CubaNews articles from December 2003

CubaNews archives from December 2003

Despite Bacardi threat, Havana Club J-V enjoys booming rum sales in W. Europe.
December 1, 2003... I'm just a humble rum merchant," protests Alexandre Sirech as he sits in his cheerful, sunny office decorated with posters of 1950s Havana and shelves lined with liquor bottles of every size, shape and brand imaginable. Of course, Sirech...

Museum promotes Havana Club brand to tourists.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... The Museo Ron Havana Club, along the waterfront in Old Havana's restored historic district, represents one of the company's most ambitious efforts to promote its brand name among foreign tourists visiting Cuba. The museum, inaugurated in...

Cuban-American developers want a say in ambitious Havana restoration efforts.
December 1, 2003... As anyone who's visited Cuba knows, most buildings in Havana are crumbling and haven't had a lick of paint in over 40 years. Thanks to Cuba's tourist boom, however, a limited but growing number of structures in Old Havana have been...

Officials say Cuba will finish 2003 with GDP growth of 2%.
December 1, 2003... TThe Cuban economy will show 2003 growth of 2% "despite the U.S. blockade against the island and other adverse circumstances," said Osvaldo Martinez, chief of the Cuban Economic Affairs Committee. This rosy prediction exceeds the 2003...

Fearing Bush veto, congress kills Cuba measures.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... As expected, Republican leaders in the House and Senate bowed to White House wishes and scuttled an effort to change Cuba travel policy. Provisions to strip the Treasury Department of funding to enforce Cuba travel provision were included...

Sherritt may sell its stakes in Cuban hotels, agribusiness.
December 1, 2003... The Cuban oil, gas and power generation activities of Sherritt International Corp. have grown to the point where the Toronto-based multinational may liquidate some of its tour-ism and agribusiness holdings throughout the island. The...

OFAC: 17.5% of staff focused on Cuba embargo.(Office of Foreign Assets Control)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control has informed the Senate Finance Committee that 17.5% of its workforce is dedicated to enforcing the U.S. embargo against Cuba. OFAC's responses to a series of questions from the...

CUREF subsidiary turns trash into profits.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Dennis Hays, former Washington chief of the Cuban American National Foundation, has joined Tew & Cardenas LLC as managing director. "Ideally, we'd like to work with U.S. companies interested in doing business in Latin America," Hays told...

Publisher pulls plug on Cuba newsletter.(Cuba Trader closes)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... After a 3-year run, Washington-based journalist Pete Kasperowicz has decided to close his weekly publication, Cuba Trader, effective Dec. 15. The newsletter, which usually ran six or seven pages, was faxed every Monday to hundreds of...

In their own words ...(political personalities)
December 1, 2003... "We will be back in the next session of Congress to continue the fight, and we will fight harder than ever." --Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), in a statement released Dec. 9. The senator's amendment to lift the U.S. travel ban against Cuba was...

CancerVax seeks import license.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... San Diego-based CancerVax Corp. has asked the U.S. government for permission to acquire a Cuban anti-cancer vaccine from Havana's Molecular Immunology Center (CIM), where it is manufactured. The drug is known as the Theracim h-R3 monoclonal...

White House team plans for Castro's end.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... A U.S. commission is expected next year to suggest ways the United States can hasten Fidel Castro's removal without using force. The White House said Dec. 9 that the President's Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba will issue...

Florida firm makes splash with exports of frozen-drink mix.(Splash Tropical Drinks)
December 1, 2003... The Trade Sanctions Reform Act of 2000, which allows U.S. food sales to Cuba on a cash-only basis, was aimed at helping Cuba recover from a disastrous hurricane. Now a Florida company is using the humanitarian loophole to sell frozen...

U.S. dominates trade show as food sales continue to climb.
December 1, 2003... BY OUR HAVANA CORRESPONDENT Thirty-six of the 47 companies that won deals at last month's Havana International Fair were U.S. firms, according to Cuban food purchasing agency Alimport. Pedro Alvarez, president of Alimport, said it...

Jeff Flake: Castro-hater and anti-embargo crusader.(House-Senate conference committee--fearing a certain veto by President Bush--decided to strip from their $89 billion transportation bill)(Interview)
December 1, 2003... Thousands of people across the United States were disappointed last month when a House-Senate conference committee--fearing a certain veto by President Bush--decided to strip from their $89 billion transportation bill a controversial amendment...

USAID-funded Cuba Transition Project to publish 15 new reports in 2004.(United States Agency for International Development)
December 1, 2003... The Cuba Transition Project (CTP), an affiliate of the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, is funded by a grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development. As part of the CTP's second year of funding,...

Cuban sugar authorities hope for better crop in 2003-04.
December 1, 2003... Cuba's 2003-04 sugar harvest started even as the bitter taste of the last failure persists--and amid fears of a permanent soft market for the crop. The hard lesson of last year's harvest--one of the lowest and most disappointing in a...

In role reversal, Cuba may buy sugar from N.C. commodities broker.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... The Castro government is negotiating to buy sugar from the United States in order to satisfy domestic demand. If the talks succeed, it would mark the first time Cuba--once the world's largest sugar producer--buys sugar from a U.S. supplier. ...

U.K. growth fund to invest in hotel chain.
December 1, 2003... Ceiba Finance Ltd., a British growth fund registered in the Channel Islands, plans to invest in Cuba's tourist industry--but not in big beach hotels. Rather, the company aims at converting elegant mansions around the island into upscale...

Melia to open hotel in Cayo Santa Maria.(Grupo Sol Melia )(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... On Dec. 20, Spain's Grupo Sol Melia will inaugurate its 21st property in Cuba--the 260-room Melia Cayo Santa Maria. The luxury hotel, located in the province of Villa Clara, will be an all-inclusive property, said Wilfredo Benitez Alvarez,...

D.R. official urges more balanced trade.(Dominican Republic)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... A top Dominican official has stressed the need to achieve better equilibrium in the Dominican Republic's trade balance with Cuba. Cuba's annual exports to the Dominican Republic total $35 million, while Dominican exports to Cuba come to...

Cuba names ambassador to St. Vincent.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... The Cuban government has designated Jose Joaquin Alvarez Portela its new ambassador to St.Vincent and the Grenadines. Alvarez Portela will reside in Barbados, where he's already accredited as ambassador. Havana-Kingstown diplomatic...

AI says Bahamas mistreats Cuban refugees.(Amnesty International)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... The Bahamian government is mistreating asylum seekers from Cuba and elsewhere by not giving them forms in their own language and by detaining their children for prolonged periods without much exercise and education, charges London-based Amnesty...

Brazil's BNDES offers credit line for buses.(Banco Nacional de Desarrollo Economico y Social(National Bank of Brazil))(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Brazil's Banco Nacional de Desarrollo Economico y Social (BNDES) has granted Cuba a $12.7 million credit line of credit to buy buses and cars for Cuba's tourism sector. The loan to Fintur S.A. follows a previous credit for $15 million,...

CUREF subsidiary turns trash into profits.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Cuba's first factory to process bamboo has opened in the eastern province of Granma. The plant is equipped with Chinese technology and can produce 20,000 sq meters of pressed wood a year for use as building material and in furniture. The...

CUREF subsidiary turns trash into profits.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Established only 11 years ago, the Cuban subsidiary of Dutch recycling giant Curef has become one of the most efficient industries of its kind in Cuba, reports Opciones. Last year, Curef's 5,000-sq-meter factory recycled $17 million worth...

Pinar del Rio produces antioxidant.(Vimang passes clinical tests)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Pinar del Rio province is producing over 7,000 units of a natural antioxidant marketed under the name Vimang. The product, derived from the bark of mango trees, has unique properties as a nutritional supplement, and delays the skin's...

Cuba invites U.S. firms to drill for gulf oil.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Fidel Castro has invited U.S. oil companies to join offshore exploration of its Gulf of Mexico waters. According to Reuters, Spain's Repsol-YPF S.A. plans to sink an exploratory well in March in waters off Cuba's northwestern coast in...

2003 Telecom investment hits $74 million.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Cuba will have invested $74 million in telecom during 2003, said the country's information and communications minister, Ignacio Gonzalez Planas. At a mid-November meeting of the Hispanic-American Association of Research Centers and...

High demand boosts Cuban honey exports.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Cuba's bee honey production has shown signs of recovery in 2003, thanks to a substantial increase in prices in the world market. Apiculturists in eastern Granma province, the island's major honey producer, expect to produce 1,000 tons of...

Cable TV channel to offer Cuban programs.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... A Cuban exile and a former Detroit TV executive plan to launch a cable channel that will broadcast programs about Cuba in English. Cubana One Network, based in Naples, Fla., is meeting with cable TV providers across Florida to sign up the...

Poll: Floridians favor end to travel ban.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... A clear majority of Florida voters, like those nationwide, favor lifting the ban on travel to Cuba, according to a poll conducted for The Miami Herald and the St. Petersburg Times. Overall, 64% of respondents to the survey conducted by...

Montana company signs bean contract.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Yellowstone Bean Co. of Billings, Mont., has signed a deal to export 6.6 million lbs of dry beans to Cuba, in the first contract resulting from a recent Montana congressional trade visit to the island. Jim Stinehagen, Yellowstone's owner,...

Mineral-water J-V increases production.(joint venture, Ciego Montero Bottling Co.,)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... The Ciego Montero Bottling Co., in central Cienfuegos province, produced 983,340 boxes of bottled water in 2002 and will probably exceed one million boxes this year. The factory, a joint venture between Los Portales S.A. and the Nestle...

Habaguanex: revenues up 10% over 2002.(Habaguanex S.A.)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... State-owned Habaguanex S.A., which runs tourist facilities in Havana's historic center, reported $50 million in revenues from January to August 2003, a 10% increase compared to the first eight months of 2002. Hotel occupancy during the...

New CD-ROM traces history of U.S. embargo.("No al Bloqueo--No to the Blockade," )(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Cuba's Foreign Ministry and semi-official news agency Prensa Latina have unveiled a new CD-ROM encyclopedia on the impact of the U.S. embargo against Cuba. The CD, entitled "No al Bloqueo--No to the Blockade," is available in Spanish and...

In memoriam: Ken Crosby.(Kenneth M. Crosby)(Brief Article)(Obituary)
December 1, 2003... Kenneth M. Crosby, a retired executive of Merrill Lynch & Co. and longtime member of AmCham Cuba, died Nov. 30 at the age of 87. Crosby, a native of Tennessee, led an interesting life and was quite a well-known figure in Washington...

Corruption denied in firing of 4 Cubanacan officials.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Cuba's Tourism Ministry has removed the president and three executives of Cubanacan, its largest state-run tourism corporation, but says the four were dismissed for slack management practices, not corruption. Cubanacan President Juan Jose...

Cuba sends 705 doctors, teachers to impoverished Haiti.
December 1, 2003... Last month, in a makeshift auditorium on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, hundreds of Haitian dignitaries and young medical students waited for the arrival of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. While they sat in their aluminum folding...

Mark Falcoff and Debra Evenson: contrasting views of Cuba.(Cuba: The Morning After)(Law and Society in Contemporary Cuba)
December 1, 2003... The Washington Times calls this book "a sobering account of precisely what Fidel Castro's legacy is and what Cuba has to do to overcome it... a good map of a very uneven terrain." Says Jay Nordlinger, writing in the National Review: "Mark...

Strictly by the numbers.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... 6,398--travel cases opened for investigation by OFAC from Jan. 1996 until June 2002 2,179--travel cases referred for civil penalty enforcement action over same time period $55,000--highest penalty OFAC may assess for unauthorized travel to Cuba...

Calendar of events.(Calendar)
December 1, 2003... If your organization is sponsoring an upcoming event, please let our readers know! Fax details to CubaNews at (301) 365-1829 or send an e-mail to larry@luxner.com. Dec. 8-10: 27th Miami Conference on the Caribbean Basin, Loews Miami Beach...