Category: Translator: Regina Anavy

The three demonstrators deployed a 26-foot banner with images of the poverty in Cuba and “were attacked by supporters of the regime”

The statement also emphasizes that “an apparent security guard at the Fair,” who had the obligation to prevent violence within the enclosure, stood idly by while the incident was taking place.

Speaking to Martí Noticias, De la Torre said that she and her colleagues had attended the Milan Fair “peacefully, to teach the reality of Cuba, which is not an egalitarian or equitable country.”

Although the main attacker, explains the Foundation’s text, was Ajuria – along with his wife, Anabel Díaz – the activist pointed out that the aggressors followed the orders of Marcos Hernández Sosa, consul general of Cuba in Milan. De la Torre shared the complaint on her Facebook page, where she also explained that a Cuban resident in Italy, whom she identified by the name of Ada Galano, uttered “serious slander.” Although the activist did not specify about what or whom, she said that she had also denounced her before Italian law.

It is not the first time that De la Torre has been the victim of aggression by the Cuban diplomatic corps. In June 2022, she was attacked by Yahima Martínez Millán, consul general of Cuba in Galicia (Spain), when she was preparing to place flowers in front of a bust of José Martí in Santiago de Compostela.

The Foundation also mentions in its statement the beatings given to the exiled doctors, Lucio Hernández Nodarse and Emilio Arteaga Pérez, in May 2023, for shouting anti-castrist slogans in the Galileo Galilei room in Madrid, during a concert of the duo Buena Fe.

The Cuban Repressors project, managed by the Foundation, aims to “stop, reduce and eradicate violence and arbitrariness for political, economic, social, cultural, creed, race or sexual orientation reasons and thus contribute to facilitating coexistence in a future Cuba.”

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.

Nicaragua has been able to take advantage not only of Cuba’s technical knowledge but also its fame and imagery

Nicaragua, where many producers from the Island emigrated after 1959, has been able to take advantage not only of Cuba’s technical knowledge but also its fame and imagery. At the core of the lawsuit in Valencia, which now prohibits Gesinta and La Casa del Tabaco from selling Condega cigars, is the similarity of colors in the rings of the Nicaraguan brand and those of the D series of Partagás.

Both rings are identical in almost everything except the name of the cigar: two golden bands below and above the name, also in gold. This ring has been “very characteristic” of Partagás since the 1930s, Habanos S.A. claims, and has contributed to the brand “always being in the top positions” on the lists of premium cigars.

This Thursday, the members of the Cigar Club of Madrid – one of the landmarks of Cuban cigars in Spain – received a communication about the Supreme Court’s ruling, and the Condegas were unambiguously qualified as mere Nicaraguan “copies” of Partagás.

“The Condega Serie F are cigars whose Central American origin has nothing to do with those that are rolled in the Cuban factories, which have the worldwide D.O.P. certification. (Protected Designation of Origin),” he clarified.

In addition, the Club defended the primacy of Cuban cigars: “We do not let ourselves be fooled by something that pretends to be what it is not, either for its rings, formats and even boxes, because in Cuba there are twenty-seven brands of cigars, which are the most smoked and appreciated premium cigars by fans around the world,” he said.

With a relatively recent cigar tradition, Estelí has become Cuba’s strongest competitor in the international market

The Condega brand, founded in 1997 by the Hispanic-Cuban businessman Eduardo Fernández Pujals – one of the former owners of the Spanish company Telepizza – has its operating base in the municipality of Estelí, in the western part of Nicaragua.

With a relatively recent cigar tradition, Estelí has become Cuba’s strongest competitor in the international market. “Estelí’s great irony is that it is full of American and Cuban-American anti-Castros who became billionaires with cigars in the 1960s,” a source in the Nicaraguan municipality tells 14ymedio.

“The Plascencia and the Padrón, two Cuban-American families, are among the strongest. They have plantations in Estelí, Condega and Jalapa. Cuban-Americans have caused a notable increase in the price of properties – even more expensive than much of Managua – because they pay without hesitation what people ask for their lands and houses,” he adds.

The Cuban regime has also settled in Estelí, as attested to by the Nicaragua Investiga media last November. At least nine farms in the town, local producers said, were being managed by alleged Cuban businessmen. The most widespread suspicion among Estelí’s cigar makers, he added, is that these businessmen are Cubans who have just arrived in Nicaragua as “front men.”

The small farmers are sure that Cuban investors, some associated with Cubatabaco – the company that controls cigars on the Island – arrived “from the hand” of the Government of Daniel Ortega and have been located on farms bought from other businessmen or that were abandoned after the State’s intervention.

Estelí is about to inaugurate a cigar megafactory by American businessman Rakesh Rocky Patel. Considered an up-and-comer in the world of cigars, Patel – who amassed a fortune working as a lawyer for Hollywood actors – founded the company Tabaco Villa Cuba S.A (Tavicusa) in Nicaragua in 2008.

Although Patel is proud of not having Cuban “roots” or “family,” in order to dethrone Cuban cigars, he recruited in 2015 one of the best cigar merchants in Havana, Hamlet Paredes. With the advice of Paredes, Patel – who took the pulse of the competition during the 2016 Cigar Festival – managed to position his cigars at the top of the lists of the best in the world.

Although Paredes broke with Patel in 2022 to accept a job in a cigar shop in Ireland, the American’s plans are going at full speed in Estelí. At the end of January, the Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa detailed Patel’s megafactory project. In addition to producing 60,000 cigars a day, the company will have facilities to prepare the leaf and carry out other processes.

Last year Patel achieved an income of 400 million dollars from the marketing of his cigars – 85% of them to the United States – a figure that is quite close to the annual income of Habanos S.A., which in 2022 obtained 545 million dollars. The turnover figure in 2023 for the Cuban monopoly should be known on February 26, with the beginning of the XXIV Cigar Festival, an event that the regime takes advantage of to oxygenate its coffers with the sale of its star product and remind millionaires from all countries that it still holds the crown as the best tobacco producer in the world.

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 company says that the date of April 1 for the restoration of remittances, provided to this newspaper by employees of two offices in the United States, is not correct

On February 1, after the complaints of several customers in Florida who weren’t able to send remittances to their relatives on the Island, Western Union employees told 14ymedio, in several telephone calls, that “at the moment shipments to Cuba are not available until further notice,” without further details.

The problems of making transfers from abroad, exclusively to the Island, were not only occurring from the United States but also from other countries, and not only with Western Union, but with other platforms, such as Cuballama and Cubatel.

On Wednesday 31, a day before the main economic measures agreed by the Government last December came into force, the authorities decided to cancel them, citing “a cybersecurity incident.”

The next day, without mentioning this “incident” or the remittances, the Metropolitan Bank issued a statement in which it warned that it was having “technical difficulties” that affected “branch services and those associated with payment technology channels.”

“If you have questions specifically related to transaction processing in Cuba, contact Orbit directly”

The widespread suspicion about the hacking, which, according to official sources, had affected the marketing system of Cimex, a corporation belonging to the Gaesa military conglomerate, increased among Cubans when the Minister of Economy, Alejandro Gil Fernández, was dismissed last Friday.

By telephone, Fincimex has not given a date for the solution of the problems. “We are still working on the breakdown, but there is nothing yet,” an employee told this newspaper last Wednesday.

Western Union suspended remittances to Cuba in November 2020, due to the sanctions of the Trump Administration on Fincimex and AIS (American International Services), because they are managed by the Cuban military. In January 2023, services resumed, this time with a different intermediary: the “non-banking” financial institution Orbit S.A., approved by the Central Bank of Cuba a year earlier.

Western Union mentions Orbit in one of its responses to 14ymedio this Friday: “If you have questions specifically related to the processing of transactions in Cuba, contact Orbit directly, since they are more qualified to discuss the matter. We are relying on Orbit to help us resume operations as soon as possible.”

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.

Lifescozul began as a “service company,” says the scientist, but now considers itself a “pharmaceutical development” company, with allies such as Pharmometrica, a Mexican laboratory that, according to Portal, “analyzes each sample (of venom) and certifies it for our studies.”

The company is now asking its private investors for another 11 million dollars to enter a phase of clinical trials of its product, Escozul. For the company, Portal assures, having private capital “especially in the last five years” has been decisive.

The current structure of Lifescozul – which also works on another kind of products, such as nutritional supplements and vitamins – includes a scientific department, led by microbiologist Alexis Díaz, the “maximum authority” in the venom of the Cuban scorpion; a clinical trials department, headed by Dr. Mariela Guevara; and other marketing, medical care and follow-up teams.

They have a factory in Colombia, a research center in Mexico, and the financing of the project is managed in the United States. The headquarters is located in Ecuador, where Portal founded the “parent company” of Lifescozul in 2009.

Behind each of the people in charge of the company – all former Labiofam scientists – there is a story. Portal himself was dismissed from his position in the state pharmaceutical company in 2006, when he confronted its former director, José Antonio Fraga Castro, Fidel Castro’s nephew. Vidatox, the product manufactured by Labiofam – and one of Escozul’s competitors in the international market – was “a whim of Fraga Castro,” says Portal.

In 2000, scorpion venom as a cure for cancer was one of the obsessions of both the uncle and the nephew, says Portal. “Many patients went to Cuba to look for it because the BBC and CNN reported on its potential.” The pioneer of the studies was Dr. Misael Bordier, a biologist from Guantánamo, who “was never able to publish anything that supported the venom’s properties.”

“Fraga Castro saw the potential, and since he was Fidel’s nephew, he literally took the project away from Bordier, who died in 2005.” Bordier had formed an analysis group including Portal and Alexis Díaz.

The year after Bordier’s death, his colleagues gave Fraga Castro two pieces of news. The good one: that the team had found “evidence” that “inside the poison there are components capable of inhibiting malignant cell growth.” The bad one: that it would take ten years to have a concrete result. At a minimum.

The director of Labiofam was angry, Portal recalls. “The country needs foreign currency now,” was his argument when accepting the proposal of Dr. Fabio Linares, a doctor specializing in homeopathy, who assured that a compound could be sold “as if it were the established final product of the blue scorpion poison.” This is how Vidatox was born.

However, Portal, Díaz and Bordier’s other disciples studied the formula. The conclusion of the analysis, says the biologist, was worrying. “We tested Vidatox on malignant cell lines, resulting in the fact that not only did it have no effect on cancer, but it also accelerates it, and to top it off there was no trace of venom inside the formulation, since it was extremely diluted.” The conclusion, however, has a contradictory aspect: if Vidatox does not contain a trace of the toxin, which of its components “accelerates” the disease?

When they presented the report to Fraga Castro, he was offended. “He accused us of many things. I accused him of being corrupt, and the argument got out of hand. I ended up expelled.” Portal says that, from there, everything was an odyssey for him. He worked cleaning offices at the Cuban Institute of Art and Film Industry until he was given authorization to leave the country. Then he emigrated to Ecuador.

In the case of Alexis Díaz, whom Labiofam refused to free until several years later, he also left Cuba in 2018, to carry out a postdoctorate in Chile. “Díaz was not expelled but was subject to control for a few years,” Portal explains. As for Guevara, who now resides in the Dominican Republic, he is the one who advises Lifescozul in relation to clinical trials.

In 2014, Lifescozul also had a contact in Havana, José Luis Monzón, who raised scorpions, as Portal revealed to Martí Noticias at the time. Monzón died a year after that interview, and now “his daughters continue his work in Jagüey Grande (Matanzas),” says the biologist, who does not offer more details about his work on the Island. However, a 14ymedio reporter discovered that the address provided by Portal to Martí Noticias did not exist. There is also the Bellavista building on 35th Street between 52 and 54, in the municipality of Playa, and no neighbor has heard of Monzón.

“Since 2018, we haven’t had any of our patients traveling to Cuba,” he insists. If anyone requests to go, Lifescozul puts him in contact with Monzón’s daughters in Matanzas. “Misael Bordier’s relatives extract the venom” in Guantánamo, but Portal does not clarify if they have links with the company there.

Portal admits that, as this newspaper pointed out, Lifescozul has indicated to patients that the Cuban Government offers treatments – very expensive – with scorpion venom. However, he says that he has not done so with the intention that they will be treated at the Cira García hospital in the La Pradera hospital for foreigners, founded by Fidel Castro in 1996. “In 13 years of existence we have never sent any patient to those centers. Explaining the costs (more than 1,200 dollars) is enough for them to give up going to Cuba.”

The prestigious cancer research center Memorial Sloan Kettering, founded in 1884 in the United States, has explained that there are no scientific arguments to prove that scorpion venom cures cancer, and the benefits attributed to Escozul or Vidatox “are mostly based on anecdotes, testimonies and experiments that may not have been executed correctly.”

Lifescozul promises to have the papers in order so that, before the end of 2024, they will be allowed to do a clinical trial

Portal does not agree. “We are about to file several patents with an impact on three types of cancer,” he alleges. “We also work on the identification of active ingredients that act on the mechanisms of pain in people with cancer and on inflammation. ” Lifescozul promises to have the papers in order so that, before the end of 2024, they will be allowed to do a clinical trial.

After two decades spent studying Rhopalurus junceus, Portal insists on its “enormous potential” and argues that he knows of more than a thousand cases where the improved product seems to have helped people. However, it is a reality that Escozul, Vidatox and their counterfeits circulate widely on the black market of several countries, and that several “healers” sell them – very expensively – with the promise of healing.

It was the case of Carlos Miguel Castro Ochoa, a “naturopathic doctor” from Mexico, who charged $1,000 for several bottles of Escozul to a patient who ended up dying. Portal emphasizes that his company had nothing to do with it and that, in fact, it collaborates with the authorities to identify illegal merchants who “sell water.”

They are also not involved, he says, with the Cuban health system, which he, Díaz and other scientists from Lifescozul left – not always on good terms. “I don’t work in Cuba and I don’t plan to. Personally, I don’t think they want me there either.”

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.

Other indicators, such as the delivery of 75% of mangos and 59% of peppers, were not as abysmal as that of fruit

Other indicators, such as the delivery of 75% of mangos and 59% of peppers, were not as abysmal as that of fruit, but they did not meet the industry’s expectations. “In a simple summary, seven of the eleven items contracted contributed absolutely nothing to the two factories: El Mambí, and the other one in Camalote,” says Adelante.

The production aimed at tourism also collapsed, coming in at 280 tons below what was agreed. With those “extremely low” numbers, the company resorted to a modification of the prices of its products, although the authorities did not clarify whether it was an increase or a decrease.

Inexplicably, the media says that the sale to the population, without precise numbers and despite the obvious failures of production, had “positive results.”

With all the variables against it, this year the company proposed to reach 1,535 tons in processed products, a contribution greater than that obtained in 2023. The director, Dalia Fuentes Navarro, explained that they are already working on controlling the deficient contracting process that has been the cause of the factory’s poor performance in recent months.

Fuentes Navarro even predicts that the tomato ’campaign’ in 2024 will be better than estimated, since special care has been taken to hire producers who will honor the contract, and this will also benefit the manufacturing of sauces for pizza, seasonings, juices and ketchup.

“It is clear that in the current period they must face a reorganization of the workforce, improve payment systems, especially in bottle washing, and increase the training of their staff, especially the foremen,” adds Adelante, with less optimism than the director.

Blaming the “informality” of producers for the collapse in state industries has become a common claim in the official press

Blaming the “informality” of producers for the collapse in state industries has become a common statement in the official press, which, although recognizing the poor conditions of contracts with the State, insists that there is no justification for non-compliance.

Something similar happened this January in Sancti Spíritus, when the local newspaper, Escambray, complained that dairy farmers sell their milk for 150 pesos on the informal market before selling it to the State – usually a bad payer – for a few pesos.

Other producers have not stayed on the sidelines either. This Monday, a farmer from Sancti Spíritus, in a video shared on social networks, complained about about how unprofitable it is to negotiate with the regime. With milk at 20 pesos – the official payment – “I have to sell 4.5 gallons to make a dollar,” he said, while stating that in no country in the world is milk bought at such a “humiliating” price.

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 2023, the Government of Mexico recorded the presence of 700,000 foreigners in the country without authorization. Of these, the Mexican Refugee Assistance Commission assisted 18,386 Cubans, 44,239 Haitians and 5,517 Venezuelans.

In 2023, the Government of Mexico recorded the presence of 700,000 foreigners in the country without authorization. Of these, the Mexican Refugee Aid Commission served 18,386 Cubans, 44,239 Haitians  and 5,517 Venezuelans

According to a study carried out by the Tent organization, consumers in Mexico support companies that hire refugees. “Seventy-four percent of respondents are more likely to buy from companies with these initiatives.” Tent proclaims that “this percentage is higher than any of the other eight markets where it has carried out similar research,” including Germany, Spain and the United States.

José Antonio Fernández Carbajal, president of the board of directors and general director of Femsa, the largest Coca-Cola bottler in the world, said that the hiring of refugees and migrants “has had a tremendous impact on the company and on the collaborators.”

None of the parties gave details about the type of jobs and salaries that migrants will be able to receive.

“Incorporating these people into the workforce represents an act of community commitment, global solidarity and social responsibility,” said Mexican Foreign Minister Alicia Bárcena.

The strategy is different from the jobs granted by some companies in 2021 to irregular migrants. The state authorities of Sonora opened occasional places for cleaning, loading and unloading services in warehouses and assistants in restaurants. At that time, 13 Cubans benefited, receiving salaries of $200 per month.

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 this sanction, “the purposes of the sentence have not been achieved, and he is not in a position to face social reintegration in a positive way before family and society”

Genlui, the artist’s partner and one of his main spokespersons since he entered prison, said that Otero Alcántara’s family and friends will continue to denounce the violence of the system, which never ceases to intimidate citizens. “Those who are not in a position to face society or their own relatives are all the Castro judges, prosecutors and military who are part of the fascist and macabre game of the dictatorship,” she wrote.

The law specifies that any prisoner who has served a third of his sentence, in the case of children under 20 years of age at the time of imprisonment, or half the penalty for primary sanctions and two-thirds in the case of repeat offenders, is able to apply for parole. The latter would be the case of the artist, who since 2017 has suffered a multitude of arrests, the first that year for “illegal possession of construction materials” related to the 00 Biennial, an alternative art exhibition to the official Biennial of Havana.

It is unknown if the court states in its resolution that the artist does not meet any formal requirement, but it does point out reasons related to an alleged inability to live in society. In addition, it expressly alludes to Instruction 273, approved by the Supreme Court in 2022 and called the “policy of rigor in the face of the most harmful behaviors that affect society and the population.” It lists a long series of crimes that affect “citizen tranquility” including “altering public and constitutional order.”

Instruction 273, approved by the Supreme Court in 2022, is called the “policy of rigor in the face of the most harmful behaviors that affect society and the population”

The State considers that those who have committed crimes of this type, as is the case of Otero Alcántara, must compulsorily serve two-thirds of their sentence in order to be able to apply for parole and, in addition, conform to a “good behavior” that will be evaluated by officials. The instruction also penalizes those who use social networks to “foment crime.”

Alcántara has been in the maximum security prison of Guanajay, in Artemisa, since 11 July 2021, when he was arrested before he could join the massive anti-government protests of that day. The artist was tried along with his friend, the protest rapper Maykel Osorbo Castillo; with the former sentenced to 9 years in prison and the later sentenced to five years of deprivation of liberty.

Amnesty International named him as a prisoner of conscience in May 2021 and has not stopped asking for his release, as the visible head of hundreds currently in Cuba.

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 statement emphasizes that the procedure is ongoing and Ocaña has been accused of violating federal laws, but “that every accused is innocent unless and until guilt is proven

The case will be taken over by a National Security Investigation Unit and the U.S. Border and Customs Patrol, while the deputy federal prosecutor, Michael J. Buchanan, will formulate the accusation. The statement emphasizes that the procedure is ongoing and Ocaña has been accused of violating federal laws, but “that every accused is innocent unless and until guilt is proven.”

The case happened the same day that this newspaper learned, through Western Union headquarters, that the sending of remittances to Cuba could remain paralyzed until April. “There are problems with the banks in Cuba, and that has caused us to stop sending money. They are still working to solve the problem,” they said.

The sending of money through several agencies from the United States has been suspended since last Wednesday, January 31, hours before the increase in fuel prices was to come into effect. According to the version of the Cuban authorities, the state company Fincimex suffered a computer attack from abroad.

Meanwhile, the price of the dollar in the illegal market grows unstoppably and is about to reach 300, where the euro has been since yesterday. The currency thus detaches itself abysmally from the official exchange rate, which is set at 1 x 120 for the population.

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 her accounts, 69% of the sector’s purchases are made from the national industry. “We see the productive chain with a greater vision. It sells itself and satisfies other sectors’ needs.” The official said that there are 259 tourist facilities linked to 1,111 “productive forms,” which contain 379 private producers “who have even designed their growth to guarantee hotel facilities; that is, they consider tourism.”

Her assessment is positive, since, in addition, it avoids imports and their costs. “You get it faster and you don’t fall into the issue of shipping companies, which to get to Cuba  must practically go around the world, which causes many delays,” she stressed. Among the novelties of those “chains” is the development of recycling industries, an issue that was previously ignored but that gains importance for international hotel companies, such as Meliá and Iberostar, which are subject to environmental commitments.

“We are starting a program to replace overused plastic. There is also productive chaining, and we have industries responding, such as Ciego Montero, in the production of soft drinks”

“We are starting a program to replace overused plastic. There is also productive chaining, and we have industries responding, such as Ciego Montero, in the production of soda.” The same happens, she added, with dispensers that will replace cans and bottles, reducing the use of plastics and waste. “Los Portales made its line for concentrated soda, and Bucanero expanded to dispense beer,” she said.

The Government seems interested, possibly, in the prospect of being part of the network of Smart Tourist Destinations – with Cayo Largo del Sur as the first declared goal – by meeting the sustainability objectives required to earn the seal. Last night on television, a rural tourism plan to transform farms for agrotourism was also presented.

The goal is, in any case, to reactivate a sunken sector, since, as García Granda himself acknowledged, “at a global level, the tourism industry is recovering, with a tourism boom in countries such as Spain, Europe and the Caribbean.” He does not feel unsuccessful, despite the poor data of the Island – which closed 2023 with 2,436,980 international visitors, 42.8% less than in 2019 and 31% below its aspirations – since, he said, “no other country develops its tourist activity in the same conditions as Cuba.”

The minister summarized the list of damages of the US embargo, including the most recent measure to suspend the ESTA (visa waiver program) of those who have traveled to Cuba since 2021, although the only one of the aforementioned affronts that seems to have repercussions based on data is the ban on cruises from the United States. The rule was approved by Donald Trump’s administration in June 2019 and maintained by Biden. It prevents, according to García Granda, the arrival of at least 1.2 million tourists. The data is exaggerated considering that in 2018, an excellent year for the sector on the Island, approximately 850,000 Americans were received in this way, although the hole in the accounts is real.

Other problems exist, the minister said, in the lack of resources that prevent adequate promotion, as well as the scarce availability of fuel for internal flights and excursion boats. Despite everything, Cuba invested money in airport improvements, as published this Wednesday in Granma. The amount spent, ranging from improving the runways to safety devices and facilities, is not specified.

The low occupancy rate indicates not only a large excess of capacity but also a monumental waste of investment

“The official statistics indicate an inconsistency between the very high relative weight of investment associated with tourism that has a low occupancy rate and that coexists with the low and decreasing weight of agricultural investment in a country with food insecurity,” Monreal reproached in his analysis. The figures, summarized in a graph that reflects the obvious disproportion between spending and the decline in tourism, are overwhelming. “The low occupancy rate indicates not only a large excess of capacity but also a monumental waste of investment. What is the rationality of having invested billions of pesos to continue creating an excessive supply of hotel rooms?” he asks.

For 2024, the Government proposes to have 3.2 million tourists and an increase in flights to the Island. The minister indicated that “it has been possible to establish air connections with 32 countries through 50 airlines, with an average of 579 weekly frequencies. In 2019, there were 764 weekly frequencies, although a large part of them corresponded to flights from the United States.” If those numbers are true, Cuba now has 24.21% fewer frequencies than in 2019, faced with the fall of tourism by 42% with the same year.

Later, however, he pointed out that the improvement in the number of travelers is due to the increase in flights “despite having only 47% of the frequencies that existed in 2019.” There doesn’t seem to be anyone who can calculate Leontief’s index* for Monreal.

*Leontief’s input-output models divided the economy into sectors where each sector’s production helped the others.

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.

By telephone, a Fincimex employee told this newspaper that “the breakdown is still being worked on but there is nothing yet”   

These cannot be done, as this newspaper verified, at least as of January 29, although some comments on the bank’s Facebook post this Tuesday allude to the impossibility of doing them earlier.

On Wednesday the 31st, a day before the main economic measures agreed by the Government last December came into force, the authorities decided to cancel them. The reason given was “a cybersecurity incident in computer systems for the selling of fuel, whose origin has been identified in a virus from abroad.”

The widespread suspicion about the hacking, which, according to official sources, has affected the marketing system of Cimex, a corporation belonging to the Gaesa military conglomerate, increased among Cubans when the Minister of Economy, Alejandro Gil Fernández, was dismissed last Friday.

Although at Western Union they provide a clear date to normalize remittances, the same does not happen with Fincimex. By telephone, an employee of the state financial system told this newspaper that “work is still being done on the breakdown but there is nothing yet.”

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.