From the Associated Press: “The U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday overwhelmingly condemned the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba, an annual ritual that highlights global opposition to the policy. “This year’s vote was 187-3 in opposition to the embargo, up from 185-3 last year, with only Israel and the tiny Pacific island nation of Palau supporting […]
Cuba’s official statement on the embargo, available on the “Cuba vs. Bloqueo 2009” website (here), details what it considers the direct effects of the embargo on the Cuban population. The report argues: The economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States on Cuba for the last 50 years is the most serious kind […]
The Environmental Defense Fund is sending U.S. scientists to Cuba today to discuss ways to eliminate overfishing, protect coral reefs, conserve coastal areas, and tap potential ocean energy. Last month, EDF secured Treasury licenses for Cuban scientists to come to Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, and this is a similar exchange—in the opposite direction. Ocean waters […]
FPA Latin America blog is proud to bring you Sean Murphy from the FPA Global Film Review Blog who has posted two reviews recently about Latin American themed movies from around the world. The first film is called Romero (1989) and is a film about the real Monsignor Romero who was one of the top […]
Today, a look back at the still early U.S. relationship with post-revolutionary, Soviet-aligned Cuba. The piece from Politico below details the beginning of the Cuban missile crisis, whose anniversary is today. The main enemy in this story is the Soviet Union, but the intertwining of that country so closely with the regime in Cuba made geographical […]
PREMIERE: Adrian Baschuk’s “Cuba: Waiting for a Revolution” premiered tonight at 10/9c on Current TV. Baschuk, a Vanguard correspondent, reportedly visited Cuba to see “how hard life really is there and investigate whether or not there exists any possibility of regime change.” The thesis: frustration with persistent difficulty and worsening economic prospects in Cuba might […]
Business between Cuba and four of its top five trading partners has declined sharply in 2009 in a painful reflection of the island’s economic crisis. China, Spain, Canada and the United States all reported 20 to 50 percent declines in exports to and (minus the USA) imports from Cuba. Percent change in Imports from/Exports to […]
As noted last week, telecommunications companies from the United States were in limbo on the question of doing business in Cuba: the Obama administration had given them the green light, but Cuba remained silent. Only when permission was given by both sides would they be able to forge ahead with ambitious plans for laying cables […]
For a country where only 2.1% of the population has regular access to global internet, Cuba has a surprisingly vibrant blogosphere (see the Committee to Protect Journalists’ special report here). And Cuban bloggers have recently been testing the bounds of free expression and tolerated opinions in the nation, writing vivid accounts of everyday life and […]
The most intriguing headlines of the day: Divided Cuban community meets on “Planet Facebook” Reuters reports that a number of Cubans on the island have been able to open accounts on Facebook, the social networking site with 300 million subscribers globally. For Cubans, the site acts as a forum with family and friends that have […]
Lazaro Barredo Medina, editor of the Communist Party’s Granma newspaper, wrote a full-page (signed) opinion piece on Friday telling Cubans to start preparing for life without ration books. He argued that the “libreta” had outlived its usefulness (it’s been around since 1962), and is now an inefficient expenditure by the state as Cuba tries to […]
A small Miami-based telecommunications company—TeleCuba Communications Inc.—announced today that the U.S. government (i.e. the Treasury Department) has given it permission to lay the first optical communications fiber from the United States to Cuba. They are the first so far: President Obama eased long-standing restrictions on telecommunication links to Cuba in April, but other companies have […]
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