Translating Cuba

Attack Yarini: The Combat Order Is Given

The great Havana pimp was the dandy who dazzled everyone while riding his white braided-tail steed or walking his greyhounds through the streets of the capital

The Havana pimp in one of the few photographs of him remaining / Archive

14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 23 June 2024 — Yarini has become news again. The great Havana pimp, the most bastard of national heroes, the greatest sex symbol of our myths, returns to the Cuban scene thanks to Carlos Díaz and theatre company El Público. Obviously, the regime’s moralistic halitosis has exhaled its discontent on social media. Why so? Well, because Yarini is not an accepted theme in the murals of the CDRs (Committee for the Defense of the Revolution,), but his tomb continues to receive flowers; because his name is not listed in the pantheon of the PCC (Cuban Communist Party), but it continues to inspire artists and poets. However, what irritates the one-party terrorists the most is not Yarini’s heterodox morals, but the neighborhood where he sculpted his legend, a name they would rather erase from all our maps today: the neighborhood of San Isidro.

Alberto Manuel Francisco Yarini y Ponce de León was not just a pimp. If he had not died in the “war of the pant flies,” perhaps he would have held a position as a representative to the House for the Conservative Party, and who knows if his popularity would have brought him to the highest chair in the Republic. His funeral was attended by more than 10,000 people, including President José Miguel Gómez. His friends refused to load his coffin in the imperial hearse and decided to carry it on their shoulders to the Colón cemetery. Enrique José Varona was the first to place his signature on his obituary. Sindo Garay and Manuel Corona shared friendship and songs with him. His “ekobios” [brothers or friends in the Lucumí religion] sang the dirge “Enlloró” before the cemetery walls.

His friends refused to load his coffin in the imperial hearse and decided to carry it on their shoulders all the way to Colón cemetery

Yarini was the dandy that dazzled everyone while riding on his white braided-tail steed or walking his greyhounds through the streets of Havana. He had attended the best schools in Cuba and the United States. But he was also the guy willing to help the abused, rubbing shoulders with the disadvantaged, admiring and defending patriots who had lost favor. continue reading

One of the anecdotes that started his popularity occurred in the café El Cosmopolita. Yarini and other young men were chatting with Major General Jésus ’Rabbi’, a hero of the three wars. A few meters away, two foreigners looked at them in contempt. One of them muttered in English: “What a filthy country this is, where whites get together to drink with blacks.” Yarini was perhaps the only one in the group who understood the phrase. With his usual courtesy, he asked the Mambi hero to move. But already outside the café, the racists continued their mockery. So Yarini went from words to action by fracturing the more insolent man’s nose and jaw. Later on, it would be known that this man was the chargé d ’affaires of the United States Embassy, no less.

Yarini was not and did not intend to be a pure man. It is nonsense to judge him based on the current discussions about machismo and feminism. It is precisely his anti-hero quality that has inspired so many creators for more than a century. This ‘homme fatal‘ from Havana has been inspiration for writers from Leonardo Padura to the extreme government supporter Miguel Barnet. His person has been present in films such as “Secondary Papers,” by Orlando Rojas, or “Broken Gods,” by Ernesto Daranas. The most referential biographical essay is undoubtedly “San Isidro, 1910: Alberto Yarini and his time,” by Dulcila Cañizares.

But it is theater where the criollo Casanova has been fantasized about the most. There are almost a dozen drama plays inspired by him. The best known are “Requiem for Yarini,” by Carlos Felipe and”El Gallo de San Isidro“(San Isidro’s Rooster), by Brene. One of the most interesting plays is called “The French are not from Havana,” written by the exiled playwright Pedro Monge Rafuls, where the author recreates one of the most controversial rumors about the male-myth: the homoerotic relationship between Yarini and his best friend, Pepe Basterrechea. This storyline is not simply Monge’s creation. Even Cañizares herself subtly touches on it in her book.

The repressive apparatus’s spokespeople would be mocked if it were just another stupid trolling of the Cuban theater

I would have loved to see the version Norge Espinosa has written for “El Público,” but I am almost 7,500 kilometers from the Trianon of Havana. No one is surprised that it was a resounding success. Nor is it surprising that the regime’s cyber-combatants lash out at the premiere or that the chosen henchman is Marco Velázquez Cristo. This individual has been one of the ink-spitting siphons of State Security for a very long time. His writings are a hemorrhage of bad taste, ignorance and fundamentalism. But it is obvious almost no good writer would be willing to fulfill such an embarrassing task.

The presenter of the TV show “Con Filo,” Michel Torres Corona, has proposed to playwrights to do works inspired by Álvarez Cambra. It is clear that, for him, art is nothing more than a political-cultural activity, a morning paper or a pamphlet. I do not deny the possibility that someone can be inspired by the eminent Cuban orthopedist, but to turn him into a dramatic character it would be necessary to investigate his dark side, his conflicts, his contradictions. But knowing our narrow-minded bureaucrats, it would surely lead to censorship.

Carlos Díaz has already had similar experiences. When former spy Antonio Guerrero went to see Agnieska Hernández’s “Harry Potter: The Magic is Over,” he left the theater insulted and did everything possible to cancel the play. Thanks to the guild’s support, the play continued successfully, but the punishment was to leave it out of the most important national event, the Camagüey Theatre Festival. They say that Abel Prieto himself called Carlos Díaz to tell him the bad news, but Carlos responded in his own way: “Don’t worry, Abel, by that time, I will be on a trip… in Miami.”

The spokesmen of the repressive apparatus would be mocked if it were just another stupid trolling of the Cuban theater, but we know that behind these publications there is always an order given from a dark office. And in Cuba there is no “sacred cow” that is safe from being slaughtered. Anyone can be sentenced to a living death.

The order to attack Yarini is given. When a certain State Security colonel heard about a politically incorrect man, a rooster from San Isidro, a name immediately came to mind: Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara.

Translated by LAR

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The Capture of the Sea Snail Is One of the Few Fishing Successes in Cuba

The sought-after sea snail of Camagüey is reserved for export

Capture of sea snail specimens in Camagüey / Adelante

14ymedio, Madrid, 25 June 2024 — The sea snail of Camagūey is exempt from the disastrous panorama presented by fishing in Cuba. The colorful and sought-after giant snail is reserved exclusively for export. That, at least, is evident from a praiseworthy article published on Saturday in the official press Adelante, which said that the plan of the Basic Business Unit (UEB) Pesca Nuevitas was fulfilled by 96%. It is a “meritorious” result, Adelante commends, taking into account that they only had 30% of the expected fuel and that there was bad weather in December, “causes that demanded greater effort on the part of the collective.” The lack of oil was precisely what caused the paralysis of sea snail fishing last year.

The task of the UEB, as specified to the local newspaper by Gerardo Izquierdo Rodríguez, head of Fisheries Operations, is to capture the precious mollusk , clean it and send it for processing to the Industrial Fisheries Company of Santa Cruz del Sur (Episur), in the same province, which is also responsible for its export.

State companies plan to “gradually venture” into the export of lobster, sea cucumber and sea sponge

This coming October, he continued, they will begin a new plan, until the following month of April, “with the benefit of having high level technical capabilities in the vessels.”

State companies, the official continued, plan to “gradually venture” into the export of lobster, sea cucumber and sea sponge, all products that, when marketed within the Island, are for international tourism. continue reading

In the case of lobster, they already have permission to capture three tons, an order that they will begin to fulfill in July. For sea cucumber and sea sponge, they plan to transfer specialists and biologists to the areas where they exist, “to study and propose the amount to be extracted without violating the standards of sustainable fishing.”

These are endangered marine animals, whose fishing and consumption are prohibited for individuals, but which can provide, as Izquierdo Rodríguez acknowledged in Adelante, “the collection of foreign exchange for the national economy.”

These are endangered marine animals, whose fishing and consumption are prohibited for individuals

Other areas of the fishing sector are not so lucky. An example is the fishing company of Las Tunas, Pescatun, which last week made news again due to its disastrous production. Having a target of 2,025 tons of fish by 2024, so far this year it has barely achieved a quarter of the catch plan.

It is not strange, if you take into account that of the 22 boats that make up the Pescatun fleet, only half are in working order.

Similarly, the calamitous state of fishing forced the State, last March, to allow private fishermen to freely sell their catch, except for lobster. The measure had already been provisionally approved a year earlier, but in that period there was no improvement in production. In fact, according to data from the Ministry of Food, fish consumption fell in Cuba from an annual average of 18 kilograms per person three decades ago to less than 3.8 kilograms in 2022.

Another example of a fishing disaster is that of the Zaza dam, in Sancti Spíritus, which has lowered the volume of water to critical levels due to the drought, forcing fishermen to make a frenetic catch, which will have a long-term impact on the quantities of fish that the reservoir can offer.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Installation of the Russian Bank Novikombank in Cuba Seeks To Avoid US Sanctions

The president of the bank pointed out that Putin “pays special attention to strengthening cooperation” between the two countries

The event was attended by the president of the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC), Juana Lilia Delgado; Ricardo Cabrisas, the Russian ambassador, Víctor Koronelli, and the head of the Russian commercial office, Sergey Baldin / Prensa Latina

14ymedio, Havana, June 23, 2024 — “Developing an independent financial infrastructure” capable of dodging United States sanctions is the main purpose of Novikombank, the first Russian bank on the Island. This was stated by Sergei Baldin, head of the Russian commercial office in Havana, who presented the bank’s objectives during its opening ceremony last Thursday at the Meliá Cohiba hotel.

“The presence here of Novikombank offers hope to fulfill development projects and investments in various areas in the future and offers confidence to the Russian business community to operate in Cuba,” the official said in front of a committee of invited businessmen from both countries and the Cuban Deputy Prime Minister, Ricardo Cabrisas, who has led the approach to the Kremlin in recent years. For Havana, the financial entity – connected to the largest state corporation in the Kremlin, Rostec – is a direct corridor through which entrepreneurs, investments and many rubles will enter.

Cabrisas dedicated many words to the friendship between the two countries and attributed the arrival of Novikombank to the “consensus reached between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Miguel Díaz-Canel.” In addition, he described the alliance as a victory against the United States’ “persecution” of the Cuban banking sector, whose most obvious expression – he considered – is the inclusion of the Island on the list of sponsors of state terrorism, drafted by the US State Department.

Cabrisas pointed out that Cuba seeks to attract foreign capital “without selling the country,” a risk that, he believes, is not run with Russia

Aware of the existence of a current of opinion within the Cuban regime that considers the rapprochement between Havana and Moscow dangerous, continue reading

Cabrisas pointed out that Cuba seeks to attract foreign capital “without selling the country,” a risk that, he believes, is not run with Russia.

As for Novikombank’s plans, the deputy prime minister assures that both governments play a key role: Havana, as a facilitator, must offer incentives to Russian business, and Moscow’s mission is to “support” the interests of that sector, although the type of aid and benefits was not clarified.

Clues about the operation of the financial institution have been offered by the Russian side. In a statement quoted by Sputnik, the president of the Board of Directors of Novikombank, Elena Georgieva, explained that this is just the first step in banking relations between the two countries, and it is expected that very soon other entities will begin to settle on the Island.

Georgieva commented on the speed of the Cuban side to allow the establishment of the bank, much earlier than planned, with which three banking entities on the Island have been working for eight years. Last March, when Cabrisas traveled to Moscow as part of an intergovernmental commission for economic-commercial and scientific-technical collaboration, talks on Novikombank began. A month later, in April, the Central Bank of Cuba granted the operating license to the company, and this June the inauguration of its headquarters – whose address remains undisclosed – became a fact.

“This is a very important event for Russian-Cuban cooperation, which we believe will continue to develop actively. Our initial task here is to guarantee stable payments between the two countries,” explained Georgieva, who stressed the special interest in this alliance of Putin, who, he added, “pays special attention to strengthening cooperation with the Republic of Cuba.”

“The opening of our representative office can contribute both in terms of advice and financing of various projects and areas of activity,” said the board, which added that other banks would also approach Havana, which will contribute to the “development of the collaboration.”

The idea was repeated last Thursday at the Meliá Cohiba by the head of the Russian commercial office, who assured that “the plans are becoming a reality,” thanks to Russia’s involvement in key areas of the Cuban economy such as energy, basic industry, metallurgy, transport, agriculture, pharmaceuticals and tourism. As he pointed out, these investments have been the basis for Russian banks to settle in Cuba and expand their activities in the future.

These investments have been the basis for Russian banks to establish themselves in Cuba and expand their activities in the future

Ties with Novikombank mark the realization of relations between Cuba and the gigantic state conglomerate Rostec, responsible for the arrival on the Island of a shipment of 15,000 LED lights last March, and the modern Ural trucks that the Armed Forces have deployed on several occasions in the streets of the capital.

Rostec, created in 2007 by Putin, is a corporation designed to control all key sectors of the Russian economy by the State, from civil engineering and medicine to the high-tech war industry. In fact, the conglomerate is especially known for its helicopters and weapons of war, very popular in the international market. Another of the sectors that Rostec controls is the oil industry, an area in which the Island is particularly interested.

Cuba has spent months preparing for the opening of Russian banking, and last December it implemented the use of Mir cards, an alternative to Visa and Mastercard for Russian tourists and businessmen, created to evade sanctions.

Relations between Havana and the Kremlin have been intense in recent weeks – since Putin’s re-election – with the visit of Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez to Moscow, the arrival of a Russian flotilla in Havana – including a nuclear submarine and an oil tanker with a capacity of 9,000 tons – and now the establishment of a definitive channel for money to flow between Russia and Cuba without sanctions.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Lilo Vilaplana Talks About his Film ‘Plantadas’: “Doing Historical Justice Comforts Me”

The film can be seen in Cuba using the link sent through friends

Former political prisoner Alicia del Busto (left) during filming, with actresses Jennifer Rodríguez and Rachell Vallori, and Lilo Vilaplana / Courtesy / Alfredo de Armas

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 15 June 2024 — In a narrow, dirty and crowded cell, several prisoners support each other so as not to lose their sanity or their lives. The guards bring a beaten woman to the dungeon and the prisoners receive her with words of encouragement, despite the situation in which they find themselves. The scene, from the film Plantadas*, shows the importance of solidarity in the Cuban political prison system and delves into a portion of national history silenced by official discourse.

Lilo Vilaplana speaks with 14ymedio about his work, which is a shock against oblivion and a tribute to those women who warned, very early on, of the authoritarian drift of Fidel Castro’s regime.

14ymedio/Escobar: How difficult was it to process all the hours of interviews with former Cuban political prisoners and concentrate them into two hours of film?

Vilaplana: It was like putting together a puzzle so that the final product reflected the story told by each of them. Plantadas is not a documentary, nor a docudrama, but we start from real stories to create an entertaining plot that has three female characters, with their dramatic lines, representing the thousands of political prisoners in Cuba’s prisons since 1959 for disagreeing with a system that was implemented with blood, terror, betrayals and lies. The work we did with the writer Ángel Santiesteban was precisely to create those plots and subplots. Arranging the action based on the initial stories was a difficult challenge and required many hours of work.

14ymedio/Escobar: Did you encounter any reluctance on the part of the interviewees to tell their story?

Vilaplana: Some did not want to speak, because they did not want to open that wound. I understand them, there are painful stories, many were not able to have children, there were others whose children were told by the communists that their mothers were imprisoned because they did not want to be with them. There were scores of tortures, humiliations and difficulties caused by their imprisonments. continue reading

Some did not want to speak, because they did not want to open that wound. I understand them, there are painful stories, many were not able to have children

Currently, several of those who did not initially give us their stories, after watching the film, have begun to accompany us to activities to offer their testimony to the public. The first one to tell us her story was América Quesada, who was not able to see the finished film, because she died a few days before filming began. From the money that she had raised up to that point for the film, we gave her family the sum necessary for her cremation, because she was having financial difficulties.

14ymedio/Escobar: In the reconstruction of the locations, especially in the outdoor scenes and those inside the prisons, it seems that a contrast was sought between light and shadow, between clarity and gloom.

Vilaplana: Each space has a specific mood. It is something that we were very clear about from the beginning. The light, the sound, the camera shots, the art of each space was worked with very few resources, but with great accuracy and care. We were clear that there must be a marked difference in these environments.

14ymedio/Escobar: Among the protagonists are several faces of the Cuban women who have recently emigrated to the United States, who were indoctrinated while in Cuba to view political prisoners as mercenaries. Was it difficult for them to embody those prisoners?

Vilaplana: It was a very interesting mix of actresses and actors with experience and long exiles, and others who have been in the diaspora for some time. Among them were several newcomers who, until recently, had starred in films with the ICAIC [Cuban Art Institute and Cinematographic Industry]. It was very interesting, because they adapted.

Everyone knew the movie Plantados. They had seen it in Cuba and here, they met with many of those male prisoners and also with the female political prisoners. They asked them for advice, they asked them questions, and that way they learned the story firsthand, that is a luxury for any actor. They were able to understand the events that occurred in Cuba and regretted so many years of useless indoctrination.

14ymedio/Escobar: Every film project has that moment when it seems like it’s not going to go ahead. Did Plantadas have that too?

Vilaplana: No, Plantadas did not go through that process. Those involved in the project trusted that it would be done, we had the support of a few politicians, some businessmen, townspeople and exiles who contributed what they had so that the movie could be achieved. They also gave us food, offered a location and donated vintage objects, proposed to build whatever was necessary or positioned their vintage cars, depending on the project. Vilaplana Films made available production elements to the film, many costumes, set pieces, prop weapons and filming equipment for free, to lower costs and be able to finish the film with the little money raised. We didn’t have the budget of Plantados, but we already had the experience of that first film.

I anticipate that another film with Cuba’s prison’s theme is coming, because we are working on a new project

14ymedio/Escobar: Are you worried about being pigeonholed as the director who addresses the Cuban political prison?

Vilaplana: It doesn’t worry me, because my work refutes that statement. I have many different titles in my career. I have been a director of internationally successful drug trafficking series such as El Capo (I directed four periods), Perseguidos, La Mariposa and Dueños del Paraíso. As director, I have also participated in other international series such as Lynch, Mentes en Shock, Sin Retorno, Tiempo Finaland Zona Rosa. I have directed soap operas: La Dama de Troya, Por Amor, Un Sueño Llamado Salsa, The Past Doesn’t Forgive, You Will Love Me in the Rain, La Traicionera and Portraits… among many others. In addition, I have been the director of short films such as La Muerte del Gato, La Casa Vacía, Los Ponedores, to which were added series of docudramas in the style of Arrepentidos, Siguiendo el Rastro, Expediente, Unidad Investigativa and Leyendas del Exilio.

I anticipate that another film is coming with the theme of Cuban prisons, because we are working on a new project to tell what happened in the concentration camps that the communists called UMAP [Military Production Assistance Units]. We have won several awards with many of our productions.

14ymedio/Escobar: They say that making films is very similar to the work of a craftsman. Where do you start to shape a film?

Vilaplana: Creation has unsuspected paths and one process is never similar to the other. Sometimes you have the movie and other times the movie looks for you. Plantadas was a dream that Reinol Rodriguez and I had, together with my son, Camilo Vilaplana, as director. We made it come true, with a great production team, technicians, artists and an exile who has supported this process by appropriating a piece that deals with human rights abuse.

14ymedio/Escobar: Just a few days ago, activist Lázaro Yuri Valle Roca arrived in Miami. He was taken to the Havana airport, forcing his departure practically from prison. It seems that 60 years later, for opponents in Cuba the options remain the same: prison or exile. Doesn’t that discourage you?

Vilaplana: That is what the Castro Regime wants, to discourage the fight. But we will always be facing the dictatorship, with the hope that, one day, this nightmare will end. I will never be part of works that discourage struggle. Knowing that men like Lázaro Yuri Valle Roca, José Daniel Ferrer and so many female political prisoners do not give up, gives hope.

14ymedio/Escobar: What are you going to do with all those hours of interviews with political prisoners that were conducted to bring into line the Plantadas story? Is there a documentary coming?

Vilaplana: For now, the Plantados and Plantadas interviews will all be at the American Museum of the Cuban Diaspora. I want all those who want access to this treasure to have it. If with my films I manage to evoke these dark stages of the Castro dictatorship in Cuba so that it is never repeated again, and for that reason alone, it will have been worth making these historical films.

If with my films I manage to remember these dark stages of the Castro dictatorship in Cuba so that it is never repeated again, and for that reason alone, it will have been worth it.

14ymedio/Escobar: It is one thing to reach the Cuban public and another to reach viewers who are further removed from the Cuban reality. How has the film fared in festivals and platforms?

Vilaplana: Reaching the Cuban public is important, but reaching the world is a challenge. The movie Plantados, for example, always packs the theaters when it is shown. But it is absolutely curious how the Castro regime manages to have tokens and accomplices who try to prevent these issues from reaching festivals and platforms where they almost always claim that if it is a “politics issue” they are not interested.

“Politics” refers to when The Castro Regime is denounced. If it is a product financed by tyranny, they accept it and change the terms. I don’t understand how such a macabre system has so many accomplices. In any case, a lot of work has been done and we have won four awards at different festivals, in addition to being on the billboards of cinemas in Miami and many cities in the United States for 10 weeks. Plantadas has also been screened in Puerto Rico and in several countries such as Canada, Colombia, The Dominican Republic, The Bahamas and others. Now, thanks to the work of our VIP 2000 distributors, we are on the largest Spanish language streaming platform, and in the first week it placed among the four most viewed films, competing with the big productions from Hollywood and other strong countries in the market. Plantadas is available throughout Latin America and the US on the VIX platform and has already been dubbed into English. We are working with platforms in Europe to continue spreading this message.

14ymedio/Escobar: Within Cuba, watching Plantadas has become an act that practically has to be carried out in secret. What efforts have been made to reach the public in Cuba?

Vilaplana: The public in Cuba has its own link to see the film, and we have several friends who distribute it. I also send it to everyone who asks me for it. Sometimes groups get together and show it and discuss the film.

14ymedio/Escobar: The Yara Cinema, La Rampa, the Chaplin or the Payret? In which of these rooms do you think Plantadas will be screened for the first time in Havana?

Vilaplana: Plantadas is going to be screened in a free Cuba and will one day be studied in Cuban universities, just like Plantados, because history is the memory of the people and the political prisoners who have given years of their lives confined for their homeland to be free, democratic and prosperous must be remembered, as their sacrifice deserves. Carrying out historical justice comforts me and alleviates the pain of this family separation, of the many who’ve been shot, killed and murdered because of a system that should never have been installed in Cuba.

*Translator’s note: Plantadas [literally ‘planted’] refers to female political prisoners who resist, refusing to conform to the demands of their jailers. Brief history of plantados [male political prisoners who resist] here.

Translated by Norma Whiting

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The People of Havana Hold Their Breath in the Face of a Forecast of More Rain for Sunday

This Saturday night the floods began to recede but left behind a very worrying panorama of mud, dirt and material damage.

The avalanche of garbage prevents the city’s drainage from quickly releasing water. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, June 23, 2024 — “I slept on the table because the bed got wet and I couldn’t put a sheet on the floor, it was all flooded,” this is how Leidy, age 32, a resident of the neighborhood of Los Sitios in Havana, describes her situation. The area, which is traditionally flooded with rains, has been one of the most affected by the intense downpours that this Saturday covered large areas of the Cuban capital with water.

On Saturday night the floods began to subside but left a very worrying picture. “Here everything is full of mud and garbage; the cisterns are contaminated; we don’t have electricity and many neighbors have lost everything because the water level rose very quickly; there was no time for anything,” she tells 14ymedio.

Leidy says that in her neighborhood they are “flood experts” and have put up walls at the entrances to their homes and have ways to evacuate mattresses, household appliances and to take children and the elderly to the upper floors. But this Saturday’s downpour showed that “you can believe that you have everything planned but when nature says ‘I am here’ there is no one to stop her.” continue reading

Los Sitios, like most of the neighborhoods in Havana, has gone months with mountains of garbage accumulating on the corners and waste that covers the drains, aggravating the situation. “In my house we woke up today and there is nothing to eat. Our bread got wet, water got inside the refrigerator and a mortadella that had been kept for the children was spoiled because the water inside was disgusting, with a foul smell and a lot of things floating around.”

Leidy fears the possible health repercussions of having been in those dirty waters: “It got above my waist, and I had to spend hours to take out the garbage, trying to put the furniture on top of each other. I’m still wearing the same clothes as yesterday, which can’t be very good for my health.”

“We neighbors are the ones who are cleaning the sewers with sticks, with brooms, with what we can; we are the ones uncovering the drains,” complains a neighbor of Old Havana where the water exceeded 3.4 feet in height.

In many corners of Central Havana, Old Havana and Cerro the panorama is repeated: mountains of garbage that the rain couldn’t carry away, a foul stench and water piling up. The sewer drains are clogged with plastic bags, beer cans, plastic bottles and debris.

The avalanche of garbage prevents the quick drainage of the water, as the drains are also in a very bad condition. Between 2:00 and 3:00 in the afternoon on Saturday, according to a report from the Forecast Center of the Institute of Meteorology, over two inches of rainfall was recorded at the Casablanca station in Havana.

14ymedio has documented in several articles this year how different garbage dumps remain piled high in key points of the capital and, also, how the mountains of waste in the corners of the capital keep growing.

The government authorities in Havana called on citizens to act “with prudence, discipline and responsibility,” as well as not to cross the flooded streets and take extreme hygiene and protection measures for their property.

Meanwhile, in the most affected areas, the residents are waiting for a supply of food to help them get through a day in which new rains are predicted. “So far they have not told us that they are going to bring anything. My grandmother is listening to the radio to see if they say they are going to hand out some cookies, bread or soda but they have not said anything. They are playing music and talking about the Humor Biennial, as if nothing had happened,” explains Modesto Amaury, a resident of one of the most affected areas near the Plaza de Cuatro Caminos.

Granma newspaper, the official organ of the Communist Party, does not seem to have heard about the floods in the capital of the Island either. Its cover this Sunday dedicates space to the official support for Palestine and a visit of Miguel Díaz-Canel to the municipality of Unión de Reyes, in Matanzas, but the scenes of water exceeding three feet of height in Old Havana, Cerro and Central Havana are conspicuous by their absence in Cuba’s main newspaper.

Other official news sites have problems, collapsed by the avalanche of readers who are looking for meteorological information or details of some emergency plan to distribute food, mattresses and other supplies that families have lost with the intense downpours that have been plaguing the Cuban West for more than two weeks and that, in recent days, have become stronger.

“Civil Defense did not say anything previously. The sewer drains were not cleaned, the garbage was not collected, and there was no information,” complained an elderly woman from Nuevo Vedado, in the municipality of Plaza de la Revolución, who has been practically confined to a high floor of her building because “the stairs are flooded and the elevator does not work,” she explains to 14ymedio.

“Mosquitoes have multiplied because there is a lot of accumulated water, especially in the area of the train tracks,” she says. Although the building where the woman lives was built in the 80s, “it has leaks, and yesterday I had to move the bed because a stream of water was coming through holes in the ceiling lights .”

The cloudy sky from very early predicts another day of precipitation for this Sunday. The weather forecast of the Forecast Center of the Institute of Meteorology warns again about the occurrence of numerous showers, rains and thunderstorms in much of the country, which will extend into the evening and can become strong in some locations.

The Center explained that there is currently a large low pressure center located on the southwest of the Gulf of Mexico which is generating a large area of disorganized rains and thunderstorms.

“You don’t know know what’s worse, that there is more rain or that the sun rises, because when this heats up we will see more [building] collapses,” says the elderly woman in Nuevo Vedado. While she puts containers and casserole dishes under the leaks, in other Havana neighborhoods, people try to clean the mud away and list their losses, especially those supplies and household objects that will not appear in any official report.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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‘Resistance and Conscience’, Key Words for Cuban Dissident Berta Soler of the Ladies in White

The 60-year-old dissident, who has been arrested almost every Sunday since 2022 for trying to walk to Mass in protest, says she feels that lately “the repression has intensified.”

Berta Soler speaks during an interview with EFE, on June 11, 2024, in Havana / EFE/Ernesto Mastrascusa

EFE (via 14ymedio), Madrid, 22 June 2024 — The veteran Cuban dissident Berta Soler is clear when asked why she continues to lead the Ladies in White movement for political prisoners after more than 20 years: “Resistance and conscience,” she says in an interview with EFE.

This 60-year-old Cuban, who has been arrested almost every Sunday since 2022 for trying to walk to mass in protest, says she feels that lately “the repression has intensified.”

“If you are aware of what you do and why you fight, age or illness doesn’t matter or that they put you in a dungeon, because they do this on Sundays to frighten us, so that we get tired, so that we are afraid and give up,” she says.

With that premise she states: “We will continue to take to the streets, doing our job, because if there is awareness, love for what you do, you continue.”

“I chose this path because my people need it, because the prisoners need it,” adds Soler, who intends to continue “until they are all free.” continue reading

“We are going to keep taking to the streets, doing our job, because if there is awareness, love for what you do, you continue”

For her, and for all of Cuba, she argues, the anti-government demonstrations of 11 July 2021 (11J), the largest protests in decades, meant a before and an after, and she is convinced that they could be repeated.

According to the NGO Prisoner Defenders, there are currently more than 1,100 political prisoners in Cuba, a designation that Soler defends “because they went out to demonstrate their disagreement with the regime although they didn’t belong to any dissident organization,” and, therefore, “they are political prisoners, not bandits.”

“On 11J the people went out to demand freedom, democracy and rights. The reasons that led these people to take to the streets are present and are getting worse every day,” she emphasizes, pointing to the serious crisis that the island is suffering.

Soler says that now “the people speak, express their discontent, their concern, and no one takes the step to defend this so-called revolution.” She believes that “one day they will take to the streets again.”

“At any moment there may be another 11J, but bigger,” she warns.

She says that the “harassment” she suffers from State Security, “the persecution, arrests and threats of imprisonment,” are because the authorities believe that dissidents can “take part and activate, encourage, support and guide” if a protest arises.

Regarding her own case, she says that she and her husband, former political prisoner Ángel Moya, are under “constant surveillance.” In addition to the three cameras around their house, headquarters of the Ladies in White, she reports permanent monitoring and the detention of dissidents who try to visit her.

“We don’t have a free, normal life, like other citizens. Our daily life is not so everyday,” she summarizes.

Soler explains that of the 450 Ladies in White that came to be, there are now barely 40 active. Most left the country, while others are in jail for participating in 11J, such as Aymara Nieto, Jacqueline Heredia, Sayli Navarro, Sissy Abascal and Tania Echavarría.

“After others joined us, we decided to dress in white because it signifies peace, love and purity, and we went for a walk carrying gladiolas.”

Soler was one of the first Ladies in White, a collective that emerged to demand the release of their relatives: the 75 dissidents, independent journalists and activists convicted in the repressive wave of the so-called Black Spring of March 2003.

She explained that seven women began to attend Mass on Sundays in the church of Santa Rita in Havana to “pray and advocate for the freedom” of their relatives.

“After others joined us, we decided to dress in white because it signifies peace, love and purity, and we went for a walk with gladiolas in our hands,” she recalls. Two years later they received the Sakharov Prize of the European Union (EU) for Freedom of Conscience.

Among those convicted was her husband, who after being released from prison in 2011 decided to stay in Cuba, unlike many of his peers, and she continued with her activism.

Neither Soler nor Moya contemplate leaving Cuba, although she states that State Security has proposed it to her. They would like to travel outside – their children and grandchildren live in the United States – but they fear that the authorities will not let them re-enter, and there are precedents for this.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Athletes Who Fled in Chile in 2023 Now Work As Trainers in Sports Clubs

Lázaro Tolón, Yunia Milanés, Yordankis Méndez and Lismary González share an apartment; Yadira Guillén, Helec Carta and Jennifer Martínez were hired by the Old Reds club.

Cuban athletes are waiting for a response to their requests for refuge. They currently have temporary visas

14ymedio, Havana, 23 June 2024 — A precarious salary on the Island “that bought practically nothing, without shoes or a uniform to train,” were part of the reasons why hockey player Lázaro Tolón, 27, fled the official delegation of Cuba on May 17, 2023, in the middle of the Pan American Games in Chile. The shortages at home were drowning him. “I struggled to get to the national team, and once I arrived, they didn’t give me what I deserve. All the sacrifice I had made wasn’t worth it. That’s why I decided to leave the country,” the Cuban athlete tells the Chilean newspaper The Clinic.

Toulon and eight other Cuban athletes are waiting for a response to their requests for refuge in the country, since they fled their respective delegations in May 2023. At this time they have temporary residence visas, which are updated every eight months.

Tolón and eight other Cuban athletes are waiting for a response to their requests for refuge in the South American country

The first months of Toulon in Chile led him to work as a tinsmith, bricklayer and guard in a car workshop. He currently has three jobs, the first in a supermarket, in addition to being a trainer in the municipal gym of Lo Barnechea and a hockey coach at the Universidad Católica. There is also Yordankis Méndez, his teammate, who is part of the group of 11 athletes who defected in search of a better future. continue reading

Yunia Milanés, 29, from Havana, who was captain of the Cuban team, counted on the complicity of her boyfriend, Toulon, to escape at the Pan American Games. With more than 60 medals in her career over 10 years, the conditions for training were terrible, and her economic situation had not improved, despite being part of the national team.

In Santiago de Chile, where the Cuban sports authorities promised them “another level” accommodation in the sports complex, the conditions did not change. “There were six people per room, all squeezed together. We had only one bathroom for everyone,” Milanés told The Clinic.

The young woman, after “working ironing pajamas, as an assistant in a bakery and packing dough for empanadas and noodles,” went on to give hockey classes to children from 5 to 10 years old at the Universidad Católica club.

In the last 14 years, 30,866 foreigners have applied for refuge in Chile, according to data from the National Migration Service

With her boyfriend and her friends, Lismary González – another of the escaped athletes – and Yordankis Méndez, the athlete shares an apartment on the 32nd floor of a building in Estación Central.

In Chile, the Cubans have found alternatives. The hockey players Yadira Guillén, Helec Carta and Jennifer Martínez were “hired by the Old Reds club, made up of former students of Redland School, in Las Condes.”

The blind swimmer, Yunerki Ortega, who was part of the Paralympic team and escaped in November 2023, seeks funding to boost his sports career.

Their lawyer of Cuban origin, Mijail Bonito, trusts that these athletes will be recognized as refugees and that they will be granted permanent residence in the South American country. “Once refuge has been established, family reunification can be requested. Hence the importance of the process being fast,” the jurist told La Tercera.

In the last 14 years, 30,866 foreigners have applied for refuge in Chile, according to data from the National Migration Service, requested via Transparency. Of these, 14 are Cuban athletes who fled in 2023, 11 during the Santiago 2023 Games.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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As of June, Cuba Built Only 0.8 Percent of the Homes It Needs

The Island needs 450,000 homes, but the execution is slower than the worst forecasts. / Venceremos

14ymedio, Madrid, 19 June 2024 – The monthly meeting that Prime Minister Manuel Marrero holds with the provincial governors did not leave good news, which is not a novelty. The June meeting laid bare the painful situation of the housing program in Cuba, where by the end of May, only 3,579 homes had been completed, 0.8% of what is needed, according to data from Delilah Díaz Fernández, general director of Housing.

The account indicates that the Government needs 447,375 properties, even despite the population collapse due to the emigration of the last two years, whose numbers are unknown due to the delay in the preparation of the census due to economic reasons, according to the regime. “As a general rule, the times projected to stop the deterioration and resolve the deficit are increased,” said the official, who described the rhythms of execution as “low”

Díaz Fernández placed responsibility on the lower levels, an increasingly common practice in the Government. “This is a sign of the lack of attention to the territories,” she said. In order of severity, the problem affects Havana, Camagüey, Mayabeque, Santiago de Cuba and Isla de la Juventud. continue reading

Manufacturing achieves a miserable 0.5% of the needs in “all lines,” the official warned

This is the logical consequence of a production of materials that is still in a bad situation. Manufacturing reaches a miserable 0.5% of the needs in “all lines,” the official warned. At this point, there was no other option than to return to the issue of the use of mud and clay, which has been a constant since just a year ago when the authorities of the Ministry of Construction and the state group Geicon proposed on television to leave marble and hard materials for export for foreign exchange and take advantage of the natural resources of the Island so that “each of the regions can obtain its own materials to build.”

At that time, the first vice president of the state company, Reynolds Ramírez Vigaud, said that the figures were better in 2023 than the previous year, so it was hoped that production would improve, although “the expected results were not yet achieved, as a result of the energy situation.” In the light of the data – including, precisely, those for energy – few things have improved, although there has no information in the provincial press of successful local brick and ceramic productions thanks to the ovens, ecological or not.

“On the issue of housing, it is an objective limitation that there is no cement or steel, and in the short term there will not be a substantial change in the production of these elements. So, what can we do as a Government, with our responsibility to the people, so that a program as important as this does not stop? Doing different things from the local production of materials,” he said and then asked for more clay deposits to be sought and more furnaces to be built. “The most secure resources we are going to have are those that we are able to produce,” he finished.

“The most secure resources we are going to have are the ones we are able to produce”

In line with that idea, although in a very different area, the responsibility in the cultivation of rice was transferred to a lower level. When the national production strategy completely failed – of the 700,000 tons needed for domestic consumption, only 180,000 were produced in 2022 – the Government referred the initiative no longer to the provinces, not even to the municipalities, but to self-consumption.

“We have identified in each province and municipality a significant number of areas where the people can plant rice, and with the whole issue of self-consumption, all companies must have areas, together with those that we can assign in the territories. That’s strategic,” explained the Deputy Prime Minister, Jorge Luis Tapia Fonseca, who dropped the idea that the state is palming off the cultivation.

“We have to study the program of the harvest and the purchase of that rice, because it does not reach the prioritized destinations. That has to be controlled by the governments in the municipalities and provinces,” he said after warning that more rice must be planted and produced. He admitted, on the contrary, that there is one element that the Government must face: “the incentives to buy that rice.”

Ydael Pérez Brito, Minister of Agriculture, explained that the objective is “to increase all rice areas on small and medium scales, deliver quality seed, produce the rice that demands the self-sufficiency of producers, productive bases and companies, and increase the sale in state markets, agricultural fairs and popular councils to gradually replace its import.” In recent years, much of the country receives the basic food in its diet thanks to purchases abroad and donations from friendly countries. Among them are Vietnam and, above all, China, which in 2024 promised to send 20,408 tons, some of which initially arrived by plane, pointing out the emergency situation.

“When there is a systematic exchange with the people, when things are explained, even without having the solutions, people reason and understand”

Manuel Marrero appealed to the population, whose aging was also talked about at length at the meeting, and said that, despite the bad situation, “when there is a systematic exchange with the people, when things are explained, even without having the solutions, people reason and understand.”

“The people have to see,” he continued, “that we are accompanying them from the neighborhood [with] the truth, the simplicity, the dissatisfaction that we have with the problems that are still pending,” he reiterated.

At the end, after calling for leisure activities and supplies to be sought to have “a good summer,” Marrero asked to plan for the cyclone season and the end of the year, in addition to “guaranteeing political-cultural activities to celebrate July 26.” There is only one month left to know if there will be energy and fuel left over for that event.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The U.S. Humanitarian Parole Has Benefited 105,000 Cubans

In May, 9,500 migrants from Cuba received the benefit of U.S. Humanitarian Parole

Cubans who obtained humanitarian parole arrive on a charter flight to the United States / / Mario Vallejo

14ymedio, Mario Vallejo, Havana, 21 June 2024 — A total of 105,000 Cubans have benefited from the humanitarian parole program promoted by the Biden government since its entry into force in January 2023. Of these, as of May 31, 98,200 are the United States, and records indicate that 9,500 Cubans arrived on flights that month. Data updated on June 20 by the Office of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirm that migrants from the Island are the third nationality to benefit from this program. Haitians top the list of entry approvals with 193,400, and Venezuelans with 113,400.

After ending Title 42 – a rule created by the Trump Administration for the return of migrants during the pandemic – in January 2023 Washington decided to open a special permit or humanitarian parole to applicants from Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua, which it had previously done with Ukraine and Venezuela.

Haitians top the list of admission approvals with 193,400, followed by Venezuelans with 113,400

In May of this year, the immigration authorities of the United States denied entry into its territory to Liván Fuentes Álvarez, president of the Municipal Assembly of People’s Power on Cuba’s La Isla de la Juventud [Isle of Youth] between 2019 and 2022 and a staunch defender of the regime, despite the fact that he had been granted humanitarian parole. continue reading

He was told about the revocation of the permit before boarding a charter flight to the United States. The former official told Martí Noticias that he had resigned from his position as president of the municipal People’s Power for opposing “a group of economic and political issues” of the Cuban government. “My intervention in the events of 11 July [2021] has nothing to do with what they are blaming me for,” he said.

Díaz Canel and Fuentes speak to the press after the passage of Hurricane Ian / Screenshot of a video uploaded by the Presidency to X in 2022

Manuel Alejandro Marrero Medina, son of the Island’s Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz, was also prevented last May from traveling to the United States after he had previously been approved as a beneficiary of the humanitarian parole. On the other hand, the Customs and Border Protection Office also announced that in May 18,988 Cubans arrived in the United States, a figure higher than the 17,870 who entered in April. In the first five months of 2024 there were 100,179 migrants from the Island.

The border ports located in Tijuana and Matamoros recorded 400 appointments a day

Last May, the United States processed more than 44,500 people through appointments at the border entry points using information sent through the CBP One application, the app through which migrants can apply for asylum.

The agency stated that from January 2023 to the end of May 2024, more than 636,600 people “have successfully scheduled appointments to show up at the ports of entry instead of risking their lives in the hands of smugglers.”

The border ports located in Tijuana and Matamoros recorded 400 appointments per day, according to an official report by the Strauss Center of the University of Austin, Texas. In Reynosa, Nuevo Laredo and Piedras Negras they reported more than 200 appointments a day.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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A Balcony Falls Onto a Cafe in Vedado, Part of a Wave of Recent Collapses

Taking advantage of several legal loopholes, some small business owners are converting residential apartments into cafes and mini-factories / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 21 June 2024 — At 11:00 PM Thursday night, a balcony collapsed onto El Tablazo, a cafe located on First Street, between C and D streets, in Havana’s Vedado district. The incident, part of a wave of collapses that is now impacting even one of the capital’s most solidly-built neighborhoods, occurred at a time when the building was fully occupied. Three adults were injured in the collapse.

Stacks of marble slabs and bags of cement, stored on a second-floor balcony by a construction crew, led to the collapse. Independent journalist Julio Aleaga, a resident of the property, reported that recent repairs to the building, which he claims were not executed properly, contributed the structural failure.

The accident was reported on the Facebook page of the Revolution Plaza Municipal Assembly. Two floors of both this building and its neighbor, which are located very close to the shoreline, were recently repaired – at least superficially – by the owners of the ground-floor cafes Chucherías, El Tablazo and 3D, the latter owned by the comedian Roberto Riverón, known as “Robertico.”

14ymedio was also able to confirm the presence of a large construction crew working throughout the entire block / 14ymedio

For Aleaga, the collapse was yet another indication of how new business ventures are operating on the island. Taking advantage of a series of legal loopholes, he believes private owners of small businesses are converting residential apartments into cafes or mini-factories.

The owners of these businesses have no other choice, explains Aleaga, than to carry out these conversions with heavy tools. “Instead of using a hammer and chisel, they use sledgehammers, which affect the structure of the building. And since no one is overseeing these projects, everyone does what he wants,” he says. continue reading

That is what happened with the balcony, which — according to Aleaga — fell not only because of the excess weight but also because of “vibrations and pounding that rattled the structure.”

The balcony fell not only because of excess weight but also because of vibrations and pounding that rattled the structure

The situation is made worse in buildings like the one on First Street due to its proximity to the sea, which has a corrosive influence on the exterior walls. The property recently benefited from a cosmetic resurfacing, at least on the façade.

The buildings on First Street are located near the Meliá Cohiba hotel and other businesses catering to tourists, so it is quite possible that there were foreigners in one of the cafes on Thursday night. Chucherías, El Tablazo and 3D are part of a cafe circuit considered fashionable by Havana residents. Due to their popularity, these businesses generate a lot of noise, which impacts local residents.

14ymedio was also able to confirm the presence of a large construction crew throughout the entire block, especially at the corner of First and C streets. Workers have been tossing trash and construction debris into a large container located far from the construction site.

The fact that Havana is falling apart will not come as news to any of its residents. On Monday, two days before the accident in Vedado, there was a partial collapse at 423 Monte Street, between Ángeles and Águila streets, which injured one young woman. The collapse of the neighboring building in 2021 killed one man.

In December 2021, 14ymedio interviewed several people living nearby and talked with the residents of 425, 427 and 429 Monte Street, at least one of whom expressed safety concerns. “Pieces of the my dining room ceiling have been falling down. Everything shakes. If feels like we are in an earthquake,” he said. “The covered entry outside is exposed to the sky. The whole thing is falling apart.”
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Despite Medical Recommendations a Court in Artemisa, Cuba, Denies ’11J’ Prisoner a Leave for Medical Care

Javier González Fernández suffers from neurological disorders that cannot be treated in prison

Javier González Fernández is one of the 1,580 protesters arrested for having participated in ’11J’ / Facebook

14ymedio, Havana, June 21, 2024 — The Provincial Court of Artemisa denied, for the second time on June 18 the extra-penal permit to political prisoner Fernández leave from prison Javier González to treat his ailments. In addition to severe neurological conditions, he suffers from depressive disorder, generalized anxiety and refractory chronic insomnia, Cubalex reported this Friday.

The opponent, sentenced in January 2022 to four years in prison for the crimes of public disorder, contempt, assault and affront to national symbols after participating in the protests of 11 July 2021 (’11J’), in the city of Artemisa, also has a disorder in the middle ear and a skull fracture caused by a machete attack he suffered in his youth. Over time, the injury led to permanent insomnia, so he barely sleeps, his father, Jorge González Soto, explained to Martí Noticias.

Gonzalez, age 37, suffers from a health condition that requires strict treatment Cuban prisons’ health services cannot guarantee. An Artemisa medical-penal commission has certified on two occasions that the political prisoner does not have adequate conditions in his current penitentiary regime, but the Court has ignored the recommendations. It took eight months to respond to the request for out-of-prison leave although the established period is two months. continue reading

He also has a disorder in his middle ear and a skull fracture caused by a machete attack he suffered in his youth

In 2023, the prison authorities sent González to the medical post to receive treatment for his insomnia, a follow-up by neurology and psychiatry, and an adequate diet and the necessary medications. These are conditions almost impossible to meet on the Island.

However, three days ago, the Artemisa Court again denied him out-of-prison leave, arguing that his health deterioration is due to the lack of medicines and not to the conditions of the prison. In addition, it considered he could recover in his cell while serving his sentence since his pathologies do not justify the granting of a leave, they alleged.

Cubalex reported that Gonzalez has not been seen by a neurologist for more than a year, that a psychiatrist has not seen him for over six months and that a psychologist has never seen him. They have also denied him a proper diet, so he has lost 14 kilograms (31 pounds).

Cubalex denounced Gonzalez has not been seen by a neurologist for more than a year

They also do not give him the medicines he needs regularly, such as amitriptyline, clonazepam, and carbamazepine. Even though he has been prescribed zolpidem for life, it has never been administered in prison.

Finally, after the struggle that the family of the man from Artemisa – one of the 1,580 protesters arrested for having participated in 11J – has waged so that he can have acceptable conditions, less than a month ago the judicial authorities granted González Fernández a transfer to a less severe regime from the prison of Guanajay to a correctional facility with internment near Taco Taco prison, in Pinar del Río.

Translated by LAR
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A Cryptocurrency Platform Launches a Campaign for Latinos in the United States To Send Their Remittances / 14yMedio

Coinbase encourages the use of digital currency to eliminate bank fees

USDC is backed by US dollars and has been available since December 2023. / Coinbase

EFE (via 14ymedio), San Francisco, 21 June 2024 — On Thursday, the cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase launched a campaign for Latinos living in the United States to choose to send free and immediate remittances through its services in the digital currency USD Coin (USDC), avoiding transfer fees.

“Too many families believe that the traditional financial system does not work for them. Products such as USDC Transfer and Coinbase Wallet have become known because they offer people a cheaper and more accessible option,” said Coinbase’s policy director, Faryar Shirzad, in a statement after the audiovisual campaign they disseminated on their networks

USDC is backed by US dollars and has been available since December 2023; Coinbase Wallet, since August 2018.

One in eight Americans currently sends remittances with a total annual expense of $12 billion in commissions

According to this company, based in San Francisco (California), one in eight Americans currently sends remittances with a total annual expense of $12 billion in commissions and facing an average waiting time of five days for the operation to be executed. continue reading

Mexico represents more than half of the money transfers sent from the United States, and the states that use them the most – California, Texas, Arizona and Florida – also have some of the largest Latino populations in the country, according to Coinbase.

The average rate for sending money abroad from the United States is 6.18%: banks charge an average of 10.8%, money transfer operators an average of 6.2%, and post offices an average of 5.5%, according to a Coinbase press release.

“Cryptocurrency offers a solution, eliminating the need for intermediaries and accelerating the process of moving money, while drastically reducing rates. Latino voters are taking note,” said the former mayor of Los Angeles and now a member of the Coinbase Global Advisory Council, Antonio Villaraigosa.

The audiovisual announcement that Coinbase disseminated through its platforms is about a young man trying to send remittances to his grandmother in Puebla (Mexico) and the rates and delays he incurs using traditional money transfer methods.

Last month, a bipartisan majority of the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill to deregulate the cryptocurrency sector

About 75% of remittances that leave the United States to Latin America are used to cover medical, food, education or housing expenses, according to Coinbase data.

Last month, a bipartisan majority of the US House of Representatives passed a bill to deregulate the cryptocurrency sector.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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A Lawyer Denounces the Extortion of Cubans at Two Airports in Mexico / 14yMedio

The lawyer holds Mexican Migration and National Guard agents accountable

Abuses of migrants have also occurred in the state of Coahuila, bordering the United States / EFE

14ymedio, Mexico, 21 June 2024 — Cubans, Colombians and Venezuelans who try to reach the United States are charged bribes of 600 to 1,000 dollars at the airports of Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez, says lawyer José Luis Pérez Jiménez, who blames the agents of the National Institute of Migration and the National Guard for this situation.

According to Pérez Jiménez, migrants take shelter in Tapachula, a city on the border with Guatemala, to avoid being arrested. “They are allowing them to advance to Oaxaca and Cancun,” he tells 14ymedio, and, from there, those who have money buy plane tickets to Tijuana or Ciudad Juárez.

However, “upon landing, the agents of the National Guard and Migration separate them from the group, demand their documents and take them to a room for an alleged interview. After a few hours they are required to pay in exchange for the delivery of their papers and allowing them to leave the facilities.” continue reading

The lawyer has documented cases of Cubans and Dominicans who have boarded flights at Xoxocotlán International Airport in Oaxaca bound for Tijuana. “In the General Abelardo L. Rodríguez air terminal, with all brazenness, the agents demand 600 dollars in exchange for not returning them to Tabasco or Chiapas,” he says.

The lawyer says that those migrants who arrive in Cancun fly to Ciudad Juárez

The lawyer says that those migrants who arrive in Cancun fly to Ciudad Juárez. Cubans have paid up to $350 for a ticket. “At the Abraham González terminal they are charged 1,000 dollars to not be returned to the southern border of the country.”

Unlike other years, Pérez Jiménez indicates that they have stopped threatening irregular foreigners with deportation. The authorities are making illegal returns. “Article 160 of the Amparo Law and Article 111 Sec. 5 of the Migration Law prohibit it.”

The Administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador “has turned the country into a retaining wall of the United States,” says the lawyer, who is also an activist. Chiapas has become “a laboratory of experimentation for social programs.”

Abuses of migrants have also occurred in the state of Coahuila, bordering the United States. The president of the Human Rights Commission in Monclova, Daniel González Méndez, said that at the bus terminal “they won’t sell tickets to Cubans and Venezuelans” with the argument that the authorities can imprison drivers for transferring migrants.

González Méndez explained that the terminal staff, when “noticing their accent and skin color, denies them the sale of tickets or prevents them from boarding.” The distance between Monclova and the border is 300 kilometers, and at this time, when temperatures of 43 degrees (109 Fahrenheit) have been recorded in the shade, “walking is exhausting and dangerous,” said the commissioner.

The authorities in the region maintain surveillance operations and have detained migrants for interrogation, demanding bribes of 50 and 80 dollars to let them transit.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Amnesty International Will Hold a Meeting for the Freedom of Political Prisoners – Monday, 24 June

Cuban artists Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel Osorbo / Facebook From 14ymedio

14ymedio, Havana, 21 June 2024 — On Monday, June 24, Amnesty International will hold a virtual meeting for the freedom of Cuban artists Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel Osorbo.

The event will have the participation of Raudiel Peña Barrios, lawyer of Cubalex; the art curators, activists and human rights defenders Claudia Genlui and Anamely Ramos González; and Johanna Cilano, regional researcher for the Caribbean of Amnesty International..

The virtual event will be broadcast live through X, on the Amnesty International account, on Monday, June 24, at 11 am in Havana.

Translation by Regina Anavy

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A Trip From Havana to Santiago de Cuba: 717 Pesos by Bus, 6,000 Pesos by Truck

Days of waiting at Havana’s Villanueva bus terminal to get transportation

Those who arrive here have to sign up on a list and wait for the buses from the National Bus Terminal / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 21 June 2024 — If there is a place in Cuba where the transportation crisis becomes apparent, it is the Villanueva station in Havana. Periodically, and coinciding, as now, with school holidays – in December or the months of June, July and August – the networks and independent media are filled with images of hundreds of people crowded together – adults, children and the elderly – sitting on their suitcases, sleeping on the floor, between the heat and the flies, waiting for days and days to board a vehicle that will take them to the province.

The state-owned Empresa Viajero has designated this terminal for its “waiting list.” Those who arrive here have to sign up on a list and wait for the buses from the National Bus Terminal that have a free seat to pass, either because a ticket has not been sold, or because the traveler has not shown up. Given the scarcity of fuel, the number of vehicles decreases and, therefore, the option of getting a seat. Thus, in Villanueva the crowd gathers, increasingly tired, increasingly sweaty, in a picture typical of Calcutta.

This is what happened this Wednesday, when the line for signing up did not move. Those who were tired of waiting had two alternatives: either leave or travel in uncomfortable trucks without air conditioning at an astronomical cost when compared to bus prices. By bus, the trip to Santiago de Cuba was 6,000 pesos, the trip to Holguín, 5,000 pesos.

A more than considerable difference if one thinks about the prices of official buses: 717 to the first destination and 615 to the second. “We’re on board,” one man lamented to another, who was also waiting and who refused to get on those old, dilapidated vehicles: “Chico, I don’t have any money. And, frankly, if I had it I wouldn’t pay it to leave under those conditions either.”

The state-owned Empresa Viajero has designated this terminal for its “waiting list” / 14ymedio

Between the departure bays, walking with a cigarette in his hand, an old man dressed in military green was shouting: “Long live the Revolution, Díaz-Canel and I rule here, you don’t rule here.” The people, exhausted, laughed at him. In the terminal, only one of the bathroom sinks had a continue reading

trickle of water. As for the snacks that can be purchased, they are not cheap either: a milkshake or a soft drink, 250 pesos; pizza, 120.

Why are there citizens who lower themselves to these conditions, without even obtaining a minimum benefit, for example a cheaper ticket? The general response is that it is very difficult for them to acquire it the formal way, through the Viajando app . “It is an almost impossible mission online because the application collapses and the tickets disappear in seconds,” explains Lucía, who also says that she lives far from a ticket sales agency. “Maybe buying them there also means sleeping there because of the few opportunities. It’s all the same: very few buses and seats available.”

Those who got tired of waiting had two alternatives: either leave or travel in uncomfortable trucks / 14ymedio

Traveling also requires updating your phone’s operating program, something that is not available on all mobile phones and that has left many customers out. That was one of the complaints that users left on the official on-line press release that included the content of this Wednesday’s Round Table State TV program, dedicated to transportation.

Because, in effect, while citizens face the disastrous situation every day, the Government tries by every possible means to make it seem kinder. Thus, in the last Round Table, where in the midst of figures that sought to praise the Automotive Business Group – such as that it is “made up of 18 companies divided into four large blocks,” that the company is “one hundred percent Cuban” and that it has 16,487 workers and more than 12,000 “automotive vehicles,” which makes it “leaders within the sector in the country” – nothing at all could hide the reality.

The Villanueva terminal information board / 14ymedio

“Today we are hit with technical aspects related to vehicle stability, steering, suspensions, clutch systems and access to lubricants. All of this affects transportation levels,” lamented Aidel Ramón Linares León, director of the National Bus Company, appearing on television. The data provided are eloquent: “In 2019 the company transported 13.2 million passengers, while at the end of last year 7.1 million passengers were transported.”

On the other hand, Walter Luis Duverger, general director of the Viajero Company, said on the TV show that “one of the greatest dissatisfactions” expressed by customers was “how unscrupulous elements have manipulated the online reservation service for their own benefit.” He did not give details of what he was referring to or how the problem was going to be solved.

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