Cuba+General

Cuba General · Caribbean, island between the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, 150 km south of Key West, Florida. slightly smaller than Pennsylvania. · Population: 11,423,952 (July 2008 est.) · Natural resources: cobalt, nickel, iron ore, chromium, copper, salt, timber, silica, petroleum, arable land. · Death rate: 7.19 deaths/1,000 population (2008 est.), Birth rate: 1.27 births/1,000 population (2008 est.) · illicit emigration is a continuing problem; Cubans attempt to depart the island and enter the US using homemade rafts, alien smugglers, direct flights, or falsified visas; Cubans also use non-maritime routes to enter the US including direct flights to Miami and over-land via the southwest border · Legal system: based on Spanish civil law and influenced by American legal concepts, with large elements of Communist legal theory; has not accepted compulsory ICJ jurisdiction · Suffrage: 16 years of age; universal · **Government: Executive branch** · //chief of state:// President of the Council of State and President of the Council of Ministers Gen. Raul CASTRO Ruz (president since 24 February 2008); First Vice President of the Council of State and First Vice President of the Council of Ministers Gen. Jose Ramon MACHADO Ventura (since 24 February 2008); · The president is both the chief of state and head of government. · Elections//:// president and vice presidents elected by the National Assembly for a term of five years; election last held 24 February 2008 (next to be held in 2013) · E//lection results:// Gen. Raul CASTRO Ruz elected president; percent of legislative vote - 100%; Gen. Jose Ramon MACHADO Ventura elected vice president; percent of legislative vote - 100% · **Legislative branch:** unicameral National Assembly of People's Power or Asemblea Nacional del Poder Popular (number of seats in the National Assembly is based on population; 614 seats; members elected directly from slates approved by special candidacy commissions to serve five-year terms) · Cuba's Communist Party or PCC is the only legal party, and officially sanctioned candidates run unopposed. · Cuba has no diplomatic representation in the U.S. The U.S. has no representation in Cuba. · **Judicial branch**: People's Supreme Court or Tribunal Supremo Popular (president, vice president, and other judges are elected by the National Assembly) · **Economy:** · The government continues to balance the need for economic loosening against a desire for firm political control. · Since late 2000, Venezuela has been providing oil on preferential terms, and it currently supplies about 100,000 barrels per day of petroleum products. Cuba has been paying for the oil, in part, with the services of Cuban personnel in Venezuela, including some 30,000 medical professionals. · GDP: $144.6 billion (2008 est.), GDP - per capita: $12,700 · Labor force: //agriculture:// 20%,//industry:// 19.4%,//services:// 60.6% Unemployment rate: 1.8% · Industries: sugar, petroleum, tobacco, construction, nickel, steel, cement, agricultural machinery, pharmaceuticals. · Oil production: 61,300 bbl/day, Consumption: 203,500 bbl/day, None exported, Imported: 123,200 bbl/day · Exports: $3.497 billion, Partners: China 27.5%, Canada 26.9%, Netherlands 11.1%, Spain 4.7%(sugar, nickel, tobacco, fish, medical products, citrus, coffee) · Imports: $11.74 billion, Partners: Venezuela 29.6%, China 13.4%, Spain 10.4%, Canada 6%, US 5.1%(petroleum, food, machinery and equipment, chemicals) · External debt: $18.25 billion (convertible currency); another $15-20 billion owed to Russia (31 December 2008 est.) · Public debt: 32.8% of GDP · Cuba has two currencies in circulation: the Cuban peso (CUP) and the convertible peso (CUC); · Internet users: 1.31 million, private citizens are prohibited from buying computers or accessing the Internet without special authorization; foreigners may access the Internet in large hotels but are subject to firewalls. · Military Branches: Revolutionary Armed Forces, Revolutionary Army, Revolutionary Navy, Revolutionary Air and Air Defense Force, Youth Labor Army · 17-28 years of age for compulsory military service; 2-year service obligation; both sexes subject to military service. · the collapse of the Soviet Union deprived the Cuban Army of its major economic and logistic support, and had a significant impact on equipment numbers and serviceability; the lack of replacement parts for its existing equipment and the current severe shortage of fuel have increasingly affected operational capabilities. · US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay is leased to US and only mutual agreement or US abandonment of the facility can terminate the lease. · Within Barack Obama’s first day of office he declared the closure of Guantanamo Bay (within a year), a review of US detention policies (including the closure of CIA "black sites"), a review of US "transfer" policies (the euphemism for extraordinary rendition), and an evaluation of what position the administration should take in the case of Ali al-Marri, the only person held in extrajudicial detention on US soil for more than seven years in the "war on terror". · country for women and children trafficked within the country for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation and possibly for forced labor; the country is a destination for sex tourism, including child sex tourism, which is a problem in many areas of the country; · Cuba does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so; exact information about trafficking in Cuba is difficult to obtain because the government does not acknowledge or condemn human trafficking as a problem in Cuba.