Putin & Castro are allies!!!

RonBo
Before Castro, Cuba was a country of Pimps,
Prostitutes, Beggers and a few houndred rich people and their buddies the maffia.

Despite US efforts, Cuba today is much better
off. Just go and look around. You can do it from Canada or Mexico.

Compare Cuba with other countries in the area. Jamaica, Quatamala, Nicaraqua, Barbados, Granada etc, etc, all have living standards worst than Cuba.

Cuba is starting to do business with Canada and Europe. If you could just get your hero, Jesse Helms to stay out of their way, they will be OK.

[This message has been edited by ILay (edited 20 December 2000).]

[Ronald_Barbour]

Have you ever visited Cuba? I did a few years back - of course you can't go directly - you must first go to a country like Jamaica or Mexico them travel on to Cuba - which is what I did.

I found that contemporary Cuba is a 3rd World latrine - No, that's too high a rating - a 4th world sewer! Havana - which during the 1950s was one of the most beautiful cities in Latin America - is falling to pieces. If you are an American walking the streets of Havana you will be approached by beggars, pimps and hookers looking to hustle a dollar from you. The best that is available in Cuba these days is only available to foreign tourists and the posh resorts that are off limits to Cubans - unless they are staff or working there. The transportation system consists of 1950s vintage U.S. autos and stinking buses imported from God knows where, but most of the population walks or rides Chinese made bikes. The diet of the average American dog is better than the diet of the average Cuban and what little food that is available is rationed. The housing is in short supply and many Cubans in Havana are homeless because many apartment buildings are falling down due to lack of maintenance.

I could go on and on. The point being that Cuba did quite well economically even under the worst of the pre-Castro regimes. After Castro came to power the country quickly became a cesspool, as the best and most productive elements of the Cuban people quickly relocated to the Miami area.

CUBA SI

CASTRO NO!

[vavilen]

mr Barbour - why you not answer to me? you say very seriuos thing about Russia - you should to answer!!

I say you again - Russian rouble not falling ralavant to dollar! Russian rouble rised-up ralavant to euro. I refering your word >worthless<. Im' sorry, mr Barbour, you are wrong - fakt is fakt!

Russia economy now is ralavant to price of benzine - can you reading this in magazine TIME?

You must to apologize, mr Barbour

- vavilen

RonBo, you Idiot!!!!!

Yes, I have been to Cuba. Once before Castro,
and once after. The Cuba before Castro was
a country similar to Jamaica.

The citizens of Cuba were exploited into being tools for the rich and the foreign tourist and the maffia.

You are socially retarded. You can not understand exploitation. You can not understand that in free elections, without outside agitation, Castro would be re-elected
in a landslide.

In Cuba of today, there is no exploitation. It is a hihgly educated country. Literacy is the highest in the area. Health care is the best in the area. Free enterprise is being developed with countries of Europe and Canada
end Asia.

Being socially retarded, you are unable to understand that for Cuba, Castro was a big step forward. Yes, perhaps he should retire.
Even if he did, Cuba would not want to go back to the Battista type situation.

Get a life you retard.

[Nonson]

Cuban Economy:

GDP: purchasing power parity -- $17.3 billion (1998 est.)

GDP -- real growth rate: 1.2% (1998 est.)

GDP -- per capita: purchasing power parity—$1,560 (1998 est.)

GDP -- composition by sector:

Agriculture: 7.4%
Industry: 36.5%
Services: 56.1% (1997 est.)

Labor force: 4.5 million economically active population (1996 est.)
note: state sector 76%, non-state sector 24% (1996 est.)

Labor force—by occupation: services and government 30%, industry 22%, agriculture 20%, commerce 11%, construction 10%, transportation and communications 7% (June 1990)

Unemployment rate: 6.8% (1997 est.)

Budget:
revenues: $12.3 billion
expenditures: $13 billion , including capital expenditures of $NA (1998 est.)

Industries: sugar, petroleum, food, tobacco, textiles, chemicals, paper and wood products, metals (particularly nickel), cement, fertilizers, consumer goods, agricultural machinery

Industrial production growth rate: 6% (1995 est.)

Electricity

Electricity -- production: 14.1 billion kWh (1997)

Electricity -- production by source:

Fossil fuel: 98.96%
Hydro: 1.04%
Nuclear: 0%
Other: 0% (1996)

Electricity -- consumption: 14.1 billion kWh (1997)

Agriculture -- products: sugarcane, tobacco, citrus, coffee, rice, potatoes, beans; livestock

Exports

Exports: $1.4 billion (f.o.b., 1998 est.)

Exports -- commodities: sugar, nickel, tobacco, shellfish, medical products, citrus, coffee

Exports -- partners: Russia 27%, Canada 18%, Spain 8% (1998 est.)

Imports: $3 billion (c.i.f., 1998 est.)

Imports -- commodities: petroleum, food, machinery, chemicals

Imports -- partners: Spain 17%, France 9%, Canada 9% (1998 est.)

Debt -- external: $10.1 billion (convertible currency, 1997); another $20 billion owed to Russia (1997)

Economic aid -- recipient: $46 million (1997 est.)

Currency: 1 Cuban peso (Cu$) = 100 centavos

Exchange rates: Cuban pesos (Cu$) per US $1 = 1.0000 (nonconvertible, official rate, linked to the US dollar)

Fiscal year: Cuba operates on the calendar year.

Communications

Telephones: 229,000

Telephone system: among the world's least developed telephone systems
domestic: NA
international: satellite earth station -- 1 Intersputnik (Atlantic Ocean region)

Radio broadcast stations: AM 150, FM 5, shortwave 1

Radios: 2.14 million (1993 est.)

Television broadcast stations: 58 (1997)

Televisions: 2.5 million (1993 est.)

Transportation

Railways: total: 4,807 km

standard gauge: 4,807 km 1.435-m gauge (147 km electrified)
(A large amount of track is in private use by sugar plantations)

Highways: total: 60,858 km

paved: 29,820 km (including 638 km of expressway)
unpaved: 31,038 km (1997 est.)

Waterways: 240 km

Ports and harbors: Cienfuegos, Havana, Manzanillo, Mariel, Matanzas, Nuevitas, Santiago de Cuba

Merchant marine:


total: 18 ships (1,000 GRT or over) totaling 89,091 GRT/125,463 DWT
ships by type: bulk 1, cargo 9, liquefied gas tanker 1, oil tanker 2, refrigerated cargo 5 (1998 est.)

Airports: 170 (1998 est.)

Airports—with paved runways: total: 77
over 3,047 m: 7
2,438 to 3,047 m: 9
1,524 to 2,437 m: 14
914 to 1,523 m: 11
under 914 m: 36 (1998 est.)

Airports -- with unpaved runways: total: 93

914 to 1,523 m: 32
under 914 m: 61 (1998 est.)





























[This message has been edited by Nonson (edited 16 December 2000).]

[oca]

Nonson:

Very impressive. The key figure in this well researched report is the number of telephones in the country. That is the key to possible investors and to trade itself.

As you can see, this figure is very poor as an indicator of Cuba's potential.

B. Ungaro:

I agree with you. I have seen Cubaa couple of times, and outside of the area reserved for the tourists, that place is, was, and will be a cesspool.

During Batista's regime, only the organized crime figures and members of the government had a good life in the island.
During the Castro's regime, things have changed somewhat, but the infrastructure is non-existent. Nothing works, but eventually, the Cuban people will prevail and will turn around their standard of living and hopefully will have a better and well deserved economy.

[Yaro]

Hey Barbour, Russia is USSR's assignee and took all it debts? Isn't it? USSR had large investment into Cuba. Why should we left all that for anybody? What's about falling Russian economy I don't know the common statistics ("There's lie, there's great lie but there's statistics" - don't you know the words of cybernetics' founder?) but we have too much work recently. I feel it with my skin having to work six days in a week.