Tag: Cuba

• Friday, September 9th 2011 - 09:28 UTC

  Venezuela television interviews Fidel Castro, tells Miami “he’s alive and ticking”

  

  Fidel Castro has broken a long silence by granting an interview to a Venezuelan television station, his first since rumors began to spread that the former Cuban leader might be sick or near death. A top Cuban official said Thursday that Fidel is in good health.

• Monday, September 5th 2011 - 10:02 UTC

  Defense minister and lose aide of Raul Castro dies; 3 days national mourning

  

  Gen. Julio Casas Regueiro, an accountant who fought in Cuba's revolution, then used his training to run the military's lucrative economic enterprises for two decades before becoming defense minister, has died, state television reported. He was 75.

• Wednesday, August 31st 2011 - 08:56 UTC

  Cuban Ladies in White claim they are victims of (government sponsored) violent acts

  

  Leaders of the dissident group Ladies in White asked the Catholic Church on Tuesday to intervene before the Cuban government to end what they described as violent acts against them and other human rights activists.

• Wednesday, August 24th 2011 - 07:26 UTC

  Impatient Raul Castro calls on Cubans “to clear our heads of ideological rigidity”

  

  Cuban President Raul Castro is increasingly impatient with the slow implementation of his economic reforms, which he publicly blames mostly on bureaucratic sloth and resistance to change.

• Wednesday, August 10th 2011 - 17:51 UTC

  Tourism second largest contributor to Cuban economy; 2.7 million expected in 2011

  

  Cuban revenue from tourism jumped 13% percent in the first half of the year compared with the same period in 2010, the National Statistics Office, or ONE, reported on its Web site.

• Monday, August 1st 2011 - 06:19 UTC

  All small retail outlets to be “privatized” by next October announced Cuba

  

  Cuba will broaden private retail service beyond beauty parlours and barbers in October to include everything from coffee shops to locksmiths, and may even rent space on busy streets, an official told parliament.

• Saturday, July 30th 2011 - 22:12 UTC

  Cuba allows more charter flights from the US; 350.000 visited the island in 2010

  

  Air travel between the United States and Cuba will become easier with the opening of charter flights to the island from an additional nine US cities announced by Cuba authorities on Friday.

• Saturday, July 23rd 2011 - 06:16 UTC

  Chavez preparing for a second round of chemotherapy treatment in Cuba

  

  Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he was preparing for a second round of chemotherapy treatment in Cuba to eliminate the risk of malignant cells. Last weekend, Chavez flew back to Cuba for chemotherapy after delegating limited powers to his finance minister and vice president.

• Wednesday, July 20th 2011 - 11:17 UTC

  Cuba imports 60% of rice consumption, the basic diet; main supplier Vietnam

  

  Cuba is forced to import more than 400,000 tons of rice each year, 60% of the total amount of this dietary staple consumed on the island, according to official figures published Sunday by the daily Juventud Rebelde.

• Tuesday, July 19th 2011 - 23:22 UTC

  Chavez will run for re-election next year, despite cancer: “there’s no Plan B”

  

  Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez will run for re-election next year despite his struggle with cancer said Finance Minister Jorge Giordani who underlined there’s no Plan B. Giordani’s statement came as the populist leader is in Cuba undergoing chemotherapy and twitted to his compatriots his “insurmountable optimism”.