Word: jointing
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...consensus says Castro is being forced to legitimize what the Cuban people are doing illicitly. "I think people push, and he eventually accedes," says a Western diplomat. "I don't see any fundamental decision by Fidel to change his ways of thinking." A foreign businessman exploring joint ventures is certain that Castro is simply showing the pragmatism of a smart politician: "He's not doing any of this because he likes it but because he will do whatever he has to do to survive...
They want reform, but they don't know what kind. Bright young technocrats eagerly describe a world where capitalist energy will coexist with communist caretaking. An older woman involved in joint ventures insists that Fidel's system needs only modest tinkering. A grizzled mine worker warns against any changes that bring back inequality. Reporters are invited into the country, but top officials decline interviews: they no longer seem to know what the party line is. "There is a new incoherence," says a Western diplomat in Havana. "It's not pluralism, but different people have different ideas about where the country...
...results are schizophrenic. The government promotes Cubacel, a joint telephone venture with Mexican businessmen -- and the government organizes a new category of medals called Combatants of the Revolution to keep old-think alive. While shops for Cubans stock a few rusted kitchen knives and cardboard toys, shiny Nissans carry tourists to refurbished hotels equipped with Sony TVs tuned...
Concepcion Portela could not agree less. Maybe it is generational: she is 61. "I am a Marxist," she says. After years in a government ministry, she runs a private business advising foreign investors on joint ventures in tourism, biotechnology, construction. Her job -- which she considers temporary, until "we work our way out of this situation" -- is not to change the system but to preserve it by bringing capital into the country. Cuba, she insists, will never denationalize, never privatize: "I distribute what I produce to others...
...These joints are likely sites for leaks to develop, and must be inspected and maintained continuously. Hawkes says that leaks are most likely to occur where there is packing. The packing is located at sites where there is moving, "for example, at the expansion joint or the valve stems where the valve opens and closes at the valve joint," Hawkes says...