The Banque Nacionale de Paris (BNP Paribas), France’s largest banking institution, has closed its branch in Havana following an investigation undertaken by US authorities prompted by alleged transactions in violation of the commercial bans on Cuba, Iran and Sudan.
Read MoreThe costly backlog of more than 8000 tons of sugar, by mid-February impedes compliance and a successful completion of this year’s harvest, states a report in the official Granma daily.
Read MoreBesides their monthly quota of rice, sugar and a small amount of beans or chick peas, Havana residents also receive a monthly list of “protein products” with their ration booklet. Here is the official monthly distribution info for the period February 17-23.
Read MoreThe North Korean cargo ship “Chong Chon Gang”, released after paying a fine of $693,333 to the Panama Canal Authority, sailed today at 13:30 GMT from Colon City, in the Panamanian Caribbean, bound for Cuba.
Read MoreCuba announced a new and immediate suspension of its consular services in the United States for an indefinite period, faced with the “impossibility” of finding a bank to service the accounts of its diplomatic mission in Washington D.C.
Read MoreThis is the basic consumer basket of the average Cuban: five eggs and some pounds of rice (the kind that “gets sticky”, not cooked) every month, enough sugar to turn a regular glass of water into an emergency breakfast, one kilogram of table salt (with crystals the size of Ping-Pong balls) once every who knows how many months. Placing these product quantities on the same plane as monthly needs entails a complicated mathematical operation.
Read MoreA poll released today by the widely respected Atlantic Council in Washington DC found that a whopping 64% of respondents in Miami-Dade favor the US normalizing relations with Cuba, followed by 63% of Floridians and accompanied by 62% of Latinos and 56% of the national general public.
Read MoreCuba’s national baseball team is at a modern day low. Meanwhile, the economic reform process, referred to as “updating”, is leading the nation downhill rather than bringing about the expected benefits. Are these two phenomena unrelated? NO, our baseball performance reflects, in some manner, the country’s current situation. Let us look at a number of concrete episodes of our country’s history.
Read MoreAfter serving 2.5 years of his 9-year sentence for corruption, Canadian businessman Sarkis Yacoubian was suddenly released and is now back home in Toronto, reported AP. The release of Yacoubian has not been reported in the Cuban press.
Read MoreSchizophrenia is nothing new to Miami. But the recent uproar caused by a piece on Cuban American sugar tycoon Alfy Fanjul takes the cake. It also demonstrates what many have been saying for the past few years: the Cuba debate has pivoted towards one where even a stalwart of the past half century Cuba-thought now yearns to return to the island of his birth.
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