Moshe Adler: Cuba by the Numbers Fidel Castro recently told The Atlantic that the Cuban model does not work anymore, not even for Cuba. But according to statistics collected by none other than the CIA, the Cuban model has actually worked very well. Cubans do much better than the citizens of all their neighboring Caribbean and Central American states by all kinds of measures. The Cuban government spends much more on education, and a Cuban child therefore can expect to get a much better education, and for several years longer, than a child in any of Cuba’s neighboring countries. A Cuban citizen can expect to live longer. Cuba’s GDP per capita is higher than it is in seven of its nine neighbors. Castro and the CIA have vastly different perspectives. Half a million workers constitute about 10 percent of the Cuban labor force, a percentage figure roughly equal to the rate of unemployment in the U.S. The Cuban government has shifted to the managerial worldview, and so have American newspapers. Moshe Adler / TruthDig
Karen Lee Wald: Cuba From the Other Side - Book Review I first learned of Keith Bolender’s book “Voices From the Other Side: An Oral History of Terrorism Against Cuba” when the author reached out to me after reading an article I’d written on Luis Posada Carriles in The Rag blog. The article, “The Puppies That Got Away,” was based on an interview with a woman who almost became a victim, along with three children she was caring for, in one of the hotels Posada’s thugs bombed in 1997. The title came from the coded message used by one of Posada’s hired killers in an earlier bombing that destroyed a passenger plane in flight, killing all aboard. The telephone message was “A bus with 73 dogs went over a cliff and all perished.” Bolender thought I might be interested in his book, an oral history, like mine, taken from many of the survivors of the 50-plus years of terrorism against Cuba waged by the United States and Cuba’s former ruling class. I was. “Voices From the Other Side” does this. By Keith Bolender Pluto Press, 224 pages
CUBA – poorest of the healthy A decade ago I lectured to the staff of the Ministry of Health in Cuba. After my talk the Minister happily said, this graphs showed that Cuba is the healthiest of the poor countries! On the way out a young staff member whispered in my ear: - He is wrong, Cuba is just the poorest of the healthy countries. Gapminder World describes that both were right, www.bit.ly/l02EOP People in Cuba has the same life span as Chile, Portugal, South Korea, Greece and USA. Hans Rosling
Human Development Reports (HDR) – United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Index - Top 30 Countries with high human development Norway, Australia and the Netherlands lead the Human Development Index (HDI) rankings in 2011, while the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Niger and Burundi are at the bottom. Each year since 1990 the Human Development Report has published the Human Development Index (HDI) which was introduced as an alternative to conventional measures of national development. The HDI represents a broader definition of well-being and provides a composite measure of three basic dimensions of human development: health, education and income. The latest HDI report is from 2011 with emphasis on Sustainability and Equity, titled: A Better Future for All. The three Human Development Indicators are: 1. Life Expectancy Index (LEI): Life expectancy at birth (in years); 2. Definitions:Human Development Index (HDI): A composite index measuring average achievement in three basic dimensions of human development-a long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living.
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