Category: Translator: Regina Anavy

At the end of the game at the Intercontinental Stadium in Taichung, Taiwan, manager Alonso appeared before the media accompanied by MLB players Yoan Moncada and Luis Robert Jr., to address the lack of results at the international level.

According to the coach, this “drought” is due to “the newest athletes at a level,” where “they are not very focused on what we want.” For Alonso, “there are baseball players who are young and perhaps do not have the mastery” of Major League players. That, he said, was the goal of the tour prior to the World Classic, in “that the boys saw throws that sometimes we don’t see in the National Series.”

The last time Cuba won a global title was in 2016, when it won the Under-15 World Cup. For this reason, the inclusion of players from international teams — especially from the MLB — has aroused the interest of thousands of followers.

Johnson put forward that they must win the confrontation with the Taiwan team and then wait for the results to see if they qualify for the next round. “The starter must be Elián Leyva. The lineup is going to be the same because, as they say, you don’t touch a winning line-up.”

The one victory that Cuba obtained this Thursday over Panama doesn’t seem enough to get excited about the classification, since this came after the comeback of Taiwan 11-7 against Italy. The Netherlands continues to lead group A of the World Classic (2-0), then Panama, Taiwan and Italy (1-1), with Cuba closing the list (1-2).

Now Cuba must win over Taiwan, but it depends above all on whether Italy continues to lose, whether the Netherlands continues to win and whether Cuba’s classification is defined against Taiwan or Panama. “All this, of course, is if Team Asere wins in its last challenge of the World Classic,” published Swing Completo.

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.

On March 8, when International Women’s Day was commemorated around the world, the group of activists who planned to hold a peaceful demonstration had to protest in silence.

The National Assembly did not accept the letter sent to them by the women, and some of them were later harassed by State Security and detained. Two initiatives did take place: wearing a black ribbon on the wrist as a sign of mourning and a “virtual March” to continue asking the Government to protect women.

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.

In addition, AWE’s support was looked at with suspicion by the Cuban Government, which has limited the options of the private sector and closed numerous initiatives. Jiménez herself, who runs a YouTube channel and had a small advertising advisory agency, ended up going into exile in Montevideo, Uruguay, at the end of 2022.

Other U.S.-based institutions have offered opportunities to both Cubans living on the Island and exiles. This is the case of the Cuban American Alliance for Leadership and Education scholarship, also called Pinos Nuevos, which offers $10,000 to students born on the Island or descendants of Cubans for university studies.

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.

Cuba has exemptions to purchase food products and medicines in the United States, among other things. The condition, which the regime describes as unfair and contrary to international trade rules, is that Cuba must pay in cash, and in advance.

In July 2022, the United States Congress rejected an amendment presented by Democratic legislator Rashida Tlaib that proposed to expand agricultural trade with Cuba and authorize deferred payment for a year. It is not the only movement in Washington aimed at relaxing the restrictions.

This week, a bipartisan project arrived in the Senate, already presented in the same chamber a year ago, which proposed to “eliminate barriers” to American trade with the Island. Its defenders allege that the policy regarding human rights requirements would be maintained but economic opportunities for Americans and the Cuban population would be increased.

The United States International Trade Commission believes that if trade restrictions were lifted, exports of products such as wheat, rice or soy could increase by 166% in five years, to a total of 800 million dollars. However, Cuba’s lack of access to credit and financing as a result of its break with international organizations and its systematic non-payment of its debts leaves doubts about how the Island could deal with the payments.

In 2022, the figure paid by Cuba to the United States for purchases of agricultural inputs and food products reached a record 328.5 million dollars, an increase of 7.7% from the 304.7 million reported in 2021, according to the US-Cuba Economic and Commercial Council.

In 2022, the Island invested $295 million just to buy chicken from the United States, compared to $279.1 million in 2021. The figure has doubled since 2020, when the State spent $143.7 million, although that year it bought the least amount. Among the reasons is the rise in price of the product in international markets, which in 2022 was widespread.

The statistics of the Latin American Chicken Institute, which show a comparison of prices for the three main world exporters (United States, Brazil and the European Union), show the simultaneous rise that occurred in 2022, when the crisis in Ukraine and the increase in maritime transport costs began to push up prices.

The Cuban people have gone from aspiring to put pork on their table to dreaming of getting a piece of chicken, and they complain about having to spend long hours in line to get the meat, while they can hardly afford it in the informal market.

On the on-line site Revolico.com, the price of a chicken of approximately two kilos (4.4 pounds) is sold for an average of 1,500 pesos, approximately 12 dollars, more than half the minimum monthly wage in Cuba; or about $8.50 USD if Cuban pesos are changed on the foreign exchange black market. In any event, the consumer pays many times more for a kilo of chicken than the import price paid by the Cuban State.

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.

However, there are still people interested in leaving the Island who take advantage of the flexibility that Daniel Ortega’s regime offers to Cubans, who don’t need a visa to visit Nicaragua. Some don’t want to continue waiting in Cuba, and others fear that something will happen to complicate their departure. The truth is that “tickets are still being sold as Havana-Mexico City-Managua,” an airline employee acknowledges to this newspaper.

Unlike a few months ago, when most of the travelers who boarded the Aeromexico flight were going to Nicaragua with a stopover in Mexico City, now Cuban migrants on the flight are intermingled with Russian, Canadian and European tourists who, after a stay on the Island, are heading north.

The difference between these passengers is that while foreign tourists disembark at Benito Juárez Airport, Cuban migrants must remain inside the plane until it takes off again, this time for Managua. They also have to hand over their passports at the time of boarding the flight, a measure that has been in force since last October 30, when Aeromexico resumed its flights to Havana.

Then, Aereomexico’s representatives reported that it was essential for travelers with a final destination in Managua to buy the round-trip ticket without connecting to other airlines, since they would be allowed to transfer to an aircraft other than their company’s at the Mexico City airport. Almost five months later, the mechanism remains intact.

Dayuris and Julio’s travel document was removed by airline employees before getting on the plane. “We are calling passengers to the final destination Mexico City for boarding. Passengers who don’t have a visa must wait to be called,” an airline employee repeated several times in the boarding hall of the Havana airport. A dozen people stayed apart until the rest of the passengers got on the plane.

“Then they took away our passports and gave us a number to recover them in Managua,” says Julio. In the Nicaraguan capital, a “guide” awaits them who will take them to a modest hotel, and the day after their arrival they have “arranged a transport” that will take them to the border with Honduras. “If everything goes well, next week we will be with our cousin in Monterrey,” he speculates. “The idea is to leave; once outside we’ll see.”

On the same flight as the couple, there was also a retired teacher with two sons in Miami who want her to “get as close as possible to the border” south of the United States; a father with his son who “in July is old enough to enter military service and must be taken out of Cuba as soon as possible,” and two sisters from Güira de Melena in Artemisa who claim to “have a contract to dance” in Ciudad Juárez until they gather the money to get to Houston, where an aunt lives.

Each one paid a figure close to $2,000 for the round trip, a return ticket that everyone hopes they won’t have to use. With a tiny package of salted peanuts, all the food distributed by the airline employees on the way between Havana and Managua, they embark on a migratory journey that provides more doubts than certainties.

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.

Beginning in 2016, the document recalls, “no more licenses were issued to people for self-employment. The creation of new non-agricultural cooperatives (CNAs) was also stopped, even eliminating several of them and limiting the scope of action for those that remained.” In the following years, the regime continued to impose penalties on the private sector, decreasing the number of methods of self-employment and restricting the maximum wage, which could not exceed more than three times the minimum wage. Business licenses would be limited to a single activity per entrepreneur, and restaurant owners could operate in only one province or taxes would increase.

“Under these conditions, entrepreneurs saw the possibility of investing in their own country exhausted, so a strong movement began to export capital and go outside to look for new investment opportunities abroad,” the report details. “At the same time, the business of buying merchandise abroad to resell it in the informal market increases. This meant that the volume of dollars that left the country from the hand of the entrepreneurs was higher than the volume that the Government attracted as foreign investment.”

The devaluation of the Cuban convertible peso (CUC), which began to be quoted in the informal market at 50 pesos, caused people to prefer to buy the CUC “on the left” rather than at the exchange houses or banks, where they gave 25 pesos per CUC. This, the document asserts, “brought heavy losses for Gaesa, by exhausting the inventories of its stores faster and collecting CUCs and not dollars,” and it “meant that they ran out of liquidity to pay their debts with suppliers, many of whom would no longer sell to the Island.”

Faced with this reality, in the second half of 2019, Miguel Díaz-Canel announced two measures that, “far from achieving the effect of alleviating the country’s financial crisis, quickly led it towards an inflationary wave”: a wage increase without productive support, and price controls in both the state and private sectors. And the text continues: “This situation put the country at the gates of an inflationary powder keg.”

To combat the problem, the State did nothing but start a process of dollarization of the economy that exacerbated the problems even more. The COVID-19 pandemic, which the Cuban government is constantly using along with the US blockade to justify the crisis, only put the “headstone” on the island’s economy, in the words of the report.

Why create a new category of entrepreneurs, SMEs, instead of consolidating businesses that already had a license for self-employment, “allowing them to exercise the right to register their businesses as property with legal personality, to export and import directly and even to receive investments from the United States since being genuinely private and autonomous of the State they could be exempted from the Helms Burton Act”? asks the report. “Very simple,” it answers: “With SMEs, there is no desire to strengthen the private entrepreneur but to artificially create a middle class dependent on Gaesa, whose ’owners’ are chosen from among less fortunate relatives of the oligarchs, retired repressors and members of the rapid response paramilitary brigades.” An opening, in short, more like Russia than Vietnam or even China.

This would create a kind of entrepreneurial middle class, “with the discreet capital of the oligarchy and its phantom companies,” the dossier argues, that Cuba’s own “agents of influence” in the United States would try to promote and sell to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the Treasury Department as “legitimate private account holders and entrepreneurs” to allow them commercial, financial and credit transactions with the United States and the European Union. In this regard, they give as an example the mysterious financial company Orbit, which is already working with Western Union on the resumption of remittances to Cuba.

The strength of the arguments in Morales’ report lies in the data. The 6,161 SMEs registered on the Island at the beginning of 2023 represent only 1% of the number of entrepreneurs in 2016.

In that year, Cuba Siglo 21 points out, there were more than 500,000 Cubans with a self-employed work license, which in total generated more than 3 billion dollars. The debacle was progressive: “The obstruction to the reforms in 2016 removed some 80,000 self-employed people from the market. Subsequently, the pandemic and the monetary Ordering Task* caused more than 139,000 entrepreneurs to hand over their licenses or close their businesses. The country has lost two-thirds of this labor force because the State, which now boasts of creating SMEs that do not represent even 1% of those businesses, has since applied deliberate policies to repress them through prosecutors and police (the most successful often ended up in jail). A considerable part has emigrated, convinced that there is no future in Cuba.”

Against the possibility of what it calls “thaw 2.0,” the report also alleges that the Obama Administration’s rapprochement with the Island only benefited the “oligarchy” of the regime when 42 billion dollars of its foreign debt was forgiven, allowing them to obtain new lines of credit, increasing the tourist flow, using resources to build hotels and acquiring military equipment for repression.

“Pretending to draw up a policy of engagement with the aim of empowering the Cuban people and trying to promote a private sector that does not exist is to reiterate the errors of the first thaw,” says Cuba Siglo 21, because “concessions were made without reclaiming those that should have materialized, first or in parallel, on the Cuban side.”

The report concludes: “If the Cuban dictatorship on the Island and the Cuban exiles in the world have proven anything, it’s that without freedom there is no progress.”

*The Ordering Task [Tarea Ordenamiento]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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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.

They are joined by three units under maintenance, one in Cienfuegos and two in the Renté plant, in addition to the deficiencies in the distributed generation. As for the generation, 933 MW do not work and 322 MW are under maintenance. In that context, the 20 MW provided by the Puerto Escondido unit and the 70 MW of the Renté plant, whose unit 5 enters at peak time, fall short.

Despite the lack of expectations that citizens already have in the face of the Government’s promises, some customers regret having believed the words of the Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, who proposed a maintenance program aimed at repairing the thermoelectric plants that would began in January, when the climate is cooler and therefore favorable, and end in May, to tackle the warm weather when demand skyrockets.

In January, the minister announced that with this plan the power cuts weren’t going to disappear, but they would be for only one or two hours compared to 14 to 16 hours last summer, when an unprecedented crisis led to a multitude of protests in different parts of the country. However, already in February, blackout periods began to be extended to three and four hours.

“And we thought that at this point the situation was going to be resolved with scheduled maintenance,” complains a disappointed user on the UNE networks.

Between February 13 and 22, from the center to the east of Cuba, there were four large blackouts that left half the Island in the dark, fueling the fears of the population and the feeling of grievance among the inhabitants of that area, who feel discriminated against. All the Turkish floating power plants that contribute to electricity generation are located in the west.

The authorities of the sector said that one floating plant was going to be sent to Santiago de Cuba to minimize the problem, since the location of all of them in Havana — due to the greater presence of companies and concentration of population — was catastrophic for the east of the Island, but the inhabitants continue to feel affected and report that the floating plant still hasn’t arrived.

“The party started again, to suffer with the Apagón [blackout] orchestra giving their annoying concerts all over Cuba. The same never-ending story,” a client bitterly quipped, in a play on words that recalls the traditional Aragon orchestra. Another is already ahead of the fear that exists on the Island: “I’m just saying that the heat is coming and they are fucking us again with 10 or 12 hours of blackouts.”

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.

The decree establishes that the marketing margin of the twenty foods may not exceed 40% of the value paid to the producer. It also includes a “reorganization” in the sales network in areas that are “really needed” because, the provincial government argues, right now there is disorder, and “anyone can mount” an illegal business without a license and payment to the treasury.

Authorities say that a pound of rice — a food that has been scarce in most Cuban families — is sold in the province at 135 pesos ($5.70). With the new rule, the price to the commodity stockpiles will be 70 pesos ($2.92), the price in the wholesale market will be 84 pesos ($3.50) and for the retailer (final consumer) 90 pesos ($3.75).

A pound of black beans for the retail buyer will be set at 120 pesos ($5), a pound of red beans at 130 ($5.42), dried corn at 45 ($1.88), tomatoes at 42 ($1.75) and pepper at 55 ($2.29), for example.

Food sales will only be allowed with an authorization issued by the provincial delegate of Agriculture, which in turn will have to have the endorsement of the municipal authority and be “reconciled” with the president of the productive form to which the producer belongs.

The decree also includes other market surveillance measures, such as the creation of five engagement groups with territorial authority to reduce the risk of illegal food transfer to other provinces. Their powers will not replace the municipal structures, but they will monitor compliance with what was agreed by the Government Council.

Producers who sell above the set limits will be forced to market the merchandise at the price set by the decree, and if they re-offend, the decree warns, their marketing license will be withdrawn. Similarly, the new rule orders telephones and emails to be available for complaints from citizens about irregularities.

In 2021, the Cuban government failed with a similar experience in setting the prices of agricultural products. At the beginning of that year, the maximum prices for sales in the private sector were approved, but, in August, the authorities reversed because the measures were a brake on production since the producers could not recover the money they invested.

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.

The official newspaper Cubadebate, in its publication this Thursday, found those responsible for this defeat. There was the possibility of “breaking the tie in the third inning, after consecutive singles by Yadir Drake and Yadil Mujica” to which the “sacrifice of Yoelkis Guibert” was added, but “the major league players Yoan Moncada and Luis Robert were incapable of scoring.”

The same media stressed that against the Italian starter Matt Harvey, “Moncada perished in a fly to third and Robert tapped a harmless grounder to David Fletcher. Meanwhile, in the fifth inning, Moncada again struck out, with Quintana on third and Guibert on first.”

Faced with the comments about the lack of productivity presented by the Cuban batting, Johnson acknowledged at a press conference that “the offensive has not been working” and that “we wanted to have some runs, but (Italy) was ahead and we couldn’t.”

As for indications of a possible rotation of Yoan Moncada and Luis Robert, the Cuban manager said it would be analyzed among the “group of coaches” in the hotel. “I think that if there has to be some movement, it will happen. We are waiting to meet and do the relevant analyses.”

Francys Romero confirmed that “a conversation between the coaches and players took place at the clubhouse in Cuba.” In that talk, the one who took the baton was the manager and former shortstop of Industriales, Germán Mesa, who recalled that they still have possibilities and will continue fighting in the tournament, taking up the phrase of Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra: “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.”

The collaborator of Play-Off Magazine, Renier González Jr., lamented that although we have the best players in the world, “if we continue with these managers, we will not make much progress.” Through his Twitter account he exhibited his annoyance: “A team with a lot of potential is not being managed in the right way. Outs are given away in bunt hits. The pitching is handled badly. Players are lined up with a terrible defense.”

González Jr. stressed that “as long as we aren’t looking for trainers, coaches and people prepared in the world’s major leagues, we will continue the same way.”

Group A accomplished its second date in which the Netherlands remains undefeated (2-0,) followed by Italy (1-0), Panama (1-1), Taiwan (0-1) and Cuba (0-2).

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.

According to Osvaldo Acosta Rodríguez, the company’s head of human resources, there is a lack of incentive to keep workers trained in the sector. “We have a school that still trains workers in the different specialties, but there is no established mechanism to retain those who graduate. The same happens with the inmates who go through school and when they leave the penitentiary center are no longer a responsibility of the Ministry of the Interior or of the Court, which also does not have a legal apparatus for them to stay in construction, even when we give them an evaluation that serves anywhere.”

The lack of employees joins the thousand problems that prevent having the raw material for construction. Hydraulic works, industrial construction, tourism, road works and, of course, the execution of housing programs hang in the balance.