HAVANA, January 8. The National Sanctuary of San Lázaro, popularly known as El Rincón, received the Three Wise Men of the East on January 5. Read more

HAVANA, Jan. 8th. The Ministry of Internal Trade announced delays in the delivery of ration books for Cuban families, which it attributed to “financial limitations” Read more

HAVANA, January 7  The Government of Havana has mobilized Community service workers to collect the garbage that was accumulating on the city streets. Read more

HAVANA, Jan. 6  The opening concert of the Jazz Plaza International Festival, on the 21st, will be dedicated to the 50 years of artistic life of maestro Joaquín Betancourt, the event’s Facebook site highlights today. Read more

HAVANA.,Jan. 6  Transportation in Cuba moves on a high-tension rope. Every morning the stops are packed with people trying to “capture”
a bus to travel to work, study centers or simply to get to a medical appointment at a hospital.

Young people, old people, students. From early on everyone tries to complete the day ahead but moving is at least a high-risk sport.

The image is very similar to those photographs from the so-called Special Period. People “hooked” on bus doors, or hit each other to get on without the slightest respect for others. It is the law of the strongest.

In that fight, the most vulnerable person is always defeated, the elderly, a woman with her children, or anyone who suffers from an illness that prevents them from correctly entering the field of that pitched battle on equal terms.

Added to the above is the long time spent at the stops. The buses can take hours to pass the scheduled point while people wait as if they had the entire day available to wait. Otherwise, they would have to take an almendrón or a private taxi service.

The latter, by the way, is another high-tension sport due to the payment they demand from clients. As the button shows: a trip of a few kilometers from Vedado to Centro Habana or Old Havana can easily cost around 1,000 pesos.

That does happen before nightfall. At late hours the cost can double and people are forced to pay it (those who can, of course) to be able to return to their homes without taking any more risks amid the wave of violence that has been unleashed on the island.

Fear, we know, is in the streets. Unlike other years, many people try not to go out at night, precisely because they anticipate that the return by public transport will be an odyssey, which also implies spending long hours at stops at the risk of being assaulted simply to snatch a cell phone or something. another valuable object.

The situation is quite critical. The worst thing perhaps is that there is no solution in sight. It even seems that it could be worse given the announcement of the increase in the cost of bus fares, a measure that has also been the butt of jokes among Cubans who wonder how the cost of fare for “ghost” buses is going to increase.

2024 will have the last word. Let’s hope that at least the situation with transportation improves and people can travel with less difficulty to their destinations so that the image at the stops is different. However, to tell the truth, the omens for this year, leap year and perhaps sinister, do not present the best cards.

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HAVANA, January 6. The sugar harvest began on December 6 and to date only 11 of the 25 mills that were scheduled to grind have started, reported the official newspaper Granma. Read more

HAVANA, Jan. 5 Something that Cuba did not accomplish in 2023, intends to do so this year: adding more than 3 million foreign visitors. How come? Read more

HAVANA, Jan. 5th.  The Parish of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in the capital’s Vedado, reported on social networks an alleged sexual assault committed by a man during a mass. Read more

HAVANA, Jan 4th. The dance scene in this capital dresses up in luxury at the beginning of the year with the presentation of Ballet Beyond Borders 2024, Read more

HAVANA, Jan 4. THE III Escambray Mountain Bike Challenge 2024 will take place from January 24 to 28 with a route of 185 kilometers and four stages through wild and beautiful places in Sancti Spiritus. Read more

HAVANA, Jan 4. In the early hours of this Wednesday, localities in the interior of western and central Cuba registered values ​​below 10 degrees Celsius (°C), the Institute of Meteorology (Insmet) reported today. Read more

HAVANA, Jan 2. The gesture of solidarity between the owner of a private bar in Guanabo, in Eastern Havana, and his workers, has gone viral on social networks Read more

HAVANA, Jan 2. Let no one be taken by surprise if dollars, MLC and euros start in a busy year in 2024.
The previous 12 months were a celebration Read more

HAVANA, Jan 1. The Cuban government will extend until March 31 the non-commercial, tariff-free importation of food, Read more

HAVANA, Dec. 31st. The Cuban Government announced the sale of fuel in Freely Convertible Currency (MLC), as they had announced in the Ordinary Session of the National Assembly of People’s Power (ANPP). Read more

HAVANA, Dec. 30th. The Cuban Telecommunications Company, ETECSA, has announced the implementation of a new mobile numbering for its clients in the country. Read more

HAVANA, Dec 30  Five thousand 253 irregular migrants have been returned to Cuba in 2023, by air and sea from different countries in the Americas, according to official sources today. Read more

HAVANA, dec. 30th. The Cuban company Havanatur came to the dock of the state media and the Foreign Ministry this week for an advertisement that many came to compare with “colonizing icons.” Read more

HAVANA, Dec 31 is celebrated in Cuba in various ways not only with the delicious dinner at the end of the day, which, although important, Read more

HAVANA, December 29. Havana is revived in these final days of the year with the arrival of a British cruise ship loaded with almost half a thousand tourists,
on the second of four planned visits to the island by that ship.

The vacationers arrived on the Marella Explorer 2 ship, belonging to Marella Cruises Restricted, of the TUI Group, and immediately spread out through the streets of the city, which turned 504 years old last November.

“The old part of the city is very beautiful and very well preserved,” British John Garling, who set foot on the streets of the Cuban capital for the first time, told Xinhua.

Garling and his wife Marie toured a good part of Havana’s emblematic boardwalk aboard an old convertible Oldsmobile, a classic car that looks like it just left the factory in Michigan, United States.

“It is a good end to the year after so many hardships,” said Mario Arteche, the owner of the brand-new rental car.

Arteche pointed out that the slow recovery of tourism on the island, after the devastating blow of the COVID-19 pandemic, has hit the family economy of many people who depend on that sector.

“When there is little tourism, everything suffers at home,” he said. That criterion was shared by Luis Fernández, a man who for 12 years has been driving a picturesque horse-drawn carriage on a circuit that covers the main historical areas of old Havana.

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HAVANA, Dec. 29th. Wedding processions on wheels are nothing new along Havana’s famous seafront drive, the Malecon, but this week electric motorcycles Read more

HAVANA, December 28 The National Ballet of Cuba (BNC), directed by Viengsay Valdés, returns today to the Avellaneda Hall of the National Theater in this capital, Read more

HAVANA, Dec.28 More than 400 species of birds have been reported from Cuba on the international platform eBird, a database specialized in bird observations, Read more

HAVANA, December 27. Cimex.SA reports on the launch of a new international virtual store, which will begin operating in Havana. Read more

HAVANA, Dec. 27th.  The arrival of mobile data to Cuba, five years ago, is key to explaining certain changes in the country, ranging from the anti-government protests of July 11 Read more

HAVANA, Dec. 26th. With a large red bag on his shoulder, a former actor dressed as Santa Claus gives candy to children while walking the streets of Havana, Read more

HAVANA, Dec. 26  A Cuban scientist reported this Monday that he managed to produce high-quality wines in a short time, as prospects for the industry of this product linked to tourism. Read more

HAVANA, Dec 24. The capitals of Russia and Cuba will be connected again today by air, after the departure from the Sheremetyevo International Airport of flight SU6849 of the Rossiya Airline bound for Havana. Read more

HAVANA, December 24. Like so many other 2023 celebrations in Cuba, Christmas is suffering the rigors of the crisis: fewer trees set up in businesses, Read more

HAVANA, Dec. 24  The International Project “Retaking the Son Bailando Casino”, candidate for Guinness Record 2024, had its fourth mega-rehearsal today in the Red Square of the 10 de Octubre municipality, of this capital.

The great dance circle, led by its founder Luis Llamo Castillo, also production director of the Musical Recordings and Editions Company, opts for next year’s Guinness and will try to surpass Venezuela, winner last year.

To win the title, Cuba will have to reach a number of participants of more than 1,595 dancers and thus take the record.

Considered the Ambassador of Son, Llamo Castillo invites everyone to consult the tutorial of the largest Casino wheel in the world, which can be found on the YouTube channel “Retomando el son Bailando Casino”.

There will be more than eight minutes of music, starting with the Cuban key, “and the casino is such a universal rhythm that even in China they want to dance to it,” expressed its founder Llamo Castillo, in previous statements to Prensa Latina.

As a result of the 2022 Guinness Record, the dream arose of inserting Cuba into the impressive mark previously achieved by countries such as Greece, in 2014, and Tenerife, Spain, in 2019.

Cuba is the mother of the casino dance, said the specialist on that occasion, that is why we decided to launch with this proposal.

This dance emerged last century, in 1956, in the beach casino, it emerged from the spontaneity of the people themselves, where no one is the leader because it comes as an evolution of the contradanza to the present times.

Llamo Castillo also pointed out that they returned to the “Retaking the Son” initiative, to keep the values and identity of the nation alive.

The great official event will take place on May 5 of next year in celebration of the 8th of that month, declared National Son Day.

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