Projects Fair
The Booth of Civic Libraries and Racial Integration
Lately my days are like weeks concentrated into twenty-four hours. I have Wednesdays that come one after another, Saturdays full of work and Mondays on which nothing seems to start, it all just continues. Sometimes I combine the most incredible events in a single day: sublime or mundane; extraordinary or tedious. But there is, every now and then, a date into which it seems I’d like to drain the entire calendar. December 10th was one of those days and I’d have liked to have on hand “The Devil in the Bottle” — as imagined by Robert Louis Stevenson — to ask him to delay nightfall by at least 72 hours.
This year has been no exception. From the night before, we began to notice “the syndrome of the eve of Human Rights Day.” Everyone notices it, even those who refuse to acknowledge these situations. We can observe an increase in the number of police in the most central parts of the city, and an increased tension in the security forces. For a while now here, the official institutions also try to appropriate a date that, for decades, has belonged to the critical sector of this society. We see television announcers smilingly presenting activities throughout the country that are honoring “rights…” and see their mouths dry up, their tongues falter, simply trying to come out with the words “cultural and social.” For too long the phrase “human rights” has been stigmatized, such that it provokes, at the very least, a blush among those in government spaces who now try to repeat it.
They carry out arrests and threats throughout the country on this day, but we always manage to do something. This year I participated in the opening day of the Endless Poetry Festival. This alternative fiesta in Cuba resurfaced yesterday with a fair of diverse projects. A hundred people gathered at the site of Estado de SATS and erected various exhibition spaces that ranged from music making to activism for racial integration. It was possible to visit the work of the Civic Libraries, the brand new “Journal of Plural Thinking” from the city of Santa Clara, and the young DJs of “18A16 Productions.” There was also our booth under the name “Technology and Freedom,” offering a sample of the work of the bloggers, independent journalists and Twitterers.
An island within the Island, this space was a foretaste of that day when respect for plurality will exist in our country. Laughter, projects, united in diversity and great friendship, formed the magic of the first day of the Endless Poetry Festival. When I got home it seemed I had lived a whole week in the space of one day and — for once — had not needed a bottled demon from a story to do it. With the energy of so many people we had managed to fit into every minute the colossal density of the future.
Enero 3rd, 2013 at 00:56
Someday people would open their eyes and are going to see you for what you really are. Descara’ opportunists and narcissist with no morals ; making a living off your country and your own people’s suffering.
Diciembre 21st, 2012 at 12:33
Here, the domestic traitor and a liar pin=up granny nail-biter herself states that the police is constantly in front of her house.
Yet she gets to travel around Cuba, organise and/or participate in “alternative fairs”, claims that she is “protected” by the presence of, of all persons, other wannabe dissidents!
As if these would be of any use if the police really wanted to arrest her.
And listen to the name of the radio station in miami: Radio Marti!
The Marti, who said about the usa that it is a monster and that all Latin Americans should know that!!!
Idi&&s those “dissidents.
And ugly as hell…
Diciembre 21st, 2012 at 11:50
More people asking the same questions as I do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk9YrBdfxAQ
Questions keep coming, the answers no.
What exactly are you hiding the team “yoani”?
Better, what are you deluding yourselves you are hiding, yet we the world
KNOW
since long ago:
you are a double agent, who harbours secret desire to be a Castro after Castros.
A liar and a hypocrite who is paid by cia, among others. An uncle a general of the revolution, who never gave it up. An aunt Security Agent, who never gave up the revolution either.
Who are you really “yoani sanchez”, wannabe Castro after Castros?
Diciembre 21st, 2012 at 11:34
You have to give it to him. He’s eloqunt and he KNOWS what he is talking about. I liked especially the part where he talks about the family of the pin=up granny traitor and wannabe Castro after Castros!
An uncle a general from revolution, an aunt working in State Security!!! The family of this “yoani sanchez” traitor and double agent, according to the Cuban dissidents in Europe!!!
One cannot but laugh at the transparent duplicity of this liar and a clown “yoani”!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyESmy3j5L4
I also really enjoyed his observation on this “fair”. The “organisers” invited the Cuban dissidents to come to Cuba and participate in the fair!
Diciembre 19th, 2012 at 14:10
DAMIR: CUBA is A POLICE STATE.. NO jodas.
Cubans fighting today 2012 for their CIVIL RIGHTS.
Diciembre 19th, 2012 at 00:10
What this small group of delusional religious fanatics are missing from this post by the traitors and terrorists, the team “yoani” and their nail-bitting pin-up ranny, is that there seems to be a lot more freedom, tolerance an democracy in Cuba than what they keep regurgitating day in-day out.
Not only there have been
NO arrests in Cuba in recent years, not months, for political reasons, the alternative opinion is loud and free to be heard.
This post confirms just that.
This obvious contradiction confirms that everything the losers complain about is simply a
LIE.
And they are
HYPOCRITES.
Nothing new under the sun. Pity these few delusional losers were not the ones to get slain the other day, instead of those innocent little children.
Such is “some kind of pragmatic capitalism”, sadly: only the innnocent get punished.
Diciembre 19th, 2012 at 00:04
Liars and nazist bum-lickers are again at it, spreading the bullshift about the blockade and the embargo being “non-existent”.
If it doesn’t exist, why is it inbuilt in the nazist usa laws?
It even has its’ own name
Helms-Burton Act
It is real and it is here to stay, until the people of the nazist gulag usa take the arms in their own hands and get rid of their nazist dictatorship.
Only a mo*on that writes here under a number of different nicks can be so delusional to keep repeating this stupidity when even the team “yoan” and their pin-up granny nail-biter have acknowledged it!!!
There’s no embargo and blockade on Cuba by the nazist gulag usa, Fidel dies every week at least twice, so help me Marx I swear I heard it from the famous Neapolitan doctor who lives in Venezuela…
Cre**ns.
Diciembre 16th, 2012 at 18:24
LOVE TO HEAR THESE STORIES BY THE CASTROFASCIST CUBAN GOVERNMENT TRYING TO KEEP THE NAME OF FIDEL CASTRO ALIVE, EVEN THOUGH IT IS MOST LIKELY HE’S BEEN DEAD A WHILE NOW!
USA TODAY: Fidel Castro nominated for Cuban parliament seat - By Peter Orsi
HAVANA (AP) — Retired Cuban leader Fidel Castro has been nominated for a seat in the country’s parliament, authorities said Sunday.
The afternoon TV news announced “the leader of the Cuban Revolution Fidel Castro Ruz heads the list of 25 candidates to the Cuban parliament from the municipality of Santiago de Cuba, approved by the delegates of this state body.”
Castro was also named as a delegate in 2008, when he officially retired as president. It’s unclear whether he has played an active role in legislative duties in the years since.
The current session of parliament held its last gathering last week and is due to reconvene with new membership in February following elections. It’s expected to rename to the presidency Castro’s younger brother Raul, who was also nominated as a representative of the municipality of Segundo Frente.
Fidel Castro, 86, stepped down as president temporarily in 2006 due to a near-fatal illness and left the presidency for good two years later. Raul has been in charge since then.
Today the elder Castro spends most of his time out of the public eye and has ceased penning his once-regular essays known as “Reflections.”
In October, Castro mocked those who are anxious to see him depart this world after speculation that his health was dire once again made the rounds on the rumor mill.
In an essay ironically titled Fidel is Dying, he explained that he decided to stop publishing the opinion pieces not due to poor health, but because the space that Cuban state media devoted to his words was needed for other purposes.
This weekend he once again ended weeks of public silence in a letter that Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro read to a ceremony marking the eighth anniversary of the ALBA block of Latin American nations.
In it Castro praised his friend and ally President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who is recovering from cancer surgery in Cuba, and recalled the two men’s first encounter 18 years ago.
“The name of Hugo Chavez is admired and respected throughout the world,” Castro wrote in the letter, which was dated Saturday. “Everyone and even many of his adversaries wish his quick recovery.”
“The doctors are fighting with optimism for that objective,” Castro concluded.
Also Saturday, a high-ranking Venezuelan official said Castro has been paying daily visits to Chavez since last Tuesday’s operation.
“He always stops by to personally find out about El Comandante’s health condition and also to share his knowledge with all of us, and to give the family courage and encouragement,” said Science and Technology Minister Jorge Arreaza, who is also Chavez’s son-in-law. He spoke to Venezuelan television by phone from Havana.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/.....t/1773359/
Diciembre 16th, 2012 at 14:53
I ALWAYS GET A CHUCKLE WHEN THE CASTROFASCIST GOVERNMENT IN CUBA SAYS THAT FIDEL IS ALIVE AND KICKING! HE CAN VISIT GUESTS FOR HOURS BUT FOR THE PAST 3 YEARS CANNOT GET ON LIVE TELEVISION AND ADDRESS HIS OWN PEOPLE! WONDER WHY IS THAT!!!
WASHINGTON POST: Fidel Castro has been visiting Hugo Chavez every day after cancer surgery, official says
CARACAS, Venezuela — A Venezuelan government official says President Hugo Chavez has been receiving daily visits from former Cuban leader Fidel Castro while recovering from cancer surgery in Cuba.
Science and Technology Minister Jorge Arreaza said on Venezuelan television in a phone call from Havana that Castro has seen Chavez every day since Tuesday’s surgery.
Throughout his presidency, Chavez has had a close friendship with Castro, describing him as being like a father and mentor.
Arreaza says Chavez has been making “favorable” improvements since the surgery. He calls it a “process of stabilization.”
Arreaza is Chavez’s son-in-law and he says the president has also been with his children since the operation.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....story.html
Diciembre 16th, 2012 at 13:52
MIAMI HERALD: Cuba’s fatal conceit on economic reforms - BY JOSE AZEL
In late 2010, the Cuban government first detailed its plan to revitalize the moribund Cuban economy. Two key components of this plan were the massive firing of over one million state employees (in a workforce of five million) and to allow some private sector self-employment to absorb the newly unemployed.
The enlightened nomenclature decreed that the firings were to take place in short order and the newly permitted activities would be limited to a bizarre amalgamation of precisely 178 occupations from baby sitting to washing clothes to shoe shinning, to repairing umbrellas.
Not surprisingly, two years later, the process is mired in a web of internal debates and emerging rules and regulations. The failure in implementing economic reforms is rooted in the pathology of thought of the Country’s ruling elite. It is this pathology of thought that economist and political philosopher Friedrich A. Hayek described in his influential work The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism. As Hayek explained, central plans fail with unforeseen and unintended consequences because all variables are not known or even knowable to the central planners.
The dismissal of the state employees has been essentially halted and is now supposed to take place over a period of five years. Kafkaesque efficiency committees will determine the “ideal” number of employees for each function and then other committees will decide who is to be dismissed.
In allowing some entrepreneurship, the Cuban government sought to create new employment for the fired government employees. Things, however, are not going as planned by the mandarins. For example, 73 percent of the 69,000 women now self-employed were not previously in the government’s payroll. Additionally, many of the cuentapropistas are engaged in subsistence self-employment which does not generate significant additional employment.
Another unfortunate consequence of Cuba’s central planning arrogance is an exacerbation of racial tensions. Reflecting the racial composition of the Cuban Diaspora, the vast majority of Cubans receiving remittances from abroad and able to become self-employed are white. Access to dollars is essential for self-employment. Paradoxically, the new entrepreneurs must sell their goods and services in the national currency, but must purchase supplies from government stores in Cubas’s convertible currency. Afro-Cubans, without access to remittances from family members abroad, are left behind as income inequality increases.
It is quite a conceit to believe, as central planners do, that one individual, or one ministry, or one central committee can gather and understand all available information to design an efficient economic system.
CLICK LINK FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE!
http://www.miamiherald.com/201.....nomic.html
Diciembre 15th, 2012 at 19:48
The “embargo” has been used as a scapegoat, an excuse, and a bargaining tool forever by the Castro dictatorship. The majority of Cuba’s medicine and much of their food comes from the United States. Cuba also trades with most of the rest of the world, so, get off it. It’s the Castro dictatorship, and not the “embargo” that are keeping the Cuban people in poverty.
Socialism, equal opportunity poverty for all.
Diciembre 15th, 2012 at 18:46
I heard there’s an embargo Humberto.
Someone should tell all these European, South American, Arab, Russian and Chinese oil companies doing business in Cuba that there’s an embargo.
I don’t think they ever heard about it.
Diciembre 15th, 2012 at 16:46
THE CASTROFASCISTS HAVE VISIONS OF OIL WELLS DANCING IN THEIR HEADS THESE HOLIDAYS! WITH THE PREVIOUS FOUR ATTEMPTS ON THE “OIL BONANZA” AS STRIKE OUTS, IT SEEMS THIS WILD GOOSE CHASE WILL COME TO A FINAL END SOON! POLLY WANTS A CRACKER, POLLY WANTS A CRACKER! JE JE JE!
REUTERS: Oil Rig Arrives off Cuba for New Exploration
Cuban authorities say a Norwegian-owned platform has arrived in waters off the island’s north-central coast for exploratory drilling by Russian oil company Zarubezhneft.
State-run Cubapetroleo says the Songa Mercur rig has been inspected and is capable of drilling as safely as possible and with minimum environmental risk. The well project is given as 21,300 feet (6,500 meters) deep and is expected to take six months.
The block in question is considered less promising than waters to the west where a super-deep-water platform drilled three dud wells earlier this year.
The Songa Mercur is owned by Songa Offshore of Norway.
Cubapetroleo’s announcement was published Saturday by Communist Party daily Granma.
http://abcnews.go.com/Internat.....MzfD3drRRc
Diciembre 15th, 2012 at 15:45
I have a lot of energy left for shopping? What are you talking about? I’m not shopping today. Making an ass of yourself again. You just can’t help it.
Thanks for caring, Mouse, I am having fun with my family today, but there is absolutely no consumerism involved. We are gardening and baking, something that we really enjoy. I hope that growing food and baking cookies is not too “consumerist” for you.
It’s pretty much universal consensus among all who know me that I have a small one, but, if for some reason you need to fantasize that it is big, go right ahead. That’s very strange indeed.
I don’t feel the need to be superior to anyone else. I feel that all human beings should be equal.
Diciembre 15th, 2012 at 14:11
The Man! WILL YOU EVER NOT USE THE BAD OLD U.S.A. TO SHIFT FOCUS ON THESE COMMENT SECTIONS? PEOPLE READING THESE COMMENTS ARE NOT DUMB AND CAN SEE YOUR MODUS OPERANDI DEAR!
Diciembre 15th, 2012 at 13:55
Good luck having fun with you and your FAMILY self in the toilet suppose thats where most of your happy days are spent.. Talking to your bigAss and gettin the reply you deserve..! SOrry got it wrong it is not white supremacism… it is American supremacism.. that your clique puts on display here with the ignorance of their past deeds and in numbers - probably you are still sorry for Cuba not being in your pocket….then if I call you American supremacist that would include people I know there which I like so I cannot get it right… will thake my chance with white supremacist bull that you sell here and are…
For someone who should be mourning… you have a lot of energy left for shopping… suppose nothing can dampen your consumer drive ! and I bet it is just you who thinks your assISsmall and beautiful… now tell it how much you love him!
Diciembre 15th, 2012 at 12:48
Actually, my ass is quite small. When you can mind your own business, I’ll do the same. But it’s like catnip for you, you can’t.
You’ve been, once again, proven to be a fool. Clearly, Europe, where you are from, foments more mass murderers than the US.
“White supremacism beacons?” LOL, how do you know what color any of the posters are? You don’t. You try to create problems, that don’t exist, out of thin air.
Today, I am spending time with my beautiful family. You, little mouse, are bitter and vulgar.
Diciembre 15th, 2012 at 12:00
Well from where I sit you haave proved once again you are the ‘defective’ ones…. You constantly excuse your crimes with blaming the others for being worse…. Just one turth as seen here time and again… White supremacism beacons..good luck….
No one’s asked you to play anonimo .. I asked you to mind your own business … Which you cant … Good luck having fun with you and yourself in the toilet suppose thats where most of your happy days are spent.. Talking to your bigAss and gettin the reply you deserve..
Diciembre 15th, 2012 at 10:41
I’d love to stay and play and prove your stupidity all day long Mousy boy, but I have an amazing day planned. Have a good one.
Diciembre 15th, 2012 at 10:37
Europe Has More Mass Murders Than America
Zug, Switzerland, Sept. 27, 2001: A man whose lawsuits had been denied murdered 14 members of a cantonal parliament.
Tours, France, Oct. 29, 2001: Four people were killed and ten wounded when a French railway worker started shooting at a busy intersection.
Nanterre, France, March 27, 2002: A man killed eight city-council members after a council meeting.
Erfurt, Germany, April 26, 2002: A former student killed 18 at a secondary school.
Freising, Germany, Feb. 19, 2002: Three people killed and one wounded.
Turin, Italy, Oct. 15, 2002: Seven people killed on a hillside overlooking the city.
Madrid, Spain, Oct. 1, 2006: A man killed two employees and wounded another at a company that had fired him.
Emsdetten, Germany, Nov. 20, 2006: A former student murdered eleven people at a high school.
Tuusula, Finland, Nov. 7, 2007: Seven students and the principal killed at a high school.
Naples, Italy, Sept. 18, 2008: Seven dead and two seriously wounded in a public meeting hall. (This incident is not included in the totals given below because it may have involved the Mafia.)
Kauhajoki, Finland, Sept. 23, 2008: Ten people shot to death at a college.
Winnenden, Germany, March 11, 2009: A 17-year-old former student killed 15 people, including nine students and three teachers.
Lyon, France, March 19, 2009: Ten people injured when a man opened fire on a nursery school.
Athens, Greece, April 10, 2009: Three people killed and two injured by a student at a vocational college.
Rotterdam, Netherlands, April 11, 2009: Three people killed and one injured at a crowded café.
Vienna, Austria, May 24, 2009: One dead and 15 wounded in an attack on a Sikh temple.
Espoo, Finland, Dec. 31, 2009: Four people shot to death at a mall.
Cumbria, England, June 2, 2010: Twelve killed by a British taxi driver.
http://www.thecrimsonpirate.com/blog/?p=1871
Diciembre 15th, 2012 at 10:36
_man comes around_ you’ve got a problem
These massacres happen every day in the middle east and elsewhere, but since the psychopaths there wave an anti-American flag, all you guys do is celebrate and blame America.
You know how many children your psychos have killed Afghanistan and Iraq? Sorry, you call them “militants” and “freedom fighters”
There were also serial killers in your Soviet world, just your press kept you blind.
Stop playing video games and learn to think.
Diciembre 15th, 2012 at 10:34
Mass Murderer Smirks at 21-Year Prison Sentence
The man who killed 77 people — many of them teenagers — in a bombing and shooting rampage in Norway last July appeared unable to conceal his happiness after he was declared sane and sentenced to 21 years in prison today.
Anders Breivik, a rightwing extremist who admitted to carrying out the massacre in an effort to battle “multiculturalism” in Europe, had previously said that being declared insane — as prosecutors requested — would have been the “ultimate humiliation.” The 21-year sentence is the maximum under Norwegian law but can be extended later if Breivik is still deemed to be a threat to society.
Courtroom cameras showed that as Breivik stood and heard the ruling against him, his lips curled into a tight smile.
Last July Breivik detonated a bomb in the country’s capital, killing eight people, before taking multiple weapons, including an assault rifle, to a nearby youth summer camp where he gunned down 69 more.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blot.....MyJ_W_AcSU
Diciembre 15th, 2012 at 10:31
America certainly has no monopoly on deranged individuals who commit heinous crimes:
Random Shooter Kills 2, Wounds 7 in Finland
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-20.....n-finland/
Diciembre 15th, 2012 at 10:25
Now lets see how long before we get another American to spoil our existence if not Xmas and make us look at the tv dumb found wondering what is wrong with the world?… And they still tell us this is just an accident of a derranged man…afterwards…
It seem now that every 6-12 months we have to see this… From you…. How is that for being predictable?
Diciembre 15th, 2012 at 10:18
Exactly my argument …in ours itwas wrong we changed … In yours it is wrong too… But you still say it is right and are loud about it and sell it to others…. You are THE waste of time ! proven
Diciembre 15th, 2012 at 09:29
I could hear the clock ticking until the post of the Mouse, who I knew would come up with a way to twist the heinous acts of one deranged individual into an anti-capitalism screed. Mouse, you do not disappoint, and are very predictable.
Under communism and dictatorships, the state gets to murder the citizens with impunity, and somehow that is better?
Diciembre 15th, 2012 at 08:14
The parrot Humberto and his team America here are on autopilot … Castofascists to the left castrofascists to the right…and they are getting bored too apparently …sad if not sadistic blah blah when they were not grasping what has happened on tv in the land of they call free… Where human rights are observed… By ????
For good in Cuba and other places that saw communism and debated and deplored the abuses of the state we didn’t have citizens violating the life of other citizens in such a manner and so often….i.e. the right to a life ….So thank US capitalism for creating such monsters….and at least you should have kept quiet for a day if not a week and let other speak about oppression in Cuba and not yourselves.
My point proven from a different entry …. But point not taken by team America here that sells freedoms at basement prices for suckers who should trust US capitalism to deliver them from any problems… When actually this type of capitalism has created social problems time and again.
Diciembre 14th, 2012 at 16:34
THE CASTROFASCISTS FEARS THIS YOUNG WOMAN AND THE TRUTH SHE CAN SPEAK ABOUT ABROAD! DESPERATE ATTEMPT AT CONTROLLING INFORMATION!
SANTIAGO TIMES CHILE: Cuba denies visa for opposition leader wanting to study in Chile - by Amelia Duggan
The Cuban government denied the request Tuesday of opposition movement leader Rosa MarĂa Payá to leave the country to study in Chile.
Payá, who became the leader of the Christian Liberation Movement in July following the death of her father and previous leader Oswaldo Payá, was granted a visa and scholarship to study political theory and public management at Universidad Miguel de Cervantes in Santiago and was due to begin in January.
Mijail Bonito Lovio, a Cuban expat and the secretary of international relations for the Chilean chapter of the Independent and Democratic Cuba Party (CID), decried the Cuban government’s decision.
“It is the second time this year that the Cuban government denied the travel permit to Rosa MarĂa Payá,” Bonito Lovio told The Santiago Times. “The reason is very simple: Cuban dissidents on the island suffer repression and their statements abroad could cause the Cuban government to lose the image of sanctity it still has in many parts of the world.”
“(Her trip) threatened to show the world that Cuban dissidents are articulate young idealists and not the criminals that the Cuban government wants us to think,” he said.
“We find it unacceptable that a dictator will arrive and be greeted with the same honors as those of a president of a democratic state in a country like Chile,” Bonito Lovio said.
“We, along with several political groups of Chilean civil society, will carry out activities to express our deepest rejection of the visit of this dictator and we hope that this is seconded by Chileans who truly value democracy, which is the majority,” he added.
Sen. Patricio Walker, a member the center-left Christian Democrat Party (DC) and a vocal critic of Castro, also condemned the Cuban government’s decision.
“It’s really incomprehensible and shows that the Cuban government wants to control its people completely, even in their ability to travel,” Walker told The Santiago Times.
“Raúl Castro should understand that we have a free press in Chile, and he should know that if he comes here, he will be asked some very uncomfortable questions,” he added.
Walker, who had a personal relationship with Oswaldo Payá, was denied an entry visa to Cuba on a trip to attend Payá’s funeral. According to official reports, the former opposition leader died in a car crash earlier this year, but his family accused the Cuban government of ordering his assassination.
CLICK LINK FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE!
http://www.santiagotimes.cl/wo.....y-in-chile
Diciembre 14th, 2012 at 16:24
SOME INTERESTING THINGS ABOUT THE OFFICIAL OSWALDO PAYA “ACCIDENT” VIDEO (link below) RELEASED BY THE CASTRO “GOVERNMENT” ! THEY ARE THE FOLLOWING AND YOU CAN LOOK AT THEM YOURSELVES!!
THE DEFORMED FRONT BUMPER THAT DISAPPEARED & THE REAR BUMPER WITH DENT!
1. At the beginning of the video the car is shown with the front bumper all mangled and twisted out on both sides but at 5:00 minutes the front twisted bumper has disappeared. It is obvious that the car has been tampered with due to the fact that it lost its bumper! Was it moved there and the bumper was torn off due to the hauling? Also, if you stop the video @ 5:03 there is a shot of the rear bumper showing a dent in the right hand side. How could this have happened if the car crashed against the tree on the opposite side? Looks like another car hit it from the rear! You can see manipulated photo of the rear bumper showing a very shiny and inconsistent texture on the right side @ 0.22 seconds into the video unlike that @ 5:03 minutes.
WHY NO PHOTOS OF Oswaldo Pay & Harold Cepero
2. Interesting that at the beginning of the video the four passengers are identified with their location but while showing pictures of Angel Carromero & Jens Aron Morig there are no pictures to identify Oswaldo Pay & Harold Cepero!! Fear of the Cuban people and others to identify with them as victims and to keep their faces out of the eyes of the Cuban people!
THE OBVIOUS COACHING OF THE SPANISH AND SWEDISH WITNESSES
3. If you pay attention to the eye movement of both the Spanish Angel Carromero and the Swede Jens Aron Modig you can see how off screen they are reading something to help them in their statements. They are very poor actors and it is very obvious they are being coached. In addition both of their body languages tell how uncomfortable they are doing this.
YOUTUBE: CUBADEBATE: Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas: Testimonios sobre el accidente- Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas: Testimonies about the accident.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBOphUw5RM8
TOO MANY INCONSISTENCIES ABOUT THIS VIDEO EVIDENCE DONT YOU THINK SO? WORTH A LOOK BY AN INDEPENDENT INTERNATIONAL TEAM OF EXPERTS!
Diciembre 14th, 2012 at 16:16
ANGEL CARROMERO IS THE SPANISH ALAN GROSS! UNFORTUNATELY SPAIN’S GOVERNMENT GAVE INTO THE CASTROFASCISTS EXTORTION PLOY AND WILL BE SOFTENING “THE COMMON POSITION” THE EUROPEAN UNION HAS TOWARDS CUBA AS PART OF THE BLACK SPRING OF 2003!
BBC NEWS: Jailed Spanish activist Angel Carromero may leave Cuba
A Spanish activist sentenced to jail in Cuba after a car crash that killed a high-profile dissident will be allowed to serve out his sentence in Spain.
Angel Carromero was driving Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya to a meeting in eastern Cuba in July when he lost control of the car and hit a tree.
Paya and another dissident, Harold Cepero, died instantly. Carromero was found guilty of vehicular manslaughter and sentenced to four years in jail.
He said the charges were political.
Carromero was a leader of the youth wing of Spain’s governing Popular Party.
Since his arrest the Spanish government has been trying to get him released or transferred to his home country.
“Today Angel Carromero’s transfer has been authorised, so that he serves here the sentence imposed by the Cuban authorities,” Spanish Vice-President Soraya Saenz de Santamaria announced.
Death threats
Oswaldo Paya’s family has always claimed the crash was no accident.
They believe the car was forced off the road and say the dissident received numerous death threats for his activity.
“For me, Carromero should never have been in prison,” said Paya’s widow, Ofelia Acevedo.
The other passenger in the car, Swedish political activist, Aron Modig, was released days after the 22 July accident, near the city of Bayamo.
“I am very happy and relieved,” he tweeted after hearing about the Cuban decision to let Carromero return to Spain.
Sixty-year-old Oswaldo Paya is known as the founder of the Varela Project - a campaign set up in 1998 to gather signatures in support of a referendum on laws guaranteeing civil rights.
In 2002, he won the Sakharov Prize - the European Union’s human rights award - for his work with the Varela Project.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl.....a-20735918
Diciembre 14th, 2012 at 02:33
The Republic of Cuba had an active role in the drafting of the universal declaration of human rights. Dr. Gustavo Gutierrez y Sanchez, Cuban Lawyer, Jurist, Politician, Diplomat and Economist, wrote a book entitled “La Carta Magna de la Comunidad de las Naciones (The Magna Carta of the Community of Nations) in 1945. At the San Francisco Conference the Republic of Cuba submitted two proposals for consideration, a “Draft Declaration of the International Rights and Duties of the Individual” and a “Draft Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Nations.” These two drafts were written and presented by Dr. Gustavo Gutierrez in his book.
The Republic of Cuban Declaration of Human Rights of 1946 included that every human being had the “right to life, to liberty, to personal security and to respect for his dignity as a human being”, and it was also largely responsible for inclusion of the special needs of families in the right to an adequate standard of living in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the General Assembly of the UN in 1948.
Diciembre 13th, 2012 at 18:54
FREE ALAN GROSS. He is a Hostage of Fidels repressive regime. The Cuban Government are a bunch of delinquents that have been violating HUMAN RIGHTS for much too long. How long will the world continue to put up with these injust actions. God Bless Yoani Sanchez and all those who expose the truth about what happens in Cuba. Endless Poetry Festival known in Cuba as POESIA SIN FIN is the hope Cuban people need, so please support the festival and follow the show on the OMNI ZONA FRANCA BLOG or even YOU TUBE.
Diciembre 13th, 2012 at 18:02
Anonimo, I agree, there has been no entertainment value for me anymore, it’s just the same old, same old idiotic rant. Irrelevant. Scroll over.
Diciembre 13th, 2012 at 13:46
Here’s a nice short story by the unjustly imprisoned Cuban writer, Angel Santiesteban, on the topic of Cuban cuisine:
The Treasure
“It was my neighborhood and in 1992 I cruised the streets on my motorbike like a Caribbean Quixote. One afternoon I turned the corner by my house and noticed a neighbor on his bicycle, not moving. One foot on the curb, the other in the street, one arm across the handlebars, his head resting across his forearm like on a pillow. He seemed like a rag doll. I sensed something rare in this gentleman who, since I was a child, I’d seen go into a house near mine, so I turned the wheel of my bike around to go back. When I came up beside him I could see that despite the noise of the engine he didn’t raise his head. I asked him if I could help. He said something I didn’t understand, I turned down the throttle of the bike and came closer, he leaned over and I could see his pale face, “Hold me up,” he said. I quickly shut off the motorbike and took his arm, “I’m dizzy,” he said again, and I could feel his body shaking like the page of a book. I suggested he breathe deeply. He could barely do it. At times his legs would buckle. I discovered that in spite of his weakness, he was protecting something in his other hand, holding his closed fist against his chest. I offered to take it and he refused with a gesture. He gathered his strength and raised his head to look at me.
I continued holding him. He said he knew he shouldn’t have done it, but he didn’t have any other choice. For lunch he’d only had a little rice, he went to his sister-in-law’s to see if there was at least something that his wife could have to go with it. He, no. He’d gone a week with only rice and he wasn’t complaining. But he knew that she, though she tried as hard as she could, couldn’t eat it. So his sister-in-law had given him the last one she had, and he looked at his closed fist. Then, with great care, he opened his hand and I saw a chicken egg.”
http://www.hijosnadieeng.wordp.....-treasure/
Diciembre 13th, 2012 at 13:02
Help,
Actually, I think liver pate and guava would go together quite nicely. But these chefs are so effin clueless!!! No wonder California is on the verge of bankruptcy.
Here’s a nice short story by the unjustly imprisoned Cuban writer, Angel Santiesteban on the topic of Cuban cuisine:
The Treasure
“It was my neighborhood and in 1992 I cruised the streets on my motorbike like a Caribbean Quixote. One afternoon I turned the corner by my house and noticed a neighbor on his bicycle, not moving. One foot on the curb, the other in the street, one arm across the handlebars, his head resting across his forearm like on a pillow. He seemed like a rag doll. I sensed something rare in this gentleman who, since I was a child, I’d seen go into a house near mine, so I turned the wheel of my bike around to go back. When I came up beside him I could see that despite the noise of the engine he didn’t raise his head. I asked him if I could help. He said something I didn’t understand, I turned down the throttle of the bike and came closer, he leaned over and I could see his pale face, “Hold me up,” he said. I quickly shut off the motorbike and took his arm, “I’m dizzy,” he said again, and I could feel his body shaking like the page of a book. I suggested he breathe deeply. He could barely do it. At times his legs would buckle. I discovered that in spite of his weakness, he was protecting something in his other hand, holding his closed fist against his chest. I offered to take it and he refused with a gesture. He gathered his strength and raised his head to look at me.
I continued holding him. He said he knew he shouldn’t have done it, but he didn’t have any other choice. For lunch he’d only had a little rice, he went to his sister-in-law’s to see if there was at least something that his wife could have to go with it. He, no. He’d gone a week with only rice and he wasn’t complaining. But he knew that she, though she tried as hard as she could, couldn’t eat it. So his sister-in-law had given him the last one she had, and he looked at his closed fist. Then, with great care, he opened his hand and I saw a chicken egg.”
http://www.hijosnadieeng.wordp.....-treasure/
Diciembre 13th, 2012 at 12:58
Damir’s rants are so ALL THE SAME, that they don’t even have entertainment value anymore. YAWN. I think I will skip right over them from now on. A total waste of time.
Diciembre 13th, 2012 at 12:50
FASCISTS LUNATICS OF A FEATHER FLY AND WANT TO BLOW UP THE WORLD TOGETHER! REMEMBER WHO WANTED TO BLOW UP THE USA IN THE MISSILE CRICIS!! GOOD OLD FIDELITO CASTRO!
PRESS TV:Cuba backs Iran’s nuclear program, vows to defy sanctions
The Cuban foreign minister has reaffirmed Havana’s determination to support Tehran’s nuclear energy program and strengthen mutual cooperation to counter Western embargos.
At a meeting with Ali Asghar Khaji, the Iranian deputy foreign minister for Europe and Americas, in the Cuban capital city of Havana on Thursday, Bruno Eduardo Rodriguez Parrilla, hailed Iran-Cuba ties as “strategic” and voiced his country’s support for the Islamic Republic’s nuclear energy program.
He expressed Havana’s preparedness to enhance bilateral ties with Tehran in high technology and exchange experience to counter the effects of the “plots and sanctions [imposed on both countries] by the common enemy.”
The Cuban foreign minister also praised the amiable relations between the two countries and expressed optimism that Cuban President Raul Castro will visit Iran next year.
Khaji, for his part, conveyed the greetings of the Iranian officials to the Cuban leaders and expressed Iran’s preparedness to participate in Cuba’s economic and infrastructural plans.
He praised bilateral diplomatic ties and called for further exploitation of the existing potentials to promote mutual relations in economic and scientific fields.
Khaji’s trip to Cuba was the last leg of his tour of Latin America. He had previously visited Venezuela, Bolivia and Uruguay.
http://presstv.com/detail/2012.....-nprogram/
Diciembre 13th, 2012 at 12:01
Thanks for the laugh Griffin.
Anyone who combines rabbit liver with guava needs their taste buds checked, and anyone who thinks most Cubans can eat that needs their sanity checked.
Most Cubans I know go around begging for a bowl of rice, but that wouldn’t make a very romantic meal for the California chefs.
And I’m sure they didn’t bring their pesticide testing kits along or they would have had a nasty surprise about Cuban “organic” produce.
They would also be kicked in the rear end all the way to California if they were lucky, or ended up like Alan Gross if they weren’t.
There is no country in Latin America where you are less likely to run into organic food and healthy cuisine, and delusional celebrity chefs from California can’t change that.
As soon as those California tourists left, the Cuban chefs went back to their can openers and locally grown food imported from Spain.
Diciembre 13th, 2012 at 11:15
California Chefs Encourage Fresh Dining in Cuba
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Inte.....Mnwno653Mk
Oh those silly Cubans eating all that unhealthy rice & beans fried in lard (ok, they’re not really eating too much)… good thing these fabulous Californian celebrity chefs have come to Havana to show them how to do interesting new recipes with rabbit liver and guava! It’s enough to drive old Adolfina mad with the ga-ga boom! ga-ga-boom! at the guava jam factory…
Diciembre 13th, 2012 at 11:14
California Chefs Encourage Fresh Dining in Cuba
“Rice, beans, pork — and lots of it. That’s a typical restaurant meal in Cuba, widely regarded by travelers as a culinary wasteland where the variety and quality of raw ingredients leave much to be desired.
But a delegation of chefs from Alice Waters’ celebrated Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, California, is in Havana on a mission to spark a revolution in the Cuban diet by exposing islanders to healthier dishes with more fruits and vegetables, preferably grown organically and sustainably by local food cooperatives.
In the last week, members of the “Planting Seeds” delegation have held give-and-take seminars in Havana with chefs and culinary students about slow food. They also put on two massive dinners, including a five-course, five-star meal at the privately run Le Chansonnier, which drew culinary, artistic and influential leaders like President Raul Castro’s daughter, Mariela. A 100-person bash was held at a state-run restaurant for luminaries such as Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, California state Sen. Loni Hancock and senior Cuban officials who are in position to affect agricultural policy.
The California chefs toured nearby organic farms and marveled at the fresh, pesticide-free produce, which they stuffed into car trunks as the base foodstuffs for the dinners. And by dreaming up new uses for workaday ingredients, they gave their Cuban counterparts a lot to think about.
Luis Ramon Batlle, for one, has seen plenty of guava during his long cooking career, but never thought to combine it with rabbit-liver pate atop a crispy wafer.”
Oh those silly Cubans eating all that unhealthy rice & beans fried in lard (ok, they’re not really eating too much)… good thing these fabulous Californian celebrity chefs have come to Havana to show them how to do interesting new recipes with rabbit liver and guava! It’s enough to drive old Adolfina mad with the ga-ga boom! ga-ga-boom! at the guava jam factory…
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Inte.....Mnwno653Mk
Diciembre 13th, 2012 at 10:10
Hank,
I think the difference is foreign reporters are treated like royalty in Cuba as long as they toe the party line. Endless bottles of cheap rum, prostitutes, the beach and warm sun, palm trees.
All you have to do is reprint the Party Line in your news feed with a few mildly “investigative” sentences thrown in, and go back to your mojitos and siestas.
Also, Cuba is right next door to the USA and the Anti-American Nutjob set, reporters included, like to fantasize that Castro is rebelling against the big bad USA.
It’s all very romantic. North Korea can’t compare. So the Marxist Nutjob set likes to pretend that North Korea isn’t “real socialism” like Cuba is.
All North Korea has to do is give foreign reporters some luxury condos and an endless supply of alcohol and nubile women/men and we’ll start reading about North Korea’s wonderful accomplishments in education and health care.
Diciembre 13th, 2012 at 05:59
Or, how is this for some conflicting hypocrisy:
“They carry out arrests and threats throughout the country on this day, but we always manage to do something. This year I participated in the opening day of the Endless Poetry Festival. This alternative fiesta in Cuba resurfaced yesterday with a fair of diverse projects. A hundred people gathered at the site of Estado de SATS and erected various exhibition spaces that ranged from music making to activism for racial integration. It was POSSIBLE to visit the work of the Civic Libraries, the brand new “Journal of Plural Thinking” from the city of Santa Clara, and the young DJs of “18A16 Productions.” THERE WAS ALSO OUR BOOTH under the name “Technology and Freedom,” offering a sample of the work of the bloggers, independent journalists and Twitterers.”
SO the team “yoani” sent their local traitors and terrorists out on the street, and they did
NOT
even get harrassed, let alone arrested.
Funny that!!!
Diciembre 13th, 2012 at 05:51
So, team “yoani”, let us have a look at your lates revelations of your lies:
“Lately my days are like weeks concentrated into twenty-four hours. I have Wednesdays that come one after another, Saturdays full of work and Mondays on which nothing seems to start, it all just continues. Sometimes I combine the most incredible events in a single day: sublime or mundane; extraordinary or tedious.”
So your domestic traitor and terrorist in waiting is havbing the days filled with activities. Saturdays “full of work”, yet, if we look at the last few Saturdays, they seem to be littered with never-ending tweets about nothing. How is that possible, if the domestic traitor and terroist in waiting is “working all day”, according to you?
Sending messages from her telephone that she was looking greedily at in the hands of that spanish journalist two years ago (is that where she got it? Stole it from that poor woman, in the best capitalist cuban-criminal tradition?), while working on Saturdays which are “full of work”?
And you want someone to believe all this shift?
Delusional.
Diciembre 12th, 2012 at 23:25
Interesting report this evening on CNN’s AC360 about the horrors of Camp 14 in North Korea and an escapee from that camp. If I understand correctly, the motivation for showing the report tonight was to counterbalance the success North Korea had in launching a satellite. I applaud the report and the exposé. But why doesn’t CNN report on the constant, meticulous and ongoing repression in Cuba? This year in Cuba there were thousands of temporary detentions, arrests, beatings, suppression of independent journalism and a predictable roundup of dissidents on the eve of International Human Rights Day. All at the hands of state security. Why the selective reporting?
Diciembre 12th, 2012 at 21:43
The Castroit tyranny, which is a member of United Nations Human Rights, celebrated Human Rights Day with the detention of more than 100 dissidents and put about another 150 under house arrest in an island-wide crackdown to block any gatherings of activists celebrating Human Rights Day. The oppression in the island of Dr. Castro is vast and wide. Long Live Human Rights!
Diciembre 12th, 2012 at 13:37
The Man said: “Humberto if you are to hi-jack content maybe go for the Cuban Act on which the embargo is PART of but not just…”
The Man! THAT’S YOU JOB DEAR, NOT MINE! DONT BE GETTING LAZY ON ME T.M.!! OK!!
Diciembre 12th, 2012 at 13:35
The Man said: “how come then you have so many unemployed in the US???”
BAD OLD U.S.A.! BAD OLD U.S.A.! HOW DO YOU LIKE MY IMPRESSION OF YOU The Man!! PRETTY GOOD!
Diciembre 12th, 2012 at 09:27
Yes, _man_ no country respects the HRD completely.
Yes, Humberto posts any news linked to Cuba, even pro-Castro stuff.
So why don’t you be as impartial and search for some anti-Castro stuff to post for a change.
Your BBC only creates pro-Castro propaganda. If they didn’t, they’d be booted out of Cuba in a London minute. And I know as a fact that one BBC reporter has worked as a spy for Castro, reporting on dissidents for the secret police. Strange type of impartiality.
Diciembre 12th, 2012 at 09:01
Humberto if you are to hi-jack content maybe go for the Cuban Act on which the embargo is PART of but not just… get that and print it here so we can debate your country doing war on a small nation!… a war monger you are and that is the new tune I got from the underground!! happy now?
Diciembre 12th, 2012 at 08:57
Humberto posted that link below… stop hi-jacking content this is what your likes do so well… the doc showed a society very very different that your ramblings here! more closer to what most of us know and are saying that Cuba is!!!…
similar with Help your kind is practically at war with Cuba and has been since the 50… so your bias is evident.. let other people more balanced speak! not your war propaganda!
Diciembre 12th, 2012 at 08:55
Got you there too @22… everyone has? how come then you have so many unemployed in the US??? if every it is a human right then it is denied… and feels denied when you need a job any job!… nor it is granted to migrants or asylum seekers!… So it is not worth the paper it is printed on as proven!
secondly the BBC doesn’t do propaganda more than you do ! it affords to be impartial in a middle-class sort of way… I believe that media should be partial to truth not impartial about abuse….
And since I am here… your clique is practically at war with Cuba since the embargo in the 50s and you should sit down and not talk … let people who are less biased talk not once who wage war as you are !!! can you do that little big warrior??
Diciembre 12th, 2012 at 08:46
the _man comes around_ writes about the HRD:
“And by the way the right to work doesn’t appear any where in that declaration!”
Actually the HRD says:
Article 23.1: “Everyone has the right to work…”
Try reading the documents you quote, you might learn something.
As for some lame pro-Castro propaganda you’re linking to, sorry I can’t be bothered but I’ve seen it all, it is all lies and it gets very repetitive after the first thousand times.
You should take Humberto’s advice and sell your Anti-Capitalist Mambo on Itunes, there’s a big market for anti-capitalist ditties among youthful lovers of capitalism.
Diciembre 12th, 2012 at 08:29
HEY The Man! HERE IS SOMETHING FROM YOUR NECK OF THE WOODS!! CRACKERS, CRACKERS! JE JE JE!
THE GUARDIAN UK: TV review: Cuba with Simon Reeve; Inside Guinness World Records - Getting a Cuban to say anything remotely critical – or even mildly speculative – on camera is all but impossible - Tim Dowling
There are two basic stories to tell about Cuba: one is of a socialist paradise with cool cars, lovely, crumbly buildings and a 99.8% literacy rate; the other is about a savagely repressive totalitarian state with a failed economy, beset by corruption, poverty and fear.
Of course neither story is true, at least not on its own. In Cuba (BBC2), presenter Simon Reeve attempted to rationalise these two versions by talking to ordinary Cubans at the forefront of the nation’s first cautious steps towards capitalism, but it wasn’t easy. Getting a Cuban to say anything remotely critical – or even mildly speculative – on camera is all but impossible. Fear of dissent runs deep. You’d have as much luck trying to get a North Korean to complain about the lack of bike racks in downtown Pyongyang.
So if Reeve asks a prima ballerina what she thinks of free ballet school, she’ll say it’s great. And if you ask the owner of a new private B&B what it’s like to be able to run your own business at last, he’ll say it’s great. Would he care to elaborate on that? No, he’s good thanks. One of his cleaners, asked about the changes, says: “Now we can do as much work as we want. It’s good for us and for the state! We are happy.” She probably is quite happy, but maybe also regretting having got herself into a position where she found herself answering questions. Even Reeve was fairly circumspect; most of his critical statements were reserved for the voiceover.
There remained, however, enough in the way of contradiction to point up absurdities inherent in both communism and capitalism, especially when you inject a strong dose of one into the bloodstream of the other. There was Jesus, owner of a private business which basically amounted to him selling plumbing supplies in the road. He’s a natural and ambitious salesman and seems thrilled with the profit motive so far. It’s a simple feel-good story that gets slightly muddied when you hear that he’s also an A&E doctor, a job that normally pays about ÂŁ15 a month.
Sergio has opened up a restaurant in his own house. Pachanga, a bog-standard pizza-and-burger joint branded with “a cartoon character made of ketchup and mustard” has quickly become one of Havana’s hottest nightspots. It even has a VIP area, where Cuban TV stars can eat pizza in Sergio’s former bedroom.
A one-hour documentary was only ever going to scratch Cuba’s surface. There was only brief mention of the punitive US trade embargo, a testament, if nothing else, to America’s tenacity when it comes to pursuing failed policies. The embargo was meant to topple Castro’s regime in short order, and it has now not been working continuously, for 50 years. Given the limitations, Reeve and producer/director Tom McCarthy were wise to stick with ordinary Cubans, who come across as resourceful and uncomplaining, bearing in mind that complaining isn’t really allowed. Taken together each little portrait added up to a picture of a country on the verge of great change. Reeve goes so far as to suggest this was his last chance to see Castro’s Cuba. Perhaps, but one could also argue that Cuba has been living on the verge of change for decades.
CLICK LINK FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-a.....eve-review
Diciembre 12th, 2012 at 08:07
WILL ABREVIATE TO “CRACKERS”!! JE JE JE!
REUTERS: Cuba says U.S. climbs to 5th leading trade partner-HAVANA | Thu Aug 14, 2008
(Reuters) - The United States ranked among communist Cuba’s top five trading partners for the first time in 2007 despite the decades-old U.S. trade embargo, as U.S. agriculture sales increased by $100 million. Trade data for 2007 posted on the Web site of Cuba’s National Statistics Office placed the United States fifth at $582 million, compared with $484 million in 2006, including shipping costs.
The United States, which began selling food to Cuba in 2002 under an amendment to the embargo, placed seventh in 2006 and 2005.
http://www.reuters.com/article.....7620080814
Diciembre 12th, 2012 at 08:06
EMBARGO? WHAT EMBARGO! IT HAS SUCH HUGE HOLES THAT EVEN FIDEL CASTRO’S EGO COULD EASILY PASS THRU IT! DATA FROM CUBA’S OWN WEB SITE! POLLY WANTS A CRACKER, POLLY WANTS A CRACKER! JE JE JE!
SECTOR EXTERNO / EXTERNAL SECTOR - 8.4 - Intercambio comercial de mercancĂas por paĂses seleccionados y áreas geográficas (ConclusiĂłn) Trade in goods in selected countries and geographical areas (Conclusion)
Estados Unidos de América (USA)
2004 = $443,900,000
2005 = $476,311,000
2006 = $483,591,000
2007 = $581,657,000
2008 = $962,767,000
2009 = $675,420,000
http://www.one.cu/aec2009/esp/08_tabla_cuadro.htm
Diciembre 12th, 2012 at 08:05
The Man!! CAN YOU SPLAIN THESE NUMBERS AS IT RELATES TO THE “the punitive US trade embargo” DEAR? IM SUCH A DUNCE AND A PARROT!! POLLY WANTS A CRACKER, POLLY WANTS A CRACKER!! JE JE JE!
U.S.-CUBA TRADE AND ECONOMIC COUNCIL, INC.
ECONOMIC EYE ON CUBA- February 2012 - Report For Calendar Year 2011
2011-2001 U.S. EXPORT STATISTICS FOR CUBA
The following is the data for exports from the United States to the Republic of Cuba relating to the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act (TSRA) of 2000, which re-authorized the direct commercial (on a cash basis) export of food products (including branded food products) and agricultural products (commodities) from the United States to the Republic of Cuba, irrespective of purpose. The TSRA does not include healthcare products, which remain authorized by the Cuban Democracy Act (CDA) of 1992.
The data represents the U.S. Dollar value of product exported from the United States to the Republic of Cuba under the auspice of TSRA. The data does not include transportation charges, bank charges, or other costs associated with exports from the United States to the Republic of Cuba. The government of the Republic of Cuba reports data that, according to the government of the Republic of Cuba, includes transportation charges, bank charges, and other costs. However, the government of the Republic of Cuba has not provided verifiable data. The use of trade data reported by the government of the Republic of Cuba is suspect. The government of the Republic of Cuba has been asked to provide verifiable data, but has not.
CLICK LINK FOR ENTIRE REPORT!
http://www.cubatrade.org/CubaExportStats.pdf
Diciembre 12th, 2012 at 08:02
THE “TIMBIRICHE” (kiosk ) ECONOMY WITH LIMITED CONTROL WILL BE THE ANSWER TO ALL OF CUBA’S ECONOMIC PROBLEMS! THE CASTROFASCISTS KNOW BETTER YOU KNOW! POLLY WANTS A CRACKER, POLLY WANTS A CRACKER!! JE JE JE~
N.Y. TIMES: Co-op Laws in Cuba Are Seen as Progress - By DAMIEN CAVE
MEXICO CITY — The Cuban government authorized a wide range of co-ops on Tuesday, allowing workers to collectively open new businesses or take over existing state-run businesses in construction, transportation and other industries.
The new laws published Tuesday are the latest step in a slow, fitful process of opening Cuba’s economy to free-market ideas. The latest announcement calls for the creation of more than 200 co-ops as part of a pilot program. If it grows, analysts said, the experiment could do more for economic growth and productivity than earlier efforts to allow for self-employment, or to reform agriculture.
For some Cubans, the new laws will just legalize what is already going on in the black market. But the government also seemed interested in encouraging consolidation among small entrepreneurs. The new laws call for lower tax rates for co-ops than for self-employed workers. That means barbers or fishermen or carpenters who now work as individuals will have an incentive to join co-ops, companies in which each worker has a vote.
The co-ops “will not be administratively subordinated to any state entity,” the government said in a summary of the laws in Granma, the state-run newspaper. But the government will play a large role in determining who gets the chance to open businesses. Workers seeking to start co-ops must submit applications that go to local government offices that pass them up to the Council of Ministers, which includes President Raúl Castro, for approval.
I is not yet clear whether higher-skilled professionals, like architects or doctors, will be able to form co-ops. Philip Peters, a Cuba expert at the Lexington Institute, a nonpartisan policy group, said that initially the co-ops would probably fill a gap in basic services, like transportation for farm products. He predicted co-ops would most likely reduce the likelihood of theft.
“People pilfer from the state; they don’t from a business in which they have a stake,” he said. But to fully reach the co-ops’ potential, he and other experts said, questions about the government’s interaction with them will need to be answered.
“They have not been liberated overnight from operating in the Cuban context,” said Professor Feinberg, who was an adviser to the Clinton administration. “How do they get credit? How do they get inputs? How are workers going to be properly trained? How will management be properly trained? These are all outstanding issues.”
CLICK LINK FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE!
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12.....gress.html
Diciembre 12th, 2012 at 07:32
The Man! YOU STILL WITH THAT BAD U.S.A. BROKEN RECORD? YOU SHOULD GO ON iTunes AND GET A NEW SONG DEAR!
Diciembre 12th, 2012 at 07:18
About MsY entry… it seem that Cuba is not only a vibrant place culturally but that culture has meaning and social function and serves a noble purpose and humane too.
A thing totally lost in the West where present culture has NO meaning but the meaning to be for its own sake that serves no true social purpose, but the kosher purpose to ‘entertain’ us…
You can but wonder how a loss of meaning and function associated with culture under oppression would be faced by MsY when her words would have to offer no sense of direction yet be perfectly polished - as is the case with many jurnos in the Western media… when all the lines between professional conduct and a cause worth fighting for would be so blurred that being reminded by your editor you are a professional would matter more than speaking the truth which might affect ‘advertisers’ or standing for what one feels is true… …
The freedom we know NOW is the freedom to have NO true culture that is meaningful but a culture we cannot escape in how mercantile, consumerist and expensively done in using more resources than it’s value in gold, this ‘freedom’ permits… Culture is a market an industry not in pursuit of truth but of profit, beyond even a game of power.
Strange to the level it is uncanny how in dictatorship what you think and say matters or you feel it could make a difference and it does in deed, in how you are scared even to hear your voice or to do ’samizdat’… and when supposed ‘normality’ is restored, your voice what you have to say doesn’t matter doesn’t even dent the drive to profit from one another in society that we wrap in skill and professionalism regardless what we believe in that we sacrifice!… Capitalism seem to make it’s implicit mission in pursuit of profit to kill any true individual culture, while dictatorship restores how precious the word how precious speaking is and how powerful it can be - more than any technology!
Diciembre 12th, 2012 at 05:48
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-a.....eve-review
Diciembre 12th, 2012 at 05:47
http://channelhopping.onthebox.....interview/
Diciembre 12th, 2012 at 05:47
“A one-hour documentary was only ever going to scratch Cuba’s surface. There was only brief mention of the punitive US trade embargo, a testament, if nothing else, to America’s tenacity when it comes to pursuing failed policies. The embargo was meant to topple Castro’s regime in short order, and it has now not been working continuously, for 50 years. Given the limitations, Reeve and producer/director Tom McCarthy were wise to stick with ordinary Cubans, who come across as resourceful and uncomplaining, bearing in mind that complaining isn’t really allowed. Taken together each little portrait added up to a picture of a country on the verge of great change. Reeve goes so far as to suggest this was his last chance to see Castro’s Cuba. Perhaps, but one could also argue that Cuba has been living on the verge of change for decades.”
“How much do Cubans know about the outside world, comparably to other one party or autocratic states you’ve visited?
They’re pretty clued-up. The Cuban education system isn’t the best in the world, but it’s nothing like as bad as in other one party societies, or in many other countries in the Americas the state media in Cuba is good at letting Cubans know about the rest of the world, but obviously they focus on examples of where capitalist societies are getting it wrong.
I’ve met a few Cubans who think that a vast army of the suffering poor are freezing to death in the UK
With more American-Cubans returning as restrictions are relaxed, do you think that Cuba will suffer similar problems to other countries that have had to re-unite divided peoples such Germany?
I think the greater concern would be that if restrictions were lifted, Cubans would try to emigrate out of Cuba many of them dream of a better life abroad, particularly in the USA, ironically enough. but I can’t see the us opening its borders.”
Diciembre 12th, 2012 at 05:45
sandoKAKAn @9 … same in the UK if you are an asylum seeker, the declaration of human rights doesn’t count for much - maybe a bit more than in Cuba but they don’t let you use it in court or anywhere as proof you should be granted status!!… most rights by law are discretionary meaning a Russian oligarch was likely to get asylum (and he did) but a raped woman from Bosnia was sent home cos ‘the war is over’ and she was sent!… it is on the merit of every case apparently but more likely if you have money you will get it! SO the human rights in the HRD are not un-alienable as every migrant in limbo that lives in the USA would tell you!… your rights are the discretion of the people who rule!
Now at Guantanamo I bet they asked the prisoner there to eat the HRD… between two boards!
Most of the times the HRD is not worth the paper it is printed on… it takes more to enforce than a print and it takes the Western middle-classes who run the show in Western gov to drop their hypocrisy and pretend that since we have it in print… it means something!… it means more than in Cuba… but for very lucky few!
And by the way the right to work doesn’t appear any where in that declaration!
Diciembre 12th, 2012 at 05:35
yhaaa2 without the movie but… gagman-Humberto style
http://channelhopping.onthebox.....interview/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-a.....eve-review
“A one-hour documentary was only ever going to scratch Cuba’s surface. There was only brief mention of the punitive US trade embargo, a testament, if nothing else, to America’s tenacity when it comes to pursuing failed policies. The embargo was meant to topple Castro’s regime in short order, and it has now not been working continuously, for 50 years. Given the limitations, Reeve and producer/director Tom McCarthy were wise to stick with ordinary Cubans, who come across as resourceful and uncomplaining, bearing in mind that complaining isn’t really allowed. Taken together each little portrait added up to a picture of a country on the verge of great change. Reeve goes so far as to suggest this was his last chance to see Castro’s Cuba. Perhaps, but one could also argue that Cuba has been living on the verge of change for decades.”
“How much do Cubans know about the outside world, comparably to other one party or autocratic states you’ve visited?
They’re pretty clued-up. The Cuban education system isn’t the best in the world, but it’s nothing like as bad as in other one party societies, or in many other countries in the Americas the state media in Cuba is good at letting Cubans know about the rest of the world, but obviously they focus on examples of where capitalist societies are getting it wrong.
I’ve met a few Cubans who think that a vast army of the suffering poor are freezing to death in the UK
With more American-Cubans returning as restrictions are relaxed, do you think that Cuba will suffer similar problems to other countries that have had to re-unite divided peoples such Germany?
I think the greater concern would be that if restrictions were lifted, Cubans would try to emigrate out of Cuba many of them dream of a better life abroad, particularly in the USA, ironically enough. but I can’t see the us opening its borders.”
Diciembre 11th, 2012 at 23:01
Ironically the Castros’ regime, a member of United Nations Human Rights Council, doesn’t allow the distribution of copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, since it is considers “enemy propaganda.” Persons distributing copies are harassed and detained. The wolf guarding the sheep.
The regime law limits freedom of expression, association, assembly, movement, and the press. International human rights organizations accuse the Castros’ regimen of human rights abuses like arbitrary imprisonment, unfair trials, torture of political prisoners and extrajudicial executions. The Human Rights Council has specifically declined to consider these violations that routinely occur in Cuba.
Diciembre 11th, 2012 at 22:33
IN THE 1990’s AFTER THE SOVIET UNION COLLAPSED, THE CASTROFASCISTS MADE “SWEEPING” CHANGES!! ONLY TO RENGE AND GO BACK TO THEIR CONTROLLED CENTRALIZED PLANNING FOR THE ECONOMY! TYPICAL MAFIA BEHAVIOR!
REUTERS: Cuban state grudgingly cedes ground to business cooperatives
Communist-run Cuba legalized nonagricultural cooperatives on Tuesday as the state continued to pull back slowly from its centrally planned economy in favor of private initiative and market forces.The move was just the latest reform under President Raul Castro, who wants to transform the country’s Soviet-style command economy into one more in line with Asian Communism where political control remains absolute, while allowing more space for the private sector.Castro’s reform push began after he took over ruling the Caribbean island from his ailing brother, Fidel, in 2008. “The initial stage calls for the establishment of more than 200 associations of this kind (cooperatives) across the country, in sectors such as transportation, food services, fishing, personal and domestic services, recycling and construction and production of construction materials,” the Communist Party daily, Granma, said on Tuesday.
The newspaper said that the cooperatives would operate on an experimental basis through 2013, before becoming more generalized.
The new law, published in the Official Gaceta, allows for an unlimited number of members and use of contracted employees on a three-month basis.
Granma said the new law and regulations for the cooperatives took into account the experience of more than 1,000 private farming cooperatives established in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as a similar number of cooperatives that began leasing land from the state in the 1990s.
“Law and legitimacy go hand in hand: presumably, and with the future development of a serious wholesale market and access to credit, and a functioning transportation infrastructure, this new law will broaden economic opportunity across the board,” said Julia Sweig, a senior fellow on Latin America at the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations.
Cuban authorities began discussing more than two years ago how to transform bankrupt small and medium sized-state businesses - plagued by pilfering, embezzlement and general inefficiency - into cooperatives.
The Communist Party adopted a sweeping five-year plan to “update” the economy last year, which included moving more than 20 percent of the state labor force of 5 million people into a new “nonstate” sector of private and cooperative businesses.
CLICK LINK FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE!
http://www.reuters.com/article.....SZ20121211
Diciembre 11th, 2012 at 22:07
THE CASTROFASCISTS CANNOT SEE THAT THE WORLD COMMUNITY CAN SEE THAT THE ALAN GROSS CASE IS A CYNICAL ATTEMPT BY THE CASTRO OLIGARCHY MAFIA AT EXTORTION TO GET THE CUBAN 5 SPIES BACK! WONT WORK, TOO OBVIOUS!
MIAMI HERALD: US official: Gross detention limiting US-Cuba relations - Roberta Jacobson, the Obama administration’s point person for the Western Hemisphere, rejected any suggestion that Gross was spying in Cuba. - By Aaron L. Morrison
NEW YORK — There’s no chance for broadening American-Cuban relations until Cuba releases American subcontractor Alan Gross from prison, Roberta Jacobson, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs. said Tuesday.
During a presentation at the Council of the Americas in New York, Jacobson reiterated the State Department’s belief that the Cuban government has no basis for refusing to release Gross, but remains optimistic that the Cuban people’s desire for a more open society might influence a decision on his release.
“While we really wished that we could have moved forward with a broader agenda with the Cuban government, it is the Cuban government that has made that extremely difficult,” Jacobson said. “There is a very easy way to resolve that part of the agenda and that is to release Alan Gross… just to be home with his mother, who has cancer, and his daughter, who went through breast cancer last year.”
Jacobson’s remarks come just one week after the third anniversary of Gross’ arrest and imprisonment in Cuba. Gross, a 63-year-old native of Maryland, was arrested in Havana on Dec. 3, 2009, after delivering satellite telephones to Cuban Jews so they could access the Web outside of the government’s telecommunications system. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison for acts against the “independence or territorial integrity” of Cuba.
“We’ve been very clear about who Alan Gross is and what he did,” Jacobson said, rejecting a suggestion by a member of the audience that U.S. officials have misled about financing Gross’ visits with pro-democracy program funds. “We feel he needs to be treated as an international development worker. He isn’t and wasn’t a spy and he should be returned to his family.”
Jacobson also highlighted some of the Obama administration’s key priorities in the Western Hemisphere; including energy development, expanding educational exchange opportunities for students, and encouraging freedom of expression and the press.
http://www.miamiherald.com/201.....iting.html
Diciembre 11th, 2012 at 21:47
I LITERALLY PEED IN MY PANTS OF LAUGHTER WHEN I READ THIS STORY! THEN I GOT MAD AS HELL FOR ALL THESE CASTRO BOOTLICKERS FROM BERKELEY! SUCH BULL!
“Planting Seeds” participants acknowledged that this trip was geared toward interactions with high-end chefs, whose clientele is mostly foreigners and more affluent Cubans. But they said it’s just a first step. They hope that Cuban chefs newly inspired to go fresh will inspire imitators, starting a trickle-down effect that over the long term will reach into private homes.”
ABC NEWS: California Chefs Encourage Fresh Dining in Cuba - By By PETER ORSI
But a delegation of chefs from Alice Waters’ celebrated Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, California, is in Havana on a mission to spark a revolution in the Cuban diet by exposing islanders to healthier dishes with more fruits and vegetables, preferably grown organically and sustainably by local food cooperatives.
In the last week, members of the “Planting Seeds” delegation have held give-and-take seminars in Havana with chefs and culinary students about slow food. They also put on two massive dinners, including a five-course, five-star meal at the privately run Le Chansonnier, which drew culinary, artistic and influential leaders like President Raul Castro’s daughter, Mariela. A 100-person bash was held at a state-run restaurant for luminaries such as Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, California state Sen. Loni Hancock and senior Cuban officials who are in position to affect agricultural policy.
The California chefs toured nearby organic farms and marveled at the fresh, pesticide-free produce, which they stuffed into car trunks as the base foodstuffs for the dinners. And by dreaming up new uses for workaday ingredients, they gave their Cuban counterparts a lot to think about.
Luis Ramon Batlle, for one, has seen plenty of guava during his long cooking career, but never thought to combine it with rabbit-liver pate atop a crispy wafer.
After tasting the savory-sweet appetizer at the Chansonnier dinner, he’s considering adding it to the menu at his own privately run restaurant which opened last year in Havana.
“The cracker is practically neutral. The pate gives you all the classic flavor of liver, a little acidic. But at the end you sense the guava as a very subtle, very delicate touch,” said Batlle, who is head chef at Divino in Havana. “I loved it.”
“Planting Seeds” participants acknowledged that this trip was geared toward interactions with high-end chefs, whose clientele is mostly foreigners and more affluent Cubans.
CLICK LINK FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE!
http://abcnews.go.com/Internat.....Mfgk3drRRc
Diciembre 11th, 2012 at 21:22
I THINK WE SHOULD HAVE A LIKE OR NOT LIKE BUTTON HERE JUST FOR FUN!
Diciembre 11th, 2012 at 21:14
Poor little rodent man. Before you post a video link, make sure it can be viewed somewhere besides the UK. Probably the usual anti-capitalist drivel anyway.
Diciembre 11th, 2012 at 19:36
Yhaa
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/b.....imon_Reeve
Diciembre 11th, 2012 at 19:35
Well here you have it … And it is other saying it not me myself or I.. But then again it is not the CNN or FOX New…
In the words of Humberto, so an excellent program which actually shows how mixed up things are in Cuba.. And too that Cubans are not so unhappy as the Americans here think they are or wish to portray them. Aired recently… And yes it proves that it isnt just Castro the big neighbour is too!
Watch it http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/b.....imon_Reeve
Read http://channelhopping.onthebox.....interview/