TheNewsGuru

Tag: cuba

  • Maradona accepts paternity of three more children in Cuba

    Maradona accepts paternity of three more children in Cuba

    Argentina football legend Diego Maradona is to acknowledge paternity of three Cuban children, his lawyer says.

    This means the 58-year-old World Cup winner, who once denied any children other than with his former wife, is now the official father of eight children.

    Maradona will travel to Havana to take paternity tests and publicly recognise the children later this year, lawyer Matias Morla said.

    The children, reportedly from two mothers, will be able to take his name.

    Maradona spent several years in the country between 2000 and 2005 undergoing treatment for a cocaine habit.

    He befriended then-President Fidel Castro during his stint in the country and got a tattoo of the leader’s face on his leg.

    Maradona once denied having any children besides Giannina, 29, and Dalma, 31, both daughters of his ex-wife Claudia Villafañe, whom he divorced in 2003 after nearly 20 years of marriage.

    However he has since recognised Diego Junior, 32, and Jana, 22, after court battles with their mothers.

    Maradona also has another child, six-year-old Diego Fernando, from his relationship with Veronica Ojeda.

  • Cuba plans to introduce right to private property into Constitution

    Cuba plans to introduce right to private property into Constitution

    The Republic of Cuba, one of the world’s last remaining communist countries, is set to enact reforms, expected to introduce recognition of the need for private property into the charter.

    TheNewsGuru reports the Cuban Parliament on Wednesday started discussing a planned constitutional reform to introduce right to private property ownership into constitution.

    Parliamentary commissions met behind closed doors to discuss the reform, which is expected to be brought before a plenary session on Saturday, the state television channel Cubavision reported.

    The reform has already undergone preparations by 33 lawmakers guided by former president Raul Castro, who ruled the Caribbean island from 2006 until being succeeded by Miguel Diaz-Canel April 2017.

    The new constitution is expected to include a mention that private markets can play a role in a socialist economy and that foreign investment is important for developing the country.

    It will also introduce the figure of a prime minister, which was abolished by the current 1976 constitution.

    The number of presidential mandates, which is currently unlimited, will also be limited to two.

    About half a million people Cubans have already been licensed to run small private businesses such as restaurants, lodgings or mechanical workshops but there is no mention of them in the constitution.

    The constitutional reform would be submitted to a referendum at a later, as yet undefined date.

     

     

  • 102 out of 105 passengers on board Cuba flight die as plane crashes

    No fewer than 102 persons lost their lives on Friday after a Boeing 737 plane crashed shortly after taking off from Havana’s main airport in Cuba.

    There were at least three possible survivors among the 105 passengers as well as nine crew, Cuban state-run media reported, adding that there were five children on board.

    According to Reuters, earlier reports on state media said there were 104 passengers.

    The number of casualties was not immediately known, but Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, visiting the site of the crash, told Agence France Presse, “it appears there is a high number of victims.”

    Wreckage was strewn over the area and ambulances and firefighters were at the scene, a Reuters witness said. The fire had been put out, and blackened parts of the fuselage could be seen.

    “We heard an explosion and then saw a big cloud of smoke go up,” said Gilberto Menendez, who runs a restaurant near the crash site in the agricultural area of Boyeros, 20km (12 miles) south of Havana.

    A worker at Havana’s Calixto Garcia hospital told Reuters three victims of the accident had arrived so far. One had died from burns and other trauma and the other two were in a serious state.

    “She is alive but very burnt and swollen,” said a distressed relative of one of the survivors at the hospital.

    The flight was destined for Holguin and was leased by airline Cubana from a small Mexican airline called Damojh or Global, Cuban state media said.

     

  • Cuba condemns Pence’s “tyranny” remark

    Cuba condemns Pence’s “tyranny” remark

    Cuba has condemned U.S. Vice President Mike Pence’s remark describing the
    governments of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua as a “dark cloud of tyranny” that weighed heavily on their
    citizens, calling it a continuation of a colonial doctrine.

    In a statement to local television, Carlos De Cossio, director for U.S. affairs at the Cuban Foreign Ministry,
    criticised Pence’s remark during his speech at the Organization of American States (OAS) on the island.

    “The U. S. is trying to find excuses to apply old methods which for decades limited our continent’s development
    and placed obstacles to our nations’ independence,” De Cossio said.

    He called Pence’s remark corresponding to the Monroe Doctrine, the 19th century U.S. strategy to control the
    region for Washington’s political and economic purposes, which has been revived by President Donald Trump
    as the cornerstone of America’s ties with Latin America.

    “He doesn’t realize that Latin America has changed, that it is another continent; and as in the past, U.S.
    policies will fail,” the official said.

    De Cossio said in spite of Washington’s aggression, Cuba will persist in its determination to build an independent,
    sovereign, socialist, democratic, prosperous and sustainable country.

    The diplomat also said the OAS, an intercontinental organization for regional cooperation, was known for its
    “complicity with the most horrendous crimes in this hemisphere”.

    Cuba hasn’t been part of the OAS since 1962, when it was excluded due to U.S. demand.

    Pence’s remarks come after a setback in Cuba-U.S. ties following Trump coming to power.

    Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama had reestablished diplomatic relations with Cuba in 2015 and the two
    countries signed several cooperation agreements and discussed various issues.

    On Monday, Pence urged OAS member countries to exercise “regional pressure” against Cuba, Venezuela and
    Nicaragua.

    Pence also asked the OAS to suspend Venezuela, although Caracas has already asked to leave the multilateral
    organisation.

    The U.S. vice president also demanded that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro suspend the presidential
    election scheduled for May 20 and condemned the alleged “repression” in Nicaragua after anti-government
    protests.

  • BREAKING: Cuba swears-in Miguel Diaz-Canel as president to replace Castro

    Nearly sixty years of rule by the Castro brothers, Cuba swears-in Miguel Diaz-Canel to replace Raul Castro as president on Thursday.

    Cuban Communist Party stalwart, Diaz-Canel replaced Castro, to bring a new chapter for the island and also aimed at preserving Cuban socialism.

    The National Assembly swore in Diaz-Canel, with 603 out of 604 lawmakers present voting for the 57-year old, marking a generational shift from 86-year old Castro.

    The transition for Cuba, while a historic shift from an era that started with Fidel and Raul Castro’s 1959 revolution, was not expected to herald sweeping changes to the island’s state-run economy and one-party system, one of the last in the world.

    Diaz-Canel is seen as a loyalist of the Communist Party, which is designated by the constitution as Cuba’s guiding political force, and he has worked his way up the party’s ranks over three decades.
    Castro, who was president from 2008 when he took over from his ailing older brother Fidel, will retain considerable clout as he will remain head of the Communist Party until a congress in 2021.

    For many Cubans, struggling with economic hardships and frustrated with the government’s emphasis on continuity rather than change, the transition in leader is seen as unlikely to bring much beyond the symbolism of a new leader.

    “We always wish the symbolic would translate into real and concrete actions for our lives,” said Jose Jasan Nieves, 30, the editor of an alternative news outlet to the state-run media monopoly. “But this isn’t the case.”

    Cubans hope the next government can resurrect one of the world’s last Soviet-style centrally planned economies that has failed to improve under limited market reforms by Castro.
    Reuters
  • Trump turns back on a future with Cuba

    Trump turns back on a future with Cuba

    By Jesse Jackson

    In his perverse fixation on overturning all things Barack Obama, President Donald Trump now turns his attention to Cuba, the island located 90 miles off our shore. Reports are that the president plans to travel to Florida to announce that he will reverse Obama’s opening to Cuba, reinstate restrictions on the right of U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba and curtail business opportunities that Obama had opened up by executive order.

    This is, in a word, ridiculous. The United States maintained an economic embargo on Cuba for more than 50 years. It plotted repeatedly to assassinate Fidel Castro and to overthrow his regime. It painted Cuba as a terrorist nation for its support of Nelson Mandela in the fight against apartheid. For more than five decades, a succession of U.S. presidents — cowed by the right-wing Cuban community in Florida — enforced an economic embargo even though the policy increasingly isolated the U.S. from its neighbors in the hemisphere and its allies across the world. When Obama finally went forward with a limited opening, he was doing more to end the isolation of the U.S. than of Cuba.

    Now Castro, the leader of Cuba’s revolution, is dead. His brother Raul has announced he will leave office next year. The Soviet Union is no more; the Cold War is over. A new generation is coming to power in Cuba and a new generation of Cuban-Americans is rising in Florida. The vast majority of Americans and the vast majority of Cuban-Americans support free travel to Cubans.

    So why would Trump want to revive the failed policies of the past? The reasons range from the petty to the perverse. Trump’s hatred of Obama is apparent. From Obamacare to climate policy to Cuba, he seems intent on overturning whatever Obama did — no matter how great the cost to the American people.

    In the campaign, Trump pledged in Florida to overturn Obama’s opening. Right-wing Cuban-American legislators — Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey and Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida — have lobbied Trump hard to revive the travel ban and embargo. According to the New York Times, Diaz-Balart exacted a promise from Trump as a price for his vote in favor of Trumpcare. He signed off on depriving 23 million Americans of health care coverage in order to tighten the screws on Cuba.

    Obama’s policy of engagement, however halting, has already shown results. Engage Cuba, a U.S. business lobby group, published an economic impact analysis on the costs of reversing Obama’s policy. It put the cost at as much as $3.5 billion in lost revenues and 10,000 jobs lost in the travel industry over the next four years. Commercial contracts that will create $1.1 billion worth of U.S. exports to Cuba in the next five years would be broken, costing more than 1,000 jobs a year.

    Once more the right of Americans to travel would be sacrificed, in the name of what? Petulance? Perversity? Undying hatred? The Trump administration has made it clear that in its America First foreign policy, America’s economic and security concerns will not be sacrificed in the name of human rights. But it rationalizes its reversion in Cuba on the grounds of defending human rights and spreading democracy. This is at best what former Obama adviser Ben Rhodes called a “tragic irony,” given the Trump administration’s “complete lack of concern for human rights around the world.”

    Surely, after more than five decades we have learned that Cubans, proud of their revolution and their independence, will resist economic or military coercion. One would think that Trump, who trumpets his business background, would understand that open relations with Cuba — trade, travel, human and cultural exchange — will have far more impact in generating pressure for change than a reversion to the failed embargo.

    Under Castro, Cuban education and health care became the envy of Latin America. An educated generation now rises to power yearning for more. The U.S. should engage them, not seek to isolate them.

  • Google launches servers in Cuba to speed up YouTube

    Google launches servers in Cuba to speed up YouTube

    Google has launched its servers in Cuba, meaning the country will now store Google contents locally, which will see Cubans who use Google services in the country notice contents load much faster.

    Google and the state-run telecom company Etecsa inked a deal in December to provide Cuban users access to the Google Global Cache (GGC). This network caches popular Google content, like YouTube videos and Google searches, for faster delivery to people’s phones and computers.

    According to a CNNtech report, When someone in Cuba watches a YouTube video for the first time, that content has to travel through undersea cables from servers in another country. But once it gets to Cuba, it will now be stored on local servers, and the next person who wants to watch it will have a noticeably faster load time.

    According to the report, Internet access in Cuba is limited and expensive, and some estimates say as little as 5% of people have internet at home. In order to surf the web, Cubans often congregate at cafes, hotels, and other public areas that have WiFi.

    According to a 2016 report from Freedom House, outdated infrastructure, government regulation, and the cost prevent widespread access. “Despite modest steps to increase internet access, Cuba remains one of the world’s most repressive environments for information and communication technologies,” the report said.

    However, it is slowly becoming more accessible.

    Emily Parker wrote the book “Now I Know Who My Comrades Are,” about internet activism in Cuba and other countries. She says the internet could pose a threat to the Cuban government’s control over information.

    “Google’s entry signals the Cuban government’s understanding that the Internet is necessary for economic development,” Parker said.

    Last year, Google partnered with a local artist known as Kcho to open a technology centre that provides free, faster internet to the public.

    Google’s servers won’t bring internet to more people, but those who already have the internet will see faster load times for Google services.

    Doug Madory, Director of Internet Analysis at internet performance company Dyn, noticed the GGC nodes activate on Wednesday for Google Search. He said some people are reporting that they aren’t yet being directed to the Cuban GGC for YouTube, but it should happen soon.

    “It is a milestone, as this is the first time an outside internet company has hosted anything in Cuba,” Madory said.

  • Cuba, Russia improve cooperation, sign new pacts

    Cuba, Russia improve cooperation, sign new pacts

    Cuba and Russia on Thursday has signed seven cooperation pacts covering technology, military, industry, aviation, medical equipment, and railroad transportation.

    The pacts were signed during a visit by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin.

    Cuba-Russia cooperation is in its best shape in over two decades thanks to both sides’ political willingness to deepen their ties, said Cuban Vice President Ricardo Cabrisas.

    Rogozin said Moscow and Havana are key allies in facing “external pressures” from Western powers.

    “Several Western countries like the United States try to put pressure on us by imposing sanctions, but Russia and Cuba share the same idea regarding independence and sovereignty,” he added.

    Russia is one of Cuba’s top trading partners and Havana seeks to deepen cooperation with Moscow. The Soviet Union was the island’s main ally until its disintegration in 1991.

    Rogozin travelled to Havana after visiting Venezuela, where he met with President Nicolas Maduro.