Shalom Cuba Issue 12

I Issue 12 | July, 2017

A publication of the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies (ICCAS)

NEWS Official Report on Cuban Housing Crisis Shows Deficit of 800,000 Homes  By Karina Martin  A report presented to the island’s Parliament revealed “critical” problems stretching back a century, and which manifested in a deficit of more than 880,000 homes in 2016. The problem mostly stems from a lack of maintenance to existing housing, Director of Housing Ministry Vivian Rodríguez said, and buildings’ continued deterioration....  Read story » Bread In Cuba’s Rationed Market Is An Unsolved Problem  By Zunilda Mata  With a sharp knife and the skill of a surgeon, Luis Garmendia, 68, slices the bread from the rationed market into six small slices. Like so many Cubans, this retiree cannot afford to buy from the liberated (unsubsidized) bakeries and considers that, every day, the quality of the basic product is “worse”... Read story » Mass Celebrated At Ladies In White Headquarters ‘For The Freedom Of The Cuban People’  By 14yMedio  In the presence of 27 people, priests Jose Conrado Rodríguez and Castor Álvarez celebrated a mass at the Ladies in White headquarters Havana’s Lawton neighborhood. Berta Soler, leader of the women’s group, explained via telephone that they gathered at the building with “a lot of discretion” to avoid State Security preventing the Mass... Read story » SPOTLIGHT Food scarcity, another Castroist crime  By Roberto Alvarez Quiñones  Cuba devolved into one of the weakest of Latin American food producers, with some of the lowest agricultural yields in the Americas, including in sugar cane, in which it once was the world leader. If there were no fatal famines it was because Moscow began to subsidize the dictatorship to turn the island into a giant Soviet aircraft carrier, poised right next to the United States, and to expand Communist ideology throughout the Americas...  Read story » How Cuba Runs Venezuela  By Mary Anastasia O’Grady  The civilized world wants to end the carnage in Venezuela, but Cuba is the author of the barbarism. Restoring Venezuelan peace will require taking a hard line with Havana. Step one is a full-throated international denunciation of the Castro regime. Any attempt to avoid that with an “engagement” strategy, like the one Barack Obama introduced, will fail. The result will be more Venezuelas rippling through the hemisphere... Read story » Discriminatory prices: how much do things cost?  By Fernando Damaso  The establishment of Cuba's two different currencies (CUC and CUP), and their different applications (1x24, 1x10, 1x2 and 1x1), according to the Government's convenience, besides sowing economic chaos, also features an immoral component for those affected by it... Read story »

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