Odds and ends

• The U.S. government put out a press release about the company charged with violating the embargo by providing software to Cuba that was “used to create a model for potentially exploring and developing oil and gas within Cuba's territorial waters.” But was the company paid?

• Dream golf – Here’s yet another news report about a golf resort/real estate project in Cuba, to be developed with foreign investors. Yet again, there’s a reference to an announcement by the Cuban tourism ministry that seems never to have taken place.

• A campaign is under way for a Presidential pardon for Eduardo Arocena, who was convicted in federal court in 1984 of “twenty-five counts, including first degree murder of a diplomat; two conspiracies to murder diplomats; malicious damage by explosives to property used in commerce, with personal injury resulting; six counts of possession of unregistered bombs; two counts of conspiracy; and perjury before the Grand Jury.” That quote is from the decision of the appeals court judge, who denied Arocena’s appeal, saying he had engaged in “a terrorist campaign shocking in its ferocity and persistence.” The campaign’s site, hosted by the Net for Cuba news site, is here. (H/t Cuban Colada.)

• Good eye, Dalia – We know little about Dalia Soto del Valle, wife of Fidel Castro, but she seems to have a good sixth sense. She had a bad feeling about her son’s girlfriend, Dashiell Torralba, El Nuevo Herald reports. Torralba is facing credit card fraud and identity theft charges in Miami. She gained fame when she left Cuba and sold a video of the Castro home to a Miami television station in 2002 (Penultimos Dias dug up the link). If you search Torralba’s name on YouTube, you get her television appearances where she described life amid the Castro family.