Odds and ends

• From Cubanet, a report of a death of an opposition member while in detention in Aguada de Pasajeros.

• Cuba’s foreign investment minister Martha Lomas told a legislative committee that 2006 revenues from joint ventures were up 22 percent over the year before, due to “higher levels of efficiency and control.” Of course, 2006 was also a year when the price of nickel more than doubled.

• According to a participant in last week’s meeting between President Bush and Caribbean leaders at the State Department, the President criticized his guests for their relations with Cuba and Venezuela. The President is “morally outraged by their systems of government,” according to the foreign minister of St. Kitts and Nevis. Two days after the meeting with Caribbean leaders, President Bush received the President of Vietnam in the White House.