Doctor shocker: Cuba puts UK to shame

As news reaches us of Cuba sending 4,000 doctors to Brazil to provide medical care in the remotest parts of the Amazon, we are provided in the UK with new figures that illustrate just how stupidly imbalanced the world of health care provision is. This table (above) published today in the UK's Daily Mail newspaper shows the country of origin of the thousands of foreign doctors currently working in the National Health Service. Without these doctors, they are saying, the NHS just would not be able to function because we are not graduatung enough of our own. The reason for that is the cost of studying for a medical degree, which has become too high, and the number of places available at medical schools being simply inadequate.
The table shows that there are 4 Haitian doctors in the UK. This is interesting because of course there are currently NO Haitian doctors in Haiti - where the medical services are being provided by Cubans, who, according to the Independent newspaper "put the rest of the world to shame." This irony would be amusing if it were not so tragic. Look at the number of doctors of Sudanese and Nigerian origin in the UK! The question must be asked as to why it is that so many of these people are not working in their own countries where the level of medical care is so poor? Meanwhile, Cuba keeps on graduating doctors of its own and from around the developing world who make a solemn promise that they will work among the poor of their own countries when they qualify. Perhaps Britain should recruit some doctors from Cuba or, better still, send students of its own who can't afford the cost of studying in the UK to Havana for training? Surely that would be better than sucking the developing world dry of its scarce medical resources?

How US taxpayers' money is wasted on not helping Cuba

Yet more proof,  if any were needed, to confirm just how much of US taxpayer's money is wasted by groups purporting to help bring Democracy to Cuba has been posted by Tracey Eaton on his blog Along the Malecon. He provides this link to the USAID website that details how much and to which organisations the millions of dollars are distributed each year. Some websearching provides illuminating reading.
For example, in 2013 more than $490,000 was given to an organisation called the Grupo de Apoyo a la Democracia based in Coral Gables Florida. This grupo does not seem even to have a website of its own but the Guardian informs us that in 2006 it was criticised for spending its money on: "computer games, cashmere sweaters, crabmeat and expensive chocolates"
Another recipient is the Pan American Development Foundation, an organisation that was set up by the Organisation of American States. This parent would surely be embarrassed to learn that its child received more than $720,000 to promote civil society in Cuba, yet its own website does not report that it has had any success in doing so. There does not appear to be any information on its Cuba work at all.
Then there's the National Democratic Institute, which received $447,000, and which it spent, according to its website, on promoting: "international awareness of the activities of Cuban democratic activists by conducting outreach to political and civic leaders, and international organizations around the world to provide recognition, support and solidarity for those struggling peacefully for democracy on the island." Well that's not exactly "providing support for Cuban civil Society" which is the stated purpose of the programme on the USAID website. In fact, if you read that carefully, it does not say it spends any of the money IN Cuba at all.
It's a gravy train pure and simple, the money does not go to helping Cuba. It is a scandal and a huge rip off of the American people and ought to be stopped.

Restaurant coop experiment begins

This report from Reuters announces that the move towards forming cooperatives is under way in Cuba.  It says that more than 20 state restaurants in Cuba are about to become employee-run. The restaurants will become cooperatives in October, with hundreds more likely to follow if the experiment succeeds.
All aspects of the business from buying the food to splitting the profits will be decided by the employees, not from on high in the government. A similar process is already under way in other sectors from construction and transportation to farmers' markets and light manufacturing.
Among the resturants that are in the experiment is La Divina Pastora, located just below the Morro Castle, the view from which is... simply divine (pictured).

On being a fake Cuban...

 Cuban illegal migrants

It had to happen. Sooner or later someone was going to realise that the ridiculous anomoly of the Cuban Adjustment Act allows for the perfect scam. This story from the Miami Herald details the case of fraud in which the cuplrits made $500,000 selling fake Cuban birth certificates to illegal migrants from other Latin American countries. Under the CAA, a Cuban national is allowed residency and eventually full-citizenship, which is a privilege that no other nationality enjoys. It's a policy that atrracts thousands of Cuban migrants every year to the US ... and, now it seems, a lot of others besides. It really is about time the US government realised that it is a stupid policy that needs reform.

Marti: Eye of the Canary - a rare chance to see a great movie

Join me at 1pm August 25 at the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton, London,  for a rare chance to see Fernando Perez's lavish film about the life of famed Cuban revolutionary José Martí (1853-1895).

Perez focuses on Marti's early years of as he experiences the many injustices perpetrated under Spanish colonial rule.
He re-invents the childhood and adolescence of Cuba's 19th-century national hero, covering the years he lived in Cuba before being sent into exile for political sedition at the age of 17.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with myself and my good Cuban friend Vladimir Smith Mesa PhD.
To book click HERE
An interview with the director about the film HERE
A Cuban blogger's view of the film HERE

The Cuban 'Big Bang' approaches

Cuba is preparing to deliver the hardest and most complicated part of its economic 'updating' process.
In a series of announcements made to separate sessions of the Cuban National Assembly by President Raúl Castro and by Marino Murillo, the politburo and Council of State member charged with overseeing the reform process, moves wereannounced that will see the unification of the dual currency system and the deregulation of virtually all state-run companies over the next few years.
This far reaching  reform is also expected to see virtually all state companies freed from most elements of central control and allowed to operate in a manner that enables them to retain a part of their profits for reinvestment or be closed if they make losses for more than two years running.
Speaking to the Cuban National Assembly on 7 July President Castro said a long and complex road lies ahead for Cuba as it updates its economic and social model, “while ensuring majority support of the population”.
The most difficult element would be the reform of Cuba’s dual currency system, which President Castro acknowledged, “constitutes one of the most important obstacles in terms of national progress”.
In his address to the National Assembly he said that the government intends that the process of eliminating the dual currency will need to be "orderly and integrated" since it will result in far-reaching changes in salaries, pensions, prices, tariffs, subsidies and taxes.
The process will “demand rigorous preparation and implementation” and, he suggested, will require all Cubans to accept the effect of the change at both a national and personal level.
Since 1994, two Cuban currencies have circulated on the island, the national Peso (pictured below) and the Convertible Peso (above), known as CUC. At present a Convertible Peso is equal to 25 Cuban Pesos. It is  the currency in which most salaries are paid.
The government’s Economic and Social Guidelines, which were approved in April 2011 by the National Assembly, explicitly state that “progress will be made towards monetary unification, taking into account labour productivity and the effectiveness of the mechanisms for distribution andredistribution. Given its complexity, this will require careful preparation and execution on the both the objective and subjective planes”.
During his speech, President Castro also said the process of change would continue to have a social dimension and exclude “the shock therapies and abandonment of millions of people characteristic of the adjustment policies implemented in recent years in various nations of rich Europe”.
Mr Murillo had earlier told the National Assembly that the first stage of the reform process involving the elimination of prohibitions was drawing to a close and that during the remainder of 2013 and 2014 “the most profound transformations” will be worked on. These include deregulating even the largest state-run companies so they can operate with greater autonomy in their management and distribution of earnings.

Cooperative Cuba emerges

As part of the economic "updating" programme, and as part of a general effort to speed up economic growth, the Cuban government announced on 28 June that that 124 new co-operatives would begin operations on 1 July in the agricultural, construction, transportation, recycling and produce marketing sectors. Of the 124 co-operatives, 99 will operate farmers’ markets in the western provinces of Havana, Artemisa and Mayabeque, two will focus on the recycling sector and 12 will be involved in construction activities. Another six will offer vehicle maintenance services while the remaining five will be involved in passenger transportation, such as taxi cabs and school buses. The new co-operative markets will function independently of state entities and businesses, be free to set prices in cases where they are not fixed by the State and divide profits as they see fit. “Through this new measure, we are hoping to manage as (private) cooperatives those state-run economic activities that have not been efficient,” Grisel Trista Arbesu, head of the Business Improvement Group of the Permanent Commission for Development and Implementation, said. “The measure also allows the State to gradually extricate itself from activities that are not of vital importance to economic development.”
The Cuban government hopes the new cooperatives will boost productivity and allow the State to cut public spending by reducing the number of people on the government payroll. Co-operatives can play “an important role in the country’s economy, although the main role will continue to be the socialist state enterprise,” said Ruben Toledo, a colleague of Grisel Trista Arbesu. Co-operatives are not new. There are several thousand agricultural co-operatives in Cuba. However, this is the first time that co-operatives have been created for non-agricultural activities. According to the government, more than 430,000 people now work in the non-state sector. This figure excludes those employed in agricultural cooperatives and around 400,000 small farmers.

Plan is "advancing"

Cuba’s reform plan is “advancing and the results can be seen”, President Raúl Castro declared after reports on individual reforms were made at a meeting of the Council of Ministers on 28 June. “We are moving at a faster pace than can be imagined by those who criticize our supposed slow pace and ignore the difficulties that we face,” he said, without making clear who he was referring to. President Castro has always insisted that the reform plan – approved by the National Assembly in April 2011 – would be implemented gradually “without haste”. However, the reforms have yet to translate into faster economic growth. The growth target for this year is 3.6%. Although GDP growth for the first half of this year is estimated at 2.3%, compared to 2.1% for the same period last year, Economy and Planning Adel Yzquierdo now expects the economy to grow by 2.5-3% in full year 2013. The economy grew by 3% last year. The slower than predicted growth rate is linked to a number of factors, including Hurricane Sandy, which caused an estimated US$2bn in damages last year, as well as “the deficiencies that are part and parcel of the Cuban economy”, including low productivity, labour shortages, and the global and regional economic situation, the Minister said.