CUBA: New Tax Code Revealed.

REUTERS/ MARC FRANK/
   Cuba has unveiled its new tax code, claiming it was friendlier for small businesses. The new taxes were revealed in the Communist Party daily newspaper Granma.
   Tax deductions are greatly increased but new taxes are also added and stronger penalties for tax evasion are warned.
   The plan replaces a primitive 1994 tax code.
 Cuba watcher Phil Peters observed: "My bet is that the sector will grow substantially, but only time will tell how big a tax burden this will be and how many entrepreneurs will be able to live with it,"

CUBA: Granma Spells Out Some New Reform Regulations.

AP/ By PAUL HAVEN /
      A three-page feature in the Communist Party-daily Granma details new regulations about a laundry list of small-time businesses now available to start. Among the changes, 83 private activities will be allowed to employ people other than their relatives, and they will be able to sell their services to the state as private contractors. Granma reported that private businesses would not only pay personal income tax, but also sales and payroll taxes — as well as contribute to social security.

CUBA: 1ST UPDATE: After Castro Meet With Catholics, Changes Promised.

NEW LINK:GUARDIAN.U.K./ 23 May/               President Raul Castro met with Catholic Cardinal Jaime Ortega and Archbishop Dionisio Garcia of Santiago for 4 hours to discuss political dissidents and other issues. Later, according to a leading imprisoned dissident, Cuba agreed to move political prisoners held in jails to facilities closer to their hometowns and transfer sick prisoners to hospitals. Guillermo Farinas, still on a hunger strike after 88 days, told Reuters that a visiting bishop gave him the news.

CUBA: Sugar Harvest Fails; Worst in 105 Years!

LAHT/    Cuba's official communist party newspaper Granma reports that the island suffered its the worst sugar harvest...since 1905...two days after Sugar Minister Luis Manuel Avila Gonzalez was dismissed after 16 months in the job. This at a time when sugar prices are at a nearly all-time high...and Cuba is suffering a severe economic crisis.

Cuban Migrants Describe Ordeal With Smugglers.

LAHT/
Four men who tried to escape Cuba by boat, described their rough treatment in Granma, the official state newspaper. The four were in a group of 14 that left Cuba on a motorboat in September and were tortured by the traffickers so their relatives in the U.S. would pay the $10,000 fee to leave the island.
“What happened to them in the hands of their captors will show others the cost of trusting their future to people who only care about dollars."

Cuba Reopening Abandoned Factories To Make Goods.

LAHT/
Cuba is reopening abandoned factories to increase manufacturing output and reduce imports.
One of the industrial facilities reopening is a plant in the eastern city of Santiago that makes crackers and had been shuttered for nearly a decade.

Cuba Summons Customs Agents To Sign Ethics Code.

MIAMI HERALD.
Trying to lessen corruption and theft at Cuba's ports of entry, "30 Customs agents and stand-ins for the more than 600 [agents] in the country" were summoned to the Palace of Conventions in Havana to read and sign a Code of Ethics, the newspaper Granma reported.

Cuba Running Out of Toilet Paper.

Reuters.

It's "back to the future" in Cuba...using the Communist Party daily newspaper "Granma"...as toilet paper!

In 1997, I was visiting a friend in Santa Clara. He was a full professor of Engineering at the University of Santa Clara..and his monthly salary was about...$11 USD per month!

I especially remember his casa's bathroom. It was DISGUSTING! But not by choice. You had to fill a bucket to flush the toilet...and the only choice for toilet paper was using strips of the newspaper "Granma."

After that trip, I always remembered to buy half a dozen rolls of the plushest toilet paper I could find...to use...and give away as gifts.