EU lifts sanctions on Cuba - "Beans & Phones"
ipsiphi | 20.06.2008 00:44 | Analysis | Globalisation | World
Now read that carefully before you wet your underwear. The EU has decided to lift sanctions on Cuba despite opposition by the USA, which will now continue as the only state sanctioning Cuba. As the BBC European editor Mark Marsdell put it very pithily on his blog "The foreign ministers' dinner finished about half an hour ago. They've decided to lift sanctions against Cuba". Meanwhile the Spanish language press has produced pages and pages of this and that spinning the decision any which way just in case tomorrow's first editions don't have a decent terror or escaped human story.
Cubans probably have different kinds of dinners to the foreign ministers of the EU. Put it this way a Cuban widow gets lots of beans and rice every month from the state. The amount depends on the time of year but generally averages at 5kg. This means carbohydrates, proteins, fibre, vitamin B and trace elements. It's not quite the paradise promised Jack's mum or granny at the foot of the giant stalk. There is precious little golden nest egg cash payments to the Cuban granny unlike our fortuanate senior citizens - But nor is it the gruelling food poverty endured by empoverished pro-sanction Cubans who live in Florida which is worse than the average enjoyed by your local one-o-clock club.
Indeed we know more about the diet afforded island Cubans under their system led by either Fidel Castro or his little brother Raul Castro than we know about the eating habits of Cubans in the USA under their system (led by Gloria Estefan).
Beans will in fact be one of the first things happy Europeans flock to order from Cuba. Raul Castro was recently quoted in "Time" magazine as having said "Beans are more important than cannon" all the way through the 1990's. They were reflecting less on his appetite than on their analysis that the Russia (or the former Soviet Union if you're a Time reader) would jump at the chance to be associated in the popular imagination with not only Cuban bean production but rice as well.
Rice is big news in poor countries.
Which is why Cuba under Raul Castro decided to host the global "rice conference" in Havana at the beginning of June. You can read all about that in their official state newspaper
http://www.granma.cu/espanol/2008/junio/vier6/arroz.html They pithily said "Rice is life" and pointed out that one billion people (or 1200 times the amount of Irish people who voted no to Lisbon and common foreign policy) can't afford to put rice on their dishes. They then ironically remembed that the UN had declared 2004 to be "the year of rice". As anyone who keeps tracks of UN years will know, 2008 is the year of the potato. http://www.potato2008.org/
Cuba doesn't do potatos.
But it does do tourism. About 2 billion dollars a year's worth of tourism. Which is a lot of instant loving, blowjobs and used condoms. Here is the only article ever published in the Cuban state newspaper which treated on condoms. Appearing last year before Raul Castro's new "youth friendly" edition saw an increased print edition of ten pages, it discussed the role condoms play in population control. Obviously all that tourism isn't going to result in lots of little Cubans.
http://www.granma.cu/espanol/2007/julio/lun30/trabajamos-un-ambiente-plena-coincidencia.html
Here are some links to serious newspapers which will discuss the lifting of sanctions in tterms of neo-liberal globalisation, internal Cuban government reform, EU profit margins, US foreign policy and statements from Obama and Mc Cain, little filler articles on Fidel, JFK & Kruschev, and of course political prisoners. Gloria Estefan might even make a statement.
But you know it really has to do with beans and rice.
don't you?...............think with your tummy. You don't need a mobile phone on the way to where you want to go, you just need a phone card. Of course the EU was delighted that Raul Castro allowed his young people to buy mobile phones recently. This is because we Europeans make cheap mobile phones thanks to our good commercial and historical relations with the African states where columbite-tantalite or "coltan" is mined. Our main competitors in the mobile phone biz in Korea get right up the Ozzie nose and so have to pay through it (the nose) for Australian columbite-tantalite. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coltan
learn something new everyday.
english pithy whet your appetite links :-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markmardell/2008/06/eu_to_lift_cuba_sanctions.html
http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKL195253620080619
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gpalZzV1f1BCAA9_GUuGbO5GRgrA
spanish longer meatier and generally too greasey links :-
http://www.eluniversal.com/2008/06/19/int_ava_eeuu-se-opone-al-lev_19A1700079.shtml
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Union/Europea/acuerda/levantar/sanciones/Cuba/elpepuint/20080619elpepuint_18/Tes
the Cuban commie newspaper for serious people who know this aint about humour but dogma.
http://www.granma.cu/
Indeed we know more about the diet afforded island Cubans under their system led by either Fidel Castro or his little brother Raul Castro than we know about the eating habits of Cubans in the USA under their system (led by Gloria Estefan).
Beans will in fact be one of the first things happy Europeans flock to order from Cuba. Raul Castro was recently quoted in "Time" magazine as having said "Beans are more important than cannon" all the way through the 1990's. They were reflecting less on his appetite than on their analysis that the Russia (or the former Soviet Union if you're a Time reader) would jump at the chance to be associated in the popular imagination with not only Cuban bean production but rice as well.
Rice is big news in poor countries.
Which is why Cuba under Raul Castro decided to host the global "rice conference" in Havana at the beginning of June. You can read all about that in their official state newspaper
http://www.granma.cu/espanol/2008/junio/vier6/arroz.html They pithily said "Rice is life" and pointed out that one billion people (or 1200 times the amount of Irish people who voted no to Lisbon and common foreign policy) can't afford to put rice on their dishes. They then ironically remembed that the UN had declared 2004 to be "the year of rice". As anyone who keeps tracks of UN years will know, 2008 is the year of the potato. http://www.potato2008.org/ Cuba doesn't do potatos.
But it does do tourism. About 2 billion dollars a year's worth of tourism. Which is a lot of instant loving, blowjobs and used condoms. Here is the only article ever published in the Cuban state newspaper which treated on condoms. Appearing last year before Raul Castro's new "youth friendly" edition saw an increased print edition of ten pages, it discussed the role condoms play in population control. Obviously all that tourism isn't going to result in lots of little Cubans.
http://www.granma.cu/espanol/2007/julio/lun30/trabajamos-un-ambiente-plena-coincidencia.html Here are some links to serious newspapers which will discuss the lifting of sanctions in tterms of neo-liberal globalisation, internal Cuban government reform, EU profit margins, US foreign policy and statements from Obama and Mc Cain, little filler articles on Fidel, JFK & Kruschev, and of course political prisoners. Gloria Estefan might even make a statement.
But you know it really has to do with beans and rice.
don't you?...............think with your tummy. You don't need a mobile phone on the way to where you want to go, you just need a phone card. Of course the EU was delighted that Raul Castro allowed his young people to buy mobile phones recently. This is because we Europeans make cheap mobile phones thanks to our good commercial and historical relations with the African states where columbite-tantalite or "coltan" is mined. Our main competitors in the mobile phone biz in Korea get right up the Ozzie nose and so have to pay through it (the nose) for Australian columbite-tantalite.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coltan learn something new everyday.
english pithy whet your appetite links :-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markmardell/2008/06/eu_to_lift_cuba_sanctions.html http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKL195253620080619 http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gpalZzV1f1BCAA9_GUuGbO5GRgrA spanish longer meatier and generally too greasey links :-
http://www.eluniversal.com/2008/06/19/int_ava_eeuu-se-opone-al-lev_19A1700079.shtml http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Union/Europea/acuerda/levantar/sanciones/Cuba/elpepuint/20080619elpepuint_18/Tes the Cuban commie newspaper for serious people who know this aint about humour but dogma.
http://www.granma.cu/
ipsiphi