Cuban dissident Guillermo Fariñas. Image: ANP
Radio Netherlands’ report on Cuban dissident Guillermo Fariñas’ hunger strike that is drawing attention after last week’s death of Cuban dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo’s death from his hunger strike.
The plight of imprisoned political dissidents in Cuba continues to draw unwanted attention to Raul Castro’s government.
Tags: Guillermo Fariñas, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Radio Netherlands
Brazil's Lula da Silva (r) with former Cuban leader Fidel Castro in Havana. 25FEB2010. Image: AFP
Apparently he is, according to Newsweek, citing several Cuba analysts.
However, aren’t these the same analysts who opined that a younger generation of leaders would assume power in Cuba?
Tags: Fidel Castro, Raul Castro
From today’s The Economist:
However disgruntled they are with the everyday failures of the communist government, few Cubans dare brave the harassment meted out to active opponents. Those in the United States who argue that the American economic embargo merely serves to shore up the Castro regime hoped that Mr Obama’s team would agree with them. But it has become clear that the administration is not prepared to do battle with supporters of the embargo in Congress. Attempts to lift the ban on Americans travelling to the island have bogged down. “We made a big initial effort, but got nothing back” from the Cuban government, a State Department official said. Mr Castro has been emphatic that Cuba’s communist system is not up for negotiation with the United States.
The rest of the article is here.
Tags: Raul Castro, Washington
Via New York Times:
The purge has revealed a power struggle at the highest levels of government, leading to the fall of some of Mr. Chávez’s military comrades and reports of secret dossiers on businessmen compiled here by intelligence agents from Cuba, Venezuela’s top ally.
At a time when Mr. Chávez struggles with public ire over electricity shortages and an economy in recession, the arrests show his ability to nimbly consolidate power while crisis swirls around him. To do so, Mr. Chávez is using tactics like secret-police raids and expropriations of some of his most powerful supporters’ businesses, relying on a dwindling number of military loyalists to carry out his orders.
Tags: Cuban intelligence, Cuban intelligence agents, CuIS, Hugo Chavez
“The Prosecutor and Municipal Tribunal, as well as the offices of the Department of Justice, continue to perform in peacetime. Except in a case where an exceptional situation is declared, tribunals and sector prosecutors will be activated, and special legislation will be applied under the principle of unique military jurisdiction.”
Lt. Coronel Adolfo Sánchez (Chief, Cotorro Municipality Judicial Group)
The above referenced quote comes from an informative article published last month by CubaNet entitled “Legislación especial,” which was written by independent journalist Odelín Alfonso Torna.
Torna alerts to the ramifications of information technology and high tech devices that Cubans now have access to (e.g. USB flash drives, mobile phones, iPods) whereby the Cuban government is loosing control of information. Even government employees are violating security regulations exposing confidential information that is being leaked and disseminated to the populace.
He warns of an unexpected special legislation for exceptional situations (e.g. foreign invasion and popular revolt) as Cubans are presently facing repression at its “highest magnitude.”
Tags: Bastion 2009, Cotorro Municipality Judicial Group, Cuban Government, cubans, high tech devices, information technology, Lt. Coronel Adolfo Sánchez, Odelín Alfonso Torna, special legislation for exceptional situations
Hugo Chávez, as he drafts in ever more Cuban aides to shore up his regime, is fulfilling a longstanding dream of Fidel Castro’s.
IN A small fishing village on the Caribbean coast of Venezuela stands a plinth. Unveiled by government officials in 2006, it pays homage to the Cuban guerrillas sent by Fidel Castro in the 1960s to help subvert Venezuela’s then recently restored democracy. Almost entirely bereft of popular support, the guerrilla campaign flopped. But four decades later, and after a decade of rule by Hugo Chávez, Cuba’s communist regime seems finally to have achieved its goal of invading oil-rich Venezuela—this time without firing a shot.
[...]
Tags: Cuba’s communist regime, Hugo Chavez, Venecuba, Venecubans
For more than half a century, Ramiro Valdes has been a key man for repression. He now comes to the foreground, and one day, may succeed Raul Castro. (Image: L’Express)
Axel Gyldén in L’Express, analyzes the possible succession of Raúl Castro by the nefarious Ramiro “Ramirito” Valdés, (former MININT minister and current Communications and Information Minister), who is in Venezuela to aid in solving the country’s energy crisis (Is he an expert in this area?) and to oversee the naming of Cuban military to the leadership of the Venezuela armed forces.
[H/T: Zoe Valdes]
Tags: Axel Gyldén, L’Express, Ramirito, Ramiro Valdes, Ramiro Valdes Menendez, Venezuela
Adm. Dennis C. Blair, Director of National Intelligence, presented his testimony today on the Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
His testimony stressed: “Latin America Stable, but Challenged by Crime and Populism.”
However, on Cuba, DNI Blair relates:
Tags: Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, Dennis C. Blair, director of national intelligence, Raul Castro, Venezuela
Jared Diamond, Professor of Geography at UCLA and author of Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, discusses why do societies collapse on TED.
Tags: Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jared Diamond, societies collapse, TED
Image: ALEN LAUZÁN FALCÓN
Palabra Nueva, a publication of the Cuban Catholic Church’s Havana Archdiocese, accused the government of Raúl Castro of continuing an economic policy marked with a “lack of definition” and “prevalence of ideology,” and demanded reforms of the socialist system to avoid a “socioeconomic collapse.”
Tags: Cuban Catholic Church, Cuban Government, Havana Archdiocese, Palabra Nueva, Raul Castro
Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces in Cuba
20100303 at 1853 in Armed Forces, Commentary, International Relations, Military, Military & Defense, US by AFM3
The U.S. Congressional Research Service (a research and analyses arm of the United States Congress) published a report in early January entitled “Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2009″ where it “lists hundreds of instances in which the United States has used its armed forces abroad in situations of military conflict or potential conflict or for other than normal peacetime purposes.”
The following are historical instances where the United States armed forces were used in Cuba.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: 1798-2009, Congressional Research Service, Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, United States Congress