Headquarters of the Embassy of Spain in Havana, Cuba. (14ymedio)
EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 12 May 2023 — Spain announced this Friday that it will support private Cuban micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) interested in doing business on the Island and will facilitate the pathways for potential investors.
The three pilot sectors will be food, technology and cultural industries, said the economic and commercial advisor of Spain in Cuba, Manuel Casuso, during a meeting with 50 private entrepreneurs in Havana.
The initiative, which starts this May, includes information services through the Economic and Commercial Office of Spain and the establishment of a fast track for the issuance of business visas, Casuso said.
The goal is that “they can buy and sell in Spain and invest with Spanish companies,” Casuso told EFE at the end of the meeting.
“Our expectation is that these measures will improve and strengthen the new business sector that begins on this path,” he added, emphasizing the “potential” of Cuban entrepreneurs, especially in sectors such as technology. continue reading
He also recalled the traditional presence of Spanish companies in Cuba, which support the Iberian country as Europe’s first commercial partner on the Island, and the third in the world, behind only China and Venezuela.
Meanwhile, Spain’s ambassador to Cuba, Ángel Martín, stressed at this meeting the importance of the MSMEs in the economy and showed his “support” for the initiative.
The Cuban government authorized the creation of MSMEs in 2021 after banning them in 1968, under the ’Revolutionary Offensive.’ These businesses currently exceed 7,000, according to official figures, and work in activities related to food, accommodation, beauty services and local development projects, among others.
These companies do not have access to areas considered strategic by the Cuban State such as health, telecommunications, energy, defense and the media.
The MSMEs can be state, private or mixed, and are recognized as an economic unit with legal personality with their own characteristics.
This type of economic actor coexists with the socialist state company — the main one for the State in the Cuban system — non-agricultural cooperatives, and self-employment.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Several families, mostly Cuban, at the Miami airport waiting for the arrival of loved ones who are beneficiaries of the “humanitarian parole.” (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana, 13 May 2023 — In an attempt to expedite the procedures of Cubans, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans and Haitians who opt for humanitarian parole, the US Government announced a modification in the selection process of beneficiaries. Starting in the next few days, the program will begin the processing of about 1,000 candidates a day, as reported at a telephone press conference this Thursday.
The United States announced in early 2023 that it would accept more than 30,000 migrants a month from Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti, thus expanding a program that has granted humanitarian permits for Venezuelans since October 2022. However, it also warned that it will immediately expel to Mexico undocumented immigrants from those countries who try to cross the southern border irregularly. For their part, the Mexican authorities agreed to admit up to 30,000 migrants a month who are expelled from the United States.
The new modification of the program says that of the 1,000 places that are available each day, about 500 will be “randomly processed in a lottery, and anyone who is waiting can be chosen,” explained Blas Núñez-Neto, Undersecretary of Border Policy and Immigration of the Department of Homeland Security.
The other half of the appointments will be processed “in the order in which the applications were received to also guarantee that the people who have been waiting will eventually have their applications confirmed,” Núñez-Neto added.
The announcement is included among the measures that the Government of Joe Biden implemented after the elimination of Title 42, which became null and void on Thursday. continue reading
In the face of these changes, hope flourishes again for many Cubans who began the process in January and have not yet been approved. However, the future of the program may be in doubt. A trial is scheduled for the middle of next month in the face of a lawsuit brought by several prosecutors and representatives of 20 states over the inappropriate nature of the parole.
Berta, a Cuban who was stranded in Mexico last January when the United States closed the border to the Island’s nationals, was sponsored by some friends on May 9, and on the 11th she received the confirmation of approval emails from the Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS). However, the 38-year-old woman has not been able to finish the process.
“I did all the steps that USCIS asks for without problems before sending me to the CBP [Customs and Border Protection] One application to apply for the travel permit,” the Cuban tells 14ymedio. “But after I managed to create my session in CBP One, on May 11 at night, I have not been able to move forward.”
“The application sends me the confirmation code and when I manage to enter it, it drops me from the system, or if it lets me do the steps it asks for, among them, take a selfie and scan my passport, I send the information, but the application itself tells me that the information is incorrect.”
Like Berta, some beneficiaries of the parole have expressed in the last week the malfunction of the application in the Facebook groups created by Cubans to be informed about the parole. Everyone agrees that they entered the data correctly and followed the required steps. It is not the first time that this type of CBP One error has been reported by sponsors and beneficiaries.
Up to the end of April, more than 120,000 immigrants arrived in the United States as beneficiaries of the humanitarian permit, according to the most recent statistics from the Department of Homeland Security.
By nationality, more than 24,000 Cubans have received a travel permit, and of that figure about 22,000 have entered the United States. More than 46,000 Venezuelans, 39,000 Haitians and 19,000 Nicaraguans have also been approved.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Painted by the Cuban Jorge Arche about 1935, ‘The Letter’ is one of the most enigmatic pictures held by the National Museum of Fine Art in Havana. (MNBA)
14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 7 May 2023 – I re-read Dulce María Loynaz, I listen to recordings of her voice, I submerge myself in her world. I see her descending to the lounge of her house in an iron elevator. She opens the grille and exits, fanning herself, passing between the armchairs and yellowing sculptures. She recites what may have been a monologue from ancient tragedy: “I live alone, I have no children. I lost my husband, I lost my brothers. I’m not afraid of anything — imagine! I am the daughter of a soldier. The daughters of soldiers are not afraid and neither should they be”.
Her life, which spanned a whole century, took her from Havana to Ankara, and later to Damascus, Tripoli, Cairo, New York, Mexico, Salamanca and her much-loved Tenerife. It must have been strange for a woman like her to later become anchored in one city and one house. She must have felt that only her presence, her authority — that authority which her departed ones and her books gave her — prevented her from being under siege.
How did she survive for so many years? What did she eat? Who visited her, or who cut her hair? Which allies remained with her? Did they watch over her, or denounce her? Steal from her to frighten her? What nightmares could frighten a woman like that? How did she tolerate the harshness of being old in Cuba? She did, however, always manage to keep herself above any vulgarity and above people’s questioning.
Dulce María’s dignity, however, reaches a point at which it was difficult to maintain: at the Cervantes Prize acceptance ceremony in 1992 she loses the ability to speak. Her speech is read for her by Lisandro Otero — as lifelessly as a ventriloquist’s dummy. Otero, a commissioner with pretentions of being a writer, “a pastiche of Carpentier and Durrell” — as Pedilla described him — and one who would never have arrived at the assembly hall of the University of Alcalá under his own merit, must have trembled with jealousy when, years later, Guillermo Cabrera Infante was awarded the same prize. continue reading
Miraculously, Dulce María’s words are not distorted by the other person’s voice. She speaks about Cervantes and his “immortal book”, and allows herself, before the Spanish royals, an anecdote about the War of Independence: In 1895, her father, Enrique Loynaz del Castillo, took part in an expedition to Ciénaga de Zapata. Breaking into the jungle, he comes across someone asleep: it’s a Spanish soldier who’s somehow been left behind, and who’s head is resting on a copy of Don Quixote.
In a lovely episode from Soldados de Salamina [Soldiers from Salamina], the man manages to escape, but he leaves behind the book and a leather case, “rich with jewels”. Loynaz eventually returns the booty but keeps the book, which he’s started to read underneath a tree, in order to avoid the bother of having to cross the swamp. After a while the other soldiers hear his guffaws. “Carry on laughing”, his companions tell him, and they beg him to read the book out loud to them — because he’d discovered “a way of escaping from hell”.
“It isn’t hard to cry on your own. However, it’s almost impossible to laugh on your own”, the elderly woman finishes by saying, through the man’s voice. The nervous faces in the hall wait, sure in the knowledge that there’ll be some words of criticism for Castro’s regime, a final, rousing fighting speech. However, instead Dulce María talks about writing as a salvation for the “pursued and the misplaced”, like Cervantes, like captain Loynaz, like herself. Did she need to add anything else?
Dulce María returns for a final time to Havana. She tells someone that she’s come to think about Havana in the same way that she thinks about animals — dogs and birds. Her father never agreed to keeping the latter in cages, because in her house, she says, there was always a great passion for freedom. And what a house it was to live in. Carpentier tells us that the the Loynaz siblings had turned the working day on its head. They woke up at five in the afternoon and, as if emerging from coffins, they lived by night. It’s well known that all of them were poets and all had a great sense of memory.
The house was Dulce María’s other ‘avatar’. In her lament for the mansion’s “final days” — written, as a prophecy, in 1958 — she misses “that effervescent life”. In one of her last interviews, her voice trembles: “It made me suffer a lot in my life seeing the sorry state that the house got into over the last few years. But I couldn’t do anything to save it. So the only thing I hope and wish for is that it ends up by just collapsing”.
A woman’s best quality is her mystery. Dulce María always respected that. One can re-read her with much pleasure, but nothing impresses one more than her ethics. Around her — today as much as yesterday — swarm the political writers, the satirists, militants, spies, sectarians, the effete, the dissidents, the exiled, the indifferent, the mediocre, the brilliant, the vulgar and the opportunists. Any old snitch or informer can provoke her with a question but she doesn’t bat an eyelid. “The Havana of today? Better not to talk about it. Excuse me”. And she gets up to go and look at her collection of fans.
Translated by Ricardo Recluso
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Unloading frozen chicken from a truck coming from the United States, in Central Havana, this Tuesday. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, May 10, 2023 — “The missing chicken and rice have arrived for the population. Pending coffee and detergent, blessings.” The message from a neighbor of Central Havana this Wednesday set off a crowd that ran in search of the chicken that had been lost for months. Two hours later there was no more chicken nor trace of a line.
Last Friday, the Ministry of Internal Trade asked the population for calm, assuring that chicken would arrive in all corners of the Island. A week earlier, the authorities revealed that, due to the lack of availability, only medical diets and children up to 13 years old would be entitled to the meat of the bird through the ration book, while those older than that age would receive picadillo and mortadella as a substitute.
Finally, and despite the collapse of chicken imports, the Government rectified the measure and began distribution in Camagüey last Friday, at the rate of one and a half pounds of meat for those under 14 and one pound for those over that age.
It is suspected that the shipment of chicken that arrived on May 5, aboard the refrigerated ship Orange Spirit from New Orleans, was destined for sale in Freely Convertible Currency (MLC), and that the authorities made the decision to distribute it through the ration book in national currency when they realized the growing unrest in the country, expressed on social networks and in the Caimanera protest, last Saturday. continue reading
Just unloaded from the Orange Spirit, the frozen poultry meat, which has become an object of desire for all Cubans since they stopped hoping for pork, was quickly distributed in Havana and dispatched to other cities in the center of the Island, as 14ymedio correspondents were able to verify.
This Tuesday, the trucks distributed the chicken to the butchers of the capital with such unusual efficiency that by the next day it was already available in every shop, as this newspaper could see in a tour of different neighborhoods of the center.
The chicken, from the American brand Tyson, is not one of the most appreciated by the population, because of the dark color it acquires with cooking. But the mere fact of finally being able to buy the expected half pound – at 20 pesos [$.80] – was already a cause for joy for the habaneros.
“You can’t complain, now you have chicken,” joked one neighbor to another who came out with his long-awaited package.
Despite the announcement of the arrival of the shipment of chicken, broadcast with great fanfare in Tribuna de La Habana this Tuesday, some neighbors were not expecting the happy news. “It took people by surprise,” said a retiree from Nuevo Vedado who found out, hours later, that they had supplied his butchery with the long-awaited chicken quarters.
The general director of the Copmar Food Marketing Company, Enrique Plaza Maldestein, said in Tuesday’s Noticerio Estelar that 51 containers of chicken were being unloaded in the port of Havana. The average number of tons of chicken needed to supply the capital’s family basket is 5,300, imported in its entirety.
For the third consecutive month, chicken purchases from the United States, which must be paid in cash due to the embargo restrictions, fell in March due to the lack of foreign exchange in the Central Bank. Imports from Brazil also decreased, another of the most stable suppliers on the Island and for whom there are no such limitations.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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So far this year, independent records count 27 women murdered in Cuba by sexist violence. (Alas Tensas)
14ymedio, Madrid, 10 May 2023 — The Supreme People’s Court confirmed on Tuesday the life imprisonment of two Cubans sentenced in 2022 for sexist murders against their wife and ex-partner respectively. The two convicts, Yadier Delvá Simón and Alexander Nápoles Téllez, had appealed their sentences, but the high court rejected both appeals.
“Both individuals were sanctioned to perpetual deprivation of liberty, as perpetrators of two crimes of murder, by depriving the lives, using bladed weapons and blunt instruments, of the one who had been his wife and mother of his only son, in the case of the first accused and, the second, previously a couple, once she decided to separate from him,” explains the press release by official media.
The high court “held that these events irremediably mark the future of the minor children of the victims and arouse total revulsion and absolute rejection by society, which defends inclusion, equality and non-violence,” the text adds.
The trials were held in the past days — without specifying — in Havana and Ciego de Ávila. Delvá Simón asked to be exonerated alleging a “deep state of psychological alteration,” but the court considers that the witness, documentary and expert evidence disprove this and demonstrate his responsibility. In his case, the penalty is joined by the withdrawal of guardianship over the son he had in common with the victim.
Nápoles Téllez, for his part, claimed repentance, but the judges attribute falsehood to him and argue that the crime was amply proven. continue reading
The Supreme Court adds in its note that article 345 of the new Criminal Code, in force since December 1, provides for the crime of murder “sanctions of 20 to 30 years, perpetual deprivation of liberty or death” for those who “kill a woman as a result of gender violence,” which “evidences the will of the Cuban State to guarantee protection and legal attention to them, severely punishing those who are declared responsible for these events.”
The addition comes shortly after President Miguel Díaz-Canel said that there will be “zero tolerance” for sexist violence, which he described as an “unacceptable act.” The statements took place in April as part of a meeting called Voices of Women for Gender Non-Violence, held in Santa Clara.
“A single woman violated is not only a blow to the feminist tradition of the Revolution, it is an unacceptable act for our socialist society,” Díaz-Canel stressed in a year in which at least 27 women have already been murdered, counted thanks to the Alas Tensas and Yo Sí Te Creo platforms, with the help of local networks, since the ruling party does not have an official and public record of these (and other) crimes.
The known figure of femincides is three times that of last year, when as of May there were nine murders, although it cannot be ruled out that the ability to make an accurate account is improving as the associations are consolidated. In 2022, these platforms were able to verify 36 femicides.
Their role has been decisive in now targeting an evil scourge that blatantly affects the Island, which, with independent data alone, is double the number of sexist murders in Spain, whose population is almost five times that of Cuba. In this country, one of the worst in the official record of femicides, 14 women murdered by their partners or ex-partners have died so far this year.
The most recent official Cuban statistics on domestic violence appeared in the 2016 National Gender Equality Survey, in which 10,698 women participated.
Of these, 26.7% of women between the ages of 15 and 74 said they had suffered some type of violence in their relationship in the 12 months prior to the study. Of these, only 3.7% of those assaulted asked for institutional help.
Cuban feminist platforms continue to demand a Comprehensive Law against Gender Violence, which at the moment is not contemplated on the Island, where a reflection on the matter has been announced for 2026. This type of rule goes beyond the criminalization of the crime of murder and tries to put the emphasis on prevention through education and awareness, as well as in the training of judges, doctors, police and other workers involved in this type of violence, previously considered as a domestic issue.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Photograph provided by Gibson, of students of songwriting from the Cuban National School of Art. (EFE/Gibson)
EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 11 May 2023 — Gibson, the iconic brand leader in musical instrument manufacture, has donated 52 acoustic guitars as well as sets of strings and other equipment to students from the Cuban National School of Art, mediated by American ex-football player Derek Walker, goodwill ambassador for Gibson Gives.
According to an announcement on Wednesday, Gibson Gives, the charitable arm of Gibson, donated a hundred sets of guitar strings, guitar picks and 52 Epiphone acoustic guitars to 21 music education programmes run nationally by the school.
In addition, “in the next few months” Gibson will give 100 more Epiphone guitars to the school, which forms part of the state education system.
“The composition of Cuban songs has a rich history and a global impact; we’re delighted to do our bit to help assure that this tradition continues to prosper with the next generation”, said Dendy Jarrett, executive director of Gibson Gives.
Zulema Armas, deputy director of communications and international relations at the National Centre for Art Schools on the island, agreed that the donation was made with great vision for the future.
“By putting instruments like these high quality guitars into the hands of our aspiring artists you are contributing to the development of young talent who will be the future stars of all the main stages, thus making the world a better place through their creativity and vitality”, said Armas. continue reading
Walker, who was a professional player in the American National Football League (NFL) as defence wing, delivered the instruments and equipment personally to the students.
“I’m still very grateful to Gibson for believing in my initial vision of giving picks and strings to Cuban students. In less than one year I’m amazed that we’ve been able to donate Epiphone guitars to 21 music schools throughout Cuba”, said Walker.
The announcement added that all of Gibson Gives donations are destined to “give the gift of music”.
In the last three years, Gibson Gives, the “philanthropic arm of Gibson”, the famous guitar brand founded in 1894, has raised more than three and a half million dollars throughout the world through its mission.
“Gibson Gives believes that investing in musical education will produce better people, better leaders and a better world”, says the organisation.
Translated by Ricardo Recluso
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Lines to withdraw money from ATMs at the Metropolitan Bank of 23 and J. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Olea Gallardo, Havana, 11 May 2023 — For six days Roberto has been trying to withdraw cash from an ATM in Havana, the last one this Thursday. In vain. One by one, he verified what all the inhabitants of the capital say this week: you can barely extract money.
The announcer Yunior Morales posted this Wednesday with humor on his social networks. “You go to any ATM and there is no money. And tremendous cristóbal colón,” he joked, referring to the immense lines [colas in Spanish]. At the time of making his transmission, an acquaintance greeted him: “What’s wrong, Yunior?” He replied: “Here with hunger, boy, I’m hungry.” “Why don’t you eat something then?” to which he replied: “I have to withdraw money first and no ATM works.” And he ends his video jokingly exaggerating: “I have a CDR [Committees for the Defense of the Revolution] meeting about my hunger in my stomach. CDR because, you know, the CDR is hunger, gossip and conflict.”
The situation seems to spread to many other cities in the country. In Holguín, a teacher tells 14ymedio that Education workers now have their salaries divided in two: “one payment on the 5th and another on the 28th,” because “there is almost no money.” In addition, she says that “not even the employees of a bank know when there will be cash at the ATMs.”
A doctor from Sancti Spíritus says that in Public Health they are only paid by electronic transfer: “They deposit on the card, but for those who pay cash for things there is no money.” continue reading
More serious is what a state worker points out. “With payrolls made and everything, the bank does not accept payment through the cards because they don’t have money; the railroad is not an isolated situation,” he says referring to the unusual spontaneous strike organized on Tuesday by Artemis railway workers, in protest against the non-payment of their salaries in the last two months.
In Santiago de Cuba, complaints proliferate that “there is no money in the ATMs,” while groups in which human ATMs operate have multiplied on social networks. “Will exchange money in transfer for cash. I have the cash,” some say; “Will exchange CUP [pesos] transfer for cash,” say others. Some include the precise amount, such as 17,000 pesos, something unthinkable to extract in a bank.
Roberto from Havana tells this newspaper that he has verified in ATMs of “at least three municipalities” that, where before up to 10,000 pesos could be withdrawn in an operation, “and then there were 500 or 1,000 bills in the ATM, now they only allow 5,000 to be extracted,” and only in 20-peso bills.
This newspaper was able to verify this in the branch of the Metropolitan Bank (Banmet) on 23rd and J, in El Vedado, with such a central location that until recently it guaranteed any withdrawal, but the situation was chaos this Thursday. To begin with, you had to endure a gigantic line, divided into two: one to enter and another, the longest, for the ATMs. Of the six ATMs only two worked.
Inside the branch, for those who chose to extract money at the counter, the uncomfortable atmosphere was widespread and contagious. The employees were rude to people and arguing with each other; the customers were tremendously disgusted. Two elderly ladies were about to come to blows when one of them lost her place in line to go visit her sick daughter in the hospital and the other refused to let her back in: “Right now we are here,” said the latter, who lowered her voice when the threatened woman called the police.
A cashier rolled her eyes when an old man asked her what denominations she had, because he didn’t want the “little ones.” The man intended to get 40,000 pesos [$1,667] and he couldn’t. “That can happen because there are very few large bills,” the employee told him.
“Every day the same thing,” said another lady in line. “They let people pass in front who are going to deposit pesos, and if you are going to extract them, no matter the amount, they give you bills of 20 pesos.”
“They are giving priority to those who are going to deposit national currency, but almost no one comes to do that. “Do they let someone who comes to deposit pesos go first because there are none?” asked another woman who had just arrived from another cashier, from which she had tried to withdraw cash unsuccessfully. “Let them tell the truth: there is no money.”
However, the authorities are silent these days. Last month, in the face of the citizen rumor that state workers would not be paid, the Sancti Spíritus government was in a hurry to deny it. On those days, however, 14ymedio verified that cash could not be extracted at the city’s 11 ATMs.
The problems were repeated in Havana, where the provincial government reported that 150 of the 521 Banmet ATMs in the capital (30%) were broken. Then, they also said that from April 8 to 14, cash withdrawals exceeded 200 million pesos per day.
No one knows what is happening in May, but citizens are increasingly desperate. “We are going to have to pay with cocoa seeds, because paper cash is an illusion,” says Roberto, who fears that “the entire country could be paralyzed at any time.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Map of the Island with the description “Terra de Cvba-Asie partis,” which means “Land of Cuba— A Part of Asia” (US Library of Congress)
14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 9 May 2023 — Our history classes, with few exceptions, were insufferable. They hammered our brains with the Marxist view that, from the time of the aboriginal people up to the bearded cacique, the history of Cuba was limited to the struggle of the working class to create communism. Our exams were reduced to organizing events chronologically, coming up with adjectives for our heroes, repeating by heart dates and slogans. I tip my hat to those teachers and historians who come out of that system, but to be sure, they are like gold nuggets at the bottom of a river.
It’s shameful that so many college students have no idea what distinguished the Taino people from the Ciboney, or can’t name more than two presidents from the republican era. What’s worse, these last decades have been a wash, drowned in censorship and propaganda. In this column, I will try to approach, as a curious, avid reader, the hidden story of an island that was first named Juana and later Fernandina.
“History Without Hysteria” originated as a segment that lasted two seasons on the Cuban podcast El Enjambre. I invite you to debate, dissent, add information and anecdotes. Let us make our history a recurrent theme in our daily conversations, so that it is not confined to academic circles.
I’ll start off with Columbus, a figure so misunderstood that even he never knew what he had “discovered.” I begin with him, because he was the first to write down the name of our land, although he did it incorrectly. Without a clue as to what the Lucayans were telling him about a large, rich island to the south, the Admiral wrote in his diary a mysterious name: Colba. continue reading
Upon reaching land, probably at what is today Bariay, he stated that well-known phrase about “the most beautiful land,” etc. But let’s not get carried away with vanity. Columbus had been travelling for more than two months surrounded by water everywhere and with a crew that was about to throw him overboard. The Admiral would see a bird and sigh; a blade of grass would make his eyes water. All the hyperbole and metaphors were meant to raise the morale of the men and reassure the kings they had invested their two million maravedis well.
Another theory states that the first landing in Cuba was in Puerto Padre. In fact, there is a legend that a sailor exclaimed to a priest: “What a port, padre!” But no, friends of Las Tunas, despite all the paintings that depict a priest with a cross at the landing, there was no priest aboard the two caravels, nor on the ship Santa María.
Christopher Columbus, whose name in Genoese means something like “the dove of Christ,” had made his living as a sailor and a vendor of maps, until he found a more ambitious project: going left to reach the Indies. Fortunately, he did believe that the world was round, not like the millions of people who today still believe it is flat. But his calculations were incorrect. The terrestrial sphere was about four times larger than he and others of his age believed.
Even so, upon landing in Cuba, he assumed that he had finally reached Cipango, the name the Europeans then used for Japan. On top of that, the Admiral asked where he could find the great Khan, and the Taino answered, “Cubanacán, Cubanacán.” The Admiral was overwhelmed by the throng in hides and racoons, although his steadfast objective was the gold. He did not see much, however, but for the occasional ornament in the form of snot hanging from their noses.
On his second voyage, Columbus attempted to circumnavigate Cuba by going south, but he gave up before he reached the western end. He then rectified the assessment made on his first voyage: Juana was not an island, but the mainland. The Admiral understood that he was not in Cipango, but in Catay (China). And he made his men swear to it, on pain of losing their tongues.
Today, more than five centuries later, many are still clueless. Sadly, a lot of people still have a romantic and childish vision of us, with no idea about the country pulsating beneath Castro’s propaganda, the tourist ads, and the ideological banners. For all those suffering from Columbus syndrome, there’s a very native expression: “Wake up, we’re in Cuba!”
Translated by Cristina Saavedra
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Cooperatives are one of the forms of agriculture in Cuba. (Bohemia)
14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, 9 May 2023 — Local food production is the latest experiment practiced by Cuban communists but it will be a failure. Like many others. The municipalities aren’t up to the task of producing enough food. The idea proposed — to shift state responsibilities to the local level for them to be managed by the territorial communist organizations — is a useless, inefficient exercise and far from improving the quality of life for people, will result in authentic chaos, exacerbating differences among Cubans according to the zone where they live, and many other things.
But Cuban President Díaz-Canel’s persistence in implementing structural changes and in managing and eliminating obstacles, so that municipalities develop these functions seems firm. And the state-run press does not pass up an opportunity to spotlight the gesture.
This is what occurred on Monday in Artemisa, where Díaz-Canel participated in a meeting to “evaluate achievement of the commitments made in January by this territory to overcome the complexities the nation is experiencing in the economic, social, and political-ideologic order.” A kind of ministerial review meeting that, since it will extend to the rest of the provinces, will keep the junta that runs the country occupied for quite a while.
And here comes the most notable result, when they realized that five months after a similar meeting was held in the province, during which they identified strategies to produce food in the area, “much remains to be done and there is great potential in several places that are not being used.”
Our position on this matter is clear. If, instead of focusing on creating and strengthening local production systems, they bet on the unity of the national market to take advantage of the production potential of increasing economies of scale, which ensures a superior efficiency of production processes, it would be another story. continue reading
Any first-year economics student would have corrected their “localist” initiative which is stifled by a phenomenon economists know well: diminishing returns. These occur precisely when the scale in which one factor operates, for example, the land, is not sufficient for the amount of work available. The obsession with producing in this manner creates inefficiency and “multiple potentialities,” as the state press note says, are lost.
But this local food production is another one of the communist congress’s conclusions, of those that when implemented end up damaging the Cuban economy. Remember what happened with the Ordering Task*, which also was imposed as a communist obligation. Putting ideology ahead of economic rationality is one of the most evident examples of failure in communist Cuba.
Wanting a municipality to become the fundamental entity responsible for food production is a mistake. Another is expecting food sovereignty goals to be met; as is believing that local authorities have the capacity to make decisions related to state companies located in their territories; and getting them to produce more is another inefficient idea.
Communists are adamant about these changes in structure and resource management because the central budget is at its limit and they need to transfer expenses to the territories where tax collection tends to be higher. But they don’t realize that, by imposing this model, what they are really doing is transferring the inefficiencies and the communist central government’s poor functioning to the territories, which will end up imploding the system. Those responsible at the local level should confront the central government about this imposition which can only lead to chaos.
Moreso because the current economic conditions and the complex international scenario are not the most amenable to absurd experiments. It is bad enough to depend on imports, as happened with the communist centrally-planned economy; it is worse to try formulas so that each territory is capable of producing a good portion of the food consumed by its population. Small-scale does not work, it is inefficient and also not very profitable.
And we realize the absurdity of Díaz-Canel’s initiative when we see that what matters to him is to have a livestock census to achieve control over the masses; to facilitate the approval of foreign investment and good evaluations of food production projects funded by international donors; to join forces with the youth labor army to farm fields that are currently fallow; and to promote the development of areas within businesses or employers to produce food for their internal consumption. Bureaucratic and administrative work. When it comes to changing things, wouldn’t it be better and more correct if they restored property and land rights and facilitated a structural transformation of the Cuban economy to a free market economy?
For their part, local governments justify to Díaz-Canel their failure to meet targets by claiming: “too much subjectivity and lack of awareness when applying the food sovereignty and nutrition education law,” and the lack of “training that includes all those implicated in the implementation.” Another good example of the improvisation that goes along with the regime’s application of ideological measures.
No one dares to say, publicly, that it is an absurd idea best tucked away in a drawer. There is not a single opposing position that defends a thesis like the ones proposed here. Everyone knows that the formula is useless, but everyone moves forward, united, toward the disaster. And for that reason, the most curious thing is that they devote themselves to counting “commitments” and there is someone who congratulates themselves when they state that of the 111 general commitments made during the previous meeting 72 have been met to date, 24 have not been met, and 21 could possibly be met. What do you think of that? Counting nonsense and meanwhile, the people experience deprivation, scarcity, and out-of-control price increases.
And clearly, it’s time to review this year’s targets and it’s like turning off the lights and saying goodbye. A wide spectrum of unmet targets weighs on the local managers and exempts Díaz-Canel and his people.
No matter, the thing is that Cubans continue experiencing hunger. They reported that the production targets will not be met for meat and sugar, nor will the targets for international tourists in the territory. They highlighted that they surpassed the targets set for exported services, but not goods; even though they did not delay making the fallow lands available — 14,000 hectares in eight months — producers are still not satisfied with the pace at which this process is carried out. That is, leasers request more land and the communists do not make it available. And this is in Artemisa, which is productive.
The meeting went down another path, subsequently turning its attention to the programs prioritized as demographic dynamics, the Life Task, and the production of local construction materials. They reported that in six months more than 600 jobs were created, in the government and non-government sectors; and they said that they continued to repair health and education institutions, and that 141 new slots were created in pre-schools.
Generally, in the province they worked to implement the strategic lines of action in the national plan for economic and social development 2030. They also highlighted a lack of training among party cadres to confront the complexities that lie ahead. They also talked about integrating all forms of production at the municipal level; promoting greater agility in the procedures that must be followed in order to export goods; and the importance of making better use of science and innovation. About the population’s dissatisfaction, those at the meeting only talked about “the revolutionary dissatisfaction with what we do every day.”
*Translator’s note: The “Ordering Task” [TareaOrdenamiento] is a collection of measures that include eliminating the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC), leaving the Cuban peso as the only national currency, raising prices, raising salaries (but not as much as prices), opening stores that take payment only in hard currency which must be in the form of specially issued pre-paid debit cards, and a broad range of other measures targeted to different elements of the Cuban economy.
Translated by: Silvia Suárez
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The Cuban authorities have made no mention of the Calida, an oil tanker 817 feet long and 144 feet wide, anchored in Matanzas. (Vesselfinder)
14ymedio, Havana, 11 May 2023 — As happened with the OrangeSpirit, which brought American chicken last week, and with several tankers in recent months, the official Cuban press again omitted the name and origin of an oil tanker that docked at the port of Matanzas this Wednesday to unload 40,000 tons of diesel. Nor did it give information about the origin of the fuel, for which it paid 29 million dollars.
The record suggests that the cargo comes from Russia and was “laundered” in Turkey to circumvent the embargo by the NATO countries, in response to the invasion of Ukraine by Moscow’s troops. This measure does not apply to Cuba but to certain countries such as the United States, where the ship stopped before reaching Matanzas.
Of this, not a word in the report of Cuban Television, which goes to the extreme of disseminating a report with images of another oil tanker, the Cheetah-II, that entered that same port on April 27 from the Russian port of Tuapsé in the Black Sea and made a stopover in Istanbul but did not pass through the United States. However, according to ship geolocation pages consulted by 14ymedio, the Cheetah-II has been in Santiago de Cuba since May 2.
On the other hand, the official journalist Bernardo Espinosa, author of the report, illustrated the arrival of the tanker at the port of Matanzas this Thursday with the photographs of the Cheetah-II used in a previous work on April 27.
According to satellite monitoring by Vesselfinder and Marine Traffic, the only oil tanker that docked this Wednesday at the Matanzas Deepwater Pier was the Calida, a ship that sails with the flag of Malta, coming from Istanbul, Turkey, after having made a stopover in the Netherlands and on April 30 at the port of Corpus Christi, in Texas, United States. continue reading
The Cuban authorities have not made any mention of Calida, an oil tanker with 817 feet of length and 144 feat of width. In addition to two small tugboats with the Cuban flag, the only ship that is currently in the Matancera terminal, since April 30, is the MariannaV.V., an oil tanker with the Liberian flag.
According to Televisión Cubana, the ship docked at the Matanzas Deepwater Pier and, after “certifying the quality of the product,” the unloading to another ship began, an operation that is expected to be completed in 48 hours. “This allows us to quickly reach other ports that are also in need of fuel,” said Lidia Rodríguez, director of the Commercial Company of the Cuban Oil Union (Cupet).
“The cargo of this ship will not mean increases in the volumes to be marketed,” warned the officials interviewed by national television, who described the cargo as “insufficient,” although it helped to “not reach zero” in terms of electricity generation. Twenty thousand tons of unloaded diesel will be dedicated, according to officials, to electricity generation, and the same amount to “basic services.”
“We know the conditions that there are with the fuel,” said Ower Luis Grau, head of Áreas at the Mantanzas pier, who added that “most of the fuel that enters this country” is discharged through that terminal and is expected to “arrive quickly” to the other provinces.
Cuban Television added that the Island is eager to “receive new imports,” some already “in business phases” and others en route to Cuba. Before the end of May, the officials assured, other shipments of fuel will arrive.
On April 27, when the Cheetah-II arrived in Matanzas, the authorities were also secretive with the information about the ship. At that time, the official press guaranteed that diesel would also be used in electricity generation and in “sectors of the economy and the social area.”
The shipment also did not mean an improvement in the sale of hydrocarbons to private drivers on the Island. The Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, insisted on the idea of “not touching zero with fuels,” but the situation remains in the most complete precariousness.
What the Cuban government does not report is where the fuel comes from and through which negotiations it enters Cuba. The Reuters agency recently revealed that Mexico increased its crude oil exports to the Island, and that has not meant a relief for the fuel crisis in the country either.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Prisoners Defenders says that there are 256 new political prisoners in Cuba in the last 12 months. (EFE)
14ymedio, Havana, 11 May 2023 — Prisoners Defenders (PD) denounced this Thursday that at the end of April in Cuban prisons there were 1,048 political prisoners. Although there were 18 fewer than in March, the organization, based in Madrid, points out in its latest monthly report that “more cases of minors have emerged,” and that there has been an exacerbation in the poor conditions for trans women.
In its latest report, the organization details that in April, 24 new political prisoners were admitted and 42 were released. Most of those who regained their freedom did so after the “complete fulfillment” of their sentences. As for those who came out before, it was because the defense managed to demonstrate wrongdoing and irregularities in the criminal proceedings.
PD emphasizes an increase in the number of imprisoned minors, who in April totaled 35 (two more than in March). Of these, four are girls, who are serving sentences or are in criminal proceedings. The organization points out that “a good part” are in penitentiary centers that the Government euphemistically calls “Integral Training Schools.”
At least 18 children were accused or convicted of the charge of sedition, one of the most severe charges in the Criminal Code, which the regime has used to punish the participants of the massive protests of July 11, 2021. “The average sentence for these convicted minors is five years of deprivation of liberty, a punishment on average higher than that suffered, before 11J [the nationwide protests of 11 July 2021], by adults in political prison,” says PD. continue reading
In the list of the 28 new prisoners in April, the report adds, there are three women, reaching a total of 118 inmates in the country, including several transgender prisoners. The best-known case is that of Brenda Díaz, sentenced by the regime to 14 years and seven months in prison on charges of public disorder, sabotage and contempt after her participation in 11J.
In a new clash, Díaz responded this week to the statements of Mariela Castro, director of the National Center for Sexual Education of Cuba (Cenesex), who described her situation as “exaggerated and full of fantasies.” Díaz invited the leader to visit the prisons without prior notice to verify the real conditions of the detainees.
“All trans women prisoners have been and are imprisoned among men, which also happens with ordinary trans prisoners, suffering indescribable situations for their sexual condition,” the NGO says in its report.
Similarly, the organization denounces that the Cuban authorities intimidate detainees with “taking away their children for the exercise of their freedom of expression,” alluding to the new provisions in the Family Code that allow the suspension of parental responsibility when “vicious, corrupt or criminal behavior is observed.”
PD says Lizandra Góngora Espinosa is in this position, and the Government has threatened to take custody of the five children from her and her husband if they continue with human rights activism. Góngora was transferred to a prison on the Isla de la Juventud, with “the cruel purpose of preventing her children from visiting her,” the report says.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The migrants crossed the Rio Grande in front of the Mexican border authorities. (Captura/ImpactVision)
14ymedio / Jorge Fuentelsaz, Mexico, 10 May 2023 — This Tuesday, 48 hours before the end of Title 42 which has allowed the United States to immediately expel migrants for health reasons, a hundred people broke through the control of Mexican border agents in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, and began to cross the Rio Grande in broad daylight. The ImpactVision cameras captured the moment when the campers on the bank decided to cross the river, calm at that moment, before the impassive gaze of members of the National Institute of Migration (INM).
“I ask the United States authorities to help us,” a woman told the reporter. “Let them open a channel that is more accessible, more humane, because we’ve gone through everything. People insult us, mistreat us, rob us, there are women raped,” lamented the migrant. Most refused to speak to the camera, and their attention was completely focused on making sure that those who were already crossing reached the other side, while preparing to be next.
In recent days, says the reporter, thousands of people have tried to reach the United States. The changes that are coming keep the migrants confused, and rumors are circulating more than ever.
On Tuesday, agents of the US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) distributed brochures without official seals inviting migrants to surrender to the authorities.” It is better for you to turn yourself in at the nearest station of the border patrol,” the note said. “In this place you will be processed by CBP officers and put on the correct immigration path.” Rumors of a raid encouraged migrants to take this route. continue reading
“Allegedly here they are providing us with the documentation,” said Giomar, a 39-year-old former Venezuelan policeman interviewed by EFE. On Tuesday in El Paso, hundreds of people were being delivered, in an orderly manner, under the premise that they will be given the permits they need.
“We want to have the American papers to be able to transit here in the United States, we want to be legalized,” said Franco Zambrano, 20 years old and Venezuelan as well, like most of those who waited in the North Pass yesterday. “They told us to give ourselves up, to come here, that they are helping us with the papers to be able to reach our destination,” added one of his travel companions, Yonaiqui González.
The activists who watch over migrants denounced the “intimidating” attitude of the agents, who yesterday arrived near a church where dozens of people were camping to ask for their papers.
“They are violating what is called the policy of sensitive places, where they should not be doing such activities because they are going to dissuade people from seeking refuge,” the director of the NGO Border Network for Human Rights, Fernando García, told EFE. As he explained, “there is a very clear policy that neither churches nor clinics nor schools are subject to this type of action, and what we are seeing is a massive presence of them. They are preparing for what is coming, and what is coming is going to be a tougher raid policy.”
García is critical of President Joe Biden, who “promised a humane policy towards the border, an immigration reform policy to strengthen the asylum system. And what we are seeing is a harsh policy very similar to that of former President Trump, sending troops instead of humanitarian assistance to the border,” he says.
In recent months, the United States has launched new programs in search of a more “orderly” migration, including the humanitarian parole for Cubans, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans and Haitians, through which up to 30,000 monthly visas are delivered to those who get a sponsor to endorse their stay in the country.
Between its entry into force, on January 9 of this year, and March, 15,000 Cubans, 18,000 Haitians, 7,500 Nicaraguans and 32,000 Venezuelans have arrived in the United States.
However, those who try to enter without the document will be deported to Mexico and will not be able to request this type of access. Despite this warning, hundreds of people of these nationalities try to circumvent border controls.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The migrant camp in Matamoros is mostly occupied by Venezuelans and is located across the border from Brownsville (Texas). (Screen capture)
14ymedio, Havana, 9 May 2023 — Among tents improvised with blankets and tree branches, five Cubans are waiting for a response to their CBP One [US Customs and Border Patrol] appointment at the migrant camp in Matamoros. “I’m not going to risk crossing the Rio Grande and being deported,” says this Island national who has the name “Idalmis” tattooed on his chest.
Idalmis fled Cuba almost four years ago. In an interview with ImpactoVision journalist John Ritchie, he says that “the police were after me,” that he owes “a very large amount for the clothes he was selling” and that if he is returned to Cuba, he will go to jail.
He left his children and his mother in search of a better future because “the situation in Cuba is very bad, terrible like nowhere else,” he emphasizes, while describing the Government’s attitude as “lack of respect.” “If you have money, there is no food or medicine, and when you want something, you don’t have dollars.”
Idalmis affirms that on the Island if you have money there is no food or medicine. (Captura)
Only the Rio Grande separates this Cuban and his wife from Brownsville, one of the Texas cities that together with El Paso and Laredo have declared a state of emergency before the end of Title 42 on May 11. The measure, activated by then-President Donald Trump under the argument of preventing the entry into the country of people with COVID-19 — but which served in practice to expel migrants without having to accept their asylum applications — will be replaced by other measures established by the current administration. The U.S. government is increasing the ways of legally applying for an entry permit but promises to toughen the penalties for those who enter irregularly. continue reading
Idalmis says that the journey has taken him through 11 countries. “I went through Suriname, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, the Darién jungle, Costa Rica and Honduras, until I arrived in Mexico. The section between Tapachula and Mexico City has been a greater obstacle than crossing the Darién jungle” due to extortions, kidnappings and threats along the way.
Idalmis has a brother in Nebraska, and he says excitedly: “At least we already have a job. The delay for us is to be able to legally enter the United States and arrive.”
Next to this couple is a woman who preferred not to give her name. She left the Island four months ago by way of Nicaragua. “The flight was $2,300, although others have paid $3,000 and up to $6,000,” she says. “You’re not going to return but you still have to buy a round-trip ticket.”
These people are waiting for information about migration. They perceived movement on the Brownsville side last Sunday, just on the day that Joe Biden’s U.S. government ordered the deployment of another 1,500 soldiers in support of 2,500 National Guard agents that will be distributed along 1,926 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border.
“None of us is going to cross, because it means risking deportation,” says the Cuban, who traveled alone “because the money was not enough for my husband’s flight.” Since Monday, none of the migrants, mostly Venezuelans, have tried to cross the Rio Grande.
Among the Cubans is a woman who says she is not planning to return to the Island and hopes to cross legally to the United States. (Screen capture)
Gladis Cañas, representative of the association Ayudenles a Triunfar [Help Them Succeed] tells 14ymedio that before the end of Title 42 many people tried to swim across the Rio Grande, and, unfortunately, two people died in the attempt. “Aspiring to the American dream should not be synonymous with death,” she says, adding that the CBP One application “has had many deficiencies and errors and has caused migrants to take wrong decisions that can truncate their process.”
The Cubans know that as of this Thursday, May 10, CBP One will have approximately 1,000 appointments available for 23 hours every day, instead of at a designated time. According to the Customs and Border Protection Office, this measure “will allow greater flexibility, prioritizing non-citizens who have waited longer.”
On the American side, the mayor of El Paso, Oscar Leeser, warned that his officers are preparing for the arrival of thousands of migrants on Friday. “On the street we estimated (that there were) between 8,000 and 10,000 people,” he said during a visit to the border with Ciudad Juárez. “There is a caravan that will probably be here around May 11, so I believe that the real number we will be dealing with will be between 12,000 and 15,000.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The Granmax company began its exports of charcoal to Europe. (Granma)
14ymedio, Havana, 8 May 2023 — Cuba has managed to position itself as one of the suppliers of charcoal to Europe, which, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, saw its main supplier seriously affected. The official press Granma announced with great fanfare over the weekend the first shipment from the state company Granmax to the European market, while the company Horquita, from Cienfuegos, fulfills its plan with the shipment of four containers.
Granmax, a subsidiary of the business unit of Agroindustrial de Granos Fernando Echenique, located in the community of Coboa, in the Granma municipality of Yara, is ready to transfer a shipment of 300 tons of charcoal to the port. It is fabricated from marabou, an invasive weed, with 200 tons of first quality and 100 of second category.
Odisnel Traba Ferrales, Fernando Echenique’s agricultural director, said that the state company has the “conditions” to export 100 tons of charcoal in the rest of the year, in addition to other agricultural products such as lemon, pear lime, habanero chile, hot pepper and banana.
The company thus specifies its first shipment six months after having received the concession as an exporter last November, during the 38th edition of the International Fair of Havana (Fihav 2022), said its director of Exports and Imports, Adrián Rodríguez Galán. During this time, the official added, Granmax was dedicated to obtaining the certification of the work teams to meet the demand and technical requirements of the international market. continue reading
The managers pointed out that Granmax can be an intermediary between individual producers to provide their export services. Foreign exchange revenues, Rodríguez Galán added, will be used for the purchase of technological equipment and agricultural inputs, “in order to grow and be competitive in the international market.”
In Cienfuegos, the Horquita Agricultural Company, in the municipality of Abreus, has also closed the export of four containers of its star product Carbomad, destined for the European Union. The issue was news in the local newspaper 5 de Septiembre, which last Friday highlighted that with these results the production plan is 100% fulfilled.
In May, the newspaper says, production “flows satisfactorily” with the storage of three additional containers that will be exported to different countries through the Victoria de Girón Agroindustrial Company, from Matanzas.
Reiner Vázquez, state administrator, said that 40 employees dedicate “the greatest efforts” to the marabou charcoal industry in Juraguá. “There is an enthusiastic collective in love with the task. It’s a difficult job, but the producers come with tremendous energy and a spirit of work,” he said.
To date, they have fulfilled the production and export quota of 80 tons and have another 80 in storage ready to ship at the beginning of next month. Throughout the year, according to the work plan, they expect to obtain 240 tons of charcoal.
At the end of 2022, Cuba managed to improve its export balance to Europe of wood, charcoal and cork. The European Commission reports that it received assets valued at 39 million euros and grew by 39.2% compared to 28 million in 2021. The Island covered 10.7% of the total demand. Before the Russian attack in February 2022, Ukraine headed the list of suppliers of charcoal to Europe, with Germany as the main importer.
Cuba produces marabou charcoal, which has great acceptance in international markets due to its high caloric power, the flavor it brings to food and the lower environmental impact it entails, since the maribou tree is an invasive species.
For decades, the marabou has been a plague that has spread through the Cuban fields, making them useless for other crops. With a woody trunk, large thorns and a great ability to reproduce quickly, the plant has become a symbol of state laziness and centralism that has hit the Island’s agriculture.
In 2018, the country exported between 40,000 and 80,000 tons of this product. In addition, in January 2016, it made his first export to the United States after fifty years of pause, when it sold about 40 tons of artisanal charcoal for $420 a ton.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The resounding drop in consumption is reflected even more strongly in foods such as bread, rice or sugar. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Madrid, 1 May 2023 — According to Cuban economist Pedro Monreal, official retail trade data on the island for 2022 offer a “devastating” panorama and remove “any vision of an alleged economic recovery underway”. The expert has analyzed the collection from the sale of food discounting inflation and the result could not be more discouraging: the drop is two-thirds compared to the previous year, a 2021 that was not exactly a good year.
Monreal focuses exclusively in a thread of messages published this Monday on Twitter on food sales, and he does so precisely because, as he explains, “they are ‘inelastic’ goods, which in the language of economists means that demand tends not to be affected significantly due to price variations”, since people cannot stop eating and continue to buy, albeit in smaller quantities, whatever the price of the products.
“A two-thirds annual drop in ‘real’ retail food sales is no small matter […] and reveals an important dimension of the brutal ‘adjustment’ of consumption and aggregate purchasing power in Cuba”
At first sight and without discounting inflation, pasta, fish products, bread and a few other items seem to obey the “inelasticity” rule, since sales of the first item (pasta) have risen 85.5%, the second 14.8% and the third 2.9% in 2022, compared to the previous year. On the other hand, consumption of other products has suffered declines of up to 25.8% in the case of sugar or, even worse, 28.4% for milk derivatives. continue reading
The reality, however, is different and much more worrisome. When official inflation of 63% registered in 2022 is taken into account, we see that the value of pasta sales, which seemed to be in good health, have collapsed 31.4%, and this indicates an equivalent fall of real consumption by Cuban families. This resounding drop in consumption is reflected even more strongly in other foods: fish products (-57.5%), bread (-61.9%), rice (-63%), meat products (-69.8%), sugar (-72.5%) and milk derivatives (-73.5%).
“A two-thirds annual drop in ‘real’ retail food sales is no small matter […] and reveals an important dimension of the brutal ‘adjustment’ of consumption and aggregate purchasing power in Cuba, with the cost of adjustment focused on workers and retirees”, concludes Monreal.
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EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 12 May 2023 — Spain announced this Friday that it will support private Cuban micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) interested in doing business on the Island and will facilitate the pathways for potential investors.
