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Dollar Worth Only 90 Cents in Cuba
By Vanessa Arrington, Associated
Press Writer. Nov 14 11:54 PM.
HAVANA - The value of a dollar in Cuba
dropped to 90 cents on Monday as a surcharge
on the American greenback took effect, the
latest step in the island nation's conversion
from an economy based on U.S. currency to
one using the new convertible peso.
Cubans and tourists lined up to change
dollars into pesos over the weekend. As
of last week, U.S. currency no longer was
accepted at Cuban stores, restaurants, hotels
or other businesses, and the new 10 percent
surcharge is meant to further discourage
people from bringing currency from Cuba's
No. 1 enemy to the island.
President Fidel Castro has said the widespread
use of the American money was being halted
to guarantee Cuba's economic independence.
Pedro Michelena stood in line at a cash
exchange station on Sunday to trade in the
dollar he was paid for watching the car
of foreign tourists.
"(Monday) it will be worth only 90
cents," the 82-year-old said.
The retired Cuban said that last week he
changed the other U.S. currency he possessed
- $26 - to get the Cuban convertible peso
- the local currency tied to the dollar
and now the dominant legal tender on the
island.
For a decade, the dollar was Cuba's dominant
currency and was used to buy everything
from shampoo to canned food to furniture.
Cubans as well as tourists visiting the
island now must use the convertible peso.
No figures have been provided on how many
dollars have been exchanged or deposited
since the currency switch was announced
Oct. 25. Cubans, who are still allowed to
hold the American currency, are believed
to have been hoarding several hundred million
dollars at home, most of it money received
from relatives in the United States.
Some independent analysts believe many
with savings will continue to maintain a
dollar stash, though smaller.
Castro said the change was necessary to
protect the island nation from an increasing
U.S. crackdown on the flow of American currency
into Cuba. The U.S. currency was made legal
tender in 1993 to help attract hard currency
after the island lost Soviet aid and trade.
The Cuban convertible peso, like that of
many other smaller nations, has no value
outside the country. There also exists another
currency on the island, the regular peso,
but at 1/26 of the U.S. dollar, it has little
value inside Cuba.
"We see this as a symbolic action
to send the message to the United States
... that the Communist Party is still in
control, and don't forget it," said
Farid Abolfathi, an economist in Boston
with the economic research group Global
Insight.
Abolfathi said Cuba's elimination of the
dollar was primarily political and would
reap few economic gains on the island, where
the average Cuban makes less than $20 a
month while also receiving basic foodstuffs
and subsidized housing and services.
"I don't really see much benefit to
Cuba from this move," he said. "It
removes valuable commodities from private
hands to government hands, putting resources
in the least economically competent sector
in society, which is the political bureaucrats."
The new measure was a bit confusing for
tourist Marc Aupers of the Netherlands,
who believed that, despite the changes,
American dollars were still accepted on
the island. Arriving Saturday, he was told
otherwise and on Sunday he lined up to get
rid of his dollars.
"It's not inconvenient - in any country
you need to change your money into the local
currency," Aupers said.
43 members of Cuban theatrical troupe
defect in Las Vegas
LOS ANGELES, 15 (AFP) - Forty-three Cuban
singers, dancers and musicians sought asylum
in the US gambling hub of Las Vegas in the
largest mass defection ever of Cubans to
the United States, lawyers said.
The theatrical troupe who are playing in
the show "Havana Night Club" that
is due to open in the desert town on Tuesday,
turned up at government offices in Las Vegas
to apply for asylum, their lawyer told AFP.
"This was not an easy decision to
make," said one of the singers who,
like many fellow cast members, left parents
and family behind in Cuba.
"But you cannot be an artist without
the freedom to perform," the cast member,
whose identity is being protected, added
in a statement.
A 44th performer is still weighing up whether
or not to defect from their home country
in an open act of defiance against the communist
island regime, while two others have opted
to return to Cuba, lawyers told AFP.
In addition seven other members of the
troupe had their applications for asylum
in the United States accepted on Monday
and were on their way to America from Berlin,
lawyers said.
The decision by the 50 Cuban artists to
seek asylum was made individually by cast
members "out of sorrow and frustration
with the Cuban government's actions"
a member of the troupe said in a statement.
"The performers requested anonymity
to protect their families and loved ones
still residing in the island country,"
the statement said.
"It is the unanimous feeling of the
ensemble that they had no choice but to
seek permanent residency here in the United
States."
The company's German-born director, Nicole
"N.D." Durr, who has worked with
the Havana Nights team for six years said
the performers would carry on working.
"Art should have no boundaries,"
she said. "We will continue our work
which we started six years ago in bringing
the wonderful and unique Cuban culture to
the world."
The performers took the daring step ahead
of the troupe's return for an additional
12 week run of the show at the Stardust
Resort and Casino, from this week until
January 11, 2005.
"We are dancers who have been forced
to make a political move to insure our rights
to express ourselves artistically,"
said one dancer.
"We will now dance and sing our way
to free expression of our art, and use our
artistry to express our feelings and our
beliefs."
Some 23 members of the cast arrived in
the United States in August following a
one month delay caused by difficulties in
them getting visas for the United States,
publicist Rachael Vollaro told AFP.
The other members of the cast arrived later.
The New York Times reported that several
influential entertainers had helped the
performers win permission for the trip,
including Hollywood actor Kevin Costner
and Las Vegas night club legends Siegfried
and Roy.
US govt fines DaimlerChrysler for breaking
Cuba embargo - report
MADRID, 16 (AFX) - DaimlerChrysler AG (Xetra:
710000.DE) has been fined by the US for
breaking the embargo on Cuba, Expansion
reported.
The case was settled last month, after
the German carmaker paid a fine thought
to be 30,000 usd, the newspaper quoted US
Treasury officials as saying.
The penalty was imposed because of exports
by its Mexican subsidiary, DaimlerChrysler
Vehiculos Comerciales, in 1999.
The officials said DaimlerChrysler paid
the fine without admitting to any wrongdoing.
It was unclear why the company was fined
five years after the event.
Ties between the US and Germany were strained
last year when Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder
became one of the strongest critics of the
invasion of Iraq.
Local Cuban-Born Mother Fights To Get
Daughter
Sun Nov 14,10:35 PM ET Local
- WJXT News4Jax.com
One local mother who escaped Cuba and
risked her life to come to the United States
has been struggling for more than a decade
to get her daughter out of Cuba.
Barbara Anido-Pupo, a Cuban refugee, works
in a local restaurant named Cuba Libre,
or "Free Cuba." She left the island
11 years ago in hopes of starting a new,
free life. But she was forced to leave her
daughter, Yanley, behind.
"We were 15 people in a raft,"
Anido-Pupo recalled of her risky journey.
"I thought in one year I could bring
her over here."
She spent two days on a raft at sea before
making it to U.S. shores.
"When I left, it was so quick I wasn't
afraid. I got really afraid when I was in
the ocean and started seeing people falling
from the raft into the water," Anido-Pupo
said.
She was rescued by the Coast Guard and
sent to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, where she
stayed for 17 months.
Anido-Pupo said she has wanted nothing
more than to save her daughter from the
horrible conditions in Cuba.
"We were living 11 people in one house.
We had nothing to eat. We used to eat once
a day, and many times I had to take my daughter
to eat at the neighbor's house," she
said.
She was finally granted asylum in the United
States, but her daughter stayed behind.
For the past 11 years, they have been communicating
through the phone and videotapes.
"What I've wished all my life is to
have my daughter: from her childhood, when
she lost her first tooth, to her first day
of school. All her birthdays -- I have lost
all those moments," Anido-Pupo said.
But a reunion now seems close. She is close
to raising enough money to bring her daughter
to the states.
Anido-Pupo said she hopes she will soon
be dancing with her daughter -- something
they loved to do together, but haven't been
able to do for more than a decade.
Historic Cuban Church Begins Construction
By Andrea Rodriguez, Associated
Press Writer. Sun Nov 14.
HAVANA - Following a procession through
the streets of the city's historic district,
religious figures and Cuban government officials
on Sunday laid down the first stone of what
will become the island's first-ever Russian
Orthodox church.
The church will constitute "a monument
to Cuban-Russian friendship," said
Metropolitan Kirill, the head of the Russian
Orthodox Church's foreign relations department.
He traveled to Cuba from Moscow for the
consecration.
The church will also pay homage to the
thousands of Russian workers, soldiers and
technicians who cooperated with communist
Cuba for three "glorious" decades
before the fall of the Soviet Union, he
said.
"The past can reunite with the present,
with the result being a common future,"
Metropolitan Kirill said. "Russia will
again be a great power ... that supports
and defends its friends."
Cuba was a strategic Soviet ally in America's
backyard during the Cold War. Under an ideological
and economic alliance that lasted for three
decades, Cuba once received about 20 percent
of its gross national product from Soviet
subsidies.
Sunday's event began in the old Roman Catholic
Convent of San Francisco in Habana Vieja
with a two-hour mass attended by about 300
people, primarily Eastern Europeans living
in Cuba.
Havana City Historian, Eusebio Leal, and
Caridad Diego, director of religious affairs
for Cuba's Communist Party, sat in the front
row of the church. Leal had presented the
church project to Patriarch Alexy II for
authorization during a visit to Moscow at
the end of October.
Archbishop Luigi Bonazzi, the Vatican's
ambassador to Cuba, and several diplomats
were also present.
After the service, Metropolitan Kirill
led the procession carrying Russian Orthodox
crosses and flags.
"This is part of our culture, of our
fatherland, of our soul," Tania Profet,
a Russian citizen living in Cuba for 38
years, said as she followed the procession.
At the empty plot that will house the new
church, Metropolitan Kirill filled a deep
hole with religious artifacts, and covered
the opening with the first symbolic stone,
followed by cement and more stones.
Cuba became officially atheist in the years
after the 1959 revolution that brought Fidel
Castro to power, but the government removed
references to atheism in the constitution
more than a decade ago and allowed religious
believers to join the Communist Party.
Relations between churches and the Cuban
state climaxed in January 1998, with the
historic visit of Roman Catholic Pope John
Paul II.
In January of this year, Ecumenical Patriarch
Bartholomew I, spiritual leader of the world's
300 million Orthodox Christians, visited
Cuba to consecrate a different cathedral
built by the communist government.
The new Russian Orthodox church, also being
financed by the Cuban government, is expected
to open its doors in about a year.
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