Raul in Moscow

Raul Castro continues his foreign travel in Moscow, where he met President Putin and the two looked for ways to deepen economic ties.  Putin sent his regards to “our great friend” Fidel Castro.

His visit to Vietnam, EFE reports, included discussions of increased economic cooperation but no details were disclosed. 

More interesting, judging from this report and this one, it looks as if the American Secretary of State and the President of Cuba may have coincided briefly in Hanoi and missed a chance to meet.  Maybe next time.

New rig going to Cuba

A second oil exploration rig, the Songa Mercur, is on its way to Cuba under contract to the Russian company Zarubezhneft, Upstream Online reports.  The contract begins July 1.

Odds and ends

• El Universal: The French vessel Ile de Batz reached Siboney and finished laying the Venezuela-Cuba fiber optic undersea cable. An official cited by La Jornada says that expansion of residential Internet service awaits improvement of domestic infrastructure and rejected the idea that the delay is due to “any political obstacle.” La Jornada also reports today that after the Cuban government’s buy-out of Telecom Italia’s share of the state telephone monopoly Etecsa, it is thinking about the possibility of finding another foreign partner. And Cuba is slowly proceeding toward enactment of a telecommunications law that will, among other things, define “the minimum rights of every citizen regarding new technologies” (AIN).

• In response to questions from the State Department, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow sent this Wikileaked cable on Russia’s relations with Cuba. Moscow has “no plans to establish military bases in Cuba” and is “unlikely to deploy any long-range aviation assets to Cuba,” the embassy was told.

• Granma gives proper credit to Tracey Eaton’s blog in a story about the Posada Carriles trial. Tracey’s story here.

• A Stakhanovite squash in Cienfuegos (Granma).

• More on Rep. Rivera’s woes from the website Florida Clarion.

• Café Fuerte: Yoani Sanchez’ blog is no longer blocked in Cuba, and Yoani says she’s not going to celebrate because this has happened before and then the “big blackout” returns. Reuters story here.

• Sun-Sentinel: Florida airports are seeking permission for flights to Cuba. It will be a victory for the Castro regime when people from Tampa and elsewhere no longer have to schlep to Miami before traveling to Cuba.

• The Economist on Cuba’s housing market, and the possibility that outright purchase and sale of houses will be approved in the April party congress.

Odds and ends

• The Hill: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce indicates it may “score” the vote on ending Cuba travel restrictions, i.e. include it in the list of votes used to calculate the percentage of each legislator’s voting record in support of free enterprise principles.

• Granma: Damar Maceo Cruz, 47, is the new minister of light industry, replacing José Hernández Bernárdez.

• Restrictions on Freedom of Expression in Cuba, a new report from Amnesty International.

• The Herald rounds up opinion on Cuba’s church-state dialogue.

• Canada’s CTV reports on a 19-year-old from Ontario who was behind the wheel of his family’s rented car in Cuba, was involved in an accident April 29, and remains stuck in Cuba awaiting trial.

• Notimex: Hunger striker Guillermo Farinas, said by his family to be in a “critical” state, receives a visit from the local bishop.

• EFE: A Cuban-Venezuelan joint venture has broken ground on a new nickel plant in Holguin.

• The Herald’s Jordan Levin interviewed Silvio Rodriguez before his Orlando concert.

• Reuters: Cuba’s reduction in international trade is reflected in shipping data for 2009.

• The Russian state enterprise Zarubezhneft opens an office in Havana and is working on secondary recovery efforts at oil fields east of Havana. AFP Spanish here, English language report from Voice of Russia here.

Odds and ends

• How the Cuba trade issue is playing in this year’s Kansas GOP Senate primary.

• Omara Portuondo concerts canceled in Washington and Miami Beach.

• Reuters: The Bolshoi performs in Havana for the first time in 30 years.

• Things look very different from a distance: As the Russian foreign minister visits Havana, here are Russian views of Cuba’s place in the world, and Moscow’s and Washington’s relations with Cuba.

• Former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez says that an open and secure Internet can “help lead the world from these troubled times into a new age of peace and prosperity.” He also says that detained USAID contractor Alan Gross was assisting “Jewish nonprofits in setting up Internet access for [Cuba’s] Jewish community.”

• The New York Times reviews “A Little Bit of Cuba,” a restaurant in Freehold, New Jersey.

• Cuban Colada takes us through an article in Granma that explains how recent bread shortages coincided with a period of increased bread production. With a link to the original.

• Granma: U.S. sanctions thwart a French windsurfer’s plan for a Key West-Havana trip. English version here.

Odds and ends

• AFP: Cuba signs an agreement with the Boston-based Finca Vigia Foundation to collaborate on restoration of Hemingway’s house in Cuba.

• Herald: The USAID Cuba program, at an impasse.

• Reuters: Russia will donate 100,000 tons of wheat to Cuba.

• Yoani Sanchez says that one foreign business that had its account frozen is being paid in convertible peso vouchers, which it is redeeming as best it can. In English at the Huffington Post.

Odds and ends

• The Herald reports on the changing activities of Cuban bloggers; as Reynaldo Escobar put it, “Some people have been doing actions that go beyond the click and the keyboard and try to exercise the rights of a free person.” And the State Department issued a statement that “strongly deplores the assault on bloggers Yoani Sanchez, Orlando Luis Pardo, and Claudia Cadelo.”

• Reuters: The Council of Ministers and the Ministry of Light Industry issue orders to state enterprises to take “extreme measures” to cut energy consumption in order to avoid the need for scheduled power blackouts.

• Cuba’s Septeto Nacional plays Miami November 21. Cuban Colada has a writeup and a link to the list of tour dates.

• A new Cuban-Russian joint venture in fisheries – “shrimp farming, aquaculture, capture and sale of lobsters.”

• El Duque, now pitching in Venezuela.

Odds and ends

• Reuters: A Russian state oil company buys rights to explore in four blocs in Cuba, two offshore two on land.

• TIME magazine on changes in the Cuban American community and their impact on the debate on travel legislation.

• Penultimos Dias links to an archeology article with photos of what remains of Soviet missile sites in Cuba.

Odds and ends

• Who says blogging isn’t work? Cuban Colada translates Russian newspaper coverage of the visit of General Nikolai Makarov, chief of the general staff of Russia’s armed forces here, here, and here. Makarov announced that “Cuban officers will again study at our military colleges and training centers, and Russian defense industry specialists will help Havana modernize its combat arsenal.” Also: “The time has come to aid the friendly nation in its development, especially on the socioeconomic level.”

• The New York Times: Declassified documents show that Fidel Castro urged the Soviets to consider nuking us, until they explained the concept of blowback to him, and which “changed Castro’s positions considerably.”

• ESPN: Cuban pitcher Aroldis Chapman establishes his residency in Andorra, the little landlocked country in the Pyrenees, and will likely soon be a big league free agent.

• The Herald reports on Cuba’s patent registrations in the United States, and vice versa.

• Juventud Rebelde on the Coppelia ice cream pavilion in Vedado, and its problems.

Odds and ends

• Spain’s La Vanguardia reports on the closure of workplace cafeterias, discussed earlier here. The reporter, Fernando Garcia, is careful not to predict the end-point of this policy, but says it has already begun and will continue rolling out over the next several months. He ties the elimination of subsidized workplace meals to Raul Castro’s policy preference of making salaries, not an assortment of benefits, the main source of income. An unknown: how much private vendors will be allowed to meet the increased lunchtime demand. An interesting nugget: the 15 pesos that workers will get to buy lunch is half the state’s cost for the cafeteria’s lunches themselves.

• Five barefoot Cuban migrants at a convenience store in Lee County, Florida, a go-fast boat circling offshore with 40 fuel containers on board, and the feds investigating. Naples News story here.

• New York Times: from the Industriales to the Angels, Kendry Morales is excelling.

• Juventud Rebelde reports on the interment of Juan Almeida in Santiago, and El Nuevo reports on his son, who was not allowed to attend.

• AP: At the University of New Mexico, Governor Richardson talks about reciprocal moves he wants to see from the United States and Cuba.

• Cuban Colada grabs a Russian media report on the visit of the chief of the Russian armed forces general staff to Cuba; he’s there until Friday.

• AFP Spanish: Through October 15, Cubans are debating ways to increase production and efficiency, and to fight corruption, in their workplaces. The story is based on “material de estudio” distributed by the party in workplaces.

Senate bill would allow Cuba oil exploration

This post has been re-written to correct a bone-headed error. I originally said the bill does not contain the word “Cuba,” but in fact it does, twice. Its final section provides for travel to Cuba by oil industry personnel. Lesson: legislative language is dull, but you have to read it all. I regret the error.

A bill introduced July 24, S. 1517, contains a provision to allow American companies to participate in Cuba’s offshore oil exploration.

Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska doesn’t mention the provision in her press release or her website’s statement on energy issues.

The bill was was co-sponsored by Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. It encourages offshore oil development in U.S. waters. Its Section 6 also allows Americans to explore for oil, extract oil, and sell equipment for those activities in “any portion of any foreign exclusive economic zone that is contiguous to the exclusive economic zone of the United States.”

Which means “drill, baby, drill” – in Cuba.

On another front, Russia is interested in oil exploration in Cuba, although as Reuters points out, the coverage in Cuban media doesn’t quite say that Russia has signed leases to explore in specific areas off Cuba’s coast.

Odds and ends

• BBC Spanish: The United States has turned down the visa request of Tomas Ramos, who just completed an 18-year prison sentence in Cuba. Reportedly, he went to Cuba in 1989 on a mission to destroy hotel communications towers and to try to organize a coup. Ramos says he worked for the CIA; his code name was “Dumbo” and his handler was Frank Sturgis. Cubaencuentro consulted dissident sources in Havana who said that visas were denied to others during the Bush Administration for “violent opposition activity.”

• Juan Tamayo of the University of Miami compares Cuban data on telecom/IT usage to the same data from other countries in the region.

• This letter (pdf) sent to President Obama last week urges changes in U.S. regulations to open up academic contacts – and it also calls on the Cuban government to allow its citizens to travel here on academic exchanges when they are invited to do so.

• Blogger Yoani Sanchez wins a special citation for journalistic excellence from Colombia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

• Our Chinese friends are in town for a “strategic and economic dialogue.”

• Cuban Colada: Russia is providing $150 million in credits for purchase of construction and farm machinery.

Russia rattles our cage (Updated)

Russian General Anatoly Zhikharev spoke to reporters in Moscow on Saturday and raised the specter of Russian bombers landing in the Western hemisphere while conducting long-range patrols. Venezuela has offered landing rights, he says – “We land, we complete the flight, we take off.”

As for Cuba, Zhikharev says the island’s runways are “entirely acceptable,” and he would be happy to use them if “the will of the two states is there.” So it’s not clear whether Russia has asked for landing rights, and if so, how Cuba has responded.

Reuters report is here, AFP’s here. My discussion of this issue from last summer is here. University of Miami professor Jaime Suchlicki’s discussion from last July is here, where he judges it “not likely” that Cuba would host bombers, a move that could “violate the Kennedy/Khrushchev 1962 accord.” That’s the exchange of letters that ended the Cuban missile crisis and included a U.S. commitment not to invade Cuba.

Update: The Herald’s blog Cuban Colada notes two stories. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez saying he did not offer basing rights to Russia, but that he “told President [Dmitri] Medvedev that whenever Russian strategic aircraft need to touch down in Venezuela to fulfill their strategic plans, Venezuela is at their service, as we were not long ago.” And a Russian political analyst says the military’s statements are “a kind of warning” of what Russia will seek to do if Russian concerns about missile defense and NATO expansion aren’t addressed. This is getting to be almost an exact replay of last summer’s episode.

Meantime, AFP reports that the Pentagon is brushing the whole thing off: “That would be quite a long way for those old planes to fly,” a Pentagon spokesman said. And another official said the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff “is not overly concerned about other nations trying to forge bilateral relations with other partners and friends.”

Odds and ends

• Russia is giving $37 million in food aid to Cuba, plus $317 million in credits for purchases of Russian goods, Reuters reports. Granma says the two countries are moving toward “strategic alliance,” but doesn’t provide much detail.

• The Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation reports fewer political prisoners and more detentions, AP reports.

• In the February 5 session of the UN Human Rights Council, questions will be posed to Cuba by the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Lichtenstein, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, CubaEncuentro reports.

• The University of Miami’s Cuba Transition Project has video of a recent panel discussion among three recent chiefs of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.

Odds and ends

• The Cuban government has invited Manfred Nowak, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on torture to visit Cuba, Reuters reports. Nowak says he expects the visit to be arranged this year, EFE reports, and that he will visit “all kinds of jails and prisoners,” “including the political” prisoners, “without advance notice.” He added: “The Cuban government knows perfectly my conditions for visiting a country. I want to meet alone with prisoners and their families.” An English summary of the EFE story is here.

• Raul Castro, in Russia, is pining for roasted lard and rye bread. If pork fat is the issue, then maybe Obama should invite him over for one of these babies. (Don’t miss the slideshow.) Meanwhile, food aid and new credits seem to be on the agenda.

• AP has a nice story on the Hemingway documents at the JFK Library in Boston, thanks to the persistence of Rep. Jim McGovern.

Memorial to the Soviet Internationalist Soldier

With Raul Castro in Russia, I’m reminded of the Russian president’s recent visit to Cuba, and a wreath laying at the “Memorial to the Soviet Internationalist Soldier” covered by Prensa Latina here.

By chance, I ran across the memorial while finding my way back into Havana from the southwest. There was a guard (and a dog, a lot less fierce than he looks), but no one who could explain the significance of the memorial. Readers, please chime in.

The name makes one think of Soviets dying in combat, but as I asked around, I was told that the soldiers honored there were stationed in Cuba in the early 1960’s and died mainly in accidents and training. The dates on the markers honoring each soldier are from that period.

Odds and ends

• Cuba’s roster for this year’s World Baseball Classic is here; if you click the “change country” field you can check all the other countries’ rosters. The tournament schedule is here.

• Raul Castro begins an 8-day visit to Moscow.

• Alien smuggling arrests: in Mexico, a Russian and another person were detained while trying to smuggle Cubans across Mexico’s southern border, and a Hialeah man was arrested Monday and charged yesterday for bringing eight undocumented Cubans to Boynton Beach, Florida by boat.

• The Wall Street Journal has a no-byline article on a Cuban family’s 50 years of political disillusionment and the trials it has faced in years of work to assist child cancer patients and their families. The conclusion of Carmen Vallejo: “No more revolutions, please. My life has taught me that change should be gradual. No more revolution. Never again.” The article is accompanied by a short video that describes the electronic signboard on the U.S. Interests Section as an element of “information warfare” that sends “unauthorized news and provocations into Cuba.”