Jan Franco (left) was stabbed to death in Havana, aged just 19
The late leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, once famously called Cuba “the safest country in the world”.
In terms of the island’s low rates of violent crime and the scarcity of guns circulating among the civilian population, he may well have had a case for that title.
His critics, of course, responded that the low crime rate was achieved through intimidation, that Castro’s Cuba was – and still remains – a police state which brokered no criticism of its communist-led government, and which rode roughshod over its opponents’ human rights.
However it was done, few could deny that Cuba’s streets have traditionally been among the safest in the Americas.
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Yet it doesn’t feel to Samantha González like she lives in the world’s safest nation. Her younger brother, an aspiring music producer called Jan Franco, was murdered two months ago in an apparent gang-related dispute.
From the low-income Havana neighbourhood of Cayo Hueso and just 19 years old when he was killed, Jan Franco was stabbed twice in the chest outside a recording studio, caught in the middle of an argument when someone pulled a knife.
“I still can’t understand it,” says Samantha, struggling to express her grief as she scrolls through old photos of her brother on her phone.
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“He was the light of our family.”
Just 20 herself and mother of a one-year-old boy, Samantha says that Jan Franco was one of many young people to lose their lives in the streets in recent months:
“So many young people have been killed this year,” she explains.
“The violence is getting out of hand. They’re basically gangs, and they fall out with each other as gangs. That’s where it’s all coming from, these killings and deaths of young people.”
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They often solve their quarrels with knives and machetes, she says.
“Almost no-one settles an argument with their fists anymore. It’s all knives, machetes, even guns. Things I just don’t understand,” her voice trails off.
The situation has been worsened by a new drug in Cuba called “quimico” – a cheap chemical high with a cannabis base. Samantha says that it’s increasingly popular among Cuban youth in the parks and on the streets.
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Even Cuban authorities have admitted that drugs have become a problem
Previously, even suggesting that Cuba had a problem with opioids and street gangs – especially to a foreign journalist – could land you in difficulties.
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The Cuban authorities have always been fiercely protective of their island’s reputation as crime-free and quick to point out that the its streets are demonstrably safer than those of most cities in the US. Anything that highlights Cuba’s social problems is generally painted as biased criticism of their socialist system or as anti-revolutionary fabrications originating from Miami or Washington.
However, such has been the public perception of a worsening crime rate, a perception shared by many Cubans on social media, that the authorities have openly addressed it on state television.
In August, an edition of nightly talk programme Mesa Redonda – in which Communist Party officials are invited on air to deliver the party line – was titled Cuba Against Drugs.
During the broadcast, Colonel Juan Carlos Poey Guerra, the head of the interior ministry’s anti-drug unit, acknowledged the existence, production and distribution of the new drug, químico, and its impact on Cuba’s youth. He insisted the authorities were tackling the issue.
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In another edition, on crime, the government denied the situation was worsening, claiming only 9% of crimes in Cuba were violent and just 3% were murders.
However, critics question the transparency of the government’s statistics and say there’s no independent oversight of the bodies which produce them or the methodologies they use.
Supreme Court Vice-President Maricela Sosa Ravelo told the BBC people still trust Cuban authorities to maintain law and order
For its part, the government largely blames the old enemy, the United States, for both the existence of synthetic opioids in Cuba and for the decades-long US economic embargo on the island which they say is the reason some Cubans have resorted to crime.
In a rare interview, the vice-president of Cuba’s Supreme Court, Maricela Sosa Ravelo, told the BBC the problem was being blown out of proportion on social media. She refuted the suggestion that many crimes go unreported through a lack of public confidence in the police.
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“In my 30 years as a judge and magistrate, I don’t think that the Cuban people lack confidence in their authorities,” she claimed, speaking inside the ornate Supreme Court building.
“In Cuba, the police have a high success rate in solving crimes. We don’t see people taking the law into their own hands – which happens in other parts of Latin America and elsewhere – which suggests the population trusts in the Cuban justice system,” she argued.
Again, though, that wasn’t the experience of another recent victim of opportunistic theft on Havana’s dimly lit streets.
Shyra is a transgender activist who is used to speaking out about rights in Cuba. She says that her story, of being robbed by a man brandishing a knife one evening, is common.
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But it was the police response which disillusioned her the most.
“Just after I was attacked, I came across two motorcycle police in a side street,” Shyra recalls. Despite her obvious distress, the police ignored her pleas for help, she says.
“They openly told me: ‘We’re not here for stuff like that.’ It was such a shocking thing to hear because I told them where they could find the attacker, showed them which direction he was headed in, what he was wearing. But they just didn’t pay me any attention.”
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In the small apartment she shares with her mother, Samantha González watches videos of her younger brother’s wake. A crowd of Jan Franco’s friends appeared outside his home and began singing the songs which he’d produced before his fledgling music career was cut short.
As his coffin was loaded onto the hearse, the mourners fell silent, except for the soft murmur of weeping and prayer.
Buried with him, and every young victim of violence on the island, is another piece of Cuba’s claim to be the world’s safest nation.
Gisèle Pelicot waived anonymity to make public the trial of her former husband and the 50 men accused of joining him in raping her. The trial has revived the question of consent within French law and turned Ms. Pelicot into a feminist icon. Catherine Porter, an international correspondent for The New York Times based in France, explains.
Fast fashion firm Shein should be allowed to list on the London Stock Exchange despite controversy over its green credentials and taxation, the former boss of B&Q has said.
Sir Ian Cheshire, who was also the former chairman of Barclays, said it would be better for the company to list in the UK as London-listed firms have to meet certain environmental quality controls.
The alternative could be Shein listing on another exchange, which “might just let them do what they want”, he told the BBC’s Today programme.
On Tuesday, Mr Dunkerton said the fast fashion giant had an unfair advantage because import duties are not charged on the low-value parcels it sends direct to customers from overseas.
“We’re allowing somebody to come in and be a tax avoider, essentially,” the Superdry boss said.
Shein, which was founded in China but has relocated to Singapore, has been laying the groundwork for a potential sale of shares on the stock market, prompting closer scrutiny of its practices.
Sir Ian told the BBC on Wednesday that Shein being listed in London could mean the UK could influence the firm.
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He said the London Stock Exchange had a “good set of controls and quality requirements”, adding companies “can’t just show up and be accepted with open arms”.
“I would always vote for companies coming to London to be on the responsible side of the [green] transition and moving in the right direction,” Sir Ian said, adding that another stock exchange “might just let them do what they want”.
Sir Ian said there were “lots of difficult decisions and nuances” when assessing companies for their environmental impact, such as oil and gas firms.
In response to critics arguing that Shein had an unfair advantage on import charges, Sir Ian said that large numbers of UK clothing retailers bring in clothes from China, Bangladesh, and India, for example, and pay duties on large containers.
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Shipments worth less than £135 sent directly to UK shoppers do not currently face import duties, but firms bringing in larger consignments do.
He said if there was a “mismatch” where small packages do not pay import duty, the government should look at it.
He added the rules were set up like that “because it was too difficult to track every parcel back in the day”, but “now we’ve go the technology”.
“If you think that’s a problem, then the government can fix it,” he suggested.
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On Tuesday, Mr Dunkerton also said Shein was a “complete environmental disaster”.
“Personally, I would force them into paying import duty, VAT and possibly even an environmental tax,” he told the BBC.
Shein has previously said it complies fully with all its UK tax liabilities.
NESTLE is bringing back a Quality Street fan-favourite for the second Christmas in a row.
The coffee creme flavour chocolate was last seen in Quality Street tubs over 20 years ago, until the chocolatier reintroduced it last year.
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However, fans won’t find the iconic flavour in the usual Quality Street tubs
Nestle has confirmed that the sweet treat will be available once again this Christmas.
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However, fans won’t find the iconic flavour in the usual Quality Street tubs.
Instead, the coffee-flavour fondant wrapped in dark chocolate will join the 11 other Quality Street sweets at pick and mix stations across selected John Lewis stores in the UK.
The first pick and mix station opened today (September 25) at John Lewis’s flagship store on Oxford Street.
Other participating stores will begin rolling out the sections throughout October.
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However, if you don’t live near a John Lewis, you can still get your hands on Quality Street’s coffee creme chocolates.
They will also be available in a limited-edition cracker at Waitrose and John Lewis stores for £5.50.
Shoppers can also buy a bag of coffee creme chocolates to add to their current Quality Street tins for £4.50.
Emily Grimbley, brand manager for Quality Street, said: “It’s a pleasure to share the news that coffee creme will be returning for Christmas 2024.
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“This is an absolute fan favourite, and we are delighted to have it on shop shelves for Quality Street fans nationwide.
Shocking Logo Secrets Revealed!
“We know how passionately Quality Street fans feel about their favourite sweets, so the pick and mix stations at John Lewis are people’s chance to fill up their own bespoke mix with just the sweets that they and their friends and family love.”
Fans of the discontinued chocolate will be delighted to hear it is making a comeback.
LOCATIONS OF JOHN LEWIS’ PICK & MIX
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SHOPPERS can create their own bespoke collection of Quality Street favourites to take home, or gift, this Christmas at the pick and mix stations.
These will be located at the following John Lewis stores from September 25:
Bluewater
Cambridge
Cardiff
Cheadle
Cribbs Causeway
Edinburgh
Glasgow
High Wycombe
Kingston
Leeds
Leicester
Liverpool
Milton Keynes
Newcastle
Nottingham
Oxford Street
Peter Jones (Sloane Square)
Solihull
Southampton
Trafford
NEW TINS FOR 2024
Nestlé, has launched a new version of its 813g Quality Street tin for sweet-toothed customers this winter.
The £12 tub features all the usual classic flavours and plays on Quality Street’s Halifax heritage – where it was first manufactured in 1936 and still is.
The 813g Quality Street tin is available now across a host of retailers nationwide including Asda, Co-op, Morrisons, B&M and Sainsbury’s.
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This is the full list of chains you can get it from:
But despite the shiny nature of the new tub, which contains 471 calories per 100 grams, plenty have been left saying one thing in particular – how they want the old wrappers back.
Larry Ellison owns 42% of Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), a $465 billion technology giant that is building some of the most powerful data centers for artificial intelligence (AI) development.
Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) supplies Oracle and most other tech companies with data center chips called graphics processing units (GPUs). Nvidia has experienced an eye-popping surge in its revenue over the past year, and GPU demand continues to outstrip supply. However, some investors have begun to question how much longer Oracle and its peers can throw billions of dollars at the chip giant to fuel their AI aspirations.
Worries that the AI train may be starting to lose steam are a key reason Nvidia stock is trading down 14.5% from its all-time high. But the market may have missed comments this month from Ellison at Oracle’s financial analyst meeting that suggest more fantastic news for Nvidia’s investors.
Oracle is nowhere close to meeting its AI infrastructure goals
Oracle’s data centers are unique because they are automated. Each one is operationally identical regardless of its size, and since they don’t require human workers, it allows the company to build them quickly. Plus, Oracle’s RDMA (random direct memory access) GPU networking technology allows data to flow from one point to another more quickly than traditional Ethernet networks.
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Since most AI developers pay for computing capacity by the minute, Oracle’s data centers can deliver considerable cost savings compared to competing infrastructure. That’s why demand is soaring from leading AI start-ups like OpenAI, Cohere, and xAI. Oracle had 85 data centers up and running with 77 more under construction as of its fiscal 2025 first quarter (ended Aug. 31), but Ellison thinks it could operate as many as 2,000 in the long term.
Next year, Oracle intends to offer a cluster of 131,072 GPUs, which is a big step up from its largest clusters now, at around 32,000 GPUs. But there’s another difference: The new cluster will use Nvidia’s latest Blackwell chips, which can perform AI inference at 30 times the pace of its flagship H100, which Oracle currently uses. Theoretically, it’s going to allow developers to build the largest AI models in history.
That’s going to benefit Nvidia significantly. It generated $26.3 billion in data center revenue during its fiscal 2025 second quarter (ended July 28) primarily from GPU sales, which was a 154% increase from the year-ago period. That growth rate slowed compared to previous quarters because the numbers have become so large, but Nvidia’s customers are showing no signs of pulling back.
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In fact, Oracle spent $6.9 billion on data center infrastructure in fiscal 2024, and it plans to double that figure in fiscal 2025. But it gets better.
Ellison’s latest comments are great news for Nvidia
During the analyst meeting, Ellison told the audience about a dinner he arranged with Tesla CEO (and xAI founder) Elon Musk and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at Nobu in Palo Alto. He recalled himself and Musk begging Huang for more GPUs:
Please take our money … take more of it. You’re not taking enough. … We need you to take more of our money. Please.
— Ellison’s and Musk’s comments to Jensen Huang over dinner, according to Ellison.
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) generated $2.2 billion in revenue during Q1 (primarily from renting data center capacity to customers), which was a 46% increase from the year-ago period. However, Oracle ended the quarter with a record $99 billion in remaining performance obligations (RPOs), a whopping 53% jump. The company said it signed 42 new deals for GPU capacity worth $3 billion during Q1, which contributed to the backlog.
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Oracle can’t serve all of those AI developers — or convert its RPO into revenue — until it brings more data centers online, hence Ellison begging Huang for more GPUs.
Tesla is in a similar position. It’s battling for supremacy in the autonomous self-driving software industry, and it’s trying to bring a cluster of 50,000 GPUs online by the end of this year to further train its AI models. Tesla will spend $10 billion on that infrastructure, but it’s going to need more capacity over time.
Image source: Nvidia.
Now might be a great time to buy Nvidia stock
Oracle and Tesla aren’t the only companies spending big on data centers. Microsoft spent $55.7 billion on capital expenditures (capex) mostly relating to AI infrastructure during its fiscal 2024 year (ended June 30), and it plans to spend even more in fiscal 2025. Similarly, Amazon‘s capex spending is on track to top $60 billion this calendar year.
Based on Nvidia’s trailing-12-month earnings per share of $2.20, its stock trades at a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 52.7. That’s expensive compared to the 30.9 P/E ratio of the Nasdaq-100 technology index, which hosts many of Nvidia’s big-tech peers.
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However, Nvidia’s fiscal 2026 will begin at the end of January 2025, and Wall Street expects the company to deliver $4.02 in earnings per share for the year. That places its stock at a forward P/E ratio of just 28.8. In other words, investors who are willing to hold Nvidia stock for at least the next year and a half could be scooping up a bargain at its current price — assuming Wall Street’s forecast proves accurate.
A slowdown in Nvidia’s business will eventually come because the sheer magnitude of current AI spending will be very difficult to maintain over the long term. Plus, competition is slowly coming online in the GPU space, which could erode some of the company’s market share in the next few years.
However, based on the facts at hand today, Nvidia stock is likely a good buy at the current price. The earmarked AI spending from some of its largest customers suggests a slowdown isn’t on the immediate horizon.
Should you invest $1,000 in Nvidia right now?
Before you buy stock in Nvidia, consider this:
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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
UniCredit will not ask for a board seat at Commerzbank, according to its chief executive Andrea Orcel, despite potentially becoming the German bank’s largest shareholder with a 21 per cent stake.
Orcel said on Wednesday that “all scenarios are open” for its stake in Commerzbank, including a takeover, but for now UniCredit should be viewed as an investor.
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“I usually do not believe in investors having board seats,” he said at a Bank of America conference on Wednesday. “And in this specific case, I think it’s inappropriate for us to have a board seat because we are also a competitor.”
UniCredit has built a large stake in Commerzbank in recent weeks, in a move that has the potential to kick-start consolidation across Europe’s fragmented banking sector.
The Italian bank announced on Monday that it had exposure to Commerzbank that could convert to 21 per cent of its equity if it received permission from the European Central Bank. It has, however, met fierce opposition from the German government and Commerzbank’s board.
This week, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz criticised UniCredit’s approach, saying “unfriendly attacks [and] hostile takeovers are not a good thing for banks and that is why the German government has clearly positioned itself”.
People familiar with Orlopp’s thinking told the Financial Times she was not supportive of a tie-up with UniCredit and was expected to fight any attempted takeover.
Orcel said that UniCredit had three options on Commerzbank: continue as a significant investor, merge it with UniCredit’s German subsidiary HypoVereinsbank, or sell its stake and return the capital to shareholders.
In a separate announcement on Wednesday, UniCredit said it had agreed to take full control of two insurance joint ventures it has with Allianz and CNP Assurances.
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The partnerships with Allianz and CNP date back to 1996 and 2017, respectively. UniCredit is attempting to close the transactions next year.
The bank said this change would allow it to “accelerate growth in a commission-focused sector with attractive profitability where UniCredit is already one of the leading players”.
Good morning and welcome to your Morning Briefing for Wednesday 25 September 2024. To get this in your inbox every morning click here.
Women favour savings
Almost half of women (46%) are deciding to hold their long-term savings in a savings account instead of “more tax-friendly options” such as a pension or Isa.
This is according to research by Scottish Friendly and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr).
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The research also found 33% of men opt to use pensions, compared to 24% of women.
Getting younger people involved
Becoming a financial adviser was not a lifelong career wish for me, says Samuel Allen.
Indeed — unlike those who dreamed of growing up to be a doctor or a sports star — few of us, I expect, aspired to be a financial planner.
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Perhaps this is to be expected, given the relative profile of advisers. But this observation got me thinking about the visibility of our profession to young people, from the perspective of both the next generation of recruits as well as prospective clients.
In Conversation With Rory Albon
In this In Conversation With… episode, Kimberley Dondo chats with Rory Albon, founder of Albon Financial Planning.
Rory shares his journey to launch his firm and his approach to investment optimisation, retirement planning, and financial well-being.
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He offers insights into balancing saving and investing, managing tax efficiency, and safeguarding assets through tailored insurance solutions.
Tune in now:
Quote Of The Day
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It would be highly risky to legislate for particular investment allocations.
– Steven Cameron, pensions director at Aegon, comments on the government’s pension investment review, which closes today (25 September)
Stat Attack
New research from GraniteShares, a global issuer of Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) with more than $7bn under management, found IFAs and wealth managers are increasingly positive on the UK stock market.
85%
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Predict the FTSE 100 will close higher this year compared with last year
96%
Believe clients will increase their trading in UK shares in the year ahead
67%
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Say clients will dramatically increase their level of trading
29%
Say they will slightly increase their level of trading
66%
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Believe clients will dramatically increase trading in European shares
28%
Believe they will slightly increase trading
23%
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Expect a dramatic increase in levels of trading of US stocks
58%
Predict a slight increase
12%
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Expect a dramatic increase in trading of Asian stocks
65%
Expect a slight increase
Source: GraniteShares
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In Other News
Benefits Guru has announced its tenth annual Workplace Pensions and Auto Enrolment ratings following Pension Awareness week.
This year’s ratings have a record number of overall gold awards, which demonstrates the industry’s strength within the pensions market.
Benefits Guru’s analysis has over 12,000 data points, and each year it includes ten categories of special interest or relevance.
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The annual ratings are designed to assist advisers and employers in their decision-making process and highlight which providers perform strongest in different areas of their pension propositions.
Nine providers have been awarded overall gold awards across 24 product offerings. This includes a new entry for Aegon’s TargetPlan GPP offering.
Standard Life’s Group Flexible Retirement Plan was the only offering to achieve a clean sweep of overall gold awards, and underlying gold awards in all sub-categories across both the Workplace Pension and Auto-Enrolment Ratings.
In addition to benchmarking against existing criteria, such as member app & portals and auto-enrolment functionality, this year saw the introduction of additional benchmarking criteria.
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Cushon, Nest and The People’s Partnership asked to not be included in this year’s rating.
PwC UK partner pay falls to £862,000 as growth slows (Financial Times)
Starmer signals Budget welfare squeeze to tackle ‘worklessness’ (Bloomberg)
US accuses Visa of monopolizing debit card swipes (Reuters)
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Did You See?
It may be surprising, but it appears more people have considered becoming a senior paraplanner than a financial adviser, says Amanda Newman Smith.
Research from recruitment platform Indeed, with the St. James’s Place (SJP) Financial Adviser Academy, found just 4% of respondents had considered becoming a financial adviser, while 9% had considered becoming a senior paraplanner.
The research looked at attitudes towards careers among over 4,000 UK workers, highlighting a good salary, work/life balance and the opportunity to work from home as factors that create the ideal role.
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This data was combined with job searches to produce a list of 10 of the best careers people have never considered. Senior paraplanner was second on the list, while financial adviser was fourth.
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