Odds and ends

·      I wrote recently that state employment in Cuba had dropped by more than half million. Actually, it’s double that. See this article by Prof. Ricardo Torres, showing that the state shed 998,000 jobs between 2009 and 2016.

·      Physician Carlos Lage became a vice president of Cuba’s Council of State and served as a quasi-prime minister until 2009 when he and a few others of his generation lost their political footing and were expelled from office. 14yMedio looks at his life now, practicing medicine again at the Policlínico 19 de Abril.

·      Financial Times on Cuba’s drive for foreign investment.

·      It may be that no te importe tres pepinos, but here’s a Twitter thesaurus of Cuban slang.

·      Billboard on the weekly paquete as a music promotion platform.

·      Granma’s “Today in History” feature on the sinking of a German U-boat in Cuban waters during WWII.

·      The new U.S. threats to sanction foreign companies that do business with Iran recall the extraterritorial U.S. sanctions in the Helms-Burton law, former Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt explains, while calling on Europe to resist.

·      Prof. Larry Press rounds up the information on the public record about the views of Cuba’s new President on Internet development.