State Security Summons Estado de Sats Members to "Warn" Them About "For
Another Cuba" Graffiti
Posted on June 24, 2014
Several members of Estado de Sats were summoned by State Security to a
Havana police station this Saturday, to "warn" them about the Grafiti
Colectivo Por otra Cuba, organized by the independent project for this
Sunday, to support the campaign demanding that the Government ratify the
United Nations covenants that it signed in 2008.
"They wanted (…) to threaten us, as always, and to say that they would
not allow any type of action," the visual artist Lía Villares told
Diario de Cuba.
"I told them it was an international action, a global movement in
support of the campaign, and that they couldn't prevent what was
happening in different parts of the world," she added.
Two years since the start of the campaign, Estado de Sats has proposed
"simultaneous and collective graffiti," within and outside Cuba, of the
For Another Cuba logo, created by the graphic artist and caricaturist
Gustavo Rodríguez (Garrincha).
Also "to document the actions and post photos and videos on social
networks, to make this 'collective graffiti' a media success in support
of the message For Another Cuba."
In addition to Villares, also summoned were the photographer Claudio
Fuentes, the writer and independent journalist Camilo Ernesto Olivera,
and the activist Dixán Romero, who did not appear because of
irregularities in the summonses.
"I went out wearing a shirt with the campaign logo and they were so
upset, evidently so disturbed, that they talked to the logo, not to me,"
related Villares, who was "warned" by two officials.
"I asked them why they don't combat corruption, delinquency, why a
person like myself sitting there at three o'clock on a Saturday
afternoon (…) why they were doing this work while the country was
falling apart. But that didn't interest them, they wanted to deliver
their threatening and intimidating message," she added.
The Campaign for Another Cuba demands that Havana ratify the United
Nations covenants on civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.
Diario de Cuba, 8 June 2014
Source: State Security Summons Estado de Sats Members to "Warn" Them
About "For Another Cuba" Graffiti | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/state-security-summons-estado-de-sats-members-to-warn-them-about-for-another-cuba-graffiti/
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Cuban Mission in Venezuela in Danger
Cuban Mission in Venezuela in Danger / Juan Juan Almeida
Posted on June 24, 2014
They add up to thousands, the Cubans, health professionals, who have
been sent to Venezuela since the first Cuban Medical Mission landed in
Caracas December 16, 1999.
Our technicians, doctors, nurses; they continue and will continue
fulfilling the Hippocratic Oath in the South American country and the
sacred duty of offering medical attention to all who need it.
The enthusiasm of the first collaborations has eroded, today all the
personnel of the Cuban medical cooperation seem to be transitioning to a
bad moment, full of insecurity and uncertainty, because among many other
situations, they confront the discontent of a wide sector of the population.
So shows a classified report dated last Friday, June 13, signed by Dr.
Victor Gauter, chief of all the missions, and sent with urgency to the
Cuban Public Health Ministry.
The document in question asserts that in the Carabobo state alone,
located in the north central coast of Venezuela, in a central region of
the country, in the first week of June, that is to say, from Sunday the
first until Saturday the seventh, the following points were given which
I quote verbatim because of their importance:
- Nine Cuban cooperators were threatened by Venezuelan nationals. Among
the main causes of these threats are the relationship of a couple of
married nationals and political issues.
- Two collaborators deserted, one stomatologist and one a rehabilitation
technician from Valencia township.
- Five volunteer workers were attacked in different townships of the State.
- Two popular medical offices were stoned, one in the Valencia township
and the other in the Naguanagua location.
- In the Bolivar and Marti CDI, located in the Guacara township, they
hung posters that said, "Cubans out."
- At the "La Libertad" stomatology clinic, ASIC Bolivar, also in the
Guacara township, they opened a hole in the wall and they stole all the
instruments and halogen light from the display case.
- Eight collaborators were urgently hospitalized on presenting symptoms
of dengue fever.
It is a lot for only one state, and too much for a week. But before such
concrete events, with clear traces of a serious conflict that looms, the
directors from Havana responded with their habitual irresponsibility
and, without abandoning the repeated formula of false humanism, they
sent an official who travels states with the mission of recruiting
personnel in order to form groups of Cuban computer experts linked to
social networks who will flood Twitter uploading photos of achievements
and "red Sundays."
Come on, as if real problems could be controlled with visual solutions.
We should not forget that the damages caused to people, with the sole
objective of politicizing, have not only consequences but also guilty
parties.
Translated by mlk.
18 June 2014
Source: Cuban Mission in Venezuela in Danger / Juan Juan Almeida |
Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/cuban-mission-in-venezuela-in-danger-juan-juan-almeida/
Posted on June 24, 2014
They add up to thousands, the Cubans, health professionals, who have
been sent to Venezuela since the first Cuban Medical Mission landed in
Caracas December 16, 1999.
Our technicians, doctors, nurses; they continue and will continue
fulfilling the Hippocratic Oath in the South American country and the
sacred duty of offering medical attention to all who need it.
The enthusiasm of the first collaborations has eroded, today all the
personnel of the Cuban medical cooperation seem to be transitioning to a
bad moment, full of insecurity and uncertainty, because among many other
situations, they confront the discontent of a wide sector of the population.
So shows a classified report dated last Friday, June 13, signed by Dr.
Victor Gauter, chief of all the missions, and sent with urgency to the
Cuban Public Health Ministry.
The document in question asserts that in the Carabobo state alone,
located in the north central coast of Venezuela, in a central region of
the country, in the first week of June, that is to say, from Sunday the
first until Saturday the seventh, the following points were given which
I quote verbatim because of their importance:
- Nine Cuban cooperators were threatened by Venezuelan nationals. Among
the main causes of these threats are the relationship of a couple of
married nationals and political issues.
- Two collaborators deserted, one stomatologist and one a rehabilitation
technician from Valencia township.
- Five volunteer workers were attacked in different townships of the State.
- Two popular medical offices were stoned, one in the Valencia township
and the other in the Naguanagua location.
- In the Bolivar and Marti CDI, located in the Guacara township, they
hung posters that said, "Cubans out."
- At the "La Libertad" stomatology clinic, ASIC Bolivar, also in the
Guacara township, they opened a hole in the wall and they stole all the
instruments and halogen light from the display case.
- Eight collaborators were urgently hospitalized on presenting symptoms
of dengue fever.
It is a lot for only one state, and too much for a week. But before such
concrete events, with clear traces of a serious conflict that looms, the
directors from Havana responded with their habitual irresponsibility
and, without abandoning the repeated formula of false humanism, they
sent an official who travels states with the mission of recruiting
personnel in order to form groups of Cuban computer experts linked to
social networks who will flood Twitter uploading photos of achievements
and "red Sundays."
Come on, as if real problems could be controlled with visual solutions.
We should not forget that the damages caused to people, with the sole
objective of politicizing, have not only consequences but also guilty
parties.
Translated by mlk.
18 June 2014
Source: Cuban Mission in Venezuela in Danger / Juan Juan Almeida |
Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/cuban-mission-in-venezuela-in-danger-juan-juan-almeida/
Lift the embargo – but liberate Cuba first
Lift the embargo – but liberate Cuba first
By Jeff Jacoby | GLOBE COLUMNIST JUNE 25, 2014
AT A June 12 appearance in New York before the Council on Foreign
Relations, Hillary Clinton made the familiar argument for ending the US
trade embargo against Cuba, the same one critics of the policy have been
making for years.
"The embargo is Castro's best friend," the former secretary of state
said; it provides the Havana regime with "an excuse for everything."
Scrapping sanctions would "change the psychology of this issue" and
improve US relations with the rest of the hemisphere. So "we should
advocate for normalizing relations and see what [Cuba's rulers] do."
A few hours earlier, Cuba's rulers had been doing one of the things they
do best: persecuting peaceful dissidents. More than 40 pro-democracy
activists were rounded up on June 11, and several were allegedly beaten
by security agents. One of Cuba's most respected dissidents, Jorge Luís
García Pérez, widely known as Antúnez, said he was battered and choked
into unconsciousness in a police station in Santa Clara, according to
the Miami Herald. State security officials warned Antúnez to stop
collecting signatures on a petition condemning international efforts to
reduce US sanctions against Cuba.
In Cuba, as in the United States, it requires no bravery to publicly
oppose the embargo. Cubans who publicly support it, on the other hand,
risk being prosecuted for committing a crime punishable by up to 15
years imprisonment. Clinton's critique of the US embargo drew attention
because she is a potential candidate for president. But what really
merits the headlines is the courage shown by the hundreds of ordinary
Cuban citizens openly urging the free world not to do more business with
the dictatorship that for so long has kept Cuba on its knees.
Conventional wisdom holds that the US embargo has persisted only because
Cuban-Americans in Florida, a key voting bloc, strongly defend it.
Florida International University generated some media notice last week
with a new poll showing that by a narrow majority, Cubans living in
metropolitan Miami — the capital of the Cuban American community —
actually oppose the embargo. Critics quickly flagged some glaring
problems with the poll, such as the 90 percent of respondents who
claimed to be registered voters, while only 62 percent said they were US
citizens. And the reported results filtered out the "unsures," which on
the embargo question amounted to 12 percent of respondents. Including
those numbers in the overall tally would show 45 percent against the
embargo — a plurality, not a majority.
Yet the focus on polling data is a distraction. The US economic embargo
is not the cause of Cuba's misery. The Castro tyranny is. Unilaterally
repealing the embargo would not weaken that tyranny by flooding the
island with American tourists, consumer goods, and democratic notions,
as sanctions opponents romantically imagine. Nearly 3 million tourists
already visit Cuba annually, hundreds of thousands of Americans among
them. In recent years, more tourists have traveled to Cuba from the
United States than from any other country except Canada.
The trade embargo is far from hermetic. Since 2000, US exporters have
sold close to $5 billion in food, agricultural, and medical goods to
Cuba — for several years, in fact, the United States was Cuba's
fifth-largest trade partner. Meanwhile, Cuba has had the rest of the
world to do business with, unfettered by embargoes or Florida politics.
If tourism and trade were going to undermine Cuba's communist regime, it
would surely have toppled long ago. But engagement with totalitarians
doesn't turn them into free and democratic neighbors. Rather, it
empowers them to crack down on their subjects with even greater
impunity. According to Elizardo Sanchez, a well-known human rights
activist in Havana, detentions of dissidents have spiked, reaching more
than 3,800 in just the first four months of 2014, far above the previous
high of 2,795 two years ago.
The embargo, or what remains of it, is not chiseled in granite. It is,
however, codified in US law. The Helms-Burton Act, signed by Hillary
Clinton's husband in 1996, allows the embargo to be lifted once the
Cuban government legalizes political opposition, frees its political
prisoners, and schedules democratic elections. Cuban dissidents insist
on that point at the risk of going to prison. Shouldn't American
politicians, with nothing at risk but their credibility, insist on it as
well?
Jeff Jacoby can be reached at jacoby@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter
@jeff_jacoby.
Source: Lift the embargo – but liberate Cuba first - Opinion - The
Boston Globe -
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/06/24/lift-embargo-but-liberate-cuba-first/7Msp22F4gTVhBajSG8lSaK/story.html
By Jeff Jacoby | GLOBE COLUMNIST JUNE 25, 2014
AT A June 12 appearance in New York before the Council on Foreign
Relations, Hillary Clinton made the familiar argument for ending the US
trade embargo against Cuba, the same one critics of the policy have been
making for years.
"The embargo is Castro's best friend," the former secretary of state
said; it provides the Havana regime with "an excuse for everything."
Scrapping sanctions would "change the psychology of this issue" and
improve US relations with the rest of the hemisphere. So "we should
advocate for normalizing relations and see what [Cuba's rulers] do."
A few hours earlier, Cuba's rulers had been doing one of the things they
do best: persecuting peaceful dissidents. More than 40 pro-democracy
activists were rounded up on June 11, and several were allegedly beaten
by security agents. One of Cuba's most respected dissidents, Jorge Luís
García Pérez, widely known as Antúnez, said he was battered and choked
into unconsciousness in a police station in Santa Clara, according to
the Miami Herald. State security officials warned Antúnez to stop
collecting signatures on a petition condemning international efforts to
reduce US sanctions against Cuba.
In Cuba, as in the United States, it requires no bravery to publicly
oppose the embargo. Cubans who publicly support it, on the other hand,
risk being prosecuted for committing a crime punishable by up to 15
years imprisonment. Clinton's critique of the US embargo drew attention
because she is a potential candidate for president. But what really
merits the headlines is the courage shown by the hundreds of ordinary
Cuban citizens openly urging the free world not to do more business with
the dictatorship that for so long has kept Cuba on its knees.
Conventional wisdom holds that the US embargo has persisted only because
Cuban-Americans in Florida, a key voting bloc, strongly defend it.
Florida International University generated some media notice last week
with a new poll showing that by a narrow majority, Cubans living in
metropolitan Miami — the capital of the Cuban American community —
actually oppose the embargo. Critics quickly flagged some glaring
problems with the poll, such as the 90 percent of respondents who
claimed to be registered voters, while only 62 percent said they were US
citizens. And the reported results filtered out the "unsures," which on
the embargo question amounted to 12 percent of respondents. Including
those numbers in the overall tally would show 45 percent against the
embargo — a plurality, not a majority.
Yet the focus on polling data is a distraction. The US economic embargo
is not the cause of Cuba's misery. The Castro tyranny is. Unilaterally
repealing the embargo would not weaken that tyranny by flooding the
island with American tourists, consumer goods, and democratic notions,
as sanctions opponents romantically imagine. Nearly 3 million tourists
already visit Cuba annually, hundreds of thousands of Americans among
them. In recent years, more tourists have traveled to Cuba from the
United States than from any other country except Canada.
The trade embargo is far from hermetic. Since 2000, US exporters have
sold close to $5 billion in food, agricultural, and medical goods to
Cuba — for several years, in fact, the United States was Cuba's
fifth-largest trade partner. Meanwhile, Cuba has had the rest of the
world to do business with, unfettered by embargoes or Florida politics.
If tourism and trade were going to undermine Cuba's communist regime, it
would surely have toppled long ago. But engagement with totalitarians
doesn't turn them into free and democratic neighbors. Rather, it
empowers them to crack down on their subjects with even greater
impunity. According to Elizardo Sanchez, a well-known human rights
activist in Havana, detentions of dissidents have spiked, reaching more
than 3,800 in just the first four months of 2014, far above the previous
high of 2,795 two years ago.
The embargo, or what remains of it, is not chiseled in granite. It is,
however, codified in US law. The Helms-Burton Act, signed by Hillary
Clinton's husband in 1996, allows the embargo to be lifted once the
Cuban government legalizes political opposition, frees its political
prisoners, and schedules democratic elections. Cuban dissidents insist
on that point at the risk of going to prison. Shouldn't American
politicians, with nothing at risk but their credibility, insist on it as
well?
Jeff Jacoby can be reached at jacoby@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter
@jeff_jacoby.
Source: Lift the embargo – but liberate Cuba first - Opinion - The
Boston Globe -
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/06/24/lift-embargo-but-liberate-cuba-first/7Msp22F4gTVhBajSG8lSaK/story.html
Cuban Singer Silvio Rodriguez’ “Discoveries”
Cuban Singer Silvio Rodriguez' "Discoveries"
June 24, 2014
Haroldo Dilla Alonso
HAVANA TIMES — A few days ago, singer-songwriter Silvio Rodriguez
angered that very small part of Cuba's population with access to the
Internet. This happened when, following a concert held at a small town
in Cuba's eastern end, the musician was interviewed by the official
government web-site Cubadebate.
During the interview, Rodriguez showed a certain degree of
disillusionment with the outcome of what both the interviewer and
interviewee agreed to call "communism." More importantly, he made a
chilling confession: "I've realized," he said, "that people are screwed,
really screwed…" He added: "a whole lot more screwed than I thought,"
before mentioning another empirical discovery: "my life is far more
comfortable than that of the immense majority of Cubans."
What's striking about these statements is that Silvio Rodriguez has
always lived in Cuba, and that he has resided on the island for the past
twenty years. In the course of these two decades, Cuba's population has
become alarmingly impoverished, individual consumption has dwindled and
been transformed into a daily struggle and social services have
degenerated to truly regrettable levels. And only now does he discover,
to his surprise, that "people are screwed."
I must point out that, ten years ago, Silvio Rodriguez himself publicly
supported the Cuban government's repression of those who were "screwed"
and called for a system that offered them brighter prospects, including
the execution, without due process, of three young black men who had
hijacked a ferry in order to emigrate to the United States.
Silvio Rodriguez' statements are an illustration of the perversities
that emerge from a system that has not completed its transition to
capitalism and of the frivolous disappointment of an elite that imagined
it would transform the world and ended up discovering it had merely
staged a burlesque show for a public that had been gagged.
These disparaging public declarations have become common among the
post-revolutionary elite, interested in publicizing an account of things
in which it appears as the baby we should keep and the rest as the dirty
bath water we ought to throw out.
A few years ago, when the Cuban president announced the implementation
of his economic "reforms," no few miserable public officials spoke of
the devastated Cuban population as a society of vulgar children who
simply opened their mouths and waited for the State to spoon-feed them.
Only a few weeks ago, we learned of another sudden outburst, that of
Alfredo Guevara, a learned official and patron of the arts who, in his
last days, complained of a people he considered unworthy of the
government's efforts.
What makes Silvio Rodriguez different from Alfredo Guevara – perhaps
because he does not suspect that the world he knew is dying (a common
type of blindness among intellectuals) – is that he believes we should
continue to move forward: "it's likely a great part of the population
will have to endure many hardships, hard work, problems and shortages,
on top of the many hardships, hard work, problems and shortages we've
had for many years." That is to say, Silvio Rodriguez is calling on
Cubans to make new sacrifices.
Silvio Rodriguez has in fact always been calling on others to make
sacrifices. He did it when he was starting out as an artist and he was
yet another common Cuban committed to his people, something that made
his work authentic and believable.
Today, he is no longer a common Cuban, nor is he believable, because
Silvio Rodriguez is an intellectual of the elite, and this – as the
musician has just discovered – allows him to maintain a safe distance
from the daily struggle for survival of those folk that, according to
him, are "screwed, very screwed." Without a doubt, these people will be
even more screwed – and distant from the folk singer that once captured
their imagination – when the establishment of an authoritarian form of
capitalism has been achieved.
Source: Cuban Singer Silvio Rodriguez' "Discoveries" - Havana Times.org
- http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=104464
June 24, 2014
Haroldo Dilla Alonso
HAVANA TIMES — A few days ago, singer-songwriter Silvio Rodriguez
angered that very small part of Cuba's population with access to the
Internet. This happened when, following a concert held at a small town
in Cuba's eastern end, the musician was interviewed by the official
government web-site Cubadebate.
During the interview, Rodriguez showed a certain degree of
disillusionment with the outcome of what both the interviewer and
interviewee agreed to call "communism." More importantly, he made a
chilling confession: "I've realized," he said, "that people are screwed,
really screwed…" He added: "a whole lot more screwed than I thought,"
before mentioning another empirical discovery: "my life is far more
comfortable than that of the immense majority of Cubans."
What's striking about these statements is that Silvio Rodriguez has
always lived in Cuba, and that he has resided on the island for the past
twenty years. In the course of these two decades, Cuba's population has
become alarmingly impoverished, individual consumption has dwindled and
been transformed into a daily struggle and social services have
degenerated to truly regrettable levels. And only now does he discover,
to his surprise, that "people are screwed."
I must point out that, ten years ago, Silvio Rodriguez himself publicly
supported the Cuban government's repression of those who were "screwed"
and called for a system that offered them brighter prospects, including
the execution, without due process, of three young black men who had
hijacked a ferry in order to emigrate to the United States.
Silvio Rodriguez' statements are an illustration of the perversities
that emerge from a system that has not completed its transition to
capitalism and of the frivolous disappointment of an elite that imagined
it would transform the world and ended up discovering it had merely
staged a burlesque show for a public that had been gagged.
These disparaging public declarations have become common among the
post-revolutionary elite, interested in publicizing an account of things
in which it appears as the baby we should keep and the rest as the dirty
bath water we ought to throw out.
A few years ago, when the Cuban president announced the implementation
of his economic "reforms," no few miserable public officials spoke of
the devastated Cuban population as a society of vulgar children who
simply opened their mouths and waited for the State to spoon-feed them.
Only a few weeks ago, we learned of another sudden outburst, that of
Alfredo Guevara, a learned official and patron of the arts who, in his
last days, complained of a people he considered unworthy of the
government's efforts.
What makes Silvio Rodriguez different from Alfredo Guevara – perhaps
because he does not suspect that the world he knew is dying (a common
type of blindness among intellectuals) – is that he believes we should
continue to move forward: "it's likely a great part of the population
will have to endure many hardships, hard work, problems and shortages,
on top of the many hardships, hard work, problems and shortages we've
had for many years." That is to say, Silvio Rodriguez is calling on
Cubans to make new sacrifices.
Silvio Rodriguez has in fact always been calling on others to make
sacrifices. He did it when he was starting out as an artist and he was
yet another common Cuban committed to his people, something that made
his work authentic and believable.
Today, he is no longer a common Cuban, nor is he believable, because
Silvio Rodriguez is an intellectual of the elite, and this – as the
musician has just discovered – allows him to maintain a safe distance
from the daily struggle for survival of those folk that, according to
him, are "screwed, very screwed." Without a doubt, these people will be
even more screwed – and distant from the folk singer that once captured
their imagination – when the establishment of an authoritarian form of
capitalism has been achieved.
Source: Cuban Singer Silvio Rodriguez' "Discoveries" - Havana Times.org
- http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=104464
Gifts from Heaven - Cuba Needs Wheelchairs
Gifts from Heaven: Cuba Needs Wheelchairs
June 24, 2014
Mercedes Gonzalez Amade
HAVANA TIMES — Who doesn't enjoy getting a gift? I don't think that's a
difficult question. If that gift is something that changes your life, it
is far more welcome.
Things become complicated when one is responsible for distributing
limited donations to a group of desperate people in need. I found myself
in such a situation a few months ago, when I had to distribute 24
wheelchairs among people with disabilities in my neighborhood.
There are many people with motor disabilities in Marianao who are
members of the Cuban Association for the Physically Impaired (ACLIFIM).
The number of wheelchairs donated didn't even cover 50 percent of the
neighborhood's needs, and we were forced to prioritize individuals on
the basis of their disability.
Of course, those with more severe challenges, such as double amputees,
paraplegics and people with medullar lesions, were our top priority. My
heart broke when I had to hand out the wheelchairs: I had to send away
many who came to me, people who have elderly parents with disabilities
at home, because they were not ACLIFIM members.
I was also made monetary offers. The figures were high, but I turned
them down. The wheelchairs were being sold at 77 Cuban pesos, and some
people offered me as much as 80 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC), almost 25
times the price.
I tried to be fair, though it was difficult to choose who got one and
who had to continue waiting for another donation. What fills me with
pride is remembering the joy of those we gave back their legs to,
metaphorically speaking.
I am confident I will be able to continue helping those who need help,
even if I am not paid for doing this job. I wouldn't trade sincere
gratefulness for any amount of money.
I have always believed that positive energy makes things flow better.
The job I do forces me to move long distances across the neighborhood
every day. A few days ago, I also got a gift: I was given an electric
wheelchair, without any batteries or a transformer (because, according
to the association, that is how the donations are received). I am
grateful they thought about me and I know it will make my life a lot
easier when I manage to get it up and running.
Source: Gifts from Heaven: Cuba Needs Wheelchairs - Havana Times.org -
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=104465
June 24, 2014
Mercedes Gonzalez Amade
HAVANA TIMES — Who doesn't enjoy getting a gift? I don't think that's a
difficult question. If that gift is something that changes your life, it
is far more welcome.
Things become complicated when one is responsible for distributing
limited donations to a group of desperate people in need. I found myself
in such a situation a few months ago, when I had to distribute 24
wheelchairs among people with disabilities in my neighborhood.
There are many people with motor disabilities in Marianao who are
members of the Cuban Association for the Physically Impaired (ACLIFIM).
The number of wheelchairs donated didn't even cover 50 percent of the
neighborhood's needs, and we were forced to prioritize individuals on
the basis of their disability.
Of course, those with more severe challenges, such as double amputees,
paraplegics and people with medullar lesions, were our top priority. My
heart broke when I had to hand out the wheelchairs: I had to send away
many who came to me, people who have elderly parents with disabilities
at home, because they were not ACLIFIM members.
I was also made monetary offers. The figures were high, but I turned
them down. The wheelchairs were being sold at 77 Cuban pesos, and some
people offered me as much as 80 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC), almost 25
times the price.
I tried to be fair, though it was difficult to choose who got one and
who had to continue waiting for another donation. What fills me with
pride is remembering the joy of those we gave back their legs to,
metaphorically speaking.
I am confident I will be able to continue helping those who need help,
even if I am not paid for doing this job. I wouldn't trade sincere
gratefulness for any amount of money.
I have always believed that positive energy makes things flow better.
The job I do forces me to move long distances across the neighborhood
every day. A few days ago, I also got a gift: I was given an electric
wheelchair, without any batteries or a transformer (because, according
to the association, that is how the donations are received). I am
grateful they thought about me and I know it will make my life a lot
easier when I manage to get it up and running.
Source: Gifts from Heaven: Cuba Needs Wheelchairs - Havana Times.org -
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=104465
After mother's death, jailed American Alan Gross visited by wife in Cuba
After mother's death, jailed American Alan Gross visited by wife in Cuba
By Patrick Oppmann, CNN
June 25, 2014 -- Updated 0234 GMT (1034 HKT)
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Alan Gross' wife, Judy, visits husband in Cuba a week after his mother's
death
The U.S. State Department contractor offered to return to jail after a
goodbye visit
The Cuban government denied his request, saying inmates can't travel abroad
Gross is serving a 15-year sentence for bring satellite equipment to island
(CNN) -- The wife of imprisoned U.S. State Department contractor Alan
Gross traveled to Cuba Tuesday as part of her ongoing effort to free her
husband.
Judy Gross did not talk to a CNN reporter outside Havana's Jose Marti
International Airport, and she and Gross' attorney quickly boarded a bus
provided by the Cuban government.
Last week, Gross' mother died after a long fight with cancer, Gross'
attorney, Scott Gilbert, said.
The Cuban government refused Gross' request to travel to the United
States to say goodbye to Evelyn Gross before she died. Gross had
promised that after seeing his mother he would return to his prison cell
at a military hospital in Havana.
"We would like to convey our heartfelt condolences to his relatives,"
Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs official Josefina Vidal said in a
statement. "It is necessary to clarify that neither the Cuban
penitentiary system nor the U.S. penitentiary system provide the
possibility for inmates to travel abroad, no matter the reason. "
Gross, 65, is serving a 15-year sentence for bringing satellite
communications equipment to Cuba as part of his work as a subcontractor
for the U.S. Agency for International Development. He was convicted in
March 2011.
Photos: Americans detained abroad
U.S. officials said Gross was merely trying to help Cubans bypass the
island's stringent restrictions on Internet access and have said his
imprisonment is one of the major obstacles to improved relations with Cuba.
In April, Gross embarked on a hunger strike to protest his continued
imprisonment. He later said he was suspending his hunger strike after
his mother pleaded with him to begin eating again.
Since his arrest, Gross has suffered a slew of health problems, his
attorney said, and lost more than 100 pounds.
"Alan is confined to one room, 23 hours a day." Gilbert said during an
interview with CNN in April. "He spends his day there in pajamas, he's
fed meals in his room. He's let out for an hour a day, to exercise an
hour a day in a small, walled courtyard where you can barely see the sky."
Cuban officials have said they want to negotiate Gross' case with
representatives of the United States in conjunction with the fates of
three Cuban intelligence operatives serving lengthy sentences in U.S.
prisons.
But U.S. officials have called that effort blackmail and said the cases
are separate matters because Gross was not working as a spy in Cuba.
The diplomatic impasse is taking its toll on Gross, Gilbert said.
"The White House has yet to engage on this issue; we need the president
to make this a priority. Without that, Alan will die in Cuba," Gilbert said.
Source: Wife of jailed American Alan Gross visits Cuba - CNN.com -
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/06/24/world/americas/cuba-alan-gross-wife-visit/
By Patrick Oppmann, CNN
June 25, 2014 -- Updated 0234 GMT (1034 HKT)
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Alan Gross' wife, Judy, visits husband in Cuba a week after his mother's
death
The U.S. State Department contractor offered to return to jail after a
goodbye visit
The Cuban government denied his request, saying inmates can't travel abroad
Gross is serving a 15-year sentence for bring satellite equipment to island
(CNN) -- The wife of imprisoned U.S. State Department contractor Alan
Gross traveled to Cuba Tuesday as part of her ongoing effort to free her
husband.
Judy Gross did not talk to a CNN reporter outside Havana's Jose Marti
International Airport, and she and Gross' attorney quickly boarded a bus
provided by the Cuban government.
Last week, Gross' mother died after a long fight with cancer, Gross'
attorney, Scott Gilbert, said.
The Cuban government refused Gross' request to travel to the United
States to say goodbye to Evelyn Gross before she died. Gross had
promised that after seeing his mother he would return to his prison cell
at a military hospital in Havana.
"We would like to convey our heartfelt condolences to his relatives,"
Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs official Josefina Vidal said in a
statement. "It is necessary to clarify that neither the Cuban
penitentiary system nor the U.S. penitentiary system provide the
possibility for inmates to travel abroad, no matter the reason. "
Gross, 65, is serving a 15-year sentence for bringing satellite
communications equipment to Cuba as part of his work as a subcontractor
for the U.S. Agency for International Development. He was convicted in
March 2011.
Photos: Americans detained abroad
U.S. officials said Gross was merely trying to help Cubans bypass the
island's stringent restrictions on Internet access and have said his
imprisonment is one of the major obstacles to improved relations with Cuba.
In April, Gross embarked on a hunger strike to protest his continued
imprisonment. He later said he was suspending his hunger strike after
his mother pleaded with him to begin eating again.
Since his arrest, Gross has suffered a slew of health problems, his
attorney said, and lost more than 100 pounds.
"Alan is confined to one room, 23 hours a day." Gilbert said during an
interview with CNN in April. "He spends his day there in pajamas, he's
fed meals in his room. He's let out for an hour a day, to exercise an
hour a day in a small, walled courtyard where you can barely see the sky."
Cuban officials have said they want to negotiate Gross' case with
representatives of the United States in conjunction with the fates of
three Cuban intelligence operatives serving lengthy sentences in U.S.
prisons.
But U.S. officials have called that effort blackmail and said the cases
are separate matters because Gross was not working as a spy in Cuba.
The diplomatic impasse is taking its toll on Gross, Gilbert said.
"The White House has yet to engage on this issue; we need the president
to make this a priority. Without that, Alan will die in Cuba," Gilbert said.
Source: Wife of jailed American Alan Gross visits Cuba - CNN.com -
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/06/24/world/americas/cuba-alan-gross-wife-visit/
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Cuba moving toward unified currency
Cuba moving toward unified currency
Jun 24,2014
HAVANA, June 23 (Xinhua) -- The Cuban government was working to abolish
a dual-currency system, the official Granma daily said Monday.
Progress on monetary and exchange rate unification topped the agenda of
a cabintet meeting presided over by Cuban leader Raul Castro Saturday.
Vice President Marino Murillo said the authorities were continuing "to
work in compliance with the approved timetable" to scrap the dual
currencies, but he did not provide details.
At present, most Cubans are paid in the Cuban peso or CUP, but most
goods in the country are sold in the convertible peso or CUC, which is
pegged to the U.S. dollar and is worth about 25 CUPs.
The government has begun, among other measures, to train government
employees to "ensure adequate preparation to tackle the process,"
Murillo said.
"Monetary unification will not solve all the problems of the economy,
but it is an indispensable part of a process" aimed at increasing
efficiency and labor productivity, he said.
In October 2013, Cuba said it would phase out its unpopular 19-year-old
dual currency system, which has caused a growing wealth gap between
Cubans with access to dollars and those without.
Cubans with access to convertible pesos mainly work in the tourism
industry or receive money from family members living abroad, who remit
some 2.5 billion U.S. dollars back home a year.
Six years ago, Castro launched an economic renovation program, allowing
the existence of a limited number of private enterprises.
The dual-currency system has widened the wealth gap as more Cubans turn
to the nascent private sector to make a living.
While a doctor earns a monthly salary of 500 CUPs, a self-employed
mechanic can make 400 CUCs, or 9,600 CUPs.
Source: Cuba moving toward unified currency | Shanghai Daily -
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.aspx?id=226045
Jun 24,2014
HAVANA, June 23 (Xinhua) -- The Cuban government was working to abolish
a dual-currency system, the official Granma daily said Monday.
Progress on monetary and exchange rate unification topped the agenda of
a cabintet meeting presided over by Cuban leader Raul Castro Saturday.
Vice President Marino Murillo said the authorities were continuing "to
work in compliance with the approved timetable" to scrap the dual
currencies, but he did not provide details.
At present, most Cubans are paid in the Cuban peso or CUP, but most
goods in the country are sold in the convertible peso or CUC, which is
pegged to the U.S. dollar and is worth about 25 CUPs.
The government has begun, among other measures, to train government
employees to "ensure adequate preparation to tackle the process,"
Murillo said.
"Monetary unification will not solve all the problems of the economy,
but it is an indispensable part of a process" aimed at increasing
efficiency and labor productivity, he said.
In October 2013, Cuba said it would phase out its unpopular 19-year-old
dual currency system, which has caused a growing wealth gap between
Cubans with access to dollars and those without.
Cubans with access to convertible pesos mainly work in the tourism
industry or receive money from family members living abroad, who remit
some 2.5 billion U.S. dollars back home a year.
Six years ago, Castro launched an economic renovation program, allowing
the existence of a limited number of private enterprises.
The dual-currency system has widened the wealth gap as more Cubans turn
to the nascent private sector to make a living.
While a doctor earns a monthly salary of 500 CUPs, a self-employed
mechanic can make 400 CUCs, or 9,600 CUPs.
Source: Cuba moving toward unified currency | Shanghai Daily -
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.aspx?id=226045
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