Odds and ends
- The Economist on President Obama’s recent actions and their reverberations among Cuban Americans.
- Mexico’s President Calderon was planning to travel to Cuba in the coming weeks but he is thinking twice, after Cuba suspended flights from Mexico in reaction to the flu outbreak.
- The European Parliament passed a human rights resolution that calls on Cuba to allow Sakharov Prize winners to travel to Europe and “calls on the Cuban government to release immediately all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience and to recognize the right of all Cubans freely to enter and leave the country.” Press release here; follow the links to the text.
- El Nuevo Herald: The U.S. government fined an American company $110,000 because a foreign subsidiary made an export to Cuba. The company, Varel Holdings of Dallas, makes drills for oil wells.
- Ramon Colas, a founder of Cuba’s independent library movement who left Cuba in 2001, writes in the Nuevo Herald about the lessons U.S. relations with China hold for the “windows of opportunity” that President Obama faces now. He likes the idea of opening travel to Cuba now as America did to China in the 1970’s, and he believes an American opening to Cuba would limit the influence of Hugo Chavez, just as Nixon’s opening to China was a setback for the Soviet Union.
Fidel Castro's last two reflections are indicative of the Cuban government's priorities. The one published yesterday indicates what should be governmental priorities (see http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/secciones/ref-fidel/art137.html). It is signficant that the number one priority for any government is to preserve internal order, and that the number two is to maintain an army. Judicial institutions are number seven and eight.
ReplyDeleteToday's article has two parts. One is a clear endorsement of Pres.Carter's engagement policy for Cuba (sort of telling the US be like Carter and we can do business), and the second at the end is telling the Cubans elites that they have to be ready to make some concessions and changes.
Vecino de NF
The latest Reflection is very interesting indeed. Talking about potential areas of US-Cuba cooperation - like drugs, migration, etc. I think he was also pushing for Carter to be a sort of intermediary - a role that would suit him perfectly.
ReplyDeleteleftside, seems you inadvertantly dropped a word:
ReplyDelete"I think he was also pushing for Carter to be a sort of intermediary stooge - a role that would suit him perfectly."
A stooge is generally defined as "a person that is under the control of another." If you think Carter is control of Fidel or Raul, you are a pathetic imbecile. Would a "stooge" be openly critical of the Revolution, and supportive of a program to nullify Cuban socialism (the Varela Project) on live Cuban TV?
ReplyDelete