News (Noticias) Tagged ‘raul castro’

Speculation that Cuba’s relations with Venezuela, its closest ally, might cool when Raul Castro became president has disappeared as the countries have forged even deeper and broader ties.”*

In a series of reforms aimed at improving self-sufficiency and curbing costly food imports, Raul Castro has the idle lands around cities planted.”*

Cuban leader Raúl Castro warned Cubans to work hard and do their jobs to the strictest standards in the face of an international economic crisis that is sure to hit the nation hard.

In a speech Friday night at the closing session of the National Assembly, Castro stressed that the country had to increase its food production and streamline its construction sector in order to survive. Alluding to an infamous speech he once gave saying that ”beans are as important as canons,” Castro said Friday: “These days, beans are more important than canons.””*

Elian Gonzalez said he will never let down ex-President Fidel Castro and his brother Raul Castro, according to the Communist youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde.

Raul Castro succeeded Fidel as president earlier this year.

Now 14, Elian was 6 when his relatives in Miami, Florida, lost their fight to keep him in the United States and he was returned to Cuba in mid-2000 with his father.”*

European Union states are studying ending sanctions on Cuba in defiance of U.S. calls but have yet to agree on how this would be done, diplomats said on Tuesday.
Closed-door talks on the move are continuing as EU leaders hosted U.S. President George W. Bush for a farewell summit in Slovenia. EU foreign ministers will decide on the sanctions at a meeting in Luxembourg next Monday, the envoys said.

The measures were imposed after a crackdown on dissent in 2003 and include a freeze on visits by high-level officials. They were formally suspended in 2005 but an abolition would be the EU’s way of encouraging Cuban President Raul Castro, who took over after the Feb. 24 retirement of his brother Fidel.”*

Cuban President Raul Castro turned 77 on Tuesday, 100 days since officially taking charge of a government that has awakened hopes for change in Cuba after 49 years under his brother Fidel.

At an age when most men have retired, Raul Castro is taking steps to modernize Cuba’s state-run economy, which is winning praise from Cubans but also criticism from opponents, especially the United States.”*

Raul Castro, Cuba’s President, celebrates two anniversaries on Tuesday: his 77th birthday, and his first 100 days in power since formally taking over from his brother Fidel in February.

The latter milestone is the one, Cubans and much of the world are focusing on, as stock is taken of the changes he has thus far ushered in on the communist island state, speculation is mounting as to how much further he will go. “*

Sen. Barack Obama, who once said he would meet Cuban leader Raul Castro without preconditions, added Friday that he would do so “only when we have an opportunity to advance the interests of the United States and to advance the cause of freedom for the Cuban people.”

Any meeting would occur “at a time and place of my choosing,” the likely Democratic presidential nominee told an audience of Cuban-Americans that applauded his remarks.

Obama said he would maintain the existing trade embargo to use as leverage for winning Democratic change in the Communist island nation. But he said he would immediately allow “unlimited family travel and remittances to the island.”"*

n his latest film, Brazilian actor Rodrigo Santoro portrays a man who is very much in the news himself these days — Cuban President Raul Castro.

And though the similarities between the heartthrob and the normally dour Castro may not be immediately evident, Santoro says their eyes are similar.

The 32-year-old actor will be promoting “Che,” directed by Steven Soderbergh, as well as the Argentine film “Leonera,” directed by Pablo Trapero, at the Cannes Film Festival.”*

Cuban President Raul Castro announced on Monday that the country’s ruling Communist Party would hold a Congress in late 2009, the first in 11 years.

The Congress is the highest decision making body of the party and is expected to elect new leadership, replacing an ailing Fidel Castro, who has been first secretary since its founding in 1975, with his younger brother Raul Castro, who is second secretary.”*

“Raul Castro’s government will eventually need to confront the million-dollar question: Once it releases the genie of public opinion from the bottle, does it risk permanently reducing its control over Cuban society?” says Daniel P. Erikson, Caribbean analyst for the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington.

Mindful of the Soviet collapse, Cuban officials are loath to allow any kind of political opening that would be perceived as diminishing the legitimacy of the Communist Party, Erikson said.

“Some Cuban insiders already think that the type of economic discussions favored by Raul Castro have gone too far and that some of the economic reforms debated have political dimensions,” he said.”*

Police broke up a peaceful sit-in by a small group of women demanding the release of their jailed husbands Monday, forcing them aboard a bus at a park near the offices of Cuban President Raul Castro and driving them home.

The 10 women, half of them members of the “Ladies in White” dissident group, gathered early Monday at the park beside Havana’s famed Revolution Square.

The demonstration was broken up a little more than three hours later when a bus carrying more than 20 uniformed policewomen arrived. The protesters locked arms and refused requests to leave, prompting officers to pin them to the ground with their arms behind their backs, said Berta de Los Angeles Soler, whose activist husband, Angel Moya, is serving 20 years in prison.”*

*From: http://ap.google.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

“Raul Castro, Two Worlds, Many Challenges” is a 28-minute documentary that portrays the life of the 91-year-old Castro. In it, he and several close friends recall his experiences as an immigrant child facing the prejudices of Southern Arizona in the early years of the 20th century. His determination to overcome the barriers eventually led him to academic, athletic, political and diplomatic success.”*

*From: http://www.nogalesinternational.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Despite a dizzying array of reforms since Raul Castro took the helm of Cuba’s government, 2008 looks to be a record year for emigration, as inhabitants abandon the communist island in droves.

In the first half of the US fiscal year, which began on October 1, almost 3,000 Cubans tried to reach US shores by crossing the shark-infested Florida Straits, according to the US Interests Section in Havana. The number represents a 21 percent increase over the previous year.

Some Cubans are abandoning the island of some 11 million inhabitants legally; Others leave illegally, crowded on smugglers’ fastboats. Almost all are heading to the islands nearby arch-enemy, the United States.”*

*From: http://news.yahoo.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

President Raul Castro’s government will close more than half of Cuba’s family doctor offices and boost staffing at the rest in a major reform of its vaunted free health care system, medical sources said.

The overhaul of one of the pillars of the health system came in response to public complaints, the sources said, and is another step by Castro to improve life since he succeeded his ailing elder brother Fidel Castro as president in February.”*

*From: http://www.reuters.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Cubans snapped up DVD players, motorbikes and pressure cookers for the first time Tuesday as Raul Castro’s new government loosened controls on consumer goods and invited private farmers to plant tobacco, coffee and other crops on unused state land.

Combined with other reforms announced in recent days, the measures suggest real changes are being driven by the new president, who vowed when he took over from his brother Fidel to remove some of the more irksome limitations on the daily lives of Cubans.

Analysts wondered how far the communist government is willing to go.”*

*From: http://www.chron.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Communist Cuba has begun decentralizing the state-dominated agriculture sector in what appears to be the first major move by new President Raul Castro to improve efficiency and cut bureaucracy.
At meetings across Cuba, farmers are being told decisions ranging from land use to resource allocation and sales will no longer be taken at the 17-floor agriculture ministry in Havana but at the local level, farmers who attended said.

In addition, local municipal offices will be streamlined and will take more into account the activities of private farmers and cooperatives, not just state farms, they said.”*

*From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Communist Cuba has authorized the unrestricted sale of computers and DVD and video players in the first sign that its new president, Raul Castro, is moving to improve Cubans’ access to consumer goods.

An internal government memo seen by Reuters on Thursday said the appliances long desired by Cubans can go on sale immediately, although air conditioners will not be available until next year and toasters until 2010 due to limited power supplies.”*

*From: http://www.reuters.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Cuba’s vast international spy network, considered among the best in the world, will remain intact under the leadership of the new president Raul Castro, intelligence experts say.

Havana will probably even ramp up its information gathering in the months leading up to the November elections seeking to win a firm handle on the policies of the next US president, said Chris Simmons, a former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) counterintelligence Cuba analyst.

“Havana has an insatiable appetite for information about US military operations as well as US intelligence operations,” Simmons said.”*

*From: http://afp.google.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

On Sunday, Raul Castro became Cuba’s new president, succeeding his brother Fidel Castro. Fidel had ruled Cuba since January 1959, when he led a popular revolution. However, once in power he failed to deliver on promises of democracy, and implemented a totalitarian system which also suffocated private enterprise.

Nearly 50 years of Fidel Castro have nearly ruined a once-prosperous economy, experts say. “It is a basket case, with a continuously shrinking basket,” says Jorge Salazar-Carrillo, a professor of economics at Florida International University.”*

*From: http://www.latinbusinesschronicle.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Taking up Raul Castro’s invitation to speak their minds without fear of reprisal, more Cubans have begun publicly complaining and challenging government policies on everything from limits on Internet access to travel restrictions.

This week some leading figures called for change: Culture Minister Abel Prieto said that he supports gay marriage, and famed folk singer Silvio Rodriguez said he believes all Cubans should be free to travel abroad and stay in the hotels reserved for foreign tourists.”*

*From: http://www.npr.org
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

“The Colores Actors-Writers Workshop will produce several shows this year with the help of its Ahwatukee Foothills founder James Garcia, a local playwright and Latino issues expert.

In A Glass House will debut in its first stages at the Herberger Theater Center’s Lunch Time Theater, a series for new and emerging playwrights.

“Right now, it is essentially a one-act production and eventually it will be a full-length play,” explained Garcia of his recent work, based on former Arizona Gov. Raul Castro.”

“The Spanish government is being denounced by Bloggers United for Cuban Liberty (bucl.org) in a new advertising campaign aimed at educating the public about oppression in Castro’s Cuba.

The multimedia campaign consists of bus shelter panels that target areas near the Spanish consulate and the Spanish Cultural Center, both in Coral Gables, Florida. An online component steers readers searching for certain information about Cuba and Spain to BUCL.org.

“This effort marks the first of several coordinated activities aimed at exposing those countries, companies and institutions that aid and abet the Castro regime in oppressing the Cuban people,” said Henry Gomez, the spokesman for Bloggers United for Cuban Freedom. Gomez continues:

“Spanish businesses are dealing directly with the Castro regime and are helping perpetuate Cuba’s totalitarian system by complying with that country’s unfair labor laws and enforcing an apartheid system in which Cubans are not allowed to use the same facilities as tourists. From the Spanish perspective, there is no reason to pursue change in Cuba, they are benefiting from exploitation of Cuban workers and would like to see the status quo perpetuated.”

The Socialist Spanish government of José Luí­s Rodrí­guez Zapatero has been leading an effort to normalize relations between the European Union and Cuba. Those relations have been strained since the Castro regime’s crackdown on and jailing of 75 dissidents and independent journalists in 2003. In April of this year, Spain’s foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos visited Cuba and met with Raul Castro, while noticeably snubbing Cuban dissidents that had requested a meeting with him.

“It’s important for the Spanish government and business interests to know that freedom-loving Cubans will not forget who conspired with the Castro brothers and against their liberty when the inevitable fall of the dictatorship comes,” said Val Prieto, editor of BabaluBlog.com and member of Bloggers United for Cuban Liberty.

Bloggers United for Cuban Liberty is a confederation of blogs and web sites that pool resources and ideas for use in campaigns that raise awareness of the Cuban reality.

Current campaign sponsors include: http://BabaluBlog.com; http://CubanAmericanPundits.com; http://BlogforCuba.typepad.com; http://Claudia4Libertad.com; http://jluix.com; http://TheRealCuba.com; http://the26thparallel.blogspot.com; http://CubaCompanioni.blogspot.com; http://LaContraRevolucion.blogspot.com; MarcMasferrer.typepad.com; http://TomasEstradaPalma4Today.blogspot.com; http://TrenBlindado.com; http://NelsonGuirado.com; http://Cubanology.com; http://AbajoFidel.blogspot.com; and http://albertodelacruz.com. “

“Faustino Oramas, a popular Cuban musician who was among the last original members of the Buena Vista Social Club, died Tuesday of cancer. He was 95.

Cuba state television reported Tuesday night that acting president Raul Castro had sent a floral wreath to Oramas funeral service earlier in the day.”