Cuba Journal

Conference of Cuba’s Communist Party to Begin on Saturday

2012-01-27T12:31:00.005-05:00

Jan 27th, 2012

The 1st National Conference of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) will begin on Saturday to assess the work of that political organization objectively and critically, Granma newspaper reported on Friday.

According to the source, the conference will respond to the agreements reached at the 6th PCC Congress. Its opening date was chose to celebrate the 159th birthday of National Hero Jose Marti.

The draft conference agenda, whose initial version was published in October 2011, was discussed in over 65,000 meetings of PCC and Young Communist League (UJC) groups, Granma newspaper notes.

During the analysis of the draft agenda, over one million opinions were collected contributing to the modification of 78 of the 96 objectives of the document and the inclusion of five others.

The conference, expected to end next Sunday at Havana’s Conference Center, will continue discussing the mentioned agenda.

Source: Cubadebate

José Martí en Ybor City

2012-01-27T12:11:00.005-05:00

José Martí and cigar workers on the steps of
V.V. Ybor's factory, 1893
Source: Wikepedia
This Saturday, Cubans throughout the world will remember and honor the 159th anniversary of José Martí's birth.

Ron Paul calls for diplomatic relations with Cuba

2012-01-27T09:20:00.002-05:00

Los Angeles Times

By Alana Semuels

January 26, 2012, 7:19 p.m.

Ron Paul took a risky position in Florida in Thursday’s debate, calling for communication and diplomatic relations with Cuba, saying that people's positions have changed dramatically over the last few years.

Paul said that Cuba isn’t going to invade the U.S. any time soon, and that Americans weren’t looking under their beds anymore, worried. Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich followed by pledging to continue the economic embargo on Cuba and to take any action short of military invasion to upend the government of Raul Castro.

Paul’s position is a potentially dangerous one in Florida, a state with a influential voting bloc of conservative Republicans from Cuba who have long favored aggressive policies toward Havana.

But a study of Cuban American voters in Florida suggests that Paul might be right, and that voters' opinions about Cuba are changing. Support for tightening the embargo dropped by roughly half between 2004 and 2008, according to a study by Benjamin Bishin, a UC Riverside professor.

Cuban Americans’ support for easing the embargo increased to 43.4%, from 26.7% in 2004, and support for easing travel restrictions increased to 47.4% from 32.9%, Bishin found. “Cuban Americans’ attitudes on issues of U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba seems to be in transition,” he wrote in a 2009 study.

The Star Ledger: Ron Paul was right on Cuba; Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum were dumb and dumber

Fidel Castro publishes new article on US imperial appetites and a recent media campaign against Cuba

2012-01-26T10:28:00.003-05:00

Radio Cadena Agramonte

Havana, Jan 26.- Cuban Revolution leader Fidel Castro said that Cuba won’t be that additional strength with which the US empire extends its reign over the peoples of America.

In his most recent article entitled “The fruit which did not fall”, Fidel Castro said the Cuban Revolution has endured over half a century, in spite of the imperial appetites of the power that lurks just a few miles off Cuban shores.

Fidel also summarized the endless struggle of the Cuban people against the continued aggressions of the US government and the anti-Cuban terrorist organizations based in the state of Florida.

He also mentioned the recent media campaign orchestrated against Cuba, to stain the name of the Cuban government and its institution, in connection with the death of a common prisoner due to multiple organ failure.

Wilmar Villar, a prisoner who was serving a four year sentence for disorderly conduct, assault and contempt of authorities, received all kinds of medical care before dying last Thursday of multiple organ failure.

In this respect Fidel urged the Spanish government to hold the United States accountable for what happens in its prisons, the ruthless treatment of millions of prisoners, the ominous practice of the electric chair and the brutal crackdown of anti-corporatism protesters.

Fidel Castro rejected the lies used by Spain and the European Union to attack Cuba and urged them to deal first with their sovereign crisis, if they can, and to solve the chronic unemployment among young people in the depleted region, as he described it. (RHC).

Is Ron Paul being bought? Say it ain't so Joe!

2012-01-26T09:59:00.003-05:00

Breaking News: Ron Paul Falls in Line with GOP, Declares Support for War with Iran and Never-Ending War on Islam

In a dramatic reversal of policy, Texas Congressman Ron Paul has announced he will support a preemptive strike on Iran, along with the return of U.S. troops to Iraq, a never-ending war on Islam, and a CIA-led Cuba Spring if elected president in 2012.

A source close to Paul said the previously anti-war candidate had suffered long enough at the polls for his refusal to endorse across-the-board war, and that he would be unveiling his new, more aggressive foreign policy at Thursday evening’s GOP debate, ahead of the Florida primary next week.

More..

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JG: Is Ron Paul becoming a typical GOP politician? Is he abandoning libertarian and anti-war policies?

Circo Republicano Contra Cuba

2012-01-26T09:42:00.004-05:00

Caricatura Progreso Semanal
Circo republicano contra Cuba

The Salamander Wants to Bomb Cuba

2012-01-26T09:14:00.002-05:00

Newt Gingrich prepared to bomb Cuba (TheAustralian.com)

* From: AFP
* January 27, 2012 12:00AM

NEWT Gingrich was ahead in the rhetorical war among Republican presidential hopefuls on who could be toughest on Cuba's communist regime, suggesting yesterday that he would bomb the island if there were a popular uprising.

The former house speaker and his top rival, ex-Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, were engaged in heated campaigning in Florida days before Wednesday's Republican primary. And both were desperately wooing the state's large Cuban-American community, nearly a million strong.

Mr Gingrich was asked to explain comments that if elected, he would "not tolerate four more years of a Cuban dictatorship".

If the US planes bombed Libya, should they do the same with Cuba?

"If there was a genuine, legitimate uprising, we would, of course, be on the side of the people," Mr Gingrich told Spanish-language network Univision.

"In that sense, I don't see why Cuba should be sacrosanct, and we should say, 'Oh, don't do anything to hurt' - you know, we're very prepared to back people in Libya. We may end up backing people in Syria. But now Cuba? Hands off Cuba. That's baloney.
The full digital experience

"People of Cuba deserve freedom."

The audience at the Miami venue where Univision held the interview broke into applause.

Mr Romney said if he were president, he would punish foreign companies doing business in Cuba.

Former Cuban president Fidel Castro dismissed the tough talk. "The selection of a Republican candidate for the presidency of this globalised and expansive empire is . . . the greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been heard," he wrote in Cuban media yesterday.

Mr Gingrich also defended himself against accusations of being a hypocrite for criticising then president Bill Clinton over his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Mr Gingrich spoke out against Mr Clinton at the same time he, as house speaker, was cheating on his wife. He said he wasn't criticising Mr Clinton's relationship with Ms Lewinsky but Mr Clinton's response to it.

"I have never lied under oath, I have never committed perjury, I have never committed a felony," Mr Gingrich said.

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JG: What a f***ing idiot!

The Cuba Issue in Last Night's "Debate"

2012-01-24T12:33:00.003-05:00

Jannuary, 24th, 2012

Front Page has reported the following:

About 10% of the Florida primary voters are Cuban-Americans, prompting the moderator to ask Mitt Romney about his stance on the Castro regime and how he’d handle a potential refugee crisis if it were to fall. Romney was applauded, even though the audience was asked to be quiet, when he said he’d first “thank heavens that Castro has gone to his maker.” He sharply criticized President Obama’s softening of America’s policy towards Cuba and praised a democratic activist who died in Cuba while on a hunger strike.

Newt Gingrich was likewise applauded by following that up with saying, “I don’t think Fidel [Castro] is going to meet his maker. He’s going to another place.” Gingrich then won the biggest reaction of the night when he said that he would not tolerate four more years of the Castro dictatorship and would support a “Cuban Spring” by supporting every democratic activist achieve regime change.

Rick Santorum spoke in similar terms and broadened the discussion. He warned of the anti-American alliance that has formed between Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Iran and the “jihadists.” He said that these enemies are elated to have a base only 90 miles off the coast of Florida.

Ron Paul was the lone exception to a policy of regime change towards Cuba. He said that it is not 1962 anymore and that the U.S. should diplomatically and economically engage the Cuban regime, comparing it to how relations have improved with Vietnam.

Jorge Gonzalez' response:

1) Romney, Gingrich and Santorum are professional capitalists who hate Cuba with a passion. If any of them is elected, they could lead our planet to total destrucion.

2) Ron Paul was the only sane person in the rooom. For that reason I "temporarily" changed my voter registration in Florida last December 29 or 30. On January 31st I will be casting my vote for U.S. Representative Ron Paul. On February First or Second I will re-register again as an Independent, who has no party preference.

3) Barack H. Obama is also a failed politician, although I give him credit for having relaxed Cuba travel and remittances (for Cuban-Ammericans) to the island. His "Change You Can Believe In" of 2008 was a sad FRAUD!

4) The "dissident" who died last week in Cuba was a common convicted criminal. He, like Tamayo before him, had a suicide wish. Good ridance for the Cuban people!

The Cases of Alan Gross and the Cuban Five

2012-01-23T15:57:00.003-05:00

Center For International Policy - Cuba Report

Posted on 01/17/2012 by Center for International Policy

By Salim Lamrani, with contributions from Wayne Smith

The way may be opening for increased U.S.-Cuban ties. The United States has removed all restrictions on Cuban-American travel from the U.S. to Cuba and all limitations on Cuban-American remittances to families on the island. Coming at a time when the Cuban government is encouraging the establishment of small private enterprises, this opens the way for importantly increased ties between the two communities-as one observer put it: “for an inflow of capital from the U.S. to Cuba.”

There is, however, the proverbial “fly in the ointment” and that is the case of Alan Gross, arrested on December 3 of 2009 and since then representing a major obstacle to improved relations–along with the case of the Cuban Five on the other side (but more on that later).

Who is Alan Gross?

Alan Gross is a 61 year-old Jewish U.S. citizen from Potomac, Maryland who is an employee of Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI), a subcontractor of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) which itself is a dependency of the State Department. In December 2009, when Gross was about to leave Cuba with a simple tourist visa–after his fifth visit that year–Cuban state security authorities detained him at the International Airport in Havana. An investigation discovered links between him and the internal opposition to the Cuban government. Gross had been distributing among the opposition portable computers and satellite telephones as part of the State Department program for “promoting democracy in Cuba.” [1]

A long-distance communications technology expert, Gross has great experience in the field. He has worked in more than 50 nations and set up satellite communications systems during the military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan to circumvent channels controlled by local authorities. [2]

Possession of a satellite phone is strictly forbidden in Cuba for national security reasons and telecommunications are a state monopoly with competition forbidden. [3]

Aid for the Cuban Jewish Community?

The State Department, demanding the release of the detainee declared, “Gross works for international development and traveled to Cuba to assist the members of the Jewish community in Havana to connect with other Jewish communities in the world.” According to Washington, Gross’ activities were legitimate and did not violate Cuban legislation.[4]

In October 2010, during the annual session of the UN General Assembly, Arturo Valenzuela, then assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, met with Bruno Rodríguez, Cuban minister for foreign affairs, to discuss Gross. This was the most important diplomatic meeting between representatives from both nations since the beginning of Obama’s era. [5]

Alan Gross’ family also said that his frequent trips to the island were to allow the Jewish community in Havana to gain access to the Internet and to communicate with Jews all over the world.[6] His lawyer, Peter J. Kahn, endorsed their words, “His work in Cuba had nothing to do with politics; it was simply aimed at helping the small, peaceful, non-dissident Jewish community in the country. [7]

Gross doubtless had contact with some members of the Jewish community in Cuba. Leaders of the Jewish community in Havana, however, contradict the official U.S. version of his relationship. In fact, leaders of the community affirm they did not know Alan Gross, and had never met with him despite his five visits to Cuba in 2009. Adela Dworin, president of the Beth Shalom Temple, rejected Washington’s statements. “It’s lamentable […]. The saddest part is that they tried to involve the Jewish community in Cuba which has nothing to do with this.”

Mayra Levy, speaker of the Sephardic Hebraic Center, declared she didn’t know who Gross was and added he had never been to her institution. The Associated Press said “the leaders of the Jewish community in Cuba denied the American contractor Alan Gross […] had collaborated with them.” [8] In like manner, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that “the main Jewish groups in Cuba had denied having any contracts with Alan Gross or any knowledge of his project.” [9]

Reverend Oden Mariachal, secretary of the Consejo de Iglesias de Cuba (CIC) [Cuban Council of Churches] which includes the [non-Catholic] Christian religious institutions and the Jewish community in Cuba, confirmed this position at a meeting with Peter Brennan, State Department coordinator for Cuban Affairs. On the occasion of the General Assembly of Churches of Christ in the U.S., held in Washington in 2010, the religious leader rejected Gross’ allegations. “What we made clear is what the Cuban Jewish Community, a member of the Cuban Council of Churches, told us, ‘We never had a relationship with that gentleman; he never brought us any equipment.’ They denied any kind of relationship with Alan Gross.”[10]

In fact, the small Cuban Jewish community, far from isolated, is perfectly integrated in society and has excellent relations with the political authorities in the Island. Fidel Castro, although very critical of Israeli policy in the occupied territories, declared to American journalist Jeffrey Goldberg that in history “no one has been as slandered as the Jews. They were exiled from their land, persecuted and mistreated everywhere in the world. The Jews had a more difficult existence than ours. Nothing can compare to the Holocaust,” he said. [11]

Cuban President Raúl Castro attended the religious ceremony for Hanukkah-the Festival of Lights–at the Shalom Synagogue in Havana, in December 2010. The visit was broadcast live on Cuban TV and published in the front page of newspaper Granma. He took the opportunity to greet “the Cuban Jewish community and the fabulous history of the Hebrew people.” [12]

Moreover, the Cuban Jewish community has all the technological facilities needed to communicate with the rest of the world, thanks to the assistance of other international Jewish entities such as the B’nai Brith and the Cuban Jewish Relief Project, the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC), the World ORT, the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) or the United Jewish Committee (UJC); all of it endorsed by the Cuban authorities. [13]

Arturo López-Levy, B’nai Brith secretary for the Cuban Jewish community between 1999 and 2001, and today a professor at Denver University, is also skeptical about the U.S. version of the Gross case. On the subject, he stated, “Gross was not arrested for being Jewish or for his alleged activities of technological aid to the Cuban Jewish community which already had an informatics lab, electronic mail and Internet access before he got to Havana. [The Jews in Cuba] do not gather at a synagogue to conspire with the political opposition because this would jeopardize their cooperation with the government which is needed for their activities: the emigration to Israel program, the Right by Birth project–through which young Cuban Jews travel to Israel every year–or to deal with humanitarian aid. To protect the most important they detach themselves as much as possible from the U.S. programs of political interference on Cuban internal affairs. Gross travelled to Cuba not to work with any Jewish organization but for USAID.” [14]

Wayne S. Smith, chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Cuba from 1979 to 1982 and director of Cuba Program of the Center for International Policy in Washington, said that “in other words, Gross was involved in a program whose intentions were clearly hostile to Cuba, because its objective is nothing less than regime change.” [15]

Illegal Activities According to Cuban Authorities

Cuban authorities suspected Gross of espionage and internal subversion activities. [16]Ricardo Alarcon, president of the Cuban Parliament, declared he had violated the country’s legislation. “He violated Cuban laws, national sovereignty, and committed crimes that in the U.S. are most severely punished.”[17]

Gross, a USAID employee was providing sophisticated communications equipment. The distribution and use of satellite phones is regulated in Cuba and it is forbidden to import them without authorization. On the other hand, Article 11 of Cuban Law 88 reads that, “He who, in order to perform the acts described in this Law, directly or through a third party, receives, distributes or takes part in the distribution of financial means, material or of other kind, from the Government of the United States of America, its agencies, dependencies, representatives, officials, or from private entities is liable to prison terms from 3 to 8 years.” [18]

This severity is not unique to Cuban legislation. U.S. law prescribes similar penalties for this type of crime. The Foreign Agents Registration Act prescribes that any un-registered agent “who requests, collects, supplies or spends contributions, loans, money or any valuable object in his own interest” may be liable to a sentence of five years in prison and a fine of 10,000 dollars. [19]

French legislation also punishes this type of action. According to Article 411-8 of the Penal Code, “the act of exercising on behalf of a foreign power, a foreign company or organization or company or organization under the control of a foreign agent, any act aimed at supplying devices, information, procedures, objects, documents, informatics data or files whose exploitation, spreading, or gathering can by nature attempt against the fundamental interests of the nation is punishable with ten years of imprisonment and a fine of 150,000 Euros.”[20]

On February 4, 2011, the prosecutor of the Republic of Cuba formally accused Alan Gross of “acts against the integrity and independence of the nation,” and demanded a jail sentence of 20 years. On March 12, 2011 Gross was finally sentenced to 15 years imprisonment after his trial.[21] The lawyer for the defense, Peter J. Kahn, expressed his regret that his client was “caught in the middle of a long political dispute between Cuba and the United States.” [22]

The New York Times remembers that Gross “was arrested last December during a trip to Cuba as part of a semi-clandestine USAID program, a service of foreign aid of the State Department destined to undermine the Cuban Government,” The New York paper also indicated that “U.S. authorities have admitted that Mr. Gross entered Cuba without the appropriate visa and have said he distributed satellite telephones to religious groups. [23]

Since 1992 and the adoption of the Torricelli Act, the U.S. openly admits its objective towards Cuba is “regime change” and one of the pillars of this policy is to organize, finance and equip an internal opposition. [24]

USAID, which is in charge of the implementation of the plan, admits that, as part of this program, it finances the Cuban opposition. According to the Agency for the 2009 fiscal year the amount destined for aid to Cuban dissidents was of 15.62 million dollars. Since 1996 a total of 140 million dollars have been dedicated to the program aimed at overthrowing the Cuban government. “The largest part of this figure is for individuals inside Cuba. Our objective is to maximize the amount of the support that benefits the Cubans in the Island.”[25]

The government agency also stresses the following, “We have trained hundreds of journalists in a ten year period and their work is seen in mainstream international media.” Formed and paid by the U.S., they represent, above all, the interests of Washington whose objective is a “regime change” on the island. [26]

From a juridical point of view, this reality in fact places the dissidents who accept the emoluments offered by USAID in the position of being agents at the service of a foreign power, which constitutes a serious violation of the Cuban Penal Code. The agency is aware of this reality and simply reminds all that “nobody is obliged to accept or be part of the programs of the government of the United States.” [27]

Judy Gross, the wife of Alan Gross, was authorized to visit him in prison for the first time in July 2010. [28]She took the occasion to send a letter to Cuban President Raúl Castro in which she expressed her repentance and apologized for the acts of her husband. “I understand today the Cuban Government does not appreciate the type of work Alan was doing in Cuba. His intention was never to hurt your government.” [29]

Judy Gross also accuses the State Department of not having explained to her husband that his activities were illegal in Cuba. If Alan had known that something would happen to him in Cuba, he would not have done that. I think he was not clearly informed about the risks.” [30]

A Way Out?

Clearly, Alan Gross violated the law. Of that there can be no doubt. On the other hand, he seems to have done little harm. His continued incarceration results in no important benefits to the U.S. His release, on the other hand, could be a major step toward improved U.S.-Cuban relations, especially if in the process he were prepared to apologize for his actions.

There is another side to the matter, however, and that has to do with the so-called Cuban Five. Just as the U.S. seems unwilling to move ahead in relations unless there is some movement in the Gross case, so do the Cubans seem reluctant to move without progress in the case of the Cuban Five, who were incarcerated in 1998. They were sent up to the U.S. by the Cuban government to penetrate and develop information about the anti-Castro terrorists groups in Florida after a sequence of bomb attacks against tourist centers in Havana. The idea was then to provide that information to the FBI so that it could take action to halt the exile terrorists. A meeting between representatives of the FBI and the Cubans was held in Havana over several days in June of 1998 and some forty folders of evidence were turned over to the FBI. The Cubans then waited for the U.S. to take action against the terrorists. But none was taken; rather, shortly thereafter, the FBI began arresting the Cuban five. In other words, they arrested those who had provided the evidence rather than the terrorists themselves. The Five were arrested, tried and convicted, though “tried” is not the right word for the trial was a sham. The prosecutors had no real evidence and so fell back on the old standby of trying them for “conspiracy” to commit illegal acts. No evidence, and they were tried in Miami where anti-Castro sentiment had reached such a level with the Elian Gonzalez case that there was no chance of empanelling an impartial jury. Defense lawyers requested a change of venue, but, incredibly, it was denied.

Worst of all was the case of Gerardo Hernandez, who was accused of “conspiracy” to commit murder and given two consecutive life sentences plus fifteen years–this in connection with the shoot down of the two Brothers to the Rescue planes in February of 1996. Never mind that there was no evidence that he was in any way responsible. But there, behind bars, he remains today, mostly in solitary confinement and after all these years not allowed a single visit from his wife.

The injustice in these cases contradicts the reputation of the U.S. for dedication to the rule of law. It must be corrected. Holding these men year after year without real evidence of any crime other than being the unregistered agents of a foreign power was one thing during the Cold War–though unjustified even then. But now, with the Cold War over and every possibility of beginning a new U.S.-Cuba relationship, it becomes morally unjustifiable and counterproductive. It is time surely to undertake a process of reviewing all these cases and then allowing these men to return to their families. One, René Gonzalez, has already been released from prison to serve out his remaining three years on parole, but at the same time, incredibly, not allowed to return to Cuba to be with his wife, who he has not seen in all these years. That, allowing his return, should perhaps be the first step in the process.

And it goes without saying that as the U.S. begins to move in the cases of the Cuban Five, Cuba should release Alan Gross to return to his family.

It should be noted that Alan Gross himself suggested there should be some reciprocal movement in these cases. “Following the recent exchange of the Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, Gross was clear that he wants the United States and Cuba to make a similar gesture for him and the Cuban Five,” explained Rabbi David Shneyer, who had visited Gross in Havana. [31]

Salim Lamrani, PhD in Iberian and Latin American Studies of the Paris Sorbonne-Paris IV University, is a professor in charge of courses at the Paris-Sorbonne-Paris IV University and the Paris-Est Marne-la- Vallée University. He is a French journalist, and specialist on the Cuba-United States relations. He has recently published: Etat de siege. Les sanctions economiques des Etats-Unis contre Cuba with a prologue by Wayne S. Smith.

Wayne S. Smith, now director of the Cuba Project at the Center for International Policy, was chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, 1979-1982, and is the author of The Closest of Enemies, (New York: W.W. Norton, 1987.

End Notes

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Jeff Franks, <>, Reuter, October 24, 2010.

[2] Phillip J. Crowley, <>, op. cit.; Saul Landau, <>, Counterpunch, July 30, 2010. http://www.counterpunch.org/landau07302010.html (site consulted on February 18, 2011).

[3] Ibid.

[4] Phillip J. Crowley, <>, op. cit

[5] Paul Haven, <>, The Associated Press, October 18, 2010

[6] Anthony Broadle, <>, Reuters, October 24, 2010.

[7] Juan O. Tamayo, <>, El Nuevo Herald, February 5, 2011.

[8] Andrea Rodríguez, <>, The Associated Press, December 2, 2010.

[9] Jewish Telegraphic Agency, <>, February 6, 2011.

[10] Andrea Rodrígues, <>, The Associated Press, December 2, 2010.

[11] Jeffrey Goldberg, <> The Atlantic, December 7, 2010. http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/09/castro-no-one-has-been-slandered-more-than-tthe-jews/62566/ (site consulted on February 18, 2011).

[12] The Associated Press, <>; Juan O. Tamayo, <>, El Nuevo Herald, December 6, 2010.

[13] Comunidad Hebrea de Cuba, <>. http://www.chcuba.org/espanol/ayuda/quienes.htm (site consulted on February 18, 2011).

[14] Arturo López-Levy, <>, August 2010. http://www.thewashintonnote.com/archives/2010/08freeing_alan_gr/ (site consulted on February 18, 2011).

[15] Wayne S. Smith, <>, Center for International Policy, March 2011. http://ciponline.org/pressroom/articles/030411_Smith_Intelligence_Brief_Gross.htm (site consulted on March 13, 2011).

[16] Paul Haven, <>, The Associated Press, February 19, 2010.

[17] Andrea Rodriguez, <>, The Associated Press, December 11, 2010.

[18] Ley de protección de la independencia nacional y la economía de Cuba (LEY N˚. 88), Artículo 11.

[19] U.S. Code, Title 22, Chapter 11, Subchapter II, § 611, iii <>, § 618, a, 1 <>.

[20] Code Penal, Partie legislative, Livre, Titre Ier, Chapitre I, Section 3, Article 411-8.

[21] William Booth, <>, The Associated Press, February 4, 2011.

[22] Paul Haven <>, The Associated Press, February 4, 2011.

[23] Ginger Thompson, <>, The New York Times, October 24, 2010.

[24] Cuban Democracy Act, Titulo XVII, Artículo 1705, 1992.

[25] Along the Malecon, <>, October 25, 2010. http://alongthemalecon.blogspot.com/2010/10/exclusive-q-with-usaid.html (site consulted on October 26, 2010); Tracey Eaton, <>, El Nuevo Herald, December 3, 2010.

[26] Ibid.

[27] Ibid.

[28] Jessica Gresko, <>, The Associated Press, October 26, 2010.

[29] Anthony Boadle, <>, op. cit. ; Jeff Frank, <>, Reuters, October 24, 2010.

[30]Anthony Boadle, <>, op. cit EFE, <>, February 8, 2011.

[31] Agence France Presse, <> November 8, 2011.

Listen to this Miami Gusanos-Fascists: The New York Times recommends Cuba among the top ten tourist destinations to visit in 2012

2012-01-22T16:33:00.002-05:00

Technorati

Author: Miguel Gibson
Published: January 22, 2012 at 6:13 am

The New York Times published a list of 45 destinations worldwide as recommending places to visit in 2012, and at No. 10 is Havana, Cuba. To make the list the prestigious publication valued in particular cultural offerings and tourist services.

The Cuban capital is once more available to Americans. All that stands between the Americans and the sensual streets of Havana are the Straits of Florida, as the Obama administration has expanded the range of travel allowed, quotes the journal.

A growing list of organizations is licensed to operate trips to Cuba, including National Geographic Expeditions, Austin-Lehman and the Center for Cuban Studies. “There are also more flights to Cuba from U.S. cities: Fort Lauderdale and Tampa recently joined New York, Miami and Los Angeles in the list, and Chicago will be added this year."

"The tours include meetings with art historians, and organic farmers among others. Conveniently, new restaurants and cafes, some in beautiful colonial houses, have resurfaced in 2011, "adds the newspaper. Havana is also preparing for its 11th Biennial from May 11 to June 11, attracting more than 100 Cuban and foreign artists", adds the publication.

The journalists from the publication chose a total of 45 emerging tourist destinations in 2012. The top ten are: Panama, Helsinki, Finland, Myanmar, London, Oakland, California, Tokyo, Tanzania, Chilean Patagonia, Lhasa, Tibet, and Havana, Cuba.

The rest of the list is completed by: Moscow, Glasgow, Puebla (Mexico), San Diego (California), Halong Bay (Vietnam), Florence (Italy), St Vincent (Caribbean), Moganshan (China), Birgmingham (UK), Space (yes, oddly enough, but true), Kerala (India), Paraty (Brazil), Koh Rong (Cambodia), Vienna (Austria), Chattanooga (Tennessee), Dakhla (Morocco), Maldives, Malacca (Malaysia), The Algave (Portugal), Tahoe (California), Wales, Antarctica, Uganda, Ukraine, Samana (Dominican Republic), Dubrovnik (Croatia), Chiloe (Chile), Jordan, Crans-Montana (Switzerland), Montpellier (France), Nosara (Costa Rica), South Korea, Lodz (Poland), Dalarna (Sweden) and Portovenere (Italy).

Read more: http://technorati.com/lifestyle/travel/article/the-new-york-times-recommends-cuba/#ixzz1kE2yGipG

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JG: Watch the Miami Nuts say that the NYT is really the official organ of CPUSA, (Communist Party, USA).

You guys should move to Honduras!

The recent statements of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are an act of colossal cynicism, says Josefina Vidal at Cuba's MINREX

2012-01-21T12:24:00.005-05:00

To read her statement, in Spanish, click here.

The Miami Herald Continues to Spread the Lies of Hillary Clinton

2012-01-21T10:45:00.004-05:00

It was to be expected. The Miami Herald has always been a mercenary newspaper, only worthy of being used as the recipient of the urination of dogs and cats. The Miami Herald has always been a consistent supporter of the remnants of General Fulgencio Batista in Cuba. The Miami Herald has received funds from the United States government as payment for the lies that they publish about Cuba on a daily basis.

Hillary Clinton wants to convert a common criminal in Cuba into a political "dissident." And she follows the orders that she gets from the Chicago gangster that currently occupies the White House.

For the purpose of keeping one more record of all the lies of the Miami Herald, I am going to publish below the latest diatribe of Hillary Clinton and a gusano ass-kisser by the name of Juan Tamayo.

[Beginning of the garbage and lies]

By Juan O. Tamayo
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com

[URL: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/20/2599352/us-reacts-to-cuban-dissidents.html#comment-417140176]

The U.S. State Department Friday deplored the death of Cuban dissident Wilman Villár, “a young and courageous defender of human rights,” and said it “highlights the continuing problem of political repression, and political prisoners, in Cuba.”

Villár’s death Thursday also “underscores the urgent need for greater international scrutiny of Cuba’s human rights record and international monitoring of Cuba’s prisons and prisoner population,” said department spokeswoman Neda A. Brown.

Cuba does not allow the International Red Cross to inspect its prisons.

Brown added that the Villár case “underscores the importance of the president’s (Barack Obama) continued efforts to support the desire of the Cuban people to freely determine their own future.”

“We will continue to support, in the words of the president, ‘pockets of freedom’ in Cuba through Cuban American family visits and remittances, purposeful travel, and humanitarian assistance to dissidents and their families,” she added.

[End of the garbage and lies]

Califican de inaceptables declaraciones de España sobre Cuba

2012-01-21T10:21:00.001-05:00

Escrito por Luis Enrique Gonzalez

21 de enero de 2012, 00:03- La Habana, 21 ene (PL) Cuba calificó de inaceptables las declaraciones del gobierno español que no tiene la más mínima autoridad moral para enjuiciar a la nación caribeña.
Cuba condena manipulación en caso de recluso fallecido

Diversos medios de prensa se han hecho eco de declaraciones formuladas por la Vicepresidente del gobierno español del Partido Popular Soraya Sáenz y del Comunicado del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores y Cooperación de España, en relación con la muerte del recluso común cubano Wilman Villar Mendoza.

El recluso había sido sancionado por golpear y lesionar en público a su esposa y agredir luego a los agentes de policía que acudieron ante la denuncia de la madre de esta.

Por su parte, la Alta Representante de la Unión Europea para la Política Exterior y de Seguridad Común Catherine Ashton ha dicho que este caso plantea dudas sobre el sistema judicial y penitenciario cubanos.

Consultado por Prensa Latina un funcionario de la cancillería cubana declaró que "es insólito que teniendo el gobierno de España la mitad de sus jóvenes en paro y una alta tasa de asesinatos y violencia contra las mujeres, se gaste dinero en una campaña para presentar una brutal agresión a la esposa como disidencia política".

Asimismo, manifestó además el "enérgico rechazo a estas inaceptables declaraciones, realizadas sin siquiera averiguar o esperar a conocer qué ocurrió realmente".

"Ni al gobierno español ni a la Unión Europea les asiste la más mínima autoridad moral para enjuiciar a Cuba", indicó.

La misma fuente aseveró que "en vez de dedicarse a estas burdas tergiversaciones de la realidad, deberían ocuparse de investigar y sancionar las numerosas muertes en detención que ocurren en sus instituciones, los frecuentes actos de brutalidad policial contra manifestantes que suceden sistemáticamente en España y otros países de la Unión Europea".

También tendrían que investigar "los crímenes y maltratos contra los inmigrantes, los vuelos secretos de la CIA con personas secuestradas y la existencia de cárceles secretas o la participación de sus oficiales en actos de tortura", enfatizó.

(Cubaminrex)

Nota Informativa del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de la Republica de Cuba

2012-01-21T10:13:00.003-05:00

(Cubaminrex)

A las 18:45 horas del 19 de enero falleció en Santiago de Cuba el recluso común Wilman Villar Mendoza, en la sala de cuidados intensivos del hospital Clínico Quirúrgico “Doctor Juan Bruno Zayas”, a causa de fallo multi-orgánico secundario a un proceso respiratorio séptico severo, que llevó al paciente a un shock por sepsis.

Esta persona había sido remitida con urgencia el pasado 13 de enero del centro penitenciario “Aguadores”, al hospital provincial “Saturnino Lora”, al presentar síntomas de una neumonía severa del pulmón izquierdo, recibiendo todas las atenciones para este tipo de afecciones, aplicándosele ventilación y nutrición artificial, fluidoterapia, hemoderivados, apoyo con drogas vasoactivas y antibióticos de amplio espectro de última generación.

El hospital clínico quirúrgico “Juan Bruno Zayas”, donde falleció, es uno de los centros hospitalarios de mayor nivel en la región oriental y su sala de terapia intensiva cuenta con una gran experiencia en la atención al paciente grave.

Villar Mendoza residía en el municipio Contramaestre, provincia Santiago de Cuba y cumplía sanción de privación de libertad desde el 25 de noviembre del año 2011, por los delitos de Desacato, Atentado y Resistencia.

El hecho por el que fue sancionado se produjo durante un escándalo público en el que agredió y provocó lesiones en el rostro a su esposa, ante lo que su suegra solicitó la intervención de las autoridades y al acudir agentes de la PNR se resistió y los agredió.

Sus familiares más allegados estuvieron al tanto de todos los procedimientos que se emplearon en su atención médica, además de reconocer el esfuerzo del equipo de especialistas que lo atendió.

En relación con este hecho, desde hace varios días agencias de prensa extranjeras, en particular de Miami, vienen promoviendo una intensa campaña internacional difamatoria, en contubernio con elementos contrarrevolucionarios internos, que presentan a Villar Mendoza como un supuesto “disidente” que falleció tras realizar una huelga de hambre en prisión. Al respecto se disponen de abundantes pruebas y testimonios que demuestran que no era un “disidente” ni estaba en huelga de hambre.

Wilman Villar después de haber cometido el delito, por el cual fue procesado en libertad, comenzó a vincularse con elementos contrarrevolucionarios en Santiago de Cuba, quienes le hicieron creer que su presunta pertenencia a los grupúsculos mercenarios le permitiría evadir la acción de la justicia.

Cuba lamenta la muerte de cualquier ser humano; condena enérgicamente las burdas manipulaciones de nuestros enemigos, y sabrá desmontar esta nueva agresión con la verdad y la firmeza que caracteriza a nuestro pueblo.

Cuba Strongly Condemns Manipulations of Recent Death of Convict

2012-01-21T09:52:00.002-05:00

Radio Cadena Agramonte

Havana, Cuba, Jan 21.- Cuba regrets the death of any human being as it strongly condemns crude manipulations by our enemies. By resorting to truth and the firmness of our people, Cuba will dismount this new aggression, reads a note released by the Cuban government exposing details of the death of inmate Wilmar Villar Mendoza.

On January 19, at 18:45 hours, inmate Wilmar Villar Mendoza passed away at the intensive care unit of the Doctor Juan Bruno Sayas Hospital, in the city of Santiago de Cuba. Villar died from a multi-organ dysfunction that followed a severe septic respiratory process that led him into shock by sepsis, the note reads.alt

The inmate had been urgently taken to the Saturnino Lora provincial hospital from the Aguadores penitentiary last January 13, following symptoms of severe pneumonia that affected his left lung. The patient received the treatment corresponding to his condition, which included ventilation, artificial feeding, fluid therapy, blood derivatives, support on active drugs and last generation broad spectrum antibiotics.

The Juan Bruno Zayas hospital, where Villar died, is one of the highest-level health centers in the eastern Cuban province, while its intensive care unit counts on vast experience in treating patients in serious conditions.

Wilmar Villar was a resident of the Contramaestre municipality, Santiago de Cuba province and he was meeting a prison sentence since November 25, 2011 for charges such as defiance against authorities, attack and resistance. His imprisonment came after a public indecency in which he attacked his wife and wounded her in the face, a reason for her mother in law to request the action of local authorities. In the event, Villar posed resistance and attacked the police officers.

Villar´s closest relatives followed all medical proceedings and learned of the efforts by the team of specialists that assisted him.

For some days now, foreign media outlets, particularly in Miami, have promoted an intense international defamatory campaign in relation to this event, in conspiracy with internal counterrevolutionary elements, the note reads. This campaign wants to present Villar Mendoza as an alleged “dissident” who died after having staged a hunger strike in prison. In this respect there are abundant proofs and testimonies that expose that he was neither a “dissident” nor was he on a hunger strike.

Having committed the crime for which he was punished, Wilmar Villar began to get involved with counterrevolutionary individuals in Santiago de Cuba, who made him believe that his alleged relations to mercenary groups would help him evade justice.

The note concludes stressing that Cuba regrets the death of just any human being and strongly condemns the crude manipulations of our enemies, but Cuba will be able to dismount the new aggression by resorting to the truth and the firmness of our people. (Taken from Radio Havana Cuba)

Update About Fake Cohiba Cigars

2012-01-21T09:12:00.003-05:00

According to information published in the February 2012 issue of the knowledgeable and respected Cigar Aficionado Magazine, the fake Cohibas that Thompson is peddling out of a Post Office Box, are manufactured in the Dominican Republic. If you go to pages 122 and 123 you will find the coronas cigars.

The real Cohiba, from Cuba, scores at the top of the rating chart with an incredible score of 94. Anything with a 90 or above rating is excellent. (If a cigar ever achieves a rating of 100, it will probably be rolled, by hand, in Cuba).

The price for a real Cuban Cohiba in the United Kingdom is £14.27 British Pounds. At Friday's exchange rate of $1.5489 per £ (as published in the Wall Street Journal), the price in U.S. dollars for a real Cohiba is $22.10.

In contrast, the fake and lower quality Cohibas counterfeited in the Dominican Republic, are given a rating of only 88, and you can buy one for $14.79 U.S. Dollars.

In the corona gordas section (page 124), a real Cuban Cohiba 1966 Edición Limitada 2011 will cost you £38.70 in the United Kingdom, or $59.95 in U.S. Dollars, based on the same exchange rate. This Cuban cigar also rates a 94.

The cigar bands for the real and counterfeit Cohibas are noticeably very different. Artistically, the Cuban made cigar bands for the Cohibas are far superior.

Because of the continued hatred toward Cuba by the American imperialists, under the leadership of both George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama, if you want to purchase a real Cohiba cigar, you will have to travel to a civilized nation that does not have a failed embargo against quality Cuban products. You can't smoke a U.S.-made drone aircraft.

Lawyers Request the Extradition to Panama of Luis Posada Carriles and Other Terrorists

2012-01-20T11:02:00.004-05:00

Panama, Jan 19 2012 (Prensa Latina) A request for the extradition of the terrorists of Cuban origin Luis Posada Carriles, Guillermo Novo, Pedro Remon and César Matamoros, and Panamanian Jose Hurtado, was filed on Thursday, said lawyer Silvio Guerra.

Those criminals tried to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro at the main hall of the University of Panama, where he was scheduled to speak at the end of an Ibero-American Summit. Hundreds of people would have died if they had succeeded.

In remarks to Prensa Latina, Guerra confirmed that they went today to the Fifth Court of the Criminal Circuit to file the official request of extradition of Posada Carriles and his accomplices and also request that the Foreign Ministry sends it to the US government.

That step has been possible because the Second Court confirmed the ruling of the Fifth Criminal Court through edict notifying eight years imprisonment for Posada Carriles and Jimenez; seven years for Novo Sampol, Remon and Matamoros and four years for Hurtado.

Such a court ruling, with an address by magistrate Secundino Mendieta, resolves the appeal filed by defense lawyers and plaintiffs in favor of the defendants. However, these sentences were not for possession of explosives to assassinate, an outstanding claim.

Guerra said he was aware that international extradition requests filed by Venezuela and Ecuador have also been registered and the United States has never agreed to them, but they will continue insisting.

The plaintiff, who appeared in the trial against the terrorists on behalf of student groups of the University of Panama, added that he is interested in registering the extradition request made by the Panamanian State on the grounds of its jurisdiction and through the Panamanian Foreign Ministry.

Guerra strongly criticized ex President Mireya Moscoso, who met this week with Posada Carriles in Miami, and wondered what can one expect from the person who pardoned people who were to perpetrate a massacre of her fellow country people, mainly students, at the main hall of the University of Panama.

Cubadebate: Solicita abogado panameño extradición de Posada Carriles y otros terroristas

In Spanish: Cuban intelligence agencies knew since 2004 about the subversive activities of Allan P. Gross in the island

2012-01-20T09:25:00.004-05:00

Source: Cafe Fuerte

PDF Document (In Spanish) 15 MB, 18 Pages

Publicado el Lunes, 16 Enero 2012 05:37 - Por Wilfredo Cancio Isla

La inteligencia cubana conocía las labores del contratista estadounidense Alan P. Gross desde mediados del 2004, cuando viajó a La Habana con la misión de entregar una cámara de video y medicamentos a un líder masón que resultó ser agente de la Seguridad del Estado.

De acuerdo con la sentencia judicial del caso, el cardiólogo infantil José Manuel Collera Vento, Gran Maestro de la Gran Logia de Cuba, recibió de manos de Gross un paquete enviado por Marc Wachtenheim, director de un proyecto destinado a promover cambios democráticos en la isla con financiamiento del gobierno de Estados Unidos.

Hasta el 2010 Wachtenheim fungió como el director del programa “Iniciativa para el desarrollo de Cuba” de la Fundación Panamericana para el Desarrollo (FUPAD), que recibía fondos de la Agencia de Estados Unidos para el Desarrollo Internacional (USAID).

Testimonio clave

El testimonio de Collera Vento fue clave en el juicio contra Gross, según revela la sentencia. Otro agente destapado por la Seguridad del Estado, Raúl Antonio Capote Fernández, también sirvió como testigo en el proceso contra el contratista, condenado a 15 años de cárcel en marzo del 2011.

El documento -de 18 páginas- señala que Gross “arribó a La Habana el 26 de junio del 2004 y en esta ciudad cumplió el encargo, recibiendo a cambio la suma de 400 dólares estadounidenses aproximadamente, provenientes de los fondos de la FUPAD, cuando días después regresó a Estados Unidos”.

Para esa fecha Collera Vento, el “agente Duarte” devenido luego “agente Gerardo”, rendía ya cuentas a la Seguridad del Estado y conocía de los planes de la FUPAD por boca del propio Wachtenheim.

Collera Vento conoció a Wachtenheim durante una visita a Washington el 2001. En esa oportunidad ambos visitaron el Consejo de Seguridad Nacional y el Departamento de Estado, y se entrevistaron con el entonces subsecretario de Estado, Otto Reich, y Frank Calzón, director del Centro para una Cuba Libre. La visita sirvió también para que Collera Vento recibiera la Medalla de la Libertad del Congreso de Estados Unidos.

La sentencia relata que durante esas reuniones se manifestó abiertamente “la necesidad de poner fin al proceso revolucionario cubano y crear las condiciones para una transición política en Cuba”, y que Wachtenheim le habló de planes para instalar redes informáticas inalámbricas en las logias masónicas de la isla, sin ser detectadas por las autoridades cubanas.

Misión de alta tecnología

Fue Wachtenheim quien en 2007 contactó nuevamente a Gross para que adquiriera equipos de telecomunicaciones de alta tecnología para introducirlos en Cuba, entre ellos un equipo de conexión satelital BGAN.

El equipo BGAN permitía el acceso a internet a través de satélites del operador Inmarsat, obviando los canales nacionales de conexión sin que pudiera ser detectado. Para la adquisición del equipamiento, Gross recibió $5,500 dólares provenientes de las cuentas de FUPAD.

A partir del 2008, Gross se sumó al programa Democracia para Cuba, auspiciado por la empresa Development Alternative Inc (DAI), con sede en Maryland. El proyecto, impulsado por la USAID, buscaba romper el bloqueo del régimen cubano sobre el libre acceso a la información.

En total, Gross realizó siete viajes a Cuba y logró crear tres redes inalámbricas con BGAN en la Comunidad Hebrea de La Habana, la Comunidad Hebrea de Camagüey y la Congregación Hebrea de Santiago de Cuba. Tras la puesta en práctica del proyecto, la remuneración se elevaba a $258,274 dólares.

Representantes de esas congregaciones hebreas brindaron testimonio para la acusación judicial. De acuerdo con la sentencia, Gross les hizo creer que se trataba de una donación para mejorar la comunicación entre la comunidad judía.

Arresto nocturno

El funcionamiento de las redes inalámbricas entre las comunidades judías estimuló la iniciativa de un proyecto similar para las logias masónicas en la isla.

El documento judicial añade que el 2 de diciembre del 2009, Gross se citó con el ciudadano estadounidense Akram Elias, ex Gran Maestro de la Logia Masónica de Washington, para una reunión que se realizaría al día siguiente en el Hotel Nacional de La Habana. En ese encuentro, ambos pretendían ultimar detalles para implementar el plan en instituciones de la masonería cubana.

Pero Gross fue la noche del 3 de diciembre del 2009, un día antes de su regreso a Estados Unidos.

En la sentencia se menciona además la declaración de Capote Fernández, “agente Daniel” de la Seguridad del Estado, quien dice haber recibido un equipo BGAN en abril del 2008. El agente se servía del equipo satelital para comunicarse con Wachtenheim y supuestamente pasarle información de la actualidad cubana.

El BGAN de Capote Fernández se averió y debía ser cambiado, pero Rene Greenwald, asistente de Wachtenheim, lo llamó para advertirle que la persona designada para el reemplazo “había sido detenido en La Habana por haber cometido una serie de descuidos".

Agentes destapados

Collera Vento y Capote Fernández fueron destapados por los órganos de la Seguridad del Estado a través de la serie especial Las razones de Cuba, transmitida por la televisión nacional en marzo del 2011.

A raíz de la detención de Gross, las autoridades cubanas desataron un meticuloso rastreo para tratar de localizar otros equipos BGAN que pudieran haberse introducido en el país burlando los controles de aduana o mediante vías alternativas.

Agencias internacionales de prensa, entidades extranjeras y organismos no gubernamentales acreditados en La Habana fueron objeto del escrutinio de la inteligencia cubana, según testimonios obtenidos por CaféFuerte.

El dictamen judicial refleja además que Judy Gross, esposa del contratista, habría interpuesto una demanda contra la DAI a nombre de su familia, según declaración jurada en poder del tribunal.

El documento contiene una detallada relación de los testigos y expertos interrogados en la causa, así como de los equipos y pertenencias incautados al acusado.

Gross, de 62 años, se encuentra cumpliendo condena en el Hospital Militar "Carlos J. Finlay" de La Habana, afectado por numerosos problemas de salud. Dos representantes de la comunidad judía cubana lo visitaron en ocasión de las celebraciones de Hannukah, a fines de diciembre.

La pasada semana, las autoridades cubanas salieron al paso a un reciente editorial de The Washington Post que exige la liberación inmediata del contratista y afirma que Estados Unidos no debe ceder a la extorsión del régimen de La Habana.

El gobierno de Raúl Castro ha manifestado disposición a buscar una "salida humanitaria" al caso de Gross a cambio de que Washington acceda a excarcelar a los cinco espías cubanos que cumplen largas condenas en Estados Unidos. El Departamento de Estado ha rechazado insistentemente la opción de un canje.

Five years ago, La Loba Feroz, a.k.a. U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, publicly called for the assassination of Cuban leader Fidel Castro

2012-01-19T18:26:00.006-05:00

Read the Cuba Journal post, which quotes from the Orlando Sentinel. <--- (Click on the link)

There is no difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party of La Loba Feroz. NATO gangsters, directed and financed by the Democratic Party's Barack Obama, carried out the assassination of Muammar Qaddafi in 2011. U.S. voters will get rid of the gangster from Chicago on November 2012.

The Scarabeo 9 Is Already in Front of the Malecón de La Habana

2012-01-19T11:07:00.005-05:00

Source: Cubadebate:
El Scarabeo-9 ya está frente al Malecón de La Habana
Update at 5:59 p.m. Jan 19, 2012.

Cuba set to explore offshore as oil rig arrives

By PETER ORSI, Associated Press – 28 minutes ago

HAVANA (AP) — A huge drilling rig arrived Thursday in the warm Gulf waters north of Havana, where it will sink an exploratory well deep into the seabed, launching Cuba's dreams of striking it rich with offshore oil.

The Scarabeo-9 platform was visible from Havana's sea wall far off on the hazy horizon as it chugged westward toward its final drill site about 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the capital, and 60 miles (90 kilometers) south of Key West.

Spanish oil company Repsol RPF, which is leasing the rig for about a half-million dollars a day, said it expects to begin drilling within days to find out whether the reserves are as rich as predicted.

"The geologists have done their work. If they've done it well, then we'll have a good chance of success," Repsol spokesman Kristian Rix said by phone from Madrid. "It's been a long process, but now we're at the point where we discover whether our geologists have got it right. It's a happy day."

It's been a long, strange journey for the Scarabeo-9, Repsol and Cuba, a process shadowed at every step by warnings of a possible environmental debacle and decades of bad blood between Cuba and the United States.

The U.S. trade embargo essentially bars U.S. companies from doing oil business with Cuba,

[Cuba Journal Editor: What the U.S. doing is totally illegal, and contrary to International Law. U.S. laws do not have extra-territoriality. The U.S. is not the total ruler of the world. Might does not make right!]

and threatens sanctions against foreign companies if they don't follow its restrictions, making it far more complicated to line up equipment and resources for the project.

Ditto!

To avoid sanctions, Repsol chose the Scarabeo-9, a 380-foot-long (115-meter), self-propelled, semisubmersible behemoth built in China and Singapore and capable of housing 200 workers. The rig qualifies for the Cuba project because it was built with less than 10 percent U.S.-made parts, no small feat considering America's dominance in the industry.

While comparable platforms sat idle in the Gulf of Mexico, the Scarabeo-9 spent months navigating through three oceans and around the Cape of Good Hope to arrive in the Caribbean at tremendous expense.

Even after the rig is in place, the embargo continues to affect just about every aspect.

The Scarabeo-9's blowout preventer, a key piece of machinery that failed in the 2010 Macondo-Deepwater Horizon disaster, is state of the art. But its U.S. manufacturer is not licensed to work with Cuba so replacement parts must come through secondary sources.

It's also more complicated to do things like the maintenance necessary to keep things running smoothly and decrease the chances of something going wrong.

If it does, Cuba would be hard-pressed to respond to a major spill on its own, and getting help isn't as simple as making a phone call to Washington. The embargo would require licenses to be issued for all manner of equipment and services for an emergency response.

Few U.S. companies so far have gotten permission to work with the Cubans in the event of a spill — representing just 5 percent of all the resources thrown at the Macondo blowout, according to an estimate by Lee Hunt, president of the International Association of Drilling Contractors.

Two U.S. companies have received licenses to export capping stacks, crucial pieces of equipment for stopping gushing wells, but related services like personnel and transportation have not been green-lighted, Hunt said.

"So what you have is a great big intelligent piece of iron without a crew," he said. "You can't just drop it on the hole and hope (the spill) will stop. It's not a cork."

Even Tyvek suits worn by cleanup crews cannot currently be exported to Cuba because potentially they could be used for the construction of bacteriological or chemical weapons, Hunt added.

Meanwhile cooperation between the two governments, which often struggle to see eye-to-eye on things as basic as delivering each other's mail, has been only bare-bones.

"With any other country — Mexico, Canada or Russia — we would already have in place agreements between the coast guards of the two countries," said Dan Whittle, Cuba program director for the Environmental Defense Fund. "There would be contingency plans written and publicly available. There already would have been drills, a comprehensive action plan for responding to a spill."

"We don't have that yet."

There has been some movement.

U.S. inspectors examined the rig last week in Trinidad and gave it a clean bill of health, though notably said that did not constitute any certification. And American representatives at a regional oil meeting last month in the Bahamas were left impressed by their Cuban counterparts' openness and willingness to share information.

But the countries' proximity has increased fears of a disastrous spill with the potential to foul not only Cuba's reefs and gleaming, white-sand beaches, but also, swept up by the Gulf Stream, the coast of Florida and the Atlantic Seaboard up to North Carolina.

Curiously, those fears have been cited by people on both sides of the embargo issue: Some say the prospect of environmental disaster shows the U.S. needs to lift the embargo and work with the Cubans in the interest of safety; others say the fact that the trade ban failed to prevent Cuba from drilling shows it needs to be made even tougher.

Some of the harshest criticism has come from Cuban-American members of Congress such as House Foreign Affairs Committee chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who recently accused the Obama administration of dropping the ball on Cuban drilling.

"Oil exploration 90 miles off the Florida coast by this corrupt, unaccountable dictatorship could result in horrific environmental and economic damage to our Gulf Coast communities, in addition to enriching the Castro tyranny," Ros-Lehtinen said.

The exact size of Cuba's offshore reserves, estimated at 5 billion to 9 billion barrels, is still unknown. And production would not come online for years, so any windfall is still on the horizon. But island officials are hopeful of a big strike that could inject much-needed cash into their struggling economy, and they're not asking anyone for permission.

"Cuba is going through its own change regardless of American foreign policy," said U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the U.S. Senate who met with Cuban officials in Havana this week on oil and other matters.

"This discovery, or potential discovery, of significant amounts of oil could dramatically change the economy of Cuba, and change the relationship with the United States in small ways and large," Durbin said while visiting Haiti on Thursday.

Associated Press videojournalist Pierre-Richard Luxama in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, contributed to this report.

Mojitos at La Bodeguita del Medio

2012-01-19T11:05:00.002-05:00

Barack Obama Wants to Start a New War

2012-01-18T14:15:00.004-05:00

The United States is financially broke and almost bankrupt. But the President of the United States, together with his band of Zionist mercenaries in Israel, wants to start a new and horrible war against a country that has not attacked us, Iran.

WAKE UP AMERICA!

Of all the candidates for POTUS, only one stands out that is decent, honest, and 100% against reckless engagements in new foreign wars. That man is Libertarian U.S. Representative Ron Paul.

Send Barack Obama a message. Your days are numbered! We, the people, do not want a new war.

A vote for Ron Paul is a vote to stop Obama's new reckless war.

Icing on the cake is the fact that Ron Paul is totally opposed to embargoes that do not work (against Cuba) and which do not have the support of the civilized world.

Vote for Ron Raul on the January 31st Primary Election in Florida.

Jeffrey Goldberg: It's Time to Remove Cuba From the State Sponsor of Terrorism List

2012-01-17T13:23:00.003-05:00

The Atlantic

Jan 17 2012, 9:04 AM ET

It's been curious to me for some time that Cuba, a country that does not sponsor terror groups, is listed by the U.S. as a state sponsor of terror. Cuba's inclusion (there are three other countries on the list, Iran, Syria and Sudan) undermines the seriousness of the list. Cuba is on the list, of course, because Castro-haters in the U.S. want it to be on the list, but it is not intellectually or analytically honest to include Havana. The State Department realizes this, of course, which is why its description of Cuba's "terrorist" activities is written the way it is. From my Bloomberg View column this week:

More...

------

JG: Mr Goldberg forgets to tell his readers that the top two Castro-haters in USA are Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who both have been dissapointments and frauds.

USA Capitalist Company Is Peddling Fake Cohibas

2012-01-13T16:32:00.002-05:00

An extremely dishonest U.S. company named Thompson & Co. Inc. is offering fake Cohiba cigars in the printed January 16, 2012, issue of Fortune Magazine. Their quarter-page display advertising (see above) appears in the next-to-the-last page of that issue.

We already have one dishonest capitalist company, Bacardi, selling fake Havana Club rum. Now, a second dishonest capitalist company has joined the peddling of fake Cuban products.

Making money is the most important thing for capitalists. It does not matter to them if what they are doing is immoral, illegal, unethical or criminal. The end justifies the means.

World-wide connoisseurs of rum and cigars know that the REAL Havana Club rum and Cohiba cigars are made only in the Republic of Cuba.

Thank to the efforts of George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama, who have continued the failed economic embargo/blockade of Cuban products, dishonest companies like Thompson and Bacardi peddle counterfeit products to those who belong to the “There is a sucker born every minute” crowd.

I feel very sorry for the honest Americans who continue to be screwed by the capitalist marketers of fake products.

Grandpa's Gang of Six

2012-01-13T14:16:00.003-05:00

My six grandchildren on the 2012 New Year's Weekend

Ahmadinejad Arives in Caracas; Barack Obama Issues New Threats Against Latin American Nations

2012-01-09T14:38:00.004-05:00

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was welcomed with military honors upon his arrival at Maiquetia Airport in Caracas on January 8, 2012.

Mon Jan 9, 2012 2:2AM GMT

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has arrived in the Venezuelan capital Caracas on the first leg of his tour of several Latin American countries.

President Ahmadinejad was welcomed by Venezuelan Vice President Elias Jaua upon his arrival at Maiquetia Airport in Caracas on January 8.

Ahmadinejad is scheduled to meet with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and other senior Venezuelan officials. He will also sign several contracts and inaugurate a number of projects.

Earlier on Sunday, Chavez said he hoped the Iranian president would "rest a bit tonight and then tomorrow we will work all day reviewing cooperation agreements."

Ahmadinejad's stay in Venezuela will be followed with a trip to Nicaragua to attend the inauguration of its recently re-elected leader Daniel Ortega.

During his five-day trip, President Ahmadinejad will also visit Cuba and Ecuador and hold talks with senior officials of both countries on the further expansion of bilateral relations.

The US warned Latin American states on Friday against further expansion of diplomatic and business ties with the Islamic Republic of Iran, expressing concerns over “Iran's outreach to the Western Hemisphere.”

“We are making absolutely clear to countries around the world that now is not the time to be deepening ties, not security ties, not economic ties, with Iran,” US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

Leaders in all the four Latin American countries have in recent years built up diplomatic and trade ties with Iran, while their relations with the United States have been greatly reduced amid popular demands for an end to dependence on Washington.

Source: Press TV, Iran

Big Difference Between Mitt Romney and Ron Paul

2012-01-09T11:32:00.004-05:00

Mitt Romey, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrigh are certified Cuba-haters. They hate the Caribbean island and its people as much as Hitler hated the Jews.

In contrast, Ron Paul, a strong Libertarian, is the only candidate running for U.S. president who has said that "the United States should end its Cuba trade embargo." He is a conciliator and not a war-monger. He would end all the undeclared wars that Barack H. Obama is currently waging, and bring the troops home.

Yesterday, Mittens said that he likes to fire people. He is an unabashed pawn of Wall Street and his former employer, Bain Capital, is a typical capitalist company which tries to SCREW the bottom 99% every which way they can.

RON PAUL FOR PRESIDENT!

Source: TBO

Cuba Journal Tracking System Busy at Work

2012-01-06T11:42:00.003-05:00

Jan 6, 07:57:44 AM
Chrome 16.0 Win7

Washington,
District of Columbia,

United States, U.S. House Of Representatives,
(143.231.249.138) [Label IP Address]

cubajournal.blogspot.com/2012/01/whining-of-la-loba-feroz.html
cubajournal.blogspot.com/2012/01/whining-of-la-loba-feroz.html
(No referring link)

Amnesty International brands the Cuban Five trial as UNFAIR

2012-01-06T09:49:00.002-05:00

Unfair trials

In June, a new appeal was filed in the case of Gerardo Hernández, one of five men convicted in 2001 of acting as intelligence agents for Cuba and related charges. The appeal was based, in part, on evidence that the US government had secretly paid journalists to write prejudicial articles in the media at the time of trial, thereby undermining the defendants’ due process rights. In October, Amnesty International sent a report to the Attorney General outlining the organization’s concerns in the case.

Source: http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/usa/report-2011#section-155-9

Fidel Castro warns of climate change, nuclear threat

2012-01-06T09:26:00.002-05:00

(AFP) – 5 hours ago

HAVANA — Cuba's iconic revolutionary Fidel Castro warned that the world was on an "inexorable" march into the abyss this year because of climate change and the threat of nuclear war.

In an article published Thursday -- Castro's first since November 2011 -- the 85-year-old retired leader also took aim at the United States and at gas shale "fracking," a new source of fossil fuels condemned by environmentalists.

He did not, however, address rumors of his death, which were denied by an official Cuban blogger after they surfaced on Twitter earlier this week.

"Many dangers threaten us, but two of them, nuclear war and climate change, are decisive and are drifting further away from a solution," he wrote in an article entitled "The March Towards the Abyss."

Since handing over power to his 80-year-old brother Raul in 2006 because of health concerns, the leader of the 1959 revolution has rarely appeared in public but has penned regular editorials on world events.

In his latest article, Fidel blamed the "inexorable" decline in part on "demagogic talk, statements and speeches from the tyranny imposed on the world by the United States and its powerful and unconditional allies."

He also wrote about the risk of nuclear war, particularly in the Middle East, where he accused Israel -- the region's sole if undeclared nuclear-armed state -- of having "hundreds" of nuclear weapons.

On the subject of climate change, Castro expressed fears about hydraulic fracturing -- or "fracking" -- a process by which water, sand and chemicals are blasted into the ground to release oil and gas trapped in solid rock.

The process has been hailed by oil companies and other backers as a key new source of fossil fuels, but critics have expressed fears about its impact on the environment, health and safety.

Rumors of Castro's death have periodically surfaced since his retirement, most recently on the micro-blogging website Twitter earlier this week.

But official Cuban blogger Yohandry Bloquera, who is usually well-informed and reliable regarding events in Cuba, denied the reports, saying Castro was reading them himself and "laughing" at them.

"The CIA tried to kill him more than 700 times and Twitter is going down that road," Bloquera wrote on Tuesday.

New Hampshire & Florida Primaries. SEND THEM A MESSAGE!

2012-01-06T09:12:00.004-05:00

The Democratic and Republican parties in the states of New Hampshire and Florida will soon hold their Presidential Preference Primaries on January 10th and 31st respectively.

If you are a regular visitor to our blog, you probably already know that we are 100% opposed to continuing the failed economic embargo against Cuba. There is only one candidate that has publicly expressed his opposition to what Cuba calls a blockade, and they are correct in calling it that. It is a genocidal U.S. policy which seeks to asphyxiate the Cuban people. It does not hurt the Cuban government. The embargo/blockade has been overwhelmingly condemned, for twenty years in a row, by the General Assembly of the United Nations.

Barack H. Obama, like George W. Bush before him, has continued the Cuba embargo. Just on the Cuba issue alone, he does not deserve to be re-elected. On other national issues, the United States has gone steadily downhill since we put him in the Oval Office.

Only one candidate for POTUS has publicly opposed the Cuba embargo, and that person is Libertarian Ron Paul. See his video.

I urge the voters in New Hampshire and Florida to vote for U.S. Representative Ron Paul, as the only way that we have of protesting the continuation of the genocidal Cuba embargo.

SEND THEM A MESSAGE! The Cuba embargo has to be stopped and repealed!

Yoani Sánchez no longer wants to be a Yankee Mercenary. Now she wants to go to Brazil.

2012-01-05T14:36:00.004-05:00

Photograph: Javier Galeano/AP
Cuban blogger appeals to Brazil's president for help to leave Cuba

Dissident blogger Yoani Sánchez has issued a video plea after being denied permission to leave the country since 2004

Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro

guardian.co.uk - Thursday 5 January 2012 14.08 EST

The dissident Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez – famed for her outspoken online critiques of the country's communist regime – has issued an appeal to Brazil's president, Dilma Rousseff, to help her leave the Caribbean island.

Sánchez, a Havana-based writer who has been accused by Cuban authorities of conducting a "cyberwar" against the government, has not been able to leave the country since 2004 because of migration rules that require Cubans to receive government permission to travel.

She has now been invited to the Brazilian state of Bahia in February for the screening of a documentary about press freedom in Cuba and Honduras in which she features.

But speaking to the Brazilian television channel Record this week, Sánchez said she expected her latest request for an exit permit would again be declined without "high-level intervention".

Sánchez told Record she had "exhausted all of the options inside my country to get them to allow me to travel".

In the video appeal to Rousseff, posted on YouTube, Sánchez called on Brazil's first female president to intervene.

"Please help me," said the blogger, who says it is her 19th attempt to get travel permission from Cuban authorities. "Through this small video I want to send a very respectful [and] very humble message … to the president of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff."

"Unfortunately I am forbidden from leaving my own country – I have not committed any crime."

Referring to the time Rousseff spent in jail during Brazil's military dictatorship, Sánchez said: "I know very well that she has felt first hand … what excessive control and repression is."

"I have done everything that is within my reach but the wall of control, the wall of censorship, the wall which stops me travelling freely and returning to my island seems not to move," said Sánchez, whose supporters have also created an online petition calling on Rousseff to intervene.

Before Christmas, activists had hoped that Cuba's president, Raúl Castro, would announce major changes to the country's migration laws, particularly the rule that means Cubans require exit permits to travel abroad.

But while Castro, who officially took over from his brother as president in 2008, announced pardons for nearly 3,000 prisoners, those hoping for a loosening of travel rules were disappointed.

"The migration reforms … were not announced again," Sánchez says in her video appeal to Rousseff. "In the 21st century … we are forbidden from leaving and entering freely our country."

Sánchez has earned international plaudits for her blog, Generación Y, on which she publishes regular critiques of the Cuban authorities, often secretively posted from internet cafes.

In 2008, Time magazine named her one of the world's 100 most influential people. The magazine's profile, written by the American novelist Oscar Hijuelos, described her "feisty dedication to the truth".

"Under the nose of a regime that has never tolerated dissent, Sánchez has practiced what paper-bound journalists in her country cannot: freedom of speech," Hijuelos wrote.

But while the blogger's supporters view her as a standard-bearer for press freedom, Cuban authorities have accused her of conducting a Washington-backed "cyberwar" against the island's communist regime.

In a recent piece for Foreign Policy magazine, the Cuban blogger said that while many foreign correspondents in Havana feared expulsion if they offended authorities, social networks were helping independent journalists get the message out.

"Opening the world's eyes to the real Cuba … no longer requires a wire service dispatch; it can be done with a cell phone," she wrote.

Meanwhile, Cuban authorities have vented their anger at a Twitter user whom they accused of starting a wave of online rumours this week claiming that the former president, Fidel Castro, had died.

An article posted on the state-run Cubadebate website pointed the finger of blame at a tweeter called @Naroh.

In the story, entitled: "New lie against #FidelCastro fails on Twitter", the website claimed that after the rumours began "necrophiliac counterrevolutionaries, aided by some media, immediately started to party." Responding to the allegations that he had started the hoax, Naroh tweeted: "Cuba is blaming me for killing Fidel Castro on Twitter. Can I now consider myself a Twit-star?"

------

JG: Cuba should give her a kick in her rear end, and say: BON VOYAGE!

Cuba’s Fidel: The Most Well-Foretold Death

2012-01-05T14:02:00.004-05:00

The Havana Times

January 5, 2012

Fernando Ravsberg

HAVANA TIMES, Jan 5 — In December, Fidel Castro entered in the Guinness Book of Records for having survived 638 attempts on his life by the White House, the Mafia, the CIA and exiles in Miami.

These attempts failed despite the hiring of the best paid assassins, the buying off of a few of Castro’s trusted people, smuggled-in guns and bazookas, cameras converted into pistols, invented poisons and contaminated gifts.

Nevertheless, what these armed-to-the-teeth experts failed to do was accomplished by the Miami media. The truth is that the Guinness Book should also record Castro as the person who has died the most often…in the press.

Back in the 90’s, at a dinner with a group of foreign correspondents, then-president Fidel Castro told us jokingly that journalists had announced his death so often that no one would believe it the day it actually happened.

A short time ago in Florida, a media issued a new report on his death, despite his reappearance at the beginning of the school year. The entire Cuba press corps showed up to get soaked watching him speak in the rain.

The sources that originate these rumors are close enough to him to give them credibility but sufficiently diffuse to never allow verification. These come from “high-ranking military leaders,” “family members of Cuban leaders” and “members of their medical staffs.”

However the prophecies of the anti-Castro exiles are rarely fulfilled, which doesn’t seem to bother them much. It’s as if they’re relying on their mental powers, the ability to turn wishes into reality using the power of thought alone.

We journalists are guided by established facts. We don’t publish rumors from Twitter but the results of investigations, though everything that has to do with the inner life of Cuba’s leaders — their health included — is a closely guarded state secret.

In principle, we ruled out the possibility that Fidel Castro died in early December because it’s very unlikely that his brother, the current president, would have allowed the end of the year festivities to carry on and that all of the island’s radio stations would have kept playing salsa music.

Nor could we think of a reason for hiding his death for a month. The social and political earthquake already occurred five years ago when his personal secretary surprised the nation by reading a statement from the Comandante in which he resigned from all of his official positions.

The one time when he was close

The funny thing is that on that occasion, when Fidel Castro really was on the verge of death, there had been no previous rumors. Apparently the sources that the Miami press have within the Cuban government were in Varadero on vacation that summer.

We journalists would spare ourselves from mistakes if we focused on reporting what was actually happening and left the predictions to Mayan astrologers. This is even more so since we have to write about a country as unpredictable as Cuba.

A green revolution turned out to be red, which the Americans were going to overthrow in a few months, until they saw Russian missiles sticking out from between the palm trees. The island was never able to produce more milk than Holland or prevent the “new man” from emigrating, but it survived the Soviet collapse.

This is a country of paradoxes. It’s a place where one Pope excommunicates the president and two other Popes visit the head of state as if nothing ever happened. It’s a place where Fidel was never going to retire, Raul would be incapable of holding onto power and where the fundamentalists would never tolerate reform.

To understand this nation is essential to accept that nothing here is what it seems. Wages aren’t income, the poor are not malnourished, teachers earns less than doormen and health care is the sector that generates the most money – despite it being free.

It’s a society where people don’t steal but “resuelve” (resolve problems), which isn’t the same, even if it seems identical to the layperson. It’s a very nationalist society; though they accept the leadership of foreign generals and commanders in their wars.

If it’s difficult to understand what goes on in this country, it’s even harder to predict the exact date of the death of one of its children. This is why the wisest and most professional approach seems to be reporting matters when we have official confirmation.

Sitting around waiting for the announcement of Castro’s death by the enemy — who repeats this over and over like spokespeople for a funeral home — is something that humanly lacks ethics, journalistically lacks credibility, and politically implies a public confession of one’s own failings.

—

An authorized translation by Havana Times
(from the Spanish original) published by BBC Mundo.

The Whining of La Loba Feróz

2012-01-05T13:05:00.002-05:00

She is the laughingstock of the U.S. House of Representatives, if not the world-at-large. U.S. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Miami) has the strange and abnormal hobby of “objecting” to everything that has to do with Cuba Soberana y Socialista. She does it because she realizes that she and her family of Batista supporters are never-ever going to go back to “La Isla Mas Hermosa que Ojos Humanos Han Visto.”

The Smithsonian Institution is apparently sponsoring trips to Cuba, and why not. They should really try to get Ileanita truly pissed off by starting the tours on the 26th of each month, to honor the epic struggle of the Cuban people to obtain true independence from the corrupt pseudo-republic imposed by the Yankee occupiers on 20th May 1902.

Read the latest caper from La Loba Feróz by clicking here.

Am I excommunicated? Probably, since I support Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution

2012-01-04T17:11:00.005-05:00

Latin America Herald Tribune

Caracas,
Wednesday
January 4,2012

Pope Prepares for Cuba Visit 50 Years After Fidel’s Excommunication

VATICAN CITY – This week’s 50th anniversary of Pope John XXIII’s excommunication of Cuban leader Fidel Castro coincides with preparations for a visit to the Communist-ruled island by the current pontiff, Benedict XVI.

Castro was excommunicated a month and a day after his Dec. 2, 1961, speech proclaiming himself a Marxist-Leninist and announcing his plans to lead Cuba to communism.

John XXIII supported that measure in the 1949 decree of Pope Pius XII, which established the penalty of excommunication for anyone spreading communism.

The revolution headed by Castro had already proclaimed itself “socialist,” and later the state declared itself to be “atheist” up until 1992 when that designation was replaced in the Cuban Constitution by the word “secular.”

Benedict XVI will travel in March to Mexico and Cuba on his second visit to Latin America after a 2007 excursion to Brazil.

President Raul Castro, Fidel’s younger brother, said a few weeks ago that Cuba would welcome Benedict XVI with “affection and respect” on a visit coinciding with the 400th anniversary of the finding of the image of the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, the island’s patron saint.

Although the details of the pontiff’s agenda are not yet known, it can be assumed that one of the central events will take place at the sanctuary where the image of the saint is housed in El Cobre, in the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba. The Virgin Mary’s image there was honored personally by Pope John Paul II on Jan. 24, 1998, during his visit to the communist-ruled island.

There has been no official word that the pope will meet with Fidel Castro, whose excommunication has never been lifted.

Vatican sources told Efe that they did not know the date of the retired Cuban leader’s excommunication and that there was nothing scheduled pertaining to that situation, but they emphasized that the spiritual sanction imposed on Fidel Castro “did not pose any problem when John Paul II visited the island” in 1998.

Indeed, Fidel received John Paul II with open arms on his “historic” 1998 visit and was in the first row, along with his Cabinet, for the farewell Mass the pope celebrated on the Plaza de la Revolucion in Havana on Jan. 25.

With John Paul II’s visit, Cuba lifted the prohibition on public processions, Christmas was reinstated as an official celebration, the entry into the country of priests, monks and nuns was authorized and sporadic liturgical announcements were permitted in the official media.

The message of John Paul II on that visit was “that Cuba is opening itself to the world and the world is opening itself to Cuba.” That is a stance that his successor, Benedict XVI, has repeated in a move that was interpreted as “recognition” of the mission of the Catholic Church on the island and its contribution to projecting a favorable image of Cuba internationally.

EFE

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JG: "Sticks and stones may break my bones / But words will never hurt me"

Pope will meet Mexican, Cuban presidents during visit in March

2012-01-04T16:29:00.002-05:00

Pope Benedict XVI
Catholic News Service

Jan-3-2012

By Carol Glatz

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI will meet with Cuban President Raul Castro, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and bishops and Catholics from the region when he visits Mexico and Cuba March 23-28.

He will also deliver a message to the bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean as well as pray at the shrine of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre in Cuba.

Vatican Radio released the pope's itinerary as detailed by the Mexican and Cuban bishops' conferences Jan. 2.

The pope will visit three cities in the state of Guanajuato in central Mexico; the Vatican spokesman had said Pope Benedict would not visit Mexico City because of the elevation -- 7,900 feet above sea level -- but the towns in Guanajuato are each about 5,900 feet above sea level.

In Cuba, he will make stops in Santiago de Cuba and the capital, Havana.

From Rome, the pope will arrive in Mexico March 23 at the airport in Leon, Guanajuato, where he will be received by President Calderon and Archbishop Jose Guadalupe Martin Rabago of Leon.

During his four-day stay in Mexico, the pope will be staying at the Miraflores College in Leon, an institute run by religious sisters.

The pope will meet government officials and President Calderon March 24 at the Guanajuato state government house of Conde Rul. Later he will greet and bless those gathered at Peace Square.

He will celebrate Mass March 25 in Silao's Bicentennial Park, which is at the foot of the Cerro del Cubilete hill and its 67-foot-tall monument of Cristo Rey. Representatives of the 91 dioceses of Mexico will be present at the Mass.

Later in the day, the pope will celebrate evening prayer in Leon's cathedral and deliver a message for all the bishops of Mexico and the representatives of bishops' conferences of Latin America and the Caribbean.

The pope will leave Mexico March 26 for Cuba, where he will be welcomed at the Santiago de Cuba airport by President Castro, Archbishop Dionisio Guillermo Garcia Ibanez of Santiago de Cuba and representatives of the Cuban bishops' conference.

The pope will celebrate Mass in Antonio Maceo Revolution Square later that day. He will stay at a priests' residence in El Cobre.

The pope will make a private visit to the shrine of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre March 27.

Afterward, he will head to the airport and fly to Havana where he will be welcomed by Cardinal Jaime Ortega Alamino of Havana, bishops and religious, government and civil leaders.

The pope will have an official meeting with President Castro and will meet with Cuban bishops at the apostolic nunciature, where the pope will be staying.

The pope will celebrate Mass March 28 in Jose Marti Revolution Square and leave later that day for Rome.

OMG! Another "Fidel is Dead" Rumor

2012-01-04T15:26:00.002-05:00

Cuba criticizes Twitter for Fidel death rumor

Source: The Miami Herald

By PAUL HAVEN
Associated Press

HAVANA -- State media on Wednesday accused the social networking site Twitter of helping spread a rumor that former Cuban leader Fidel Castro had died, and criticized anti-Castro expatriates it dubbed "necrophiliac counterrevolutionaries" for jumping on the story.

An article on the state-run Cubadebate Web site accused Twitter of allowing an account holder with the sign-on "Naroh" to start the rumor on Monday from an Italian server, then quickly deactivate the account.

It said Twitter then helped spread the disinformation by allowing the hash tag "fidelcastro" to become a trending topic. It briefly became the fourth most popular in the world as it drew many more people to the subject.

The site also accused Twitter of censoring subjects in the past that were in favor of the Cuban government.

There was no immediate reaction from Twitter. Rumors that a celebrity or other public figure is dead are common on social media sites and can spread quickly because of their nature.

Cubadebate also blamed anti-Castro expatriates anxious to see Castro's demise for gleefully furthering the rumor, saying "necrophiliac counterrevolutionaries, aided by some media, immediately started to party."

Castro, 85, turned power over to his brother Raul in 2006 during an illness that nearly killed him. He is officially retired, though he occasionally publishes opinion columns.

In recent months, Castro has alluded to the limits of age, but has also taken pride in his longevity. Cuba boasts that along with besting the actuarial tables, the former Cuban leader has survived hundreds of assassination attempts at the hands of his enemies in the United States.

Cubadebate noted that a false story about Castro's demise was spread on the Internet and elsewhere back in August. On that occasion, there was even a computer virus embedded in a spam email titled "Fidel is Dead," which featured a doctored, grainy photograph of the former Cuban leader that appeared to show him lying in a coffin.

As usual, the Cuban government has declined to make any official comment about Castro's health. But the former leader hasn't been silent. On Dec. 31, he sent a get-well letter to a Cuban baseball star that was read over state television.

Cubadebate on Wednesday reiterated a refrain it used the last time the Castro rumors began, saying that the latest hubbub was spread by "people inventing things in the virtual world that even the CIA could not accomplish in real life."

Follow Paul Haven at http://www.twitter.com/paulhaven/

Opponent of the Cuba Embargo Finishes a Strong Third in Iowa Caucuses

2012-01-04T13:24:00.004-05:00

December 4, 2012

U.S. Representative Ron Paul, who is the only candidate for President of the United States in the 2012 presidential election who has publicly expressed his opposition to the failed Cuba embargo, and who is also a very strong anti-war candidate, finished as a third place winner in the Iowa caucuses last night.

The American electorate is ready for BIG CHANGE. Barack H. Obama has followed in the footsteps of George W. Bush. The guy who promised us hope, change, and “a new beginning with Cuba” has been a huge fraud. He is the standard bearer of the status quo and the capitalist establishment. He leads the anti-Cuba hate partisans, and keeps on sending millions of U.S. taxpayer money to the anti-Cuba Cuban-American National Foundation, which is funded and directed by the United States government.

There will be many more primary elections or caucuses during the rest of this year. Florida will hold its Presidential Preference Primary on January 31st. I urge you to do what I did: change your party registration (temporarily, of course!) to Republican and cast your vote of support for Representative Ron Paul in the coming last Tuesday of this month. Send them a strong message that you oppose the Cuba embargo. Then on February first you can always change your voter registration back to what it was before.

A vote for Romney, Gingrich or Obama is a vote to continue the failed policies of the empire in regards to Cuba.

Ron Paul in New Hampshire - Does He Have Enough Momentum to Win There?

¡Cuba Va!

2011-12-30T10:53:00.004-05:00

Ver: Con mis compatriotas ¡Cuba va!

Emisión postal por 80 años del debut de Alicia Alonso

2011-12-30T10:37:00.002-05:00

Mesa Redonda

30 Diciembre 2011

La prima ballerina assoluta Alicia Alonso y Silvia Munarriz, viceministra de la Informática y las Comunicaciones, cancelaron hoy, en esta capital, un sello postal por el aniversario 80 del debut escénico de la legendaria bailarina cubana.

En la sede del Teatro Amadeo Roldán, otrora Teatro Auditórium, tuvo lugar este suceso filatélico, justo cuando se cumplen los 80 años de que Alicia bailó por primera vez, en ese propio lugar, en una función de la Escuela de Ballet de la Sociedad Pro-Arte Musical.

El Grand vals de La bella durmiente del bosque, fue la obra inaugural interpretada, con solo 11 años, por la también directora del Ballet Nacional de Cuba en 1931.

Al término de la ceremonia Alicia expresó su satisfacción por la recordación de esta efeméride y destacó que sus triunfos y el de la compañía se deben también al esfuerzo de los bailarines, ma tres, ensayadores y trabajadores en general, muchos de ellos presentes en la cancelación.

Silvia Munarriz, precisó que era un privilegio para el ministerio que ella representa hacer esa emisión postal en fecha tan significativa, además de tratarse de una figura de talla universal como lo es Alicia Alonso.

Añadió que esta era una oportunidad única de honrar a la excelsa bailarina, quien tanta gloria le ha dado a Cuba, mientras continúa aumentando así la colección filatélica sobre la artista.

Esta cancelación es la antesala de la gala homenaje que tendrá lugar, esta noche, en la sala García Lorca del Gran Teatro de la Habana, con un programa de obras coreográficas de Alicia, que comenzará con el Grand vals del primer acto de La bella durmiente del bosque.

Proseguirá con el Grand pas de quatre, interpretado por Viengsay Valdés, Sadaise Arencibia, Anette Delgado y Yanela Piñera y le siguen Pretextos y Preciosa y el aire, este último protagonizado por Irene Rodríguez, como artista invitada, y Alejandro Silva.

La función continuará con A la caída de la tarde, a cargo del cuerpo de baile, y Diálogo a cuatro, por Dayesi Torrientes, Arianni Martín, Luis Valle y Arián Molina.

Anette Delgado y Dani Hernández centralizarán el Grand pas de La flauta mágica y por último, será interpretado el final del ballet Sinfonía de Gottschalk.

(Con información de la AIN)

The Privatization of U.S. Foreign Policy

2011-12-30T10:26:00.001-05:00

The American imperialists have come up with a new twist when they are trying to subvert the internal affairs of a country they dislike.

The Cuba case is a very good example. The dislike of the imperialists has been transmorphed into regular vanilla flavor of hate.

The imperialists always think that the rest of the world is stupid and that they can hide their never-ending policies of greed and rapaciousness’ by coining new terminology.

The covert agents of the American empire are no longer called “assets” or “spooks.” Hillary and Obama now call them contractors.

Allan Gross was fooled by the Washington D.C. dynamic duo into believing this new word that they minted recently, in an effort to curry favor with corporate CEO’s, who apparently are now in charge of directing U.S. foreign policy, in exchange for 12 gold coins.

Gross deserves the 15 years that he got for allowing himself to be used by the smelly pair of the Potomac.

Cuba: Surreal, Beautiful, Affordable for Visitors

2011-12-29T16:14:00.005-05:00

Vintage American car rolls
past Cuba's former Capital Dome in Havana
www.mlive.com

Published: Thursday, December 29, 2011, 8:10 AM
Updated: Thursday, December 29, 2011, 1:18 PM

By Michael Patrick Shiels

HAVANA, Cuba -- It wasn’t just the plate of caballo – roasted horse – sitting in front of me at El Patio, an open-air restaurant in Havana’s Plaza de La Cathedral that made the night in Cuba surreal.

It was also the sight of the dramatic moonlight illuminating the crumbling Catedral San Cristobal -- completed in 1777 and purported to, at one time, house the casket of Christopher Columbus – and the sound of the five classical musicians playing in the square.

During a visit in early December, I discovered that beauty is abundant in this forbidden fiefdom left behind by time and politics.

Havana is by no means a foodie destination, but I washed down the horse, (salty and served with beans, rice and plantains) with decent wine in an elegant atmosphere at a price tourists could easily afford but Cuban citizens could only dream of.

I spoke with a young woman, a mother of one, who is employed in the communist system at a ration distribution center by day and works the streets by night. There are two classes of people here. The government caters to the tourists, but doesn’t care about us,” she said. When I asked her if that bothered her, she answered, in Spanish, “How could it not?”

She mentioned that some of her friends would soon set sail in an escape attempt for the freedom of Florida by boat, so I inquired as to whether she planned to go, too? “No, no,” she said wide-eyed, making a biting motion with her fingernails. “Tiburon (trans: shark) chomp chomp!”

Despite the frequent “passing the hat” by musicians in every restaurant, I never felt endangered or menaced as a tourist on the streets of Old Havana. My colleague, Jason Pater, of Grand Rapids, speaks fluent Spanish and served as a capable translator, often abbreviating my attempts with the line: “Mi amigo no sabe lo que esta hablando, su corazon es bueno, dejalo en Paz,” which he told me meant “My friend doesn't know what he is saying. His heart is good. Leave him in peace.”

Cuban government penalties for disturbing visitors are severe, since tourism dollars account for 70 percent of the failing economy. Rather than displaying resentment, Cubans on the street seemed delighted to meet the rare “Americano” since, due to the U.S. trade embargo, “Yankees” without special permission are forbidden to visit Cuba or “trade with the enemy.”

It is that half-century-long embargo that Manuel Yepe Menendez, dictator Fidel Castro’s now retired protocol chief, blames, rather than their socialist system, for the island’s state of physical and economic disrepair. Menendez, 75, was an original participant in the 1958 Cuban Revolution and served as a close ally to the Castro bothers and Che Guevara. He is one of the people authorized by the Cuban Government to meet with U.S. visitors.

“Is there anything at all about our American ideals or activities that you do admire or at least appreciate?” I asked Menendez during a long (guided) drive to a tobacco farm in the countryside. After pondering my question for a moment, he answered, “Your movies. We love your movies.”

But don’t try to find a copy of Entertainment Weekly, or any newspaper or magazine while walking the cobblestone streets. In a land that reveres American correspondent Ernest Hemingway, (his home Finca La Vigia, overlooking Havana, is a museum, while his favorite bar, the daiquiri-inventing Floridita, boasts a life-sized statue of “Papa”), newsstands are filled with only government history books about Chez Guevara, Jose Marti and Castro.

The daily newspaper, Granma International, prints slanted propaganda stories. One local equated Granma to toilet paper -- also a luxury in Cuba. Someone outside the bathroom door will sell you a few sheets of tissue on your way in, and public toilets do not have seats.

It was also surreal to tour the Museum of the Revolution and quietly witness a ceremony during which a Cuban general presented an award to a citizen while the attendees, standing in perfect lines, shouted “Viva Fidel!” The museum featured, among other anti-U.S. exhibits, a replica of the missile the Castro regime used to shoot down an American U2 spy plane next to the burned wreckage of the aircraft.

Still operating in Havana, though, are the American vintage cars: countless Buick, Oldsmobile, Chevy, Cadillac, Hudson, DeSoto and even Edsel tail-fined beauties rolling through the streets, many touched up with house paint, and dating back to the 1920’s!

Before I boarded the flight back to Toronto, I sampled late-night cocktails at The Nacional Hotel. A torpedo-sized Montecristo or Cohiba Cuban cigar, $35 anywhere else and illegal in the U.S., is $5 in Havana -- very affordable, for touristas, that is.

Michael Patrick Shiels may be contacted at TravelTattler.com

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JG: despite some idiotic comments by this Anglo author, the vast majority of the Cuban people support their government, because it is a vast improvement over the dog-eat-dog capitalism of former Yankee puppet, General Fulgencio Batista. The islanders have a deep love and respect for both Fidel and Raul. Che is a God in the island.

Piden Senadores Indagar Acciones Anticubanas en México de Grupos Subvencionados por Estados Unidos

2011-12-29T15:35:00.006-05:00

Este país no puede convertirse en “instrumento de ataques” contra otra nación.

Periódico La Jornada, Mexico

Víctor Ballinas

Miércoles 28 de diciembre de 2011, p. 13

Senadores de PRI, PRD y PT manifestaron que es urgente que el Congreso de la Unión o, en su receso, la Comisión Permanente, soliciten una investigación sobre las acciones anticubanas que desarrollan en México fundaciones y organizaciones civiles extranjeras que son subvencionadas por la Agencia de Estados Unidos para el Desarrollo Internacional (USAID).

El perredista Carlos Sotelo, secretario de la comisión de Relaciones Exteriores América Latina y el Caribe, dijo que él asume el compromiso de llevar el tema a la comisión de la que forma parte para “evaluarlo y “si procede pedir una investigación. Es el Senado de la República, por sus facultades en materia de política exterior, el que debe evaluar la situación”.

Sin duda, abundó el senador del PRD, hay que fortalecer el régimen de libertades, de opinión y de difundir posiciones políticas y puntos de vista sobre lo que acontece en el país y en el mundo, pero de eso “a que nuestro país sea sede de ofensivas para debilitar y en un extremo derrocar a un gobierno legalmente constituido, con el cual México tiene relaciones diplomáticas, incluso de carácter histórico, es mucha la diferencia. Esto amerita que lo trate el Congreso y en particular el Senado”.

Por su parte, el senador priísta Carlos Jiménez Macías subrayó: “Esos hechos no son los primeros, sino que se suman a la larga lista de actividades anticuba, que se producen no sólo en el ámbito de los grupos radicales en contra de la Cuba actual desde Estados Unidos, Miami o Florida, sino también ahora en tierras de América Latina”.

“Buscan desprestigiar a la isla”

En entrevista por separado, Jiménez Macías coincidió con el senador Sotelo en que si bien que “hay libertad para que la gente se exprese, opine y difunda sus puntos de vista sobre el régimen cubano, no podemos cerrar los ojos frente a la forma en que organismos que sabemos muy bien están subvencionados por el gobierno estadunidense y están buscando precisamente desprestigiar, generan una opinión contra el gobierno de la isla y buscan desestabilizarlo”.

El priísta advirtió: “Debemos ser muy cuidadosos y estar muy alertas de que bajo el manto de la libertad de expresión y de la posibilidad que tienen las organizaciones no gubernamentales, las fundaciones, las asociaciones de reunirse y hacer juicios, que detrás de ello no haya la intención de generar una imagen contraria del pueblo cubano y sobre todo que emprendan acciones que busquen desestabilizar su gobierno; eso hay que rechazarlo”.

Jiménez Macías aseveró: “El gobierno de México debe estar muy atento y mantener su posición de respeto absoluto a la soberanía y al régimen cubanos. Es muy importante que se sepa de fondo qué hay atrás de las organizaciones que el pasado 5 de diciembre se reunieron en la ciudad de México, y en la que participaron organizaciones de Miami subsidiadas con fondos del gobierno de Estados Unidos, conocidas por su política anticastrista.

“El gobierno mexicano, en todo caso, debe dejar muy claro que no auspicia ni financia actividades de este tipo y en todo caso debe hacerlos responsables de los contenidos que ahí se difundieron, pues todos conocemos el papel de las ONG y fundaciones internacionales. Sabemos cuáles son sus tendencias: las hay progresistas, conservadoras, de derecha, de ultraderecha, de izquierda. Algunas son bien conocidas por su franca intervención contra los gobiernos. Lo hemos visto en América Latina. Hay que ser cuidadosos”.

Ricardo Monreal, coordina- dor de los senadores del PT, resaltó el artículo de Carlos Fazio, titulado “La USAID, México, y la subversión en Cuba” (La Jornada, 26/12/11), y señaló que es una llamada oportuna para que la Comisión Permanente se pronuncie sobre este tipo de reuniones con la participación de organizaciones radicales y anticastristas financiadas por Estados Unidos, y con la participación de organizaciones de derecha de México. El país no puede convertirse en un instrumento de ataque a ninguna nación”, dijo.

Desde hace tiempo, “ONG identificadas con la extrema derecha y con grupos anticastristas anticubanos trabajan para que México sea un instrumento de ataque a Cuba. Es muy lamentable que el gobierno lo permita o sea omiso. El Senado debe pedir una investigación y el gobierno mexicano debe deslindarse de auspiciar ese tipo de reuniones en las que se trabaja para desestabilizar a la isla”.

Ron Paul: Lift Cuba Embargo, Boost U.S. Economy

2011-12-28T12:27:00.004-05:00

I am a registered Independent, so I can not vote in the Republican Presidential Preference Primary, but I am considering registering temporarily that way, so I can express my repudiation of Barack Obama, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, who are Capitalist Establishment Candidates, who are pledged to continue this 50 year monumental failure.

END THE CUBA EMBARGO!

Former U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Lead Investigator: Time to Clean Up U.S. Regime-Change Programs in Cuba

2011-12-27T16:18:00.005-05:00

BY FULTON ARMSTRONG

Posted on Sunday, 12.25.11

When a covert action run by the CIA goes bad and a clandestine officer gets arrested, the U.S. government works up a strategy for negotiating his release. When a covert operator working for USAID gets arrested, Washington turns up the rhetoric, throws more money at the compromised program, and refuses to talk.

For three years, I was the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s lead investigator into the political operations of the State Department and USAID in Cuba and elsewhere in Latin America. The Cuba programs — designed to identify, organize, train and mobilize Cubans to demand political change — have an especially problematic heritage, including embezzlement, mismanagement, and systemic politicization. Some program successes costing millions of taxpayer dollars, such as the creation of a network of “independent libraries,” were grossly exaggerated or fabricated.

Complete Article

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JG: It is a well known fact that the sitting U.S. President uses USAID funds to channel taxpayer money to their political cronies. Dubbya and Obama have both done it.

It’s Not Just CEOs. Lawmakers Are the 1%, Too

2011-12-27T16:01:00.002-05:00

by Mike Hall, Dec 27, 2011

Every wonder why it’s so hard to get a millionaires’ tax passed?

We all know that the gap between the 1 percent and the rest us has grown to obscene proportions. Their wealth has soared while ours has stagnated or fallen over the past decade and more.

We picture Wall Street stockbrokers, bankers and CEOs as the top winners in our out of whack economy. But new figures from the University of Michigan and the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) show that members of Congress—where 250 lawmakers are millionaires—are doing better than anybody.

More...

http://twitpic.com/7zfu7n

2011-12-27T15:54:00.000-05:00

http://twitpic.com/7zfu7n

Scarabeo 9 Arrives in Trinidad and Tobago

2011-12-27T14:49:00.002-05:00

Trinidad and Tobago News

By CLINT CHAN TACK Tuesday, December 27 2011

CUBAN oil rig Scarabeo 9 has arrived in Trinidad and Tobago, Energy Minister Kevin Ramnarine confirmed yesterday adding that he was advised by officials from Spanish energy company Repsol YPF that Scarabeo 9 arrived on Christmas Eve and the rig is currently located off the coast of Chaguaramas and is expected to remain there for a two week period for inspection. Repsol is the client of the rig.

More than 2,500 Freed in Cuba Amnesty

2011-12-27T14:37:00.003-05:00

Chicago Tribune

Rosa Tania Valdes

Reuters

12:18 p.m. CST, December 27, 2011

HAVANA (Reuters) - More than 2,500 Cuban prisoners have been released in recent days under a New Year's amnesty announced before a visit next spring by Pope Benedict XVI, a local human rights group said on Tuesday.

Cuban President Raul Castro said last Friday that the ruling Council of State had granted amnesty to more than 2,900 common prisoners.

Castro said the amnesty was a "humanitarian gesture" and had also "taken into account" an upcoming papal visit and requests by, among others, top Roman Catholic Church officials in Cuba and relatives of the prisoners.

"We estimate that more than 2,500 prisoners have been released in all the provinces, and the process continues," Elizardo Sanchez, head of the independent Cuban Commission on Human Rights, told Reuters.

The government and official media have not commented on the releases.

Cuban President Raul Castro said on Friday the amnesty covered people more than 60 years of age, prisoners who are ill, women and some young prisoners who had no previous criminal history, as well as a few prisoners who had been convicted for crimes against "the security of the state."

The Cuban president said 86 foreigners from 25 countries convicted of committing crimes in Cuba were also on the amnesty list.

A number of Western diplomats said on Tuesday they were waiting to be contacted by Cuban authorities about their nationals in Cuban jails.

Peace on the Florida Strait and Goodwill To All Men

2011-12-23T09:22:00.004-05:00

As we prepare to celebrate Christmas on Sunday, let us pledge ourselves to support policies that will nurture and grow Peace between the people of the United States and the people of Cuba.

YES WE CAN!

Spain's Repsol YPF Scarabeo 9 to Arrive in Trinidad and Tobago Around Christmas

2011-12-21T10:42:00.004-05:00

Trinidad and Tobago is the headquarters of Repsol's Caribbean operations.

Complete story from: upstreamonline.com.

Cuba could become an oil exporter.

La Loba Feroz and the Infamous 34.

U.S. Maintained Historic Policy of Aggression Against Cuba in 2011

2011-12-19T10:43:00.005-05:00

Por Jorge V. Jaime *

Havana (Prensa Latina) The legislative and institutional aggressions of the United States against Cuba actually increased in the course of 2011, despite the relative flexibilities of the blockade decreed by U.S. President Barack Obama at the beginning of the year.

The attacks and attempts to thwart the projects of firms belonging to the government and Cubans were led mainly by congress people linked to the Cuban-American extreme right wing, mainly in the cities of Miami and New Jersey.

In general, Washington's historic hostile behavior against Cuba was maintained without significant changes, although, for the twentieth consecutive year, the United Nations General Assembly in October again condemned the blockade imposed by the United States against Cuba half a century ago.

In the presence of Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, the world forum voted in favor of another resolution on "the Necessity to End the Economic, Commercial and Financial Blockade," with only two votes against and 186 in favor.

Nevertheless, two days after the historic vote in New York, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, head of the Foreign Relations Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, openly asked U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to take more forceful actions against the government of Havana.

During a congressional hearing, the ultraconservative Lehtinen criticized Clinton because of what she called Washington´s "double standard," for using force to remove leaders like Muammar Gadaffi, while it abstains from similar actions against Cuba.

Lehthinen's provocative statements were added to others throughout the year with the same tone, spread by congress people from the group of politicians considered as anti-Cuban reactionaries: Marco Rubio, Mario Díaz-Balart, Bob Menendez, David Rivera, Bob Graham and Bill Nelson, among others.

In that same sense, Congressman Diaz-Balart, from the Republican Party of Florida, argued that U.S. President Barack Obama's policy on Cuba has been counter-productive, since the Cuban government has interpreted it as a sign of weakness.

"Obama´s concessions have been seen as a sign of weakness by the White House and are another demonstration of how wrong the U.S. administration's policies regarding Havana really are," said the congressman of Cuban origin.

In January 2011, by virtue of a resolution by the U.S. President, some regulations related to Washington´s blockade against Cuba were relaxed, but important restrictions against Cuba remained in force.

The minor changes signed by the White House only allow trips for academic, religious, cultural or sports events that comply with certain regulations, and especially with a policy Obama has called "promotion of person-to-person contact."

The U.S. Department of Treasury warned that the flexibilization of educational and cultural trips by U.S. citizens cannot be interpreted as the promotion of tourism to Cuba.

The Office for Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) decided to clear up what it called "mistaken interpretations appearing in some media," which had talked about an alledged broad opening of trips to Cuba.

Indeed, this very month, the OFAC and the Department of Treasury sanctioned another foreign bank for trading with Cuba in the context of the economic blockade maintained by the U.S. government for more than 50 years, despite international protests against this extra-territorial measure.

The OFAC reported that a New York branch of the German Commerzbank was fined 175,000 dollars, for carrying out transactions violating the U.S.-imposed financial blockade against Cuba.

Before Commerzbank, in this same year, JP Morgan Chase had to pay a fine of 88.3 million dollars for alledged transgressions against the regulations of the White House for dealings with Cuba.

Also, the U.S. branch of CMA-CGM, the world´s third biggest shipping company, was fined 374,400 dollars for transporting goods from Cuba.

In tune with Ros-Lehtinen´s incitements against Cuba, another congressman from the ultra-right wing, David Rivera, orchestrated attempts to revoke the relaxation of the restrictions on trips to the Caribbean island.

Rivera, a Republican from south Florida, presented an amendment that was approved by 36 votes in favor and 6 against in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives.

This proposal was very similar to the one presented by Diaz-Balart, which was added to a Department of Treasury bill and was certified by a committee of the U.S. Senate.

Both Rivera´s and Diaz-Balart´s amendments would restore the drastic prohibitions to travel to Cuba that were in force during the George W. Bush administration.

While the U.S. government increases its hostility towards Cuba, U.S. non-governmental organizations are sponsoring initiatives in favor of the Cuban people, and are denouncing the absurd laws ratified by different U.S. administrations.

A recent example of this was the Conference of Washington. This forum, convened against the U.S. government´s inclusion of Cuba in the list of countries fostering terrorism, was a success and gathered renowned academics in defense of Cuba.

"It was very important that academic and civil society sectors with certain voice and influence in the U.S. political system declared the unfairness of the measure," commented Carlos Alzugaray, a professor at the University of Havana.

In a telephone conversation with Prensa Latina from the venue of the event, this political scientist and an expert in the United States, said that the seminar allowed establishing dialogue emphasizing that subject in the very center of power of the country.

"We agreed that there is no reason to maintain Cuba on that list, which in fact is arbitrary, because the first thing we should discuss is Washington's right to create a registry of alleged terrorist states," emphasized Alzugaray. The United States included Cuba in the controversial list in 1982, at the request of then Secretary of State Alexander Haig and by a resolution certified by then President Ronald Reagan.

The NGOs Latin America Working Group and the Center for International Policy sponsored the pro-Cuban meeting at the National Press Club, in Washington D.C.

Among the distinguished lecturers were the university professor Arturo Lopez-Levy, of the Josef Korbel School of International Studies in the University of Denver; Wayne Smith, a former U.S. diplomatic representative in Cuba, and Sarah Stephens, from the Center for Democracy, among others.

The Washington-imposed blockade of Cuba has caused direct economic damage estimated at almost 975 billion dollars and, according to some experts, the amount would be higher if the calculation were made taking into account the inflation of U.S. retail prices.

Cuba reasserted this year its traditional position to maintain respectful dialogue with the government of the United States.

Such dialogue must be developed on the basis of fairness, equality and reciprocity," said the director of the North America Department at the Cuban Foreign Ministry, Josefina Vidal.

Obama has the historic opportunity to change relations with Cuba. There is an international demand for the White House to make that decision, turn the page and change this relationship of 50 years that does not respond to the interests of the U.S. or Cuban people, said the Cuban official.

* Head of the North American Desk at Prensa Latina.

Modificado el (domingo, 18 de diciembre de 2011)

Hate-Monger and fake-exile U.S. Senator Marco Rubio is at it, AGAIN!

2011-12-19T10:31:00.002-05:00

The Hill

Rubio to resume holds on two western hemisphere nominees over Cuba

By Pete Kasperowicz - 12/19/11 09:17 AM ET

Freshman Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said Saturday that he would block the nomination of two of the Obama administration's western hemisphere nominees, because the State Department has failed to answer his questions about Cuba travel policy.

Rubio said on the Senate floor Saturday that he asked State to look into two "people to people" travel itineraries from a company out of New York. Rubio said that rather than fostering democratic change in Cuba, these trips appear to just be tourism. "The reason why this is problematic is because it gives money to the Castro government," he said.

Rubio said State's reply to Rubio on Saturday was essentially a non-answer.

"Then I got this letter today that, to summarize, basically says: Thank you for your letter, but we can't talk to you about it," Rubio said. "That is not what I expected to get, and so we are going to hold those nominations again until we take this seriously.

"This is a problem," he added. "We have these companies in America that are advertising tourism to Cuba — tourism that is not just a source of irritation, it is a source of hard currency."

Rubio's office said that the two nominations he would hold are those of Roberta Jacobson to be Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, and Adam Namm to be Ambassador to Ecuador.

Cuban Americans like Rubio have long argued that allowing travel to Cuba allows Americans to bring hard dollars to the island, which the Cuban government can then harvest by forcing Cuban residents to buy goods in dollar stores.

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JG: I am Cuban-American and did not vote for this piece of SCUM from Miami!

The Gardens of the Queen

2011-12-19T09:52:00.003-05:00

60 Minutes

(CBS News)

60 Minutes cameras take you on an underwater adventure off the Cuban coast to one of the world's most pristine and vibrant coral reefs, known as the Gardens of the Queen. Anderson Cooper scuba dives with marine biologist David Guggenheim, dodging giant groupers and sharks, to explore this increasingly rare oasis.

Scientists estimate that 25 percent of the world's reefs have died off and much of what's left is at risk.

The following is a script of "The Gardens of the Queen" which aired on Dec. 18, 2011. Anderson Cooper is the correspondent. Andy Court and Anya Bourg, producers.

Coral reefs are often called "the rainforests of the ocean." They're not just biologically diverse and stunningly beautiful, they're a source of food and income for nearly a billion people. They're also in danger. Scientists estimate that 25 percent of the world's reefs have died off and much of what's left is at risk. There is, however, one spot in the Caribbean that marine biologists describe as a kind of "under-water Eden," a coral reef largely untouched by man. It's called the Gardens of the Queen, and getting permission to go there isn't easy. It's located off the coast of Cuba, and as you might have already guessed, there are no direct flights.

Our first stop was Havana, Cuba's crumbling capitol where music fills the air, old cars seem to run forever and the only ads you see are for the revolution. From there, we drove for six hours through the countryside and then took a boat for six hours more until we got to a stretch of tiny islands, 50 miles off Cuba's southern coast. The islands are little more than patches of mangroves and small spits of sand. The only inhabitants who greeted us: hermit crabs and iguanas. They seemed indifferent to our arrival.

It was Christopher Columbus who named this area the Gardens of the Queen after his Queen Isabella, but the real gardens he probably never even got a glimpse of...to see them, you have to go underwater.

David Guggenheim: This is really the most incredibly well protected and flourishing reef I've ever seen.

We went diving with David Guggenheim, an American marine biologist and a senior fellow at the Ocean Foundation in Washington, D.C.

David: The corals are healthy. The fish are healthy and abundant. There are predators here, large sharks. It's the way these ecosystems really should look.

Anderson Cooper: You're saying this is like a time capsule, almost?

Guggenheim: It's a living time machine. And it's a really incredible opportunity to learn from.

We brought special scuba masks with us so we could talk underwater. Every time we went diving we could see sharks circling our boat before we even went in. David said they wouldn't bother us and we certainly hoped he was right.

The first thing you notice in this underwater Eden is the coral. It's color, it's texture. Coral isn't a rock or a plant. It's colonies of tiny animals that share a common skeleton. This is a large and relatively rare specimen of pillar coral. Those hair-like things are the tentacles of thousands of individual animals that are plucking microscopic plankton from the water. Coral is one of the oldest living animals on the planet. Some of it is said to be 4,000 years old, older than the tallest redwood.

What makes coral reefs so important is that they host an extraordinary variety of fish. Some come here for shelter from predators. Others come here to eat.

Cooper: I've been diving in many places all over the world and I've never seen so many large fish. Like this grouper here. There's about six or seven Caribbean reef sharks like this circling around right now. Scientists will tell you the presence of so many sharks and different species of sharks, is a sign of a very healthy reef.

Guggenheim: When we call coral reefs the rainforests of the ocean, we're talking about the diversity of life that lives on these reefs. The relationships among these animals, the fact that the corals create a home for the fish, that they're little fish that feed big fish, that some of these little shrimp walk inside the mouths of the grouper and clean parasites off of the grouper. It's a very complex web of life.

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JG: Do not miss the excellent video that 60 Minutes provided yesterday. Click on 60 Minutes at the beginning of this post.

The original article has the complete script.

Fin del “capitalismo”

2011-12-19T09:34:00.005-05:00

David Brooks

Menos y menos de los que contribuyeron al éxito de nuestra economía… se beneficiaron de ese éxito. Aquellos en la punta de la cima se volvieron más ricos que nunca con sus ingresos e inversiones. Pero todos los demás batallaron con los costos que crecían mientras las quincenas no, y demasiadas familias acumularon más y más deuda… Esto no se trata de lucha de clases. Esto se trata del bienestar del país.”

Estas palabras que se escucharon por todo el país no provenían del movimiento Ocupa Wall Street y sus simpatizantes. No eran de un economista progresista, ni de uno de esos intelectuales que han insistido en que la desigualdad económica destruye el modelo económico. “Este país sólo prospera cuando todos tienen una oportunidad, cuando todos ponen su parte y cuando todos juegan bajo las mismas reglas… Lo que está en juego es si éste será un país donde la gente trabajadora puede ganar lo suficiente para mantener una familia, construir un ahorro modesto, ser dueño de un hogar y asegurar su jubilación”, subrayó el vocero de este nuevo mensaje "populista" en el sentido estadunidense: en defensa del hombre común ante los poderosos.

El orador fue el presidente Barack Obama. El discurso ofrecido a mediados de la semana pasada fue considerado como un giro "populista" con vistas a la relección del presidente en 2012. Analistas y editorialistas afirmaron que el discurso fue notable por su enfoque sobre la desigualdad como el gran tema del momento. Pero tal vez lo más notable fue que el discurso comprobó el extraordinario logro de Ocupa Wall Street en cambiar la "narrativa" nacional. En poco más de dos meses, el enfoque oficial ha cambiado de la reducción de déficit federal y la deuda nacional a uno sobre la desigualdad económica y sus injusticias, o sea, para ponerlo en los nuevos términos, lo del uno por ciento y el 99 por ciento.

Obama "dejó claro que finalmente está preparado para concursar en la elección sobre los temas de la desigualdad de ingreso y la obligación de ambos, el gobierno y el sector privado, de ampliar la cada vez más encogida clase media de la nación", opinó el New York Times en un editorial sobre el discurso.

Que el joven movimiento Ocupa ya cambió la óptica del debate nacional no es poco, pero aún está por verse si eso lleva a cambios en el terreno real de la vida cotidiana del 99 por ciento.

El hecho es que casi 3 millones han perdido su vivienda, y se calcula que otros 3,6 millones enfrentarán lo mismo en los próximos dos años. Y aunque la tasa de desempleo por fin bajó de 9 a 8,6 por ciento, por lo menos la mitad de esa reducción se debe no a la generación de empleo, sino el abandono de decenas de miles de la fuerza laboral, o sea, gente que ya se dio por vencida para encontrar una chamba. Hay más hambre y más desesperanza en todo el país.

Aunque Obama y su equipo hablen en nombre del 99 por ciento no necesariamente convencerá a todos. Hay ciertos detalles que provocan más bien dudas, entre ellos que el sector financiero continúa siendo uno de los principales contribuyentes a la campaña electoral del presidente, aportando hasta la fecha un tercio de sus fondos recaudados para esta próxima elección (en 2008, Obama recibió más fondos de Wall Street que su contrincante republicano).

Otro es el hecho incómodo (políticamente) de que Obama y su gabinete pertenecen al 1 por ciento. Ocho de los 10 integrantes del gabinete, incluido el presidente, analizados por el Center for Responsive Politics son millonarios. Hillary Clinton, la secretaria de Estado, es la más rica con un valor neto promedio de 31 millones de dólares, seguida por William Daley, jefe del gabinete, con 28 millones. Obama tiene un valor neto de 7,3 millones. Los bancos preferidos por los integrantes del gabinete más ricos para sus cuentas personales son JPMorgan Chase y Wells Fargo. Clinton, Daley, Rahm Emanuel (su ex jefe de gabinete) y Obama tenían un total combinado de más de 50 millones en cuentas de JP Morgan Chase en 2010, según análisis de datos públicos por el Center for Responsive Politics.

También está el hecho de que hasta que estalló el movimiento Ocupa Wall Street, el presidente, su gabinete y gran parte de la cúpula política (con notables excepciones) no abordaban el tema de la desigualdad económica. No hablaban de que la desigualdad en el ingreso en Estados Unidos está en su nivel más alto desde los años 20. No indicaban que por primera vez desde 1927, el 10 por ciento más rico tenia 50 por ciento del ingreso nacional.

O el dato que provocó gran atención esta semana cuando se reveló que los Walton, los seis herederos de la fortuna Wal-Mart, habían acumulado un tesoro personal equivalente al valor neto combinado de 30 por ciento de los estadunidenses en la base de la pirámide económica, según datos de 2007 (o sea, podría ser aún mayor hoy día).

El movimiento Ocupa, al provocar el debate sobre la desigualad documentado por todos estos datos y hechos incómodos, también genera preocupación entre los republicanos que, en público, descartan como flojos y rojos a los manifestantes (el multimillonario republicano Donald Trump denunció esta semana que Obama creó el movimiento Ocupa). “"Yo estoy tan asustado de este esfuerzo anti-Wall Street. Estoy asustado a muerte”", afirmó Frank Luntz, uno de los estrategas nacionales más reconocidos del Partido Republicano en una reunión de gobernadores republicanos del país. Indicó que "están teniendo un impacto sobre lo que el pueblo estadunidense piensa del capitalismo", reportó Yahoo News. Entre sus recomendaciones a los políticos republicanos que enfrentan preguntas de sus bases sobre la desigualdad económica y otros temas que surgen del movimiento Ocupa: no usen la palabra capitalismo. “Estoy intentando remover esa palabra y sustituirla con ‘libertad económica’ o ‘libre mercado. El público … aún prefiere capitalismo que socialismo pero creen que el capitalismo es inmoral. Y si nos perciben como defensores de ‘Wall Street’, tendremos un problema”.

Mientras el presidente y otros millonarios afirman representar al 99 por ciento y el uno por ciento propone evitar el uso de la palabra "capitalismo", parece que el movimiento Ocupa ha logrado, por lo menos, dejar claro que el emperador está desnudo.

La Jornada

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JG: Barack Obama is a faithful servant of Corporate America, the Banks, and Wall Street. Do not listen to what he says, WATCH WHAT HE DOES!

Barack Obama rewards his cronies in Miami

2011-12-18T14:58:00.006-05:00

The Sacramento Bee

A grant to a Miami nonprofit that supports democracy in Cuba ignited critics who argue the money was given to reward Obama’s cronies.

USAID defends $3.4M Cuba grant program

By Juan O. Tamayo
The Miami Herald

Published: Monday, Dec. 19, 2011 - 4:55 am

The U.S. Agency for International Development is strongly rejecting complaints of political favoritism in its grant of $3.4 million to a human rights group closely linked to the Cuban American National Foundation.

USAID this summer approved the three-year grant to the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba (FHRC), a Miami nonprofit created by CANF members, to help support civil society and democracy on the communist-ruled island.

News of the grant drew complaints from critics who allege that FHRC has little experience with such grants and point to the warm relations between CANF, the premier exile organization, and the Obama administration.

South Florida Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart complained last week that U.S. funds for democracy programs in Cuba “should be provided only to organizations with strong experience and proven track records” on the island.

“It would be a disgrace if the Obama administration broke with tradition and used a penny of that critical funding to reward political cronies,” Diaz Balart added in a statement emailed.

Mark Lopes, USAID Deputy Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean and a former aide to Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., said a “technical evaluation committee” made up of officials from government agencies is in charge of reviewing grant applications and selecting winners.

“The criteria for competing for USAID funds is included in the grant application … This is a technical process based on the merits of the proposals submitted,” Lopes added. “No political appointee had any role in the selection process.”

Washington’s Cuba democracy programs have been criticized as inefficient and that they only provoke Havana authorities, who outlawed any cooperation and view the programs as “subversive” attempts for “regime change.”

USAID subcontractor Alan Gross is serving a 15-year prison sentence in Havana on charges of undermining the island’s national security by providing a satellite telephone to Cuban Jews so they could connect to the Internet more easily.

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JG: There is no difference between the two capitalist parties, Republicans (George W. Bush) and Democrats (Barack H. Obama) when it comes to spending taxpayer's money that goes directly to the cronies of the sitting president. If their subversive agents are caught violating the sovereignty and laws of Cuba, SEND THEM TO JAIL!

Jose Feliciano - Feliz Navidad

2011-12-17T12:57:00.001-05:00

Escudo Nacional de Cuba y Sus Dos Banderas

2011-12-17T12:34:00.002-05:00

ORQUESTA ARAGON: Pare Cochero!

2011-12-17T12:31:00.001-05:00

Andrea Rodriguez, of the Associated Press, Wanders and Reports Along the Malecon

2011-12-17T10:48:00.004-05:00

By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ, Associated Press – 1 hour ago

HAVANA (AP) — Along Havana's northern coastline, storms that roll down from the north send waves crashing against the concrete seawall, drenching vintage cars and kids playing games of chicken with the salty spray.

Fisherman toss their lines into the warm waters, shirtless men play dominoes on card tables, and throngs of young people gather on weekend nights to laugh, flirt and sip cheap rum.

This is the achingly beautiful and most instantly recognizable part of Havana's cityscape: the Malecon seafront boulevard, with its curlicue lampposts and pastel buildings rising into an azure sky.

Just about anywhere else in the world, it would be a playground for the wealthy, diners in four-star restaurants and tourists willing to spend hundreds of dollars a night for a million-dollar view.

But along the Malecon, many buildings are dank, labyrinthine tenements bursting beyond capacity, plagued by mold and reeking of backed-up sewer drains. Paint peels away from plaster, and the saline air rusts iron bars to dust. Some buildings have collapsed entirely, their propped-up facades testimony to a more dignified architectural era.

Now, for the first time since the 1959 revolution, a new law that permits the sale of real estate has transformed these buildings into extremely valuable properties. Another new law that allows more people to go into business for themselves has entrepreneurs setting up shop and talking up the future. And a multimillion-dollar revitalization project is marching down the street improving lighting, sidewalks and drainage.

The year has seen some remarkable first steps toward a new Cuban economic model, including the sacrificing of a number of Marxism's sacred cows. The state is still firmly in control of all key sectors, from energy and manufacturing to health care and education, but increasingly people are allowed to engage in a small measure of private enterprise. Officials say the changes are irreversible, and this is the last chance to save the economy.

Yet Cubans will tell you that change comes slowly on the island. Strict controls on foreign investment and property ownership mean there's precious little money to bankroll a capitalist revival. Even some Malecon denizens who embrace the reforms see a long haul ahead.

"It's not that I see the future as black, more like I'm seeing a little spark from someone 3 kilometers away who lit a match," said Jose Luis Leal Ordonez, the proprietor of a modest snack shop."But it's a match, not a lantern."

Leal's block, the first one along the promenade, has offered a front row seat to five decades of Cuba under Fidel Castro. The residents of Malecon 1 to 33 have watched the powerful forces of revolution play out beneath their balconies, and today they're bracing for yet another act as Castro's younger brother Raul turns a half-century of Communist dogma on its ear.

___

Given that Cuba's national identity has been inextricably bound up with its powerful neighbor 150 kilometers (90 miles) to the north, it is perhaps fitting that the Malecon is the legacy of a "Yanqui."

The year was 1900 and the country was under U.S. control following the Spanish-American War. Governor General Leonard Wood, who commanded the Rough Riders during the war with friend Teddy Roosevelt as his No. 2, launched a public works program to clean up unsanitary conditions and stimulate the economy. A key element was the Malecon.

At that time Havana ended about a block from the sea, separated from the waves by craggy rock. Raw sewage seeped into the bay nearby, so fishermen and bathers avoided this part of the waterfront. Only later would high-rise hotels and casinos spring up to make the Malecon a world-famous tourism draw.

For those early American occupiers, "The idea was to create a maritime drive so the city, which until now had its back to the sea, would begin to face the ocean," said architect Abel Esquivel. Since 1994, he has been working with the City Historian's office to restore the crumbling Malecon.

As the boulevard and promenade took shape, buildings sprang up on this block. One of the first was a three-story boarding house for singles and childless couples who occupied 12 apartments.

Today those have been subdivided horizontally and vertically, again and again, to take advantage of every last inch of space, and some 70 families live crammed into every nook and cranny.

Leal runs his cafeteria in the home where he was born 46 years ago, at the dark crux of an interior passageway. It caters mostly to neighbors and goes unnoticed by tourists on the sun-drenched walk outside.

A lifelong supporter of the revolution, Leal is grateful for the opportunity to live rent-free and earn two master's degrees on the state's dime. Still, after years of frustration working for dysfunctional government bureacracies, he quit his state job. He opened his snack shop May 1, and already it brings more income than before, enough even for his daughter's upcoming "quinceanera," her coming-of-age 15th birthday party.

He is one of the people on this block who is buying into Castro's entrepreneurial challenge.

Another is Omar Torres, who operates a private restaurant known as a "paladar" on a second-story terrace with sea and skyline views. He praised the government for lifting a ban on the serving of lobster and steak and allowing him to more than quadruple the number of diners he can seat.

Downstairs, an artist runs an independent gallery selling paintings of "Che" Guevara and cityscapes to tourists. Although he doesn't own the house, he's so confident in the future that he's using the income to remodel his rental.

Elsewhere folks are letting out rooms to travelers, and newly licensed street vendors are now legally peddling peanuts in tightly wrapped paper cones.

"Cubans dream of truly feeling like masters of their own destiny, for the state not to interfere in personal matters," Leal said. "Until now the state told you that you couldn't even sell your home."

___

From its early days, the Malecon was a place to see and be seen, to celebrate a success, drown a sorrow or woo a sweetheart. By the 1920s it was a favorite strip for middle-class Cubans who motored up and down to show off their vehicles.

Havana developed without a strong central plan or dominant core, and the Malecon became one of its most important communal spaces, said historian Daniel Rodriguez, a Cuban-American researcher at New York University.

"I think the closest thing Havana has to an urban center is this long seawall," Rodriguez said. "It's a long, ribbony main square."

Today the concrete promenade stretches 6 kilometers (4 miles) from the harbor to the Almendares River, the last section completed in 1958 under strongman Fulgencio Batista.

Those were heady times, when the city's nightclubs pulsed with a mambo beat and mafia casinos on the Malecon drew planeloads of American tourists. But their days were numbered.

The following January, the young rebel Fidel Castro marched triumphantly into Havana and in short order began seizing mansions and apartment buildings and redistributing them to the poor, triggering a tectonic shift in housing as well as the rest of the economy and society.

Castro declared private real estate incompatible with the revolution's ideals. "For the bourgeoisie," he said, things like "country, society, liberty, family and humanity have always been tied to a single concept: private property."

___

In a country where everyone is guaranteed a place to live, millions are jammed into dilapidated, multigenerational homes. The government is landlord to vast ranks of tenants who pay nothing or a nominal rent of around $2 a month. Sapped of any sense of ownership, some cannibalized the old buildings, ripping out wood, cinderblocks and decorative tiles to use or sell. That, combined with the punishing climate, has stifled upkeep and hastened decay in the buildings on the Malecon.

One of them, the Hotel Surf, was a beauty when Griselia Valdes arrived here as an 18-year-old newlywed in 1963. The entryway was tiled in pink and black with white benches and a restaurant on the ground floor. The rooms even had air-conditioning.

The glass bricks that lined the front wall are long gone, demolished by big storms. A drainpipe dumps over a spider web of electrical wires hanging at eye level in a passageway, while rainwater filters through the walls and spills into the lobby. The elevator was taken out years ago, but with the motor left rusting at the top of the shaft, people fear it could come crashing down any day.

"Mostly it is us who have abused the building with the subdivisions, with the banging and the crashing," Valdes said. "From neglecting it, from indolence."

Jan Ochoa Barzaga, who lives in the hotel's basement, is pessimistic about how much Raul Castro's reforms can change things. The factory worker finds it very frustrating that his girlfriend, like many others in Cuba, received a free university education from a generous government, but is languishing in a low-paid job.

Ochoa Barzaga tried to make the sea passage off the island in 2009, but was caught and returned home. If he had another opportunity to leave, he wouldn't think long.

"If they opened it up again," said the 32-year-old. "I'd be out of here."

___

The Malecon continued to serve as center-stage throughout Fidel Castro's rule, with the military conducting war games along the seawall during the 1960s after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. In 2000 a flag-waving Castro personally led marches along the seawall to demand Cuban raft-boy Elian Gonzalez's return from the United States.

Four years earlier, with Cuba buckling under a severe economic crisis following the collapse of the Soviet Union, thousands marched through the streets with makeshift plywood and inner-tube rafts and set off from the Malecon in a desperate gamble to reach Florida. Many failed.

On Aug. 5 of that year, riotous protests erupted on the boulevard and surrounding streets that were likely the biggest challenge to Castro since he took power. Amid looting and dozens of arrests, Castro addressed the crowd from atop a military vehicle.

"We were witnesses to all that," said Torres, the private restaurant owner, who saw the multitudes from his balcony. "You began to reconsider the meaning that Fidel has for Cubans, because in a moment of chaos and uncertainty, his presence was something else. Even the rioters began shouting, 'Fidel! Fidel!'"

That image of a robust, charismatic father figure faded when illness forced him from power five years ago.

The future is left to Raul, who at 80, is five years younger than his brother. He has dropped one bombshell after another with his economic reforms. None caused more of a stir than the measure legalizing the real estate market.

There's no sign of an imminent gold rush along this block of the Malecon, or anywhere else. Few individuals hold title to these homes; most rent from the government. Meanwhile the new law contains protections against individual accumulation of property or wealth, and officials insist this is no wholesale embrace of capitalism.

"All these changes, necessary to update the economic model, aim to preserve socialism, strengthen it and make it truly irrevocable," Raul Castro said in December 2010.

There's also the question of money: Cuba has only a tiny middle class with the kind of coin to not only buy a seafront home but afford the maintenance needed to keep the corrosive air at bay. The new law bars anyone not a permanent resident from buying property, including exiles who still imagine a day when they might return.

For Jorge Sanguinetty, who grew up a few blocks from the Malecon and was an economist for central planning under Fidel Castro before fleeing in 1967, the history of the seawalk is personal.

"I was like Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn. I used to go fishing there, walking through the rocks. We could see the salt from the waves on our windows during the storms," Sanguinetty recalled, saying he still dreams about it more than 40 years later. "You have to see a sunset (on the) Malecon. They are absolutely sensational."

Sanguinetty, founder of the international development group DevTech Systems, is writing a book about potential redevelopment in Cuba and has followed the issue closely over the years. He said the same forces that caused the Malecon's decay also added to its charm.

"The stagnation of Havana had this unintended consequence: Even though many things have fallen apart and are no longer salvageable, Havana will remain very desirable because uncontrolled development didn't take place," he said by phone from his office in Miami. "So there are many jewels there architecturally, and the Malecon is one of the most beautiful jewels in the crown."

___

When it comes to the Malecon, the City Historian's Office wields near-total control. A largely autonomous institution, it collects undisclosed millions of dollars each year from the hotels and tourist restaurants it runs in restored buildings, and plows a big chunk of that back into rehabilitating more. The office recently said it has more than 180 projects, on top of the hundreds already completed.

The result has been an architectural rebirth that's on display in the gleaming Spanish-American cultural center, a rescued former tenement next door to Leal's building. A few doors away is a near-total rehab with brand-new apartments upstairs from a state-run restaurant, a mixed-use model that could be repeated.

There are also reminders that money is tight. Residents here remember how in the early 2000s, at the site of the collapsed Hotel Miramar, a fancy hotel from 1902 where tuxedoed waiters once attended to a fashionable clientele, Fidel Castro and Chinese President Jiang Zemin laid the cornerstone for a $24 million hotel to be built with help from Beijing.

Construction mysteriously froze after just a few weeks. Today, bricks form a single uncompleted first story and a faded artistic rendering tacked to a fence depicts the glassy, hyper-modern structure that never got built.

Despite the decay and unfulfilled hopes, the residents say they live in a magical place that creates a sense of community that doesn't exist even one block inland.

"I'm right on what we call the balcony of the city," said Leal, the cafeteria owner. "For me there's no place more sacred than where I live."

___

Associated Press writer Laura Wides-Munoz in Miami contributed to this report.

Peter Orsi can be reached at www.twitter.com/Peter(underscore)Orsi/

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JG: SUPERB!

Gran Maestro Cubano Leinier Domínguez satisfecho con debut en Mundiales de la Mente

2011-12-17T10:31:00.004-05:00

CMKX Radio Bayamo, Cuba

17/diciembre/2011 10:15:36 GMT -0500

Fuente: PL

Fotografía: Archivo Redacción Digital

Beijing, (PL) El Gran Maestro cubano Leinier Domínguez considera que por encima de cualquier estadística, los resultados de su debut en los Juegos Mundiales de la Mente deben medirse por la experiencia adquirida y cuánto aprendió.

Satisfecho con su actuación en la lid concluida la víspera en esta capital, el joven ajedrecista dijo hoy a Prensa Latina que por tratarse de un torneo no válido para el ELO, “la competencia permite experimentar y esa oportunidad siempre se aprovecha”.

El único representante de América Latina y el Caribe en la justa aclaró que no por ello deba pensarse en una simple competencia más, al recordar una credencial común de los 16 jugadores participantes: todos tienen un Elo superior a los dos mil 700.

Y frente a ellos cumplí mi principal objetivo, acumular experiencia y aprender, recalcó.

Sus resultados fueron los siguientes: Modalidad rápida, cuarto lugar con cuatro puntos en siete partidas, ubicado detrás de Wang Hao (China), Vugar Hashimov (Azerbayán) y Gata Kamsky (Estados Unidos).

En la Blitz, enfrentamientos de tres minutos en un todos contra todos, acumuló cinco puntos de 15 posibles. Los medallistas en esa modalidad fueron Vachier Lagrave (Francia), Alexander Grischuk (Rusia) y Shahriyar Mammadyarov (Azerbaiyán).

La ronda de partidas a la ciega, cierre de la lid, la concluyó con tres de siete puntos. El título lo obtuvo Almasi Zoltan (Hungría), escoltado por Vachier y Hashimov.

El GM cubano afirma que toda competencia ayuda y resulta útil, en su caso, para un compromiso cercano, el torneo de San Sebastián, España, certamen que celebrará su centenario y en el cual participará mejor preparado, según adelantó.

Domínguez llegó a Beijing tras lograr exitosa actuación en ese país europeo, donde acumuló cinco puntos en seis partidas como primer tablero del Sestao Naturgas, en el Campeonato Nacional de Clubes.

Luego de la cita en la capital china, ratificó que 2011 ha sido un buen año, sobre todo en la segunda mitad, en la cual reconoce que jugó con mayor concentración.

Cuban-Americans Travel to the Homeland and the Sending of Family Remittances Survive

2011-12-17T10:08:00.003-05:00

By WILLIAM MARCH | The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 17, 2011 Updated: December 17, 2011 - 12:00 AM

TAMPA -- A measure putting strict limits on Cuban-Americans' travel to Cuba and financial assistance sent to family members there has been removed from a congressional spending bill.

That ends — for now — a threat to the increased travel and remittances allowed by the Obama administration.

The measure would have reinstituted the restrictions in place during President George W. Bush's administration, when Cuban-Americans could visit families in Cuba only once every three years and send only $1,200 a year to immediate relatives there.

In 2009, shortly after taking office, President Barack Obama lifted those restrictions, allowing unlimited visits and remittances.

U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Miami, a leading opponent of the Fidel Castro regime, had attached an amendment reinstating the restrictions to the trillion-dollar spending bill, which is designed to keep the government running so the House can take its holiday recess.

But House Republicans agreed Thursday to drop the language as part of a deal to bring the bill to the House floor.

U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa, praised the change, saying Cuban-American families "can breathe a sigh of relief" that holiday season visits won't be prevented by what she called "last-minute political maneuvers."

"President Obama held firm on his policies supporting Cuban-American families in the face of Congressional Republican efforts to undermine progress. Holding firm proved to win the day," Castor said.

She said the restrictions would have damaged business prospects for the Tampa Bay area. Flights from Tampa to Cuba, which began in September, have grown from one a week to four, and total travelers to Cuba have tripled from 10,000 per month to nearly 30,000.

Joe Lopano, chief executive of Tampa International Airport, projected that about 43,200 passengers will fly from Tampa to Cuba in 2012.

"The flights to Cuba are an important part of the airport's business plan," said airport authority spokeswoman Janet Zink. "Any measures that would slow demand is worrisome to us. We are very grateful for the work Rep. Castor did to maintain the status quo."

wmarch@tampatrib.com (813) 259-7761

Beautiful Old Havana

2011-12-17T10:03:00.004-05:00

A man drives a horse and carriage in Old Havana, Cuba,
a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
(THE ASSOCIATED PRESS)

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Ends Cooperation Deal with Racist Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio

2011-12-17T09:13:00.003-05:00

The Civil Rights Division of U.S. Justice Department today said a three-year investigation finds that 'Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office has engaged in a "culture of bias" involving racial profiling and a widespread pattern of discrimination of Latinos.

Here is the DHS statement:

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is troubled by the Department of Justice's (DOJ) findings of discriminatory policing practices within the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO). Discrimination undermines law enforcement and erodes the public trust. DHS will not be a party to such practices. Accordingly, and effective immediately, DHS is terminating MCSO's 287(g) jail model agreement and is restricting the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office access to the Secure Communities program. DHS will utilize federal resources for the purpose of identifying and detaining those individuals who meet U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement's (ICE) immigration enforcement priorities. The Department will continue to enforce federal immigration laws in Maricopa County in smart, effective ways that focus our resources on criminal aliens, recent border crossers, repeat and egregious immigration law violators and employers who knowingly hire illegal labor.

Republicans Agree to Drop Language Dealing with Cuba Travel from Budget Deal Bill

2011-12-16T15:00:00.005-05:00

Advisers to President Barack Obama had recommended that he veto the law, if it included the controversial language sponsored by U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart.

Read the Faux News Article

Florida Republicans Fail to Overturn Cuba Policy

POTUS CALLED THE BLUFF, AND THE EXTREMISTS FOLDED THEIR HAND. Score one for Obama!.

The Exceptional Architecture of Sagua La Grande, Cuba

2011-12-16T14:32:00.003-05:00

This building has been declared a National Monument.

Cuba Sets New Tourism Record in 2011

2011-12-16T14:11:00.007-05:00

Hotel Nacional, Havana, Cuba
For the fourth consecutive year, Cuba has surpassed the previous year record in the number of tourists that arrive in the island as tourists, reported Cuban daily Granma today.

Last year, 2,531,745 was a new record number of tourists. That number was surpassed on December 13, 2011, and we still have two more weeks to go for the current year.

The biggest number of visitors came from the United Kingdom and Canada. There was also growth in the number of visitors coming from Argentina.

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JG: The Miami anti-Cuba right-wingers are going to have cagalera.

Photo of Fidel With Beret is 50 Years Old

2011-12-15T12:56:00.002-05:00

Photo by Liborio Noval

Cuban-style health care in America? Yes we can!

2011-12-15T12:29:00.004-05:00

People's World

By: Mike Lado
December 15 2011

tags: Cuba, health care reform, international

Part two of a two-article series.

See part one here.

Despite the valiant attempts by progressive Democrats to pass a universal health care system, we got the less-than-ideal Affordable Care Act that still leaves several million uninsured people.

In part one of this series, I described how Cuba does a miraculous job of having a successful health care system despite the U.W. embargo she faces. In addition to hospitals Cuba has an island-wide network of neighborhood medical stations and specialty polyclinics that reduce reliance on emergency rooms for care. Now onto the million-dollar question: would such a system work here in the States, and how? I've tweaked the system a bit to adjust to our current structure of government.

The first level of care, based on the Cuban system, would be a municipal medical clinic. Each town or municipality of over 1,000 people would be served by a clinic staffed by nurses and physician assistants. So don't we have this like the Cubans do? As KaiserEDU.org notes, the United States is facing a critical shortage of primary care physicians in medicine. Most medical students saddled in debt go to high paying specialties instead of primary care. It would take some time to train all those new physicians to fill the gap.

In the interim we can use nurse practitioners and physicians assistants to fill the void. NPs and PAs can work alone or under the supervision of a doctor. They both have prescribing rights and are just as qualified as doctors to deliver basic care. In a Cuban-style system a doctor would be assigned to a set of clinics to oversee operations with the NP or PA supervising a nursing staff directly as needed. These medical stations would cover primary care such as physicals and immunizations.

The next level up is a polyclinic. I suggest one polyclinic per county or county equivalent. In Cuba polyclinics generally serve several tens of thousands of people. In our big cities and larger counties more than one polyclinic will be needed to cover people. At the polyclinic people should be able to see a doctor who's a specialist, receive diagnostic tests, dental and optical care, outpatient surgeries, and treatment for urgent care scenarios.

Finally, the hospitals. These would be used in case of life threatening emergencies. The more we reduce the need for a hospital emergency room through the polyclinic, the less people will show up at the hospital sick.

A successful health care system that covers all for free must be well financed and have some kind of democratic control.

So who's going to pay for all this? Well first we can start by jacking up taxes on the rich and big corporations. Strengthening the progressive income tax system is a must for a good health care system to be successful. A successful taxation system that places the burden of cost on the people who can afford to pay allows every citizen to receive free, quality health care without having to turn the entire nation upside down searching for a way to finance such a system.

Now the nitpicky part: who gets to control the system? In my plan the people do. On the local level I propose that every county elects a democratic assembly of health care workers, professionals and patients who oversee the day to day operation of the county polyclinic and local clinics. There should be regional assemblies as well for control over hospitals affiliated with a major university or medical school.

Abortion should be legal and on demand at a polyclinic for women who choose it. HIV/AIDS treatment and testing should be free and available for all who need it, including post-exposure prophylaxis treatment. Fertility treatments for women who are unable to conceive should be available. Local medical clinic staff should be trained to be sensitive to the needs of all patients and should set their personal beliefs aside when it comes to the needs of a patient.

This is a system that is for the needs of a patient, is run by the people themselves, and takes big insurance out of the equation.

Organizations Urge U.S. Congress to Reject Anti-Cuban Act

2011-12-15T12:13:00.002-05:00

Washington, Dec 15 (Prensa Latina) - Organizations in favor of flexibilizing the relationship between the United States and Cuba demanded the Congress of this country to reject a legal project presented by anti-Cuban representative Mario Diaz-Balart, to limit trips and remittances to the island.

Among those opposed to the idea is the Group of Cuban Studies, mainly comprised of the business people of the island settled in this country.

Tampa democrat Kathy Castor also called legislators of her party and the republicans in charge of analyzing the issue to eliminate the clause, included in June in the Treasury bill.

Others defended the position taken by President Barack Obama in 2009, to lift some restrictions on to trips to Cuba, as well as the sending of family remittances to the Caribbean nation.

The pro-Cuban stance takes place at a time when the expenses act, which includes those limitations, was temporarily suspended to prioritize the debate of other regulations termed as critical and that should be approved in the coming days.

The Diaz-Balart plan expects to re-establish the rule imposed by former President George Bush in 2008, of allowing only one family visit to Cuba every three years, a total amount of 1,200 USD per year as remittances, and restricting the concept of "family".

According to Mauricio Claver-Carone, director of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy Political Action Committee, the practical effect of the project would be to stop transfers to Havana to only one in 2012, since the bill deals with the budget of only one year.

The Diaz-Balart action is part of policies that are historically generated from the United States to hurt the Cuban people and government.

Modificado el (jueves, 15 de diciembre de 2011)

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JG: I am not an organization, but Cuba Journal adds its voice to remove the provisions offered by U.S. Representative Mario Diaz-Balart to a money appropriations bill.

El recuerdo de Juan Manuel Márquez

2011-12-15T11:09:00.004-05:00

Juan Manuel Márquez pronuncia un discurso en Nueva York
y a su lado, Fidel.
Discurso de Fidel en el Parque Central de Nueva York el 24 de abril de 1959.

En esta noche de hoy, noche de triunfo, noche que ha de quedar inolvidablemente grabada en nuestros corazones, noche de orgullo para la América entera, solo un pensamiento triste nos invade, solo un dolor nos estremece. Al contemplar aquí esta inmensa muchedumbre, al hablar aquí hoy, mi pensamiento se eleva hacia aquel que fue mi compañero de organización del Movimiento 26 de Julio en el exilio; mi pensamiento se eleva a quien fue compañero de esta jornada; mi pensamiento se eleva a aquel orador formidable; a aquel compañero que hacía poner de pie a la multitud con su palabra vibrante: Juan Manuel Márquez (APLAUSOS).

No está presente hoy, pero la obra que inició está aquí presente. No está presente él, pero está presente su recuerdo; no está presente él, pero están presentes los frutos de su sacrificio: Juan Manuel Márquez, otra vez nos hemos vuelto a reunir con los cubanos y los latinoamericanos de Nueva York. Pero esta vez no son 1 000, son decenas y decenas de millares de miles, que esta vez no hay latinoamericanos solo, hay también norteamericanos, esta vez no estamos hablando de sueños que habrán de realizarse, sino de sueños que se han realizado y de sueños que se habrán de realizar, con el aliento de ver lo que se ha hecho (APLAUSOS).

Esta vez no la reunimos para iniciar una empresa guerrera, la reunimos y la convocamos para iniciar una etapa y una empresa de creación y de paz. No la reunimos cuando todo está por delante, cuando todos contábamos con la fe nuestra y con la fe de unos cuantos, sino cuando contamos ya, gracias al esfuerzo de los que como tú han caído con la fe y con el respaldo de millones de latinoamericanos. Juan Manuel Márquez, a ti debemos dedicarte hoy el mejor recuerdo, el más devoto recuerdo y el más sentido homenaje, porque aquí está tu compañero que siguió la lucha, aquí está tu compañero que te recuerda y te echa de menos.

No se pondrá hoy de pie la multitud con tu palabra, pero se pondrá de pie con estas palabras que pronuncio al conjuro de tu recuerdo.

(OVACIÓN)

Juan Manuel Márquez fue el segundo jefe del Movimiento 26 de julio y de la expedición del Granma. Con solo 16 años se incorporó a la lucha contra el tirano Gerardo Machado y fue encarcelado en el Presidio Modelo, en abril de 1932, con 17 años de edad, por lo que fue el más joven de todos los presos políticos en ese centro.

Tras la caída del "asno con garras" se opone firmemente a la intervención norteamericana a través de la mediación Summer-Welles. Posteriormente, ya conocedor de la influencia de los medios, funda el periódico Catapulta, donde refleja su pensamiento político y critica tempranamente a ese "machadista arrepentido" llamado Fulgencio Batista. Más tarde comienza a colaborar con el semanario El Sol, espacio en el que fustiga a los gobernantes de turno y expresa su lucha por la revolución agraria-antimperialista. Juan Manuel tuvo una destacada trayectoria de combate y de críticas a las lacras del sistema político y social imperante en Cuba y en los programas radiales sobresalió por sus relevantes cualidades de orador, y finalmente se volcó a la lucha contra la tiranía batistiana, fase más reconocida de su sentir patriota, por lo cual sufrió cárcel y torturas. Tuvo una activa participación en la organización de la expedición del Granma y luego de Alegría de Pío fue asesinado el 15 de diciembre de 1956 por la soldadesca batistiana.

Source: Granma

Labels: Cuba, Granma, Juan Manuel Márquez