News

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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New Cuba Currency, Not Yet

Martinez spoke to quash rumors on the island on an imminent change of local currency. Cuba currently has two national currencies in circulation the CUC, that equals US $1.25, and the CUP regular peso which is worth 5 cents of a US dollar. Most Cubans hope to see a single currency that is the same one that people earn with their salaries. At present they get paid in CUP but must purchase numerous basic consumer goods in the CUC hard currency.

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Cuba Wins Battle over Cohiba Brand

After 12 years of legal battling, a U.S. federal judge ruled in favor of the Cuban state-run Cubatabaco Company in its litigation against the U.S. General Cigar Company, which has commercialized the Cohiba brand since 1997 in the United States, reported IPS. Cubatabaco forms part of a joint venture between the island and Britain’s Imperial Tobacco.

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Tackling Cuba’s Food Service Blues

In a previous piece I wrote about the many tasks that a State gastronomy, or food service, worker has to perform in this country in order to carry out their job. This isn’t an isolated instance. The service and the quality of the products that are offered by the State food establishments leave much to be desired, although we should recognize that things have improved in relation to the decade of the nineties.

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