Cuban Colada

High-profile film figures travel to Havana

Four American film personalities -- Bill Murray, Robert Duvall, James Caan and Benicio del Toro -- arrived in Havana on Wednesday, accompanied by several other people from the movie industry, including producers Laura Bickford and Steve Bing, and director Steven Soderbergh.
With the exception of Del Toro, they said they were there to work on "a research project," foreign press sources in the capital reported.
Del Toro, who portrayed Ernesto Che Guevara in a movie released last year, was in Havana to receive an award from the Union of Cuban Writers and Artists (UNEAC).
On Thursday, the group visited the offices of the Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC), where they met with its president, Omar González.
A member of the entourage said the artists are traveling as private citizens under a license granted by the U.S. Treasury Department.

---Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Miami parley focuses on Cuba's economy

The Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy will hold its 19th annual conference in Miami, beginning Thursday, July 30. The three-day affair, sponsored by the University of Miami, will be held at the Hilton Hotel, 1601 Biscayne Blvd.
Topics will range from the island's current economic and political situation to the state of its relations with the United States and other countries, from foreign investment to its reaction to natural disasters.
In effect, "this conference is a supermarket of studies pertinent to the reconstruction of Cuba," ASCE president Jorge Sanguinetty told El Nuevo Herald on Wednesday.
As described by Sanguinetty, the purpose of the 20-year-old organization is to keep Cuba specialists abreast of the latest developments, in the expectation of a transition to democracy on the island. For more information, click here. [And click here for an Aug. 2 update on the conference.]

[RELATED NEWS: Tuesday in Havana, Adel Izquierdo, Deputy Minister for Economics and Planning, "supported, with undisputable figures and facts, the grave economic and financial situation the country is undergoing because of the effects of the world crisis on our economy, particularly the significant reduction in the revenues produced by exports and the additional restrictions to access foreign sources of financing," the daily Granma reported.]

Cuba accepts Russian loan, signs oil pact

Well, that didn't take long. The $150-million loan Russia offered Cuba on Monday (see our July 27 blog item) was negotiated on Tuesday and accepted on Wednesday.
The agreement was signed by Konstantin Vladimirovich Vishkovsky, director of the International Financial Relations branch of the Russian Ministry of Finance, and Rodrigo Malmierca, Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment.
As told in our July 27 blog item "Russia offers $150M loan..." the money is to be used for the purchase of Russian-built construction and farm machinery.
According to the official daily Granma, a Russian delegation led by Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, "who is accompanied by a large group of businessmen from his country, signed four other agreements with Cuban enterprises." One of them involved the fishing industry, but Granma gave no details.
The oil companies Cubapetróleo (Cupet) and Zarubezhneft signed four contracts for oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. The exploration will be conducted "a riesgo" -- on speculation.
"The concession of Russian credit amid the worldwide economic crisis demonstrates the Kremlin's commitment to the island and to the potential that exists here," the Granma news item ends.
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.

A new look at property ownership

There must be a better way to run the economy, Cuba's top economic commentator said Tuesday on state television. But he stopped short of calling it private enterprise.
"There's a need to look for formulas more dynamic, more intelligent, of understanding property, of running a business, of running a cafeteria," said Ariel Terrero, as quoted by the Reuters news agency.
"The leasing of state lands, which in the end is the placing of state property in the hands of producers, could be applied in other sectors, for example food services, retail trade, and other areas where really it is impossible, given the diversity and breadth, for the state to administer directly," he said.
Terrero is an economics writer for the magazine Bohemia.
Big industrial operations, which are run by the state, are not the same as small businesses, Terrero pointed out. "I think this diversity requires new thinking about the concepts and manner of understanding property in the Cuban economy," he said. To read more, click here.

Cubana starts London-to-Holguín route

Cubana de Aviación this week will inaugurate a new route: London-Holguín-Havana, Radio Rebelde announced.
Holguín, on the island's eastern end, about 500 miles from Havana, is a major tourist destination.
The airline will use Ilyushin-96 aircraft with capacity for 258 passengers. Flight frequency will be weekly, every Wednesday. For details from Radio Rebelde, click here.

A new agency will oversee expenditures

National Assembly deputies on Tuesday drafted a bill to create a Comptroller General's Office that would replace the Ministry of Auditing and Control, the Cuban news agency Prensa Latina reported.
According to Assembly president Ricardo Alarcón, the CGO will be directly supervised by the Assembly, which will appoint a Comptroller General. José Luis Toledo Santander, chairman of the Commission on Constitutional Issues, said the CGO "will assist the National Assembly and the Council of State in the exercise of the highest oversight of state and government organizations."
The CGO will "strengthen economic discipline and [...], raise the standards of auditing and control in the country," Toledo said. The bill will be voted on by the 600 deputies on Saturday. [UPDATE: On July 30, Adel Torrero, economics columnist for Bohemia, said the CGO "will prevent or minimize the possibility" of corruption by public officials. Click here.].
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.
 

Cuban blogger wins Columbia U. award

Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez (see previous item) on Monday won one of four Maria Moors Cabot Prizes presented yearly by Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism for the best writing from and about Latin America. Hers was a special citation.
Columbia's announcement said that Sánchez's blog, Generación Y, "is a pitch-perfect mix of personal observation and tough analysis which conveys better than anything else what daily life -- with all its frustrations and hopes -- is for Cubans living their lives on the island today."
Sánchez has used the Internet with extraordinary ability to put the world "in touch with Cuba, at least digitally," the announcement said.
"I feel especially honored by this award, knowing that it comes from one of the world's most prominent schools of journalism," Sánchez told El Nuevo Herald by phone. [For more of Sánchez's reaction, click here.]
The other winners are Anthony de Palma of The New York Times; Christopher Hawley of USA Today and The Arizona Republic; and Merval Pereira, columnist for the Brazilian newspaper O Globo. The awards will be presented Oct. 14.
For more details, in El Nuevo Herald, click here. For background on Sánchez, click here.
 

Raúl a shadow? He said so.

Raúl Castro began his speech in Holguín by complaining -- only half-jokingly -- that the event's organizers had set the podium with its back to the rising sun and that, therefore, the crowds would not see him clearly.
"I would like to know, if possible, what provincial [official] had the idea to put the sun at our backs," he said, to much laughter from the crowd. "It doesn't bother me, but I'm sure that none of you can see me. At most, you'll see a shadow. That's me."
Award-winning blogger and social critic Yoani Sánchez had something to say about that, from her Havana apartment.
"Everything seems to indicate that [Castro's] speech on Sunday will be remembered by its initial phrase," she wrote in her blog. "The general made no extraordinary announcement nor did he allude to the olive branch that he was said he was willing to extend to the U.S. administration. Nor did he detail projects for the future or measures to emerge from the crisis, much less confirm the celebration of the Sixth Communist Party Congress. He merely limited himself to telling about upcoming meetings of government organizations, where -- it seems -- some decisions will be made."
The backlighting "cast shadows on someone who never has shone by his own sparkle," Sánchez observed. "This has been the speech of 'the shadow' [...] Raúl Castro is right; we can no longer see him, because the dusk he represents lacks -- and has lacked for a long time -- any type of luminescence."

U.S. pulls the plug on message flasher

An electronic ticker that scrolled messages to the people of Havana from the windows of the U.S. Interests Section building has been turned off.
The sign, patterned after the news ticker around the Times Square Building in New York City, was installed in 2006. It flashed messages that praised democracy, decried communism, and criticized Cuban authorities.
Soon after the billboard was installed, the Castro government erected 138 masts in front of the building and raised flags that blocked people's view of the windows.
"The Obama administration is more interested [than President Bush] in normalizing diplomatic channels and apparently did not see the sign as being conducive to that goal," Dan Erickson, an analyst at Inter-American Dialogue, told the British newspaper The Guardian.
The ticker was halted several weeks ago but its disappearance was reported only Monday. U.S. diplomats in Havana told reporters that "technical difficulties" had occurred and that there were no plans to restart the device anytime soon.
To read the account in The Guardian, click here. For The Associated Press' version, click here. (PHOTO SHOWS: Flags bar view of U.S. consular building.)
---Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Colorado wants to boost trade with Cuba

Colorado officials are trying to increase trade between that state's farmers and Cuba, The Denver Post reported Monday.
Colorado companies already sell some products to Cuba — about $1 million worth in 2008 — all of them exempt from the U.S. trade embargo.
Colorado recently posted a request for proposals that seeks to up that figure considerably, asking for help with the complicated process of traveling to Cuba, setting up meetings and deciding the quantities and packaging of goods, The Post reports.
The state is home to 3,701 Cubans, according to the latest census. To read the entire article, click here.