News stories by Patricia Grogg, page 12

Cuban historian and columnist Esteban Morales, who was reinstated as a member of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) after being expelled a year earlier for writing articles about corruption in the country, said he would continue exercising his right to express criticism, as the duty and moral obligation of 'any revolutionary intellectual.'

'Coffee! Get your plastic bags here! Cream cheese, the very best…!' The voices blend in with the cries of other vendors and the noise typical of Cuban markets. Elisa, 64, was one of the hawkers until she was fined for selling her products without a permit. 'I paid dearly for it,' she says.

To survive the summer heat and enjoy restful vacations in natural settings, the government's network of cabin resorts is a popular alternative among families in Cuba, few of whom can afford the high cost of hotels, which until 2008 were off-limits to Cubans.

A microcredit system could begin operating in Cuba as part of reforms adopted by the government of Raúl Castro to modernise the country's socialist economic system.

The diplomatic offensive undertaken by Cuba in recent weeks is propping up the most important medium-term development programmes implemented as part of what the Raúl Castro government describes as the 'updating' of the economic system without abandoning socialism.

A Havana court handed down sentences of three to 15 years to 15 officials and employees of Cubana de Aviacion airline and a tourism agency jointly owned by Chilean investors and the Cuban government, in a corruption case that was veiled in a shroud of secrecy.

President Raul Castro, who turned 80 Friday, is facing the challenge of making the Cuban economy more efficient without abandoning socialism — a course that involves overcoming conservative resistance to change and new forms of working and even thinking.

Despite major underground water reserves and the start of the rainy season, people in the central region of Cuba are anxiously scanning the skies in the face of scant rainfall, which is needed to ease a drought that has become more severe in recent years.

'I talk to deal with problems. In Cuba, there is too much formal, repetitive discourse and not enough directed at people, with their anxieties and joys,' said Manuel Calviño, the host and writer of a television programme that tries not to add to that deficit.

The Cuban government refuted reports by dissident groups that claimed that Juan Wilfredo Soto died as a result of a beating by police. The authorities stated that he died from 'acute pancreatitis.'