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(04/03/08 4:04am)
HAVANA - Cubans snapped up DVD players, motorbikes and pressure cookers for the first time Tuesday as Raul Castro’s new government loosened controls on consumer goods and invited private farmers to plant tobacco, coffee and other crops on unused state land.\nCombined with other reforms announced in recent days, the measures suggest real changes are being driven by the new president, who vowed when he took over from his brother Fidel to remove some of the more irksome limitations on the daily lives of Cubans.\nAnalysts wondered how far the communist government is willing to go.\n“Cuban people can’t survive on the salaries people are paying them. Average men and women have been screaming that at the top of their lungs for many years,” said Felix Masud-Piloto, director of the Center for Latino Research at DePaul University. “Now after many years, the government is listening.”\nMany of the shoppers filling stores Tuesday lamented the fact that the goods are unaffordable on the government salaries they earn. But that didn’t stop them from lining up to see electronic gadgets previously available only to foreigners and companies.\n“They should have done this a long time ago,” one man said as he left a store with a red and silver electric motorbike that cost $814. The Chinese-made bikes can be charged with an electric cord and had been barred for general sale because officials feared a strain on the power grid.\nOn Monday, the Tourism Ministry announced that any Cuban with enough money can now stay in luxury hotels and rent cars, doing away with restrictions that made ordinary people feel like second-class citizens. And last week, Cuba said citizens will be able to get cell phones legally in their own names, a luxury long reserved for the lucky few.\nThe land initiative, however, potentially could put more food on the table of all Cubans and bring in hard currency from exports of tobacco, coffee and other products, providing the cash inflows needed to spur a new consumer economy.\nGovernment television said 51 percent of arable land is underused or fallow, and officials are transferring some of it to individual farmers and associations representing small, private producers. According to official figures, cooperatives already control 35 percent of arable land – and produce 60 percent of the island’s agricultural output.\n“Everyone who wants to produce tobacco will be given land to produce tobacco, and it will be the same with coffee,” said Orlando Lugo, president of Cuba’s national farmers association.\nThe change is a sharp contrast to the early days of Cuba’s revolution, when the government forced or encouraged private farmers to turn their land over to the state or form government-controlled collective farms. But without more details, it was difficult to tell the significance of program, which began last year but was announced only this week.\n“If this means all land that’s not being used, like for private farmers, cooperatives and state farms, is available, that’s positive,” said Carmelo Mesa-Lago, a Cuba economics expert at the University of Pittsburgh. “Assuming, of course, they have the freedom to sow and sell whatever they want.”\nLines formed before the doors opened at the Galerias Paseos shopping center on Havana’s famed seaside Malecon Boulevard, and shoppers wasted little time once inside. But there was no sign yet of computers and microwaves, highly anticipated items that clerks across Havana insisted would appear soon on store shelves, with desktop computers retailing for around $650.\nCuba’s communist system was founded on promoting social and economic equality, but that doesn’t mean Cubans can’t have DVD players, said Mercedes Orta, who rushed to gawk at the new products.\n“Socialism has nothing to do with living comfortably,” she said.
(09/06/06 3:48am)
MEXICO CITY -- Felipe Calderon became president-elect of Mexico on Tuesday, two months after disputed elections, when the nation's top electoral court voted unanimously to reject allegations of fraud and certify his narrow victory.\nHis leftist rival, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, had said he would not recognize the ruling. His supporters wept as the decision was announced, and the courthouse shook as protesters set off fireworks outside.\n"Felipe Calderon didn't win. Fraud won," opposition supporter Francisca Ojeda said, screaming to be heard over protesters throwing trash at the court and screaming, "Fraud! Fraud!"\nThe court found no evidence of systematic fraud, although it threw out some polling place results for mathematical errors, irregularities and other problems that trimmed Calderon's 240,000-vote advantage to 233,831 votes out of 41.6 million cast.\n"There are no perfect elections," Judge Alfonsina Berta Navarro Hidalgo said.\nThe tribunal's decision was final and cannot be appealed.\nTuesday's long-awaited ruling by the Federal Electoral Tribunal -- which came two months, three days and tens of thousands of pages of legal challenges after voters cast their ballots -- was unlikely to end potentially explosive protests or close the growing political divide gripping the country.\nCalderon, staying out of sight at the ruling party offices, now must win over millions of Mexicans angry that President Vicente Fox didn't make good on promises of sweeping change -- and fend off thousands of radicalized leftists who say they will stop at nothing to undermine his presidency.\nLopez Obrador and his supporters claimed fraud, illicit government spending and dirty tricks swayed the election in favor of Calderon, a member of Fox's National Action Party.\n"This has been fraudulent from start to finish," 23-year-old protester Claudio Martinez said.\nThe court rejected Lopez Obrador's "dirty campaign" allegations but said Fox put the election at risk with his comments on the campaign.\nLopez Obrador had argued that an ad campaign comparing him to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez illegally affected the elections. But the court said that while the ads had a strong impact, it was not enough to change the result. It also pointed out that Lopez Obrador used his own attack ads against Calderon.\nThe court said there was "no logical connection" to Lopez Obrador's claim that television ads by pro-Calderon businesses had subliminal messages in favor of Calderon. It also rejected claims that the popular soap opera "La Fea Mas Bella," or "The Prettiest Ugly Girl," indirectly supported Calderon and said there was no evidence electoral authorities were biased against the leftist.\nThe court's president, Leonel Castillo, called on Mexicans to unite and heal the deep divisions the election revealed.\n"I hope we conclude this electoral process leaving confrontation behind," he said.\nNeither candidate was at the session. Lopez Obrador ate breakfast with lawmakers from his Democratic Revolution Party, then arrived at his protest tent in Mexico City's Zocalo plaza, where he has been sleeping for nearly two months.\nHe was greeted by supporters yelling, "You are not alone."\nLopez Obrador adviser Manuel Camacho told The Associated Press that the court's recommendation "does not take into account what is actually happening in the country."\n"The court is going to be questioned seriously about its decision," he said, adding: "We have the responsibility to conduct ourselves peacefully."\nBusloads of riot police guarded Calderon's campaign headquarters where he was expected to celebrate his victory Tuesday evening.\nLopez Obrador barely mentioned the impending decision Monday during his nightly address to followers in the Zocalo.\nInstead, he focused on an upcoming national convention of his supporters to decide if he should declare himself head of a parallel government whose members would propose a series of government reforms.\n"This movement is now about transforming the country," he said.\n"What we are proposing now could just be a dream -- maybe it won't bear fruit, maybe it will be that we fail -- but you know what we have? We have confidence and, above all, the responsibility to do it," he later added. "The dreams of the men and women of today will be the realities of tomorrow."\nThe convention is planned for Sept. 16, Mexico's Independence Day in the Zocalo, where the armed forces traditionally gather for a march down Mexico City's main Reforma avenue. Both places have been occupied by protesters for more than a month.\nMexican presidents are limited by the constitution to one, six-year term, and Fox leaves office Dec. 1.\nTensions spilled from the streets to the halls of Congress on Friday when lawmakers from Lopez Obrador's party blocked Fox from delivering his final state-of-the-nation address.
(10/21/05 5:08am)
CANCUN, Mexico -- Tourists packed Cancun's airport and shuttled from luxury hotels to spartan emergency shelters Thursday, desperately trying to escape Hurricane Wilma as its outer bands battered the resort's white-sand beaches. Cuba evacuated more than 200,000 people.\nWilma, a Category 4 storm with winds of 150 mph, churned toward the Yucatan peninsula and south Florida after its outer bands hit Haiti and Jamaica, where it killed at least 13 people. The storm was expected to strike Cancun and its surrounding resorts and sideswipe Cuba early Friday.\nForecasters said Wilma likely would make a sharp right turn toward Florida, where Gov. Jeb Bush declared a state of emergency, after getting caught in the westerlies, the strong wind current that generally blows toward the east. It is expected to make landfall in Florida on Sunday.\n"At least for the next couple of days here, we think we're going to have a very powerful hurricane here in the Caribbean," said Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami.\nBriefly the most intense Atlantic hurricane on record, Wilma was a potentially catastrophic Category 5 storm before weakening. Its 150 mph winds made it more powerful than Hurricane Katrina when it plowed into the Gulf coast of the United States on Aug. 29, killing more than 1,200 people.\nAt 5 p.m. EDT, the storm's wobbly center was roughly 135 miles southeast of Cozumel, a popular vacation island, the hurricane center said. Its forecast track would carry it directly to Cancun, a city of some 500,000 people by early Friday.\nThe storm had strengthened slightly, and forecasters said it could regain Category 5 strength winds of 156 mph or more.\n"This is getting very powerful, very threatening," Mexican President Vicente Fox said earlier.\nHundreds of schools in the Yucatan peninsula were ordered closed Thursday and Friday, and many were turned into shelters. Airlines started canceling flights.\nAt the Cancun airport, hundreds of tourists waited for flights or sought rental cars, taxis or ATMs.\nMatt Williams and Jeff Davidson of Westfield, N.J., were going back to their hotel in Playa del Carmen south of Cancun after their flight to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. was canceled. At the hotel, they faced a night in a ballroom-turned-emergency shelter.\n"You see the lines. I don't want to stand there for two hours and then decide what to do," said Williams, 26.\nAsked if Katrina was on his mind, he said: "You see that on TV, all that destruction. All you can do is hope that it doesn't happen here."\nIncreasingly high winds bent palm trees and strong waves pounded Cancun's beaches. Officials loaded tourists onto buses after rousting them from luxury hotels lining the strip between the Caribbean Sea and the Nichupte Lagoon.\nSome, like 30-year-old Carlos Porta of Barcelona, Spain, were handed plastic bags with a pillow and blanket. "From a luxury hotel to a shelter. It makes you angry, but what can you do?" he said. "It's just bad luck."\nMayor Francisco Antonio Alor said 20,000 tourists remained in the city Thursday, down from 35,000 the day before. He said he hoped most would be able to fly out on charters, but about 270 shelters were being prepared for those who had to stay.\n"It's important that the people understand they should leave for their own security," he said. "It is important that they understand the situation is very dangerous."\nEarly Wednesday, Wilma became the most intense hurricane recorded in the Atlantic. The storm's 882 millibars of pressure broke the record low of 888 set by Hurricane Gilbert in 1988. Lower pressure brings faster winds.\nQuintana Roo state officials urged the evacuation of nearby islands, and ferries carried throngs to the mainland, but not all agreed to flee.\nAsked by telephone if she was leaving Cozumel's Hotel Aguilar where she works, Maite Soberanis replied: "Not for anything. We're in the center of the island. We're protected. We are very secure. We've lived through Gilbert here. We know what to do."\nIn Cuba, whose tip is 130 miles east of Cancun, civil defense officials said 220,000 people were evacuated by midday, most from low-lying areas in the island's west.\nAn additional 14,500 students at boarding schools outside Havana were sent home until after the storm.