Odds and ends

·      What were the main changes during Raul Castro’s presidency? Granma and 14yMedio sum it up and are not very far apart.

·      Profiles of President Diaz Canel, by the New York Times and AP.

·      Faced with the same issues our embassy in Havana faced, Canada’s foreign ministry decides to keep its diplomatic staff in place and withdraw spouses and children. Also in Canada’s statement: “There is no evidence to suggest that Canadian travelers to Cuba are at risk.”

·      In Politico, a nonfiction bodice-ripper from Peter Kornbluh of all people, set in the Kennedy/Johnson years.

·      Granma reports on the Hotel Paseo del Prado, being built at Prado and Malecon, due to open next year. It is being built on a lot that was cleared years ago, at one time awaiting a China-financed hotel that never panned out. Across Prado and a block uphill, there’s the soon-to-open Hotel Packard, a large project that incorporates an old façade that was propped up by scaffolding for about 20 years. Spain’s Iberostar will manage it. From Skift in 2016, here’s a survey of hotel development in Cuba. Hotel construction is proceeding in Trinidad too; on a recent visit I saw two long-stalled projects under way, one a few blocks from the Plaza Mayor, and another way up the hill behind the church on the Plaza Mayor; this one is incorporating the ruins of a very old church that has just a few walls remaining.

·      There's a drop in U.S. travelers that is making many place in Cuba feel like 15 years ago (all Europeans and Asians, no Americans), and overall visits are down seven percent so far over 2017 (ACN). (Preceding sentence is corrected; some media reports noted growth rather than the seven percent decline.) And while some U.S. airlines have dropped out, those who continue to operate Cuba routes continue going to the Department of Transportation to bid for available routes (Forbes).

·      These scientists demonstrated that two ultrasound emissions on conflicting frequencies can cause a screeching sound – but this doesn’t explain any possible injury. Apparently, ultrasound can be used both in listening devices and in devices to interfere with them. Radio interview here.

·      This Kenyan medical school professor wants Cuba’s help not just with doctors, but in organizing the country’s public health system.

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Odds and ends

·      Student Emma Gonzalez is attacked for having a Cuban flag patch on her sleeve at the March for Our Lives. “Idiots” is the right word, from New Times.

·      Granma: a deal to bring Cuba’s diabetes drug Heberprot-P to the United States for clinical trials.

·      From Larry Press, interesting speculation on future steps in Internet development. In Granma, an outline of what is being done now (English here).

·      Granma: In Fort Lauderdale, a U.S.-Cuba dialogue on oil spill response.

·      Cuba’s likely next president calls on the press to, as this article paraphrases, “stand up to the imposition of a standardized culture that breaks with the historical memory of peoples and fractures identities, also as a method of domination.” Elsewhere, he calls for emphasis on learning English, “in spite of the opposition by some.”

Odds and ends

• The Alan Gross case has provoked a lot of discussion for nearly five years, but until this new star of the Cuban opposition movement came along, it didn’t occur to anyone that Mr. Gross’ precarious health is apt for ridicule. Yesterday, “Let Alan rot!” And later, a joke on Twitter: “Alan Gross will be taken soon from Cuba to Africa to fight Ebola: if he survives, he'll be free. If he dies, USAID will take him to U.S.” If you set out to discredit the opposition movement from within, could you do any better?

• VOA: Cuban doctors practicing in U.S.-built hospitals in Liberia. Wait ‘til the Helms-Burton purists get on this one…

• Speaking of Helms-Burton, the President of Bacardi (!) talks about investing and doing business in Cuba when the embargo is lifted, without mentioning the law’s myriad conditions.

• El Nuevo Herald: In Miami, dissident Guillermo Farinas talks about the state of the opposition movement, the parts he views as legitimate and not, and he tells of his fear for his life. He also says, without naming names, that someone in Miami tried to buy him off and did the same with Oswaldo Paya years ago. Paya’s widow says it isn’t true. Farinas came to Miami to attend a workshop on human rights and nonviolent action.

• At the UN, how the Obama Administration defends the embargo.

• A top USAID official slams the Times for failing to note Cuba’s responsibility for jailing Alan Gross. Don’t hold your breath waiting for USAID to admit responsibility for sending him into a predictable disaster.

• Aron Modig, the Swede who was in the car in which Oswaldo Paya was killed, slept through the whole thing, and remembers nothing, is now a member of Parliament. The Herald recently asked the driver, Angel Carromero, about Modig; Carromero said: “There were times when he was asleep but he was the copilot. If he chose to remain quiet and turn the page, well I don’t share in that sentiment. I respect it but I’ve chosen a more complicated road and one with worse consequences for me but I couldn’t stay silent.”

Odds and ends

• Herald: Charlie Crist is having no second thoughts about opposing the Cuba embargo.

• Cuba Standard on former NFL player Pasha Jackson, now studying to be a doctor at Cuba’s Latin American Medical School.

• In the Herald, former Senator Bob Graham of Florida and former EPA chief William Reilly, back from Cuba, write that “Florida and neighboring states have a paramount interest in ensuring that Cuba’s drilling operators employ the highest safety standards and the best available technology,” and U.S. restrictions on equipment and training should be eased to that end.

• Washington Post: Former Rep. David Rivera is tanned, rested, and ready to run for the House seat he lost to Rep. Joe Garcia. First, he has to win a competitive primary.

• Senator Rubio in January, touring Asia and wishing the communists prosperity: “I’ve never accepted the idea that we wanted to contain China. We welcome a China that's richer and more prosperous.”

Trouble on Calle Ocho

Decisions on which drugs should be available to the American public should be up to the Food and Drug Administration, but since everything regarding Cuba is political, there is politics involved in the possibility that a new Cuban drug could become available for prescription here.

The drug is Heberprot, a medication developed in Cuba for injection in diabetes patients to prevent leg amputations.  The issue that will come before our government is whether Heberprot can be submitted to clinical trials in the United States to test its safety and efficacy.

Rep. Joe Garcia supports the idea, alone among South Florida legislators.  Good for him. 

Predictably, there’s opposition from his Cuban American colleagues and silence from Rep. Wasserman Shultz, for whom foreign policy outweighs a potential benefit in the care of diabetes patients. 

Most interesting of all, President George H.W. Bush’s chief of staff, former New Hampshire Governor John Sununu, is working for the company that would conduct the trials and market the drug if they are successful.

Herald coverage here.

Odds and ends

• Reuters: Robertico Carcasses, son of jazz musician Bobby Carcasses, drew flak from the Cuban government when during a concert he called for free access to information and direct popular election of the Cuban President.  Singer-songwriter Silvio Rodriguez came to his defense and it appears that Robertico may be getting out of hot water.  Carcasses is also in favor of ending the U.S. embargo and releasing the four remaining members of the “Cuban Five.”

• In CubaEncuentro, General Rafael del Pino, the highest-ranking Cuban military defector, calls on Cuban Americans in Congress to do the right thing and pull the plug on TV Marti.

• IPS reports on cost-consciousness coming to the Cuban health care system, which has cut its workforce by one sixth (nearly 100,000 personnel) and nearly doubled the number of family doctor offices in the past four years.

• Conservative columnist George F. Will chides the CIA for resisting releasing the final volume of its own history of the Bay of Pigs debacle, arguing that it would be good for the country and for the U.S. government to ponder its lessons.  Good for the National Security Archive for fighting in court to get it released.

• Herald: Florida Governor Rick Scott, who shamelessly played to both sides regarding the Florida law that bans state government and Florida local governments from doing business with companies that do business with Cuba, has given up the fight.  Setting aside Miami’s foreign policy prerogatives, federal courts have deemed the law unconstitutional.

• EFE: Cuban tour operators will begin selling the services of private restaurants and bed-and-breakfasts, Tourism Ministry official Jose Manuel Bisbe announced.