CUBA: Big changes: State-media says ration book obsolete; islanders may have to do without it
HAVANA (AP) — Cuba may soon be saying adios to ration books.
The system that allows islanders to buy food at deeply subsidized prices each month has long been one of the central building blocks of the country's socialist system, providing everyone from surgeons to street-sweepers the same meager allotment of basic foods like rice, beans and a bit of chicken.
Now, state-run media are suggesting the "libreta" that Cubans have depended on since 1962 has outlived its usefulness and is hamstringing the government as it tries to reform the ever-struggling economy.
"The ration booklet was a necessity at one time, but it has become an impediment to the collective decisions the nation must take," Lazaro Barredo Medina, editor of the Communist Party's Granma newspaper, wrote Friday in a full-page signed opinion.
He said the government ought not do away with rations by decree, but suggested readers should start preparing for life without a system that people on this island both covet as a birthright and complain is woefully insufficient to meet even the most modest needs.
The thick brown ration booklet offers 11.2 million Cubans a diet including rice, salt, legumes, potatoes, bread, eggs, sugar and some meat. Many complain it only provides 10 to 15 days of food and that quotas have gotten stingier over the years.
The idea of such a transcendental change in the Cuban experience made Barredo's opinion piece the talk of the town, with strong opinions on both sides.
HAITI: UN monitoring plane crashes into mountain, killing all 11 peacekeepers on board
FONDS-PARISIEN, Haiti (AP) — A surveillance plane assigned to the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti crashed into a mountain Friday, killing all 11 military personnel on board, the United Nations said.
U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas in New York said the Uruguayan CASA212 aircraft went down in rugged terrain west of Fonds-Verrettes near the border with the Dominican Republic.
Rescue teams had to reach the area by foot because there were no roads nearby, and they found no survivors, she said.
All bodies were recovered and would be taken back to the capital of Port-au-Prince, according to a statement from the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti.
Dozens of U.N. vehicles were parked late Friday near the main highway that connects Port-au-Prince to the Dominican border, unable to get any closer to the crash site, which is in the Ganthier municipality.
Haitian police officer David Charles told The Associated Press that personnel from his convoy walked about two hours up the mountain but was not able to reach the crash site because it was on the other side of a ridge and a river.
Charles said he saw the white plane in the distance and a large piece had broken off.
U.N. ambulances headed back to their bases late Friday, with one driver saying they had been ordered to return Saturday morning.
The victims were Uruguayan and Jordanian military personnel serving with the 9,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force that has been in Haiti since a 2004 rebellion ousted former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Montas said.
BERMUDA: Judge acquits visiting New York woman, 67, on charge of possessing bullets
HAMILTON, Bermuda (AP) — A 67-year-old woman from New York was acquitted Friday on a charge of carrying nearly a dozen bullets in her bag as she and her husband left Bermuda after a golfing vacation.
Lucy Stackler told a judge she put 11 bullets in a carryon bag when they fell from her closet in May and forgot about them. She said they belonged to her husband, who has a firing range in their basement.
Judge Archibald Warner cleared her of the charges after a three-day trial.
Airport officials discovered the bullets before Stackler boarded a JetBlue flight to New York last month. No one apparently detected them when she flew from the U.S. to the British Caribbean territory.
Stackler, who lives in Oyster Bay, planned to fly back to New York on Saturday.
Last month, a 61-year-old tourist from Florida was sentenced to nearly two weeks in jail after a judge dismissed as "nonsense" her explanation that she forgot she was carrying a 9 mm magazine clip.
The maximum sentence for importing a firearm or its components into Bermuda is five years and possibly a $10,000 fine.
Bermuda has allowed only licensed members of gun clubs to own weapons following the killings of the island's police commissioner, the governor and an aide in the early 1970s.
MONTSERRAT: Restive volcano spews ash, forcing residents to wear masks
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Rock falls from a spewing volcano stirred up more volcanic ash Friday on the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat, which lost half its population after a devastating eruption last decade.
Dozens of small earthquakes accompanied ash plumes that have billowed up 20,000 feet (6,000 meters) this week, prompting officials to distribute masks to residents, said James White Jr., acting director of the Disaster Management Coordination Agency.
A thin layer of volcanic residue now coats several northwestern towns, and ashfall — which can cause respiratory problems and tiny scratches on the eyes — is expected to continue, said Paul Cole, director of the Montserrat Volcano Observatory.
Cole said the Soufriere Hills volcano, which stirred to life Sunday for the first time in 10 months, may be creating a new lava dome, a mound of cooled lava that forms at the volcano's opening. It would be at least the fifth time that has occurred since the volcano became active in 1995.
In 1997, the Soufriere Hills eruption killed 19 people and buried much of the island, including its former capital, Plymouth, which is now abandoned. Half the British territory's 12,000 inhabitants left.
"There aren't any ways to tell how long it will stay active, but it's been going for 14 years on and off, so my guess is that it will continue doing what it's been doing," Cole said.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Dozens in beach gear demand more access to country's beaches and rivers
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — Dozens of Dominicans wearing flip-flops and swim suits and carrying coolers and surfboards soaked in the sun outside Congress on Friday to protest a proposal they say will limit public access to beaches and rivers.
"This is not the constitution of my country," they yelled, referring to a recently approved constitutional amendment that allows for private property along coasts and rivers.
One man spread several towels on the asphalt road and lay down. Another set up an inflatable palm tree.
"The beaches belong to the people, not to businessmen," the protesters chanted.
One of the Caribbean country's biggest attractions is its white-sand beaches and turquoise waters along its eastern coast, which is peppered with dozens of celebrity homes and exclusive resorts.
Legislator Minou Tavarez Mirabal went outside to talk with them. "These kind of protests are to let us know that citizens are watching us," she said.
People also have spoken out against other constitutional amendments, such as denying citizenship to children of foreigners born in the Dominican Republic and prohibiting abortion even in cases of rape, incest or a health threat to a woman.
President Leonel Fernandez and opposition leader Miguel Vargas Maldonado supported the amendment that guaranteed the right to private property along beaches and rivers, without giving any reasons.
CARIBBEAN: Caricom leaders hash over plans to form single regional trading market by 2015
GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) — Caribbean leaders are gathering in Barbados to discuss economic integration plans that have stalled in recent years.
Trinidad's Patrick Manning and prime ministers from four other nations are meeting privately through Saturday in Bridgetown as part of a Caribbean Community summit.
Talks on Friday focus on how the 15-member Caricom can advance plans to create a single regional trading market by 2015, a long-term goal of the bloc.
The group has been working for years to implement a common market that would facilitate the movement of goods, services and certain workers.
Though the bloc has expanded free movement of Caricom citizens in the region, it has struggled to advance a single market.
JAMAICA: Health ministry closes school with outbreak of hand, foot and mouth disease
KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — Jamaica's health ministry has closed a school following an outbreak of hand, foot and mouth disease.
Chief medical officer Sheila Campbell-Forrester says four students at the Stella Maris preparatory school near Kingston were confirmed as having the virus.
She says the school was closed Friday for cleaning. No other cases have been identified in the Caribbean nation.
Hand, foot and mouth disease is characterized by fever, mouth sores and a rash with blisters. Most children affected by the disease recover quickly without problems. It is unrelated to the foot and mouth disease that affects livestock.
At least 57 people died from a virulent outbreak of the virus this year in central China.
Source: AP Features
