Odds and ends

· Reuters: For the 19^th time, the UN General Assembly voted to call on the United States to end its embargo of Cuba. 187 voted in favor, the United States and Israel voted against, and the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau abstained.

· Agree with him or not, one has to admit that Cuban foreign minister speaks very clearly. From his UN speech yesterday: “The European Union is dreaming if it believes it can normalize its relations with Cuba, with the Common Position in existence.” Most of his speech was about U.S. relations.

· EFE: Spain will request extradition from Cuba of ETA member Jose Angel Urtiaga in connection with a Madrid court investigation of “the supposed collaboration between ETA, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and the government of Venezuela.”

· Likely Florida Senator-to-be Marco Rubio’s closing appeal warns about the risk that America could become more like Cuba, but his script has Politico confused as to which Cuba – Batista’s, or Castro’s? Watching the video, it seems clear to me that he means both.

· AP: The wife of detained USAID contractor Alan Gross says telephone contact with her husband has become more frequent since her letter to Raul Castro.

· From South Florida Daily Blog, a wonderful slice-of-Miami-life video about a food palace called El Palacio de los Jugos.

· In Washington, we now have the “Epcot version of Havana,” according to this reviewer’s take on the new downtown restaurant Cuba Libre. “The real showstopper was the Arepa Rellena, a corn cake filled with short rib and mozzarella,” she says. Whatever.