Cuban minister resigns after saying country has no beggars
The minister had said there was no such thing as "beggars" in Cuba and people going through rubbish were, in essence, doing so out of choice to make "easy money", as she put it.
Her comments were widely criticised by Cubans at home and abroad, and prompted a response from the island's president, Miguel Díaz-Canel. She resigned soon after.
Poverty levels and food shortages have worsened in Cuba as it continues to grapple with a severe economic crisis.
Feitó-Cabrera made the comments earlier this week at a session of the National Assembly, in which she spoke about people begging and rummaging through dustbins in Cuba.
She appeared to deny their existence saying: "There are no beggars in Cuba. There are people pretending to be beggars to make easy money."
Furthermore, she accused people searching through the rubbish of being "illegal participants in the recycling service".
The minister clearly misjudged the outrage and anger her comments would cause and the extent to which they portrayed the country's leadership as unfeeling, authoritarian and deeply disconnected from the dire economic struggles of ordinary Cubans.
A number of Cuban activists and intellectuals published a letter calling for her removal saying the comments were "an insult to the Cuban people".
The Cuban president then criticised Feitó-Cabrera at the parliamentary session - albeit without mentioning her by name - saying the leadership could not "act with condescension" or be "disconnected from the realities" of the people.
Cuban economist Pedro Monreal posted on X saying that there were "people disguised as ministers" in Cuba.
Feitó-Cabrera's resignation was accepted by the Cuban Communist Party and the government.
While the Cuban government does not publish official figures on the number of people begging, the rise in their number has been self-evident to most Cubans amid the island's deep economic crisis.
Cuba asks UN for help as food shortages worsen
Cubans endure days without power as energy crisis hits hard
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
19 hours ago
- New York Times
Trump Says He Declined Epstein's Invitation to Visit His Island: ‘I Never Had the Privilege of Going'
President Trump said on Monday that he had 'never had the privilege' of visiting Jeffrey Epstein's private Caribbean island because he had turned down an invitation from the financier. As part of a continued effort by Mr. Trump to distract, deny and deflect from his long-running relationship with Mr. Epstein, the president vigorously denied that he had ever visited Mr. Epstein's private islands in the Caribbean, while in the same breath baselessly accusing his predecessor, former President Bill Clinton, of visiting the islands, his latest bid at conspiracy deflection. 'I never went to the island, and Bill Clinton went there supposedly' a number of times, Mr. Trump said during a trip to Scotland. Mr. Epstein owned two islands in the U.S. Virgin Islands — Little St. James and Great St. James, where he entertained famous friends and allegedly trafficked underage girls for sex. He continued, 'I never had the privilege of going to his island, and I did turn it down, but a lot of people in Palm Beach were invited to his island. In one of my very good moments, I turned it down.' Mr. Clinton has denied visiting the islands or having any knowledge of Mr. Epstein's criminal behavior, and has said he wishes he had never met him. When asked about Mr. Trump's accusations, an aide to Mr. Clinton pointed to that original denial, adding that it had been 20 years since Mr. Clinton had been in contact with Mr. Epstein. In 2002, Mr. Clinton had flown on a private jet owned by Mr. Epstein as part of a visit to Africa — a trip which brought a flurry of media attention — but the former president has not been linked by prosecutors or officials to any of the criminal accusations against Mr. Epstein. Between 1993 and 1997, while Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein remained friendly, Mr. Trump's name appeared seven times in Mr. Epstein's flight logs. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
20 hours ago
- New York Times
Study Undercuts Idea That Cash Payments to Poor Families Help Child Development
If the government wants poor children to thrive, it should give their parents money. That simple idea has propelled an avid movement to send low-income families regular payments with no strings attached. Significant but indirect evidence has suggested that unconditional cash aid would help children flourish. But now a rigorous experiment, in a more direct test, found that years of monthly payments did nothing to boost children's well-being, a result that defied researchers' predictions and could weaken the case for income guarantees. After four years of payments, children whose parents received $333 a month from the experiment fared no better than similar children without that help, the study found. They were no more likely to develop language skills, avoid behavioral problems or developmental delays, demonstrate executive function or exhibit brain activity associated with cognitive development. 'I was very surprised — we were all very surprised,' said Greg J. Duncan, an economist at the University of California, Irvine and one of six researchers who led the study, called Baby's First Years. 'The money did not make a difference.' The findings could weaken the case for turning the child tax credit into an income guarantee, as the Democrats did briefly four years ago in a pandemic-era effort to fight child poverty. That effort, in 2021, provided most families with children monthly checks of up to $300 per child and helped push child poverty to a record low, though it did not receive the kind of rigorous evaluation of its developmental impacts the new study offers. It lapsed after a year, and Democratic efforts to extend it failed amid unified Republican opposition. Many Democrats are pushing to bring it back. While the new research may shape the debate over income guarantees, the leaders of the new study disagree among themselves about the relevance of the experiment's results. Some think the pandemic, which erupted soon after the research began, may have skewed outcomes, both because it disrupted lives and triggered large government aid programs that diluted the impact of the stipends provided by the study. The payments from Baby's First Years were also much smaller, on a per-family basis, than those the Democrats propose. Larger payments might have beneficial effects. Since the test was unusual in targeting children in their earliest years, it is also possible that benefits will appear later, after they start school. Still, the test was unusually comprehensive, and the lack of results provides conservative critics of cash guarantees an empirical talking point. 'It shows that money alone won't lead to better outcomes for children,' said Robert Doar, president of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, who supports imposing work rules on aid on the theory that working parents offer children role models. The study did not test noncash programs like food stamps or Medicaid or subsidies tied to work. The results were reported earlier by NPR. It has long been clear that children from affluent families exhibit stronger cognitive development and fewer behavioral problems, on average, than their low-income counterparts. The question is whether their advantage comes from money itself or from related forces like parental health and education, neighborhood influences or the likelihood of having two parents in the home. A landmark study in 2019 from the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine found that 'poverty itself causes negative child outcomes' and aid programs often help. But most of the evidence came from studies of noncash benefits, like food stamps or Medicaid, or the earned-income tax credit, a subsidy for parents with jobs. Some of the studies were decades old, when the safety net was smaller and expansions might have had larger effects. For a more precise test of cash guarantees, Baby's First Years raised about $22 million from the National Institutes of Health and private foundations and recruited 1,000 poor mothers with newborns in New York, New Orleans, greater Omaha and Minneapolis-St. Paul. More than 80 percent were Black or Latino, and most were unmarried. After randomly dividing the parents, researchers gave one group $333 a month while the other got a nominal $20. Random-control testing is considered an especially rigorous form of evaluation. The researchers specified in advance seven measures on which they thought children in high-cash families would outperform the others. But after four years they found no group differences on any of the yardsticks, which aimed for a comprehensive look at child development. Children in the families getting the higher cash payments did no better on tests of vocabulary, executive function, pre-literacy skills or spatial perception. Their mothers did not rank them more highly on assessments of social and emotional behavior. And they were no more likely than the children in the low-cash group to avoid chronic health conditions like asthma. Mothers in the high-cash group did spend about 5 percent more time on learning and enrichment activities, such as reading or playing with their children. They also spent about $68 a month more than the low-cash mothers on child-related goods, like toys, books and clothing. At the same time, the study found no support for two main criticisms of unconditional payments. While critics have warned that parents might abuse the money, high-cash mothers spent negligible sums on alcohol and no more than low-cash mothers, according to self-reporting. They spent less on cigarettes. Nor did they work less. While opponents say income guarantees could erode the work ethic, mothers in the two groups showed no differences across four years in hours worked, wages earned or the likelihood of having jobs. The high-cash mothers did prove less likely to work full time during the pandemic, which researchers considered positive — evidence that aid helps parents manage emergencies. One puzzling outcome is that the payments failed to reduce mothers' stress, as researchers predicted. On the contrary, mothers in the high-cash group reported higher levels of anxiety than their low-cash counterparts. It is possible they felt more pressure to excel as parents. Contrary to predictions by the researchers, children in both groups showed similar patterns of brain activity on the study's main neurological yardstick, an index of high-frequency brain activity, as measured by an electroencephalogram. High-frequency brain activity is often associated with cognitive development. Though an earlier paper showed promising activity on a related neurological measure in the high-cash infants, that trend did not endure. The new study detected 'some evidence' of other differences in neurological activity between the two groups of children, but its significance was unclear. While researchers publicized the earlier, more promising results, the follow-up study was released quietly and has received little attention. Several co-authors declined to comment on the results, saying that it was unclear why the payments had no effect and that the pattern could change as the children age. 'Anyone who tries to tell you they know what the data mean is just speculating,' Katherine A. Magnuson, a professor of social work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, wrote in an email. The payments continued for more than six years, and future analyses will examine the longer-range effect. Arloc Sherman of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a supporter of income guarantees, said the results were affected by the pandemic and should be weighed against conflicting evidence. 'I don't think these results undermine the conclusion, from a large volume of studies, that income is important for children's health, education and development,' he said. Jane Waldfogel, a professor at Columbia University whose book 'Child Benefits: The Smart Investment for America's Future' supports child-rearing subsidies, said the experimental payments were too small to have the predicted effect. Because the aid was capped at $333 per family, not per child, she said, households received an average subsidy less than half of what Democrats offered in 2021 and typically propose. 'It just wasn't enough to reduce financial hardship and strain,' Ms. Waldfogel said. The payments initially increased household income by 18 percent, but high inflation eroded their value. Virtually all parents in both groups remained low-income throughout the four years, and they reported similar levels of hardships like evictions or utility cutoffs. Robert Rector, an opponent of income guarantees at the Heritage Foundation, praised the rigor of the study and said it 'blows the arguments for unconditional cash aid out of the water.' The results are unsurprising, he said, because the safety net already provides what he called large food, health care, and wage subsidies, meaning few families face dire conditions and the extra stipends did little to differentiate the groups. While the aid did not boost child development in measurable ways, it may still have enriched family life. Some parents told researchers it let them buy children special gifts or share meaningful experiences, like dining out or visiting a zoo. One proudly photographed the winter coat she bought her child. 'The mothers are certainly not saying this money doesn't matter,' said Sarah Halpern-Meekin, a sociologist at the University of Madison-Wisconsin, who oversaw parent interviews. Michael R. Strain of the American Enterprise Institute said the study reinforced his doubts about cash aid, but he encouraged fellow conservatives not to make too much of it. 'It seems completely plausible to me that the pandemic overwhelmed an effect from the income,' he said. Still, he noted that poor families faced problems as varied as bad schools, violent neighborhoods and a shortage of role models. 'Can $300 a month address that?' he said. 'I don't know why it would.' A single study may alter few minds, but it has changed one expert's thinking. Mr. Duncan, a leading child poverty researcher, had been persuaded by studies of Medicaid, food stamps and the earned-income tax credit that unconditional cash aid would improve children's outcomes. But the uniform new results have made him reconsider. 'There is strong evidence that these other safety net programs reduce intergenerational poverty,' Mr. Duncan said. 'Our cash payments appear unlikely to follow suit. We've got to come to grips with that.'
Yahoo
20 hours ago
- Yahoo
Haiti to send 400 police officers to Brazil for training as gangs seize more territory
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Haiti's government said Monday it plans to send 400 police officers to Brazil next month for training as gang violence overwhelms the troubled Caribbean country. Currently, Haiti only has about 10,000 police officers and 1,300 soldiers protecting a country of nearly 12 million people, said Fritz Alphonse Jean, leader of the transitional presidential council. A total of 700 Haitian police officers and soldiers will be trained by foreign countries in upcoming months and will then join a Kenyan-led, U.N.-backed mission in its fight against gangs. 'Haiti is weak, and we need special training,' Jean said during a rare press conference held for international media. Last week, 150 Haitian soldiers were deployed to Mexico for training as gangs that control up to 90% of the capital, Port-au-Prince, encroach on more territory. From October 2024 to June 2025, more than 4,800 people across Haiti were killed by gang violence. Hundreds more have been injured, kidnapped, raped and trafficked, according to the United Nations. Gang violence also has displaced more than 1.3 million people in recent years, with Jean noting that the government is trying to ensure that Haitians are able to return home soon. The government has started distributing money to some of the tens of thousands of people crowded into schools and makeshift shelters. Jean is leading a council tasked with organizing general elections by February 2026, but ongoing gang violence is threatening that deadline. 'We are doing everything possible so we can hold elections,' he said, declining to provide a date. Haiti hasn't held general elections in almost a decade, with its last president, Jovenel Moïse, slain at his private residence in July 2021. Gang violence has since surged in the aftermath of the slaying.
