Odds and ends

• US News reports on the State Department paying attention to Fidel and Raul Castro’s statements on President Obama.

• Reuters: Cuba launches its own version of Linux. “The free software movement is closer to the ideology of the Cuban people, above all for the independence and sovereignty,” says the “dean of the School of Free Software at Cuba's University of Information Sciences.”

• EFE reports on Cuban dissidents’ disappointment that Chile’s President Bachelet is not meeting them during her visit. Granma’s story gives some details of the visit, including agreements on economic cooperation and forestry. Penultimos Dias samples the Spanish-language coverage.

• “Cuba: Issues for the 111^th Congress” (pdf), a backgrounder by the Congressional Research Service.

• The University of Miami’s Cuba Transition Project has video of a recent panel discussion among three recent chiefs of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.

• A new U.S. tour by “Afro-Cuban All-Stars” – but the band is made up of Cubans living outside of Cuba.