Weekly Report - 29 November 2007 (ISSN 1741-7422)

CUBA | Unemployment. Raúl Castro, the acting president, has shown a propensity for criticising areas of the economy that are failing. He even urged the official media to take the government to task. He might have been taken aback, however, by the readiness of Juventud Rebelde, the paper of the Communist youth organisation (UJC), to spearhead this newfound self-criticism in recent months. This week it took issue with the government unemployment figures and its claim that most young people were either working or in school. "The figures never reflect reality," it argued, concluding that those involved in evaluating youth work and study needed to confront the reality rather than perpetuating false figures. It cited a host of examples to prove its point, comparing official statistics that 16,000 youths in eastern Santiago were unemployed in 2006, for instance, with a survey by social workers putting the figure at 29,000. The report also suggested that the government's trumpeted plans to tackle drug abuse by funding young people to attend community education programmes had not been effective.

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