Movie review: ‘Papa: Hemingway in Cuba’

612HAVANA,April 27 Papa: Hemingway in Cuba holds the distinction of being the first Hollywood production to shoot on the island nation since 1959. But other film-makers looking to leave their mark need not fret, as there’s still an opportunity to make the first American film shot there since Fidel Castro came to power that isn’t a complete, mortifying embarrassment.

Papa is another biopic-through-the-lens of a young acolyte, similar to the recent debacle Nina, though this time its screenplay was written by the witness himself. Giovanni Ribisi is Ed Myers (name changed from the late Denne Bart Petitclerc), a newspaperman in Miami in the late 1950s. Abandoned by his father at a young age, as we’re told through lugubrious narration, he turned to the books of Ernest Hemingway while looking for a father figure.

He writes an impassioned note to Hemingway and one day he receives a phone call. “I got your letter. It’s a good letter,” Adrian Sparks’s Hemingway tells him, as if he didn’t see the parody of Hemingway in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris – or, worse, he did see it and used that as a guide. “You like to fish?”

With that, Ribisi is off to Cuba to dive for pearls of wisdom and mentorship. He gets that, but is also witness to Papa bickering with his put-upon fourth wife, Mary (Joely Richardson), as he violently rants about creative and sexual impotence. The bearded, larger-than-life writer is a raconteur at dinner, but rages at blank pages at other times, and stares forlornly at prominently placed firearms, which are practically winking at the camera.

Director Bob Yari, a veteran producer directing for the first time in 25 years and releasing the picture through his Yari Releasing Group distribution arm, may have snipped through miles of cinta roja to get to Cuba, but he fails to do anything interesting once there. There’s one brisk montage of Havana street life and a few scenes aboard Papa’s famous fishing boat the Pilar, but most of the time we’re stuck inside Hemingway’s home, Finca Vigia.

Sure, Yari was able to shoot at the actual location (now a museum), but the confined space feels less like a bit of insight into one of the 20th century’s greatest artists than a night of cheap dinner theater.

Much of the blame lies with Petitclerc’s hopelessly tone-deaf script. When we first meet Papa, he’s in full Zorba the Greek mode, an exuberant older man bursting with a love of life, but this quickly turns to the tired routine of the dark genius. After witnessing some of the guerrilla fighting, Papa takes his new pupil to a bar and offers this bit of sage wisdom: “God, damn war!”

Later, when he and Mary are fighting, and he tells her to “go to hell”, she fires back: “I’m already there!” Just because the movie is set in the late 1950s, that doesn’t mean the dialogue needs to be ripped from the daytime soaps of the era.

At the one-hour mark, the film gets an extra spin of unnecessary plot. Papa is under the watchful eye of the FBI, and Ribisi’s Myers gets summoned for a sit-down with the shadowy Santo Trafficante (James Remar). “Why would the head of the mafia want to meet with me?” he asks aloud, in case the name doesn’t ring bells.

But it’s worth taking the meeting, because from it comes the revelation that Ernest Hemingway is being persecuted by the United States government due to knowledge of J Edgar Hoover’s taste for wearing women’s clothing. This is played with such severity and ham-fisted importance that one must applaud the sound recording unit for covering up what must have been a set full of chortles.

The film’s worst crime is presenting the Myers’ visits as the origin of Hemingway’s (probably) apocryphal six-word short story, “For sale, baby’s shoes, never worn.” In the spirit of poorly mimicking Hemingway, I’ll offer my six word review: Cuban permits don’t make good films.

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/apr/27/papa-hemingway-in-cuba-review-hollywoods-havana-horror

/by

Jose Abreu of White Sox paid $5.8M to agents after Cuba defection

havana-live-Jose_Abreu_HAVANA, april 26  During a spectacular debut season in Chicago, White Sox first baseman Jose Abreu wowed crowds with 36 home runs, a team record for a rookie.

But what no one saw and few knew was that during those same few months he apparently was paying off a heavy debt to the people who helped him escape from his native Cuba.

Newly unsealed court records describe the shadowy yet lucrative world of illegal smuggling that brings Cuban baseball players into the United States. For Abreu, according to federal prosecutors, that included $5.8 million he allegedly transferred in three separate payments over nine months to people who aided his defection.

The smuggling activity is spelled out in a superseding indictment in the South Florida case against one of Abreu’s former agents, Bart Hernandez, who was indicted in February on charges related to human trafficking. The indictment details how smugglers made payments to boat captains, including $160,000 for Abreu’s driver, and falsified documents to help top Cuban prospects eventually find their way to the U.S. to play professional baseball.

In return, the players were instructed to make large payments to the individuals who arranged their escapes, according to prosecutors.

Joe Kehoskie, a baseball consultant and former agent who has represented Cuban players, said the specificity of documents, emails and bank transfers described by prosecutors was rare and suggested that defections haven’t been as voluntary as many agents long professed.

“I’ve never seen the government go to that level of detail with emails and dates,” Kehoskie said. “It seems to confirm what has been widely speculated for a decade now — that the defection of Cubans has been rife with criminality.”

Last week’s filing also indicted Julio Estrada, a Cuban exile in Miami who worked with Hernandez for about a decade, and Haiti resident Amin Latouff on charges related to human trafficking for allegedly conspiring with Hernandez.

Prosecutors allege all three profited by illegally smuggling baseball players and members of their families into the United States with the help of false passports and residency records. The government asked for forfeiture of at least $15 million related to the charges against the three men.

Prosecutors also accuse Hernandez of being untruthful with investigators Dec. 4, 2013, when he told them he didn’t know firsthand how players were smuggled out of Cuba. In the past decade, Hernandez grew from relative anonymity to boasting a client list of about two-dozen Cuban-born players.

The records describe a trafficking process that sometimes began by paying boat captains to ferry players out of Cuba and into another Latin country. Hernandez and the others would then provide players with false passports, according to the new indictment.

They also submitted applications with false information to the federal government as part of the process of getting permission for a foreign national to play in Major League Baseball.

Ben Daniel, a former prosecutor who oversaw human trafficking cases in Miami, said the case reveals how complex smuggling has become as the financial stakes have gotten higher. “You used to go on a boat, bring some players back here and create some cover,” Daniel said.

He said the new federal documents describe a “much more devious scheme.”

According to the new indictment, after the players signed with major-league teams, they were directed by Estrada or Hernandez to transfer money into accounts for companies that each of the men controlled.

In the indictment, prosecutors describe activities involving 16 players identified by their initials, including “J.A.C.” — Abreu’s initials. (In Spanish naming customs, the paternal family name precedes the maternal name.)

Abreu, now 29, is believed to have left Cuba in August 2013. About that time, according to prosecutors, Latouff paid a boat captain $160,000 to smuggle Abreu to Haiti. Later that month, Hernandez submitted an application for the player to the federal government in order for him to sign a contract with a major-league team. He also emailed Major League Baseball a visa purportedly issued by Haiti.

On Oct. 13, 2013, Latouff allegedly provided the player a fake passport with a false name to use on a flight to Miami from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. According to the indictment, Latouff later provided similar documentation to Abreu’s then-girlfriend, also identified only by initials.

The White Sox soon announced that Abreu had signed a five-year deal worth $68 million. At the time, Abreu was represented by the Praver Shapiro sports agency, which worked with Hernandez and his company, Global Sports Management.

In March 2014, Estrada “caused J.A.C. to wire” about $2.4 million into an account that Estrada controlled, prosecutors wrote in the indictment. In August of that same year, “J.A.C.” also transferred $2 million and then sent another $1.36 million in December, prosecutors wrote.

After each transfer, Estrada allegedly sent funds to an account controlled by Hernandez, with nearly $600,000 going into that account, according to the indictment.

During his first season with the White Sox in 2014, Abreu was an all-star, and after the season he was named rookie of the year. Abreu has steadfastly declined to discuss his journey out of Cuba and on Monday declined comment through a team spokesman.

The Tribune previously reported that Abreu’s transition while in the U.S. has been aided by Julio Estrada, although his precise role with regard to Abreu is unclear. In 2014 Estrada identified himself to the Tribune as Abreu’s agent, but the players union said it had no evidence of that.

When the Tribune tried to interview Abreu’s family in Miami about their defection, it was Estrada who abruptly called it off, even though Abreu’s mother had initially agreed.

If convicted on all counts, Hernandez faces up to 35 years in prison while Estrada faces 45. They also are being asked to give up anything   earned with any baseball players. None of the Cuban-born players, including Abreu, has been accused of wrongdoing.

The government sometimes seeks to return assets to people wronged by defendants, but it’s unclear whether that could happen in this situation and whether the players would be entitled to any forfeited money.

Estrada’s attorney, Sabrina Puglisi, said her client was arrested Friday in Miami and entered a plea of not guilty before a bond release. She described Estrada as a trainer who happened to share clients with Hernandez.

“Julio at no time encouraged or assisted any of the players to enter the United States illegally,” she said. “The only thing he’s ever done is to help train these players and get them ready in order to help them achieve their dream to play baseball in the United States.”

When Hernandez was first indicted, prosecutors alleged he conspired first in 2008 to smuggle for profit a Cuban national identified in court papers as “L.M.T.” Those are the same initials as Leonys Martin Tapanes, a Seattle Mariners outfielder who was once represented by Hernandez but later sued him.

Both indictments have tied Hernandez to convicted traffickers. One, Eliezer Lazo, is serving two prison terms, including a 14-year sentence on extortion charges related to masterminding a smuggling operation that brought hundreds of Cubans to the U.S., including Martin.

Allegations in the new indictment make reference to other current major-league players.

For instance, according to the documents, in September 2014, Estrada traveled to Providence, R.I., and met with a player identified as “D.H.H.” At the time, Phillies pitcher Dalier Hinojosa was represented by Hernandez, and played for the Pawtucket Red Sox.

Estrada allegedly directed Hinojosa to “falsely and fraudulently state to federal authorities” that he left Cuba with unknown fishermen when both men knew he left with smugglers.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/watchdog/ct-jose-abreu-cubans-smuggling-20160425-story.html

/by

Presentation of Ravel’s “Bolero” in Fabrica de Arte Cubano

boléro-de-RavelHAVANA,April 26   The emblematic work of French composer Maurice Ravel “Bolero” had the first of its three scheduled presentations in Havana, under the artistic direction of Spain’s Miguel Rubio, as part of the cultural project “Fabrica de Arte Cubano.”

The choreographed performance included dancers from the Cuban Arts University and the companies Acosta Danza, Retazos and Danzabierta.

After four months of pre-production and rehearsals, “Bolero” will be staged a total of eight times until May 1st.

The piece, originally composed as a ballet commissioned by Russian actress and dancer Ida Rubinstein, premiered at the Opera Garnier of Paris in 1928.

The “Bolero” has become Ravel’s most famous musical composition and one of the most played musical works in the world.

http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=2410747&CategoryId=13003

/by

Creditors holding $1.2 billion of Cuban debt are talking to Havana

12178-profimedia-0228656582HAVANA, April 25 (Reuters) – A creditor group formed to negotiate with Cuba over defaulted debt has already started talks with Havana, its newly appointed coordinator told Reuters, warning of a need to speed up the process.

The ad hoc committee holds obligations representing $1.2 billion worth of Cuban debt and includes three funds – Stancroft Trust, Adelante Exotic Debt Fund and CRFI Ltd – according to Rodrigo Olivares-Caminal, a law professor at London’s Queen Mary University.

Their holdings amount to about 40 percent of Cuba’s private-sector debt, plus interest, according to Olivares-Caminal, a sovereign-debt restructuring expert who was appointed to the committee earlier this month.

“We are opening the process now … aiming at starting meaningful discussions,” Olivares-Caminal said. He has been in touch with the stakeholders and the Cuban government, he said.

The debt mainly pertains to development loans taken out from private, non-U.S. banks in the 1970s and 1980s, before a 1986 default by the island’s Communist government.

Stancroft and funds like it bought the paper for as little as 1.5 cents on the dollar. Stancroft has held the paper for more than a decade, Reuters has reported.

Investors have been buying up Cuban’s defaulted debt since last year’s breakthrough in U.S.-Cuba relations. Brokers say is now quoted at 30-odd cents on the dollar for high-quality, hard-currency-denominated loans, albeit in an illiquid market. The debt traded at 25 to 30 cents a year ago.

Olivares-Caminal declined to comment on potential recovery values. He said he was collating data on how much debt is out there and hopes to enrol more creditors on the committee.

He said he was in touch with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Paris Club of sovereign creditors and the Institute of InternationaL Finance, a global financial industry body.

Cuba has already reached agreements with Russia, France and Spain on debt forgiveness. In December creditor nations from the Paris Club agreed to forgive $8.5 billion of debt. In total, Havana is estimated to have restructured some $50 billion in old debt in the past few years.

Meanwhile, politics and economics make it imperative to move swiftly, Olivares-Caminal cautioned.

Barack Obama recently became the first U.S. president to visit Cuba in 88 years, but his term ends in January. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has said he also will normalise Cuba ties, but the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress has steadfastly refused to lift a decades-old embargo.

There could be hurdles from the Cuban side too: recent Communist Party elections named old-guard members to head it for five more years and signalled economic reforms would not be rushed.

But clearing existing debt is seen as crucial if Cuba is to borrow again for infrastructure projects.

“Cuba needs the money and they need to clear this hurdle,” Olivares-Caminal said. “The creditors are not just looking for returns, they are keen to build a relationship and to help the country.” (Reporting by Sujata Rao, editing by Larry King)

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/reuters/article-3558092/Creditors-holding-1-2-billion-Cuban-debt-talking-Havana.html#ixzz46rNK1PaX
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

/by

Karl Lagerfeld set to exhibit photographs in Havana

havana-live-karl-lagerfeldHAVANA, April 25th  As part of the fashion director’s cruise collection launch for Chanel in Havana, it has been revealed that Karl Lagerfeld will also exhibit a selection of 200 photographs, according to WWD.

The exhibition, entitled “Obra en Proceso/Work in Progress” is part of a month-long celebration of French culture, run by the Alliance Française in Cuba. The opening party for the collection is set for May 1, with the show scheduled for May 3. The exhibition will run from April 28 through May 12.

“Obra en Proceso/Work in Progress” will mark only the second exhibition dedicated to Lagerfeld’s work as a photographer. Another will also be taking place in June, in Florence, Italy. — AFP-Relaxnews

/by

Maersk Opens Direct Cork-Havana Service

havana-l;ive-maerskHAVANA, April 25th On Friday, the route to the Cuban port of Mariel became the first ever shipping connection between Northern Europe and the Caribbean country.

The service will also link ports in Bremerhaven, Germany; Rotterdam, Netherlands; and Tilbury in the UK to Mariel, a port approximately 40km from Havana. It will then go on to Panama. I

The route will offer the fastest transit times in the market and include a weekly service to the island’s second largest city, Santiago de Cuba.

Full details will be announced in the coming days.

The new shipping route should prove incredibly advantageous to Irish companies looking to capitalise on the strengthening relations between the US and Cuba, as economic sanctions on the latter come to an end.

For a number of years, the Cuban Business Gateway, an Irish consultancy that aims to smooth the way for firms looking to operate in the Caribbean, has been making the point that sanctions shouldn’t deter Irish businesses.

Indeed, bilateral trade in goods between Cuba and Ireland was €1.35 million in 2013, with diplomatic links between the two nations having been established in 1999.

http://www.newstalk.com/Cork-offers-exclusive-shipping-route-to-Cuba

/by

Is time to be serious about Cuba

11196322_710552665734786_5179482304459677148_nHAVANA, April 24th (Huffpost)These thoughts are the reflection of a people-to-people trip to Cuba with National Geographic, a program that is fundamentally educational and a discovery.

In 2015, the 7th Americas Summit, in Panama City, included Cuba for the first time. This U.S. initiative would have happened without the U.S. if they had refused the presence of its neighboring island. It was the first meeting between Barack Obama and Raul Castro, that led to the reopening of the U.S. Embassy and the visit of the U.S. President in Havana.

It was also the clearest indication that the US were the only nation not to have such relationship. 90 miles from Key West, it was time not to submit US foreign policy to the lobby of the Cuban Americans in Florida.

The Soviet period (1959-1989)

The U.S. always assumed — against all evidence — that Fidel Castro was a puppet and that he was an agent for the Soviet Union. J.F. Kennedy inherited the Richard Nixon project to invade Cuba. He scaled it down and unrealistically tried to hide the fact that the invaders had U.S. weapons and were under the protection of several US ships.

Of course, like in Iraq, the U.S. would be welcomed as a liberator. The United States foreign policymakers have an uncanny ability to believe that they are always liberators as they were in Normandy. It explains why all U.S. wars since than ended in failure.

Yet, the U.S. had an excuse: to protect Cuba, the Soviet Union brought a nuclear arsenal to defend Cuba that was a threat to the United States, and took it out following the Cuban blocus by the U.S. Navy.It explains the ostracism on Cuba until 1989, when the Berlin wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed.

The “special period” (1989-2005)

As Russia stopped subsidizing the Cuban economy, the Cuban people suffered the worst famine and destructive period of their history. Fortunately, one by one all countries reopened their Embassies and Europe and Latin America went to the rescue. In March 2016, the United States announced a “historic” opening of agricultural relationships with Cuba with the support of the US food companies, particularly Cargill, who had boycotted any such effort.

Without serious consideration for the consequences, what was a legitimate defensive policy became a political regime change blockade motivated by the inability of any Administration to confront the powerful Cuban lobby in Florida, that continued to “trade with Cuba’ more or less clandestinely.

The Raul Castro era (2006- Present)

As Raul Castro succeeded his ailing brother Fidel, the country started to lift restrictions on imports, travel, private enterprises … it would have been normal for the U.S. administration to revisit its policy.

In 2003 George W. Bush had chosen to impose fresh measures designed to hasten the end of communist rule in Cuba, including tightening a travel embargo to the island, cracking down on illegal cash transfers, and a more robust information campaign aimed at Cuba. A new body, the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, is created.

In 2015, the majority of Cuban Americans approved the lifting of the embargo, except, of course, Mario Rubio and Ted Cruz who characterized the change as a “tragic historical mistake”.

The Cuban opportunity for the United States

Cuba is not a country for faint-hearted, let alone for half-hearted tiptoeing visitors. It is remarkable that the omnipresent criticism of the U.S. policy towards the country has not translated into an opposition to the US people and culture. We were received warmly, even one evening at the Comite de la Revolucion.

But we would be naive to consider that attitude as complacency. We have been responsible for 55 years of misery and the return to some form of progress happened despite the U.S. blockade. It is a political failure, but more importantly, when the Soviet bloc collapsed and let Cuba down, the United States did not seize the opportunity to compensate for this dramatic downturn. We let the Cubans down when they needed us the most. They vividly remember it.

We are welcome, but Cubans have enjoyed benefits that the U.S. ignores: social benefits, free health care and free education. They are not willing to renounce to the main benefits of socialism. The Cuban authorities have learned their lesson: they will not depend on one single country. Our luxury buses were Chinese.

Out of 3 million tourists a year, one million are Canadians who have been hugely supportive of the island. Russia is still supportive. Europe has come back and all new cars are non U.S. The “youngest ones” we drove were 1959 models.

The only way the United States will be able to rebuild a normal relationship with Cuba is by being non-intrusive and understand that we need to buy the hearts and souls of the Cubans. It requires a respectful approach, not the U.S. invasion that the Cuban people fear. They are proud and want to remain masters of their destiny.

The opportunity is great, but the challenge as well. Culture might be our best mutual cooperation

/by

Cuba’s Erick Hernandez beats own world record

havana-live- Erick HernandezHAVANA, April 23 (Xinhua) — Cuban Erick Hernandez on Saturday beat his own world record for maintaining a football in the air only with his head.

Hernandez, who will soon turn 50, kept the ball up in the air for 36 hours 14 minutes and 10 seconds with an average of 120 headers per minute, beating his previous record of 35:02:00, set in 2015.

“I finished off far better, due to having perfected my efforts,” Hernandez told the press after the effort.

“I came into this with full knowledge of my posture, of how to sit down, and of how to use my arms and legs to help me. This allowed to finish off fresher, without feeling tired in my neck, back, backside, arms and abdomen,” added Hernandez.

Hernandez, who began setting records in 1994, has beaten over 50 records, several of which are in the Guinness Book of World Records.

This professional record-setter has run the 100 meter-dash while juggling a ball in 17.83 seconds and completed a marathon while doing the same in 7 hours 17 minutes.

/by

UTSA architect working to preseve Hemingway’s Finca Figia

havana-live-finca1HAVANA, April 22th In 1960, the U.S. ambassador to Cuba drove 9 miles outside Havana to Finca Vigía, where he had been a guest several times, to inform Ernest Hemingway that Washington was planning to sever ties with Fidel Castro’s fledgling Communist government.

He said that “American officials thought it would be best if Hemingway demonstrated his patriotism by giving up his beloved tropical home,” Valerie Hemingway, his secretary at the time and future daughter-in-law, recalled in a 2007 article for Smithsonian magazine. “He resisted the suggestion, fiercely.”

Hemingway, who committed suicide a year later, loved Cuba, and Cuba loved him.

Castro, a great admirer of the macho writer, took control of Finca Vigía, or Lookout Farm, and it became a museum — the Museo Hemingway — in 1963. havana-live-tower

Hemingway lived at Finca Vigía from 1939 to 1960 and wrote seven books there, including “The Old Man and the Sea,” “A Moveable Feast” and “Islands in the Stream.” Kept just as it was, it remains one of the most popular tourist destinations in the country.

“It’s a virtual time capsule,” said William Dupont, professor of architecture at the University of Texas at San Antonio, who for the past 11 years has been a hands-on consultant on the restoration of Hemingway’s Cuba home. “All the trophies, all the liquor bottles are still there, all the books are on the shelves. His Royal typewriter is there in the bedroom, sitting on top of a massive dictionary, as is the animal-skin rug that he stood on while he worked, typing standing up because of his back. He got a gift from the Russian ambassador that is still there. It’s a little model of Sputnik, a desktop paperweight.”

The Cuban government, in conjunction with the Massachusetts-based Finca Vigía Foundation, completed a $1 million restoration of the 1886 stucco home and grounds in 2008 and has been searching for a way to conserve the thousands of documents, photographs and books at the site for years.

In a concrete example of the thawing of U.S./Cuban relations initiated by President Obama, a team of preservationists including Dupont, who is director of the UTSA Center for Cultural Sustainability, will return to Cuba May 8-13 to help Cuban architects, engineers and workers build a new conservation workshop and storage center on the Finca Vigía site.havana-live-see-truh-dining

Mary-Jo Adams, executive director of the Finca Vigía Foundation, said Dupont “has helped our project make great strides. His finesse and understanding of the Cuban people has been incredibly important.”

What is groundbreaking about this exchange is that a shipment of construction materials valued at more than $900,000 is going to the island along with the American expertise.

Funded primarily by the Caterpillar Foundation and Caterpillar Inc., the AT&T Foundation, the Ford Foundation and American Express, it’s the first major export of construction materials to Cuba since the U.S. loosened the trade embargo on the island.

“It’s a big deal for the Cubans,” Dupont said. “It’s a big deal for us, too.”

Caterpillar, which donated $500,000 to the Finca Vigía Foundation, “is proud to be a part of this significant project, and we’re committed to being a business and cultural partner with Cuba,” Doug Oberhelman, Caterpillar chairman and CEO, said in a statement. “We recognize the importance of preserving the rich Hemingway heritage that unites the American and Cuban people.”

Since materials can be impossible to obtain in Cuba, the shipment will contain virtually everything needed to build the 2,200-square-foot facility, which will house conservation laboratories and a state-of-the-art, climate-controlled storage facility.

“They have plenty of concrete and cement blocks,” Dupont said. “They’ve got rebar, enough for this little building, so what we’re sending them is pretty much everything else, which would include windows and doors, roofing material, gutters, tile, ceilings, pipes, plumbing fixtures, wiring — even hardhats and safety glasses. Some of the HVAC is pretty high-tech, so we’re building it here and then disassembling it to make sure we have all the parts.”havana-live-pilar

Although the building is not an architectural “postcard,” Dupont said, it represents the literal preservation of Hemingway’s legacy, including correspondence and books in which he wrote marginalia comments, as well as travel documents, records and notes of where he was at certain times, passports and maps.

“It’s possible to reconstruct a lot of details of his life and place him in particular areas connected to what he’s writing, so it’s very valuable to scholars of Hemingway,” Dupont said. “To understand where he’s coming from, what his influences are, what he’s seeing while he’s writing, it makes it possible to map out his life.

“That’s what the house contains. So for me as a restoration architect, what we’re keeping our focus on is the legacy of Hemingway because his spirit still occupies the landscape and the buildings and the grounds. This was his place of artistic inspiration, of artistic creation, and you gain a better understanding by visiting it. And that’s what I’m trying to help my colleagues in Cuba to preserve. That’s what it’s all about.”
http://www.expressnews.com/entertainment/arts-culture/article/Cuban-home-holds-Hemingway-s-spirit-7294757.php
More about Hemingway: https://havana-live.com/hemingway-cubas-adopted-son/

/by

Finally ,end of cruise ship ban for Cuban citizens

havana-live-Carnival SplendorHAVANA, April 22th (REUTERS) Cuba said on Friday it would lift a ban on Cubans and Cuban-Americans entering and leaving the Caribbean island by commercial vessels, opening the way for cruise operator Carnival Corp to set sail for the country next week.

Carnival’s May 1 cruise, the first from the United States to the Communist-run country since the 1959 revolution, was thrown into doubt when the company triggered a backlash by refusing Cuban-Americans passage due to a Cold War-era law.

A statement carried by state-run media said that starting April 26, Cuban citizens would be authorized “independently of their migratory status to enter and leave as passengers and crews of cruise ships.”

“This is a positive outcome and we are extremely pleased. We want to extend our sincere appreciation to Cuba and to our team who worked so hard to help make this happen,” Carnival Chief Executive Arnold Donald said in a statement.

Carnival received approval from the United States last year to sail to Cuba, and the green light from Havana a day after U.S. President Barack Obama’s historic visit to the country in March.

The waters between the two countries have been the scene of mass migration, hijacking and other crimes in the past, leading Cuba to ban Cubans from traveling by boat without special permission, even though restrictions on traveling by air were lifted years ago.

Protests in Miami, where the company is based, a discrimination suit and criticism by Secretary of State John Kerry led Carnival to start accepting bookings from Cuban-Americans earlier this month.

The company said it would postpone the cruise if necessary, but also expressed confidence Cuba would rescind the law before its first ‘Fathom’ adventure, which is expected to begin sailing to three Cuban cities every fortnight from May 1.

Cuban-born Americans are free to enter their homeland by air, with around 300,000 arriving every year.

The Cuban statement on Friday said authorities were also reviewing a ban on citizens from boarding recreational vessels such as fishing boats and yachts.

(Additional reporting by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

/by

Cuba cuts some food prices, responding to public complaints

havana_market001_16x9HAVANA,April 22th (AP) The Cuban government has announced that it is cutting prices of some basic foods by 20 percent in state-run stores.

The reductions taking effect Friday address widespread complaints that state employees earning about $25 a month cannot afford many staples, including rice and cooking oil.

In an announcement on the state-run nightly news, the government said goods like chicken and cooking oil will be cut in stores that accept the convertible peso, a currency equivalent to the dollar. Those goods still remain out of reach for many Cubans. A liter of soy oil still costs nearly a tenth of the monthly salary.

Staples like rice and beans available in Cuban pesos, worth 4 cents each, will also drop.

/by

Hundreds of thousands of new rooms for Cuba

pakcard-hotel-cuba

Hotel Packard under construction

HAVANA,April 21 th (Travelpulse) Tourism is top of mind in Cuba these days – not only for those who are planning to travel to the country, but within the country itself. Cuba is taking its tourism boom seriously and is planning to build the infrastructure and make the investments necessary to keep the island nation in the forefront of travelers’ minds.

At the 7th Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, the tourism ministry laid forth its plans for bolstering the country’s hotel market. The National Plan for Economic and Social Development unveiled Cuba’s plans for adding some 108,000 new hotel rooms in the country by 2030 to accommodate the influx of tourists.

“We cannot make the mistake other countries have made that, with new development, old hotels are cast aside,” tourism minister Manual Marrero said to the Communist Party daily, Granma. “Tourism has a multiplier effect and the sector has the capacity to promote development of other areas of the economy to create productive linkages.”

Marrero also noted that tourism will eventually serve as the “locomotive of the national economy.”

Within the National Plan for Economic and Social Development, it notes that more than 10,900 new hotel rooms were constructed in the country since the 6th Congress in 2011 and more than 7,000 rooms were renovated. Other facilities and services within the hotel industry have also served to continue the upward trend in the development of Cuba’s hospitality industry, according to the report, and the ministry of tourism as well as the Cuban government see the potential and value of continuing to grow the industry.

Currently, there is ongoing development within the country’s major tourism destinations to address the deficit in accommodations. And, within the report, the tourism ministry points out that the operations and construction of iconic luxury properties is currently going smoothly.

“Each hotel inaugurated is another factory that generates within our borders much needed export income for the country,” the report says.

The planned tourism developments, which also include other non-hotel “activities” such as golf courses and marinas, are endorsed by Cuba’s leader, Raul Castro. And with Cuba’s ongoing tourism boom, the need for new accommodation has never been greater.

According to the report, last year, for the first time, Cuba surpassed 3.5 million visitors.

“Conditions are being shaped to ensure that in the period 2016-2020, we obtain better results and the foundations are created in our economy for sustainable economic-social development,” said the report.

havana-live-hotel-packard_

Hotel Packard Prado – Malecon

While in Toronto last fall Manual said new hotel product in Cuba is currently coming at a rate of 2,000 rooms per year, and starting in 2018 that figure will double to 4,000 rooms per year. Demand is very high especially in Havana and for four- and five-star product.

 

/by

Celestyal Cruises Confirms it Will Base Ship in Havana Year-Round

havana-live--celestyal-crystalHAVANA, April 20th  Celestyal Cruises has confirmed it will sail year-round in Havana beginning on November 21.

Celestyal Cruises has been operating under the Cuba Cruise name and has based its ship Celestyal Crystal in Havana from December to March, repositioning to Greece during the summer.

It will also drop the “Cuba Cruise” name and rebrand as Celestyal Cruises from November.

Through the final weeks of 2016 and for all of 2017 Celestyal Crystal will sail seven-night all-inclusive cruises that include two days in Havana and a call at Maria La Gorda.

Additional Cuban calls will include 18th-century Cienfuegos and historic Santiago de Cuba.

The cruise will embark every Monday from Havana, and every Friday from Montego Bay, Jamaica.

Celestyal Cruises was the first line to offer round-Cuba cruises, back in 2013. Since then, a number of other lines have realized Cuba’s potential including MSC Cruises which has based Opera out of Havana from last December, and will deploy a second ship in Havana later this year.

And a rebranded P&O Cruises’ Adonia — known as Fathom — should become the first US cruise line to operate sailings to the island next month.

Kyriakos Anastassiadis, CEO of Celestyal Cruises said: “Our 2015-2016 Cuba Cruise season, our third, was our best yet, and thus, to respond to demand for our authentic Cuban product, our fourth season will begin 21 November 2016, four weeks earlier than last year, and will sail year-round.

We look forward to immersing even more passengers from all over the world in our authentic Cuban experience.”

http://www.cruisecritic.com/news/news.cfm?ID=6966

/by

Fidel Castro speaks of death in address to Cuba’s Communist Party

Cuba's former president Fidel Castro attends the closing ceremony of the seventh Cuban Communist Party (PCC) congress in Havana, Cuba, in this handout received April 19, 2016. Omara Garcia/Courtesy of AIN/Handout via REUTERS

Cuba’s former president Fidel Castro attends the closing ceremony of the seventh Cuban Communist Party (PCC) congress in Havana, Cuba, in this handout received April 19, 2016. Omara Garcia/Courtesy of AIN/Handout via REUTERS

HAVANA,19 April 19th (Reuters) Retired Cuban leader Fidel Castro emerged from seclusion on Tuesday to muse about death and provide encouragement to his followers, in a rare speech at the closing of a Communist Party congress in Havana.

“Soon I will be 90 years old,” he said. “Soon I will be like all the rest. Everybody’s turn comes,” Castro, whose birthday is Aug. 13, told 1,300 party activists gathered at a Havana convention centre where he delivered countless, hours-long speeches during his rule.

Cries of “Fidel, Fidel” once again rang out as the now frail former leader made his most extensive public appearance in years, speaking with a strong, if slightly hoarse, voice.

“Perhaps this will be one of the last times I speak in this room,” said Castro, sporting a blue tracksuit jacket, glasses and wispy grey beard.

“The ideas of Cuban Communists will remain,” he said, “as proof that on this planet, if you work hard and with dignity, you can produce the material and cultural goods human beings need.”

As with other stage-managed appearances in recent years he not shown standing, even as his brother and all the delegates rose to their feet in his honour. But he looked healthier than he did for a long time after a serious illness that led him to relinquish power 10 years ago.

The eventual death of Fidel was once expected to destabilise Cuba, provoking CIA plots to kill him. The smooth transfer to his brother Raul Castro largely ended such speculation.

The congress reviewed difficulties the party faces implementing market reforms, maintaining its leadership over an increasingly diverse and informed population and dampening expectations raised by detente with the United States and President Barack Obama’s visit to the country last month.

The visit provoked Castro earlier to charge Obama was sweet-talking Cubans and had nothing to offer them, a view repeated by various delegates at the congress.

The congress proved a disappointment to many residents, especially the youth, re-electing an ageing leadership and proposing little new to tackle the country’s economic problems.

Fidel Castro took power in a 1959 revolution and led the country until 2006, when he fell ill. He now lives in relative seclusion but occasionally writes opinion pieces or appears meeting with visiting dignitaries.

The iconic figure’s influence waned with his retirement and the introduction of market-style reforms by his brother, but Fidel Castro still has moral authority among many residents, especially older generations.

(Editing Frank Jack Daniel and Tom Brown)

/by

Carnival may delay Cuba cruise over discrimination concerns

havana-live-Carnival SplendorHAVANA, April 19th (AP) Carnival says it will delay the first cruise from the United States to Cubaif the Cuban government does not allow Cuban-Americans to travel aboard.

Cuban regulations bar people born in Cuba from returning to the country by ship. As a result, Carnival had prohibited barred Cuban-Americans from buying tickets on the May 1 cruise from Miami to Havana and a series of other Cuban ports.

Carnival said in a written statement Monday that it was optimistic that Cuba would allow Cuban-Americans to join the cruise by May 1 and would begin selling tickets to Cuban-Americans. The company said that if Cuban-Americans were not allowed to join the cruise, it would be delayed.

Carnival has been sued by Cuban-Americans claiming discrimination and protesters have targeted its headquarters in Doral.

/by

Raul Castro criticize ways of bureaucracy and private sector

president-obama-attends-tampa-bay-devil-rays-v-cuban-national-team-baseball-game-in-havanaHAVANA, April 19th On Monday, Cuban’s top leaders and officials have criticized the squeaking inefficiency of the state-controlled economy. They also took note of the vibrant private sector as potential source of US subversion.

According to News Journal Online, the Cuban government comments illustrated the commotion it is facing as it tries to modernize and maintain control of things now thatit’s in a new era with Washington. The Cuban Communist Party has ended the third day of its twice-a-decade congress with vote for a 114- member Central Committee. The vote turned to select the 15- member Political Bureau. The vote, just like Congress, was open only to 1,000 delegates, 280 selected guests and state journalists.

ABC News reported that Cuban President and First Party Secretary, Raul Castro, opened the meeting with evaluation of the state reforms he introduced after taking over in 2008. Castro blamed the ‘obsolete mentality’ and ‘attitude of inertia’ for the state’s failure to impose reforms meant to increase productivity.

To follow, Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel also repeated the criticism of the bureaucracy in his speech. He added that ‘lack of confidence in the future’ is the consequence of what Castro said. Diaz-Canel added that “Along with other deficiencies, there’s a lack of readiness, high standards and control, and little foresight or initiative from sectors and bureaucrats in charge of making these goals a reality.”

However, Yahoo published that state media focuses more on the need to protect Cuba’s socialist system from global capitalism and US influence in particular. It is notable that US President Barack Obama visited Havana, the first in over 90 years, and the move was interpreted as an attempt to seduce ordinary Cubans into abandoning the country’s socialist views.

Even Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez went to say that the visit of Obama is ‘an attack on the foundation of the history, culture and symbols of Cuba.’ Meanwhile, Rene Gonzales, former intelligence agent held in US and resolved by détente with Washington, said there should be consideration on the political reform in Cuba.
Read more at http://www.lawyerherald.com/articles/43087/20160419/cuban-leaders-criticize-ways-bureaucracy-private-sector.htm#UfyGtQSy5QRL3YX7.99

 

/by

U.S. talent agency signed a contract in Havana

jonathan-blue-201112079643-1-1-750xx1700-956-0-32

Jonathan Blue, chairman and managing director of the Louisville-based investment firm Blue Equity

HAVANA, April 18th A U.S. talent agency signed a contract in Havana on Monday to work with a Cuban entrepreneur, a seemingly simple deal that marks a big change in the relationship between the two countries.

Jonathan Blue, chairman and managing director of the Louisville-based investment firm Blue Equity, made a deal with Pedro Rodriguez, an entrepreneur licensed by the Cuban government to work in the entertainment field. Rodriguez will scout talent in Cuba for Blue’s talent company, Blue Entertainment Sports Television, or BEST, which represents broadcasters, models and celebrities.

The deal is not the first time a U.S. company has hired one of Cuba’s entrepreneurs, a new segment of the population that works outside of the state-run economy. What’s different is both parties’ willingness to operate openly in public.

Blue and Rodriguez are not hiding anything. On Monday, they held a signing ceremony and press conference at the José Martí Cultural Society headquarters in Havana announcing the new partnership.

Blue said his company, which represents sports broadcasters including Bomani Jones, Lawrence Taylor, and Ronde and Tiki Barber, helped arrange a Havana fashion photo shoot in December. That’s where he met Rodriguez, who coordinated the shoot logistics. Blue said the two hit it off immediately, which started the months of research that led to Monday’s deal.

Under the agreement, Rodriguez will find artists in Cuba and funnel them to Blue’s BEST company, which will then serve as their agents for events in the U.S. and elsewhere. Blue said his firm could also represent the Cuban artists in Cuba, but said they are many limitations there. For example, if one of the artists performs at an event paid for by the Cuban government, Blue could not receive any compensation for that because it would violate U.S. law.

That’s why Blue and Rodriguez worked for months to craft a contract that satisfied both U.S. and Cuban law. Blue hired a Miami-based law firm that focuses on Cuba to advise him on U.S. law, and Rodriguez frequently ran the proposals by Cuban officials.

The end result, Blue said, is the start of a long-term presence in a Cuban market filled with all kinds of largely unknown talent.

“We see so much potential in Cuba,” Blue said before traveling to Havana for the ceremony. “We’ve done this all over the world, so Cuba is just such a natural, close market. We’re big believers in the long-term potential there.”

Many of the question marks hanging over Cuba’s entrepreneurs could be addressed by Cuba’s Communist Party Congress, which began Saturday in Havana. But for now, Saladrigas said Blue’s new, public deal could pave the way for other companies to take the plunge.

“The good news is that they are happening and they’re growing,” he said. “It is leaving the Cuban government with few options but to come around to the idea that (these deals) have to be recognized and made legal. I hope they do.”

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/04/18/cuba-us-entrepreneur-contract/83045068/

/by

Watch Live – Cuban Baseball Finals Down to Tie-Breaker on Sunday

guante-pelotaHAVANA, 18 abril (HT) A spectacular comeback by Pinar del Rio set the stage for game seven of the Cuban baseball league finals today in Ciego de Avila.

Ciego swept the first three games but Pinar del Rio came back winning games four and five at home and game six by a score of 7-3 on Saturday in Ciego de Avila to force the tie-breaker.pinar-del-rc3ado1 Ciego_de_Ávila_Tigres_logo

Yosvani Torres was thee winning pitcher going seven innings allowing three runs, one earned, on five hits, striking out five and allowing one walk. Livan Moinelo pitched the final two innings in scoreless fashion, allowing only one hit.

Vladimir Garcia took the loss.  In only 1.1 innings he allowed six runs on five hits including a three-run homer by Yordanis Alarcon.  Lazaro Ramírez also had a solo homer.

Boxscore of Game Six

The probable starting pitchers are right-handers Erlis Casanova for Pinar y Dachel Duquesne for Ciego, the defending champions.

Pinar del Rio was the league champs in 2014.

You can watch game 7 live here at 5:00 ET

/by

Cubans with wealth abroad funneling millions of dollars into Havana real estate

CubaHouse_RikPanganibanHAVANA, April 18th  (AP)   Halfway down Calle Habana, a crumbling two-story colonial building is being painstakingly restored by a Cuban-American businessman who fled as a child after the 1959 revolution. On the corner, brightly colored paintings hang in a home now converted into a chic art gallery.

Not far away, dozens of people live in a crumbling government tenement with no running water and wooden stilts holding up what remains of the second floor.

Looking at the changes on the cobblestone street in Old Havana, Magaly González Martínez is pleased to see much of the once-decaying neighborhood get a new coat of paint. But she also worries how the transformation will impact those living in deteriorating buildings like her own as a wave of gentrification transforms swaths of Havana, bringing the inequities of modern real estate to one of the world’s last communist countries.

“I thought everything should be equal, no?” the 66-year-old retired construction worker said.

With tourism up nearly 20 percent since Presidents Barack Obama and Raúl Castro ended a half-century of Cold War in December 2014, Cubans with wealthy friends or family abroad are funneling millions of dollars into a real estate market that’s suddenly white-hot. They’re snapping up properties in historic Old Havana and elegant residential neighborhoods and transforming them into immaculate restored rental properties and hip bars and restaurants.

In some tourist-flooded neighborhoods the redistribution of wealth that transformed Cuba after its revolution appears to be rewinding before people’s eyes. Wealthy Cubans who left to live abroad decades ago are buying buildings once confiscated from families like theirs. Residents who had been living hand-to-mouth are selling deteriorating properties and taking their new fortunes and moving to less sought-after areas, or leaving the country entirely.

“When I arrived, it was totally different,” said Reinaldo Bordon, 44, who purchased the Calle Habana property where he runs Habana 61, one of the city’s top restaurants, with two friends three years ago. “If things continue at this pace, I think in another 10 years it will change a lot.”

Before Fidel Castro’s revolution, well-heeled Cubans lived in exclusive Havana neighborhoods like Miramar, while the poor lived in shantytowns. Providing equal housing was one of the revolution’s first goals. Almost immediately, evictions were prohibited and rental payments slashed up to 50 percent. Droves of middle- and upper-class Cubans fled, leaving behind mansions and suburban homes that the state handed out to the poor. The result was a leveling of Havana’s housing stock, with former maids and tenants becoming the proprietors of homes now managed by the state.

In 2011, Cuba announced it would allow people to sell their properties for the first time since the early years of the revolution. The new law set into motion what had not formally existed in decades: a Cuban real estate industry. Cubans living in peeling architectural gems began placing cardboard signs out front, inscribed with the words, “For Sale.”

Fueled by the post-detente boom in visitors, the resulting property turnover is moving at high speed in areas like Old Havana, where aging colonial buildings are being repaired on nearly every block.

On Calle Habana in the small, scenic Old Havana neighborhood known as Angel Hill, newly painted and restored homes dating back to the early 1900s are quickly beginning to outnumber deteriorating buildings on the verge of collapse. Those who live in the few still decaying homes are listing their properties on real estate websites, waiting for the right buyer to come along and in one financial transaction lift their families out of decades of poverty.

Though foreigners still cannot purchase property in Cuba, Joel Estévez, the director of Havana-Houses Real Estate, said about 60 percent of home purchases in Cuba are financed at least in part by someone abroad.

After Obama and Castro announced plans to restore U.S.-Cuba relations, the number of Cuban-Americans repatriating in order to purchase property while maintaining their U.S. citizenship has soared and could double in the years ahead, Estevez said. In other cases, a foreigner who is married to a Cuban might purchase a property and put it under a spouse’s name. The riskiest transactions involve foreigners who have no family members on the island but purchase a home and put it under the name of a friend.

After scoping out Havana properties over several visits, 70-year-old retired businessman Jose Angel Valls Cabarrocas settled on a stately but neglected home on Calle Habana, next to the tenement building. Cabarrocas and his family fled their Miramar home for Macon, Georgia, when he was 13.

“We belong here just as much as anybody else,” he said.

The nascent market favors people like Cabarrocas, who despite the difficulties of transferring cash to Cuba, nonetheless have the capital on hand to make purchases. With no financing available, the vast majority of Cubans are left out of the market. The average home price in Havana is about $25,000, according to real estate statistics collected by IslaData. The average Cuban state worker earns $20 a month.

“The median home price is very disconnected from what the average Cuban earns,” said Ricardo Torres Perez, an economist at the University of Havana.

Some Cuba observers wonder if the real estate market will slowly shift Havana back toward the inequality that characterized it nearly six decades ago.

Jesus Hermida Franco, 41, an artist who is using the bottom floor of his family’s home on Calle Habana as a studio, said he doesn’t see it that way. In his mind, there always remained some degree of inequality and class division in Cuba. If anything, the market is giving people a shot who didn’t have one before.

“Thanks to these changes people have been able to realize their dreams,” he said, then added: “Some people.”

/by

14th International Guitar Festival Opens in Havana

imagesHAVANA, april 17th The Covarrubias Hall of the National Theater of Cuba will host the opening concert with performances by the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by maestro Enrique Perez Mesa and Cuban soloists Marco Tamayo and Joaquin Clerch.

According to the program, the event will run from April 17th to 24th and participants will present a varied program that includes pieces by renowned composers as the Concierto de Aranjuez, by Spanish Joaquin Rodrigo.

Among the foreign guests are Anabel Montesinos, David Martinez, Jaume Torrent, Eduardo Inestal, from Spain, Fabio Zanon from Brazil and Anthony Spiri from the United States.

On the Cuban side, musicians Eduardo Martin, the Amadeo Roldan String Quartet, soprano Barbara Llanes and aforementioned Clerch and Tamayo will participate, among others.

This event will be dedicated to the centenary of guitarist Issac Nicola (1901-1999) and the 80th birthday of maestro instrumentalist Jesus Ortega, who chairs the 14th festival.

http://en.escambray.cu/2016/14th-international-guitar-festival-opens-in-havana-cuba/

/by

Castro, 84, says Cuba’s leaders are too old

Cuba's President Raul Castro speaks during the opening ceremony of the seventh Cuban Communist Party (PCC) congress in Havana April 16, 2016. REUTERS/Omara Garcia/AIN/Handout via Reuters

Cuba’s President Raul Castro speaks during the opening ceremony of the seventh Cuban Communist Party (PCC) congress in Havana April 16, 2016. REUTERS/Omara Garcia/AIN/Handout via Reuters

HAVANA, April 17th (Reuters) Future top leaders of Cuba’s Communist party should retire at 70 to let in younger blood, President Raul Castro said on Saturday, suggesting older members of the party hoping for promotion to the top table could play with their grandchildren instead.

Cuba’s current leaders include several septagenarian or octogenarian veterans of Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution. There is a growing urgency for them to make succession plans to keep the party alive once they are gone.

Raul Castro himself is 84 and after his planned retirement from government in two years time the country is likely to be led by somebody with a different surname for the first time since his brother overthrew a pro-U.S. government nearly 60 years ago.

His comments during a two hour speech at the inauguration of the Communist Party’s twice-per-decade congress were met with silence, perhaps because some members were disappointed with the idea.

“So serious! What silence is caused by this subject. Don’t think that just because you can’t be in the leadership of the country you can’t do anything,” Castro said, suggesting the elderly continue as party activists and spend more time with their grandchildren.

Before the congress, the current party leadership faced some discontent among younger members critical of the slow delivery on promised economic reforms in the past five years and a lack of transparency.

Fidel Castro, whose 90th birthday is in August, retired in 2008 after a serious illness and his younger brother took over, introducing a limit of two five-year terms for leaders. That limit has yet to be tested.

The proposed new rules would affect new entrants into the leadership and must be approved by the party over the course of the four-day congress. Castro said there should then be a constitutional amendment and a referendum to codify this and other reforms.

Castro proposed that 60 years be fixed as the age limit for entering the party’s central committee and up to 70 years as the maximum age to perform duties in the party leadership, saying the new rules would have a knock-on effect of bringing younger leaders up through the ranks more quickly.

“Somebody who is 65 or 70 is useful for important activities, but not the activities of an important leader,” he said.

On Monday, the party is due to vote for a new leadership, and is expected to re-elect Castro and the party number two Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, 85. Presumably the new rules would not apply to them because they are already within the leadership.

Castro said the same age rules should be applied to other state bodies and the government. He reiterated that he would step down as president of the nation in 2018.

/by

Cuban, U.S. Architects to Dialogue in Havana

cbf-logo-transparant-orangeHavana, Apr 16 (Prensa Latina) Cuba and the United States will have another space for dialogue during the Conference of the Design Committee of the American Institute of Architects to gather in Havana next week, informed its organizers.

To the event scheduled from April 18 to 23, will attend 165 U.S. professionals interested in the progress achieved by the island in that field, told journalists Geo Darder, president of the Copperbridge U.S. Foundation.

According to Darder, the U.S. delegation includes renowned professionals as one of the one responsible for the iconic skyscraper Lipstick of New York and a professor of the University of Miami who published a book on the diaspora of Cuban architecture.

The event will start on Monday in the San Geronimo College of Havana, with a cycle of conferences of Cuban specialists to promote work done to date on studies, conservation and rescue of architectural patrimony of the city.

Visitors will also be able to appreciate that reality firsthand, when they tour places of interest such as the Grand Theater of Havana Alicia Alonso which reopened its doors this year, or the Capitol, whose remodeling work is in execution.

They will also share experiences with Cuban students linked to architecture and design in the cultural center Fabrica de Arte in the capital.

The event closes next weekend in the western province of Matanzas, where the U.S. participants will know the main landmarks of architecture of this city known as the Athens of Cuba, as well as the buildings of the Varadero resort.

This will be the biggest meeting on architecture held in the island since the 12th World Art Deco Cogress in 2013, which for a few days turned Havana in the capital of that peculiar design style, with the participation of over 200 professionals of 15 countries.

/by

In slow dance with capitalism, Cuba turn to future

cubaHAVANA, April 16th (REUTERS)  Cuba’s Communist Party meets on today under pressure for the slow pace of promised market reforms as it prepares for a future without the octogenarian leaders who guided the country from a 1959 revolution to a cautious embrace of the United States.

The meeting is the Communist Party’s first congress in five years and the first since President Raul Castro and his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama announced they were to end decades of enmity and seek normal relations.

The party has been secretive about the agenda of the meeting, even by Cuba’s opaque standards, triggering grumbling among younger members who have grown accustomed to a freer flow of information and contact with the world.

As well as the lack of discussion, party foot soldiers said they were worried that the country had not implemented quickly enough the sweeping market reforms adopted at the last party congress in 2011 to avoid economic collapse.

“The economic plan is still getting on track but it needs to accelerate,” said Wilson Batista, who has been a party member for twenty years.

“The world’s policies, the world’s economy changes daily and we need to adjust ourselves exactly. We need to get on the world economic train.”

Cuba has improved its financial credibility over the last five years, running trade and current account surpluses and restructuring US$50 billion in mainly old debt, although harsh U.S. sanctions remain in place.

A nascent middle-class has emerged, making money from small businesses such as construction and hospitality. But in what one Cuban blogger called “paralysis at the cliff edge,” the party has not relinquished control of trade or larger businesses.

ANOINTING A SUCCESSOR
The party has implemented about a fifth of the measures it adopted in 2011, and Cubans are eager for more, especially a unification of the country’s two currencies and an end to the government’s monopoly on imports and exports.

Many Cubans are tired of waiting, especially young professionals who are rarely allowed to set up private practices. With news from the outside world closer thanks to more Internet access and booming tourism, ever greater numbers are taking advantage of new freedoms to travel and emigrate.

The congress takes place three weeks after Obama made history as the first U.S. president to visit the island in 88 years and eloquently called for more political freedom and democracy in the one-party state.

His words are unlikely to be heeded, because the party sees itself as the greatest defence against Washington’s past attempts to dominate Cuba.

Cuba’s top leaders started their careers as young guerrilla fighters who overthrew a U.S. backed government in 1959, and a few years later repelled the U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion – which the party congress is timed to commemorate.

Now, party chief Raul Castro is 84 and his top lieutenant in the party, José Ramón Machado Ventura is 85.

Castro is due to retire as president in 2018 and by the end of the four-day congress it will be clear whether he remains as party leader until 2021, or whether somebody younger takes over the leadership.

Founded in 1965, the Communist Party is seen as more powerful in Cuba than the government. It was formally led by Fidel Castro until 2011, although his younger brother had effectively taken command several years earlier.

/by

U.S.Company rebuild tennis courts in Havana

havana-live-tennisHAVANA, abril 15 th  A US company is getting ready to make history itself all for what it’s doing in Cuba.
Hinding of HINDING TENNIS is heading to Cuba with his crew to rebuild tennis courts at the National Tennis Center in Havana.

The project is the brainchild of Burlington tennis pro Jake Agna, who started the non-profit, “Kids on the Ball” in 2001. After years of helping at-risk youth through the organization in the states, it was Agna’s vision for every Cuban child to have an opportunity to play tennis.

Hinding says the project got approval from the U.S. government and the Cuban government, “It is a tremendous opportunity for us and we feel humbled and honored to just be a part of it. I mean it’s been 53 years since a U.S. company has done a brick and mortar project in Cuba.”Hinding%20Caribbean%20Logo_full

In 1991 the Cubans held the Pan American Games there, but now the courts are crumbling and the nets are held up by chairs. “Kids with wooden racquets, broken strings and balls with no felt on them and no nets just a wire line across, but these kids were out there engaging in tennis matches,” said Hinding.

Hinding says without decent equipment kids were still determined to play tennis. “The Cuban kids in terms of their desire to want to play this sport we noticed from the moment we showed up at this facility.” Hinding Tennis will rebuild 10 courts. The renovations to the courts will cost nearly $600,000 but when it’s finished it will be a world class facility.

But most of all, Hinding said it will bring kids together, “Just seeing the whole thing transform to where they are going to have a facility where they are going to be proud of everyday.”

The materials to construct the project will be sent to Cuba in April and the project will start in May. It will take about two weeks to restore the courts.

/by

Havana Hosts 7th Iberoamerican Congress on Nuclear Cardiology

77195326HAVANA, Apr 14 (PL) The 7th Iberoamerican Congress on Nuclear Cardiology, which begins today, is an opportunity for young specialists to learn about the latest technology and also exchange experiences, the president of the organizing committee, Amalia Peix said at the opening ceremony.

During the ceremony, the also president of nuclear cardiology section of the Cuban Society of Cardiology, stressed the importance of the event, in which more than 200 Latin American, European and US specialists participate, including the president of the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC), Dr. Brian Abbot, MD.

Peix also told Prensa Latina that from the Cuba prepares for a technological and professional development to progress in nuclear cardiology to contribute to the use of imaging techniques in cardiovascular diagnoses to effectively predict risks and select the treatment of each patient.

In the morning, the head of the department of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging at Brigham Women’s Hospital in Boston gave a masterly lecture on the current role of nuclear cardiology against emerging methods. Throughout the day, other conferences and workshops were held focused on the contribution of nuclear cardiology in the heart failure treatment.

This 7th Iberoamerican Congress on Nuclear Cardiology is sponsored by the ASNC, the Cuban Public Health Ministry, the American College of Cardiology; among other institutions, and will be held until April 16 in Havana.

/by

Watch: 150 years of US-Cuba history, told in 6 minutes

HAVANA, april 13th The story of America and Cuba — their decades of hostility, why it lasted so long, why it’s now finally ending — is often misunderstood in the US as a story about the Cold War. But in truth, it’s a story a full century older about slavery, clashing empires, and a long-running struggle within America to decide what kind of country we were going to be. When you see that, what’s happening today between Cuba and the US starts to make a lot more sense:


Americans don’t talk about this chapter in our history much today, but around the turn of the 19th century the country’s politics were divided over a question of national identity: Would the United States become an explicitly imperial power, joining the great powers of Europe in dividing up the world? Or would it champion its founding ideals of democracy by supporting independence movements around the globe?

This debate played out in the US just as the once-great Spanish Empire was crumbling. Cuba was a Spanish colony then; independence activists there rose up in 1895, and in 1898 the US declared war on Spain to help them.

But as the war progressed, American politicians argued: Should the US seize Cuba as its own colony, or should it stick to its word and support Cuban independence?

The Spanish-American War wasn’t just about Cuba. It was also over the Spanish colonies of Puerto Rico in the Caribbean; the island of Guam in the Pacific; and, largest of all, the Philippines, a series of large islands in Southeast Asia.

But debate in the US focused especially on Cuba. Partly this was because Cuba, so near to the US, inspired especially strong feelings in many Americans. And partly it was because there had been an earlier debate, in the 1850s, over whether to seize Cuba as a new US slave state.

By the time the war ended, both sides of the American debate had passed legislation in Congress meant to codify their preferred outcome. As a result, the US ended up with an odd quasi-imperial policy toward Cuba: The US would not seize it outright as a colony (something it did with Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines) but would take over Guantanamo Bay, control Cuba’s external affairs, and reserve the right to intervene on the island.

America’s imperial era in Cuba lasted only about 30 years. Franklin D. Roosevelt came into office in 1933 wanting to end America’s experiment with imperialism, and began unwinding US control over Cuba and the Philippines.

But within 20 years, the US would get involved in Cuba again, this time backing a military dictator who had seized power and was fighting a war with communist rebels.

Americans — who have never had much of a historical memory — saw this as just one of many proxy conflicts against communism’s global spread. But many Cubans saw it as a repeat of American imperialism. So when the US tried over and over to topple or even kill Cuban communist leader Fidel Castro, this felt, to many Cubans, like America trying to reassert its old colonial control over the island.

That’s far from the only reason the US-Cuba conflict lasted so long. As you’ll see in the video above, it’s also, as just one example, about the political conflict between Castro and Cuban dissidents that just happened to play out through American politics. But when you see that imperial legacy, and the way it’s been experienced by Cubans, the history starts to make a lot more sense. And this new era of normal relations looks even more historic.

http://www.vox.com/2016/4/12/11411358/cuba-opening-history-video

/by

Cuba train young Chefs

havana-live-chef-trainingHAVANA, Apr 13 (PL) Cuban tourism authorities are immerse in plans of formation of young chefs in order to guarantee the next generation of this specialty, so necessary in the recreation industry.

That strategy seems today supported in several meetings, as one organized in Old Havana starting today to 16 April in hotel facilities, organized by Habaguanex company, with business in this zone.

The idea announced by spokespersons of that firm, pretends the gourmet development through cuisine specialists to give a big boost to the Fourth Scientific Student event under the slogan Entrepreneuring with Flavor.

That event, they officially said, has a theoretical part located in the Hotel Ambos Mundos, facility intimately related to the presence in Cuba of U.S. Nobel laureate Ernest Hemingway.

In that meeting will participate sommeliers, barmen, enologists, chefs and specialists in food security.

The coordinator of the Program of Formation of Entrepreneurial Youths, Angel Aguilera (organizer of the event), stressed that the meeting will also have scenarios in the Natural History Museum, Library Ruben Martinez Villena and the private restaurant La Moneda Cubana (Cuban Coin).

Lectures on rescue of Havana cuisine, international and national cocktail history, good table habits, sustainable cooking and gastronomical services.

Those events will be attended by Chef Charo Val of Spain, who recently obtained the Quality Award in Beijing, China and will present the paper Sustainable Cooking, vanguard, tradition and product.

Organized by the Program of Young Entrepreneurs Training, the meeting is sponsored by several state entities, the Office of the City Historian, Habaguanex, Federation of Culinary Associations of Cuba, Havana Club International S.A. and the Barmen Association of Cuba.

/by

Cuba loosens control of some restaurant cooperative

HAVANA, april 13th (Reuters) Cuba announced on Tuesday that some cooperatives offering food and other services will be able to buy supplies directly from government producers and wholesale outlets for the first time, part of a wider but so far cautiously implemented market reform program.

The new rules mean some former state-run companies turned into cooperatives on the Communist-led island will no longer have to buy from more expensive retail outlets.

Odalys Escandell, first vice minister of domestic trade, said on the government’s evening news broadcast the move was “transcendental”, but Tuesday’s measures do not fulfill an earlier promise to let private restaurants do the same, leaving in place a key constraint on their business viability.

The steps, which go into effect on May 2, come just four days before a Communist Party Congress which is expected review market-oriented reforms begun five years ago.

The news report said wholesale outlets will be gradually established for the cooperatives. Over time, a series of products will be made available to them at lower prices, along with a tax cut, in exchange for setting price controls on the retail offer.

“Why are we establishing maximum prices? Because it is a system to protect the consumer,” Escandell said.

Cuba recently reversed an experiment to end state control of distribution of farm produce, after food prices rocketed above their previously subsidized levels.

Cuba has turned over to employees thousands of small state-run establishments, from coffee, snack and barber shops to locksmiths and shoeshine kiosks. The workers rent the premises and compete with private businesses on the open market.

The government has also ordered some 500 larger state-run establishments, from beauty salons to restaurants, to become cooperatives as a pilot project before thousands more follow suit.

Economy minister Marino Murillo made clear upon announcing plans to turn state-run businesses into cooperatives two years ago, that they would be favored over private businesses.

“They are a more social form of production,” he said at the time.

/by

The first Remittances & Financial Services Conference will be held in Havana

havana-live-IMTC LogoHAVANA, april 12th (PRNewswire)  IMTC, the premier events of the International Money Transfer & Payments Industry, has announced today that after several meetings with Cuban authorities, the IMTC CUBA 2016 Conference has been given a green light.

IMTC hosts the world’s largest Money Transfer Conferences and Trade Fairs. With remittances continuing to rise, the industry is seeing significant changes to the traditional business models with new developments from the Fintech sector and a strong development of digital channels.

The main objective of this one-of-a-kind event is to explore the remittance and financial service sector in Cuba, looking at the past to understand the present and analyze what the future will bring, starting from the very small number of financial services firms that exist today to the opportunities that lay ahead.

Remittances are a very important source of capital for the island but estimates of remittances sent to Cuban families vary widely. Remittance expert Manuel Orozco, from the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington estimates that about 550,000 people send an average $1,250 a year to the island, or about $770 millionannually.

The UN Economic Commission for Latin America estimated that $1.8 billion made it to the island in 2015. But when non cash contributions of merchandise, airtime minutes and other sources are added up, the total value could be 2 or 3 times higher.

/by

Cuban-Americans protest against Havana’s ban to board Carnival Cruises to Cuba

havana-live-Carnival SplendorHAVANA, april 12th (EFE) The Cuban American community in Florida will stage a protest on Tuesday before the offices of Carnival Cruise Line because Cuban authorities will not allow them to travel to the communist island on board cruise ships that will sail there regularly starting on May 1.

The Democracy Movement convened the demonstration to call attention to the “discrimination” the prohibition by Havana represents, the group’s leader, Ramon Saul Sanchez, told EFE on Monday.

The controversy erupted on the weekend after a reporter with the daily El Nuevo Herald tried to buy a ticket on the first of the cruise liners scheduled to sail to Cuba and was told by the firm that they would not accept her as a passenger because Cuban law prohibits her from traveling to the island.

The journalist wrote an article denouncing the situation and since then the complaints have multiplied.

Sanchez told EFE that on Sunday he met with a top Carnival official to express his outrage over the fact that the company is agreeing to the discriminatory practice.

According to the exile group’s leader, the official said that the firm does not agree with the prohibition either and has lobbied the island’s authorities not to apply the law to cruise lines, so far without results.

Under the slogan “Carnival Stop Nationality Apartheid,” the Democracy Movement is not only preparing the Tuesday demonstration but has also organized a flotilla to protest the matter by sea on May 1, when the Carnival vessel Adonia sets sail for Cuba.

/by