Castro government

Ex-State Department analyst who spied for Cuba gets life

July 16, 2010

The 73-year-old great grandson of Alexander Graham Bell was sentenced to life in prison without parole for quietly spying for Cuba for nearly a third of a century from inside the State Department. His wife was sentenced to 5½ years. Retired intelligence analyst Kendall Myers said he meant his country no harm and stole secrets [...]

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Lifting the communications embargo

July 15, 2010

Christopher Sabatini, senior director of policy at the Americas Society/Council of the Americas and editor in chief of Americas Quarterly, argues for lifting the communications embargo on Cuba in the July/August 2010 issue of Foreign Policy magazine: This leaves Washington in a quandary. Last week’s release of the 52 prisoners — independent journalists and human [...]

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Cuba politics: Freedom calls

July 14, 2010

From the Economist Intelligence Unit: No democratisation If the prisoners — who include journalists, community organisers and opposition figures — are indeed set free, this would be a major concession on the part of the Castro government. It appears to be designed for external consumption, however. It could lead to improvements in Cuba’s foreign relations, [...]

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Can the Internet bring change?

July 6, 2010

For decades, the Castro government has been very effective in repressing dissent in Cuba by, among other things, preventing its critics from publishing or broadcasting their views on the island. Yet in recent years the blogosphere has created an outlet for a new kind of political criticism that is harder to control. Can it make [...]

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Corruption at high levels

May 17, 2010

El País reports on the Castro government investigating corporate scandals that are plaguing the regime: A legion of 4,000 auditors and financial officers currently investigate the internals of 750 Cuban companies, which 20% operate in the island. This is a huge anti-corruption crackdown that is unprecedented, but without justification; in recent years, in the Cuba of Fidel and Raul [...]

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