Havana | May 18

AP - The U.S. State Department has given Raul Castro's daughter a visa to attend an academic conference in San Francisco, but it also has rejected about a dozen other Cuban scholars' applications to enter the country.

Observers and the academics themselves say the list includes people who are among the most interested in engaging with the United States, and some who have pushed for greater political and economic change on the island.

Some have traveled to the U.S. before and even spent time teaching at prestigious universities like Harvard and Columbia.

Cuba-watchers call the denials arbitrary, counterproductive to U.S. interests and contrary to the Obama administration's policy of increasing people-to-people exchanges with the island.

Kevin G. Hall & Franco Ordonez | Havana | Apr 15

McClatchy - Leaving Jose Marti International Airport in this capital city, a billboard reminds vividly of the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba. It shows a noose with the phrase, "Blockade: The Longest Genocide in History."

The embargo, partially imposed in 1960 and fully in place two years later, is not a blockade. That's clear by the abundance of foreign goods and investment in Cuba.

It is a blockade, however, in the sense that U.S. companies are blocked from doing business in Cuba. That hasn't stopped their international competitors from Canada, Mexico, Brazil and even China from setting up shop.

It's striking when visiting the island just how much the rest of world now trades with, invests in and sends tourists to Cuba.
..
In 2008, the U.S. exported $710 million in farm goods to Cuba, a figure that fell to $347 million in 2011, according to the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, a New York-based group that favors an end to the embargo.

Into the gap came Brazilian farmers, whose government provided looser terms and took much of the business.

Advocates of lifting the embargo say international companies have partnered with Cuba on a wide range of products, including Cuban cigars, rum, bottled water, fruit juices, port development, ice cream and cosmetics.

"Not to mention oil, which is the 800-pound gorilla that's about to walk into the room," said Kirby Jones, whose company, Alamar Associates, has been consulting and leading U.S. trade missions to Cuba since 1974. "Here's China, drilling for oil in Cuba."

Hugh O'Shaughnessy | Feb 12

The Independent - Fifty years ago this month, the United States began the embargo on Cuba which continues to this day. But the country against which it was aimed is rapidly becoming a very different one to the alleged communist menace just 90 miles off the coast of Florida. Under Fidel Castro's brother, Raul, it is in the throes of a second Cuban revolution.

For a sign of the change which is turning life on their island on its head, the people of Havana have only to peer into the night at the northern horizon. This month, Repsol, the Spanish energy company started drilling the first oil well from a massive and brightly lit rig, the lumbering Scarabeo 9, built in China for ENI of Italy. This morning it will still be grinding away seeking the billions of barrels of oil and the trillions of cubic feet of gas that the US government, among others, says lie under Cuba's offshore waters.

The Spanish oilmen working on the structure, which has been towed halfway around the world amid US efforts to delay its progress, will be followed aboard by a succession of Norwegians, Russians, Indians and Malaysians.

Optimistic geologists reckon that within a few years the island – long cursed by a lack of oil supplies, half of which it has had to import – will actually be exporting the stuff. And it will be able to do so without the aid of President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela who has kept the island's motors, power and air-conditioning going with his subsidised crude.

As the years-long drought in Texas subsides, I feel this would be a good time to remind everyone that water is not only precious, but scarce.

Indeed, Africa is seeing some of the worst droughts in recorded history. Drought doesn't only affect humanity, afflicting us with thirst, famine, and war, but wildlife too. And while the famine in Somalia (not directly water-related, but...) has been declared "over", countries like Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone face dismal prospects for the near future.

Port-au-Prince | Jan 30

Reuters - Former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier will face trial for corruption but not for human rights abuses, the judge handling the case said on Monday.

A 20-page ruling on the charges was delivered to the government prosecutor's office on Monday, Carves Jean, the judge responsible for investigating the case, told Reuters.

It does not include charges for the murders, disappearances, torture and other rights abuses allegedly committed during Duvalier's 15-year rule.

"I did not find enough legal grounds to keep human rights charges and crimes against humanity against him," he said. "Now my job is over. The case is no longer in my hands."

disgusting

Jan 11 | NYT | Jonathan M. Hansen

IN the 10 years since the Guantánamo detention camp opened, the anguished debate over whether to shutter the facility — or make it permanent — has obscured a deeper failure that dates back more than a century and implicates all Americans: namely, our continued occupation of Guantánamo itself. It is past time to return this imperialist enclave to Cuba.

From the moment the United States government forced Cuba to lease the Guantánamo Bay naval base to us, in June 1901, the American presence there has been more than a thorn in Cuba’s side. It has served to remind the world of America’s long history of interventionist militarism. Few gestures would have as salutary an effect on the stultifying impasse in American-Cuban relations as handing over this coveted piece of land.

Juan O. Tamayo | Miami | Jan 8

Miami Herald - Putting to rest rumors that he had died, former Cuban leader Fidel Castro has published his first column in nearly two months - a 3,121-word exposition on nuclear war, climate change and other threats to the survival of the human species.

The column, titled "The march toward the abyss," dated Jan. 4 and published Thursday in virtually all Cuban government news outlets, was Castro's first since Nov. 13 and came at the end of a week that saw rumors of his death spread, particularly on Twitter.

No up-to-date photos of the 85-year-old Castro, who passed on power to his brother RaAl after undergoing emergency surgery in 2006, were published along with the lengthy column. A Cuban television newsman needed nearly 30 minutes to read it on air, Havana residents said.

The column hammered on one of Castro's favorite topics, arguing that the dangers of nuclear war and climate change "are decisive, and both are each day further from a solution."

"What I am trying to do is to put myself at a point within our species so I can speak about the march toward the abyss. I could even speak of an 'inexorable' march, and I would surely be closer to reality," the former Cuban leader wrote.

He referred to the growing tensions in the Middle East and Israel's nuclear weapons, but not to Iran's alleged nuclear weapons programs or its threat to block the Straits of Hormuz, through which much of the Middle East's oil is exported.

Castro also attacked the "demagogic verbiage, declarations and speeches of the tyranny imposed on the world" by the U.S. government and called President Barack Obama "a guy who has fooled the world with dishonest promises, because he knew from the git-go that he would never fulfill them."

Dec 26

BBC - Cuba says it is expanding free-market reforms, opening more of the retail services sector to private business.

From 1 January workers including carpenters, locksmiths, photographers and repairmen will be allowed to become self-employed.

They will be able to set their own prices, while paying taxes and leasing their premises from the state.

The measures are the latest reforms aimed at reviving Cuba's socialist economy by boosting private enterprise.

President Raul Castro, who took over from his brother Fidel in 2008, has said the changes represent an effort to update rather than abandon the socialist model.

His government plans to have up to 40% of the the workforce employed by the non-state sector by 2016, compared with just 10% at the end of 2010.

Restrictions on private business have been relaxed, large numbers of state workers have been laid off, and tens of thousands of Cubans have applied for licenses to work for themselves.

For the first time in decades people are allowed to buy and sell homes and cars and take out private business loans from banks.

Earlier this year state barbers shops and beauty salons were handed over to their employees, who now work for themselves while paying rent, tax and social security to the state.

Juan O. Tamayo | Palma Soriano, Cuba | December 17

El Nuevo Herald - Cuban dissidents have sent out photos and videos of a large police crackdown in the eastern town of Palma Soriano that left at least five government opponents with head wounds, black eyes and other injuries.

One photo of the Dec. 2 roundup of 46 dissidents shows Henry Perales with two wounds on his shaved head that required nine stitches to close. Another shows AbrahanCQ Cabrera with one stitch on his forehead.

[...]

The Palma Soriano roundup was one of the largest and harshest police crackdowns on dissident in recent years. All were freed hours or days later – one of them 12 days later – without charges.

Anya Landau French, | Nov 18

CSM - I’ve just finished reading a new report by Professor Richard Feinberg, a former Clinton administration official and non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution. “Reaching Out: Cuba’s New Economy and the International Response,” clocked in at a daunting 101 pages but should nonetheless be required reading for anyone following the island nation’s long-awaited economic restructuring.

Cuba’s economic transformation is a hot topic, to be sure; another excellent report, Cuba’s New Resolve: Economic Reform and Its Implications for U.S. Policy, written by Cuba expert Collin Laverty for the Center for Democracy in the Americas, offers a detailed look at Cuba’s economic reforms to date, and in so doing, lays to rest any question of whether these reforms are just a temporary fix or irreversible. If Cuba’s New Resolve argues that Cuba is serious about its economic reforms, Reaching Out offers what the international community should do about it with an 800-pound gorilla – the US embargo – in the room.

I’ll admit that after reading Professor Feinberg’s introduction, I next skipped to the middle for both a history lesson and a pragmatic, creative vision for Raul Castro’s Cuba to reconnect with the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) – the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as well as with regional development banks – in spite of opposition from the United States.

Feinberg unravels the conventional wisdom that says Cuba and the IFIs would make unhappy bedfellows – Cuba withdrew from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund more than 40 years ago – by pointing to successful IFI engagement with nonmembers like Kosovo and South Sudan, and with proud and strong states like Daniel Ortega's Nicaragua and Vietnam, with which Cuba shares key similarities. The IFIs are more interested in “the long game,” Feinberg argues, and their willingness to take things step by step would fit nicely with Cuba’s (urgent) need for gradual changes. He talks to both sides, and a senior Cuban diplomat tells him that “Cuba has no principled position against” engagement with the IFIs – a statement Feinberg believes signals a real shift in Cuban policy (hopefully a Cuban official will field that question publicly in the not too distant future).

Meanwhile, IFI experts are more than ready to engage Cuba, and Feinberg argues that US opposition to IFI assistance isn’t as insurmountable as it might seem. In particular, IFIs can work through trust funds and other donors can administer programs. Feinberg also sees a role for regional development banks such as the Inter-American Development Bank and the Andean Development Corporation, as the US isn’t a member.

CSM - US-Cuban affairs dominated the confirmation hearing of Roberta Jacobson, acting assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs, showing how "out of step" the US is as Cuba forges ahead with reform, writes blogger.

Jim Lobe | Washington | Nov 5

IPS - With a giant deep-water oil rig steaming slowly toward the Gulf of Mexico and the waters just off Cuba, the administration of President Barack Obama is being pushed and pulled by different interests over what, if anything, to do about it.

On the one hand, anti-Castro Cuban-American and other right-wing lawmakers here are expressing growing exasperation over what they see as Washington's failure to do whatever it can to prevent the new, 750-million-dollar Scarabeo 9 from fulfilling its mission to begin exploratory drilling off the island's northwest coast by early next year.

They appear increasingly worried that the rig, which will be operated initially by the Spanish oil company, Repsol-YPF, may find commercially exploitable quantities of oil under Cuba's waters and thus provide a "windfall" for Havana that will be used to help sustain the Communist government led by President Raul Castro.

On the other hand, some environmental and anti-embargo groups, including business associations that want to increase trade with Havana, are calling on Obama to engage the Cuban government more directly in the interests of both protecting the Gulf’s ecology from a possible spill and ensuring that U.S. oil service companies will be able to help contain the damage should such an accident take place.

Less than 18 months after the Deepwater Horizon blow-out that sent nearly five million barrels of oil pouring into the Gulf over a three-month period, they argue that Washington should work closely with both the Cuban government and Repsol, as well as other third- country companies that will operate the rig, to both minimise the risk of a similar accident and contain its impact if there is one.

So far, the administration appears to be trying to steer a middle course, satisfying neither side.

Nov 3

BBC - Cuba has approved a law allowing individuals to buy and sell homes for the first time since the early days of the revolution, official media say.

The law, which takes effect on 10 November, applies to citizens and permanent residents only.

Correspondents say this is the most important reform so far in a series of free-market changes introduced by President Raul Castro.

A housing shortage has meant that many Cubans live in overcrowded apartments.

An article in the Communist Party daily Granma said details of the new law would be published in the government's official gazette.

Ansel Herz | Port-au-Prince | October 27

IPS - Workers in Haiti's apparel manufacturing sector charge that factory owners are repressing attempts to organise workers in the capital, after the dismissals of six of seven leading members of a new union within just two weeks of its formation.

The new union, Sendika Ouvriye Takstil ak Abiman (SOTA), is recognised by the Haitian government and supported by the Haitian union federation Batay Ouvriye, which organised the only other textile workers' union in the country on the border with the Dominican Republic in 2006.

Sara Miller Llana | Mexico City | Oct 21

CSM - The Freedom House report on Cuba released today finds that Cubans see real economic change there, and more Cubans now would rather work for themselves than hold once-prized state jobs.

When Raul Castro announced radical changes to the economic structure of communist Cuba, the country was in a semi-daze, as we detailed in this cover story last year.

Many Cubans were excited about the prospects of economic change, particularly opening access to self-employment. But, as state jobs were slashed, many were also worried about going it alone after a lifetime of stable, if paltry, government salaries and subsidies.

But a new Freedom House survey(PDF) released today shows a radical change in perceptions. Forty-one percent of Cubans say the country is making progress, compared to only 15 percent who felt optimistic about the country’s future when Freedom House last conducted field research in December 2010. In fact, today more Cubans say they would prefer to work for themselves than for the government, the survey shows.

Less than a year ago, Cubans were “very skeptical about change. They doubted real change would happen,” says Daniel Calingaert, deputy director of programs at Freedom House and co-author of the study. This survey was carried out in June, after reforms were implemented formally at the Sixth Community Party Congress in April. And now, Mr. Calingaert says, Cubans see “change is real.”

This economic opening is the “most significant positive change to have taken place in Cuba since communism was introduced half a century ago,” the new survey concludes.

At first glance, Cuban optimism could be a good sign for the Castro government. But it could also pose additional challenges. Cubans who have tasted economic freedom say they want more, and a bit of stability has also allowed them the luxury to think beyond the day-to-day economics of feeding a family. “It’s opening people to new possibilities,” says Calingaert. “There is more interest in individual freedoms.”

Indeed, one of the more surprising findings is that, when asked what reforms they most wanted, Cubans said increased freedom of expression and the freedom to travel (28 percent). This is a radical change from the most recent study, when economic reform topped the wish list of respondents.

Port-au-Prince | Oct 13

The Guardian - Back from exile, former strongman Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier lives in a villa in the hills above Haiti's capital. His son serves as a consultant to the country's new president, Michel Martelly, while others with links to Duvalier's hated and feared regime work for the administration.

Duvalier himself is rumored to be ill and appears too frail to return to power. But for many Haitians who remember the ex-dictator's brutal rule, the rise of his loyalists to the new president's inner circle triggers suspicions about where Martelly's loyalties lie.

Such developments might be shrugged off in many countries, but not in Haiti, where much of the political establishment for the past 15 years has consisted of people associated with the mass uprising that forced "Baby Doc" to flee the country for France in 1986.

Now, a former minister and ambassador under the regime is serving as a close adviser to Martelly. And at least five high-ranking members of the administration, including the new prime minister, are the children of senior dictatorship officials.

Sen. Moise Jean-Charles said he and others who lived through those years are uneasy that Duvalierists are aligned with a president with no previous political experience and a history of supporting right-wing causes.

"They've been nostalgic for 25 years," Jean-Charles said of Duvalier's supporters. "And now, they're back in the country and back in power."

Martelly's powers will be at least partly held in check because his opponents control both houses of parliament.

Michael Peltier | Marianna, Florida | Oct 7

Reuters - A Cuban agent jailed for spying on Cuban exiles in Florida was freed from a U.S. prison on Friday but must remain in the United States for three years on probation, a condition Cuba says puts his life in danger.

Rene Gonzalez, 55, the first to be freed of the so-called "Cuban Five" espionage agents arrested in 1998, left the Marianna prison in Florida's northwest Panhandle at around 4 a.m. EDT and was reunited with his two daughters, father and brother, attorney Philip Horowitz told Reuters.

"He was in great spirits, very happy to see his family, to be out, he had a smile on his face," Horowitz said.

He added he would renew an appeal against the requirement that Gonzalez, who has dual U.S.-Cuban citizenship, spend three years of supervised release in the United States.

The case of the five -- the other four are still serving long U.S. jail terms -- has been an irritant to already poisoned U.S.-Cuba ties. These have deteriorated further since the jailing by communist Cuba of a U.S. aid contractor, Alan Gross, who was sentenced this year to 15 years in prison.

The same Florida judge who had sentenced Gonzalez and his fellow Cuban spies in 2001 denied a motion presented last month by Horowitz for the terms of the convicted man's supervised release to be modified so he could immediately return to Cuba.

Carol Rosenberg | Aug 30

Miami Herald - A once-secret CIA history of the Bay of Pigs invasion lays out in unvarnished detail how the American spy agency came to the rescue of and cut deals with authoritarian governments in Central America, largely to hide the U.S. role in organizing and controlling the hapless Cuban exile invasion force.

The report, in chronicling how American secret agents dealt with the ’60s-era governments of Guatemala and Nicaragua, provides important evidence, in official U.S. government words, to the truth of the old adage that the most powerful people in Central American embassies were the CIA station chiefs.

Ambassadors step aside and allow the CIA to negotiate deals for covert paramilitary bases in a newly released portion of the CIA’s “Official History of the Bay of Pigs Operation.” CIA pilots and Cuban foot soldiers then help suppress a Guatemalan Army coup attempt that threatened their foothold in the country. Gen. Anastasio Somoza hits up the CIA for a $10 million payoff, development loans, as the price of letting the Americans launch the Cuban exile invasion from Nicaragua.

“What you’re reading in this report shows again that in the hypocritical name of democracy the United States and CIA were willing to prop up some of the most cut-throat dictatorships,” says researcher Peter Kornbluh of the National Security Archive at George Washington University. He sued the CIA for release of the Top Secret document that dissects one of the agency’s greatest failures.

Using secret interviews, cables and memos, CIA historian Jack B. Pfeiffer wrote the classified account of the disastrous operation to topple Fidel Castro. It’s unusually candid because nobody except spies were expected read it.

Volume II, just released, focuses on foreign policy, particularly dealings with Guatemala and Nicaragua. It struck Kornbluh as a surprisingly “self-complimentary description of the CIA’s agile role as a diplomatic force.”

Mimi Whitefield | Aug 15

McClatchy - Freshly released CIA documents on the Bay of Pigs invasion provide new details on the confusion, mixed messages and last-minute changes in plans that ultimately doomed the mission.

The documents also underscore the extremes the United States went to maintain “plausible denial’’ of Washington’s role in the April 1961 invasion by CIA-trained Cuban exiles.

“These documents go to the heart of what runs through the whole official history of the Bay of Pigs — the issue of plausible deniability,’’ said Peter Kornbluh, senior analyst at the National Security Archive, a Washington-based nonprofit research organization that had sought the documents for years and was instrumental in gaining their release.

Concerned that Washington’s hands could be traced to the invasion, the Kennedy administration kept scaling it back, said Kornbluh. It cut back on planned air raids on Cuban airfields and insisted on a problematic night-time landing of the invasion force.

The result: the defeat of the exile brigade in less than 72 hours, 114 men killed and another 1,100 captured.

Caracas | July 1

Reuters - Venezuela’s socialist leader Hugo Chávez acknowledged he had surgery for cancer, shaking the political system he has dominated for more than a decade and alarming supporters counting on him to win re-election in 2012.

The usually loquacious Mr Chávez, 56, confirmed in a stern speech on Thursday that he had undergone surgery in Cuba to remove a cancerous tumour and was receiving more treatment. He said he needed time to recover before returning to Venezuela to run his self-styled socialist revolution.

Supporters vowed they will continue his leftist drive, which has included nationalisation of vast swaths of the economy, a broad diplomatic challenge to Washington's dominance of the region and a steady takeover of an oil industry that is a key supplier to the US.

"We will live and we will conquer. Until my return!" Mr Chávez ended Thursday night's emotion-charged address from Havana.

June 1

The Nation - Drawing from a trove of 1,918 Haiti-related diplomatic cables obtained by the transparency-advocacy group WikiLeaks, The Nation is collaborating with the Haitian weekly newspaper Haïti Liberté on a series of groundbreaking articles about US and UN policy toward the Caribbean nation.

Haïti Liberté, published largely in French and Creole, is working with WikiLeaks to release and analyze the Haiti-related cables, which will be featured in a series of English-language Nation pieces, written by a variety of freelance journalists with extensive experience in Haiti and posted each Wednesday for several weeks.

The cables from US Embassies around the world cover an almost seven-year period, from April 17, 2003—ten months before the February 29, 2004, coup d’état that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide—to February 28, 2010, just after the January 12 earthquake that devastated the capital, Port-au-Prince, and surrounding cities. They range from “Secret” and “Confidential” classifications to “Unclassified.” Cables of the latter classification are not public, and many are marked “For Official Use Only” or “Sensitive.”

Guy Adams | May 6

The Independent - Five thousand dead, 300,000 ill, and a medical emergency that has already lasted six months; now the people of Haiti have someone to blame for the cholera outbreak which has swept through their earthquake-ravaged country: the blue-helmeted peacekeepers of the United Nations.

An official report into the ongoing epidemic, which began last October, has concluded that it was almost certainly caused by a poorly constructed sanitation system installed at a rural camp used by several hundred UN troops from Nepal.

The virulent strain of cholera bacteria began infecting locals after faecal matter from their base seeped from badly designed septic pits into the Meye River, a tributary of the Artibonite River in the country's central region.

The river system is used by tens of thousands of mostly rural Haitians to provide water for drinking, cooking, bathing and washing clothes. When large numbers began falling ill, hospitals were quickly overwhelmed. It was then only a matter of time before the outbreak spread to major cities.

The findings will only add to tension between peacekeepers and the citizens of a country which is still barely starting to recover from the worst natural disaster in modern history. The earthquake in January last year left between 200,000 and 300,000 people dead, and 1.5 million homeless.

Jeff Franks | Havana | April 16

Reuters - Cuba will consider placing term limits on its leaders to assure new blood in the goverment, President Raul Castro said on Saturday in a speech kicking off a Communist Party congress on the island he and his brother led for more than five decades.

He said the government does not have "a reserve of well-trained replacements with sufficient experience and maturity" to replace the current leaders, most of whom are in their 70s and 80s.

"We have reached the conclusion that it is advisable to recommend limiting the time of service in high political and state positions to a maximum of two five-year terms," he told 1,000 delegates at the congress, where economic reform is the main agenda item.

Castro, 79, said he would not be excluded from the limits, which will be discussed not at this congress, but a party conference next January.

Joseph Guyler Delva & Pascal Fletcher | Port-Au-Prince | Mar 18

Reuters - Former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide made a triumphant homecoming to Haiti on Friday after seven years of exile, returning despite U.S. objections two days before a crucial presidential vote.

Thousands of enthusiastic followers turned out to greet the former leader, who is still widely revered in impoverished Haiti as a champion of the poor, although viewed by the United States as divisive figure who could disrupt Sunday's election.

Supporters whooped and cheered at Port-au-Prince airport as a smiling Aristide, accompanied by his family and U.S. actor and black rights activist Danny Glover, emerged from the charter plane that brought him home from South Africa.

"If you could lean against my heart you could hear how fast it is beating, how it is singing a melody to Haiti," Aristide, wearing a blue suit, told reporters at the airport.

He said he had come back to make "a small contribution" to his country, which is struggling to recover from a devastating 2010 earthquake that killed more than 300,000 people and set back development in one of the world's poorest states.

Aristide, who had accused Washington of helping to engineer his 2004 exile, ignored a direct plea from the United States to delay his return to the Caribbean nation until after Sunday.

Feb 4

BBC - Cuban prosecutors are to seek a 20-year prison sentence for US citizen Alan Gross, who is accused of spying.

Mr Gross, 61, has been charged with plotting against the state and his trial date will be set soon, Cuban state media reported.

The US, which insists Mr Gross is an aid worker not a spy, said it "deplored" the decision.

Washington has previously said there would be no major initiatives on US-Cuba relations until he was released.

Mr Gross was arrested in Havana in December 2009 and held without charge for 14 months.

He was working for the Cuba Democracy Programme, a US government programme aimed at promoting political change in Cuba.

The communist authorities consider this a subversive activity, and they allege that he was distributing illegal satellite equipment to Jewish community groups.

Now he has been charged with "acts against the independence and territorial integrity of the state", a government statement published in the communist party newspaper Granma said.