representative Barbara Lee, also a Democrat, of California. "It's vindictive. It's stupid. It's costly. And now we find out it's a threat to our national security."
The State Department, in a statement responding to the audit, said enforcing the Trading With the Enemy Act, which prohibits Americans from spending money in Cuba without authorization from Washington, remained an important tool to isolate the Cuban regime. Loosening the embargo, which the leading Democratic presidential candidates have called for in the campaign, would "provide increased revenue to the successor dictatorship run by Raul Castro, and prolong its tight control over all aspects of Cuban life," the State Department said. The Bush administration's tightening of the Cuba sanctions in 2004 appears to have discouraged many Americans from visiting the island. Manuel Marrero, Cuba's tourism minister, acknowledged as much in a recent interview in Havana, blaming the "blockade," as Cubans call the embargo, for scaring Americans away.
"Sooner or later, there will be justice for the people of the United States, and they will be allowed to visit and share with our people," Marrero said. Even with the number of American visitors down 37,000 in 2006, from 84,500 in 2003, according to the Cuban government - the U.S. government devotes significant resources to pursuing those who still go. Most passengers arriving in Miami from Cuba are American citizens or residents who fly on charter flights and have American government permission to visit relatives on the island. But they are forbidden to bring Cuban products back to the United States. Still, searches regularly turn up cigars, bottles of rum and pharmaceutical items in the travelers' luggage.
Most of the charter flights from Cuba arrive in Miami around midday, with five flights landing between 11:30 and 11:40 a.m. and additional flights in the afternoon. As those passengers collect their luggage, most of the three secondary inspection facilities and most of the customs personnel are focused on them. As a result, the audit found, inspection of other arrivals is sometimes delayed. Most of the Americans who visit Cuba each year do not go directly from Miami but use third countries like Canada, Mexico, Jamaica or the Bahamas. Catching them is difficult but not impossible. In some cases, American immigration officials simply observe them getting off flights from Havana at foreign airports where the United States has a presence, officials say.
Pacific Magazine - The Cuban government reports that the 20 I-Kiribati medical students studying in Cuba have done well on their first year exam. All of them achieved distinctions in all subjects and the Cuban government is very proud of them, a report from the Caribbean nation said. Because of their achievements, Cuba has proposed to take-in another 30 students from Kiribati, so they can start their study from the beginning of next year. In related news, the Kiribati team took third place in the Spanish language competition among students studying in Cuba. Winning was the Cuban team and second was Pakistan.
Periodico 26 - Cuba's successful energy revolution will continue and expand in 2008 with an additional US $2 billion in investments planned, said Basic Industry Minister Yadira Garcia and other specialists on the televised Round Table program. When Cuba's energy revolution began in 2005 under the leadership and guidance of Fidel Castro, a barrel of oil was priced at US $46 on the world market; today, that same barrel is nearing $100. The price of oil alone validates the importance of the program, Garcia told a nationwide audience.
Besides improving living standards, the energy revolution is aimed at decreasing pollution, a modest contribution by Cuba towards the serious problem of climate change. The effort includes a radical change in the concepts of energy generation and consumption with an emphasis on awareness, said Garcia in an exchange with Council of Ministers Executive Committee Secretary Carlos Lage, who was also present at the Round Table program. Garcia noted that among the main results to date of the energy revolution are the elimination of blackouts caused by a supply deficit and the delivery of millions of efficient home appliances to families throughout the island. She said particular benefit was felt by the 75 percent of Cuban families who had previously cooked using kerosene, a fuel that besides being a high pollutant is energy inefficient.
The official pointed to the need to guarantee spare parts for the new electricity generator sets as well as for the home appliances that will be repaired at workshops belonging to the Ministry of Commerce. Garcia also acknowledged some deficiencies, "There have been some tasks that we haven't handled correctly and even some problems that took us by surprise." For example, the minister said that the service at the workshops has been insufficient and pointed to bureaucracy in paperwork, delays in granting credit to pay for the new appliances and other concerns expressed by the population. "These are things that concern us and that we are trying to resolve."
Garcia praised the participation of numerous institutions and organizations in the implementation of the energy revolution and the decisive contribution of the population. In just three years since the 2004 energy crisis, Cuba has increased its electricity generating capacity to a 4,700 megawatts capacity, 60 percent of which is produced under efficient conditions, said Vicente de la O, general director of the Union Electrica state power company. De la O recalled that the first task put in practice was to install emergency electricity generators to provide power at all key services and facilities, such as refrigeration for food products, bakeries, hospitals, and food processing plants.
There are currently 6,841 such generators installed at 4,778 workplaces around the country. These generators guarantee production and services in extreme situations such as those provoked by hurricanes and other phenomena. Besides, their occasional use during peak hours lowers the demand on the national electric grid and helps avoid blackouts, said the electric company executive. A key factor in overcoming a production deficit is the generator sets using diesel and fuel oil distributed throughout the country. The diesel generators can now produce 1,320 megawatts of which 1,200 goes into the national grid and the rest serves isolated systems that provide services in places like the cays, said De la O.
The official said there will soon be a total of 696 fuel-oil generators. He said all have been purchased and their assembly is under way. By the end of this year their installed capacity will reach 500 megawatts. De la O said that never before has the country been able to install a capability of such magnitude in such a short time and with numerous advantages. This was thanks to the fact that the generators are relatively easy to install, use less fuel, help reduce losses during distribution, operate with an electric input lower than thermoelectric plants and have independent start up systems. In case of an emergency, they can be transported easily to the place where they are needed.
De la O also gave a run down on the investments to increase the use of natural gas derived from the oil extraction process and to make use of hydraulic and wind resources to generate electricity. Another effort is being made to increase the capacity of fuel storage facilities and acquiring the specialized tools and transport vehicles needed for the brigades working on the power lines. He said that since May 2006, blackouts due to a generation deficit were eliminated and losses on distribution lines reduced, resulting in a savings of nearly US $200 million. Antonio Pias, an electric company representative, gave the TV viewers a detailed explanation on the rehabilitation of the distribution networks. He said that 2.9 million breakers have been installed in private homes and an additional 250,000 are still to be installed, mainly in the city of Havana, where distribution networks are more complex.
Pias said that the work to install new electricity poles, transformers and lines going to houses and buildings has progressed considerably. He noted that both primary and secondary distribution lines are being replaced. Investments made have made possible an increase in the national production of electric cables and transformers, he added. Pias recognized that losses of electricity in the distribution process and accidental interruptions of service continue to be high due to deteriorated lines and increased demand, especially from the residential sector. Nonetheless, he said a slow but gradual improvement is beginning to be seen.
The problem of low voltage areas are continuing to be eliminated said Pias. So far, 642,000 homes have seen their voltage situation improve with 240,000 still waiting. The official also spoke on advances in the electrification of homes and settlements and announced the beginning of an effort to rehabilitate street lighting in neighborhoods, beginning in the first quarter of 2008. A total of 22.5 million home appliances are now in the hands of the population, said Enrique Gomez, a member of the directorate of the Youth Communist League, and the head of the country's social worker program. Gomez spoke on the effort of the young social workers in the different tasks of the energy revolution.
Vice Minister of Interior Commerce Maria del Carmen Martinez, reported that there are now 600 workshops around the country to repair the new electrical appliances. She said that every one of Cuba's 169 municipalities has at least one repair workshop. The government has invested US $4.9 million to fix up installations being used for the workshops and to buy specialized tools and spare parts. To date, 4.5 million pieces of equipment have been repaired, some of which required adjustments in their operating mechanisms, which highlights the importance of providing the population with information on their use, said Martinez. Electric company official Ricardo Gonzalez notes that the area with the greatest potential for further savings is currently in the state sector, which he said is lagging behind others.
HAVANA - (Reuters) - Cuba may accept more foreign investment in agriculture to try to reduce food imports and revive state lands that have fallen into disuse, an official at the Foreign Investment and Cooperation Ministry told Reuters. "We are analyzing how to increase investment in the sector with the goal of substituting imports," said Anaiza Rodriguez, director of the Department of Investment Project Evaluation and Management. Acting Cuban President Raul Castro said in July the state of the state-dominated sector was unacceptable. Up to 50 percent of arable land lays fallow even as the cash-strapped country imports some $2 billion in food products a year.
Raul Castro said in July that agriculture should be restructured and new concepts applied but he did not elaborate. Raul Castro then called for more foreign investment in the country. Communist-run Cuba has been reluctant to open agriculture up to foreign investment. There is just one venture in the sector, to grow rice with Vietnam, according to the ministry. Rodriguez said Cuba was involved in a total of 233 joint ventures. "This is a different moment," Rodriguez said when asked if policy was changing and agriculture would become more investor friendly. "Food is our biggest import and we have to produce it here," she said, pointing to Raul Castro's July speech.
Cuba imports hundreds of thousands of tons of rice, soy products, wheat, corn and other bulk foods annually, around 25 percent from the United States under a 2000 amendment to the trade embargo that allows agricultural sales for cash. Rodriguez said the ministry was looking at proposals from Argentina, Venezuela and other Latin American as well as European countries to grow soy and other grains and cereals in Cuba, but would not say when agreements might be signed.
El Nuevo Herald - Havana's famed Malecón could become the future site of seven public gathering places that could modernize the popular avenue, yet still protect its urban tradition. The idea to reconstruct seven kilometers of the Malecón -- from a castle at one end to where it feeds into the mouth of the Almendares River -- is the final chapter of ''Havana and its Landscapes,'' a study aimed at the architectural rescue of the capital city under the auspices of Florida International University in Miami-Dade County.
In charge of the project is prominent Cuban architect Nicolás Quintana, a professor at FIU who has become an expert on the way Cuba looks today by poring over textbooks, photos, illustrations, maps and virtual images of island scenes. The result will be a two-volume book of almost 500 pages. It will first be published in English and later in Spanish by the end of next year, when an exposition is planned at FIU of 32 mock-ups of the Havana of the future. It will include 28 minutes of ''virtual reality'' footage showcasing local landscapes. There is also a symposium on the subject planned for November 2008.
Last week, Quintana put the final touches to the history of Havana in 38,000 words. He also evaluated the 12 mock-ups of the face-lift planned for the Malecón, done by a group of design school alumni. ''What we have done is find the seven points where people can congregate and will allow visitors and residents to enjoy the Malecón like the great urban icon that it is, and should continue to be in the future,'' said Quintana, 82. The sections of the Malecón selected as potential popular gathering spots are those that intersect with well-known avenues: Prado, Belascoaín, Galiano, La Rampa, Línea, Calle G and Paseo. Quintana considers that this concept will allow the Malecón to continue as ''Havana's great sofa,'' a place where people gather to socialize or eat an ice cream cone.
Begun in 2004 with a budget of $325,000, the project was conceived as a ''comprehensive and multifaceted'' study dealing with what is needed to rescue the city of Havana from its ruin without impacting its architectural flavor or urban identity. The idea for the architectural probe was conceived by Cuban-American urbanization experts Sergio Pino and Anthony Seijas. ''The radicalization of reconstructing everything can be as dangerous as actual destruction,'' Quintana said, noting that was one of the disciplines of modern architecture that flourished in Cuba in the middle of the last century. The architect insists the investigation will net ''a wealth of ideas, not definitive solutions'' to rescue and protect the city of Havana once democratic change takes hold on the island.
''This will be an invaluable reference document, but we won't pretend to impose our vision on the architects and urban planners that will assume the revitalization of the that city,'' he said. For guidance, the architectural study will be based on the study of geographical plans of the city and information culled via satellite, complemented with recent photos of the facades of buildings and entire neighborhood blocks in Havana. For the historical data, they have scoured copies of the Archives of the Indies, Cuba's national library and the University of Havana, and they have numerous anonymous collaborators on the island.
Before launching the project, its supporters said they were open to input from professors, architects and individuals, but they never imagined the positive response they received from residents. ''The cooperation of the people of Cuba has been very touching,'' said Quintana, who left the island in 1960 and has never returned to his native country. ''More than 500 photographs have been sent to us by different means and sometimes in blind e-mails, or a CD is dropped in the mail,'' he said. ``We've had many people offer their help. In reality, the help of my fellow countrymen has touched me and has made me push harder for this study.''
To prepare the mock-ups of the Malecón, Quintana used photos of the area, building by building, that surrounds the Malecón in the neighborhoods that border Old Havana and the tunnel leading to Almendares. The study's promoters admit that Cuban authorities have been aware of the project since its inception. In November, the University of Alicante in Spain announced that Cuba's historical society had viewed proposals to modernize the Malecón. ''We have not hidden information about our study,'' Quintana said. ``We have only refused to cooperate with the destroyers of the Cuban way of life, because this project is to develop freedom and I believe that's how the project is viewed by the young people inside the island who are helping us.''
Havana - (Prensa Latina) - Construction of more than 50,000 houses in Cuba in 2007 is a sign of gradual recovery of the sector in the Island, reported the main Cuban TV news program. In remarks to the program, Vice President of the National Housing Institute Oris Silva highlighted the effort made by different entities and the people to achieve this number, the third highest in the country's history.
She also referred to the more than 200,000 actions carried out to renovate or restore houses damaged by meteorological events, mainly in the provinces of Pinar del Rio, Cienfuegos and Granma. Silva announced that in 2008 the number of houses constructed will be very similar to this year and actions of restoration will involve another 250,000.
(Bloomberg) - Cuba's Cienfuegos refinery, set to be inaugurated Dec. 21, will increase its capacity to 109,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day, Panorama said, citing Raul Perez de Prado, the chief of the facility's operator. An upgrade of the refinery is under way, the Web site said. It will operate at full capacity at the end of 2008 and sell 40 percent of the output to Caribbean and Latin American nations, Panorama said. Initial capacity is 67,000 barrels a day.
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In 1999, OFAC (The Office of Foreign Assets Control of the United States Department of the Treasury in Washington, D.C.) confirmed that it had previously issued an opinion in 1994 which stated that a U.S. company or individual could make a secondary market investment in a "third-country company" that had commercial dealings with the Republic of Cuba as long as that investment in the "third-country company" was not a controlling interest and the "third-country company" did not derive a majority of it's revenues from operations in Cuba. (Therefore, under that criteria, U.S. citizens and companies can invest in a private or public Canadian company doing business with Cuba)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
James
Cuban Weekly News Digest
Friday, 21 December 2007
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Cuban Weekly News Digest
"Feliz Navidad y Feliz Año Nuevo"
Cuban Weekly News Digest - "A compilation of news articles about Cuba, distributed since 1992 in order to encourage a balanced understanding of the Cuban situation and to promote investments in the Republic of Cuba"
Vice Minister Joel Beltran Archer said that more than $1 billion already had been invested in the nation's public transport in three years as the country struggles to recover from a severe financial crisis in the early 1990s after the Soviet Union collapsed and
Al Jazeera –
Castro, who took power in a 1959 revolution, temporarily handed over power to his brother, Raul, in July 2006 after undergoing stomach surgery. But his reference to "younger people" seems to rule out Raul, who is only five years younger, stepping into his shoes permanently, Newman said, adding that it was not yet clear who would take their place. There has been much talk about Castro's health and his latest announcement will certainly fuel even more speculation, Newman said. But the 81-year-old leader also indicated that he was not about to simply fade from the scene, noting the example of famed Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer who is still working and to whom Castro paid homage with an essay to mark his 100th birthday on Saturday. "I think like Niemeyer that you have to be of consequence up to the end," Castro said.
Ahora.cu - Oris Silvia Fernández Hernández, first vice-president of the National Institute of Housing (INV), announced this Saturday in the capital that by the close of 2007 some 52,000 houses will have been completed in our country and some 180,000 repairs and renovations will have been carried out. This is a very accurate forecast, she said, although these figures won't mean the hundred percent execution of the strategic program of house building that the country has been implementing since the end of 2005. The number of rooms is considerably higher in comparison with other years and they have been erected despite of the affects of the
2007 will be the third year that Cuba has achieved important results in such a vital activity, though the larger quantity of finished houses was achieved the year before with 110,000 and, before that, with 57,000, the official explained to the press accredited the Sixth Congress of the National Union of Architects and Construction Engineers of Cuba (UNAICC). On the non-fulfilment she specified that there were more in the state sector than in the self building sector, although the first built more than the latter. One of the causes for the delay in the construction program for self build is related to the fact that the actions and the material resources were dedicated to the housing of the workers that were selected by the program of the CTC and that program has advanced very little, among other reasons for the lack of a specialized force in the decisive stages of the construction of new property, the official considered.
To this should be added the limitations of material resources, the misuse of those that were available, and the problems with the transport for the transfer of the materials in time to the supply yards, the lack of support of all the factors in the community and in the workplaces, and intermittent readiness of materials. At the same time as the important program of the house building, the country is continuing to pay special attention to the indemnity for the damages by meteorological damage and, in the current year, for the intense rains, fundamentally in the eastern region of the country. On the plans for 2008, she disclosed that up to the present, the construction of some 50,000 new houses and the realization of some 250,000 repairs and renovations were foreseen, which means a more real adjustment of our capacities and resources regarding what can be built and an increment in the renovation activities, something in answer to the population's requests and the directives of the Revolution.
Vancouver Sun – Vancouver, BC - If, like so many people, you became entranced by Cuban jazz a result of listening to the Buena Vista Social Club, now is your chance to hear the music live, in the country of its birth, at the 24th Annual Havana International Jazz Festival Feb. 14 to Feb. 17, 2008. Join Vancouverites Cory Weeds of the Cellar Restaurant and Jazz Club and Jeff Turner of Turner Music and Events for the Havana Jazz Tour, which includes not only the Festival, but visits to many other Cuban sites and events, from Feb. 10 to Feb. 18. Since 1984, the big names of world jazz have taken to the Havana Jazz Festival stage, including the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Charlie Haden and Chucho Valdes (2008 festival president).
The program has been designed for first-time visitors to get to know
The Motley Fool – Stock Commentary - It finally happened. Herzfeld Caribbean Basin Fund (Nasdaq: CUBA), a volatile closed-end fund that aims to cash in on a free
Shares of the publicly traded fund took off like guayabera sales in
However, the real speculative buzz took place in Herzfeld's fund. The fund owned many of these stocks, but the closed-end fund shares overshot the value of its holdings. It was not sustainable. Dan Caplinger warned you in January. I followed two weeks later. By early February, Herzfeld's fund was trading above the $15 mark, even though the underlying net assets were worth a mere $8.44 a share. "Would you pay me $1.80 for a dollar bill?" I asked at the time. "That's exactly what's happening here, and apparently, there's a sucker born every uptick." It was a ludicrous premium, so I was heartened when I checked back on the fund over the weekend. The stock closed at $8.08 on Friday, a 2% discount to its NAV of $8.28 a share.
I am a Cuban-American living in
I don't know if the cautionary words that Dan and I put out earlier this year hit home for anyone chasing the mania. Even Herzfeld knew the froth was getting out of hand, offering a rights offering that was completed last month. Investors poured another $18 million into the fund at a subscription price of $10.04 a share -- greater than NAV, but a discount to the market price. They probably thought they were getting a deal, buying in at a 15% discount to the market, without realizing that they were doubling up the supply of shares to water down the next potential speculative run on the fund. It doesn't matter now. The chunky premium has been deflated completely. I'm still not ready to jump into the fund, even if the doubling of assets brings down its expense ratio. However, I don't have to wave warning flags anymore. Logic is back where it belongs, mi amigo.
(Cubarte) - The XIII International Convention and Fair that will be held from the 9th until the 13th of February 2009 will encourage the research, development and innovation in the information technologies and telecommunications and will allow to exchange about the role of these technologies in the convergence of knowledge. The XIII International Convention and Fair that will be held from the 9th until the 13th of February 2009 will encourage the research, development and innovation in the information technologies and telecommunications and will allow to exchange about the role of these technologies in the convergence of knowledge.
Havana - (Prensa Latina) - Cuba will renew a quarter of the basic medicines by 2010, as part of an investment process that started three years ago, including the introduction of last generation technologies, reported the press media on Monday. The introduction plan and development of new medicines include 123 products and 43 pharmacological groups, the contribution of the scientific Pole and the Pharmaceutical Business Group QUIMEFA.
"We are working to introduce more current drugs, some of them in production phase and others under research and development", told Ramon Arango, QUIMEFA's director of quality and development, to Trabajadores newspaper in its digital version. Improvements envisage construction of plants to produce chemical reagents used in diagnosis, injectable, eye drops, ecological spray can, plastic bags serums, oral suspension drops and tablets. The industry applies a computer system that daily updates drugs existence and consumption in all the country's pharmacies. The multi-million dollar investment program will have a direct impact on imports substitution and will also result in benefit of a better health rate as well as the stability of pharmaceutical production and the introduction of other more efficient ones, emphasized Arango.
Cubarte –
Granma Intl. –
The Man of Two Havanas is a biographical sketch of Vivian's father journalist Max Lesnik (www.radio-miami.com). It shared the award for best film about
Max Lesnik returns to visit
After a screening of "The Sugar Curtain," a Cuban doctor approached 36-year-old Camila Guzman to thank her for the accurate portrayal of his student years and also for putting forth what he considers important issues and problems facing today's
Guzman recalls Mikhail Gorbachev's visit to
"The Sugar Curtain" notes the slow reaction of the Cuban media to the whirlwind of events that swept
Living on a blockaded island gives added desire to see what other filmmakers are doing from other latitudes. The Havana Film Festival, which is totally non-commercial, offers the chance. Many movie lovers try to take part of their one month yearly vacation time to catch as many flicks as possible. Before the festival began a "passport" was sold allowing the holder to go to 15 films at all the 20 participating cinemas for 20 pesos, the equivalent of US $0.80 or just over 5 cents a movie. A daily tabloid is published with programs and film reviews which costs 1 peso. Cuban TV runs nightly festival news real, with information on collateral events, visiting movie industry personalities and highlights some of the films.
The landmark Hotel Nacional, pre-revolution hang out of the US Mafia, is the festival headquarters where press conferences are held and film buffs and students mingle with the visiting and local film industry personalities. The current edition just concluded and most agree it was a good harvest. The best fiction film and three other awards went to "Silent Light" by Mexican director Carlos Reygadas. Julio Chavez (
From
Mathaba.net – Havana - (acn) - The balance of a total of 10,000 hectares planned for potatoes should be seeded by year end or early January, 2008. The potato, which was first cultivated at high attitudes in the
The 2006-7 planting was severely affected by excessively warm temperatures last winter, which were above the norm of 18 degrees Celsius minimum at nighttime. Thus the resulting 2007 harvest was one of the lowest in recent years. To counteract the heat, more electric irrigation equipment has been assigned to the provinces with the largest quantity of potatoes and based on the climate in each given zone. The first 2,000 hectares of spuds have been seeded from Pinar del
The second event mentioned is Cuba Disco 2008 to be held in
The plan is sponsored also by the Cuban Conventions Bureau and includes many genres like music, theatre, dance (contemporary and classic), cinema and literature. It was also announced that next year, at the end of October thru November, the next International Havana Ballet Festival will take place in this occasion as part of the 60th birthday of the company founded by Prima Ballerina Assoluta Alicia Alonso. Over two million tourists arrive in
Periodico 26 – CIENFUEGOS — While Venezuela and Cuba work together to open the massive Cienfuegos oil refinery, a parallel housing project of 100 prefab Petro-Houses donated by the South American country was built in around two months. The new homes are in the Simon Bolivar neighborhood located on a road linking the Camilo Cienfuegos refinery and the city of
In his previous visit to the
Granma Intl. – Havana – More than 500 prominent artists, writers and academics in the United States have signed a message addressed to U.S. President George W. Bush, asking him to end the blockade against Cuba and to stop preventing cultural exchange between the two nations. "We are writing you as representatives of the cultural sphere in the
The initiative, sponsored by an organization called U.S.-Cuba Cultural Exchange, was taken after many of the letter's signatories received a letter sent on October 26 by Cuban prima ballerina assoluta Alicia Alonso, asking them to speak out against the blockade and work together "so that Cuban artists and writers can take their talent to the United States and so that you do not prevent your artists and writers from coming to our Island to share their knowledge and values; so that a song, a book, a scientific study and a choreographic work won't be thought of, irrationally, as a crime." Those who signed the message to Bush include popular actors Sean Penn (2004 Oscar for
Many of the signatories are musicians and music industry executives, such as legendary rocker Carlos Santana, composer and singer Tom Waits, producer and guitarist Ry Cooder, who led the first Buenavista Social Club; musicans Tre Cool (Green Day), Mickey Hart (former drummer with the Grateful Dead) and Tom Morello (formerly of Rage Against the Machine, now with Audioslave); folk music icons Holly Near and Bonnie Raitt, the latter a nine-time Grammy winner, and salsa star Andy Montañez. Dozens of those who added their names are from the Latino intellectual community, including Cuban-American academics Nelson Pérez Valdés, Enrique Sacerio Gari and Lisandro Pérez.
Jardines del Rey, which has 16 excellent beaches, 11 of which are under exploitation and where ten hotels were built, is located in the Sabana-Camagüey Archipelago, made up of 2,515 keys and 3,088 square miles of marine platform, so it is an ideal place to practice scuba diving and other nautical sports. The main destination in Jardines del Rey is Cayo Coco, which is highly demanded by foreign tourists, although Cayo Guillermo is another major attraction in the region. Jardines del Rey (King's Gardens) was named by Conquistador Diego Velazquez in 1522 in honor of Spanish King Ferdinand the Catholic.
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Saturday, 15 December 2007
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Cuban Weekly News Digest - "A compilation of news articles about Cuba, distributed since 1992 in order to encourage a balanced understanding of the Cuban situation and to promote investments in the Republic of Cuba"Havana – DTC - Environmental surveillance in the central Cuban province of Villa Clara has resulted in a good situation to exploit the region's tourist attractions. Local authorities have monitored the environmental situation on Cayo Santa María, Cayo Ensenachos and Cayo Las Brujas. The experts said there is no chemical pollution in the sea, so tourists can use that resource. Several hotels have been built in the region, which stands out for its beautiful beaches, exuberant flora and rich fauna. The research works have been funded by the World Environment Fund, the UN Development Program and the Cuban government. Cuba's keys are a major resource to develop the tourism industry, as their natural attractions complement hotel services.
HAVANA - (Reuters) – Cuba said it will allow foreign companies to pay Cuban employees with hard currency, a move that legalizes widespread "under the table" payments and requires workers to declare and pay tax on that income. Representatives of 698 foreign companies registered with Cuba's Chamber of Commerce were told by Finance Ministry officials this week that as of January 1, 2008, they must also record in their books all hard currency payments to staff. Foreign businesses in communist Cuba employ staff through government agencies, which are paid in hard currency and, in turn, pay the employees in Cuban pesos worth 24 times less.
To supplement low wages, companies often pay Cuban staff an additional amount under the table in hard currency, and authorities have turned a blind eye, until now. "This will normalize relations between foreign investors and Cuba," said Foreign Investment Minister Marta Lomas. "Cuban workers receive their salary in pesos, and it is known that they receive another payment. We are adjusting the taxes to the circumstances," she said. Multinational companies have long urged Cuba to allow hard currency payments, and joint ventures between foreign firms and the state already pay results-based bonuses to some Cuban staff in hard currency, about $30 a month on average. "This will allow us to legally pay all our workers in hard currency," said a manager of a major foreign company in Cuba. "The bonus is, in effect, a wage."
Cuba wants to make the hidden payments above-board so that they can be taxed, said another foreign businessman. Western diplomats said allowing foreign companies to pay in hard currency was a break with Cuba's egalitarian socialist system, and attributed the change to the less ideological rule of acting President Raul Castro, who took over when his elder brother Fidel Castro fell ill 16 months ago. Cubans have lived virtually free of taxes for three decades, so for many of those employed by foreign companies, filing annual income tax returns will come as a shock. The National Tax Office was set up in 1995 and the next year began taxing the hard currency income of self-employed Cubans, mainly family restaurants known as "paladares," the closest thing to a small private business in Cuba. Their taxes must be paid in hard currency according to a scale that rises as high as 40 percent.
WASHINGTON - Where Arkansas rice producers see an economic windfall by liberalizing trade with Cuba, others see an unacceptable boost to the island nation's totalitarian regime. Advocates of a long-standing trade embargo against Cuba said that state-owned enterprises in the Caribbean nation would reap the biggest benefits if the U.S. government makes regulations that would make it easier for American agriculture exports to enter the country. A U.S. International Trade Commission report in July said American rice sales to Cuba could grow between $14 million and $43 million without trade barriers. A bill in Congress would remove a requirement that the communist country to pay cash in advance for food and medicine. That regulation was put in place by the Bush administration in 2005.
Easing trade rules means the United States loses a bargaining chip with a new government once the Fidel Castro era ends in Cuba, said Jaime Suchlicki, director of the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami. Suchlicki, a panelist at a Senate committee hearing on trade and travel restrictions, said American investment would only sustain communism by funding the government-owned agencies that control the economy. "The embargo is not the cause of Cuban suffering," Suchlicki said. "The cause of Cuba's suffering is that the system is failed. The real embargo is what Castro has on the Cuban people." Suchlicki and Frank Calzon, executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba, assailed Cuba for human rights violations. The United States would send a dangerous signal to the world if it eased trade barriers without Cuban concessions, they said.
In response, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and supporters of lifting the embargo pointed to trade relationships with China, Vietnam and other communist countries. "The government's policy is stuck in the past," said Baucus, Senate sponsor of a bill to further open agricultural trade. "It no longer makes sense for either Cubans or Americans. It undermines America's economic competitiveness. And it does not help promote our overall foreign policy goals." A blanket trade embargo was instituted after Fidel Castro took control of the country in the 1960s. Barriers on food and medicine were eased in 2000, but the 2005 rules curtailed much of the market growth for Arkansas farmers, in-state producers said.
In 2005, Arkansas was the largest U.S. exporter to Cuba with $167 million annually, according to a Texas A&M University study. Last year, about a quarter of Cuba's rice imports were from the United States, totaling $39.5 million. The U.S. share of imports without restrictions would increase by 7 to 20 percent, according to the International Trade Commission study. Bill Reed, vice president for public affairs for Stuttgart-based Riceland Foods, told federal officials in May that trade restrictions cost the United States about 3,300 jobs and $150 million in exports. Arkansas lawmakers have endorsed easing of agriculture trade restrictions.
Rep. Marion Berry, D-Gillett, visited Cuba in June in conjunction with that country's annual meeting with American agricultural producers. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., is a member of the committee that discussed the trade issue, but she did not attend the meeting. Her spokeswoman said she was working behind the scenes on Farm Bill legislation currently being debated on the Senate floor. Proponents of Cuba trade said it makes sense financially, since the country's proximity to the United States blunts high fuel prices and shipping costs. They also point to other countries' investment in Cuba. European financing there this year was $1.632 billion, said Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell. "While we have significant relations on almost every level with communist countries 10,000 miles away such as China and Vietnam, we have almost no relations with the 11 million souls on an island 90 miles off our southern coast," Wilkerson said.
Havana – DTC - Cuba will host the Havana Club International Grand Prix next year, to be attended by competitors from 30 countries. Organizers expect the winners of previous Havana Club-sponsored contests in other countries to participate in the Grand Prix. Participants will compete in the Classic modality, in which they will make a refreshing Long drink cocktail, and in the Freestyle or Flairtending modality. Cuba will be represented by bartenders Bárbaro Giraldis, from the Cafeteria Bar at the Bacardi Building, run by the company Habaguanex S.A, and Wilber López Díaz, from Cayo Coco, Ciego de Avila, winners of the National Grand Prix in the Classic and Freestyle categories, respectively. They will fix cocktails using seven-year-old Havana Club rum as the base ingredient, as part of the company's strategy to promote the world-famous rum.
The Washington Note – Commentary - Senate Hearing on Cuba Shows Change - It speaks volumes about the moment United States Cuba policy is in that Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus holds a hearing and invites three strong, articulate voices for a new Cuba policy and only two of the old guard clinging to underwhelming rhetoric of Fidel the communist and constructing painful rhetorical stretches about Cuba's support for terrorism.
That's just what happened in Dirksen 215. On the realist side of the equation were Col. Larry Wilkerson, co-chair of New America Foundation's U.S.-Cuba 21st Century Policy Initiative; Mr. David McClure, president of the Montana Farm Bureau; and Sgt. Carlos Lazo, Iraq war veteran and Cuban emigre. Representing the "stay the course" community, Mr. Frank Calzon of the Center for a Free Cuba and Dr. Jaime Suchlicki of the University of Miami.
Take a look at Col. Wilkerson's testimony here. It's a clear-eyed, realist case for gradual rapprochement with Cuba. At least in this forum, the reality of modern-day Cuba is overcoming the static caricatures of the Cold War. Senators like Baucus, recently returned from Cuba, are leading the way. Cuba is ahead of the United States in access to health care, is breaking new barriers in biomedical and pharmaceutical research, and is sending doctors around the world to help countries like Pakistan and South Africa. Cuba is a major tourism destination for the rest of the world, so much so that the supply of hotel rooms cannot keep up with demand. Even Israel, which regularly votes with the U.S. in the UN against Cuba, has companies investing in Cuban citrus farms.
Senator Grassley, the ranking member on the committee, is a fascinating study in the changing mood, at least in the Senate. Grassley said today, "Given the current leadership situation in Cuba, now is perhaps an appropriate time to review the status of our bilateral relationship." Of course, he's talking about the transfer of power from Fidel to Raul. Grassley is no ideologue. He's a realist from an agricultural state and Cuba is a big new market. Change is on the way. But perhaps the most important indicator of the changing tide on Cuba policy on Capitol Hill was a verbal altercation between Mr. Calzon and Col. Wilkerson after the hearing had concluded. Mr. Calzon walked over to Col. Wilkerson's side of the table and the conversation escalated to a polite shouting match. The content of the argument itself was insignificant (it was about Colin Powell's view of U.S. policy towards Cuba). What is significant is that a few years ago, Mr. Calzon would have ignored Col. Wilkerson. Today his side's control of Cuba policy is not so certain.
Havana – DTC - The town of Gibara, in the eastern Cuban province of Holguín, will benefit from the construction of a eolian park to generate electricity. The park, which will be largest facility of its kind in the country, already has six generators that can produce 5.1 megawatts. Its location on the north coast of the province allows taking advantage of sustained winds to create power generation facilities. The towers that hold the windmills are 55 meters tall and will save the country nearly 240 kilograms of fuel per mw/hour. The program also includes the construction and assembly of a second eolian park, equipped with Chinese-made technology to generate 4.5 megawatts. The Gibara Eolian Park will save the country one ton of oil a day and will contribute nearly 10 megawatts to the National Electrical System in 2008.
Forbes – Collectors Guide - Eight friends gather on a recent night at a private home, surrounded by pine trees, in a gated community outside Rome. Smoke curls about the study, a Victorian-style room packed with tooled leather books, gilt-framed oil paintings, busts, overstuffed chairs. Tonight Ubi Maior, a new cigar club, is convening. The host, Salvatore Parisi, a 52-year-old psychologist, is the only member who hasn't struck a match. Instead he initiates a visitor into the art of smoking a Cuban stogie. Step one: adoration.
First out of the humidor is a 25-year-old Dunhill Estupendo--anything but stupendous looking, though it is said to be worth $1,200. Parisi purses his lips and plants a kiss on it before returning it to its reliquary. Next, a fistful of pre-Castro cigars in plastic, resembling shriveled old men too small for their pants. They date from an age when hundreds of brands, instead of the 30 officially sanctioned now, competed on the island in capitalist frenzy. They bear names like Por Larranaga and Maria Guerrero, and when Parisi holds one to the light you can see a little green from age has discolored the band. Then he leans over a second humidor, straightens up and holds a cigar aloft with all ten fingers, like a priest raising the Host. "This is the Dunhill Cabinetta," he says. More kisses now, twice blessed. Cost: $200 apiece. Parisi strokes the cigar with a finger. "Like silk," he whispers. The room seems to go silent. Then a heavyset friend in the crowd reaches for the punch line: "Let's smoke it." Parisi glowers.
In his workaday life Parisi runs the Scuola Romana Rorschach, an institute in Rome. He teaches the techniques of reading personality quirks and preoccupations from what people say they see in ink blots, providing analysis to the Italian courts and to the Vatican, which wants clues to a person's state of mind before deciding on a marriage annulment. You can imagine what Parisi daydreams about--even as he ponders questions on behalf of the Apostolic See. "I'm not sure if God exists," he muses. "But if He does, I'm sure He smokes cigars--only Cubans."
Married and childless, Parisi spends nearly all his free time with cigars, meeting with smoking clubs, planning trips to Cuba to buy them, inspecting cigars, touching them, occasionally even smoking them. And when he does so, it's preferably alone, on the couch in front of his fireplace. "I never smoke [merely] out of habit," he says. That would be intensely disrespectful to his stash of 60,000 Cuban cigars, worth, perhaps, $2.5 million. Many of them he keeps in a roughly 35-square-foot, mahogany-paneled room in his basement, which houses boxes of cigars piled on shelves to the ceiling and in columns rising a few feet off the floor. Just outside the room sits a 140-pound bale of Cuban tobacco. Among his favorites: 15 Cohiba Behikes, which have doubled in value in the past year to $750 each.
By his own admission Parisi is a hoarder. Easy with a laugh or an arm around the shoulder, the man insists on having everything just so. That's true of his bespoke sports jackets, shirts, shoes, boxer underwear. What he likes he buys in bulk for fear it will run out. A dresser in his closet is stuffed with his favorite red leather gloves, of which he wears one pair once a year. When rumor had it that the maker of his favorite English lavender soap was going out of business, Parisi ordered dozens of boxes. He is an unapologetic monarchist (Italy hasn't had a king since before Mussolini) and keeps a photo of Queen Elizabeth in his office.
His love affair with Cubans began when he was 22, with an H. Upmann Aromatico he bought out of curiosity from some Russians in a Rome market. He smoked it, then ran back and cleaned the place out. Soon after, he tried a Davidoff 4000. "From that moment I was obsessed," he says. In those days Cuban cigars were hard to come by in Rome, but travelers coming from abroad could bring in 50 each. Parisi pressed stewardesses and friends to buy for him. He developed a taste for the "softer, more delicate" flavor of cigars aged for three years or even decades.
When Parisi took his first trip to Cuba in 1996, newly made "fresh" cigars were hot, and so he was able to load up on old favorites on the cheap. On return visits he started collecting old cigar molds (he now owns 200) and old books, pamphlets and dissertations, going door to door in Havana to buy them up--until word spread of the crazy gringo and prices shot up. On one early trip he joined a Cuban friend on a long, bumpy ride to the Santa Clara region to taste a new kind of cigar. At 11 p.m. the two pulled up at a dark house with a dirt floor and no electricity--"a place I wouldn't even put my dog," Parisi recalls. (Make that 13 dogs, all dachshunds.) A wrinkled old man came shuffling toward Parisi in the candlelight. He held out a crude, lumpy cigar: a Pelo de Oro ("Golden Hair"). Love at first puff.
To many smokers a Pelo de Oro seems overpowering. Parisi's common-law wife, Susanna Massimi, once broke out in hives when she touched its leaves. (She, for her part, is not allowed to wear perfume or put cream on her hands when entering the basement sanctorum.) Dark, resinous and furry like sage, the Pelo de Oro plant is prone to disease and easily infects other crops. It's largely for that reason that the Castro regime limits its distribution and that people talk about it in whispers. Though the strain is now grown in other countries--Costa Rica, for example--it's still largely a cigar for Cuban campesinos. "When I go back to Cuba, I keep looking for that cigar," says Parisi, quick to add that he never trades or resells them. He has rollers in Havana make him cigars with Pele de Oro tobacco and, in the 50-odd trips he's taken to Cuba since that drive in the country, he's ordered more and more and has had bands made for them bearing his name.
On his trips Parisi occasionally makes time for other activities, like teaching at a psychiatric hospital in Havana. He also spent two months in a cigar factory in the capital, learning how to roll. On later trips he brought plant workers anti-inflammatories and asthma drugs. "There were no dentists, no doctors," he recalls. Once he attended a meeting there of La Cumbre ("The Summit"), a club of elite cigar aficionados, including a Moscow clothes retailer, a Chicago collector of pre-Castro cigars and a cigar merchant from the Cayman Islands. At Ubi Maior the group breaks for dinner, a buffet of porchetta (pork stuffed with rosemary and olive oil), pasta fagioli, slabs of salty pecorino cheese and rum cake. Then out come the cigars again. Parisi is still not smoking. Finally, a Marcello Mastroianni look-alike in narrow pants and thick glasses emerges from downstairs with a new cigar. "Ah, questo va bene," Parisi exclaims.
The Pelo de Oro has arrived. Parisi runs his eyes down it, then a finger. He grabs a magnifying glass and points to a diagonal edge of leaf tucked inside the rounded mouth end of the cigar. A craftsman's touch, he says, so the leaf doesn't unravel after it is clipped for smoking. He cuts the tip, lights the cigar and hands it to a guest. The air thickens with a deep, rich smoke. "Smoking a Havana cigar is like having sex with a real woman," says Parisi. "If the parallel seems ridiculous, you don't know Havanas--or you don't know real women."
Havana – DTC - Cuban experts are studying the preservation of the marine fauna in Jardines del Rey (King's Gardens), one of the Caribbean Island's fastest-growing tourist destinations. The study began on Cayo Coco, in the channel that connects Laguna Larga (Long Lagoon) with the sea, where people often swim, so they might affect the habitat of the local marine fauna. The visual analysis showed the existence of two dozen species in the 20-meter-long channel, which has a well-structured vegetation of red and black mangrove. According to experts, the research will lay the foundations for future scientific works on the link between fish and natural elements and humans. Major tourist facilities, including the hotels Blau, Senador and NH Cristal, are located in that region. Jardines del Rey, which is part of the Sabana-Camagüey archipelago, covers 6,910 square kilometers. Its most beautiful beaches are on Cayo Coco and Cayo Guillermo.
HAVANA - (AP) - The man in charge of preserving Havana's breathtaking but crumbling colonial center said that government restoration efforts have created 7,000 new homes and 11,000 jobs during more than a decade of work. Eusebio Leal, the capital's historian, wouldn't say how many buildings have been restored and at what cost. But he bristled at suggestions that work in Old Havana only serves to impress foreign tourists and furnish government officials with new homes or offices while ordinary Cubans remain packed into decrepit and overcrowded apartments a few blocks away. ''The question is, 'Isn't culture a positive? Isn't the state of (Cuban) culture a positive?','' said Leal, who is also a member of National Assembly, or parliament.
He spoke at a news conference announcing he had been awarded Spain's International Queen Sofia Prize for restoration. Leal described newly refurbished restaurants and bars, but spent more time highlighting efforts to use some restored buildings for drug and alcohol rehabilitation clinics, youth centers and residential halls for the elderly. Leal said no one has been displaced by restoration efforts without being offered an equivalent home, most in the Old City itself. ''The priority has been homes, it has been places for the elderly, which we have already built a lot of in Old Havana,'' Leal said. Declared an UNESCO World Heritage site in 1982, Old Havana dates to the 1500s and was once ringed by a 17th century wall. Its narrow, cobblestone streets are crammed with art galleries, churches, museums, hotels and restaurants, as well as quaint alleyways.
But humidity from the sea air and coastal flooding has taken its toll on colonial buildings, many of which are falling to pieces after decades of neglect. Outside the restored zone, the basic infrastructure remains little improved since before Fidel Castro's revolution in January 1959. The U.S. embargo prevents most Americans from visiting, but more than 2 million tourists from Europe, Canada, Mexico and around the globe still travel to Cuba every year and many come to see Old Havana. Still, families who live just off pedestrian walkways and leafy plazas popular with tourists complain of a severe shortage of available housing and problems with basic services. Leal acknowledged those complaints only briefly Friday, saying ''our dilemma is very large, but we confront it with a sense of justice.''
Havana – DTC - The construction material industry in the eastern Cuban province of Camagüey has increased production by 60 percent over the past six years. That increase resulted from a strategy to boost the province's production capacity to meet the growing demand for construction materials on the domestic market. In late October, Camagüey produced 10.5 million pesos in values, accounting for a 15-percent growth compared to the same period in 2006. Sector officials noted that 465,000 cubic meters of construction materials have been produced so far this year, in contrast to 350,000 cubic meters during the same period last year. They added that production of concrete blocks, clay bricks, tiles, cement and prefabricated terrazzo has increased as well. In addition, investments have been made to installed cutting-edge technologies to make construction elements.
Chicago Tribune - CIENFUEGOS, Cuba - When Cuban officials peer into the historic Hotel Palacio Azul, they see a piece of Cuba's future. In their view, it's an economy infused with foreign cash. As the elegant seven-room lodge was renovated to become part of a new government hotel chain promoting the island's heritage, it served as an appropriate example of the small steps interim leader Raul Castro has taken to bolster Cuba's developing economy, but possibly his grander ambitions too. Ever since Raul Castro announced last summer that he was broadly seeking more foreign investment, the international business community has been keenly watching to see the extent of the opening he may make in the tightly centralized economy, including the hotel sector, a tried and true booster for the island's communist government.
So far, the government has been short on specifics, but discussions in mass organizations such as trade unions and a few early measures by Castro are buoying optimism, especially among business executives participating in last month's Havana International Trade Fair, which promotes foreign companies selling goods to Cuba. But analysts don't expect dramatic measures. "He may be in favor of a practical reform but within the socialist framework," said Paolo Spadoni, a Cuba expert and visiting assistant professor in political science at Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla. "It will be gradual and rather limited. It won't be spectacular change."
Raul Castro, who has a reputation for using limited free-market models for reforms, is considered the pragmatic counterpart to his brother Fidel, Cuba's leader since 1959. Fidel Castro, 81, handed provisional control over to his 76-year-old brother after undergoing emergency intestinal surgery in July 2006. Since then, Raul Castro has changed some government practices and rules that some view as inching toward remedying the island's significant economic problems, including low wages, food shortages and an inadequate infrastructure. Oil exploration, nickel mining, transportation, housing and water treatment are some areas where Castro may seek foreign investment, analysts said."I believe there is a consensus within the party that they need to get the economy right, and if they don't, they're threatening the long-term survival of socialism," said analyst Philip Peters of the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va. "This period is not only to analyze policy options but it's also one to get their political ducks in a row." Just as tourism helped bail Cuba out of a wartime-like austerity in the 1990s, officials are again turning to this cash-generating engine, saying it tops the list of industries in which Cuba needs more foreign partners.
In 2006, tourism dropped 3.6 percent, partly because visitors complained about Cuba's revalued currency, luggage theft, poor service and a failure to attend to complaints. Cuban officials have blamed rising air fares, shifting exchange rates and hurricanes. The government had hoped the sector would grow 8 percent last year, to 2.5 million travelers. Instead, 2.2 million visited, according to Bohemia magazine. Among other measures initiated under Castro, the government last month announced that some aircraft can be privately owned by "individuals or legal entities." In other moves, Castro has lowered landing fees and refueling charges for airlines and allowed Cubans to receive video equipment and spare car parts from relatives abroad, analysts said.
But Castro's vision has left business executives wanting details. During last month's trade fair, Cuban officials weren't offering much information. The event was attended by 1,398 companies from 53 countries, including U.S. food producers allowed to sell comestibles for cash to Cuba under a recent exception to the American embargo. "I ask [government officials] about Fidel and Raul and general long-term and short-term objectives for Cubans, and no one wants to talk about it," said Boris Makowecki, executive vice president of Hyduke Energy Services Inc. of Alberta, Canada, which sells oil rigs to Cuba. The number of foreign partnerships in Cuba has fallen to 237 in 2006 from 403 in 2002, but Spadoni said most of that decline represented small- and medium-size ventures that apparently didn't contribute much to the economy.
Five major ventures continue to account for 80 percent to 90 percent of all Cuban exports, Spadoni said. Big investors include Canadians in oil-exploration, Italians in telecommunications companies, the French in rum businesses and the Spanish in hotel companies, he said. Most partnerships are 50-50 ownership, though sometimes the Cuban government holds a majority stake, he added. "The market is big, but the funds are limited," said Geoffrey Geng of Shanghai-based Forever Bicycles.
At the Hotel Palacio Azul, Lerida Torres, 49, a clerk, explained how the hotel was converted from a mansion built around 1920. The building had most recently housed offices, but the government spent $70,000 in 2002 to create a hotel for 15 guests. The two-story Blue Palace, as it translates in English, was renovated again in the past year. In September, officials inaugurated it as a flagship for their new Hotel Encanto chain that highlights cultural and architectural landmarks. The hotel is sometimes called the Encanto Palacio Azul, and another restored Cienfuegos hotel, La Union, was also inducted into the chain. Built on Cienfuegos' upscale Punta Gorda shore, the Blue Palace was designed with neoclassical and Art Deco motifs by Rome-born architect Alfredo Fontana Giugni, who also built Cienfuegos' roads, aqueduct and sewer lines, Torres said.
At the inauguration, Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz said the group of 50 proposed hotels, 10 of which are under construction, aims to tap into "an unsatisfied demand" among tourists. "Every one of these buildings is like a book. They are full of history," he said, according to the government newspaper. One Blue Palace guest, Hans Jung, 64, who runs a 77-room hotel in Nunspeet, Netherlands, declared the new lodging "very good." "You don't expect this because it's a communist country," Jung said. "They're doing a hell of a job."Havana – DTC - Experts from four countries participated in a tour on the Cuban Cocoa Road, in the municipality of Baracoa, in eastern Guantánamo province. Participants in the tour were experts in cultural heritage from France, Spain and Belgium, in addition to the host country. The trail, designed with tourist ends, was made in the Duaba Farm, where tourists can learn about the recollection, industrial process and traditions related to the cocoa plant, from which chocolate is obtained. In that region, visitors can learn about the methods to crop and process cocoa, from the moment it is planted to the time when it is harvested, dried, industrially processed and stored. Those steps form part of the basic agro-productive structure used by over a hundred French families who arrived in Cuba from Haiti from 1781 to 1804, who contributed to boosting that agricultural activity. The tour laid the foundations to promote one of the main attractions of the first village founded in Cuba.
Havana – DTC - The eastern Cuban province of Granma has a plant to make marble-made handicrafts and special pieces. The company, which also makes decorative elements of marble, has increased production this year, compared to 2006. Most products, including floor tiles, steps, tabletops, counters, balustrade and pedestals, among other pieces, go to the tourist sector. The production process is general handmade, so the quality of the finished work is excellent. Experts recalled that Granma holds the country's largest marble reserves, most of which are not under exploitation.
REUTERS - LA VALLITA, Cuba - Cuban farmers are being offered more land to boost agricultural production in a sign the communist government under acting president Raul Castro wants to encourage more private enterprise. State officials are meeting with private farmers and cooperatives across Cuba, and participants say any farmers not working the maximum 167 acres allowed can now apply for more land as long as they are productive. "We asked for another 135 hectares (3,375 acres) and are waiting for a response, but I'm sure we will get them," said Evelio Cisneros, the head of a cattle cooperative in La Vallita, in Cuba's most important agricultural province of Camaguey.
Cuba has around 250,000 family farms and 1,100 private cooperatives, an island of private ownership in an economy where the state controls 90 percent of production and individual initiative is limited to some food services, room rentals and a set number of trades, from clowns to mechanics. Since ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro handed power over to his brother Raul Castro 16 months ago, expectations inside and outside Cuba have grown that the acting president will loosen up state regulation and expand the tiny private sector.
Grappling with the inefficient economy, Raul Castro has set up a commission to study property issues, and the land grants initiative is the first concrete step he has taken to increase the size of the private sector. With prices for imported food soaring and local output falling, the younger Castro has put agricultural reform at the top of his agenda. "We face the imperative of making our land produce more, and the land is there to be tilled," he said in a speech in July in Camaguey, adding that the state must offer producers adequate incentives.
When Fidel Castro seized power in a guerrilla uprising in 1959, three quarters of the land in Cuba was owned by large landowners, many of them foreigners. They were stripped of their property – the first to be expropriated was the Castro family ranch – while tens of thousands of small farmers and agricultural laborers were allowed to keep plots of land. But the state took for itself 64 percent of the nationalized land, setting up state farms. In Camaguey, Cuba's main cattle ranching province, private farmers own only 20 percent of the land and the state holds the rest, often in unproductive farms where land is falling into disuse.
The weekly economic publication Opciones recently reported that sickle bush and other weeds have become "a plague", covering one third of Cuba's 3.6 million hectares (90 million acres) of arable land. A group of Raul Castro's aides is drawing up a plan for what to do with the large tracts of vacant state land, with a deadline set for the end of this year, Communist Party sources say. Local farmers say they are the key to any reform. "When I was young I joined the revolution because my father and I worked like slaves for an American dairy company right here," said family farmer Alfredo Fernandez. "Our lives are much better now, but the truth is the area used to produce 1,000 liters of milk a day and now maybe 200 liters."
Havana - (acn) - The Fourth Cuban Congress on Meteorology begins in Havana with the presence of experts from four Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and the host country. During the event, participants will discuss about the damages, frequency and intensity of tropical storms and hurricanes in the region, particularly in the Caribbean area. According to Andres Palma, President of the Cuban Meteorology Society, the event will take place at the venue of the Cuban Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment in the Capitol of Havana.
The first activity of the meeting will be the presentation of the Benito Viñas Award, in its second edition, to the most outstanding researchers of the sector on the island. One of the main topics to be discussed during the event is atmosphere contamination as well as the impact of greenhouse gases and their emission. A panel of specialists will also analyze topics such as the quality of the air and the relation of acute respiratory diseases with the weather, climate and pollution in several cities of Cuba
BuaNews (Tshwane) - Havana - Bilateral trade between Cuba and China continue to show a noticeable increase as more made-in-China products become a part of Cuban people's daily life. Bilateral trade totalled some $1.87 billion in the January-October period this year, up 30.9 percent compared with the same period of last year, according to the statistics published by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, according to Xinhua news agency. China's exports to Cuba in the period reached $921.02 million while Cuba's exports to China were $948.82 million.
This makes China Cuba's second largest trade partner after Venezuela and places Cuba as China's largest Latin American trade partner. Cuba is the first Latin-American country which established diplomatic ties with China. The two countries are enjoying one of the best times of their 47-year long diplomatic relationship, which is witnessed by their booming economic and trade exchanges and cooperation. Made-in-China products have a strong and shining presence in this Caribbean country with goods in such sectors as communications, agriculture and transportation, while Chinese-made home appliances and services are emerging as new stars due to their quality.
Currently, most of the 11.2 million Cuban homes have made-in-China home appliances, televisions, refrigerators or cooking pots, light bulbs or water pumps. As the Cuban government has implemented the Energy Revolution program to enhance energy efficiency, the Cubans are encouraged to replace the old consumption products with more energy-saving ones. And thus the Chinese consumption equipment is becoming more and more popular among the Cubans as they are modern and efficient with attractive prices compared with products from other countries.
Many Cuban officials have said on different occasions that the Chinese goods are technically advanced at good prices which have benefited the Cuban economy and the Cuban people. In 2006, Cuban leader Fidel Castro, on a television appearance, highlighted the advantages of Chinese products. The potential for economic and trade cooperation between the two countries, which have enjoyed a long-term friendship, is very bright, said their leaders, who are planning to do more to bring their cooperation level to a new high.
Negotiations on enhancing the trade between the two countries are held annually by their commissions for economic and trade relations. The 20th round of the talks is scheduled for later this month in China's Beijing to analyze the results of the past trade accords and to discuss new short- and medium-term plans to boost trade. China and Cuba have regarded these meetings as a good way for improving their mutual understanding and exploring new collaboration fields in an effort to strengthen their all-round friendly ties. Yang Shidi, the Economic and Trade advisor of the Chinese embassy in Cuba, said that the bilateral trade ties are moving in a favourable trend and getting stronger every day, which sets a good example of cooperation and friendship between China and the rest of the world.
Santiago de Cuba - (Prensa Latina) - Followers of the Santiago baseball team hope for a victory over Industriales at the beginning of the 47th national championship. The beginning of the tournament returned to fans of this city, second in importance of the country, the passion for the game, Cuba's national sport. The traditional rivalry with Industriales can be found in any square, park or avenue of the eastern city with more than one poster recalling who was champion of the last tournament. "Santiago champion", can be read at one of the sidewalls of Marte Square, venue to one of the most famous gatherings to discuss baseball of the country, where it is almost impossible to find a fan of any other team than Santiago.
Mariano Alayo, one of the regulars of the forum, thinks "Santiago has the best team ever this year and a lot more will to win in order to show last season's victory was no coincidence." "(Antonio) Pacheco is already a great manager with great and ambitious players at his orders. We think it won t be an easy tournament, but we have winning options," said Alayo while he passed his cigar from one hand to the other and took a sip of rum. A lot more cautious was Ramon Poll, a 30-year strong mulatto who called to take care before Industriales "because they too have a team with a lot of young and talented players."
"Santiago is still Santiago" chorused a group of youths while they enjoyed a training session in a field near the Guillermon Moncada stadium, venue to the inaugural match. Santiagueros and industrialistas have shared over the last years the titles of the Cuban Baseball Championship and experts relieve that next March when the after-season games take place, both clubs will be again struggling for the first place.
Efe – Rig Zone.com - Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Eumelio Caballero invited Russian companies to take part in prospecting for crude oil deposits in the Gulf of Mexico. Caballero told the official Itar-Tass news agency that Cuba already had signed contracts with companies from Spain, Norway, Venezuela and China who will participate in the exploration and exploitation of petroleum deposits in the Cuban economic zone in the Gulf. "We are in contact with the Russian companies and we hope that they participate in the prospecting for those deposits, in particular creating the necessary infrastructure," said the diplomat, who is on a two-week visit to Russia.
He added that "Cuba is open to cooperation," and he said that the "favorable" political conditions on the island augur for "magnificent prospects" for the Russian firms that participate in the project. "Russia and Cuba have considerable prospects for increasing their bilateral economic and trade links," said the vice minister, adding that one of the most attractive and advantageous areas is energy cooperation. Trade between Cuba and Russia amounted to about $300 million in 2006 and reached $250 million in the first nine months of this year, according to official data from the island.National Post - More than 40 members of the Havana-based National Ballet of Cuba arrived at Pearson Airport on Sunday night to be greeted by the sight of snow, and they couldn't have been happier. For most, it was the first time they'd seen the white stuff that we take for granted, unless you count the artificial snowflakes that fall in the Cuban Ballet's exuberant production of ubiquitous seasonal classic The Nutcracker, which as it happens, is the reason the company -- and 2,000 kilos of sets and costumes --is here.
It's been 37 years since the world-renowned and much-travelled Cuban troupe danced in Canada, despite repeated attempts to lure it northward during the company's numerous U.S. tours. The Cuban Ballet's long overdue return is not, as one might suppose, attributable to the efforts of an experienced Canadian impresario but to Belma Diamante, an indefatigable, Turkish-born, Hamilton-area arts patron, and the Canadian Ballet Youth Ensemble she supports.
The CBYE aims to provide a professional-level performing experience to young dancers selected by audition from local ballet schools. Since 1993, the volunteer organization's major annual project has been a Hamilton presentation of The Nutcracker, combining the talents of an imported professional troupe with those of the CBYE's youngsters in supporting roles. Until 2004, dancers from Ukraine's Kiev Ballet Theatre constituted the professional element. Then, with less exalted results, it was the turn of the lesser known Ballet Ouest de Montreal until Diamante, the CBYE's then board president, discovered the Cubans and decided, against all the odds, to bring the company to Hamilton.
The National Ballet of Cuba is renowned for the excellence of its dancing and because of its indomitable artistic director Alicia Alonso, a legendary ballerina who laid the foundations of the troupe almost 60 years ago. The Cuban-born Alonso, despite losing all but a portion of her sight to a series of unsuccessful retinal operations in her early twenties, went on to forge a brilliant international career. She danced with Ballet Caravan, a precursor of New York City Ballet, with the newly founded Ballet Theatre (now American Ballet Theatre) and later with the illustrious Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo. Alonso created roles in works by many of the 20th century's greatest choreographers --Balanchine, Tudor, de Mille--and was the first Western ballerina to perform as a guest in the Soviet Union.
Never forgetting her homeland, Alonso joined forces with dancer Fernando Alonso, her then husband, and his choreographer brother Alberto to establish a company in Havana, bankrolled in part by her own considerable earnings as a ballet star outside Cuba. When Fidel Castro overthrew the detested Batista dictatorship, the patriotic ballerina decided in 1960 to devote herself full-time to building a national ballet company in Cuba and persuaded El Comandante to provide it with state support. Among Alonso's key moves was to establish a school to generate a supply of well-trained dancers. Today, its highly sought-after graduates can be found performing in companies around the world while a steady stream of foreign students travel to Havana, hoping to discover the secret that has made Cuban ballet dancers among the most technically proficient on the planet.
Much as Alonso relished performing -- she remained her company's beloved prima until well into the 1980s -- educating young dancers has always been close to Alonso's heart. "I feel it is a way to give back and share what I've learned," explained Alonso during a short visit to Canada's National Ballet School in Toronto. It's what convinced her, once her emissaries had checked out the CBYE's students, to send her Nutcracker to Hamilton. But it was not a simple process. The 1998 Alonso production is not choreographed to include actual children. She's had to rework the ballet to accommodate the more than 80 CBYE dancers who will appear with the Cubans this week as diminutive angels, fleet-footed "Chinese" and scurrying rodents. "You're going to see more little mice on that stage than you can imagine," Alonso quips.
The lion's share of the dancing, however, remains with the immaculately trained members of the National Ballet of Cuba. Their extraordinary capacity to light up a stage can be counted on to shine a welcome ray of Latin heat on an early Canadian winter. - Runs Dec. 14 to 16, Hamilton Place (1 Summers Lane, Hamilton). Tickets from $34.50. For more information visit www.ticketmaster.ca or call 905-527-7666.
Havana - (Prensa Latina) - Cuba will restore more than 1,800 miles of roads as part of restoration efforts and fostering of the national economy, officials of the Cuban Transport Ministry announced. The program includes national highways as well as provincial and municipal urban and rural roads. These works will be in addition to the reparations being carried out in the eastern provinces, after the October rains associated with Tropical Storm Noel, which preliminary damages reached 499 million dollars. In that region, 12,427 miles and 77 bridges damaged by Tropical Storm Noel are being repaired.
The programs scheduled by the Cuban Transport Ministry will use modern technology equipment to save money and time in reparation, and to purchase new means of transport. Cuban specialists confirmed the condition of the main highways and avenues is between regular and poor, because of the lack of attention during the last 15 years. In 2006, 116.8 miles were repaired, and this will be augmented with a plan for new buses for urban, municipal and provincial transport service.
Havana - (Prensa Latina) - Cuban electoral authorities concluded the publication of biographies and photos of 1,185 aspirants for the Parliament and the 14 Provincial Assemblies of the Peoples' Power. This information will be posted in public places until January 20, when over eight million Cubans with the right to vote will elect 614 seats for the National Assembly and 1,201 for the provincial governments. Delegates elected in October in the country's 169 municipalities named the candidates for the seats in the provincial assemblies and the Parliament for a five-year term.
"We hope for a massive participation of voters, because that is a key point in the process called in July by the Council of State," National Electoral Commission secretary Tomas Amaran told Prensa Latina. Those nominees, among them President Fidel Castro and First Vice President Raul Castro, will be subjected to the count of votes of those older than 16 with legal capacity to vote in the municipality or constituency where they were postulated. Up to half of aspirants already form 169 local governments, after being elected by 96.49 percent of over 8,176,000 voters in October.
Havana - (acn) - Unrestricted trade relations between the United States and Cuba should have happened long time ago, said US rancher John Parke Wright in Havana. The American businessman said that for the past 10 years he has tried to provide Cuba with the best milk and meat cattle, as well as to pursue scientific and technical support. "Our relations with Cuba are not limited to just selling cattle, since our efforts are aimed at developing animal sciences, setting up of prosperous commercial links and improving agricultural production," said Parke. Meat cattle from South Florida and Texas counts on the best characteristics for Cuba's tropical conditions, while Cuban lands are as good as those in our country," he explained. Parke is one of the executive directors of J. P. Wright & Company, which has been allowed by the US State Department to travel to Cuba.
Beijing - (Prensa Latina) - Cuban Communications and Computer Science Minister Ramiro Valdes is on a working visit to China, related with telecom issues, diplomatic sources reported. The delegation led by him will also participate next week in the sessions of the International Joint Commission Cuba-China, aimed to check bilateral ties. The Commander of the Revolution and Member of the State Council met with Chinese Minister of Computer Sciences Industry Wang Xudong, and they analyzed the progress of co-operative relations in this sector. Cuba and China have intensely cooperated for a long time in this area as part of the growing trade taking place between both countries. The delegation, also made up by Vice Minister Alberto Rodriguez Arufe visited the Technological University of Tsinghua. Ramiro Valdes also traveled to the neighboring port city of Tianjin, 74 miles east of the Chinese capital.
Havana - (acn) - Candidates to the Cuban National Assembly (parliament) and to provincial legislatures have started to hold meetings with residents in the districts from where they were nominated. The gatherings are held at workplaces and in neighborhoods, where the candidates learnt of the efforts of the workers and talked with the people, reports Granma newspaper. The candidates were proposed by their municipal governments; with part of them also being elected by voters in the October city council elections. A major difference between Cuban elections and those in many countries is the express prohibition on campaigning or advertising. In Cuba, the biographies and photos of the candidates are posted in conveniently located places and the provincial and national legislative candidates limit themselves to attending meetings with the population. Cuba's general elections take place on January 20. The voting age on the island is 16 and to win office a nominee must receive a 50 percent majority.
Havana – DTC - Cuba is promoting the production and use of Spirulina for human consumption, as an alternative to improve the people's quality of life. With that goal in mind, Cuban experts signed an agreement on technical cooperation with representatives of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). By virtue of the accord, the company GENIX, which produces and commercializes microalgae, will improve the agro-industrial processing of spirulina and its byproducts. Spirulina is a microalga known in Cuba since the 1980s, when a pilot plant was built to process it and sell it in the form of tablets. According to experts, spirulina is a nutritional and dietary supplement that is administered to athletes. It is also considered an alternative to solve nutritional problems and food security issues in today's society and in the future.
Havana - (acn) - Encouraged by the "Cuban Adjustment Act," over 300 boats have been stolen in the Miami-Dade county area alone, suspected for use in illegal immigration operations from Cuba to the United States. "Dealers smuggle people into the US on stolen boats, usually speed boats," said a spokesman of the Miami Coast Guard service. Though the US government grants no privileges to other immigrants illegally crossing its borders, a federal law called the Cuban Adjustment Act establishes that Cubans who arrive in the United States illegally are automatically considered "political exiles" and granted permanent residency after a year, read an article published by Granma Daily on Wednesday.
Cuban-born US drug dealers who control illegal immigration in Cancun, Mexico, steal speedboats and yachts for these criminal activities, further reads the article. The attorney general for the state of Quintana Roo, Bello Melchor Rodriguez, recently said that Merida, the capital city of the state of Yucatan, is the center for these profitable financial operations of the Cuban mafia. Human trafficking has precipitated feuds in the last few months between factions linked to the Cuban-American mafia, said Rodriguez. Consequently, several Cuban-Americans have been murdered, among them Manuel "El Mani" Duarte Diaz, Luis Lazaro Lara Morejon, Maria Elena Carrillo Saenz and Jesus Aguilar Aguilar.
Jam – ShowBiz - HAVANA - Washington's trade embargo bars almost all Americans from coming to Cuba - but it can't keep U.S. films out. Twenty-one full-length U.S. movies and 22 experimental American shorts are being shown as part of Havana's international film festival, which runs through Dec. 14 at 23 movie theatres and video clubs across the city. Most are independent flicks focusing on illegal immigration and the problems Latinos face in America, but movies by Hollywood heavyweights Brian De Palma and David Lynch are also being screened.
"You make an American film and you never expect it to be shown in Cuba," said Vivien Lesnik Weisman, a Cuban-American who will travel to Havana to present her documentary, "The Man of Two Havanas." Finished prints of the U.S. films were sent to Cuba through Mexico or Canada, or through European distribution companies. But the U.S. government makes it quite difficult for American directors to present their work on the island. De Palma's "Redacted," a fictional retelling of the real-life rape and murder of a teenage girl by U.S. soldiers, opened the festival at Havana's swank Karl Marx theatre Tuesday night, but only after one of its Canadian producers read an apologetic statement blaming the director's absence on U.S. authorities. "It seems my State Department could not offer me a visa," De Palma said. Also showing is Lynch's powerful yet plot-devoid "Inland Empire."
Calls and e-mails to Lynch's representatives asking if he had sought permission from U.S. authorities to travel to Cuba weren't immediately returned. The U.S. Treasury Department issues licences allowing U.S. artists to travel to Cuba for public performances, but Bill Martinez, a San Francisco immigration attorney and producer, said there is reportedly a two-year backlog of performers seeking such permission. "The numbers of U.S. (performers) are significantly down," Martinez said. In Washington, a Treasury Department spokesman wouldn't comment on pending requests for licences. "Under current policy, individuals require a specific licence to engage in travel-related transactions involving Cuba and additional transactions that are directly incident to participation in public performances and exhibitions," he said. "This policy extends to the Havana film festival."
Alfredo Guevara leads the organizing committee for the communist government-sponsored festival. He says they chose films designed to spotlight Hispanic communities in the United States, but did not otherwise seek out films made in America. In all, the festival features more than 500 films from 14 countries. Brazil is the best-represented with 34 full-length movies, while Argentina, France, Spain and Mexico are also key contributors. Other directors also blamed the visa delays for their absence. British director Wash Westmoreland said he won't be on-hand with his U.S. film "Quinceanera" because he didn't find out it would be shown in Havana until it was too late to get permission for his co-director Richard Glatzer to travel to Cuba.
"Richard holds an American passport and there's not enough time to get apply to get a cultural visa," Westmoreland said. "It's something we were really excited about doing. I wish we could have." One of those who will attend is Mexican director Patricia Riggen, whose U.S.-Mexico border film, "La Misma Luna (Under the Same Moon)," reportedly netted a whopping US$5 million distribution deal at the Sundance Film Festival. Riggen, who holds a Mexican passport but has been a U.S. resident for the past decade, brought her first short film to the Havana festival in 2003. She said outsiders are often enraged by how disrespectful Cuban audiences are, but she considers island moviegoers "very pure."
"They laugh, they talk, they come in the theatre and go out all the time. It can be very frustrating for foreigners," she said. "But in Cuba, you have . . . to have patience and understand that's just the way it is." Lesnik Weisman also works as a journalist and can travel on a general media licence and without advance permission from the U.S. government. Her documentary, filmed in Havana and Miami, tells the story of her father, Max Lesnik, who was a friend of Fidel Castro before heading into exile in South Florida following a spat over Cuba's ties to the Soviet Union. Max Lesnik is still a critic of Castro, but has remained close to Cuba's government and an opponent of the U.S. embargo - a position that prompted anti-Castro Cubans in Miami to harass their family. Born in Cuba, the filmmaker says she grew up in the U.S. amid explosions and drive-by shootings as political opponents targeted her father. "It shows courage, forward thinking and openness in what is considered a closed society," Lesnik Weisman said of Cuba's decision to show her movie. "It's hard to know how Cuban audiences will react."
Havana – DTC - The Spanish entrepreneurial group FN Internacional S.L. has increased its offers on the Cuban market to guarantee the country's construction needs. The consortium, which started up operations in Cuba in 1999, has great prestige in producing and commercializing accessories for hydraulic and sanitation systems. It also supplies wall and floor tiles, kitchen furniture and protection for electric wires. The Spanish group's offers also include high-quality products such as valves and faucets for hydraulic and sanitation systems in houses, buildings, hospitals and hotels. FN Internacional provides technical assistance and advice for construction projects, and has storage facilities in the City of Havana, Varadero, Ciego de Avila, Holguín and Santiago de Cuba.
(Radio Rebelde) – Havana - Two hundred and eighty five new art instructors have just graduated in Santiago de Cuba province, distant one thousand kilometers East of Havana. Its highest aim is that the Cuban schools will become the most important cultural centre of each community. These young graduates finished four years of intense preparation and committed to restlessly work anywhere, serving the all Cuban cultural offensive. This happened in the Heredia theatre, before their relatives, professors and leaders of the Santiago de Cuba territory. Lisett Hernández, director of the Pepito Tey Provincial School of Art Instructors, explained the learning program and detailed the graduates in music, theatre, visual arts and dance adding that they can continue their studies in the countries´ universities. The young Abel Nina Marcó, was the most comprehensive graduate with 100 points academic marks. He read the compromise emphasizing the value of their work. This Fourth graduation of Art Instructors from the South eastern Cuban region is dedicated to the 51st anniversary of Santiago de Cuba outbreak, in November 30th, 1956, aimed to support the landing of Granma yatch, where 82 combatants were ready to join the armed struggle, headed by Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz. Precisely the Santiago de Cuba School of Art Instructors is named after Pepito Tey, one of the courageous young combatants died in that action together with Tony Alomá and Otto Parellada. Inspired in their example the graduates of these unique educational centres – already 900 in its four graduations - has the great responsibility of increasing the artisitc level and the aesthetic taste of the Cubans, anywhere in the country.
Havana – DTC - The fishing industry in the central province of Sancti Spiritus has reported an increase in lobster captures this year. Fishermen in Casilda, a town in that province, are expected to capture 290 tons of lobster this year, thus increasing their contribution to the national economy. The company PESCASILDA is benefiting from high lobster prices on the international market, and the increased demand for live lobsters, a ton of which is quoted at 25,000 dollars. In addition, the company has increased the processing of whole precooked lobsters from 42 to 68 percent, earning an additional 300,000 pesos in hard currency.
Havana - (acn) - The Eighth National Seminar on Canadian Studies has been called for February 2008 by the Department of Canadian Studies of the University of Havana and by the Cuban University Network. On this occasion, the main theme of the event, which will take place at the Hall 250 of the University of Havana, will be "Canada towards Latin America: What are the Priorities?" Participants in the event will discuss the situation of Latin America as one of the priority areas of Canada's foreign relations from a historic and contemporary viewpoint. For five days, they will analyze aspects dealing with trade, investments, official assistance for development, academic cooperation, cultural relations, defense and security, migration and the role of Canada within the
Granma Intl. – Havana - Organization of American States. José Alvarez, the magician Ayra, restated in this city, 67 kms East of Havana City, the importance of the "Ànfora" ("Amphor") International Magic Festival, summoned from this province, as the only contest event for Cuban illusionists.
José Alvarez, the magician Ayra, restated in this city, 67 kms East of Havana City, the importance of the "Ànfora" ("Amphor") International Magic Festival, summoned from this province, as the only contest event for Cuban illusionists. Ayra, remembered in the Cuban TV for his presence in the Créalo o no lo crea (Believe it or not) short features, regularly attends the event, which celebrated its tenth edition this year, and which he considers as necessary to keep on celebrating, even biannually, to allow a better forming to the Cuban magicians. Concerning what was staged in Las Tunas, Ayra, professor of the School of Magic of Santiago de Cuba, the oldest of the country, and from the Areíto Magic Festival, considers this a raising moment in quality for magic in Cuba, by staging better conceived shows and stronger contests in each and every magic modality.
A magisterial lecture on cards was delivered by Magician Ayra as part of the colloquium "La magia arte milenario" ("Magic, millenary art"), theoretical session of the event. Last week was the Great Illusions´ Night which staged a main show in Las Tunas theater featuring illusionists from different parts of the Island, and the following day the Soñar despierto (Daydreaming) company performed its Latin Magic show, one of the most expected. More than a hundred magicians met in the Ánfora Festival plus a Spanish guest, Magician Juan Roldán, as well as companies from Matanzas, Varadero, Santiago de Cuba, Havana City, Camagüey and its host: Huracán Mágico (Magic Hurricane).Brasilia - (Prensa Latina) - Brazil is interested in enhancing scientific-technical collaboration with Cuba in all sectors, the island's Foreign Trade Minister Raul de la Nuez told Prensa Latina. In his interview, the Cuban minister referred to the work of the Intergovernmental Joint Commission to conclude December 14. "We analyzed projects of collaboration in sectors and drew up accords to be included in the act to be inked Thursday," De la Nuez said. The minister met with Health Minister Jose Gomes Temporao and "Banco do Brasil" president Antonio Francisco de Lima Neto, analyzed the state of exports of biotechnology products this year and the homologation of titles, and visited the Federal Confederation of Companies. Today's agenda includes talks with authorities from Tourism and Finance Ministries, and the closing ceremony and signing of the act of the Second Bilateral Joint Commission.
Havana – DTC - The city of Holguín, the capital of the eastern Cuban province of the same name, will host a series of activities this month to honor the Rodrigo Prats Lyrical Company. Founded in 1962, the company is performing in Holguín, where it staged the traditional Spanish operetta "Los Gavilanes" (The Hawks) at the Ismaelillo Theater. The company, whose performances will conclude in mid December, will also stage the operetta "La Princesa de Czardas" (The Princess of Czardas) and "La Corte del Faraón" (The Pharaoh's Court). The homage to the Rodrigo Prats Lyrical Company, directed by Concepción Casals, will close with the show "Candilejas por Siempre" (Limelight Forever), which honors actor, comedian and filmmaker Charles Chaplin. Made up of artists, technicians, singers and dancers, the company has performed operettas, traditional Spanish operettas, musicals and concerts for more than four decades.
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In 1999, OFAC (The Office of Foreign Assets Control of the United States Department of the Treasury in Washington, D.C.) confirmed that it had previously issued an opinion in 1994 which stated that a U.S. company or individual could make a secondary market investment in a "third-country company" that had commercial dealings with the Republic of Cuba as long as that investment in the "third-country company" was not a controlling interest and the "third-country company" did not derive a majority of it's revenues from operations in Cuba. (Therefore, under that criteria, U.S. citizens and companies can invest in a private or public Canadian company doing business with Cuba)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cuban Weekly News Digest
Friday, 14 December 2007
Fabio Capello to Be Named England Manager
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Cuban Weekly News Digest
Cuban Weekly News Digest - "A compilation of news articles about Cuba, distributed since 1992 in order to encourage a balanced understanding of the Cuban situation and to promote investments in the Republic of Cuba"
To supplement low wages, companies often pay Cuban staff an additional amount under the table in hard currency, and authorities have turned a blind eye, until now. "This will normalize relations between foreign investors and
Easing trade rules means the
In response, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and supporters of lifting the embargo pointed to trade relationships with
In 2005,
Rep. Marion Berry, D-Gillett, visited
The Washington Note – Commentary - Senate Hearing on Cuba Shows Change - It speaks volumes about the moment United States Cuba policy is in that Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus holds a hearing and invites three strong, articulate voices for a new Cuba policy and only two of the old guard clinging to underwhelming rhetoric of Fidel the communist and constructing painful rhetorical stretches about Cuba's support for terrorism.
That's just what happened in Dirksen 215. On the realist side of the equation were Col. Larry Wilkerson, co-chair of New America Foundation's U.S.-Cuba 21st Century Policy Initiative; Mr. David McClure, president of the Montana Farm Bureau; and Sgt. Carlos Lazo, Iraq war veteran and Cuban emigre. Representing the "stay the course" community, Mr. Frank Calzon of the Center for a Free Cuba and Dr. Jaime Suchlicki of the
Take a look at Col. Wilkerson's testimony here. It's a clear-eyed, realist case for gradual rapprochement with
Senator Grassley, the ranking member on the committee, is a fascinating study in the changing mood, at least in the Senate. Grassley said today, "Given the current leadership situation in
Forbes – Collectors Guide - Eight friends gather on a recent night at a private home, surrounded by pine trees, in a gated community outside
First out of the humidor is a 25-year-old Dunhill Estupendo--anything but stupendous looking, though it is said to be worth $1,200. Parisi purses his lips and plants a kiss on it before returning it to its reliquary. Next, a fistful of pre-Castro cigars in plastic, resembling shriveled old men too small for their pants. They date from an age when hundreds of brands, instead of the 30 officially sanctioned now, competed on the island in capitalist frenzy. They bear names like Por Larranaga and Maria Guerrero, and when Parisi holds one to the light you can see a little green from age has discolored the band. Then he leans over a second humidor, straightens up and holds a cigar aloft with all ten fingers, like a priest raising the Host. "This is the Dunhill Cabinetta," he says. More kisses now, twice blessed. Cost: $200 apiece. Parisi strokes the cigar with a finger. "Like silk," he whispers. The room seems to go silent. Then a heavyset friend in the crowd reaches for the punch line: "Let's smoke it." Parisi glowers.
In his workaday life Parisi runs the Scuola Romana Rorschach, an institute in
Married and childless, Parisi spends nearly all his free time with cigars, meeting with smoking clubs, planning trips to Cuba to buy them, inspecting cigars, touching them, occasionally even smoking them. And when he does so, it's preferably alone, on the couch in front of his fireplace. "I never smoke [merely] out of habit," he says. That would be intensely disrespectful to his stash of 60,000 Cuban cigars, worth, perhaps, $2.5 million. Many of them he keeps in a roughly 35-square-foot, mahogany-paneled room in his basement, which houses boxes of cigars piled on shelves to the ceiling and in columns rising a few feet off the floor. Just outside the room sits a 140-pound bale of Cuban tobacco. Among his favorites: 15 Cohiba Behikes, which have doubled in value in the past year to $750 each.
By his own admission Parisi is a hoarder. Easy with a laugh or an arm around the shoulder, the man insists on having everything just so. That's true of his bespoke sports jackets, shirts, shoes, boxer underwear. What he likes he buys in bulk for fear it will run out. A dresser in his closet is stuffed with his favorite red leather gloves, of which he wears one pair once a year. When rumor had it that the maker of his favorite English lavender soap was going out of business, Parisi ordered dozens of boxes. He is an unapologetic monarchist (
His love affair with Cubans began when he was 22, with an H. Upmann Aromatico he bought out of curiosity from some Russians in a
When Parisi took his first trip to
To many smokers a Pelo de Oro seems overpowering. Parisi's common-law wife, Susanna Massimi, once broke out in hives when she touched its leaves. (She, for her part, is not allowed to wear perfume or put cream on her hands when entering the basement sanctorum.) Dark, resinous and furry like sage, the Pelo de Oro plant is prone to disease and easily infects other crops. It's largely for that reason that the Castro regime limits its distribution and that people talk about it in whispers. Though the strain is now grown in other countries--
On his trips Parisi occasionally makes time for other activities, like teaching at a psychiatric hospital in
The Pelo de Oro has arrived. Parisi runs his eyes down it, then a finger. He grabs a magnifying glass and points to a diagonal edge of leaf tucked inside the rounded mouth end of the cigar. A craftsman's touch, he says, so the leaf doesn't unravel after it is clipped for smoking. He cuts the tip, lights the cigar and hands it to a guest. The air thickens with a deep, rich smoke. "Smoking a
He spoke at a news conference announcing he had been awarded
But humidity from the sea air and coastal flooding has taken its toll on colonial buildings, many of which are falling to pieces after decades of neglect. Outside the restored zone, the basic infrastructure remains little improved since before Fidel Castro's revolution in January 1959. The
So far, the government has been short on specifics, but discussions in mass organizations such as trade unions and a few early measures by Castro are buoying optimism, especially among business executives participating in last month's Havana International Trade Fair, which promotes foreign companies selling goods to
Raul Castro, who has a reputation for using limited free-market models for reforms, is considered the pragmatic counterpart to his brother
"I believe there is a consensus within the party that they need to get the economy right, and if they don't, they're threatening the long-term survival of socialism," said analyst Philip Peters of the Lexington Institute in
In 2006, tourism dropped 3.6 percent, partly because visitors complained about
But Castro's vision has left business executives wanting details. During last month's trade fair, Cuban officials weren't offering much information. The event was attended by 1,398 companies from 53 countries, including
Five major ventures continue to account for 80 percent to 90 percent of all Cuban exports, Spadoni said. Big investors include Canadians in oil-exploration, Italians in telecommunications companies, the French in rum businesses and the Spanish in hotel companies, he said. Most partnerships are 50-50 ownership, though sometimes the Cuban government holds a majority stake, he added. "The market is big, but the funds are limited," said Geoffrey Geng of Shanghai-based Forever Bicycles.
At the Hotel Palacio Azul, Lerida Torres, 49, a clerk, explained how the hotel was converted from a mansion built around 1920. The building had most recently housed offices, but the government spent $70,000 in 2002 to create a hotel for 15 guests. The two-story
At the inauguration, Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz said the group of 50 proposed hotels, 10 of which are under construction, aims to tap into "an unsatisfied demand" among tourists. "Every one of these buildings is like a book. They are full of history," he said, according to the government newspaper. One
REUTERS - LA VALLITA,
Cuba has around 250,000 family farms and 1,100 private cooperatives, an island of private ownership in an economy where the state controls 90 percent of production and individual initiative is limited to some food services, room rentals and a set number of trades, from clowns to mechanics. Since ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro handed power over to his brother Raul Castro 16 months ago, expectations inside and outside
Grappling with the inefficient economy, Raul Castro has set up a commission to study property issues, and the land grants initiative is the first concrete step he has taken to increase the size of the private sector. With prices for imported food soaring and local output falling, the younger Castro has put agricultural reform at the top of his agenda. "We face the imperative of making our land produce more, and the land is there to be tilled," he said in a speech in July in
When Fidel Castro seized power in a guerrilla uprising in 1959, three quarters of the land in
The weekly economic publication Opciones recently reported that sickle bush and other weeds have become "a plague", covering one third of
The first activity of the meeting will be the presentation of the Benito Viñas Award, in its second edition, to the most outstanding researchers of the sector on the island. One of the main topics to be discussed during the event is atmosphere contamination as well as the impact of greenhouse gases and their emission. A panel of specialists will also analyze topics such as the quality of the air and the relation of acute respiratory diseases with the weather, climate and pollution in several cities of
BuaNews (Tshwane) -
This makes China Cuba's second largest trade partner after
Currently, most of the 11.2 million Cuban homes have made-in-China home appliances, televisions, refrigerators or cooking pots, light bulbs or water pumps. As the Cuban government has implemented the Energy Revolution program to enhance energy efficiency, the Cubans are encouraged to replace the old consumption products with more energy-saving ones. And thus the Chinese consumption equipment is becoming more and more popular among the Cubans as they are modern and efficient with attractive prices compared with products from other countries.
Many Cuban officials have said on different occasions that the Chinese goods are technically advanced at good prices which have benefited the Cuban economy and the Cuban people. In 2006, Cuban leader Fidel Castro, on a television appearance, highlighted the advantages of Chinese products. The potential for economic and trade cooperation between the two countries, which have enjoyed a long-term friendship, is very bright, said their leaders, who are planning to do more to bring their cooperation level to a new high.
Negotiations on enhancing the trade between the two countries are held annually by their commissions for economic and trade relations. The 20th round of the talks is scheduled for later this month in
Mariano Alayo, one of the regulars of the forum, thinks "
"
Efe – Rig Zone.com - Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Eumelio Caballero invited Russian companies to take part in prospecting for crude oil deposits in the
He added that "
National Post - More than 40 members of the Havana-based National Ballet of Cuba arrived at
It's been 37 years since the world-renowned and much-travelled Cuban troupe danced in Canada, despite repeated attempts to lure it northward during the company's numerous U.S. tours. The Cuban Ballet's long overdue return is not, as one might suppose, attributable to the efforts of an experienced Canadian impresario but to Belma Diamante, an indefatigable, Turkish-born, Hamilton-area arts patron, and the Canadian Ballet Youth Ensemble she supports.
The CBYE aims to provide a professional-level performing experience to young dancers selected by audition from local ballet schools. Since 1993, the volunteer organization's major annual project has been a
The National Ballet of Cuba is renowned for the excellence of its dancing and because of its indomitable artistic director Alicia Alonso, a legendary ballerina who laid the foundations of the troupe almost 60 years ago. The Cuban-born Alonso, despite losing all but a portion of her sight to a series of unsuccessful retinal operations in her early twenties, went on to forge a brilliant international career. She danced with Ballet Caravan, a precursor of New York City Ballet, with the newly founded Ballet Theatre (now American Ballet Theatre) and later with the illustrious Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo. Alonso created roles in works by many of the 20th century's greatest choreographers --Balanchine, Tudor, de Mille--and was the first Western ballerina to perform as a guest in the
Never forgetting her homeland, Alonso joined forces with dancer Fernando Alonso, her then husband, and his choreographer brother Alberto to establish a company in
Much as Alonso relished performing -- she remained her company's beloved prima until well into the 1980s -- educating young dancers has always been close to Alonso's heart. "I feel it is a way to give back and share what I've learned," explained Alonso during a short visit to
The lion's share of the dancing, however, remains with the immaculately trained members of the National Ballet of Cuba. Their extraordinary capacity to light up a stage can be counted on to shine a welcome ray of Latin heat on an early Canadian winter. - Runs Dec. 14 to 16,
The programs scheduled by the Cuban Transport Ministry will use modern technology equipment to save money and time in reparation, and to purchase new means of transport. Cuban specialists confirmed the condition of the main highways and avenues is between regular and poor, because of the lack of attention during the last 15 years. In 2006, 116.8 miles were repaired, and this will be augmented with a plan for new buses for urban, municipal and provincial transport service.
"We hope for a massive participation of voters, because that is a key point in the process called in July by the Council of State," National Electoral Commission secretary Tomas Amaran told Prensa Latina. Those nominees, among them President Fidel Castro and First Vice President Raul Castro, will be subjected to the count of votes of those older than 16 with legal capacity to vote in the municipality or constituency where they were postulated. Up to half of aspirants already form 169 local governments, after being elected by 96.49 percent of over 8,176,000 voters in October.
Cuban-born US drug dealers who control illegal immigration in
Jam – ShowBiz -
"You make an American film and you never expect it to be shown in
Calls and e-mails to Lynch's representatives asking if he had sought permission from
Alfredo Guevara leads the organizing committee for the communist government-sponsored festival. He says they chose films designed to spotlight Hispanic communities in the
"Richard holds an American passport and there's not enough time to get apply to get a cultural visa," Westmoreland said. "It's something we were really excited about doing. I wish we could have." One of those who will attend is Mexican director Patricia Riggen, whose U.S.-Mexico border film, "La Misma Luna (Under the Same Moon)," reportedly netted a whopping US$5 million distribution deal at the Sundance Film Festival. Riggen, who holds a Mexican passport but has been a
"They laugh, they talk, they come in the theatre and go out all the time. It can be very frustrating for foreigners," she said. "But in
(Radio Rebelde) –
Granma Intl. –
José Alvarez, the magician Ayra, restated in this city, 67 kms East of Havana City, the importance of the "Ànfora" ("Amphor") International Magic Festival, summoned from this province, as the only contest event for Cuban illusionists. Ayra, remembered in the Cuban TV for his presence in the Créalo o no lo crea (Believe it or not) short features, regularly attends the event, which celebrated its tenth edition this year, and which he considers as necessary to keep on celebrating, even biannually, to allow a better forming to the Cuban magicians. Concerning what was staged in Las Tunas, Ayra, professor of the School of Magic of Santiago de Cuba, the oldest of the country, and from the Areíto Magic Festival, considers this a raising moment in quality for magic in Cuba, by staging better conceived shows and stronger contests in each and every magic modality.
A magisterial lecture on cards was delivered by Magician Ayra as part of the colloquium "La magia arte milenario" ("Magic, millenary art"), theoretical session of the event. Last week was the Great Illusions´ Night which staged a main show in Las Tunas theater featuring illusionists from different parts of the
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In 1999, OFAC (The Office of Foreign Assets Control of the United States Department of the Treasury in Washington, D.C.) confirmed that it had previously issued an opinion in 1994 which stated that a U.S. company or individual could make a secondary market investment in a "third-country company" that had commercial dealings with the Republic of Cuba as long as that investment in the "third-country company" was not a controlling interest and the "third-country company" did not derive a majority of it's revenues from operations in Cuba. (Therefore, under that criteria,
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James
Cuban Weekly News Digest
Thursday, 13 December 2007
Wednesday, 12 December 2007
Tuesday, 11 December 2007
Pide asilo en EEUU popular animador y humorista cubano
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Reprimen marcha por el Día de los Derechos Humanos en Cuba
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Monday, 10 December 2007
The Scientific Revolution - A seminar about science in Cuba
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Saturday, 8 December 2007
Cuba activists say arrests rising
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Friday, 7 December 2007
Desarticulada banda que llevaba ilegales cubanos a Europa
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Thursday, 6 December 2007
TripIt's Calendar Integration In Time for Holiday Travel
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Tuesday, 4 December 2007
Cuban Weekly News Digest
Cuban Weekly News Digest - "A compilation of news articles about Cuba, distributed since 1992 in order to encourage a more balanced understanding of the Cuban situation and to promote investments in the Republic of Cuba"
The report provided few details about what is fueling growth, citing only general increases in industrial and agricultural production.
Tourism is the chief source of revenue, but the number of overseas visitors declined through June of this year as compared to 2006 -- a year that saw a slight slip from the 2.2 million visitors in 2005.
The legislator, member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), said he has a special love for
Olivares said that the 12 members of the commission are very interested in improving the links between the two countries and, with this goal in mind, they will organize an agenda with concrete actions to increase bilateral relations in all sectors. In this sense, he noted that coordination meetings with the Cuban National Assembly (Parliament) and with the Cuban Embassy in
Castro has led
The nomination of Castro was a response to the "immense affection, respect, consideration and recognition that our people have (for him)," said Vice President Carlos Lage. Lage added that Cubans were focusing their attention on Castro's "recuperation." Castro was needed as head of state "because there is no job more important in the world," a job that requires an awareness of the dangers facing the planet and "the needs of responsible citizens," Lage said.
Since Castro handed over to his brother, speculation has since been rife as to whether the elder Castro would return to power, at least formally. Cuba-watchers say it is possible he might be elected an assembly deputy, but then choose not to run for re-election to the Council of State. If he had not been nominated Sunday, that could have opened the way for Raul Castro to take over
Raul was also nominated at the session in
Khaleej Times -
Pfaffenbach holds the rank of state secretary in the ministry and doubles as Chancellor Angela Merkel's sherpa at economics summits, like that of the Group of Eight (G8). He would be the first high-ranking German government official to have contact with the communist regime since the EU cut back diplomatic ties in 2003 in protest at Cuba's human rights record. German development aid was frozen at the same time. Der Spiegel reported the aim of the visit was to enhance economic ties and that the plans were already running into opposition from memb of Merkel's conservative Christian bloc (CDU/CSU). Among the interests Pfaffenbach trip is to secure are sales of German medical technology and access to
Telegraph –
The SICA system, which was first developed in
At the opening ceremony of the meeting, a representative of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in
Tribune de Genève - A special UN rapporteur from
But he later came under fire, particularly from American interests, for denying that the country is under a dictatorship and for stating that there is no torture there, the Tribune de Genève reports today. At a press conference in
Ziegler explained that it was the first time in 10 years that
It's not the first time that Ziegler has faced controversy or locked horns with US interests. In March 2005 he sharply condemned the American-led invasion of
Alicia Alonso, who is also UNESCO's Goodwill Ambassador, stated in her letter, "Let us work together so that Cuban artists and writers can take their talent to the United States, and that you are not prevented to come to our Island to share your knowledge and values; so that a song, a book, a scientific study or a choreographic work are not considered, in an irrational way, as a crime." Her stirring letter inspired the organizers of USCCE to create a movement towards changing the current restrictions acquiring hundreds of signatures in its initial outreach. The letter, along with the hundreds of signatures will be delivered to the White House and the campaign will be ongoing until changes are made to allow for a free flow of creative expression between the
Actor Sean Penn stated, "When the fulfillment of multi-cultural interest and exposure is limited by the arbitrary acts of any government; when the dialogue and interaction between artists of one country and any other is banned, we begin to humiliate our own humanity. It has been said that the poets are the unacknowledged legislators of any given era. Let's let those poets in the
"The response has been overwhelming and reaffirming the strong support to change such absurd and inhumane laws preventing art and culture to flourish," stated Louis Head and Bill Martinez, Co-Founders of USCCE. Ry Cooder, who collaborated with the Buena Vista Social Club and reintroduced Cuban music to the mainstream masses, issued a strong statement stating "President Clinton helped us bring Buena Vista Social Club out to the world. President Bush helps his gangster buddies in
Actor Danny Glover sent the following statement, "As a basic democratic tenant Americans should support freedom of travel and of exchange between Cuban and American artists whose culturally diverse imaginations and creative collaborations are so necessary to dismantle the immoral blockade and censorship that impedes citizens from both countries in their projects to build respectful, just, and peaceful relationship between our two countries." Industry executive Robert Kraft, President of Fox Music stated, "The intrinsic value of an artistic dialogue with our Cuban friends can not be underestimated. The musical, artistic, and intellectual influence that Cuban culture has on American creativity is profound, and must be continued and supported."
USCCE was formed in 2005 to encourage change in
On the Development Index of Education For Everyone,
Las Tunas - (acn) - Metallic overlapping roof sheets for some 15,000 homes plus 80,000 clay roof tiles to repair homes recently damaged by the tropical storm Noel were manufactured in the Empresa de Estructuras Metalicas of Las Tunas province (METUNAS). In record time, METUNAS manufactured some 80,000 clay roof tiles to repair homes damaged by the intense rain brought about by tropical storm Noel last October in the five eastern provinces plus the central area of
From January 2006 to date, METUNAS has provided tiles to roof 65,000 houses, the enterprise technical manager Bernardo Perez Rivera told ACN. METUNAS currently manufactures galvanized steel sheets and iron fittings for the repair work undertaken by the government in schools, hospitals, and clinics. The enterprise also manufactures sheet metal covers to build houses for long term use and very resistant to the inclement weather.
Castro has not been seen in public since emergency intestinal surgery forced him to cede power to his younger brother Raul in July 2006. Since then, no foreign head of state has visited the ailing revolutionary more than Chavez, who was last in
The Cuban leader said the
Castro said threats against Chavez will not end with Sunday's vote. "A victory of the 'yes' vote on Dec. 2 would not be enough. The weeks and months following that date may very well prove to be extremely tough for many countries,
Velez announced that, for the second consecutive year, six Venezuelan trainers will be part of the direction teams of Pinar del Rio, Villa Clara, Sancti Spiritus, Ciego de Avila, Camagüey and
WTVJ-TV -
Izquierdo attorney Magda Montiel Davis did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment. Cohen ruled in September that Izquierdo is a fit parent and did not abandon his daughter when her mother brought her to the
The Cubases, who live in
Another important entity of the Cuban medical equipment industry is the
Cuban Public Health Minister Jose Ramon Balaguer also addressed the gathering, recalling the first Cuban produced medical equipment to be exported some 25 years ago, the MEDICID 03. He said that, despite the financial, commercial and economic blockade of the
In a meeting with the Cuban and accredited international press, Rivero said that links between the two peoples are excellent and that his government authorities are devoted to improvement in the quality of life of the population. He explained that during his visit, letters of understanding were signed with respect to future tourism development projects, an area in which the
As part of his itinerary, the leader of the autonomous territory, one of
Granma International - Currently there are 375,095 registered cases of diabetes in Cuba, a figure that could reach 624,000 by 2010, affirmed Dr. Oscar Díaz, director of the National Institute of Endocrinology, a special center devoted to treatment of this condition that causes the death of three million people a year worldwide. Diabetes is a disease that is on the rise. According to facts broadcast on the Cuban "Roundtable" TV program addressing the issue, 246 million people in the world are currently living with the affliction, a figure that is expected to reach 380 million by 2025.
The disease can lead to a diabetic coma, that can be fatal, and other chronic complications which can manifest themselves in the long term as heart trouble or cardiac arrest, thrombosis or brain hemorrhage, kidney disease, vision loss and others like sores on the feet that, left untreated, can lead to amputation. In
As was reported on the "Roundtable," the Habana
Granma Intl. –
"It was just a trip," Bunnett explained from
"Everywhere we went, there was music, and there were so many different styles. I don't know one person who has gone to
Twenty-five years later, Bunnett has continued to visit and explore the music of
Bunnett's last CD, 2005's "Radio Guantánamo: Guantánamo Blues Project Vol. 1" was the result of travels to the town in the shadows of the infamous U.S. Naval Base. But Guantánamo is also home to Changüi, probably the oldest form of Afro-Cuban music, and it was the music more than the politics that inspired the project. The only overt political message relates not to Guantánamo but to
As far as the implications of the title, Bunnett prefers that people read their own messages into it, but for her, the name refers to the disconcerting experience of tuning in to the base's radio station while staying in a town seemingly lost in time. "The city's like 'Pleasantville,' " Bunnett says of Guantánamo. "You feel like you've gone back in time. There's little kids being pulled in goat carts around the city center, and on Saturday everyone comes out in their finest dress, and there are musicians performing out in the streets. But then every time we tuned into Radio Guantánamo, it sort of gave a bittersweet backdrop to what was happening."
Bunnett's approach is not to try and recreate the Cuban sound, but to incorporate it into her own jazz settings. The result, unlike many other crossover projects, doesn't sound like musicians cutting loose with Latin rhythms so much as deft jazz writing that weaves and parries with Afro-Cuban rhythms. It's a compelling and distinctive blend. "In my formative stages of playing jazz," she explained, "I was listening to Coltrane and Billy Harper and Pharoah Sanders, and within the context of that music I've always heard this Afro-Cuban element. "I'm a North American jazz musician working within the Cuban rhythms, as opposed to a Cuban musician who's playing jazz. I'm still learning, and I've got great musicians in the group who are constantly correcting me and teaching me. Sometimes they have to catch me on stuff, but I'll often do things that maybe they normally wouldn't have thought of trying."
Doug Chatfield will take the Fencebuster uniforms to
Children aged 7, 8 and 9 wear the Legion uniforms which the legion buys for the ball players when they are needed. MLA for Cumberland South, Murray Scott say's he can't say enough about the work the men have done for area youth. "These guys have been involved with kids for many, many years," Scott said. "They give a lot to kids here and it just makes sense that they'll give to other kids in the world. "Our kids here have so much and there are kids in parts of the world like
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In 1999, OFAC (The Office of Foreign Assets Control of the United States Department of the Treasury in
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James
Cuban Weekly News Digest
Monday, 3 December 2007
Sunday, 2 December 2007
Saturday, 1 December 2007
Protests force Facebook to change
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