In the first reform action to take place since President Raúl Castro reshuffled his cabinet earlier this month, Cuba has ended a regulation requiring Cuba's Central Bank to approve all state company expenditures above $10,000, the Reuters news agency reported.
Sources told Reuters that the regulation had slowed the day-to-day operations of state businesses and hurt production. The change will benefit all sectors of the economy by speeding the flow of parts for factories and supplies, "especially those that require the most agility, such as tourism and agriculture."
Discussing the change, Phil Peters of the Lexington Institute said, "It means less bureaucracy, less central control, and more authority and responsibility in the hands of managers of state enterprises."
Citing a publication of the Official Gazette this week, foreign news agencies reported this week that two aging leaders with a long history in the Revolution were dismissed at the beginning of the month. The Official Gazette said that Osmany Cienfuegos and Pedro Miret had been "liberated" from their positions as vice presidents in the Cabinet of Ministers, but those moves were not announced along with other cabinet changes on March 2nd.
Cienfuegos, 78, is the older brother of Camilo Cienfuegos, one of the key leaders of the revolution, who died in a plane crash in 1959.
Miret, 82, participated in the 1953 rebel assault on the Moncada military barracks in Santiago, Cuba and traveled on the yacht Granma from Mexico to Cuba with Fidel Castro and other fighters of the Cuban revolution in 1956.
Fidel Castro responded to the reporting by foreign news agency with a reflection titled "Lies in the service of the empire." Castro said that the leaders were not "dismissed."
Castro wrote that Pedro Miret, "a magnificent compañero, with great historic merits...has been unable to hold any office for a number of years now, for health reasons."
"Osmany Cienfuegos always was and is a revolutionary. From long before I became ill, his functions were progressively ending," wrote Castro.
Castro slammed Reuters and EFE for taking the lead on reporting the "dismissals."
"In both cases, it concerned purely legal steps. Reuters and EFE are two of the Western agencies closest to the imperialist policy of the United States. Occasionally, the latter behaves worse, although it is much less important than the former," he wrote.
Former political prisoner Jorge Luis García, better known as ''Antúnez,'' his wife, Iris Pérez Aguilera, and three friends have been on a hunger strike for 38 days as of Thursday, the Miami Herald reported. They say the protest is to demand adequate housing for all Cubans, the end of torture for Antúnez's brother-in-law, and the ratification and publication of human rights accords.
According to Antúnez, his sister's house was damaged by last year's hurricanes and the government has not sufficiently helped to repair it. His brother-in-law, Mario Alberto Pérez, was jailed in 2007 on what the family says were trumped-up robbery charges.
Antúnez says he has not eaten solid food since Feb. 17 and has lost at least 40 pounds.
The activists are upset that the foreign press has not visited the house where they are protesting, which is about 200 miles east of Havana.
"If there was a march here in favor of the revolution, the foreign press would be here," Antúnez said.
According to the Herald, Antúnez was released from prison in 2007 after serving a 17-year sentence for "enemy propaganda," sabotage resulting in a public protest, and an attempt to escape prison.
The Herald also reported that the Cuban government presented evidence last year showing that he had received funds from Santiago Alvarez, a hard-line Miami exile activist with ties to terrorism who is serving a prison sentence for arms trafficking.
"Cuba's independent libraries, one of the key branches of the dissident movement, are suffering through a crisis of leadership that pits its activists on and off the island against each other," The Nuevo Herald reported.
Gisela Delgado, executive director for the project on the island, said she and other activists involved with the Independent Library Project of Cuba (PBIC) have severed ties with the founders of the organization, Berta Mexidor Velzquez and Humberto Colás, who both live in the United States.
Delgado attributed the split to discrepancies over the transparency of funding and said that the movement does not "take orders from abroad."
Bibliotecas Independientes Inc., a Florida non-profit registered to Colás and Mexidor to assist the libraries in Cuba, has received grants from the National Endowment for Democracy since 2005.
Delgado, however, said that she did not know about the funding from NED and was not provided adequate answers when she inquired about it. Delgado said that none of the librarians is paid for their work, but that she did not know about the funding until a trip abroad in 2007.
The Herald reported that the Bibliotecas Independientes' most recent budget shows that only 23 percent of its "$143,166 budget was destined for specific projects in Cuba."
Scientists in Cuba announced this week that a new drug to fight lung cancer has showed positive results and extended the lives of patients by four to five months, BBC News reported.
Although it is a treatment and not a cure, the drug, a modified protein that attacks only the cancerous cells, has fewer side effects than chemotherapy, said Vice-Minister Roberto González.
Lab tests have shown that the drug also improves the quality of live of the patient, as it alleviates some symptoms of lung-cancer, such as breathing difficulties and the loss of appetite.
Use of the treatment has only been approved in Cuba so far, but it is currently being tested on patients in the United Kingdom, Canada and Peru.
Cuba began to develop its biotechnology industry in the eighties, partly as a reaction to the U.S. embargo, according to BBC News.
Today the pharmaceutical industry is a major source of income for the island, with vaccines for meningitis and hepatitis B on the market.
The first big exhibit of art from the United States in Cuba since 1986 will begin this week, the Reuters news agency reported.
Artwork of over 30 artists from New York City's Chelsea district will be on display from Saturday until May 17 at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana.
The exhibit is titled: "Chelsea Visits Havana."
"Art has always been a bridge to culture, and if this is any sign of things to come, it's a great first step," said curator Alberto Magnan, a Cuban-American and Chelsea art gallery owner.
The style and focus of the artwork varies, but some of it, such as a piece with the profiles of President Obama and former Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, refers directly to relations between the two countries.
Jade Townsend, one of the visiting artists, said the project would also allow him and his American colleagues a chance to local artwork in the context of Cuba's political system and culture. "There's a certain freedom we don't have and there's a certain freedom they don't have," he said.
Artist Doug Young said that although planning for the event began while President George W. Bush was still in office, the event has extra significance since President Obama has advocated for changing policy towards Cuba. "I think it's the first stitch in a fabric that will grow to be a big banner of freedom for everybody," he said.
According to a report by the Catholic News Service, Cuba's government has approved renovations for four Catholic churches in Havana using funds contributed by the Australian office of "Aid to Churches in Need." The organization issued a statement calling Cuba's decision "one of the best signals yet of improving links between Catholic leaders and Raúl Castro's year-old administration."
