Cuba is running out of toilet paper

Fareed Zakaria - August 2009

By Robert Plummer 

Business reporter, BBC News - link

Jan 27, 2009

Cuba’s socialist system has done little to protect the island from the economic turmoil that has engulfed its capitalist adversaries.

The combined effect of higher international food prices, three hurricanes and the general worldwide slowdown have pushed Cuba into its worst financial crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Since an already ailing Fidel Castro stepped down as president in February 2008, his brother Raul has announced some modest economic reforms, such as legalising mobile phones and issuing licences for private taxis.

But he has also had to promote austerity measures as well, including a 50% cut in foreign travel by government officials.

“The accounts don’t square up,” he told the National Assembly in December 2008. “We have to be realistic and adjust our dreams to real possibilities.”

In recent years, subsidised Venezuelan oil and Chinese investment deals became Havana’s latest means of shoring up basic living standards and defying the US economic embargo.

But falling oil prices have put Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s “Bolivarian revolution” under pressure, while the Chinese economy is starting to falter as world demand slows.

War of attrition

Economically and politically, Cuba is a long way from the revolutionary confidence it enjoyed during the height of the Cold War in the early and mid-1970s.

By that stage, the island had successfully overcome the worst that the US could throw at it.

The turmoil of the 1960s, marked by the abortive Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban missile crisis, had given way to a sullen war of attrition that continues to this day.

But Fidel Castro reacted to Washington’s trade embargo by forging ever-closer links with the Soviet Union and its Comecon network of Eastern bloc states.

Moscow propped up the Cuban economy by buying a huge chunk of the country’s sugar crop at inflated prices, while providing cheap supplies of crude oil.

Despite this lifeline, conditions were not particularly comfortable even then for ordinary Cubans, who had been subject to rationing since the US embargo began in 1962.

Not just food, but even clothing was rationed. Every Cuban was entitled to two shirts, a pair of trousers, a pair of shoes and two pairs of underpants a year.

Vanguard hopes

These items, of course, were produced on a one-size-fits-all basis, under a rigidly centralised state planning system more concerned with meeting quotas than aspiring to elegance.

But back then, Cuba could still bask in the belief that its much-vaunted revolution had put it in the vanguard of history.

When Chile’s Salvador Allende became the world’s first democratically elected Marxist president in 1970, the Cuban model started to look eminently exportable to other parts of Latin America.

The following year, Fidel Castro paid a month-long visit to Chile, during which he hosted huge rallies and gave public advice to the country’s Popular Unity coalition.

The visit undoubtedly exacerbated the political polarisation in Chile that led to Mr Allende’s overthrow by General Augusto Pinochet in 1973.

After the violent coup in Santiago, Cuba provided a refuge for many Chilean Communists.

Yet officials in Havana remained unabashed by the failure to build socialism in Chile, suggesting that their own experience showed that armed struggle, not peaceful change, was the way to defeat capitalism.

Reform spurned

These comforting illusions became harder to sustain once Cuba’s cosy relationship as a client state of the Soviet Union began to unravel.

From 1987 onwards, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev began to introduce wide-ranging economic reforms under the process known as perestroika.

For the first time, a socialist command economy began grappling with previously alien concepts such as supply and demand, private enterprise, joint ventures and even bankruptcy.

Fidel Castro wanted to retain the economic benefits provided by Moscow, but had no intention of allowing any kind of liberalisation in Cuba.

Not even an official visit by Mr Gorbachev in April 1989 could persuade his Cuban counterpart to reform.

But mere months later, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and other sweeping political changes in Eastern Europe, Mr Castro could see that hard times lay ahead.

“We are witnessing sad things in other socialist countries, very sad things,” he said in a speech that November, mindful of the fact that 75% of Cuba’s trade was with the soon-to-be-dissolved Comecon bloc.

Changes reversed

That historic failure of the main alternative to free-market capitalism has pretty much set the scene for Cuba’s current economic plight.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Fidel Castro decreed a “Special Period” of hardship and allowed a few modest steps towards a market-oriented system.

Cubans were allowed to set up restaurants in their homes, known as “paladares”, while independent farms and farmers’ markets also sprang up, encouraged by the decision to let the US dollar circulate freely.

Most of those reforms were later reversed, after Venezuelan and Chinese assistance gave Fidel the excuse he needed to tighten state control.

But now that this temporary respite from hardship is fading in its turn, private sector farmers are again being encouraged to expand, in an effort to cut Cuba’s growing food import bill.

Since Raul Castro took over, many observers, without any real hard evidence to go on, have been pinning their hopes on the prospect of wide-ranging economic reforms.

But according to one leading conservative US think-tank, the Heritage Foundation, the Cuban economy remains one of the world’s least free, with only Zimbabwe and North Korea ranked less favourably.

The Heritage Foundation’s economic freedom index for 2009 gives Cuba a score of 27.9, up from 27.5 in 2008, “reflecting marginally improved scores in trade freedom and freedom from corruption”.

So far, Raul Castro has shown little desire to embrace radical change. Cuba may have to wait for a new generation of leaders before liberalisation arrives.

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/7837959.stm

La ropa de la empresa de Inditex ha llegado al país caribeño a través de un intermediario. «Nunca hubiera imaginado una tienda así», dice una joven.

Las clientas aprecian el algodón, en vez del poliéster al que están habituadas.

MILAGROS LÓPEZ DE GUEREÑO | CORRESPONSAL. LA HABANA

SUR.es - Andalucia, España - enlace

Mango, Benetton y Paul & Shark también están presentes en la isla

La ropa de Zara ha llegado esta semana a La Habana para quedarse. O al menos eso es lo que esperan sus clientes. La noticia de que la marca española estaba en Cuba corrió como la pólvora gracias al boca a boca. La tienda está alejada del centro urbano, pero los compradores acuden como moscas a la miel. El primer día, las dependientas atendieron a invitados especiales. «No me hubiera imaginado nunca una tienda así. Todo está a buen precio. Conozco Zara porque mi mamá vive en Barcelona y me ha comprado cosas allá», comentaba Ariadna, una joven que se enteró de la apertura del local por una amiga.

Un sobrio cartel con la leyenda ‘Moda y Punto’ cuelga de una pared de la nave. Toda la ropa tiene etiquetas de Zara y la estética del local, salvo por los techos altos y abiertos, también se corresponde con el sello español. Pero no es una tienda de Inditex propiamente dicha. Inditex vende ocasionalmente excedentes de campañas anteriores a empresas especializadas, con la condición de que los artículos no se comercialicen en los mercados donde el grupo tiene presencia comercial.

Precios y sueldos

Así es como una serie de productos de Zara ha entrado en el país caribeño, a través de otra compañía que ha adquirido género -incluso colgadores y probadores- a estos intermediarios.

Las que sí tienen establecimientos propios en la isla son las firmas Benetton, Mango, Oscar de la Renta, Paul & Shark y Adidas. Todos están situados en zonas muy concurridas y lucen prendas con precios elevados para el sueldo del cubano medio, fijado en unos 400 pesos (17 euros). A Daniela, una joven que revisa los estantes en Zara, todo le parece «muy moderno». Su madre destaca la «calidad» del género. La mayor parte de las confecciones son de algodón, lino y viscosa, materiales escasos en un país que soporta temperaturas infernales y, sin embargo, rebosa de poliéster, mucho más barato.

Mariela Estévez, gerente del establecimiento, que pertenece al Consejo de Estado, la máxima autoridad en la isla que preside el general Raúl Castro, está encantada. «La previsión de ventas diarias la fijamos en 5.000 dólares, pero en la inauguración se superó con creces», advierte. Otra razón del éxito de la tienda es que admite devoluciones, práctica casi inexistente en la red minorista de la isla comunista. Eso sí, ha sucumbido a la norma que exige depositar el bolso de mano en un guardabolsos y a llevar consigo la cartera, el móvil y las gafas.

Después de medio siglo de revolución, la economía de la isla está en bancarrota

MAITE RICO 

EL PAíS  - enlace

Madrid - 05/01/2009

El máximo líder cubano, Fidel Castro, y su hermano Raúl, presidente del país, han decidido pasar de puntillas por el 50º aniversario de la revolución que los aupó al poder. Y es que la población, sumergida en la lucha por la supervivencia, no está para celebraciones. El régimen esgrime “los huracanes y la crisis financiera internacional”, además del embargo estadounidense, para explicar el hundimiento de la que fuera la tercera potencia económica de Latinoamérica en 1957. Los economistas, y muchos cubanos de a pie, califican de “coartadas” esas razones y culpan a un “sistema disfuncional y totalitario”.

Los cubanos viven peor hoy que hace 50 años: lo dicen ellos y lo confirman las estadísticas. Desde que Moscú suspendió los subsidios en 1990, la isla no levanta cabeza y la producción está paralizada. El salario (un promedio de 400 pesos o 15 euros al mes) no alcanza para cubrir las necesidades básicas de una familia, como ha reconocido el propio Raúl Castro. Los alimentos que se reparten con la cartilla de racionamiento apenas dan para una semana.

Las penurias se han agudizado con la introducción de la doble moneda: los cubanos reciben el sueldo en pesos, pero deben comprar toda una serie de artículos en pesos convertibles o CUC, rebautizados popularmente como chavitos. Un CUC equivale a 24 pesos nacionales (un euro). Los pesos sirven en las bodegas de alimentos subsidiados, en las tiendas de ropa reciclada (de segunda mano) o en las guaguas. En cambio, la carne de res, la leche, buena parte de las medicinas, la ropa nueva o los electrodomésticos tienen que pagarse en CUC y a precios estratosféricos. En la tienda Palco, por ejemplo, un litro de leche vale 3,17 dólares (2,28 euros) y una lata de atún, 4,27 (2,3 euros). El Estado pretende así recuperar el circulante en divisas y reducir el déficit público.

El problema es que sólo los cubanos que tienen contacto con el turismo, trabajan en empresas mixtas o reciben remesas de familiares en el exilio pueden acceder al CUC. La mayoría de la población sólo maneja pesos y pasa necesidades. “La brecha social es cada vez mayor y la desigualdad en el ingreso se ha duplicado”, comenta desde La Habana el economista Óscar Espinosa.

Cuando Raúl Castro permitió el acceso a ordenadores y telefonía móvil, muchos cubanos se encogieron de hombros. “¿De qué me sirve?”, pregunta Sara, que acaba de licenciarse como programadora de Informática y gana 400 pesos al mes. “¡Si ni siquiera puedo comprarme unos zapatos decentes! Una computadora vale 1.000 CUC, y el teléfono móvil, 60 CUC, más otros 121 la línea. Y a ti no te pagan en chavitos. ¿Cómo tú vas a comprar nada?”.

Carmelo Mesa-Lago, profesor de la Universidad de Pittsburgh, no duda en calificar de “desastrosa” la política económica cubana de los últimos 50 años, jalonada por “la colectivización y la centralización, siete cambios de organización económica, cuatro cambios de estrategia de desarrollo y destrucción del incentivo individual”. Sonados y costosos fracasos, como el empeño de Fidel Castro por lograr una zafra de 10 millones de toneladas de azúcar, criar vacas que dieran leche de sabores o establecer plantaciones de café a una altitud inadecuada, reflejan las arbitrariedades de un régimen que ha sobrevivido gracias a los subsidios externos.

La caída de la URSS puso fin a unas ayudas de 65.000 millones de dólares (cinco veces el Plan Marshall con el que EE UU contribuyó a la reconstrucción europea tras la II Guerra Mundial). Comenzó entonces un periodo de penurias del que la isla no ha salido todavía, a pesar de que Venezuela tomó el relevo, en 1999, como benefactor de Castro: Hugo Chávez suministra a Cuba el 57% de sus necesidades de combustible a precios preferenciales, que en 2008 supuso un subsidio de entre 2.500 y 3.000 millones de dólares.

Si en 1957 sólo Argentina y Uruguay superaban a Cuba en renta por habitante, hoy la economía cubana es la penúltima del continente, por delante de Haití. Incluso si se aceptaran las cifras del Gobierno, Cuba se situaría en el puesto 21º de América Latina. El régimen se niega a calcular la pobreza con los métodos homologados. Aún así, un 46% de los habitantes de La Habana se consideran pobres o muy pobres.

Los subterfugios estadísticos no pueden ocultar la dimensión del naufragio. Esqueletos de fábricas e ingenios abandonados salpican el paisaje de la isla. La Habana languidece con sus edificios en ruinas. Los mercados están desabastecidos y la gente resuelve la comida en el mercado negro.

En 1958, Cuba producía casi el 80% de los alimentos que consumía y era el principal proveedor de hortalizas de EE UU. Hoy es al revés: la isla importa más del 80% de la cesta básica y la mayor parte de los alimentos viene de EE UU, quinto socio comercial de Cuba a pesar del embargo decretado en 1962. Actualmente, más del 50% de las tierras cultivables están ociosas. En 2007, la producción de azúcar se hundió a 1,2 millones de toneladas, la peor desde 1903. El turismo, las remesas de los exiliados y los subsidios venezolanos compensan el déficit de la balanza comercial.

Del deterioro no se libran ni los logros esgrimidos por la revolución. Si bien en los años cincuenta Cuba ya tenía la menor mortalidad infantil y uno de los índices más altos de alfabetización de Latinoamérica, la revolución extendió la educación y la salud a las zonas rurales. Hoy, casi la mitad de los 60.000 médicos está en las “misiones internacionales” pagadas por Venezuela. No hay ambulancias y los medicamentos escasean. La educación tampoco se salva de la debacle, debido a la masiva deserción del profesorado. Según el diario oficial Granma, las escuelas e institutos de La Habana tienen un déficit de 8.576 profesores.

En teoría, Raúl Castro es consciente del desastre, pero su aparente espíritu reformista tiene el contrapeso de su hermano Fidel, que “boicotea los cambios”, señala Carmelo Mesa. La revolución que prometió libertad e igualdad ha construido “una sociedad totalitaria e injusta”, dice Espinosa.

Una empresa intermediaria pone a la venta 40.000 prendas de las distintas líneas de la firma gallega

J.?L. Paniagua 14/1/2009

La Voz de Galicia - enlace

El Gobierno cubano ha recurrido a la ropa de la multinacional gallega Zara para impulsar un comercio público que nace con el objetivo de poner en el mercado productos competitivos a precios moderados.

Aunque en la isla ya existen franquicias de marcas de moda reconocidas, como Benetton o Mango, hasta ahora el régimen de Raúl Castro no había incluido un negocio de este tipo en el entramado comercial que maneja por su carácter «estratégico».

Sin embargo, el Gobierno se zambulló esta semana en el mundo de la costura comercial con la apertura de una tienda con estanterías repletas de pantalones, gafas, corbatas, chaquetas y hasta ropa infantil de la marca Zara.

Las prendas que pueden ya adquirir los cubanos llegan a la isla a través de una empresa intermediaria a la que Inditex permite comercializar sus productos en aquellos países en los que no tiene puntos de venta propios, según confirmó ayer un portavoz de la firma textil. Asimismo, puntualizaron que a través de esta vía solo ponen en el mercado pequeñas partidas almacenadas de anteriores colecciones.

Sin embargo, pese al limitado número de prendas llegadas -menos de 40.000-y la mala situación del establecimiento, alejado de otros centros de compras, Moda y Punto, como se denomina el comercio, ha comenzado por todo lo alto.

«La previsión era de 5.000 dólares diarios, que ya se superó el primer día. Nos sorprendió», indicó Mariela Estévez, dependienta del establecimiento.

La explicación para este resultado no se puede encontrar en la publicidad, ya que solo se repartieron algunas invitaciones en La Habana, y no existe el reclamo de los escaparates, con los que no cuenta la tienda. Así, la clave del éxito de Moda y Punto se encuentra en el boca a boca y la escasez de comercios de este tipo en el país, según indicaron algunos de los compradores.

«Compré un pantalón. Está muy bien, tanto en precio como en calidad», señaló Yani, una joven que suele renovar su armario en un centro comercial frecuentado por turistas, que resulta «más caro» que la tienda recién abierta.

«La gente, cuando busca algo específicamente, va a buscarlo adonde esté», dijo Estévez, al señalar que la idea del comercio «es competir con otras tiendas, pero con precios más bajos», e incrementar el abanico de marcas de prestigio internacional en sus estantes.

Calidad del servicio público

La mejora de los servicios ofrecidos en la red de establecimientos estatales ha sido una de las peleas del Gobierno de Raúl Castro, desde que este asumió la presidencia del país en julio del 2006.

En los últimos meses, la calidad de los productos ha sido objeto de críticas, recogidas incluso por los diarios oficiales Granma y Juventud Rebelde.

En todo caso, y pese a la buena acogida de sus productos entre la población, Inditex subrayó ayer que Cuba no contará con una tienda propia de la marca a corto plazo: «Nuestros planes de expansión van por otro lado», indicaron ayer.

Hindustan Times - link to original article

Indo-Asian News Service

Havana, January 14, 2009

Getting a job has dropped to fifth place in the ambitions of young Cubans, according to a report by the Granma, the official daily of Cuba’s Communist Party, EFE news agency reported Tuesday.

“Idleness is one of the problems that hurts the economy, aggravated in some places by the lack of a work ethic,” the report titled “Idleness: an ideological danger” pointed out, underlining that most of the youths in the island do not have “rigor and ambition”.

Describing lazy people as danger for the whole society, the report said: “The presence of individuals who never get their shirts sweaty but rather live better than those who work from sunrise to sunset leads workers to ask: What’s the use of working if the lazy live just as well or better than I do?,” it said.

The article also questioned the government policy of subsidizing Cubans’ basic food requirements and other products obtainable with a rationing card.

It said, “The government has maintained people who do not work, giving them the guarantee of a basic food ration, healthcare, education and security.”

Many ordinary Cubans say they often have to be away from work because of the lines created by the constant scarcities, the lack of dependable transportation, bureaucratic red tape of the only communist country in the Americas, and obtaining things they need that aren’t supplied by the state.

The Granma report said the idle transmit their “disease” to their children.

“How difficult it is for the child of such an individual to nurture and later show feelings and convictions identified with work, if since infancy they have received greater benefits and privileges than other schoolmates,” the report asked.

The article also supported President Raul Castro who favours performance-based pay and cutting the generalised subsidies provided to the people in the country.

The president has stressed that his compatriots must feel the “vital necessity” of working.

“To correct little by little the existing distortions of the salary system, we have to eliminate the unjustified gratuities and excessive subsidies. Otherwise, the accounts simply don’t add up,” the president said in Parliament two weeks ago.

“We have to act with realism and adjust our dreams to real possibilities,” Raul Castro said.

Cuba is going through a distressing economic and financial situation, aggravated by three hurricanes that devastated the island in 2008.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print.aspx?Id=35ea7ad6-25b9-4fb7-a30c-608f0e80c6b6

© Copyright 2007 Hindustan Times

Fernando García | 15/01/2009 

LaVanguardia.es - enlace

“¿Taxi?”. La pregunta es mundial; asalta a cada viajero al salir de aeropuertos, estaciones y hoteles de todo el planeta. Cuba no es una excepción, pero aquí el interrogante oculta aspectos que conviene aclarar con una respuesta abase de nuevas preguntas: “¿Qué carro? ¿Qué tarifa? ¿Tiene contador? ¿Y recibo?…”. Si no, el riesgo de pufo es alto, pues la piratería en el taxi cubano es notable y variopinta. Ahora, el Gobierno de Raúl Castro trata de cambiar el panorama mediante la concesión de nuevas licencias privadas tras una veda de 10 años. Aunque el fin declarado es mejorar la situación del transporte, la medida tiende a frenar el fraude en el sector a través del blanqueo de la salvaje competencia que de hecho lo caracteriza. 

El taxi da el pulso exacto de Cuba: de las angustias y las estrategias de sus habitantes; de las singularidades y patologías del sistema, y de la evolución política del país. La liberalización recién aprobada es el último de los tímidos y lentos cambios promovidos por Raúl Castro desde que hace casi un año formalizó el relevo de su convaleciente hermano y líder de la revolución, Fidel. 

La apertura es amplia para las ciudades: aunque el número de licencias se limitará en función de las necesidades, los taxistas privados de las urbes podrán pactar los precios con los clientes “libremente, en atención al comportamiento de la oferta y la demanda”. Y comprarán la gasolina en las gasolineras autorizadas. Sólo en los servicios que se prestan en rutas preestablecidas -en zonas rurales o desde terminales urbanas-, las tarifas vendrán dictadas por una administración provincial que también asignará el combustible. 

Ahora bien: en el caso de los taxistas urbanos sin ruta fija, tanto la libertad de precios como la indicación sobre dónde comprar la gasolina tienen truco. Las tarifas de los taxistas particulares ya se ajustan de facto a la oferta y la demanda -así como a la pericia del cliente-; sólo que los muchos clandestinos del taxi cobran precios prohibitivos para compensar sus límites de acción y encima no pagan impuestos. Nada mejor que una competencia libre pero controlada para combatirlos. En cuanto al combustible, hoy tanto los legales como los ilegales suelen recurrir al mercado negro, con grave daño para las arcas estatales; de ahí que la compra en gasolineras autorizadas sea un requisito para mantener la licencia. 

El problema del transporte en general y del taxi en especial trae de cabeza a los Castro desde hace 20 años. Fidel optó por una prohibición que ahora Raúl anula. Nunca es fácil. 

Taxis, cocotaxis y bicitaxis

El sistema de taxis en Cuba es inabarcable. Las empresas estatales son numerosas y diversas en calidades y precios. Los particulares, legales o no, manejan más de medio siglo de coches, incluidos los almendrones de los 50. Y a las conocidas bicitaxis se suman los singulares cocotaxis: motos con cubículo trasero en esfera. De todo.

Niko Price,

Agweek - link to publication

Published: 01/12/2009

HAVANA — For Miladis Bouza, the global food crisis arrived two decades ago. Now, her efforts to climb out of it could serve as a model for people around the world struggling to feed their families.

Bouza was a research biologist, living a solidly middle-class existence, when the collapse of the Soviet Union — and the halt of its subsidized food shipments to Cuba — effectively cut her government salary to $3 a month. Suddenly, a trip to the grocery store was out of reach.

So she quit her job, and under a program championed by then-Defense Minister Raul Castro, asked the government for the right to farm an overgrown, half-acre lot near her Havana home. Now, her husband tends rows of tomatoes, sweet potatoes and spinach, while Bouza, 48, sells the produce at a stall on a busy street.

Neighbors are happy with cheap vegetables fresh from the field. Bouza never lacks for fresh produce, and she pulls in $100 to $250 a month — many times the average government salary of $19.

“All that money is mine,” she says. “The only thing I have to buy is protein” — meat.

Cuba’s urban farming program has been a stunning, and surprising, success. The farms, many of them on tiny plots like Bouza’s, now supply much of Cuba’s vegetables. They also provide 350,000 jobs nationwide with relatively high pay and have transformed eating habits in a nation accustomed to a less-than-ideal diet of rice and beans and canned goods from Eastern Europe.

From 1989 to ’93, Cubans went from eating an average of 3,004 calories a day to only 2,323, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, as shelves emptied of the Soviet goods that made up two-thirds of Cuba’s food. Today, they eat 3,547 calories a day — more than what the U.S. government recommends for American citizens.

“It’s a really interesting model looking at what’s possible in a nation that’s 80 percent urban,” says Catherine Murphy, a California sociologist who spent a decade studying farms in Havana. “It shows that cities can produce huge amounts of their own food, and you get all kinds of social and ecological benefits.”

Economy

Of course, urban farms might not be such a success in a healthy, competitive economy.

As it is, productivity is low at Cuba’s large, state-run farms where workers lack incentives. Government-supplied rations — mostly imported from the U.S. — provide such staples as rice, beans and cooking oil, but not fresh produce. Importers bring in only what central planners want, so the market doesn’t correct for gaps. And since most land is owned by the state, developers are not competing for the vacant lots that can become plots for vegetables.

Still, experts say the basic idea behind urban farming has a lot of promise.

“It’s land that otherwise would be sitting idle. It requires little or no transportation to get (produce) to market,” says Bill Messina, an agricultural economist at the University of Florida in Gainesville. “It’s good anyway you look at it.”

And with fuel prices and food shortages causing unrest and hunger across the world, many say the Cuban model should spread.

“There are certain issues where we think Cuba has a lot to teach the world. Urban agriculture is one of them,” says Beat Schmid, coordinator of Cuba programs for the charity Oxfam International.

Other countries have experimented with urban farming — Cuba’s initial steps were modeled after a green belt surrounding Shanghai. But nowhere has urban farming been used so widely to transform the way a country feeds itself.

“As the global food crisis receives attention, this is something that we need to be looking at,” Murphy says. “Havana is an unlikely, really successful model where no one would expect one to come from.”

Expansion

Now that Raul Castro is president, many expect him to expand the program he began as an experiment in the early 1990s.

One of the first plots he opened was the “organoponico” on Fifth Avenue and 44th Street in the ritzy Havana neighborhood of Miramar. The half-block farm — owned by a government agency — is surrounded by apartment buildings and houses, but also offices of foreign companies, a Spanish bank and the South African Embassy.

“Nobody used to eat vegetables,” says David Leon, 50. “People’s nutrition has improved a lot. It’s a lot healthier. And it tastes good.”

By Matthew Walter

Bloomberg - Link to original article

Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) — Cuba’s government will begin licensing private cab drivers to operate in cities for the first time since 1999 in the latest effort by President Raul Castro to liberalize the communist island-nation’s economy.

Urban cab drivers will be allowed to negotiate rates with passengers, based on “supply and demand,” according to a resolution passed Dec. 22 by the transportation minister, published today on the government’s Official Gazette Web site.

Castro, who took over from his brother Fidel Castro almost a year ago, has taken steps to allow private ownership in the country after almost 50 years of communist rule. He has allowed Cubans to buy mobile phones and DVD players, lifted a ban on citizens using tourist hotels and announced that unused government land will be distributed to private farmers.

Taxis that operate in the countryside must continue to follow fixed routes and charge regulated rates, according to the resolution.

To contact the reporter on this story: Matthew Walter in Caracas at mwalter4@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: January 12, 2009 14:12 EST

Yahoo News - Link to original article

by Isabel Sanchez – 2 hrs 36 mins ago

HAVANA (AFP) – A young man riding a bicycle passes by political propaganda in downtown Santiago de Cuba on December …

Play Video Cuba Video: Remembering Cuban Revolution 50 Years Later CBS4 Miami

Play Video Cuba Video: Cuba marks 50 years of revolution BBC

Play Video Cuba Video: Cuban exiles on US embargo BBC

HAVANA (AFP) – Communist Cuba marked the 50th anniversary of its Revolution Thursday faced with an uncertain future, its iconic, ailing leader Fidel Castro withdrawn from power and the economy in dire straits.

President Raul Castro led official ceremonies in Santiago de Cuba, the city from where his brother Fidel proclaimed victory over US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959 after 25 months of fighting in the Sierra Maestra mountains.

In an olive green army uniform, Raul, 77, — who officially took over from 82-year-old Fidel last February — received an ovation, along with other party leaders, from 3,000 guests at the start of Thursday evening’s festivities.

Fidel, who has not appeared in public since undergoing major surgery almost two and a half years ago, sent a brief, signed greeting to the Cuban people in Granma, the communist party newspaper.

But his image dominated giant banners and billboards amid the somber celebrations, with the island hard hit by the economic crisis and the aftermath of three hurricanes this year that left some 10 billion dollars in damage.

“Let’s not kid ourselves by believing that from here on, it’s all going to be easy. Maybe from here on, it’s going to be more difficult,” Raul Castro cautioned late Wednesday.

Despite hardships he blamed on 46-year-old US sanctions, the president stressed: “this hasn’t been a failure, not even under these conditions. It has been a constant fight.”

The celebrations coincide with recent moves by Cuba to broaden its international ties, and the presidents of China and Russia, Hu Jintao and Dmitry Medvedev respectively, sent congratulatory messages Thursday.

Leftist Latin American leaders heaped praise on Cuba’s past half-century.

Oil-rich Venezuela, Cuba’s main business partner, held a special ceremony to commemorate the anniversary.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called the Cuban Revolution “the mother of all the revolutions going on in Latin America and the Caribbean.”

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega called the 50th anniversary a “landmark” in Latin American history and Bolivian President Evo Morales lauded the island and its people.

“Fifty years ago the Cuban people freed themselves from US rule. For that, Cuba, its people and its commanders are symbols of the liberation of the people of the world,” Morales said.

After years of economic embargo and hardline US efforts to isolate the island, Havana now faces rare potential for change with US president-elect Barack Obama, who has voiced willingness to communicate unconditionally with world leaders.

Cuba’s Revolution — led by a 32-year-old Fidel Castro and legendary Argentine guerilla Ernesto “Che” Guevara — took on Marxist overtones in May 1961, one month after the attempted invasion of the Bay of Pigs by CIA-backed Cuban exiles.

Former US president John F. Kennedy declared the embargo in February 1962, before the Soviet missile crisis, which took the world to the brink of nuclear war.

The two nations, separated by just 90 miles (145 kilometers) of water, have remained bitter political foes.

A White House spokesman in Texas Wednesday said Washington “will continue to seek freedom” for the people of Cuba.

But Obama, who takes power January 20, has promised to ease some rules limiting travel by and remittances from Cuban-Americans; Raul Castro repeatedly has said he is ready for talks without “carrot or stick” with Obama.

The Cuban president has also promised “structural reforms” — a departure from his older brother and leading members of the communist old guard.

But the global economic crisis may impact the pledged changes, as the president signaled in July when he announced greater government control of revenues and tighter management of agriculture.

The Caribbean island is still officially in the Special Period in Peacetime, an extended period of economic crisis that began in 1991 after the collapse of its former main benefactor, the Soviet Union.

And life is tough for most of Cuba’s 11.2 million people, who earn an average of 20 dollars per month and survive tangled in a parallel economy.

“The Revolution has given us a lot. I’m communist but I wish there were changes in the economy, that’s where the problem is,” said 65-year-old Pedro at Thursday’s celebrations.

“The situation is really bad. Salaries are not enough to live off. They’ve made a lot of mistakes,” said Joel Romero, a 41-year-old who gave up his job as a health worker to rear pigs.

Branded US puppets by Havana, Cuban dissidents say there are 219 “political prisoners” on the island.

During his decades in power, Fidel Castro expropriated foreign companies, jailed political enemies and drove well over a million Cubans into exile.

But he also introduced historic reforms, including major education and health care access advances.