Today, I will speak of Apartment 2. A small, one-bedroom place like mine, the apartment had to be partitioned in order to house the five people who started living there as of two months ago. The owner is a woman of around 42. She has a 24-year-old son and two little girls (who are five and three).
Read MoreThe opinions of those who believe they are capable of governing Cuba, who give us lesson after lesson about how to solve the country’s problems overnight, would be worthy of pity were they not so outrageous.
Read MoreAnyone who’d lived in Cuba – or any of the countries that once made up the inaptly-called Socialist Bloc – long enough to see, up close, how those who called themselves “communists” behaved, would have known that these people were bound to leave the island in the blink of an eye as soon as there was nothing to gain out of this lofty title.
Read MoreThe Cuban media often speaks of the architectural barriers that hinder the movement of disabled people around the city and insists on the need to eliminate them as soon as possible. Though the message is aimed at all institutions and society in general, not all barriers around the city are given the same priority – and I speak from experience.
Read MoreThe new labor law stresses that the job of the union is to “represent the workers in defense of their interests and rights, as well as advocate the improvement of their working and living conditions.” Such aims call for radical changes.
Read MoreOn July 26 in Santiago de Cuba, Raul Castro affirmed: “This continues to be a revolution of the young.” Today, when so-called Castroism lives on in his leadership, I feel that a debate on the origins of this political principle is worthwhile.
Read MoreSomeone suggested I should write about the unbelievable things that happen down my passageway where I live. Here’s my crack at it: I’ll start with apartment five, where a 71-year-old woman lives. Though she is retired, she has never stopped working and has done pretty much everything under the sun.
Read MoreThe endnotes of What Lies Across the Water* opens with: “The truth is — everybody lies.” But I believe author Stephen Kimber when he says that as part of his research for this book he read the more than 20,000-pages of United States of America vs. Gerardo Hernández ” from opening gavel to final sentencing.”
Read MoreIn an authoritarian system with increasing doses of market freedoms, a system which, at the same time, begins to put aside its commitments to ensure the widespread wellbeing of the population, information cannot be handled as it was administered under the former system of centralized planning.
Read MoreLast week, I attended the last graduation of medical doctors to be held in Cuba this year. It was indeed a marvellous privilege to see the over one thousand new physicians. Of the graduates, 735 were from around the world, students from poor families who would have been unable to afford paying for this university career in their countries. (25 photos)
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