7 Days in Havana (7 días en La Habana)

• 2012
• France, Spain
• 126 min

• Directed by: Benicio Del Toro, Pablo Trapero, Julio Medem, Elia Suleiman, Gaspar Noé, Juan Carlos Tabío, Laurent Cantet
• Cast: Josh Hutcherson, Daniel Brühl, Emir Kusturica, Elia Suleiman, Vladimir Cruz, Mirta Ibarra, Jorge Perugorria
• UK release: 6 July 2012

Seven tragicomic short films by seven international directors sketching contemporary life in Havana, all of them written by Cuban novelist Leonardo Padura Fuentes. TRAILER HERE

Helping out

 

Timorese doctors trained in Cuba

A scheme to train Timorese doctors in Cuba, masterminded by Fidel Castro, has proved invaluable for healthcare in Timor-Leste according to this report by Kate Hodal published by The Guardian today in its Global Development section - an area of its site that is sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation...

Florida law threatens Lloyd's of London

A new Florida law that threatens firms that deal in Cuba (see my post 'The best legislation money can buy' 5 June below) could ensnare the British bank Lloyd's according to this report in the Wall Street Journal.

No speech like free speech 5...

Google blocks access to Cubans

According to the website Cubadebate this message is appearing when Cuban bloggers try to access the Google analytics service:

We're: unable to grant you access to Google Analytics at this time.

A connection Has Been Established Between your current IP address and acountry sanctioned by the U.S. government. For more information, see http://www.ustreas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/ .

(We can not offer access to Google Analytics at this time. The connection established from your current IP address belongs to a country sanctioned by the U.S. Government For more information see: http :/ / www.ustreas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/ -page set of sanctions against Cuba blockade-)

.....Of course this will not apply to the celebrated bloguera and arch-Castro critic Yoani Sanchez since her site is located in Germany...

Truly the Greatest

 

Teofilo Stevenson...  turned down millions - for love

The passing of Cuban boxer Teofilo Stevenson from a heart attack last week gives pause for contemplation. He was the best amatuer boxer who ever lived, true; a record-breaking Olympian, true; but he was also someone who was not interested in pecuniary gain. He turned down millions when offered a professional fight with Muhammad Ali because he wanted to retain the love of his people. Read this fitting tribute from Kevin Mitchell in the Guardian   

Farewell to arms

Now here's  a man who believes in the pursuit of democracy and human rights but who obviously has a confusion about ends and means.... Anti-Castro arms cache seized

Fine example...

Here's evidence, if any were needed, that US policy towards Cuba is still aimed at punishing it, isolating it and ultimately overthrowing its government...ING Bank to pay record US fine for passing money on behalf of Cuba

Mariela Castro interview

Here's a one hour interview with sexologist and president Raúl Castro's daughter Mariela.

l C
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/06/14/152359/ing-bank-to-pay-record-us-fine.html#storylink=cpy

Author defends priest

Cardinal Jaime Ortega

The recent improvement in relations between the Catholic Church and state in Cuba has produced the paradoxical reaction from the predominantly Catholic Miami emigre community of some pretty distasteful attacks on the leader of the island's Catholics, Cardinal Jaime Ortega. Despite the fact that his intervention secured the release of 75 'dissidents', for some people Ortega's speaking with Raúl Castro is equivalent to supping with the devil.
This matter is the subject of a rare sojourn into politics by Cuba's most celebrated author Leonardo Padura Fuentes, who this weekend has published this comment in the Catholic magazine Espacio Laical. It is in Spanish but for those who can't read it Padura Fuentes laments the way in which this priest has been maligned by those who, he says, prefer to hate rather than find ways to conciliate.
As a matter of personal interest, Padura Fuentes, (a friend of mine and his work the subject of my PhD thesis) confirms in this article what many of us have suspected: that there is a good deal of autobiography in the past of his famous fictional character Lieutenant Mario Conde.  Padura Fuentes confesses here that, like his detective hero, as a boy he preferred playing baseball on Sunday mornings to attending Mass...

Follow the money...

Fellow blogger Tracey Eaton has this story today on where the USAID money goes in the continuing US campaign to undermine Cuba's government through nefarious means. Seems Costa Rica is the culprit. It is time the US taxpayers woke up to the fact that this is a gravy train that makes a lot of unworthy people wealthy, distorts the political process in the US and has no discernibly positive effect on the island. 

The best legislation money can buy...

Mariel Port: Safe, enclosed and hurricane proof...

A new law in Florida that outlaws companies who do business in Cuba has come under fire from the Brazilian firm Odebrecht. It is suing the state governor Rick Scott on the basis that the law is unconstitutional (takes foreign policy out of the hands of the White House). Odebrecht is the company that is investing hundreds of millions in the redevelopment of the port of Mariel on Cuba's North West coast (pictured) and has recently agreed to salvage the Cuban sugar industry. It also has big contracts in Florida. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to work out that the law was cynically passed in order to punish Odebrecht and to try and force it to leave Cuba. Like the issue surrounding the controversial 'Bacardi protection act' that has allowed the Bahamas-based rum company to purloin the brand name Havana Club in the US, this is a story that is set to run and run.

Travel broadens the mind...

Free to protest, free to starve

Life Magazine dated May 22, 1902.

Irony is something one has to be attuned to when considering things Cuban. Take for example the so-called dissidents who were released two years ago and went to live in Spain. Now, according to this article in today's New York Times, they are protesting in Spain because life there is just too hard. Of course it is not their fault that the capitalist system is in meltdown and there are now 5 million unemployed in Spain, but presumably the 'freedoms' they now enjoy that they were denied in Cuba ought to compensate for the hardships they are suffering?

Speaking of suffering, pictured here above is a cover from Life Magazine from 1902. It depicts US marines administering what we were led to believe was a 'new' form of torture- namely waterboarding. Needless to say the incident depicted is taking place (where else?) in Cuba and the victim, of course, is a Cuban.

Travel broadens the mind ... an occasional series

Welcome to the United States - but don't ever think about going home

So here is an interesting one. For readers unfamiliar with the ins and outs of Cuba-US migration issues, there is a law known as the Cuban Adjustment Act that gives the right of residency in the US to illegal migrants from Cuba. It is a bone of contention of the Cuban government as it encourages illegal departures, people smuggling, plane and boat hijackings and the like. It has long been a darling of the Miami right because it also serves to destabilise the island. However, since the Obama administration has made it easier for Cuban-Americans to return to Cuba on family visits, it has been targeted by the right wing. Rep. David Rivera, (R-Fla). wants to tighten it up so that anyone who gets a residency under the CAA will lose it IF they ever go back to visit the island! So much for US hospitality - and respect for human rights. HERE is a letter from Cuba-Americans who don't want the change to happen that pretty much sums it all.