More from Wikileaks

A way with words: Venezuela donated three electricity plants to Haiti, with plans for Cuba to assist in the installation, and the U.S. Embassy report begins: “Venezuela and Cuba appear to be taking advantage of Haiti’s electricity gap.” The Wikileaked cable from 2007 is here.

The U.S. Embassy in Panama reported on the pardons given to Luis Posada Carriles and his associates by former President Mireya Moscoso as she was leaving office in 2004. The cable reports on all the speculation, in Panama’s press and elsewhere, about her reasons for granting the pardons. An earlier cable, written as the “anti-Castro Cuban Americans” awaited the judge’s decision, is here.

Odds and ends

• Herald: A Cuban rafter is rescued after 25 days at sea; he was drifting 51 miles south of Marathon Key.

• El Mundo on the impact of the announced prisoner releases on the Damas de Blanco.

• Rep. Bill Delahunt reminds the Washington Post that when it argued in an editorial for maintaining Cuba travel restrictions, it invoked the name of Guillermo Farinas and others who favor ending the restrictions.

• Reuters: The Salvadoran nabbed in Venezuela in connection with the 1997 hotel bombings in Cuba was handed over to Cuba.

• McClatchy: Confessed Cuban spies Walter and Gwendolyn Myers want to be jailed near each other, and far from Florida.

• Mambi Watch marks the death of singer Olga Guillot.

• FT’s Latin America editor sees Cuba sending a market signal: that Venezuela is an “underperforming” asset.

• Washington Post: The Skakespeare folio saga – England to Cuba to Washington’s Folger Library – ends in British court with a conviction on charges of handling stolen goods. More here.

• From Brett Sokol at Slate: While the Russian spy story is still fresh, a review of shortwave radio “numbers stations” that intelligence services, including Cuba’s, use to communicate with their agents.

Odds and ends

• Along the Malecon reports that the Luis Posada Carriles trial has been postponed pursuant to a sealed prosecution motion, and 90 percent of filings to date are secret.

• The Wall Street Journal: A story of a Cuban American’s return to his childhood home, as narrated by his wife.

• At Global Post, Nick Miroff looks at television viewing habits in Cuba, where state television “is politically biased and often tedious, [but] hardly a drab, droning monotony of pro-Castro propaganda.” The irrelevance of TV Marti shines through.

• An American conservative goes to Cuba and comes back with this opinion, which he wrote in a letter to the Cleveland Plain Dealer: “If we want to get communism out of Cuba, end the embargo.” Speaking of American conservatives,

• Mining Weekly notes a Cuban television news report that says that the joint Cuban-Venezuelan project to activate the Camarioca nickel plant, a mothballed Czechoslovak project from COMECON days, is moving forward. In 2005, there were announcements that China would be the partner in this project and in a Camaguey nickel mining venture, but China ended its involvement without fanfare.

Raul in Caracas

Cuba and Venezuela signed three memorandums of understanding during President Raul Castro’s visit last weekend, according to Granma, to “strengthen bilateral integration in economic, social, and technological matters.”

Energy, education, information technology, and agriculture are among the areas covered. The New York Times account focuses on energy, including oil refining and construction of a plant in Cuba to allow importation of liquid natural gas.

Odds and ends

• More terrific reporting from post-hurricane Cuba from the Herald, this time from the other end of the island, Surgidero de Batabano in the west, with a short video.

• El Nuevo Herald: Hector Palacios and Gisela Delgado return to Cuba after 11 months abroad.

• Machado Ventura in New York: meetings with President Uribe of Colombia and others, a solidarity event, and a speech on the international economy (from Granma).

• The "Cuba-Brazil Technical Cooperation and Work Group" is in session in Havana, looking to increase economic ties (Gazeta Mercantil).

• After declining since the 1970’s, the Cuban American share of Miami-Dade’s Latino population is rising again, Census data shows.

Odds and ends

• Cuban and Nicaraguan police are in Venezuela to train Venezuelan police, the Herald reports.

• El Nuevo Herald covers the Cuban American National Foundation’s report on the USAID Cuba program.

• McCain and Obama will give Cuba policy speeches as they campaign in Florida next week, the Herald reports. The same article links to the Foundation’s report and to a response by the Directorio Democratico Cubano, one of the orgaizations discussed in it.

• Vice President Jose Ramon Machado Ventura is leading Cuba’s delegation to the Lima Ibero-American summit.

Odds and ends

• Granma publishes a statement by Cuba’s Catholic bishops in which they call on the new executive and legislature to heed the calls for change expressed by Cubans in last year’s debate.

• On ABC’s “This Week,” Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas, remarks on talks, trade, and contacts with Cuba: “I have believed for a while that we should be looking at a new strategy.”

• Who is MachadoVentura, the new first vice president? Here’s a brief sketch from AP. Herald's profile here.
  

• And what about Julio Casas Regueiro, the new vice president and defense minister, succeeding Raul Castro? According to Raul, he’s “very stingy.” He is in charge of the military’s enterprises and the process of state enterprise reform called perfeccionamiento empresarial, which began in the military enterprises and was extended to civilian enterprises. A friend suggests to me that his promotion is a sign that this process will now be more prominent in Cuban economic policy. If it interests you, here’s a study of it (pdf). And here’s a story on Regueiro from La Jornada.

• Raices de Esperanza, a Cuban American student association, is holding an April conference at Duke University. Information here.

• Comments deleted here in recent days were all spam.