No more free or even affordable soap and toothpaste for 99% of the Cuban people. Of course this will not effect the Communist Atheist ruling class who live in luxury like the nouveau fat greedy Capitalists they have become. Remember Orwell? All animals are equal but pigs are MORE equal! After all they can't be expected to smell bad and look less than fabulous while these Elite leaders of the Communist Revolution mingle with their poor Cuban Comrades pretending to care for their impoverished plight... can they? This is a historic sign of the fall of the Soviet Union. Only freedom and Capitalism will provide the Cuban people their basic needs. I'd like to see Commie Michael Moore spin this... 

Maybe the super rich Communist Michael Moore will dip into his personal millions to provide the Cuban people their basic needs for toothpaste and soap. Yeah right! I expect that to happen at the same time pigs can fly!

Cuba's official Gazette said that effective Jan. 1, "personal cleanliness products" will join a growing list of products cut from the ration books that islanders have come to rely on for a small but steady supply of basic goods.

Cubans currently pay about 25 centavos, or about a penny, for a rationed bar of soap. They'll soon have to fork out four to six pesos, according to the gazette.

The list of products available with the ration books has shrunk in recent months as the government trimmed items deemed nonessential. Cigarettes, salt, peas and potatoes have been cut. Sugar, beans, meat, rice, eggs, bread and other products remain.

"It's already hard to make ends meet as it is and this is only going to make it harder," said Elias Conde, a 38-year-old father of two who works in a cafeteria. "But we're used to them taking things away, today it's soap and tomorrow it'll be something else."

The ration program began in 1962 as a temporary way to guarantee food staples for all Cubans in the face of the United States' then-new embargo. Designed to tide people over, it has long provided a measure of food security in a country where average wages hover around $20 a month.

Authorities say the cuts are necessary to free the state — which pays for or heavily subsidizes education, health care, housing and transportation — from a crushing economic burden.

Other, more drastic cost-cutting measures have also been announced, including the layoffs of about half a million state workers.

Critics contend that by slashing the ration books, the state is breaking with what has been a sacred covenant of the island's 1959 revolution: to provide all Cubans with at least the basics.

As private enterprise bubbles up in Cuba after decades of official disfavor, Cubans have a million questions about how far they can go under the economic reforms being pushed by President Raul Castro, the first such overhaul in 14 years.

"There is bewilderment -- a lot of people have the desire to act and not much knowledge of the new laws, because there were a lot of restrictions before," said Lazaro Mendez, who has been in business for himself for 26 years.

"I worked alone because I wasn't allowed to have assistants," he added.

Mendez is surrounded by the herbs, mortars and bowls in a store where he sells paraphernalia used in Santeria, the syncretic Afro-Cuban cult that blends Yoruba religious beliefs and Christianity.

At the entrance to his shop, strategically located in the populous Cuatro Caminos neighborhood, one of his 10 employees is barking into a megaphone: "Candles for 3.50, necklaces for 10. Compare prices and see!"

Next door, in a store five times smaller, Miriam Velazquez complains: "I don't understand this, he can use a megaphone, but the sector (police) chief won't let me play religious music as mood music. They'll take away the license I just took out to earn a living."

What's allowed and what isn't? The confusion is so great that state-run Radio Rebelde recently turned over its microphones to Labor Ministry experts for several days to take questions from the public.

Hilda called from Camaguez for guidance on what she can and can't sell in her snack shop. Maribel, a teacher from Granma, asks if she has to get permission from her school to moonlight selling sweets. Adrian from Holguin wants to know if he can let a sales assistant work alone in his shoe store from time to time.

Despite the uncertainties, doubts and risks, 85,000 people have requested business permits since Castro authorized private ventures in 178 fields as an option for the 500,000 Cubans who face being laid off from the bloated state bureaucracy.

In the licensing offices, government bureaucrats still ask for the burdensome paperwork once required of the few people given permission to go into business for themselves.

So officials have taken to repeating over and over again to the public: "Two photos and an identity card. Nothing else!"

Restaurants still produce menus that list only a fraction of the available dishes, a practice born from evading past prohibitions on serving certain prohibited items, like meat.

And their caution is not gratuitous.

Small businesses were abolished in 1968 by Fidel Castro, and only allowed back in 1993 to ease the economic crisis that swept Cuba after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The regime backpedaled in 2004, and many Cubans who went into business for themselves wound up giving up because of the onerous bureaucratic controls and the stigma of being known as potential capitalists.

In pushing the latest wave of reform, Castro acknowledges that the times call for a change of mentality.

"We must defend the interest of those who work on their own account, just as we do any other citizen," he said in a speech in December. "Erroneous and unsustainable concepts about socialism have to be transformed."

At the same time, however, he warned that "the concentration of wealth will not be allowed."

But Lazaro Mendez is undaunted. He has big plans for the entryway of his shop, where he exhibits images of Yoruba deities.

Not satisfied with just a megaphone, he is getting ready to do something that until now has been prohibited in Cuba -- hang a sign that advertises: "Herbalist of 4 Caminos. Religious articles."




http://www.google.com/hos...adea909b6017dc4d554e.481

 HAVANA – Fidel Castro's surprise announcement that he stepped down as head of the Communist Party five years ago — despite widespread belief he remained in charge — marks the bizarre end of an era for a nation, and a man, whose fates have been intertwined for more than half a century.

The 84-year-old revolutionary icon made the revelation Tuesday — with word of the resignation thrown in as an aside halfway through an opinion piece that otherwise focused on President Barack Obama.

The declaration raises fundamental questions about just how much power Fidel has been wielding behind the scenes since his 2006 illness, and to what extent his 79-year-old brother has had freedom to make his own decisions as he pushed the country to enact sweeping economic reforms.

It also gives the Castros an opportunity to tap a possible future successor with their naming of a new party No. 2 — one without their famous last name.

They might select from a cadre of younger leaders who could carry the fiscal changes forward, and perhaps even reboot relations with the United States. Alternatively, the brothers could look to the past by promoting a loyal-but-weathered veteran of the revolution that brought them to power in 1959.

The answer will likely become apparent through a high-level game of musical chairs that Fidel's departure will engender in the upper reaches of the Communist Party hierarchy during a crucial Communist Party Congress next month.

In Tuesday's opinion piece, Castro said that when he got sick in 2006, "I resigned without hesitation from my state and political positions, including first secretary of the party ... and I never tried to exercise those roles again."

He said that even when his health began to improve, he stayed out of state and party affairs "even though everyone, affectionately, continued to refer to me by the same titles."

In the opinion piece, Fidel indicated that, with or without formal titles, he will always be an intellectual force in the revolution, a refrain he has uttered several times in recent years.

"I remain and will remain as I have promised: a soldier of ideas, as long as I can think and breathe," he writes.

The article, which was published on the state-run Cubadebate website overnight and in newspapers Tuesday morning, caught many people by surprise.

"It's incredible. Nobody can believe it," said Magaly Delgado, a 72-year-old Havana retiree who was clutching a copy of Granma, the Communist Party daily. "I always thought he was still in charge. ... He never said he had resigned."

The Cuban government had no immediate comment on the revelation, which appeared to tweak history. Fidel stepped down in 2006 due to a serious illness that almost killed him. In an official proclamation released on July 31, 2006, he provisionally delegated most of his official duties to his brother — including the presidency and head of the party.

In February 2008 he announced he was officially stepping down as president, and Raul Castro was formally picked to succeed him by the country's parliament a few days later. But no reference was made to Fidel leaving his party post, and Cuban officials and ordinary people have referred to him as the party leader ever since.

Even after the announcement, the Communist Party website on Tuesday listed Fidel as first secretary, with Raul as second secretary.

It is widely expected that Raul will formally be named to the top spot at the April congress, and analysts say the choice of second secretary will say a lot about how the brothers envision a transition to an eventual post-Castro era.

"They could send a startling message by picking somebody young or out of the party, or somebody whose name is not easily recognized," said Robert Pastor, a professor at American University and longtime adviser on hemispheric affairs. "Most people would guess, however, that they will pick ... an octogenarian who fought in the revolution."

While the government historically has focused on the day-to-day running of the country, the party is tasked with guiding the Cuban people on their path to communism. In practice, no major policy can be passed without the party first agreeing.

There are a scattering of young leaders including Lazaro Exposito, the fast-charging Communist Party chief in Santiago de Cuba, and Lazara Lopez Acea, the 47-year-old top party leader for Havana, as well as Bruno Rodriguez, the 53-year-old foreign minister, and Marino Murillo, the 50-year-old economy minister.

But none appears ready to step into such a high-profile role, and neither Fidel nor Raul has ever indicated publicly that one is favored over the others. Since taking office, Raul has also elevated a number of generals to high-ranking jobs at state-run entities, but they are technocrats largely unknown to the public.

Some young politicians might be reluctant to step into such a senior position, conscious that the career path of those who have flown too high, too fast, has usually been short. In 2009, Raul suddenly fired two of the island's rising political stars: Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque, then 43, and Vice President Carlos Lage, who at 57 was relatively youthful given the advanced ages of most government officials. Both were captured on a secret video tape drinking whiskey and joking about the country's old leaders.

"The truth is Raul's experience with young leaders hasn't been very good these past few years, so I think he will name a historic figure," said Eduardo Bueno, a professor of international relations at Mexico's Iberoamerican University. "That said, if the younger generation could take a step forward it would be a great signal, including for Raul, that things are finally moving and the country's long paralysis is over."

The safest choice for the No. 2 party spot would probably be Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, a strict disciplinarian of unquestioned loyalty who has been with the Castros since their guerrilla days in the Sierra Maestra mountains and once extracted a bullet from Argentine revolutionary Ernesto 'Che' Guevara's foot.

Machado Ventura, 80, is already Raul Castro's first vice president and holds several other key posts in the government.

Another old-timer who could get the nod is Ramiro Valdes, 78, who is vice president of Cuba's supreme governing body, the Council of State, and oversees the crucial ministries of telecommunications and construction from a new position carved out for him in January.

But neither choice is likely to shake things up politically, or result in improved relations with the United States, which has maintained an economic embargo on Cuba for 48 years.

Bilateral ties have plunged into a deep freeze recently due to the conviction earlier this month of U.S. contractor Alan Gross, who received a 15-year prison sentence for bringing satellite equipment into the country illegally.

A congressional staffer involved in U.S.-Cuba relations said Fidel's official departure from the party will not lead, at least in the short term, to improved relations with Washington.

"It will not have much of a political impact on bilateral relations because Raul has the same last name," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. He said it would take the death of one or both of the two brothers to change perceptions in the United States.

"His stepping down will be a watershed on the island, for sure, and it will be seen as such by most in Washington," he said. "But some people will still say Fidel is calling the shots, whether or not it is really the truth anymore."

However the party shake-up plays out, it is likely to leave Raul with more room to transform the island's ever-weak economy.

The Communist Party Congress at which Fidel's successor is likely to be picked has been called to set a new economic path for the country, one which Raul has been pushing since he took office.

Many of the changes Raul has already embraced, like allowing Cubans to go into business for themselves, rent homes and even hire employees, have long been anathema to his brother.

There has been speculation — impossible to confirm in Cuba's hermetically sealed political culture — that Raul Castro would have moved the reforms along faster if not for his older brother's larger-than-life presence and continued influence behind the scenes.

Tomas Bilbao, the executive director of the Washington-based nonprofit Cuba Study Group, which supports increasing economic and academic exchanges with the island, said the impact of Fidel's resignation cannot be overstated.

"I think it's significant because if nothing else it's Fidel Castro sending a clear message that his brother is in charge of the country," he said. "It's a big boost in credibility for Raul and the reforms he's trying to push."





http://news.yahoo.com/s/a..._ca/cb_cuba_fidel_castro

HAVANA – Cuba kicks off a crucial Communist Party congress Saturday with a massive military and civilian parade to mark 50 years since the defeat of CIA-backed exiles at the Bay of Pigs, still celebrated here as a landmark triumph over the island's powerful neighbor to the north.

Officials have draped huge Cuban flags from government and other buildings; tanks practicing for the big event have been rumbling down city streets and military planes have roared through the skies. Cannon fire from Havana's seaside ramparts has echoed periodically across the city.

Hundreds of thousands of people — from aging generals to factory workers — are expected to march through the capital. Such shows of nationalism are one of the things Cuba does best, with participants given the day off and a fleet of Soviet-era buses mobilized to ferry them in from across the island.

The festivities on Saturday culminate at Revolution Plaza, a vast concrete expanse where an iconic sculpture of Ernesto "Che" Guevara gazes down from the side of the Interior Ministry building.

The Communist Party newspaper Granma reported that tens of thousands of young people would march at the rear of the parade, calling it a demonstration of the continuity of Fidel and Raul Castro's 1959 revolution.

Continuity is an important theme for Cuban leaders these days. President Raul Castro is 79 and his brother Fidel is 84.

Raul has acknowledged that this year's Communist Party gathering is likely to be the last overseen by the brothers and those who fought with them a half century ago. In speech after speech, he has lamented that the time the revolutionary generation has left is short, but the work needed to put Cuba's economy on track immense.

Since taking over the presidency permanently in 2008, Raul has turned over tens of thousands of hectares of fallow government land to small farmers, opened the economy to a limited amount of free enterprise, and gradually cut some of the generous health and food subsidies Cubans have come to expect from the state in return for working for extremely low wages.

He also has repeatedly warned Cubans that they must work harder if the island's moribund economy is to survive. Plans to lay off hundreds of thousands of state workers have been delayed indefinitely, but Raul has insisted they are still part of a larger five-year reform plan.

More details of that plan are expected to emerge from the four-day congress, which opens with a speech by Raul right after the parade. Many Cubans are hoping the congress will expand the list of approved private enterprises and relax rules on buying and selling homes and automobiles, among other measures.

The changes announced by Raul so far have already been a significant departure for a Marxist system where the government employs four-fifths of the work force and dominates nearly the entire economy.

Yet Castro has vowed the changes are meant to improve Cuba's socialist system, not toss it out.

It's no accident that the congress, the first since 1997, is being held on the anniversary of the Bay of Pigs triumph and Fidel Castro's April 16, 1961 announcement that the revolution would forever be socialist in nature.

"It sort of emphasizes where they've been and where they're going now," said Wayne Smith, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington who was chief of the U.S. diplomatic mission on the island from 1979 to 1982. "It'll be very interesting to see what comes out of this congress. Just what kind of a new system are we going to see?"

In addition to the economic changes, delegates are expected to vote in new party leaders after Fidel Castro's announcement last month that he is no longer first secretary. With Raul all but certain to take up his brother's mantle, all eyes will be on who is named to the No. 2 spot — a graying revolutionary comrade, or a fresh new face.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/a...a/cb_cuba_party_congress

Havana's small
community of
Twitterati meets IRL

Humberto Fontova  

George McGovern
Snubbed by "Old Friend"
Fidel Castro

"Everywhere we were surrounded by laughing children who obviously loved Fidel!" wrote the rapt gentleman from South Dakota about an "impromptu" jeep ride he took with his Stalinist host upon his first Cuban visit back in 1975.

So let's step back for a second. The political party (Democratic) that governs the "land of the free" (United States) hails George Mc Govern as its "Conscience," "Elder Statesman," and awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2000. This "conscience" and "Medal of Freedom" winner then hails a Stalinist dictator (Fidel Castro) as his "good" and "old friend."

For the record, McGovern's "friend" jailed political prisoners at a higher rate than Stalin during the Great Terror, murdered more Cubans than Hitler murdered Germans during the Night of Long Knives, and craved to nuke U.S. Presidential candidate George McGovern's very homeland. Say Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan had boasted of friendship with Augusto Pinochet (whose toll of alleged murders, is dwarfed by that of Castro's documented murders--and who somehow always refrained from trying to nuke us.)

Might the Media-Democratic–Propaganda-Complex have noticed?

Say Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachman had words of praise for former South African president P.W. Botha owing to the great healthcare the Apartheid regime provided Black South Africans. Might the media find the item worthy of mention and snarkiness?

Interestingly, according to UNICEF statistics, infant-mortality rates for South African blacks were in fact lower and life-expectancy rates higher, during the Apartheid regime than afterwards. Conversely, pre-Castro Cuba had the 13th lowest infant-mortality rate in the world. This put her not only at the top in Latin America but atop most of Western Europe, ahead of France, Belgium, West Germany, Israel, Japan, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Today all of these countries leave Communist Cuba in the dust, with much lower infant mortality rates.

And even plummeting from 13th (capitalist) to 50th (communist), Cuba's "impressive" infant mortality rate is kept artificially low by Communist chicanery with statistics and by a truly appalling abortion rate of 0.71 abortions per live birth. This is the hemisphere's highest, by far. Any Cuban pregnancy that even hints at trouble gets "terminated."

Needless to add, George McGovern thunders against U.S. economic sanctions against his friend's fiefdom. Needless to add, in the 70's Senator George Mc Govern thundered for U.S. economic sanctions against Rhodesia, South Africa, Chile and Nicaragua. Granted, the gentleman from South Dakota had done his homework: the former regime craved to nuke the U.S. and trained and funded every terrorist group who craved to murder us. Whereas the latter were all U.S. Cold-War allies.

"I wouldn't let a handful of noisy Cuban exiles in Florida dictate our foreign policy!" ranted George McGovern during a speech in 2004.

I’m guessing that by "noisy Cuban exiles" Sen. Mc Govern means those insufferable American citizens of Cuban heritage? I'm guessing that by "dictate" he means their insufferable habit of "voting?" And note his term "our foreign policy." I'm guessing this means U.S. citizens of Cuban heritage do not qualify for inclusion within that "our"?

Say Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachman implied that U.S. citizens of Palestinian or Mexican heritage were inherently "foreign" and should be banned from voting. Might the media find the item worthy of mention?

I do not question McGovern's political instincts. In fact they're eminently sound. In banning Cuban-Americans from voting, this "Conscience of the Democratic party" has a sound prescription for his party's fortunes. To wit:

Exit polls show that Cuban-Americans voted against Obama by the highest margins—and by far—of any U.S. ethnic group, including "anglos." We're going on almost 50 years of their exile but not all the King's Horses nor all the King's Men have been able to bring Cuban-Americans around to follow the lead of the majority in their adopted country and register Democratic. Even with the third generation registering to vote, a measly 13 per cent of these incurably obtuse and unenlightened people register with America’s majority political party. This is the most diminutive Democratic registration of any ethnic group in the U.S. And 72% of these obviously incurable reactionaries are registered with America’s minority party (Republican). This is the highest for any ethnic group in the U.S.

During candidate Obama's campaign visit to Miami summer of 2008, a huge crowd clapped deliriously at the Democratic Messiah—while outside the convention Hall, Cuban-Americans marched and waved picket signs denouncing him. This was the first instance of such irreverence towards The One during this campaign.

To add insult to injury, a formal letter drafted by five major Cuban-American organizations at the time, including the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association and Cuban Political Prisoners Association called Obama’s candidacy "an affront" to their very sensibilities! Nothing remotely of this sort had been mounted by properly-assimilated Americans on any campaign stop by the Democratic candidate.






http://townhall.com/colum..._fidel_castro/page/full/

An American Prisoner
in Cuba

In other words, Cuba is still quite a long way from a genuine transformation. And indeed, even as the Castro regime attempts to convince gullible Americans and Europeans that it deserves normalized relations, it can’t help but show its true colors. Consider the ongoing saga of Alan Gross, a 62-year-old American humanitarian worker who traveled to Cuba a few years ago as part of a USAID-funded mission aimed at helping the island’s tiny Jewish population (estimated at 1,500) obtain Internet access. That seemingly harmless act was enough to make him a national-security threat in the eyes of Communist authorities, who jailed Gross on bogus spying charges at the end of 2009 and sentenced him to a 15-year prison term this past March. On August 5, a Cuban court upheld his sentence, prompting fierce condemnations from Washington.

The Gross affair has poisoned bilateral relations at a moment when Cuba is mired in a terrible economic slump and desperately needs hard currency. Which begs the question: Given its desire for U.S. concessions — such as a lifting of the travel ban — why does the Castro government insist on detaining an obscure USAID contractor whose only “crime” was to provide a very small number of Cubans with Internet equipment?

Simple: The regime fears Alan Gross because, like any repressive dictatorship, it fears an informed, organized citizenry that can utilize modern communications tools. More specifically, it fears the USAID-backed Cuban democracy programs and wants to bully Washington into canceling them. Many U.S. lawmakers — including Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry — believe those programs are ineffective, but Havana apparently considers them a significant threat to Communist rule.

Indeed, Cuba’s fear of the USAID programs is sufficient reason to maintain and even expand them, while also ensuring that the relevant funds are spent efficiently. If Cuban authorities felt that the programs were merely a trivial annoyance, they wouldn’t have sentenced Alan Gross to 15 years in prison. The Communist leaders recognize that when dictatorships lose their monopoly on information, their monopoly on political power begins to weaken as well. That’s why Gross remains in jail: His attempt to promote greater Internet access in Cuba was perceived as a direct challenge to the government’s iron-fisted control of all media.

Needless to say, the 15-year sentence is an outrage, and U.S. officials should continue demanding Gross’s release. Moreover, they should tell Havana that not a single concession will be made — no more relaxing of the travel ban, no more loosening of the trade embargo, no negotiations over Cuban spies convicted in the U.S. — until he is returned home. America’s Cuba sanctions are frequently denounced as archaic, but they give the United States some real leverage over the Castro regime. Washington should use every bit of that leverage to liberate Havana’s American prisoner.




http://pajamasmedia.com/b...in-cuba/?singlepage=true