Cuba will approve 22 new measures to improve the efficiency of its state enterprises, many of them deficient, and in short will announce new legal regulations to make private work more flexible, at a time when the island is preparing to face a serious economic crisis. The head of the Permanent Commission for the Implementation and Development of the Guidelines, Marino Murillo, explained on Saturday to the National Assembly the approval of 22 new measures that will be applied in the short and medium term to try to boost socialist state enterprises, reported the official media. Among them, he mentioned that the entities that operate in the Mariel Special Development Zone, Cuba's flagship project to attract foreign investment, will be able to keep part of the foreign currency received for their exports in order to secure their investments and future productions. According to official data published last February by the Cuban official press, of the 1,776 state-run enterprises that exist in the country, only 43 are unprofitable. However, the real picture is different, since these figures are obtained from a calculation distorted by the monetary duality in Cuba, where the national peso (CUP) and the convertible peso (CUC, equivalent to...

The U.S. government imposed sanctions this Friday on four companies that work with the Venezuelan oil sector, some of them dedicated to the transport of crude oil from the South American country to Cuba, as part of the pressure on the government of President Nicolás Maduro. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement that Venezuela's oil belongs to the Venezuelan people, and should not be used as a negotiating tool to support dictators and prolong oppression. Mnuchin stressed that Cuba continues to take advantage and supporting the regime through mechanisms of oil for repression to keep Maduro in power. The sanctioned companies are Jennifer Navigation Ltd., Large Range Ltd. and Lima Shipping Corp., based in Liberia, and PB Tankers, based in Italy. The measure announced by the Treasury supposes the freezing of the financial assets they may have under U.S. jurisdiction and prohibits carrying out financial transactions with them. These sanctions come a week after the U.S. Treasury sanctioned two other companies also for transporting oil from Venezuela to Cuba. The United States has insisted on its support to opposition leader and legislative leader Juan Guaidó, who in January proclaimed himself president in charge of Venezuela after denouncing...

This Friday the Cuban government contacted the Kenyan government and set up a working group to follow up on the kidnapping in the African country of two Cuban doctors allegedly by armed men suspected of belonging to the Somali Al-Shabab jihadist group. "Communication channels have been established immediately with the Kenyan authorities to address this situation, while keeping family members of the collaborators here in Cuba informed," the state-run Cuban News Agency (ACN) reported. https://www.facebook.com/drosophila.melanogaster.9028/posts/799589713745802 It also indicated that President Miguel Díaz-Canel "has set up a government working group to give follow up to this sensitive issue." Assel Herrera Correa, a specialist in Comprehensive General Medicine in the province of Las Tunas, and Landy Rodríguez Hernández, a specialist in surgery in the province of Villa Clara, were kidnapped on Friday by armed men suspected of belonging to the Somali Al Shabab jihadist group. https://www.facebook.com/HonKeynanEldasMP/posts/2663238420370139 The attack occurred at 0900 local time (0600 GMT), when the doctors were being escorted in a local government car to Mandera Hospital, a county in the northeast of the Republic of Kenya bordering Somalia, where they were working. The attackers blocked the official vehicle with two cars and opened fire, killing one of the police...

The governments of Nicaragua and Cuba signed this Monday a cooperation agreement in Managua to promote bilateral tourism, reported the Nicaraguan Institute of Tourism (INTUR). The agreement’s objective is to "strengthen cooperation ties in the field of tourism, achieve an increase in the flow of tourists" and strengthen the work of both countries’ travel agencies, INTUR reported through government media. The agreement was signed by the co-director of INTUR, Anasha Campbell, and Cuban Minister of Tourism Manuel Marrero, in the presence of the representative of the ProNicaragua official investment and export agency, Laureano Ortega Murillo, son of President Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo. Nicaragua and Cuba have plans to include the development of tourist products of common interest, exchange experience in the industry, as well as technical assistance. They also aim to promote trips from third countries, sell their countries as tourist destinations in Europe, identify business opportunities for bilateral investments, and participate jointly in international tourism fairs. The signing of the agreement occurs after Nicaragua’s tourism revenues fell from 840.5 million dollars in 2017 to 544.4 million dollars in 2018 as a result of the socio-political crisis in the Central American country in the last 12 months,...

Cuba will have the figure of a prime minister before the end of this year, one of the first changes included in the island’s new Constitution promulgated this Wednesday and although it does not imply changes in the single-party political system, it strengthens the economic reforms of the last decade. The first secretary of the Communist Party, Raul Castro, advanced in his speech before the National Assembly during the session to promulgate the Magna Carta that one of the first steps will be the approval of a new Electoral Law whose draft is already at an advanced stage. The new electoral law will be one of about 50 norms that should be carried out based on the Constitution. Raul Castro, who has led the Cuban constitutional reform as head of the new text’s Drafting Commission, said that the new electoral law will be discussed during the next meeting of the Assembly, forecasted for next July. In the three following months, the Assembly will elect its president, vice president and secretary; the members of the Council of State, and the president and vice president of the Republic, he continued. And three months later ―it is assumed that before the end of...

The Cuban Baseball Federation (FCB) protested on Monday the decision of the U.S. government to block the historic agreement that would allow Major League Baseball to hire Cuban baseball players and denounced its "political motivation." "What the attacks with political motivation against the agreement have achieved is harming the athletes, their families and the fans," said the FCB in a tweet, after hearing the decision of the U.S. Treasury Department that it would annul in practice the agreement negotiated for three years by the MLB and the Cuban federation. Check the Tweet Here The Treasury communicated by letter to the MLB that the part of the contract that obligates them to pay the FCB a release fee for the hired players is illegal, considering that it does not benefit them but rather the Cuban State. "Payments to the Cuba Baseball Federation are illegal under U.S. sanctions because the federation is part of the Cuban government," says a note from the Office of Foreign Assets Control, a Treasury dependent body, which recalled the prohibition to carry out this type of financial transactions with the authorities of the Caribbean country because it would violate the embargo imposed on the island. https://oncubanews.1eye.us/en/cuba-usa/trump-administration-cancels-deal-between-cuba-and-mlb/ The...

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel this Saturday described as an "act of extraterritoriality" and "imperial arrogance" the new U.S. sanctions against the Venezuelan oil shipments to the island, considered an escalation in that country’s pressure of President Nicolás Maduro. "This Friday, the United States sanctioned vessels and companies involved in the transport of fuel between Cuba and Venezuela, a legal activity covered by trade agreements. These measures are an act of extraterritoriality, interference and imperial arrogance," Díaz-Canel wrote on his Twitter account. The president responded this way to the measures of the U.S. Department of the Treasury against 34 freighters from the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA and the companies Ballito Shipping Incorporated, based in Liberia, and ProPer In Management Incorporated, based in Greece, dedicated to transporting Venezuelan crude oil to Cuba. The sanctions include the freezing of financial assets they may have under U.S. jurisdiction and forbidding financial transactions with the companies involved. Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin said in a statement on Friday that Cuba has been a force in the background feeding Venezuela's increased crisis and the Treasury is taking action against ships and entities that transport oil and offer vital aid to maintain the illegitimate regime...

The president of the General Assembly of the United Nations, Ecuadorian Maria Fernanda Espinosa, met this Friday in Havana with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, with whom she addressed issues of international interest, according to Cuban state media. Espinosa, on an official visit to Cuba until this Saturday, coincided with Díaz-Canel on "the will to continue defending the role of the United Nations in the preservation of international peace and security, as well as in the search for collective solutions to global problems," said the state agency ACN. Both leaders also discussed "other issues on the international agenda," the Cuban media added, without giving further details about the content of the bilateral meeting, which it described as "cordial." The president of the UN General Assembly was accompanied by her deputy chief of staff, Yanerit Morgan, while Díaz-Canel attended the meeting with Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez, who on Thursday held a first meeting with Espinosa. Photo: Ernesto Mastrascusa/EFE. The former foreign minister of Ecuador (2017-2018) arrived in the Cuban capital on Wednesday afternoon. Espinosa's agenda in Havana included a master lecture at the Higher Institute of International Relations and meetings with members of Cuban civil society, the Federation of Cuban Women and...

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Wednesday that he would suspend for two more weeks Title III of the Helms-Burton Act , which would strengthen the embargo on Cuba and would allow making claims before U.S. courts for properties on the island that were expropriated after the Cuban Revolution. In a press release, Pompeo announced that he will prevent the coming into force of this legal measure for two more weeks, from April 18 (date on which the current suspension expires) until May 1, but will continue allowing lawsuits against more than 200 Cuban companies that appear on a "black list" of the State Department. https://oncubanews.1eye.us/cuba-ee-uu/eeuu-anade-otras-cinco-empresas-cubanas-a-su-lista-negra/ Since its creation in 1996, Title III of the Helms-Burton Act has been suspended by all U.S. administrations every six months, but Donald Trump’s presidency has increasingly shortened those periods: first it annulled it for 45 days, then for a month and now for only two weeks. The State Department does not explain why Pompeo has decided to reduce the suspension period, although some analysts interpret it as a warning to Havana. In this regard, the State Department stated that it continues to examine the conditions of human rights in Cuba, including...

In an unprecedented phenomenon in Mexico, the border city of Ciudad Juárez is welcoming thousands of Cuban migrants waiting to request or resolve their asylum application in the United States. "They have welcomed us here very well. The food given to us has a bit of chili, but that is not their fault," Juan Carlos Flores, a Cuban migrant who, with his wife, has been in this city in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua for more than a month, told EFE news agency this Wednesday with a smile on his face. Flores said he had chosen this border crossing ―which these days is being threatened with the border closure by President Donald Trump― when he found out that asylum seekers apparently were crossing quickly and without risks. The couple decided to migrate because they did not like Cuba’s current system, about which they said it had "its pros and cons" and they preferred to leave their country in search of a better job opportunity in the United States, for many the dream land. According to official figures, 70% of the more than 3,300 migrants who are currently in transit in this Mexican city are Cuban. "Juárez had even stopped...

Twenty-four Japanese garbage collection trucks are already in Cuba, the first batch of a donation of 100 vehicles to solve Havana's long-standing problem with its hygiene and image due to the accumulation of waste in the streets. Manufactured by the Japanese companies Hino Motors and Kyokuto Kaihatsu Kogyo and delivered at an official ceremony in the Cuban capital, the new garbage trucks will start operating immediately, while the rest will arrive in the coming months. It is expected that the incorporation of these trucks "will have a great impact on Cuban society and the environment," declared during the ceremony the new ambassador of Japan in Cuba, Kazuhiro Fujimura, who presented his credentials in Havana a few days ago. The shipment is part of a donation worth 10 million dollars channeled through the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and signed in 2017. Kazuhiro Fujimura, Japan's ambassador to Cuba, speaking during the delivery of new garbage collection trucks donated by his country, in the Community Services Unit of Havana. Photo: Ariel Rey Rollero/ACN. The workers in charge of operating the waste collection vehicles were trained before the trucks arrived, said the director of the Provincial Unit for the Collection and Final Distribution...

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel received this Saturday U.S. Congressman James McGovern, a firm supporter of bilateral rapprochement, with whom the president addressed the state of relations between the two countries, which have declined after Donald Trump’s arrival to power. Check the Tweet Here McGovern, Democratic congressman for Massachusetts and president of the U.S. Congress Committee on Rules, is visiting the island this week to mark the inauguration of a center for the conservation of writer Ernest Hemingway’s documentary heritage in what was his Havana residence, Finca Vigía. U.S. Congressman James McGovern (left) and the president of the National Heritage Council of Cuba, Gladys Collazo (second to the left), visiting the Ernest Hemingway Museum Restoration Center in Havana this Saturday. Photo: Ernesto Mastrascusa/EFE. According to the brief official note on the meeting, the congressman was accompanied by Donald C. Sisson and Katheleen Polanowiez during the meeting with Díaz-Canel, while on the Cuban side, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez and Assistant Director-General for the U.S. Johana Tablada de la Torre participated. https://www.facebook.com/OnCuba/posts/2147196762042929 The lawmaker, who has visited the Caribbean country on numerous occasions, this Friday urged his country’s Congress to initiate actions to lift the financial and commercial embargo and restrictions on travel...

The heir to the United Kingdom’s throne, Prince Charles of Wales, and his wife Camila, Duchess of Cornwall, left Havana on Wednesday after a historic three-day visit that marked the first official stay in Cuba of a member of the British royalty. The British Royal Air Force Airbus Voyager A330-200 departed at around 4:00 p.m. local time (20:00 GMT) from the Cuban capital’s José Martí Airport for the Cayman Islands, the last leg of an extensive tour of the Caribbean by the royal couple that included Saint Lucia, Barbados, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Kitts and Nevis and Grenada. Charles of England (c), accompanied by Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Ana Teresita González (l), walks along the runway of Havana’s José Martí International Airport at the end of his three-day visit on Wednesday. Photo: Ernesto Mastrascusa/EFE. Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Ana Teresita González Fraga, the same official that received them on their arrival in Cuba on Sunday afternoon, bid the couple farewell on the runway. The royal visit, aimed at deepening the UK's "constructive diplomacy" although lacking in political content, included a meeting on Monday between the Prince of Wales and Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel. At the meeting, both evaluated...

The third edition of the regatta between St. Petersburg (Florida) and Havana this week began the extensive program of maritime celebrations for the 500th anniversary of the founding of the Cuban capital, which on Saturday hosted a nautical stopover for American vessels and from the island. This race between the Florida town and Havana emerged in 1930 as the first ocean race between the United States and Cuba, and was the last to connect the two countries in 1959, until its resumption in 2017 after the diplomatic "thaw" between both nations, which reestablished official relations in 2015. In spite of the bad weather, 21 of the 26 boats that left St. Petersburg on March 16 arrived in the port of Havana on a journey that kept the organizers "in tension" until this Thursday afternoon, when the last ship entered Havana’s Marina Hemingway. The first vessel to arrive at port was the "Fresh Pineapple," which made the journey in about 40 hours. The rapprochement between Cuba and the United States reactivated the regattas and nautical events between both countries, which have organized the Friendship Cup, Havana Challenge, the Bone Island Race and Tampa-Havana and Miami-Havana races, as well as several speed...

Cuban authorities seized about 2.4 tons of drugs in 2018, mostly marijuana shipments intercepted on the coasts, a figure that represents the lowest amount of illegal substances seized in the last three years, according to the Ministry of the Interior (MININT) in a report published this Wednesday. The Cuban authorities last year confiscated more than 2 tons of marijuana, 363 kilograms of cocaine, 3 kilograms of cannabinoids, one of crack and 0.15 of hashish. 77% of the confiscated drug arrived on Cuban beaches as part of "international drug trafficking operations that did not have the island as a destination," said MININT's text, cited by the daily Granma. According to the report, these maneuvers were allegedly organized by Cubans residing abroad with the use of speedboats, which "accounts for the movement of sea vessels through routes close to the country" plus "the detection of possession and consumption" by yacht crews. Cuban border patrol troops frustrated two attempts to introduce 144 kilograms of marijuana by sea and detained four people. In addition, they neutralized two other operations in jurisdictional waters, with a total of four captured foreign drug traffickers and 132 kilograms of confiscated marijuana. In the airports, mainly Havana’s José Martí,...

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said that Cuba should avoid international isolation and bring closer increasingly more Cuban emigres with a migration policy that joins despite the differences, the island’s official media published this Tuesday. In the midst of a "new colonial and neoliberal capitalist strategy" led by the United States, the country must "avoid isolation, without compromising principles or positions," the president said at a meeting with Cuban diplomats reported on in the state daily Granma. "During current times, when there is a return to the times of confrontation and new dangers arise that need to be faced, it is urgent to prepare ourselves more and more," insisted Díaz-Canel, who recalled how the U.S. has "intensified" the embargo on Cuba, "especially in the economic sphere." Meeting of Miguel Díaz-Canel with the extended board of directors of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINREX). Photo: Estudios Revolución. Havana and Washington reestablished diplomatic relations in July 2015 after more than half a century of enmity and began a process of "normalization" stalled now after the arrival to the White House of Donald Trump, who has given a new turnabout to the policy towards Cuba. The island used this "thaw" to strengthen alliances abroad,...

A total of 551,908 Cubans traveled abroad for personal reasons in 2018, which represents 20.13% more than the previous year, the island’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported this Monday. Likewise, in the last five years, Cubans made more than 3.4 million trips to other countries, according to data presented by the director of Consular Affairs and Cuban Residents Abroad (DACCRE), Ernesto Soberón, at a meeting of the island’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A migratory reform approved in 2013 during the presidential mandate of Raúl Castro (2008-2018) included the elimination of the exit permit for Cuban citizens and relaxed the conditions of emigrants’ return. This regulation also extended the time that a Cuban can stay abroad without losing residence in the country, which went from 11 to 24 months, while the time allowed to visit the island by Cuban emigrants went from 60 to 90 days. "The permanent and irreversible updating of the migration policy has promoted the trips of Cubans abroad," Soberón wrote this Monday on his Twitter account, and he stressed that the U.S. government "continues taking measures to hinder this process." In this sense, he referred to Washington's decision to reduce as of this Monday the validity of...

The U.S. Coast Guard rescued 26 Cubans in the Florida Keys, on the southern tip of the United States, who illegally tried to reach the country in a rustic wooden boat that was about to capsize, and it deported 25 of them this Tuesday. The institution said in a statement that the immigrants were rescued in good health, but did not specify when the boat was intercepted. One of the Cubans was referred to the Office of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and faces possible criminal charges that were not detailed by the authorities. The other 25 were deported to Cuba this Tuesday on a Coast Guard boat. Captain Jason Ryan, enforcement chief for the Seventh Coast Guard District in Miami, said that it was fortunate that the ship didn’t capsize or ended in tragedy, as was recently seen in the Straits of Florida. The immigrants in distress were spotted by a boat 77 kilometers (48 miles) southeast of Long Key, in the Florida Keys, a string of islands and the nearest point from the United States to Cuba. The Coast Guard thanked the "good Samaritan" and the United States Navy for contributing to the rescue. In January 2017, then...

The European Union (EU) allocated 300,000 euros ($341,320) in humanitarian aid to help those affected by the intense tornado that hit Havana last month, the delegation of the community bloc in Cuba reported last Thursday. The funds, granted by the European Commission and managed by the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operation (ECHO), will benefit more than 3,300 victims of the disaster, which left seven dead, almost 200 injured and more than 10,000 people displaced from their homes. The aid will include the distribution of water, toiletries and basic need products to the Havanans who lost their homes, who will also be provided with access to construction materials and technical advice. Crutches, wheelchairs, walkers and canes will also be distributed to the disabled, the EU's representation on the island said in a statement. "This support is aimed at the most vulnerable people, who have lost their homes, their assets and their livelihoods," said the ambassador of the EU bloc in Cuba, Spaniard Alberto Navarro, who stressed that with this they are supporting "the efforts of the authorities to achieve a speedy recovery." On the night of January 27, an unforeseen tornado hit the municipalities of 10 de Octubre, Guanabacoa,...

Cubans went to the polls this Sunday, in a day without incidents, but with more polarization than usual, to decide on the new Constitution that does not modify the political system or the communist aspirations but expresses the timid economic and social opening of the last decade. Out of the more than 8 million registered voters ̶ out of a population of 11.2 million ̶ more than 7.5 million (81.5%) had already voted at 5:00 pm (19:00 GMT), one hour before the polls closed, according to data released by the National Electoral Commission. The president of the Commission, Alina Balseiro, described as "favorable" the latest participation data, 3% higher than the parliamentary elections of March 2018, although the result of the vote will not be known until today Monday at around 3:00 pm local time (20.00 GMT). A process of this type was not held in Cuba since 1976, when the current Magna Carta was voted, a text tailored to then President Fidel Castro and the times of the Cold War and which was endorsed by 97% of the voters, with a 2% abstention. For many, beyond the debate on the new Constitution, this referendum serves as a barometer to...

The Cuban government revealed on Tuesday that a possible strengthening of the U.S. embargo or the reactivation of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act will encounter "strong resistance" from its trade partners, including Canada, Spain and other European countries. "We are sure that the savagely extraterritorial application of the blockade not only arouses a huge international rejection, but will face a strong resistance from our economic, investment, financial and tourism counterparts," Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said at a press conference. The Donald Trump Administration, opposed to the rapprochement to Cuba initiated by his predecessor, Barack Obama, is threatening to reactivate Title III of the Helms-Burton Act that would allow Cuban-Americans to claim before U.S. courts properties that were expropriated after the Cuban Revolution led by Fidel Castro. That regulation would open the doors for Americans, including naturalized Cubans, to sue before U.S. courts the companies that are benefiting from properties in Cuba that were theirs before the Revolution. The title has been suspended periodically since its creation in 1996 by all U.S. administrations precisely because of the resounding rejection it provoked in countries that are Washington’s allies, which saw their interests on the island threatened. "I know of a...

Hundreds of Cuban migrants seeking to reach the north of the American continent are stranded in the border area of ​​Panama, whose security authorities are meeting to deal with the matter, official sources told ACAN-EFE this Tuesday. Local television Telemetro showed this Tuesday images of migrants who are in the border area with Colombia and are demanding that the Panamanian authorities let them pass to continue their journey to the north of the continent. The Cubans, who could surpass the thousand according to journalistic sources, are in the localities of Puerto Obaldía, La Miel and Armigas, in the region of Guna Yala, on the border with Colombia. Watch the video here Official sources consulted by ACAN-EFE assured that the security agencies were meeting this Tuesday to analyze the situation, and that it is expected they will issue a statement. Read the Tweet here They added that personnel from the Ministry of Health and the National Immigration Service are also involved in measures to address the situation on the border. Health Minister Miguel Mayo told local media this Tuesday that his office has doubled the human resources in Puerto Obaldía to provide medical care to 600 migrants who are there. "People...

Five people remain in serious condition, one of them critical, almost two weeks after an intense tornado hit Havana, leaving six dead, 195 injured, almost 10,000 displaced and a balance of more than 5,800 homes affected. The number of hospitalized has dropped in a week from 26 to 18, indicate data published this Saturday by Granma, which also indicates a decrease in serious patients, which totaled 13 until last Saturday. Some 9,938 Havanans today live outside their homes, totally or partially destroyed by the tornado that took the Cuban capital by surprise on the night of Sunday, January 27, with gusts of wind that exceeded 300 kilometers per hour. Of these, more than 9,390 have taken refuge in the homes of relatives and acquaintances and 543 remain in state shelters. According to the latest report, households affected by the disaster have increased from 4,800 to 5,821, a balance that grows every day and further complicates the delicate housing situation in Havana, the most populated city on the island. https://oncubanews.1eye.us/opinion/columnas/contrapesos/el-problema-de-la-vivienda-en-cuba-bloque-a-bloque/ So far there are 502 total and 823 partial collapses of homes, to which are added more than 760 buildings without roof and 1,639 with partial damages in the latter. The...

The detective genre "is a very generous fiction that allows the writer to tell everything he wants," says Cuban writer Leonardo Padura, considered one of the masters of the genre. Crime fiction has always had the majority preference of the reading public. However, literary criticism and the academy had been evasive about it until 25 years ago things started changing, this journalist, scriptwriter and writer born in Havana in 1955, who recently participated in the Cartagena de Indias Hay Festival, says in an interview with EFE. "Now it has entered the mainstream of literature and is no longer considered a subgenre," says Padura, a fervent admirer of Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Antonio Muñoz Molina and Eduardo Mendoza. Last year, the Cuban master of the detective novel received the Barcino Historic Novel International Prize. The jury highlighted the contribution of detective Mario Conde, his inseparable fiction partner for 28 years, to understand contemporary Cuba. Photo: Ricardo Maldonado Rozo / EFE. That a contemporary protagonist of fiction stories has become a historical reference "is one of the best compliments I have been paid," Padura confesses. In La Transparencia del tiempo (2018), the character of Mario Conde begins to take stock. "He has eaten...

The death toll has risen to six as a result of two new victims’ injuries suffered by the intense tornado that hit four of Havana’s municipalities a week ago, official media reported on Sunday. Cuban Minister of Public Health José Ángel Portal explained during a meeting of the Council of Ministers headed by President Miguel Díaz-Canel that the two people who died on Saturday were part of the 13 reported in serious condition out of the total of 195 who were injured on January 27 due to the tornado. The destructive and unusual meteorological phenomenon, first of its kind registered in Havana in the last 80 years, hit the city with winds of over 300 kilometers per hour and in about 20 minutes disrupted the lives of some 5,000 residents of the municipalities Regla, Guanabacoa, 10 de Octubre and San Miguel del Padrón. After its overwhelming passage it left thousands of victims, totally or partially collapsed homes, uprooted trees, overturned vehicles, damaged state institutions, schools and electricity and communications services in the affected areas, ravages that have yet to be quantified. The authorities are continuing with the recovery works in the neighborhoods hit by the disaster, where brigades of workers...