NEWS,11.03.2013

Greek economy shrinks 5.7%

Greece's ailing economy contracted by 5.7% in the fourth quarter of 2012 in an annual comparison, provisional data from the state statistics agency showed on Monday.

The agency said the contraction was slightly lower than the previous estimate of 6.0% for the fourth quarter announced a month ago.

Combined with contraction data given for the first, second and third quarters, Greece's economy shrank by 6.4% in 2012.

This is slightly better than the 6.5% estimate contained in Greece's current budget.

The 2013 budget forecasts another contraction of 4.5% this year before the economy limps back into growth in 2014.

In 2011, Greece's economy shrank by 7.1%. Overall, it has contracted by more than a fifth since 2008.

The coalition government of conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has made achieving growth its top priority as the nation struggles to meet its commitments to international creditors.

EU bans animal-tested cosmetics

The European Union is banning the sale of new cosmetic products containing ingredients tested on animals.

The 27-country bloc's executive arm, the European Commission, said on Monday the ban will take effect immediately.

Animal rights groups cheered the news, but industry trade body Cosmetics Europe said the ban comes too early and "acts as a brake on innovation."

The EU has banned animal testing of finished cosmetic products since 2004. The ban on cosmetics containing animal-tested ingredients was first decided four years ago but initially left loopholes for certain tests following resistance from cosmetics companies.

While the industry's rabbits and guinea pigs will now be spared, consumers are unlikely to notice immediate changes because products containing ingredients that were tested on animals before the ban can remain on the shelves.

Chavez death: Cuba has lost 'best friend'

Cuba's Fidel Castro praised the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Monday as a champion of the poor and said Cubans had lost their best friend ever, in his first comments on the death last week of his socialist ally.

Castro said the news, although not unexpected, had been a hard blow.

"On the 5th of March, in the afternoon hours, died the best friend the Cuban people had in their history," Castro wrote in a column published in Communist Party newspaper Granma.

"We have the honour of having shared with the Bolivarian leader the same ideals of social justice and of support for the exploited," said the 86-year-old Castro who led Cuba's 1959 revolution, ruled the country for 49 years and still plays a behind-the-scenes role.

"The poor are the poor in any part of the world," he said.

During Chavez' years in power, he and Castro forged a close personal and political relationship that resulted in extensive Venezuelan aid to the communist island and a shared strategy for promoting Latin American unity against US influence in the region.
 

Chavez helped rescue Cuba from desperate economic times that followed the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, its former top ally, by providing two-thirds of its oil in a barter deal for the services of Cuban professionals, most of them doctors and nurses.

He also signed a number of joint ventures aimed at integrating the two countries' economies.

Chavez, aged 58, was diagnosed with cancer in the pelvic region in June 2011 by Cuban doctors and underwent four surgeries on the Caribbean island, which has an extensive medical system and provides free care to its people.

Except for a set of photographs, Chavez was never seen in public again following his last operation in December and he died on Tuesday in Caracas.

Castro said he had received a phone call via satellite notifying him of what he called "the bitter news".

"The significance of the phrase used was unmistakable. Although we knew the critical state of his health, the news hit us hard," wrote Castro, who resigned as Cuba's president five years ago because of his own health problems.


"I remembered the times he joked with me saying that when both of us finished our revolutionary work, he would invite me to spend time by the Arauca River in Venezuelan territory, which reminded him of the rest he never had," Castro said.

Raul Castro, who succeeded his older brother as Cuba's president, represented the island on Friday at Chavez' funeral.

Chavez' death has raised worries in Cuba that Venezuelan aid will cease to flow to the island.

His preferred successor, Nicolas Maduro, is favoured to win an April election to replace Chavez and expected to continue his Cuba policies for the immediate future.

However, if more conservative opponent Henrique Capriles pulls off an upset victory, he has promised to put an end to Venezuela's oil largesse.

Castro closed his column by paraphrasing a famous quote from another late friend and revolutionary, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the Argentine physician who fought alongside him in the Cuban revolution.

"Until victory always, unforgettable friend," Castro wrote of Chavez.

EU anti-terror head warns of threat

The EU's anti-terror chief warned Europe on Monday to remain on its guard, especially against the threat of European jihadists who are finding new safe havens from Syria to Mali.

Gilles de Kerchove, marking a day of remembrance for victims of terror, said the threat remained real whether "it stems from terrorist organisations or lone actors”.

Recent successes against al-Qaeda and associated groups, such as in Mali after the French intervention there in January, were positive, Kerchove said in a statement.

"But we know that terrorists are constantly seeking out new safe havens where they have space to operate, taking advantage of conflict situations," he said.

If most of those fighting to overthrow President Bashar Assad have a stake in the future of their country, "Syria has also turned into a destination for European jihadists who want to profit from the situation there, and who may also pose a threat to our societies upon their return," he said.

Pakistan, Nigeria, Yemen and the Horn of Africa remained unstable while the situation in the Maghreb and the Sahel also "has to be watched closely", he said.

"We must continue to help vulnerable countries address injustices, to combat terrorist ideology," at the same time fully respecting human rights and the rule of law, Kerchove said.

"Together, we must continue to fight terrorism in and outside Europe since far too many people have fallen victim to it," he concluded.

UN: Human rights abuses spiral in Iran

Human rights violations in Iran spiralled in 2012, a UN monitor said on Monday in a report spotlighting abuses including repression of freedom of speech, torture and secret executions.

"There has been an apparent increase in the degree of seriousness of human rights violations in the Islamic Republic of Iran," Ahmed Shaheed said in his report to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC).

Shaheed highlighted "frequent and disconcerting" reports about "punitive state action" against a number of groups, including the jailing of opposition politicians, journalists and human rights campaigners.

He also expressed concern about rights violations affecting women and religious and ethnic minorities, and retaliatory action against individuals that Tehran suspects of co-operating with UN monitors.

Such abuses remain "widespread", "systemic" and "systematic", said Shaheed, former foreign minister of the Maldives who was named the UN's Iran monitor in 2011.

Shaheed, who is forbidden from visiting the country, said he regretted Tehran's unwillingness to co-operate with him, despite his repeated efforts.

He wrote his report by contacting campaigners, exiles and victims of the abuses.

"Moreover, a lack of government investigation and redress generally fosters a culture of impunity," he said, emphasising that this undermined global human rights accords signed by Iran.

The torture of detainees was also an ongoing concern which Shaheed said he had raised in a previous report.

"The Iranian government maintained that allegations of torture in the country are baseless since the country's laws forbid the use of torture and the use of evidence solicited under duress," he said.

"The existence of legal safeguards does not in itself invalidate allegations of torture, and does not remove the obligation to thoroughly investigate such allegations," he added.

Turning his focus to executions, Shaheed said while 297 were officially announced by the government - 58 of them carried out in public - some 200 "secret executions" had been acknowledged by family members, prison officials or members of the judiciary.

Nearly 500 executions - both official and unofficial - were carried out in 2012, compared to 661 in 2011, and 542 the year before.

Despite that drop, the number of executions had, nevertheless, risen progressively in recent years, Shaheed said, having stood at less than a hundred a year a decade ago.

He said he was "alarmed" by the escalating rate "especially in the absence of fair trial standards" and for offences that did not warrant capital punishment including alcohol consumption, adultery and drug-trafficking.

All eyes on Vatican chimney

Forget all the artistic masterpieces. The most gazed-at item at the Vatican this week will be a humble, copper, 2m-high chimney that will pipe out puffs of smoke to tell the world if there's a new pope.

Black smoke means "not yet." White smoke means "pope elected."

When three Vatican firefighters hoisted the chimney to its perch a few days ago, it was a visual cue that preparations for the conclave to elect retired Pope Benedict XVI's successor were in high gear.

The Sistine Chapel and its magnificent Michelangelo-frescoed ceiling were made off limits to tourists. Two metal stoves were then installed in a far corner, away from the chapel's altar and the area where the cardinals will write out their picks for the next pope on slips of paper.

In the past, counted ballots went into just one iron stove along with damp wood chips or wet clumps of straw to create black smoke if the vote didn't yield a pope.

But the smoke signal system has been unreliable, triggering nervous cries of "It's white" and emphatic choruses of "No, it's black!" in the various tongues of the faithful and curious who flock to St Peter's Square for a glimpse of the chimney.

So in 2005, for the conclave that made Benedict pope, the Vatican tried something different: A second stove was installed that produces smoke from a chemical compound whipped up by the Vatican's own technicians. The smoke from the burned ballots from the first stove and the coloured smoke from the second stove were funnelled up one pipe that leads to the chimney and the outside world.

But that solution hardly made the distinction between black and white smoke any clearer - and confusion still was the order of the day.

It's a big unknown whether the Vatican has improved its technology this time around.

The sequestered cardinals will have a first chance to vote early on Tuesday evening. If they fail to pick a pope, the next few days can see as many as two rounds of balloting each morning and two rounds each afternoon, until one man clinches the required two-thirds majority.

The weather forecast promises to cloud the situation even further.

Rain, sometimes heavy, is predicted through Thursday, with Friday's skies forecast to be partly cloudy.

The Vatican says it will shine spotlights on the chimney for the evening votes.

In following the conclave, it will be wise not just to keep your eyes open, but your ears as well: The bells of St Peter's Basilica will be set ringing when a new pope has been chosen.

NEWS,20.10.2012

1 000s rally against UK austerity drive

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of London and other British cities on Saturday in protest against government spending cuts, with union leaders expected to call for a general strike.Marchers carried signs reading "No cuts" and "Cameron has butchered Britain", condemning the austerity measures introduced by Prime Minister David Cameron's coalition government in a bid to reduce Britain's huge deficit."This is not a crisis that is going to sort itself out through cuts," 19-year-old protester Jonathan told."We've had a double-dip recession now, and we are here today to show we are not going to stand it any longer."Britain climbed out of a deep economic downturn in late 2009 but fell back into recession at the end of 2011.Protesters paused to boo at Cameron's Downing Street residence, and shouted "Pay your taxes!" at a Starbucks coffee shop.Starbucks was embroiled in a row this week after it was reported that the US giant paid just 8.6 million ($13.8m) in British corporation tax over 14 years.At a huge rally in Hyde Park at the end of the march, opposition Labour leader Ed Miliband attacked Cameron for "cutting too far and too fast"."He clings to an economic plan that isn't working," Miliband told protesters. "Self-defeating austerity is not the answer.""Austerity isn't working"But Miliband was booed by the crowd when he said that any government in power at the moment would have to make some spending cuts."There will still be hard choices," he said. "I do not promise easy times."Brendan Barber, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress umbrella body, said the cuts were "hammering the poorest and the most vulnerable"."We have a stark and united message for the government," he was due to tell the Hyde Park rally."Austerity isn't working. It is hitting our jobs, our services, our living standards."His speech added: "Ministers told us that if we only accept the pain, recovery would come. Instead we have been mired in a double dip recession.” Dave Prentis, leader of Britain's biggest public sector trade union Unison, said government cuts were pushing hundreds of thousands of state employees out of work."We are here for the millions of people who don't have a voice," he said. "We just can't take any more."But Cameron, whose Conservative Party shares power with the centrist Liberal Democrats, insisted that that spending cuts were needed to balance Britain's budget."Today Ed Miliband is headlining a rally calling for an end to every single spending cut needed to clear the deficit," he said in a message posted on his Twitter account.London's Metropolitan Police did not provide an estimate for the number of demonstrators, but the TUC expected tens of thousands of people to join the 4.8km march.Scottish police said about 5 000 people took part in the Glasgow protest.

Obama, Romney gear up for final debate

US President Barack Obama and his Republican rival, Mitt Romney, on Saturday began preparing for their final debate, with Obama hunkering down at Camp David and Romney staying in Florida.The third and last of their debates is scheduled for Monday at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida.On Friday, Obama set an aggressive tone accusing Romney of suffering from policy "Romnesia", a barb dismissed by the Republican as pettiness 18 days before the election.One night earlier, both men had traded light-hearted banter at a charity dinner, but on Friday the verbal attacks turned nasty, with the Democratic incumbent taunting Romney's efforts to tack to the center as polling day looms."Mr.Severely Conservative wants you to think he was severely kidding about everything he said over the last year," Obama said at a rally attended by some 9,000 people at a university campus outside Washington.The Obama camp's previous bid to skewer Romney with insulting tags - such as pushing the Robin-Hood-in-reverse term "Romney Hood" to tarnish his tax policies - have done nothing to protect the president's shrinking poll lead.But, with the pair's last of three head-to-head debates set for Monday, the campaign returned to its tried and tested formula of branding Romney an untrustworthy flip-flopper."I mean, he's changing up so much and backtracking and sidestepping, we've got to name this condition that he's going through. I think it's called 'Romnesia.' That's what it's called," Obama told the crowd.The Republican nominee meanwhile campaigned in the biggest political battleground of all, Florida, where Monday's debate will be held, and he didn't hesitate to strike back at the president's comments."They've been reduced to petty attacks and silly word games," Romney told a crowd of more than 8,500 people at Daytona Beach, adding that Obama's re-election bid "has become the incredible shrinking campaign.""This is a big country, with big opportunities and great challenges, and they keep on talking about smaller and smaller things."Romney, accompanied by his running mate Paul Ryan, laid into the incumbent for failing to map out his plan for another four years should he win re-election."They have no agenda for the future, no agenda for America, no agenda for a second term."While Romney's camp dismissed Obama's taunt as a gimmick, the image of Romney as a flip-flopper, one that his fellow conservatives have hit him with in the past, might yet gain traction with undecided voters.ShamelessOne source that definitely does not back the multimillionaire private equity baron is The Salt Lake Tribune, the local paper in the home city of Romney's Mormon faith, albeit a liberal one that endorsed Obama in 2008.In an editorial, the paper lavished praise on Romney for saving the city's 2002 Winter Olympics, but said his subsequent courting of the right-wing Tea Party movement and refusal to detail his tax plan should rule him out."Romney has raised the most frequently asked question of the campaign: 'Who is this guy, really, and what in the world does he truly believe?'" it said."Politicians routinely tailor their words to suit an audience. Romney, though, is shameless, lavishing vastly diverse audiences with words, any words, they would trade their votes to hear."While Obama was addressing crowds in Virginia, a state he won narrowly in 2008 but where Romney is making up ground, his Vice President Joe Biden flew to Florida, where three of the race's four main figures were stumping for votes.Obama won both states in 2008, but as a measure of the tightness of this year's contest, the two are now up for grabs, with Florida leaning toward Romney, according to a widely-read poll average by website RealClearPolitics.There, Romney won an endorsement from the Orlando Sentinel, whose editorial reflected a widely-held disappointment in Obama's handling of the economy."We have little confidence that Obama would be more successful managing the economy and the budget in the next four years," wrote the editors, who endorsed Obama in 2008.On Monday night both men will be in the Sunshine State, in Boca Raton for a televised debate focused on foreign affairs.Going into the campaign, Obama was seen as strong on foreign policy, thanks to his withdrawal of US troops from Iraq and decision to order a mission that killed Aa-Qaeda kingpin Osama Bin Laden.But Romney's camp has hammered the president on his handling of the Middle East, accusing him of neglecting ally Israel and of underestimating the threat of extremist passions unleashed by the Arab Spring revolts.

Castro rumour mill continues to churn

The rumour mill surrounding the health of Fidel Castro churned anew on Friday despite a letter from the aging Cuban revolutionary published by state media and denials by relatives at home and in the United States that he is on death's door. Social media sites and some news organisations have reported allegations by a Venezuelan doctor that Castro, 86, suffered a massive stroke, was in a vegetative state and had only weeks to live, though the same doctor, Jose Rafael Marquina, has made some claims before that have not panned out.Marquina told the newspaper ABC in Spain that Castro had suffered a "massive embolism of the right cerebral artery" and while not on life support or breathing artificially, was "moribund" at a house in a gated former country club in western Havana.Marquina also said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had travelled suddenly to Havana to be with his friend and ally, an account that could not be immediately verified.Reached by The Associated Press, Marquina said his sources were in Venezuela, but he would not identify them or say how they were in a position to have information about Castro's health.He also indicated he had received corroborating evidence from sources on Twitter, but would not say who.In April, Marquina said that Chavez, who has been battling an undisclosed kind of cancer, was in his "last days" and would not last to November. With less than two weeks to go, the Venezuelan leader says he's beaten the illness and appears stronger in public.Castro's health is considered a matter of national security in Cuba and few details are released.Rumours that the former Cuban leader has died or is near death have circulated repeatedly for years, but they gained force after he failed to issue a public statement congratulating Chavez on his 7 October election victory.Castro has not been seen in public since March, when he received visiting Pope Benedict XVI. He has also stopped writing his once-constant opinion pieces, the last of which appeared in June.There was no immediate comment from the Cuban government on the latest claims, but a letter attributed to Castro was published Thursday by Cuban state media. In it, he congratulated graduates of a medical school on the occasion of its 50th anniversary.Two close family members of Castro have also recently denied he is in grave condition. Juanita Castro, the former leader's sister, told  in Miami that reports of her brother's condition are "pure rumors" and "absurd."Son Alex Castro told a reporter for a weekly Cuban newspaper that his father "is well, going about his daily life".

NEWS,07.08.2012

Why Financial Discipline Won't Save Europe and How Governance Change Might Do the Trick

 

The EU has taken a hesitant but crucial step towards its own integration and the survival of the Euro. Through the provision of bank guarantees, the vicious circle between latent currency instability and deposit runs may have been broken. Bankia may be relieved that it will not be run into the ground by Spaniards' fear of a Euro-exit.This solution might have been politically complicated, but it was not fundamentally difficult. And we all know that the deeper and more difficult issues remain. Press and politicians alike focus on fiscal integration and the need to revisit sovereignty and fiscal discipline. Some, mostly southerners, argue that an integrated Europe is worth the cost and adjustments. Others, mostly northerners, are concerned with the potential costs to themselves or the project's long-term viability and desirability. The European project risks becoming a zero-sum game edging towards disaster, and all seem to be forgetting an important point: The problems of the south are structural rather than fiscal.If we consult the OECD's statistics on hours worked per worker, we see that the country with the highest national average after Korea is none other than Greece, which has been steadily closing in on the top spot. The Netherlands comes last, with Germany just ahead. How can this be? Don't Greeks sip ouzo on the beach while the virtuous Germans build cars? According to the statistics, that is entirely wrong. If we look closely, we see that the real problem for Greeks  at least, those with jobs is not that they're work-shy. It's their monstrous public sector, which is inefficient, often corrupt, and prone to meddling with the allocation of productive effort in the private sector. In other words, Greece's problems are fundamentally structural. Its administration is bloated and hopelessly bureaucratic, unable to reform itself. The story of Greece is the story of a failure in governance.These structural problems, which cause tax evasion (and are often seen to justify it), are not unique to Greece. Spain's massive banking mess with the Cajas de Ahorros is due to local politicians' influence on banks, and their iniquitous links to property developers. Italy, too, suffers from nepotism, political clientelism and corruption. It is precisely this endemic southern European disease (most acute in Greece) that the EU can fix.The problem with structural reform is that it upsets established links, interests and routines. It goes against the grain of the political and administrative infrastructure. It is always part of political rhetoric, yet rarely translates into practice. So EU restructuring projects may offer the continent a unique opportunity to tackle this problem. In Greece, the troika (the EU, ECB and IMF) provide the ideal potential vehicle for something that the Greek public desires, but its politicians cannot (or will not) deliver. What Europe now needs is a union that helps reform the governance of weaker countries. It's not about wealth transfer, but about a set of changes that help us all. This might fly in the north, too. It's time to use the EU as an objective yet proactive arbiter who will help restructure weaker countries through greater transparency and the redesign of their administrations.The benefits are manifest, but change is alarmingly slow. Greece's story is a case in point. The last three years have seen little progress in structural reform, particularly in areas like administrative rationalization or tax evasion. Greece has been able to get away with disastrous "fiscally equivalent" measures where structural goals were not met, leaving the original problem intact. The EU task force is an overwhelmed and unwelcome band of mid-level European bureaucrats who speak Greek; what is needed is a focused group of senior change managers with a strong mandate. Neither resourcing nor expertise has been planned for administrative reforms. And while the troika now recognizes the problem, the new Greek government is poised to defend the crumbling public administration and its protégés. So what can be done? EU Task Forces such as those operating in Greece should not just support ministers with expertise. They should be empowered to identify governance issues, corruption and administrative failings and suggest solutions. They should be able to require for Key Performance Indicators to be published and support their digestible presentation. They should facilitate Greek-led initiatives to bypass or report corruption and cronyism, and their recommendations should not be merely consultative. But doing so not only requires Greek politicians play along and accept that mandate, but also means the EU has to change its ways and its people. Change managers and governance experts must replace polite bureaucrats with conservative reflexes.Europe has a future, and at the heart of it lies improving the governance of the south and borrowing from the achievements of the north. This will require a change of approach, so that we find those with the skill -- and the will -- to lead the change effort. Redesign and execution should be the target, and the World Bank's recent change of heart, now offering assistance to help rebuild Greece is welcome. Let's hope that northern European leaders will push in this direction. Southern Europe's citizens may eventually have something to be thankful for.

Cuba's aging population will test economic reform

The scene at Havana's Victor Hugo Park is unfortunately typical, with a handful of boys kicking a soccer ball through trees while dozens of gray-haired seniors bend and stretch to the urgings of a government-employed trainer.So few children, so many elderly. It's a central dilemma for a nation whose population is the oldest in Latin America, and getting older.The labor force soon will be shrinking as health costs soar, just when President Raul Castro's government is struggling to implement reforms that aim to resuscitate an economy long on life support."We must be perfectly clear that the aging of the populace no longer has a solution," Castro's economic czar, Marino Murillo, told lawmakers in an alarmed tone last month. "It is going to happen, and that cannot be changed in the short term. ... Society must prepare itself."The aging of Cuba's population has its roots in some of the core achievements of Fidel Castro's revolution, including a universal health care system that has increased life expectancy from 69 years during the 1960s to 78 today, comparable with the United States.Abortions are free and it is estimated that half of Cuban pregnancies are terminated. High university graduation rates, generally associated worldwide with low fertility numbers, have Cuban women averaging 1.5 children, below the rate of replacement.Cuba's National Office of Statistics says about 2 million of the island's 11 million inhabitants, or 17 percent, were over 60 years old last year. That's already high compared to Latin America as a whole, where the rate is somewhere north of 9 percent, extrapolating from U.N. figures from 2000.That U.N. study shows Cuba's population is aging even faster than that of China, which has forbidden couples to have more than one child. Cuba's rate would be typical in a wealthy European nation. But Cuba lacks the wealth to cope with it.The trend is accelerating, with the number of seniors projected to nearly double to 3.6 million, or a third of the population, by 2035. During the same period, working-age Cubans are expected to decline from 65 percent to 52 percent.The future may look a lot like Emelia Moreno. Still vigorous at 75 years old, she lives alone in a small apartment in Central Havana and spends much of her time at a neighborhood senior center that provides 1,000 retirees with medical attention, meals and social activities such as singing and dance classes."Cuba is fighting so that people of a certain age don't feel too bad," she said.But her only child left for the U.S. a decade ago, and she knows that one day she'll be completely dependent on the government because she has no family to take care of her when she cannot."I had heard people talk about how they felt empty when a family member left, but I had no idea," Moreno said, caressing a photo of her daughter, Yeniset.The graying trend can be traced partly to the country's weak economy, resulting in the loss of people such as Yeniset, an outflow of 35,000 per year as people seek opportunity in the United States and elsewhere.Research shows emigrants are increasingly women of child-bearing age, which compounds the problem, according to Alberta Duran, who was among the first to examine the aging trend before retiring from her post at a Cuban sociological research institute."The aging population has been turning into Cuba's biggest demographic problem since the 1990s," Duran said.By 2021, more Cubans will be leaving the workforce than entering, according to government projections.The contracting labor pool presents a challenge for Cuba's goal of making the country more productive and efficient without abandoning its policy of providing for everyone's basic needs. Officials aim to eliminate 1 million redundant government jobs and grow a non-state sector that, it is hoped, will account for 40 percent of economic activity compared with about 15 percent today."Reform becomes more difficult due to emigration,"said Sergio Diaz-Briquets,a Washington-based expert on Cuban demographics. "Those who leave are the youngest, best-educated and most ambitious."And with the ranks of seniors increasing, Diaz-Briquets said, resources that could be used to stimulate the economic project inevitably will have to be diverted to care for the elderly.Demographers agree that Cuba's population has topped out around 11.2 million, and negative growth will be the rule for the foreseeable future.Murillo, the economic czar, said authorities are studying measures for next year to try to stimulate fertility rates, but he did not give details."We are going to have a serious problem with the availability of a labor force," Murillo acknowledged.In recent years Cuba has implemented a number of measures for the aging, including an expanded denture distribution program and establishing "grandparents' circles" of elderly citizens who get together for activities and help each other out when the relatives they live with are at work.Authorities recently asked seniors to keep active later in life by rolling the retirement age progressively back from 55 to 60 for women and from 60 to 65 for men. Raul Castro himself is already 16 years past his golden-watch moment, at 81.Cuba recently allowed retirees to return to work and still collect their pensions. They're also being encouraged to join the class of small-business owners setting up shop under Castro's reforms, though experts say that idea has limited potential.Aging populations present difficulties for countries around the world, and attempts to spur birth rates have produced meager returns, Diaz-Briquets said.But he suggested that if Castro's reforms can create more opportunities for private enterprise, Cuba might be able to woo immigrants from countries where extreme poverty is rampant and homicides are skyrocketing, places where the Communist-run island's free health care and relative public safety might seem a good alternative."The situation in Haiti and some Central American nations will continue to be even worse than in Cuba," Diaz-Briquets said, adding that a post-U.S.-embargo Cuba could be even more attractive to potential migrants from those countries. "The way things are going, and assuming some more positive scenarios for Cuba, the idea doesn't seem that outlandish."

 

NEWS,27.5.2012

Cuba waits anxiously for oil dreams to materialize

 In this Jan. 12, 2012 file photo, Alfonso Arias rides his horse next to an oil pump operated by the state oil company Cuba Petroleos, Cupet, in Santa Cruz del Norte, Cuba. It was supposed to be Cuba's economic savior: vast untapped reserves of black gold buried deep under the rocky ocean floor. But the first attempt in nearly a decade to find Cuba's hoped-for undersea oil bonanza has come up dry.It was supposed to be Cuba's economic savior: vast untapped reserves of black gold buried deep under the rocky ocean floor.

But the first attempt in nearly a decade to find Cuba's hoped-for undersea oil bonanza has come up dry, and the island's leaders and their partners must regroup and hope they have better luck - quickly.Experts say it is not unusual that a 3-mile (4.8-kilometer) deep exploratory well drilled at a cost of more than $100 million by Spanish oil giant Repsol was a bust. Four out of five such wells find nothing in the high-stakes oil game, and petroleum companies are built to handle the losses.But Cuba has more at stake, and only a few more spins left of the roulette wheel. The enormous Scarabeo-9 platform being used in the hunt is the only one in the world that can drill in Cuban waters without incurring sanctions under the U.S. economic embargo, and it is under contract for only one to four more exploratory wells before it heads off to Brazil."If oil is not found now I think it would be another five to 10 years before somebody else comes back and drills again," said Jorge Pinon, the former president of Amoco Oil Latin America and a leading expert on Cuba's energy prospects. "Not because there is no oil, but because the pain and tribulations that people have to go through to drill in Cuba are not worth it when there are better and easier options in places like Angola, Brazil or the U.S. Gulf of Mexico."A delay would be catastrophic for Cuba, where 80-year-old President Raul Castro is desperately trying to pull the economy out of the doldrums through limited free-market reforms, and has been forced to cut many of the subsidies islanders have come to expect in return for salaries of just $20 a month.It could also leave the Communist-governed island more dependent on Venezuela, where President Hugo Chavez is ailing with cancer. Chavez provides Cuba with $3 billion worth of heavily subsidized oil every year, a deal that might evaporate if he dies or fails to win re-election in October.An oil find, on the other hand, would potentially improve Cuba's long-bitter relations with the United States, some analysts suggest. They say the U.S. oil industry could lobby Congress to loosen the embargo so it could get in on Cuba's oil game. At the very least, coordination between the Cold War enemies would be necessary to prepare for any spill that could coat beaches in the U.S. and Cuba with black goo.The Cuban government has not commented on Repsol's announcement May 18 that the first well came up dry, and declined to make any oil officials or experts available to be interviewed for this article.Next in line for using the drilling rig in Cuban waters is Malaysia's Petronas, which holds the rights to explore an area in the Florida Straits known as the Northbelt Thrust, about 110 miles (180 kilometers) southwest of Repsol's drill site. Wee Yiaw Hin, Petronas' executive vice president of exploration and production, told The Associated Press that drilling has begun and he expects results by the end of July.After that, two industry experts said, Repsol is under contract to drill a second well, though it could get out of the deal by paying a penalty to Saipem, the Italian company that owns the rig. Kristian Rix, a spokesman for Repsol in Madrid, said a decision on whether to sink another well was still being evaluated.Venezuela's PDVSA and Sonangol of Angola have options to drill next, but are under no obligation if they don't like their odds. While both countries are strong allies of Cuba, at $100 million a well, the decision to drill will likely be based solely on economics.Even if oil is found, the Scarabeo-9 is under contract to power up its eight enormous thrusters and sail to Brazil after that, with no date set for its return to Cuba. The bottleneck highlights the difficulties Cuba faces, and why it could be well into the 2020s before the island sees any oil windfall."Assuming they're successful in finding oil, to bring the oil to market will take years of development efforts," said Victor Shum, an energy analyst with consulting firm Purvin & Gertz in Singapore.Once an exploratory well finds oil, companies generally drill between 10 and 20 additional wells nearby to get a sense of the reservoir's size. The process can take several years even under normal circumstances, and circumstances are not normal in Cuba.The Scarabeo-9 was built in Asia with less than 10 percent U.S.-made parts to avoid violating Washington's embargo, making it the only rig in the world that meets the requirement. That means no other rig could be used in Cuba without risking U.S. sanction, and the additional wells would have to be drilled by the rig one at a time, with each taking about 100 days to complete. At about three wells a year, it could take up to six years for this second phase - assuming the rig is available.After gauging a reservoir's size, an oil company then must assess whether the economics of a field make it a prime spot for exploitation, or whether to concentrate resources elsewhere.If exploitation does go forward, complicated equipment is required to pull oil from such depths. Several industry experts said the only country that produces the necessary apparatus is the United States, although Brazil and other countries are working to catch up. Unless they do, the oil could not be removed unless the U.S. embargo was lifted or altered."A lot of folks are looking at the energy sector in Cuba because they are looking at a Cuba of five years from now, or 10 years from now," said Pinon. "So a lot of people are betting that either the embargo is going to be lifted, or the relationship between the U.S. and Cuba is going to improve in some way."Still, the benefits of hitting a gusher would be enormous for Cuba, and the impact could be felt long before any oil was pumped.Because of the embargo, Cuba is shut off from borrowing from international lending institutions, and the island's own poor record of repayment has left most other creditors leery. Cuba, for instance, owes the Paris Club of creditor nations nearly $30 billion.An oil find could change the game, with Cuba using future oil riches as collateral to secure new financing, economists say. They point to China and Brazil as potential sources of new funding, but say neither is likely to put money into the island without reasonable confidence they will get their investment back.Lee Hunt, the recently retired president of the Houston-based International Association of Drilling Contractors, said the stakes are enormous for Cuba that one of the wells hits oil before the Scarabeo-9 leaves. Hunt has worked to bring U.S. and Cuban industry and environmental groups together."If the only rig you can work with is gone, it's like somebody took your shovel away," Hunt said. "You are not going to dig any holes without a shovel, even if you know the treasure is down there."