Weekly Tweets

20100207 at 1215 in Commentary by Armando F. Mastrapa 3d

Powered by Twitter Tools

Tags:

Raul Castro’s possible successor

20100204 at 1040 in Armed Forces, International Relations, Military, Nomenklatura, Ramiro Valdes, Venezuela by Armando F. Mastrapa 3d

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: , , , , ,

Annual Threat Assessment: Cuba

20100202 at 2128 in Nomenklatura, Oil, Population, Raul Castro by Armando F. Mastrapa 3d

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:

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , ,

Why do societies collapse?

20100201 at 1501 in Commentary by Armando F. Mastrapa 3d

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: , , ,

Miscellanea

20100131 at 1248 in Commentary by Armando F. Mastrapa 3d

Image: ALEN LAUZÁN FALCÓN

  • With the wave of government privatization upon us, a push to try US public diplomacy toward Cuba through private enterprise.
  • Cuban deputy foreign affairs minister is in Tehran seeking expanded economic co-operation with Iran.
  • PM Margaret Thatcher’s daughter explores impoverished Cuba via bicycle.
  • Controversy over British billionaire and a top Tory politician’s visit to Cuba.
  • Grammy nominee Tiempo Libre crosses classical music with Latin rhythm.
  • A Cuba analyst who believes Fidel Castro’s tanks are different from Raul’s will discuss what’s next for the Castro brothers and Cuba.

Catholic Church demands economic reforms from government

20100130 at 1011 in Government, Nomenklatura, Raul Castro by Armando F. Mastrapa 3d

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: , , , ,

Drumbeat continues to eliminate public diplomacy toward Cuba (Updated)

20100127 at 1852 in International Relations, US by Armando F. Mastrapa 3d

“The same [GAO] reports also found significant problems in OCB’s operation, including poor management, questionable journalistic standards, biased editorials, allegations of fraud and abuse, and domestic dissemination of Marti programming that appears to be in violation of U.S. law.”

Senator Russ Feingold, in letter to President Obama dated 27JAN2010

U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) is urging President Obama “to eliminate funding for a radio and television broadcast to Cuba.” The senator cites a January 22, 2009 GAO report, where “less than 2 percent of respondents to telephone surveys since 2003 reported tuning in to Radio or TV Martí”. (See Broadcasting to Cuba: Actions Are Needed to Improve Strategy and Operations. GAO-09-127)

“At a time of skyrocketing budget deficits and difficult fiscal choices, we need to take a close look throughout the federal government to eliminate inefficient and wasteful spending wherever it occurs,” Feingold wrote.

Tags: , , ,

Fear the Boom and Bust

20100127 at 1036 in Commentary by Armando F. Mastrapa 3d

Hilarious rap on Hayekian versus Keynesian economics!

Tags: , ,

Awaiting for a catastrophe

20100127 at 0940 in Commentary, Economy, Fidel Castro, Government, Havana, International Relations, Nomenklatura, Population, Raul Castro, US by Armando F. Mastrapa 3d

Crumbling Havana. (Image: Flickr - ChrisGoldNY)

Kenneth Chandler’s (a former editor and publisher of the New York Post) op-ed on the catastrophe in the making for Cuba.

Havana is a city of sorrow — a once elegant and prosperous capital brought to despair by 51 years of deliberate neglect and isolation. A country that has been plundered by a succession of foreign powers, homegrown dictators and mobsters imported from America now languishes in a bizarre time warp where little has changed in more than half a century.

Its people go about their daily routines bereft of consumer goods, nutritious foods, meaningful jobs or adequate housing — most of them born after the revolution that swept Castro to power in 1959 and now, thanks to rigid censorship, largely conditioned to accept their impoverished lot.

To listen to Castro’s cronies — those among the political and business elite whose loyalty is secured with perks unavailable to ordinary Cubans — the economic situation is solely the fault of the US embargo imposed after the revolution.

More thoughtful Cubans discreetly offer a different explanation: They blame Fidel’s feckless experiments with communism — his initial seizure of $25 billion worth of private property from Cubans and the nationalization of all businesses, forcing the middle class to flee to Miami; his bizarre decision to send 300,000 Cubans out of a population of only 11 million to fight wars in Africa in the 1980s; his Cold War alliance with the Russians that left his country bankrupt and saddled with antiquated technology when the Soviet Union collapsed.

Read the full story here.

Tags: , , , , ,

Venezuela VP & DefMin has resigned over Cuban military presence

20100126 at 0806 in Armed Forces, Generals, International Relations, Military, Military & Defense, Venezuela by Armando F. Mastrapa 3d

Image: EFE

The vice-president and defense minister of Venezuela, Ramón Carrizalez, one of President Hugo Chávez’s oldest allies, announced his resignation yesterday citing personal reseasons.

Venezuelan analysts affirm that the cause could be over his disagreement with the imposition of Cuban military officers (also assimilating within Venezuela’s military with same rank) in the military high command making decisions at the Strategic Operational Command level.

Click here for full story.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Absolute power corrupts absolutely

20100123 at 1634 in Commentary by Armando F. Mastrapa 3d

An Intercepted Correspondence, Cairo. Painting by John Frederick Lewis, 1868. (Image: The Economist)

The Economist published an interesting article on the psychology of power where a series of experiments were conducted in an attempt to elicit states of powerfulness and powerlessness in the minds of volunteers.

Taken together, these results do indeed suggest that power tends to corrupt and to promote a hypocritical tendency to hold other people to a higher standard than oneself…These results, then, suggest that the powerful do indeed behave hypocritically, condemning the transgressions of others more than they condemn their own…But another everyday observation is that powerful people who have been caught out often show little sign of contrition. It is not just that they abuse the system; they also seem to feel entitled to abuse it.

Read the full article here.

Tags: , , , , ,

Central archive of the armed forces

20100122 at 1005 in Armed Forces, Military, Military & Defense by Armando F. Mastrapa 3d

FAR Archives (Image: Granma)

Fifty years ago, Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias — FAR) created an archive to store important documents of the military.

The Central Archive of the FAR (Archivo Central de las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias — FAR) is housed in the Fort of San Carlos de la Cabaña, commonly known as, La Cabaña.

Nearly three million documents are preserved in four large vaults. (a) Historic Vault – unifies all print documents; (b) armed forces’ audio and visual memory; (c) Cadre Vault – personal files of veterans and (d) judicial procedures linked to the FAR.

Today, the Archive brings two essential services: assuring information for research topics and certification of veterans and/or members of their families.

(Ed. Note: That being said, there must be certain limitations to the information (certainly classified and beyond) that the Archive will make readily available to researchers interested in perusing its historical documentation.)

Source: Granma

Tags: , , , , , ,