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Still Fragile, Haiti Makes Sales Pitch
By MARC LACEY | The New York Times
Haiti, so used to suffering, is caught in a paradox. Jobs are an essential element to quelling the country's social tensions. But companies require stability before they will create any jobs.
They came in pinstripes and clutched BlackBerrys that surprised them by going off the same way they did back home. Some said they were taken aback, on the way from the airport to their luxury hotel, by the commotion on the streets and by the obvious poverty of the place. "Don't worry," one of them said he told his wife. "It's no picnic here, but it's not as bad as I thought."
It did not appear that a single new deal was signed last week at a two-day investment conference in Haiti, the poorest nation in the hemisphere. But the simple fact that hundreds of potential investors showed up to network and discuss possible projects created hope in a country that has been long shunned as too unsafe to visit, never mind invest in.
Haiti is used to well-meaning foreigners, most of them relief workers, peacekeepers and missionaries. But this was a new group: profit-minded people assessing Haiti based on its bottom line — and in the midst of an economic crisis, no less. In one conference room, a group of businessmen in dark suits was discussing how brassieres could be made at low cost and high profit here. One room over, mangos were the topic at hand. Investors insisted that money-making opportunities were everywhere in Haiti. "The investment climate is much warmer than the temperature in this room," said Gilles Rivard, the Canadian ambassador to Haiti. >>> Go to Full Story >>>
Seeds of change in Cuban farming
By Michael Voss | BBC News
It could be a scene straight out of the Wild West: a homesteader struggling to tame a wilderness and turn it into productive farmland to provide a living for himself and his family. But this struggle of man against the land is happening in the central province of Camaguey in Cuba.
Jorge Alcides has no electricity in the simple wooden home he built for his pregnant wife and two children. He milks his three dairy cows by hand, sitting on a handmade stool. He and his son plough the fields using oxen. But he is not complaining. "I'm really happy, it's different when you work for yourself rather than being paid a wage," he said.
Communist Cuba is undergoing one of the largest land redistributions since Fidel Castro's revolution in 1959; only this time it is leasing state-owned farmland to the private sector.
In a bid to boost production and reduce costly imports, President Raul Castro is offering small plots of unproductive state land to family farmers and private co-operatives. Around 1.7 million hectares (4.2 million acres) are up for grabs. So far about 86,000 applications for land have been approved, with tens of thousands more Cubans hoping to participate. >>> Go to Full Story >>>
Juanes in Havana: 'This is the power of music'
BY LYDIA MARTIN AND JORDAN LEVIN | The Miami Herald
Hundreds of thousands of revelers filled Havana's Plaza of the Revolution on Sunday for Juanes' historic mega-concert, while in Miami, exiles watched on TV with mixed emotions.
As a sea of revelers jammed Havana's Plaza de la Revolución, Puerto Rico's Olga Tañon opened the controversial Peace without Borders concert Sunday with a sentiment that, despite all the debate on both sides of the Florida Straits, simply could not be disputed: "Together, we are going to make history!" she yelled. And the multitude, wearing white and hoisting colorful umbrellas that did little to alleviate the punishing heat, cheered. Then Tañon kicked off her performance with a merengue that, at least in Miami, seemed to carry a double meaning. "Es mentiroso ese hombre," she sang. That man is a liar.
But whether she chose the lyrics as a dig to either or both of the Castro brothers seemed less relevant than the overall, palpable joy in the plaza. Then, at the very end of the show, a major surprise from Colombian pop star Juanes, who was criticized by a segment of the exile community for organizing the concert because they believed it would lend support to the Castro regime. Juanes, who had insisted the concert had nothing to do with politics, made it political after all, to much approval from Miami's naysayers. He moved away from the day's ambiguities and shouted a straightforward "Cuba libre! Cuba libre!" (Free Cuba!) And then he chanted, "One Cuban family! One Cuban family!"
Reached by phone in Havana shortly after the concert ended, Juanes said the day was indeed about much more than music. "There aren't words to talk about something so huge, something that's so beyond music," he said. "This is the power of art, the power of music. We're so happy because the people are happy, and that's what matters to us." >>> Go to Full Story >>>
