Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2008 08:20:32 -0800
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" Editor’s Note: Information on The Carbonera Club, Cuba
The Club is a luxury beachfront resort that will be built in Carbonera, Cuba. It is the first of its kind and offers the opportunity to own resort property in Cuba that will combine golf and luxury living. Located 40 minutes by car from Havana and 15 minutes from the existing tourist destination of Varadero, it is only 90 nautical miles south of the USA Florida Keys.
This low-density development, situated close to two airports, covers 170 hectares and will offer 720 properties for sale from private villas, 1 - 4 bedroom apartments and Conran residences. The Club will include a hotel & spa, a beach & watersport club, a tennis club, a PGADC 18-hole golf course and use of the yacht club and its marina. Sensitive treatment of the natural and cultural environment together with a creative mix of contemporary design and the highest quality materials will set the new standards for construction in the region, and will be the first of a series of developments brought to you by CGR (Cuban Golf Resorts) and forms part of a significant investment into Cuba.
The key points to remember are – it is an opportunity to own resort property in Cuba; residents will have a visa allowing a stay of up to 6 months per year, with no tax issues; properties may be purchased in the name of a company or Trust; construction will begin in 2009 and complete in 2011 and there is no tax on sale of property. The official Public offering to purchase property is early 2009. The Carbonera Club is a membership only club. Membership is a pre-requisite to buying property within the resort. Once accepted, members have the right to reserve and purchase property. Membership also brings immediate benefits such as access to the Xanadu Golf Course and the Marina in Varadero.
Editor Comment: If you have an interest in looking at these properties, email me and I will get a membership application sent to you.
HAVANA – Cuba says its economy will grow 4.3 percent for the year, about half the original forecast, due to damage from hurricanes and the rising cost of food imports. The report by Economy Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez, during a meeting with lawmakers preparing for a weekend session of Cuba's parliament, was reported by government news media. He had projected 8 percent growth for 2008 last December. The state news agency Prensa Latina reported that Rodriguez said "structural changes" and investment in production are needed to revive the island's battered agricultural and industrial sectors.
"We can't keep consuming based on finances we haven't earned," Rodriguez was quoted as saying. He said Cuba "needs to increase its efficiency and productivity to create wealth before we spend it." Hurricanes Gustav, Ike and Paloma caused at least $10 billion in combined damaged this year, crippling infrastructure and food production and leaving tens of thousands of Cubans homeless. The government also has stressed the need to slash dependance on imported food, which cost the island about $2 billion in 2008. Cuba uses an unusual method of calculating gross domestic product, including state spending on free health care and education, as well as subsides for transportation and food rations. Critics say that inflates the figures that officially showed growth of 7.5 percent last year and 12.5 percent in 2006. The island's parliament meets only two weekends a year and its members usually unanimously approve measures put forward by the Communist Party and other top officials.
Havana – DTC - Cuban tourist authorities expect a record number of foreign tourists will visit the Caribbean island this year. According to estimates, conditions exist to break the record of 2.31 million foreign tourists in 2005. Preliminary statistics show that 2.15 million foreign vacationers had visited Cuba until December 8. So far, Canada remains the main sending market, reporting a 24.5-percent increase and some 800,000 tourists. Other major markets are Italy, Spain and Great Britain, and some 40,000 Russian tourists are expected to visit the island nation this year. Authorities noted that predictions are optimistic despite the damage caused by hurricanes that hit several Cuban provinces recently. As an example, they said that in Holguín alone, about 100 international flights were suspended due to the hurricanes.
HAVANA - (Reuters) - Against a backdrop of economic gloom and the frail health of former leader Fidel Castro, Cuba will mark on Thursday the 50th anniversary of the revolution that turned the island into a communist state and Cold War hot spot at the doorstep of the United States. President Raul Castro will speak in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba from the same balcony where his older brother, Fidel Castro, proclaimed victory after dictator Fulgencio Batista fled the country in the early morning hours of January 1, 1959. The elder Castro, 82, in semi-seclusion since July 2006 after surgery for an undisclosed intestinal ailment, will not attend, officials said.
Due to his absence and the economic difficulties plaguing Cuba, what had been expected to be a major celebration of the revolution's longevity will be a no-frills event in a tree-shaded square with room for about only 3,000 people, the officials said. Concerts are planned throughout the country, with the major one in Havana where popular Cuban band Los Van Van will play at the Anti-Imperialist Tribunal in front of the U.S. Interests Section. The Interests Section was the embassy for the United States until it broke off diplomatic relations in January 1961 after U.S.-owned properties were nationalized by Fidel Castro.
Officials have said this was not a time for lavish celebration because Cuba is struggling from the effects of three hurricanes this year that caused $10 billion in damages, as well as the global financial crisis. Government leaders gave a gloomy assessment of the economy last week, telling the National Assembly the country's trade and budget deficits had ballooned due to rising import costs and falling prices for exports. Raul Castro called for more belt-tightening and an end to handouts he said discouraged people from working. "The victory of the 1st of January did not mark the end of the struggle, but the start of a new stage," he said. "There has not been a minute of respite during the past half century."
Should he not show up, Fidel Castro's absence will raise new speculation about his condition, to which many believe Cuba's future is closely linked. Although he has not been seen in public for 2-1/2 years, he still has a behind-the-scenes presence in the government and a public voice via opinion columns he writes regularly. He remains a world figure who made his name thumbing his nose at the United States, just 90 miles away, and forging close ties with its Cold War enemy, the Soviet Union. Many Cubans believe that as long as Fidel Castro is alive, his more pragmatic brother will not be able to reform the Cuban economy or political system in a meaningful way. Others doubt Raul Castro wants to make many changes and that early reforms he implemented, such as opening computer and cell phone sales to Cubans, were meant chiefly to gain favor with Cubans skeptical he could fill his brother's shoes.
Cuba's revolution arrives at its 50th anniversary in a time of transition. Fidel Castro is on the sidelines after ruling Cuba for 49 years and his archenemy, the United States, may be on the verge of change in its Cuba policy. President-elect Barack Obama, who replaces President George W. Bush on January 20, has said he wants to ease the 46-year-old U.S. trade embargo toward Cuba, is open to talks with Cuban leaders and will consider steps toward normalizing relations. Both Castros have warily said talks were possible. Changes are not just occurring at the top.
In Cuba, people, especially the young, clamor increasingly for an end to five decades of economic hardship and see improved U.S.-Cuba relations as a way out. In the United States, a recent poll showed that for the first time a majority of Cuban-Americans in Miami, center of the Cuban exile world and anti-Castro sentiment, favor ending the embargo. As Raul Castro told the National Assembly, "We are living in a radically different period of history."
Trinidad & Tobago News - A fairly well-looking Prime Minister Patrick Manning surprised the national community with his premature return home (weeks ahead of the scheduled January 3), following successful surgery a week ago to remove a cancerous tumour from his right kidney in Cuba. Further testimony to how well he appeared to be doing was his ability to come straight from Piarco to host a news conference at the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann's, chirping as he entered: "Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. I am back." Dressed not in his usual business suit, but in a blue shirt and black pants, Manning's movements were fluid and bore no hint of a man in pain or discomfort. His steps were measured and deliberate and his responses to questions reflected the usual sharpness and wit.
And the Prime Minister showed unprecedented openness, when he raised his shirt to display his surgical scar at the end of the news conference. With only the President, George Maxwell Richards, acting Prime Minister, Dr Lenny Saith, and Chairman of the PNM, Conrad Enill, knowing of his plan to return home, Manning (and wife, Senator Hazel Manning) touched down at Piarco International Airport with his Cuban doctor, urologist Dr Javier Rivero, and the head nurse who attended to him. "To ensure that all was well", both doctor and nurse travelled with Manning on an aircraft owned by the government of Cuba (which allowed the Prime Minister to travel lying down on a bed). They, along with a translator provided by the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, were expected to return to Cuba last evening. Also present was the Cuban ambassador.
Manning had been scheduled to leave Cuba around 9 o' clock yesterday morning, but President Raul Castro was waiting to see him at the airport and this led to a "very interesting meeting". The flight did not leave Havana until after 10 o'clock as a consequence. Manning revealed that he has always received medical attention in Cuba free of charge. Apart from free annual medical check-ups, in 1998 he had major heart surgery (to replace his valves), in 2004 he had laser surgery on his eyes and a pace-maker installed.
But Manning stressed that no questions of integrity arose as a result of this freeness, which came out of "state-to-state relations and this is the way that States choose to treat with each other". Manning thanked the people of Trinidad and Tobago for the tremendous outpouring and the wishes for a speedy recovery, which "I ensure you has taken place...though I am not completely recovered. I need a period of convalescence. I would do that quietly here... and should be back in service not too long from now". The PM has to return to Cuba every three months for check-ups over the next year. Manning said the Government of Cuba has a programme of medical assistance for the rest of the Caribbean. He said he has begun to think of how Trinidad and Tobago could maximise the current arrangement under which Cuban doctors and nurses work here. He said he wants to examine more closely the idea of getting more expertise from Cuba in the field of medicine.
Havana – DTC - The Sancti Spiritus-Trinidad tourist destination, in central Cuba, has the infrastructure necessary to meet the growing demand from foreign vacationers during the ongoing peak season. Local tourist authorities pointed out that the region offers 1,280 hotel rooms, in addition to historical, cultural and natural attractions. First-class hotels such as Brisas Trinidad del Mar, Grand Hotel Iberostar Trinidad, Villa de Recreo María Dolores, Club Amigo Ancón, Costa Sur and Cubanacán Las Cuevas are available in Trinidad, which was declared a Humankind Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The region's tourist options are complemented by dozens of restaurants run by the group Palmares, among other offers. Vacationers can also visit Valle de los Ingenios (the Sugar Mill's Valley), where dozens of sugar factories contributed to the city's economic splendor in the 19th centuries.
Los Angeles Times - Reporting from Havana - A country that shunned Christmas for decades is now looking to cash in on the holiday season, promoting an online shopping site designed to let Cubans overseas buy products, including flowers and flat-screen TVs, for delivery to relatives in the island nation. Grupo Excelencias, based in Spain, teamed with Cuba's communist government to create MallHabana.com, which offers prices in U.S. dollars and says it can deliver products within 24 hours to homes in Havana and get purchases to even the country's most remote addresses within three weeks. "It's a good business, but it's also a way for Cubans [overseas] to help their family members here," said Sergio Perez, the Havana director of the Spanish-language site.
It also appears to be a direct challenge to U.S. legal limits on shipping funds to Cuba or spending money here. Dozens of the products listed are made in Cuba -- such as Havana Club rum and guayabera shirts. Others are imports already stocked by upscale government-run stores, such as 29-inch Panasonic TVs or crunchy peanut butter from Canada. The site was created in August 2006, but Cuba's government has been promoting it heavily during the Christmas season.
Cuba officially canceled Christmas as a holiday in 1966 and long discouraged citizens from openly celebrating it. But, the Communist Party temporarily reinstated Dec. 25 as a holiday in 1998 after Pope John Paul II's visit, and schools, government offices and businesses have begun routinely to close on Christmas in recent years. This holiday season, baggers and cashiers at state boutiques are passing out copper-hued business cards bearing the MallHabana.com Web address and the slogan, "Your Friendly Purchases," to shoppers in Havana, hoping to entice purchases from visiting exiles. The cards attracted so much attention that the luxury Palco supermarket on Havana's western outskirts quickly ran out. The store sells expensive, mostly imported, goods to foreign diplomats, tourists and Cubans lucky enough to have hard currency.
Perez said the website has 20,000 registered customers and generates "millions of dollars annually" in sales, though he declined to give specifics. Payment requires a non-U.S. credit card -- a rarity among Cubans in the United States -- or direct money transfers to Excelencias' Spanish accounts. Customers can also purchase U.S. money orders and ship them to company representatives in Canada, Perez said. Such transactions would seemingly violate Washington's nearly 50-year-old trade embargo, which generally prohibits most Americans and U.S. residents from doing business with this country and buying products of Cuban origin. The restrictions can even apply to third-country companies that operate in Cuba.
A U.S. Treasury Department spokesman declined to comment specifically on the MallHabana.com case. But Ninoska Perez Castellon, a Miami radio and TV host, said U.S. authorities have shut down similar such websites based outside Cuba in the past, and she expects that U.S. authorities will take similar action this time. "Apparently they think they can violate the law. It's really pathetic," said Perez Castellon, a member of the Cuban Liberty Council, an exile group that opposes Fidel Castro and the Cuban government. "It's the law, it's clear and they are violating it." But back in Havana, Sergio Perez maintained that the site was doing nothing wrong. "The company is Spanish, and the United States can't do anything," said Perez, who is not related to Perez Castellon. "Anyway, we carefully guard the information of our registered clients." The site features a limited range of products at what Americans would consider sky-high prices. The first item listed under "computing" is a set of eight crayons. Further down the page, a Dell computer that would retail for about $450 in the U.S. is offered "on sale" for $1,424. Imported products in Cuba are routinely marked up to more than twice their retail value overseas, however.
Havana – DTC - The ophthalmological project known as Operation Miracle has benefited Cuban patients all over the country. That is the case of western Pinar del Río province, where some 23,000 patients have undergone eye surgery over the past two years. According to experts, patients have access to modern diagnostic methods and surgical treatments, which guarantee their rapid recovery. The main problems treated are cataracts, refractive defects, strabismus, retinitis pigmentosa, pterigium and glaucoma. The implementation of Operation Miracle in Pinar del Río began in 2006, when the broad sector of the local population was tested to diagnose visual problems. Surgery is performed in seven hospitals and polyclinics in the province, as well as in an Ophthalmological Center that was inaugurated in 2007.
Granma Intl. – Havana - Ricardo Alarcón, president of the National Assembly of People’s Power, has condemned the U.S. administration for promoting illegality and social indiscipline in Cuba through its Helms Burton Act. "Our nation is the only one in which the most powerful nation on the planet is striving to encourage dissolution, vice and social disobedience, Alarcón stated during an event to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the People’s Supreme Court and the Attorney General of the Republic, which took place at the Astral movie theater. He clarified that socialism cannot coexist with these immoralities which, although they are not comparable in terms of magnitude with those predominating throughout the world, have to be eradicated so as not to lose the continuity of a project that dates back to the origins of the Cuban nation.
He reiterated his condemnation of the corruption linked to the five Cubans imprisoned in U.S. jails, who received excessive sentences for monitoring counterrevolutionary organizations working in South Florida with the backing of the U.S. authorities. He emphasized the arbitrary nature of the trial of Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino and René González and the fact that their case was rejected by the 11th Circuit Appeals Court of Atlanta last September.
During the event, founding members of this sector were acknowledged for their work and a special tribute was made to Manuel Urrutia Bernal, current judge for the City of Havana, for 50 years of dedicated labor. Alarcón; Pedro Sáez, member of the Political Bureau and first secretary of the Party in the capital; María Esther Reus, minister of justice; Juan Escalona, director of public prosecutions in the capital; and Rubén Remigio Ferro, president of the People’s Supreme Court, congratulated those who received tributes. In this way, the Cuban judicial sector celebrated the creation of the General Attorney of the Republic and the People’s Supreme Court on December 23, 1973, which also coincides with the 132nd anniversary of the birth of Major General of the Liberation Army, jurist Ignacio Agramonte y Loynaz.
Havana – DTC - Cuba is repairing the country's road infrastructure to improve cargo and passenger transportation. In order to achieve that goal, 50 million dollars was invested in acquiring the equipment necessary to create one specialized brigade in each province. In addition, four plants equipped with cutting-edge technology were bought to produce high-quality asphalt. Two of the plants will supply asphalt to pave Havana's avenues and streets, and two mobile plants will operate in central and eastern Cuba. The strategy also includes the remodeling of two ships to carry liquid asphalt and facilities to monitor the quality of the materials used in the projects.
HAVANA - (Reuters) - Cuba's trade deficit soared by nearly 70 percent, or an estimated $5 billion, in 2008 due mainly to rising prices for imports such as food and oil and falling prices for nickel, its main export, official media said. Foreign Trade Minister Raul de la Nuez said in a speech to parliament deputies that imports surged 43.8 percent while exports grew just 2.1 percent. The news follows reports that Cuba, battered by three hurricanes and the global financial crisis, is facing a cash crunch that is forcing it to seek debt restructuring with various countries and companies and delay cash transfers for payments abroad.
"Dealing with the trade balance is a strategic issue for the country's economic survival," Ricardo Cabrisas, vice president of the Council of Ministers in charge of international economic relations, told the meeting. Granma gave no figures for 2008, but estimates based on the numbers from de la Nuez and data for 2007 would place imports at $16.1 billion and exports at $4.4 billion, leaving a deficit of $11.7 billion.
That would be an increase of $4.8 billion, or 69.5 percent, over official figures for 2007, that showed a deficit of $6.9 billion, with exports totaling $4.3 billion and imports $11.2 billon. The government reports foreign exchange data in the convertible peso which it pegs at $1.08. President Raul Castro, who formally replaced older brother Fidel Castro as president in February, has been warning for several months Cuba would have to tighten its belt due to rising international prices for food and fuel that had pushed up the cost of imports. The global financial crisis has made it difficult for Cuba to get credit to purchase imports, which include 60 percent of its food.
Over the last few years Cuba has helped pay for its trade deficit, which is a measure of goods bought and sold, through revenue from tourism and service exports, mainly for health and education to oil-rich ally Venezuela. Three hurricanes struck the island starting in late August, causing an estimated $10 billion in damages. Nickel prices have plummeted worldwide amid rising production and falling demand to between $10,000 and $15,000 per tonne from a high of around $50,000 in 2007. Cuba reported a debt of $17.8 billion and current account balance of payments surplus of $527 million in 2007, based on $9 billion in service exports. But tourism revenues were expected to increase by just a few hundred million dollars this year and there was no mention by the media on Friday of a significant increase in other service exports, all but ensuring a big deficit in this year's current account balance of payments.
HAVANA - (AFP) – Cuban President Raul Castro met with the head of a flotilla of Russian navy ships touring Cuba, the first such visit to the Soviet-era ally since the end of the Cold War. Russian Vice Admiral Vladimir Koraliov commanded the flotilla, which included destroyer Admiral Chabanenko and two support vessels. The warships arrived in Havana as part of a Latin American tour that included stops with US foes Venezuela and Nicaragua, and saw the ships pass through the Panama Canal for the first time since World War II. It was the first visit by Russian warships to Cuba since 1991 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a staunch military, economic and political ally to Cuba for 30 years.
The meeting took place "in an environment of friendship ... that characterizes relations between the people, governments and armed forces" of Cuba and Russia, according to a statement read on state-controlled television. Also at the meeting were Cuba's most senior military brass, as well as Moscow's envoy to Havana. Russian warships -- including the nuclear-powered cruiser Peter the Great -- conducted joint exercises with Venezuelan navy vessels in the Caribbean during the tour. The visit close to US waters is seen as a response to Washington's own moves in areas Russia deems within its sphere of influence, including in the Black Sea. US officials have said they see no military threat from Russia's maneuvers. The visit comes three weeks after Russian President Medvedev met Castro in Havana in a Latin American tour designed to revive what he called "privileged relations" from Soviet times.
Havana – DTC - Cuban authorities have invested millions in the development of the transportation sector. According to experts, 280 million dollars have been spent since 2005, when the reactivation of the sector began, to import buses for public transportation. They noted that 2,678 such buses were bought in China, Russia and Belarus, adding that 789 buses arrived in Cuba in 2008, in addition to 248 second-hand buses that are running in Havana and Santiago de Cuba. As a result of that initiative, passenger transportation will increase six percent this year, at an average of more than one million passengers a day in Havana. Regarding cargo transportation, achievements have been made in the railroad sector, in which investment were made to acquire 52 modern locomotives.
Havana - (Prensa Latina) - Cuban ministries and institutions started to account to Parliament, the permanent committees of which already completed discussions prior to the Second Ordinary Period of its Seventh Legislature. Ministries of Foreign Trade and Domestic Trade are to open this process to inform delegates of the National Assembly of the People's Power (Parliament). On Wednesday, the Parliament committees on Economic Affairs and Constitutional and Legal Issues approved the Social Security report to be subject to vote in plenary session on Saturday. President of Parliament Ricardo Alarcon took part in the meeting and ratified that the Cuban State guarantees social security of the people. He explained that this positive step is taken as millions of people are losing social and economic support worldwide due to the global crisis. This is a bill that envisages rights for all, while many people in Latin America and many other parts of the world lack those rights and lack access to health care and education, Alarcon stressed.
Havana – DTC - Cargo vehicles used in the construction sector will be modernized in the central Cuban province of Cienfuegos. The Empresa de Soluciones Mecánicas is creating the conditions to improve efficiency in the exploitation of those vehicles. Modern cabins and powerful engines will be complemented by new bearing systems and tires, thus guaranteeing the repair and maintenance of the vehicles. The goal is to improve the equipment and save up to 15 percent in resources, as there is no need to import the whole vehicle. The initiative is part of an agreement between Cuba and Ukraine to rehabilitate 480 Kras trucks over the next three years.
Caracas - (Prensa Latina) - Experts from the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) will meet on January 8 in Caracas to analyze a proposal for a common currency, Venezuelan Finance Minister Ali Rodriguez informed. The minister said that after the first exchanges, the experts consider the dollar an element of the world crisis, which underlines the need for a common currency. Interviewed by the local Vive-TV channel, Rodriguez explained currency is a means of exchange, but when it is not represented by real values, it drops. Considering the current world crisis, he added, different regions are seeking formulas to replace the dollar as unit of reference for world trade. The Venezuelan minister believes that entails the creation of a universal currency and a World Central Bank to end with the one-country factor and boost the value of currencies in the rest of the world. ALBA, made up of Bolivia, Dominica, Honduras, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, takes those processes into consideration and assumes the need to have a currency that facilitates exchange in Latin America.
Havana – DTC - The Dutch company, Nirint Shipping, is consolidating its operations in Cuba in order to meet the growing demand from local clients. The multipurpose ships of the Rotterdam-based company carry Cuban nickel from the Caribbean Island to several destinations. The company, which also transports plants for major industrial projects in Cuba, has a network of firms that operate in the maritime transportation sector and carry dry and liquid cargo, containers and buses, among others. Nirint Shipping operates a fleet of four multipurpose ships – one of which is exclusively dedicated to the enlargement project in Moa – and the others operate in the regular line from Cuba to Europe and Canada.
Havana – (Prensa Latina) - At least nine Cuban provinces, out of the 13 sugar producing provinces, are currently immersed in sugarcane harvest, with 14 sugar refineries already working, an official source asserted Monday. Provinces involved are Matanzas, Villa Clara, Las Tunas, Cienfuegos, Camagüey, Granma, Santiago de Cuba, Guantanamo and Havana City, the head of the Office of the Institutional Communication of the Ministry of Sugar (MINAZ) Liobel Perez told Prensa Latina. The last to join the harvest is Havana City, which began with the starting up of the Manuel Fajardo sugar refinery, in Quivican, 37 miles south of the capital. The provinces of Pinar del Rio and Holguin will join this sugar campaign before the current month ends, while Sancti Spiritus and Ciego de Avila will follow suit in January, Perez announced.
Havana – DTC - Three Cubans are among Latin America's top ten athletes in 2008, according to the survey that the news agency Prensa Latina carries out every year. The poll, which involved 93 media organizations, included Dayron Robles (athletics), Mijaín López (Greco-Roman wrestling) and Leinier Domínguez (chess). According to experts, Robles, Olympic and world champion in the 110-meter hurdles, is also the favorite to be Cuba's athlete of the year. Robles, who won the gold medal at the Beijing Olympic Games, set a world record this year and clocked less than 13 seconds on seven occasions. The other Cubans who have a chance to be among Latin America's top ten athletes are Yipsi Moreno (hammer), two-time Olympic silver medalist in Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008, and Yarelis Barrios (discus), silver medalist in Beijing.
Pinar del Rio - (Prensa Latina) - Cuban cigars are present in 150 nations specially in America, assured TABACUBA firm President Oscar Basulto Torrez in Pinar del Rio. At the end of a plenary presided over by the Agriculture Minister Ulises Rosales del Toro, the leader also highlighted that there are 136 Havana Cigar Firms which show preference of this Cuban product. The industry in the island is conditioned to satisfy the different markets' demands and emphasized that tobacco leaf is used through the premium natural mechanized project while 24 percent of the world production is Cuban. He emphasized large efforts of post-hurricane construction workers and the trust given by farmers who are already growing tobacco plants. The campaign has gained progress and it could not be possible without unity for a good harvest despite the disastrous storms.
Havana – DTC - Cuban composer Harold Gramatges, a prominent musician in Latin America, died in this capital at the age of 90. During his career, Gramatges composed classical and incidental music for films and television. Some of his works were inspired in texts by prominent Spanish poets such as Góngora, Juan Ramón Jiménez and Rafael Alberti, and some others were dedicated to prima ballerina assoluta Alicia Alonso and the National Ballet of Cuba. He won several prizes, including the 1996 Tomás Luis de Victoria Ibero-American Music Award, and the 2002 National Music Award granted by the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC). Gramatges studied composition with US musician Aaron Copland at The Berkschire Music Center in Tanglewood, Massachusetts, and took classes of orchestra direction from Serge Koussevitzky.
Matanzas, Cuba - (Prensa Latina) - Tobacco and citrus fruit crops of the western province of Matanzas will be rewarded with good results in both export items, according to an official report released here. According to the document collection of the leaf whose harvest should conclude early in January surpass the 27 tons of 2008 that are used for the covering of the famous puros and will be tasted in foreign markets. The source pointed out that reaching the end of the grapefruit harvest, citrus farmers and rapidly collecting oranges and this should result in 200,000 tons. This campaign is developed in the areas of the Empresa Victoria de Giron, about 180 kilometers to the south of Havana, and is the largest of its kind in the country.
For the past years its fields have been affected by the passing of hurricanes. Most of the fruit, the report informs – is used for concentrated juices for export and the rest is sold in the tourism network and the internal market. Varadero,in the northern coast of Matanzas, is the most important Cuban sea resort with 53 hotels and 17,000 accommodations for the so-called “smokeless industry.” Another important crop for the country, potato, registers delays in planting due to heavy rains this year and requires additional efforts of the directors, technicians and producers working in this field. Matanzas occupies first place in high volumes of the potato that is also sent to other regions of the country.
Havana – DTC - Cuba's most famous recording house, EGREM, will launch a CD containing percussion music. The company is working on the CD "Fiesta de Tambores" (Drum Party), which will contain the most famous works by late musician Tata Güines, who was one of Cuba's best percussionists. The CD's 25 tracks include "Descarga Cubana", "Scherezada Chachachá", "Sasauma", "Perico No Llores Más", "Mami, Dame Mantecao", "Guaguancó a Todos los Barrios" and "Tata Se Ha Vuelto Loco". It also includes "Dale Tres Golpes a la Tumba", "Pa Gozar", "Especial del Bebo", "La Mulata Rumbera", "Estudio de Trompeta", "Fiesta de Tambores" and "Gandinga". According to experts, Tata Güines was a very good percussionist who performed with several bands, including the National Symphonic Orchestra.
HAVANA - (AP) - More than 400 Cubans of Spanish ancestry mobbed that country's stately embassy in Havana on Monday, waiting to apply for citizenship under the newly enacted "law of grandchildren." Spain has begun accepting citizenship applications from the descendants of people who went into exile after its brutal 1936-39 Civil War, part of a 2007 law meant to address the painful legacy of the conflict and the ensuing right wing dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco. But a new provision approved Friday also allows anyone whose parents or grandparents were born in Spain but went overseas because of their political beliefs or economic hardship to become Spaniards. Those accepted do not have to renounce their current citizenship.
Officials in Madrid have estimated that as many as half a million people worldwide could be eligible to become citizens, although it is unclear how many of those are in Cuba. Some 300,000 people in Argentina alone may qualify. Spanish authorities have asked applicants to use the Internet to set up a consular appointment, and most potential Spanish citizens in countries outside of Cuba were going online instead of heading to their local embassy. There were a few dozen people lined up at the Spanish Embassy in Mexico City. But that was nothing compared to the tangled and disorganized clumps of would-be Spanish citizens that stretched across a busy avenue and engulfed a small park in Havana, because access to the Web is tightly controlled in this country.
Miguel Carpio, a 52-year-old office worker, said his sister in Miami used the Internet to secure a consular appointment, but he had no choice but to wait in line. "Maybe we can all see each other there in Spain some day," he said. Even those who receive Spanish citizenship must wait for permission from the Cuban government to travel abroad, a process that is often slow and arduous. Carpio says he has no plans to emigrate — at least for now. "I'm just thinking of visiting," he said. "But having the option is very valuable." Norberto Luis Diaz, 38, was the first person in Cuba to be approved for citizenship under the new provisions. A Spanish consular official signed the forms authorizing his passport, and Diaz excitedly hugged his family members moments later.
"I have more Spanish blood than Cuban blood because almost 75 percent of my genes are Spanish," said Diaz, whose grandfather arrived in Cuba in the early 1900s and married a fellow Spanish exile just to be sure he preserved his homeland's citizenship. Diaz is a cardiologist who began applying for permission to travel to Spain in 2002. Because many Cuban health care workers have to wait six years for approval to head abroad for extended periods, official Cuban permission to leave only came last week, days before the law took affect — making him the first Cuban eligible. He said he plans to stay in Spain for several months and has already inquired about practicing medicine there, but will one day return to Cuba. "This is my homeland, too," Diaz said.
Because his application was already being processed, he avoided the monstrous line outside the colonial-style embassy, situated off tree-lined Paseo del Prado Boulevard between central Havana and the capital's historic Old Town. The embassy was only open until 4 p.m., and most people in line had no hope of being seen Monday. Many began to arrange for family members to hold their place night and day for as long as it takes. One of those who reached the front was 79-year-old Yolanda Ruiz — but only because she began waiting Sunday at midday. Relatives waited in shifts for her all night. "I'm very excited about seeing my 18 cousins scattered around there," Ruiz said of a possible trip to Spain.
Havana - (EFE) - Cuba's economy minister said the communist-ruled island's industry and agriculture need structural changes to meet the goal of amassing sufficient international reserves to cope with contingencies such as the current global financial crisis. Jose Luis Rodriguez told members of parliament that the Cuban economy must become more productive and efficient, the official Prensa Latina news agency reported. Addressing Cuba's substantial current-account deficit, the minister blamed this year's 53 percent increase in international oil prices - though prices have since fallen sharply - and a doubling in food prices. He also pointed to a decline in the prices of nickel, Cuba's main export, and to the estimated $10 billion in damage caused by the three hurricanes that battered the island in August, September and November.
Also present for the session with legislators were Agriculture Minister Ulises Rosales del Toro and the minister of Basic Industry, Yadira Garcia Vera. Rosales del Toro said that restoring agricultural production to pre-hurricane levels and cutting food imports were the top priorities for his ministry. Cuba imports approximately 80 percent of the food consumed by its 11.2 million inhabitants and had expected to spend $2 billion on food imports this year even before the devastation wrought by the storms. More than half of Cuba's arable land currently lies idle, and one of President Raul Castro's major initiatives since formally succeeding ailing older brother Fidel 10 months ago has been to make more land available to individual farmers and cooperatives.
Predicting that 2009 would be "a difficult year" for Cuba, Basic Industry chief Garcia said the island needs to mobilize alternative sources of energy. Cuba, which consumes roughly 180,000 barrels of oil per day, produces some 65,000 bpd of heavy, high-sulfur crude that is used mainly to generate electricity. The island receives around 100,000 bpd from oil-rich Venezuela at concessionary prices and the leftist government in Caracas allows its ally to pay for part of the crude with the services of Cuban medical personnel and educators working on projects in the Andean nation. While showing no signs that he intends to loosen the Communist Party's grip on power, Raul Castro has moved to overhaul Cuba's creaking economy and is seen as much more pragmatic and flexible than Fidel, who was sidelined by illness in July 2006.
Performance-linked pay is one of the characteristic features of the "enterprise perfection" model that Gen. Raul Castro, then serving as defense minister, established more than 20 years ago in state companies managed by the armed forces and is now seeking to introduce across the Cuban economy. For a time during the 1990s the general was even sending military officers to European business schools to prepare them for running state enterprises, but Fidel Castro eventually pulled the plug on his younger brother's reforms.
BBC News – Havana - As Cuba prepares to celebrate the 50th anniv
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