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☆ Building collapse in Havana kills at least one, others trapped
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-04 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

HAVANA, Oct 4 (Reuters) - A building partially collapsed in the Cuban capital Havana on Tuesday night, killing at least one person and leaving at least two others trapped beneath the rubble, the municipal government said. The collapse in the Old Havana tourist district gutted the insides of the decrepit building that was home to 13 families and 54 people. It wrenched terraces off its facade and trapped many people beneath piles of rubble and rebar. One person had been killed and two others were hospitalized in critical condition, the municipal government said in a statement. The building collapse is the latest in a series of disasters that have beset crisis-racked Cuba, including a gas explosion that destroyed Havana´s Saratoga Hotel in 2022 and a massive tank farm fire in Matanzas, an hour east of the capital, several months later.

Persons: Rene Mesa Villafaña, Dave Sherwood, Angus MacSwan Organizations: Havana, Thomson Locations: HAVANA, Cuban, Old Havana, Cuba, Havana, Matanzas, U.S

"We understand there is a crisis, and the need for banking, but this is our money," Hernandez said. Her business had already adopted electronic banking but she often needs quick access to cash to pay for emergencies on job sites, she added. Rodriguez said he and many other entrepreneurs began using electronic banking long before the new measures were announced to comply with tax laws that have evolved with the growing private sector. But for many smaller businesses and mom-and-pop stores in Cuba, the formalities of doing business, like paying taxes, remain novel concepts, he said. Cuban officials have said the new banking measures are necessary for transparency, to assure transactions are recorded and taxes are paid.

Persons: Alberto Quinones, Yulieta Hernandez, Hernandez, Fidel Castro, Leonardo Rodriguez, Rodriguez, Ronald Venero, Nelson Acosta, Anett Rios, Carlos Carrillo, Dave Sherwood, Marc Frank, Rosalba O'Brien Organizations: Reuters, Thomson Locations: HAVANA, Cuba, Cuban, Havana, Santiago de Cuba

☆ As Cuba election day nears, some voters ask, 'why bother?'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Dave Sherwood | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

HAVANA, March 22 (Reuters) - Like a growing number of Cubans, 77-year-old Havana resident Humberto Avila says he will likely sit out Sunday's legislative elections. The retired university professor says he's done the math - 470 candidates, 470 open seats - and sees no point in voting. Abstention has spiked in recent elections, rising to a four-decade high of 31% of eligible voters in municipal elections in November. "This vote is for the Revolution ... and to continue to defend our socialist system," Diaz-Canel told textile workers in Santa Clara. Rey Lazaro Blanco, a 19-year old geography student at the University of Havana, told Reuters he will vote on Sunday.

☆ Cuban singer-songwriter Pablo Milanés dies at 79
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +7 min

“The culture in Cuba is in mourning for the death of Pablo Milanes,” Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz tweeted Monday night. Milanés and Rodríguez in particular became close, touring the world’s stages as cultural ambassadors for the Cuban Revolution, and bonding during boozy sessions. “If Silvio Rodríguez and I got together, the rum was always there,” Milanés told El Pais in 2003. Cuba’s aging leaders “are stuck in time,” Milanés told Spanish newspaper El Mundo. “These freedoms have been seen in small doses, and we hope that with time they will grow,” Milanés told The Associated Press.

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