Changes to improve the Cuban economy are not happening fast enough to satisfy people’s expectations, and instead appear to have got bogged down due to the international financial crisis and the island’s internal difficulties in overcoming the impact.
Read MoreA lack of coordination between four different Cuban state offices is the main cause for the stagnation in pork production in Havana, stated members of the Small Farmers Association (ANAP). A front page article in Granma, the Communist Party daily stated on Monday, “The farmers criticized the ‘diabolic’ mechanisms that hold back production in the capital.”
Read MoreIn an effort to put a break on the increase in convenience marriages, a way used by many Cubans to emigrate, the government of Ecuador will now require a temporary visa for foreigners wanting to marry in this South American country. The announcement came from Eduardo Barrera, director of Foreign Immigration. The number of Cubans marrying Ecuadorians increased from 88 in 2007 to 1,542 in the first nine months of 2009. An estimated that 15 percent of those marriages were considered false, reported IPS.
Read MoreThe Cuban government puts “no restrictions for foreign hotel chains, including from the United States, from administering a hotel” on the island, said tourism minister Manuel Marrero on Thursday. Nonetheless, the half century US economic blockade on Cuba forbids US companies from investing on the island.
Read MoreUS Senator Byron Dorgan says he will take such a bill to the Senate floor this summer and expects to get 60 of the 100 senators to vote for it. His statement came at a tourist industry conference of both Cuban and US executives in Cancun, Mexico on Thursday.
Read MoreThe demand is huge and it’s not so strange. Cuba must be the sole country in the world where aesthetic surgery is free. They can trim your eyelids, take off some of the belly, improve your profile with a beautiful nose or remodel women’s breasts. It’s not necessary to be very observant to see the changes on the street. It began as something exclusive to people in entertainment, but the fashion has now extended across the board.
Read MoreRepresentatives of the Cuban and U.S. tourist sector began talks Wednesday in the Mexican beach resort of Cancun to explore the potentials of a possible lifting of the U.S. travel to Cuba ban. The island’s authorities estimate that around 1.7 million tourists could arrive from the neighboring country each year if the current restrictions did not exist.
Read MoreThe Cuban authorities will relocate more than 40,000 persons who work indirectly in the agricultural sector, as well as eliminate around 100 state-run companies that are not profitable, announced Minister of Agriculture Ulises Rosales del Toro.
Read MoreThe head of the Cuban Civil Aeronautics Institute is to be replaced, announced the Council of State on Monday. Brigade General Ramon Martinez will take over for General Rogelio Acevedo, the current president of the Institute. Martinez is the second in command at the Air Force.
Read MoreIf these countries actually desire to use US Internet companies is another subject. In the case of Cuba, to date the island’s government has put it hopes on improving its Internet capacity and services via a fiber optic cable to be laid from Venezuela to Jamaica to Cuba.
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