In the last call of the program, 58% of the slightly more than 34,000 registered were nationals trained in Brazil. (EFE)
EFE (via 14ymedio), Sao Paulo, July 5, 2023 — Some 36% of those enrolled in the Mais Medicos (More Doctors) program, one of the hallmarks of the Brazilian Government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, are professionals trained in Bolivia, Paraguay and Cuba, according to data sent by the Ministry of Health to EFE. In the last call of the program, 58% of the just over 34,000 enrolled were nationals trained in Brazil, with priority in access, while the rest, 42%, were foreigners or Brazilians educated outside the country.
Of those trained outside, 14% of the total number of registrants (4,846 professionals) trained in Bolivia; 13% (4,294), in Paraguay; and 9.5% (3,235), in Cuba, followed by Argentina and Venezuela, with much lower numbers.
Lula’s Government, aware of the criticisms made of the program in the past, has tried to increase the representation of Brazilians with a variety of incentives, such as salary supplements and educational opportunities.
The high percentage of doctors trained abroad has been one of the most controversial points of the program since it was launched in 2013 during Dilma Rousseff’s mandate (2011-2016) to solve the deficit of health personnel in remote regions such as the Amazon.
According to the current law, approved by Congress at the end of June, doctors who practice abroad and sign up for the program can work in Brazil without having to undergo a knowledge test for the first four years. continue reading
The Federal Council of Medicine, which regulates the profession, said in June about those trained outside that it is “against their right to exercise the profession in the country without first proving their preparation.”
In addition, the Brazilian right has denounced for years that part of the salary paid to Cuban doctors, who until 2018 formed a majority of those enrolled in the program, was diverted to the Government of the Island.
In fact, former President Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022) threatened to expel them, which led the Cuban government to end its official participation in the program and caused vast areas of the country to be left without medical attention.
Many Cuban doctors, however, decided to stay in Brazil, even without being able to dedicate themselves to the profession, and now they have the possibility of signing up for the program again.
The number of people enrolled in the latest edition of Más Médicos has broken records, according to the Government, and is well above the open vacancies, almost 6,000, a sixth of them destined for the Amazon region.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Saray Moya Moreno died at the hands of her partner on Monday, according to several independent observatories. (Facebook/María Caridad Grau)
14ymedio/EFE, Havana, July 6, 2023 — The independent feminist platform Yo Sí Te Creo en Cuba (YSTCC)[I Do Believe You] documented this Wednesday a new sexist murder that occurred in the town of Chambas, in the province of Ciego de Ávila. With the death of Saray Moya Moreno, this Monday, at the hands of her partner, the number of femicides registered on the Island so far this year rises to 48.
The activists sent their condolences “to the affected families and especially to the sons and daughters” of the murdered woman. “In the faces of delinquency and impunity, we urge family members and children of legal age to pressure and demand justice from the corresponding institutions,” they stressed, in a message disseminated on social networks.
In addition, they ask for “citizen collaboration” to verify two other alleged femicides that occurred in the province of Santiago de Cuba. This group points out that since 2019, when it began to count sexist crimes on the Island, they have counted 166 that have been verified.
YSTCC and the Observatorio de Género de Alas Tensas (OGAT) [Tense Wings Gender Observatory] also confirmed on Wednesday another sexist crime, the twelfth recorded last June, the month with the most deaths of women at the hands of their partners or ex-partners so far this year. continue reading
According to the statements that her relatives offered to CubaNet, on June 19, the young Yunisleve Fernández reported at the Torrientes Police Station, in the Matancero municipality of Jagüey Grande, that her aggressor had brutally beaten her. Upon learning that Fernández had gone to the authorities, her ex-partner, who is not named by the media but apparently lived under the same roof as the victim, threatened to kill her. Four days later, on June 23, Fernández was murdered with a knife in front of her four-year-old son and her mother.
The Island exceeds, in just six months, the total number of feminicides verified throughout 2022 (36), according to the records of the activists and collated by 14ymedio, in the absence of official public statistics.
These groups insist on their calls to the authorities of the Island to declare a “state of emergency for gender violence,” and regret that the Cuban Government has not taken measures in this regard.
The work of independent feminists and their dissemination in the unofficial media has contributed to putting the focus on the cases of sexist murders and disappearances of Cubans in recent years.
YSTCC has highlighted that “nothing would have been possible without all those people who share content, verify data and are support networks for survivors.”
These groups, which have social networks and victim help phones, advocate for a comprehensive law against sexist violence and the implementation of protocols to prevent these events, as well as the creation of shelters and rescue systems for women in danger and their children.
Last April, President Miguel Díaz-Canel assured that there would be “zero tolerance” for this type of violence. In June, the official Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) created the Cuba Observatory on Gender Equality, which includes statistics on “women who have been victims of intentional homicide as a result of gender violence in the last 12 months.”
The Supreme People’s Court of the Island reported in mid-May that in 2022 there were 18 convictions for sexist murders, all with penalties of more than 25 years in prison. It did not give more details, and it is still not known to which cases those sentences correspond.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The export of professional services, mainly doctors and teachers, is Cuba’s main source of income. (@MINSAPCuba)
EFE/14ymedio, Havana, July 5, 2023 — The Portuguese government plans to strengthen the country’s public health system by hiring 300 Cuban doctors, who have already started the necessary procedures, the Portuguese newspaper Jornal de Notícias reported on Wednesday .
According to this medium, the Ministry of Health intends to remedy the shortcomings of the National Health Service (SNS) by hiring three hundred doctors from Cuba, who would work in Portugal for three years.
In addition, the Government, chaired by the socialist António Costa, has already initiated the procedures so that these professionals can be incorporated as soon as possible into the public system, taking into account the various steps that foreigners must go through outside the territory of the European Community before being considered fit.
To receive authorization to practice, doctors arriving from third countries must undergo several tests, not only in medicine, but also in Portuguese, for example.
It is not the first time that Portugal has resorted to Cuban healthcare workers; in 2009 it welcomed 44 to reinforce the public network in the regions of Ribatejo (center), Alentejo and Algarve (south).
When asked by EFE, sources from the Ministry of Health limited themselves to pointing out that the hiring of foreign health professionals is “complementary and transitory” to nationals and its objective is “to contribute to the adequate provision of human resources and response capacity” of the SNS. continue reading
In this sense, “joint work is underway between the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education.”
According to the data provided, in 2022 the Portuguese public system had 1,270 foreign doctors. Local media reported that the total number of foreign professionals registered with the College of Physicians amounted to 4,503. The news comes on a day in which Portuguese doctors began a two-day strike to demand wage and labor improvements.
Local media reported that the total number of foreign professionals registered with the College of Physicians numbered 4,503.
If an agreement is not reached with the Ministry of Health, the National Federation of Physicians (FNAM), which called for the stoppage, does not rule out another one at the beginning of August. This strike could coincide with World Youth Day, in which Lisbon is expected to welcome one million faithful Catholics from the 1st to the 6th of next month.
Health is one of the sectors that has been the source of the most complaints in the last year, marked by a crisis in emergencies, especially in maternity and obstetrics, due to the lack of resources.
The medical brigades are one of the main sources of foreign currency for the Government of Havana, and have been denounced as forced labor by international organizations such as Human Rights Watch or Prisoners Defenders. The United States also has Cuba on the list of countries that fail to comply with international human rights standards.
They are in addition to the main strategies of the Cuban Government to maintain its presence with its allied countries, such as Mexico , Italy, Qatar, Brazil, Venezuela ND Nicaragua. Some of the most recent data, collected in the statistical yearbooks published by the National Office of Statistics and Information (Onei), dates from 2021, when 4,349 million dollars were collected for the export of health services abroad .
In contrast, on the island, health services are deteriorating, not only due to a lack of health professionals, but also due to the shortage of basic medicines, which the government in Havana attributes to financing problems and the international supply of raw materials. On the other hand, infrastructure modernization investments are focused on tourist complexes, intended to activate the compromised economy, while complaints about the precarious conditions in hospitals in Cuba are increasingly frequent on social networks.
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From January 1 of this year to June 25, there has been an irregular flow of 128,133 migrants, of whom 9,366 were nationals of the Island. (Twitter-Hunduras National Police)
EFE/14ymedio, Tegucigalpa/Havana, 5 July 2023 — More than 24,000 migrant minors in transit to the United States crossed Honduras in the first half of 2023, 181% more compared to the 8,555 who entered in the same period of 2022, according to data consulted this Wednesday by EFE.
Between January and June, about 24,030 irregular minors entered Honduras, of which 14,127 were boys and 9,903 girls, according to a report by the Honduran National Institute of Migration (INM).
Of the total migrant minors who entered the country 39.1% (9,410) were Venezuelans, the nationality that predominates in the migratory wave to the United States.
The second largest nationality of minors who entered Honduras were Ecuadorians, 5,147, followed by Cubans (1,481), Brazilians (1,082) and Chileans (1,036).
Of the total number of girls and boys intercepted in Honduras, 39.6% or 9,527 were age 10 or younger, and 14,503 (60.4%) were 11 or older, the INM explained.
In 2022, Honduras intercepted about 37,469 migrant minors, mostly from Cuba and Venezuela, according to official statistics. continue reading
In recent years, the Central American country has become a transit point for migrants who cross Central America in order to reach the United States.
According to the INM, from January 1 of this year to June 25, an irregular flow of 128,133 migrants has been recorded, of whom 9,366 were nationals of the Island.
Cubans have complained that during their time in Honduras they face the collection of fines by immigration authorities and extortion by the police, who demand 20 dollars at the checkpoints, says Rigoberto, a layman with the Jesús Está Vivo evangelization center of the Immaculate Conception church in Danlí, Honduras.
Many of the migrants who pass through this nation enter through “blind spots” known to the “coyotes,” human traffickers who do not always take them to the border with Guatemala, according to authorities and human rights organizations.
According to Doctors without Borders (MSF), the majority of migrants arrive in Honduras “with multiple medical and humanitarian needs.”
The migrants, according to their accounts, are victims of assaults, rapes, kidnappings and other risky situations during their trip.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 4 July 2023 — Universities of Cuba and Spain signed more than 15 collaboration agreements during the meeting of rectors and higher education authorities initiated this Monday in Havana to strengthen bilateral academic and scientific cooperation.
The participating rectors presented the portfolio of activities, courses, scholarships and possibilities for collaboration between Cuban and Spanish institutions, with a tradition of academic exchange, as reported by the Ministry of Higher Education of Cuba on social networks.
The meeting is spearheaded by the Cuban Minister of Higher Education, Walter Baluja, and the president of the Ibero-American Postgraduate University Association and rector of the University of Seville, Miguel Ángel Castro Arroyo.
During the Cuba-Spain university meeting, the Ibero-American collaborative program of doctoral training in artificial intelligence will also be presented. “Invigorating the internationalization of higher education is a priority of the sector in Cuba,” the Ministry said.
He also indicated that the meeting of the Cuban and Spanish rectors “values new opportunities for bilateral collaboration” and is “a space conducive to agreements, agreements, mobility, joint projects, double degree programs and doctorates, among other expected results.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Jrenin and López Miera exchanged views on the global security situation, as well as the military and political situation in Europe. (Reformation)
EFE/14ymedio, Minsk (Belarus), 30 June 2023 — The Minister of Defense of Belarus, Víktor Jrenin, and Álvaro López Miera, head of the Cuban Armed Forces, met today in Minsk and studied ways to develop military cooperation between the two countries, according to a press release from the Belarusian side.
At the meeting, the ministers “addressed in detail the current state of bilateral military cooperation and ways to continue developing it,” the article adds. In addition, Jrenin and López Miera exchanged views on the global security situation, as well as the military and political situation in Europe.
“At the end of the talks, the ministers reiterated their mutual interest in intensifying military contacts,” the article concluded.
López Miera arrived in Minsk from Russia, where he was on Tuesday with the aim of discussing the realization of “a series of joint projects in the technical-military field.” The Cuban was the first senior foreign official to visit Moscow after the uprising of the Wagner mercenary group against Vladimir Putin.
The Russian head of Defense, Sergey Shoigu, was the official who received López Miera at the headquarters of his ministry. According to the Russian news agency Sputnik, Shoigu proposed to his counterpart “to address in detail all existing and promising cooperation projects in the military field.” The minister assured that there was “a wide variety of issues” in which Russia could support Cuba, including “technical” aid to the Island’s Army. continue reading
He praised Cuba as “an important partner” that demonstrated “a complete understanding of the reasons” that led Putin to invade Ukraine, although he did not allude to the cautious silence maintained by the Havana regime during the tension with Wagner’s troops. The bilateral dialogue, Shoiguu summarized, is in the best of states, and they “are taking measures” to “protect their cooperation” against international sanctions.
“Russia is willing to provide assistance to Cuba,” the soldier promised López Miera, although both Sputnik and other media that reported on the visit avoided defining the exact content of that “strategic” aid.
On June 13, Putin decorated López Miera with the Order of Friendship, for his “important contribution” to the “strengthening of military and technical-military cooperation between the two countries,” Prensa Latina reported.
Born in 1943 and Minister of the Armed Forces since 2021, López Miera was part of Cuba’s military interventions in Angola and Ethiopia. He is one of the senior Cuban officials sanctioned by the U.S. Government “for his involvement in human rights violations.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Pope Francis with Miguel Díaz-Canel, during his meeting in the Vatican. (Twitter/Cuban Foreign Ministry)
EFE (via 14ymedio), Miami, 27 June 2023 — The Hemispheric Front for Freedom (FHL), composed of parliamentarians, academics, political leaders and human rights defenders from several Latin American countries, criticized Pope Francis for receiving the Cuban president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, last week and for treating him with “an obvious affection that offends” the victims.
“It pains us as Catholics and Christians that you receive the criminal (Díaz-Canel) and other representatives of the Castro dictatorship while the Vatican ignores the true representatives of Cuban civil society,” the FHL said on Tuesday in a letter sent to the Pope.
The group says in the letter that it does not intend to question papal decisions but reminds the pontiff that the Cuban president “is charged with crimes against humanity” and that “his victims cannot be ignored, much less by you.”
“With what merit have you received the current dictator of Cuba?” asks the FHL, after saying that the reception of the Cuban leader “has painful and very questionable implications.” continue reading
Díaz-Canel was received on June 20 by Pope Francis, at the first audience held in the Vatican between the two. They talked for 40 minutes, according to Vatican sources.
After the meeting, the Cuban president met in the Secretariat of State with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and issues such as the request for the release of prisoners were discussed.
For the FHL, an organization committed to “promoting the values of freedom in the region and in the world,” the concession of the meeting “should have been conditioned, publicly and at the very least, on the release of Cuban political prisoners.”
It said in the letter that Díaz-Canel “unleashed a fierce repression that included shootings and beatings against the people who took to the streets, peacefully, to demand freedom” on July 11, 2021.
The Cuban government, it added, “does not respect women or children. Over 1,400 people were imprisoned, and 784 were sentenced to between 5 and 25 years in prison, including minors.”
The FHL reminded the Pope that “half a century of efforts, at the highest levels, have not produced an iota of moderation or tolerance in the communist regime, not even mercy for the innocent.”
The letter ends, signed by Dragos Dolanescu and Orlando Gutiérrez-Boronat, president and secretary general of the FHL, by saying that the Cuban regime will not change its attitude because “its ideology is based on hatred of everyone who does not think like them.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Nelbys Leyva, 37 years old, had a daughter. (Facebook)
14ymedio/EFE, Havana, 23 June 2023 — This Thursday, the Cuban independent feminist platforms Alas Tensas and Yo Sí Te Creo raised to 45 the total number of femicides verified so far this year in the country, with the confirmation of a new sexist murder.
The victim was Nelbys Leyva, 37, with a daughter, who allegedly died at the hands of her ex-partner on June 16 in Guanabacoa (west).
The formal complaint comes just one day after both groups confirmed two other victims of sexist violence in Cuba and four days after they registered two other femicides, in one of the most tragic weeks of the year.
So far in 2023, the total number of femicides verified in 2022 (34) has already been exceeded in Cuba, according to the records of the activists and collated by 14ymedio and EFE (in the absence of official public statistics).
In addition, the collectives have counted 163 sexist murders in Cuba since mid-2019, when they began to register them.
The activists called on the Cuban government to declare a “state of emergency” for “gender violence.”
The work of independent feminist collectives and its dissemination in the unofficial media has contributed to putting the focus on the cases of sexist murders and the disappearances of Cubans in recent years. continue reading
These groups also advocate a comprehensive law against gender violence and the implementation of protocols to prevent these events, as well as the creation of shelters and rescue systems for women and their children who are in danger.
Last April, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel assured that there would be “zero tolerance” of sexist violence.
The official Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) gave a presentation at the beginning of June to the Cuban Observatory on Gender Equality, which includes statistics of “women who have been victims of intentional homicide as a result of gender violence in the last 12 months.” However, the data are not clear, based on convictions corresponding to the year.
The Supreme People’s Court reported in mid-May that in 2022 there were 18 convictions for sexist murders, all with penalties above 25 years in prison. However, it did not indicate when they occurred or detail the number of cases investigated that year.
The announcement was published after the court itself confirmed the sentence of life imprisonment for two men previously convicted of sexist violence.
These are the first sentences against perpetrators of femicides for the crime of murder, given that the crime of gender violence does not exist on the Island. They were made public in 2023 and correspond to cases filed in 2022.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Otero Alcántara and Maykel Castillo in Havana, while they were still free. (Anamely Ramos)
EFE (via 14ymedio), Mexico City, 23 June 2023 — Amnesty International (AI) said Thursday that the Cuban authorities must release the artists Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel “Osorbo” Castillo Pérez “immediately and unconditionally.”
It is now one year since they were unjustly sentenced to five and nine years in prison, respectively, in a legal process that did not respect the guarantees of a fair trial.
“The continued arbitrary detention of Luis Manuel and Maykel is part of a pattern of repression based on imprisoning at all costs those who dissent from the authorities,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International in a statement issued today.
“These arrests seek to generate a paralyzing effect on activism and silence freedom of expression in Cuba,” she added.
The AI representative said that both sentences “are an example of the cruelty that the government of Miguel Díaz-Canel is willing to exert on anyone who criticizes the Cuban authorities.”
Given this, she said, “the authorities should abandon the use of the penal system to repress the population, and take the necessary measures to guarantee the independence of the Judiciary and the Prosecutor’s Office.”
Castillo Pérez, known as “Osorbo”, is a musician and human rights activist. He is co-author of the song Patria y vida, which criticizes the Cuban government and has been adopted as a protest anthem. He was arrested at his home on May 18, 2021 by security agents and has been in prison ever since. continue reading
Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is also a member of the artistic collective San Isidro Movement, which has opposed a law that censors artists.
He was arrested on July 11, 2021 in Havana, after announcing in a video that he would join the protests that same day, in which thousands of people demonstrated peacefully and spontaneously in dozens of cities demanding a change in the laws. living conditions in Cuba.
According to the organization Justicia 11J, as of June 7, 2023, 773 people detained during the 2021 protests were still deprived of their liberty.
In 2021, AI analyzed the facts and the context of the detention of Otero Alcántara and Castillo Pérez and designated both artists as prisoners of conscience, since they have been deprived of their liberty solely for the peaceful exercise of their human rights. Amnesty International considers that “the criminal process and the sentence in which it culminated consisted of a farce, lacking any respect for the minimum guarantees of a fair trial.”
And it added that “the sentences must be reversed and the people affected released immediately and unconditionally. Likewise, the Government must guarantee that neither they nor their families or relatives suffer repression for seeking justice in this case.”
On May 18, the NGO sent a letter to Díaz-Canel two years after Castillo’s arrest “for exercising his right to freedom of expression and criticizing the government,” for which he was sentenced to nine years in prison.
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Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez during a press conference for foreign media in Havana. (Screen capture)
EFE (via 14ymedio), 13 June 2023 – Cuba described this Monday as “false” and “a new disinformation operation” the statements of the U.S. Government about the presence of a Chinese espionage center on the Island.
“The statements of the Secretary of State of the United States (Antony Blinken) about the presence of a Chinese espionage base in Cuba constitute a falsehood,” said the Cuban Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodríguez, in a statement released on his Twitter account and official media.
The head of Cuban diplomacy pointed out that “Cuba’s position on this issue is clear and categorical” and stated that Blinken’s statements “lack support.”
“Cuba is not a threat to the United States, nor to any country. The United States applies a policy that daily threatens and punishes the Cuban population as a whole,” stressed the Cuban foreign minister.
He also said that Washington’s accusations are intended to “serve as a pretext to maintain the economic blockade against Cuba and the maximum pressure measures that have reinforced it in recent years.” continue reading
Secretary of State Blinken said on Monday during a press conference that Joe Biden’s government has “a strategy” to counter Chinese espionage in Cuba and other countries that is yielding results.
On Saturday, the U.S. Government declassified information from its intelligence services that claim that since 2019, or even earlier, China has had some “intelligence collection facilities,” a term that can include anything from centers with dozens of spies to a simple listening station equipped with an antenna.
According to those reports, when Joe Biden arrived at the White House in January 2021, he received information that China was trying to expand its intelligence services around the world with the creation of espionage centers in Latin America, the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
Blinken made those statements days after The Wall Street Journal published that China and Cuba had agreed to build a large espionage center on the Island, a report that the Government of Havana categorically denied and that the White House initially described as “inexact.”
The Deputy Foreign Minister of Cuba, Carlos Fernández de Cossío, said that what was published by the New York newspaper was “unfounded information,” “slander” and “fallacies” to justify the U.S. sanctions against Cuba and destabilize the Island.
For its part, the Chinese government accused the United States of “spreading rumors and slander.”
One of the spokespersons for the White House, John Kirby, responded this Monday at a press conference to questions from EFE that “we have made our concerns clear,” when questioned whether there had been any communication with the Cuban Executive on this issue.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Deposits of the Russian state company Rosneft. (Energy Newspaper)
EFE/14medio, MRussia and Cuba are preparing an intergovernmental agreement for Russia’s Rosneft to supply 1.64 million tons of oil and hydrocarbons annually to the Island, Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz said on Tuesday during a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Mikhail Mishustin.
The Prime Minister, who is on an official visit to Russia, commented that on Tuesday he spoke with directors of Rosneft, who informed him about the progress of the working group created to prepare the agreement between Havana and Moscow.
According to Marrero, this agreement seeks to guarantee the “stable supply” of oil to Cuba.
Marrero stressed the validity and importance of this agreement for his country and acknowledged that Cuba is experiencing difficulties with the supply of fuels.
Researcher Jorge Piñón, from the University of Texas, informed 14ymedio that the amount of oil that Havana is negotiating with Moscow (1,640,000 tons) is equivalent to 32,000 barrels per day.
“This will cover Cuba’s deficit of 90,000 barrels per day, assuming that Venezuela continues to deliver 57,000 barrels per day. At today’s prices, approximately $58 a barrel for Urals crude oil, the total value is about $676 million per year. How is this debt going to be paid?” continue reading
For his part, Mishustin, who meets for the second time with Marrero as part of his visit, stressed that Russia “considers the strengthening of friendship and partnership with Cuba as an unquestionable priority.”
The head of the Russian Government added that the cooperation between Moscow and Havana “has passed the test of time and repeatedly demonstrated its stability in the face of external challenges,” among which he cited the economic sanctions of the “unfriendly countries.”
Mishustin reported that both countries are working on the creation of a bilateral financial system of payments and have begun to trade based on national currencies, the ruble and the Cuban peso.
On Tuesday, the Cuban Prime Minister met with the former Russian president and vice president of the Russian Security Council, Dmitri Medvedev, to discuss bilateral cooperation, including the technical-military, transport, industry and investment spheres.
In particular, they talked about cultural and humanitarian cooperation and the scholarship program for Cuban students, as well as the creation of a special school for the teaching of the Russian language in Cuba.
Marrero, who has already participated in the intergovernmental council of the post-Soviet Eurasian Economic Union and has held meetings with senior Russian officials, plans to attend the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum this week.
In the midst of an unprecedented rapprochement, Havana bets on the “generosity” of Moscow, which has already sent several loads of hydrocarbons. The Russian Prime Minister, Mikhail Mishustin, had already promised Manuel Marrero “the execution of large joint projects” in the oil field.
In this regard, Piñón stated in an interview with Radio Televisión Martí, last Wednesday, that Cuba lost one million barrels of storage during the fire in Matanzas and that, given the need to make space to store the 800,000 barrels of high-quality crude oil that arrived on the Island from Russia, it is likely that the loads of two of the oil tankers from Venezuela have been resold.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The dollar is scarce and there is a lot of demand. (EFE/File/Sebastiao Moreira)
14ymedio/EFE, Havana, 13 June 2023 — The dollar once again reaches 200 Cuban pesos (CUP), a situation that the Island had already experienced in October 2022. This time, according to analysts, it has different characteristics.
If the previous time the dizzying rise was the result of speculation, this time it’s because of the “incomplete recovery after the pandemic, especially of tourism and macroeconomic imbalances, such as the fiscal deficit,” according to Cuban economist Pavel Vidal, a professor at the Javeriana University of Cali (Colombia).
The specialist, in addition, does not see an encouraging future and indicates that most likely the exchange rate “will continue to be above 200” in the future.
Mauricio de Miranda, full professor and researcher at the same university, adds another factor: immigration. “There is a shortage of dollars and a very high demand for them,” he told EFE, which has reported on the phenomenon. continue reading
At the beginning of 2021, with the start of the Ordering Task,* the authorities announced an exchange rate of 1 dollar for 24 CUP. That was always considered by economists as totally far from reality, and it was not long before it was proven that they were right.
On the street, the dollar took little time to reach rates close to 80 or 90 pesos, and a year later, in August 2022, the Central Bank announced a modification, going up to 120 pesos per dollar for individuals and the retail sector.
But today’s situation is different from that of last October, when the 200-peso barrier was broken for the first time, according to Vidal.
In those days, Vidal recalls, there was an “overreaction to the exchange rate.”
In a new attempt to retain foreign currency in the financial sector, the Government announced last April that, after two years, Cuban banks would again accept dollar deposits in cash.
Experts saw in that announcement a contradiction to the spirit of monetary reform that sought, precisely, the opposite: to stop dollarization.
One of those critics was de Miranda, who reminds EFE that in “the national market, the dollar continues to be the currency that solves many things.”
“As long as the Cuban national market continues to offer important goods in foreign currency, the Cuban peso will not recover,” he says.
*Translator’s note: The Ordering Task 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 Regina Anavy
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Since April, Cuba has suffered a crisis due to a fuel deficit that has resulted mainly in shortages of service centers. (14ymedio)
EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 13 June 2023 — The Cuban Minister of Economy and Planning, Alejandro Gil, acknowledged that the diversion of diesel from industry to electricity generation has negatively affected the country’s productive activity.
Gil made these statements in his inaugural speech at the “Three Days of Productive Economics of Cuba,” a meeting of state and non-state economists and businessmen that takes place until Friday at the Chamber of Commerce in Havana.
“In recent months we have had to consume fuel for the generation of electricity, diesel mainly, due to the breakdowns we have had in the thermal plants. And that overconsumption of diesel affects the economy, because it leaves less fuel for use in productive activity,” he explained.
Since April, Cuba has been suffering from a fuel deficit crisis that has mainly resulted in shortages in gas stations and long lines of vehicles waiting to refuel, sometimes for several days.
The Cuban government initially indicated that it was from non-compliance by the fuel supplying countries and that the effects would last at least through April and May. The situation has not improved, and the government has not given any indication of when the situation could normalize.
Gil added in his speech that this situation has led his ministry to make difficult decisions in the face of fuel shortages. continue reading
“From time to time we call an industry and tell it to shut down. We have to stop the production of steel, the production of cement. Why? To try to help the population. And we always say when we pick up the phone that we are also affecting the population. We are less affected by the blackouts, but we are ceasing to produce,” he said.
The minister stressed that the country continues to consume “a lot of fossil fuel for the generation of electricity,” something that is “limiting economic growth.”
“That’s not how the economy can function. The economy depends on the basis of a stability of fuel and electricity generation,” he said.
Gil said that Cuba would not have enough foreign currency to support an economic growth of 4%. However, last December, the minister said that the Government expected the national economy to grow by 3% in 2023, compared to this year’s 2% and the 1.3% growth of 2022, so it would not yet be possible to recover the levels of 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The official announced these figures when presenting the 2023 Economic Plan to the National Assembly of People’s Power.
The Minister of Economy focused his speech on Tuesday on the substitution of imports and the export of goods and services in order to generate foreign currency and to attract foreign investment, which he called a “strategic ally.”
He assured that Cuba is in a “productive recovery process” after “three years of a very complex economic situation.”
The Island is suffering its worst crisis in decades, with shortages of basic products (food, medicines and fuel), frequent blackouts, depreciation of the national currency, partial dollarization of the economy and strong inflation.
The minister said that the country is suffering from “very complicated inflation in recent years” and that this price increase is “one of the most visible problems that the economy has to face and solve.”
In his opinion, part of the price increase is due to Cuba’s strong dependence on the foreign market.
“We import more than 20 cents of the dollar to produce one peso of gross domestic product (GDP). We have a very high imported component. We put a lot of effort in the plans in 2016 and 2017, but we never fulfilled them. We ended up with a tendency to continue importing more to generate GDP, and that is one of the main limitations for economic growth,” he explained.
One dollar is exchanged for 24 Cuban pesos in the formal market (for state companies and legal entities), but in the informal one it has depreciated up to 200 pesos per US dollar.
Currently, he added, national supply is “very restricted” and imports do not meet demand, which has a certain consumption capacity.
“Today, a very high percent, I could say more than 90% of the products sold in our store network [that accepts payment only] in MLC (freely convertible currency) are imported. And in the national currency network, very little is sold, and a good part is imported,” he said.
To reactivate the economy, he advocated replacing imports of intermediate and final goods with “efficient” investment in national production – especially in industries with “idle capacities” – and thus generate added value and employment.
In this way, supply could be expanded, inflation could be addressed, and imports could be reduced. “All that can be done perfectly. We have the opportunity to solve it,” Gil said.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
Cuban Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero, in Sochi this Friday, where he met with Putin. Today, Monday, begins his visit in Moscow. (Government of Cuba)
EFE (via 14ymedio), Juan Palop, Havana, 12 June 2023 — Cuba and Russia have announced plans to strengthen their economic and trade relations, but experts doubt that they can achieve a new bilateral golden age, and they glimpse geopolitical interests in difficult times for both countries.
This week the Cuban Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero, is in Russia for the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council and the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, while the opposition warns of a new “Russification.”
The visit, the last after those of several ministers and President Miguel Díaz-Canel himself last November, comes shortly after Havana announced preferential treatment for Russian investors, from transfers of agricultural land in usufruct for 30 years to tax exemptions.
These measures complete a flood of announcements – including the entry of three Russian ruble banks on the Island – and the presentation of a package of reforms of the Stolypin Institute to liberalize the Cuban economy.
Experts consulted by EFE believe that this movement can be understood to some extent by necessity, due to the serious economic crisis that Cuba has been facing for more than two years.
“After the pandemic, the tightening of sanctions and the failure of reforms, Cuba has been economically and financially isolated. Russia can be an alternative to achieve some kind of international reintegration,” says Cuban economist Pavel Vidal, a professor at the Javeriana University of Cali (Colombia).
Cuban economist Tamarys Bahamonde, a PhD candidate in Public Policy and Public Administration at the University of Delaware, also alludes to the “preferential treatment” of the past and the lack of indications that Washington will change its policy towards the Island: “Cuba has no alternative but to look at Russia and Asian partners.”
However, Vidal emphasizes that, for this approach to prosper, “it is necessary to find mutually beneficial economic interests,” something that “is not yet clear.” The great Cuban bet is tourism, he adds, although the sector has not taken off after COVID-19, and Russia is far away.
“For greater integration between the two economies, it is necessary to look for something that is of value to the market and to Russian entrepreneurs,” explains Vidal, who recalls that Russian capitalists seek to “maximize their profits and minimize risk” and must “perceive” that they can achieve this.
It’s not easy. Due in part to negative experiences in “the recent past,” the Cuban government now has “to do much more to convince investors” that “they’re going to find a market with opportunities, institutions and a regulatory framework that guarantees and allows capital to be profitable.”
Regarding the specific announcements, Bahamonde indicates that the use of the ruble on the Island could have some impact if this currency were used “massively” in international transactions, but it is not. Vidal believes that its application in Cuba will not go beyond being something “marginal.”
“It is left to see if the Russians can convince the Cuban government to give more space to the private sector and move forward in a deeper transition from the Soviet-style economic model. The Russians know the shortcomings of this model and have experience in a transition that did not go well and from which they also had to learn things. If they succeed, even coming from the Russians, it would be an important contribution,” says Vidal.
Bahamonde believes that Russia is the “wrong” partner as a model of economic transformation and says that Cuba does not need economic policy recommendations from foreign experts, because its own national experts have already made them decades ago. The problem, he says, is that in the Cuban government there is a lot of “resistance to change.”
“What is needed are not new recommendations, but the political will to do what has to be done” to “implement the transformations that have been recommended for many years,” says this economist, who emphasizes that the transformations have to include “political institutions.”
In this attempt to relaunch bilateral relations, Bahamonde perceives geopolitical interests beyond merely economic ones. “All empires have their interests” and Russia is no exception, he observes.
In this same sense, university professor Michael Bustamente, a specialist in Cuban and Cuban-American studies at the University of Miami, has said: “In the absence of other options, of other partners, and, above all, in the absence of a different policy on the part of the United States, Cuba is opting for a new intensification of its relations with Russia and is trying to obtain whatever benefit it can.
For Moscow, he continues, “Cuba is, as it has been since the 1960s, a chip on the geopolitical board.” He speculates that in the Kremlin, the relationship with Havana could be seen as a kind of “counterweight” to Washington’s “intrusion” into Eastern Europe in the middle of the war in Ukraine.
Havana, for its part, could be seeking to “indirectly put pressure” on the United States to change its policy towards the Island, says Bustamante, although henwarns that such a movement would be counterproductive.
“I know that Washington is worried,” says Bustamante, but he doubts that there will be a change of policy from the United States towards Cuba, because he senses in the Democratic administration a “lack of disposition.”
Bustamante is struck by the fact that these movements by Cuba have not had a response from the European Union, which in addition to being the Island’s first trading partner, is in one of its biggest political crises with Moscow due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“I’m surprised that Cuba isn’t taking care of its relationship with Europe a little more. It will be interesting to see to what extent Cuba can balance this new intensification of its relationship with Russia with a relationship with Europe that continues to be crucial and strategic for the Cuban economy. There is a lot of tension and contradiction, and there are risks for Cuba,” he says.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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EFE (via 14ymedio), Madrid, 7 June 2023 – More than 40 intellectuals from Spain and Latin America have signed a manifesto against the”siege” on freedom of expression imposed by “dictatorial” regimes – an initiative led by the Nicaraguan writer Giaconda Belli, stripped of her nationality by Daniel Ortega’s government.
Literature, always on the side of freedom and democracy, is the document’s title, signed by intellectuals from Nicaragua, Peru, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Venezuela and Cuba. It will be read out next Friday at the Madrid Book Fair.
Belli will share the reading with Spanish writer Rosa Montero, Cuban opposition leader Yunior García and Venezualan author Juan Carlos Chirinos.
Between February and March the Nicaraguan authorities withdrew the nationality of more than 300 people critical of Daniel Ortega, including Belli, “for betrayal of the country”.
Among those signing are: Héctor Abad Faciolince, Alberto Anaut, Nuria Azancot, Valeria Correa-Fiz, Antonio Lucas, Inés Martín Rodrigo, Joan Manuel Serrat, Juan Cruz, Alfonso Mateo-Sagasta, Soledad Puértolas, Carme Riera, Germán Solís, Dani Torregrosa, Manuel Vilas, Juan Villoro, Alexis Díaz Pimienta y Fernando Iwasaki.
They demand democracy and respect for human rights in countries “where totalitarian regimes have left the mark of death, prison, plunder, confiscation and banishment on those who have opposed the “dictatorships”. continue reading
“Countries which brand critics as traitors and condemn them in farces that they call ’courts’ without proof nor the right to defend themselves” – they say. “Countries where citizens are subjected to a regime of terror and espionage, where they remove a citizen’s nationality, steal their possessions, force them abroad and refuse their return”.
These are the countries where they shut down language academies and poetry festivals, silence civil society and the independent media are gagged”, they declare.
And they emphasise the need to never forget or be indifferent to these situations, and to support those writers, artists and media who denounce them from exile.
The signatories encourage the writers to work actively and coordinatedly in this fight against the abuse and violation of human rights.
Translated by Ricardo Recluso
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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
EFE (via 14ymedio), Sao Paulo, July 5, 2023 — Some 36% of those enrolled in the Mais Medicos (More Doctors) program, one of the hallmarks of the Brazilian Government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, are professionals trained in Bolivia, Paraguay and Cuba, according to data sent by the Ministry of Health to EFE. In the last call of the program, 58% of the just over 34,000 enrolled were nationals trained in Brazil, with priority in access, while the rest, 42%, were foreigners or Brazilians educated outside the country.
