On Tuesday night, journalists from Havana’s radio station COCO brought surprising news to all baseball aficionados, particularly those in the Cuban capital. Construction delays and an earlier start date for the upcoming baseball season may force Industriales to play temporarily at an alternative venue.
Read MorePractically everyone has heard about the new regulation at Havana’s Jose Marti International Airport which forbids those who accompany travelers to the airport from entering the premises. The fact of the matter is that the airport director himself arrogantly gave statements to the newspapers to “explain” the unpopular measure.
Read MoreMy friend Erasmo Calzadilla is worried by what he perceives to be the frightening spread of oncological conditions in Cuba. I would like to add a number of comments that could help clarify the ideas he addressed.
Read MoreWith the triumphalism that characterizes the Cuban press, the official newspaper Juventud Rebelde recently published the partial results of the census conducted in our country last year. The title of the article and a handful of tables showing statistical averages hope to convince the reader that Cuba is experiencing a marvelous reform process and that citizen wellbeing and prosperity are beginning to flourish.
Read MoreTo directly confront the government official that holds the solution to your specific problem is not a very good idea.
Read MoreThe formal price of a ticket on the urban buses is 40 cents (of a peso), in the so-called national currency. Given the equivalent in US money – about 2 cents – this price may seem infinitesimally small, until you also look at the dollar value of what a Cuban worker receives as a salary: about 20 dollars monthly.
Read MoreIn the years immediately following the triumph of the Cuban Revolution (in January 1959), the island’s trade union leadership undertook to do away with the strike as a mechanism for asserting worker demands. The Cuban Workers’ Federation (CTC) was absorbed by the State apparatus.
Read MoreDuring a recent airing of the radio program Tribuna Deportiva (“Sports Tribune”), well-placed journalist Reinaldo Taladrid announced that a professional sports system for Cuban athletes will be created in the country.´Cuba’s National Sports, Physical Education and Recreation Institute (INDER), responsible for managing all sporting activities on the island, is being restructured as part of the reform process which the whole of Cuban society is being subjected to today.
Read MoreIt seems to have become something of a habit: every year, at around this time in the summer, I head over to Havana’s Otto Parellada club, where my son, Rogelio Jr., and I enjoy a good swim at the coast. Then, ingrate that I am, I write some harsh criticisms about the place.
Read MoreIt took me a while, but I’ve finally finished my notes on the bill for the new Labor Law they’ll soon be forcing on Cubans. My impressions can be summed up with one word: yikes! As written, the bill is unconstitutional, discriminatory and downright deceitful. When you make a claim of this nature, of course, you have to be able to prove it.
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