Market in Havana, Cuba
HAVANA – Cuba enacted this Jan. 1 a new Tax Law to continue the government’s “modernization” of socialism with economic reforms that revamp the tax culture of a country where taxes have been virtually non-existent since the 1959 Cuban Revolution. More…
A crowd attend a mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI at the Revolution Square in Santiago de Cuba
Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Cuba in the footsteps of his more famous predecessor, gently pressing the island’s long-time communist leaders to push through “legitimate” reforms their people desire.
In contrast to the raucous welcome Benedict received in Mexico, his arrival in Cuba’s second city of Santiago was relatively subdued. President Raul Castro greeted him at the airport with a 21-cannon salute and a goose-stepping military honour guard, but few ordinary Cubans lined the motorcade route into town and the Pope barely waved from his glassed-in vehicle. More…
Reposted from The Economist
JUST OUTSIDE SANTA CLARA, a city in central Cuba, in a hotel that was once a Communist Party hospitality centre, a trio of musicians entertains a large group of German tourists. The trio belts out “Hasta Siempre, Comandante”, an anthem to Che Guevara, whose capture of an armoured train at Santa Clara prompted the collapse of the Batista dictatorship. “I wouldn’t sing this song for an audience of young Cubans. But it has international resonance,” explains one of the trio. More…
