Old Havana streets are covered with Massachusetts stones that were used as ballast in ships that once journeyed to Cuba to pick up sugar. “That means when you are walking around on the streets of Havana, you are walking on US soil,” Cuban architect and urban planner Miguel Coyula joked.
“Obama to Lay out Vision for Cuba in Historic Havana Speech.” That was the headline of an Associated Press story published Wednesday. Here’s how former Cuban diplomat Carlos Alzugaray reacted on Facebook…
In 2016, the State Department plans to spend $20 million for programs to strengthen Cuban civil society, support “fundamental freedoms and respect for human rights” and aid “victims of political repression and their families”.
I’ve been working on a project about the legacy of Fidel Castro. I’ve interviewed a range of Cubans, including some who joined Castro on the Granma yacht when it journeyed from Mexico to Cuba in 1956 carrying 82 fighters, most of whom were killed in battle after reaching the island.
When Jeff Kline visited Cuba offering to train young people to produce radio programs, A 25-year-old woman signed up. Kline was from another country and another generation, but she said the American quickly gained her trust.
Cuban authorities arrested American development worker Alan Gross in 2009 after his fifth trip to the island to set up a network of Internet hotspots. But Gross evidently wasn’t the only older Jewish man spotted in Cuba carrying out a mission for the U.S. government.
A surveillance-resistant tool called Commotion is not yet operational in Cuba, the U.S. Agency for International Development told the New York Times.
Three years ago this month, former CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles, now 85, was acquitted on charges of perjury, obstruction of justice and immigration fraud. For journalists, scholars and others interested in his case, I’m posting here more than 700 pages of transcripts from Posada Carriles’ trial in El Paso, Texas.
When people ask why does the US trade embargo and travel ban on Cuba exist more than 20 years after the end of the Cold War one of the most savvy answers is pointing to all the individuals and groups that benefit from hundreds of millions of black hole funding without having to show much in return.
Forget South Florida politics, negotiate with the Cubans and find a way to bring Alan Gross home. That’s what Judy Gross told investigative reporter Tracey Eaton earlier this week in a lengthly interview.