Today is my day to buy gas. We don’t have a gas line coming into the house from the street, so I have to buy a “balita,” as we call the bullet-shaped tanks of gas here. Every two weeks I go to the supplier with my ration card, my mother’s ID, the receipt and the empty tank.
Read MoreTo get some perspective on the issues of tourism and prostitution in the fifties we should consider that somewhere between 200,000 and 250,000 tourists visited Cuba every year in the fifties, compared with well over two million for most of the first decade of the twenty-first century.
Read MoreIt appears that a romance with no future has been struck in Cuba between the party bureaucracy and military technocrats, who apparently started their maiden voyage with the most recent party congress (April 2011).
Read MoreWhen I began to write for Havana Times two years ago, I thought I was running the risk of being expelled from the university or being looked at poorly in my neighborhood the day I was discovered.
Read MoreAt the meeting in Cuba on combating corruption, a specialist explained to me that five elements influence corruption: a monopoly over any activity, the rules and discretion of officials, public access to information, accountability of leaders and society’s control over the government.
Read MoreToday we bring you installment number two of six excerpts from the Book “Cuba Since the Revolution of 1959: A Critical Assessment” by professor/author Samuel Farber. This excerpt is on Cuban workers and the government policies regarding labor.
Read MoreWe’re continuing with the same old thing: a small group on top that decides, and the great majority who carries it out — the essence of the bureaucratic system — when it should be completely the other way around.
Read MoreThere can be no taboo or de-prioritized subjects. Issues such as democracy and participation, social autonomy, systems of political representation, political pluralism, freedom, and so on are all as vital as economic performance.
Read MoreOdalis is a cute black woman, young and full of life, who lives in a comfortable house with her 15-year-old daughter who adores her. It could be said that this Cuban woman has everything to be happy, or almost everything – even a husband who says he loves her. If it weren’t for the screams and slaps that he frequently gives her, one might believe in his love.
Read MoreThe recent reform of the law that limited migration from the provinces to the capital seems a step in the right direction, though it still doesn’t completely respond to the spirit of the constitution entitling Cubans to live wherever they see fit.
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