English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 1 July 2021 — The abrupt suspension of the electronic operations of the Banco Metropolitans (Banmet), in Havana, has caused outrage among customers, who have gone to the automatic teller machines (ATM) in search of cash and have not been successful. “I went to get money at the ATM in … Continue reading “Customers in Cuba Desperate Over Problems with Banco Metropolitano ATMs”
14ymedio, Havana, 25 June 2021 — Electric power cannot ‘lift its head’ and jumps from one crisis to another. It has only been a month since supply issues in May led to the suspension of work in non-essential businesses and now the Electrical Union is warning that the Cubans will face four-hour daily blackouts. “As reported on … Continue reading “Cuba’s Electrical Union Announces Daily Four Hour Blackouts This Summer in Cuba”
14ymedio, Havana, 18 June 2021 — It is not new that the Cuban state’s battle against resellers, acaparadores (hoarders), and and coleros (people who stand in line for others), has moved into digital territory, but it grows in the heat of the expansion of the internet and the shortage of products. In Pinar del Río, the number of police operations … Continue reading “In Cuba, Pinar del Rio Police Increase Operations Against Resellers”
14ymedio, Havana, 18 June 2021 — Some 53% of the people of Sancti Spíritus who go to an employment office reject the offer of work, as revealed by the provincial authorities, who have not explained the arguments offered by more than half the population for not wanting the job proposed to them. Of the more than 8,200 people … Continue reading “Cuba: With the Exception of Fines, the Economy of Sancti Spiritus is on the Doldrums”
14ymedio, Havana, 9 June 2021 — With the paralysis of the Santiago de Cuba vegetable oil refining plant, one of the sources supplying the city’s informal market, residents fear that the price of the product will skyrocket even more due to shortages and will end up costing twice as much as they currently pay. “A … Continue reading “Temporary Closure of Cuban Oil Factory Makes Price Soar to 300 Pesos”
14ymedio, Havana, 7 June 2021 — The economic data of Ciego de Ávila does not leave room for optimism. Local companies in the city, the provincial capital, lost more than 53 million pesos until April, Roberto Obregón García, mayor of the Municipal Administration Council, told the local newspaper Invasor. Among those with the worst indicators are … Continue reading “Cuba: Economic Indicators for Ciego de Avila Fall to a Minimum”
14ymedio, Natalia López, Moya, Havana, 3 June 2021 — On the island of cigars and cigar rag (cut tobacco), Cubans find themselves with the dilemma of acquiring packs of cigarettes on the black market or buying them in stores in freely convertible currency (MLC). In state stores and cafeterias, where this product is marketed in … Continue reading “Like Coffee and Rum, Tobacco Disappears from Stores in Cuban Pesos”
14ymedio, Havana, 19 May 2021 — Between last September and the middle of this month, the Logistics Business Group of Cuba’s Ministry of Agriculture (Gelma) has more than three million dollars in merchandise in its network of agricultural supplies and equipment stores, as announced this Tuesday by executives of the state company which also identified … Continue reading “Cuba: The High Price of Feed is Ending Family Pig Farming”
14ymedio, Havana, May 3, 2021 — If figures from the Sancti Spíritus Wholesale Food Company are to be believed, the province’s residents consume about 3.5 tons of food a month. By failing to have their names removed from the ration card registry, as required by law, residents currently living overseas are “bleeding the economy dry” … Continue reading “Newspaper Reports Sancti Spiritus Residents Consume 3.5 Tons of Food a Month”
The Spanish-Cuban company Habanos made $507 million in profits last year, 4% less than in 2019. The figure was provided by the company this Tuesday, at the inauguration of the virtual event Habanos World Days, which replaces the Festival del Habano, whose twenty-third edition was canceled due to the Covid 19 pandemic. The official press … Continue reading “The Habanos Company is Doing Well, While Cuban Tobacco Producers are Broke”
14ymedio, Havana, 27 April 2021 — Beekeeper Yoandy Verea’s worst nightmare has come true. After months of intense work, the lack of fuel caused the loss of tons of honey in his fields in the municipality of Perico in Matanzas, according to his posts on the social network Facebook. “I am a beekeeper contracted by … Continue reading “Cuban Beekeeper Denounces the Loss of ‘Tons of Honey’ for Lack of Transport”
14ymedio, Havana, 15 April 2021 — Among sales kiosks run by the military, a private seller of spices in the Youth Labor Army market on Tulipán Street seems to have found the formula to prevent his premises from becoming a parliament of complaints to the “Ordering Task” and the rise of food prices, which have … Continue reading “Cuba: Taking Control of Your Own Health in Times of Rampant Inflation”
14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, 5 April 2021 — While more and more images are arriving of the impact of the social protests that increase throughout Cuba — including the San Isidro Movement and UNPACU — the communist leaders try to cope with the great problem of lack of food and introduce small reforms such … Continue reading “Cuba: Reforms in the Countryside Should Not be Left Half Done”
14ymedio, Carla Gloria Colomé Santiago, New York, 28 March 2021 — The CUC has died and died young, like Amy Winehouse, Jimi Hendrix or Janis Joplin, just 27 years old. The CUC, the Cuban convertible peso or chavito, as it has also been called, would become the substitute actor of the dollar that, at times, … Continue reading “The History of the CUC, or How the Dollar’s Bastard Brother Shaped the Lives of Cubans for 27 Years”
14ymedio, Havana, 27 March 2021 – Amid the rise in prices brought about by the ‘Ordering Task’, the prices of cement and some other construction materials will not vary, according to a report on Cuban Television’s Roundtable program this Friday. However, the product has disappeared from the State stores and is only found on the … Continue reading “Cuba: One Bag of Cement Costs More Than 1,000 Pesos vs. the State Price of 165”
