Cuba Signs Agreement to Buy (Russian) Aircraft

[Mika]

Cuba Signs Agreement to Buy Aircraft
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/3785001.html

HAVANA — Cuba will buy five Russian aircraft for use in the island's growing programs to provide social and health services to impoverished people around the region, official media reported.

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The purchase agreement was signed by representatives of Cuba's Civil Aeronautics Institution and the aircraft manufacturer Ilyushin Finance Co.

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The TU 204-100 is a mid-range aircraft for 210 passengers. One of those three planes will be used for cargo, Prensa Latina said.

The news agency said the five aircraft will join two other IL 96-300 passenger jets recently purchased for solidarity missions such as "Operacion Milagro" _ or Operation Miracle in English. The Cuban-Venezuelan program provides free eye operations to needy people from around Latin America.

More on Cuba's Operation Miracle here.

[wakeme2008]

1. FYI from pictures

it appears that this is the Russian version of the Boeing 757. :(

I hate 757s....

[Billy Burnett]

2. OMG! Cuba and Venezuela helping the poor? Time for a US invasion.

This is terrible news. The assets and wealth of a country should be directed at the rich oligarchy. This is pure socialist anti American redistribution of wealth to the poor who are obviously lazy.

:sarcasm:


:hi:

[Jayhawk Lib]

3. The majority of both countries

are dirt poor so they had better step things up a bit. Castro has had 40 years to bring his people out of poverty and has not succeeded yet. IMHO Chavez is just as bad as Castro.

[Mika]

4. There are over 40-50 million Americans with no health care coverage..

.. and that's after 229 years.

I think Cuba has done alright by the standard of universal ed and health care after 46 years.

[Jayhawk Lib]

7. Why are Cubans

risking their life to come over here if things are so good over there? Our poor here are rich compared to their poor. The majority of Cubans are dirt poor.

[Mika]

8. For the same reasons most all immigrants come here. Jobs.

Nowhere do I say that Cuba is a paradise.

But..

Cubans are granted special immigration perks that are offered to no other immigrant group seeking entry into the US.

Immigrants come to the US from all over the world - from democratic countries. They come here for opportunities to earn more money than they could back at home. They come to work so that they can send a little of their earnings back to their relatives. It has little to do with "despotic' regimes, it has more to do with earning power.

Cuba is a special case though, in that it is the US's Helms-Burton law (and a myriad of other sanctions) that are intended to cripple the Cuban economy. This is the stated goal of the US government, as evidenced by the Bush* admin's latest 'crackdown' on family remittances to Cuba and increased sanctions on the island and US & foreign corporations that seek to do business with Cuba.

The USA currently offers over 20,000 LEGAL immigration visas per year to Cubans (and Bush has announced that the number would increase despite the fact that not all 20,000 were applied for in the last few years). This number is more than any other single country in the world. The US interests section in Cuba does the required criminal background check on the applicants.

The US's 'wet foot/ dry foot' policy (that applies to Cubans only) permits all Cubans, including Cuban criminals and felons, who arrive on US shores by illegal means to remain in the US even those having failed to qualify (or even apply) for a legal US immigration application.

Cubans who leave for the US without a US visa are returned to Cuba (if caught at sea - mainly in smuggler's go-fast boats @ $5,000 per head) by a US/Cuban repatriation agreement. But IF they make it to US soil, no matter who they are or what their criminal backround might be, they get to stay in the US and enjoy perks offered ONLY TO CUBAN IMMIGRANTS (via the US's Cuban Adjustment Act and a variety of other 'Cubans only' perks)

For Cuban migrants ONLY - including the aforementioned illegal immigrants who are smuggled in as well as those who have failed a US background check for a legal visa who make it here by whatever means - the US's Cuban Adjustment Act instantly allows any and all Cuban migrants who touch US shore (no matter how) instant entry, instant work visa, instant green card status, instant social security, instant access to welfare, instant access to section 8 assisted housing (with a $41,000 income exemption for Cuban expats only), instant food stamps, plus more. IOW, extra special enhanced social programs designed to entice Cuban expatriation to Miami/USA.

Despite these programs designed to offer a 'carrot on a stick' to Cubans only, the Cubaphobe rhetoric loop repeats the question "why do Cubans come to the US then?".

First the US forces economic deprivation on Cubans, then open our doors to any and all Cubans illegal or not, and then offer them a plethora of immigration perks and housing perks not even available to native born Americans.

But yet, more immigrants come from Mexico and the Latin Americas than do Cubans, and they have no such "Adjustment Act" like Cubans do. But they still pour in.

Plus, Cuban immigrants can hop on a plane from Miami to Havana and travel right back to the Cuba that they "escaped" from for family trips and vacations - by the hundred of thousands annually (until Bush's recent one visit every 3 yrs restrictions on Cuban expats living in the US).

Recognizing the immorality of forced starvation and forced economic deprivation is a good reason to drop the US embargo on Cuba, the US Cuban Adjustment Act, and the US travel sanctions placed on US citizens and residents. Then the Cuban tourism economy (its #1 sector) would be able to expand even faster, thereby increasing the average wage and quality of life in Cuba. It would make products, goods, and services even more accessible to both Cubans and Americans. It would reduce the economic based immigration flow from Cuba. And it would restore our own constitutional right to travel unfettered to see Cuba for ourselves.


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Posted by Jayhawk Lib-->"Our poor here are rich compared to their poor. The majority of Cubans are dirt poor."

Not when it comes to health care coverage or higher education. Even middle class families in the US can be literally wiped out financially if there is a major illness in the family - even rendered bankrupt and/or homeless.

This is not so in Cuba. Everyone there has access to high quality health care at no additional cost.

Same goes for higher education. No one is left with hundreds of thousands of dollars of ed loans/debt to become a Dr or PHD.

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I've been to Cuba many times, and, yes, Cubans are relatively poor in material things and personal incomes, but they are not poor in social infrastructure. I've seen far worse poverty in many other Latin American/Caribbean countries.

[saigon68]

5. Why don't you go and visit sometime

Oops can't do that---- can you. Your tourist yankee dollar might be used for medicine or a book

[Massacure]

6. I wouldn't say dirt poor, but not first world.

The per capita GDP in Venezuela is $6,500 versus $3,300 in Cuba. However most cubans are better off than Venezuelans. If Chavez is anything like Castro, the people of Venezuela are in for a large step forward, especially considering Venezuela probably has more natural resources than an island nation like Cuba. Cuba would also be better off without a U.S. embargo.

[killbotfactory]

9. Psst... Chavez IS doing something about it

Let's go see what the money from the gringos and their SUVs bought. In barrios like this, there's a happy bounce. Chavez has finally tackled the health and education problems suffered by Venezuela's poor. He's imported 15,000 Cuban doctors and teachers, too. Before Chavez spread the oil wealth, 55% of the population lived in poverty. Now poverty is down by a third, and a million-and-a-half people have been taught to read. In this building, we found a new Cuban clinic, and I ran into a resident who had picked up English while working in Trinidad.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/12/140206