Odds and ends

• The Boston Globe calls for a “new diplomatic agenda with Cuba” beginning with ending “the silly claim, reinstated by the Obama administration last summer, that Cuba remains a ‘state sponsor of terrorism.’”

• Reuters on the search for a partner to expand the Cienfuegos refinery, a project where the Chinese showed interest but have not bought in.

• Diario las Americas gets the first interview with Pedro Alvarez, the former Alimport chief who defected in 2010 and now lives in Tampa.

• “People who don’t believe strongly in immigration, they’ve lost confidence in the greatness of America,” says former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, a Cuban American trying to show his party the light on immigration.  He is profiled in the Washington Post.

• AP’s Andrea Rodriguez on how Venezuela’s Telesur, now on Cuban television 12 hours a day, has changed Cuban’s media mix for the better.

• Tracey Eaton has a redacted version of the classified annex of the Bush Administration’s Cuba transition commission report from July 2006, much of which has been declassified.  You can’t make a full judgment since parts of it are blacked out, but it’s not as interesting as one might expect.  

• In the Herald, from the guy who ran the USAID program that sent Alan Gross to Cuba: Gross’ predicament is all Castro’s fault, if you question the program you are aligned with the Cuban government, and the program has a “measure of tolerance for losses and failed initiatives” in places such as Cuba.  So suck it up, Alan.