08 December 2014 (13:58 UTC-07 Tango)/15 Safar 1436/17 Azar 1393/17 Bing-Zi 4712
After decades of deal making, in 2002 Cuba held the first Caribbean anti-U.S. economic forum, attended by 14 other Caribbean countries. It’s called CARICOM, an amalgamation of Caribbean Community and Common Market, and can be traced back to the British empire’s West Indies Federation.
This week the 5th annual anti-U.S. CARICOM meeting is underway in Havana. Cuban officials credit the economic union for helping them to avoid never ending U.S. economic sanctions.
According to Cuban news sources, CARICOM really got rolling in 1972 when Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago joined Cuba “…in an open challenge to the embargo that the U.S. had imposed on the island.”
Despite originally being an anti-U.S. economic movement, today Cuban President Raul Castro told CARICOM members the new agenda is “…to unite in order to face together the effects of climate change and natural disasters and to co-ordinate our approach to the post [United Nations] 2015 Development Agenda.”
All signs point to Cuba’s successful avoidance of the puny U.S. sanctions: The New York Times reports that the number of U.S. citizens traveling illegally to Cuba has increased, and the number of legal trips is on the rise as well; in 2012 the number of legal trips by U.S. citizens doubled compared to 2008.
New airline flights have been authorized from New York’s JFK Airport to Havana, Cuba. The Cuban National Bureau of Statistics and Information reported an 11.5% increase in tourists during October 2014, as compared to October 2013. From January to October 2014 almost 2.5-million tourist visited Cuba. The British empire’s Canada is the number one source of tourists, followed by Germany, the British empire’s United Kingdom, Italy, France and Mexico.
The British empire’s United Kingdom Royal Navy frigate HMS Argyll recently paid a ‘courtesy’ visit with the Cuban navy.
In a gesture of goodwill, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam gave Cuba five thousand tons of rice, along with the equivalent of $40-million USD in farm aid. Vietnamese administrators stated it was their way of thanking Cuba for the military help fighting the United States occupation of Vietnam from 1965 to 1975.
According to the AZCUBA Entrepreneurial Group, Cuba’s 2013-14 sugar harvest was up by 4%, and the 2014-15 sugar harvest is showing an increase of at least 15%.
Cuba’s Ministry of the Economy admitted that GDP for 2014 was below expectations, at 1.3%, but said signs are good for a 2015 GDP of 4%. The main reason is fast growing outside investments coming into Cuba; for 2014 there was just over $1.5-billion, but for 2015 investments are already estimated at $7.1-billion.
Cuba is now a major supplier of medicines and medical personnel to more than 50 countries. Cuban health administrators like to point out their successful treatment of cancer is different from how the U.S. does it: “For cancer treatment, we increase the use of stimulants and vaccines to awaken the body’s own defence and make that be the main weapon to fight the tumour without resorting to a large extent, to chemotherapy, radiation and large surgeries.”-Gustavo Sierra Gonzalez, BioCubaFarma
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