HAVANA – (Reuters) – Plans in Cuba and neighboring Bahamas to develop offshore oil fields may open big new oil frontiers at the doorstep of the United States, but the Cuban project has sparked opposition in next-door Florida reflecting the usual antagonistic U.S.-Cuba politics. Some Florida political leaders have asked U.S. President Barack Obama to find a way to stop Cuba’s drilling, but so far the White House has stayed out of the issue. Cuban oil exploration plans continue on the communist-led island, where significant fresh drilling is expected to begin early in 2011.
Suggestions from U.S. lawmakers such as Senator Bill Nelson and Representative Vern Buchanan have included withdrawing the 1977 recognition of Cuba’s claim to part of the Gulf of Mexico and pressuring Spain to curb Spanish oil giant Repsol YPF, which is leading the Cuba exploration. Florida, mindful of its $60 billion-a-year tourism industry, has successfully kept U.S. offshore exploration well away from its shores. In the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico, drillers are allowed no closer to the state’s west coast than 125 miles (200 km).
Still, some of Florida’s Panhandle beaches were stained by oil from the massive BP Gulf spill this summer. Buchanan, in a letter to Obama, said Cuba will drill in water deeper than the BP well, which was about 5,000 feet (141 metres) down, making it “extremely difficult” to control a spill. “It is critical that Florida’s unique coastline environment and its population be protected,” he said. Maritime boundaries with Cuba and Bahamas are about 50 miles (80 km) distance from South Florida, meaning they can drill closer to the state than U.S. operators. In the Bahamas, the Bahamas Petroleum Corp has leased more than 2 million acres offshore and has a joint venture in place with Norway’s Statoil, but this project so far has received little mention in Florida. The stakes are high in both countries.
Cuba believes it has at least 20 billion barrels of oil offshore, while estimated reserves for the leases controlled by Bahamas Petroleum have gone as high as 17 billion barrels. The U.S. Geological Survey has estimated Cuba has 5 billion barrels of oil. Among anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Florida, concerns about Cuban oil are not just environmental. They fear a significant oil find would bring money that would prolong the rule of communism on the island. For five decades, they have supported U.S. economic sanctions aimed at toppling the government first led for over four decades by Fidel Castro, and in recent years by his brother Raul Castro.
“The regime is in tough economic straits and to keep itself afloat and is now looking at the oil industry, among others, to throw a lifeline,” U.S. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida was quoted as saying by The Miami Herald. Cuba’s oil development plans are advancing however as Repsol has contracted a Chinese-built drilling rig from Saipem Corp., a unit of Italian oil company Eni SpA, that is expected in Cuba in the first quarter of next year. Once in place, state-owned Cuban oil company Cupet has said the Scarabeo 9 rig will drill seven wells by the end of 2012 for some of the various companies with offshore Cuba leases. None of the companies are American because the longstanding U.S. trade embargo prevents them from doing business in Cuba.
Nonetheless, the U.S. oil industry has begun taking interest, as signaled by an August visit to Havana by a delegation from the Houston-based International Association of Drilling Contractors. The group’s president, Lee Hunt, said offshore accidents in Cuba would be better prevented if U.S. companies were involved. Senior attorney Dan Whittle at the Environmental Defense Fund agreed, telling Reuters U.S.-Cuba cooperation was critical to responding to any problems. “We have no more right to tell Cuba not to drill in its own waters of the Gulf of Mexico than it has a right to tell the U.S. to do the same,” he said.
“Florida should in the forefront of initiating this dialogue, not only with Cuba, but also with the Bahamas.” The Bahamas does not have the same political baggage as Cuba, nor is its oil exploration as imminent, said Bahamas Petroleum Chairman Alan Burns. The government will not allow drilling until it draws up offshore safety regulations, which will not be completed until the full cause of the BP accident is known. After that, it will take 18 months to start drilling, Burns said. Burns said technological limitations and low prices scuttled earlier Bahamas exploration efforts, but seismic tests indicate the presence of large reserves of oil. “To have new big producers close by can only be good for the U.S., particularly if they are friendly like the Bahamas,” he said. (Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Doina Chiacu) Keywords: CUBA USA/OIL (jeff.franks@thomsonreuters.com; +537 833 3145; Reuters
HOUMA — Under other circumstances, a Caribbean island nation with an emerging deepwater drilling program might be a fertile new market for south Louisiana shipbuilders, fabricators and offshore-service companies. But Cuba is different. The communist island nation has ventured into deepwater exploration to become more energy-independent, but some in the oil-and-gas industry fear that will be hard to do safely given the decades-old trade embargo with the United States, a leading provider of oilfield technology.
“We’re interested in safe drilling globally,” said Lee Hunt, chief executive of the International Association of Drilling Contractors, an international trade group that has pushed for increased collaboration between the two countries on offshore safety. “Because of the embargo, the top-quality services are not easily or readily available to them.” Given the push for higher deepwater standards in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, some are saying it’s crucial to collaborate more with Cuba to be sure that drilling is done safely in the Gulf that both countries share.
“Being it’s so close to our coast, we could be impacted by anything they do,” said Chett Chiasson, director of Port Fourchon, the Lafourche Parish port that supplies about 90 percent of the deepwater projects in the Gulf of Mexico. “If we’re so concerned about what we’re doing in the U.S. Gulf, we really need to be concerned about what Cuba is going to allow in its waters.” The island nation, roughly the size of Pennsylvania, has been under a strict U.S. trade embargo since the early 1960s. It imports much of its oil from Venezuela but produces a modest amount from facilities that drill directionally, or sideways, from onshore facilities. But advances in deepwater technology have made it possible to access those waters with offshore drilling.
Cuba has opened up 59 blocks for drilling in its waters, and they extend right up to the maritime boundary between U.S. and Cuban waters, 45 miles from the Florida coast, says Chris John, president of the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association. The embargo, instituted after dictator Fidel Castro seized power in 1959, means no U.S. companies can provide services to the country, nor can U.S. products be sold to foreign companies to be used in Cuban offshore projects. But firms from Europe, Asia and South America have been eager to do business there. And companies with roots in Norway, India and Brazil have been snapping up the leases.
And Repsol, a Spanish oil company, is scheduled to start deepwater test wells next year with a Chinese-built drillship.But those projects will move forward without technology from American firms, which make a wide range of equipment including underwater robots and blowout preventers. So with limited information coming from the country, there are lots of unresolved questions about the program and the implications if something goes wrong. Spills or blowouts could affect the Florida coastline within days.
If a spill drifts into our waters, “we’re going to be responsible for the environmental mess that could come into a very pristine part of Florida,” John said “We don’t know what kind of drilling safety regulations are on the Spanish oil company for worker safety and well integrity.” Could a necessary part be flown in from Louisiana or Houston, a few hours away, or would an unfolding ecological catastrophe have to wait overnight for Cuban suppliers to bring in a non-American version from halfway around the world? The same quandary emerges for oil cleanup teams or crews to drill relief wells.
But U.S. oil-and-gas companies, including those in Louisiana, would also stand to gain from a thaw in Cuban-American relations that went beyond safety collaboration to allow oil business between the two countries, John said, from service boats to production platforms and oilifield components. The thought of an emerging deepwater market so close by is an appealing prospect for Josh Jambon, who runs Jambon Boat Rentals of Golden Meadow. With work slowed to a trickle in the Gulf of Mexico, he’s looking as far away as Africa to find business for his fleet.
Were the political situation different, “I would much rather go to Cuba,” he said. “It’s real logical, if I could ship right there and stay in close proximity to home.” But Hunt says his group’s goal isn’t to promote American business. The Cuban business is relatively limited anyway, he said, with about seven wells planned over the next four years. For now the questions are still unresolved. The International Association of Drilling Contractors says it has received no response to its concerns. President Obama has renewed the embargo for 2011.
John, also a former Louisiana congressman who tried to work on agricultural policy relations with Cuba during his tenure, remembers the resistance encountered to any change in the long-standing policy. “Congress has been very reluctant, with Castro at the reins, to enter into good-faith negotiations or trade deals,” he said. “It’s a very complicated situation.”
Cuba Standard – Before signing a cooperation agreement on information technology and communications in Havana, the minister of communications of Azerbaijan proposed assembling personal computers in Cuba. Ali Abbasov made the statement during a round of negotiations in Havana, Prensa Latina reported. Azeri businesspeople brought samples of PCs made in Azerbaijan, according to Abbasov. Baku-based Ultra Co. started assembling notebooks in 2003, later adding PCs and servers to its products. Abbasov also toured the University of Informatics (UCI) in suburban Havana.
The Guardian – UK – In the revolution’s heyday an olive-green uniform was the favoured official garment but Cuba has now embraced a looser, floppier look: the guayabera. The foreign ministry has ordered officials to wear the pleated shirt, which has four big pockets and is worn untucked, to state functions. A resolution which was made law today made the guayabera an official dress garment, AP reported.
“The guayabera has been a part of the history of our country for a long time and constitutes one of the most authentic and legitimate expressions of Cubanism,” the resolution said. Male officials must wear white, long-sleeved versions at state events but women can vary colour and style. The shirt, normally linen or cotton, is considered ideal for humid, tropical climates. Raul Castro, though a lifetime soldier, has often favoured the civilian look over his military fatigues since succeeding his brother Fidel as president in 2008.
The guayabera is said to have originated in the province of Sancti Spiritus, on the banks of the Yayabo River, where farm labourers turned linen sheets into shirts with pockets for cigars to sustain them in the fields. The shirt is now popular across Latin America and the Caribbean – Venezuela’s President, Hugo Chavez, reportedly wears a bullet-proof version – but retains a Cuban tinge. The foreign ministry resolution said the garment evolved from rural roots and was “worn with pride and satisfaction” by all Cubans.
The resolution is unlikely to be controversial since many Cubans prefer the guayabera’s lightness to heavier, western-style shirts and ties. The shirt’s symbolic value dates to the independence war against Spain. A revolutionary leader, Narciso Lopez, wore one while raising the Cuban flag for the first time in May 1850. In the 1970s, Mobutu Sese Seko, then president of Zaire, ordered officials to wear the “abacost” – a collar-less jacket worn with a cravat – in a campaign to boost African values.
Toronto – (Prensa Latina) – Relations between the United States and Cuba have not flourished over five decades because of conditions imposed on Cuba by Washington in exchange for a change in its policy, experts gathered here agreed. The issue was the center of discussions on the second day of a congress of the Latin American Studies Association, LASA 2010, in session in Toronto, attended by over 2,700 experts from three continents. It was addressed in four panels, including “Cuban Foreign Policy under Raul Castro” and “The USA-Cuba Dialogue: Lessons from the Past, and Prospects for Talks between Obama and Castro.”
In the latter, participants referred to personal experiences and documents classified as secret over the years. Peter R Kornbluh, an expert of the US National Security Archive, said that declassified documents show that over these years Washington was mistaken in its policy towards Cuba as it failed to recognize and accept the Cuban position, mainly by failing to grasp the benefits of a normalization of relations for the two countries.
Robert A Pastor, a professor of the American University and former national security adviser under the James Carter Administration, said that the presidency of Barack Obama has not drawn any lesson from the past. “The Obama Administration had a unique opportunity in the first six months in government to open links with Cuba, and the dialogue would have been successful, but they lost it,” he said.
Canadian Press – HAVANA — The Cuban government summoned a Chilean businessman for questioning in an ongoing corruption probe that also involves his brother, a close friend of Fidel Castro. Marcel Luis Marambio must return to Cuba by Oct. 15, according to a decree published in the Official Gazette, where the government announces new laws. The decree identified Marambio as being 56 years old and living in the Chilean capital, Santiago. It said he is vice-president of Compania International Network Group, a Chile-based conglomerate whose interests include Rio Zaza, a Cuban food distributor co-owned with Cuba’s government. Investigators here have accused the company’s top executives, including Marambio, of bribery, embezzlement and falsifying documents.
He is the brother of Max Marambio, the 63-year-old president of Compania International who was ordered by Cuban officials to return to the island for questioning by Aug. 23. When he failed to appear, the government issued an international arrest warrant and called on police forces overseas to capture him. He remains in Chile. In an interview with the Chilean newspaper La Segunda on Thursday, Max Marambio did not say whether he planned to eventually return to Cuba. But he said he filed a complaint with an international business tribunal based in Paris accusing Cuba’s communist government of engaging in “illegal and nonsensical reprisals” for mounting the investigation.
The charges against the Marambios stem from a corruption probe that began in April, when a top Chilean executive who worked for their company was found dead in his Havana apartment after being questioned by investigators. The cause of death has not been revealed. Max Marambio met Castro in 1966 while accompanying his father on a trip to Cuba as part of a delegation of sympathetic political leaders. He later became the chief bodyguard of Chilean socialist President Salvador Allende.
After Allende was toppled in a 1973 military coup, Marambio sought refuge in Cuba, where he maintained close personal ties to Castro and developed wide-ranging business interests, transforming himself from a revolutionary into a multimillionaire. Rio Zaza made Tropical Island juices and other products that were ubiquitous in hard-currency stores catering to foreigners and tourists. The brand has all but disappeared from shelves since the probe was launched, however.
The investigation of the Marambios and other Rio Zaza executives is one of several moves to combat alleged high-level corruption. In March, Cuba removed veteran revolutionary Rogelio Acevedo from his post overseeing the country’s airlines and airports amid speculation that he had committed fraud and embezzlement. Esteban Morales, a senior, pro-government intellectual, published a stinging essay recently that called corruption a greater threat to the communist system than the island’s small and fractured political opposition movements. He warned that top officials were waiting like vultures to snap up the country’s resources, much like the oligarchs who grabbed control of business in the Soviet Union following its collapse. His essay appeared on a state-run website, and Morales was later ordered expelled from the Communist Party.
NY Times – What happens when you put some great American jazz musicians onstage with the biggest names in Afro-Cuban music? They have a blast. At least, that is what they did at the Mella Theater in Havana. The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra played to a packed house of 1,500 with a lineup of Cuban stars that included Chucho Valdés; Pancho Terry, the country’s foremost chekeré player; Bobby Carcassés; and Orlando Valle, known as Maraca.
They did it all: the Americans playing Afro-Cuban music, the Cubans jamming blues and quintets from both sides of the Florida Straits doing their own thing. The first night’s program of Cuban songs and arrangements, which opened with Chico O’Farrill’s “Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite,” had the audience whooping and tapping out the syncopated clave beat on their laps. Some pieces got a traditional treatment: Mr. Carcassés, the 72-year-old elder of the Cuban jazz scene, took the stage in a wide-collared magenta shirt and sang and danced his way through Ernesto Duarte Brito’s “Como Fué.”
Other arrangements, like the Lincoln Center bassist Carlos Henriquez’s “2/3’s Adventure” — named for the structure of the clave beat -– played with Afro-Cuban traditions, splicing mambo and guajira with fusion jazz. Boris Sarmiento, a trombonist who was in the audience, said it was “interesting to hear their interpretations of Cuban songs and Cuban elements, played with their own style, their own arrangements, their own formation.” Mr. Sarmiento said the American musicians played with more definition than Cubans do, giving the Latin music a new range. “We tend to play everything at full tilt.” he said. “But they give it this kind of delicacy: loud bits, quiet bits, different sounds.”
Thursday’s set was split between the American and the Cuban: Mr. Valdés and his Afro-Cuban Messengers showed off their European and African heritage with a playful danzón and a number dedicated to Changó, the Yoruba orisha of thunder and music, which had the percussionist Dreiser Bambolé thrusting his lean frame about the stage in an energetic rumba. Next a quintet of Lincoln Center players led by Wynton Marsalis played a 45-minute set of arrangements by Mr. Marsalis, which included “Skippin’ ” and “The Magic Hour.”
Then the two groups came together to play a blues homage to the giants of jazz, each digging into their African roots. Mr. Marsalis opened with a chant drawn from “Congo Square”; Mr. Bambolé came back with a Yoruba prayer. Speaking during Wednesday night’s concert, Mr. Valdés told the audience what many have been saying this week on the sidelines of the Lincoln Center residency, “Something magical is happening here.”
Havana – (EFE via COMTEX) – A $70 million undersea fiber-optic cable that will link Cuba with Venezuela and Jamaica is due to start operating in July 2011, Cuban media reported. The project, which will involve laying two pairs of submarine cable over a distance of 5,340 kilometers (3,320 miles), will dramatically multiply Cuba’s connectivity capacity, the official news agency Prensa Latina reported Friday, citing officials on the communist-ruled island.
Deputy Informatics and Communications Minister Alberto Rodriguez said the cable “will strengthen national sovereignty and security” in keeping with the integration aims of the eight-member Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, or ALBA, an international cooperation organization founded by Cuba and close ally Venezuela in 2004. The cable will enable “greater quality in info-communication services” and create “more favorable conditions for confronting future developments,” Rodriguez said at the start of a business forum in Havana.
The main cable will link the northern Venezuelan city of La Guaira with the southeastern Cuban city of Santiago de Cuba – a distance of 1,552 kilometers (965 miles) – and have a 640-gigabyte-per-second capacity, while the other segment will connect Cuba and Jamaica. Waldo Reboredo, vice president of Telecomunicaciones Gran Caribe S.A., the Cuban-Venezuelan joint venture that will operate the undersea cable, said the “shark-proof” cable will be financed with Venezuelan bank loans as well as the company’s own funds and have a lifespan of 25 years.
Reboredo added that the cable will allow the island to “multiply its current data, image and voice transmission speeds by 3,000,” reduce operation costs by 25 percent and could be extended in the future to Haiti, the Dominican Republic and the Lesser Antilles. But he noted that these technological advances “will not imply an end” to Cuba’s current satellite-based Internet service, which he said is “all Havana is allowed due to U.S. hostility.” Cuban authorities accuse Washington of preventing the island from accessing the Internet via undersea cables, one of which connects Cancun, Mexico and Miami and passes just 32 kilometers (20 miles) northwest of Havana.
Cuba has had a satellite-based Internet link since 1996 that offers a 65-megabyte-per-second upload bandwidth and a 124 Mb/s download bandwidth; according to the Cuban government, any modification of the channel must be licensed by the U.S. Treasury Department. Havana blames the United States’ decades-old economic embargo on Cuba for high costs, slow speeds and the fact that Internet service on the island is almost entirely restricted to companies and some professionals in fields such as health and culture.
Xinhua – About 36 joint projects totaling 3.7 million U.S. dollars to support food security in the country are under implementation by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Cuban authorities, FAO representative Marcio Porto said Friday. Porto made the statements in a press conference marking the World Food Day, saying that his agency supported the strategies of the Cuban government to prevent anemia and to diversify food production.
He said that in the past 50 years the FAO had developed almost 200 projects in Cuba, with a valuation of some 60 million dollars, he said. Meanwhile, Joseph A. Quintero, official from Cuba’s foreign trade and investment department, stressed the Cuba-FAO collaboration was launched at a time when Cuban leader Raul Castro called for increasing food production as a matter of “national security.” Cuba spends 1.5 billion dollars annually to import food.
Periodico26 – GUADALAJARA, MEXICO.— Cuban representatives addressing the 18th International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Plenipotentiary Conference taking place in Guadalajara, Mexico demanded fairer policies to access Internet and communications worldwide, as established at the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly. Addressing the meeting on Thursday, Cuban Vice Minister of Computing Sciences and Communications Ramón Linares called on internet service providers to implement more efficient and fairer internet coordination and distribution policies, reported the Cubadebate online magazine. ( http://www.cubadebate.cu/ )
He also spoke about the importance of implementing internet regulations based on cooperation, solidarity and respect for peoples’ sovereignty. During his keynote address, the Cuban diplomat spoke about ongoing efforts in Cuba to boost communications and social networking services, despite the half-century-old US blockade that hinders Cuba from importing software and internet services and technology. The vice minister also noted that Cuba has provided some 700,000 computers to the public sector such as education, healthcare, scientific research and culture and 65% have free Internet access.
Canadian Press – HAVANA — Cuba has already promised to fire a half-million state workers and reshape its communist economy. Now universal free education and health care, the very building blocks of the 1959 revolution that swept Fidel Castro to power, could face cutbacks. A signed editorial in the Communist Party newspaper Granma on Tuesday argued that the government cannot continue to run up large spending deficits — while noting that 46.7 per cent of state spending goes to providing free medical care and education through college for all citizens.
“Spending cannot be thought of as a right, and in order to spend, you must have proper revenue,” said the editorial, written by Granma deputy editor Alberto Nunez Betancourt. The story featured a cartoon where a fat man labeled “spending” climbs on a seesaw marked “budget,” sending his skinny playmate “revenue” hurtling skyward. It also singled out the high cost of providing basic food to all Cubans through a monthly ration card, as well as subsidized cooking oil and other domestic fuels.”It is a matter that is going to require analysis and participation to find effective answers,” Granma wrote, “as well as a rational use of resources and a permanent practice of saving.”
It’s the kind of opinion piece in the government-controlled press that can auger imminent announcements of reform. Last October, Granma’s editor wrote in a full-page editorial that it could be time to cut back on a ration system that allows Cubans to buy a series of foods at heavily subsidized prices every month. Since then, the government has cut potatoes, peas and other staples from the “libreta,” or ration book, that Cubans have depended on since 1962 to put meagre meals on their tables.
The story did not say when — or even if — cutbacks in schools and hospitals are coming, and it gave no suggestions for specific ways to save money. But its tone was consistent with recent speeches by President Raul Castro, who succeeded his brother as president in 2006 and has said repeatedly that Cuba cannot keep spending so much to keep its citizens healthy and educated. Castro said in an Easter Sunday address in April that perhaps 1 million government employees were superfluous, and five months later, his government announced it would lay off 500,000 state workers while loosening controls on self-employment and small business, in hopes of growing the private sector enough to absorb many of those out of a job.
The announcement has sent shock waves through a country where at least 84 per cent of people work for the state. The Granma article also referenced Cuba’s so-called “special period” of the 1990s, when the disbanding of the Soviet Union cost the island billions of dollars in annual subsidies and trade and brought the economy to the brink of collapse. The story noted that in 1993, perhaps the darkest year of a very dark economic decade, deficits climbed to 30 per cent of gross domestic product.
Cuba is nowhere near that today, with a slashing of spending on foreign food and other costly imports, as well as scores of other belt-tightening measures, helping to reduce its official deficit from 5.6 per cent of GDP to 4.9 per cent of GDP over the course of last year. Cuba counts state spending on all social programs when calculating annual economic growth, a unique brand of accounting that makes it difficult to determine its GDP under standard definitions. Still, by contrast, the White House is estimating that the U.S. budget deficit will reach a record $1.47 trillion this year. An August report by The Office of Management and Budget put America’s deficit at 10 per cent of GDP in 2010 and 9.2 per cent of GDP next year.
Solvision – Guantanamo.- The main dams in Guantanamo province show a remarkable recovery at accumulating some 25, 7 millions of cubic meters due to the heavy rains of the last days. The easternmost territory of Cuba storages about 264 millions of cubic meters of water whic represents the 76, 2 per cent of the maximum capacity of its reservoirs, one of the highest levels in the whole country.
This recovery guarantees more than six months of stablitiy in the water delivery to the 208 thousand residents of Guantanamo city where there are established the main health and educational institutions in the province as well as the food producer industries. In spite of this situation that benefits almost the whole territory, rain has not been so great in Baracoa, the most humid place in Cuba, where the rain storage for the nine first months of the year is some 30 per cent.
Havana, Cuba – (ACN) – Salvadorian President Mauricio Funes visited this Tuesday the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM by its Spanish acronym) and said he was greatly impressed and thankful by the school’s contribution to his country and the rest of the Americas. Funes had visited the school before taking office in his country, but from his new position “I can understand better its importance” he declared.
School official Maritza Gonzalez told Funes that after six graduations, over 8,500 doctors have come out of this school, including 508 Salvadorians, a fact Funes dubbed as of “indescribable importance” and added that those graduates will use, in their future profession, all the Cuban experience in the field. The Salvadorian president met with students from his country and the press and thanked Cuba once more for its solidarity. One Salvadorian doctor-to-be, Mario Serna, said Cuba had given them the opportunity to train and graduate as “workers of science and conscience”. He presented his President with a stethoscope and the “The Strategic Victory”, a book by Cuban Revolution leader Fidel Castro.
Funes spoke to the students of the meeting he had with Cuban president Raul Castro the day before when he said that it had been a “historical sin” that the two countries had not shared diplomatic relations for over 50 years. He added he had thanked Raul as well for the aid to his country in difficult times and had propose to extend the bilateral bonds in the economic and social sectors. He also told Raul to forward Fidel Castro his best wishes and his respect and admiration.
NY Times – HAVANA — During a break in Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra’s rehearsals in Havana, Julio Rigal and some fellow Cuban trumpeters clustered around Wynton Marsalis’s Monette trumpet, posing with it for photographs and each taking a quick toot. So, 23-year old Mr. Rigal was more that a little thrilled when he had the chance to lend Mr. Marsalis his trumpet to play for a throng of diplomats and Cuban artists at the splendid residence of Jonathan D. Farrar, chief of the United States Interests Section.
Mr. Marsalis had just finished a seven-and-a-half-hour rehearsal as part of a six-day series of concerts and workshops in Havana. But he coyly accepted the trumpet and began picking his way through “Little Girl Blue,” stopping to tune the horn and smiling behind the trumpet as Danae Blanco, a Cuban singer, belted out the lyrics in heavily-accented English. Then Chucho Valdés, the Cuban pianist who is teaming up with the Lincoln Center ensemble this week, settled his huge frame onto the piano stool and he and Mr. Marsalis eased into “Embraceable You.”
“That was just the max, the best thing imaginable,” Mr. Rigal said, patting his trumpet case after Mr. Marsalis and Mr. Chucho finished their brief performance. “For us, Marsalis is untouchable. So to get to meet him and play with him – it’s incredibly inspiring,” he added, referring to a concert-turned-jam-session at which Cuban musicians were joined by members of the jazz orchestra. There is nothing unusual about young musicians idolizing Mr. Marsalis, but Mr. Rigal, who has played with the popular singer Kelvis Ochoa, among others, summed up the hunger among Cuban jazz players starved of opportunities to see great American musicians at work.
During the administration of George W. Bush, licenses for artists to travel to Cuba under the economic embargo all but dried up. Under President Barack Obama, they are finally flowing once more, helping link artists here with their counterparts to the North. Several high-profile singers, like Silvio Rodríguez, have travelled to the United States this year after decades of absence. As for Mr. Marsalis, he is used to people fawning over his trumpet. “People do it all the time,” he said. “They have to put their vibe on it.” He said other musician’s saliva didn’t really bother him. “Yeah, you just wipe it off,” he said. “I’m 49 years old and I haven’t caught anything yet.”
The Crimson White – Alabama – An upcoming photography exhibit will give UA students and staff a rare look at Cuba, a country not many are familiar with. The exhibit, set to open in the Grand Gallery of Smith Hall, will feature the work of UA photographer Chip Cooper and Cuban photographer Nestor Marti, a duo who began collaborating in 2008. “This is the first time that an American and Cuban have shot the same subject, had a show in both countries, then produced a book of their collaborative work,” Cooper said. “It’s the most amazing place I’ve ever photographed.”
The photographers met through the University’s Alabama-Cuba Initiative, a program headed by Robert Olin, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “In addition to a semester-abroad program for the UA undergraduate students, this progressive partnership has captured the creative potential and intellectual spirit of our two cultures with one common goal – to promote change in our respective communities through uniting our talent,” Olin said in a press release. The show, called ‘Side by Side,’ was originally presented in Cuba in 2009. Since that time, the photographers have added new photographs to the collection.
“We had more than 400 people as well as CNN and NBC, Havana TV and radio covered it, but best of all we had a peacock walking around,” Cooper said about the 2009 show. “Dean Olin brought UA musicians down for entertainment. It was absolutely over the top.” Cooper said he experienced many career firsts while working on the exhibit. “Shooting with another photographer is a first for me, all my other books and shows have been just me,” he said. “The experience of street photography in an urban area is another first, since a lot of my work has been the landscape. I had the time of my life and made many lifelong friends.”
Marti is a graduate of the University of Havana and a photographer in the Office of the Historian of the City of Havana. Cooper was director of photography at UA for 33 years. He now teaches in the College of Arts and Sciences and is an artist in residence in the Honors College. The University’s Alabama-Cuba Initiative is now in its eighth year. It provides students with a rare opportunity to research and study abroad in Cuba.
HAVANA – (IPS/IFEJ) – The cultivation in several Cuban provinces of genetically modified maize, obtained by the Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, endangers biodiversity and contradicts the government’s own agricultural production plan, warns Cuban agro-ecologist Fernando Funes-Monzote. In September, Funes-Monzote coordinated a meeting of experts concerned about transgenics with board and staff members from the National Centre for Biological Security and the Office of Environmental Regulation, one of the institutions entrusted with licensing genetically modified (GM) crops.
The experts issued a statement calling for a moratorium on GM crops until more information is available and society has a chance to debate their environmental and health effects. The meeting was seen as the first official space open to a segment of Cuba’s scientific community’s concerns about the release of GM organisms into the agricultural system of this Caribbean island nation.
Q: Cultivation of this genetically modified variety, FR-Btl, began in 2008, but opinions against it predate that. Why has it taken until now to ask for a moratorium in order to analyse the advantages and disadvantages?
A: The issue was silenced, but in 2008 the alarm was sounded when this maize was planted as a test crop: one hectare that would give way to the planting of 50 hectares, as a prelude to the expansion of the crop in 2009 to 6,000 hectares across several provinces. Until that moment, it was thought that the work with GM organisms would be kept in the laboratories until there was proof that they would not harm the environment or human health.
We now believe that a moratorium would provide the time necessary to make better-informed decisions and to reflect on the matter, with the participation of the public. Those who think this is a problem exclusive to science and that those in power have the last word are mistaken.
Q: Do you think standards and regulations have been violated?
A: The precautionary principle is being violated. That is, there is no visible, public information that allows us to know that all precautions were taken. We are starting from the fact that those who made the decision could have made mistakes.
This year is a crucial time for reconsidering the expansion and maintenance of this crop because the permit granted by the Office of Regulation expires. But we have been told that it is not in their power to issue a moratorium and that the decision to release this variety of maize had a technical component as well as a political component.
Q: Is it possible to halt a process that appears to be quite advanced already?
A: A moratorium would allow for a process of public consultation and debate. There is a political decision as well as a political risk, because Cuba is being seen as a promoter of transgenics that the progressive world opposes.
And it is not only opposed because of the control of the transnational corporations, but also because of the technology’s impacts on agriculture, which can have adverse effects for the population and threatens the fragile biological balance.
Q: How much has been planted of this variety of maize, which is resistant to the armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda) and to herbicides? In what conditions has it been cultivated?
A: They haven’t reported this year’s total. According to the permit, they can cultivate the FR-Btl variety in fields from Havana to Camagüey (534 kilometres away). Pinar del Río in the west and the eastern region are excluded, but who can assure us that the seeds have not crossed provincial borders?
We don’t know the results or how many areas were planted in total. There was a meeting at the National Centre for Biological Security to report on the results of the first year of planting, but there is no written record. Undoubtedly there has been a lack of transparency in this process, which is a matter for all society.
Q: But have you and other experts been able to directly observe in the countryside how this GM maize is developing?
A: From what I saw in Sancti Spíritus (a central province), I can affirm that the biological security guidelines are not being taken into account. In other words, the technology is not being applied as it was originally conceived, which threatens the traditional maize varieties and, as its promoters affirm, leads to “the death of the technology.”
Not all farmers are following the technological instructions, nor did they receive adequate training or technical assistance. We have seen some farmers giving the seeds to others, planting it without any precautions and unaware of the conditions clearly defined by the National Centre for Biological Security.
Q: What are the principal risks of applying transgenic technology under the conditions existing in Cuba?
A: The fundamental risk in the opinion of the agro-ecological movement, which is 20 years old in this country, is the expansion of a technology that threatens biodiversity and reduces the ability of native varieties to adapt, for example, to climate change, drought or changes in temperature. Maize production in Cuba, as does all agricultural production, faces many other challenges, and it is a mistake to think that GM crops alone will increase yields.
As for potential harm to human health, it is necessary to conduct tests that prove this transgenic maize can really be consumed without danger in Cuban households. If such tests have been done, then they should be made available.
*This story is part of a series of features on biodiversity by Inter Press Service (IPS), CGIAR/Biodiversity International, International Federation of Environmental Journalists (IFEJ), and the United Nations Environment Program/Convention on Biological Diversity (UNEP/CBD) — all members of the Alliance of Communicators for Sustainable Development ( www.complusalliance.org ).
The Christian Science Monitor – Cuba’s tacit admission that its communist economy is failing marks the end of an era. It follows the eclipse of similarly stultified economies in three other lands of lingering communist persuasion – China, Vietnam, and North Korea. All have either moved, or appear to be moving, to free, market-based economies while retaining a communist structure to continue harsh political control.
Cuba may be no exception. It recently announced plans to dump hundreds of thousands of government workers into a suddenly authorized private sector. That doesn’t mean democracy is right around the corner. Though the brothers Castro, Fidel and Raúl, may soon be passé, some Cuba-watchers expect their successor may be a tough, but as yet unidentified, general from the powerful military who will use the Communist Party structure to maintain authoritarian rule. So while some international critics, like the delusional Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, continue to rant against capitalism and America, aging communist regimes seek the fruits of capitalism’s prospering systems while retaining power with communism’s political infrastructure. It is an intriguing period in history.
During Fidel’s long absence for health reasons, his empowered brother Raúl has hinted at modest reforms. He has ordered the release of a number of political prisoners. He has expressed impatience with the inefficiency of the labor market and sent Cuban delegations to Russia, China, and Vietnam to study their departure from communist economic models. In August he declared in public: “We have to erase forever the notion that Cuba is the only country in the world where one can live without working.” This was a reference to the fact that most of the population is employed by the state, and with the low wages they are paid – on average $20 a month – many people do not work very hard.
There is large-scale moonlighting, dabbling in the black market, and reliance on money sent from abroad by Cuban exiles. Now Raúl is setting free about 10 percent of the state’s workforce, encouraged to launch small businesses or otherwise fend for themselves. Meanwhile Fidel, in a interview with an Atlantic Monthly reporter, let slip his view that the Cuban economic model has failed, hastily but not credibly claiming later that he had been misunderstood.
What the brothers Castro learned from studying Russia, China, and Vietnam is that all have supplanted the old communist economic systems with consumerism, free markets, and privatization in varying degrees, while China and Vietnam have kept the state in firm control. Even North Korea, whose communist-run economy has left many of its citizens hungry and despairing, has rehabilitated a former prime minister who was fired three years ago for promoting market-oriented reforms. Pak Pong-ju re-surfaced from obscurity in August, with restored party status, stirring speculation that economic reforms and pragmatism are in store.
This suggested policy shift comes at a time when Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader, is engineering the political succession from himself to one of his sons, the 20-something Kim Jong-un. Vietnam, while under strict Communist Party political control, has been steadily transforming from a centrally planned economy to a market-oriented one, with rapid growth stimulated by the traditional entrepreneurship of its people.
And despite the Communist Party’s tight hold on the reins of political power, China’s free-market economy has become the second largest in the world, exceeding even Japan’s. Its populace of industrious millions has built roads and high-speed railway networks and factories and whole manufacturing cities, turning out cars – and now electric cars – and electronics, machinery, and consumer goods for export and to meet the demands of its own increasingly affluent citizens. All this freeing up of centralized economies that have proved inept is of course a step on the road to the inevitable: namely, the political freedoms that the respective regimes fear, and – ultimately – democracy. We must hope that such progress will come sooner, rather than later.
Tank Storage Magazine – The Cuban port of Cienfuegos is to be home to three additional loading docks and a terminal large enough to accommodate modern supertankers by 2014 under a rehabilitation and modernisation plan. Cuba and Venezuelan plan to expand capacity there to 150,000 barrels refined per day and the new berths and terminal will ensure tankers carrying more oil can come and go more freely, says Luis Medina, director of Cuba’s national port authority.
Cuba independently operates its largest oil field, the Varadero field discovered by Russian scientists in 1971, but the communist government relies on energy companies from Canada, Spain, Norway, India, Malaysia and China for other drilling operations. The government has laid out zones in the Gulf of Mexico where private energy companies, mostly from Canada and Europe, have said they could one day drill deep-water test wells searching for crude.
Prensa Latina – MOSCOW — Cuban Vice President of the Council of Ministers Ricardo Cabrisas met with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin to review and reinvigorate Cuba-Russia economic cooperation. Attending the meeting were Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Serguei Riabkov and Cuban Ambassador to Russia Juan Valdés Figueroa. Cabrisas and Sechin, co-chairing Cuba-Russia Intergovernmental Joint Commission for Economic Cooperation, spoke about issues of mutual interest concerning economy, trade, science and technology, culture, education and tourism.
Items on the meeting’s agenda included oil exploration agreements with the Russian Oil Company Zarubezhneft, as well as ongoing projects to boost Cuba’s electricity generation, transportation, construction and agriculture sectors by providing infrastructure, spare parts and equipment. The also spoke about joint programs being implemented to streamline rail and maritime transport systems and civil aviation in Cuba.
Cuba News – During an animated conversation both parties ratified the excellent state of bilateral relations between both nations. For his part, Sechin sent greetings to Cuban President Raul Castro and the historical leader of the Cuban Revolution Fidel Castro on behalf of the Russian President, Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
A number of business associations are planning a lobbying blitz during the lame-duck session to repeal the U.S. travel ban to Cuba.
The bill ran into trouble last week when Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, postponed a markup of the legislation. An analysis by The Hill found Berman did not have the votes to move the bill through the panel and onto the House floor for a vote. Despite the setback, lobbyists for business and farm groups say that this Congress may be their best opportunity to see the bill passed and signed into law. Republicans are expected to make big gains in the midterm elections and are seen as less likely to vote for a bill that loosens restrictions on Cuba.
“It will make it more difficult for sure,” said Chandler Goule, vice president of government relations for the National Farmers Union. “This is our best opportunity to pass it through the House. At least that would give us a precedent for the next Congress, a leg up.” A GOP takeover of the House could put Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) in charge of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Ros-Lehtinen, the panel’s current ranking member, is a firm opponent of repealing the travel ban.
Goule’s group and others, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) and the National Pork Producers Council, plan to lobby lawmakers to take up the bill again during the lame-duck session. “A vote by the committee that has jurisdiction over the travel provision of the bill would send a strong signal,” said Jake Colvin, a vice president at NFTC. “We have always thought the committee vote would be tougher than the floor vote. If you can get it out of committee, you can win on the floor.”
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), has gained co-sponsors throughout the year since being introduced in February. It now has 81 supporters. The travel ban to Cuba was eased slightly last year. In March, President Obama signed an omnibus bill with a provision that allows Cuban-Americans to visit their relatives on the island and send them money. Trade associations and farm groups have lent their support to Berman’s full repeal of the travel ban because it would open up more trade with Cuba. Specifically, the legislation would loosen financial restrictions on transactions between Cuban and American banks, potentially boosting U.S. farm exports to Cuba. In addition, it would lift a travel ban to Cuba — a potential boon for tourism and travel companies.
But political action committees for Cuban-American groups are opposed to the bill. In postponing the markup last week, Berman said in a statement that he wanted more time to have a “robust and uninterrupted debate” on the bill, which he expected would happen “soon.” No decision, however, has been made as of yet on when the bill will be marked up. While some fret about the bill’s chances next Congress, others argue that the progress made on the travel-ban repeal this Congress will not disappear during its next session. The legislation did move through the House Agriculture Committee on a 25-20 vote in its favor.
Patrick Kilbride, who works on Latin America policy for the Chamber, said the business group will pick up where it left off with the bill if it is not passed this Congress. “The progress that has been made is not the kind of progress that will be lost by the end of a session of Congress. We will be picking up the ball where we left off last time,” Kilbride said.
Cuba News – Cuba’s basic industries ministries is seeking bids to convert one generating unit of the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes thermoelectric plant to natural gas, Granma reported. The ministry plans to convert Block 3 of the Soviet-era power plant in Cienfuegos from fuel oil to natural gas. The 30-year old unit had been overhauled as recently as September 2008. The conversion should be completed by 2012, according to power plant director José González Rodríguez. In the long term, the generator will be fueled with domestically produced gas, González said, according to a local TV station.
For now, the natural gas will be shipped from Venezuela in liquid shape via tankers to the southern port and re-gasified at a plant that is currently under construction near the power plant. Early last year, Japan’s Hitachi Thermo and Hydro Power Systems completed the $40 million renovation of Block 4, a fuel oil-powered generator at the 158-mw power plant in Cienfuegos.
Escambray – Workers and officials from Marina Marlin in Cayo Guillermo, Ciego de Avila, northern central Cuba, are getting the conditions for the 1st International Fishing Tournament “Jardines del Rey.”
The 1st International Fishing Tournament will be named “Jardines del Rey.”
The event is scheduled from October 18 and 22 with the attendance of professional and amateur fishermen from several countries. The capture area will comprise up to 3 miles north-northeast, between Cayo Guillermo and Cayo Coco. White, blue and other kinds of swordfish are among the most representative varieties in the zone during this time of the year. The tournament will count on specialized crews with more than 15 years of experience in the area.
Cayo Guillermo is a place with an extension of 5 square miles, forming part of the Cuban tourist destination Jardines del Rey, surrounded by the sea with a very well preserved environment, connected with Cayo Coco since the beginning of the 90′s and counts on more than 1,100 rooms in the hotels Meliá Cayo Guillermo, Sol Cayo Guillermo, Iberostar Daiquirí and Villa Cojímar.
HAVANA — Fidel Castro has gone from Cuba’s commander in chief to its de facto “blogger in chief,” posting constant opinion columns online, singing the praises of the Internet age, even hailing Wikileaks and sites like it as the common man’s tool to greater worldwide transparency. Now, if only his fellow Cubans could get in on the cyber-party.
Less than 3 per cent of islanders used the Internet at least once over the past year and only about 6 per cent used email, according to a nationwide survey released Thursday by the state-run National Office of Statistics.
Cuba has long published annual statistics on its Internet and cellphone users. But the level of detail contained in this survey had not been made public before — and it revealed a country astoundingly behind the technological times. Just 2.9 per cent of survey responders said they had used the Internet in the past 12 months, and the majority of those did so at work or school — not from home. Cuba only legalized the sale of computers to the general public in 2008, though they were, and still are, widely available on the black market.
The tally paints a far bleaker picture than the statistics office’s annual report on connectivity, which found that Cuba had 1.6 million Internet users last year. But even that is far below Internet access in any other country in Latin America, according to international surveys. Statistics officials based their study on interviews with 38,000 households across the island from February to April. The office did not say whether the survey was done in person or over the phone, and it listed the margin of error only as less than five percentage points.
It was not clear how many Cubans themselves would see the statistics, however, since they were posted on the agency’s website. The communist government severely limits Web access, but says it has no choice given that Washington’s 48-year-old embargo doesn’t allow Cuba to access U.S. service providers located close by. Instead, the island must rely on slow and costly Internet via satellite from Europe and other faraway locales. Meanwhile, authorities block blogs that are critical of the government as well as other pages containing content that is considered counter to Castro’s 1959 revolution.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has promised to lay a fiber-optic cable from his country to Cuba to improve connectivity here, but those plans have been stalled for years.
Of those surveyed by the National Office of Statistics, only 5.8 per cent said they use email. The survey did not say how often. Ordinary Cubans can join an islandwide network that allows them to send and receive international email, but lines are long at youth clubs, post offices and the few Internet cafes that provide access. The survey also found that just 2.6 per cent of respondents regularly use cellphones, despite the government’s dramatic lifting of bans on them two years ago. That was slightly higher than the 2.5 per cent who said they own cellphones or have been issued them for work — meaning some are using phones that belong to relatives, friends or neighbours.
Those percentages are substantially lower than previously released figures, with the state-controlled telecommunications monopoly reporting in July that more than 1 million cellphone lines were in use nationwide. Cuba has a population of 11.2 million people. Mobile phones in Cuba had been prohibited for all but tourists and foreigners, some government employees, business officials and academics. But in April 2008, just two months after he succeeded his brother as president, Raul Castro authorized their sale to all who could afford them.
HAVANA – (AP) — Cuba’s communist leaders mapped out a brave new world of free enterprise, approving a laundry list of small-time businesses, allowing islanders to take on employees and even promising credit to burgeoning entrepreneurs. The reforms — laid out in a three-page spread in the Communist Party-daily Granma — seem sure to create a society of haves and have-nots in a land that has spent half a century striving for an egalitarian utopia.
They follow the announcement that the government will lay off 500,000 workers by the end of March — or one-tenth of the country’s workforce — the biggest change in Cuba’s economic system since the early 1990s. For the first time, Cubans in 83 private activities will be allowed to employ people other than their relatives, and they will be able to sell their services to the state as private contractors. Accountants, currently only permitted to work for the state, can set out on their own, keeping the books for the new businesses. Cubans who want to rent their homes to travelers will no longer have to live on the premises and can hire staff. Even islanders authorized to live overseas — though apparently not exiles — can take part in the economic changes by renting out the cars and homes they leave behind.
And the Central Bank is studying ways to grant small-business loans that are crucial to any free-market system, but which would have been unthinkable in Cuba just weeks ago. “The decision to loosen the rules on private employment is one of the steps the country has taken in the redesign of its economic policies to increase production levels and efficiency,” Granma reported, citing Economy Minister Marino Murillo Jorge and a vice-minister of labor and social security, Admi Valhuerdi Cepero. In an acknowledgment that the Cuban economy lacks the raw materials to support many private enterprises, Valhuerdi said some activities that rely on hard-to-get items like marble, paint for cars or soap will continue to be restricted. Eventually, the country hopes to create a system of wholesalers, but it will take several years.
Granma is the voice of the Communist Party and one of the principal ways the government communicates plans with the people. The paper promised more details in coming days, saying that the expanded private enterprise would be “another opportunity, under the watchful eye of the state” to “improve the quality of life of Cubans.” Many will welcome the changes in a country where young people have been clamoring for more opportunities for years, but they will also create tension and upheaval. Whether the reforms will work depends on the reaction of Cubans who have seen past openings fizzle, and on the cash-strapped state’s ability to draw fresh tax revenues from the new businesses.
Granma said private businesses would not only pay personal income tax, but also sales and payroll taxes — as well as contribute to social security. A vibrant, untaxed black market already exists in Cuba offering many of the services the government hopes to legitimize. Uva de Aragon, a Cuba expert at Florida International University in Miami, said those hoping to enter the legitimate market would be faced with a system that is totally alien to them. “Cubans have no capital, no credit, no experience at management — and the government is talking about imposing a new tax system, for which there is no culture,” she said. “The process is positive. My concern is how it will function.”
On the streets of Havana, some said they hoped to take advantage of the openings, but many expressed skepticism. “I think people want to live better and have better services,” said Marilis Bador, a 32-year-old housewife. “I hope this isn’t just a one day flash in the pan, but rather something that will allow the country to develop.” Others, like Marley Martinez, said they were already thinking of joining the new private workforce. The 22-year-old is a state-trained accountant but is studying to become a hair dresser and hopes to open her own shop. “It’s not really a dream, but it’s something I want to do and feel I need to do,” she said during a stroll through a crowded Havana shopping center. “What the people need are more economic freedoms, the ability to work for themselves.”
Currently, the state dominates nearly every aspect of the Cuban economy, employing at least 84 percent of the work force and paying an average of $20 a month. In return, islanders are guaranteed free education and health care, as well as nearly free housing, transportation and basic food. President Raul Castro has said the government can no longer afford such generous subsidies and that he wants to modernize Cuba’s economy without abandoning socialism. The article tries to allay any fears that the country is embracing free-market capitalism, saying that the changes will always be “faithful to the socialist principles our constitution demands.”
In all, some 178 private activities will be allowed and expanded, though only seven of those are entirely new — including accountants, bathroom attendants, tutors and fruit vendors. The full-page list of allowed jobs includes floral wreath arrangers, animal trainers and interior decorators. The reforms, which are set to go into effect next month, will also allow a great expansion of private restaurants — called paladares — which will be able to serve up to 20 people and expand their menus to include higher-priced items like beef and lobster.
Previously, government rules limited them to 12 seats and banned some menu offerings, though most establishments blatantly violated the rules. Ted Henken, a professor at Baruch College in New York who has studied Cuba’s policy toward the private sector, said the list shows the government is still interested in maintaining control rather than just allowing any form of private enterprise. “It’s still socialism,” he said. “But it is a different kind of socialism.”
Bloomberg – Nokia Oyj, AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. are urging the U.S. government to ease rules that keep them from operating in Cuba even after President Barack Obama loosened telecommunications regulations last year to promote democracy on the communist island. Nokia, the world’s biggest mobile-phone maker, is urging the U.S. to ease its 47-year-old trade embargo so it can sell handsets to Cuba. AT&T and Verizon, the largest U.S. wireless providers, urged regulators to make it easier for U.S. companies to directly connect calls to and from Cuba.
The companies’ pleas come after Obama said in April 2009 that greater contact with the outside world would reduce Cubans’ dependency on President Raul Castro’s regime. Still, other regulations prevent companies with U.S. operations from entering the market, according to a July report by the Washington-based Cuba Study Group, which advocates for an open economy. “We don’t understand why the regulations stopped where they did,” Jose Martinez, head of government relations for Latin America at Nokia, said in an interview from Miami. “There doesn’t seem to be a desire at the bureaucratic level to change the rules to allow cell phones.”
Cuba has the lowest mobile-phone penetration in Latin America. As recently as 2008, about 20,000 to 30,000 people, mostly foreign diplomats and senior officials, owned mobile devices. That number has grown to 800,000 since Castro lifted a ban on most people owning them, the Cuba Study Group says. AT&T and Verizon may be interested in setting up roaming service for U.S. customers who visit the island as a first step into Cuba, said Jose Magana, a senior analyst at Pyramid Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The country of 11.4 million people could become the largest telecom market in the Caribbean, topping Puerto Rico’s $1.6 billion market, Magana said. If the market remains mostly closed, annual revenue could still reach $400 million by 2013 from the current $80 million, he said. Magana said roaming service in Cuba wouldn’t have a measurable effect on earnings for AT&T or Verizon.
Obama, in an April 13, 2009, memorandum lifting travel restrictions to Cuba for Cuban-Americans, directed the U.S. government to allow companies to provide communications services to the island, saying it would “decrease dependency of the Cuban people on the Castro regime.” In practice, little has changed, as companies wishing to operate in Cuba risk violating sanctions still in place, said Christopher Sabatini, policy director of the New York-based Council of the Americas business group. These include the 1992 Cuban Democracy Act that prohibits investment in Cuba’s telecommunications network. “It’s so self-defeating,” said Sabatini, who helped prepare the Cuba Study Group report. “It’s like we just sent them a toy cell phone and said, ‘This will be great. Use this.’” Cuba’s Foreign Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.
AT&T and New York-based Verizon wrote to the Federal Communications Commission this year urging it to grant an April request by TeleCuba, a Miami-based company that sells calling cards, for the FCC to waive rules that fix a maximum rate a U.S. provider can pay the Cuban government for connecting calls. The wireless providers’ letters may be aimed at supporting their interest in setting up roaming service in Cuba without taking sides in a politically delicate issue, said Christopher King, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in Baltimore who covers Verizon and Dallas-based AT&T. Establishing a foothold in Cuba could be lucrative because mobile phone penetration may increase to 80 percent of the population in four years, from 10 percent to 25 percent now, should providers be allowed to invest in the market, King said.
AT&T has no specific commercial plan associated with the letter, spokesman Michael Balmoris said. Verizon spokesman Jeffrey Nelson, and John Taylor, a spokesman for Overland Park, Kansas-based Sprint Nextel Corp., declined to comment on whether their companies were seeking a roaming agreement for Cuba. The branch of the U.S. Treasury Department that enforces trade sanctions allows U.S. providers to pay Cuba for services including roaming, said a Treasury official who declined to be identified, citing agency policy.
Still, under current FCC rules, U.S. providers can only offer direct calls to Cuba and roaming service if they pay the Castro government a fee no higher than 19 cents per call, said an FCC official. That prevents U.S. operators from offering these services because Cuba demands 84 cents a call, according to the official, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue. The FCC is considering whether to waive the rate cap, the FCC official said. U.S. rules also keep Nokia from selling handsets in Cuba, even though it is based in Espoo, Finland, because the unit that exports to Latin America is based in Miami, Martinez said. “There is an enormous amount of frustration that the rules weren’t clear enough,” said Judith O’Neill, a telecom lawyer at Nakhota LLC consulting firm in New York.
Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the Obama administration, declined to comment, as did State Department spokesman Philip Crowley. While the entry of U.S. companies also hinges on the willingness of Castro’s government to let them in, the Cubans would probably be open to the idea because they want the inflow of cash amid an economic slump, Sabatini said. Cuban state phone company Etesca, based in Havana, has a monopoly on all fixed-line and mobile services. Milan-based Telecom Italia SpA has a 27 percent stake in the company. “The rules are so unclear,” Ralph de la Vega, AT&T’s chief of wireless, said in an interview. ‘Until there’s real change there’s not much we can do about it.”
Havana – DTC – Cuba is developing congress and incentive tourism based on the infrastructure created in the country to boost that tourist modality. Cuba ranks ninth in Latin America in the organization of all kinds of forums, according to the International Association of Congresses and Conventions. Every year, Cuba hosts about 300 international meetings, whose participants spend up to six times more than regular tourists. The island nation offers skilled personnel, competitive prices and the country’s natural, historic and cultural attractions, among other options. The actions taken to develop congress tourism include holding more meetings, fostering commercialization and increasing Cuba’s participation in major international fairs on incentive travels.
Miami Herald – Hoping to lure in golf-playing tourists to Cuba — and eventually even U.S. golfers — the government will allow foreign investors to lease state lands for 99 years instead of the previous limit of 50 years. The extension is expected to make Cuba a more attractive place for foreign developers who already have detailed plans for at least four golf resorts with seven courses — including a $1 billion project. Some foreign investors have been reluctant to commit to the projects because the 50-year limit was too short and risky, said Antonio Zamora, a Miami lawyer who researches Cuban real estate issues. “I think most of them will be OK with the 99-year leases, although others have told me they will not do it” unless they can have full ownership rights to the properties, Zamora added.
Cuba’s communist government has kept tight controls on foreign investments, but a withering economic crisis is forcing it to seek new financing abroad and expand its tourism industry, one of its sources of revenue. The Official Gazette last week published Decree Law 273, signed by Raúl Castro on July 19, allowing 99-year leases on properties for foreign investors though the government continues to own the land. The previous limit set in 1987 was 50 years, though renewals were allowed. Still unclear are many issues such as the right to sell or inherit the properties built on the leased state lands.
The Cuban government owns the overwhelming majority of the land on the island, though some Cubans who owned small properties before the Castro revolution in 1959 have been allowed to keep them. But the decision by Castro, who also has been allowing small but growing doses of private enterprise by Cubans in hopes of improving the economy, could give a quick boost to tourism development plans. The U.S. Congress is considering legislation that would lift the ban on tourism travel to Cuba, and the Obama administration is expected to allow a growing number of educational and cultural trips to the island.
Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero announced in August that the government had approved the creation of 16 golf resorts, ringed by thousands of condos and villas to be sold only to foreigners. Cuba has only one 18-hole course and one nine-hole course, while the Dominican Republic has two dozen. Foreign developers are already well along on proposals for four golf resorts on Cuba’s north coast, including the estimated $1 billion La Altura mega-project in Bahia Honda west of Havana. The project, proposed by British and Spanish developers, calls for three golf courses surrounded by about 3,000 housing units and a marina with 200 slips, according to documents obtained by El Nuevo Herald. Another group that includes some Native Americans from Canada is proposing two golf courses with about 2,000 housing units in the Guardalavaca beach area in eastern Holguín province.
In the Varadero beach resort 100 miles east of Havana, British groups are proposing one development with a single golf course and about 900 housing units, with some villas costing up to $1 million. The Bellomonte project on Guanabo beach, just east of Havana, calls for about 800 units ringing one golf course, plus a small marina. Cuba recorded 2.4 million foreign tourists last year, a slight increase over 2008, although revenues have been falling as the Euro and British pound lost value and the growing number of visiting Cuban exiles chose to stay with relatives. The government first allowed foreigners to invest in an estimated 17 luxury condominium developments in Havana in 1995, but then-President Fidel Castro later halted the building program amid several complaints.
Contracts for the developments in effect allowed third parties to profit improperly, and made no provisions for companion agreements to develop housing for Cubans, who face a crushing housing shortage. The four new golf resorts where the planning is most advanced would all be located in remote locations.
AP – HAVANA — Cuba has begun allowing foreign investors to lease government land for up to 99 years, a step toward a future that could be filled with golf courses ringed by luxury villas, beachfront timeshares and vacation homes for well-heeled tourists. But while overseas developers are cheering, some caution that the communist island has been down this road before, embracing foreign ownership with an eye toward bolstering tourism revenues — only to scrap those reforms when the economy improved and profit margins no longer seemed as important as maintaining state control of commerce.
A decree that was published as law loosened property laws enough to allow 99-year leases for foreigners. A measure appearing the following day expanded self-employment, letting Cubans grow and sell small amounts of farm products out of their homes or special kiosks. Large agricultural holdings are state-controlled, but small farmers were already allowed to work their own land. The law will allow more Cubans to do so and let them sell what they produce, but will also make them pay taxes on their profits. The moves are significant as President Raul Castro promises to scale back the state’s near-total dominance of the economy while attempting to generate new revenue for a government short on cash.
Optimistic was Robin Conners, president and CEO of Vancover-based Leisure Canada, which wants to build hotels, villas and two golf courses on a stretch of beach in Jibacoa, 40 miles (64 kilometers) east of Havana. “We see the times are changing, so to speak,” Conners said. Cuba already allowed leases of state land for up to 50 years with the option to extend them for an additional 25, but foreign investors had long pressed tourism officials to endorse 99-year lease deals to provide additional peace of mind to investors.
The longer leases also mean lower interest rates on international banking mortgages, Conners said. “I think this is huge,” he said by phone while vacationing in Paris. Conners’ company hopes to begin construction on a luxury hotel in the Havana neighborhood of Miramar next year — with the project at Jibacoa and another plan for development on Cayo Largo, a cay off Cuba’s southern coast, “not far off.” Investors in Canada, Europe and Asia have been waiting to crack the market for long-term tourism in Cuba, built on visitors who could live part-time on the island instead of just hitting the beach for a few days. The U.S. bars its companies from doing business with Cuba. The change may also help Cuba embrace golf. Investment firms have for decades proposed building lavish 18-hole courses with luxury housing for foreigners.
Despite years of grand plans, however, Cuba has just two golf courses and has yet to approve construction of any new ones — though the tourism Ministry says it would like to build 10 more. Andrew Macdonald, CEO of Britain’s Esencia Hotels and Resorts, said his company had planned to start construction last year on the Carbonera Country Club, a $300 million development outside the resort of Varadero, but is still waiting for government approval. In addition to an 18-hole golf course, Macdonald’s plan calls for 800 luxury apartments and 100 villas. “It’s exceedingly good news,” Macdonald said of the new rule. “It’s been a long road. But having said that, it’s very important for the country that they get each step right, and this is a very big step for them.”
The new law makes it clear Cuba is looking to boost profits, saying the step is necessary “for the sustainable development of the country and the international economy.” While the longer-term leases could reshape international investment in Cuba, meanwhile, allowing more production and sales of agriculture products will likely have far greater impact on ordinary Cubans. The law marks the first major expansion of self-employment since Castro said in an address to parliament Aug. 1 that his government would reduce state controls on small businesses and private enterprise — a big deal in a country where about 95 percent of people work for the state.
Cubans already sell fruit, pork, cheese and other items on the sides of highways across the country, fleeing whenever the police happen past. The new measure legalizes such practices by letting Cubans grow whatever they wish and sell it, while bolstering state coffers with new taxes on their earnings. Oscar Espinosa Chepe, a state-trained economist who became a dissident anti-communist and was jailed for his political beliefs in 2003 before being paroled for health reasons, called the decree “an intelligent move.” “It’s good, though still something very limited,” Espinosa Chepe said.
The China Post – HAVANA — Cuba has issued a pair of surprising free-market decrees, allowing foreign investors to lease government land for up to 99 years — potentially touching off a golf-course building boom — and loosening state controls on commerce to let islanders grow and sell their own fruit and vegetables. The moves, published into law in the Official Gazette on Thursday and Friday and effective immediately, are significant steps as President Raul Castro promises to scale back the communist state’s control of the economy while attempting to generate new revenue for a government short on cash.
“These are part of the opening that the government wants to make given the country’s situation,” said Oscar Espinosa Chepe, a state-trained economist who is now an anti-communist dissident. Cuba said it was modifying its property laws “with the aim of amplifying and facilitating” foreign investment in tourism, and that doing so would provide “better security and guarantees to the foreign investor.” A small army of investors in Canada, Europe and Asia have been waiting to crack the market for long-term tourism in Cuba, built on drawing well-heeled visitors who could live part-time on the island instead of just hitting the beach for a few days.
It may also help the country embrace golf tourism. Investment firms have for decades proposed building lavish 18-hole courses ringed by luxury housing under long-term government leases. Cuba currently has just two golf courses nationwide, but the Tourism Ministry has said it wants to build at least 10 more. Endorsing 99-year property agreements might be a first step toward making some golf developments a reality, but also makes it easy to imagine a Cuban coastline dotted with timeshares, luxury villas and other hideaways that could serve as second homes.
Cuba has allowed leases of state land for up to 50 years with the option to extend them for an additional 25, but foreign investors had long pressed tourism officials to endorse 99-year deals to provide additional peace of mind to investors. The longer leases also mean lower interest rates on international banking mortgages. John Kavulich, a senior policy adviser for the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council in New York, said Mexico has used similar leaseholds to encourage foreign investment despite restrictions on non-Mexicans owning coastal property — but that the similarities end there.
But developers cheered the move, including Andrew Macdonald, CEO of Britain’s Esencia Hotels and Resorts, which is awaiting Cuban government approval to start construction on the Carbonera Country Club, a US$300 million beach development outside the resort of Varadero. “It’s exceedingly good news,” Macdonald said. “It’s been a long road. But having said that, it’s very important for the country that they get each step right and this is a very big step for them.” After so many setbacks in green-lighting the project once and for all, Macdonald said he has stopped predicting when construction will begin, but “we hope the approval process will happen very quickly now.”
The island’s ever-weak economy has been rocked by the global financial crisis and a sustained drop in prices of the country’s chief natural resources. Cuban officials have tried before to balance their drive for an egalitarian society with an appeal to foreigners seeking to own a piece of paradise. Scrambling for revenue in the late 1990s, the government authorized private foreign ownership of posh apartments in Havana and even signed a US$250 million deal for beachfront apartments and timeshares with a Canadian company. Many of those projects stalled, however, failing to draw enough foreign investment. Meanwhile, some overseas businessmen bought Havana apartments but allowed Cubans to live in them — violating rules barring islanders from doing so. The government eventually bought out most of the residences it had hoped would be owned by foreigners.
The decree allowing expanded sale of farm products, meanwhile, could have far greater impact on ordinary Cubans. It authorizes them to produce their own agricultural goods — from melons to milk — and sell them from home or in kiosks. They must pay taxes on any earnings. The decree is the first major expansion of self-employment rules since Castro said in an address before parliament Aug. 1 that the government would reduce state controls on small businesses — a big deal in a country where about 95 percent of people work for the state. Cubans already sell fruits, pork, cheese and other items on the sides of highways, fleeing into the bushes when the police happen past. Friday’s measure would legalize such practices, while ensuring the state takes a cut of the profits.
The new rules are consistent with other efforts by Castro’s government, which has allowed minor free-market openings while also seeking to eliminate black-market income. In an effort to “expand and facilitate the participation of foreign investment in international tourism,” the Council of State published a much-expected decree that provides a legal framework for residential construction by foreign investors, granting leases on state land for up to 99 years. Cuba, which offers only two golf courses, hopes to broaden its tourism base with the move, attracting a wealthy clientele.
Decree-law 273, published in the Gaceta Oficial No. 33 on Aug. 26, reverts a decade-old de facto freeze on foreign residential construction after a short-lived experiment with condominium projects in Havana. The new law is expected to trigger golf and marina condominium construction far away from urban centers. At least four projects have been on the drawing boards of foreign investor groups for months and, in some cases, for years. “I think this action is very significant for several reasons,” says Antonio Zamora, a Miami lawyer who has researched foreign real estate investment in Cuba for more than 10 years. “First and foremost, it happened. It signals that the Raúl government is moving to open up the economy towards the Vietnam model. Fidel and his group are not opposed or cannot stop the moves.”
The government will begin negotiations with foreign investors about construction of up to 16 golf courses and condominium communities in January, Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero announced on Aug. 1. The 16 projects “have already been approved by the Council of Ministers, are in the process of implementation, and it’s being concluded,” Marrero said in early August. Foreigners interested in development projects on the island must go through three stages — identifying a Cuban partner, obtaining approval from the foreign investment and tourism ministries, and finally getting the go-ahead from the Council of State. According to Marrero, negotiations on four golf course projects are “very advanced.” They include one in the eastern province of Holguín, one in western Pinar del Río, and two located between Havana and the beach resort of Varadero. The new regulations could spawn an unprecedented construction boom of as many as 7,000 golf course condominium units, estimates Antonio Zamora.
The government designated about 80 sites as suitable for golf course development, according to Zamora. The new regulations will also open up opportunities for construction of marina-only condominium projects, Zamora suggests, adding that the government is pondering as many as six residential developments connected to marinas. This could add another 4,000 units, he believes. Many details remain foggy; a body of regulations surrounding foreign condo communities has yet to be published. The government hasn’t said how often or quickly owners might be allowed to sell. No regulations exist regarding owners being able to lease their properties. And there is no information yet as to what kind of taxes and fees the government would charge.
Also, Cuba has yet to announce whether it will relax sticky regulations such as how long and under what conditions foreigners are allowed to stay in the country at a time, and under what conditions foreign part-time residents will be allowed to bring, sell or re-export personal property such as appliances, furniture and automobiles. Currently, foreigners are allowed to stay up to six months at a time. Finally, the probably most controversial issue is the potentially large influx of Cuban American property buyers.
Due to U.S. restrictions, Cuban Americans cannot legally buy property in Cuba, but observers expect wealthy Cubans living abroad to be the largest potential group of buyers. Says Zamora: “Real estate sales, golf and marinas can’t work well without Americans. Perhaps there is also a role for Cuban Americans in this effort.”
While Cuban officials steadfastly deny to be following any foreign model, the experiences of Vietnam and China provide a glimpse as to what should be expected from Cuban real estate regulations for foreigners. Vietnam grants considerable freedom to foreign developers, but foreign apartment buyers are fairly restricted. As in Cuba, ownership in Vietnam is technically a long-term lease from the state. Foreign apartment owners are allowed to own only one piece of property at a time, and can’t sell before one year. Non-resident owners in Vietnam cannot lease their property. China is even more restrictive when it comes to foreign real estate buying. Only foreigners who have worked or studied in China for more than one year can buy homes or apartments. Foreigners cannot lease their properties. However, exempted from lease restrictions are Chinese citizens living overseas.
Cuba’s decree-law 273, aiming to provide “greater security and guarantee to the foreign investor in the real estate business,” is based on the legal concept of “usufructo.” The concept allows foreigners to buy, mortgage and sell properties, or pass them on as an inheritance during the life of the lease. Cuba’s usufructo approach isn’t novel. Mexico, whose constitution until recently prohibited foreign ownership of land near the coast and borders, introduced a similar land use concept for foreigners in the 1990s.
Decree-law 273 modifies articles 221 and 222 of the 1987 Surface Law in Cuba’s civil code. Article 221 now stipulates that the state must issue a “surface right” title for each property subject to usufructo, including information about the property’s limits, conditions of use, and the time period, structure, nature and destination of the buildings or the specific activity planned for the property. Article 222 specifies that state-owned land can be leased for up to 99 years; stipulates that, in case the land is leased for a shorter period, the contract can be extended to up to 99 years; and states that the state can sell properties to Cuban companies planning to build tourism-related homes or apartments on the land.
The foreign investment law of 1995 specifically allows the sale of real estate to foreigners for tourism purposes and offices. However, the government has been struggling for years to establish the ground rules for foreign real estate ownership, a delicate topic in Cuba’s egalitarian political system. Cuba aborted a first run on foreign condominium construction in the late 1990s. In 2000, the government poured cold water over a mini-boom in Havana, when it stopped all sales of newly built condos and bought out its foreign partners. According to Zamora, the problem in 1998-99 was that the government failed to put any provision against flipping in the contracts. Because the buildings were located in the middle of Havana, many Cuban friends and family of the owners ended up living in the new condos, which in turn caused resentment among fellow Cubans living in dire housing conditions.
Even so, some 400 new units in Havana were sold in a five-year span; most of them continue to be in the hands of foreigners. The new generation of projects is different, because they are in remote locations outside the big cities. This, in turn, might spawn another side business, Zamora suggests: The construction of workforce housing nearby. The most public of the four most advanced investor groups has been Esencia Hotels & Resorts. The British company announced in late 2008 it wants to build a golf course community, the $400 million Carbonera Country Club Resort in Varadero. Carbonera is planned for 730 units, around an 18-hole golf course and marina.
Meanwhile, a British-Spanish group hired Foster + Partners, the company around renowned architect Sir Norman Foster, to design a 2,000-unit community near Bahia Honda in western Pinar del Río province, around three golf courses and a 200-slip marina. Vancouver-based Leisure Canada is redesigning its master plan for a three-course golf resort with marina village at Jibacoa, 50 miles east of Havana, according to President and CEO Robin Conners. A later stage of the project will include cottages, Conners says. Also, a privately owned Vietnamese company, Housing & Urban Development Corp. (HUD), reportedly is planning to build at least one golf course community, including one inland, just west of Havana.
Havana – DTC – Cayo Guillermo, an islet in the Jardines del Rey (King’s Gardens) archipelago, has a huge tourist potential in Cuba. The islet has an area of 13.2 square kilometers, 30 percent of which are beaches, including the one called Pilar. Nature enthusiasts can watch colonies of flamingoes and the highest dunes in the Caribbean, which can be up to 15 meters high. Tourism on Cayo Largo is complimented by a marina for 40 boats and modern hotels. The local fauna consists of 150 species, including 20 endemic species. Cayo Guillermo is close to Cayo Coco and Cayo Paredón.
Financial Times – Preparations for full-scale oil exploration are gaining momentum in Cuba’s Gulf of Mexico waters just 50 miles from the US, testing the limits of the trade embargo on the Caribbean nation. Cubapetroleo, the state oil monopoly, says seven exploration wells are scheduled for the Cuban waters up to the end of 2012. A new Chinese deep-water rig, owned by Saipem, a unit of Italian oil company Eni SpA, is scheduled to leave its shipyard by the end of 2010 for the two-month trek to Cuba. The rig was built to get around the 10 per cent limit on US technology demanded under the US trade embargo of Cuba.
Preparatory work is moving ahead at Mariel, a port west of Havana, the staging area for drilling operations, diplomatic and industry sources said, and some companies have opened bidding for well casing. “It is ridiculous that Repsol, a Spanish oil company, is paying an Italian firm to build an oil rig in China that will be used next year to explore for oil 50 miles from Florida,” Sarah Stephens, executive director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas, said. Ms Stephens, whose Washington-based organisation opposes US sanctions, led the first US energy-related fact-finding mission by congressional staff and experts to Havana in July. They concluded Cuba was determined to sink wells and with them the embargo.
Embargo opponents in Washington are backing legislation that would allow US groups to participate in Cuba’s offshore oil development, while proponents plan legislation that would impose sanctions on the foreign groups that do. Florida politicians, who have banned drilling off their coast, and Cuban-American lawmakers, have raised fears of an accident such as the one on BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig. According to industry and diplomatic sources, companies from Spain, India, Norway and perhaps Malaysia – all US allies – have already contracted the rig, while others, from Vietnam, Venezuela and Brazil are not far behind.
Russian and Chinese companies are negotiating to obtain offshore blocks or partner with the other companies. Repsol drilled the only offshore well in Cuba’s waters in 2004. It said at the time that it had found hydrocarbons, but not in a commercially viable amount. Since then, according to Manuel Marrero Faz, oil adviser to Cuba’s Ministry of Basic Industry, extensive seismic work has revealed 15 sites with a high probability of oil. Mr Marrero estimates Cuba has up to 20bn barrels of oil in its offshore areas, while the US Geological Survey puts the figure at a more modest 4.6bn barrels and 10,000bn cu feet of gas.
Cuba currently produces about 60,000 barrels of oil per day, all from onshore wells. It imports about 115,000 b/d from ally Venezuela on favourable terms. The Obama administration has refrained from denouncing Cuba’s drilling plans and appears to favour limited co-operation. The administration recently said it would allow US companies that handle and clean up oil spills to operate in Cuban waters should the need arise and granted approval for executives from the Houston-based International Association of Drilling Contractors to visit Cuba last week. Lee Hunt, association president, told the Financial Times he was impressed by Cuba’s preparations and regulatory regime, which included measures his group had proposed to the Obama administration after the BP disaster.
He added: “There is one Gulf shared by three countries. We are promoting co-operation between their industries to insure the unfortunate events that occurred in Mexico and more recently in the United States do not happen here”. Jorge Piñon, a visiting research fellow at the Cuban Research Institute of the Florida International University, said more should be done to wean Cuba from energy dependence on Venezuela and insure safety. “The United States should enable oil companies working in Cuba access to equipment and technology that would allow the monetisation of Cuba’s hydrocarbon resources in a safe and responsible manner,” Mr Pinon added.
CP – HAVANA — A program that provided state-subsidized smokes to Cuban seniors is headed for the ash heap. The communist government announced it is cutting cigarettes from its monthly ration books, the latest in a series of small steps toward fully eliminating subsidies for food and other basic items that impoverished islanders depend on. Cubans 55 and older had been eligible to receive three packs of “strong” cigarettes and a pack of milds — 80 cigarettes altogether per month — for 6.50 pesos, or the equivalent of about 30 cents, using their ration books at state-run distribution centres.
The island’s lowest-quality cigarettes, the only kinds subsidized, normally cost 7 pesos, or about 33 cents, per pack, while imported or topflight domestic brands can go for $3 or more apiece. Until the 1990s, all Cubans 18 and older received a monthly allotment of cigarettes, but the loss of billions of dollars in annual subsidies from the collapsed Soviet Union forced officials to scale back subsidized smoking. Now even older smokers are out of luck. “I’m insulted because it’s another thing they are taking away from us,” said Angela Jimenez, a 64-year-old retiree who lives on a monthly pension of 200 pesos, or about $10.40. Jimenez first took up smoking at 17 but says she will now have to quit because she won’t be able to afford them. “I don’t know how far they’re going to go with this,” she said of the subsidy cuts.
The government’s announcement made no mention of the health benefits of quitting smoking, saying only that the move was “part of the steps gradually being applied to eliminate subsidies.” Cigarettes are just the latest item to be scrapped from the ration book: Peas and potatoes were dumped last November. In an additional cost-cutting measure this summer, the government shuttered scores of workplace cafeterias that had fed state employees for virtually nothing, instead giving qualifying Cubans stipends to buy their own food. So far, nearly 250,000 people have seen their government lunches disappear — and officials say further cuts are coming.
Under the existing subsidy system, even nonsmokers accepted cigarette rations, which they then sold on the black market, charging at least 2½ times the subsidized price per pack. Others traded them for rationed items such as salt, sugar, beans, meat, rice, eggs or bread. Jesus Casanova, a 58-year-old security guard, described the quality of the rationed cigarettes as “awful” — but he collected them every month anyway to feed his elderly neighbour’s smoking habit. “He is a very poor man and he doesn’t have the money to smoke anything else,” Casanova said. “But now even that’s over. I don’t know what he’s going to do.”
Casanova prefers cigars, generally finishing one slender stogie during his 12-hour shift. The island’s world-famous cigars were never provided as part of the ration program, however. Fidel Castro, once the most famous cigar smoker in Cuba — if not the world — famously gave them up under doctors’ orders in 1985, and has sporadically urged his fellow islanders to quit. President Raul Castro’s government is trying to cut the weight of subsidies for Cuba’s cash-poor economy, a plan that could eventually mean eliminating the entire ration book.
Critics argue the moves break with what had been a sacred covenant of the Castro brothers’ 1959 revolution: that socialism would not make people rich, but would provide all Cubans with at least the basics. Authorities say their goal is to encourage more productivity and free the state from a crushing economic burden. Even with the changes, the state still pays for or heavily subsidizes nearly everything including education, health care, housing and transportation. Then again, in a country where almost everyone works for the state, the government only pays salaries of about $20 per month.
The ration program began in 1962 as a temporary way to guarantee basic food for all Cubans in the face of Washington’s then-new embargo. It is designed to tide people over, providing a few weeks of food, as well as other occasional staples such as laundry soap and toothpaste.
The Freeport News – NASSAU – The Bahamas and the Republic of Cuba officially resumed technical discussions on the delimitation of the maritime boundary between the two countries. Already, two rounds of talks have been held; the first round of preliminary discussions, which established the framework for future meetings, was held in Nassau in 2005. This was followed up by a technical meeting, which took place in Havana, Cuba on June 12, 2009, when the Bahamian delegation comprised of senior Bahamian officials with technical expertise in the area of law of the sea and maritime affairs, met with Cuban officials.
As was the case at the previous technical meeting, the Bahamian delegation, which participated in this third round of discussions included representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Attorney General’s Office, the Ministry of the Environment, the Department of Marine Resources, the Royal Bahamas Defence Force, the Bahamas National Geographic Information Systems Centre, as well as other senior government officials with expertise and experience in relevant fields. “The resumption of discussions between The Bahamas and Cuba in order to delimit the maritime boundary between the countries, as required by the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea, is a matter of priority,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
The official archipelagic baselines of The Bahamas, which are used to determine the country’s maritime zones, including its boundary with Cuba, were submitted to the United Nations by the Government of The Bahamas on December 11, 2008. “However, these technical meetings with Cuba are necessary to achieve formal agreement on the maritime boundary that is in compliance with the international laws that govern this process,” the Ministry said. The Ministry explained that an agreed boundary is vital for the effective management of The Bahamas’ maritime resources and the protection and preservation of the marine environment. “Furthermore, from a national security point of view, reaching an agreement on the maritime boundary will facilitate the ability of The Bahamas’ security forces to effectively patrol and protect the maritime borders of The Bahamas,” the Ministry said.
Cattle Network – The Amarillo Globe-News reports if a trade embargo with Cuba is ended, the result could be booming business for the cattle industry. U.S. House Resolution 4645, currently pending in Congress, would open trade of agricultural goods to Cuba and boost cattle business in the Texas Panhandle and elsewhere. The resolution has drawn support from the American Farm Bureau Federation. Texas A&M economists and farm bureau experts predict opening trade with Cuba could create up to 6,000 agriculture-related jobs in the U.S.
Most of the jobs created would be tied to the cattle-producing industry. There are a few issues to be resolved before HR 4645 is passed. If trade is reopened with Cuba, Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon would like Cuba to give something back. Thornberry said he has human rights concerns that Cuba must answer before it becomes a full trading partner.
Havana – DTC – The Cuban drug HEBERPROT-P, used to treat diabetic food ulcers, will be presented at the International Congress on Biotechnology Havana-2010. According to experts, HEBERPROT-P has already benefited 10,000 Cuban patients, as well as others in Argentina, Venezuela and Algeria. HEBERPROT-P contains the recombinant human growth factor, which speeds up the cure of lesions and prevents amputations. Created by experts from the Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Center (CIGB), HEBERPROT-P is administered in a dozen countries and in Cuba. Diabetic food ulcers are a major cause of complication in Cuba and the world.
Havana – DTC – Authorities from the central Cuban province of Cienfuegos expect production of plastic bags to increase to 94 million this year. The Cienfuegos-based Empresa Química will produce that amount of plastic bags to meet the demand from the health and tourism sectors. The company also makes blankets of high-density polyethylene, and re-bottles chemical reagents used in clinical laboratories, thus saving money by concept of imports and transportation costs from other countries. The plastic bags come in different sizes to meet the clients’ demand for such a product, which is highly demanded on the domestic market.
Escambray – World leaders in the field of biotechnology will share their experiences with Cuban experts during an international forum to be held in this capital from October 20th through the 22nd. The Congress will include two symposiums among its main activities. Dr. Luis Herrera, president of the Organizing Committee of the HAVANA 2010 Biotechnology Congress, announced that the meeting will focus its attention on the comprehensive treatment of patients suffering from diabetic foot ulcers with the Cuban medicament HEBERPROT-P, the only one of its kind in the world.
Since its registration in Cuba in 2006, it has shown its effectiveness and safety by way of studies based on evidence, in stages 1, 2 and 3 of clinical trials, and later on by way of clinical experiences in the country and in nations like Venezuela, Algeria and Argentina. This novel medicament has benefited more than 10,000 patients. It´s a product based on the recombinant human growth factor. It makes it possible to heal lesions and reduce amputations in most cases, thus saving extremities that were condemned to mutilation. Developed by Havana´s Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB), HEBERPROT-P is used in a dozen countries and it´s an essential part of the basic group of medicaments for the treatment of Cuban patients, specified the specialist.
The expansion of its use was one of the island´s outstanding scientific results in 2009 in the field of biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. Over 300 million people suffer from diabetes worldwide, and diabetic foot ulcers are among the complications with the worst medical progress and diseases causing the largest amount of expenses in health systems, asserted Dr. Herrera, director of the CIGB. The Congress will include two symposiums, one on molecular biotechnology of the epidermal growth factor and its pharmagenomic, and another one aimed at reflecting the current situation of the comprehensive treatment of patients with diabetic foot ulcers.
Keysnet – By next summer, a huge semi-submersible oil rig is expected to be stationed about 40 to 50 miles from Key West for deepwater drilling to explore for oil in the Straits of Florida. The rig is part of a vast international business operation. The vessel was made in China, it’s owned by the Italian oil company Eni SpA, and it will be operated by Repsol, Spain’s oil and natural gas firm, which is also leasing the area known as the Jaguey from Cuba to look for oil.
The Scarabeo 9 rig, with a crew of about 220 people, will be drilling about 6,500 feet below the surface, more than a thousand feet deeper than the Macondo Prospect well — more commonly known as the DeepWater Horizon, for the drilling rig stationed in the Gulf of Mexico before it exploded and sank in April. Over the spring and summer, the Macondo well became the site of the largest oil spill in U.S. history. Great Britain, home of the company in charge of the Macondo well, British Petroleum, enjoys good diplomatic relations with the United States. Cuba, in contrast, has had a 50-year trade embargo imposed by the United States.
In the DeepWater Horizon disaster, bureaucratic red tape is at least partially to blame for the delay in cleaning up the nearly 5 million barrels of crude oil that gushed from the well before it was capped in July. The U.S. trade embargo against Cuba would prevent U.S. companies, in most cases, from helping with cleanup efforts in the event of an accident on the Scarabeo 9 rig. Even if exceptions were granted, there would at least be significant delays in aide coming from the United States, according to Lee Hunt, president of the International Association of Drilling Contractors, a Texas-based trade group. He said help would have to come from countries farther away.
The trade embargo also prevents Cuba from using technologies made in the United States, used here and in other countries, that are designed to stop or minimize blowouts like the DeepWater Horizon disaster, Hunt said. “If there was a blowout in the Jagüey, there would be significant delays in getting a rig shipped in here from Asia or Europe, under the current embargo situation,” Hunt said. “One impact of the embargo is it prevents companies from buying publicly available parts and supplies that are critical to the operation of equipment like blowout preventers.”
The Scarabeo 9 rig has some parts made in the United States, but because they make up less than 10 percent, the rig can circumvent at least three pieces of federal legislation dealing with the embargo, said Jorge Piñon, a visiting research fellow at the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University. Hunt recently returned from a visit to Cuba, where he invited the country’s state-run oil company, Cubapetroleo, or CUPET, to join the IADC. He is hopeful the State Department will give the organization an exception to the law that bans countries under U.S. sanctions from joining U.S. trade groups. The National Iranian Oil Company received an exception to join the drilling association, Hunt said.
Hunt is also hopeful that the inevitability of Cuba’s offshore drilling program will ease some restrictive aspects of the U.S. embargo. He said that the more the U.S. government and oil industry cooperate with Cuba on its drilling and exploration aspirations, the safer environmentally the Gulf of Mexico will be. “Our goal is for all countries to operate safely in one Gulf. We don’t want to see the Jagüey become another Macondo or Ixtoc,” Hunt said, referring to the two worst environmental disasters to affect the Gulf of Mexico. The Ixtoc spill in 1979 gushed 3 million barrels of oil that fouled the lower Texas coast.
Piñon said that ultimately, U.S. company Cameron Products will make the blowout preventers for the Scarabeo 9. Manufacturers in other counties make the same equipment, but Cameron’s location and prices for goods and services make it more appealing than international competitors. The Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control would have to approve the agreement because of the embargo, Piñon said. “Folks are looking at blowout preventers made in the U.S. but with foreign steel [and other materials], but again when the time comes we believe the U.S. will allow the sale,” Piñon said.
The amount of oil in the Jagüey and 17 additional blocks Cuba plans to lease for exploration depends on who you ask. The Cuban government and Repsol officials think there are 20 billion barrels of oil within the country’s offshore economic zone. But the U.S. Geological Survey puts the number at a much lower 4 billion barrels. “I’ll leave that to those guys to argue over. That’s not my area of expertise,” Hunt said.
Repsol found non-commercial crude off the Cuban coast in 2004, which was enough for the company to continue its business relationship with the Cuban government.
In the United States, drilling off the coasts has been a contentious issue for decades, and it became even more hairier politically since the DeepWater Horizon disaster. The Obama administration placed a moratorium on all deepwater drilling in U.S. waters in the spill’s aftermath. Some want the ban to continue, while others, including the oil industry and several Gulf state politicians, are urging President Obama to lift the suspension, saying it’s hurting employment in their states.
But Hunt and Piñon said much of the debate over whether the United States should open more of its coastline for oil and natural-gas exploration will change once drilling operations begin in nearby Cuba, especially if those explorations bear significant finds. “Cuba is a sovereign country whether we like it or not, and can conduct oil exploration within its exclusive economic zone,” Piñon said. Cuba, he said, has little choice but to look for oil, especially since it depends mostly on imports from Venezuela, which Piñon called “unstable.” While Cuba’s CUPET is ill-equipped to carry out drilling operations, many of the companies seeking to lease blocks off Cuba are veterans of offshore drilling, Piñon said. He added that the DeepWater Horizon incident was a game-changer in terms of following safety procedures.
Other companies planning to follow Repsol’s lead are Statoil of Norway, ONGC of India, Petrôleus of Venezuela, Brazil’s Petrobras, Russia’s Gazprom and Petronas of Malaysia, according to several media reports. “Cuba’s national oil company does not have the experience and/or technology for deepwater exploration,” Piñon said in an e-mail. “But I believe that the foreign operators operating in Cuba will now conduct business by the strictest rules in the book. From this point of view, the Deepwater Horizon incident helped us. [Repsol] can not risk the reputation and cost of another catastrophic incident.” Hunt said he’s also heard from people concerned that the rig may be unsafe because it was made in China. “One thing I’d like to respond to is the horrific response to the Chinese deep drilling. There are five rigs in the Gulf of Mexico right now that were made in China. The Chinese are not novices at this,” he said.
Havana – DTC – Investments were made in the eastern Cuban province of Ciego de Avila to improve food supplies to the domestic market. One of the projects is a meat-processing plant funded by the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA). The five-million-dollar equipment installed in the plant will increase the region’s capacity to slaughter pigs and cattle. The plant has reported a yield of 28.5 percent and has contributed to increasing supplies of processed meat in the form of sausage and mince. The increase in supplies of high-quality food has also contributed to reducing imports.
(Reuters) – Cuba’s oil industry wants to work with its counterparts in the United States and Mexico to promote safe drilling practices and avoid the kind of well blowout and spill seen recently in the Gulf of Mexico, a leading drilling industry expert said. Lee Hunt, President of the Houston-based International Association of Drilling Contractors, told Reuters during a visit to Havana he would like to see Cuba’s state oil company join the organization to be able to exchange information with its neighbors on drilling techniques, safety and regulation.
“Cubapetroleo (CUPET) is interested in joining and we have an interest in them being a member of the international drilling community,” Hunt said in an interview, after two days of talks in Cuba with local industry officials and regulators. The association officials, making their first visit to communist-ruled Cuba, said they were told the island was planning the drilling of seven test wells in 2011 and 2012 in Cuba’s offshore Gulf of Mexico acreage, confirming earlier reports of this development plan. Spain’s Repsol YPF (REP.MC) has announced that its consortium with Norway’s Statoil (STL.OL) and ONGC Videsh Ltd (ONGC.BO), a unit of India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corp, will drill at least one well early next year using a Chinese built rig owned by Saipem, a unit of Italian oil company Eni SpA.
The three consortium companies and Saipem are all associates of the drilling contractors’ group, Hunt said. “We are promoting the concept that there is one Gulf, shared by the United States, Mexico and Cuba and want a trilateral industry dialogue on safe practices to ensure unfortunate events such as have occurred in Mexico and more recently in the United States do not happen off the shores of Cuba,” Hunt said. Due to the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, the Houston-based Association of Drilling Contractors, representing 90 percent of the world’s drilling companies, will need approval from U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration for CUPET to actively join it as a member.
But exceptions for states under U.S. sanctions have been granted in the past, for example, to Iran’s oil company. “It is in the interest of everyone to promote communications that will prevent blowouts, spills and fires,” Hunt said. “A good relationship with the Cuban oil industry is very much in the interest of the American public as it will be drilling within 40 miles of Key West next year,” he added. Florida politicians have raised fears that Cuban drilling could lead to an accident like the BP (BP.L) (BP.N) oil spill, the world’s worst offshore oil accident, off the Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Obama administration has said it would allow U.S. companies that handle and clean up accidental oil spills to operate in Cuban waters should the need arise. Hunt said safety recommendations made by his organization to the U.S. administration in the wake of the BP spill were already in place in Cuba. “The Cuban oil industry has put a lot of research, study and thought into what will be required to safely drill … they are very knowledgeable of international industry practices and have incorporated many of these principles into their safety and regulatory planning and requirements,” he said.
CUPET estimates it has up to 20 billion barrels of oil in its offshore areas, but the U.S. Geological Survey has estimated a more modest 4.6 billion barrels and 10 trillion cubic feet of gas. Cuba currently produces about 60,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd), all from onshore wells. It receives about 115,000 bpd from ally Venezuela on favorable terms. The China-built drilling rig is expected to arrive in Cuban waters early next year and companies have begun preparations to drill once the Scarabeo 9 rig gets to the island. Cuba has divided its share of the Gulf into 59 blocks, 21 of which are already under lease to seven companies.
Diplomats in Havana have said Malaysia’s Petronas (PETR.KL) is also planning to use the China-built rig. Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA has said it plans to sink its first exploratory well in Cuba’s offshore next year. Other companies with blocks there are Vietnam state oil and gas group Petrovietnam and Brazil’s Petrobras (PETR4.SA), while firms from Russia, China and Angola are in the process of negotiating exploration rights.
Cuba Standard – A rig about to be completed in a Chinese shipyard is booked for seven exploratory drills in Cuban waters, beginning in early 2011, a trade association official told Reuters in Havana. The seven projects are slated to begin in early 2011 and end in 2012, Lee Hunt, President of the International Association of Drilling Contractors (IADC) was told by Cuban officials during a visit to Havana. The first drill will be for a consortium led by Spain’s Repsol YPF, but neither Cuba nor the owner of the rig have said whether any other oil companies will contract the drilling platform.
The drilling of the Scarabeo-9 rig, owned by Saipem, a subsidiary of Italian oil company ENI SpA, would be the by far biggest concerted effort ever to tap oil in Cuban waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Only two offshore test drills have been performed in Cuban waters so far; in 2006, a drill by Repsol found high-quality oil, but not in commercial quantities.
Seven drills planned in Cuba: Saipem’s Scarabeo-9
According to Reuters, Hunt also said that Cuban state oil company CubaPetróleo (Cupet) is interested in joining IADC as a member. A delegation of the Houston-based trade association is currently on the island, on invitation by the Cuban government which wants to be briefed on international security standards in offshore drilling. IADC is an international organization, but the U.S. government would require a special permit to allow financial transactions with a Cuban entity. The Iranian state oil company is a member. The arrival of the drilling rig seems to have sped up contracting and partnering in the Cuban offshore scene. Chinese state oil company CNPC is in negotiations with
Cupet over contracting four blocks on the western fringe of Cuban waters, Miami oil consultant Jorge Piñón told Cuba Standard. Chinese drilling on the Cuban side of the Gulf is a politically explosive issue in Washington.
Also, Angolan state oil company Sonangol, according to Piñón, is negotiating with Cuba contracting four blocks near the U.S. marine boundary relinquished by Sherritt International Corp. Sonangol has helped Cupet in an investment in onshore drilling in Angola last year and is a partner with Cupet in Venezuela’s Orinoco basin. Finally, the oil subsidiary of Russian gas giant Gazprom is in talks to become a junior partner of India’s ONGC Videsh, which contracted two blocks. Gazprom Neft recently agreed with Petronas to become a junior partner on four blocks contracted by the Malaysian state company.
Map courtesy Jorge Piñón
Onshore activity in Cuba. Map courtesy Jorge Piñón
Havana – DTC – The central Cuban province of Cienfuegos has increased production of natural fiber to meet the demand from the domestic market. One of those fibers is henequen, which is used to make sacks for the agricultural and sugarcane sectors. Cienfuegos has produced 145 tons of henequen fiber so far this year, and production is expected to increase, after the plants are harvested. The development plan until 2015 includes the renovation of the over-80-year-old industry. Henequen is also produced and processed in western Matanzas and eastern Holguín provinces.
Havana – DTC – The recording house Estudios Siboney, attached to Empresa de Grabaciones y Ediciones Musicales (EGREM), has 30 years’ experience in promoting Cuban musical culture. Based in eastern Santiago de Cuba province, Estudios Siboney has a large archive of recordings, including traditional and folkloric music, as well as “son”. The first record produced by Estudios Siboney was a 45-rpm record containing the songs “La Lupe” on one side and “A Santiago” on the other side. Both tracks were performed by Orquesta de Música Moderna. Estudios Siboney’s catalog includes recordings by the orchestras Rumbavana and Aliamén, and singers Fernando Alvarez, Lino Borges, Gina León and Pacho Alonso. The recording house is producing a CD by the orchestra Son 14, featuring singers Adalberto Alvarez, Omara Portuondo and Eliades Ochoa, among others.
Radio Cadena Agramonte – Nuevitas, Camagüey – After a successful 72-hour testing period, the third battery of a power mini-generators setting in the municipality of Nuevitas, near the Diez de Octubre thermal power plant, is ready to join the national power grid (SEN), as the first and second units previously did. Project director Eladio Ávalos Rosales stated that this step will allow Cuban and foreign specialists and technical staffers to focus on the works to put into action the fourth battery, after having completed 95 percent of its mechanical assembly, while they have finished 75 per cent of the automatic one. Aside from being the largest setting of this kind installed in Camagüey with a generation capacity of 40 Megawatts, it also features other distinctive qualities.
This 36 million dollars investment, the greatest carried out by the Unión Electrica in Camagüey and the only one indoor gives additional protection and creates better working conditions for the employees. Conceived under new principles that the works should be inaugurated not only when they are finished, but after having shown its operational capacities, the setting has gradually incorporated 17 895 MW.h to the SEN. The fourth and last unity must be finished in December; and after that an oil pipeline heading to Nuevitas’ thermal power plant, roads, street lights and a building that will provide space for the office staff should also be completed.
As told by engineer Juan Crespo Salas, General Manager of the “Diez de Octubre” power station, the installation of this oil pipeline and the proximity to the plant will make possible a substantial fuel saving, given that no tank trucks will be necessary and will allow, in case of natural disasters, to put into gear the thermal power plant regardless the weather condition. As part of the energy-saving revolution, Cuba has undertaken works like this one near other major power stations like Mariel, Guiteras, Renté and Felton. The erection of those brand-new fuel oil power mini-generators should not be seen as a bad omen for the old Camagüey-based powerhouse, but as a backup. When the whole project gets set, Nuevitas will ratify its generation potentials which will be reaching 475 MW.
