Odds and ends

• The Miami Herald begins a very in-depth series on the fiftieth anniversary of the Cuban revolution with an informative, even-handed examination of gains and losses by Frances Robles. The series is previewed here; further installments will be on the Herald’s Cuba page.

• One hundred opposition members were detained in Cuba last week around the celebration of Human Rights Day, rights monitor Elizardo Sanchez reports. Speaking of the opposition, Tracey Eaton asks all the right questions – ten of them – on his blog. I’m too lazy to give them full essay-test treatment, but it does seem to me that there has been a shift in tactics from arrests/trials/long-term sentences to short-term detentions. As to whether a “peaceful, bloodless resolution to the U.S.-Cuba conflict” is possible, I say “peaceful” is highly likely into the distant future, while “resolution” probably is not.

• AFP: A Russian destroyer and two other naval vessels will visit Cuba on Friday, the Russian navy announces.

• Cuban cell phone activation charges were cut nearly in half to about $65, AP reports. Now can we remember what our economics professors said about “elasticity of demand?”

• A horrible story in the Herald: a Hialeah company allegedly engaged in pure fraud by taking money to forward as family remittances to Cuba, and then simply keeping it.