The Gran Teatro De La Habana Is Guarded Against Ticket Scalpers / 14ymedio

The Gran Teatro de La Habana received the name of Alicia Alonso after its re-opening on 1 January of 2016. (Luz Escobar)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 26 January 2016 — The National Council of the Performing Arts has taken measures against the resale of tickets at the Alicia Alonso Gran Teatro de La Habana. The Ministry of Culture, which controls the theater, emphasized that the new controls have been established jointly with the venue to eliminate “the unscrupulous action of the resellers.”

Each person who lines up to get seats can appear at the window only once and must show their identity card. From now on, an individual can only buy four tickets to one performance, or two for each event if they are buying for two different events. continue reading

The Security and Institutions of Culture Company will increase the number of agents around the ticket window and the theater doors when there is a show of great interest to the public. In addition, the National Revolutionary Police will identify possible resellers.

“We are confident that the planned measures will help us stop the speculators in a decisive way, we will work so the Alicia Alonso Gran Teatro de La Habana remains a referential place for young people,” the venue has stated in a note published in Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth) newspaper.

Resellers offer tickets at 20 CUC (about $20 US) while the price is 30 CUP (about $1.20 US) according to reader’s letter published in the government press

Earlier this month, in the Letter to the Editor section of that newspaper, the journalist Jose Alejandro Rodriguez complained that “the Cuban State has financed an extremely costly repair of the Alicia Alonso Gran Teatro de La Habana” and “it no more than reopens the doors of the venue, and the traditional claque of resellers has regrouped and exercises their hegemony in the line at the entrances for the performances of the Cuban National Ballet.”

The reporter published the letter of an indignant reader who explained how the resellers would offer tickets to the place for 10 Cuban convertible pesos (CUC – about $10 US), when the official price is 30 Cuban pesos (about $1.20 US). “If they try to sell them right before the performance starts, it’s 15 CUC,” she complained.

In October of last year this newspaper mentioned an ad on the popular classified site, Revolico, saying that “reasonably priced tickets for the Ballet Festival” were for sale. In that case, in addition to those sold by the so-called coleros (people at the line), tickets were also available from ones given to intellectuals, artists and people linked to the Cuban National Ballet, at a cost of between 20 and 25 Convertible pesos.

Taking Stock of the Flood Damage in Havana / 14ymedio

Havana is recovering after the strong flooding from the sea along Havana’s Malecon. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 24 January 2017 — The hectically busy residents of the areas bordering Havana’s Malecón, on Tuesday, tried to repair the damages left by seawater flooding over the seawall the previous day. The strong northwestern winds associated with an extensive extratropical low pressure over the state of South Carolina have submerged the dreams of many families.

“It was strong and very fast, not as moderate as they said on television. There was a lot of water flowing,” says Lázaro, a resident of Arcos Passage on 3rd Avenue and A Street in the Vedado district.

“It was not like other years because this time they did not warn us in time and the team of people who always help with the evacuation did not show up.” continue reading

Victoria, a resident of the same street, is sweeping the sand that reached to her doorway. At the same time last year there was something similar in the area, “but not so intense,” she says, tired of all the hustle and bustle.

Wet mattresses, refrigerators damaged by salt and humidity,and the lamentations of the unprepared state, are part of the scene along the Malecon

Wet mattresses, refrigerators damaged by salt and humidity, and the lamentations of the unprepared state, are part of the scene along the Malecon.

While taking a break, Victoria tells her neighbor that the water once again reached Calzada but this year it also got as far as Linea Street. She says that in her house “all night I couldn’t sleep because of the beating of the waves,” and regrets that “they have not cleaned the streets as they are doing in front of the Meliá Cohiba hotel.”

The floods went from moderate to strong in a few hours on the north coast, including the Havana Malecon, taking many unawares. Just after four in the afternoon one could see cars drifting on the water, and the sewers were black holes where the currents swirled.

In the afternoon the tides continued high on the Havana coastline. (14ymedio)

On A and B Streets water penetrated more than four blocks into the city. Several warehouses, like the one at 3rd and C, lost part of their merchandise because the workers did not have time to raise up all the sacks of rice, sugar or beans.

One family has lost everything because their house was a garage turned into a home because of the deficit of housing. “We didn’t see it coming and by the time we realized, everything was underwater,” was all that the woman managed to repeat, as she rescued swollen chairs from a mixture of seawater, mud and garbage.

Victoria, a resident, regrets that “they have not cleaned the streets as they are doing in front of the Meliá Cohiba hotel

In front of the Labiofam offices at 1st and B, cars “had all four tires in the air,” explains Ramiro, a resident, while pumping out the water that entered his garage. The man, who lives in the 110 building behind the Presidente Hotel, complains that those in charge of decontaminating the water tanks are “delayed” and in similar situations “they let some three days go by to force the residents to solve the problems on our own.”

In many private businesses the employees were busy from the early hours of the morning cleaning, getting the water out, and trying to save what wasn’t washed away with the current, while repairing the damage.

A group of people who had approached the seawall to enjoy the waves breaking over it were alerted by the whistles of police officers who guarded each block; the law enforcement officials explained to the reckless that it is very dangerous because “a stone can fly up and hit you.”

As reported by the Forecast Center of the Institute of Meteorology, coastal flooding began to decrease “gradually” from this morning, but in the early hours of the afternoon there were still heavy tidal waves.

Cuban State Telecommunications Company Used to Accuse Challenger in Brazil’s Presidential Elections of Drug Trafficking / 14ymedio

Aécio Neves, the Social Democrats’ candidate, greets Dilma Rousseff, of the Workers’ party, before a televised debate. Photograph: Miguel Schincariol/AFP/Getty

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Miami, 25 January 2017 – The services of the Telecommunications Company of Cuba (ETECSA) were used to attack Brazilian Congressman Aécio Neves, when he ran for president against Dilma Rousseff, as reported Wednesday by the Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo.

Neves, a member of the Brazilian Social Democracy party, began a judicial process more than three years ago that allowed him to uncover the internet provider responsible for the false profiles that sought to undermine his image on social networks.

The São Paulo court ruled in favor of the deputy and required the companies providing internet to disclose the identity of 20 profiles used to attack the former presidential candidate. One of these profiles used the services of the Cuban state network, which has raised suspicions about who is behind the defamatory campaign. continue reading

The profile connected to Cuba was used by three different people, according to the newspaper

The profile connected to Cuba was used by three different people, according to the newspaper. The main attacks against Neves are related to accusations of gender violence and drug trafficking.

So far, it is not possible to know the real identity of the false profiles that attacked Neves, although his lawyers are studying the possibility of filing a lawsuit in Brazilian or Cuban courts to require the company to deliver the data.

It is also not possible to establish whether access to the network was made from a state institution, a hotel or a Cuban Wi-Fi zone.

ETECSA has not answered questions sent by Folha de Sao Paulo and the Cuban embassy in that country has refused to provide statements.

Mexico Deports Another Group Of Cubans / 14ymedio

Hundreds of Cubans have been stranded in various Latin American countries on their journey to the US. (Archive)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Chiapas, 25 January 2017 — Mexican Government authorities have reported the deportation of 70 Cuban migrants who were in the country without visas or transit permits. Among the deportees were 22 women and 48 men who were sent back to Cuba on Wednesday on a plane belonging to the Mexican Federal Police.

The returnees from the southern border of the country were gathered in the state of Chiapas before being deported.

All of them were waiting to obtain the exit permit that allowed them to travel freely and legally through Mexican territory for 20 days, in order to reach the United States. The new US immigration policy, initiated two weeks ago by the former Obama administration eliminated preferential status, encapsulated in the wet foot/dry foot policy – which was cancelled – and the Cuban Adjustment Act (which remains in effect as only Congress can repeal it), which provides special benefits to Cuban migrants once they reach the country. continue reading

With this latest deportation 161 Cubans have returned to the island since January 20

Since the suspension of the previous immigration policy, the Mexican Government offers Cubans without a visa the exit permit that would allow them to reach the United States. In contrast, Mexican authorities have since implemented the bilateral agreement with Havana, which allows the return of citizens of the Caribbean country if the Cuban consulates in Mexico agree to recognize them as Cuban citizens.

According to the National Institute of Migration (INM), all migrants were deported “in good health and provided the necessary assistance in strict compliance with their human rights.”

With this latest deportation 161 Cubans have now been returned to the island since January 20 when 91 other migrants were deported by the Mexican INM following the same procedure.

Former Political Prisoner Arturo Pérez De Alejo Dies / 14ymedio

Cuban dissident Arturo Pérez de Alejo died Wednesday in Miami. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Miami, 25 January 2017 — The former political prisoner Arturo Perez de Alejo, who was part of the Group of 75, died Wednesday in Miami at 66, as reported by MartíNoticias .

Pérez Alejo was born in Manicaragua, in the then province of Las Villas, on 23 May 1951 to a peasant family.

During the nineties, in the middle of the Special Period, he began his dissident activity. He participated actively in the Democratic Action Movement, the Nationalist Action Party and the Independent Democratic Front.

In addition, he founded the Escambray Independent Organization For The Defense Of Human Rights, of which he held the presidency, and he was noted for his dissemination of the Varela Project, a civic initiative promoted by the late Oswaldo Payá to demand more liberties in the island.

In 2003 he was imprisoned in the repressive wave known as the Black Spring. He was imprisoned for five years, and the conditions of his imprisonment greatly undermined his health

In 2003 he was imprisoned in the 2003 repressive wave known as the Black Spring. He was imprisoned for five years, and the conditions of his imprisonment greatly undermined his health.

During his imprisonment he was recognized as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. In June 2010, through the efforts of the Catholic Church, he was released and exiled to Spain.

He later moved to Miami, where he resided until his death. He spent his last years closely linked to the work of organizations of the Cuban exile.

Leaving Cuba But Stranded on Another Island / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez

A group of Cubans detained in Trinidad and Tobago by immigration authorities. (Courtesy)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Miami, 25 January 2017 — They left Cuba before January 12 and are now stranded on the island of Trinidad and Tobago, northeast of Venezuela. They arrived with the advantage of not needing a visa, but they have lost hope of reaching the borders of the United States after the cancellation of wet foot/dry foot policy.

Unofficial figures estimate that more than a thousand Cubans have arrived in Trinidad and Tobago and are waiting to be able to leave for the United States. Some received refugee status in this time, conferred by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), but have difficulty obtaining a work permit.

Recently 15 Cubans detained in Trinidad and Tobago for being undocumented, including 12 men and 3 women, stated that they would rather die than return to their own country

Zenaida, a fictitious name, still has a son in Cuba and fears to give her real identity to the story she has experienced in recent months, but her desire to tell what happened demonstrates, at times, a touch of recklessness. continue reading

“The word that they are offering asylum has gotten out, and if the immigration authorities hadn’t turned back a large number, there would be considerably more of us.” Those stuck there when their visas expire are sent to jail.

Recently, 15 Cubans detained in Trinidad and Tobago for being undocumented, among them 12 men and 3 women, declared that they would rather die than return to their own country. They are trapped on one island and trying to avoid being returned to another.

Zenaida had a job with the Cuban Workers Center (CTC) – nominally a labor union, but entirely controlled by the government – but was disillusioned with the official ideology. “Despite experiencing the time of the mass exodus in the 1990s, I never thought to leave the country because I’m very attached to my family and my only daughter,” she says.

Her nonconformity started from the time she was a member of the Young Communist Union. “I realized that Robertico Robaina, our leader at the time, obeyed the principle of ‘do what I say and not what I do’.” Zenaida worked on a poultry farm and one day discovered, “a great embezzlement of the birds, where the records were falsified.” On confronting the people involved she learned that among the embezzlers was the director general of the enterprise. Frustration washed over her.

She decided to attend the course for political cadres to get away from the poultry farm. “I couldn’t imagine I would go from one hell to another.” After being a witness to the opportunism and the double standards of many of her colleagues, the little faith she still had in the system was completely destroyed.

“I requested to be released from my job after witnessing the outrage that the opposition figure Jorge Luis Perez ‘Antunez’ and his family were subjected to,” she tells 14ymedio. “That was the trigger that made me decide not to continue there.

“I started working secretly in my aunt’s paladar (private restaurant). There they offered me 100 Cuban convertible pesos (roughly the same in dollars) and the cost of my passport if I would go to Trinidad for seven days in order to import clothing,” she said.

But the fate of the “mule” took a turn when, passing through the airport in Havana, she happened to greet and speak with the author of this article. One of the women she was traveling with, who had witnessed the exchange, returned to Cuba before her, and told one of Zenaida’s neighbors that she was now “one of those human rights people.” “Small town, big hell,” she says, recalling that incident, “the news spread like wildfire and even my husband was called in by State Security.”

Trinidad and Tobago Airport

“My mother and my son were also questioned about my behavior,” she says. “I was aware of the consequences I would have to face if I returned to Cuba.”

“There are families who have been stranded here  waiting for a host country for more than two years. I think the world is not aware of the drama Cubans experience”

She applied for political asylum and now her legal situation is complex. “Immigration took my passport and gave me a card that’s called a supervision order, that allows me to be in the country freely, but doesn’t allow me to work.” Zenaida has to work in the shadows to survive. “I do it on my own and I do the hardest cleaning jobs that the natives here reject.”

For the moment, she is receiving some help from a Catholic organization, Living Water Community, which consists of a food allocation that includes rice, sugar, grains, flour, toilet paper, soap and some clothing donated by others.

After some time she will have her first interview with United Nations representatives and only then will she be able to obtain refugee status. “There are families who have been stranded here waiting for a country to take them for more than two years. I think the world isn’t aware of the drama Cubans experience,” says Zenaida.

Although Zenaida has been optimistic since reuniting with her husband and celebrates not being alone, her feelings are contradictory with respect to emigration “I do not know if we are living in limbo, but only now do I know that fleeing resolves nothing. We are left without our customs, our families, our roots, and clash with the hard reality of the immigrant. We will only be free when we don’t cross jungles and oceans looking for an answer that is only inside ourselves.” And she concludes with regret, “What a pity that it is only now that I understand all this!”

The Havana Seawall Floods After Heavy Flooding From The Sea / 14ymedio

“I will stay here until [the water] goes down because I’m afraid to leave when it is like this,” says an elderly person who had arrived this afternoon at the Presidente Hotel. (14ymedio)
14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 23 January 2017 — As it happens each winter just a few minutes have been enough for the Havana Malecon and its environs to be flooded by the sea, after the arrival of a strong and extensive extratropical low in the west of Cuba.

The Forecast Center of the Institute of Meteorology issued its special Number Three Advisory at noon this Monday to warn of floods along the northwest coast. Cars and people have been trapped by the sudden arrival of the waters that with all their force break against the Malecon and flood important Havana arterials with the peculiar smell of algae. continue reading

Strong winds of the Northwest region between 15 and 25 miles per hour, with gusts that can be “over 35 miles per hour, make many neighbors worry about the possible collapses of buildings approaching 100 years of age, which have barely been maintained over the intervening decades.

“I will stay here until [the waters] come down because I’m afraid to leave when it is like this,” says an elderly person who had arrived this afternoon at the Presidente Hotel to connect to the internet and talk to his family in the United States.

Within a few minutes of three in the afternoon the sea began to overlow the Havana Malecon. Close to 4:00 pm, the water reached G Street and Linea and some passers-by who tried to arrive at their destination had to take off their shoes and to turn up their trousers to be able to advance.

This meteorological situation, according to specialists, will begin to decrease gradually from Tuesday morning, when the winds turn to the north and diminish in their intensity.

Only 45% Of Cuban Teens Watch National Television / 14ymedio

Cuban teens feel superior when they acquire a device that allows them to access new technologies. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 23 January 2016 — New technology and the consumption of audiovisual material a la carte are gaining ground among Cuban teenagers. Only 45% of teenagers claim to watch national television, according to a study conducted in November 2015, which the official Press has reported on this week.

Research was conducted through a questionnaire administered to 2,051 individuals and personal or group interviews to another thousand, a representative sample of the 1,381,135 people that are between the ages of 10 and 19, roughly 12% of the population, according to the Cuba 2015 Statistical Yearbook. continue reading

Keyla Estévez García, a researcher from the Center for Youth Studies who lead the study, stressed the importance of this study and pointed out that these adolescents’ behavior definitely “resembles the Cuba of today, transformation, changes; and needs to be understood from this new context.”

Study participants were chosen from two municipalities in each territory. About 59% are residents in provincial capitals and 13.5% live in municipalities of Havana, especially from Plaza of the Revolution, Old Havana, Arroyo Naranjo and Boyeros. Of the study group, 44% are female and 54% are male.

More than half of the participants want to enroll in University and obtain a high-level degree, while one-fifth of the study sample will settle for finishing college preparatory training.

Close to 10% only aspire to finish high school, prepare to work as a skilled laborer or work as a mid-level technician.

At least 27.6% of participants chose not to respond or was unsure as to which profession they would like to pursue. Medical science was at the forefront of professional aspirations, followed by the hard sciences with the humanities in last place. This scenario may represent a vocational reorientation implemented in schools.

However, students’ opinions about their schools were very negative. Only a few respondents believe that school is a place where they feel happy, their rights are respected or where they can defend their beliefs. Only 11% opined that schools taught them what they needed to know.

The official press says that a “not so insignificant” share of these teenagers sees school as a boring place, where they do not want to be but are obliged to go. They classify school as a dogmatic, closed and uncreative place.

A “not so insignificant” share of teenagers sees school as a boring, dogmatic, closed and uncreative place.

As for having fun, they like to listen to music, go to the beach, pool or rivers, visit family and friends and consume audiovisual products, but they read little and hardly visit museums. The national television programs fail to attract more than half of those who prefer other options like the “weekly packet” (for which there is no data in the questionnaire), content shared through USB or mobile phones.

The majority of respondents said they had computers, internet access, music players and mobile phones, in that order. “A high number of adolescents can access the internet from Wi-Fi zones, which implies expenditures, generally covered by their family,” indicates the official press.

For these adolescents, the main use of information and communication technologies is photo exchange, music, videos and games, although they are also used to study. These technologies generate happiness and many develop a sense of superiority when they acquire one of these technologies

As far as consumption habits, 12% of adolescents’ surveyed smoke and 36% of them drink alcoholic beverages, while 2% of them admitted to using toxic substances. The age of onset for these habits is between 14 and 15.

Sexual relations begin early, especially in urban zones. Close to half of the study sample began having sexual relations between the ages of 14 and 15.

These adolescents’ idols have little to do with political figures or with those associated with the official ideological discourse. In sports, predilections point to Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, while in the artistic world preferences are for Jennifer Lopez, Justin Bieber and Selena Gómez. Among national artists, Reggeaton singers Yomil, el Chacal or el Príncipe take precedence over other artists.

The absence of questions about political preferences, immigration and their perception on the rest of the world, in a survey conducted one year after the reestablishment of relations with the United States, is striking. Nevertheless, the report did not provide direct access to the study itself and its complete data.

Translated by Chavely Garcia

Belkis Cantillo, Leader Of The Dignity Movement Released / 14ymedio, Luz Escobar

Belkis Cantillo, leader of the Dignity Movement. (Courtesy)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 23 January 2017 — The leader of the Dignity Movement, Belkis Cantillo, who was arrested last Thursday was released Monday afternoon, as confirmed to 14ymedio by Moraima Diaz, an activist of the same movement.

Shortly after being released, in a telephone conversation with this newspaper, Cantillo explained that she was given a warning letter that he refused to sign.

According to the activist, the document stated that she could not “meet with anyone” or be visited by “counterrevolutionaries.” The police also prevented her from carrying out “public demonstrations.” continue reading

About her days in custody, she says that they removed the mattress and that she was “sleeping on the cement” which caused an “increase of the pain she already suffered due to renal colic.” The activist reports that, after insisting, she was visited by a lawyer.

After her release she was summoned to appear next Saturday before the offices of the State Security in the municipality Julio A. Mella.

According to Moraima Díaz, members of the Dignity Movement cannot leave their homes without State Security agents “persecuting them.”

“We have agents at every corner of the house. It is a police siege to which we are subjected,” she adds.

Moraima Díaz: “We have been told that if we leave the house, our families will be the ones who will pay the consequences”

“We have been told that if we leave the house, our families will be the ones who will pay the consequences,” she says from Palmarito de Cauto, a town in the province of Santiago de Cuba.

“The situation here is extreme. The police have taken the town so that there are no dissident demonstrations,” says the activist.

The women of the Dignity Movement have experienced days of intense repression since they created their movement in the Sanctuary of the Virgin of Charity of Cobre on Saturday, January 14. They call for, among other things, immediate and unconditional amnesty for all those who today are serving prison sentences for “pre-criminal dangerousness” and for this concept which they consider to be “arbitrary” to be eliminated from the Penal Code.

Amel Carlos Oliva, youth leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba, told 14ymedio that in the early hours of the morning the police raided the house of Thomas Madariaga Nunez, 66, an active member of his organization.

Right now, Madariaga is in custody.

Donald Trump: A Peronist in the White House? / 14ymedio, Carlos Malamud

Donald J. Trump, delivers his speech after swearing-in as the 45th president of the United States. (EFE / Michael Reynolds)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Carlos Malamud, Madrid, 23 January 2017 — Guillermo Moreno, former Secretary of Domestic Trade under both presidents Kirchner in Argentina, and responsible for the manipulation of Argentinean official statistics during the so-called “won decade,” said after the inaugural address of Donald Trump that the new president “is a Peronist.” Without the slightest blush and with no nuance Moreno justified his favorable opinion of the new occupant of the White House for his defense of national industry and the slogan “America first.” Hence his optimism: “When we return to power, we will not have the world against us.”

When analyzing Friday’s speech on Capitol Hill, Ines Capdevilla, in a more sophisticated way, linked Trump’s Adamism – starting from scratch with a clean slate – with the best traditions of certain Latin American presidents predestined to re-found their countries. A circular phenomenon that appears to have no end. continue reading

Nothing and no one should stand between him and the embrace of his people, the great subject of the national transformation that he himself will lead

In his inaugural speech Trump turned his back on the past of the United States. It was not a lack of memory or historical ignorance, but a pure reconfiguration of reality in his own image and likeness.

Almost nothing from the past is useful, none of his predecessors did anything salvageable and the explicit mention of some author to reinforce his ideas could sound like elitism, a caste. Nothing and no one should stand between him and the embrace of his people, the great subject of the national transformation that he himself will lead.

The only thing missing for Trump to situate himself as the height of the best exemplar of the hemisphere was to promise a new constitution starting with a constitutional assembly. In this way his imprint on the national history would be indelible, but it seems that Trump knows something about his limits and this is precisely one of them.

Much has been said about his populist and nationalist tone. Nevertheless, I would like to emphasize the Peronist component mentioned by Moreno. Beyond the outdated protectionism he wants to impose on the United States he has some other signs like the direct relation between the leader and the masses, bypassing the troublesome intermediaries of the establishment and the political parties.

In his speech Trump said, “What really matters is not which party controls our government but whether our government is controlled by the people.” Even the intermediation of his own party, the Republican, could distort his messianic message. For that Twitter comes as a perfect fit, to keep open privileged communication channels that even now he can access without controls of any kind.

Many Latin American politicians are enriched in the exercise of their functions. It does not seem to be the case with Trump, who comes to the presidency already rich. However, the lack of clear boundaries between the management of public affairs and his private businesses both inside and outside the United States could generate significant conflicts of interest and a new point of convergence across the continent. Not only that, nepotism, expressed in the increasingly starring role of some of his direct family members in the management of the government, is another matter to keep in mind.

The values ​​that Vladimir Putin claims to defend are the same as those claimed by European xenophobic parties

European xenophobic populisms have expressed their desire to incorporate the new president and the values ​​expressed by him to his field of play. We have already seen Nigel Farage make the pilgrimage to Trump Tower and also the zealous demonstrations of Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders at the meeting that the far-right continent just held in Koblenz. While promising a “patriotic spring,” Wilders said, “Yesterday, a new America, today, Koblenz, and tomorrow, a new Europe.”

The rejection of liberal democracy and the free market, complemented by a visceral hatred for everything that Barack Obama might represent, starting with the defense of liberties and human rights, is not only a response to the strategic interest of turning Russia into a great power. The values ​​that Vladimir Putin claims to defend are the same as those claimed by European xenophobic parties, although the political support and economic aid that some receive from Moscow facilitates the convergence. But these are not exclusive phenomena of old Europe, since in Latin America it is possible to observe similar opinions, although in a self-referential way and these tend to be located at the other end of the political spectrum.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro undertook an undisguised defense of the new leader: “I do not join the world’s campaigns of hatred against Donald Trump… I ask myself, about what, because we know a lot about dirty wars.” These statements are the result of comparing the new president to the “nefarious” Obama, Venezuela’s biggest enemy, the most interventionist and interfering in Latin America and the direct promoter of three coups: Honduras, Paraguay and Brazil. Maduro argued that under no circumstances could Trump be any worse than Obama.

The Cuban government tried to stay true to its style and Josefina Vidal said that under no circumstances would they accept pressure from Trump and that “aggression does not work with Cuba”

Evo Morales, through Twitter, also showed relative optimism about Trump, his isolationist policy and the possibility of reestablishing normal bilateral relations, with the exchange of ambassadors. In a second message he went further: “Hopefully, with the new president of the United States, there will be an end to the interventions and military bases in the world to guarantee peace with social justice.”

For its part, the Cuban government tried to stay true to its style and Josefina Vidal, the Foreign Ministry Director for the United States said that under no circumstances would they accept pressure from Trump and that “aggression does not work with Cuba.” Despite the forcefulness of these statements, Raul Castro has maintained a significant silence on the subject. Some malicious person might think that he has done it so as not to counter Putin, but that is pure speculation.

Peronism, like the recent Latin American populisms, has tended to polarize its societies. Nationalism was used to mobilize the faithful in defense of the project, to the point that whoever was not with Peron or with Chavez was a traitor to the country. It seems that Trump has decided to follow the same path, a path which, as the recent experience of Latin America has shown, only leads to discouragement, frustration and the impoverishment of the society as a whole.

Rationing Says Goodbye To “Chicken For Fish” / 14ymedio, Zunilda Mata

A ration market slaughterhouse (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Zunilda Mata, Havana, 23 January 2017 — The news has appeared quietly in the official media: since the beginning of this year the share of the so-called “chicken for fish*” has been eliminated from the rationed market. The measure is part of the process of the “rearrangement of the basic market basket,” as confirmed by the Camagüey newspaper Adelante in its Saturday edition.

As of January 1st of this year the distribution of chicken in rationing networks is governed by new quotas. The meat companies of each province will be responsible for the subsidized distribution of chicken meat, including the six ounces that, until last December, was arranged the Fishery Industry to replace fish. continue reading

Kenya Medina Monesti, director of the Meat Company of Camagüey, said that with this measure the population living in urban areas will receive 12 ounces of chicken per person nine times a year, while in December they will get only 8 ounces.

The distribution will be more widely spaced in rural areas, where consumers will be able to purchase the product only four times a year

In February and September there will be deliveries in urban areas only, and only for children under six years old, who will be entitled to six ounces of chicken in each of these two months.

The distribution will be spaced out more widely in rural areas, where consumers will be able to purchase the product only four times a year, “in an amount equivalent to 10.6 ounces,” according to the report.

Each consumer would receive 7 pounds and 4 ounces of chicken a year, of which 6 ounces a month would replace fish (the so-called “chicken for fish”). Consumers will now receive 1 pound and three quarts of chicken a month for adults, and 11 ounces for children under the age of 14. In this way, each person gets three quarters of a pound of chicken more than before.

In 2014 the official press confirmed that the fishing crisis, which reduced fish consumption by 75%, would be very difficult to overcome

In 2014 the official press confirmed that the fishing crisis, which reduced fish consumption by 75%, would be very difficult to overcome, so seafood would continue to be missing from the ration card.

“Today, as a practical matter, we have only the fish from our own catches and from aquaculture, which together total just over 37,000 tonnes of fish,” said industry officials cited by the newspaper Granma. This amount is well below 200,000 tonnes, mainly of mackerel from the Soviet Union, which was consumed in the 1980s on the island.

*Translator’s note: The ration market has historically provided both chicken and fish to Cubans as a part of their monthly food ration. However, for years, fish has been scarce, to the ration markets routinely substituted “chicken for fish.”

The Punk Who Didn’t Cry For Fidel / 14ymedio, Pablo De LLano

Cuban graffiti artist Danilo Maldonado, El Sexto, poses with his mother, Maria Victoria Machado, at her home in Havana. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Pablo de Llano, Miami, 22 January 2017 — Minutes after the announcement of the death of Fidel Castro, last November 25, Danilo Maldonado Machado passed by his mother’s house and knocked on the window of her room. Maria Victoria Machado opened and her son asked: “Mom, are you afraid?” She, who had heard the news, told him no: “You know this is my bedtime.” He continued: “Well, I’m going to warm up the track.” Mrs. Machado assumed that her son was going to paint some anti-Castro slogan in a city, Havana, that that night had been mute, silent, empty. Free for the cats and for the crazies.

“Have you ever asked him not to expose himself so much?”

“No,” said the mother from Havana. “I admire my son.” continue reading

El Sexto, the artistic alias of Maldonado, left and reappeared a while later at the side of the Habana Libre Hotel. With a mobile phone, he broadcast live on Faceboo, speaking directly to the screen and mocking Fidel and Raul Castro, recalling dead regime opponents, moving through the desolate streets: “Nobody it outside,” he said. “Rare,” he scoffed. “Nobody wants to talk. But how long will you not want to talk, gentlemen?”

He was an eccentric doing a comic-political show in an empty but guarded theater. The most risky sitcom of the year in Havana

He wore a white Panama hat. Sunglasses hanging from his shirt. Under the right eyelid, tattooed barbed wire. Headphones around his neck. He was an eccentric putting on a comedian-politician show in an empty but guarded theater. The most risky sitcom of the year in Havana. Then he asked some squire, “Papi, where’s my can?”

El Sexto took out a spray can and on a side wall of the Habana Libre, the former Havana Hilton and the hotel where the father of the Cuban revolution had immediately taken possession of to set up his first headquarters after conquering the capital, he scrawled: “He left.”

Live. His face in the picture. Risk level one hundred.

He enjoyed it. He looked at the camera and said, “I see panic in their faces.” Six feet five-and-a-half inches tall, thin, bearded, exultant. A Don Quixote crossing the line.

Hours later, according to the reconstruction of his mother, he was forcibly removed from his apartment by a group of police and locked up in the maximum security prison Combinado del Este, outside Havana, accused of damage to state property. Only this Saturday, two months later, was he released.

“They gave me my identity card and said I would have no problem traveling outside the country,” the artist told 14ymedio a few hours after he was released without charges. “I am in good health and I am very grateful for the solidarity of all those who were aware of my situation.”

During the time he was imprisoned, Amnesty International declared him a prisoner of conscience. A campaign on Change.org collected about 14,000 signatures for his release. Kimberley Motley, an African American lawyer specializing in human rights, traveled to Cuba in December to try to visit him in prison, but was detained and returned to the United States. The vice-president of the German Parliament, the Social Democrat Ulla Schmidt, declared herself his “political godmother.”

This was his second time in prison. In 2015 he spent 10 months locked up for planning a performance art piece with two pigs painted with the names of Fidel and Raul. In his 33 years El Sexto has become a heterodox figure of dissent. More a provocateur than an activist, he is essentially a natural punk, a creative thug who in another country would only have paid a fine for painting a wall, but to whom 21st century Cuba dedicates the punitive treatment it considers appropriate to a threat to the security of the State.

When they released him in 2015, after a hunger strike, El Sexto traveled through different countries and explained in a talk that in the beginning he defined his political stance as that of an artist in response to the official propaganda so abundant on the island: “If they have the right to violate my visual space, I also have the right to violate their visual space,” he maintained.

Years earlier Cuban government proclamations were calling for the return of five Cubans imprisoned in the United States for espionage. They were called The Five Heroes. It was then that Maldonado adopted his nickname “El Sexto” – the Sixth – and emerged as a graffit artist.

“Danilo says that art has to be brave and try to impact people,” explains his girlfriend, Alexandra Martinez, a Cuban-American journalist he met in Miami. She says that El Sexto is a fan of Estopa, a Spanish rock/rumba duo, and Joan Manuel Serrat, a Spanish singer-songwriter. She tells how impressed he was when he went to New York and visited the studio of artist Julian Schnabel, director of Before Night Falls, the film about Reinaldo Arenas, a Cuban poet who died of AIDS in exile, and also the director of Basquiat, about the artist who began is career using the tag SAMO (for Same Old), on his graffiti in the streets of Manhattan.

Mrs. Machado says that in the case file the cost of erasing her child’s graffiti at Havana Libre was recorded as 27 Cuban pesos

Martinez likes a drawing he has done in his current prison stay, titled Cemetery of living men. It’s a three-level bunk with a man in the bottom, the middle bunk empty and a cockroach in the upper bunk. “Someone,” his mother says, has been sneaking out of prison the pages he painted and publishing them on his Facebook page. They have a surreal style.

He also writes. He talks about his nightmares – zoomorphic guards who mistreat him; he takes notes of the language of the prisoners – “fucking: synonymous with food”; and directs messages to his audience – “I still have not received news of my case,” “I draw little because of my allergy, the excessive dampness and the lack of light, “ “the boss of my unit beat me,” “only the cosmic knows the true purpose of this ordeal.”

Mrs. Machado says that in the case file the cost of erasing her child’s graffiti at Havana Libre was recorded as 27 Cuban pesos, the equivalent of one dollar and one cent US. “But they do not forgive what he painted,” she says. Maldonado has written from prison: “Imagine how many people laugh about me. I’m already famous in jails and prisons.” Fidel Castro left. The bars remain.

_______

Editor’s note:  This text is reproduced here with the permission of El País, which published it today.

Obama Left, Trump Arrived, the Repression Continues / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar

The political police detained more than 60 members of the Ladies in White Movement in Havana, Matanzas, Santa Clara and Ciego de Avila. (EFE / Archive)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 23 January 2017 — Within 48 hours of Donald Trump being declared President of the United States, the political police maintained their repression against opponents unchanged. The hard hand of State Security begins to contradict the claim that “Barack Obama’s concessions” to the Plaza of the Revolution fueled the repressive character of Raúl Castro’s government.

According to partial reports issued on Sunday, the political police detained more than 60 members of the Ladies in White Movement in Havana, Matanzas, Santa Clara and Ciego de Ávila. Berta Soler and her husband, the former Black Spring prisoner Angel Moya, were arrested along with 23 women as they prepared to leave the organization’s headquarters in the Lawton neighborhood of Havana. continue reading

The repressors did not shake their hands in the face of the scenario of a new tenant in the White House. They were not even frightened by the warning issued by the mogul weeks before in his Twitter account, when he clarified that “if Cuba is not willing to offer a better agreement for Cubans, Cuban Americans and the American people in general,” he would liquidate the diplomatic normalization.

With the thaw or without the thaw, the repressive nature of the Cuban system remains unchanged

Despite the hopes of some and the threats of others, the repression continues and on this Sunday morning more than 30 Ladies in White in Matanzas were prevented from attending Mass. Some were taken to police stations, while others were driven to the outskirts of the city and put out of the cars to find their own way home, and other were driven home. Two arrests were reported in the city of Santa Clara and another in Ciego de Ávila.

If there really is any relationship between what the new president says and does and how the Cuban government decides to treat its opponents, the next few weeks will have to prove it.

With the thaw or without the thaw, the repressive nature of the Cuban system remains unchanged. Obama does not seem to be responsible for the twist in the oppression experienced in the past two years, as perhaps Trump also fails to alleviate the rigors of a regime that could not exist where liberties flourish.

 

Cuba Makes Its First Export To The US In Half A Century / EFE, 14ymedio

A charcoal worker performs his work with the marabou in Cuba. (Alejandro Ernesto / EFE)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 20 January 2017 — Cuba sent two containers with 40 tons of charcoal to the United States in the first export of a product of the Caribbean island to the US in more than half a century.

This is the first shipment of charcoal made under the purchase agreement signed earlier this month between Cuba’s state-owned company Cubaexport and the US company Trading LLC, a subsidiary of Reneo Consulting.

The cargo of $16,800 worth of charcoal made from the invasive marabou weed was sent through the western Cuba Port of Mariel on a boat from the Crowley Latin America Services Company to the US Port Everglades in Florida, according to a report from Cubaexport in local media. continue reading

Filling the containers with 12,526 sacks of charcoal took place in the Jocuma settlement of the southern central province of Cienfuegos, one of the points in Cuba where the product is made, according to Cubanexport director Isabel O’Reilly.

With the commercial agreement signed last January in Havana, it is expected that coal made from marabou will now start to reach the US market through Fogo Charcoal, a subsidiary of the firm Susshi International.

This contract between Cuba and the US has entered into force as the governments of both nations accelerated the signing of bilateral agreements and visits to advance the process of the thaw between the two countries as far as possible before the arrival of Donald Trump to the White House, given that he is openly opposed to the policy undertaken by Barack Obama’s administration.

The outgoing leader has eased the embargo through a series of executive measures that have allowed, among other things, the reestablishment of commercial flights and investments in sectors such as technology, but the lifting of the embargo is in the hands of Congress, where there is a Republican majority opposed to doing so.

The Cuban charcoal route for export begins in private agricultural cooperatives that harvest and process marabou, a plant of African origin considered an invasive species on the island, and then sell it to another company that prepares it for final commercialization.

The company CubaExport is responsible for the sale, processing and shipping out of the country the coal, which is marketed by the companies Cimex, Cítricos Caribes and Alcona.

The leading Cuban company for the export of coal made from Marabou is Agroindustrial Ceballos, which in the last eleven years has produced 204,323 tonnes of this product for the international market, according to recently released figures.

Cuba annually exports about 80,000 tonnes, mainly to European countries and also to Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey and Israel.

Marabou charcoal has a high energy power and is produced in handmade furnaces in a natural way; its production is not a cause of deforestation.

Urinals ‘Out of Order’ in Cuba’s Largest Airport / 14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez

Urinals in the men’s room in Terminal 3 of Havana’s Jose Marti International Airport (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, 22 January 2017 — A Canadian tourist thought he had seen everything in Cuba, but just a few minutes before boarding his flight he decided to use the bathroom in Terminal 3 of Havana’s Jose Marti International Airport. There, like a realist stage set to represent the indolence that runs the Island, he found that no urinals were available.

For months the bathrooms of the main air terminal of the country have suffered a gradual and unstoppable deterioration. A situation that is exacerbated by the increase in travelers who passed through during 2016, when a world record was reached for the growth rate in passenger arrivals on commercial flights. Technical breakdowns include water supply problems, a lack of toilet paper and attempts by employees to charge customers a fee, not legally established, for the use of the service.

Some 50% more international travelers arrived through the famous airport in a year that also set a new record for tourism, more than four million visitors. They were able to obtain, first-hand, an advance view of what they would find in the country, or a last look, in the best style of Cuban inefficiency.