Gerard Dion's Blog, page 10

November 25, 2016

Fidel Castro, revolutionary Cuban icon, dies aged 90 – latest news, …

Former Cuban Leader Fidel Castro Dies – Bing News

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Fidel Castro, revolutionary Cuban icon, dies aged 90 – latest news, …

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Published on November 25, 2016 22:36

Fidel Castro, Who Turned Cuba Into Communist Outpost, Dies at 90 ·

Fidel Castro, Who Turned Cuba Into Communist Outpost, Dies at 90 ·

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Published on November 25, 2016 22:36

Cuban dictactor Fidel Castro dies at 90 ·

Cuban dictactor Fidel Castro dies at 90 ·

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Published on November 25, 2016 22:35

November 21, 2016

The number of U.S. trademark registrations in Cuba is multiplying — fast

U.S. trademark registrations in Cuba are at an all-time high | Miami Herald

Girls model for quinceañera photos at an International Trade Market that features U.S.-style advertising in Mariel, Cuba. Robert Gauthier TNS

By Abel Fernández

abfernandez@elnuevoherald.com

The policy of rapprochement with Cuba promoted by the Obama administration has sparked a frenzy in U.S. companies rushing to register their brands on the island.

The Cuban Office of Industrial Property (OCPI), the government agency that examines and awards trademark and trade name registrations on the island, has received more than 1,000 applications so far this year to register trademarks and distinctive signs belonging to U.S. companies.

That is more than double the number of applications received in 2015, and far exceeds the number before Havana and Washington announced a thaw in relations on Dec. 17, 2014. Only 78 U.S. brands were registered on the island that year, according to a report by Reuters.

Although many American companies have registered their trademarks in Cuba since the 1960s covered by an exception to the U.S. embargo, experts say that recent regulatory changes to expand engagement with Cuba have sparked interest in the business opportunities offered by the island.

“The six rounds of regulatory changes since December 17, 2014 have been a catalyst for

increase in registration in Cuba of intellectual property owned by U.S. companies,” said John Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council.

During 2015, well-known brands like Netflix, Hershey’s and Twitter filed to register their trademarks on the island. General Motors registered many of its vehicles including Camaro, Tahoe, Cruze and Buick. Chrysler did the same with its Compass, Charger and Challenger brands. And various restaurant chains such as Outback Steakhouse, Chick-fil-A, Bonefish Grill and IHOP also filed.

Among the names listed in OCPI’s records for 2016 are Disney, Taco Bell, Uber, Starbucks, Chevron, Domino’s, Bank of America, Apple and Microsoft. MGM Resorts International, the Las Vegas casino empire, filed to register its brand in Cuba in January 2016. Go Pro, Fossil and Abbott, filed in August. Instagram and Persicope, in June.

Some media brands, including MTV, Showtime, Dish Network, Comcast, Bloomberg, CBS and Univision have also filed for registration on the island where the government-owned television often plays American movies and programs without paying for royalties.

In addition to the trademarks registered by OCPI, the Spanish acronym for Oficina Cubana de la Propiedad Industrial, others are registered under the Madrid Protocol, an international treaty of which Cuba is a signatory. To date, Cuba has more than 6,000 brands of U.S. companies in its registry, according to official records from the Cuban Foreign Ministry.

To date, Cuba has more than 6,000 brands of U.S. companies in its registry

The increase in the number of U.S. trademark registrations in Cuba is a direct consequence of President Barack Obama’s orders to loosen regulations, according to economist Emilio Morales, president of the Miami-based The Havana Consulting Group.

“These are brands that have not been commercialized in Cuba and now they see an opportunity,” Morales said. Prior to the reestablishment of U.S.-Cuba relations, investors’ interest in Cuba was “very poor.”

In this June 28, 2016 file photo, a vintage car passes in front of the Four Points by Sheraton hotel in Havana, Cuba. Ramon Espinosa AP

First-to-file jurisdiction

Cuba is first-to-file jurisdiction, so anyone can register a trademark that has not previously been registered. In addition to the OCPI screening, the application is published for two months for review.

The OCPI declined to answer questions for this report.

In order to protect their intellectual property, some companies have registered their trademarks in Cuba for decades, renewing registration every 10 years as established by Cuban laws and registering new trademarks when they arise. McDonald’s, for example, has registered its brands in Cuba since 1985, but in 2015 requested to register McCafé.

Many U.S. companies are registering their brands in Cuba as a proactive measure to avoid potential future complications, according to lawyer Christiane Campbell, an intellectual property expert and member of the Cuba Business Group at Duane Morris, a law firm with offices in South Florida.

“[The companies] are trying to be proactive,” Campbell said. “Some third party can go to Cuba and register their trademark, holding them hostages, and then say ‘if you want your brand, you have to buy it from us.’

“It’s a defensive approach,” she said.

[The companies] are trying to be proactive.

Christiane Campbell, intellectual property expert

To “rescue” a brand is much more expensive than protecting it, Campbell said.

In Cuba, the average cost of registering a trademark is $1,500: about $300 charged by the Cuban government, plus legal counsel fees. However, in a case of litigation, the costs are much more. A U.S. company whose trademark has been registered in Cuba by a third party must prove ownership.

After the re-establishment of relations, some have tried to register on the island brands that do not belong to them. Several reports indicate that last year a Cuban lawyer residing in the U.S. requested to register 65 American brands, including Chase, NFL and Jetblue.

Apparently none of the brands in question was granted to that petitioner. Last August, JetBlue became the first U.S. airline to have a regular commercial flight to Cuba in more than 50 years.

Registering a trademark without being the owner is illegal “at an international level,” said Miami lawyer Jesús Sánchez Lima, adding that Cuba is a signatory to numerous international treaties on intellectual property.

However, it is common practice for companies to look after their brands, he said. His firm has registered U.S. brands in Cuba for more than 20 years.

Cuban obstacles

Robert Muse, a Washington-based lawyer with vast experience in U.S. laws regarding Cuba, said that with the new regulations pushed through by the Obama administration, a path has opened for companies to start operating on the island.

I do not see any legal impediments to, say, Starbucks opening a store in Havana.

Robert Muse, Washington-based lawyer

“I do not see any legal impediments to, say, Starbucks opening a store in Havana,” he said. The new regulations allow U.S. companies to establish premises in Cuba, to hire Cuban workers and to export agricultural commodities to Cuba.

“Under the new regulations, Starbucks could lease a distribution center, hire Cuban employees and sell their coffee in Cuba,” Muse said. However, he added, “Cuba is a hard nut to crack.”

“The Cuban side is what sets the bar,” said Morales, of The Havana Consulting Group. “In Cuba, they do not want franchises and there is no franchise law. Not even the self-employed [cuentapropistas] have legal personality.

“All these companies, which mostly operate with franchises, are seeing a business opportunity in a market where there is no franchise,” he said.

Last month, Cuba squelched plans for a small Alabama company to assemble small tractors on the island. The Cleber company was authorized by the Office of Foreign Assets Control and the Commerce Department — and got public touting by Obama — to build the first U.S. factory on the island in more than 50 years. But Cleber was awaiting approval from the Cuban government and at the recent Havana International Fair got its answer: no.

Since the rapprochement between the two countries began, many U.S. companies have been eyeing opportunities to do business on the island, but have been reluctant to move forward due in part to uncertainty about guarantees offered by the Cuban government and for fear of violating the embargo, which remains in place.

In addition, weighing in on closer relations between Cuba and the United States are thousands of claims for property confiscated by the Cuban government in the early years of the revolution.

Last month, the first meeting on intellectual property between Cuba and the U.S. took place in Havana to discuss current regulations and the guarantees offered by Cuban laws for the protection of industrial property. At the meeting, the cases of the Havana Club rum litigation and the Cohiba cigars came up.

People sit at a booth of the United States with wines from California at the 34th Trade Fair in Havana, Cuba. Desmond Boylan AP

The Trump era

Kavulich said that the interest of U.S. companies in registering their brands in Cuba is likely to spike in the short term, seeking to protect themselves from a possible retrenchment in U.S.-Cuba ties under a new administration with Donald Trump at the helm.

However, Muse said it is unlikely that the president-elect will set back the business ties with Cuba, especially since U.S. companies are now allowed to establish a physical presence on the island. That measure opened up the opportunity for the Starwood Hotels to start managing hotels on the island.

“[Trump] is in that business,” Muse said in reference to hotel management.

Morales, of The Havana Consulting Group, agrees: “[Trump] has an interest in Cuba. Several of his consultants went to Cuba to explore business opportunities,” he said. “In addition, the most complicated part was already done by Obama, who changed the policy toward Cuba by 180 degrees. From the point of view of business, that’s a well-trodden path.”

According to Morales, the Cuban government “wasted the Obama years” demanding, among other things, the lift of the embargo. Now, with the Latin American left suffering one political setback after another and with the support of Venezuela getting weaker, the island is at a crossroads where it will have no choice but to deal with the Republican president.

“I think the strategy will be to push for the Cuban government to move forward,” Morales said.

Abel Fernández is on Twittter @abelfglez

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Published on November 21, 2016 12:50

Business or Politics? What Trump Means for Cuba

By FRANCES ROBLESNOV. 15, 2016

Business or Politics? What Trump Means for Cuba – The New York Times

A home in Havana last week. During his presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump vowed to roll back policy initiatives that expanded business and travel in Cuba. Credit Ramon Espinosa/Associated Press

MIAMI — To Chad Olin, it seemed like the perfect opportunity: Decades of animosity between the United States and Cuba were peeling away, opening a final frontier in the Caribbean to dollar-wielding Americans.

Mr. Olin, 30, a Harvard Business School graduate, gave up a career in private equity to break into the Cuba travel market. He started a company that organizes trips for millennials to legally visit Cuba — a business made possible because President Obama has broadened travel to the island and expanded licenses for Americans to do business there.

So what happens now, Mr. Olin wonders.

On the campaign trail, President-elect Donald J. Trump threatened to roll back the sweeping détente with Cuba, lambasting the “concessions” made to its Communist government and raising the possibility that one of Mr. Obama’s signature foreign policy initiatives could be stripped away.

“I am still trying to think about what this means for my business that I spent literally the last two years working on, setting up something that was going to be perfect for an open market,” Mr. Olin said. “If we go back to the old way, I don’t know if I have a business. It’s a huge blow.”

Hundreds of thousands of people have taken advantage of Mr. Obama’s decisions to loosen travel and other restrictions on Cuba. More Americans and Cuban émigrés now travel to Cuba, and the number of Americans who visited the country rose by 50 percent last year, according to the state news media.

More Cubans receive money transfers and parcels. There’s a Four Points Sheraton in Havana, and three more hotels are set to open. Airbnb rents private rooms, and American Airlines is about to start direct flights to Havana.

For them, and Mr. Olin, the critical question remains whether Mr. Trump, a real estate mogul and hotel developer, will be a businessman at heart and allow Mr. Obama’s measures to continue — or if he will instead keep a vow he made and scale back everything from diplomatic relations to the unlimited rum and cigars Mr. Obama recently allowed from Cuba.

Such a move by Mr. Trump would underscore the shifting relations between the United States and Cuba, which have long depended on who occupied the Oval Office.

“Several large European investment groups have asked me to take the ‘Trump Magic’ to Cuba,” Mr. Trump once wrote in a 1999 editorial in The Miami Herald supporting the trade embargo against Cuba.

“My investment in Cuba would directly subsidize the oppression of the Cuban people,” he said at the time. “But I’d rather lose those millions than lose my self-respect.”

Photo

The Havana sea wall last week. Relations between the United States and Cuba have been inconsistent for decades, shifting depending on who occupied the Oval Office. Credit Ramon Espinosa/Associated Press

Mr. Trump has, at other times, been vague on the issue. During the primary contest, he repeatedly said he thought restoring diplomatic relations with Cuba was “fine,” but added that the United States and the Cuban people did not get enough in return.

But as the election approached, Mr. Trump grew less equivocal.

In March, he told CNN that he would “probably” continue having diplomatic relations with Cuba, but he said he would want “much better deals than we’re making.”

Then, Mr. Trump took a harder line in Miami this fall.

“All of the concessions Barack Obama has granted the Castro regime were done through executive order, which means the next president can reverse them, and that I will do unless the Castro regime meets our demands,” Mr. Trump said at a campaign event in September. “Not my demands. Our demands.”

Vice President-elect Mike Pence reaffirmed that stance on Twitter, saying Mr. Trump would repeal Mr. Obama’s executive orders unless there was “real political and religious freedom.”

Asked by a reporter if his comments meant he would break off diplomatic relations with Cuba, Mr. Trump suggested that he might, and said he probably would not appoint an ambassador to Cuba.

“The agreement President Obama signed is a very weak agreement,” he said. “We get nothing. The people of Cuba get nothing, and I would do whatever is necessary to get a good agreement.”

Robert L. Muse, a lawyer who specializes in United States-Cuba trade law, said Mr. Trump seemed to believe that Washington had struck a single deal with Cuba, when in reality there are several agreements that range from direct mail to managing oil spills.

Mr. Trump could pick through them one by one to eliminate the ones he dislikes and keep others. But Mr. Muse said the American government could be financially liable if it pulled out the rug from under companies that had acted in good faith.

“Rescinding enhanced travel that Obama has introduced would be the most tragic thing Trump might do, but I don’t think he will,” Mr. Muse said. “He has invested a lifetime in travel, resorts and hotel accommodations, and it’s a global enterprise. It seems counterintuitive.”

What else could Mr. Trump do?

Change travel rules. Tourism to Cuba is still illegal under the embargo, but President Bill Clinton was the first to allow “people-to-people” excursions that allow travelers to go if the trip is, for example, for educational or religious purposes. President George W. Bush scrapped those, and then Mr. Obama expanded them so that travelers no longer needed to get special permission first.

Under Mr. Bush, a Cuban-American could visit once every three years. Now, it’s unlimited.

End regularly scheduled commercial flights to Cuba. Cuba and the United States agreed to allow up to 90 daily round-trip flights between the nations, the Department of Transportation said.

Photo

Watching Hillary Clinton give her concession speech last week at a cigar store in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami. Credit Lynne Sladky/Associated Press

Southwest began its service on Sunday, and American Airlines is set to start flights to Havana on Nov. 28.

“We are full steam ahead and can’t speculate as to any possible future changes,” Martha Pantin, an American Airlines spokeswoman, said.

Scrap the contentious “wet foot, dry foot” policy. When tens of thousands of Cubans took to the seas in 1994, Mr. Clinton changed American policy so that anyone caught at sea was sent back. But tens of thousands of Cubans continue to migrate to the United States anyway, most by land, because if they arrive they can stay. Many have walked across the Americas to reach the southern border.

“One of the big, main ways Trump looks at foreign policy is through the issue of immigration,” said Phil Peters, a longtime Cuba expert who now serves as a consultant for American companies seeking to do business there. “When it gets to Cuba, he’s going to see a country where there’s a lot of illegal immigration coming to the United States.”

Change the rules that allow businesses like Airbnb and Marriott to operate in Cuba. He can do this. But if he’s a developer at heart, would he?

John S. Kavulich, the president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, said that in the 1990s the Trump organization inquired with him about the logistics of doing business in Cuba. Newsweek reported that Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts paid at least $68,000 to a consulting firm in late 1998 to go to Cuba on the company’s behalf, in an apparent violation of the American trade embargo.

Maurcio Claver-Carone, the founder of a political action committee that supports the trade embargo, said Mr. Trump seemed genuinely moved by stories of human rights violations in Cuba, so he “made a commitment” to the Cuban-American community that he was likely to keep.

He is most likely to repeal the orders that were “blatantly inconsistent with U.S. law,” Mr. Claver-Caron said, such as allowing investments with companies run by the Cuban military. (The hotel industry in Cuba is run by the armed forces.)

Mr. Trump could also overturn a move from late October that broadened the pool of Cuban officials who are allowed to receive cash allowances and conduct banking transactions with Americans, he said.

The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment.

But in Cuba, several people interviewed said the changes Mr. Obama made had not yet made their way down to the people. Some felt that the expansion of business opportunities had helped the Castro government, not the people, so they were generally pleased with the idea of a Trump administration.

Roberto Peñalber, 34, said many Cubans had felt forced to flee under Mr. Obama, because they feared he would rescind preferable immigration treatment for Cubans.

“Now we don’t have to worry about that,” he said. “Trump could possibly make better deals than Hillary. She’s more communist than he is. That’s maybe why the United States voted for Trump.”

Follow Frances Robles on Twitter @FrancesRobles.

Hannah Berkeley Cohen contributed to this report from Havana.

A version of this article appears in print on November 16, 2016, on page A17 of the New York edition with the headline: Business or Politics? Seeking Clues to Trump’s Cuba Policy. Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe

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Published on November 21, 2016 12:33

Trudeau says Canada’s stance on Cuba won’t change with Trump in White House

Trudeau says Canada’s stance on Cuba won’t change with Trump in White House | Toronto Star

The PM spent Wednesday with university students on the second day of his trip to Cuba.

Trudeau praises 'true friendship' between Canadians and Cubans

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrived in Havana Tuesday and sat down with President Raul Castro to discuss the progress of Cuban reforms. Trudeau spoke about building on the ‘true friendship’ between Canadians and Cubans.

By Tonda MacCharlesOttawa Bureau reporter
Wed., Nov. 16, 2016

HAVANA—Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the election of Donald Trump to the White House will not change Canada’s liberal approach to Cuba, and he used it as an example of the kinds of stances that define Canada’s sense of itself as a distinct nation.

“At the same time, however, Canada has always been a steadfast and unflinching friend to Cuba, and we’ve never found any contradiction for us between being strong friends to Cuba and good friends and partners with the United States.

“Indeed, that’s one of the ways we assure ourselves that we are own country, that we make our own choices, and that we are willing to stand for our values and project on the world stage and make our own decisions.”

Speaking to an audience of students of the University of Havana, Trudeau was quizzed by them on how he viewed the results of the U.S. election last week, and whether he supports the lifting of the U.S. trade and investment embargo, which remains in place despite the December 2014 deal between U.S. President Barack Obama and Castro to “normalize” relations.

Trump has sent mixed signals, but near the end of the campaign vowed to “cancel Obama’s one-sided Cuban deal.”

Article Continued Below

At first, Trudeau repeated much of what he has said since President-elect Trump’s surprise win: that the economies of Canada and U.S. are interdependent, and long historic ties between their populations will endure.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau answers questions from students at the University of Havana on Wednesday. “For me, election results in the United States won’t change the strong relationship that is a friendship and a partnership between Canada and Cuba,” Trudeau said. (Sean Kilpatrick / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

“Regardless of who Americans choose for their president, that will continue,” he said.

Trudeau said, at times, the differences between Canadian prime ministers and U.S. presidents created “difficult conversations.”

But he insisted Canada will “respectfully disagree with a number of our American friends in the way they engage with Cuba.”

About 200 students and VIPS were invited to the event organized by the Cuban government, as Cuban President Raul Castro sat listening.

The front row at the University of Havana event also held an unexpected guest: Cuban President Raúl Castro. (Sean Kilpatrick)

Trudeau repeatedly referred to him as “my friend Raul,” and was hoping to visit the ailing elder Castro, Fidel, later in the day.

Fidel Castro received his father Pierre in 1976 on a visit, when the elder Trudeau was prime minister of Canada.

Tight Cuban security surrounded the event, which was broadcast live on Cuban national television, a rare gesture towards a foreign leader, according to a Cuban reporter.

One student pressed Trudeau on the U.S. embargo and America’s policy of barring Canadian business people who do business in Cuba.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Cuban President Raul Castro embrace as they say goodbye after an event with students at the University of Havana on Wednesday. (Sean Kilpatrick)

Trudeau acknowledged that, for a number of Canadian companies and investors who have interests in the United States, “the U.S. political situation and the embargo is a barrier, and challenge.”

Still, he noted there are many Canadian businesses which remain determined to invest in Cuba.

“It’s no surprise we disagree with the approach that the United States has taken with Cuba. We think our approach is much better, of partnership, of collaboration, of engagement, but it’s not our job to tell our friends and allies what they should do and shouldn’t do. It’s our job to make sure that we’re doing what we know we should do and can do in terms of creating opportunities for Canadians, for Canadian companies, but also for Cuba.”

Former Canadian ambassador to Cuba, Mark Entwhistle, said Trudeau’s comments would be “music” to Cuban ears.

Entwhistle said it would not pose any problem with American allies, because Canada’s position is well-known, and is supported by many large U.S. corporations eager to do business here, the U.S. security and military establishment who he said support rapprochement with Cuba, and with a lot of Cubans in the exile community in Florida.

Trudeau’s remarks were welcomed and echoed by David Pathe, president and CEO of Sherritt International, a Canadian company.

In an interview here with the Star, Pathe said with the election of Trump as incoming president, and a Republican-dominated Congress, the reset of relations “may not proceed apace.”

He said there are a lot of unanswered questions about what Trump’s position is.

But Pathe said the normalization process is inevitable.

“I do think that President Obama has started a process here that is probably irreversible, given what an outlier the embargo is, but the pace at which it moves forward from here is very much in the air and hardly anybody knows the answer to that right now.”

Sherritt is Cuba’s largest foreign investor. It has big mining and energy projects on the island.

Pathe said Sherritt has always made investment decisions knowing the embargo conditions. “And, if the embargo continues for some period of time, then so be it . . . . I think the opening up would be good for Cuba and good for us, and I still think that will happen here as the administration takes power. But we’ve never done our business or planned our business on the assumption that was going to take place on any particular timetable.”

Sherritt produces about two-thirds of Cuba’s oil, and owns a 50-per-cent interest with the Cuban government in a nickel and cobalt mining venture, which includes processing and refining operations.

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Published on November 21, 2016 12:17

Why professionals in Cuba have gone start-up crazy

Marguerite Ward | @forwardist

Thursday, 17 Nov 2016 | 10:15 AM ET

Why would anyone trade a career, an office job, and a desk with a chair for a heated restaurant kitchen or hours spent standing as a hotel concierge?

In the small Burner Brothers Bakery in downtown Havana, an engineer decorates cookies while a lawyer ices a cake. The co-owner of the bakery, Sandra Camacho Rodríguez, a dentist, greets customers.

Money.

Throughout Havana, engineers, lawyers, dentists, and other highly-skilled professionals have left their government careers to pursue un-glamorous, but more profitable, jobs in the private sector, many of them start-ups.

These shifts are part of a trend in the country in response to President Obama‘s relaxation of trade policies with Cuba, new policies from Havana, and the growth of entrepreneurship nationwide.

Serial entrepreneur and business strategist Marcus Lemonis explores the issue on a special episode of CNBC’s “The Profit in Cuba.”

Camacho, like most Cubans new to the private sector, is uncomfortable talking about her new salary. But she and her brother suggest that they make more in a few days than they previously did in a year.

“[The bakery’s] steady flow of traffic told me what I wanted to know,” Lemonis says. “I’d guess they were making at least $100 a day. Amazing, when you consider that most Cubans live off $300 a year.”

Experts confirm the existence of the phenomenon.

“Many Cubans are quitting government jobs where they make less than $30 per month,” says Richard Feinberg, author of Open for Business: Building the New Cuban Economy and senior fellow in the Latin America Initiative at the Brookings Institute.

“Jobs with gratuities can easily surpass $300 per month, 10 times what they earned in government ministries.”

While the government may experience a brain-drain of highly educated workers, the economy will likely benefit.

“Raul Castro has made it easier for entrepreneurs, as the government needs the tax dollars to replace what was being subsidized by first Russia and then Venezuela,” says Tom Hayes, dean of Xavier University’s Williams College of Business.

Hayes has traveled to Cuba several times over the past few years.

“The Cuban people, like all of us, want the best for our families,” he says.

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Published on November 21, 2016 12:08

Another sign of change in Cuba: Delta Air Lines selling tickets from Havana office

Mimi Whitefield, Miami Herald

Delta Air Lines opens first ticket office by a U.S. airline in 55 years | Miami HeraldDelta Air Lines plans to use A 320 planes on its Havana routes, which begin Dec. 1. Delta

Delta Air Lines plans to use A 320 planes on its Havana routes, which begin Dec. 1. Delta

By Mimi Whitefield

mwhitefield@miamiherald.com

Delta Air Lines, which plans to resume regularly scheduled flights to Cuba on Dec. 1, has opened an office in Havana and is already selling tickets.

Although other U.S. commercial airlines also have plans to locate ticket offices in Havana, Delta is the first in more than five decades. Its new office, located on La Rampa in the Vedado neighborhood, opened its doors Nov. 7.

“So far ticket sales have gone well,” said a Delta spokesman Friday.

As part of the U.S. opening toward Cuba, U.S. commercial airlines began offering regularly scheduled flights to cities outside the Cuban capital in the late summer and early fall, and service to Havana will start rolling out just after Thanksgiving.

Many of the airlines that have or plan to offer regular service to Cuba didn’t even exist at the time of the Cuban Revolution. But Delta first began flying scheduled flights to Cuba in the 1950s after it merged with Chicago and Southern Air Lines, which had nonstop flights from New Orleans to Havana.

Delta suspended its service to Cuba on Dec. 1, 1961 — although it has leased its planes for Cuban charter flights in recent years.

The airline plans to resume scheduled service 55 years to the day after it pulled out from the island. Its first flight will depart from Miami bound for Havana on Dec. 1, followed by Delta flights to the Cuban capital from New York (JFK) and its Atlanta hub.

Currently passengers can only buy tickets at Delta’s Havana office using Cuban convertible pesos (CUCs), but Delta hopes to be able to offer payment by credit card soon. Passengers waiting to purchase tickets also will get free Wi-Fi service so they can review flight options while they wait.

Several U.S. airlines plan to begin service to Havana in late November and early December. American Airlines will be first out of the gate with a Miami-Havana flight on Nov. 28.

South Floridians will have plenty of options for scheduled flights to the Cuban capital.

JetBlue plans to start its twice-daily service from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Nov. 30, Spirit Airlines and Frontier Airlines plan to begin service from Fort Lauderdale on Dec. 1, and Southwest will begin offering twice-daily service from Fort Lauderdale to Havana on Dec. 12.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/busin...

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Published on November 21, 2016 11:48

US abstains in UN vote on Cuba embargo for the first time

Published November 16, 2016

Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS – The United States abstained for the first time in 25 years Wednesday on a U.N. resolution condemning America’s economic embargo against Cuba, a measure it had always vehemently opposed.

The U.S. was joined in abstaining by Israel, the only other country to vote against the embargo resolution in the General Assembly last year. When the vote — 191-0 with two abstentions — was shown on the electronic board, diplomats from the 193 U.N. member states burst into applause.

The U.S. decision to change its vote follows President Barack Obama’s restoration of full diplomatic relations with Cuba and his support for lifting the embargo, which the Republican-led Congress is against.

Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro announced on Dec. 17, 2014, that they were restoring diplomatic ties, which were broken in 1961 after Fidel Castro took power and installed a communist government. On July 20 last year, diplomatic relations were restored and embassies of the two countries were reopened, but serious issues remain, especially the U.S. call for human rights on the Caribbean island and claims for expropriated property.

The U.S. abstention in the General Assembly vote is certain to anger Republican opponents of lifting the 55-year-old embargo, but it reflects President Barack Obama’s belief shortly before he leaves office that it’s time to move ahead in normalizing U.S.-Cuban ties.

U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power announced the abstention just before the vote saying that the U.S. policy of isolation toward Cuba had “isolated the United States, including here at the United Nations.”

“After 55-plus years of pursuing the path of isolation, we are choosing to take the path of engagement,” she said.

Power called the abstention “another small step” in U.S.-Cuban engagement.

“May there be many more — including, we hope, finally ending the U.S. embargo,” she said.

Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, the last speaker before the vote, said Cuba is “grateful” for Power’s efforts and words and thanked her for the U.S. abstention.

“A change in vote by the United States is a promising signal,” he said. “We hope it will be reflected in reality.”

Rodriguez stressed that the embargo is still in force and being implemented by U.S. agencies, and while the executive measures taken by Obama were positive, they have “very limited scope and effect.”

“Lifting the blockade is the key to be able to advance towards the normalization of relations with the United States,” he said. “The blockade is unjust, inhuman, immoral and illegal and should unilaterally and unconditionally cease.”

General Assembly resolutions are nonbinding and unenforceable. But the 25-year-old exercise in which the world body has overwhelmingly voted to condemn the embargo does reflect world opinion and has given Cubaa global stage to demonstrate America’s isolation on its Cuba policy.

Before the vote, more than 20 speakers from all over the world denounced the embargo and urged the U.S. Congress to quickly lift the ban on trade and financial dealings.

The U.S. administration had considered abstaining in the vote last October, but concluded it could not do so because the resolution did not reflect what it considered to be the spirit of engagement between Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro.

Power made clear that the United States “categorically” rejects statements in Wednesday’s resolution suggesting the embargo violated international law.

She also stressed that abstaining “does not mean that the United States agrees with all of the policies and practices of the Cuban government.”

“We do not,” Power said. “We are profoundly concerned by the serious human rights violations that the Cuban government continues to commit with impunity against its own people.”

She cited Cuba’s detention of government critics, threats and intimidation of participants in peaceful marches and meetings, and severe restrictions on outside information.

In Havana, Cuba organized a vote-watching party on the campus of the University of Havana, where students and government supporters followed the events on a hours-long special live state news broadcast projected onto a giant screen.

The tone of the coverage was triumphant, calling the U.S. abstention a historic victory for Cuba but cautioning that it was meaningless without Congressional action.

“The blockade is still in force but this means that there’s been a change in attitude at the highest levels of U.S. government and politics,” said Raul Palmeiro, a 21-year-old law student and president of the university’s official Student Federation.

Cuba Foreign Minister Rodriguez stressed that Cuba will never change its values and will struggle to build a sovereign, democratic and socialist nation. “We will never go back to capitalism,” he stressed.

In last year’s vote, the assembly approved a resolution condemning the commercial, economic and financial embargo against Cuba with the highest vote ever — 191-2. Only Israel joined the United States in opposing that resolution.

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Published on November 21, 2016 11:39

These Are The Major Human Rights Issues In Cuba And The Castro Government’s Response

These Are The Major Human Rights Issues In Cuba And The Castro Government’s Response | The Huffington Post

The issues will likely play a role in the U.S. Congress’ willingness to overturn the American trade embargo against the island.

Roque Planas National Reporter for The Huffington Post.

A member of the “Ladies in White,” a group founded by the partners and relatives of jailed dissidents that regularly protests against the Cuban government, is led away by police officers hours before U.S. President Barack Obama began his visit to Havana, Cuba, on Sunday, March 20, 2016. Obama arrived Sunday in Havana for a visit that he hopes will help end hostile U.S. policy toward Cuba that he views as futile, lifting one of the biggest impediments to closer U.S. alliances across Latin America. Photographer: Eliana Aponte/Bloomberg via Getty Images

HAVANA — After delivering a major speech aimed at the people of Cuba on Tuesday morning, U.S. President Barack Obama is scheduled to hold a meeting with members of the island’s civil society, including prominent opposition activists.

Both the speech and the meeting will be closely followed by international human rights organizations and critics of Obama re-establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba. Supporters of Obama’s move say that policy will do more to advance liberal reforms on the island than isolating the Castro government, while opponents have argued that the White House should have wrung out more concessions on human rights. The Cuban government, for its part, has played down criticism of its human rights record, saying the issue shouldn’t influence diplomacy.

Whatever one’s opinion, the human rights issue in Cuba will likely play a role in the U.S. Congress’ willingness to overturn the American trade embargo against the island, according to Chris Sabatini, the director of the think tank Global Americans.

“For Congress to come together, there has to be progress on the human rights front,” Sabatini told The WorldPost. “It’s difficult to get that coalition to jell without some progress. This is a government that has survived through repression. It sees its ability to survive as being conditioned on the ability to control people’s lives politically, socially and economically.”

Here are some human rights issues that have been raised by both Cubans and international human rights groups:

Repeated political detentions.

As a one-party communist state, Cuba often takes an authoritarian stance toward political opposition. Just hours before Obama landed, the Cuban government detained some 50 opposition activists who had joined a peaceful weekly protest with the Ladies in White, a group founded in 2003 to rally against the jailing of government opponents. They were among some 2,500 politically motivated short-term detentions since the year’s beginning, according to Human Rights Watch.

Members of the “Ladies in White,” a group founded by the partners and relatives of jailed dissidents that regularly protests against the Cuban government, demonstrate hours before U.S. President Barack Obama began his visit to Havana, Cuba, on Sunday, March 20, 2016. Obama arrived Sunday in Havana for a visit that he hopes will help end hostile U.S. policy toward Cuba that he views as futile, lifting one of the biggest impediments to closer U.S. alliances across Latin America. Photographer: Eliana Aponte/Bloomberg via Getty Images

While Cuba has historically jailed many political opponents for terms of two decades or more, the Castro government has relied increasingly on short-term detentions in recent years. At a press conference Monday, Cuban head of state Raúl Castro denied the island held any political prisoners, but also said that human rights “should not be politicized” as the U.S. and Cuba normalize relations.

The most recent estimate of political prisoners on the island by the Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation, released in July, identified some 60 prisoners of conscience in Cuba, a list that included some armed rebels. At least two dozen of those on the list were convicted of nonviolent acts.

International groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have also called on the Cuban government to allow visits from international monitors to investigate prison conditions. Marselha Gonçalves Margerin, advocacy director for the Americas at Amnesty International, said Cuba is the only country in the Americas where her organization can’t access jails.

“That was actually one part of the agreement from December 2014, when the two presidents, Obama and Castro, announced normalization of ties,” Daniel Wilkinson of Human Rights Watch told WorldPost. “On the human rights front, Cuba agreed to release 53 political prisoners, which it did. It also agreed to allow these visits by these monitors, which have not happened yet.”

Censorship.

The Castro government places restrictions on speech and media in ways both large and small. Pornography, for example, is prohibited, and travelers must declare when passing customs whether they’re bringing any pornographic material with them. That restriction inspired the name of Gorki Aguila’s punk band, Porno Para Ricardo, a reference to a friend by the same name who would ask people to bring him porn when they traveled out of the country.

“Can you imagine how ridiculous it is to prohibit something as beautiful as pornography?” Aguila told WorldPost. “Especially for a culture as sexually expressive as Cuba’s is. Communists are very conservative. They want to ban everything involving pleasure.”

In a more lofty example, filmmaker and playwright Juan Carlos Cremata saw his work blackballed by the government institutions after writing a play titled, “The King is Dying.” In Cuba, Cremata said writers must submit works for review before state institutions will allow them to be performed. The government interpreted the play as an insult to former Cuban head of state Fidel Castro.

“I don’t want to do works against the government,” Cremata told WorldPost. “I want to do work in favor of what I want to say.”

The Castro government also blocks websites of writers affiliated with the opposition, like the digital newspaper 14 y Medio, founded by blogger Yoani Sánchez.

Economic rights.

The Cuban government acknowledges disagreements over human rights issues, but has traditionally pointed to state guarantees of free education, health care, housing and pensions as justification. Asked about its human rights record at the press conference on Monday, Raúl Castro expressed the same rationale.

“Do you think there’s any more sacred right than the right to health, so that billions of children don’t die just for the lack of a vaccine or a drug or a medicament?” Castro said. “We have many other rights — a right to health, the right to education.”

Cuba’s counterclaims.

The Cuban government has its own claims against the U.S. They have for years called on the U.S. government to shut down the military prison in Guantánamo and stopped cashing the checks for leasing the base decades ago, contending that the territory should be returned.

Every year for roughly the last two decades, the United Nations has passed a resolution sponsored by Cuba calling for the U.S. to end the trade embargo against the island, which the Castro government views as a human rights issue. Amnesty International has also called for the lifting of the embargo, Gonçalves Margerin said.

The U.S. has no right to intervene.

Cuban state media also routinely runs stories criticizing civil rights issues in the United States and stories about its wars abroad, aimed in part at highlighting that the U.S. doesn’t have the moral authority to make human rights demands on Cuba.

The distaste for outside interference is shared by many Cubans, even when they have their own problems with the government.

“I don’t think that the way the Cuban government handles human rights is correct, but it’s an internal issue that Cubans themselves will have to resolve,” independent journalist Elaine Diaz, founder of the site Periodismo de Barrio, said in an interview with WorldPost. “Even feeling myself affected by the lack of freedom of expression because I’m a journalist, I still think it’s a problem that should be solved by Cubans.”

It’s also a view shared by Obama. At Monday’s press conference, Obama said he would continue to raise concerns to the Cuban government about detaining people for political reasons, but that the U.S. would refrain from trying to impose its will on the Castros.

“The goal of human rights dialogue is not for the United States to dictate to Cuba how they should govern themselves, but to make sure that we are having a frank and candid conversation around this issue,” he said. “And hopefully that we can learn from each other.”

Nick Robbins-Early contributed reporting.

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Published on November 21, 2016 11:27

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