A Jesuit priest has a rather daring and provocative thesis regarding the Pope’s imminent visit to Cuba: Francis will frustrate many of the expectations of those who await his tour of the island.
Read MorePope Francis’ mediation in the negotiations that eased the nearly six-decade-old tensions between Cuba and the United States and the feat of re-establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries stretched out the red carpet for a visit to the island from the Holy See.
Read MoreSome years ago, foreign journalists working in Cuba found out about a series of regulations applied to their work (thanks to an information leak). They had kept these regulations a secret, making it very difficult for us to follow them. This illustrates the main issue faced by the Cuban press: no one knows the rules of the game or the divisions of the playing field.
Read MoreAt some point in the near future, before September 14th, a request to renew the Trading With the Enemy Act – the legal foundation of the US blockade on Cuba – will be laid on Barack Obama’s desk. This is the 1917 statute invoked by John F. Kennedy in 1962 to set up the economic fence around Cuba.
Read MoreI woke up tired today, as though I’d put on 20 years in my sleep. This happens often. I gradually regain my strength in the course of the day. I’m not complaining. It’s the kind of thing you’d expect when your life has been a disaster.
Read MoreThe 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.
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