Page 10 - Aruba Today

A10
WORLD NEWSTuesday 8 March 2016
Cuban entrepreneurs build network of private schools CARIBBEAN
M. WEISSENSTEIN
Associated Press
HAVANA (AP) — “This is a
conversation between two
children,” Graciela Lage
Delgado tells a rapt class of
third-graders, tightly enun-
ciating each English word
from a textbook called
“Welcome to America.”
“Is it a TV?” Lage asks in a
girl’s voice, pointing to an
illustration of a boxy silver
robot.
“No, it’s not!” the kids shout tion sector over the last half-decade, with thousands of students
back in English. “It’s a ro-
bot!”
Lage’s class has an air con-
ditioner and a computer
with speakers for watch-
ing videos, unimaginable
in a Cuban state school.
And unlike most Cubans
their age, the children can
hold simple conversations
in English, thanks to fast-
moving, profound change
in an important pillar of Cu-
ba’s six-decade-old social-
ist system.
Cuba touts its free, public
kindergarten-to-post-grad
schools as one of the jew-
els of its revolution, a force class parents, the schools
for social equality that vir-
tually wiped out illiteracy
across the island and gave
even the poorest citizens
a shot at educations often
superior to wealthier coun-
tries’. As the government
has allowed an explosion
of private businesses rang-
ing from restaurants to car
washes, the school system,
like health care, has re-
mained under state con-
trol. Private schools remain
illegal except for children
of diplomats and foreign
business people. Even the
Authorities:
American man held in girlfriend’s death in Mexico of Georgetown. He said
PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mex-
ico (AP) — A U.S. man is
being held in the death of
his American girlfriend in
the Caribbean resort city
of Playa del Carmen, Mexi-
can authorities said Sun-
day. Federal police identi-
fied him as John Loveless,
59, but did not give his
hometown. A police state-
ment said he was detained
at the Cancun airport be-
fore he was to board a
flight to Atlanta.
The U.S. Embassy in Mexico
News Briefs
Catholic Church cannot where artists and tourism to root inequality deeper
open parochial schools. industry workers can feed and more broadly in a Floridian killed in
Yet against the odds, Cu- their families far more eas- society where it isn’t sup- Puerto Rico drug
ba’s blooming entrepre- ily than the average state posed to exist at all. store parking lot
neurial system has quietly employee. English is also “It’s just splintering the
created something that vital for Cubans migrating collective identity, strati- SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP)
looks much like a private to the United States, their fying society more and — A 32-year-old man from
education sector, with numbers nearly doubled making the gap between Florida was shot to death
thousands of students since the two countries de- the haves and have-nots early Monday in a popu-
great,” said educational lar tourist district of Puerto
Students attend an English class at the Cuban School of Foreign anthropologist Denise F. Rico’s capital, police said.
Languages, in Havana, Cuba. Despite ideological and legal Blum, author of a 2011 Authorities said Richard
hurdles, Cuba’s blooming entrepreneurial system has quietly study of Cuban education McDonald Diaz was get-
created something that looks very much like a private educa- titled “Cuban Youth and ting into his car with his girl-
Revolutionary Values: Edu- friend early Monday when
across Cuba enrolled in dozens of afterschool and weekend cating the New Socialist he was killed before dawn
foreign language and art schools. Citizen.” in a drug store parking lot
“I think it’s changing what in Condado. Police say
(AP Photo/Desmond Boylan) socialism means for Cuba,” 26-year-old Meralis Calde-
Blum said. ron Rivera also was shot
across Cuba enrolled in clared detente in late 2014. President Barack Obama and is hospitalized.
dozens of afterschool The economic reforms of travels to Cuba this month Authorities said it is unclear
and weekend foreign lan- the last five years have to push for such changes — what led to the shooting,
guage and art schools. The created a large class of a loosening of state control but noted that McDonald
schools are entirely legal private entrepreneurs with that allows a middle class had been accused of first-
because they function as lifestyles most Cubans can to develop independently degree murder in a 2013
cooperatives of licensed only dream of. That class from the single-party gov- double killing in Puerto
private language teach- has been flooded with cash ernment and the centrally Rico. The charges were
ers, one of the hundreds of from a 17 percent surge in planned economy it con- dropped, however.
new categories of self-em- the number of tourist vis- trols. Police said the unidenti-
ployment authorized under its and a wave of private “The diversification of the fied gunman Monday was
Cuba’s economic reforms. investment from Cuban economy is ultimately a wearing a mask and did
For upper- and middle- emigres launched after de- source of a change for the not say anything.
tente was announced. Cuban people because
are filling gaps in subjects The special schools mean they have more control Guyana plans to
such as English, dance, the children of the privi- over their own lives,” Depu- end overcrowding
painting, music and theater leged are increasingly get- ty National Security Adviser
— invaluable in a country ting a leg up, threatening Ben Rhodes, one of the ar- after prison riot
chitects of Obama’s new
policy, told The Associated GEORGETOWN, Guyana
Press. (AP) — The South Ameri-
Parents with the means are can country of Guyana
spending about 250 Cu- says it will hire more guards
ban pesos ($10) a month, and take steps to ease
around half the average overcrowding at its main
state worker’s salary, to prison, where 17 inmates
give their children early died in a three-day riot.
advantages in English and Public Security Minister
the arts. Khemraj Ramjattan said
Monday that prisons in ru-
Continued on page 27 ral western Guyana are
being upgraded to house
additional prisoners now
being held in the capital
the number of guards in
City confirmed the death state, where both Playa del pearing before a judge Fri- the country’s interior also
in Playa del Carmen of an Carmen and Cancun are day, he declined to make needs to be boosted from
American citizen it identi- located, Loveless faces a an official declaration in 54 to 100.
fied as Tamra Turpin, but criminal homicide investi- the case, and it was not The government recently
also would not give her gation in the death of the clear whether he had a lo- promised that it also would
hometown. It offered con- woman. It said the suspect cal attorney. improve food, speed up tri-
dolences and said it was was in a relationship with The St. Louis Post-Dispatch als and increase the num-
providing consular assis- the victim. The woman was reported that Turpin, 36, ber of telephone calls to
tance in the case. found dead Wednesday in was from Union, Missouri, families.
The embassy said it was a condo the couple had which is about 50 miles (80 The uprising occurred last
aware of reports that a U.S. rented, and a forensic ex- kilometers) west of St. Lou- Thursday when inmates set
citizen had been detained, amination concluded she is. The newspaper quoted mattresses on fire to protest
but referred further ques- died of asphyxia by stran- family members as saying prison conditions.
tions to Mexican authorities. gulation. she had gone to Mexico
According to the prosecu- The suspect was in custody on vacation with her boy-
tors’ office in Quintana Roo in Playa del Carmen. Ap- friend, a lawyer.