Odds and ends

Lots of catching up to do:

• Granma has reported on the state of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’ health by running the text of Venezuelan government statements, and there has been no sugarcoating.  From the December 30 statement: “Nineteen days after the complex operation, the state of health of President Chavez continues to be delicate, presenting complications that are being treated in a process that is not without risks.”  The January 3 statement told of a “severe pulmonary infection.”  The Washington Post looks at the situation in Venezuela as January 10 approaches, the day that Chavez is to be sworn in to a new term in Caracas, and a day he will surely spend in Havana.  According to USA Today, it’s possible that Venezuela’s Supreme Court would travel to Havana to administer the oath.

• Herald: A David Rivera retrospective.

• A December 28 (April Fool’s) chronicle of the First Lady’s visit to Cuba.

• In last month’s Palabra Nueva, an article of mine recapping the U.S. election.

• Granma: The restoration of El Cristo, the statue that overlooks Havana from a promontory across the bay, is done.

• Herald: With the retirement of an office worker and a welder, there are no more Cubans crossing through the Guantanamo naval base gate to work every day.  Among their duties was to carry cash – more than $40,000 per month – to pay the pensions of Guantanamo retirees in their community.  In this story, the Herald’s Carol Rosenberg reports that the Navy has worked out a way to keep the pension payments flowing each month, but it won’t say what it is.

Love of country

A plaque (click to enlarge) near the Plaza de Armas quoting the matancera poet Carilda Oliver Labra:

When my grandmother came

She brought a bit of Spanish soil

When my mother left

She took a bit of Cuban soil

I won’t take any bit of my country with me

I want it all

On top of my grave.

Work in progress

The Hotel Palacio Cueto, off the southeast corner of the Plaza Vieja, is finally undergoing renovation and will again be a hotel.  Only the Art Nouveau facades are being preserved.  When restoration efforts began in this area, local officials found the building to be filled with people who had occupied it over the years without legal status.  Typically, residents in buildings such as these are offered other housing in the neighborhood or, more likely, new housing east of the bay.

Odds and ends

• AP: Dozens of dissidents were detained Sunday as they gathered for a march, and “by Sunday evening, many had been released and some driven back to their homes.”  Elizardo Sanchez’ group counted 604 such detentions in February.

• The Herald reports on an effort to allow jailed USAID contractor Alan Gross to depart Cuba for two weeks to see his cancer-stricken mother.  His lawyer says he has a Treasury Department license that would allow him to return to Cuba after such a visit.  There is a parallel effort to gain permission for one of the Cuban Five, Rene Gonzales who is out of jail and on parole, to go to Cuba to visit his dying brother.  (The Justice Department is opposed.)  Alan Gross’ wife Judy sympathized with the Cuban’s request: “I fully appreciate Rene Gonzalez’ need to visit a dying family member. We need to remember that these are real people and real lives that are profoundly affected by these decisions.”

• This podcast features a discussion of the Alan Gross case by editors and reporters of the Jewish Daily Forward, shortly after the February Associated Press story appeared.

• Emilio Aranguren, bishop of Holguin, issues a statement (pdf) on the protest in the Holguin cathedral last week.

• The New York Times on Havana buildings by New York architects.

• The New York Times on Havana’s expanding number of paladares.

• The Cuban foreign ministry has created a website about the Pope’s visit.

• The Oakland A’s Yoenis Cespedes in the Sacramento Bee: “What they earn, they don’t receive. That’s what motivates Cuban players to leave.”

• A number of Spanish-language blogs are linking to the 1937 papal encyclical (Spanish, English) on the “false messianic idea” of “atheistic communism,” mentioned here when Cardinal Bertone visited Cuba in 2008.

Odds and ends

• Juventud Rebelde notes the death of North Korea’s Kim Jong Il, reporting that the statement read on North Korean television said he died of “physical and mental exhaustion while on a train trip outside the capital.”

• Granma: A Vatican delegation visits Cuba to prepare the visit of the Pope, meets Raul Castro, no date announced.

• The State Department called on Cuba to respect Human Rights Week activities.

• Imagine: the Obama Administration retained the Bush director of Radio/TV Marti, and he carried out a personnel reduction in 2009 that shielded supporters and fired critics. That’s the conclusion of an independent arbitrator; Washington Post story here.

• Trabajadores: Cuba hit the record for arrivals of foreign visitors in one year last Tuesday. 2.53 million and counting.

• Reuters: Fernando Noy, a military officer who ran an important importing company is arrested on charges of corruption.

• AP goes to the Malecon to see how new economic policies are changing the neighborhood.

• “It would be a disgrace if the Obama administration broke with tradition and used a penny of that critical funding to reward political cronies,” said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart in a Herald article on “complaints” about a USAID grant to the Cuban American National Foundation.