Washington Post: en Cuba le pierden el miedo al régimen

Washington Post

La junta editorial del capitalino diario The Washington Post publica este jueves un editorial relacionado con la visita de Yoani Sánchez a Estados Unidos, la situación de las libertades individuales en Cuba y la muerte de Oswaldo Payá y Harold Cepero en la isla el pasado año.

En el mismo se dice que “Yoani Sánchez habla sobre los "medios alternativos de comunicación" en Cuba, habla con autoridad”, pues “su blog Generación Y se ha convertido en un faro de la democracia y la libertad en la isla, donde los medios de comunicación se sigue manteniendo en el férreo control del régimen de Castro”. Recuerda el editorial las dificultades para hacer el blog desde Cuba, pues el “el acceso a Internet es irregular”, pero que esos medios alternativos “lidien con la información que el gobierno quiere suprimir” y fue por esos medios alternativos que los cubanos supieron de la muerte de los dos opositores.

Sobre la visita de Sánchez a Washington esta semana, y el encuentro con la junta editora del diario, afirman que ella manifestó “que los cubanos perciben de que "el gobierno parece estar escondiendo algo" acerca de la muerte de Payá y Cepero y que se ha producido una "manipulación de los hechos”. Para el rotativo “las sospechas son fundadas” y recuerdan las declaraciones de Ángel Carromero, a ese diario recientemente donde afirmó que “el automóvil que conducía y en el que viajaban Payá y Cepero, fue golpeado por detrás por un vehículo con placas del gobierno cubano y que fue amenazado e intimidado por las autoridades en un intento de encubrimiento”.

Una investigación independiente e internacional debe llevarse a cabo, dijo Yoani Sánchez al diario, y tiene que hacerse “lo antes posible, antes de que el gobierno se las arregle para borrar hasta la última  evidencia”. También informan del pedido del senador Bill Nelson, demócrata por la Florida, quien envió una misiva al secretario general de la ONU Ban Ki-moon, pidiéndole que nombre un panel para que investigue la muerte del opositor cubano, pues asegura que “todos merecemos conocer la verdad”.

El editorial insiste en que “la verdad no es muy respetada por Fidel y Raúl Castro” y pone el ejemplo de la Primavera Negra, cuando 75 disidentes, periodistas independientes y activistas de derechos humanos fueron encarcelados y la ofensiva contra el Proyecto Varela en el 2002. La autora de Generación Y recordó al diario “que tal arbitrariedad es característica de autoritarismo. "Es difícil pensar como un represor, si usted nunca ha sido", dijo. "Ellos tienen su propia lógica. Uno de los elementos más paralizantes de la represión cubana es su carácter ilógico”.

“En Cuba se ha visto últimamente algunas reformas económicas y liberalizaciones, uno de ellos dejó a Yoani Sánchez viajar libremente al extranjero por primera vez. Pero ella nos dijo que el verdadero cambio en la Cuba de hoy no es de arriba, sino desde abajo”, culmina el editorial; y citando a la bloguera afirman que “la gente está perdiendo el miedo, pasando del silencio a la apertura, de tener una máscara a mostrar su verdadero rostro en público”. Para The Washington Post Yoani Sánchez se sitúa en la vanguardia de este cambio, aunque todavía hay un largo camino aún por recorrer, pues las autoridades en la Isla aún no ha renunciado al dominio absoluto sobre las libertades individuales.

Sobre el impacto de Telesur en Cuba

Progreso Habana

A nod to Cuba, but not to Castro

Boston Globe/ Eduardo J. Santaella

I do not doubt that the Feb. 9 editorial on Cuba and Fidel Castro is well intended (“Cuba’s reforms pave way for new US policy, too”). But it only covers one side of the picture. The editorial seems to forget Castro is a criminal who has imposed an iron rule in Cuba for more than 50 years. Many thousands of innocent people have been imprisoned or killed, and the economy of this beautiful island has been destroyed.

Further, Castro has constantly attempted to export his communist revolution to other countries, such as Venezuela. Castro’s first attempts were thwarted, but recently, under Hugo Chavez, Venezuela is short of becoming a Cuban colony. Through Chavez, Castro also has his hands in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, and is developing dangerous ties with Argentina’s Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. 

This should worry the United States, but apparently there are still people who support the opening of relations with Castro. I say yes to Cuba, but no to Castro.

NBC: After a century without it, Cuba now scrambling to contain cholera

nbcnews

Roberto Leon

Arismael Nieto's job is to pour a diluted bleach solution over the hands of every commuter at this Havana bus station, and make sure everyone steps on a cloth soaked with the solution to clean the bottom of their shoes.

By Mary Murray, Producer, NBC News

Camilo, my 7-year old grandson in Cuba, has never been shy about asking for presents – especially when he knows I’m heading to Havana from that big shopping mall 90 miles away. His usual list includes a massive bag of M&M peanut candy, additions to what’s become a pretty pricey collection of Schleich resin animals, and goofy gags second-grade boys find funny, such as hand buzzers or that classic snake-in-a-can. When Camilo got on the phone with me last weekend, he only rattled off one item.

“Aba,” (that’s what he calls me–short for "abuela", which is "grandma" in Spanish), “bring me soap.”

“Soap? You want soap?” I repeated, convinced I must have heard him wrong.

“Si”, he insisted. “Jabon!”

Now he has me worried that I need to make an emergency supply-run for detergent, shampoo, dishwashing soap and other basics. The last time soap was in short supply in Cuba was in the 1990s but, if this kid is asking for soap, the situation must be dire. He’s about as germaphobe as your average stray puppy. Like a lot of little boys, he needs to be reminded that taking a shower means actually standing under the water.

Camilo, however, didn’t want just any soap. He was looking for what he calls “the soap that melts.” He wanted me to bring him an alcohol-based instant hand sanitizer.

Then he made it clear why. “Aba, there’s cholera here,” he said.

As it turns out, Camilo had spilled the beans a full 72 hours before the Cuban Health Ministry issued a formal communiqué on what had been rumored since the start of the year -- cholera had surfaced in the city of Havana, home to 2.2 million people.

The announcement explained that 51 new cases of cholera had been diagnosed in the Cuban capital along with a spike in the number of people suffering from "diarrheal diseases." The ministry made no mention of any fatalities. The public was being advised to be more careful with personal hygiene, boil all drinking water or use purification drops and thoroughly wash all fruits and vegetables, but to stay assured that Cuba’s massive public health machine was implementing preventive measures meant to “contain” and “eradicate” the disease.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website, cholera is a bacterial infection in the intestine that can range from mild to severe. In the latter case, an infected person will experience “dehydration and shock" that, if left untreated, can lead to death "within hours.” The CDC estimates that every year there are up to 5 million cases and more than 100,000 deaths from cholera worldwide.

In most cases, the disease takes about a week to run its course, and during that time, warns the CDC, cholera is highly contagious. Spread hand to mouth, the bacteria is usually found in water or food sources contaminated by an infected person’s feces.

ContaminationA single food vendor at a baseball game appears to be the cause of the Havana outbreak. In early January, apparently, contaminated sandwiches or soda were sold during a packed game in the city’s main sports arena, the Latin American Stadium, located in a neighborhood called Cerro.

"That's why people from different parts of the city tested positive for cholera at the same time,” said a medical source, not authorized to speak on the record but who claims to have first-hand knowledge of the findings from the epidemiological task force assigned to trace the origins of the outbreak.

Roberto Leon

Officials from Cuba's Health and Epidemiology department inspected this pizza parlor located not too far from where the outbreak started in Havana and closed it down.

At Wednesday's nighttime game between Havana's beloved Industriales and last year's national champs, Los Tigres de Ciego de Avila, hawkers should have been making a killing on what had been one of the season's most sought-after tickets. Instead, 80 percent of the seats remained empty. Those die-hard fans who did show up were not allowed into the stadium until they sterilized their shoes and hands. Benches were wiped down with a disinfectant, and the floors hosed down with the same 0.5 percent bleach solution. And there was nothing to munch on during the three-and-a-half-hour game. All food stands have been temporarily shut down.

The same goes for many mom-and-pop cafeterias across the capital. "Last week, officials from Health and Epidemiology inspected our place and then they closed us down," said one owner of a pizza parlor not too far from where the outbreak started. "They said it's to stop the spread of cholera but no one’s saying how long we have to stay closed." His only consolation is that this month he doesn’t have to pay taxes or his monthly licensing fee.

Upset about his loss of income, he is also irked by the fact that some state-run food establishments passed the inspections, so they are being allowed to stay open. Many though are only authorized to sell bottled water, canned drinks and commercially packaged food.

Arismael Nieto usually changes the light bulbs and fixes broken chairs at Havana’s Bus Terminal. For the last two weeks, he’s been drafted on the city’s anti-cholera campaign. He stands by the one door opened at the station and his job is to pour a diluted bleach solution over the hands of every commuter, and make sure everyone steps on a cloth soaked with the solution to clean the bottom of their shoes. No one gets on a bus or leaves the building without Nieto’s OK.

Now, picture this procedure happening at every school from kindergarten to college, every public building, factory, lunch room, hospital, health clinic, department store, train depot and movie theater.

Chlorine a "necessary inconvenience"
Over the summer, two people who live in the Havana neighborhood of Fontanar thought they had the flu but tested positive for cholera. It was believed that they were exposed on the bus ride from eastern Cuba, an area of the country that had an outbreak earlier last year. In late August, Cuba revealed that cholera had killed three people and infected 417 in Granma province, some 450 miles east of Havana.

Roberto Leon

Signs such as this one are posted everywhere in Havana, alerting people to go to the hospital as soon as they experience any of the symptoms of cholera.

Cuba’s cholera treatment protocol has doctors knocking on doors and testing anyone with possible cholera symptoms. A positive test means an automatic trip to one of the city hospitals for a more comprehensive test. While most suspected cases go to Havana’s Tropical Medicine Institute, known by its initials IPK, a pediatric hospital and a maternity hospital have also been designated to admit cholera cases. In addition, the protocol mandated that all of Havana’s 85 neighborhood health clinics set aside a room with ventilation and a closed door as a place to quarantine suspected cholera cases until an ambulance arrives to transport the patient to the hospital.

Once hospitalized, a comprehensive history is taken that focuses on identifying all the people the patient has come in contact with over the past weeks. Health workers are dispatched to locate those persons to test them for cholera and administer a free prophylactic dose of doxycycline.

Although none of the guidelines cited by the CDC recommend using antibiotics for cholera prevention, the Cuban Health Ministry believes otherwise. Hundreds of thousands of Doxycycline tablets, apparently readied in warehouses for just such an emergency, were distributed to hospitals and health clinics one morning earlier this week—another sign that Cuba is well-prepared to tackle this outbreak.

Are people complaining? You bet. They hate the chlorine smell. They say the solution stings but many would agree with Angela Linares, a nurse raising a 13-year old daughter alone, who said: “It’s a necessary inconvenience.”

“No one wants cholera, especially since we know so little about this disease,” she said.

Linares was right. Until last year, the last reported cholera outbreak in Cuba was recorded almost a century ago.

Upon learning this fact, I became even more baffled that my 7-year-old grandson mentioned cholera days before the government admitted the outbreak.

As it turns out, his primary school had been put on alert early last week, and the kids learned about the intestinal bug and prevention at a school assembly. Community physicians were dispatched to all of the city’s 650 schools to not only give a crash course on cholera but hand out soap to every classroom.

Still, it wasn’t until after the Health Ministry’s warning that Cuban state media began running public service announcements -- considerably behind the curve of Havana's second graders.

Fox on Castro's reforms

Chinese Officials Pledge to Loosen Controls Over Embattled Newspaper

SPEAKING OUT: A man wearing a mask with words “Silent” holds a banner reading: “Let's chase our dreams together, go Southern Weekly newspaper” during a protest outside the headquarters of the newspaper in Guangzhou, Guangdong province on Monday. Photo: AP

nytimes

By EDWARD WONG and JONATHAN ANSFIELD

GUANGZHOU, China — Propaganda officials in the southern province of Guangdong have agreed to loosen some controls over an embattled newspaper whose struggle against censorship has galvanized free-speech advocates across China, according to journalists at the newspaper.

The agreement was part of a compromise in which reporters and editors who had said they would strike continued to work to put out the newspaper, Southern Weekend, also known as Southern Weekly, which is published on Thursdays. It is an iconic liberal publication that has regularly challenged Communist Party officials and policies but has come under tighter control in recent years, particularly since the summer.

In Beijing, talk of another newsroom in crisis emerged on Wednesday as reporters at Beijing News, a newspaper co-founded by the parent company of Southern Weekend, said propaganda officials forced the newspaper, against the judgment of its publisher and top editors, to run an editorial attacking Southern Weekend. Some journalists broke down in tears in the newsroom, according to various accounts, and the publisher, Dai Zigeng, threatened to resign, but was still in his job as of Wednesday night.

The deal in Guangzhou, the provincial capital, appeared to bring a tentative peace to a newsroom in turmoil, though journalists said they would have to see whether provincial officials followed through with their promises. The journalists appeared to back down from their demands that the top provincial propaganda official, Tuo Zhen, leave his post. Newspaper employees have accused Mr. Tuo of putting in place much stricter censorship rules since he began his job in May; in particular, they said he had a hand in the rewriting of a New Year’s editorial last week that was supposed to have been a call for enforcement of constitutional rights but ended up being more of a paean to the current system. It is unclear what role Mr. Tuo played in the changes, which ignited the call last weekend among some journalists to carry out a strike.

Journalists at Southern Weekend said that under rules imposed by Mr. Tuo, propaganda officials regularly reviewed the content of the paper before it went to print and vetted reporting topics proposed by journalists. Those rules are supposed to be abolished under the new agreement.

Zeng Li, a veteran journalist who reviews articles in-house at Southern Weekend to guard against riling the censors, said, “Now things are calming down.”

“To publish a good paper is the hope of both the leaders and the staff,” he added.

Hu Chunhua, the new party chief of Guangdong, China’s most liberal province, helped mediate the settlement, which took shape late Tuesday, journalists said. The clash over censorship is the first big test for Mr. Hu, 49, who is considered one of the party’s rising stars and a candidate to be the leader of China in a decade.

The battle at Southern Weekend also poses a challenge for the central authorities. Xi Jinping, the new party chief, made a trip to Guangdong late last year to stress the need to further open the economy. Analysts have wondered whether he might also call for greater political freedoms. Mr. Xi has made remarks, though, that underscore the need for China to remain true to its socialist roots.

Central propaganda officials appear to have taken a tough line on the censorship issue by demanding this week that the biggest news Web sites and some important publications print a scathing editorial criticizing Southern Weekend that was originally published by Global Times, a populist newspaper, and widely derided by Chinese journalists. The order to run the editorial led to the crisis at Beijing News on Tuesday night.

One journalist described the scene in the office in a blog post: “Some people look sad; some burst into tears; some shout that they are going to quit; some look serious.”

The post continued: “We don’t want to kneel down, but our knees have been shattered. We are kneeling down this one time while gnashing our teeth.”

More on  nytimes >>

Rare China demo protests censorship

Kyodo News via AP

A protester holds aloft a banner that shows freedom of speech near the headquarters of Southern Weekly newspaper in Guangzhou, Guangdong province on Monday., Jan. 7, 2013. A dispute over censorship at the Chinese newspaper known for its edgy reporting became a political challenge for China's new leadership as protesters called for democratic reforms.

By NBC News staff and wire services

GUANGZHOU, China -- Scores of supporters of one of China's most liberal newspapers demonstrated outside its headquarters on Monday in a rare protest against censorship, backing an unusual strike by journalists against interference by the provincial propaganda chief. 

The protest in Guangzhou, capital of southern Guangdong province, came amid an escalating standoff between the government and the people over press freedom. It is also an early test of Communist Party Chief Xi Jinping's commitment to reform. 

Negotiations between journalists and officials, whom the protesters held responsible for replacing a New Year's letter to readers that called for a constitutional government with another piece lauding the party's achievements, continued into the night, a senior journalist who asked not to be named told NBC News.

Keep reading on nbcnews >>

Foxnews still sleeping: Sign of progress in Cuba?

The way we left Cuba

By Brin-Jonathan Butler, The Rumpus

I came to Havana to film a documentary about a local boxer -- and found a country trapped in an Orwellian nightmar.

This piece originally appeared on The Rumpus.

The plane began its descent over the last 90 haunting miles of sea that divides Cuba from the United States, a sea that might be the largest graveyard in the world. Out my window the sunset glazed over the surface of the ocean and glinted off the slits and nicks of wave-creases like fresh wounds. Up and down the plane I heard the slap of blinders yanked down over the windows while the rest of us eagerly took in the view. It’s this last homestretch that always fleshes out the tourists from the locals on flights to the island.

There are plenty of tragic and inspiring choices, but the most obvious legacy Castro will leave behind is the broken family.

As the plane touched down at Jose Marti Airport I still wasn’t sure I would be allowed to enter Cuba in the first place. I had spent my last trip a few months earlier conducting illegal interviews with the country’s most famous boxing champions, men who had turned down millions and were only willing to discuss it if I paid them under the table. Of course there was no official way to have these interviews given the sensitivity of the topic. The state security had started following me after the first interview. All the Cubans I was working with couldn’t understand why we weren’t being arrested. But we kept going until we landed every interview on my wish list. Then it was just a matter of getting that material out.

While I probably should have quit while I was ahead, my purpose this time around was to knock on the door of one of the most politically radioactive residences in the country—the wife of Guillermo Rigondeux, a 30-year-old two-time Olympic boxing champion, branded by Fidel Castro as a Judas and traitor to the Cuban people. I was there to track down the family of one of the most notorious defectors in Cuban history.

Since Rigondeaux had escaped on a smuggler’s boat (venture humanitarianism between Cuba and Cancun has thrived enormously the last few years) and become a permanent exile, his family had been living under 24-hour surveillance and nearly house arrest. Cuban state security doesn’t fuck around. As attractive an analogy it might be for any foreigner to view Rigondeaux as a kind of Orpheus, a highly charged defector forever abandoning his life, nobody is in any hurry to have a camera and a microphone placed in the face of Eurydice to discuss the matter. The official state version of events is quite sufficient, muchas gracias. Bienvenido a Cuba!

Everyone on the island knows that at Castro’s first trial, when he was asked to confess who was intellectually responsible for his attack against Batista, he proclaimed it was none other than “a poet.” But whether Cuba’s Comandante likes it or not, his country is poetry of a different order, something like 1984 penned by Charles Dickens.

The first African slaves were brought to the island as far back as 1520, a measure taken after the Spanish were in need of replenishing the native Indian population (300,000 at the time Columbus first encountered them) they had wiped out through a combination of genocide, disease and brutal labor. Many Indians were so desperate to escape the calamity of their lives under Spanish rule that they attempted suicide by trying to choke on dirt. This concern ceased after the Spanish warned of severe punitive measures on the family members of suicides.

One of the most famously brave Indian chiefs, Hatuey, captured, tied to a stake and about to be set ablaze, was offered conversion by the Spanish if he accepted Jesus. Hatuey asked the religious man holding the flame if indeed any Christians were in heaven. He was assured there were. Hatuey replied that he would rather burn and be sent to hell than ever again encounter people as cruel as the Spanish.

When Columbus first saw Cuba in 1492 he described it as “the most beautiful land human eyes have ever seen.” He asked the first local he could find if he had arrived on an island, and was assured that he had, but that it was infinite.

I’ve never been able to get the wrapping paper off trying to imagine the expression on the face of the man who told Columbus that.

“Hope, Hope, fallacious Hope!/Where is thy market now?” -J.M.W. Turner

Almost 300 years later, on November 29, 1782, the events depicted in Joseph M. W. Turner’s famous painting, The Slave Ship, unfolded. First known as the Zong Affair, and decades later as The Zong Massacre, the story goes something like this: With a business disaster looming—slaves were dying at more than the usual rate—Captain Collingwood ordered some of the Zong’s human cargo—122 shackled African men, women and children—thrown overboard into the shark infested waters of the Caribbean. Another 10 slaves threw themselves overboard in a display of defiance at the inhumanity.

These 132 deaths left the captain with high hopes of filing his insurance claim: lost-at-sea slaves would be insured, dead-on-arrival slaves would not.

At the trial for insurance fraud, England’s Solicitor General stated:

“What is this claim that human people have been thrown overboard? This is a case of chattels or goods. Blacks are goods and property; it is madness to accuse these well-serving honorable men of murder… The case is the same as if wood had been thrown overboard.”

In 2009, 228 years after the Zong disposed of its cargo in the Caribbean, another boat carrying human beings—who’d also been bought and sold on the market place—sped under cover of night across the same Caribbean waters. This time the boat was headed for Mexico, where a ransom masquerading as a fee was to be paid for the lives of the men, women and children being transported. Three of the occupants on the smuggler’s boat were elite Cuban boxers. One of those boxers was Guillermo Rigondeaux. Despite over 400 fights inside a ring against the greatest boxers in the world, Rigondeaux would describe this journey, with immense reluctance, as the most traumatic event of his life.

“There may be no entrapped pool of human talent left on earth with the dollar value of Cuban athletes.”

-Michael Lewis

Cuba-Glaring Contradictions and Revisionist History

capitolhillcubans

Former New York Times foreign correspondent Joel Brinklley has penned an opinion column in Politico critical of U.S. policy towards Cuba, but full of contradictions and historical revisionism.

The first contradiction is Brinkley himself, who has written various columns about Burma, its repression and concerns that the U.S. doesn't jump the gun embracing the Burmese dictatorship simply because Aung Sun Suu Kyi is now free.

Yet, not a single concern about Castro's brutal dictatorship, the plight of Cuba's pro-democracy movement and the sharp rise in repression in Cuba.

Brinkley did, however, pick up on the second contradiction, which is worth noting:

"Looking at the embargo today (Cuba calls it “the blockade”), its principal accomplishment is that “it has given Fidel Castro and Raúl Castro the perfect scapegoat on which it can blame all their problems,” argued Ted Henken, a fervent Cuba expert at Baruch College in New York.

Ted Piccone [of The Brookings Institution] said most Cubans aren’t buying that argument. “The average Cuban is not blaming the U.S.” he said. “I’ve seen polling on this. They’re blaming the system.”

We don't usually agree with Piccone, but he's absolutely right on this point.

As an aside, what is a "fervent" Cuba expert?

Perhaps it is a realization that many of these Cuba "experts" are in essence "advocates" for their views, which is perfectly fine, but to be labeled an "expert" insinuates a certain non-bias that is fictitious.

Finally, a glaring piece of historical revisionism (or negationism):

Some Cuba experts argue that allowing American tourists to visit Cuba for the first time since 1960 might bring the beginnings of substantial change by fostering greater prosperity. They point to China, a passive agrarian society until the government opened the economy, pulling millions of Chinese out of poverty. Suddenly, these newly prosperous people began standing up to their government, demanding greater freedom and opportunities. The same could be true for Cuba, Henken said.

Did we miss something?

China remains one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world.

To the contrary, U.S. policy and business interests have helped turn China from an agrarian society into the most lucrative dictatorship in history, whereby the U.S. and Western nations are now too afraid to criticize the horrible abuses that take place due to potential financial repercussions.

Meanwhile, in the process, the Chinese regime has nearly systematically wiped-out (through imprisonments and murder) a thriving pro-democracy movement, which seemed unstoppable in the 1980s and early 1990s.

And the world remained silent.

Is that what we want for Cuba?

Please take a moment to read this column we penned last year in The New York Times on this very issue entitled, "Freedom First or Business First?."

Shit Box: Colaboradores y agentes de influencia

emprendedores.blogs

despues los escrupulosos se irritan cuando uno senala la labor overseas de los colaboradores y agentes de influencia del regimen castrista.

la sra. Sarah Stephens [Director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas and its Freedom to Travel Campaign, which fights for the rights of all U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba; es decir una que vive de los taxpayers money], una habitual de The Huffington Post, publicaba ayer el impacto en las politicas norteamericanas hacia cuba ante la posible designacion de kerry y hagel como secretarios de estado y de defensa respectivamente, para que al dia siguiente radio habana cuba por intermedio de un tal pedro otero, lo reproduzca en espanol como  una opinión inteligente.

el pajaro se conoce por la cagada decian nuestros "war heroes".

Richard Engel and NBC News team freed from captors in Syria

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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AP's Sloppy Reporting on Cuban-American Electorate

Capitol Hill Cubans

The AP's Miami bureau has a sloppy story today regurgitating the same narrative about the "changing" Cuban-American electorate.

We've literally seen variants of this story since The New York Times first wrote on December 5th, 1965:

“The very active anti-Castro groups in Miami have faded into virtual obscurity.”

Today's AP story contains only one fact, which it got wrong:

"Exit polling showed that 49 percent of Cuban-Americans voted for the Democrat, roughly the same percentage as four years ago."

Even though analysis-after-analysis has shown that President Obama got approximately 35% of the Cuban-American vote in 2008, the AP's exit polls had him getting 49% four years ago.

It obviously wasn't true then, and as precinct analyses have shown since the 2012 election, it's not true this year either. 

The rest of the story is all narrative by the AP's reporter, Christine Armario.

It is based on four "analysts" -- all of whom have lobbied (in some fashion or other) for unconditionally normalizing relations with the Castro regime.

Thus, their spin that Obama has some sort of a mandate to further ease whatever remaining sanctions he can (within the legal confines of the 1996 and 2000 codification by the U.S. Congress).

Even the AP's Havana bureau tries to show a bit more balance than this -- and that is saying a lot.

Why didn't they ask any Obama campaign officials why they so effectively wedged Paul Ryan's past support for lifting the travel ban and embargo against Romney?

The Financial Times responsibly asked and here's what they told them:

"Paul Ryan, Mr Romney’s vice-presidential running mate, had voted a number of times to end the longstanding US embargo on communist Cuba, which had been in place for decades since Fidel Castro came to power.

'That did their ticket a lot of harm with Cubans and allowed us to at least get a hearing with them about many other economic issues,' said an Obama campaign official in Florida."

But, of course, that would go against the AP's narrative.

Castro's Bogus Economic "Reforms" Exposed

Capitol Hill Cubans

Think about it.

If this is the sector that has supposedly seen the most "liberalization," then what does it say about Castro's other so-called economic "reforms."

From today's New York Times:

President (CHC: Dictator) Raúl Castro has made agriculture priority No. 1 in his attempt to remake the country. He used his first major presidential address in 2007 to zero in on farming, describing weeds conquering fallow fields and the need to ensure that “anyone who wants can drink a glass of milk.”

No other industry has seen as much liberalization, with a steady roll-out of incentives for farmers. And Mr. Castro has been explicit about his reasoning: increasing efficiency and food production to replace imports that cost Cuba hundreds of millions of dollars a year is a matter “of national security.”

Yet at this point, by most measures, the project has failed. Because of waste, poor management, policy constraints, transportation limits, theft and other problems, overall efficiency has dropped: many Cubans are actually seeing less food at private markets. That is the case despite an increase in the number of farmers and production gains for certain items. A recent study from the University of Havana showed that market prices jumped by nearly 20 percent in 2011 alone. And food imports increased to an estimated $1.7 billion last year, up from $1.4 billion in 2006.

Entrepreneurs lead Cuba's new revolution – from spas to drag nights

The Guardian

Fiona McAuslan/

flickr.com

"Clown, magician, party quizmaster", reads the list of positions for which self-employed licences are available to enterprising Cubans. The opportunities for private sector jobs are myriad since the change in the law in 2010 allowed private enterprise to flourish. While options like these may well be lucrative career choices it is undoubtedly businesses that give Cubans access to the tourist dinero that are most sought.

In a country that is as body beautiful as Cuba it's little surprise that there's been a surge in private spas. Conner Gorry, born in New York but living in Cuba and author of the Havana Good Time app says: "State massage venues and gyms have always been popular but now these very smart and well-run, private spas are now driving competition." With services that range from Swedish massage to yoga classes and indoor cycling she rates O2, (Calle 26B #5, +53 7883 1663) as one of Havana's finest.

Activities such as independent scuba diving tours and private dance groups are part of the burgeoning private sector. On a trip this year, travel journalist Claire Boobbyer found that Julio Muñoz's horseback tours (+53 41 993673) through the beautiful countryside near Trinidad were far better than the state options.

Havana's famously lively nightlife scene is also changing. Locals –and in-the-know tourists – now head to the independently run Fashion Bar (Kessell #52, Vibora Park, +53 7 644 2894). This supper club bursts its glittery seams with the best of the capital's formidable drag queen talent and is popular enough to warrant a strict reservations policy – still something of a rarity in Cuba.

Low taxation is also fuelling the boom: in order to boost private sector revenue the government has either suspended or reduced taxes. This is set to change early next year when full taxation will gradually be rolled out. It's inevitable that some less profitable businesses will fall by the wayside but until then the spirit of free enterprise courses through this socialist stalwart.

Cuba: Paradox Island/ World Affairs Council

WorldAffairsCouncil

Speaker: Cynthia Gorney, Contributing Writer, National Geographic Magazine
The last four years, in comparison to the previous fifty, have seen considerable change in Cuba. In 2008, Fidel Castro stepped aside to allow his brother Raul to lead. At the same time, after a period of tight travel restrictions, the United States has made it easier for Cuban Americans to visit family and for Americans to travel legally to Cuba on cultural exchanges. This fall, President Raul Castro announced an impending end to much reviled exit visas Cubans must obtain in order to leave their own country legally for travel or work. These changes, along with experimental encouragement of private enterprise within Cuba, have renewed interest in the country and its relationship with the United States.
Cynthia Gorney, a contributing writer for National Geographic Magazine, visited the island earlier this year and will share her insights into the current situation inside Cuba.

Pravda: Illiterate society reelected Obama

Birther Report: Excerpts Via Gina Miller @ Renew America

Throughout most of the twentieth century, the Pravda newspaper was roughly the Russian equivalent of our leftist, state-controlled "mainstream" media, publishing only regime-approved, Communist party line content. Since undergoing a change in ownership in the early 1990s, it now offers warnings against the communism that infected the former Soviet Union and caused the deaths of millions of Russian citizens.

Despite the warnings of history and those who have lived under its iron fist, communism has come to America, and the useful idiots who dumbly adore the Communist-in-Chief, Barack Obama (or whatever his name is), are gladly and stupidly drinking the kool-aid of ignorance in embracing that deadly and dead-end ideology. Even the Russians can see this!

I read with sad amazement a couple of columns in the new, non-communist Pravda online by Xavier Lerma. One is titled, "Obama's Soviet Mistake," and the other, "The Reason Obama is President." Mr. Lerma clearly understands the terrible place of tyranny America has chosen, and he knows the reasons why. The reason Obama is President is the same reason I have repeatedly declared here in my columns: America has turned away from God and to self-worship and fleeting, carnal pleasures.

In "The Reason Obama is President," Mr. Lerma writes, [...]

[...] Despite the election result numbers, I do not believe the ignorant people yet outnumber the informed in America, although most of the informed are of the older generations. The Left has election and voter fraud down to a science, and it may well be that conservatism will not be allowed to win major elections anymore. The reports of election fraud since November 6th are sickening, but it appears the Republicans are content to lie down and take it, while they go off on misguided, introspective tangents about what they should have done differently to get the women and minority votes. It is stupidity in motion. If the election numbers are fraudulent, then speculation on "why" we "lost" is dumb, because without the election fraud tacked on, it is likely that we didn't lose!

Regardless, it remains that we are now saddled with the Communist federal government we deserve. Those of us who know better have allowed our liberty to lapse under decades of incremental thefts of our freedoms by an ever-growing monster bureaucracy in Washington. We have ceded our freedom to our Republican and Democrat masters in DC. Can we ever get it back? Not without a return to God's principles found in the Bible. And, looking around at the younger members of our degenerate, ignorant society, I am not holding my breath that they will suddenly turn to the Lord, although a few of them will, as God has called and chosen them.

Nevertheless, we will continue to pray for our nation and fight to rid our government of the evil criminals — both Democrat and Republican — who have commandeered it.

CONTINUED HERE: http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/miller/121127 >>

Nombrada Yoani representante de la SIP en Cuba

Gustavo Mohme*

al firme rechazo a la reciente represion desatada por el regimen de subcastro tanto por la sociedad interamericana de prensa [sip] que representa a mas de 1,300 agencias y organos informativos del continente, como por la comision interamericana de derechos humanos, se añade la designacion de yoani sanchez como la representante de la sip en cuba. 

mientras el cubano de a pie que es mantenido blindado a la informacion internacional, recibe la promocion no pagada de yoani en el exabrupto del granma de hoy.  

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*Presidente de la Comisión de Libertad de Prensa e Información de la SIP

Represion y Lucha No Violenta Activa

mientras la Sociedad Interamericana de Prensa [SIP] que representa a 1,300 agencias del continente da a conocer la carta  enviada a Raul Castro exigiendole respeto a la integridad de Yoani Sanchez y su familia; la Comision Interamericana de Derechos Humanos [CIDH] condena  la ola de detenciones "arbitrarias" de defensores de derechos humanos e instó al gobierno de Raúl Castro a tomar medidas para "prevenir" y "erradicar" el hostigamiento contra quienes ejercen el derecho de reunión.

y si bien estos pronunciamientos internacionales que no siendo ineditos son importantes, lo que marca un giro es la reaccion de un grupo heterogeneo  de disidentes [que cubre un amplio diapason desde un escritor como Angel Santiesteban hasta un opositor encarcelado durante la Primavera Negra como Angel Moya] de protestar frente a la Unidad policial de Acosta en el municipio 10 de octubre de La Habana, por el arresto arbitrario de Antonio Rodiles, quien se encontraba en esta unidad, porque eso es "Lucha no violenta activa".

Yoani entre las 25 mujeres mas poderosas del 2012/ People en español

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