A SOUTHGATE cabbie with a passion for the achievements of the Cuban revolution is donating his London taxi to a museum in the Caribbean island’s capital Havana.
Tony Caccavone, 70, of Conway Road, is sending his Cuban-themed cab to the Havana Motor Museum in the heart of Old Havana after 16 years of service in which the Hackney carriage has clocked up just under 400,000 miles. Mr Caccavone has driven the black cab,which carries an advertisement for Cuban holidays and has the island’s flag painted on the bonnet and roof, around the capital in an attempt to “tell the other story” about the island. He became interested in the nation when he picked up a Canadian tourist in 1995, who told him it was a popular destination for his countrymen and women.
A year later, the cabbie and his late wife Christina flew on holiday to the island, which has been subject to a commercial, economic, and financial embargo by the United States since 1960 after the US-backed Batista regime was deposed by the revolution led by Fidel Castro. “When I got there, I got very angry about the poverty and lack of products in shops because of the embargo,” he told the Advertiser. “But look at what the country has achieved despite it – more doctors per capita than any other country in the world, very low infant mortality rates, most of its lawyers and politicians are women and there is no racism.”
Mr Caccavone said that when he returned from that holiday he went to the Cuban embassy in London, where he learned about the Cuba Solidarity Campaign and decided to paint the nation’s colours on the cab. He added: “I wanted to tell the other side of the story. I have taken politicians, lawyers and diplomats around London and told them about the Cuban revolution. I used to especially love driving around the American embassy.
“The museum will be the cab’s final resting place, its spiritual home. My gift is a homage to the resilience of the Cuban people.”
In 1997, Mr Caccavone shipped his cab to New York, where he led a convoy of more than 50 vehicles across the border with Canada in protest against the US embargo.
The group flew to Cuba afterwards and Mr Caccavone met Castro, who thanked the taxi driver for his efforts.
The taxi will be shipped to Havana next month.
Mr Caccavone, who has no plans to retire, is now driving a regular rented black cab.

By Koos Couvée North London Press

Cuba plans to open its economy to greater foreign investment under a new law to be taken up soon by its legislature, a report in state-run media said Saturday.
Outside investment no longer would be merely a “complement” to Cuba’s state-run economy but “would occupy a major role” under the proposed law, said Pedro San Jorge, a top official at Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment.
The national assembly is take up the bill in March as part of an ongoing overhaul of Cuba’s Soviet-style economy under President Raul Castro. San Jorge, who heads the ministry’s economic policy office, said it envisions among other things a role for foreign investment in agriculture, which he said was unusual.
His remarks were published in Cuba’s Opciones weekly newspaper. A 1995 law mandates that foreign capital should play only a complementary role in Cuba’s economy, including providing funds and technological know-how to enterprises run by the Cuban state. San Jorge said that the planned changes reflect the “current circumstances” faced by Cuba, which has been struggling to get out from under an inefficient, top heavy, state-run industrial apparatus.
Castro last month called an extraordinary session of the assembly in March to approve the bill. He said that the measure opening up the economy to outside investment seeks to attract greater foreign capital, generate new jobs and bolster domestic industry. Castro said he also wants to increase Cuba’s exports and reduce its dependence on goods purchased from overseas. “You have to strengthen the country’s capacity to generate many of the products that we currently import,” the Cuban leader said.
The island of some 11.1 million people has seen some significant changes since 2011.
The reforms have covered everything from the currency system to the kinds of jobs Cubans are permitted to take on as self-employed workers. Castro also has created hundreds of cooperatives from former state enterprises, in a bid to reduce the legions of state workers who get a government paycheck.

Former Treasury minister Philip Oppenheim has signed a deal with Cuba, which will allow his start-up business, The Cuba Mountain Coffee Company, to purchase high-quality coffee and invest into the Cuban agriculture industry. Before the revolution, Cuba was one of the biggest coffee producers in the world but the industry has shrunk by more than 90pc over the past 50 years. Under the terms of the deal, the company, which trades as Alma de Cuba, will invest $4m (£2.4m) into the coffee farming community in the south east of the country over the next five years.
“By investing into nursery, root stocks, and the processes that strip the cherries from the beans, we will improve the quality and the quantity of the coffee produced,” said Mr Oppenheim. “We get these very rare coffee beans and the Cuban farmers get what they need to grow more.” Before the revolution, Cuba was one of the biggest coffee producers in the world but the industry has shrunk by more than 90pc over the past 50 years. Cuba now produces just 500,000 tonnes of coffee a year.
“Only a small percentage of that is high quality,“ said Mr Oppenheim, who has a long history of working with Cuba. He owns Cubana, a Cuban-themed bar near Waterloo in London. “I buy rum and raw sugar from Cuba for the bar,” he said. “It’s a small country, so you get to know people.”Mr Oppenheim first started exploring other business opportunities in Cuba 10 years ago. Mr Oppenheim first started exploring other business opportunities in Cuba 10 years ago. “The rum business was owned by Pernod Ricard and Imperial Tobacco dominated in cigars,” he said. “Cuba has the perfect climate for growing coffee and, with its illustrious coffee-making past, that was the most exciting opportunity.”
This deal marks a new chapter in the liberalisation of Cuba. “It was hard to get a foot in the door,” Mr Oppenheim said. “The Cubans are suspicious of foreigners. They remember the Americans coming in and buying up all the sugar plantations and don’t want that to happen again. But this deal proves that Cuba is becoming an exciting emerging market for entrepreneurs.” Alma de Cuba roasts and packages the Cuban coffee beans in the UK.
“The price point is about 20p-30p a cup,” said Mr Oppenheim. “That’s much cheaper than Starbucks and much better quality.”

Rebecca Burn

Cuban and British entrepreneurs started a Business Forum in the Cuban capital Tuesday, with the objective to stimulate the economic and commercial relations between Cuba and the Great Britain. On the first day, Omar Fernandez, general secretary of the Cuban Chamber of Commerce, highlighted the importance of the presentations of this event on sectors of the Cuban national economy, such as tourism, renewable energy, biotechnology and agricultural industry.Fernandez highlighted the potential for developing beneficial projects for both countries, to give continuity to businesses already started by enterprises from Cuba and UK, or those which can propitiate new exchanges.
He also talked about the work deployed in the last years by Iniciativa Cuba, an entity formed by British managers and officials that constitutes an important alternative for the promotion of the economic links, since other bilateral mechanisms do not exist.
For his part, the UK business ambassador, Brian Wilson, said that the bilateral economic links have had a progress in the last years since the UK established its presence in the Caribbean island at the time that Cuban managers are interested in establishing new joint ventures with the European nation.
Wilson highlighted the existence of renovated interests to empower this relation between Cuba and the UK and considered that the project of the Mariel Special Development Area is a favorable opportunity to promote them. The Forum of Business among the two countries will have this Wednesday another intense day of of work with the realization of a workshop on agricultural energy.

University of Tampa baseball team catcher Nick Tindall holds 6-month-old son Maximus while Tindall and his teammates wait to check their bags at Tampa International Airport on Sunday before a weeklong trip to Havana. University of Tampa pitcher Jimmy Hodgskin adjusts items in his bag at Tampa International Airport on Sunday. About 50 people, including some parents, are part of the trip to Cuba, where the team will play three exhibition games.
The University of Tampa’s baseball team formed a sea of red polos at Tampa International Airport Sunday as the players prepared for a weeklong trip to Havana.
The trip will see them take on the Industriales Blue Lions, Mayabeque Hurricanes and Artemisa Hunters in three exhibition games. Mayabeque and Artemisa are among the country’s best baseball teams. “It’s just a privilege and it’s a blessing,” said pitcher Tyler York, 21. “I think we all feel honored to have the chance to play a national team.” As pitcher Jimmy Hodgskin waited with his parents at the counter, his glove out, he said the storied tradition of Cuban baseball made him a little nervous. “I’m expecting a pro team, pretty much,” said Hodgskin, 22.
Though baseball is taking them to Cuba, the trip was designed as a cultural exchange. About 50 people, including parents, coaches and a few visitors who helped organize the trip, left on a 2 p.m. flight to Havana on Sunday. The team will travel on cultural literacy and international education licenses through the organization People to People. Representatives from the World Trade Center of Tampa, the UT Athletic Department and the UT Office of International Programs also helped plan the trip, believed to be the first of its kind for a Florida team.
From their home base in Havana, players will visit the Ernest Hemingway House, eat at local restaurants and meet with college-aged Cubans. Travel to Cuba remains somewhat restricted for Americans, and many players and parents said they recognized it as a rare opportunity. Tampa City Councilman Charlie Miranda, who traveled to Cuba as a youngster to play baseball, will accompany the Spartans.
Along with their suitcases and gym bags, the team hauled uniforms, bats, gloves, and other gear donated by the New York Yankees and the Palma Ceia Little League. And when they leave Cuba on Saturday, Urso will ask players to return home without their shoes and gloves. The Spartans will come back to new gear, but they hope leaving something behind will help spread goodwill — no matter what happens on the field. “We’re going to do this first class,” Urso said, “and make sure the people out there are going to end up with equipment that’s really good.”

Claire Wiseman Tampabay.com  

Thousands of Cuban state taxi drivers will soon be leasing their vehicles and working on their own as part of a reorganization of the country’s taxi service aimed at improving efficiency, according to rules published today. The measure follows the similar transfer of barbers, beauticians, small cafeterias and other retail services by the state to what is called the “non-state” sector as part of market-oriented reforms under way in the country.
Cuba nationalized all retail business in 1968, down to the shoe-shine shops, and fixed all prices. But in an attempt to stimulate the stagnant economy and reduce bureaucracy, it is giving some of it back in a form of legal private enterprise operating on a market basis. The sector now numbers 445,000 people, or 5 percent of the labor force, and is made up of private, leased and cooperative small businesses, their employees, private taxi drivers, the building trades and others. The administration of Cubataxi, which operates in the local US dollar equivalent called the convertible peso (CUC), will be downsized. Drivers will become self-employed, leasing a vehicle from the company at a daily rate, according to the resolutions published in the official Gazette. “The idea is to eliminate irregularities in the service, the stealing of fares and reduce inflated administrative payrolls,” said Debora Canela Pina, a transportation ministry specialist at Cubadebate, an official on-line news site.
Cubataxi drivers are notorious for not using their meters.
Canela Pina said the reorganization would improve service and 60 percent of taxis, many old Russian Ladas, would be replaced by newer models consisting of second-hand rental cars. Outside the Havana Libre Hotel, two Cubataxi drivers said they hoped their new status would prove beneficial. Besides, they noted, they had no choice but to accept their fate or be laid off. The new system is based on a pilot project in Havana begun in 2010 at a single garage.
Thirty of the more than 2,000 state taxi drivers in the capital began leasing their vehicles rather than working for a wage, a small percentage of the tips and whatever they could pocket on the sly.
Instead of three support staff for every driver, as in other garages, there were just three for the thirty. “You pay 595 CUC ($595) for the car and then after a month 39 CUC plus 40 (Cuban) pesos a day,” Elio, one of the drivers, said at the time. He requested his last name be withheld. The government reported that after the first year, the state’s yearly take from each taxi was estimated to multiply 30-fold compared with before the experiment began.
Under the new rules, the daily rate was reduced to 23 CUC ($23) and costs can be deducted before paying income tax.
The drivers will be responsible for maintaining their taxi and gasoline, but can buy parts and services from the state company at reduced prices

Hundreds of people gave their final farewell Saturday to Cuban priest and intellectual Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, one of the most outstanding and influential figures of the Catholic Church on this Caribbean island in the last few decades. Cespedes, who died suddenly on Friday at age 77, was buried Saturday in the priests’ pantheon at Colon Cemetery in Havana, following a crowded funeral ceremony in San Agustin parish, where had served as its priest in recent years. The Havana church was packed with more than 600 people for the funeral Mass attended by the the archbishop of Havana, Cardinal Jaime Ortega, along with bishops, priests and seminarians from provinces around the country.
Representing the Cuban government were the president of the National Assembly, Esteban Lazo, and the head of the Religious Affairs Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Caridad Diego.
Also present was the former Parliament leader, Ricardo Alarcon, the current adviser to Cuban President Raul Castro.
Born in Havana on July 16, 1936, Cespedes said during a television interview a few years ago that “Cuba and the church are my two passions! I’ve always said that, because that’s the way it is.”
Placed on his tomb were floral tributes in the name of Cuban President Raul Castro, the president of the government Writers and Artists Union of Cuba, Miguel Barnet, and also of friends like the director of the National Ballet, Alicia Alonso.
Reporting this Saturday on the priest’s death, official Cuban media said that “he dedicated his life to the Catholic Church and to his country.”
Carlos Manuel de Cespedes studied law and philosophy at the University of Havana and later studied theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where he was ordained a priest in 1961.
In 1963 he returned to Cuba in a time of tension between the Catholic Church and the Cuban Revolution, which had triumphed in 1959 led by Fidel Castro.
Since 1966 until 1970 he was rector of the San Carlos and San Ambrosio Seminary in Havana, where he was also professor of sacred scripture.
In the intellectual world, he published several novels, collaborated with a number of publications and in 2006 was accepted as a member of the Cuban Academy of the Language, becoming the third Catholic dignitary to be part of that institution.

Cuban followers of the Santeria faith beat sacred drums, sacrificed animals and sang ceremonial songs in the Yoruba tongue Monday to give thanks for the year’s blessings and ask for prosperity in 2014.
About 200 believers and onlookers thronged Havana’s most important market, Cuatro Caminos, for the ceremony dedicated to Eshu-Elegbara, the deity associated with markets and commerce, and also protector of the universe.
‘‘This year was good, it was prosperous,’’ said Victor Betancourt, a ‘‘babalawo,’’ or Santeria priest.
In a central courtyard at the market, people sprayed rum from their mouths at a 2-foot-tall cement-and-stone statue of Eshu-Elegbara, crowned with spiral shells. At its base, they left offerings of coconut, watermelon, candy and flowers.
Two goats and two roosters were slaughtered, and their blood used to bathe the icon. Administrators at Cuatro Caminos authorized babalawos to erect the statue in the patio for the first time this year.
‘‘These offerings have been made here since 1996, but now we’ve gotten them to let us put it up permanently,’’ Betancourt said.
Cuban Santeria is a syncretic faith mixing Catholicism and African traditions that were brought here long ago by slaves. It is the island’s principal religion, with millions of followers.

© Copyright 2013 Globe Newspaper Company.

As the Cuban government is gradually freeing new-car sales for individuals, Chinese automaker Geely, already the No. 1 auto seller on the island, is positioning itself for growth in Cuba and the wider region.The company is planning to establish a semi-knock down (SKD) assembly plant in Cuba, Shanghai Geely International Corporation,Geely’s international arm, announced in a press release republished by Global Times. The company didn’t provide any specifics. In an ambitious global expansion plan, Geely set a target of opening 15 assembly plants overseas by 2015, according to an article by Automotive Logistics magazine. In semi-knock down assembly, a manufacturer typically exports a kit with complete car body, usually coated or already painted, to then add engine and transmission, tires, wheels, seats, headlights, glass, batteries, interior plastics, or other components in final assembly, some of them locally sourced.
“At the request of several ministries in Cuba, including the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Investment, the Ministry of Communications, and the Ministry of Metallurgy Industry, Geely International is now preparing to launch the SKD project in a local place,” the company said in the press release.
The announcement comes as the Cuban government is seeking manufacturers to open shop at its new Mariel Special Development Zone, an export-oriented zone around a deepwater port 30 miles west of Havana.
Cuba is the company’s largest market in the Caribbean, Central America and northern part of South America. Geely sold at least 3,200 vehicles to Cuba in 2013, in two batches; the Geely CK has held the spot of most-sold new car model in Cuba since 2009. The company is also selling vehicles in Costa Rica, Colombia and Venezuela. In 2012, the company opened a contract assembly plant in Uruguay in a joint venture with a local partner, making it Geely’s first in the Western hemisphere. The plant, with a capacity of 20,000 cars per year, is supplying primarily Mercosur markets Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, as well as Chile. Forty percent of the components in Uruguay are locally sourced, with a goal of reaching 60 percent by the third year. All Geely vehicles sold to Cuba in 2013 were made at the Uruguayan plant. “Geely International actively takes measures in relevant areas and has achieved essential progress,” the company said in a recent statement about the Cuban market. On Dec. 19, official media announced that for the first time since 1959, individuals will be allowed to purchase new cars without a permit. The state will retain its monopoly over new-car sales.
“Geely is continuously improving the storage structure of its bonded warehouse and is adopting multi-channel supply methods” for spare parts, the company said. Geely’s warehouse in Cuba now is at 80 percent of capacity, up from 34 percent last year. The company has also signed agreements with SASA, a local auto service provider operated by the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, to jointly open standard service stations and spare-part sales stores.
Nearly 10,000 Geely-brand cars and trucks are already circulating on Cuban roads, the company said. Government agencies, such as the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, the Ministry of the Interior, and the Ministry of Tourism, have been the only buyers of new cars until now. Geely’s CK models are used as senior government officials’ cars; most police cars in Havana are Geely CK models as well. At present, 80 percent of rental cars in Cuba are Geely CK, EC7 and EC8 models; all rental agencies are state-owned.Geely stand at the International Havana Fair (FIHAV).

CUBA STANDARD  

Members of the Cuban Bartenders Association met in Havana with a delegation of US professionals in the field, who paid a friendly visit to the island. The gathering was held at the Caribbean Hotel in Havana, one of the facilities managed by the Cuban Islazul Tourist Group.
Among their issues at the center of interest of the visitors was the training of young bartenders at specialized schools run by the Ministry of Tourism in collaboration with Education authorities. Cuban bartenders have won significant positions at recent International and Panamerican competitions, sponsored by the International Bartenders Association. One of those winners was bartender Barbaro Giraldes, who works at Havana’s world famous Sloppy Joe bar. Giraldes has just won second place at the Panamerican bartenders championship held in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The Cuban Bartenders Association counts on 3000 members, including 700 women.Chuck Fields, owner of The Paddy Wagon Bar in Richmond, Kentucky, praised the excellence of Cuban Rums and thanked their Cuban hosts for the exhaustive tour of Havana bars and the opportunity of seeing their Cuban counterparts in full action.

(acn)

The dented metal pizza trays are packed away, so too the old blender that never worked when it was needed. Gone is the sweet smell of rising dough that infused Julio Cesar Hidalgo’s Havana apartment when he and his girlfriend were in business for themselves, churning out cheesy pies for hungry costumers.
Two years on the front lines of Cuba’s experiment with limited free market capitalism has left Hidalgo broke, out of work and facing a possible crushing fine. But the 33-year-old known for his wide smile and sunny disposition says the biggest loss is harder to define. “I feel frustrated and let down,” Hidalgo said, slumped in a rocking chair one recent December afternoon, shrugging his shoulders as he described the pizzeria’s collapse. “The business didn’t turn out as I had hoped.”
The Associated Press recently checked in with nine small business owners whose fortunes it first reported on in 2011 as they set up shop amid the excitement of President Raul Castro’s surprising embrace of some free enterprise.Among them were restaurant and cafeteria owners, a seamstress and taekwondo instructor, a vendor of bootleg DVDs and a woman renting her rooms out to well-heeled tourists. Of the six ventures that relied on revenue from cash-strapped islanders, four are now out of business, their owners in more dire financial straits than when they started. But the three enterprises that cater to well-heeled foreigners, and to the minority of well-paid Cubans who work for foreign businesses, are still going and in some cases thriving.
While the sample size is small, the numbers point to a basic problem that economists who follow Cuba have noted from the start: There simply isn’t enough money to support a thriving private sector. “Clearly, there is a macroeconomic environment that does not favor the private sector or the expansion of demand that the private sector requires,” said Pavel Vidal, a former Cuban Central Bank economist. Vidal has long called on the cuban authorities to adopt a huge stimulus package or more aggressively seek capital from foreign investors. Now a professor at Colombia’s Javeriana University, he says one has only to look at the trends since 2011 to see the private sector economy is nearly tapped out. After a surge of enthusiasm, the number of islanders working for themselves has stalled for the past two years at about 444,000 or 9 percent of the workforce.
Even in developed countries where entrepreneurs have access to capital, loans and a wide pool of paying customers, startups are risky ventures. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, about half of all new establishments in America close within five years, and two-thirds are gone within a decade. The failure rate of Cuban entrepreneurs followed by AP was 44 percent in less than two years, and worse if one considers only those.
“There’s not enough money circulating in the economy in the hands of everyday people,” said Ted Henken, a professor of Latin American studies at Baruch College in New York and author of an upcoming book on private enterprise in Cuba. “You’re all competing for the same customers, most of whom are poor and have very limited disposable income.” Economists have criticized the Cuban government for a series of measures to crack down on what it sees as illegal activities — including banning private movie cinemas, taxing the import of hard-to-get products in travelers’ luggage, and banning the sale of imported clothing. But on Saturday, Castro came down firmly in favor of increased regulation, sternly warning entrepreneurs that “those pressuring us to move faster are moving us toward failure.”
Henken and Vidal said Cuba must find a way to raise state salaries, expand state-funded microcredits and create a functional wholesale market to service the new businesses. They also noted that for a relatively well-educated society like Cuba’s, there are remarkably few white collar jobs on the list of nearly 200 activities that have been legalized.
Still, not every entrepreneur is struggling.
High-end bars and glamorous new restaurants have become common in Havana, with shiny state tour buses disgorging photo-snapping travelers to sample lobster tail and filet mignon at upward of $20 a plate. Private rooms and homes that rent to foreigners can go for $25-$100 a night, less than most tourist hotels. Cubans with the means, and the business sense, to tap into the gravy train can do very well.
Chef-owner Javier Acosta sank more than $30,000 into Parthenon, a private restaurant catering to tourists and diplomats. He struggled at first, telling the AP back in 2011 that there were nights when nobody came in and he and his four waiters just sat around. But the restaurant slowly gained a reputation, in part because Acosta makes a potent Cuban mojito and offers a special suckling pig that can feed up to five people for $50. These days, Acosta is expanding. He recently added tables in a new room decked out with mosaic tiles and faux Greek pillars, and plans to build a roof deck. He even has started advertising, paying $300 a year to have his establishment included in a tourist magazine.
“I haven’t yet managed to recover my initial investment and the other money we’ve put into the place,” the 40-year-old said. “But in two or three more years maybe I can.”
Even more humble operations can do well, as long as they have some access to foreign money. One woman who rents an apartment to foreigners for $25 a night in the upscale Vedado neighborhood says her business provides a stable income that supports her and allows her to help her son and granddaughter.
Two women who sell $1.25 box lunches to Cubans and foreigners in a building in Old Havana with many international firms and consular offices have managed to stay afloat despite a sharp drop in customers following the departure of several companies, and what they say has been a steady rise in prices of key ingredients like black beans, rice, cooking oil and pork.
“This has become difficult,” said Odalis Lozano, 48. “But we’re still here, because we can always make some money.” For those without access to that foreign cash line, the results have been grim. Besides, the failed pizzeria, a DVD salesman, seamstress and street-side cafe owner who allowed the AP to tell their stories shut down after less than a year in business, citing high monthly taxes, a lack of customers and limited resources and business sense.
The only two operations that rely on everyday Cubans for revenue which remain in business are gymnasiums. One is run by Maria Regla Zaldivar, who in 2011 was giving taekwondo classes to children in Nuevo Vedado and dreamed of converting a ruined dry cleaning factory into a proper gymnasium. The factory remains a crumbling shell, but Zaldivar said her business continues. She declined to grant a formal interview, but said in a brief phone call that she had rented a small space near her apartment and continued to give classes.
The other success story belongs to Neysi Hernandez, the mother of Julio Cesar Hidalgo’s girlfriend. Hernandez opened a simple gymnasium for women in the courtyard and garage of her home in Havana’s La Lisa neighborhood, charging the equivalent of $5 a month for membership. Two years later, she has 25 paying clients and ekes out a small profit. Hernandez says her customers are loyal, despite the fact the gymnasium lacks basic amenities like a shower room, lockers and towels. Unable to afford imported equipment, Hernandez uses sand-filled plastic water bottles for weights. Her three exercise bicycles and mechanical treadmill are creaky and aging.
“My gymnasium is modest, but they like it,” Hernandez said, adding she has dreams of one day installing a small massage room and sauna. “A little bit at a time.”
For the pizza man Hidalgo, however, the experience with private enterprise has been a bitter one. He says he lost between $800 and $1,000 on the pizzeria. He is appealing a $520 fine levied by tax authorities who accuse him of understating his profits, even though the business failed. He has had bouts with illness, and has been unemployed since the pizzeria closed in April. Hidalgo says he has not given up on the idea of opening a new business one day. But he is also setting his sights beyond Cuba’s shores.
“What I wanted was to work and make money so that I could live a normal life, have money to buy myself shoes, eat, and go out with my girlfriend,” Hidalgo said, punctuating each modest desire with a flip of his hand and a rueful smile. “I hope that kind of work materializes in my country, but if the opportunity presents itself to work somewhere else, I won’t turn it down.”Recently, Hidalgo’s girlfriend, Gisselle de la Noval, 25, took out a license to operate a nail salon in the space once occupied by the pizzeria. The salon has been open a matter of weeks and it is too soon to know if it will do well. But she says she is content, charging about 40 cents for a manicure and slightly more for a pedicure. “I don’t miss the pizzeria, but I am sad it wasn’t a success,” she says with a shrug. “But I am young, so whatever. Now I’m dedicated to this.”

AP By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ and ANNE-MARIE GARCIA

The number of arrivals of cruise ships at Cuban ports is expected to surpass the figure reported in previous years, said an executive in the specialized tourist sector. Norberto Perez, general director of the Aries Transport Company, in charge of commer- cializing cruise ships opera- tions in Cuba told reporters that a new company named Cuba Cruises will manage arrivals here of cruise ships, such as Canada’s Louis Cristal, which called at the south-central harbor of Cienfuegos on Saturday. Perez said that 10 cruise ships will call at Cuban ports during the current high tourist seasons, including the luxurious Europa, the Albatross and the Thompson Dreams, which is the largest of all, with capacity for 785 passengers. The Thompson Dreams visited Havana harbor on December 6. The international tourist modality is affected in Cuba by the US economic, commercial and financial blockade of Cuba, which bans American citizens from visiting the island, the executive said.

(acn)

Spanish navigator Alvaro de Marichalar left Havana en route to Cancun, Mexico, to complete another stage of his jet-ski journey commemorating the 500 years since the discovery of the Pacific Ocean by Vasco Nuñez de Balboa.
De Marichalar left Thursday on his jet ski “Numancia” from Havana’s Club Nautico Marina Hemingway headed for Mexico, a crossing which, if all goes as scheduled, should last about two days and will include two stops to take on supplies in the eastern Cuban province of Pinar del Rio.
The Spanish adventurer, 52, arrived in Havana on Tuesday from Key West, Florida, a long trip during which he was accompanied by his wife, the Russian Ekaterina Anikeeva, who joined him for the first time on his navigation of the high seas.
Up to now, De Marichalar has traveled 210 miles of the 2,400 planned for this expedition, which will celebrate Nuñez de Balboa’s discovery of the Pacific Ocean on Sept. 25, 1513.
His next stops will include ports of call in Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia, where he expects to wrap up his voyage in January 2014.
De Marichalar adds this tribute to the one he made in March and April to the discovery of Florida by colonizer Juan Ponce de Leon 500 years ago, following his maritime route. The navigator, who travels alone with no support vessel and always standing as he jet-skis, devotes these expeditions to raising funds for non-governmental organizations and beneficent foundations.

Heral Tribune

The Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC) will be eliminated in the process to reestablish a one-currency system on the island, confirmed VP Marino Murillo, during a plenary session of the Cuban Parliament on Friday. The hard currency CUC, pegged to the US dollar, joined the regular Cuban peso (CUP) in the harsh post-Soviet years of the 1990s, as a second island currency. Returning to a one-currency system is now seen by Cuban president Raul Castro and most economists as necessary.
The monetary unification plan, announced last October, will bring the CUC out of circulation, said Murillo. He added that there would be guarantees for those who have funds and bank accounts in CUC.