14ymedio, 24 December 2014 — Putting a face to a year like 2016, in which several historical events indelibly marked the Cuban reality – for better or worse – is a task as difficult as it is risky. This newspaper has selected 14 people who stood out in the last twelve months, in science, activism, sports, politics or entrepreneurship, among many other sectors.
From today and throughout the week, we present to our readers these 14 faces, which contributed to make this year a singular compendium of achievements and failures, projects completed and others indefinitely postponed. They are those who chiseled the peculiar physiognomy of a year that is about to expire.
A bodega of rationed products in Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución municipality (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, 22 December 2016 — At the end of this month the ration market quotas for January 2017 will go on sale. Cubans who depend on products distributed at subsidized prices will gather outside the bodegas, in long lines, for the 55th anniversary of the ration book, whose elimination continues to be one of Raul Castro’s unmet projects.
In 2014, the average monthly salary on the island increased by 24%, to 584 Cuban pesos (some 24 dollars). Despite this increase, many families still depend on the subsidized prices maintained by the ration card. Their income does not allow them to pay the prices in the supply-and-demand markets or in the retail network of stores in Cuban Convertible pesos. continue reading
Different analysts and official functionaries have warned that the elimination of the ration book could cause a fall in the standard of living in the most vulnerable sectors of the population, among whom are the retired and families who don’t receive any additional income beyond their state salaries.
Among the Guidelines approved by the Seventh Communist Party Congress, last April, it was agreed “to continue the orderly and gradual elimination of the ration book products.” However, so far, the proposal has not gone into effect, in part because of the poor economic development experienced by the country in recent years.
Cuba’s gross domestic product will grow only 0.4% this year, its lowest level in the last two decades, as recently confirmed by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). Faced with this reality, the government has not been able to improve people’s purchasing power or dismantle the rationed market.
The Government is faced with the dilemma of maintaining the enormous infrastructure and the hefty costs of prolonging the life of the ration book or suppressing it, with the consequent deepening of poverty for various social groups. Such a measure would have an undeniable political impact on a process that has been defined as a revolution “by the humble and for the humble.”
Officialdom has repeated on several occasions that it is preferable to “subsidize people rather than products,” but the rationed quota is still given to every citizen equally, even those who have reached an above average level of income. The practice has focused on removing products from the subsidized basic market basket.
Rice, grains, oil, sugar, salt, eggs, chicken and bread are some of the foods that are still subsidized, while other goods have been removed from the ration book altogether, including liquid detergent, bath and washing soap, toothpaste, beef and cigarettes.
During the 1970s and ‘80s it was virtually impossible to live without ration book products. This phenomenon resulted in, among many other ills, low internal migration and a greater control of the State over the citizens.
Currently, the mobility of the population to provincial capitals and especially to Havana has increased as a result of the easing of the policy on rental housing. The ability to purchase food and hygiene products outside the rationing system has also contributed to the phenomenon.
The emergence of a parallel market that includes state establishments and private bakeries has also been hugely important to the process of citizen independence. Ration book bread, a recurring theme in the “accountability meetings” of the People’s Power, a topic of critical analysis in the official press and a target of mockery for the majority of Cuban comedians, has lost its importance.
Families with better incomes have given up standing in the traditional lines to get bread for 10 centavos in national currency (less than one cent on the US dollar). They prefer to go to the private bakeries that offer a wide variety of products at unregulated prices.
The bodegas with empty shelves and a blackboard listing the products of the month have become, along with the old American cars that still circulate on the streets of the island and the billboards with political messages, among the photographic trophies taken by tourists as part of the social landscape of Cuba.
The disappearance of the ration book will have to wait until the completion of the gradual reforms announced by the authorities. There will probably be more who mourn its end than those who will celebrate it, but the day will come when some incredulous grandchild will listen to his grandfather repeat stories of “that era when everyone ate the same thing on the same day in the whole country.”
José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana, 22 December 2016 — José Daniel Ferrer, general coordinator of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu), was arrested on Thursday around one in the afternoon when he left the organization’s headquarters in the city of Santiago de Cuba, and released about 40 minutes later, as reported in a phone call to 14ymedio from Omar Fayut, a member of the opposition organization. Ferrer was taken in a bus, handcuffed, to the third police station in the city of Santiago de Cuba and then released, without further explanation.
The activist denounced that since the death of former President Fidel Castro “many members of the movement have been harassed” by the political police who maintain a cordon around Unpacu’s headquarters. continue reading
Last Sunday, some hundred members of the UNPACU were arrested when they tried to march to the shrine of El Cobre to demand the release of political prisoners. Most of the detainees were released after a few hours, but nine remain imprisoned.
Minutes before his arrest, Ferrer had denounced on Twitter that activists Ovidio Martín, Samuel Leblan, Juan Salgado, Yasmani Magaña, Belkis Cantillo and Moraima Díaz, among others, continued to be detained.
Carlos Amel Oliva, a member of Unpacu, maintains that “the threat is constant” and that since Monday the headquarters remains besieged with police officers “stationed on the corners.” The young man explains that the soldiers “put up fences to prohibit the access of any type of vehicles.”
The arrests and police cordons are in addition to the searches of at least 13 houses of Unpacu activists.
The last report of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN) said that during last November there were at least 359 arbitrary arrests of peaceful dissidents on the island. That is roughly one hundred fewer than in October but the independent organization warns of possible repression after the death of former President Fidel Castro on November 25.
Many Cubans must dispose of all their property in order to pay for a plane ticket and to migrate by air. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, 21 December 2016 – Walking around the block with a suitcase in hand has been added to the rituals to mark the end of the year, as a plea to be able to travel outside the country. Many Cubans fear, however, that the situation is becoming complicated with the pending arrival of Donald Trump to the White House.
The president-elect of the United States has been so contradictory in his declarations about Cuba that no one knows what will happen between the two countries when he is installed in the Oval Office. Cubans on the island seem less concerned about a possible setback in the diplomatic thaw, than about the loss of their immigration privileges. continue reading
The debate over the repeal of the Cuban Adjustment Act, which awards benefits to migrant Cubans arriving in the United States, could put an end to the dreams of many in the new year. Foreign consulates in Havana, especially those of Latin American and European countries, have seen a surge in visa applications.
“We are overworked,” the custodian of the Mexican consulate site in the Miramar neighborhood told 14ymedio. Outside the building, Roberto, who prefers not to give his last name, managed to get a temporary visa to travel to the land of the Aztecs. This Thursday he will fly to Cancun, the cheapest flight between the two countries. “I’m working against the clock,” he says, while finishing the bureaucratic paperwork before the journey.
Roberto has a long journey ahead of him, plagued with obstacles and dangers to reach the US border, but he feels confident. “My brother who lives in Miami is going to help me and pay for the whole trip,” he explains. “It will be much more expensive, but I have to get there before January 20th,” he says.
Trump’s inauguration date has become the goal in a marathon race for thousands of Cubans. People who in recent months have liquidated their possessions, managed to get a visa and are preparing to leave.
Most consulates close their doors at the end of December for the Christmas holidays, an element that contributes to the desperation.
Departures by raft have also increased. The US Coast Guard recently reported that since last October 1st, the beginning of the fiscal year, around 1,000 Cubans have tried to enter the US illegally by sea. For fiscal year 2016, which ended on 30 September, the figure reached 7,411, compared to 4,473 for the same period in 2015.
With this exceptional winter, without cold and with an ocean free of hurricanes, many Cubans embark on the route to Florida in makeshift crafts. Raul Castro’s government has redoubled its vigilance along the coast lately, but the rafters choose to leave from remote places, among the mangroves or the rocks.
“I don’t know if Trump will be good for us or not, but I’m not going to stay here to find out,” says Yusmila Arcina, who worked as an accountant for a state company until she decided to “make the leap.” The young woman considers herself fortunate, in part, for having obtained a work visa for the Schengen Area (a free movement zone made up of most of the EU countries and others in the area). From Europe, where she expects it will be easier, she hopes to get a tourist visa to travel to the US, using the old continent as a springboard to realize her “American Dream.”
“Yes or no, we have to take advantage now,” suggests the young women, who has no family in the United States. Arcina has paid for the paperwork and a plane ticket in the high season, which cost her around 2,000 Convertible Cuban pesos (roughly the same in dollars), with the sale of a mid 20th century Cadillac that belonged to her father. “That car has been my ticket to freedom,” she jokes.
Arcina’s boyfriend is stranded in Colombia waiting to take the route through the Darien Gap. The challenge for both of them is to reach US territory “before that millionaire gets into office.” Both hope “to watch the inauguration ceremony on local TV in Miami,” says Arcina. Trump has fired the starting gun, and each one, on their own side, has embarked on their migration journey.
As of this Thursday, the official newspaper ‘Granma’ will have a new design with changes limited only to the visual. (EFE)
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 21 December 2016 — The newspaper Granma announced that as of tomorrow, in Thursday’s edition, it will debut a new design. For the peace of mind of the most orthodox, the note concludes by warning that “the official organ of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party is being renewed, but it will remain the same.”
The modifications refer to the alignment of the headlines, more readable typography, better composition of the front pages and greater prominence of photographs. According to the paper itself, its new design “is more compact, more modern, more contemporary, and cleaner.” continue reading
What is striking is that the intention “to look like current times” will be limited to the visual aspect. Apparently, the paper will not stop practicing secrecy, political debate will remain absent, and criticisms will never be directed towards the highest levels of power. No one will question the legitimacy of the rulers or the viability of the system.
The change of image will coincide with the date when, 55 years ago, the end of illiteracy in Cuba was proclaimed, but the directors do not seem to understand that what its readers require from this press organ is precisely a change of philosophy, of its essence, in order to leave behind “the conceptions of the founding era.”
Only a profound political illiteracy can come to the conclusion that a newspaper at the beginning of the 21st century should continue to be dogmatically governed by such narrow ideological guidelines.
Granma will continue to choose “positive” verbs, adjectives and adverbs for its national news and will select “negative” ones for the titles that refer to the rest of the world (excluding its allies). We will have to continue reading that in Cuba the harvests are growing, the goals are being exceeded, the programs are advancing without delays, meanwhile foreign economies are collapsing, unemployment only grows, and the richest intend to despoil the planet.
“The purpose of this redesign is to compete with ourselves and win,” confesses Granma in an act of utmost honesty. When an athlete runs alone on a track she always takes the trophies. It would be another kettle of fish if at the newsstands the readers could choose among several publications, if in citizens’ homes there were access to the internet and any digital news source that circulates in the world, without restrictions or censorship.
However, the notice that something changes is always welcome.
The differences of style between the Fidel Castro and Nicolas Maduro are endless, but something more decisive separates them: Time. (Headline: To die for the fatherland is to live.) (Nicolasmaduro.org.ve)
14ymedio, Generation Y, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 21 December 2016 – On television a speech by Nicolas Maduro reverberates. He is talking about international conspiracies, the enemy that wants to end the “Bolivarian” revolution and the “monetary mafias,” a refrain that recalls the deceased Cuban ex-president Fidel Castro, obsessed with blaming others for the disasters caused by his own decisions.
The differences in style between the two leaders are endless, but something more decisive separates them: Time. Decades have passed between Castro’s interminable oratory about Cuba and the Venezuela ruled by the erratic Maduro. continue reading
In that time, we Latin Americans have become suspicious of populist discourses and learned to reveal the seams of the redeemers, who hide authoritarians under their robes. Their political speeches do not work like they did before. Like those hackneyed verses that compare the eyes with the stars or the mouth with a rose, and that now only provoke mockery.
In these times, when from the podium the homeland is invoked too often, the spectrum of foreign interference is constantly dangled and results are never offered, this is the time to be on alert. If the leaders call on us to spill every last drop of blood, while they surround themselves with bodyguards or hide at some “zero point,” we have to cease to believe them.
A dose of skepticism immunizes against these pernicious harangues where it is explained that the country’s problems originate outside the national borders. Suspiciously, the whistleblower never takes any responsibility for the disaster and blames the failure on some alleged externalities and media wars.
Maduro was trained in the school of politics as permanent agitation, a school headquartered in Havana. To make matters worse, the Venezuelan leader has been a mediocre student, who interprets the original script with a lot of huffing and puffing, very little charisma and a huge dose of nonsense. His main blunder has been not to realize that the manual designed by Fidel Castro no longer works.
The Venezuelan leader arrived too late to take advantage of the gullibility that for decades made many people of this continent exalt dictators. His speeches resonate with the past, like bad poems, that neither move our souls nor win our affections.
Technology imports overwhelms the luggage rooms in the Havana airport. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Havana, 20 December 2016 — Jose Marti International Airport in Havana is busy. The increase in tourists, the avalanche of foreign journalists who came to the island on the occasion of the death of Fidel Castro and the proximity of the end of the year recharged its infrastructure. To this is added the completion, on 31 December, of the deadline for those who have not yet made their first non-commercial import of this year, paid for in national currency, the Cuban peso (CUP).
The “mules” who travel and buy, preferably in Panama, Cancun or Miami, are hurrying to bring everything in the country before the last day of the year. According to customs regulations, in force since September 2014, each resident in the national territory can make a single import annually, beyond what is considered personal effects, with the duties paid in Cuban pesos. Duties on merchandise brought in on subsequent trips must be paid in Cuban convertible pesos, which are worth 25 times more than Cuban pesos. continue reading
The most behind are in a rush and it is common to see Cubans arriving on flights from Interjet, Aeromexico, Cubana and Copa Airlines loaded with boxes filled with air conditioners, flat screen TVs and other appliances. The luggage collection rooms are overwhelmed with so many bundles and tourists look stunned at the parade of technology.
14ymedio, 19 December 2016 — The Cuban government has sent Syria a shipment of nearly 240,000 doses of meningitis vaccine valued at $930,000.
The container, received this Sunday, is part of the agreement signed between Syria and Cuba last April that includes, in addition to medicines, an economic agreement to liquidate the debts of the Government of Damascus with the island.
Relations between the Syrian and Cuban authorities have been very close in the last five decades. President Bachar al-Assad and Raúl Castro have carried on, in recent times, the friendship initiated by Hafez al-Assad and Fidel Castro.
This is the second time in 2016 that Cuba has sent medicines to the Arab country, heavily devastated by almost six years of war.
Pánfilo’s program has not been broadcast for three weeks. In the video above Obama and Pánfilo appear in a ‘sketch’ recorded during the visit of the American president to the Island.
14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, 15 December 2016 — Celebrations postponed, revelry suspended and a call not to party in the street, is the reality for Cubans at this year’s end. The sobriety for the death of former President Fidel Castro has spread to television programming and the popular comedy show, “Living to Tell the Tale,” with the lead character Pánfilo, has not been broadcast for three weeks.
“We have received a circular with details on what can be broadcast and what cannot,” a specialist from the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT) who preferred anonymity told 14ymedio. “The directions are clear: everything that is programmed has to be analyzed very carefully so as not to fall into frivolities,” he says. continue reading
Throughout the country, all the centers with cultural programming have held meetings to direct their workers to show austerity and moderation, but the calls to avoid celebrations extend beyond facilities for shows, concerts and movies.
Vivian, 42, works as a nurse in a polyclinic in the city of Santiago de Cuba. She explains that in a meeting she was in last week, they were ordered not to hold the gift exchange the medical staff had organized for the last week of December. “I already bought everything,” she said.
Pedry Roxana Rojo, a LGBT activist and worker at a branch of the Cuban Book Institute (ICL) in Caibarién, Villa Clara, published on her Facebook account a protest against the suspension of popular festivities traditionally held at the end of the year.
Rojo, who is also an independent reporter, complains about the secrecy of the official media about the postponement of the festivities. “They have suspended the holidays here this year by royal edict,” she quipped on the social network, telling14ymedio that the decision affects not only residents but also tourists coming to the area for those dates.
The parrandas of Remedios, along with other popular celebrations in the center of the island, have been postponed to January 6 and 7, according to a source from the Municipal Assembly of People’s Power speaking to this newspaper. It is the fourth time in the last six decades that these celebrations have been suppressed or had their dates changed.
The first cancellation of the parrandas occurred in December 1958, when guerrilla commander Camilo Cienfuegos arrived in the area with the so-called “invading column” that brought the combat actions from the Sierra Maestra to the west of the island.
In 1969, the parrandas were again suspended in the midst of the “decisive effort” promoted by Fidel Castro’s government to achieve a 10 million ton sugar harvest. All the end of year celebrations were postponed, but the harvest did not achieve the planned figures.
A decade later, an official directive moved all the popular celebrations of the country to the months of July and August. The parrandas were not allowed to be held in that December of 1979. The measures became more flexible with time and “the waters took their course,” says Moisés Luaces, a peasant from the area who remembers every interruption of his favorite festivities.
So far, official media have not called for the moderating of Christmas parties held inside homes, but many fear that the ruling party will urge Communist Party militants and members of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) to snitch on the most enthusiastic.
Cuban university students march after Fidel Castro’s death in Havana. (EFE)
14ymedio, Havana, Miriam Celaya, 18 December 2016 — I’m clueless as to what they are called in other cultures, but for Cubans here and abroad, the word “sapo,” which literally means “toad,” is a term applied to the typical individual who always shows up in a situation where there is fun, optimism or joy, for the sole purpose of ruining it, spoiling the fun, souring the wine, in short – using the verb form of the word, sapear – acting like a toad (or in English, like a killjoy, a drag, a sourpuss, a wet blanket).
In Cuba, hedonistic and smiling despite adversities, being a killjoy is one of the many ways of being a drag, which, among us, is the worst of defects. Understand the subtlety: you can be a drag without necessarily being a killjoy, but it is irrefutable, that absolutely all killjoys are drags. That is why the killjoy can earn the dislike of everyone present in a second, in any setting and circumstance. “Don’t be a killjoy” is an expression of resounding rejection among us, against the individual who sabotages pleasure in any of its manifestations. continue reading
That is why it’s all the more curious and contradictory that in Cuba the killjoy has been inflated to become an institution and State policy. In fact, in the last 60 years the Power has been in the hands of a small group of green batrachians who systematically and by decree, are committed to put down any hint of popular happiness.
In the last 60 years the Power has been in the hands of a small group of green batrachians [toads, as in killjoy] who systematically and by decree, are committed to put down any hint of popular happiness
If anyone has any doubts about this, suffice it to list a few brushstrokes of the unrepentant olive-green killjoys: the proscription of traditional festivities like Christmas, the rationing of food and everything that meant prosperity and comfort, Volunteer Work to ruin the workers’ Sunday rest, the exclusion of a lot of very good foreign and local music from national radio stations, the imposition of mournful commentaries of the calendar of “communist saints” list to the detriment of religious holidays (Holy Week, among others), and many other examples too numerous to list here.
In these final days of 2016, another thorny and barren year, and after barely surviving the recent novena of the Deceased in Chief (Killjoy par excellence), Cuban workers have been informed that traditional Christmas festivities will not be held, festivities which in many State labor centers are practically the only celebrations almost devoid of political nuance. And I say “almost” because it is known that, at least officially, Cuban workers do not celebrate the birth of the Baby Jesus or the advent of the New Year, but the glorious anniversary of the triumph of the revolution. (Lowercase letters are intentional).
Only that mourning must seem like a spontaneous expression of the people, that is why it has not been decreed by the government nor divulged in the official means, but it has been ordered from each Ministry to the directors of its different institutions
Anyway, there will not be any hullaballoo. “We are in mourning,” according to the secretaries of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) and the directors of each state work center, minor killjoys responsible for revealing the bad news, which is in addition to the already known suspension of festivities and popular celebrations in the towns in Cuba’s interior.
The director of the Business Group of Design and Construction Engineering, Architect Ángel Álvarez explains to the workers the need to “not overlook” the anniversary (sic) of Fidel Castro’s death. (Miriam Celaya)
But the mourning must seem like a spontaneous expression of the people, that is why it has not been decreed by the government nor divulged in the official media, but it has been ordered from each Ministry to the directors of its different institutions, who in turn have “indicated “in writing to the Directors of Companies subordinated to them, that this time the celebration should be “simple” through “political activities that can be in the framework of a lunch for all workers.” And, though the official document does not express it, the order is that there will be no alcoholic beverages in the aforementioned lunch. Mourning is mourning, which means that one doesn’t really need to be sad, just look like it.
The reference comes from the Business Group of Design and Engineering of Construction (GEDIC) and the Superior Organ of Business Management (OSDE), both of the Ministry of Construction, to which more than thirty companies are subordinated at the national level, including those responsible for supervising the construction work of the Mariel Special Development Zone (ZEDM).
It was in one of these subordinate companies where the Director, after successfully fulfilling his mission of killjoy in office duties and announcing the non-holiday party, went to the office of the superior chief where, according to stupefied witnesses, the killjoy-directors gathered there toasted with a generous drink of Havana Club Reserve to the memory of the Main Batrachian killjoy.
The leader of the Ladies in White, Berta Soler, during an exhibition of the work of Danilo Maldonado, known as El Sexto. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Miami, 19 December 2016 — The leader of the Ladies in White movement was released on Monday after being detained for 24 hours. Berta Soler was arrested the previous day in one of the largest raids against the opposition in recent months. Meanwhile, approximately ten activists of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) remain imprisoned, according to a report by phone from Jose Daniel Ferrer, leader of that organization.
“According to the count we have done, some 117 UNPACU activists were arrested on Sunday and nine houses were raided by the police, who seized five personal computers and dozens of phones, flash drives, printers and printed materials,” Ferrer told 14ymedio. continue reading
UNPACU had called for a march for freedom of all political prisoners and solidarity with Danilo Maldonado, known as El Sexto, and Eduardo Cardet, who were both detained after the death of Fidel Castro.
Six of the houses raided were in Santiago de Cuba, two in Palma Soriano and one in Palmarito de Cauto.
According to Ferrer, the police also seized cash in the houses where they entered, including 370 CUC “intended for the feeding of a pregnant woman and the purchase of things for her unborn child.”
The opponent considers that the government is trying to behead the movement. “They want to capture as many coordinators of UNPACU as possible,” he explains. Almost all detained activists have this organizational role within UNPACU.
This Monday the trial of Lisandra Rivera Rodriguez, accused of the crime of attack, was expected to be held.
UNPACU leader, Jose Daniel Ferrer (EFE)
“They are afraid of the reaction of the organization, so they are developing a rather large operation in Santiago de Cuba. They have placed police barriers around my house,” says Ferrer. The police again threatened to return him to jail, when he and other left together to seek the mediation of the Catholic Church.
“I was told that I was inciting the members of the UNPACU to commit crimes of public disorder, attack, contempt and espionage,” he commented.
UNPACU is the largest opposition organization in the country, centered mainly in the eastern provinces and with a presence in Havana.
The Ladies in White also reported the arrest of 32 activists in Havana and an undetermined number in the provinces.
“We are now updating the report to have the total number of arrests because many Ladies are still being arrested,” said Eralidis Frómeta, who belongs to that movement, which was founded by Laura Pollán in 2003.
A group of young people in a wifi zone in Havana. (EFE / Archive)
14ymedio, 19 December 2016 – The state-owned Cuban Telecommunications Company (Etecsa) – the only phone company permitted to operate in the country – announced on Monday a reduction in the prices of its internet service and its Nauta email service from cellular phones. The state monopoly thus responds to growing criticism for its high rates for data.
The international online navigation service to connect to the internet, accessed by users from wifi enabled areas or from terminals in Etecsa’s navigation rooms, now costs 1.50 Cuban convertible pesos (CUC) per hour, a reduction from the 2.00 CUC it cost before Sunday. (1 CUC is roughly equal to one US dollar, and is also close to the average wage for a full day’s work.) continue reading
Each hour of national navigation – which allows users to visit only sites hosted on Cuban servers – now costs 0.25 CUC, a more than 50% price cut from the previous price of 0.60 CUC. With this reduction, Etecsa wants “to facilitate access to websites and portals of cultural, information and research interest, with Cuban content.”
The measure will also benefit users “doing schoolwork and research,” as well as those who want “to know what cultural events are happening throughout the country, the news of Cuba, and of the rest of the world,” the state company’s notice emphasized.
A user consults the “Nauta purse” service, recently announced by Etecsa. (14ymedio)
With regards to Nauta email from mobile phones, Etecsa has provided the ability to contract for data packages. The customer doesn’t have to go to a commercial office, but can simply type *133# to access a menu to buy the so-called “Nauta Purse.” This service offers 5 megabytes, valid for 30 days, at a price of 1.50 CUC.
Until now, customers of the service have paid 1.00 CUC for every megabyte received or sent. Now they can choose between that rate and the new data package more favorable to their pockets.
According to Giselle Fernández, head of the commercial services department of Etecsa, rollover is available: “If at the end of the 30 days the client has megabytes available and activates another Nauta purse, these available megabytes will be added to those newly contracted for.”
The price reduction comes a few days after the publication of two articles in the official newspaper Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth) where the company Cuballama (Call Cuba), located outside the country, was accused of telephone fraud. However, the majority of comments left by readers pointed to Etecsa’s high prices as the main stimulus for illegalities.
In the announcement released Monday, the state monopoly confirms its intention to conduct a test of providing access for Internet browsing in 2,000 Cuban homes, at a date yet to be specified.
The film, based on the life of Panamanian boxer Roberto Duran, was initially included among the feature films that would be shown in the Festival Awards section, but it was never screened. The event’s organizers dropped contact with its director after learning of his condemnation of the censorship of Lechuga, says the Venezuelan artist. continue reading
Days before the beginning of the Festival, Jakubowicz spoke by telephone with the directors of Santa y Andres in order to assess the possibility of withdrawing his film from screening in the competition as a condemnation of censorship. After the publication of an interview with Jakubowicz in 14ymedio on December 7, the Festival’s organizers stopped writing him. “Not only with respect to the copy of the film, but about my attendance,” he says.
“As the death of Fidel Castro was announced the next day, I thought that was why, but they never wrote again. I suppose they preferred to avoid an uncomfortable situation with me in Havana, at a time of such tension for the island,” reflects the prestigious director.
For viewers who sought explanations for the absence of Hands of Stone, the Festival organization contended that the director “never sent the exhibition copy.” Although the director was planning to travel to Havana, he could not bring it personally either without confirming the trip after getting no answer from the event organization.
In the interview published by this newspaper, Jakubowicz explained that he had thought about withdrawing his film from the billing because he was afraid of becoming “that awful artist figure who supports the repressor, a frequent figure in our countries and one who has done a lot of harm to our peoples.”
However, after speaking with Lechuga and his wife, he learned that “the Festival is one of the Island’s few windows looking to the world outside,” and he decided to keep the film in the festival. But when it came time to organize sending the copy to Havana, the event organizers were silent.
“It is a shame for the Cuban public who wanted to see the film. But fine, in the end all of Cuba saw Express Kidnapping, and it is forbidden, too. Art always reaches those whom it has to reach,” Jakubowicz reflects.
Nevertheless, the director thanks the “festival for the initial invitation” and wishes it “much luck in its continued struggle to bring light to Havana’s theaters. There will be better times. The winds of changes are blowing strong and are inevitable, in Cuba as well as in Venezuela,” he asserts.
14ymedio, Madrid, 19 November 2016 – Cuba expects to grow genetically modified (GM) corn and soybeans beginning in the Spring of 2017, according to a long article published in the government newspaper Granma this weekend, which details the island’s advances in this area.
“On successfully completing all the tests required by Cuban regulatory bodies, in the spring of 2017 we can expect the introduction of [genetically modified crops…] on large areas of land,” said Mario Estrada, Director of Agricultural Research at the Center Of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB).
The major sum of money the government spends in importing food (some two billion dollars a year) is not only unsustainable, but clearly insufficient. In 2014, imports of grains whose genetically modified versions are expected to be grown, exceeded some 500 million dollars, which accounts for up to 75% of what Cubans eat. continue reading
GM crops are the object of strong controversy worldwide because of the genetic modification of organisms, but Granma says that criticisms come from “experiences related to the misuse of technological innovations, lack of information, poor training and the abusive practices of certain seed-producing companies worldwide.”
“We are currently working on obtaining new hybrid transgenic lines of corn which, on the scale of a small experimental plot, show potential yields of nine tonnes per hectare, very close to the levels reached by the world’s leading countries in this production,” explained Mario Estrada.
In addition, experiments with “transgenic soybeans resistant to herbicides, which in experimental areas of the Cubasoy company showed a yield of up to 2.8 tonnes per hectare, much higher than the usual reached there,” he added.
The official newspaper notes that controlled production of genetically modified crops is supported by the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Royal Society of the United Kingdom, the Food and Drug Administration of the United States, the European Food Safety Authority and the Academies of Science of several countries. “Genetically modified crops have helped mitigate the food shortage crisis stemming from global population growth and the impact of climate change, making it the most rapidly adopted technology of cultivation in the history of agriculture,” the article added.
As of 2009, the years in which the corresponding safety licenses were received, Cuba has been testing the first production of modified corn on some 900 hectares belonging to Cubasoy, in the province of Ciego de Avila. Although the result was more than double the yield of the traditional crop, it was lower than expected, which was the reason for suspending the application of the advances.
At present, there is a search ongoing for “new transgenic hybrid lines of corn,” with much higher yields, which, if they pass all the controls, will be applied starting this coming spring.
Note: The video was taken surreptitiously and thus is of poor quality.
14ymedio, Havana, 18 December 2016 – Beginning at 6:00 AM on Sunday morning, Cuban State Security forces attacked nine homes of members of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU); six in Santiago de Cuba, two in Palma Soriano, and one in Palmarito de Cauto. More details are expected in the coming hours; currently most of the activists’ telephones have been cut off.
Jose Daniel Ferrer, leader of the organizations, explained to 14ymedio that the “justification” for the harsh repressive operation was a call made by UNPACU for people to come into the streets in protest, in Havana and Santiago de Cuba. The objective of the opposition organization was “to demand the release of the political prisoners and the end to increasingly severe repression against independent civil society groups,” Ferrer said. continue reading
The homes simultaneously attacked were those of Leonardo Pérez Franco, Ovidio Martín Castellanos and Damaris Rodríguez. At the home of Iriades Hernández, who is currently abroad, the police entered and took two laptops. The police also broke into UNPACU’s working headquarters and the home of Jose Daniel Ferrer.
In Palma Soriano the homes of Yenisei Jiménez, wife of political prisoner Geordanis Muñoz, and that of Yeroslandi Calderín, coordinator of the March 18 Cell and a replacement for Víctor Campa who is currently a political prisoner. In Palmarito de Cauto, so far it has only been possible to report an attack on the home of Yasmani Diaz, but it is presumed that there may be other cases.
Assaults, thefts, detentions against member of #UNPACU, Today families won’t eat because their sustenance was stolen.
Among the possessions seized were printed material, discs, audiovisual materials, hard drives, four laptops and several cellphones. In the home of Jose Daniel Ferrer they seized 370 dollars intended to feed a pregnant woman and to buy supplies for her unborn child. As a part of the operation, more than 50 activists in the province of Santiago de Cuba and 10 in Havana had been detained by 1:30 this afternoon.
Some ten of those arrested have been released, among them Jose Daniel Ferrer, who reported the following: “A lieutenant colonel who refused to give me his name showed me a warning notice where it said that our call gave rise to the crimes of public disorder, contempt, attack and espionage. They also warned me that they had been disturbed by my statements about the late Fidel Castro on our website and my modest interpretation or translation of his concept of Revolution.”
14ymedio, 24 December 2014 — Putting a face to a year like 2016, in which several historical events indelibly marked the Cuban reality – for better or worse – is a task as difficult as it is risky. This newspaper has selected 14 people who stood out in the last twelve months, in science, activism, sports, politics or entrepreneurship, among many other sectors.
