Havana – DTC – The eastern Cuban province of Ciego de Avila has increased production of canned food, making better use of raw materials supplied by local agriculture. The province has two food-processing plants that were recently repaired to increase production. So far this year, Ciego de Avila has produced 14.6 tons of canned mango and two tons of papaya pulp for children. In order to guarantee the supply of raw materials, 2,400 hectares of land were planted with papaya, guava, pineapple and mango last year. In addition, the plants will process 20,000 tons of tomato, as well as pineapple and dry spices, among other options.
Exclusive trip to Cuba with Chen Lizra
Start: July 8, 2010 End: July 22, 2010
Latidos Productions is offering another opportunity to experience Cuba in a way that very few get to see. This exclusive trip led by Chen Lizra will get you into the heart of the culture, into experiences that you won’t find in a guidebook and show you how communism has affected Cuban people. This is not a regular tour! Only 6 get to go with Chen Lizra one on one for an experience of a lifetime which will change their lives forever…
To find out more, visit the Latidos site
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(Bloomberg) – Cuba’s hotels could manage a sudden influx of 1 million American tourists if the U.S. Congress lifts its 47-year ban on travel to the Communist island, Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero said. Additionally, the Caribbean nation is set to expand its capacity of about 50,000 rooms, with groundbreaking scheduled for at least nine hotels in 2010, Marrero said. About 200,000 rooms may be added in the “medium to long-term,” he said. Cuba is also seeking investment partners for 10 golf courses and luxury hotels aimed at Americans, according to a ministry official.
“I’m convinced that today, with the available capacity, we could be receiving the American tourists without any problem,” Marrero said in an interview in Cancun, Mexico where he was attending a conference of 40 American and Cuban tourist industry representatives. The tourism industry meeting comes as the U.S. Congress considers a law that would lift the ban on travel to Cuba. Senator Byron Dorgan, one of 38 co-sponsors of the bill, said he has 60 votes lined up to win passage of the measure this summer. Similar legislation introduced in the House has 178 co-sponsors and needs 218 votes to pass if all 435 members vote.
“This is a 50 year-old failed policy,” Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, told the meeting in a phone call from Washington. “Punishing Americans by restricting their right to travel just makes no sense at all.” President Barack Obama said that he’s seeking a “new era” in relations with Cuba even as he denounced “deeply disturbing” human rights violations by its government. He did not say where he stands on lifting the travel ban. Obama last year ended restrictions on Cuban-Americans traveling to Cuba and transferring money to relatives back home. The U.S. State Department has also held talks in Havana with Cuban officials about restoring mail service and cooperation on migration issues.
Tourism to Cuba increased 3.5 percent amid the global financial crisis to 2.4 million visitors last year, with 900,000 visitors from Canada leading the way, Jose Manuel Bisbe, commercial director for the Tourism Ministry, said in an interview this week in Havana. Bisbe expects foreign arrivals to grow by a similar amount this year. If the U.S. travel ban is lifted, hotels won’t be overburdened because Americans will visit year-round and face capacity problems only during the winter high season when occupancy reaches 85 percent, he said. “Havana has been the forbidden city for so long that it will be a boom destination even in the low season,” said Bisbe, who estimates Cuba will add another 10,000 hotel rooms in the next two or three years.
Daniel Garcia, who has sold tourists used books in Old Havana since 1994, said more Americans would be good for business. “The gringos can’t help but spend their money,” Garcia, 43, said at his stand in front of the neo-classical building that housed the U.S. Embassy before Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution. “They are the easiest tourists to sell to. They never ask for discounts.” Marrero said the government can’t finance development of tourist infrastructure on its own so it’s scouting for foreign partners such as Majorca, Spain-based Sol Melia SA, which already manages 24 hotels on the Communist island.
Havana – DTC – The group Sol Meliá, one of Spain’s major hotel chains, is organizing City Weddings in urban hotels in Cuba. The company is offering a corporate program for couples who want to get married in Havana and Santiago de Cuba. The hotels available for that purpose are the Meliá Cohíba, Meliá Habana, Tryp Habana Libre and Meliá Santiago de Cuba, where couples can choose up to 21 related services, including a notary, marriage certificate, legalization of documents and a wedding planner. Sol Meliá Cuba’s infrastructure for weddings includes the top 18 hotels from the brands Paradisus, Meliá, Sol and Tryp.
Mid-South Farmer – The American Soybean Association, as well as other groups such as the USA Rice Federation, are urging normalized trade and travel between the U.S. and Cuba. The groups recently testified before the House Committee on Agriculture, urging support of HR 4645, the Travel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act, which would eliminate financing and travel restrictions affecting trade with Cuba. The bill is consistent with the Administration’s goal to double exports in the next five years. HR 4645 would eliminate the need to go through banks in other countries to conduct agricultural trades and the accompanying fees those banks charge.
The bill would also require agricultural exports to Cuba to meet the same payment requirements as exports to other countries, which means payment would be required when the title of the shipment changes hands, not in advance. Finally, the bill would allow U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba, reducing the bureaucratic red tape currently required for individuals to travel to Cuba to facilitate new agriculture sales. In 2008, there were more than $134 million worth of soy products exported to Cuba. If current policies that require third country banks, cash advance payments and limits on travel were lifted, these exports would be expected to increase.
HAVANA – AP – A US decision to ease sanctions on Cuba and two other countries to allow exports of Internet services is intended to “destabilize” the communist island, Cuba’s government has said. The US State Department announced March 8 that it would ease sanctions against Cuba, Iran and Sudan to increase citizens’ access to online communication tools and boost “free speech and information to the greatest extent possible.” But, Cuban President Raul Castro’s government said the decision “said clearly that its objective was to use these service as tools of subversion and destabilization,” according to statement from the Cuban Foreign Ministry. “This shows once again that the US government is not interesting in softening its policy nor in developing normal relations with Cuba, but only in developing a network that facilitates its subversive actions in our nation,” the statement added.
The US Treasury Department modified sanctions against Iran, Cuba and Sudan to allow exports by US companies of services related to Web browsing, blogging, email, instant messaging, chat, social networking and photo- and movie-sharing. Cuban authorities exercise strict control over the Internet, blocking communication sites like Skype and blogs that are critical of the government. Few Cubans have access to the Internet, which cannot be installed in private residences without express permission from authorities. Where access is available in places like hotels, the cost — often eight dollars an hour in a country where a monthly salary runs around 20 dollars — is prohibitively high.
Latin American Herald Tribune – HAVANA – The Cuban government will close more than 100 “inefficient” state-run agricultural enterprises and transfer upwards of 40,000 workers to other jobs, Communist Party daily Granma said. The announcement was made by Agriculture Minister Ulises Rosales at a meeting of the National Association of Small Farmers in the central province of Villa Clara. Rosales, a member of the Communist Party Politburo, cited the need to “eliminate no fewer than 100 companies that are unsustainable in the current economic situation,” and to “relocate” more than 40,000 farm workers.
The president of Cuba, Gen. Raul Castro, has announced agricultural reforms aimed at increasing food production to substitute imports, a policy that he considers one of national security. Cuba imports as much as 80 percent of the provisions consumed by its 11.2 million inhabitants at an annual cost of several billion dollars. That situation cannot be maintained considering the government’s acute lack of liquidity brought on by the international financial crisis, the drop in foreign trade, the continuing U.S. economic embargo and other factors.
HAVANA, Cuba – (acn) – Cuban Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero met in the capital of Mexico with heads of different travel agencies who sell the Cuba destination. The Cuban minister gave the tour operators an overview of the development of tourism in the island and the country’s perspectives on hotel growth. He also talked about the quality of services and the expansion of other areas related to the industry. Marrero met with the travel agents in Mexico City before heading to Cancun where he attended a meeting of promoters of the leisure industry from the United States and Cuba, according to a Prensa Latina report. The encounter took place in the Melia Hotel of the Mexican capital and it was attended by Manuel Aguilera, Cuba’s ambassador to Mexico. Marrero took advantage of the opportunity to encourage the travel agents to undertake new projects with the aim of expanding the number of Mexican visitors to the island to 100,000 in a term of two years. The Cuban minister added that in the upcoming international fair of the sector to be held in Havana on May 3-8, a new promotional campaign targeting different markets of the world will be lunched.
HAVANA, Cuba – (acn) – Liu Yuqin, Chinese ambassador to Cuba, said in this capital that his country will increase the number of projects in the Caribbean nation as part of the bilateral cooperation. Yuqin and Orlando Hernández, deputy Minister of Foreign Trade and Investment (MINCEX), signed the certificate attesting to completion in the archipelago of five major projects, reported Prensa Latina news agency. These were implemented through non-interest government loans and grant funds awarded for this island by China. These works are the construction of small hydropower plants in the provinces of Granma and Holguin, supplies for the education sector, and the second phase of technical assistance for aquaculture development.
Also, the third and final phase of the cooperation project for the teaching of Chinese in Cuba with the presence of teachers from the Asian country. In this regard it was announced that Confucius Institute temporary headquarters were opened, through which they will continue the promotion of culture and training in that language on the island. We’ll have more projects to do from now on, said the Chinese diplomatic to the press after signing the documents. She reiterated her willingness to work to further deepen the existing cooperation between the two peoples and countries. She also thanked the efforts of workers and technicians which made possible the fulfillment of these goals, which are highly significant gestures of the friendship relations, she said. The MINCEX first deputy stressed that the works were developed in strategic sectors for Cuba, like education, renewable energy and agriculture, many of them in priority areas and sites. They are an example of solidarity, cooperation and brotherhood from China to Cuba, he underscored.
Havana – DTC – The Belgium-based travel agency Transnico International has grown in Cuba, where it has benefited from the Caribbean island’s tourist potential. The company plans to bring more travelers to Cuba’s tourist destinations. Transnico executives pointed out that Cuba has historic, cultural and artistic attractions, in addition to several options to promote specialized tourism. With that goal in mind, the company is promoting educational and incentive trips, fly and drive tours, cycling excursions, theme tours and weddings. Transnico International works in conjunction with CUBATUR and the hotel chains Sol Meliá, Accor, Hoteles C, Gran Caribe, Cubanacán, NH Hoteles, Habaguanex and Iberostar.
Havana – DTC – The tourist villa El Yarey, in the eastern Cuban province of Granma, will benefit from the construction of an aqueduct. Experts on hydraulic resources pointed out that the works will begin in the first semester of 2010, as part of investments being made in the province. At present, water is supplied to Villa El Yarey by cistern trucks. The three-star establishment is located in a cozy and calm rural zone. The villa offers 14 cabins that resemble typical Cuban “bohíos” (thatch-roof houses). The villa is close to the region’s mountains and the Turquino and Desembarco del Granma national parks, where nature lovers can walk along several trails.
WASHINGTON – Minneapolis Star-Tribune – Nearly a decade after then-Gov. Jesse Ventura met with Fidel Castro in Cuba, a new wave of Minnesota politicians is leading efforts to end travel and trade restrictions with the communist island nation. Much like Ventura’s 2002 Havana trade mission, the political muscle is being provided by Midwestern farmers and agricultural interests in search of new markets for exports. “It’s a very promising market,” said House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., the sponsor of a bill that would cut through the red tape farmers face in trying to sell food to the nation of 11 million people.
Similar legislation was introduced last week by U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, another Minnesota Democrat. “American farmers can greatly benefit from access to new markets in Cuba at a time when our economy needs it most,” she said. The legislation is aimed mostly at U.S. farm exports to Cuba, which have tripled since they were first allowed in 2001, hitting a record $710 million in 2008. Some restrictions remain, however, that make the sales cumbersome. The legislation is aimed mostly at lifting those restrictions. But its quantum leap would be ending the ban on travel to Cuba, which was a popular casino playground for American gangsters, celebrities and tourists right up until the final hours of the 1959 Cuban Revolution.
Though likely to be the most controversial part of the legislative initiative, farm groups say that ending the ban would foster tourism, helping Cubans generate the cash they need to buy more U.S. exports. But even if the new bills expanded trade and travel, there is one door that would remain firmly shut: the decades-old U.S. trade embargo that prohibits imports from Cuba, including the island’s rum and famed Cohiba cigars. Nor would it end the credit ban that forces the Cuban government to pay cash up front for food sales.
The bills would, however, end clunky payment restrictions unpopular with farmers like Ralph Kaehler, a St. Charles, Minn., cattleman who has to transact his sales to Cuba through a bank in France. Minnesota farmers, who sold $52 million worth of goods to Cuba in 2008, say they could easily sell 50 percent more without the rules that force them to use banks outside the United States. “It’s a no-brainer. It would reduce cost and make it quicker,” said Kaehler, whose two fair-haired sons grabbed international headlines in 2002 showing Castro a bull named “Minnesota Red.”
Though the legislation enjoys bipartisan support in farm country, it faces an uncertain future in Congress, where normalization efforts with Cuba have met with mixed receptions over the years, particularly at times of increased tension with the Castro regime. “The history is littered with legislation having not become law,” said John Kavulich, senior policy adviser for the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, a group of major U.S. companies exploring business opportunities in Cuba.
Minnesota-based companies that have been members of that council at different periods since 1994 include 3M Co., Medtronic and Carlson Cos., which has long expressed interest in being able to build hotels and book travel to Cuba’s famed Varadero Beach. Americans traveling to Cuba must obtain a special license, typically granted for business purposes or to visit immediate relatives. American tourists do travel there, but must go through another country — typically Mexico or Canada — and must lie to U.S. Customs officials on their return or risk civil penalties and criminal prosecution. Cuba encourages the travel by not stamping U.S. passports. Earlier attempts have failed
Minnesota-based Cargill Inc., a global food marketer that has done business with Cuba for years, has jumped on the trade bandwagon, as have others, but to little avail. A 2007 attempt to further ease restrictions on food sales to Cuba was defeated in the House 245 to 182, with 66 Democrats opposing the measure. The Obama administration, trying to ease the 50-year-old rift with a nation still described by the State Department as a “totalitarian police state,” last year softened the travel ban a bit, allowing Cuban Americans to visit relatives and send them money.
But anti-Castro sentiment is strong in some quarters, and Cuban dissident groups say little has changed in the two years since the ailing Fidel Castro relinquished power to his brother Raul. The recent death of political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo after an 83-day hunger strike hasn’t helped soften tensions. Nor has the recent arrest of an American technology contractor, whom the Cubans accused of spying. Despite the bad feelings, U.S. food sales to Cuba have continued to grow, helping build political support for normalization. Minnesota Agriculture Commissioner Gene Hugoson has been to Cuba three times, joining a virtual caravan of farm-state governors from Illinois to Idaho.
Moscow – DTC – The Cuban hotel chains Gran Caribe and Iberostar promoted the Caribbean tourist attractions in Russia. The presentations to local tour operators are part of actions to promote Cuba’s recreational options. In the case of the Spanish group Iberostar, the consortium runs four hotels in Varadero beach, Cuba’s major coastal resort. For its part, Gran Caribe runs 48 three-, four- and five-star hotels in major Cuban beaches and keys. In Havana, Gran Caribe runs 12 establishments, including the world-famous hotels Nacional de Cuba and Riviera, in addition to 18 hotels in Varadero.
Boston Globe – HAVANA – Looking in the mirror used to make Yiliam Gonzalez sick to her stomach. “I would see myself, and my body didn’t match who I was,’’ said the 28-year-old wedding pianist, who went by William before undergoing sex change surgery under Cuba’s universal health care system. Gonzalez is an example of a small but remarkable transformation for the rugged revolution of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and a band of ever-macho, bearded rebels, who long punished gays and transsexuals — but now are paying for sex changes.
Gonzalez underwent the procedure in 2008. She was one of eight Cubans to do so through a program begun in 1988 — then suspended for two decades, after many complained that the communist government had better ways to spend its scarce resources. The operations have begun anew under President Raul Castro’s daughter Mariela, Cuba’s top gay rights activist; 22 more transsexuals are awaiting the procedure. Mariela Castro says the government is moving cautiously, doing only a few per year. “There has been a lot of resistance because homophobia remains strong in our culture,’’ she said at a recent conference on sexuality.
In the 1960s, Cuba was ferociously antigay, firing homosexuals from state jobs, imprisoning them, or sending them to work camps. Many fled into exile. Transsexuals, though not gay, were considered the same. Government media campaigns now discourage homophobia. Hundreds of gay Cubans marched down Havana’s spiffy La Rampa boulevard last spring, just a year after authorities had forbidden a gay-pride parade. “I’d like to think that discrimination against homosexuals is a problem that is being overcome,’’ Fidel Castro, the former president, said during a series of interviews with French journalist Ignacio Ramonet between 2003 and 2005. “Old prejudices and narrow-mindedness will increasingly be things of the past.’’
Mariela Castro has seen to it that the state formally recognizes transsexuals. A state-trained kindergarten teacher with a degree in sexuality, she runs the National Sexual Education Center. The center spent years lobbying communist officials, who finally agreed to lift bans on sex changes in 2008 — though the resolution was never made public to avoid unwanted attention. “These processes of negotiation are sometimes done very quietly,’’ Mariela Castro said, “so as not to stir up ghosts.’’ She now says that financial concerns in the past were simply used to hide prejudices.
That’s not unusual, said Denise Leclair, executive director of the Washington-based International Foundation for Gender Education. “In many countries people complain bitterly. It’s primarily driven by religious beliefs,’’ Leclair said. Religious objections weren’t a problem in Cuba, which was officially atheist for decades. Instead, many Cubans said their country was too poor to pay for the procedure, writing letters to the editor in the Communist Party newspaper Granma after the first successful Cuban surgery was announced in 1988. Leclair said a male-to-female change can cost $10,000 to $25,000 in the United States, or up to four times higher than that, depending on all the procedures performed. About a dozen American doctors do between 1,000 and 2,000 such operations a year, she said.
Canada, Britain, France, and Brazil offer government-financed sex changes, among other countries. San Francisco began paying for sex changes for city and county employees in 2001 and Fort Worth is considering following suit. Some large employers, including IBM and the University of California, negotiated contracts with their private insurers to cover the procedure known medically as “sexual reassignment surgery,’’ and other insurance companies have begun covering at least part of the treatments. Still, Leclair said most of the largest insurance carriers in the United States do not cover the surgery. Cuba won’t say how much its sex change costs.
Despite a global recession that has hit Cuba especially hard, prompting Raul Castro to announce unspecified cuts in health care spending, his daughter says the state can’t afford not to perform the surgeries. Gonzalez said opponents “don’t know what a person who is transsexual suffers. It’s a prison you can’t get out of.’’ Gonzalez can’t get married because she is still waiting for permission to change the name on her government ID card. Until then, she also cannot resume her work at weddings or go back to school because her name no longer fits the woman she has become.
Havana – DTC – The Cuban group Gran Caribe, which runs 48 hotels in Cuba, promoted its tourist offers in Europe. The hotel chain participated in the tourist campaign Ronda Viva Cuba, which has toured several France cities. On this occasion, the group promoted the anniversaries of several hotels, including the 135th anniversary of the Inglaterra Hotel this year. The company administers 12,354 rooms throughout Cuba, and several of its hotels have received international awards as an acknowledgement of their excellent services. Some of the prizes are the World Travel Award to Cuba’s Best Hotel, the Nacional de Cuba, and the eighth place of the Travelers Choice Award to the Playa Blanca Hotel on Cayo Largo.
HAVANA – Cuba announced its second leadership shake-up, replacing Attorney General Juan Escalona Reguera, who fought under Fidel and Raul Castro in the rebel army that toppled dictator Fulgencio Batista more than half a century ago. A brief statement read on Cuban state television said the 78-year-old Escalona Reguera was leaving his post for health reasons. He apparently remains a member of the Communist Party Central Committee.
A lawyer by training, Escalona Reguera is one of the most veteran figures in Cuba’s revolutionary leadership, joining Raul Castro’s rebel column in eastern Cuba in 1958, and presiding over the wedding of Raul Castro and Vilma Espin the following year. He served as a brigadier general and top administrator before becoming justice minister in 1983, and head of parliament six years later. Escalona Reguera also acted as chief prosecutor during the controversial 1989 drug smuggling and treason case that led to the execution by firing squad of decorated war hero Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa, who had led Cuban troops on the battlefields of Angola and Ethiopia. Escalona Reguera’s replacement is Brig. Gen. Dario Delgado, who had been deputy attorney general. The statement said Escalona Reguera would be assigned “other duties” on the Council of State, Cuba’s highest governing body.
On March 9, Cuba abruptly announced it had replaced another veteran revolutionary, Rogelio Acevedo, who had overseen its airlines and airports and as a teenager fought alongside the Castros and Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Unlike with Escalona Reguera, no reason was given for the removal of the 68-year-old Acevedo, who played a key role in expanding Cuba’s tourism industry. Escalona Reguera was born in the eastern city of Santiago in 1931, attended law school and became a member of the Communist Party. He said party officials balked at his decision to join the Castro brothers’ rebellion, which they initially viewed with suspicion.
After Batista fled on New Year’s Day 1959, Raul Castro served as defense minister for nearly 50 years before taking over the presidency from Fidel — first temporarily, then permanently — in July 2006. Escalona Reguera helped organize the post-revolutionary trials of Batista government, military and police officials, as well as civilian supporters of his government, following the revolution. Many were convicted and executed. Escalona Reguera also was briefly punished himself — sent to perform manual labor — in the early 1960s, when he was accused of favoring former Communist Party members over other revolutionaries in assignments.
Havana – DTC – Cuban experts have performed more than 300 bone marrow transplants. According to specialists, 200 of those transplants were performed at the Hematology Ward of the Hermanos Ameijeiras Clinical-Surgical Hospital in Havana. The other such surgeries were performed at the Medical-Surgical Research Center and the Hematology Institute in Havana, and the Arnaldo Milián Hospital in Santa Clara. Bone marrow transplants, aimed at destroying tumoral cells, bring hopes of cure to patients suffering from leukemia, lymphoma, aplastic anemia and other diseases. Despite the high cost of such surgery worldwide, Cuban patients have access to bone marrow transplants free of charge.
The New York Times – Bobby Carcassés is a singer, trumpeter, pianist, conguero and connector in Cuban jazz. As a bandleader, big-band sideman and a founder of the first jazz festival in Cuba, in 1980, he’s spent his career attending to the equal relationship between the guaguancó-rumba-guaracha spectrum and the swing-jazz-blues spectrum. That relationship might sound natural, but it’s also a cause he’s fighting for. As might be expected in a Communist country where musicians have been government employees, Cuba for a long time had an ambivalent relationship with American jazz. For that and other reasons, though lots of American music is innately Afro-Cuban, not much Afro-Cuban music is innately oriented toward jazz harmony and rhythm.
Mr. Carcassés, 71, still lives in Cuba; he’s only visited the United States sporadically. But the Cuban musicians who have moved to New York to play jazz in the last 15 years or so consider him a respected elder. He performed at the Jazz Gallery on Thursday night with some of the best of those expatriates: the pianist Manuel Valera; the Terry brothers — Yosvany on alto saxophone and Yunior on bass; the conguero Marvin Diz; and the drummer Dafnis Prieto. (Andrea Brachfeld, an American who plays charanga-style flute with serious authority, joined them for a few tunes.) The show was partly about vanity and partly about generosity: what you left remembering wasn’t so much Mr. Carcassés himself as the band and the cause he has advanced.
Mr. Carcassés is an almost compulsive showman and teacher. He spreads his talent pretty thin among his different instruments, but one gets the sense that anything less might seem to him a wasted opportunity. He started by singing a cappella, running together wordless-syllable jazz improvising, Yoruba chant and Cuban-rhythm vocalizations. He’s promoting a new album, “De La Habana a Nueva York” (Vero), and from it, in Spanish, he sang the jazz standard “Green Dolphin Street,” with manic scatting, and “Sometimes I’m Happy,” followed by a fluegelhorn solo. He also sang the Cuban standard “Babalú,” trying gamely for the semioperatic tenor voice in Miguelito Valdés’s version, and his own rumba-based “Blues Para Chano,” written for the conguero (and hero of Afro-Cuban jazz) Chano Pozo.
His own most intense and inarguable jazz moment of the set came in his fluegelhorn solo on that song. And he played it in a decent, clear, 1970s-modern mainstream jazz style — not as quicksilver in phrasing or broad in harmony as solos elsewhere in the set by Mr. Terry on saxophone. But it was in the descargas, or collective jam sessions — the most meaningful link between jazz and Afro-Cuban music — where the set got its elevation. In “Blues Para Chano” and “Blues Guaguancó” the rhythm was layered through the cross-weave of Mr. Valera’s montuno patterns, Mr. Prieto’s trap drumming and the congas. Mr. Prieto, especially, went for blood: in a one-man demonstration of Mr. Carcassés’s entire project he simultaneously combined different traditions and temperaments: trap set and hand drums, Latin and jazz, Africa and Cuba and — importantly — New York.
Havana – DTC – Cuba’s railroad sector has incorporated new locomotives and cars, and has improved tracks. In the case of the latter, a company that makes the concrete ties for railroads is being modernized. The plant is being equipped with cutting-edge technology, similar to the one installed in Spain, Portugal and Germany. The new plant will make 180,000 ties a year and will meet the primary and secondary needs of the sector. At the same time, roads and railroads will be built in the port of Mariel, in western Havana province.
HAVANA – (Reuters) – The number of tourists coming to Cuba during the first two months of 2010 fell 3.4 percent from last year due to a decline in visitors from Canada, Cuba’s top tourist provider, the government said. But a jump in arrivals by Cuban-Americans after the Obama administration lifted restrictions on their visits home likely helped offset the drop in Canadians. A slump in tourism is bad news for President Raul Castro, who replaced his ailing brother Fidel Castro two years ago and is grappling with an economic crisis. Tourism and related businesses brought more than $2 billion to the communist-run Caribbean nation in 2009, or about 20 percent of its foreign exchange income. The National Statistics office reported on its website (http://www.one.cu) that 513,000 tourists arrived in January and February, down from 531,000 during the same period in 2009.
Canadian arrivals dropped to 243,800, from 270,400 in 2009. Tourism industry experts outside Cuba said a pricing spat with a major Canadian tour operator contributed to the decline. Other destinations, including the Dominican Republic and the Mexican resort of Cancun, also are drawing away tourists with lower-priced packages, they said. Arrivals from the United States and some other countries under the category of “other” rose 11.6 percent to 99,500 for the two-month period, the statistics office said. Most of that increase is probably Cuban-Americans because operators of U.S.-Cuba charter flights say their business is booming due to a flood of Cuban-Americans going to their homeland. Last year, U.S. President Barack Obama did away with restrictions that had limited them to one visit every three years. Most Americans cannot legally travel to Cuba due to the 48-year-old U.S. trade embargo against the country. Slightly more than 2.4 million tourists visited Cuba last year, an increase of 3.5 percent over 2008. Despite the increase, tourism income declined 11.1 percent as visitors spent less in the midst of the global economic recession.
Havana – DTC – The company INTERMAR S.A., attached to the group CAUDAL, has gained ground on the Cuban market, where it provides services to local insurance firms. INTERMAR S.A., which specializes on inspections, damage assessment and other operations, has made evaluations, risk studies and valuations in the agricultural sector since 2008. The company has seven offices in the provinces of Santiago de Cuba, Holguín, Camagüey, Ciego de Avila, Cienfuegos and City of Havana, in addition to the Occidente office. INTERMAR S.A. was the first service provider in Cuba to have its Quality Control System certified by the National Standardization Office (ONN) in 1996. The company has a series of homologations certified by national and international institutions, so its reports are valid worldwide.
Havana – DTC – The cement factory Siguaney, in the central Cuban province of Sancti Spiritus, is undergoing technological reforms to improve efficiency. The plant, the only one in Cuba that produces white cement, is benefiting from the installation of a new burner to improve the quality of the raw materials. Moreover, a filter was installed in the mill to reduce environmental pollution and increase the crusher’s yield, as well as feeders to improve the dosage of materials, and a fuel-treating plant. In addition to white cement, the factory produces gray and special cement, including water-repellent cement for water-proof concrete, and puzolanic cement for maritime constructions.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution – Gov. Sonny Perdue is set to lead a trade trip to communist Cuba in June. An invitation, entitled “Governor’s Mission to Cuba,” was sent recently by the Georgia Department of Economic Development soliciting businessmen for the June 6-8 visit to Havana. While a U.S. trade embargo against Cuba has been in place since 1962, the restrictions have recently been lessened. Farm products, medicines and medical equipment may be exported to Cuba. And, last year, the Obama administration lifted restrictions on the sale of telecommunications equipment.
Georgia exported $42.5 million worth of products last year, mostly chickens and other foodstuffs, according to Economic Development. Georgia is the No. 6 U.S. exporter. U.S. governors have routinely visited Cuba since 1999 and met with former President Fidel Castro and his brother Raul, the current president. Tommy Irvin, Georgia’s agriculture commissioner, has undertaken numerous trade trips there since the late 1990s. Rarer, though, are trips by Southern Republican governors who don’t want to alienate anti-Castro supporters in the United States. The trip costs $2,450 per person.
AgWeek – WASHINGTON – Rep. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., made an impassioned case March 11 for a bill to ease U.S. agricultural sales to Cuba and end a ban on American travel to the island, but he got little support from fellow Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee. Moran, who is in a primary race with Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., for the Republican nomination to replace Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., said at a hearing that the bill he is co-sponsoring with House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., would increase American farmers’ sales to Cuba while the end of the travel ban would perform “a much more noble cause” by allowing the Cuban people to have contact with Americans and learn about democracy.
“We deal with Communist countries and offer them credit,” Moran said. “Who is the biggest creditor? China? What a double standard we have created in this country. We don’t worry about selling Boeing aircraft to China, but we don’t want to sell wheat to Cuba.” Peterson and other Democrats praised Moran for his stand, but House Agriculture ranking member Frank Lucas, R-Okla., said he could support agricultural sales to Cuba on humanitarian grounds, but could go no further. Cuba is worse than China, Lucas said, because it has maintained government control over the economy while China has liberalized its economy. American tourist spending in Cuba, Lucas said, would impede Cuban development of own its agricultural sector by helping Cuba’s centralized economy survive. “Our priority should be finding a way to increase agriculture exports to help meet the food needs of the Cuban people without supporting Cuba’s oppressive government,” Lucas said.
Other Republicans joined Lucas in opposing any liberalization of American travel to Cuba. Rep. Debbie Halvorson, D-Ill., also said she had heard objections to travel provision. Cubans have been buying U.S. agricultural products since a 2000 law exempted sales of U.S. agricultural products from the general embargo on doing business with Cuba, but the Bush administration tightened up the rules on payment terms in 2005. A provision in the fiscal year ’10 Omnibus Appropriations Act imposed the payment terms that were in place before the Bush administration changed them, but only through this fiscal year.
The Peterson-Moran bill would permanently change the definition of “payment of cash in advance” to mean payment before the goods are delivered rather than before they are shipped, allow Cuba to make cash payments directly to U.S. banks and end the travel ban. It would not allow U.S. banks to extend credit to Cuba. American Farm Bureau President Bob Stallman, National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson and commodity group leaders vigorously endorsed the bill in testimony. The farm leaders said that ending the travel ban would increase demand for U.S. agricultural products because Cuba would need the U.S. products to cater to tourists and because the increased tourism business would increase Cubans’ incomes and allow them to buy U.S. food products.
In an interview, Johnson said he thinks the decline in U.S. agricultural sales to Cuba — which have fallen from $710 million in 2008 to $528 million in 2009 — will lead farm groups to push Congress to pass the Peterson-Moran bill or at least extend the payment provisions in the appropriations bill for another year. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, R-Minn., D-Minn., and Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., introduced the Peterson-Moran bill March 11 in the Senate.
Havana, Cuba – RHC – Cuban specialists have successfully performed the country’s first operation on a fetus of lamb in its 90th day of gestation. Dr. Miguel Gonzalez, a specialist at the William Soler Pediatric Hospital in Havana, said that the success of the surgery is a sign that surgery on human fetuses in Cuba is not far off. Addressing participants at the Fourth Ibero-American Pediatric Surgery Conference that got underway Tuesday in Havana, Dr. Gonzalez explained that in the future, the complex operation will form part of the country’s program of fetal care. “We have spent several months using ultrasound on the fetuses of lambs to become more familiar with their anatomy. During this first operation we observed the fetus through an endoscope, manipulated it and carried out a skin biopsy, and worked with the amniotic liquid. “The operation was performed at the National Center for Lab Animals with the participation of specialists from the William Soler Pediatric Hospital in Havana.” The Fourth Ibero-American Pediatric Surgery Conference gathers experts from 30 countries from the 5 continents. Among this year’s primary topics are neonatal surgery, oncology, video-endoscope procedures and urology.
Havana – DTC – The Cuban economy has saved nearly three million dollars over the past 14 months by concept of power generation, thanks to the use of natural gas as fuel. Natural gas accompanies oil in the fields and is combined with several elements such as hydrogen sulfur and carbon dioxide. In Cuba’s case, the power plants’ burners were adjusted to operate on natural gas, thus contributing to reducing imports of crude oil. In addition, natural gas does not need very expensive additives that are used to burn Cuban oil, which has a high content of sulfur, so it reduces environmental pollution as well.
Havana – DTC – The DAMEX shipyards, in eastern Santiago de Cuba province, delivered the first two tugboats built by the company for Venezuela. The two tugboats will join Venezuela’s National Fleet, as part of efforts to improve port operations in that South American country. Experts noted the high quality of the tugboats’ systems and engines, which were made according to international standards. DAMEX executives noted that the company plans to build another tugboat in April, as well as four multipurpose cargo ships. As part of Cuba-Venezuela collaboration, the crewmembers who will operate the tugboats received professional training in the Caribbean island.
Reuters – Cuba’s economy minister is pushing for less state intervention in one of the world’s last Soviet-style economies, saying the government can no longer afford its all-encompassing control and paternalism, Communist party sources say. The drive by minister Marino Murillo appears aimed at overcoming resistance to new reforms under President Raul Castro, who has made extensive changes in agriculture since taking over in 2008 from ailing brother Fidel Castro and is thought to want change in other economic sectors. Murillo told armed forces and Interior Ministry officials in January “the gigantic paternalistic state can no longer be, because there is no longer any way to maintain it,” according to a Communist party source who saw a video of the Jan. 16 event shown to party and government cadres.
Sensitive strategy and policy meetings are often not immediately made public in Communist-ruled Cuba, but videos of them are sometimes later shown to certain selected officials. Cuba is grappling with a financial liquidity crisis triggered by the global recession which forced it to slash imports by 37 per cent last year. Inefficiencies in the centralized economy have also reduced productivity. Murillo said the Caribbean nation could no longer afford, for example, to pay tens of thousands of people to control state barber shops, beauty parlours and services such as appliance and watch repair shops. He suggested they could be administered differently by leasing them to workers, said two people who also saw the video of his speech.
The economy minister, a former military officer appointed to the post a year ago, denounced those who might resist the changes, which appear to be underway in small experiments. “I was called to a meeting last month and told the premises would be leased to employees soon as part of an experiment in the area,” the administrator of a state-run beauty parlour in central Havana said, asking that her name not be used. A pilot project in Havanahas some state taxi drivers leasing their vehicles at a daily rate instead of receiving a wage, drivers said. Universities in a number of provinces have been asked to draw up proposals to transform local state-run services and minor production activity into co-operatives. Professors who attended a similar presentation by Murillo at Havana University earlier this year said he made clear that economic necessity, not ideological choice, was driving change and that reforms already underway in agriculture were a model for what would come.
Business Week – Production at Cuba’s sugar plants has been hit hard this year by inefficiency, a spate of breakdowns and other technical problems, state-media reported Wednesday, adding to sobering news for the Communist-run island’s crisis-addled economy. Breakdowns and other interruptions have idled plants nearly 19 percent of the time so far in 2010, the Communist Party newspaper Granma said. A further 11 percent of production reportedly has been lost due to a lack of sugar cane.
The paper said problems were worst in the key sugar-growing region of Las Tunas, 360 miles (600 kilometers) east of the capital. It also blamed poor planning and “a lack of discipline.” “Overcoming delays and meeting our goals require that those production centers in crisis eradicate their deficiencies and that the rest maintain their production levels or increase them,” the paper said. “We must defeat a powerful enemy: lost industrial time.” The harvest and milling season begins each year in January and usually ends around April or May.
Sugar — once the be-all and end-all of Cuba’s economy — now ranks no higher than third behind nickel production and tourism, contributing about $600 million a year. Never a juggernaut, Cuba’s economy has been battered by the global economic crisis, a dip in world nickel prices and the effects of three devastating hurricanes that hit in 2008. The government controls 90 percent of the economy, paying low wages but heavily subsidizing education, housing, food and health care. President Raul Castro has warned that the government will no longer be able to sustain such subsidies unless production increases dramatically.
Non-sugar agricultural production has also failed to meet targets this year in many parts of the country. In January and February, production around the capital was 40 percent below target, despite a major drive by the government to put more fallow land in the hands of individual farmers. The tourism industry held up reasonably well in 2009 despite the economic crisis, with the number of visitors rising slightly but revenues falling 11 percent. But 2010 has gotten off to a poor start: About 5 percent fewer tourists came to Cuba in January than during the same month last year.
Havana – DTC – The Office of the Historian of Havana launched the 38th issue of the cultural magazine Opus Habana. The magazine contains articles on the restoration of Havana’s Historic Heart and other projects underway in that part of the Cuban capital. Other articles deal about the work being carried out by the Cuban Language Academy, based at Colegio Universitario San Gerónimo de La Habana. The section Brevario contains news about the city’s cultural events, including an interview with Belgian intellectual Etienne Schreder. The printed edition of Opus Habana is complemented by its website at http://www.opushabana.cu.
The Gazette – Montreal – HAVANA – Cuba nationalized all retail business in 1968, down to the shoe-shine shops, but in an attempt to stimulate the stagnant economy and reduce bureaucracy, it is experimenting with giving some of it back in a form of legal private enterprise. By leasing some retail services to state employees, the government is testing cautious change in how the communist country operates small-scale business. “We have begun experiments and are working on others to ease the burden on the state of some services it provides,” Economy Minister Marino Murillo told the National Assembly at the close of 2009, without elaborating further.
Authorities have remained mum about their efforts, but a number of experiments are under way or about to be launched in Havana, a source with knowledge of local government activities, said. The CubaTaxi office on Palatino Street in the Cerro municipality of the capital is home to one such experiment. Thirty of the more than 2,000 state taxi drivers in the capital are leasing their vehicles rather than working for a wage, a small percentage of the tips and whatever they can pocket on the sly. “You pay 595 convertible pesos for the car and then after a month 39 convertible pesos plus 40 pesos a day,” said Elio, one of the drivers. “You are responsible for maintaining the taxi and gas, but can buy parts and services from the state,” he said.
The government pegs the convertible peso at $1.11 Cdn or 24 pesos. “Overall the drivers are happy. There is still control over what we charge, but we are freer and earning more,” Elio, who began driving a cab in 1986, said. “I think this system is also better for the state which is guaranteed a net income with few headaches,” he added. The project will be evaluated in June, before being applied to other dispatch offices.
President Raul Castro has fostered debate on what to do with the retail sector since taking over from brother Fidel Castro two years ago, but has ruled out a shift back to capitalism. The debate has spilled over into the official media with exposes over irregular supplies, low wages, employees jacking up prices and pocketing proceeds, all the while delivering poor service despite layers of bureaucracy designed to control such activities. “The government is simply accepting what already exists, adopting new structures to legalize what was before viewed as theft and instead of spending a fortune on useless bureaucrats has begun collecting taxes,” a local economist said, asking his name not be used.
In Central Havana and 10 de Octubre municipalities, beauty parlor employees were recently called to meetings and informed they would be leased their shops as cooperatives on an experimental basis. “They said the hairdressers would be leased the premises without the administration and service employees,” a participant said. “You have to pay rent for the shop, costs such as water, electricity, materials and the wages of anyone you contract, for example a receptionist or to clean up,” she said. “You can charge whatever on the basis of supply and demand and have to pay taxes on your profits,” she added.
The project was scheduled to begin this month but was postponed in part to consider objections and proposals put forward by the beauticians, she said. State-subsidized materials arrive sporadically at the parlors and services cost anywhere from the equivalent of $0.20 Cdn (five pesos) for a shampoo to between $1.02 and $2.05 Cdn (25 pesos to 50 pesos) for hair-dyeing. “We buy shampoo, conditioner, dye or what have you at state foreign exchange shops with a 240 per cent mark up, or get our friends to bring it in from Miami or Madrid,” another beautician, who also asked her name not be used, said. “Then we tell our clients there are no state supplies, but we bought them ourselves and will have to charge accordingly,” she said.
Havana – DTC – The Cuban children’s theater company La Colmenita, famous in Cuba and abroad, will premier new shows in April. Company executives pointed out that the new plays will be dedicated to the cartoon series Elpidio Valdés and the popular orchestra Los Van Van. They will also stage “Y Sin Embargo Se Mueve”, based on the book “Humanoids” by Russian playwright Alexander Jmelik, with songs by Silvio Rodríguez. La Colmenita completed their second film, “Playstation”, directed by Ian Padrón. In 2010, they will also film the first 14 episodes of a TV series on their own history, and public messages at the request of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
HAVANA – (Reuters) – Cuba registered a slight increase in the number of foreign investment projects last year, the first rise since authorities began winnowing out foreign ventures they deemed ineffective or corrupt in 2003, according to a government report seen by Reuters. The report by the Foreign Trade and Investment Ministry said the country was involved in 218 joint ventures, compared with 211 in 2008, and had 69 hotels under foreign management, up from 63 the previous year. The increase was the first reported since 2002. After that Communist authorities began closing many of the 404 ventures and 313 cooperative production agreements then in existence, mainly with Western partners, alleging they did little for the economy and were often corrupt.
The report said there were currently just 14 cooperative production agreements, where an investor receives part of the profit or product produced, but holds no shares. The increase in foreign investments came despite a severe financial crisis and just a year after President Raul Castro formally took over from his ailing brother Fidel Castro in 2008. But local economists said it was too early to say if the change was the result of a change in government policy. Hurricanes, the international financial crisis, U.S. sanctions and a sluggish state-dominated economy left Cuba short billions of dollars in 2009.
Foreign Trade and Investment Minister Rodrigo Malmierca told the National Assembly in December that 46 of the investment agreements with foreign companies were abroad, many of them in Venezuela, China and Angola. Cuba has pharmaceutical ventures in Iran, India, China, Brazil and other countries, works construction in Angola and Vietnam, operates a hotel in China, and is involved in numerous projects in Venezuela, whose President Hugo Chavez is a top ally. Inside Cuba, Malmierca said joint ventures were predominantly with investors from Spain, Venezuela, Canada and Italy, in sectors such as tourism, oil exploration, communications and mining.
Details of many joint ventures were not disclosed, but official media reported during 2009 deals for two hotel projects with Qatar, a fishing venture and four oil exploration contracts with Russia, an electronics assembly plant with China, and a paper venture with a Spanish firm. U.S. law — long aimed at isolating Cuba — bars American companies from investing on the island, though they may hold a minority stake in foreign firms with less than 50 percent of their operations in Cuba.
Since the collapse of its former benefactor, the Soviet Union, threw Cuba’s economy into deep crisis in the early 1990s, Havana has allowed some foreign investment under strict government control. Cuba opposes privatization on principle and views foreign investment as merely “complementary” to the state-run economy, with foreign investors adding technology, management skills, financing and markets. Joint ventures are with Cuban state partners that usually hold 50 percent or more shares at home and a minority stake abroad.
Havana – DTC – The economy of the eastern Cuban province of Ciego de Avila grew in 2009. According to local authorities, the province’s mercantile production totaled 1.67 billion pesos last year, accounting for an 11.2-percent increase compared to 2008. That achievement, they said, resulted from the contribution from the industrial and agricultural sectors, which supplied 65.9 percent of the total production. In the social sector, 1,600 houses and 28 projects were completed, and polyclinics and hospitals were remodeled. In a short term, the experts added, investments must be based on objective foundations and real needs to increase production and reduce imports.
NOTE: The Second Annual Montecristo Cup and Esencia Cup for 2010 will be held April 23rd and 24th, at the Varadero Golf Club in Varadero, Cuba. The exciting two-day event will include:
• Friday April 23rd, 2010.
- The Montecristo Cup event – a Pro-Am competition
• Saturday April 24th, 2010
- The Esencia Cup event – a Team-play Competition
- Spanish golfer Alvaro Quiros is scheduled to appear at both events and play an exhibition match against another world class golfer
- Closing event – a Saturday evening gala prize giving dinner at the DuPont family Mansion, Xanadu
The event is being hosted by the Varadero Golf Club and Palmares SA in association with Esencia Hotels and Resorts. The Montecristo Cup is being sponsored by Habanos, the purveyors of the world´s finest cigars. Additional information and regular updates are available at http://www.themontecristocup.com
