A Newspaper is Born in Cuba / 14ymedio

Screen Shot 2014-05-21 at 4.49.49 PMJournalists and intellectuals sign a statement of support for 14ymedio.

14YMEDIO | 21 May 2014

“Today we welcome a new communications medium, a digital daily that is born in a country without freedom of the press: Cuba.

“The creators of this risky enterprise, directed by blogger Yoani Sanchez, share our democratic values. In their declaration of principals, the 14ymedio team is committed to promoting ‘truth, freedom and the defense of human rights, without ideological or party ties.’

“Cubans look to the future and need information media that opens respectful spaces for debate on the Island. We are sure that this initiative will contribute to the peaceful and democratic transition and the construction of a new country.

“The undersigned, writers and journalists from different countries, call on the Cuban government to respect the right of this medium to exist and be distributed. And we ask that it not limit the freedom of expression and the right to information of its citizens.”

  • Mario Vargas Llosa, writer, Perú / Spain
  • Rosa Montero, writer and contributor to El País, Spain
  • Fernando Savater, “Claves de razón práctica” Magazine, writer, Spain
  • Fernando Trueba, movie director, Spain
  • Arturo Ripstein, movie director, México
  • Paz Alicia Garciadiego, scriptwriter, México
  • Arcadi Espada, journalist, Spain
  • Arsenio Escolar, journalist, director of 20minutos, Spain
  • Pablo Hiriart, journalist and conductor of Noticiero 40, México
  • Moisés Naím, columnist for El País, Estados Unidos
    Rafael Pérez Gay, writer and journalist in Milenio. México
  • Lech Walesa, ex-president of the Republic of Poland, Poland
  • Vicente Molina Foix, writer, Spain
  • Edward Seaton, director of The Mercury, United States
  • Fidel Cano, Director of El Espectador, Colombia
  • Jaime Mantilla, director of Hoy, Ecuador
  • Carlos Salinas, journalist of Confidencial, Nicaragua
  • Nuria Claver, editorial coordiantor of CLAVES de Razón Práctica en PROGRESA, Spain
  • Juan Malpartida, Escritor and director of Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, Spain
  • Martine Jacot, journalist for Le Monde, Francia
  • Pedro Zambrano Lapenta, director of El Diario, Ecuador
  • Roger Bartra, sociologist and essayist, México
  • Esteban Ruíz Moral, artist, Spain
  • Adam Michnik director of la Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland
  • Maciej Stasiński, journalist for la Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland
  • Carlos Alberto Montaner, journalist, writer and politician. Cuba/United States
    /Spain
  • Mirta Ojitos, Cuban journalist at Columbia Univeristy, NY. Cuba/United States
  • Dagoberto Valdés, director of the magazine Convivencia, Cuba

Math Exam for University Entrance to be Repeated / 14ymedio

Screen Shot 2014-05-21 at 4.49.49 PMLeaking of the contents forces the Ministry of Education to cancel the results and repeat the test.

14YMEDIO, Havana | May 21, 2014

The Ministry of Higher Education and the National Admissions Committee decided to cancel the results of the Mathematics Exam for Admission to Higher Education for students in the city of Havana. The move came as a result of the leaking of the test contents, which many students in Havana had access to.

The official notice states that the exam will be repeated at 9:00 AM on 26 May. The news has caused consternation among young people who already completed the 12th grade, because access to the university requires passing exams in Mathematics, Spanish and History. Most of these students have been preparing for months, including studying with private tutors. continue reading

The exam was held on 8 May, and shortly afterwards it was learned that several of the capital’s high school students had previously obtained the questions. “Unscrupulous people stole the exam, despite the measures taken,” according to the statement by the Ministry of Higher Education.

“We have to pay for their sins,” a girl from Havana’s Nuevo Vedado neighborhood said. She had barely passed the test without having known the questions ahead of time. “Now  they’re going to ‘toss a pea,’” she added, using teenage slang to suggest that the second test will probably be harder than the first.

The investigations uncovered the involvement of at least three teachers who participated in the preparation of the test; severe penalties await them. As an additional measure, the History and Spanish tests are also being modified at the last minute, for fear that they, too, could have been leaked.

2011, That Year So Remote / Yoani Sánchez

14ymedio

Yoani Sanchez

In October Laura Pollan left us, in a dark hospital on a drizzly day, in a year, 2011, that had been born already battered. In the early months, the final prisoners of the Black Spring had been released and national and international headlines gave most of the credit to the Catholic Church and Spain’s Foreign Minister, downplaying the struggle of the Ladies in White, the pressure exerted from the street, Guillermo Fariñas’ hunger strike, and the wake of outrage left by the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo. April, the cruelest month, brought us the Communist Party Congress focused only on economic issues, preferring the word “adjustments” to “reforms,” and consolidating the power of a blood heir to the Cuban throne.

August, with its dog days and its scarcities, wasn’t very different. “Where are the changes?” many asked themselves. It wasn’t until October that they began to trickle out. We could buy a used car, but not freely associate ourselves with a party nor express ourselves without punishment. Then came the most daring of Raul’s measures: it was possible to buy or sell a home, although the most modest of them necessitated the total wages of 45 years’ work. Something was moving in a society mummified for decades, but so slowly we despaired. In mid-December we learned that more than 66,000 Cubans had obtained the nationality of their grandparents, emigrants from the Asturias, the Canary Islands, Galicia… people kept escaping. The despair is not perceived in the streets as much as in the long lines at the consulates.

The area of land allowed to be given to farmers in usufruct grew, but the price of food grew almost as much. The press spoke of advances, but the reality showed stagnation. Private restaurants invaded every neighborhood with their menus of spicy dishes and their anxiety about whether they would be left to survive a while longer. The mute choir of the National Assembly confirmed that for 2012 the country would need much more money to import the foods that could well be produced on our own soil. And the expected travel reform was kept from us again, for the umpteenth time.

On Saint Sylvester night few homes displayed parties or music, at least in Havana. But I felt relief that the year was ending. Of 2011, with its advances overstated by propaganda and its setbacks silenced, once was enough.

4 January 2012