Cuban immigrants have always been made a political issue, presented as persecuted individuals who are fleeing communism and given the status of refugees by the United States – despite the fact that 500,000 of these alleged “exiles” visit Cuba every year without anything happening to them.
Read MoreIn the course of recent weeks, Cuba has experienced a number of situations in which government officials made mistakes and later rectified them but tried to avoid asking for apologies.
Read MoreThe Cuban government heard the voice of the public and reopened terminal 3 at the Jose Marti Airport to people sending off or receiving travelers. Cyberspace had filled with protests after the closing of the facility.
Read MoreSome days ago, the official newspaper of Cuba’s Communist Party, Granma, referred to the need to improve the country’s productivity and thus increase salaries, calling on workers to make greater sacrifices with a view to creating more wealth (the only conceivable way of improving wages).
The truth of the matter, however, is that achieving greater productivity and efficiency is often not in the hands of Cuban workers, but rather depends on their company’s managers and the bureaucratic structures created by the government to control and centralize these.
Read MoreWhen I wrote about Rafael’s illness, I became curious about the medical services that Cuban Public Health arranges for patients abroad. Following a rather arduous search, we found a teenager who had just been treated at a clinic in Europe. Below is her story.
Read MoreThe “Letters from Cuba” website of Fernando Ravsberg, who also publishes articles in Havana Times, came under attack last week and was temporarily knocked out of cyberspace. Now reestablished, the site is currently back to normal.
Read MoreThe slow implementation of economic reforms in Cuba is justified with the argument that the government does not want to make any mistakes. Every step taken is allegedly preceded by a pilot test used to evaluate the consequences of the change. This is doubtless a new way of doing things in the country, in which concrete results matter more than inspiration. Many Cubans, however, have grown impatient, because the waiting period is sometimes longer than what they deem necessary.
Read MoreThe United States has had to yield to pressures from Latin America and accept Cuba’s participation at the next Summit of the Americas, to be held on April 10, 2015. President Barack Obama had no choice: had he maintained the veto, it would have meant the end of these presidential gatherings.
Read MoreRafael Botalin Diaz is 15 years old and suffers from a high-grade cerebral AVM that could kill him at any moment. It was detected in April, when he experienced convulsions and blacked out for half an hour. He was treated at the Santiago de Cuba Children’s Hospital.
Read MoreUncertainty is what makes many Cubans think that neither they nor their children will have any future in their country. It drives many to leave the country in search of a train with a clearly-defined destination, even if that involves cleaning houses for a living.
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