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Yoani Sánchez was a student at the University of Havana when she did the unthinkable and wrote a thesis about dictatorships in Latin American literature. It wasn’t a direct criticism of Fidel Castro, but it was too close for comfort in a country where there’s so much that’s officially unthinkable. Ms. Sánchez eventually fled Cuba for Switzerland in 2002, with her son and husband soon joining her. Then she once again did the unthinkable and in 2004 moved back to Cuba when her husband couldn’t find employment in Europe. It’s not unheard of for people to return to Cuba to...

Today President Bush signed H.R. 4286, This is a bill passed by the leaders of the Senate and House to honor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi with the Congressional Gold Medal. She is Myanmar's detained opposition leader who has spent nearly 12 of the last 18 years in prison or under house arrest. He also expressed his heartfelt sympathy to the people of Burma in the wake of their natural disaster. LINKPresident Bush took part in an event commemorating Military Spouse Day on the South Lawn at the White House. LINK President Bush met with Panama's President Martin Torrijos in...

The first legalised home computers have gone on sale in Cuba, but a ban remains on internet access. This is the latest in a series of restrictions on daily life which President Raul Castro has lifted in recent weeks. Crowds formed at the Carlos III shopping centre in Havana, though most had come just to look. The desktop computers cost almost $800 (£400), in a country where the average wage is under $20 (£10) a month. But some Cubans do have access to extra income, much of it from money sent by relatives living abroad.

Was it remotely conceivable that someone with Jeremiah's Wright's worldview and connections had somehow avoided a pilgrimage to the world capitol of Yankee-hatred, to worship and commiserate with its high priests? Not a chance. Reverend Wright was part of Revered Jesse Jackson's 300 person entourage to Havana in 1984. “Viva Fidel!” bellowed Reverend Jackson while concluding his speech at the University of Havana. “Viva Che Guevara!..Long Live our cry of Freedom!” “He (Jesse Jackson)is a great personality,” reciprocated a beaming Fidel Castro, “a brilliant man with a great talent, capable of communicating with people, very persuasive, reliable, honest. Jackson's main...

HAVANA - Only a month has passed since ordinary Cubans won the right to own computers, and the government still keeps a rigid grip on Internet access. But that hasn't stopped thousands from finding their way into cyberspace. And a daring few post candid blogs about life in the communist-run country that have garnered international audiences Yoani Sanchez writes the "Generacion Y" blog and gets more than a million hits a month, mostly from abroad — though she has begun to strike a chord in Cuba. On her site and others, anonymous Cubans offer stinging criticisms of their government. But...

Early Elián Gonzalez raid was planned BY WILFREDO CANCIO ISLA Before the forced removal of Elián González from his relatives' home in Little Havana eight years ago, federal agents had another plan to return the child to his father in Cuba. But an order from Washington canceled it at the last minute. According to statements by James Goldman, then head of operations for the U.S. immigration agency in Miami, federal agents had been instructed to seize Elián during a meeting in Miami Beach with his grandmothers at the home of Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin, then-president of Barry University, in January 2000....

(HAVANA) — First comes the stink of diesel, then a metallic roar, and finally a tower of black smoke that tells you the "camello" — the camel — has reached your stop. These hulking 18-wheeled beasts, iron mutants made of two Soviet-era buses welded together on a flatbed and pulled by a separate cab, have long been Havana's public transport nightmare — bumpy, hot and jammed with up to 400 passengers at a time. But their gradual disappearance is a telling sign of change in the twilight of the Fidel Castro age. The last "camello" is expected to go out...

The Spanish daily El Pais has given credence to rumors that have been sweeping Havana for days that Cuban authorities are about to lift requirements for their citizens to get exit visas to leave the Communist-ruled island. The newspaper quotes an unidentified senior Cuban official as saying Cubans soon will be free to travel without government permission. In light of U.S. policy that allows most Cubans who reach dry land to stay in the country, revocation of Cuba's self-imposed barriers to travel could unleash a massive wave of immigrants headed for southern Florida if young workers eager for more opportunity...

In an apparent lack of confidence in the leadership of Raul Castro, the number of Cubans leaving the island illegally by sea has been rising, according to U.S. officials. The number of people attempting the perilous voyage across of the Florida Straits has risen 21 percent compared to the same period last year. The number intercepted by the Coast Guard increased 65 percent. Since the beginning of October 2007, some 2,891 Cubans have attempted the journey across the straits. While 1,697 successfully reached the United States, 1,194 were intercepted at sea and returned to Cuba. Nearly ten times the number...

Cuban officials have rescheduled the planned drilling of the Cuban Crude Oil Strip in the Gulf of Mexico by a consortium of companies due to additional seismic work. In January 2008, Petrobras and Companhia Cubana de Petroleo (CUPET) signed an agreement for a wide-range of operations, including exploration. Petrobras' expertise in offshore exploration has been put to good use, commented Cuban officials to the state-run media, yet more work needs to be completed before drilling can begin. "In the Gulf of Mexico, we are doing seismic studies and our perspective is we should resume drilling in the area next year,"...

HAVANA (Reuters) - The number of Cubans risking their lives to leave their communist-run country illegally by sea to reach the United States is rising, U.S. officials in Havana said on Thursday. Since October 1, 2007, 2,891 Cubans have tried to cross the Florida Straits; 1,697 made it to the United States and were allowed to stay while the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted 1,194 and sent them back. The U.S. officials said the figures showed that average Cubans had little faith that life would improve in the one-party socialist state under President Raul Castro, who succeeded his ailing brother Fidel...

There is an emerging mini-me of Hugo Chavez — Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia. And his country is starting to pay the price for it. Bolivia may end up not merely fragmented but wracked by bloodshed if Mr. Morales continues to emulate the senseless and destructive policies of his patron. Mr. Morales has turned frequently to the Chavez playbook on "revolutionary" brinkmanship for policy guidance. From promoting a bespoke constitution, which removed inconvenient term limits, to undermining democratic institutions, to approving populist measures that hurt poor people the most, he has made all the moves favored by his role...

Two very different stories surfaced this week that add to the hundreds of examples we have of liberalism’s failures and lies. The first involves southeast Asia. Those who lived through the Vietnam War and its aftermath remember how often the left-wing politicos and supporters constantly ridiculed the idea of a domino effect (mass murders throughout southeast Asia) if we left Vietnam abruptly – and have spent the last 32 years denying the killing fields of Cambodia, Laos and Thailand – as well as in Vietnam itself. It is the current generation of these same liars who are calling for an...

HAVANA (AP) - President Raul Castro has lifted restrictions on consumer goods and hotel stays, but most Cubans get paid in virtually worthless pesos, which can't buy basic items like toilet paper, let alone a DVD player or poolside mojito cocktails at the Hotel Capri. Nearly everything Cubans want or need must be bought with a separate currency created for tourists and foreigners. So, until the regular peso increases in value, Castro's moves will be bittersweet gestures. The new leader's solution, now the talk of the island: merge the two currencies. But this turns out to be much easier said...

“But, you’re an Anglo” By Jack Furnari My first public act of political speech was spoken in Spanish. A language I do not speak. The recent “retirement” of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro made me think of a brisk sunny day in New York City when I first found my political voice. It was 1979, and I was on the train going to my job at a midtown corporation when something I read in the newspaper struck me in a profound way. Juanita Castro, the sister of Fidel Castro was going to protest her brother Fidel’s speech at the United Nations...

HAVANA (AP) — Cuban shoppers are snapping up DVD players, motorbikes and electric rice cookers that are going on sale to the general public for the first time. Lines stretch out the doors of major government department stores as Cubans gaze at the new gadgets on display. The goods that went on sale Tuesday previously were available only to foreigners. But the government of new President Raul Castro has lifted that ban. There was no sign yet of two highly anticipated items: computers and microwaves, though salespeople said computers would soon hit the shelves.

HAVANA - Communist Cuba is opening up unused land to private farmers and cooperatives as part of a sweeping effort to step up agricultural production. The program is among reforms announced in recent days that suggest substantial changes are being driven by the new president, Raul Castro, who vowed when he took over from his brother Fidel to remove some of the more irksome limitations on the daily lives of Cubans. Analysts wondered how far the communist government is willing to go. "Cuban people can't survive on the salaries people are paying them. Average men and women have been screaming...

HAVANA - Raul Castro's government opened luxury hotels and resorts to all Cubans Monday, ending a ban despised across the island as "tourist apartheid" and taking another step toward the creation of a consumer economy in the socialist state. ADVERTISEMENT Cuba has made a series of crowd-pleasing announcements in the past few days. Cubans with enough cash will be able to buy computers, DVD players and plasma televisions starting Tuesday, and soon they'll even be able to have their own cell phones — consumer goods only companies and foreigners were previously permitted to buy. But the latest surprise, allowing ordinary...

Raul Castro is making hay from "reforms" allowing his subjects access to toasters and cell phones. Big deal. What Cubans need is cash to buy them. That can only come with real economic freedom.

Havana, Cuba - Cuba's leaders have a message for their people: Stop dreaming and get to work. Cubans are spending too much time waiting for reforms they hope will bring luxuries such as electronics and trips, while what the country needs to advance is the sweat of their brow, according to an editorial in the ruling Communist Party newspaper Friday.

HAVANA - President Raul Castro's government is allowing ordinary Cubans to have cell phones. The luxury was previously reserved for those who worked for foreign firms or held key posts with the communist-run state. Friday's decree officially lifts a major restriction on daily life in Cuba.

Prominent Cuban author and dissident, Armando Valladares, has predicted the collapse of communism in Cuba after the death of former president Fidel Castro. Valladares said that people in Cuba were tired of 'acquiescing to state terrorism' like others had in communist Romania, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Valladares said that the young "sons of the revolution, are becoming ever more politically active... The author who spent 22 years in prison was in Italy to present a new edition of his most popular work, Against All Hope: a Memoir of Life in Castro's Gulags, in the Italian capital in Rome. He also critised...

Cuban President Raul Castro's recently revealed economic "reforms" brought to mind two quite unrelated characters: Lewis Carroll's White Queen, and an old Cuban exile acquaintance of mine named Ignacio. President Raul, the sprightly 76-year-old who was "elected" to the presidency of Cuba on February 24, thus replacing his ailing octogenarian brother, Fidel, is reportedly planning to grant his enslaved nation access to more consumer goods. Citing "the improved availability of electricity," the new Maximum Leader will offer for sale computers, DVD players, pressure cookers and microwave ovens. However, air conditioners are not to be made available until next year, and...

Cuba invites bids to develop oil reserves 45 miles off the coast of South Florida that are as large as those in ANWR. So why are the United States and its Navy buying oil from a state sponsor of terror? The Heritage Foundation reports that when U.S. Navy and Marine personnel fill up at their local Navy Base Exchange, they're buying their gasoline from a company owned by Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. Citgo has a $60-million-a-year contract to supply the Navy Exchange with gas through 2010. The irony is that it's also negotiating a multibillion-dollar, multiyear contract to buy four...

Al Jazeera Aims to Influence American Politics by Humberto Fontova 03/18/2008 Al Jazeera, eager for greater international coverage and cachet, recently launched an International Division. Aiming to influence the US audience, they recruited heavily from CNN and The BBC. CNN's former Havana Bureau chief Lucia Newman is noteworthy among these job-jumpers. "In Cuba we will be given total freedom to do what we want and to work without any censorship," (italics mine) she stressed upon accepting the CNN assignment in 1997. Among her "scoops" from Havana: "No dubious campaign spending here. No mud slinging -- a system President (italics mine)...

The Batista soldiers would get a trial, after facing Che’s firing squad. Che often liked to finish the job with a .45 at five paces, shattering the skull of the condemned. And he liked killing. Prior to the revolution in Cuba, and shortly after landing in Cuba with Fidel and Raul Castro, Che wrote his wife. In the letter, he said, “”I’m here in Cuba’s hills, alive and thirsting for blood.” Another account has the wording a little different, with Che writing, ““Here in the Cuban jungle, alive and bloodthirsty.”

Seven members of Cuba's Under-23 soccer team defect in the United States, according to newspaper reports With one player already suspended following a red card, Cuba coach Raul Gonzalez had only ten players available to him and his team began the match against Honduras with a one-man disadvantage and no substitutes.

Friday, March 14, 2008 Cuba's defection dilemma Andrew Hush As dawn broke on the morning after one of the nation's greatest footballing results, the mood in the Cuban camp should have been buoyant. Instead, the prevailing emotions were of confusion and dismay. The remaining Cuban players show their respect to their fans. (AP) Barely twelve hours after Raul Gonzalez's side had begun their Olympic qualifying campaign with a 1-1 draw against the USA, the team had been torn apart by the defection of seven of its number. As remarkable as Cuba's draw was with the host nation in Tampa,...

Havana - Communist Cuba has lifted restrictions on the sale of computers, DVD players and other appliances. The decision is a sign that under the new president, Raúl Castro, consumer goods will be more widely available. However, due to limited power supplies, toasters will not go on sale until next year, and air conditioners not until 2010. Up to now only foreigners and companies were allowed to buy computers. Until recently DVD players were confiscated at the airport. Now they can be sold, but must be paid for in hard currency, or with the so-called convertible peso, which is worth...

In Havana, the enfeebled fingers of Fidel Castro have handed the baton of dictatorship to the feeble fingers of his brother, Raul. The endgame is in sight, but what will it lead to? There are those in Miami and Washington who believe that, by some miracle, the status quo ante will return to Cuba, but this time with democracy and transparency. To understand what might happen in Cuba, let us look at two examples of countries where power was transferred.

On Dec. 29, 1962, 11 months before he was murdered by an advocate for Fidel Castro’s regime (Lee Harvey Oswald had distributed propaganda on a New Orleans street for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee), President John Kennedy, speaking in Miami’s Orange Bowl to veterans of the Bay of Pigs fiasco, received from them a Cuban flag and vowed, “I can assure you that this flag will be returned to this brigade in a free Havana.” In Cuba, too, regime change has turned out to be more problematic than American policymakers imagined.

HAVANA (Reuters) - The Cuban government called President George W. Bush on Saturday a "furious and impotent spectator" with zero influence over changes in the communist country following Fidel Castro's retirement. "He can neither stop, interfere with or influence what happens in Cuba," Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said. Bush said on Friday that neighboring Cuba had replaced one dictator with another and vowed to maintain hard-line policies against Havana until it begins a democratic transition. Bush insisted that Fidel Castro, despite having stepped aside last month and turned over the presidency to his brother Raul, "is still influencing events...

Steve Marshall is an English travel agent. He lives in Spain, and he sells trips to Europeans who want to go to sunny places, including Cuba. In October, about 80 of his Web sites stopped working, thanks to the United States government. ... It turned out, though, that Mr. Marshall’s Web sites had been put on a Treasury Department blacklist and, as a consequence, his American domain name registrar, eNom Inc., had disabled them. Mr. Marshall said eNom told him it did so after a call from the Treasury Department; the company, based in Bellevue, Wash., says it learned that...

Today President Bush met with Cuban political activists Miguel Sigler Amaya and his wife, Josefa Lopez Pena in the Oval Office. They joined the president afterward in the Roosevelt Room of the White House where he delivered a statement on Cuba. (Transcript) This month also marks the fifth anniversary of the “Black Spring” in Cuba. [Pay attention liberals. This is what your hero Fidel and his brother Raul do to those that question their power.] President Bush: We gather today to remember a tragic moment in the history of Cuba. Five years ago this month, Cuban authorities rounded up scores...

The letter from a 12-year-old to “my good friend Roosvelt” [sic] is dated Nov. 6, 1940, one day after FDR won a third term. Saying he is “very happy” FDR won, he adds: “If you like, give me a ten dollars bill green american.” The letter, an enlarged copy of which is on display in the National Archives, ends: “Good by. Your friend, Fidel Castro.”

HAVANA — A growing underground network of young people armed with computer memory sticks, digital cameras and clandestine Internet hookups has been mounting some challenges to the Cuban government in recent months, spreading news that the official state media try to suppress. Last month, students at a prestigious computer science university videotaped an ugly confrontation they had with Ricardo Alarcón, the president of the National Assembly. Mr. Alarcón seemed flummoxed when students grilled him on why they could not travel abroad, stay at hotels, earn better wages or use search engines like Google. The video spread like wildfire through Havana,...

Cuba’s Not So Bright Future by: Bethany Stotts, March 05, 2008 ...Yale Professor Carlos M. N. Eire, who teaches history and religious studies, decided to put in his own two cents..... “What many of the news media fail to take into account is that Cuba is a highly abnormal place that doesn’t run by the same rules as the rest of the world,” replied Eire...“When a different generation takes control and gets the power, changes happen. I think what it will take [in Cuba] is for this generation to die out,” he told the Herald. Raúl Castro expert Brian Latell,...

In his first public statement since being officially named to succeed his ailing brother Fidel, Cuba’s new dictator, Raul Castro, expressed his “sincere hope” that Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) will be the next American president. “Senator Obama fills me with a sense of hope for positive change in the relations between our countries,” Castro announced. Castro said he was particularly impressed by Obama’s proposal to establish “labor battalions.” “This is the kind of stern measure needed to turn America away from the path of bourgeois exploitation and toward a regime of universally shared toil. It reminds me a lot of...

Castro, McCain spar over Cuban torture in Vietnam Mon Feb 11, 2008 11:39am EST HAVANA, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro took on front-running U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Monday, accusing him of lying about Cubans torturing American prisoners of war in Vietnam. At a campaign stop in Miami last month, the Arizona senator told anti-Castro exiles that American POWs held with him in Hanoi were tortured by "a couple of Cubans." "His accusation against the Cuban revolutionaries ... are completely unethical," Castro wrote in an article published by the ruling Communist Party newspaper Granma....

Cuba's New and Improved Tyrant   By Humberto FontovaFrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, February 27, 2008 Humberto Fontova has dedicated his life to exposing the full extent of oppression, brutality, and kleptomania visited upon Cuba by Fidel Castro's regime, a task often performed at significant risk to his personal safety and always over the droning din of the leftist media. Castro's seizure of power could never have come about without the hagiographic coverage of the New York Times in the 1950s. Although the realities of post-Castro life have become well-known, the hemisphere's only full-blown Marxist dictatorship remains a beacon for many...

A Day in the Life of a Retired Dictator: 7:30 a.m. For breakfast it's my usual bowl of Mueslix with plantains. Then I call Raúl to get the latest numbers on the sugar cane crop, which haven't improved by one lousy hectare since yesterday. 8:15 a.m. Another fancy gift basket arrives from Hugo Chávez -- more mixed nuts and taffy, which I can't possibly eat because of my stomach issues. Why does Hugo not remember? 9:00 a.m.-9:20 a.m. I write several peppy new anti-American slogans and read them to Raúl over the phone. The one I like best is ``Down...

HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) -- Cuban President Raul Castro is taking over leadership of a country whose government believes its citizens are not working hard enough. The state-run newspaper recently ran an article headlined "Work: Option or necessity?" The writer pointed out that, judging by the number of people in the streets during the day, many Cubans don't seem to be on the job. They have few motivations to buckle down: Salaries average about $15 per month on the island, and Cubans get monthly food rations even if they don't work. Watch a report on the realities in Cuba » "There...

Neil Clark says that he went to Havana in search of a left-wing Utopia and discovered instead an island fortress of poverty, corruption and currency apartheid It’s a country where the vast majority live in poverty, while a tiny, corrupt elite live in luxury. It’s a place where, 14 years after South Africa abolished apartheid, a form of it still operates. Welcome to Cuba, the ‘socialist’ paradise built by that great egalitarian Fidel Castro, who after 49 years at the helm has finally decided to hand over power — in the manner of a true democrat — to his brother...

Benny Avni at the New York Sun looks at Barack Obama's promise to meet with America's enemies, and wonders what could come from this policy. Given that Obama doesn't discuss the goals or the potential trading points would be, Avni sees the potential for humiliation as far greater than that of progress. It also demonstrates Obama's moral relativism: For Mr. Obama, however, dangling high-end diplomatic meetings as an incentive for a change in behavior is bad policy rooted in American hubris. "If we think that meeting with the president is a privilege that has to be earned, I think that...

It is often suggested that there is not much difference between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton when it comes to the stands they have taken as senators. And on the question of how the U.S. relates to Cuba -- an issue that has suddenly moved to the forefront with the news that Fidel Castro is stepping down as its leader -- the candidates can sound similar. When word came of Castro's move, Obama said the Cuban president's decision to hand power to his younger brother "should mark the end of a dark era in Cuba's history. ... Fidel Castro's stepping...

As expected, the Cuban national assembly rubber-stamped Raul Castro as his brother Fidel's replacement as dictator of the island nation. However, instead of keeping Carlos Lage in the ceremonial post of vice-president, or perhaps grooming a successor to the septuagenarian Raul, they picked a man older than Raul as his backup: Cuba's parliament named Raul Castro president on Sunday, ending nearly 50 years of rule by his brother Fidel but leaving the island's communist system unshaken. In a surprise move, officials bypassed younger candidates to name a 77-year-old revolutionary leader, Jose Ramon Machado, to Cuba's No. 2 spot — apparently...

A New York Times reporter with pre-Castro family ties to Cuba tells us that the country is facing change (big surprise) and that it's not necessarily a good thing.I know what you're thinking: "Of course a Times reporter is afraid of what will come after Castro." Most of the story is a melange of boring personal reminiscences, thankfully free of paeans to what we're all supposed to think is the best healthcare and education on earth.The message we're probably supposed to get is that ordinary Cubans like the life they have now, even as they express this sentiment in furtive...

HAVANA — Nearly 50 years of rule by Fidel Castro ended in Cuba on Sunday as parliament chose his brother Raul to replace him — a transition that leaves the island's communist system unshaken. The new president proposed consulting with the ailing 81-year-old Fidel on all major decisions of state, and parliament approved the proposal. The vote came five days after Fidel said he was retiring, capping a career in which he frustrated efforts by 10 U.S. presidents to oust him. The transition was not likely to bring a major shift in policies of the communist government that have put...

Anti-American snarkiness has reared its ugly little head in this London Times travel story by Tom Chesshyre, "Tourism 'golden era' ends in Cuba." Apparently, The Times believes that life under Fidel Castro's oppressive regime was a "golden era" for visiting that island. Yes, how quaint to see dilapidated buildings and people whose diets are severely restricted by government rationing. The Times seems to fear that these "good times" may soon be coming to an end and urges visits there before the atmosphere is ruined by the American tourist "invasion": Travellers interested in visiting Cuba are being advised to go now before an...

Cuba freed four dissidents jailed in 2003 as a way to mollify human-rights critics. After their arrival in Spain following their release, the four explained how bad it got for them in Cuban prisons, and held out little hope that Fidel Castro's retirement would improve conditions for Cubans: Four dissidents freed this week after five years in inhumane conditions in a Cuban prison have revealed the dark side of Fidel Castro’s regime. The four - José Gabriel Ramón Castillo, Omar Pernet Hernández, Alejandro González and Pedro Pablo Álvarez - described regular beatings, humiliation and arbitrary punishment with long periods of...