I bet Cuba is a marvellous place to vacation. Sun, beaches, beautiful people (who are largely HIV-negative and free of other diseases, unlike many poor people in poor countries), and very few crimes, unlike, say, Jamaica or Brazil.
<http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2007-01-25-venezuela-cuba-tourism-deal-fee-vacations-poor-tourists_x.htm> Venezuela to sign deal for poor tourists to travel free to Cuba Posted 1/25/2007 8:44 AM ET
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The government of President Hugo Chavez plans to sign an agreement with Cuba to send at least 100,000 poor Venezuelans to the communist-led island for no-cost vacations, an official said Wednesday.
Chavez and Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage were expected to sign the deal allowing low-income Venezuelan families to soak up the sun on the Caribbean island during talks in Caracas, Tourism Minister Titina Azuaje said in a statement.
The tourism program would benefit Venezuelans who are involved in newly created communal councils — neighborhood-based groups that resolve local problems — and government-run programs called "missions," which provide education, subsidized food and health care for the poor.
The Venezuelan tourists would travel on Cuba's state-run airline Cubana de Aviacion, Azuaje said.
Chavez — a close ally of Cuban leader Fidel Castro — and Lage were also expected to sign a series of other accords aimed at boosting cooperation in areas ranging from industry to telecommunications. It was not immeditely clear when Lage, who arrived early Wednesday, would depart.
Telecommunications Minister Jesse Chacon said Cuba and Venezuela would sign an agreement for the construction of a 1,550-kilometer (1,000-mile) fiber optic cable connecting the two Caribbean countries.
"It's going to permit faster connections and lower costs," Chacon said.
Since taking office in 1999, Chavez has forged strong political and trade ties with Cuba.
The Cuban government has sent Venezuela about 20,000 doctors to treat the poor under a program that started in 2003 while the island receives shipments of Venezuelan oil under preferential terms.
<http://www.clas.berkeley.edu:7001/Events/spring2005/04-15-05-violenceintheamericas/panel1.html> Conference: Violence and the Americas Panel I April 15-16, 2005
Violence and Legality in Latin America By Brian Lande
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The neoliberal project that promotes the market as the optimal mode of social organization requires not only a minimalist government on the social and economic fronts, but also, and without contradiction, "an enlarged and diligent state" ready to forcefully intervene in the name of public order. Professor Wacquant suggests that if we want to know what the result of those policies is going to look like in the U.S. or Europe, we should look to Brazil, for it serves as a historical laboratory of the adoption of U.S.-inspired policies of aggressive penalization of poverty and marginality coupled with market deregulation.
Brazil, despite having the 10 th largest GDP in the world, remains 74 th on the United Nation's Human Development Index. The neoliberal policies of the 1990s that tamed inflation have, in turn, aggravated inequality, urban unemployment and disorder. Violent crime has risen rapidly, with murders in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Recife now exceeding 60 per 100,000; a number that matches the worst crime rates in the most violent U.S. metropolis such as New Orleans, Detroit and Washington, D.C.
Between 1979 and 1996 the rate of homicides among city dwellers aged 15 to 24 grew 135 percent. Similarly, in the decade since 1993, the state response to deepening inequality and marginality has been to increase penal sanctions. This has led to a doubling of the population behind bars to 284,000, with an incarceration rate of 168 per 100,000. This increase in the prison population is disastrous as overcrowded conditions contribute to violence and the spread of disease (especially HIV/AIDS). -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>