Cuba Business News and Information
Reuters
Cuban President Raul Castro has named United Nations Ambassador Rodrigo Malmierca to be Cuba’s minister of foreign investment, state-run television said on Wednesday.
Malmierca, a 52-year-old economist, will replace the current minister, Marta Lomas, according to the report, which did not say if Lomas would move to a new government post or why the change was made.
Cuba’s foreign investment minister oversees the joint venture projects the government conducts with foreign companies, as well as the operations of nongovernmental organizations working in the Communist-run island.
The change comes at a time when Cuba is facing economic challenges due to the global financial crisis and three hurricanes that inflicted nearly $10 billion in damages on the small Caribbean nation.
Malmierca was previously a vice minister in the same department.
The report did not say who will replace him as United Nations ambassador.
It was the second Cabinet change for Castro, who replaced his education minister after he was elected president in February, succeeding his ailing older brother Fidel Castro.
(Reporting by Esteban Israel; Editing by Jeff Franks)
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Too bad we’ll never know what happened. She can’t talk to the free press and since all press in Cuba is controlled by the State, we only read what they want us to read.
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Yes: I agree with the publisher, but I would like to know is what country does have a free press, that the goverment does not interfere with????
I guess that’s means you are saying the US interferes with US media? I hope this isn’t going to take us down the conspiracy route.
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Publisher: you merely have type in “press freedom index” this will
give you the standings for 173 countries, Iceland is no. 1 and Cuba is somewhere at the very bottom, I don’t see any conspiracy in this????
With Iceland being no.1 does not mean their goverment does not exert a little bit of control over the media???
I don’t think there’s a question that the U.S. does, in fact, interfere with the media. It’s pretty obvious if you’re willing to open your eyes. One perfect example is the Iraq war. How many mainstream media newspapers published the TRUTH—prior to the invasion—-that there were no WMD’s? There was much written about the nonexistence of WMD’s but you wouldn’t have known it by reading all the main newspapers who were only printing what they were told to print. This is not a conspiracy theory. This is fact, but I suppose it’s too ugly a reality so people rather forget how the government AND the media duped the entire country in one of the costliest wars ever.
and here we go with the conspiracy theory.
So, what did Bush send out hundreds of people to get word out to thousands of journalists around the world to NOT publish anything about the fact that there are NOT WMD in Iraq.
Senators signed on to the fact that WMDs were there so now the journalist are smarter than Senators yet DO NOT want to publish a story that would be anti-Bush.
Your argument about US government controlled US media falls apart fast.
What’s it like to hate the US so much? I mean really, you always complain about the US and love everything about Cuba.
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You’re generalizing again, Publisher. Not that I owe you an explanation, but I happen to love my country—YES, the USA—which is why I hold her to such higher standards. If you’re okay with America becoming a mediocre country, that’s your choice. And the media’s job is to look for the facts and report them, rather than aid Bush in lying to the American people about WMD’s. I don’t know how it was done. But I DO know that the truth about WMD’s did leak out in many ways, yet I’m supposed to believe that mainstream media was completely unable to find out the facts on their own? Try reading between the lines sometime—you’ll be surprised at what you can find. Why did the media keep a lid on the issue of WMD’s? And what happened to Joe Wilson and his wife when he dared to speak out and contradict Bush? Yet you’re saying that our media is the best in the world and prints nothing but the absolute truth. My words here are pointless because I think the truth speaks for itself
Renato Pérez Pizarro | Cuban Colada
Was Marta Lomas Morales dismissed for speaking out of order?
Rumors are circulating in Cuba that the Foreign Investments minister was removed from her post for commenting favorably about Barack Obama’s election before the Castro brothers and the top echelon of government could issue their judgments publicly.
The news agencies EFE and AFP collected some quotes from Lomas, expressed Nov. 5 while she attended the International Trade Fair in Havana.
“Of course I’m happy that Obama won,” the minister told foreign journalists, adding that “the people of the United States deserve [his victory]” because “it is a sign of the change those people need, the country needs.”
“If Obama takes some action, I would say, to soften the blockade, we welcome it. And of course it’s going to help us, but we are prepared for the conditions to remain the same,” she said. “We shall continue to work, continue to struggle. We have to continue to solve our own problems.”
Lomas’ appraisal was widely reported by the Spanish-language media overseas—though not in Cuba—and may have contributed to her unexplained ouster Nov. 12.
The official announcement said she was removed in response to “a proposal” from the Communist Party’s Political Bureau headed by Fidel and Raúl Castro.
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Sounds like this was probably Fidel’s decision to get rid of her.
Raul probably wouldn’t fire someone just for something stupid like this but Fidel would.
Shows to me that Raul is not really in charge.
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