Business & Economy

The United States Congress will not discuss in its last sessions of this year a bill that would have lifted the restrictions on travel to Cuba, said Democratic Senator Bill Delahunt. Starting January, the bill could face a definitive opposition in the new House of Representatives, dominated by the Republican Party, and in the Senate where the Democrats lost part of their majority.

The governments of Cuba and France resumed official cooperation, after more than seven years of rupture because of the imprisonment of dissidents on the island in 2003. Both countries will concentrate their collaboration in areas such as agriculture, health, the environment, scientific research, the teaching of French and culture.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Riabkov affirmed today in the Russian capital of Moscow that inter-parliamentary cooperation between his country and Cuba surpassed the simple stage of exchange of delegations. In the new stage of contacts by specific departments, the economic issue will have top-notch attention, Riabkov said.

The Cuban government eliminated restrictions and simplified the procedures for renting homes in order to facilitate self-employment and alleviate the housing deficit the country is facing, the official media commented today. A new regulation on the subject authorizes the renting of homes even for persons with Cuban nationality who have permits to reside abroad.

The Cuban authorities have received more than 80,000 applications for self-employment since the start of the reform begun by the government last October to expand the private sector on the island, announced the Ministry of Labour and Social Security. This opening hopes to absorb part of the 500,000 persons who will be jobless up to March 2011.

The urban and suburban agriculture programmes will be extended to 156 of the 169 municipalities of Cuba before the close of the year, said Adolfo Rodriguez, head of the National Group in charge of that initiative, which until now has 36,000 farms throughout the island. The Caribbean country’s authorities are promoting the local production of food to reduce imports, estimated at more than two billion dollars.

The Partagás cigar factory, located in the Cuban capital, donated 23,600 convertible pesos (around 29,000 dollars) to the country’s health system. The donation comes from its annual meeting, which on this occasion convened more than 400 specialists in the production and sale of this product as well as cigar aficionados from around a dozen countries.

The trial begun by Ana Margarita Martínez, ex wife of a Cuban spy, who is demanding 27 million dollars from the airlines that carry out charter flights to Cuba, will remain in a federal court due to the U.S. government’s interest in the case, Judge Federico A. Moreno announced. Washington and the affected companies agree that the result of this demand could paralyze flights to Cuba.

Cuban intellectual Alfredo Guevara, president of the New Latin American Film Festival, backed the process of shrinking the State’s role in Cuba and expressed his hope that the government will limit its functions and allow the development of society, in a press conference held in the island’s capital. The government of Raúl Castro has begun a series of economic reforms that should be deepened in 2011, after the holding of the 6th Congress of the Communist Party.