Some of my friends make fun of the fact Havana was named one of the 7 wonder cities of the world. They write about the large heaps of garbage on the streets, the ruined buildings, the geysers of sewage and how the pot-holes resemble war trenches.
Read MoreWhen I was a kid, in the neighborhood in Uruguay where I grew up, we’d call anyone who didn’t show enough courage to climb a tree, make someone trip during a soccer match or trade blows with any adversary a “faggot.”
Read MoreSpanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo’s visit to Cuba has given the Popular Party’s policy of isolating Havana, impelled by former President Jose Maria Aznar, (who also promoted Europe’s Common Position on Cuba in 2003), a 180-degree turn.
Read MoreCuban professor Esteban Morales is one of the most reputable experts on the issue of Cuba-US relations. He has just published a book titled De la confrontacion a los intentos de normalizacion (“From Confrontation to Normalization Efforts”), a volume crucial to understanding the bilateral conflict between the two countries.
Read MoreThe governments of Cuba and the United States have maintained a series of negotiations in different areas of common interest for a number of years now. The two countries refer to such talks as “technical” in nature, but they could well represent the preamble of deeper and more political negotiations.
Read MoreMaintaining control over all of the media and having the power to decide who manages these and what gets published is probably the dream of many politicians around the world.
Read MoreThe struggle against corruption in Cuba has proven to be a long-distance race where every lap presents new and more difficult challenges. It’s like opening a Russian nesting doll and finding that the one inside is larger than the first. The Comptroller’s Office is making a huge effort, but it is pitted against a silent army of corrupt and/or inept officials united by common financial interests. They protect and rescue one another as they are “canned.”
Read MoreJuan Triana is one of Cuba’s most renowned economists. Some of his lectures are passed around by Cubans on flash drives. Before Raul Castro’s reforms began, his opinions and those of his colleagues at the Center for the Study of the Cuban Economy sparked off considerable controversy.
Read MoreOn Sunday, I was invited to be part of the panel for the Cuban television program Circulo de la Confianza (“Circle of Trust”), organized at Havana’s Fabrica de Arte cultural center. The topic discussed was progress: what the concept meant, whether Cuba was making any progress with its current reforms and what we ought to do to have progress in the future.
Read MoreCuba’s economic difficulties have a variety of ingredients: the island’s status as an underdeveloped nation, the chosen socialist model, the mistakes made by the government, the US blockade and internal corruption (whose expression is the black market).
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