Saturday, April 30, 2011

The Mansion, The Country / Yoani Sánchez

The Mansion, The Country / Yoani Sánchez
Translator: Unstated, Yoani Sánchez

She has a five-bedroom house that is falling to pieces. She got it in
the seventies when the family for whom she worked as a maid went into
exile. At first she went through all the rooms each day, the interior
patio, caressed the marble banister of the stairs to the second floor,
played at filling the basins of the three bathrooms just to be reminded
that this neoclassical mansion was now hers. The joy lasted for a while,
until the first bulbs burned out, the paint started to peel, and weeds
grew in the garden. She got a job cleaning a school, but not even six
salaries for such a job would have been enough to maintain the ancient
splendor of this house that seemed increasingly larger and more
inhospitable.

Thousands of times, the woman in this story thought of selling the house
inherited from her former employers, but she would not do anything
outside the law. For decades in Cuba a market in housing was prohibited
and it was only possible to exchange properties through a concept
popularly known as a "swap." Dozens of decrees, restrictions and
limitations also arose, to regulate and control this activity, making
moving an ordeal. An all-powerful Housing Institute oversaw the
completion of a string of absurd conditions. With so many requirements,
the procedures were strung out over more than a year, such that before
families could go live in their new homes they were exhausted from
filling out forms, hiring lawyers and bribing inspectors.

Such anxieties raised hopes that the Sixth Communist Party Congress
would raise the flag for real estate. When, in the final report, it said
that the purchase and sale of homes would be accepted and all that
remained was to legally implement it, hundreds of thousands of Cubans
breathed a sigh of relief. The lady with the mansion, at the moment it
was announced, was sitting in front of her television avoiding a drip
falling from the ceiling right in the middle of the living room. She
looked around at the columns with decorated capitals, the huge mahogany
doors, and the marble staircase from which the banister had been torn
out and sold. Finally she could hang a sign on the fence, "For Sale:
Five-bedroom house in urgent need of repairs. Wish to buy a one-bedroom
apartment in some other neighborhood."

30 April 2011"

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=9224

Cuban makes fumigator out of trash

Cuban makes fumigator out of trash
Sat Apr 30, 2011 3:58PM

A Cuban farmer has invented a device that helps him spray pesticide
along six rows of crops instead of the one row he dosed with his usual
backpack fumigator.

Using the new spindly, spider-like piece, Yolando Perez Baez finishes
his job in one hour and walks less than a mile instead of five miles in
six hours.

Perez has used local trash dumps to make his spray pesticide hoping to
spray pesticides, start balky irrigation machinery and speed potato harvest.

The equipment looks like a small oil rig equipped with a heavy weight,
which is tied to a rope that is wrapped around the engine crankshaft.

The weight is lifted up by the rig and dropped. The fall pulls the rope
and starts the engine.

"Eighty percent of the motors here, in this municipality at least, don't
have batteries, don't have starters. It's the first thing to break and
you have to buy them in hard currency, which is very difficult," The
agronomist engineer said.

He has sold eight samples of his invention for just over USD100 each.

Perez who works at the "First of May" agricultural cooperative in Guira
de Melena says facing the problem inspired him to make the equipment.

Tags: Agriculture

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/177522.html

Childhood Indoctrination: an Institutionalized Crime / Miriam Celaya

Childhood Indoctrination: an Institutionalized Crime / Miriam Celaya
Miriam Celaya, Translator: Norma Whiting

Readers, allow me to tell you a recent anecdote. Zamira, a close friend
whose son started attending Kindergarten just a few months ago, was very
alarmed when she received guidance from the director to teach her four
year old toddler who Fidel, Raúl and the "Five Heroes" are. Appalled,
Zamira flatly refused, to the amazement of the director, who did not
understand how a mother could refuse to comply with what was stipulated.
"You will make me look bad with the inspectors" insisted the teacher,
and to convince Zamira that it was not a personal whim, the good lady
(she really is) showed her the teaching agenda for three and four year
olds, a worthy rival of the Surrealist Manifesto, that – indeed — makes
clear that indoctrination is a goal of educators in order to instill
"patriotic values" in kids who only yesterday opened their innocent eyes
to the world, little people who will leave their place in line in
pursuit of a toy, candy or ice cream, who do not have the faintest idea
of ​​the meaning of the word homeland, and whose main ambition is to
play and romp. But Zamira would not budge an inch, "Look, ma'am, try to
have the inspectors ask another child and not mine, because I want him
to be a child, not a political laboratory mouse."

This was at a Kindergarten in the capital, but it also goes on
throughout the Island. All is needed is to visit any of these centers to
notice the presence of wall murals of leaders of the revolution, many
dead celebrities, the yacht Granma and even violent scenes of the
assault on the Moncada Barracks. A recurring image is that of the Sierra
Maestra guerrillas with guns raised and faces fierce with screaming
expressions, subliminally encouraging violence as part of the
revolutionary culture. A real crime.

The fact is neither an exception nor a novelty. The fierce
indoctrination to which children are subjected in Cuba since the early
years of their life is widely known, as it's endorsed in primary school
textbooks, including those textbooks with which students in first grade,
only six years of age, learn to read.

Unfortunately, almost no mother is as courageous as my friend Zamira. It
is common for parents to tolerate in silence the violence of the
doctrine and the implementation of methods, because "What the heck,
children do not know about that. Back at home we will make sure they
think about other things". And that's when a dramatic clash of values ​​
in which the children receive twice the impact of a controversial
discourse: Fidel Castro and the "Five Heroes" in the morning, in daycare
or at school, and Mickey Mouse, Donald and Spiderman on video in the
afternoon, upon returning home. No need to clarify which of the messages
is more attractive (and appropriate) for children. In fact, in private
life, all children want to be like Ben 10, like Superman or Zorro, never
like Ché. No one has ever seen a child in a private costume party
dressed as the legendary Argentine guerrilla fighter, as Camilo or as
Fidel Castro. These "heroes" do not belong in the children's repertoire,
but are only used to meet the requirements at the official venues.

But, simultaneously, without adults trying, they are planting in very
young children the hypocrisy of the double standard that the system has
fostered, the false belief in something that even they don't believe,
thus supporting a process that our friend Dagoberto Valdés has defined
as anthropologic damage, whose harmful effects will long survive the
regime that produced it.

For my part, I think that even protesting sectors in the country have
ignored for too long the relevant details of the rights of Cuban
children. We have prioritized our rights to freedom, democracy, to
participate fully in our own individual and collective destinies, but we
have neglected the most vulnerable sector of society: children. We
assume that, by giving our children our love and guaranteeing them food
and material wellbeing, we are doing our part. We are thus committing
the same error as our own parents: we are allowing the State to carry
out the sacred mission of educating our children morally and completely
instead of doing it ourselves, as we are able to and as we can freely
choose to. We thus prolong in our children the saga of slavery of
thought, of pretense, and of corruption of spirit of which we were
victims, and which we so condemn.

Children are born with the right to be educated, but it is a flagrant
violation of their rights and those of their families to plant an
ideological doctrine in their minds. It is an appalling distortion of
human nature and it should be denounced in the strongest terms, so that
we may finally banish the collective consciousness of violence,
submission, and lies that half a century of dictatorship has sown in Cubans.

Translated by Norma Whiting

April 27, 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=9221

Well-Known Cuban Dissident Freed After Day in Jail

Well-Known Cuban Dissident Freed After Day in Jail

HAVANA – Leading Cuban dissident Darsi Ferrer was released Friday after
spending about a day in jail for mounting a peaceful protest in this
capital.

Ferrer, wife Yusnaimi Jorge and two colleagues were detained after
standing on a Havana street corner for around 25 minutes with signs
demanding that Cubans be allowed to travel freely both inside and
outside their country, the dissident physician told Efe.

Some people granted visas by foreign nations have been waiting as long
as two years for permission to leave the Communist-ruled island, Ferrer
said.

One such person, he said, is his wife, who wants to travel to the United
States to receive medical treatment for a chronic "cerebrovascular
ailment that has caused hypertension and is a threat to her health."

He said he and the other protesters were arrested by "a score of police
with excessive use of force," taken to separate precincts and held until
around midday Friday, when they were released without charge.

Ferrer, 41, has been complaining for months about Cuban authorities'
refusal to permit him, Jorge and their son to travel to the United States.

Thursday's incident was the fourth time this year Ferrer has been
briefly detained during protests and or while trying to meet with other
government opponents, Ferrer said.

It has been less than a year since Ferrer was from custody after
spending 11 months in jail without charge.

EFE

http://www.laht.com/article.asp?CategoryId=14510&ArticleId=392737

Alarcon: Old Communist leadership around thanks to CIA

Posted on Thursday, 04.28.11
Cuba Communists

Alarcon: Old Communist leadership around thanks to CIA

Cuban Assembly head Ricardo Alarcon says that a rejuvenation is needed
of the country's Communist leadership.

By Juan O. Tamayo
jtamayo@elnuevoherald.com

The head of Cuba's legislature, Ricardo Alarcon, says he knows why his
country has such old leaders — the CIA never managed to assassinate them.

Alarcon made the comments during an interview after the ruling Communist
Party's first Congress in 14 years unveiled a newly selected Political
Buro last week whose ages averaged 68.

Raul Castro, 79, replaced his 84-year-old brother Fidel as first
secretary. José Ramón Machado Ventura, 80, was named second secretary.
The party's No. 3, Ramiro Valdés, turned 79 Thursday.

Alarcon, 73 and head of the National Assembly of People's Power,
acknowledged in the interview with the Web site Progreso Semanal that
the island's leadership needs rejuvenation.

"But, well, what can we do?" he said. "The revolution is already 52
years old … (and) from the start, an essential part of the policy
promoted by the United States was the physical liquidation of the Cuban
leaders."

"Because they failed, there's a lot of us left. So, what are we going to
do? Self-destruct? In other words, do what the CIA couldn't do?" Alarcon
added. "There is no need to remove an octogenarian from the (party's)
Central Committee just because the Empire couldn't kill him earlier."

The text of the interview did not indicate whether Alarcon was joking or
being serious, but he went on to complain that news reports on Cuba's
"gerontocracy" failed to note younger party members in lower leadership
posts.

"Why don't they talk about the majority of the Central Committee
members, who were born" after the Castro revolution's victory in 1959,
he asked.

The 115-member Central Committee usually meets twice a year. The
15-member Political Buro, the party's top ruling body, meets almost weekly.

Alarcon's comments during the April 22 interview with Progreso Semanal
journalist Manuel Alberto Ramy was not the first time he gave what
seemed to be a flippant answer to a tough question.

In 2008, Eliécer Avila, a student at the Computer Science University
near Havana, asked him during a meeting why Cubans must obtain a
government exit permit before travelling abroad.

"If the whole world — its six billion inhabitants — could travel
wherever they wanted, the bottleneck in the planet's airspace would be
enormous," Alarcon answered.

Alarcon also commented on the reasons for the delay in the publication
of the document with the 311 "guidelines" for critically needed economic
reforms that was approved by the Communist Party during its April 16-19
Congress.

The guidelines cover bold but risky changes such as dismissing more than
1.5 million public employees, giving more autonomy to state enterprises
and allowing a significant expansion of private enterprise.

Alarcon said that delegates to the Congress made many changes in the
document — although Castro's opening-day remarks that the Political Buro
already had approved them seemed to warn against further changes.

"The document I saw in my committee [of the Congress] was changed
umpteen times. And I know other committees made changes, too," he said.

"I'm waiting for the Congress Secretariat to finish putting it together,
after it was modified in each of the five committees, modified in a very
rich, indeed diverse, debate" Alarcon noted.

He added that some of the guidelines "were rejected" because the timing
was not appropriate, but gave no further details.

Alarcon also noted that the National Assembly already has begun to
consider how it will enact, starting this summer, the legal changes
needed to put the reforms into place.

He also cautioned that the guidelines should not be regarded as
hard-and-fast dogma to be followed blindly.

"We're not saying 'Here's a model of what socialism must be.' We're
trying to re-invent it, to re-found it, so everything is being
considered with a practical eye, pragmatic, as the Americans would say."

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/28/2190777/alarcon-old-communist-leadership.html

Cuba: Selective and Controlled Internet Access / Laritza Diversent

Cuba: Selective and Controlled Internet Access / Laritza Diversent
Laritza Diversent, Translator: Raul G.

Yordanka uses the internet to look for friends and to find ways of
escaping the island. However, she believes the arrival of the fiberoptic
cable will not improve her possibility of freely accessing the web.

Laritza Diversent

"I don't think that the cable connection will improve internet access
for Cubans, and I also don't believe that it represents more freedom in
Cuba", assures Yordanka Rodriguez. The young 23 year old navigates the
web at midnight by using her house phone line and logging in through one
of the accounts belonging to a state institution. In the online world,
she tries to make new friends.

"In the internet I look for invitations or weddings. I want to live like
a person, without having to think that I'm going to get in trouble every
5 minutes. To live like that, I have to leave here," Rodriguez confesses.

In 1996, Cuba officially connected to the internet, and the government
declared that "access to information networks with global reach will be
selective and will be regulated". In 2000, the government established a
single access point to the international network in order to control the
connections of national users.

According to the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC),
international software "raises the service costs and reduces reliability".

"I have to use proxy software to access certain pages, none of which are
made up of political content, because if that's the case then I will
seriously get myself in trouble," affirms Yordanka.

One of the constant worries of the government is that the information
found on the internet must be "worthy" and that all of the information
which is actually allowed be "in correspondence with ethical principles
and that it will not affect the interests or the security of the country".

In 2000, the government also regulated the access of entities onto the
internet as well, in order to avoid any compromise of official
information. From the very beginning, the government's policies have
been aimed at prioritizing only those "connections, lawful people, and
institutions of superior relevance for life and development of the country".

For more than a decade now, the directors of the State Central
Administration Agency (OACE) ask, by way of a letter to the Ministry,
authorization for certain workers to access the internet from their homes.

"Web access is solely for those who are politically committed to the
system and for those who have enough money to pay all the expenses
associated with it," the young woman says. In her own case, for the
monthly payment of 150 convertible pesos (CUC), the Internet
Administrator of a specific work center provides her with internet access.

"The account I use belongs to a business, which, in other words, is
something illegal. It is dial-up services, so I have to find ways that
they cannot find my telephone number," Yordanka explains.

The government also authorized the Telecommunications Company of Cuba
S.A (ETECSA) to use all the necessary technological means to impede
phone lines which operate with national non-convertible currency from
accessing navigation systems.

These measures intend to prevent password theft, "intentional
degradations, and fraudulent and unauthorized means of accessing this
service". This was not applied, however, to the authorized phone numbers
of the OACE chiefs, meaning that they can access the internet.

Despite the restrictions and the excessive control, the islanders view
the internet as a means of broadening their horizons — starting from
anything like leaving the country, to the promotion of certain services,
and or merchandise. "Internet offers Cubans a new life, and that's why
access to it will continue to be selective and tightly controlled",
concludes Yordanka.

Translated by Raul G.

April 30 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=9227

No honor among thieves in the Castro Mafia — Part 2

No honor among thieves in the Castro Mafia — Part 2
By Alberto de la Cruz on 04/30/2011

As I wrote yesterday, a crime syndicate the size and scope of the Castro
mafia will always have issues with employees attempting to steal from
the family boss. And no one was surprised to find out that one of the
capo's of the Castro crime family was stealing from the boss.

The Economist has more on the lack of honor among thieves in Cuba:

[...] For over a decade Manuel García, Habanos's commercial
vice-president, was the public face of the Cuban cigar industry, living
a jet-set life that most Cubans can only dream of. But this year Mr
García was not there to greet visitors at the Havana cigar festival.
Since August 2010 he has been in jail, accused of masterminding graft on
a grand scale.

The cigar industry was nationalised shortly after the 1959
revolution. But it was only in the late 1980s that Cuba took control of
distribution, informing foreign retailers that it would supply only one
distributor per region, in return for a 50% stake in the business.

That did not prevent the small-scale peddling of black-market
cigars on the streets of Havana. But in the past decade the system has
faced a bigger threat from dozens of online cigar retailers operating
mainly from Switzerland and the Caribbean. Many operated legitimately,
but some offered improbably low prices.

Cuban investigators believe they were able to do so because Mr
García and ten of his staff, who also face trial, sold genuine cigars at
a fraction of their normal price to black-market distributors in the
Caribbean in return for bribes. Up to 45m cigars may have been sold this
way. Since handmade habanos fetch up to £40 ($65) each in shops in the
St James's district of London, the loss was considerable.

The fraud also hurt Imperial Tobacco, a British company which
inherited a 50% stake in Habanos when it bought Altadis, a
Franco-Spanish firm, in 2008. Imperial has made no comment on the
affair. But like the government, it will hope that the new management
team at Habanos preserves the lucrative monopoly in Cuba's most famous
product.

http://www.favstocks.com/no-honor-among-thieves-in-the-castro-mafia-%e2%80%94-part-2/3051787/

Watching Foreign TV: A Decade of Debt / Laritza Diversent

Watching Foreign TV: A Decade of Debt / Laritza Diversent
Laritza Diversent, Translator: Raul G.

Jesus still believes that he should not have to pay off a debt for
enjoying foreign television.

The restless Jesus Martinez approaches and asks them if they can help
him. He was staring all over the place with his thick glasses while he
whispered something about his grandmother being at the verge of a
depression crisis. They had to pay a fine for the possession of a
satellite antenna.

Jesuito, as they call him in his neighborhood, felt guilty. He had
begged his grandmother so that they would ask their uncle, who lived in
the United States, for money so that they could buy the equipment. Their
relative also contracted the services of the satellite company, Direct
TV, so that they receive television programs through a system of
magnetic cards which provide a satellite signal, as well as an extension
which allowed them to enjoy the shows in Havana.

In Cuba, foreign television programs are considered to be limited
services and are mainly aimed at the tourist population, the diplomats,
and certain people authorized by the Ministry of Information and
Communications (MIC).

In an inquisitive tone he said, "it was the snitch from the CDR",
referring to the president of the Committee for the Defense of the
Revolution. "The other day, my mouth slipped and I told him I had seen
the boxing match with Yuriorkis Gamboa through cable", Jesuito said.
Martinez confessed to being a fan of the Cuban boxer who is now a
champion in the United States.

The Official press considers such programs to be "avalanches of
commercial propaganda which showcase the essence of capitalism" and they
are classified as political. "In the case of Cuba, part of the programs
received through that route are full of content which is destabilizing,
interfering, subversive, and increasingly encourages the carrying out of
terrorist activities," assured a reporter from the Granma Newspaper.

Now, neither he or his grandmother had the nerves to ask their relative
for 400 dollars to pay the 10 thousand peso fine imposed on them. "I
work as a librarian, earning 375 pesos monthly, while my grandma
receives a 215 peso pension, and our uncle sends us monthly
remittances," the 39-year-old man explained. "Where are we supposed to
get the money to pay for the fine?" he woefully asks.

In Cuba, the average salary of a worker is 412 pesos. However, the
installation of satellite antennas, as well as the reception and
distribution of the television signal without a license, is considered a
violation of the law which is punished, under provisions of the MIC,
with a 1,000 peso fine for individuals and a 10 to 20 thousand fine for
organizations or entities.

"I know that it's illegal, that's why I've cut out articles from the
newspapers which deal with that subject, and each of them state that the
fine can go up to 30 thousand pesos. In fact, there are various crimes
which can be committed," says Jesus while he shows an article written by
the journalist Lurdes Perez Navarro, published in Granma newspaper on
August 8, 2006.

Both the inspectors from the MIC who are in charge of applying the
administrative norms and the official press have said on countless
occasions that the amount of the fine ranges from 10 thousand to 20
thousand pesos for anyone who violates the law, whether they be
individual citizens, organizations, or entities.

Jesus had the right to protest against the measure but the law only gave
him 5 work days to present his appeal, and those days had now passed.
Now, his only option is to have the authorities charge him the fine in
monthly fees. Perhaps for the next ten years of his life he will have to
pay off a debt simply for watching foreign television. "It's absurd. If
I tell anyone about it, they won't believe me," he concludes.

Translated by Raul G.

April 28 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=9218

Eating in homes a fine way to dine in Havana

Eating in homes a fine way to dine in Havana
Food | Travel
Family-run restaurants earn mention on itineraries
April 27, 2011|By Ann Trieger Kurland, Globe Correspondent

HAVANA — Chugging along in a cobbled together 1953 Dodge taxi (vintage
US cars are common here), we drive past Art Deco buildings and
colonial-style mansions, a reminder of Havana's past grandeur. Now,
roads are worn and structures are crumbling from neglect. We ride down
the Malecón, the road winding along the Gulf of Mexico, and leave shabby
neighborhoods behind as we make our way to La Cocina de Lilliam. This is
one of the city's best paladares, a privately owned restaurant in a
home, which is a legal enterprise here.

Paladares are scattered all over Havana in houses and apartments tucked
into residential side streets. Some are listed in guidebooks, but most
people discover them by word of mouth. In the mid-1990s, the government
allowed Cubans to set up these small home restaurants, with some
restrictions, including the rule that only family members could work
there. Now, they can hire cooks and waiters.

http://articles.boston.com/2011-04-27/lifestyle/29479443_1_paladares-restaurant-havana

Churches Help Cubans through Economic Transition

Churches Help Cubans through Economic Transition
By Stan Jeter
CBN News Senior Producer
Friday, April 29, 2011

The aging revolutionaries who have controlled Cuba for the past 50
years, haven't trained younger leaders to take their place.

That became evident at the long-awaited Communist Party Congress in
April, when 79-year old Raul Castro was named the party's first
secretary, and the number two spot went to an 80-year-old.

A feeble Fidel Castro, 84, made a surprise appearance. This was the
first time in the Congress' history that he wasn't included on the
powerful central committee.

That post went to his brother Raul, who admitted that Cuba has a
succession problem. Raul Castro made a surprise recommendation of term
limits for politicians -- including himself.

"We have reached the conclusion that it is recommendable to limit to a
maximum of two five-year consecutive terms all the state's fundamental
political positions," he said.

But that's not the only problem that keeps Cuba among the poorest
nations in the Americas.

The government employs eight out of every 10 Cuban workers, a dead
weight the economy can't sustain.

Raul Castro knows the country has to shed its Communist baggage, but as
the new party leader he made a pledge to the faithful.

"To defend, preserve, and continue to perfect socialism and never allow
the return of the capitalist regime," he said.

"Cuba right now is in a state of great confusion between shifting from
purely a Socialist Communist system to a quasi market system," said Teo
Babun, leader of the Miami-based charity Echo Cuba.

"Not quite at the acceleration of China or Vietnam, and not knowing
where they're going," Babun said. "But being very cautious not to let
this whole thing get out of hand for them."

Last year, Raul promised to reduce the bloated government payroll by
laying off half a million workers.

While the the massive government layoffs haven't happened, the
uncertainty has left many Cubans on edge. Now, many evangelical churches
are helping their members create their own jobs.

"What the more aggressive churches have been doing is allowing the
individual members of the churches to partner with organizations outside
of Cuba that will help them start small businesses and therefore become
tithers, for example, to the churches and supporters of the social
programs that the churches are running," Babun explained.

With the help of Echo Cuba, Cuban evangelicals have started more than
1,200 small businesses.

"We select Cubans within the churches that are entrepreneurial. We help
them write a business plan, guide them in the process of how to start
their business, and then bring them a 'business in a box,'" Babun said.

"Everything that they need to start a business is basically purchased
outside of Cuba and brought to Cuba so that they can get things going,"
he said.

But the budding entrepreneurs first have to forget what the Communist
government has taught them for the past 50 years.

"The Socialist model of Cuba, starting in 1959, [has] one head,
everything coming down," Babun continued.

"They really don't understand how to meet together, how to create
collaboration with each other, how to make decisions in a meeting
format," he said. "All those things that we take for granted, they don't
understand it."

If churches are to help members survive Cuba's economic crisis, they
must learn the basics of a free market economy.

Once Christians start their own businesses, Babun said other freedoms
may follow.

"The freedom to be able to operate not only in the marketplace, but also
in their place of worship," he said. "Freely, without any kind of
restriction from any form of government."

http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2011/April/Churches-Help-Cubans-through-Economic-Transition/

Cuba releases five dissidents one day after their arrests

Cuba releases five dissidents one day after their arrests
(AFP)

HAVANA — Cuban authorities on Friday released dissident Darsi Ferrer and
four other members of Cuba's opposition movement who had been arrested
the day before while they took part in an anti-government protest,
Ferrer told AFP.

No charges were filed against the five, Ferrer said.

"They freed me at midday. They never even questioned me after the
arrest, which was fairly violent," said Ferrer, 41, a physician who has
been arrested several times before for human rights demonstrations.

Ferrer said the group had been demonstrating for about 25 minutes when
they were set upon and arrested by eight police officers and some 20
members of the state security service.

Three of the other demonstrators arrested with Ferrer were also released
on Friday. Ferrer's wife, Yusnaimi Jorge, was freed a little after midnight.

"They threatened us and told us they weren't going to allow
demonstrations like this," Jorge said after she was freed.

The five protestors were arrested shortly before noon Thursday while
demonstrating in the middle of Havana for the right of Cubans once again
to travel freely abroad.

A pro-government blog (www.yohandry.com) characterized the demonstration
as a "provocative move" and accused Ferrer of being supported by CIA
officers working out of the US Special Interests Section in Havana.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jt3dZPmN7IiQN5NOp2plboHKQRCg?docId=CNG.613f6ac884f079ed97d36f6c79ef1eb5.611

Friday, April 29, 2011

The Triumph of Euphemism / Luis Felipe Rojas

The Triumph of Euphemism / Luis Felipe Rojas
Luis Felipe Rojas, Translator: Raul G.

Halfway between parodies and absurdities, Cuban life can also be
described with parables.

This ruinous structure is named "The Impulse", and during its moments of
major splendor (if it indeed ever had any) it provided some sort of
gastronomic service. Once, at a pizzeria named "La Fontana de Trevi" I
ate spaghetti with pepper sauce and ground…pork? beef? chicken? The
water was a bit more than room temperature — I would say it was nearly
warm. The forks and knives were tied down to the table by a small
string. A lady would come and clean them in a tray, to later place them
back on the table. I have seen stores named "Prague Fashions", "Moscow
Restaurant", "Hotel Pernik" (a Bulgarian flower), and "Leningrad
Theater". The participation of foreigners in any daily Cuban event ups
it to "world-wide" range, not just international. Debuts of any sort of
dance, theater, or musical works are always w-o-r-l-d-w-i-d-e debuts.

Though we still have no rights, we are still referred to as citizens and
our society is described as civic and civilized. Groups of paramilitary
soldiers who respond with beatings when they are called upon by
whistles, and always ready to dish out savage beatings with sticks and
clubs against anyone who expresses themselves differently. Those are the
ones who make up the supposed "civil society". A federation of women
with very little rights, committees of citizens who keep watch and
snitch on each other, and farmers who dedicate themselves more to
shouting government slogans than to working the land. These are the
profiles that make up a sick country.

Translated by Raul G.

29 April 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=9211

Tourism minister pressing for performance pay

Tourism minister pressing for performance pay

As part of an effort to increase the number of repeat visitors, Tourism
Minister Manuel Marrero urged state tourism companies to introduce
performance-based pay for employees.

Salaries should stimulate workers to provide highest-quality service,
because it determines tourist satisfaction levels and their inclination
to return, Marrero said in a speech in Holguín, according to Granma.

He said Cuban tourism still has many unused opportunities in generating
hard-currency income, and he urged executives to make a concerted effort
to bring in tourism beyond package tours. He also called on employees to
be more thrifty with food, water and electricity.

http://www.cubastandard.com/2011/04/29/tourism-minister-pressing-for-performance-pay/

Cuba hunger strikers seek release of jailed U.S.

Cuba hunger strikers seek release of jailed U.S. man
Fri Apr 29, 2011 8:55pm GMT
* Dissidents say they have refused medical aid
* Say support of Gross is based on human rights
* Both have anti-Fidel Castro tattoos

HAVANA, April 29 (Reuters) - Two obscure Cuban dissidents who sewed
their mouths partially shut and launched a hunger strike a month ago
said on Friday they were prepared to die for their demands, which
include freedom for jailed U.S. contractor Alan Gross and improved human
rights.

Vladimir Alejo Miranda, 48, and Angel Enrique Fernandez Rivero, 45, said
they had refused medical aid and would not go to a hospital as their
condition weakened.

"Until there's a response in favor of us, of the opposition, in favor of
Mr. Alan Gross, we are not going to lift the strike," Alejo told Reuters
from a bed at his home in the Havana suburbs.

"If we have to give our life for this demand, we are going to give our
lives. We will be a new Orlando Zapata Tamayo," he said, referring to an
imprisoned dissident whose death by hunger strike last year provoked
international condemnation of the Cuban government.

Gross, 61, is serving a 15-year sentence imposed last month by a Cuban
court for helping Cuban opposition groups set up Internet access.

He was in Cuba under a secretive U.S. program aimed at promoting
political change on the communist-led island. He has an appeal of his
sentence pending before Cuba's highest court.

Fernandez said they had taken up Gross' cause "because we are defenders
of human rights, no matter from which country is the person unjustly
jailed in Cuba."

"His only crime was to bring cell phones, computer equipment and laptops
to help Cubans," he said.

Gross' imprisonment has frozen a brief warming in U.S.-Cuba relations
under U.S. President Barack Obama.

Fernandez said they were visited by a lower ranking police officer who
told them Gross was imprisoned because he was a terrorist who was a
descendant of Muslims.

The two men have their mouths crudely sown partially shut, but they can
speak and drink liquids through a straw. They appear weakened and
remained prostrate during the interview.

Alejo's crumbling home in a humble neighborhood is painted with
anti-government political slogans and the men have tattoos proclaiming
former Cuban leader Fidel Castro a murderer.

Fernandez said he was once imprisoned for his tattoo.

Elizardo Sanchez of the independent Cuban Commission of Human Rights
said his group was prepared to help the two men, but does not support
hunger strikes "except in extreme cases."

He said other Cuban dissidents had not lent their support to the two men
yet because they were not well known and because their demand for Alan
Gross' freedom was not "so attractive" as other causes.

(Reporting by Jeff Franks, Nelson Acosta and Rosa Tania Valdes; Editing
by Paul Simao)

http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFN2911522720110429?sp=true

Letters (Unencripted) From Cuba / Ernesto Morales Licea

Letters (Unencripted) From Cuba / Ernesto Morales Licea
Ernesto Morales Licea, Translator: Unstated

It's not the first time an article by Fernando Ravsberg, Cuban
correspondent for the honorable BBC, left me feeling frustrated,
bittersweet, as a result of, in my judgment, certain skin deep and
inconsistent analyses established by him.

But it is the first time I've decided to comment in writing. Now, after
reading his last blog post, I break the ice.

Of course I knew the wide acceptance "Letters from Cuba" has among some
readers in my country, including among my personal friends; and I knew,
also, the notorious discredit this journalist has among the community of
independent bloggers, and among many Cuban intellectuals who, in
addition to exercising their right to disagree with official dogma, take
the written word as a fundamental means of expression.

His well-read blog, also followed by those who see in him an approach
different from the national daily's, is criticized by others who brand
it complacent and vaguely hypocritical, the velvet glove with which
Fernando Ravsberg draws the reality of the Island for the world. Let no
one doubt it: a blog hosted on the BBC has readers of course, and this
implies a responsibility in capital letters.

In which of these two factions — if that is the split — do I include
myself? Well from time to time I pass through his website, "hearing" his
particular view of the facts, agreeing or disagreeing, and always I
respect, as a colleague, the intellectual exercise implied in wanting to
reflect a country as convulsed as Cuba, in just a few paragraphs.

To be perfectly strict I have to say, also: I'm sure that the BBC could
find better professionals to send to the Caribbean nation. Fernando
Ravsberg is not a significant journalist in our language, today, and
serves in one of the most complex and challenging theaters (Cuba) that
can be found in the world today.

On my personal scale, he's a craftsman of words, someone with an
academic style, grammatically correct, but without something inherent in
every practitioner of memorable journalist: a refined style. His
writings, even the best and most poignant, exude a clerical preparation,
that of the report. Fortunately they always have the virtue of brevity.

However, this is not so now, after reading "Honeymoon, the virtual war,
real life," compels me to write about the Uruguayan journalist who has
wandered, for a long time, slowing and with pen in hand, among the ruins
of our singular Havana.

Fernando Ravsberg does not understand why independent bloggers, or
classic opponents, need to encrypt their messages to send them off the
Island, or even to communicate within its walls.

To this I, a Cuban as he is not, add: not only the disaffected, millions
of ordinary citizens also need to compress and encrypt their
communications, if they want to keep a minimal personal privacy.

I quote Ravsberg unfortunate text, "The dissident bloggers have reason
to say that in Cuba privacy is not respected and so encryption
techniques are criticized. It could be, but I bet that in these times
encrypted messages raise suspicions even in the most democratic nations
of the world."

And then he adds, "Maybe it's that I know few people but there isn't a
single one of my friends who uses encryption keys to communicate on the
Internet."

Carefully considered, analysis such as this is what generates my lack of
confidence in the intelligent thought of this communications
professional. Or, still worse, his commitment to the truth.

Because supporting such a thesis, Fernando Ravsberg forgets, doesn't
know, or hides, a great truth: in democratic nations individuals not
only don't encrypt their dissident messages, but they wrack their brains
looking for ways to make them public.

I will never forget my fascination, three days after stepping on
American soil, seeing an old man at a stoplight with a sign — Republican
— that read: "How much more will it take for Obama to understand he's
not eligible to be President, let alone for a Nobel Prize."

In democratic nations, only those who place bombs in metro stations,
smuggle organs and drugs, or harm society with their criminal acts, need
to protect their electronic or telephone communications. Not law-abiding
citizens.

And if the BBC colleague says that not one of his friends uses
encryption keys to communicate online, his statement leads to two
possibilities:

1. The man chosen by the British to sniff out the essence of Cuban
society, doesn't have among his acquaintances a single "ordinary" Cuban,
of those who set passwords for their archives using WinRAR to
communicate privately with a family member living abroad, or to arrange
a trip to escape.

2. The man chosen by the English doesn't have the slightest idea of what
it is to use a clandestine Internet connection with protective passwords
or anonymous proxies to hide the sites he wants to visit.

And he doesn't know for a key reason — the essence of my disagreement as
a colleague and as part of the burdened nation he has decided to
recreate — because Fernando Ravsberg seeks to establish well-informed
judgments about a country which, in its essence, he does not know.

To give him the benefit of the doubt, to not tar him with the brush
applicable to so many journalists who, in order to continue their stay
in this Jurassic and exotic scene which is Cuba decide to use the soft
tones of a tourist watercolor to paint their written portraits, I prefer
to call him a poorly integrated foreigner. Not an opportunist.

But the same tropical Cuban oxygen isn't breathed by the person who
emerges from a debate sponsored by the magazine "Topics" in the narrow
Strawberry and Chocolate room in the capital and runs to his page to
post cheers to a perceived tolerance, to progress on freedom of
expression, on the same day that Stephen Morales was expelled from the
Party for criticizing corruption and I lost my job for dissenting from
the national information policy.

Serious in a journalism of respect: shortly after a new post, backtracks
from his raucous joy, and admits the gag imposed by the organizers of
the civic debate, which banned him if he wanted to continue attending,
from writing about what happened there.

More serious still: Week later, the correct Ravsberg accepts the rules
of the game, and in order to preserve his permission to enter the little
debate in the capital room, he publishes a post as a wink, about
"nothing happened" there. The wink is this: "It's agreed that I say
nothing, they don't close the doors, right?"

Above and beyond my very personal opinions, above and beyond my true
respect for his way of exercising our so complex and subjective trade,
and above and beyond my transparent evaluations with regards to his
basic handling of the journalism tool, the written word, Fernando
Ravsberg posits an ethical and moral view that, if he is an honest man —
which I think he is — needs to be addressed very soon, and sharply: "The
Cuba that I describe, is my Cuba — that of a semi-assimilated and
well-favored Uruguayan, or is it the Cuba that a demanding and truthful
journalist should write about?"

There is no intense journalism without conflicts. Anyone who wishes to
remain on good terms with God and with the Devil should change their
profession. Or, merciful alternative, move the context and write a blog
entitled "Letters from Switzerland." I'm sure that there they will not
know citizens who need to protect themselves from the great eye that
sees everything, encrypting their messages.

Pardon the absolutism, but writing about Cuba is far too much for them —
those who do not respectfully suffer the ailments of an aching country,
or those who have not engaged themselves in an extra dose of commitment,
ethics, and bravery.

March 23 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=9215

Prominent Cuban Dissident Arrested

Prominent Cuban Dissident Arrested

HAVANA – Cuban dissident Darsi Ferrer was arrested Thursday along with
four other people as they were staging a peaceful protest in downtown
Havana, according to information provided by the Cuban Human Rights and
National Reconciliation Commission.

Ferrer and his associates demanded during a "small demonstration" that
the Cuban government "respect the freedom of movement of citizens inside
the island and (allow them to travel) abroad with the right to return to
the country," the commission said in a communique on the matter, signed
by its spokesman Elizardo Sanchez.

Also participating in the protest, besides Ferrer, were his wife
Yusnaimi Jorge, Juan Mario Rodriguez, Ricardo Aguilar and Joaquin Sarduy.

The dissidents also displayed posters alluding to their demand during
the protest mounted Thursday afternoon on a street corner in front of
the well-known Coppelia ice cream shop, located in the El Vedado
neighborhood, according to the commission.

A source close to the dissidents told Efe that none of the protesters
has been released by Cuban authorities.

Ferrer, a 41-year-old physician, was released in June 2010 after being
held in prison for 11 months without charge.

For several months, Ferrer has been denouncing the fact that Cuban
immigration authorities have denied him, his wife and son permission to
leave the country and travel to the United States.

http://www.laht.com/article.asp?CategoryId=14510&ArticleId=392648

Cuban inventor turns trash into farm tools

Cuban inventor turns trash into farm tools
Reuters
By Jeff Franks – Thu Apr 28, 4:25 pm ET

GUIRA DE MELENA, Cuba (Reuters) – A solitary man trudges through a
palm-lined corn field in the Cuban countryside, pulling behind him a
rickety contraption that President Raul Castro would love.

The man, Yolando Perez Baez, is showing off his latest invention, a
spindly, spider-like piece of equipment that sprays pesticide along six
rows of crops, instead of the one row he could dose using his usual
backpack fumigator.

With the backpack, Perez says he would have to walk five miles and take
six hours to finish the field. The new equipment allows him to do it in
one hour and walk less than a mile.

In other words, it fits right in with Castro's quest to cut
budget-draining food imports by making Cuban agriculture more efficient
and productive.

More than five decades of revolution, and the necessity and isolation
that have accompanied it, have made Cubans both skilled at improvisation
and a little eccentric, none more so than Perez, 47.

Using parts scrounged from local trash dumps he jokingly calls his
"warehouse," Perez has pieced together primitive equipment to spray
pesticides, start balky irrigation machinery and speed the harvest of
potatoes.

He even wears a hat of his own creation that protects his face from the
sun, but looks like a cross between a Chinese peasant hat and something
a space alien would wear.

These are not high-tech creations, but, like much else in Cuba, simple
and functional, rooted in common sense and the need to make do with what
is available. They do not eliminate the back-breaking manual labor that
dominates Cuban farm life, but reduce it.

His motor starter is a study in elegant simplicity and addresses a
serious need in a country where major equipment tends to be antiquated
and often in need of parts that are costly and hard to get.

BROKEN MOTORS

"Eighty percent of the motors here, in this municipality at least, don't
have batteries, don't have starters. It's the first thing to break and
you have to buy them in hard currency, which is very difficult," Perez said.

So, Perez, an agronomist engineer who wears the stained work clothes of
a man that spends a lot of time in the workshop, developed what looks
like a small oil rig equipped with a heavy weight.

The weight, tied to a rope that is wrapped around the engine crankshaft,
is lifted up by the rig and dropped. The fall pulls the rope and cranks
the engine to life.

He has sold eight of the apparatuses for the equivalent of just over
$100 each.

One of his customers, Jorge Suarez, praised the machine after it started
a massive diesel engine for his irrigation system. As water poured out
of a pipe into his cabbage field, he said, "If we don't invent what we
invent, then we would be in bad shape. Look, if this man doesn't invent
this, I don't know (what we would do)."

Necessity is said to be the mother of invention, but Perez said it was
something slightly different.

"The main thing is to be faced with the problem," he said.

Perez works at the "First of May" agricultural cooperative in Guira de
Melena, which is about 35 miles west of Havana.

Under reforms by Castro, farmers are making good money, said coop
president Jose Miguel Gonzalez said, but only spend it on new equipment
when they are convinced it works. The jury was still out on Perez' new
fumigator, he said.

Not to worry, said Perez. He has other machines in the works, including
a revolving sprinkler system, and, in the end, each invention is just
another small step toward a better Cuba.

With "a little that I put here, and another little bit that another
Cuban puts there, the economy grows," he said. "The small things have to
be noted because sometimes they appear insignificant, but together they
are a lot.

(Editing by Tom Brown and Cynthia Osterman)

Tag: agriculture

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110428/sc_nm/us_cuba_inventor_1

Report: A leader of Cuba's cigar industry arrested

Posted on Thursday, 04.28.11

Cuba cigar
Report: A leader of Cuba's cigar industry arrested

A leader of Cuba's lucrative cigar industry was arrested in August on
graft charges, a British magazine disclosed this week.
Similar stories:
By Juan O. Tamayo
jtamayo@elnuevoherald.com

Manuel Garcia, a long-time vice-president of Cuba's cigar industry, has
been arrested and 10 of his staffers may face trial for corruption,
according to the British news magazine The Economist.

In a report posted Thursday on its Web site, the newsweekly reported
Garcia, the No. 2 at Habanos S.A., has been in jail since August,
"accused of mastermind graft on a grand scale."

Cuban investigators believe Garcia and 10 of his staffers, "who also
face trial,'' were accepting bribes in exchange for selling Cuban cigars
at a discount to black market distributors in the Caribbean, The
Economist reported.

The report on Garcia's previously unknown arrest, datelined in Havana,
could not be independently confirmed late Thursday. Calls to the Habanos
S.A. offices in the Cuban capital were not answered.

Garcia has headed Habanos, the Cuban state monopoly for commercializing
cigars, for more than a decade and often acted as the host of mayor
cigar events such as the annual cigar festival held in the Cuban capital.

Habanos is a 50-50 joint venture between the Cuban government-owned
Cubatabaco and Altadis, a Spanish company owned by Imperial Tobacco, a
British company.

The Economist reported that Imperial Tobacco has no comment on the
Garcia case "but like the (Cuban) government, it will hope that the new
management team at Habanos preserves the lucrative monopoly of Cuba's
most famous product."

Habanos' Web page says it was founded in 1994 to "market all Cuban
tobacco products, both in Cuba and throughout the rest of the world." It
adds that the company now has a presence in more than 150 countries and
that more than 90 percent of its revenues come from its "international
business activity."

Garcia's case was only the latest in a lengthening string of alleged
corruption scandals that have hit Cuba in the past few years.

Civil Aviation Institute President Rogelio Acevedo was fired amid an
investigation into allegations that officials of the state-owned airline
Cubana de Aviacion were pocketing the income from dozens of
off-the-books cargo and passenger flights.

Pedro Alvarez, former head of Alimport, the state agency that handled
billions of dollars in agricultural imports, defected rather than face
state corruption investigators and is now reportedly living in Tampa.

Cuban authorities have asked for the extradition of Max Marambio, a
Chilean Marxist and long-time friend of Fidel Castro, to face corruption
charges in connection with three of his tourism and food processing
companies in Cuba.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/28/2190787/report-a-leader-of-cubas-cigar.html

Thursday, April 28, 2011

C&T expanding Cuba charter routes

C&T expanding Cuba charter routes

C&T Charters will begin charter flights from San Juan to Havana and is
planning to offer Cuba service from Chicago and Atlanta, Caribbean News
Digital reported.

The Miami-based company already offers seven flights a week from Miami,
and once-a-week flights from New York.

C&T Vice President Gary González told the Web publication on the
sidelines of a conference of the American Society of Travel Agents
(ASTA) in San Juan that his company plans to start flights from San Juan
in June. The company will offer two flights a week. C&T received
authorization from Puerto Rican and Cuban authorities, according to
González; it is still working on logistical details and is in the
process of opening an office in San Juan.

The first flight is already sold out, González said, even though C&T
hasn't advertised the service yet.

If there is sufficient demand, C&T would also offer Puerto Rico-Santiago
de Cuba flights.

U.S Customs and Border Protection in March authorized at least 10 U.S.
airports, including San Juan, to host charter flights to Cuba.
Previously, Cuba flights had been restricted to Miami, New York and Los
Angeles. Now, in addition to San Juan, CBP authorized Fort Lauderdale,
Tampa, New Orleans, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Atlanta, Pittsburgh,
Baltimore and Chicago. All these airports are striving to land charter
companies for Cuba flights.

http://www.cubastandard.com/2011/04/28/ct-expanding-cuba-charter-routes/

Castro boys up to same old tricks

Castro boys up to same old tricks
Alvaro Vargas Llosa
From: The Australian
April 29, 2011 12:00AM

THE point of the recent Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, we had
been led to believe, was to rejuvenate and modernise the structures of
the state - even though the 15-member Politburo elected during the
gathering was dominated by septuagenarians and octogenarians who have
been rejuvenating and modernising Cuba for 52 years.

The real purpose was to maintain the way in which power is allocated.
The Castro brothers, ever the cunning tacticians, are ready to make
concessions in many areas. But not on the definitive issue: the monopoly
of power.

One need only look at the Politburo to see that Cuba is not an
ideological dictatorship, but a purely military one. Raul Castro, who
now succeeds his brother as First Secretary, has traditionally been the
chief of the armed forces.

The small clique of old-guard members who have been "elected" to the
Politburo have proved their loyalty during decades of collaboration with
him in the military.

The fact that all these men called to inject new life into the system
are aging revolutionaries who have been with the Castros since the
beginning is not the most farcical aspect of the party congress. That
would be the assertion by Raul Castro, during a 2 1/2-hour charade, that
"the country lacks a reserve of well-prepared substitutes", meaning that
he and his clique will deign to serve a bit longer before they can cede
power to a new generation.

And how long, might one ask, will it take for a well-prepared generation
to be allowed to emerge? Ten years, according to Castro, who seemed dead
serious when he proposed that party leaders only serve two five-year
terms. This should give him enough time to come up with a new proposal,
just before he turns 90 in 2021, to prolong the rule of his old guard
for a wee bit longer. He was not entirely wrong about the lack of
preparation. The reason there is no new generation in the party is . . .
well, the Castro brothers have a habit of applying the political
guillotine to younger figures.

Carlos Lage, the former secretary of the Council of Ministers, and
Felipe Perez Roque, the former foreign minister - two young
"apparatchiks" seen, until a few years ago, as spearheads of an
up-and-coming leadership - were purged as soon they stuck their heads
out. And how exactly could a new generation become "prepared" when the
Castros let 14 years elapse between party congresses?

Raul Castro, a greater admirer of the Chinese way than his brother, has
launched what he calls "the updating of the socialist model". He wants
private enterprises to absorb about 50 per cent of the island's workers
as part of a plan to eliminate half a million state jobs now and another
500,000 later. Government-owned companies will enjoy more "autonomy",
and local governments will control more of their budgets.
Self-employment will be allowed in 178 activities.

The aim is to sustain the political bureaucracy by raising the
productive capacity. In its current state, and with Venezuela's
subsidies to the island under constant threat due to that country's
stagnation, Cuba risks social and political stirrings. There have been
signs of this in recent years with various groups gaining some
notoriety, and paying a heavy price.

But Castro's reforms are insufficient for any major economic leap to
take place. The case of Elia Pastrana, who resigned from her government
job, owns a fast-food stand and has one employee in Artemisa, about 40km
south of Havana, is typical. She is having to close her business because
the cost of the licence, income and payroll taxes,and pension does not
allow her to make enough to sustain herself.

Fidel Castro's presence during the congress should be enough to put a
stop to speculation about how much Raul wants to deviate from his
brother's orthodoxy. Fidel said it all when he summed up the purpose of
the party session: "To preserve socialism." Both Castros are in total
agreement about this.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/castro-boys-up-to-same-old-tricks/story-e6frg6ux-1226046510208

Smoked out

Cuba's cigar industry

Smoked out
Rolling up under-the-counter trading in an emblematic product
Apr 28th 2011 | HAVANA | from the print edition

What price a Cohiba?

ONE of the reforms approved at this month's Congress of Cuba's ruling
Communist Party was a change in the treatment of the country's 3,000 or
so state-owned enterprises. Their management will enjoy more autonomy,
but they will be subjected to thorough audits. That follows a trickle of
corruption scandals. The latest involves Habanos, the state cigar monopoly.

For over a decade Manuel García, Habanos's commercial vice-president,
was the public face of the Cuban cigar industry, living a jet-set life
that most Cubans can only dream of. But this year Mr García was not
there to greet visitors at the Havana cigar festival. Since August 2010
he has been in jail, accused of masterminding graft on a grand scale.

The cigar industry was nationalised shortly after the 1959 revolution.
But it was only in the late 1980s that Cuba took control of
distribution, informing foreign retailers that it would supply only one
distributor per region, in return for a 50% stake in the business.

That did not prevent the small-scale peddling of black-market cigars on
the streets of Havana. But in the past decade the system has faced a
bigger threat from dozens of online cigar retailers operating mainly
from Switzerland and the Caribbean. Many operated legitimately, but some
offered improbably low prices.

Cuban investigators believe they were able to do so because Mr García
and ten of his staff, who also face trial, sold genuine cigars at a
fraction of their normal price to black-market distributors in the
Caribbean in return for bribes. Up to 45m cigars may have been sold this
way. Since handmade habanos fetch up to £40 ($65) each in shops in the
St James's district of London, the loss was considerable.

The fraud also hurt Imperial Tobacco, a British company which inherited
a 50% stake in Habanos when it bought Altadis, a Franco-Spanish firm, in
2008. Imperial has made no comment on the affair. But like the
government, it will hope that the new management team at Habanos
preserves the lucrative monopoly in Cuba's most famous product.

http://www.economist.com/node/18621276?story_id=18621276&fsrc=rss

Cuba needs to adapt to economic realities

Cuba needs to adapt to economic realities
2011-04-28 18:38

Last week, Cuban President Raul Castro endorsed sweeping economic
reforms, proposed term limits for government and Communist Party
officials, and conceded that the party's failure to groom a new
generation of leaders will make it harder to find a successor.

The proposed reforms could usher in major changes. For the first time
since the 1959 revolution, the government would allow Cubans to own and
sell houses and cars. Taxis, barbershops, restaurants and other
privately run businesses would be allowed to expand and hire workers.
And the party's top leadership would be limited to two consecutive terms
in office, making another 50-year president a thing of the past.

At the same time that Castro was bluntly calling for these reforms,
however, he named two aging Communist Party hard-liners to help him
implement them and cautioned that it might take as long as five years.

Any changes that might improve the lives of the Cuban people are
welcome. But it's hard to imagine how successful such reforms will be if
left to a party leadership that has spent much of the last 50 years
defending a bankrupt ideology.

There is no question that Cuba is in need of swift and deep changes. The
economy is anemic; some estimate that it grew by just 1.9 percent last
year. (By comparison, Peru's economy grew by 9 percent.) Cuba imports
more than half of its food supplies. It relies heavily on foreign help;
Venezuela provided upward of $3 billion in oil and other subsidies in
2009. And the government has postponed plans to shed nearly a million
state workers from its payroll because they are unlikely to find work in
the nascent private sector.

This isn't the first time Cuba has experimented with reforms. But these
proposals come in a very different time. Nearly 60 percent of all Cubans
were born after the revolution, and the veterans of the Sierra Maestra
who fought alongside Fidel and Raul Castro and Che Guevara are dying
off. Surely, the president and his Politburo know that the best way to
ensure the survival of their revolution is to allow it to adapt to
global economic realities. Ideologues have made concessions and
adjustments in Vietnam and China, and the economies and standards of
living in those countries ― at least in the urban centers ― have
benefitted. Cubans deserve better than their country's planned economy,
which has failed over the years to deliver on its promises.

(Los Angeles Times, April 26)

http://www.koreaherald.com/opinion/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20110428000675

News site journalists face arrest, intimidation during Communist Party Congress

25 April 2011
Alert

News site journalists face arrest, intimidation during Communist Party
Congress

Incident details
Arrest, Attack, Release
Enyor Díaz Allen, Journalist
Detention
Raúl Arias Márquez, Journalist
Elier Muir Ávila, Journalist
Arrest, Questioning, Threat
Idalberto Acuña Carabeo, Journalist


(CPJ/IFEX) - New York, April 20, 2011 - The Committee to Protect
Journalists is alarmed by a string of recent arrests of journalists from
the Havana-based news outlet Centro de Información Hablemos Press,
preventing them from reporting on the Communist Party Congress held in
Havana this week. CPJ called on the Cuban government to cease its
persistent harassment of independent journalists and allow them to
report freely.

In the past three weeks, at least 10 correspondents from Hablemos Press,
known for its reporting on human rights and opposition activities, have
been detained in police stations, put under house arrest or threatened
with arrest. One journalist, Enyor Díaz Allen, was assaulted by
government supporters and then held by police for four days. The arrests
coincide with the Sixth Communist Party Congress, the first in 14 years,
which began in Havana on Saturday.

"This spike in short-term arrests of journalists during the Communist
Party Congress is evidence of the Cuban government's unchanged attitude
toward the independent press, despite the releases of imprisoned
journalists in recent months," said Carlos Lauría, CPJ's senior program
coordinator for the Americas. "We call on Cuban officials to stop
detaining and harassing journalists."

Despite the landmark release this month of Alberto Santiago Du Bouchet
Hernández, the last journalist jailed in Cuba, CPJ and local human
rights organizations have observed an increase in instances of
low-intensity persecution - short-term detentions, house arrests, smear
campaigns, and intimidation - of members of Cuba's independent press.

Hablemos Press director Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez told CPJ in an
interview Tuesday that the timing of the arrests was obvious. "The
regime is afraid that there will be a popular uprising during the Party
Congress and wants to prevent journalists from reporting on what's going
on," Guerra said.

According to CPJ research, 10 journalists from Hablemos Press have faced
arrest and intimidation in the past three weeks:

* Guantánamo correspondent Enyor Díaz Allen, 28, was arrested Friday,
along with pro-democracy activist Yoandris Beltrán Gamboa, and held
until Tuesday afternoon, Díaz told CPJ. As he was walking Friday
evening, two unidentified men approached Díaz shouting pro-Castro
slogans and attacked him. Díaz defended himself but sustained a
fractured arm and wounds requiring stitches on his head. About 20
minutes into the attack, police agents arrived and broke up the fight.
The police took Díaz to the hospital. After Díaz's wounds were treated,
state security agents took him to the Parque 24 police station and held
him for four days. Díaz was charged with minor assault, and his
attackers walked free, Guerra said.

Díaz has reported on police abuses, education issues, and opposition
activities in Guantánamo province and is also a member of the youth
democracy movement. According to Guerra, a common tactic used by Cuban
authorities to intimidate critics is to have government supporters
attack dissidents who are later arrested. Díaz told CPJ that he believes
the attack was related to his reporting.

* Raúl Arias Márquez and Elier Muir Ávila, correspondents in Morón and
Ciego de Ávila provinces, were detained and threatened on April 5 and
again on April 6 by police and state security agents at Márquez's home,
where the journalists frequently meet. Both have been working for
Hablemos Press for about two months and had reported on a student brawl
that left two dead.

* On March 31, Hablemos Press correspondent Idalberto Acuña Carabeo was
arrested at his home in Havana by state security agents demanding he
hand over photos he took while covering a labor protest hours before.
When Acuña refused to comply, he was taken to a local police station,
interrogated and threatened for 24 hours, Hablemos Press reported.

* Luis Roberto Arcia Rodríguez, Hablemos Press correspondent in
Mayabeque province, was put under house arrest in his home in San Jose
de las Lajas on April 16 and held there for 12 hours to prevent him from
traveling to Havana to meet with other journalists during the communist
congress, Guerra said. According to Guerra, eight state security and
police agents prevented the reporter from leaving his home.

* Sandra Guerra Pérez, Hablemos Press correspondent in Melena del Sur,
was put under house arrest by more than 20 police and security agents on
April 16 who blocked her from leaving her house until the evening of
April 18. She had been reporting on a series of sugar cane field fires
in the area as well as on the conversion of abandoned schools in the
countryside to prisons. According to Roberto Guerra, the house arrest
was intended to keep Sandra Guerra from traveling to Havana during the
Party Congress.

* On April 15, two state security agents appeared at Hablemos Press's
headquarters in central Havana and warned four journalists including
Roberto Guerra that they would be arrested if they left their homes
during the Party Congress. Guerra was also warned that he could face
imprisonment for the videos that he has posted on Hablemos Press's Web
site that show victims of official repression.

http://www.ifex.org/cuba/2011/04/25/hablemos_press_arrests/

Direct flights from Texas to Cuba expected to increase trade opportunities

Direct flights from Texas to Cuba expected to increase trade opportunities

Posted on 28 April 2011 by ETR Staff Report

Agricultural trade with Cuba just became a little easier.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency recently authorized
Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) to offer direct flights to
the island nation. Previously, Texas farmers and ranchers who planned to
travel to Cuba for trade purposes encountered extra travel time and
expense because only three U.S. airports – Miami International, JFK
International and Los Angeles International – were designated for direct
flights.

In 2008, I led a delegation of Texas agriculture leaders on the first
official state sponsored trade mission from Texas to Cuba in more than
45 years – since President Kennedy enacted the embargo. I learned
firsthand about Cuba's need for agriculture infrastructure development.
The trade mission simply reinforced my belief that exporting the
products and knowledge of Texas producers is also an effective way of
promoting our values about political freedom and market economy.

I don't agree with Cuba's political philosophy, and we must continue to
take a thoughtful approach to normalizing trade and travel between our
two countries. However, I am excited to see how facilitating travel to
Cuba for agriculture producers will increase trade opportunities for
Texas, and grow jobs for the Texas economy.

http://www.easttexasreview.com/2011/04/direct-flights-from-texas-to-cuba-expected-to-increase-trade-opportunities/

Cuban court issues positive ruling in lawsuit

Posted on Wednesday, 04.27.11

Cuba law
Cuban court issues positive ruling in lawsuit

Cuban court says dissident lawyer's case against the Justice Department
can continue.
By Juan O. Tamayo
jtamayo@elnuevoherald.com

Cuba's top court has issued a relatively positive ruling in an
unprecedented lawsuit by a dissident lawyer against the Minister of
Justice, saying he filed a document in the wrong place but allowing the
suit to proceed, according to the lawyer.

"The tribunal issued a ruling that in general I consider to be good,"
said the lawyer, Wilfredo Vallin. "It denies our appeal because of a
procedural error, but allows us to continue the lawsuit against the
Justice Minister.''

He already has filed the document in the correct place and Justice
Minister María Esther Reus González now has 45 working days to answer
his suit, the 63-year-old Havana lawyer told El Nuevo Herald on Tuesday
by telephone from Havana.

Vallin's lawsuit has been breaking legal and political precedents since
he first filed it in 2009 in an attempt to force the Justice Ministry to
at least answer his request to legally register an association of
independent lawyers.

Cuban courts, controlled by the ruling Communist Party, had never before
agreed to consider a citizen's lawsuit against a top government
official, according to Cuban legal experts. Usually, they throw out such
suits at the first opportunity.

The Havana government also dismisses all dissidents as "mercenaries" and
"counterrevolutionaries" paid by the U.S. government to undermine the
island's communist system.

But Vallin's challenge has now made it all the way up to the People's
Popular Tribunal, the country's top court, which handed him its ruling
on April 21.

The ruling essentially took the case back to April of last year, when he
erroneously filed a document with a provincial office of the Justice
Ministry, Vallin said. He re-filed the document Nov. 22 with the
ministry's main office in Havana.

"I don't want to claim victory, but the People's Supreme Tribunal did
not shut the door on us. It could have, but it didn't do it," he said.

Vallin sued Reus Gonzalez after receiving no answers to his repeated
requests to register with her ministry a group of about 30 dissident and
"independent" lawyers who offer free legal advice, most often to
government opponents.

Cuban lawyers can work only for the government or so-called "collective
law offices" controlled by the government. Most of them try to avoid any
cases that would go against the Cuban government's interests. The
government news media has never reported on the case.

Vallin, in his first step to register the Cuban Juridical Association,
wrote to the Justice Ministry's Associations Registry office in 2009
asking it to certify that no other group already registered was using
that name.

The registry has never answered when other dissident or independent
groups try to get legal recognition, but he decided to sue based on
administrative laws and regulations that require the Justice Minister to
answer.

Much to Vallin's surprise, a lower court ordered Reuz Gonzalez to
appoint lawyers to represent her in the case, and the lawsuit moved
slowly but steadily up the chain of regular and appeals courts until it
landed on the People's Supreme Tribunal.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/27/2188771/cuban-court-issues-positive-ruling.html

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Piñón on Energy: $4 bln for oil imports — what now?

Piñón on Energy: $4 bln for oil imports — what now?
By Jorge Piñón

For the first time since July 2008, this month the average price of
Venezuela's crude oil export basket surpassed the $100 per-barrel mark.
This represents a possible negative (replacement cost) cash flow to the
Cuban economy of more than $4 billion on an annualized basis.

The full impact of the recent price increases for Cuba may be cushioned
by the Convenio Integral de Cooperación with Venezuela. Indeed, the
October 2000 services-for-oil barter agreement, under which the island
receives subsidized payment terms, has become more important than ever.

Even so, energy is a vital ingredient to economic growth, and rising oil
bills could derail efforts of putting the Cuban economy back on track.
According to the EIA's 2010 International Energy Outlook Report, the
world GDP is expected to rise by an average of 3.2 percent per year to
2035, while world energy consumption increases by 49 percent, or 1.4
percent per year. Cuba, as other emerging and transitional economies,
will have to cope with the challenge of balancing economic growth and
increased energy demand, particularly in an environment of rising oil
prices.

Underscoring Cuba's concerns over its precarious economic dependency on
imported oil from one single source, the government has already
increased consumer prices for transportation fuels by between 4 and 8
percent this year. Meanwhile, prices for electricity rose by up to 285
percent for large consumers. These two sectors account for more than 50
percent of Cuba's petroleum demand.

Renewable energy, energy efficiency, and conservation initiatives, as
outlined in the 2005 Revolución Energética plan, should continue to be
promoted, but are not the final solution to fulfill Cuba's thirst for
energy into the 21st century. Also, the recapitalization of the
sugarcane industry, in partnership with private investors, has the
potential of contributing about 70,000 barrels per day of bio-fuels and
60,000 GWh of bio-mass generated electric power, which would provide
considerable relief to Cuba's energy challenges.

Renewable energy sources such as solar, hydro, and wind should be
considered. But the time, resources, and capital required to capture
their energy, as well as their lack of scale and materiality limits
their short-term potential.

Following the precedent of independent power producer Energas, a
private-public joint venture between Canada's Sherritt and Cuba's
Cupet-UNE that already produces 13 percent of the national electric
production, Cuba should consider more public-private joint ventures in
electric power generation. This could be done by allowing for private
financing, design, building, operation and possibly temporary ownership
of an asset; thereby freeing public funds for much-needed core economic
and social programs while maintaining regulatory control as a public
sector responsibility.

Public-private energy projects partnerships, along with the creation of
a national energy policy which would embrace economic growth, energy
conservation, modernization of the energy infrastructure, a balanced
sourcing of oil, natural gas (LNG), bio-fuels, and alternative energy
sources, while protecting the island's environment, would contribute
toward Cuba's energy independence.

http://www.cubastandard.com/2011/04/27/pinon-on-energy-4-bln-for-oil-imports-%E2%80%94-what-now/

Cuba makes final preparations for five-wells hydrocarbon hunt

Cuba makes final preparations for five-wells hydrocarbon hunt
Jeremy Cresswell
Aberdeen Press and Journal

Cuba's Ministry of Basic Industry (MINBAS) says that the first of five
deepwater exploration wells planned for the Cuban sector of the Gulf of
Mexico is to spud this summer.

It will be drilled as soon as Saipem's new Scarabeo 9 semi-submersible
rig arrives from the Far East. The basic unit was built by Yantai
Raffles in China and transferred to Singapore for completion.

Manuel Marreno, the ministry's oil sector director, told attendees at
the Fourth International Earth Science Convention in Havana that the
wells will be drilled between 2011 and 2013 in water depths ranging from
400-1,500m.

He indicated that various foreign oil companies had committed to working
with state-owned Cupet during the campaign.

While Marreno did not name the companies involved, Spanish group Repsol
has a three-year sub-let of the Scarabeo 9 from its Italian owner, ergo
it will drill at least the first of the five wells planned.

In fact, Repsol is working in consortium with Norway's Statoil and ONGC
of India. If the first well is a success, a second is likely to follow
immediately.

Repsol last drilled offshore Cuba in 2004. However, its Yamagua-1
discovery made on the N27 offshore block in the Strait of Florida was
deemed non-commercial.

Other companies planning Cuban deepwater wells include Petronas and,
reportedly, PDVSA.

While some say that Cuba has 5-9billion barrels of oil locked up in the
rocks beneath its deepwater aquatory, another view is that 20billion is
a more likely figure.

Last summer, the Cubans were apparently planning a seven-well programme
rather than the five currently slated.

According to MINBAS, Cuban territorial waters cover an area of 112,000sq
km and are divided into 59 blocks, more than a third of which have been
contracted to foreign companies.

Near neighbour, the US, is deeply concerned that any drilling incident
could quickly lead to pollution of Florida holiday resorts, as Cuba is
90 miles from the American coastline.

Despite the Obama administration's pledge to re-examine the relationship
between Havana and Washington, the 48-year embargo against the Cubans
remains in place, with little apparent sign of it being removed.

And yet the Americans lease land bordering Cuba's Guantanamo Bay where
they house terror suspects in prisoner of war conditions.

President Obama has yet to move towards closing the highly controversial
facility, despite claiming he would do so during his ultimately
successful presidential campaign.

The US oil & gas supply chain is keen to see a resolution to the Cuban
tensions, as it stands to win lucrative business on the back of any
drilling successes.

http://www.pennenergy.com/index/articles/newsdisplay/1406606124.html

Necessities / Claudia Cadelo

Necessities / Claudia Cadelo
Claudia Cadelo, Translator: Unstated

Since that time on one of the campuses of the University of Havana when
I raised my hand to express a doubt about the Marxist categories of
necessity versus chance, the concept surrounds me. I have come to the
conclusion that human needs are complex enough that the specialists must
abrogate the right to "suppress" some of them in our lives.

We have Elaine, Cuban blogger, who assumes her grandfather doesn't need
the Internet. Sadly, she's not alone. The other day someone assured me
that for a Cuban farmer the Internet is not a priority. What is the
priority? Undoubtedly in the Middle Ages electricity was not one, and
for Cro-Magnon man what we now call "staple products" were in short
supply. Why do we insist on establishing boundaries to human welfare? I
wonder why it's a problem to assume access to the Internet as a 21st
Century human right. Whether the farmer is connected so he can study the
market for new fertilizers for the earth, or so he can chat on a
boy-meets-girl site is immaterial; what matters is his right to access
the World Wide Web and what it represents for his personal life. Any
"supposition" about what a farmer should do on Google, or in the furrow,
is called control over the free actions of another, personal choice and
individual freedom.

Of course reducing world poverty is an imperative, but I honestly don't
see the connection between that and the right of Cubans to have private
accounts for Internet access. Social inequality in the world does not
justify Raul Castro getting to decide that I can't open my Facebook
whenever I want. Isn't it obvious? Or am I going crazy?

26 April 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=9190

If ignorance were bliss, everyone would travel to Cuba

If ignorance were bliss, everyone would travel to Cuba
By Alberto de la Cruz on 04/27/2011 – 5:50 am PDT -- Headlines

According to an informal survey taken by a group made up of Minneapolis
travel agencies, 75% of Americans would at least consider traveling to
Cuba if travel restrictions were lifted. The keyword here is "informal,"
since the survey was unscientific and conducted on social media sites
such as Facebook and Twitter. Nevertheless, I personally believe that
number is pretty accurate due to the ignorance that permeates America in
regards to Cuba.

While many Americans are familiar with Cuba's beautiful beaches, and
many have read at one time or another that Cuba is a quaint tropical
island paradise "unspoiled" by capitalism and filled with music loving,
cigar smoking, street dancing, Santeria practicing friendly natives, few
Americans know that Cuba is a giant slave plantation run by a brutal and
murderous dictatorship. While many Americans have heard of Cohiba
cigars, few have ever heard the names Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, or Jorge
Luis Garcia Perez "Antúnez," or Sara Martha Fonseca Quevedo. And while
many have heard of Cuba's vaunted "free" healthcare and exceptional
education, very few Americans know that is all a fantasy paid for by the
freedom and blood of the Cuban people.

The pro-Castro advocates in this country have done an impressive job
through manipulation of a complicit media in convincing many Americans
ignorant of Cuba's reality that everything on the island is wonderful.
Education of the American people has been sorely lacking in regards to
this topic, and no doubt this informal survey illustrates that reality.
If I were ignorant and thought Cuba was as wonderful and perfect as the
media portrays it, I would want to travel there too.

Many Americans want to visit Cuba, survey finds
Tourists visit Havana's Jaimanitas neighborhood.

Tourists visit Havana's Jaimanitas neighborhood. Most Americans are
barred from visiting Cuba, except for narrowly defined purposes.
(Aldalberto Roque / AFP / Getty Images)

Most Americans would at least consider visiting Cuba if all travel
restrictions were lifted, according to an informal survey by Travel
Leaders, a Minneapolis-based network of travel agencies. While not
scientific, the survey of nearly 1,000 Americans adds fuel to the debate
over travel to the Communist-ruled island.

The results were released Tuesday, just days after the U.S.
Treasury Department issued new guidelines to implement loosened
restrictions on travel to Cuba that President Obama announced in
January. Even with the new rules, most Americans are barred from
visiting the island, except for narrowly defined purposes.

The online survey of 953 consumers, which relied heavily on social
media such as Facebook and Twitter and was conducted March 10 through
April 10, asked: "If all travel restrictions are lifted, how interested
would you be in traveling to Cuba?"

Among respondents, 20.2% said "I'd go immediately"; 33% said "I
might consider going"; 21.8% said "I would go as soon as I believed Cuba
was ready for Americans"; and 23.2% said "I have no interest in going."
The rest? About 1.7% said they had already been to Cuba.

http://www.favstocks.com/if-ignorance-were-bliss-everyone-would-travel-to-cuba/2750194/

Castro brothers still play the 'socialist' card

Castro brothers still play the 'socialist' card
ALVARO VARGAS LLOSA
BUENOS AIRES— From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Apr. 27, 2011 2:00AM EDT

The point of the recent Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, we had
been led to believe, was to rejuvenate and modernize the structures of
the state – even though the 15-member Politburo elected during the
gathering is dominated by septuagenarians and octogenarians who have
been rejuvenating and modernizing Cuba for 52 years.
More related to this story

The real purpose was to maintain the way in which power is allocated.
The Castro brothers, ever the cunning tacticians, are ready to make
concessions in many areas. But not on the definitive issue: the monopoly
of power.

One need only look at the Politburo to see that Cuba is not an
ideological dictatorship, but a military one. Raul Castro, who now
succeeds his brother as first secretary, has traditionally been the
chief of the armed forces. The small clique of old-guard members who
have been "elected" to the Politburo have proved their loyalty during
decades of collaboration with him in the military. The second secretary,
Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, as well as the likes of Ramiro Valdes and
Abelardo Colome Ibarra, are charged with preventing cracks in the
barracks, not with forging the socialist "new man."

The fact that all these men called to inject new life into the system
are aging revolutionaries who have been with the Castros since the
beginning is not the most farcical aspect of the party congress. That
would be the assertion by Raul Castro that "the country lacks a reserve
of well-prepared substitutes," meaning that he and his clique will deign
to serve a bit longer before they can cede power to a new generation.

And how long, might one ask, will it take for a well-prepared generation
to be allowed to emerge? Ten years, according to Mr. Castro, who seemed
dead serious when he proposed that party leaders serve only two
five-year terms. This should give him enough time to come up with a new
proposal, just before he turns 90 in 2021, to prolong the rule of his
old guard for a wee bit longer.

He was not entirely wrong about the lack of preparation. The reason
there is no new generation in the party is, well, the Castro brothers'
habit of applying the political guillotine to younger figures. Carlos
Lage, the former secretary of the Council of Ministers, and Felipe Perez
Roque, the former foreign minister – two young apparatchiks once seen as
spearheads of an up-and-coming leadership – were purged as soon they
stuck their heads out. And how exactly could a new generation become
"prepared" when the Castros let 14 years elapse between party congresses?

Raul Castro, a greater admirer of the Chinese way than his brother, has
launched what he calls "the updating of the socialist model." He wants
private enterprises to absorb 50 per cent of the island's workers as
part of a plan to eliminate half a million state jobs now and another
half a million later. State-owned companies will enjoy more "autonomy,"
and local governments will control more of their budgets.
Self-employment will be allowed in a total of 178 activities.

The aim is to sustain the political bureaucracy by raising the country's
productive capacity. In its current state, and with Venezuela's
subsidies to the island under constant threat due to that country's
productive stagnation, Cuba risks social and political stirrings. There
have been signs of this in recent years with various groups gaining some
notoriety – and paying a heavy price.

But Raul Castro's reforms are insufficient for any major economic leap
to take place. Rigoberto Diaz, a correspondent in Havana, recently
interviewed a number of Cubans who have tried to start businesses under
the new rules. The case of Elia Pastrana, who quit her government job,
owns a fast-food stand and has one employee in Artemisa, about 40
kilometres south of Havana, is typical. She is having to close her
business because the cost of the licence, income and payroll taxes, and
pension does not allow her to make enough to sustain herself.

Fidel Castro's presence during the congress should be enough to put a
stop to speculation about how much Raul wants to deviate from his
brother's orthodoxy. Fidel said it all when he summed up the purpose of
the party session: "to preserve socialism." Both Castros are in total
agreement about this.

Alvaro Vargas Llosa is a senior fellow at the Independent Institute.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/castro-brothers-still-play-the-socialist-card/article1999678/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=World&utm_content=1999678

Sherritt profits rise despite flat nickel sales

Sherritt profits rise despite flat nickel sales

Mainly thanks to rising nickel and oil prices, Canadian mining and
energy concern Sherritt International reported a 116-percent rise in
profit on a 29-5-percent increase in revenues in the first quarter.

Sherritt is Cuba's single largest private foreign investor and a main
driver of nickel export revenues.

Nickel sales by volume stagnated around 9.4 million pounds, but average
realized prices rose from $9.20 per pound in Q1 2010 to $11.73 this
quarter. Meanwhile, cobalt sales by volume rose from 907,000 pounds to
1.014 million pounds, but prices per pound dropped from $20.16 to $17.55.

Electricity sales of Sherritt's Energas power plants in Cuba dropped 14
percent, from 172 gigawatt-hours to 148 gw/h. The company blamed turbine
and rotor failures at the Boca de Jaruco facility and "intermittent gas
supply shortages" at the Varadero power plant.

Total revenues were $474.5 million for the quarter, up from S366.4
million in the same quarter last year. Net income rose to $63.6 million,
from $29.4 million.

http://www.cubastandard.com/2011/04/27/sherritt-profits-rise-despite-flat-nickel-sales/