HAVANA – Cuba began a rare public discussion on Monday to overhaul its Cold War-era constitution, a process the government is calling participatory democracy at its best and opponents are branding a fraud. Cuba’s National Assembly approved a draft of changes to the 1976 constitution last month, including amendments that would pave the way for […]
HAVANA – Cuba’s economy grew less than expected in the first half of 2018 and an ongoing liquidity crisis will force fresh belt tightening, President Miguel Diaz-Canel said on Sunday. Diaz-Canel, who replaced former President Raul Castro in April, was addressing lawmakers at a national assembly meeting after they debated and then approved a revamping […]
KINGSTON, Jamaica – Businesses in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean are being encouraged to explore opportunities for trade and investment with Cuba. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for Cuba, Rogelio Sierra Diaz, said his Government is seeking to widen cooperation with countries in the region under its foreign investment law. “We are now promoting trade […]
GEORGETOWN, Guyana — The Caribbean Community (Caricom) and the Government of Cuba have both pledged to continue to strengthen relations in matters related to trade and the arts. This was the outcome of talks between Caricom’s assistant secretary general, human and social development, Dr Douglas Slater, and Cuba’s Vice-Minister Rogelio Sierra Diaz, when they met […]
HAVANA – Cuba’s national assembly named former President Raul Castro on Saturday to head the commission charged with carrying out changes to the constitution that would provide legal backing to the island’s economic and social opening. The nomination of Castro, 86, adds to signs that the presidential handover in April to 58-year old Miguel Diaz-Canel […]
HAVANA – Cuba will seek to amend its constitution to further open up the economy but without modifying the “irrevocable character of socialism,” authorities here said Monday. Former president Raul Castro, who stepped down last month, introduced reforms in 2011 to open the top-heavy, centralised economy to small private businesses and foreign investment. The changes […]
HAVANA – More than 100 people were killed after a Boeing 737 airliner crashed and exploded near Jose Marti International Airport in Havana on Friday. The plane was carrying 104 passengers and nine foreign crew, according to local media Transport Minister Adel Yzquierdo said the crash killed 110 people. Yzquierdo told reporters that among the […]
A new era dawned in Cuba on Thursday when 57-year-old Miguel Díaz-Canel was sworn in as the new president of the country, replacing Raúl Castro who decided to bring to an end the Castro family’s decades-long rule on the island. Díaz-Canel had been serving as Cuba’s first vice-president for the past five years. The National […]
HAVANA – Cuban comedian Luis Silva, better known as his popular television character Panfilo, denounced discriminatory policies against Cubans in their own country in a Facebook post on Friday, in an unusually strong, public criticism of the government. In a country where the Communist government tightly controls the media, Silva’s bumbling old character Panfilo in […]
WASHINGTON – United States President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to keep America’s detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, open. He signed it just before presenting his first State of the Union Address last week, saying that the US must “continue to have all necessary power to detain terrorists, wherever we chase them […]
