The increase in asphalt production for the repair of Havana’s city streets appears to be directly related to the Pope’s visit to the country from September 19-22. We’ll never find out whether the Pope Mobile is capable to withstanding one of Cuba’s notorious pot-holes, because it won’t be finding any on its path.
Read MoreTo the American popular eye, pre-revolutionary Cuba was the island of sin, a society consumed by the illnesses of gambling, the Mafia, and prostitution. Prominent US intellectuals echoed that view. Even in 1969, when Cuban reality had changed drastically, Susan Sontag described Cuba as “a country known mainly for dance, music, prostitutes, cigars, abortions, resort life, and pornographic movies.”
Read MoreSeventy seven years after taking my first breath on this day (August 29) in a hut in Banes, Oriente, Cuba, I should be a very happy man because of my relative good health and thanks to the development of the internet and social media, I have been able to receive hundreds of loving messages from family, friends, neighbors, former schoolmates and co-workers on three continents. But I’m not… (11 photos)
Read More“The socialist bloc has collapsed! The Soviet Union has disintegrated!” These were the kinds of remarks the medical personnel at the hospital were making. I wasn’t paying any attention to them. My two-month-old child had been hospitalized…
Read MoreThe future of its children, the national economy and Cuban culture depends on the accessibility and quality of education. To lose the nation’s main source of income by not investing enough in teachers would be tantamount to suicide.
Read MoreSeveral analysts suggest that Latin American governments are nearing the “end of the progressive cycle.” Over the past 10 to 15 years, countries like Ecuador, Venezuela, Brazil and others saw the electoral success of political forces with social programs of anti-neoliberal slant. Today, however, a number of these societies are amid corruption scandals, street protests and other forms of public unrest.
Read MoreMartin Guevara comments on the reaction in Euorpe to the tidal wave of refugees landing from the Middle East, Africa and Asia, and fears the attitudes of the “New Man”, created by the Cuban system.
Read More“The biggest economic mistake we made was thinking that building socialism would guarantee development,” one of the Cuba’s most reputable economists said to me. It was something of an informal conversation, but that idea stuck in my head.
Read MoreSome days ago, I wrote a post dealing with the use of non-conventional techniques in the extraction of oil at Boca de Jaruco. From the exchange that followed the publication of my post, it became clear to me that the procedure in question is not the notorious fracking.
Read MoreOn Friday, August 21, Granma, Cuba’s major official newspaper, published the full text of the speech delivered by Jorque Risquet Valdes a few days earlier, for the 90th anniversary of the founding of Cuba’s first Communist Party. The text of the speech led me to the conclusion that the original party had a lot more in common with today’s dissidents and government opponents than with the current Communist Party on the island.
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