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		</div><p><a href="http://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/hygiene-items-cut-from-ration-books.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full" title="A box of toothpaste at a government store in Havana, Cuba (AP)" src="http://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/min-hygiene-items-cut-from-ration-books.jpg" alt="A box of toothpaste at a government store in Havana, Cuba (AP)"/></a></p>
<p>The cost of cleanliness will rise in Cuba after its cash-strapped, communist government announced that soap, toothpaste and detergent will be slashed from monthly ration books.</p>
<p>Cuba&#8217;s official Gazette said that effective from January 1, &#8220;personal cleanliness products&#8221; will join a growing list of products cut from the ration books that islanders have come to rely on for a small but steady supply of basic goods.</p>
<p>Cubans currently pay about 25 centavos, or about a penny, for a rationed bar of soap. They will soon have to fork out four to six pesos, according to the gazette.</p>
<p>The list of products available with the ration books has shrunk in recent months as the government trimmed items deemed non-essential. Cigarettes, salt, peas and potatoes have been cut. Sugar, beans, meat, rice, eggs, bread and other products remain.</p>
<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s already hard to make ends meet as it is and this is only going to make it harder,&#8221; said Elias Conde, a 38-year-old father of two who works in a cafeteria. &#8220;But we&#8217;re used to them taking things away, today it&#8217;s soap and tomorrow it&#8217;ll be something else.&#8221;</p>
<p>The ration programme began in 1962 as a temporary way to guarantee food staples for all Cubans in the face of the United States&#8217; then-new embargo.</p>
<p>Designed to tide people over, it has long provided a measure of food security in a country where average wages hover around 20 US dollars (£12.90) a month.</p>
<p>Authorities said the cuts are necessary to free the state &#8211; which pays for or heavily subsidises education, health care, housing and transport &#8211; from a crushing economic burden.</p>
<p>Other, more drastic cost-cutting measures have also been announced, including the lay-offs of about half a million state workers.</p>
<p>Critics contend that by slashing the ration books, the state is breaking with what has been a sacred covenant of the island&#8217;s 1959 revolution: to provide all Cubans with at least the basics.</p>
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