Where from?

Odds and ends

• Miami legal eagle Jose Palli writes in the Herald about the new real estate measures in Cuba; some notes of skepticism, some praise for the legal system in Cuba and the attorneys who work in it.

• Baltimore Sun: Direct flights to Cuba will begin next March from Baltimore-Washington International Airport – that is, if a federal agency can get over the fact that the airport announced the news earlier than federal regulations permit. And if they get the card tables, Versailles franchise, and blue plastic luggage wrapping machines installed in time.

• Hungry in Fayetteville, NC? Habana Express, run by a local Cuban couple, is a hit.

• El Nuevo: A group of Miami organizations will hold a vigil in support of the dissident movement in Cuba next Tuesday night at Ponce de Leon Circle in Coral Gables.

Fidel, poised for a surge

From the Washington Post.

New credit policy coming

Thanks to a reader who scans Cuban media, absolutely all of it, here’s an article from a Camaguey newspaper about the new credit policy that is intended to “achieve a greater liberation of productive forces” in the Cuban economy, according to the Communist Party’s economic policy guidelines published this year.

It’s an interview with Central Bank President Ernesto Medina Villaveirán. He calls the new credit policy one of the most “novel and important” policies the bank will undertake and he says it will be promulgated by early next year.

Highlights:

• Small entrepreneurs will be able to receive loans, unlike before. Minimum loan amount will be 3,000 pesos.

• Individuals will be able to get loans, especially to build or rehabilitate housing, and loans can pay for materials and/or labor.

• Loan amounts will vary according to need and ability to pay. Borrowers can increase their borrowing capacity if family members co-sign loans or if bank accounts are posted as collateral.

• Banks will watch their loans like hawks because “We cannot lose one cent.” Medina adds: “Here there is no government with a machine to print money as in capitalist countries, where when a bank say it’s close to going under, they inject a few billion.”

• Bank accounts will “make viable for those who undertake private businesses, the access to agreed payments with enterprises,” the reporter writes, and adds that the 100-peso limit on payments from state enterprises to private entities has been repealed in the interest of encouraging state entities to contract more with private entities.

Herman Cain hates croquetas

This guy is a genuine outsider. He thinks he can win support in Cuban Miami just by showing up at Versailles, altogether skipping the platitudes about Cuba and apparently not saying the word “Castro.”

Regarding the croquetas, from Reuters: “Cain stepped up to the carry-out window to sample Cuban-style coffee, served strong and syrupy sweet in a tiny cup. Offered a ‘croqueta,’ a deep fried stick of minced ham and bread crumbs, he took one bite and laid it back on the counter.”

The Herald’s Marc Caputo has a full-length video of Cain’s Cuba comments for the day, and reports that the candidate complained that a question about President Obama’s Cuba travel policies was a “gotcha” question. More from Miami New Times.

Photo: nydailynews.com

Uprising coming, please stand by

From an article on a November 7 “exile summit” where Senator Marco Rubio spoke by telephone with activists in Havana:

From Cuba the opposition member Berta Soler, who took the helm of the Damas de Blanco, commented to Rubio that “people in all the towns and cities of Cuba are ‘lifting the veil from their eyes’ because they have come to understand the need for freedom.”

Antunez, for his part, told Senator Rubio not to miss the fact that soon a revolution or large-scale civil uprising will present itself because the people will no longer tolerate tyranny and human rights abuse.

Finally [Rubio] said that the word should be spread in the United States, in every public forum, about what is happening in Cuba and he announced, “I will speak with all the U.S. media to make known what men and women are living through for seeking freedom.”

“We will involve even more all the funds that the United States government has at its disposal to continue promoting more strongly the programs to free Cuba from communism and, at the same time, we are going to investigate how they are being administered now.”