Word: havana
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Reforms seemed to be in the air when the country's 213-member Central Committee held a special one-day session in Havana two weeks ago and issued what the Cuban Communist Party daily Granma trumpeted as "transcendental pronouncements." The "revitalization" measures initially seemed to be a belated curtsy to the changes initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev. But a closer reading indicated that the proposals were aimed at distancing Cuba from events across the Atlantic...
...Party, following the lead of its East European counterparts, abolished its monopoly on power. The new policy is designed to improve the party's organization to make it more responsive, but not to expose it to competition. In a speech before the National Assembly last week, Castro reiterated that Havana would not remove "the tiniest bit of authority from the party...
...been devastated by the drop-off in world petroleum prices since the mid-1980s; Cuba generated much of its foreign exchange by reselling, at top prices, cut-rate oil supplied by the Soviet Union. Sugar, Cuba's main export, has also been a loser on international markets. Ever since Havana in 1986 suspended payments on its foreign debt, which now stands at $7 billion, most industrialized countries have refused to extend new credits. With only $87 million in reserves, Cuba lacks the hard currency to buy vital imports...
...consideration in a country where the daily temperature averages 78 degrees F. Local goods are in short supply too. Thanks to inefficient methods of growing and harvesting, Cuba may be the only tropical island in the world where fruits and vegetables are hard to find. The widening rift between Havana and Moscow has caused other deprivations. The Soviet Union's increasing unwillingness -- or inability -- to continue carrying the Cuban economy has created severe shortages of flour, bread, razor blades and TV sets. The long-standing U.S. trade embargo continues to take its toll as well...
Western diplomats disagree about whether Moscow is apt to cut substantially its $15 million-a-day subsidy to Havana. The handout, after all, is not pure charity, since the Soviet military derives enormous benefits from having a beachhead in the Western hemisphere. In recent months, the Soviets have delivered two advanced MiG-29 fighters to the island. Still, Castro is edgy. For the first time, he suggested publicly in January that the Soviets might abandon him, in which case, he said, Cuba was prepared to live "under a wartime economy." Says Wayne Smith, director of Cuban Studies at the Johns...