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Twenty-six per cent of Cuban agriculture’s labor force is unproductive, a problem “that creates bureaucracy, increases costs, slows down productivity, creates disorder and prevents workers from improving their income,” reported IPS.

Sanchez, who publishes the blog Generation Y, is frequently cited by the US press as a leading dissident of the Cuban government and an expert on the difficulties of life on the island. She wrote on her blog that last Friday her, Pardo and Cadelo were briefly detained and warned against continuing their “counterrevolutionary” writing.

The Holy See did not receive an official reply to its request that the Catholic Church be given normal access to the media, made by the president of Vatican Council for Social Communications, Claudio Celli, during a working visit to Cuba.

Hurricane Ida caused heavy rains on Sunday and Monday in Cuba’s western province of Pinar del Rio. The local press reported on Tuesday that any losses to tobacco nurseries and vegetables from the rains were outweighed by the benefit of rising reservoirs. The region was suffering from one of the driest rainy seasons in years.

With Hurricane Ida moving deeper into the Gulf of Mexico, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) pulled the tropical storm warning that had been on Cuba’s westernmost Pinar del Rio province, in its 10:00 p.m. EST report. Nonetheless, the island’s civil defense authorities are still on guard.

The storm is now a Category Two hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale with winds of 100 mph (160 kph) as it skirts the Yucatan Peninsula on a course projected to take it north to the US Gulf Coast by Tuesday, where a hurricane watch is now in effect. A tropical storm warning remains for Cuba’s westernmost province of Pinar del Rio and a storm watch for the Isle of Youth.

Hurricane Ida begins to make its way into the Yucatan Channel and on into the Gulf of Mexico, with the storm passing closer to Mexico and further from Cuba. Cuban weather experts note that the storm could continue to gain in intensity and reach a category two hurricane status on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

The latest report from the Cuban Meteorological Institute (INSMET) as well as the projections of the National Hurricane Center (NSC) in Miami, show Tropical Storm Ida regaining hurricane status by late Saturday or early Sunday as it churns towards the Yucatan Channel. A tropical storm warning is in place for both the Yucatan and Cuba’s westernmost province of Pinar del Rio.

Tropical Storm Ida should cross the Yucatan Channel on Sunday morning, noted the Cuban Meteorological Institute (INSMET) in an advisory released Saturday at noon EST. The Institute warned that rains in western Cuba, which include the provinces of Pinar del Rio, Havana City, Havana Province and Matanzas, could receive between 3 and 9 inches of rain in the next 24 hours with some points up to 15 inches, especially in Pinar del Rio and the Isle of Youth.