Mariela Castro, the daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro, will be in California this week. Traveling on a U.S. visa to attend a conference of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), she appears to have made it through the same State Department review that denied visas to eleven seemingly less contentious scholars hoping to join the […]
The award-winning Cuban blogger and writer Yoani Sanchez published an op-ed today in The New York Times called “The Dream of Leaving Cuba,” in which she describes the inability of many Cubans to gain the necessary permission to travel abroad. She is one of those Cubans. In fact, she has been denied the “white card” (carta […]
On a visit to the Western Hemisphere last week from Rome, Pope Benedict XVI stopped first in Mexico, a country whose population is 80-85% Catholic. It is the most Catholic, in this sense, of the world’s Spanish-speaking countries. His second visit was to Cuba, a country that has been traditionally Catholic, but was officially an […]
It’s a long way off, sure. But Jimmy Carter seems to be the guy for it. The former US President began a visit to Cuba yesterday at the invitation of the Cuban government. Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, in fact, was there to meet Carter on the runway when his plane arrived. Carter is the only […]
Already there has been lots of speculation on why Fidel Castro chose this moment specifically to give himself a bigger presence in Cuban life than he has had for the last several years, during which he had taken on the role of a nearly invisible but omnipresent source of critical opinion through his written commentaries. […]
Cuba moves political prisoners ‘closer to home’ (AFP) As projected by officials of the Catholic Church last week, today the Cuban government began moving dissident prisoners to facilities closer to their homes in a gesture of humanitarian regard for the connection of families. The Archbishop of Havana announced that six prisoners have been transferred thus […]
Over the past year, the Obama administration has repeatedly answered criticism of its lack of progress on Cuba with the excuse that Havana has not responded in kind to any overtures Washington has tried to make (it has the distinct feel of the classic “he started it” argument). In fact, recent statements by top officials […]
Cuban voters have so far held over 21,800 assemblies to nominate candidates to the People’s Power Municipal Assemblies (local governments) for 2010 elections. The elections will be held tomorrow, and on May 2 where there will be a second round in the constituencies if none of those nominated wins over 50 percent of valid votes. […]
(Photo: Inside Havana) Cuba expands its limited free-market experiment (Los Angeles Times) Cuban barbershops and beauty salons are now joining a small but growing group of free-market entrepreneurs on the island: the government is allowing owners of these businesses to set their own prices for services rendered—according to the market, of course—and pocket their revenues, […]
The “vicious circle” is, as Dalia Acosta and others have written, a pattern that has been repeated over and over during the history of Cuba in the last decades: the seemingly inevitable cycle of relaxing and tightening among the governments of Cuba, the United States and the European Union. The reasons for the vicious circle are […]
The U.S. Treasury Department has made a rule change that it says will help people in Iran, Sudan, and Cuba communicate with the outside world. An amendment made this week will make it possible for American companies to acquire general licenses for exportation of personal Internet-based communications services, such as instant messaging and chat, to these […]
Excerpts from a European Parliament resolution passed on March 10, 2010: The European Parliament… strongly condemns the avoidable and cruel death of the dissident political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo after a hunger strike of 85 days, and expresses its solidarity and sympathy with his family; Condemns the pre-emptive detention of activists and the government’s attempt […]
Cuba offers payback plan for frozen bank accounts (Reuters) After freezing hundreds of millions of foreign businesses’ dollars in Cuban banks over the last 1-2 years, Havana is now offering a 2 percent interest rate and a five-year plan to pay these funds out to the companies that are owed. One loophole-sounding proviso: the payments […]
The death last week of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, the hunger-striking Cuban prisoner, has proven to be a international issue of grand proportions, and Havana is stubbornly pushing back against the waves of pressure from friends and foes abroad. On Wednesday, authorities arrested or detained at least 30 recognized dissidents in order to prevent them from […]
This was a week of international attention for Cuba. On Tuesday, Orlando Zapata Tamayo—a 42-year-old plumber imprisoned in 2003 who was serving a 36-year sentence for disobedience of the government, among other charges—died in prison after an 85-day hunger strike in protest of inhumane prison conditions. His death drew condemnation from the United States, Canada, Spain […]