Odds and ends

• If the idea is to identify the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance is a Cuban organization, and to counter Havana’s charge that the opposition is fabricated and financed from abroad, why issue its pronouncements from Miami?

• The Herald’s Juan Tamayo reports on Cubans who live abroad and are not permitted to return.

• AP: To cut farmers’ cost of doing business, retail prices of agricultural implements are being cut by as much as 60 percent. Granma article here. This is similar to the price cuts for goods for small entrepreneurs.

• An investigation of corruption in the phone monopoly ETECSA has resulted in a few arrests and the decision of one executive not to return from a trip to Panama. Here are reports from Reuters and the Herald, with the latter crediting bloggers who broke the story: Diario de Cuba, based in Madrid.

• Mariela Castro, daughter of Raul Castro, tells visiting Americans that “President Obama’s first term failures should be forgiven and he should be supported for a second term, which would give him the opportunity to do better things.”

• Washington Post: Livan Hernandez is not done yet.