Moody Airmen rescue Cuban migrants found at sea
Moody Airmen rescue Cuban migrants found at sea
4/29/2008 – MOODY AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. (AFPN) — Airmen from the 23rd Wing at Moody AFB performed a maritime rescue in the Gulf of Mexico April 25 that saved six lives.
Moody Airmen responded by providing two HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters from the 41st Rescue Squadron, a 71st RQS HC-130P King and pararescue assets from the 38th RQS.
The wing received the support request from the Joint Personnel Recovery Center at Tyndall AFB, Fla., around 11 a.m. The request was in response to a report the Coast Guard received from the Eos, an 800-foot Panamanian-flagged tanker ship operating in the Gulf of Mexico. The Eos discovered and assisted a life raft with migrants in distress.
The crew of the Pave Hawks performed a 10-hour mission, supported by the aerial refueling and command and control capabilities of the HC-130, and retrieved six of the stranded individuals from the tanker 260 miles south of New Orleans.
The response required four sets of aerial refueling and the close coordination of members from the 23rd Wing, JPRC, Coast Guard and medical facilities in Louisiana.
Upon the Pave Hawks' arrival to the Eos, pararescuemen from the 38th RQS were lowered from the helicopters to medically assess and treat the individuals.
Subsequently, five adults and one child were hoisted from the tanker and transported to a hospital in New Orleans.
Following the rescue, all Moody-assigned units returned safely.
The 23rd Wing is responsible for all Air Force active duty combat search and rescue assets in the continental United States and routinely supports civilian rescue assets around the country.
Fewer U.S. immigrants sending money to Latin America
Fewer U.S. immigrants sending money to Latin AmericaWed Apr 30, 2008 1:40pm EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Fewer immigrants in the United States are sending money home to Latin America due to the U.S. economic slowdown and a harsher immigration climate, Inter-American Development Bank survey said on Wednesday.
"Three million fewer families will be receiving money in 2008 (in the region)" said Donald F. Terry, IADB's Multilateral Investment Fund general manager, at a news conference.
As a result, about 10 million fewer people will benefit from those cash transfers and about 2 million families could fall below the poverty line, especially in Mexico, he added.
The volume of cash transfers would remain largely unchanged in 2008, only $500 million higher than in 2006, the last time the state-by-state survey was conducted
The amount of cash transfers was projected to rise slightly, however, as $45.9 billion should be sent this year, up $500 million from 2006, the last time the state-by-state survey was conducted.
Only 50 percent of the estimated 18.9 million Latino immigrants were sending money to their families on a regular basis last February when the poll was conducted. That compares with 73 per cent in a similar study in 2006, or 3.2 million fewer people, the IADB said.
Most immigrants — 81 percent — said it was now more difficult to find good-paying jobs and 28 percent said they were thinking about returning to their countries. Many stopped sending money home due to a growing climate of discrimination.
"They are feeling fear and uncertainty about the future," said Sergio Bendixen, a Miami-based pollster who conducted the survey.
Almost half of the 5,000 adult immigrants interviewed were illegal and the sharpest drop in transfers should happen in states that have adopted tougher immigration laws, such as Pennsylvania (28 percent drop), Georgia (17 percent drop) and Maryland (11 percent drop), Bendixen said.
Ten U.S. states will top more than $1 billion in remittances this year. They are California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina and Virginia.
The survey was conducted beginning in February in Spanish and has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.4 percentage points.
(Reporting by Adriana Garcia, editing by Daniel Bases and Kenneth Barry)
The Challenge of Boosting Productivity
LABOUR-CUBA: The Challenge of Boosting ProductivityBy Patricia Grogg
HAVANA, Apr 30 (IPS) – Workers are facing thorny questions related to productivity, wages, participation in decision-making or unemployment at a time when the government is discreetly adopting measures aimed at finally pulling the country out of an economic crisis that has dragged on for more than 15 years.
The suffocating impact of economic problems on living conditions in this socialist nation was the focus of many of the complaints and suggestions voiced by ordinary Cubans during the widespread debates called for by the authorities last year, after a key Jul. 26 speech by President Raúl Castro.
"The problems of low productivity and low wages will be resolved as each sector implements the formula of paying in accordance with production levels," said Ariel Terrero, a journalist and researcher who specialises in economic questions.
"The ceiling for wages should be productivity, and not the other way around," he remarked to IPS.
According to Terrero, wages should be linked to performance, especially in leading productive and services sectors, whose development would in turn bring improvements in salaries in other areas, like health and education.
In February, the Labour Ministry approved new general regulations on wages — in resolution 9/2008 — which extended the system of performance-based pay to the entire business community in Cuba.
The new system is aimed at boosting productivity, cutting costs and expenses, curbing energy consumption, improving the quality of goods and services, replacing imports with nationally produced goods, and increasing exports and revenue flows into state coffers.
When the recession broke out in Cuba in the early 1990s, the purchasing power of Cuban families plunged. During that period, the state propped up dozens of inefficient public enterprises, continued paying the wages of thousands of inactive workers, and continued to provide free education and health care and heavily subsidised essential food items.
Experts estimate that today, 15 years after the peak of the crisis, the average wage has one-quarter of its 1989 real value, although the nominal value climbed from 188 to 408 Cuban pesos a month.
In a country where the overwhelming majority of the workforce is employed by the state, it is estimated that an average family of four needs nearly twice the current average income to cover their basic needs.
In 2005, the government granted wage and pension hikes to more than five million public employees and retirees.
A new increase announced Sunday will benefit a total of two million people, including pensioners, families receiving social assistance, and judges and prosecutors.
In an article in the Catholic magazine Espacio Laical, economist Pavel Vidal wrote that workers should receive a share of profits, which would strengthen their stake in the results achieved by the company they work for.
For his part, Terrero argues that improving wages and working conditions is not enough. On his web site, Cuba Profunda, he advocates strengthening "workers' participation in decision-making in their companies or workplaces," to strengthen their sense of belonging.
Labour leaders in Cuba have acknowledged that employees have become less disciplined and dedicated as a result of the growing loss of a sense of responsibility for their own performance, given that property in Cuba is state-owned, or supposedly collective.
A Labour Ministry resolution in effect since April 2007 apparently did little to change that. The new rules prohibit workers from accepting personal payments on the job outside of their wages, using vehicles or other equipment belonging to their government employer for personal ends, and engaging in personal income-earning activities within the workplace. "Serious breaches of discipline" listed by the resolution are unexcused, unjustified or repeated absenteeism or tardiness, abandonment of the workplace during the worker's shift, and low productivity. Parallel to the challenge of improving economic efficiency, authorities in Cuba must restore the prestige of work, especially among the younger generations.
A 2007 study by the Communist Youth League (UJC) found that more than 282,000 young people in Cuba neither work nor study. The magnitude of the problem is especially alarming in Havana, where 20 percent of the working age population does not work.
The report attributes the phenomenon to the low level of education of the young people who do not work or study, the gap between their aspirations and the job opportunities available to them, and the shortcomings of the coverage and assistance they are offered by the relevant state bodies.
Many of these young people prefer to do whatever they have to do to get by instead of working, because ultimately, they do not need to work for a living, said an article in Trabajadores, the weekly publication of Cuba's central trade union.
But in the meantime, "the country is lacking labour power in important areas like education, health, construction or agriculture," it added. (END/2008)
La UE aparca el debate sobre Cuba hasta después de la cumbre de Lima
La UE aparca el debate sobre Cuba hasta después de la cumbre de Lima
30 de abril de 2008, 08:51 AM
Bruselas, 30 abr (EFE).- Los Estados miembros de la Unión Europea (UE) no reabrirán su debate sobre la política común hacia Cuba hasta después de la cumbre euro-latinoamericana que se celebrará en Lima los días 16 y 17 de mayo, informaron hoy a Efe fuentes comunitarias.
Representantes de los gobiernos europeos decidieron ayer en Bruselas encargar un informe sobre la situación en la isla a sus representantes diplomáticos en La Habana.
Este informe será la base de los debates sobre la revisión periódica de la Posición Común hacia Cuba que los ministros de Exteriores de los Veintisiete deben realizar en junio.
Pero la discusión al respecto no se iniciará, al menos formalmente, hasta después de la cumbre UE-América Latina y Cuba de la capital peruana, según las fuentes.
La cuestión suele suscitar controversias entre gobiernos partidarios de dialogar con el régimen cubano y los que abogan por una política de aislacionismo, por lo que, al aparcar el debate, la UE previene el riesgo de ofrecer una imagen de división en Lima.
La Unión mantiene una oferta de diálogo a doble banda con las autoridades y la disidencia cubana desde enero de 2005, cuando congeló las sanciones diplomáticas que había impuesto en 2003 contra La Habana a raíz del encarcelamiento en la isla de 75 disidentes.
En la última revisión de su política hacia Cuba, realizada en junio de 2007, cuando el líder cubano Fidel Castro ya había transferido el poder a su hermano Raúl, los ministros de Exteriores formularon una invitación para que una delegación oficial cubana visitase Bruselas a explorar las posibilidades de diálogo.
Pero, pese a algunos acercamientos, como la visita a la isla del comisario europeo de Desarrollo, Louis Michel, el pasado marzo, la relación no se ha normalizado.
El Gobierno de Raúl Castro exige para ello la eliminación total de las sanciones diplomáticas europeas, que incluyen la restricción de las visitas oficiales a Cuba y la invitación a los líderes de la disidencia a las recepciones en las embajadas europeas en La Habana.
La semana pasada, eurodiputados de los grupos Socialista e Izquierda Unitaria del Parlamento Europeo abogaron por que la Unión Europea satisfaga esa pretensión.
"La gran mayoría de los países de la UE quieren retirar unas sanciones que no sirven para nada", afirmó el presidente de los socialistas, el alemán Martin Schulz.
Las propuestas en este sentido han sido hasta ahora vetadas por los Estados miembros más reticentes a dialogar con La Habana, liderados por la República Checa.
España encabeza en cambio a los que abogan por establecer canales de interlocución con el régimen cubano. EFE
Turismo en Cuba crece 15% gracias a Chile, Argentina, Colombia y Canadá
Miércoles, 30 de Abril de 2008, 10:43hs
Fuente: AFPPrincipal rama de la economía de la islaTurismo en Cuba crece 15% gracias a Chile, Argentina, Colombia y Canadá
Ese aumento se produjo gracias al incremento de llegadas procedentes de Colombia (35%), Chile (34%), Argentina (33%), Canadá (30%), España (13%) y Rusia (18%).
LA HABANA, abril 30.- Cuba llegó con 22 días de anticipación al turista un millón, respecto a 2007, y registró un crecimiento de 15% en el primer trimestre del año en ese sector, gracias al aumento de visitantes de Canadá, Colombia, Chile, España y Argentina, informaron este miércoles fuentes oficiales.
La viceministra de Turismo, María Elena López, precisó que el turista un millón de 2008 llegó el lunes a Cuba y que el incremento de viajeros entre enero y marzo fue de 15%, al pasar de 689.538 en el primer trimestre de 2007 a 794.384 este año.
Ese aumento se produjo gracias al incremento de llegadas procedentes de Colombia (35%), Chile (34%), Argentina (33%), Canadá (30%), España (13%) y Rusia (18%).
Por el contrario, reportaron decrecimientos en ese periodo Francia (-14%), Italia (-11%) y Alemania (-12%), según los datos oficiales.
En 2007, unos 2,15 millones de turistas visitaron Cuba, cifra inferior en un 3,1% a 2006, pero las autoridades proyectaron una recuperación este año.
El turismo es una de las principales ramas de la economía cubana, con ingresos de más de 2.000 millones de dólares anuales.
http://ve.invertia.com/noticias/noticia.aspx?idNoticia=200804301513_AFP_76903324&idtel=
Aumentaron 15% los turistas que visitaron Cuba en primer trimestre
CUBA-TURISMOAumentaron 15% los turistas que visitaron Cuba en primer trimestreHora: 14:22 Fuente : EFE
La Habana, 30 abr (EFECOM).- Los turistas que visitaron Cuba en el primer trimestre de 2008 aumentaron un 15% respecto al mismo periodo de 2007, informaron hoy medios oficiales.
Hasta el pasado lunes, 28 de abril, llegaron a Cuba un millón de turistas, mientras que en 2007 se alcanzó esa cifra 22 días después, agregaron dichos medios citando a la viceministra del sector, María Elena López.
El turismo es uno de los principales renglones de la economía de Cuba, país que recibió en 2007 a más de 2 millones de visitantes que generaron 2.000 millones de dólares de ingresos. EFECOM
am/pam
http://www.invertia.com/noticias/noticia.asp?subclasid=&clasid=&idNoticia=1945614
Casi 26.000 habaneros residen en inmuebles a punto de derrumbarse
Casi 26.000 habaneros residen en inmuebles a punto de derrumbarse
En la capital hay cerca de mil edificios 'en estado crítico', que albergan unas 8.000 viviendas, según datos oficiales.
Agencias
miércoles 30 de abril de 2008 18:12:00
En La Habana hay cerca de mil edificios "en estado crítico", con unas 8.000 viviendas que alojan a cerca de 26.000 personas, y no hay madera suficiente para apuntalarlas y evitar su derrumbe, informó este miércoles el diario oficialista Juventud Rebelde.
La directora de una oficina del sector, Ivette Pérez Vuelta, explicó al periódico que "el apuntalamiento es una actividad que siempre reserva casos pendientes".
"El material madera aún es crítico dentro de nuestras posibilidades, y lo existente tenemos que dosificarlo entre lo planificado y los derrumbes diarios, que oscilan entre uno y tres", dijo Pérez Vuelta.
"Contamos con un inventario de 984 edificaciones con 7.997 unidades físicas en estado crítico, que alojan a 25.666 personas", precisó la funcionaria.
Pérez Vuelta pidió a los afectados por el estado crítico de sus viviendas que no se desesperen. "El gobierno y las entidades de la Vivienda en la capital trabajan en estrategias de solución al problema habitacional, con la claridad absoluta de que los resultados se irán logrando escalonadamente".
Las explicaciones se producen a raíz del caso de la cubana Marilyn Brito, publicado por Juventud Rebelde.
En el edificio de Brito, ubicado en el casco antiguo de La Habana, se produjo en diciembre pasado el derrumbe parcial del baño colectivo, que colindaba con su habitación.
En la oficina municipal de Vivienda recomendaron el apuntalamiento, pero "más de tres meses después, aún esperaban que este se realizara", dijo el diario, según EFE.
Confesor de salvadoreños condenados a muerte aboga por una conmutación general
Confesor de salvadoreños condenados a muerte aboga por una conmutación general
Agencias
miércoles 30 de abril de 2008 15:22:00
AFP/ La Habana. El cura colombiano Noel Mojica, confesor de dos salvadoreños condenados a muerte hace nueve años en Cuba bajo cargos de terrorismo, abogó por la conmutación de la totalidad de ese tipo de sentencias, y afirmó que los presos la esperan "con gran esperanza".
"Es un paso positivo que da el gobierno para abrirse a una justicia un poquito más humanitaria, ojalá fueran (beneficiados) todos los condenados a muerte", declaró a la AFP el sacerdote, de 71 años.
Mojica atiende a 40 reclusos —la mayoría extranjeros—, entre ellos los salvadoreños Raúl Ernesto Cruz León, de 37 años, y Otto Rodríguez Llerena (50), condenados por separado en 1999, por los atentados con bomba perpetrados en el verano de 1997 en hoteles de La Habana y Varadero.
El religioso comentó que cuando visitó hace 15 días a Cruz León y a Rodríguez Llerena, "todavía no se conocía esta noticia", pero "ambos tienen esa esperanza grande de que esa pena se pueda conmutar", apuntó.
Raúl Castro anunció el lunes la conmutación de la pena máxima por penas de cárcel a un número sin precisar de condenados, y añadió que se estudia el caso de un cubano condenado por asesinato y de un salvadoreño y un guatemalteco, vinculados con los atentados de 1997.
Pero tanto Mojica como el líder opositor Elizardo Sánchez Santacruz, presidente de la Comisión Cubana de derechos Humanos y Reconciliación Nacional, dijeron desconocer la existencia de un guatemalteco condenado a la pena capital en la Isla.
Según Sánchez Santacruz, "alrededor de 30 personas" están sentenciados a muerte en Cuba.
No Space for Dissent in Cuba
Diario Las AmericasPublicado el 04-29-2008
No Space for Dissent in Cuba
It is necessary that the world be informed about the patriotic andpeaceful demonstrations of the group of Cuban women identified as"Ladies in White". Their demonstrations are very important from a pointof view of political morality and civic efforts on behalf of the freedomof fifty-five political prisoners, who are part of an original group ofseventy-five. A few days ago the "Ladies in White" went near thebuilding where President Raúl Castro has his office to try to deliver aletter, but they were unable to do it because they were violently heldback and dragged to a bus. They were not taken to jail, but to theirhomes. However, this should not be interpreted as kindness but as apredetermined tactic. What was outrageous was the way in which they weredragged and put on the bus. TV crews were able to film some of whathappened and thus it has been seen around the world.
Lately there has been speculation in favor of the tyranny in the senseof "changes" that are being made supposedly on behalf of the democraticideals of the Cuban people. But this is not the case; these are onlycosmetic changes that have no significant political value or of anyother kind. Being able to buy cell phones, household appliances andsimilar things, can not be compared in any way with what freedom forpolitical prisoners, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and, inshort, everything that means respect of human rights represent.
With respect to the opportunity to buy the mentioned products and to beable to go to beaches and hotels that had been reserved for tourists, itshould be known that the Cuban people do not have the money to takeadvantage of these offers, unless it be with money sent to them by theirrelatives who live outside the island. The price of these items isbeyond reach of any Cuban worker whose average month salary is theequivalent of US$17. That $17 are not enough to cover the basic needs ofan individual and even less to afford the luxury of buying what thedictatorship is allowing now.
It must be pointed out that it is honoring for the "Ladies in White" theway in which they have been peacefully protesting for many months now onbehalf of the prisoners whose freedom has been infringed upon inviolation of their human rights.
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