The Havana Club Company expects a recovery in its exports this year to reach the 3.6 million boxes of rum sold on the international market, after a three per cent decline in 2009 due to the economic crisis, said Marc Beuve-Mery, director of the association between Cuba Ron S.A. and the French group Pernod Ricard.
Read MoreThe European Union (EU) will not make radical changes to its policy toward Cuba when the foreign affairs representatives of the 27 meet next Monday, although a proposal could be drawn up to explore new options, diplomatic sources in Brussels predicted. Spain’s intention of eliminating the so-called Common Position and establish a new framework of bilateral relations is facing the opposition of countries such as Germany and the Czech Republic.
Read MoreCuba surpassed for the seventh consecutive year the figure of two million tourists, on this occasion 12 days before as compared to 2009, according to a Ministry of Tourism communiqué. This figure represents a three per cent growth in this sector, considered last decade as the locomotive of the Cuban economy.
Read MoreThe Cuban scientific community is seeking new varieties of agricultural products resistant to extreme conditions such as intense droughts and hurricanes, which could become more frequent due to climate change, Sergio Rodríguez, director of the National Institute of Research on Tropical Tubers, affirmed. According to the specialist, that institution has a world-renowned germ plasm bank
Read MoreThe Cuban government decided to cut spending on high-performance sports and concentrate on the mass practice of physical activity, as part of the reduction of expenditures in the state budget, José Ramón Fernández, president of the Cuban Olympic Committee, announced. Fernández recognized that for the island, an underdeveloped country blockaded by the United States, it is difficult to maintain the economic allotments required for high-level competitions.
Read MoreWhile the US State Department claims it is a top priority to achieve the release of Gross, the Castro government appears in no hurry to please Washington, which maintains a half century economic blockade on Cuba, stiffling its development.
Read MoreBaracoa, the first city founded in Cuba by the Spanish colonizers, has recovered 90.4 per cent of the homes affected by Hurricane Ike and the March 2008 coastal flooding, Alicia Licet Noa, director of the Housing Investment Municipal Unit, announced. The hurricanes that hit the country two years ago damaged more than 300,000 homes throughout the Caribbean island nation.
Read MoreThe Cuban government is determined to “do away with the opposition” by sending political prisoners and other dissidents to Spain, Laura Pollán, the spokeswoman for Ladies in White, a group of wives and relatives of those inmates, said. According to Pollán, the island’s authorities have started offering the possibility of leaving the country to other opposition members not linked to the 2003 trials.
Read MoreCuban authorities hope the upcoming 2010-2011 sugar harvest’s production will be similar to last year’s, the worse since 1905, Adrián Jiménez Fernández, deputy minister of that sector, affirmed. Thirty-nine sugar mills throughout the island, a former sugar exporting power, will be operating in this harvest, which will begin on December 1.
Read MoreThe big surprise was the absence of outfielder Frederich Cepeda, for several years the most consistent Cuban batter at international events who was on the tournament all-stars in Puerto Rico. No reason was given by the Cuban baseball authorities.
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