Havana and Washington signed an agreement today to start regular flights between the two countries. The authorization allows for up to 110 daily flights between different US states and Havana and 9 other destinations on the island.
Read MorePart three of our interview with agronomist/organic farmer Fernando Funes deals with prices in Cuba’s markets and the relationship between producers and consumers.
Read MorePart 2 of our interview with Fernando Funes, who, along with his wife Claudia Alvarez and employees, has transformed an infertile area of land into an agro-ecological paradise.
Read MoreThe Marta farm is located 20 km from Havana. The area was dominated by dry, compact, stone-filled earth covered by marabou brush so one had to be very foolish to think an environmentally-friendly and sustainable agriculture initiative could work there.
Read MoreCuba’s opposition seems tragically destined to cling to the skirts of the United States, in the hopes the latter’s strength will legitimate them in the eyes of their compatriots. It is a poor strategy that has earned them isolation at home, something even Washington has acknowledged.
Read MoreOne needn’t be an economist to imagine how complex the process of re-establishing a single currency monetary system is, but one also need not be an expert on the subject to understand the chaos that the existence of two currencies with four different exchange rates brings about. Thus, when government economists declare that establishing a single currency and exchange rate “isn’t easy,” they are merely stating what all Cubans already know. What the nation as a whole and foreign investors based in Cuba are interested in is the when.
Read MoreMauricio has a diploma in economics and is a graduate of the Hotel Sevilla catering school, but he hadn’t been able to practice his profession in Cuba. In 2003, his brother, who was already living in Spain, offered to help him leave the country. “I was working as a cabbie without a license, risking getting into trouble, so I decided the best thing was to leave.”
Read MoreEusebio Leal is officially the Havana City historian, but, in fact, he is much more than that – a kind of magician that turns ruins into palaces and abandoned tenements into housing. Through his efforts, Old Havana is slowly transformed into a “beautiful city,” a process that benefits the locals most of all.
Read MoreThese Cuban con artists are very good at what they do. They play in the big leagues, conning seasoned businesspeople. Some manage to “suckle at the teat” of these companies for as long as a year before the foreign investor realizes what’s going on.
Read MoreCuba’s liberalization process is so “open” it hasn’t even set up a consumer defense office to protect citizens. If someone wishes to complain, they must do so at the very company that scammed them.
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