News

Economy set to grow 1.9% in 2010

Cuba’s Gross Domestic Product will grow 1.9 in 2010, according to the state budget law approved by the National Assembly of People’s Power (parliament). According to official data, the island’s economy grew 1.4 per cent in 2009.

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Raul Castro Warns Opposition

Cuban President Raul Castro advised the United States and “the anti-patriots in their pay” (opposition members) to stop “the provocations of all types” in his speech to the National Assembly of People’s Power (parliament).

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Minister Signals Social Spending Cuts

Cuba’s Minister of Economy Marino Murillo announced in his speech to the Cuban parliament a reduction in “social spending since the economy can not withstand its substantial amounts.” “Experiments are being carried out and work is going on in others to lighten the burden for the state in some services provided.”

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Singer-songwriter Jorge Garcia Dies

Cuban singer-songwriter Jorge García died yesterday in the Cuban capital at the age of 50, announced sources close to his family. With a professional career of more than two decades, this artist linked since he was very young to the New Song Movement.

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No Hasty Decisions, says Castro

Cuban President Raul Castro affirmed at the end of the plenary session of the National Assembly of People’s Power (parliament) that “there can not be space for risks in improvisation and hastiness” in the “updating of the Cuban economic model.”

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Cuba Needs Employment & Social Measures

The bureaucratic apparatuses, interested in maintaining centralized control, will oppose the development of proposals for self-management, which would develop labor and social collectives to obtain their own resources. However, this would run counter to the general strategic line of the country’s leadership, which -still with its contradictions- is beginning to lean toward the decentralization of the control of resources and decisions.

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Cuba’s Chapman Close to Big Bucks

Cuban left-handed fast ball pitcher Aroldis Chapman is close to signing an eight-figure contract to pitch in the US Major Leagues. Chapman, 21, pitched for Holguin in the Cuban Baseball League and was a starter on the island’s team at the second World Baseball Classic last March. His fast ball has been tagged at 102 MPH and he has shown his stuff in workouts to over a dozen MLB teams.

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New Lab for US-Americas Policy

It’s increasingly clear that what has occurred in Honduras marks a setback – whatever might happen before January 27. Taking office on that date will be Porfirio Lobo Sosa, the right-wing winner of the dubious presidential elections that left this Central American country with almost no country in the world recognizing it.

Lobo Sosa will begin his term in the aftermath of the June 28 coup that turned the clock back on the consolidation of the democracy on the Latin American continent.

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Two Related Remembrances in Cuba

For years, deserved tributes have been made to those unjustly killed medical students who didn’t have a chance to defend themselves nor a way of preventing their murders. But the black members of the Abakua association did indeed have a choice. They had the option of not getting involved with the incident, of not challenging the colonial authorities – yet they decided to act.

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Cuba Poetry Fest On Despite Rebuff

The OMNI-Zona Franca poetry performance collective made its traditional pilgrimage on Thursday to the Sanctuary of San Lazaro, in the Havana suburb of El Rincon, during which time there were no reported attempts to interfere with or obstruct them. On December 11, the OMNI-Zona Franca collective was expelled from its headquarters in the Alamar Gallery under government order.

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