CUBA NEWS WEEK ENDING MARCH 1, 2020
The supply of food and hygiene products across the island of Cuba is dwindling, basic items like milk and deodorant are absent from store shelves, outside Havana the situation is particularly precarious. Cooking oil, laundry detergent, soap, milk, eggs, soda and beer are not available outside the island’s prime tourist locations.
Approximately three-hundred-thousand homes were without gas last weekend in the Havana neighborhoods of el Cerro, Old Havana, Miramar, and Central Havana. Service was reestablished on Monday February 24th, 2020.
The inauguration of the Festival of Salsa Dance in Cuba took place at Havana’s Grand Theater on Wednesday, and the event ran through the weekend. Many of Cuba’s most popular salsa bands performed, including Los Van Van, NG la Banda, Puppy y los que Son Son, El Noro, and Alain Perez.
The Habanos Cigar Festival opened on Monday and ended on Friday. It seems to be the Festival del Habano with the lowest attendance in the past seven years.
On February 24th the Second Secretary of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, assured the Cuban people that Granma Province is becoming the most important agricultural zone of eastern Cuba, and is rich in arable land. Two days later the ninety-year-old general was in Mayabeque province informing farmers that the best way to counter the U.S. embargo is with better organization, savings, discipline, and insisted that farmers take advantage of available resources and not on those that are unavailable.
Cuba’s President, Miguel Diaz-Canel stated during a meeting of the Ministry of Economy and Planning that the ministry must be a “ministry of thinking,” and that the year 2020 will be marked by “positive economic transformations.”
His Majesty King Lesie III of Lesoto arrived in Havana on February 29, 2020, on an official visit to Cuba. Both countries cooperate in on health and sports issues.
By Frank Gonzalez
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