Restored National Theatre reopens

With Cuba’s National Theatre having been completely restored, The Havana Times reports that the doors to its enormous Avellaneda Hall — with its three levels and 2,254 seating capacity —  re-opened on Sunday, October 28, for the opening ceremony of the Havana International Ballet Festival.

Surpassed in size only by the capital city’s Karl Marx Theater (which seats 5,000), the main hall of the cultural complex showed off its new look following months of renovation work. This improved image sharply contrasts with the gloomy appearance this majestic theatre has suffered for years.

$100,000 if you hit Fidel, $20,000 for Raúl and Che

According to London's Daily Mail, documents released this week finally confirm beyond doubt that the Kennedies hired the Mafia to shoot Fidel Castro. They agreed a price of $100,000 for killing Fidel and $20,000 for either Raúl or Che Guevara. One has to ask oneself how can it be that the President of a supposedly democratic country should be hiring criminals to carry out murders on its behalf? Has anything changed?

50 years ago this week the Cuban Missile Crisis began. On Tuesday 16th October the esteemed Cuban international relations expert Prof. Carlos Alzugaray Treto will be giving a talk on the topic at London's Institute for the Study of the Americas. Venue and details HERE. 
  

Democracy, shamocracy, who cares so long as we have a vote?

As the Venezueleans go to the polls today to re-elect President Hugo Chavez, Cuba's daily Granma newspaper carries huge coverage of the election campaign and includes a graphical guide (pictured) to show how the Venezuelans vote in what Jimmy Carter has called the best electoral system he has witnessed.
Two things stand out here: the first is that despite the charges that Chavez is a dicator, Venezuela IS a liberal democracy by any of the standards set by the so-called 'West'. The second is that while Cuba falls short of that benchmark because it does not have a multi-party system, it is patently obvious that its government has absolutely no fear about that fact since it openly explains and extols the virtues of such a system in its national newspaper. That Cubans understand democracy and voting systems and know what others have and might actually in fact NOT WANT such a system themselves  is a possiblity that few in Washington can comprehend - just as they can't imagine how machinations using new media and ICT to try and provoke a 'Cuban' spring like that in Arab countries might not work, as my collegaue Phil Peters deflty pointed out in his blog on Friday.