Associated Press reports from Havana without explanation: two Spanish priests have been killed near Havana in the past five months. The second was found this morning in his room at the parish where he worked in the coastal town of Regla. No mention of either of the murders was made by state media, which generally […]
Today the Solomon Islands’ Solomon Star proudly announced that the country plans to send 25 more medical students to Cuba for training next year. Cuba has already given free scholarships to 50 students from the Solomon Islands and sent its own doctors to the Pacific archipelago in an effort to help address the latter country’s shortage […]
Picture of the week A man holding a skeleton on fire performs during the annual Caribbean festival in Santiago de Cuba. (AP Photo / July 9, 2009) Brazil to help finance Cuba port project From Reuters: While visiting Havana this week, the Brazilian Industry and Trade Minister announced that his government had already approved $110 […]
The cartoon above, from Cuba’s Foreign Ministry, shows a Cuban citizen hoping to get a visa and leave for Miami, only to be told by a U.S. diplomat, “There are no visas, but we do have rafts.” The cartoon and a great article from Tuesday by Nick Miroff reminded me that we should take a […]
It has been said that to wait is a Cuban condition: waiting for the fruits of the revolution to manifest themselves; waiting to reunite with family; and waiting, as an exile, to someday return to the island. One in six Cubans today lives outside of the island as a member of the diaspora—the migrant community that […]
We now link from this blog directly to a number of useful sources on Cuba, including blogs, university projects, newspapers and think tanks. See the “Pages” and “Links” sections in the right-hand margin. Please note that these lists are not intended to be exhaustive; they provide grist for the mill. Relevant further suggestions welcome.
The United States is a mere 90 miles north of Cuba—a distance considered so short that it has been cited for over a century as the reason for the two nations’ intertwined destinies. Jamaica, as fate would have it, lies just 90 miles south of Cuba. And surprisingly enough, Jamaica’s trade relationship with Cuba is […]
A Miami Herald article from last year (January 7, 2008) reported that Raúl Castro had declared a “war” on inefficient farming: food prices were excruciatingly high for the low incomes of Cuban citizens, Cuba spent $1.6 billion on annual food imports (importing 60 to 70 percent of the food consumed on the island), and still […]
Every Western Hemisphere leader had a response to this week’s crisis in Honduras (which I describe here). Incredibly, from Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez to Felipe Calderón and Barack Obama, every one of them fell on the same side, something that in a long history of hemispheric relations has happened very seldomly, if ever. Of course, […]
Dissidents Win Award, but Not Obama Audience Washington Post and other outlets reported that President Obama did not accept an invitation to meet with Bertha Antúnez, the representative for this year’s Democracy Award winners—a group of five Cuban dissidents, three of whom are still in jail in Cuba. Obama did send a note of support […]
More from the BBC on the Cuban economy and the continuing austerity measures, which are apparently successfully cutting energy use without blackouts: _________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________ Meanwhile, Cuban media announced this week that a state decree will allow citizens to hold multiple government jobs for the first time. This is part of the labor overhaul that aims […]
Heads-up: non-stop flights from Los Angeles Airport (LAX) to Havana opened today. Tickets are available through Cuba Travel Services Inc. for a healthy $889 per adult, plus tax. These flights were available briefly between 2000 and 2004, but were suspended indefinitely when the Bush administration tightened regulations on travel to Cuba that year. “You’ve waited […]
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