Entries by Havana Live

Cuba needs a animal protection law !

HAVANA, Dec. 31th The Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology in the Ministry of Public Health estimates that there are over 200,000 street dogs in Cuba (in 2012), the majority located in Havana, Santiago de Cuba, Camaguey and Santa Clara. Dogs are most often turned out into the streets due to disease, pregnancy, or old age, […]

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Raul Castro Prepares Cuba for Tough 2016

HAVANA,Dec. 30th  (AP) President Raul Castro warned Cubans on Tuesday to prepare for tough economic conditions in 2016 despite warmer relations with the United States. Castro said that while tourism is booming, low oil prices have damaged the outlook of an economy that depends on billions of dollars of subsidized oil and cash from Venezuela. […]

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Cuba’s GDP growth slowing to 2% in 2016, down from 4%

HAVANA, Dec. 29th (REUTERS) Cuba has forecast economic growth at 2 percent in 2016, down from 4 percent this year but still favorable considering the world economy, Economy Minister Marino Murillo said on Tuesday. Murillo was addressing the year-end-session of the National Assembly, from which foreign journalists were barred. His comments were reported by official […]

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Havana Quinceanera Biz Booms

HAVANA, Dec. 29th (AP) Up a winding flight of stairs at a beachside Havana home, Camila Lopez Rivas lies on the tile floor, smiling mischievously into a video camera circling overhead. Tossed around her are layers of a blue and aqua taffeta dress, the first of nine outfits the 14-year-old will pose in, from colonial […]

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Cuba surpasses Three Million Tourists

HAVANA, Dec. 28th Tour operators around the globe are reporting high demand for travel to Cuba that hotel rooms in Havana are selling out months in advance, with some agencies unable to offer availability until April 2016. Meanwhile, Cuba’s National Bureau of Statistics and Information announced that the arrivals to the island surpassed three million […]

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Direct China-Havana air service begins

HAVANA, Dec. 27th The first direct flight between China and Cuba took off on Sunday from the international airport in Beijing for Havana, with state-owned carrier Air China aiming to promote Chinese tourism in Latin America and the Caribbean. The route is the first direct one linking China, the world’s second-largest economy, and the Caribbean, […]

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National Lyric Theater of Cuba Stages Carmen in Havana

HAVANA, Dec 26th  (PL) The National Lyric Theater of Cuba will stage the dramatic opera Carmen, based on the homonymous novel by the French writer Prosper Mérimée, at Havana”s Bertolt Bretch Cultural Center on Saturday and Sunday. Under the artistic direction of Roberto Chorens, the company, founded in Havana in 1962, will play a love […]

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French Chain Accor to Build Luxury Hotel in Havana

HAVANA, Dec 26th  The French hotel chain Accor will begin in 2016 the construction of the luxury hotel Sofitel So Havana at the intersection of Prado y Malecón, informed today the CEO of the group in Cuba, Eric Peyre. Considered the largest hotel group in Europe and Latin America, Accor Hotels expands its operations on […]

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Cuban tourism grows 17.6 pct through November

HAVANA, Dec. 21th  (ACN)  With its growing popularity as a tourist destination, Cuba is ending 2015 with an encouraging development of this sector, able to inject over two billion dollars a year into its economy. According to preliminary data, from January to November, 3,139,837 people traveled to the country, equivalent to a 17.6 percent growth […]

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Italian Airline Meridiana Starts Flights to Havana

HAVANA, Dec 21 (PL) The Italian airline Meridiana today launched its flights to Cuba to connect the cities of Havana and Verona, in code-sharing with Blue Panorama reported here the Ministry of Tourism (Mintur). According to what the source confirmed, this operation Verona-Havana-Cancun has a weekly frequency and responds to the growing interest in the […]

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MSC Cruises to Build $200 Million Private Island in the Bahamas

HAVANA, Dec. 21th (By Sarah Greaves-Gabbadon)  MSC Cruises has announced plans to develop its own private Caribbean island experience in the Bahamas. The company said it would be spending around $200 million on the project. Bahamian Prime Minister Perry Christie and MSC Cruises Executive Chairman Pierfrancesco Vago have signed a 100-year lease agreement for the 95-acre […]

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Silver Airways Plans a Return to Cuba

HAVANA, Dec. 20th (BUSINESS WIRE) Silver Airways, Florida’s largest intrastate airline, today announced its intention to resume nonstop service to Cuba in 2016. The company has a long history of providing charter flights to Cuba, and given the announcement of a new bilateral agreement between Cuba and the U.S., Silver plans to bring much needed […]

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Jazz Plaza International Festival kicks off in Havana

HAVANA, Dec 19th (ACN)  The expected 31st Jazz Plaza International Festival 2015 began on Thursday at Mella Theater with the presentation of maestro Ernán Lopez Nussa and his trio, along with The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, US group from New Orleans. Until December 20, the event will welcome performers and ensembles from a dozen countries, […]

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A A will apply for Miami-to-Cuba flights

HAVANA, Dec. 18th  With the U.S. and Cuban officials reaching an agreement to allow regularly scheduled commercial flights between the two countries, American Airlines said it is ready to fly routes in 2016. The Fort Worth-based carrier has operated charter service to Cuba since 1991 and plans to apply for the new commercial routes to […]

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US – Cuba reach flight deal to allow 110 flights a day

HAVANA, Dec. 17th (AP)  The United States and Cuba have struck a deal to allow as many as 110 regular airline flights a day, jumpstarting economic relations that have languished despite a year of rapid progress on the diplomatic front, U.S. and Cuban officials said Thursday on the anniversary of detente between the Cold War […]

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The hottest night out in Havana

HAVANA, Dec.16th  Forget the Copacabana, forget the Tropicana — the hottest spot in Havana now is a former peanut oil factory turned art house. Fábrica de Arte Cubano is more than just a place to drink and dance the night away. It’s a premier cultural institution, hosting art installations, film festivals, and theater performances. Fábrica […]

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Exploring the underground real estate market in Havana

Eager to own a piece of their native homeland, Cuban Americans are placing their bets on the island’s underground foreign real estate market. HAVANA, Dec. 16th  It is still illegal — according to both U.S. and Cuban law — for Americans to purchase property in Cuba, but that hasn’t stopped some from trying. Their window […]

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U.S. hopes to conclude Cuba aviation talks ‘very, very soon’

HAVANA, Dec. 16th (Reuters)  The United States hopes to conclude aviation talks with Cuba about the resumption of scheduled commercial airline flights “very, very soon,” a senior U.S. State Department official said on Tuesday. The official was speaking ahead of Thursday’s one-year anniversary of the United States and Cuba’s agreement after 18 months of secret talks […]

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Producers of Game of Thrones in Havana

HAVANA, Dec 15th It happened late at night, in one of Havana’s most popular private cultural centers. When an image of Our Lady of Charity next to the Cuban Art Factory (FAC) is illuminated, one can assume that the evening has just started. Few realized when the group of U.S. film producers, screen writers and directors slipped […]

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One year later in U.S.-Cuba relations

HAVANA,.Dec. 15th  President Obama and Cuban PresidentRaúl Castro shocked the world one year ago Thursday when they announced the United States and Cuba would end more than a half century of enmity and start normalizing relations. That date, Dec. 17, has now become etched into the minds of Cubans as a turning point in their history. Much has […]

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Behind the scenes of a fashion shot in Havana

HAVANA, Dec. 15th A couple months ago on the heels of Photo Plus in New York, a good friend of mine Clay Cook went to Cuba on a mission to capture images for a 20 page fashion editorial. When I spoke to Clay about the impending project back in October, he explained that Havana is […]

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Teen birth rate rises in Cuba

HAVANA, Dec.14th (EFE)  Pregnancy among teenagers has increased in Cuba, where in 2014 the birth rate in young females under 20 was 51.6 for every 1,000 women in this age group, more than 15 percent of the total births in the country, state media reported. Girls having sexual relations at an ever earlier age – […]

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Obama: I want to go to Cuba in 2016

HAVANA,Dec.14th President Obama promised in an exclusive interview with Yahoo News that he “very much” hopes to visit Cuba during his last year in office, but only if he can meet with pro-Democracy dissidents there. “If I go on a visit, then part of the deal is that I get to talk to everybody,” Obama […]

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Rare Aston Martin found in a shed near Havana

One of our first thoughts, as car lovers, when Cuba resumed diplomatic relationships with the US was: “what will happen to the cars?” It’s a well-known fact that Cuba is like a time-capsule for classic American cars, built prior to 1959. HAVANA, Dec. 12th Sure, most of them don’t have the original engines and have […]

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