Cuba

Cuba suspended plans for a Communist Party congress and lowered its 2009 economic growth projection to 1.7% as the island's economy struggles through a "very serious" crisis. In a closed-door meeting of the Communist Party Central Committee, officials agreed to postpone indefinitely the first congress since 1997, which had been scheduled for the second half of the year. The gathering was to chart Cuba's political future after President Raul Castro and his brother Fidel are gone. Cuba lowered its 2009 growth estimate from 2.5% to 1.7%.

Cuba established a new office of government finances to keep better tabs on the state's spending patterns as it struggles to keep its economy afloat. Parliament approved a new comptroller's office to replace the Ministry of Auditing and Control; its director will be chosen by lawmakers. Taking the scrutiny of Cuba's economic books away from the presidency reflects the businesslike, military mentality of Raul Castro, an army general who has demanded better accountability from all leaders since succeeding his elder brother Fidel Castro as president last year.

The United States and Cuba will start talks this month on resuming direct mail service for the first time since it was suspended in 1963, U.S. officials said. The negotiations, set for Sept. 17, will follow the resumption in July of talks on the legal immigration of Cubans to the U.S., according to the officials. Last spring, President Obama eased travel and financial restrictions on Americans with family members in Cuba.

A U.S.-based journalist watchdog group called for an end to what it described as "systemic harassment" of bloggers and independent journalists in Cuba, and urged the international community to step up its lobbying on the bloggers' behalf. The Committee to Protect Journalists said a surprisingly vibrant blogging community has sprung up on the communist-run island despite government intimidation, official barriers and the high cost of going online. Cuba has the lowest rate of Internet use in the Americas.

Cuba has ordered all state enterprises to adopt "extreme measures" to cut energy use through the end of the year in hopes of avoiding the dreaded blackouts that plagued the country after the 1991 collapse of its then-leading ally, the Soviet Union. Government officials have been warned that the island is facing a "critical" energy shortage that requires the closing of nonessential factories and workshops and the shutting down of air conditioners and refrigerators not needed to preserve food and medicine, according to Reuters.

Cuba: An article in Section A on May 8, 2008, about Cuba's dual currency system said the nation's convertible peso had been introduced four years earlier. The currency began circulating in 1994, mainly for government purposes, and was issued for wider distribution years later. The article also reported that a Cuban identified as Rosa watched the country's three state-run television channels. Cuba has five state-run television channels.

Cuba condemned one of the communist island's jailed dissidents, Oscar Elias Biscet, to 25 additional years in prison, as the last sentences were handed out for 75 dissidents swept up in a recent political crackdown. Most were convicted of treason related to collaborating with the United States. Biscet, who has engaged in civil disobedience in the past, was already in jail on lesser charges, for opposing President Fidel Castro's government when authorities began rounding up dissidents last month.

An exhausted Australian distance swimmer, battered by a stormy night inside a shark cage, ended her attempt to swim unassisted from Havana to Key West, Fla., when she reached U.S. territorial waters Sunday. Susie Maroney, who was trying to become the first person to swim solo across the Florida Straits, was about 10 miles off the Florida Keys when she was pulled from the water, dehydrated and disoriented after reaching her revised goal of U.S. waters.

Fighting choppy seas, Susie Maroney entered the water off Havana on Saturday in her bid to become the first person to swim 110 miles across the Florida Straits to Key West. By nighttime, she was more than a third of the way there. "She looks really good, and she's feeling really good," said Connie Pignatiello, president of the company that owns a boat traveling beside the swimmer. "When she was out of the [shark] cage this afternoon, a 40-foot whale swam right by, and [she] was pretty excited."