Cuba to release longest-held political prisoner

Cuba to release longest-held political prisoner
HAVANA | Mon Nov 1, 2010 4:59pm EDT

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba will free its longest-held political prisoner,
jailed since 1985, and send him to Spain as the government continues to
ship opponents out of the country.

The Catholic Church said on Monday that Cuba had agreed to release three
more prisoners, including Adrian Alvarez, 44, who has been serving a
30-year sentence for stealing rifles while in the Cuban military.

He was allegedly taking the weapons with plans to launch a military
action against the government.

The three prisoners were not included among 52 that Cuban officials
agreed to let go in a July deal with the church.

So far, 39 of those original 52 have been released, and most of those
still behind bars are said to be resisting the government's demand that
they go to Spain.

In the meantime, Cuba has agreed to release 11 other prisoners, bringing
to 50 the total number freed since July.

The releases have relaxed international pressure on Cuba that followed
the February death of jailed dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo, who died
during a hunger strike for improved prison conditions.

Cuban President Raul Castro is said to want to free all political
prisoners to end one of Cuba's longstanding problems with the
international community.

The Cuban Commission for Human Rights has said there are about 100
political prisoners behind bars.

(Reporting by Rosa Tania Valdes; editing by Jeff Franks and Stacey Joyce)

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6A050920101101

Cuba says its trade figures are improving

Cuba says its trade figures are improving
01 Nov 2010 19:15:42 GMT
Source: Reuters
* Trade deficit cut 7 pct as exports rise, imports flat
* Turnaround in trade has helped ease cash crunch

HAVANA, Nov 1 (Reuters) - Cuba has held the line on imports this year while increasing exports, which is allowing the cash-strapped government to "face up" to its unpaid debts to foreign creditors, Foreign Trade Minister Rodrigo Malmierca said on Monday.

Without giving specific numbers, he said in the first nine months of the year exports of goods rose 21 percent from 2009, while imports were up just 1 percent, the combination of which cut the country's trade deficit by 7 percent.

In 2009, Cuba reported $2.9 billion in exports of goods, with imports of $7.1 billion, for a deficit of $4.1 billion.

Not included in those figures are $9.9 billion in export revenues Cuba claims for services, which are primarily the sending of medical personnel overseas to work.

Overspending created a severe cash crunch that led the communist-led government two years ago to freeze Cuban bank accounts held by foreign businesses and stop paying many foreign suppliers.

The situation has eased a bit, with access to bank accounts loosening and more foreign suppliers getting paid.

This year's more favorable financial trends had "contributed to the increase in our income and allowed us to gradually face up to the liquidity problems in external finances," said Malmierca, speaking at the opening of Havana's annual international trade fair.

Cuba has begun a major economic reform to cut the government's role in the economy and increase its private sector. Half a million jobs are slated to be cut from state payrolls over the next six months in a country where the government employs 85 percent of the workforce.

The changes are good news for the island's trading partners, Malmierca said.

The reforms "will ensure a sustained increase in economic efficiency, substantial saving of resources and a consolidated advance in the direction of remedying our external finances," he said.

"Our trading partners all over the world may rest assured that the result of our process of updating our economic model will contribute to strengthening our relations," he said.

Malmierca said more than 300 companies are investing in Cuba.

But more may be looking at coming to Cuba, as trade fair officials told Cuban media that 400 companies from around the world would have exhibits.

Only about a dozen companies from the United States were present on Monday, down about half from last year's number.

The longstanding U.S. trade embargo against Cuba allows only sales of agricultural products and medicine to the island. (Reporting by Marc Frank; Editing by Jeff Franks and Eric Beech)

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N01276236.htm

Cuba unveils a capitalist revolution

Cuba unveils a capitalist revolution
By Marc Frank in Havana
Published: November 1 2010 19:25

Cuba has moved to shake up its complacent labour force, with President
Raul Castro putting in place the framework for a rudimentary jobs market
and a small-business sector.

By publishing laws governing layoffs, drastic cuts in unemployment
benefits and the development of small businesses, the reform-minded
president has taken the biggest steps to date to modernise the economy.

"It is the law now, there is no turning back. I think it is positive and
gives me hope reform has begun in earnest," a local economist said,
asking his name not be used due to prohibitions on talking with foreign
journalists.

However, the development of small businesses will take place within a
state-dominated system and is expected to be slow and messy as
bureaucrats stall and seek bribes, financing and supplies go lacking and
people manoeuvre for position as they adjust to new circumstances.

The self-employed, often a euphemism for small business, can now hire
labour, rent store fronts, do business with the state and seek bank
credits, among other novelties. Granma, the Communist party newspaper,
said the new freedoms would "distance ourselves from those conceptions
that condemned self-employment almost to extinction and stigmatised
those who decided to join it, legally, in the 1990s".

However, the number of reports required and monthly quotas and taxes
remain onerous in a country where most people have no car or telephone.
Regulations on the types of businesses allowed are also restrictive.
Self-employment, first authorised in 1994, was called a "temporary
concession to capitalism" by then President Fidel Castro who limited
licences and regulated and taxed the self-employed almost to extinction.

The term covers everything from the building trade, clowns, nannies,
barbers, beauticians, private taxi and truck drivers to small businesses
such as home-based bed and breakfasts and restaurants, pizzerias and
garages.

Christina, a licensed hair stylist said she welcomed the chance to start
a beauty parlour for her clientele, many of whom are diplomats, their
wives and better-off Cubans. "I'm already planning to rent a store front
and hire staff, though I bet it will be a lot of work and time before it
all comes together," she said – like others asking her full name not be
used.

Christina said she had to fight for a copy of the rules and regulations
last week, as Cubans snatched them up as quickly as they appeared at
news-stands.

The reforms aim to legitimise and tax illegal small businesses and
provide jobs for government employees due to be sacked as the state
trims bloated payrolls and retreats from some secondary activities in
favour of private business, cooperatives and leasing arrangements. The
first round of a total 500,000 layoffs will take place in March.

Pedro, a carpenter, who has worked for years without a licence, gave up
trying to get a copy of the regulations. "I'll hear about it and then
decide what to do. As long as the taxes are not too bad I'll get a
licence to avoid all the hassles with police and inspectors," he said.

Granma warned in a recent article: "Those who continue working on their
own without papers, or do not pay the required taxes, will feel the
weight of the law imposed upon them by those mandated to enforce it, the
National Tax Office."

Pedro said he and two carpenter friends shared four machine tools sent
by relatives in Miami. "Who knows? Maybe we will get a bit more help
from over there, rent a place and go into business some day." he mused.
The new tax code for small enterprises, published last week, increases
deductibles for business expenses from 10 per cent to up to 40 per cent.
It includes a new 10 per cent sales tax and 25 per cent social security
tax, also deductible before payment of a graduated income tax that
ranges from 25 per cent to 50 per cent of earnings.

But most striking is the new payroll tax on a sliding scale from one to
"more than 15 employees", along with regulations governing the hiring of
labour by private farmers. This represents a small revolution in a
country where article 21 of the constitution states one's property and
instruments of work "cannot be used to obtain earnings from the
exploitation of the labour of others".

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/aa7111aa-e5e3-11df-af15-00144feabdc0.html

Cuba to send 3 more prisoners to exile in Spain

Posted on Monday, 11.01.10
Cuba to send 3 more prisoners to exile in Spain
By PAUL HAVEN
Associated Press

HAVANA -- Roman Catholic officials on Monday announced the names of
three more Cuban prisoners who have accepted exile in Spain in return
for freedom.

One of the men, Adrian Alvarez Arenciba, has been in jail since 1985 for
espionage and other violations of state security. Another, Ramon Fidel
Basulto Garcia, was convicted of hijacking in 1994. Both were serving
30-year sentences. The third man, Joel Torres Gonzalez, does not appear
on the most widely used list of Cuban dissidents or political prisoners.

The church issued a statement saying all three will shortly be sent to
Spain, along with their families.

Under an agreement hammered out with the church in July, President Raul
Castro faces a Sunday deadline to free the last 13 of 52 remaining
prisoners of conscience arrested in 2003. Thirty-nine have left for
Spain so far - along with 11 people jailed separately, often for violent
offenses.

None of the three named Monday are part of the group of opposition
leaders, activists and intellectuals rounded up in that 2003 crackdown,
however.

When the deal was struck, there was no mention of exile being a
condition for release, though all the prisoners who have been freed so
far have accepted the arrangement.

The remaining 13 seem determined to stay in Cuba, and several have said
they will continue fighting for democratic political change once
released. That is a direct challenge for a government that describes the
opposition as mercenaries paid by Washington to destabilize the island's
socialist system.

Cuba won praise in Europe when it agreed to release the prisoners, but
pressure is mounting to finish the job.

Guillermo Farinas, a dissident who won Europe's Sakharov human rights
prize in October after staging a 134-day hunger strike in support of the
prisoners, told The Associated Press that he will stop eating again Nov.
8 if the remaining dissidents are not in their homes.

The Ladies in White, a group of wives and mothers of the 2003 political
prisoners, have also vowed increased activity if the government backs
away from its promise.

Church officials have said privately that they are waiting to see if the
government will keep its word. Cuban officials have had no comment on
the deadline.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/11/01/1902824/cuba-to-send-3-more-prisoners.html

Castro urges Cuban union to accept layoffs

Posted on Monday, 11.01.10
Castro urges Cuban union to accept layoffs
By PAUL HAVEN
Associated Press

HAVANA -- Cuban President Raul Castro urged union leaders to explain the
need for massive layoffs to the country's labor force, and warned them
not to hide the deep economic problems facing the cash-strapped island.

"The benefit of errors is that at least they give us the experience not
to repeat them," Castro said in a blunt speech to leaders of the
3-million-strong Cuban Workers Confederation, which is affiliated with
the Communist Party and the only labor union allowed by the government.

He said it is essential that union leaders resist the "pernicious
tendency" to cover up problems, according to a report on the front page
of Monday's edition of the Communist Party daily Granma.

Cuba has announced that it will lay off half a million state workers -
10 percent of the total labor force - by March, while making it easier
for individuals to open up private businesses. Castro has said another
half million workers will need to leave government jobs within five years.

Since taking over from his brother Fidel - first temporarily, then
permanently - in 2006, Raul has worked to put fallow government land in
the hands of small farmers and has railed against the inefficiency of
the labor force. He has said Cuba must not be the only country in the
world where people expect to get paid for not working.

Even as he has opened the door to limited capitalism, the Cuban leader
has insisted that the changes are consistent with the socialist ideals
of the revolution he and his brother ushered in following their 1959
ouster of dictator Fulgencio Batista.

He said Sunday that workers' acceptance of the economic overhaul is
fundamental to its success.

"In order to defend and explain the (new economic) measures, the working
class must have knowledge of them and be convinced of their importance
to the continuation of the revolution," Granma quoted Castro as saying.
"Otherwise, we will fall into the abyss."

Economy Minister Marino Murillo told union leaders the country's
problems stem from the fact that workers are not productive enough to
merit the salaries they earn. The average worker earns just $20 a month,
but in return receives free education and health care, nearly free
housing and transportation, and some basic food.

"Society is handing out consumer goods more quickly then it is creating
them," Murillo said. He warned that the labor force is too heavily
tilted toward the service sector, with far too few workers actually
producing anything. "This labor structure would not allow any economy to
function well."

In most countries, such massive layoffs as the ones taking place in Cuba
would produce deep concern, and likely lead to labor unrest. But union
leaders here have quickly fallen in line with the changes.

In fact, it was the Cuban Workers Confederation that officially
announced the layoffs back in September.

On Sunday, union leader Salvador Valdes reiterated the organization's
support for the economic overhaul, though he did put in a good word for
Cuba's much-maligned workers.

"In 50 years, the working class has never failed the revolution," he
said. "Because that would be like failing ourselves."

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/11/01/1902692/castro-urges-cuban-union-to-accept.html

Cuba faces looming deadline for prisoner release

Posted on Sunday, 10.31.10
Cuba faces looming deadline for prisoner release
By PAUL HAVEN
Associated Press

HAVANA -- Angel Moya has told relatives he will never stop fighting for
political change in Cuba, and hopes to be a thorn in the government's
side if he is released from jail. Hector Maseda's wife says he will
leave prison only if his freedom is unconditional.

After releasing many of Cuba's best-known prisoners of conscience, the
communist government has a week left to make good on a promise to clear
Cuban jails of 52 activists, opposition leaders and social critics.
Those that remain, however - including Moya and Maseda - may be the
toughest releases yet for a government that describes dissidents as
subversive U.S. agents bent on toppling the socialist system.

All of those released so far - including 39 dissidents arrested in a
2003 crackdown and eight others arrested separately - have agreed to go
into exile in Spain along with their families.

But the last 13 prisoners from the 2003 crackdown seem bent on remaining
in Cuba, a direct challenge to a government that would much prefer they
take their views elsewhere.

"We want to stay in our homeland," Moya's wife, Bertha Soler, told The
Associated Press. "The second he gets out of prison, he will continue
his fight for democracy."

Cuba has been ruled by Fidel Castro and his brother Raul since they
overthrew dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

Moya, a 46-year-old construction worker who turned to dissent in the
1990s, is serving a 20-year sentence for treason and other charges.
Soler is a leader of the Damas de Blanco, or Ladies in White, which is
comprised of the wives and mothers of prisoners of conscience.

Laura Pollan, another Damas leader, says she met with her jailed
husband, Hector Maseda, on Oct. 17 and he told her that "he will not let
anybody throw him out of his country."

She said her husband, who is 67 and also serving a 20-year term, would
refuse to leave prison unless he is freed without any conditions.

"We won't accept parole," she said. "We want a pardon."

Cuban President Raul Castro agreed to release the prisoners after a July
7 meeting with Havana's Roman Catholic cardinal, Jaime Ortega, and then
Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos. Their talks were held a
few months after jailed dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo died following a
long hunger strike.

At the time, the church said all 52 dissidents still in prison from the
2003 crackdown would be freed "within three to four months from this
moment."

The church said the prisoners would be allowed to leave Cuba, but did
not say exile was a requirement for release. Since then, family members
of the prisoners say they have been contacted by church officials
including Ortega himself and asked if they were willing to go to Spain.
Those who said no remain jailed.

Cuba has won praise from European leaders for the deal, and even a
grudging acknowledgment from Washington that it is moving in the right
direction, though not quickly enough.

Now, the government has a tough decision to make before Nov. 7: Go back
on its word and lose the international goodwill it has earned, or let
the releases go forward and risk giving voice to a more vocal opposition
while the country is in the midst of widespread layoffs and difficult
economic changes.

While the church's announcement in July didn't expressly set Nov. 7 as
the date for the government's promise to be completed, Catholic
officials have said privately that they consider it to be the deadline.
Dissidents express a similar view.

Guillermo Farinas, a dissident who won Europe's Sakharov human rights
prize in October after staging his own 134-day hunger strike in support
of the prisoners, told the AP last week that he will stop eating again
Nov. 8 if the remaining dissidents are not in their homes.

The Damas de Blanco have also vowed increased activity if the government
backs away from its promise.

"We are really approaching this kind of gladiator showdown, and it will
be interesting to see who blinks," said Ann Louise Bardach, a Cuba
expert at the Brookings Institute and author of the book "Without
Fidel." "The Castros, and particularly Fidel, never blink ... but this
is a situation where they may have to because of the economic pickle
they are in."

The government has often allowed its most vocal detractors to leave the
island, a strategy that has helped lower the tension level and keep the
opposition marginalized.

In 1979, hundreds of political prisoners were freed into exile following
a dialogue between Fidel Castro and the Cuban exile community. In 1984,
the Rev. Jesse Jackson helped negotiate the release of 26 prisoners,
most of whom left the island.

Some 300 Cuban prisoners - about 80 of them dissidents - were released
following a historic visit by Pope John Paul II in 1998, and nearly all
went into exile.

Partly as a result, Cuba's dissident community remains small and
fractured, and enjoys little following on the island. Cuba's leaders
characterize all the dissidents as mercenaries paid by Washington to
destabilize the government.

Elizardo Sanchez, head of the Havana-based Cuban Commission on Human
Rights and National Reconciliation, which monitors dissident activity
and advocates for the release of political prisoners, said the
government faces no real threat from the presence of a dozen more activists.

He said Cuba's leaders have nothing to gain - and everything to lose -
by keeping the last 13 prisoners in jail.

"By releasing them, the government improves its international image and
removes a weight off its back. If it does not, it will gain only the
world's condemnation," Sanchez said. "Not freeing them would be
unthinkable."
Associated Press reporter Andrea Rodriguez contributed to this story.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/31/v-fullstory/1901082/cuba-faces-looming-deadline-for.html

Report of odor diverts NY-Cuba flight to Baltimore

Posted on Sunday, 10.31.10
Report of odor diverts NY-Cuba flight to Baltimore
The Associated Press

BALTIMORE -- A Vision Airlines flight from New York City to Havana,
Cuba, carrying 154 passengers has been diverted to Baltimore Washington
International Airport after a report of odor in the cabin.

Airline spokesman Bryan Glazer says Flight RBY-6401 out of John F.
Kennedy International Airport made a precautionary landing at the
Baltimore airport. The flight landed about 5:20 p.m. Sunday. No one was
hurt.

Glazer says the aircraft was inspected and allowed to depart for its
destination. According to Flightstats.com tracker, the flight was headed
to Havana.

The small airline attracted attention in July when one of its jets was
chartered to transport a group of Russian sleeper agents to Vienna as
part of the largest spy swap since the Cold War.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/31/1902044/report-of-odor-diverts-ny-cuba.html