Soviet rubles, Cuba’s debt, the Paris Club and simple math

Marc Frank, writing for Reuters, reports today that the Paris Club is looking to re-open negotiations with Cuba regarding its foreign debt, and mentions Cuba’s outstanding debt to Russia of 20 billion Soviet rubles as a stumbling block.

In 2001, when the Economist wrote about Cuba’s Soviet ruble debt, it pegged the value of that 20 billion debt at $690 million USD, while pointing out that in 1991, 20 billion rubles equaled $11.8 billion.  If you check the Russian ruble -> USD conversion rate today, you’ll find that a 20 billion Russian ruble debt is currently worth $662 million.  What will it be worth next year?  What was it worth in 1997?

According to this GWU hosted website, a TV set cost 1,200,000 rubles in Russia in 1997.  Simple math tells us that if this is true, in 1997, Cuba’s entire 20 billion Soviet ruble debt could have been satisfied with some 16,666 TV sets.  But then in 1998, with three zeros knocked off the new rubles, a new TV set cost only 1,200 rubles.  So Cuba, if it had paid in TV sets in 1998, would have needed to supply 16,666,666 of them to get free.

My point, and I imagine the point of Cuba’s central bankers is this: how and when do you decide what a vanished currency is really worth?  It’s not meant as a diversionary negotiating tactic – it’s a real question.  Some stories, including the previously mentioned Economist article suggest that “Cuban officials…say the country they borrowed from no longer exists, and that any debt should be offset against damage to the island’s economy caused by Russia’s failure to honour Soviet export contracts to Cuba.”

Perhaps.  It seems like a valid point.  But I’m guessing the real obstacle is the Soviet ruble valuation.  Frank writes that fully two thirds of the debt the Paris Club wants to discuss is wrapped up in the Soviet ruble question, a debt “that Russia now claims but Cuba does not recognise.”  But who does recognize a Soviet ruble?  An Argentinean austral? A Confederate dollar?

This highlights another, more serious problem with Frank’s story.

The Paris Club reported that Cuba owed its members $30.5 billion (19.0 billion pounds) at the close of 2010, but more than $20 billion of the debt was in old transferable Soviet rubles that Russia now claims but Cuba does not recognise.

Note how we’ve now moved from 20 billion unquantifiable Soviet rubles, to $20 billion DOLLARS in a mere keystroke.  To my knowledge, no-one has ever suggested that the 20 billion Soviet rubles should be pegged 1:1 to the US dollar.

Sticky fingers at “Ladies in White” in Cuba

Cuban “Ladies in White” Suspect Recently Deceased Leader of Embezzling $20,000 – español

Jean-Guy Allard
Translation: Machetera

Rumors in Havana circulate at lightning speed.  Sources close to the “Ladies in White” [Damas de Blanco] reveal that upon taking charge of the mini-group and reviewing its finances, Berta Soler had the disagreeable surprise of learning that some $20,000 was missing from the organization which is openly funded by the United States.

The “Ladies” founder, Laura Pollán, died on October 14 at the Calixto Garcia Hospital, at the age of 63, victim of cardiac arrest “aggravated by diabetes, hypertension and dengue.”

The discovery of the group’s missing funds came about in a meeting where the 48 year old Soler, who’d acted as second in command until Pollán’s death, was confirmed as the new leader.  The rivalry between the two women who competed for favors from the U.S. diplomatic post in Havana (known as the U.S. Interests Section – USIS) was well known.

CANF, Royal Caribbean’s Majesty of the Seas, and the totally compromised testimony used to bury Gerardo Hernández Nordelo alive

When the U.N.’s Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) investigated the siting of the February 24, 1996 shootdown off the coast of Cuba of two light aircraft registered to the Miami group “Brothers to the Rescue,” suddenly all the evidence supporting U.S. claims about it occurring over international waters became very difficult to find.  And this despite the fact that the U.S. government expected an incident to occur and had warned all its radar installations, and presumably, satellite eyes, to be especially alert that day.  But with the objective evidence suddenly missing, the ICAO investigators came up with a weird, subjective “triangulation” to support U.S. claims about the location.  Naturally, the ICAO Council refused to endorse such a bizarre report.

One of the points of that triangulation came from Royal Caribbean Cruises’ Bjørn Johansen, first officer on the ship Majesty of the Seas, who thanks to Brazilian researcher Fernando Morais, we now learn “based his testimony about the site of the shoot-down on a visual observation of the site where his own ship was – which he wrote down on a piece of paper – and not the electronic register that marked the ship’s location in the Florida Strait.”  Now you tell us.  Jean Guy Allard has more:

The Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) behind the main testimony against Gerardo Hernández Nordelo – español

By Jean-Guy Allard
Translation: Machetera

The main witness for the federal prosecution against the Cuban Gerardo Hernández Nordelo was the first officer on a U.S. cruise line whose owners contributed at least $25,000 to help create the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), and whose paramilitary wing organized, financed and promoted terrorist actions against Cuba.

The Cuban Five Must be Unconditionally Freed

The Cuban Five Must be Unconditionally Freed

Speech given by Ricardo Alarcón at the central event held at the Astral theatre in Havana during a day of solidarity for the Cuban Five, September 12, 2011.

Translation: Machetera

I will be brief in order for the artists present to raise their voices in solidarity with Gerardo, Ramón, Antonio, Fernando and René.

Today marks the completion of thirteen years of an injustice that has gone on far too long for the Cuban Five.  They have received the worst sentences and most cruel treatment, which among other things, has impeded their families from visiting them, and reached inhumane extremes with the prohibition against Adriana and Olga reuniting with Gerardo and René.  They have also been punished by the total silence imposed by a media tyranny which aims to extinguish the solidarity that they deserve and hide the larger truth: the Cuban Five are in prison for opposing the terrorists who are enemies of Cuba and its people.

Yoani Sánchez’s faked Obama interview

Annals of Shame: How to fake an interview with the President of the United States of America and be sure nobody will notice

“The essential English leadership secret does not depend on particular intelligence. Rather, it depends on a remarkably stupid thick-headedness. The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.” – Joseph Goebbels

Some years ago I accompanied a Cuban friend who needed to sign a document in front of a U.S. consular official at the U.S. Interests Section (USIS) in Havana.  Once past the waiting room where TV Martí plays to its small captive audience – the only one it can legitimately claim on the island – and back toward the section where such transactions take place, I noticed a couple of idle computer terminals.  I asked if I might go ahead and check my email while we waited.  The consular official narrowed his eyes at me.  “No,” he snapped.

That’s the nature of things when you’re a lowly U.S. citizen inside Fortress USA on Havana’s Malecon. 

Brilliant Greek documentary: “Debtocracy”

Beautifully produced, comprehensive documentary about the economic enslavement of Greece and other peripheral economies.  Shot for 8,000 Euros, the Guardian’s Aditya Chakrabortty called it “the best film of Marxian economic analysis yet produced.” Check out especially the part about “odious debt” beginning around minute 34 or 35.  Select your choice of subtitles by selecting CC-Subtitles at the top of the screen at the beginning.  Available in German, Italian, Portuguese, English, French and Spanish as well as of course, the original Greek.  Bigger screen, better view, at the filmmakers’ site, here.

Llallagua, by Victor Montoya

The village of Llallagua - Photo: Luis Chugar

Llallagua, A Mining Town in the Andes - español

By Victor Montoya

Translation: Elizabeth Gamble Miller

The indigenous people baptized these hills with the name for a root in the Quechua language, Llallagua, because the potato-like geological formations appeared to be a root of good fortune. There, Simón I. Patiño, one of the tycoons of Bolivian mining, found the richest layer of tin ore in the whole world at the end of the 19th century. From that time on Llallagua became the new Potosí, and Simón I. Patiño, who fought the boulders like a conquistador without a sword or armor, became the new King of Tin and, with Ford and Rockefeller, one of the few multimillionaires.

Boron on Spain’s “Indignant” and the Paris Commune

Spain: The “Indignant” and the Paris Commune - español

By Atilio Boron

Translation: Machetera

Perhaps it’s one of history’s surprises that the popular uprising surging through Spain today (and which is beginning to reverberate throughout the rest of Europe) was sparked on the 140th anniversary of the Paris Commune, a heroic moment in which the fundamental demand was also that of democracy.  But a democracy conceived as a government by, for, and of the people, and not as a regime serving corporate interests of the propertied classes while the people’s interests are inexorably subordinated to the imperative of business profits.

Ted Henken rolls snake eyes

Ted’s Excellent Adventure

Long story short.  Ted Henken, the quite white chair of the Black and Hispanic Studies department at Baruch College who calls himself “El Yuma” and writes a blog under the same title, recently returned from a trip to Cuba where he had gone to interview bloggers of all persuasions, but most especially his close personal friend, “La Yoa,” (Yoani Sánchez) whose cherished interview he saved for last.

The missing Osama “lair” picture released and later scrubbed by ABC News

Not long after the White House announcement about its US Navy Seals operation in Abbottabad, ABC News released a set of pictures from what it claimed was the interior of Bin Laden’s home.  With ABC refusing to share the photos with other news conglomerates, both the NY Times and Wall Street Journal handled the photos gingerly, using language like: “Footage obtained by ABC News showed what the network said was a room inside the compound,” or “Footage obtained by ABC News showed what appeared to be blood on a floor inside the compound.”