One Dead and 14 Injured in Sancti Spiritus Crash

Traffic crashes are the fifth leading cause of death in Cuba (Escambray)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 12 January 2018  — One person died and 14 others were injured in a crash on Thursday afternoon on the highway that connects with city of Sancti Spiritus with the town of Guasimal. A truck from the state company Acopiobeing used as public transport overturned on the curve known as El Fiel, according to a report aired in the Buenos Dias TV program.

The truck, loaded with passengers the back, overturned after meeting a jeep on the curve and taking maneuvers to avoid a collision. Aramís Macías Rodríguez, 42, a resident of Paredes, lost his life in the crash and among the 14 injured there are three minors. continue reading

The injured adults are being treated at the Camilo Cienfuegos Provincial Hospital in Sancti Spíritus and at least three of them are in critical condition with life threatening injuries, a doctor from the hospital center told national television.

“The rest of the patients have less serious injuries and are under observation, and in the next few hours we will determine how to proceed with them,” the doctor added.

The children who suffered injuries in the accident are being treated in the José Martí Pediatric Hospital in the same city.

“Makeshift” buses are common in Cuba; here a cart pulled by a tractor is used as a bus in Pinar del Rio. (MJ Porter)

Traffic crashes are the fifth leading cause of death in Cuba. In the last five years crashes have also caused monetary losses estimated at 2.5 billion Cuban pesos, about 100 million dollars, which is between 1% and 5% of the island’s GDP.

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

"I’ll Die As I Lived: Standing in Line"

The Cienfuegos “Municipal Procedures Unit” with images of Fidel Castro playing in a look while people wait for hours for their turn. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, 23 January 2018 — It’s two o’clock in the morning and on San Carlos Street in Cienfuegos all you can hear are the crickets. For Jesús, it’s a late night like any other. He retired from his job as a bus driver almost a decade ago, and at 75 he has enough energy to take the first shifts in the line for dealing with government paperwork, places he will resell later in the day.

“The line is an art. You have to learn how to master it so you can go on living,” he says, while having a cup of coffee near the bus terminal.

For each place in line he manages to sell he charges 50 pesos in national currency, about $2 US or a fifth of his monthly pension. “This is a country for retirees because they are the ones who can stand in these long lines for everything,” he says. “If I lived on what the State pays me for working for them for years, I would be in misery.” continue reading

By six in the morning there are already more than 20 people outside the Municipal Procedures Unit and Jesús has the first two places in the line. “There are two lines,” he explains. “The longest is to request an identity card, passport and address changes, the other line is for foreigners, for non-Cubans who want to reside on the Island and for Cubans living abroad who wish to repatriate.”

Two hours later the line begins to become a crowd. There are already around 60 people who forcefully cram themselves against the doors of the official building, which remains closed.

“When do they open, at 8:00 or at 8:30?” says an annoyed woman. There is no visible sign showing the office hours.

The murmurs and complaints increase. “It’s always the same with these people, they treat the people as if they were sheep,” says someone.

“This is nice, you just have to understand it,” replies another person sarcastically. “We’re going to see when Cuba Dice (Cuba Says — a program on state television that talks about irregularities and negligence) is going to do a program on this,” adds a third voice.

At about 8 o’clock in the morning the door opens and a Major of the Ministry of the Interior addresses the crowd that has been waiting for hours. “Good morning, compañeros, we are going to have one line to enter the office, foreigners and Cubans who live abroad make one line, and the rest make another,” he says.

The officer makes it clear that it is not his task to organize the line. “You are making the line and if someone sneaks in, it is not our problem, you should be alert and disciplined so that the line can proceed,” he adds.

For Jesús this is the worst moment. The retiree finds it difficult to have to squeeze together with several dozen people in the entrance hall to the government office. He has had to endure several nudges, pushes, stomps, and even fights to secure one of the first places in line. His food depends on it.

“After I get past the line, when I’m already inside, I wait for the person who will come to take their turn. Payment is always made in advance, it’s hard work, but it’s better than standing guard at a kindergarten,” he explains. The business arrangements are made days in advance and he finds his customers through the recommendations of others who were satisfied with the way he handled himself.

The Paperwork Unit waiting room is “torture,” in the words of Jesús.

“It occured to some official to set up a television set with images of Fidel, so for the whole time you’re waiting (it could be four or five hours), you listen to songs dedicated to the comandante and see his image,” he says.

The sequence with images of Castro includes episodes from his childhood, the struggle in the Sierra Maestra, the battles of the Bay of Pigs, his work as president from the ’70s to the ’90s and several images of his convalescence after his abdominal surgery.

Every six seconds or so the images of the former president alternate with classic themes of the revolutionary repertoire: “Singing and weeping of the earth, singing and weeping of the glory,” sings the now deceased Sara González. Pablo Milanes follows her with songs like It has not been easy or If the poet is you. Nor is the sequence missing Silvio Rodriguez with The Fool, and Riding with Fidel, by Raul Torres. The Buena Fe duo is also part of the slideshow with songs dedicated to the Revolution.

Fidel with Evo Morales, Fidel with the boy Elián, Fidel with Rafael Correa, Fidel with Hugo Chávez, Fidel with Maduro, Fidel with Raúl, Fidel with Cristina Fernández, Fidel with Ortega, Fidel at the Bay of Pigs, Fidel with the ’White Udder’ cow, Fidel pushing his jeep during the Special Period … In five hours waiting for a turn to complete some paperwork those who wait are exposed to at least 3,000 images of the former president.

“And this with the deceased having said he didn’t want people to worship his personality. The officer who sits next to the television must dream of Fidel every night,” Jesús says sarcastically.

The retiree considers himself “a paperworkologist ” and gives great importance to his work. “People need to work, study, take care of their lives, not spend hours in line, that’s why my work is so well paid,” he says.

Around nine o’clock in the morning, he turns over his place in line to the person who needs to complete some paperwork and goes home to the San Lazaro neighborhood.

According to the old man, in a week he can charge the equivalent of his monthly pension. “It’s the way I can help my family, my grandchildren, in the end, the old ones like me, all they have left is this,” and he jokingly paraphrases one of Silvio Rodríguez’s classic themes: “I’ll die as I lived: standing in line.”

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

More Than 15,000 Cubans Spend 100 Million Dollars a Year in the Colon Free Zone

With their individual purchases, Cubans are helping to make up for the decline in business in the Colon Free Zone. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 18 January 2018 — Ordinary Cubans are helping the Colon Free Zone (CFZ) to make up for the decline in purchases from Venezuela, whose profound economic crisis is having a strong negative impact on the largest free zone in the world, located on Panama’s Atlantic coast.

According to the CFZ’s manager, Manuel Grimaldo, more than 15,000 Cubans arrive annually at Colon and spend some 100 million dollars. To feed this business, the Panamanian Government grants 1,000 visas a month to residents of the Island.

Jorge, 39, is one of the Cubans who participates in this small-scale trade. When he discovered the “mother lode” of importing merchandise, he quit working for himself as a carpenter and got his first visa at the beginning of 2017. Since then he has traveled to Panama every month to buy appliances, clothing and footwear. A few days ago, arriving by ship through the company CubaPack, were an air conditioner and a semi-automatic washing machine, some of the equipment most in demand in the informal Cuban market. continue reading

“I took advantage of the fact that January began and that I am entitled to a new annual import paid in national currency* to bring these things, but the rest of the year I keep selling medicines, sports shoes, clothing and packaged foods,” says Jorge.

His wife, a graduate in chemical engineering, hopes to obtain a visa soon to accompany him to Panama. “Two carry more than one,” he says. In the letter that she presented to the Panamanian consulate in Havana, she explains that she wants to know that country because of its “vibrant culture and its many commercial options.”

This Cuban market is one of the objectives that Panama intends to focus on, in addition to electronic commerce, to overcome the crisis. The total commercial activity of the CFZ in 2017 was 19.7 billion, just 0.3% more than in 2016, and below the 21.7 billion dollars of the previous year.

“With those figures, the free zone will continue to be maintained, it will never disappear, so we want it to be more competitive with a modern image and the electronic [commerce] implementations planned,” said the administrator.

The poor results are attributed to poor planning on the part of the Zone and the crisis in Venezuela and Colombia. Of the more than 3,200 companies involved in 2011, just over 2,600 are still operating. Grimaldo declared that he had to deal with the payment of debts in the amount of 400 million dollars to collaborators when he assumed his position.

The debt of Venezuelan importers, close to 600 million dollars according to official data, and an extraordinary duty applied by Colombia to the re-exports of footwear and textiles, have hurt the merchandise distribution center.

Another of the business strategies is to increase electronic sales, which so far represent a very small margin. Only 70 companies in the CFZ are currently engaged in e-commerce.

Recently the CFZ established an Institutional Committee to prevent money laundering, the financing of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, among other measures, and Grimaldo said the entrepreneurs welcome this but more training is needed.

“Before the business was to buy goods and take them back to their countries, with the transactions always in cash and there was no mystery to it (…), I can’t say that there has been money laundering in the CFZ, our entrepreneurs have always been serious, it’s just that they need adapt to a new business model and comply with international regulations, which they are now doing and it’s working better,” he said.

“The Free Zone, which is about to be 70 years old, remains the most important tax-free center in the world. It is the only one with three ports that move almost 3.2 million containers, the Panama Canal, a freight train and the Enrique A. Jiménez Airport, located in Colón, which offers flights to Panama City and other destinations,” explained Grimaldo.

He said that imports in 2017 totaled 9.17 billion dollars in household appliances, jewelry, bedding and linens; and re-exports amounted to 10.54 billion dollars for pharmaceutical products, alcoholic beverages and cigarettes.

In October of last year, a case came to light of a ghost company located in the Colon Free Zone that conned dozens of ‘mules’ who paid them for their shipping services to the island. PC-Cargo, the company responsible for the fraud, offered parcel service to those who wanted to send heavy loads such as washing machines, televisions, refrigerators and other appliances to Cuba.

At that time, an official of the Free Zone administration confirmed to 14ymedio that the incident was being investigated but that they could not “give details of the inquiries made.”

“Cubans who have lost their money are receiving legal aid,” and the case is in the hands of the Prosecutor’s Office, the source said.

*Translator’s note: Cuban customs sets very high fees for imports, but Cubans resident on the island are allowed, once a year, to pay the import fees in Cuban pesos instead of the usual Cuban convertible pesos, which means that they pay 1/25th of the usual fee.

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Cuba Nominates Candidates for Parliament Who Will Elect Castro’s Replacement

This video, unsubtitled, is of Miguel Diaz-Canel, Cuba’s first vice-president. The text before the video begins reads: “More censorship and fewer entrepreneurs is the message Miguel Diaz-Canel delivered to Party cadres last February at special conference.”

14ymedio biggerEFE via 14ymedio, Havana, 22 January 2018 — On Sunday, the 168 Municipal Assemblies of Cuba’s People’s Power nominated their candidates for the National Parliament. The candidates will be elected in the March 11th general elections and will be responsible for choosing the new president that will replace Raúl Castro.

Raúl Castro, 86, was nominated to be a deputy to the 2018 National Assembly of People’s Power by delegates of the Second Front Municipal Assembly, in the province of Santiago de Cuba, the official press reported. continue reading

Also nominated as a candidate to parliament, in the Santa Clara Municipal Assembly, was current first vice-president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, who is predicted to rise to the presidency of Cuba this coming April, when the new Parliament is constituted.

At the Santa Clara meeting Diaz-Canel, 57, emphasized the high numbers of young people in this electoral process and said that among the nominees there is a “perfect” social composition, including a similar share of men and women, candidates of all races, as well as people of all ages.

“There is a certainty that they will represent their constituents with dignity, since the people choose them because of their ability to defenthe common interests in higher instances,” he said.

On the same day, also approved were the candidacies of the 1,265 delegates of the Provincial Assemblies of People’s Power, who will also be elected at the polls on March 11th for a period of five years, like the national deputies.

The Cuban Electoral Law establishes that up to 50% of national deputies can be nominated to participate in elections by municipal delegates, while the rest of the members of Parliament are proposed by social organizations, all of them pro-government.

To be approved, candidates for deputy must receive more than half of the favorable votes from the delegates of their constituency.

According to the electoral timetable, between Monday and March 10, the eve of the elections, the nominees will visit their communities, workplaces and service centers, while the municipal electoral commissions will post their photos and biographies so that they will be recognized by the population.

The electoral process that will culminate in the replacement of Raúl Castro began on November 26 with the holding of municipal elections, in which about 7.6 million people voted, a participation rate of just under 86%*.

The new Parliament that emerges from the March elections will be officially seated on April 19, when the deputies must propose and elect the primary positions of the incoming government, including the president of the country who, for the first time in almost six decades, will not carry the surname Castro.

The Cuban electoral law establishes that the members of the Council of State are elected from a proposal prepared by a Nominations Commission, made up by deputies elected in the general elections, which is then put to a vote in the Parliament.

*Translator’s note: A record low rate in a country where voting is mandatory.

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Twelve Years Later, Cuba Receives 344 Modern Russian Ladas

The Lada, the leading car brand in Russia, has been operating in Cuba for more than forty years. (Youtube)

14ymedio biggerEFE, via 14ymedio, 20 January 2018 — Three-hundred-and-forty-four modern Ladas manufactured by the Russian car company Avtovaz arrived today at the port of Havana, which means a return of the importing of these vehicles to the Island after a twelve year hiatus.

The new vehicles, Vesta and Largus Cross models, manufactured by Russia’s largest automobile company, will be destined for the service with the Cubataxi company, explained the General Director of Transport of Havana, José Conesa, according to the state-owned Cuban Agency News (ACN). continue reading

The Lada, the leading brand in the Russian market, has been operating for more than forty years on the island, with thousands of the old 1200 and 1500 models, and the Samara models from the eighties and nineties.

“Cuba is one of our preferred export markets,” Avtovaz president Nicolas Maure said this week, ACN reported.

Maure highlighted the great tradition that Lada has in Cuba and assured that the company is committed to guaranteeing the availability of spare parts and the training of Cuban technicians in the after-sales service.

The sale of these Russian vehicles to Cuba is part of a transportation agreement signed between the governments of both countries in December 2016, which also includes the modernization of the island’s rail system, for which an investment of some one billion euros (about 1.054 billion dollars) is planned.

In recent years Cuba and Russia have given a boost to their bilateral relationship to reactivate the close cooperation they maintained before the demise of the Soviet Union (USSR) in 1991, with the signing of new economic cooperation agreements in several sectors.

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Article on the Situation of Farms in Cuba Wins First Economic Rights Contest

The winner also received one of the mentions in this first contest of economic rights in Cuba. (OCDH)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Madrid, 22 January 2018 — Germán M. González, author of The Current Situation Of The Farmer In Cuba, Usufruct And The Social Security Of The Small Farmer, is the winner of the First Economic Rights Contest in Cuba convened by the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights.

In the article, González details the failed agrarian policy carried out on the island since 1959 and proposes a list of urgent measures aimed at reversing the bad situation in the sector. Among these measures are freedom of association, the elimination of the state’s monopoly on purchase of farm products, rationalization of procedures to access land leases under the structure known usufruct, and several measures aimed at improving access to credit and social security for workers. continue reading

The contest jury, made up of Marlene Azor Hernández, a PhD in Social Sciences and Humanities, and the outstanding economists Énix Berrio Sardá and Elías Amor Bravo, commented on the quality and the critical proactive thinking of most of the 21 articles submitted.

Four additional articles obtained a special mention: Are There Real Agricultural Cooperatives In Cuba?, by Osmel Ramírez Álvarez; The Legal-Labor Insecurity Of Workers In The Non-State Sector In Cuba, by Rainer Pérez Castillo; Actions To Reactivate The Cuban Economy, by José Raúl Batista Rodríguez; and Legal And Fiscal Framework Of Self-Employment In The New Context Of Cuba, also by Germán M. González.

Germán M. González has a degree in Accounting and Finance and has worked as an economist, especially in the agricultural sector. He was the senior manager in large Cuban state companies and International Associations and he taught as an adjunct professor at the University of Havana. He has also written and published articles in media such as Palabra Nueva y Vitral; Blondín; the Somos+ blog; Cubaencuentro; laislaperdida.wordpress (’The Forgotten Island’); and other digital publications.

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Cuba Looks to Peru to Solve Potato Shortage

The sale of potatoes in Santiago de Cuba. (Yosmani Mayeta / 14ymedio)

14ymedio biggerZunilda Mata, Havana, 22 January 2018 — Cuba is intending to buy Peru’s surplus potatoes, if and when they meet the the phytosanitary requirements for export. Peru’s Minister of Agriculture, José Arista, reported on the efforts made by the Cuban embassy in Lima during a meeting with local producers last Wednesday, which was reported in the newspaper La República on Sunday.

The information comes to light in the midst of the “cold season,” the period during which most of the Cuban potato harvest takes place, which ends more or less in March. This year the crop forecasts are not optimistic due to the intense rains of recent months and the damages caused by Hurricane Irma. continue reading

In the provinces of Matanzas, Villa Clara, Cienfuegos and Ciego de Ávila, among the most affected by the hurricane, the Agricultural Business Group (GAG)  had planned to plant 7,942 acres of potatoes during the month of October so that the product would arrive in state agricultural markets in January and February.

However, by mid-December, only 10% of the target acreage had been sown, according to the official press, due to the rains and the wetness of the land that affected the sowing of the crop.

Fabian Lozano, a farmer from Artemisa, has been engaged for five years in the harvest of the tuber but is about to surrender due to the difficulties involved in growing it. “It is a crop that demands a lot of care,” the farmer tells 14ymedio by phone. “It is not just a matter of climate but it is necessary to have a stable technological package,” he laments.

An efficient irrigation system and the availability of fertilizers and insecticides supplied on time are essential for this product to succeed, given that it is not native to the Island. Access to the seed, which is mainly imported from the Netherlands and Canada, can also become a headache.

A national variety known as Romano is more resistant to pests and is an option to ease these demanding requirements, but its performance leaves much to be desired. “It is a more resistant potato but when it comes to harvesting or reproducing, a lot is lost,” says Lozano.

Specialists expect the Romano variety to yield 600 to 660 tons (US measure) per 33 acres when the conditions are ideal, but imported specimens yield 716 tons, according to sources of the Ministry of Agriculture consulted by this newspaper.

The Artemiseño municipality of Alquízar, where Lozano lives, produces one of the largest potato crops in the country. With fertile and flat land, the growers planned to plant nearly 620 acres this season, but the authorities have not yet revealed whether the initial goal was achieved.

“We have had many problems with the seed because there is a lot of loss due to theft,” the administrator of a Basic Unit of Cooperative Production in the area, who preferred anonymity, tells this newspaper. “We work with imported seeds but we lose up to a third of it because of the diversion of resources,” he reveals.

In Cuba the potato is sown mainly through pieces of the tuber itself, which is called “seed,” a practice that helps to maintain the genetic makeup of the plant without alterations. Proper storage of the seed is crucial for the subsequent quality of the harvested food.

“Sometimes we have to guard the potato seed more closely than the cows,” laments the administrator. “When we are sowing we always have to have a group of workers bending over the furrow and another group watching so that they do not take the seed.”

In the informal market in the area, private farmers value the foreign seed greatly because “it yields more and the final product is more marketable,” Lozano says. “Here there are many producers who sell directly to the owners of private restaurants who want a nice, big, meaty and healthy potato,” he points out.

“The customer can choose between these three side dishes: rice, fried potatoes or mashed potatoes (not instant),” clarifies a letter from a private restaurant in the Havana municipality of Playa. The owners of these restaurants often have to turn to the precooked or powdered product to make up for shortages of raw potatoes.

“We have many diners who are diplomats in the area of the city where we are located, as well as tourists who know very well what a potato is in its natural state,” explains Miguel Ángel, a waiter at a private restaurant a few yards from the coast with a spectacular view of the sea.

Maintaining the supply of fresh potatoes is “more difficult than buying lobster or shrimp,” says the employee. “For years we have established an agreement with several producers to buy directly all their production and then we have to refrigerate it ourselves so that it lasts for the better part of the year.”

Potato production has plummeted on the island since 1996, when 384,000 tons were produced and the country exported the tuber. In 2015, amidst the increase in consumption due to the growth of tourism and the private sector, barely 137,000 tons were collected and the Government was forced to import 17,000 tons, almost twice as much as in 2014, according to data from the Statistical Yearbook.

The potato is a product with a strong symbolic importance for Cuban families. Until 2009 its distribution was exclusively through the rationed market at a price of 0.45 Cuban pesos (roughly 2¢ US) per pound and its cultivation was a monopoly of state entities.

In 2009, one year after Raúl Castro formally assumed the presidency, the government de-controlled the tuber and allowed — for the first time in decades — it to be planted in plots that were not under the control of the State or a cooperative. This “liberalization” of the potato became an emblem of the so-called “Raulist reforms.”

However, the official calls to achieve elf-sufficiency in potato production and the delivery of lands to private formers in a form of leasing known as usufruct as a way to cut imports did not yield the expected results. By the end of 2017, the country was importing more than 80% of the food it consumes, at an annual cost exceeding two billion dollars.

In 2017, the potato was once again regulated, although the authorities maintain that this was not a return to rationing. Each Havana consumer can only buy 14 pounds of the product spread over three months and must show their ration book, but the price per pound has risen to 1 Cuban peso (roughly 4¢ US).

The potato is the star of the black market from the middle of the month of February until well into the spring. For 1 Convertible peso (24 Cuban pesos) you can buy a bag of potatoes with about five pounds of first quality and totally clean tubers (that is you are not paying for any dirt clinging to them), just outside the same markets where potatoes are offered in a regulated manner.

Miguel Alejandro Figueras, 2007 winner of the Cuban National Economy Prize, says that “per capita potato consumption in Cuba in 1985 was about 60 pounds” annually. In 1985, “the production exceeded 330,000 tons, accounting for 44% of all the tubers consumed in the country.” Of every 10 pounds of tubers eaten at domestic tables, almost half were potatoes.

Currently per capita consumption “is, at most, about 10-11 pounds, one-sixth of thirty years ago,” says the specialist. In 2014, the potato only accounted for 3% of the total production of root vegetables and tubers.

As of 2007, the number of areas dedicated to the cultivation of Solanum tuberosum was reduced. For Miguel Alejandro Figueras the prognosis is not promising: “Every season we plant less.” The economist notes that in the VI Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba where “the 313 Guidelines” were approved for economic policy, among them 37 specific to the agricultural sector, “the potato is not mentioned in any.”

Importing potatoes from Peru can be a solution that addresses demand while the national production remains in a slump.

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

We Are All Norwegians

The president of the United States, Donald Trump, wants only blond, tall, orderly, hard-working, educated and clean people, like the Norwegians, to emigrate to the US. (EFE)

14ymedio biggerDonald Trump would like Norwegian immigrants. Blond, tall, orderly, hard-working, educated and clean people. Successful people with whom he shares physical features and certain traits. But it’s unlikely that he’ll have any luck. Today, Norwegians enjoy a standard of living higher than Americans and find that in their democratic, free and peaceful homeland there are plenty of opportunities to improve themselves by their own efforts. They have no reason to emigrate. Almost no one likes to depart for destinations unknown.

In contrast, fate (or geography, which is almost always the same) has delivered to Trump Mexican, Brazilian, Guatemalan, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Honduran, Haitian, Colombian and — lately — Venezuelan immigrants and other “shitty people” who flee from their failed societies in search of security and progress. (“Shithole” people is the denigrating and unfair term put into service by the president of the United States himself in a conversation that allegedly was private.) continue reading

In reality, two thirds of the world’s population are much closer to the “shitty” people than to Norwegians. A lax description of the societies in India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Indonesia, China, the Arab and sub-Saharan nations, a part of Europe, Russia and Latin America would elicit from Trump the same offensive definition he utilized for Salvadorans, Haitians and Africans.

In any case, it is absurd to think that the solution to problems is in social homogeneity. Sharing a single race, a single religion, a single language only guarantees us boredom, monotony and abuse. That’s the road to Nazism and the extermination of different people. The glorious message of republican ideas and parliamentary monarchies is that diversity is not only inevitable but also very convenient.

The 1790 census in the United States tallied roughly 4 million white Americans, almost all of English and Irish origin, and half a million black slaves. Only a handful of native Americans remained, and they weren’t even counted. In 2018, we have 325 million people, of whom 72 percent are white, 13 percent black and 16 percent Hispanic, a strange definition that is attributable to the European colonizer.

This enormous leap has been achieved while the country rose to the head of the planet. In 1890, the United States already was the world’s largest economy. After more than a century, it continues to be, although it grows at the rate of only 2 percent a year. This means that, at least until today, the machine that turns “shitty” people into productive and wealth-producing citizens has worked splendidly, an extreme that should not surprise us. The species is the same. What changes is the circumstances, the incentives and the institutions.

The children of the Polish or Russian peasants, in numerous cases born in tiny Jewish villages, or shtetls, became renowned doctors, lawyers and scholars of all kinds. The Indians, fragmented into 200 castes in their homeland, were the segment with the highest level of income in the United States. The second generation of Cubans, whose fathers had turned their island into an unproductive collectivist disaster, attained a high degree of education and economic performance.

What I mean to say is that the United States does not need Norwegians. It needs institutions, fair laws, opportunities for newcomers to develop, and moral and material incentives for individual enterprise. If that holds, the Haitians will slowly become Norwegians, even though they’ll keep their ethnic features.

After all, today’s admirable Norwegians were once fierce Vikings, crass and brutal, who had a bad habit of spitting into the bathtub where they washed off the blood and mud that covered them after they exterminated their adversaries. That’s when the Norwegians were shitty people.

Note: Translation from El Blog de Montaner

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Cuba Recognizes Immigration Advance with U.S. But Requests End to Cuban Adjustment Act

Cuban rafters being repatriated by the United States Coast Guard. (EFE)

14ymedio biggerEFE, via 14ymedio, 12 January 2018 — Cuba has recognized the advance that was made for immigration connections with the U.S. with the repeal, a year ago, of the “wet foot/dry foot” policy, which offered preferential treatment to Cuban citizens, but insisted that “normalization” would not take place while the Cuban Adjustment Act continues in effect.

The end of “wet foot/dry foot” was “one of the most transcendental steps” in the new stage that both countries are going through after the official reestablishment of relations after more than a half-century of staunch hostility, according to an article published this Friday in the state newspaper Granma in a supplement dedicated to the anniversary of the development.

The official organ of the governing Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) recognized that the end of “wet foot/dry foot” policy has reduced “almost to zero” the “illegal exits by makeshift means.” continue reading

Introduced in 1995, this policy was the result of an agreement between the administration of U.S. ex-President Bill Clinton with Havana, and the revision of the Cuban Adjustment Act, in effect since 1966, which authorizes Cubans to receive permanent residence after one year of their stay in the U.S.

“Wet foot/dry foot” guaranteed refuge to all Cubans who managed to step foot on the territory of the U.S., either in a regular or irregular way (“dry foot”), but committed the U.S. to send back those detained at sea (“wet foot”).

This was, for years, an incentive for thousands of Cubans to launch themselves into the sea on fragile boats with the hope of crossing the Straits of Florida and touching land.

An article in Granma about the “convulsive history” of migration between the two nations, separated by 90 miles of sea, recalls that the Cuban State considers this policy as “a stimulus for irregular emigration, the trafficking of migrants and irregular entrances to the U.S. from Third World countries.”

“Upon admitting them (Cubans) automatically on their territory, [the U.S.] gave them preferential and unique treatment that citizens from other countries don’t receive, so that it was also inciting illegal exits,” said an official communication of the Cuban Government released on January 12, 2017 and cited this Friday by the newspaper.

Its implementation “caused an immigration crisis, the hijacking of boats and planes and the commission of crimes, like human trafficking, slavery, immigration fraud and violence, with a growing destabilizing extraterritorial impact on other countries of the region used as transit points.”

It also mentioned, as an advance in bilateral immigration relations, the end to the program of Parole for Cuban Doctors, which incentivized the abandonment of medical missions in third countries, principally in Latin America.

In spite of this, for the Island, “it is impossible to think about the normalization of immigration relations between the two countries without the North American Congress putting an end” to the Cuban Law of Adjustment.

Together with the end of the U.S. embargo, or “blockade,” the repeal of this law is one of the principal demands of the Cuban Government for normalizing all its relations with its neighbor to the north.

The article also mentions the present tension in bilateral relations owing to the shift in policies of President Donald Trump’s administration, that try to reverse the advances of the “thaw” accomplished by his predecessor, Barack Obama, and the Cuban leader Raúl Castro.

Faced with this position, Cuba has expressed its desire to continue communication and has affirmed that “the solution is up to the U.S.”

More than 896,000 Cubans have come legally to the U.S., of a total of 2.6 million who have left the Island since the immigration reforms  were put into effect in Cuba five years ago, abolishing the requirement for an exit permit.

Since January 1, Cuba has eliminated the residence requirement for children of Cubans born in the Exterior to receive citizenship, eliminated the requirement for a passport stamp from a Cuban consulate abroad for Cuban citizens to re-enter their country and authorized the entrance via yachts for Cubans who have emigrated, although this restriction is still in effect for those who live on the Island.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Bachelet Kicks Off Her Official Visit to Cuba With a Gathering of Artists / 14yMedio

The president of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, attended a meeting with Cuban intellectuals at the headquarters of the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) where she was hosted by its president, Miguel Barnet. (Alejandro Ernesto / EFE)

14ymedio biggerEFE via 14ymedio, Yeny García, Havana, 8 January 2018 — Chilean president Michelle Bachelet began her official visit to Cuba on Sunday — her penultimate trip abroad as head of state — with a gathering of the island’s leading artists and the signing of a collaboration agreement in film restoration and promotion.

Bachelet arrived in Havana in the early hours of Sunday and later visited the headquarters of the official Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), where she met behind closed doors with its president, the writer Miguel Barnet, and the famous actor Jorge Perugorría.

Barnet, author of the acclaimed Biography of a Cimarron (1966), had a short private meeting with the union president, who showed her the gardens of the house occupied by the organization in Havana’s Vedado neighborhood. continue reading

Later, at the Villa Manuela Gallery, Bachelet attended the signing of a collaboration agreement between Chile’s National Council of Culture and the Arts and the state-run Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC).

Chile and ICAIC agreed to collaborate in the identification of patrimonial films to be restored, in addition to promoting the exhibition of Cuban films in Chile, ICAIC president Roberto Smith explained to the press.

Smith highlighted the “historic links” between the cinematographies of both nations, especially the Viña del Mar Film Festival of 1967, to which Havana’s New Latin American Film Festival “declares itself indebted.” Strengthening the alliance between both countries’ filmmaking is “an old aspiration” of Cuba, stressed the official.

This Monday Michelle Bachelet will start her second and last day of her official visit to Havana with the inauguration of a business forum at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba.

Businessmen traveling in the presidential delegation in search of new opportunities for Chilean investments in the Island, which currently amount to 52 million dollars, will participate in the bilateral meeting.

Bachelet will also visit a school of education named after the former Chilean president Salvador Allende (1970-1973), where the signing of a bilateral collaboration agreement in the healthcare sector will take place.

The Chilean president will meet Monday afternoon with her Cuban counterpart, Raúl Castro, who will receive her at the Palace of the Revolution, the seat of Government.

Before that meeting, the Chilean president will offer the traditional tribute at the monument to José Martí, in the emblematic Plaza de la Revolución.

Cuba is the penultimate country to which Bachelet will travel as head of state; her final trip will be to Japan. In March she will hand over her office to former president Sebastián Piñera, the winner in the most recent Chilean presidential elections.

Bachelet’s trip to Cuba has generated criticism among both the opposition and government sectors in her country, who do not see the reason for it and demand that the outgoing president reject “the violation of human rights” on the island.

The Chilean government’s spokesperson, Paula Narváez, disagreed with the reproaches, saying that Bachelet “is exercising her faculties as president of the Republic visiting a country where there is a bilateral agenda to be addressed which has been clarified by the foreign minister.”

Cuba and Chile have relations dating back to the 1960s, when Cuba sent doctors to help the victims of the tsunami and earthquakes in the Chilean town of Valdivia.

Cuban emergency brigades also traveled to Chile after the earthquakes of February 27, 2010, in Rancagua, and April 24, 2017, in Valparaíso.

The visits in the 1970s of Cuban President Fidel Castro to Santiago, and from Chilean President Salvador Allende to Havana, are among the milestones of the bilateral relationship.

Michelle Bachelet visited the Cuban revolutionary leader, now deceased, in his retirement during her trip to Havana in 2009, the first by a leader of her country to Cuba since 1972.

The president of Chile also attended the signing of the historic bilateral ceasefire between the Government of Colombia and the FARC guerrillas in June 2016, which took place in the Cuban capital.

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The ’Vision’ of Antonia Eiriz and The Curse of the Beard

It was not unusual, at that time, that Fidel Castro would occasionally step into some ball game that he ran across in his travels.

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Ernesto Santana, Havana, 4 January 2018 —  Last year, while the national baseball team was finishing the World Classic with one of its most disastrous international performances, at the Havana Gallery there was an exhibition Cuba in Baseball, by Reynerio Tamayo, which was an inflamed artistic confession that got into the fiery debate about the crisis of this sport.

In addition to playing with the sense of stripping bare the national passion or the passionate nation, Tamayo’s title was a parody of Antonia Eiriz’s Death in Baseball, a 1966 painting that is among the most disturbing, and even enigmatic, that the great artist painted before being censored and marginalized.

In the midst of the colossal media campaign of these past months that tries to demonstrate that Fidel Castro is alive physically and chemically — as his grandson Fidel Antonio Castro Smirnov insists, as he visits every month “the rebellious stone [Fidel Castro’s mausoleum] that teaches and illuminates” — our attention is called to this painter’s picture. continue reading

The Senior Sportsman (one of Fidel Castro’s many monikers) practiced several athletic disciplines and, on taking power, tried to give sports to the masses and destroy professionalism, especially in baseball. Fifty-six years ago, in January 1962, he went down to what was then called the Latin American Stadium to hit the first ball and inaugurate the first National Baseball Series.

It was not unusual, at that time, that the One — as his friends called him — would occasionally join in some ball game that he ran across in his travels. He would step in and pitch for one of the teams, or both, and, of course, no one dared to contradict his decisions, regardless of the consequences for the game.

In an issue of the magazine Visual Arts: Art Experience New York City, of which he was then editor-in-chief, the critic Ernesto Menéndez-Conde published a short commentary about the article Fidel plays Baseball, which appeared in Cuba magazine in August of 1964 with photos by Lorenzo Rocamora.

Based on one of those photos, with some modifications, writes Menéndez-Conde, Antonia Eiriz painted her canvas. “She eliminated the figure of the photographer who appears at the back and approached the stands around home plate, so that the audience could also be seen.” It is possible to recognize the beard of the leader, even if the face of the batter was abruptly cut off and unfocused on the top margin of the canvas.”

The critic adds that “it was up to the spectator to decide which of the characters could be death: if it is the umpire, with his black uniform and protective mask, that appeared to be an allegorical representation, or the player at the plate who, with his hit, dazzled a crowd of blurred faces and expressions so exalted as to be monstrous.”

Although in Cuba the players don’t tend to wear a mustache or a slight goatee, it is not uncommon to see a bearded player in other leagues today, but in the early ’60’s it must have been very striking to see the bearded ruler spending his time in a baseball game.

In a way, we can see in Eiriz’s Death in Baseball as an augury of that later disaster. Those appearances of the bearded commander on the field — while hand out the maximum penalty for what he considered “slavery baseball” — marked the beginning of a new era whose death throes in the present seem interminable.

Many centuries ago, a ball game was practiced in Mesoamerica very different from the one played today in the continent and beyond, especially since it was, in fact, a complex ritual that sometimes culminated with the sacrifice of the participants. As it was symbolically related to the very cycle of life, the ball game was an important state issue.

That a ruler is involved in the nature of a simple sport, in our time, is the worst thing that can happen to it. In a picturesque way we could talk about the “curse of the beard,” but the fact is, from that time baseball began to stop being a popular entertainment and began to become a serious state issue. The title of the painting was a diagnosis. Death in Baseball, the death of the game.

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

’Letter of the Year’ Sets Off Controversy Among Cuba’s Babalaos

The annual predictions were disseminated after a sequence of ceremonies held jointly by the Yoruba Cultural Association of Cuba and the Miguel Febles Padrón Commission. (Archive)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Zunilda Mata, Havana, 3 January 2018 —  The controversy broke out after the publication of the 2018 Letter of the Year. The series of predictions — provided every January by the priests of the Yoruba religion — has raised a cloud of criticism expressed in calls to “not conspire” and to respect authority, something that several babalaos ignore as taking the side of the Government.

The annual predictions were released on January 1 after a sequence of ceremonies held jointly by the official Yoruba Cultural Association of Cuba and the independent Miguel Febles Padrón Commission, at the headquarters of the former on Prado Street in Havana.

For two years now, both entities have collaborated to produce the Letter of the Year — unlike previous years when competing Letters were issued — and this time they recognize the orisha Yemayá, goddess of motherhood, as the ruling deity and as a companion to Elegguá, represented as a child who “opens the roads” and has many followers on the Island. continue reading

This year’s controversy did not emerge from the differences between predictions that characterized the years in which two Letters were published, but by the content of the consensual document. The unusual enthusiasm shown by the official government press to spread the predictions has also generated misgivings.

One of the most controversial points has been the recommendation “not to conspire or to be part of any conspiracy in any way,” a point to which is added not to fall into “talk against anyone to avoid being exposed to great misfortunes and end up being ridiculed.”

“This is not the same as before because now it looks like a ‘Letter from the Police’ instead of a ‘Letter of the Year’,” lamented Lucinda, a practitioner of African religions living near the Plaza de Cuatro Caminos, an area where products used in Santeria rituals are sold.

Lucinda insists that for years she followed the predictions made by the Miguel Febles Padrón Commission and that they were made public in the first days of the year in their headquarters in the neighborhood of Lawton. “Since they joined the Yoruba Association, they only know how to make you afraid so you’ll keep quiet.”

The Letter includes bad omens for agriculture, news that plays very badly among those who waited for a more promising forecast for food production, after a year characterized by shortages and high prices of agricultural products.

The recommendation “not to be rushed to accomplish achievements or successes” also makes some uncomfortable, in the midst of a national context characterized by the slowdown in the economic reforms promoted by Raúl Castro after his arrival to power, a slowdown that has led to a pause in the issuance of numerous licenses for self-employment.

“At ONAT (National Tax Administration Office) they tell me that right now I can’t get a permit to rent a room and now the babalaos recommend that I don’t rush into business,” lamented Marcial, 28, this Wednesday as he waited to buy flowers for his orishas at the market on San Rafael street.

The controversy has reached the Free Yorubas Association, an independent group made up of priests of this religion, who have called the Letter “totally manipulated and in tune with the interests of materialistic atheist tyranny.”

The entity insists that the babalaos who prepared the Letter of the Year “lack religious moral authority to speak on behalf of the Yoruba or to publish predictions that affect the present and future” of the country.

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Miguel Altunaga, a Cuban Modern Dancer Who is a Prophet in his Own Land

Miguel Altunaga (right) was trained in the Cuban art education system and after seven years with Contemporary Dance of Cuba left the country to join the prestigious British company Rambert. (EFE)

14ymedio biggerEFE via 14ymedio, 18 January 2018 — After ten years of successes and ovations on British stages, the Cuban dancer Miguel Altunaga proves that he can be a prophet in his own country, and even in his former company Contemporary Dance of Cuba (DCC), to which he returns as choreographer with a world premiere that speaks of longing, distance and roots.

Nominated for the third time for the United Kingdom’s National Dance Award, now in the category of Best Dancer, Altunaga has become the most important name internationally in modern Cuban dance, a field dominated almost exclusively by classic artists such as Carlos Acosta and José Manuel Carreño.

For the young Havanan it is a “point of pride” to be considered an “ambassador” of the rich Cuban culture, and among his “goals” is to “show that classical ballet is not the only source of great dancers, but that Cuba also has a lot to offer to contemporary dance.” continue reading

“I feel like an ambassador who is in constant motion and constantly learning, also enriching Cuban culture,” he told EFE before resuming auditions at the headquarters of DCC, the most important company of its kind in the country.

With the recognition also comes the “obligation to be an example” for new artists and to return to teach the new dance trends on the Island, where despite the “shortages and problems,” the “desire and passion for art” continues, he insisted.

Miguel Altunaga was trained in the Cuban system of artistic education, and after seven years with Contemporary Dance of Cuba he left the country to join the prestigious British company Rambert, as a member of which he has received awards and applause inside and outside the United Kingdom.

To his successes of interpretation he has added a rising career as a choreographer, with works that make up the repertoire of the still young Acosta Danza, the company that Carlos Acosta created in Havana.

A decade later, Altunaga arrives to set up a world premiere entitled Beyond the Dust that draws from his personal experience and delves into the feelings of distance, longing and nostalgia, with a “little sense of humor.”

“I don’t expect viewers to see a linear, traditional story, where you know what is happening step by step, but to live an experience, to relax and enjoy it, which is very important,” he explained.

For this, Altunaga uses emblematic musical themes such as Aquí el que baila gana (Here the dancer wins) from Los Van Van orchestra, danced by the young cast of the DCC.

Beyond the Dust also serves as an appreciation and tribute to Danza Contemporánea de Cuba, to which he has always felt “close” despite the distance.

“I feel like I didn’t leave. (…) To come to Cuba and present my work in the Sala García Lorca — the largest in the Gran Teatro de La Habana — is a dream, and to see it already realized (…) one of the greatest things that is happening to me in my artistic career,” he said.

This return is “very special” for Altunaga, who tries to minimize the “pressure” on him and “enjoy the process” of assembling the piece, which will premiere on 9, 10 and 11 February.

The biggest difference for the artist is in working with an ensemble that is not as “cosmopolitan” as the cast of companies from outside of Cuba; a place where the artistic collectives are composed exclusively of locals, with a shared way of seeing art.

However, being on the island for so long has made Altunaga “feel again” that sense of “Cubanness” that he will take with him back to Rambert.

“I will return [to the UK] a completely different artist, because I have reconnected with my homeland. I think this is the first time I’ve spent so much time in Cuba since I left ten years ago. Cubanness is entering me again,” he joked.

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

From a Public Urinal to a Luxury Hotel, The San Carlos is Reborn in Cienfuegos

Last Sunday, the renovated San Carlos Hotel was reopened with a four-star rating, after almost 21 years of neglect.

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Mario Penton, Miami, 19 January 2018 — Every night during the ’90s there were knocking sounds from the abandoned hotel San Carlos, which borders the market in the historic center of Cienfuegos where Joaquín Rodríguez worked as custodian. There were hardly any vestiges left of the navy blue of the façade and fragments of the cornices on the roof threatened passers-by on one of the busiest roads in the city.

“People took the tiles, the slabs on the walls, the toilets, they took out the rebar and even the bricks to use in building other things. The hotel became a ruin and the first floors were turned into a public bathroom and a place for all kinds of indecencies,” says Rodríguez, now retired.

Last Sunday, the renovated San Carlos hotel was reopened with a four-star rating, after almost 21 years of neglect. The property has been restored after an agreement signed in 2005 between the Cuban State and the Spanish hotel company Meliá, the terms of which are unknown. continue reading

San Carlos Hotel before the renovation. (14ymedio)

“The San Carlos Hotel dates from 1924. Its owner, Antonio Mata, who also owned the now-destroyed Hotel Ciervo de Oro, decided to invest 60,000 pesos at that time to provide the then-prosperous city one of the most modern buildings in the province of Las Villas,” explains Alicia, a local historian, speaking to 14ymedio.

The architect who completed the building, José Joaquín Carbonell, gave it the eclectic touch that characterizes the city by mixing various architectural styles. Later the property grew with the construction of another two floors, the last of which was the Roof Garden, a social club ofCienfuegos’ Republican.

For a long time, the San Carlos was the tallest building in the city. In the Roof Garden, a large room with large windows and excellent views of the bay “exquisite social meetings were held,” explains the historian.

Photograph from before the Revolution of San Carlos street, where the hotel is located in Cienfuegos. (DC)

The hotel had a total of six floors and 48 rooms when it was confiscated by Fidel Castro’s government at the beginning of the Revolution. Thereafter it became the property of the State, which did not allocate sufficient resources for its maintenance.

In the 1980s, a reconstruction process began that was scheduled to be completed on 26 July 1984. At that time, every province was completing some project to commemorate the assault on the Moncada barracks on that day. In the case of The San Carlos, the reconstruction was halted and the hotel closed its doors forever.

In July 2005, the historic center of Cienfuegos was declared a World Heritage Site. “Since that year, interest in knowing about our city has increased, as it is the first of the cities built in the nineteenth century to achieve this recognition,” emphasizes the historian.

That same year, recalls Joaquín Rodríguez, a state-owned construction company fenced off the busy San Carlos Avenue (it stayed that way until last month) and began to repair the building. Cimex, the state company that assumed responsibility at that time, was engaged in safeguarding the essential elements of the structure to prevent it from collapsing. In 2009, the Ministry of Tourism ordered a work stoppage “due to the economic difficulties of the country,” according to local press reports. In 2017, the state company Gran Caribe restarted the project under a collaboration agreement with Meliá.

View of The San Carlos Hotel in Cienfuegos and its once renowned Roof Garden. (skyscrapercity)

Yuri Quevedo Pupo, investment director of the Real Estate Tourism Company in Cienfuegos, explained to the local press that the hotel has begun to operate with just 20 of its 56 planned rooms. The central lobby, the lobby-bar and the bar service in the Roof Garden are also open.

According to official data, the province of Cienfuegos has 1,497 rooms in the private sector (in some 703 guest houses), plus 861 rooms in 11 state hotels.

The price of one night in the newly-opened Cienfuegos hotel starts at $182 for the simplest rooms. A bedroom with views of the city costs $191, while a suite reaches $216. None of the rooms have wifi service.

Meliá manages all of the hotels in Cienfuegos: Jagua, Palacio Azul, Perla del Mar, La Casa Verde and La Unión. According to González Garrido, only one site has been granted to another operator, Iberostar. Meliá, which has been in Cuba for 25 years, manages 40 hotels on the island overall.

The old Educator’s House, which was falling apart in the gorgeous Tureira peninsula, will become the Amanecer hotel and what was once the School of Hospitality and Tourism will be transformed into La Punta Hotel.

According to Joaquín Rodríguez, this weekend in Cienfuegos “dozens of painters” tried to embellish the building that functions as the municipal headquarters of the Communist Party next to the San Carlos hotel. “They are painting just the facades of the houses on the routes where tourists walk from the beach, but nobody looks inside.”

“I do not understand how they have money to build hotels, while a retiree who worked their whole life for the Revolution has a pension of just 253 [Cuban] pesos a month [about $10 USD],” complains Rodríguez, a victim of Hurricane Dennis that hit Cienfuegos in 2005.

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Intense Rains in Cuba Force Delay in Tobacco Sowing to February

With around 65% of the country’s production, the Vueltabajo area, in the province of Pinar del Río, is the largest supplier of the leaf. (DC)

14ymedio biggerEFE  / via 14ymedio, Havana, 18 January 2018 —  The intense rains in Cuba in recent months have forced the island’s farmers to extend until February the sowing of tobacco for the 2017-2018 season. During the season, they plan to sow over 73,000 acres in tobacco, the raw material of the famous Havana cigars.

Rainfall damaged nearly 1,500 acres already planted and several areas used as seedbeds, causing delays that have led to the extension of the plan’s target dates, according to the head of the state group Tabacuba, Gonzalo Rodríguez, speaking to the official news agency Prensa Latina.

Rodríguez insisted, however, that the “situation is encouraging and the producers are optimistic,” having already planted more than 64,000 acres. The current season’s sowing of the leaf began last October. continue reading

Tobacco is the fourth largest contributor to the country’s gross domestic product; it accounted for some 445 million dollars in 2016 from the sales of the Cuban-Spanish joint venture, Habanos.

With around 65% of the country’s production, the Vueltabajo zone in the province of Pinar del Río is the largest supplier of the leaf in the country. The central territories of Sancti Spiritus and Villa Clara also have large plantings of tobacco.

In 2018, Cuban tobacco farmers hope to deliver more than 32,000 tons of leaves to the cigarette and cigar industry, one of Cuba’s major sources of exports.

The intense rains in the last three months have affected other agricultural sectors on the island as well, including damaging 70% of the cane plantations destined for the sugar harvest now underway.

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.