Odds and ends

▪ In an article that unfortunately has not appeared in English, Esteban Israel of Reuters provides a sketch of the emotion-laden flights between Miami and Havana.

▪ A Miami Herald reporter, in Cuba to gauge public opinion about the Raul Castro government, hears this from a Havana resident: “If one president prohibited drinking this glass of water and the second president comes and lets you have it, well of course you are going to think the new president is better.” Bottom line: the changes that have come to date have “stirred a new sense of hope” even though fundamental political and economic conditions have not changed.

▪ Sun-Sentinel correspondent Ray Sanchez writes about American fugitives living in Cuba; he interviews one (Charlie Hill) and reports that another, Joanne Chesimard, has “gone into hiding.”

▪ Dissident economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe, writing in Spain’s ABC, talks about the need for solidarity from abroad. Recalling the 55 dissidents and independent journalists who were jailed in 2003 and (unlike himself) were not released, he says that the European Union should not drop its “diplomatic sanctions.” (Those sanctions were imposed in 2003 and suspended in 2005.) He says the changes occurring in Cuba are driven by internal factors, and policies that attempt to isolate Cuba are “more harmful than ever.” He wants the United States to allow Cuban American family visits and to renew people-to-people contacts.