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CUBA POLITICS SECTION - Havana Journal > Castro's Cuba
By PAUL HAVEN | Associated Press
Cuba has cut two staple foods from the monthly ration books that most islanders depend on, edging closer to a risky full elimination of the decades-old subsidies.
Potatoes and peas were dropped from the list of rationed foods this week, meaning Cubans can buy as much of the products as they want _ as long as they are willing to pay as much as 20 times more than they used to.
The move comes amid efforts by Raul Castro’s government to scale back Cuba’s subsidy-rich, cash-poor economy. Nearly free lunches were eliminated from…
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Rob Sequin | Havana Journal
The Spanish Foreign Minister recently visited Cuba and we found several news stories coming out after the visit so I thought we’d sum it up…
Raul says he’s committed to economic reform . It appears that one of the reasons the Foreign Minister went to Cuba is in order to get $450 million dollars in back payments owed to Spanish businesses from the Cuban government. (Glad to see that Raul is committed to economic reform. Right. Honoring debt obligations would be economic reform for Cuba.)
The…
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By WILL WEISSERT | Associated Press Writer
UNITED NATIONS – Cuba adopted a moderately conciliatory tone toward the U.S. at the United Nations General Assembly on Monday, saying it is ready to normalize relations and, until then, wants to work with Washington to fight drug and people smuggling, protect the environment and cope with natural disasters.
Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said Cuba had approached the American government with “a set of essential topics” it considers imperative to improving bilateral ties, including doing away with the so-called “wet-foot, dry-foot” immigration policy, which allows nearly all Cubans who reach U.S. soil…
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ChinaDaily.com
Visiting Chinese top legislator Wu Bangguo on Thursday visited Fidel Castro, first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, in Havana, a source with the Chinese National People’s Congress (NPC) confirmed.
The two leaders had a two-hour conversation in a sincere and friendly atmosphere on bilateral relations and other issues of common concern, the source added.
Wu, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), spoke highly of the China-Cuba relationship, according to a NPC press release.
Bilateral relationship between China and Cuba is at its best time in history, Wu said,…
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By Marc Frank | Reuters
An official Cuban newspaper on Sunday published a photograph of 83-year-old former President Fidel Castro apparently in good health and meeting visiting Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa.
The photograph of Castro, covering most of the front page of the Juventud Rebelde newspaper, showed a fit-looking Castro standing and wearing a white, short-sleeved shirt in his meeting with Correa, who began a private visit to Cuba a few days ago.
Castro, the leader of Cuba’s 1959 revolution that brought Communism to the Caribbean island, has remained out of public view for the…
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Rob Sequin | Havana Journal
There are several things that are making me wonder if Fidel Castro is dead… for real this time.
Perhaps the Cuban government is preparing the world for the death of Fidel Castro.
Here are several items, taken collectively can make one wonder about the health of Fidel Castro.
1. Fidel Castro not seen alive since June
2. No recent “Reflections”
3. No comments on Raul’s Presidency.
4. Release of healthy photos of Fidel.
5. No mention of Fidel’s birthday today.
Fidel Castro not seen alive since June…
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Brian Latell
The top Cuban leadership today resembles nothing as much as the doddering gerontocracy that governed the Soviet Union in the first half of the 1980’s, that is, until the reformer Mikhail Gorbachev’s ascension in March 1985. In quick succession the rheumy Leonid Brezhnev was briefly succeeded by Yuri Andropov, and then Constantine Chernenko, all three by then in their seventies, infirm and incapable of leading their fading empire out of its terminal dysfunction.
Cuba’s leadership today may be inherently even more unstable. The Castro brothers’ unpredictable tag-team performance this year has created greater uncertainty in the nomenclatura than…
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Rob Sequin | Havana Journal
Fidel has not been out in public since July 2006 (with the exception one report of people seeing him going for a walk in May).
Since Fidel does not have to answer to anyone and since there is no independent media in Cuba, his death can most likely be covered up for an indefinite period. So, I decided to start this post and keep it updated with the last date that someone outside of the Cuban government states that they met with Fidel Castro.
Fidel Castro supposedly writes his more…
By: WILL WEISSERT | Associated Press
Raul Castro dismissed Barack Obama’s policy changes toward Cuba as “achieving only the minimum,” and said Wednesday that it is up to the U.S. — not Cuba — to do more to improve relations.
The Cuban president suggested the communist government is not willing to appease Washington by embracing small political and social reforms on the island, saying in a speech before an international gathering of government ministers that “it is not Cuba who has to make gestures.”
The Obama administration has allowed unlimited travel and money transfers for Americans with family in this…
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AP
Cuba’s government has dropped its refusal to let a prominent physician visit her family abroad, Argentina’s government announced Friday. The measure resolves one of the few disputes between the two countries.
President Cristina Fernandez announced that Cuban officials told her that Dr. Hilda Molina had been given permission to leave Cuba for Argentina and she expressed “much satisfaction” at the decision.
Her left-leaning administration has had warm relations with communist Cuba.
Argentine news media has given extensive attention to Molina’s struggle to see the grandchildren who were born to her son and her Argentine daughter-in-law after they left Cuba…
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