Odds and ends

• Reuters: An American art collector donates more than 100 works to Cuba’s Bellas Artes museum, including some by Picasso, Miro, and Pissarro. The donor, Gilbert Brownstone, went whole hog, dedicating the donation to Los Cinco and receiving a decoration from the Council of State. Granma story here.

• Mambi Watch says everyone, including yours truly, jumped the gun last week when outlandish reports were appearing in Latin American media about the cause of the Haiti earthquake.

• A Tampa business group returns from Cuba, urges Florida medical schools to build links with Cuban counterparts, and wants approval for Tapa-Havana flights.

• And here’s an account of the visit to Cuba of softball players from Massachusetts, age 55-80.

Pez gordo

A twelve-hour overnight wait, a huge hit on their line at dawn, a half-hour fight, and a 1.6 meter, 50-pound sailfish to bring home.

Juventud Rebelde tells the story of two Cienfuegos fishermen, Elio Alberto Fuentes y Carlos Ivan Molina, last Saturday night.

[Juventud Rebelde photo.]

Odds and ends

• AFP: The United States and Cuba are planning a second round of migration talks in December, no date chosen yet. A suggestion: Havana’s Latin American Film Festival runs December 3-13.

• Advice for travelers in the Ottawa Citizen: “Go beyond the beach resorts to see Cuba’s capital.”

• La Jornada interviews Francisco Aruca, owner of Marazul Charters, who says there are now about 50 flights from the United States to Cuba each week. Part of Aruca’s story is referenced in the intro to the interview – he once told me in person and I wish I had a recording of it – concerning his escape from La Cabana, where he was jailed for counterrevolutionary activities. He spent a year and a half in the Brazilian Embassy before getting out of Cuba.

• Is a Cuba-Orioles rematch in the works? Maybe so, according to this Baltimore Sun baseball columnist who was in on the first one.

• Also from the Sun, a review of the Burtonsville, Maryland (!) Cuban restaurant Cuba de Ayer.

• Ted Henken posts his July 2008 interview with Yoani Sanchez – a Spanish transcript, a partial English translation, and video broken into 13 segments.

• The U.S. Interests Section in Havana had a contest for Cuban photographers; entries are posted here. (H/t Tracey Eaton)

• AP: The story of 56 Americans from the Eastern Massachusetts Senior Softball Association, playing in Havana.

"Drive me far away"

The United States beat Cuba 6-1 in soccer in a World Cup qualifying match on Saturday night. Before the game, two Cuban players left their Arlington, Virginia hotel and decided to stay in the United States. One gave an interview to the Washington Post where he tells what happened after he slipped out of the lobby: “I ran and ran and then told the taxi driver to ‘Drive me far away’…I was so nervous. I didn’t know where we were going, but I knew I was in a free country and everything would be okay.”

Odds and ends

• El Nuevo Herald reports (English here) that, according to numerous sources in Venezuela, Cuban advisors are training “guerrillas” at a secret camp in Venezuela. The headline brought me back to the Cold War when I imagined that the “guerrillas” were being trained to take over another country. The story is actually about military training for pro-Chavez Venezuelans so they can acquire “asymmetrical warfare” skills to resist a coup attempt or U.S. invasion. That would fit with Cuba’s “war of all the people” military doctrine, which says that United States certainly has the power to invade, but we’ll make it another Vietnam, and you will regret it if you do.

• A Royal Navy ship visits Havana, highlighting UK-Cuba cooperation in drug interdiction.

• Cuba vs. the United States in soccer, at Washington’s RFK Stadium Saturday night. The game is part of pre-qualifying round for next year’s World Cup.

• Before the White Sox were eliminated from the playoffs, the Sun Sentinel’s Ray Sanchez visited the Mom of Alexei Ramirez, the Sox’s rookie second baseman, in Pinar del Rio, and wrote this story.

Odds and ends

• U.S. 1, Cuba 0 in soccer in World Cup qualifier match.

• The Cuban government prepares to receive requests from farmers and cooperatives that want more land to work, EFE reports.

• There’s talk, but no action, when it comes to new foreign investment in Cuba’s sugar industry to produce ethanol and other derivatives, IPS reports.

Odds and ends

• The United States and Cuba meet on the soccer field on Saturday in Havana in the semifinal round that qualifies teams for next year’s FIFA World Cup. They meet again next month when the Cuban team comes to RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C.: October 11, with kickoff at 7:00 p.m. Tickets go on sale tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. at ussoccer.com.

• More on the theft of high-speed boats: from the St. Petersburg Times, a report on a “criminal ring thought to be working its way up Florida's west coast,” and an investigator that found 44 stolen boats in Cancun.

• I missed this one from last week: a federal judge overturned a new Florida law that barred personnel from state colleges and universities from traveling to Cuba. The decision retains the law’s prohibition on using taxpayer funds for that purpose, but threw out the prohibition on using private funds.

Las Morenas, artists of suspense

“Cuba came from two sets down to stun China” in women’s volleyball this morning, the official Olympics website reported. Cuban media called it a “heart attack-inducing” match, which it certainly was if you were rooting for Las Morenas del Caribe against the reigning Olympic champs.

Cuba went deep in a hole by losing two (18-25, 14-25), won one 25-23, then another 32-30 (the heart attack part, saving about seven match points in a row), and took the fifth 15-13. The Chinese coach took the loss with a very sportsmanlike smile, no doubt admiring the grit and heart those Cuban women displayed. Wow.

[Granma photo.]

Odds and ends

• Cuba supports the Russian position in the Ossetia/Georgia crisis, citing the “false claim that Georgia is defending its national sovereignty,” and saying that Georgia’s move in Ossetia was made “in complicity with the U.S. government.”

• Cuban human rights monitor Elizardo Sanchez issued his semiannual report on human rights practices. There’s a small drop in the political prisoner population, and the trend toward fewer long-term imprisonments and more short-term detentions (640 in the first half of 2008, 325 in 2007) continues. Reuters covers it here. Cuban Colada links to it here.
  

• If you’re interested in following Cuba’s teams in the Olympics, Granma has a day-by-day roundup of its stories. Here’s one on Cuba’s women’s volleyball team, which beat the United States yesterday and is looking ahead to taking on China. The links to the daily roundup are in the sidebar.
  

Gotta go...

Four desertions from the Cuban team at the Pan American Games, a Fidel commentary complaining about it, a rumor of a mass defection after the closing ceremony, Brazilian video of Cuban athletes selling their uniforms, and the Cuban team heads to the airport a day early, in a hurry. They barely collect their luggage and they skip a medal ceremony where bronzes for the volleyball team awaited. Sad.