She explained that she was facing bureaucratic hurdles in obtaining her degree to qualify as a senior technician in dental prosthetics. And, even with the diploma, it would be difficult to survive on a monthly salary of 3,000 pesos (about $6). In Cuba, she said, you have to be a magician to survive the nonexistent transportation, the inflation, the corruption, [or] the fact that the country is operating with a currency that not everyone can access.
For decades, Cuba's tourism sector has enjoyed a reputation as an "economic locomotive" a term used by authorities who saw it as the lifeblood of the Caribbean island country's economy. But the industry has been in decline since its 2018 peak, and the U.S. government's squeeze on Cuba's oil supply has pushed the nation's most crucial industry closer to its breaking point.
Cuba has long been under the effects of a perfect storm that shows no signs of abating. In addition to constant power outages, the high cost of living, persistent unsanitary conditions in the streets, and a tangled economic crisis that Cuban authorities seem incapable of resolving, there are now direct threats from Donald Trump's administration, aimed at the Castro regime which has been in power for nearly 70 years.
Vladimir Putin is systematically ruining his country. His war of choice in Ukraine is an economic, financial, geopolitical and human calamity for Russia that worsens by the day. For his own murky reasons, Donald Trump, another national menace, offered him a lifeline last week. Yet Putin spurned it. These two fools deserve each other. On the table in Moscow was a peace deal that, broadly speaking, rewarded Russia's aggression by handing over large chunks of Ukrainian land, compromised Kyiv's independence
"Generational" is the Carney government's adjective of choice at this moment of consequence. The word appeared 11 times in the prepared text of Francois Philippe-Champagne's budget speech and another 45 times in the 493-page budget document. It is a word apparently meant to speak to both the gravity of the country's situation and the bigness of this government response. "This is not a time for small plans," Champagne writes in the budget's foreword.
Both Quiroga and Paz sought to sell themselves as candidates of change and promise to pivot the country away from two decades of populist economic policy. The election comes after MAS, founded by former President Evo Morales, was voted out of government in an August 17 election. The result was seen as an expression of voters' frustration over party infighting as well as national fuel shortages. Quiroga and Paz had both pledged to fix the exchange rate, restructure state-owned businesses and attract foreign investment.
