Word: havana
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
THERE WAS FIDEL CASTRO, WEARing for the first time in Havana a blue suit instead of his trademark fatigues, on his feet for five hours praising both socialism and multinational corporations in a bravura if not altogether convincing performance. And Viktor Chernomyrdin, the Prime Minister of Russia, taking questions in Moscow's White House on topics ranging from the extent of government corruption to his relationship with Boris Yeltsin. And Do Muoi, Vietnam's Communist Party chief, asking for more foreign investment and affirming that it would be just fine if the path to pure communism first made the Vietnamese...
...Havana was a riveting place to start. Castro is struggling to stay afloat without billions of dollars in Soviet subsidies each year, and without renouncing the core of Marxist economics and the state security police force that holds 1,200 to 2,000 political prisoners. Telling our group Mikhail Gorbachev's broad effort to open the Soviet Union "destroyed the socialist camp," Castro indicated that he prefers to liberalize the economy while suppressing political reform. "What we need in our country," he said, "is not an exchange of ideas but an exchange of goods, of technologies...
...market we saw the next day. "We have taken a host of measures," he said. "We are going to take as many more as are needed. But always in an orderly fashion." Jim Gaines, Time's managing editor, found it striking that "many in our group came away from Havana thinking the U.S. embargo against Cuba is a cold war anachronism but that Castro's reluctance about reform made him an even bigger...
...significant warming of relations, Clinton announced that the U.S. would lift some restrictions on travel to Cuba and would allow news organizations to open bureaus in Havana. Cuban-American student exchanges would also be permitted. The President said the move would help move the Communist country toward a "peaceful transition to a free and open society." Miami bureau chief Cathy Booth reports: "The Administration's line on this is that it would allow for closer monitoring of human rights abuses. But the easing of travel restrictions is also very important, because in allowing more people in to see their relatives...
...American clients like Royal Caribbean Cruises and Baskin-Robbins on ways to prepare themselves for the post-Fidel market. But he formed his company five years ago in hopes of doing joint ventures in Cuba of the kind the embargo still forbids. Today he must study each shift from Havana and Washington for nuances affecting his clients, an obsession he admits is not shared by the younger generation of entrepreneurs. "It's not true that all Cuban Americans live and die by what's happening in Cuba,'' he says...