Ahora Sí Llego
Halfway between the Cuban towns of Martí and Baracoa, Cuban and Italian filmmakers José Balboa and Desiderio Sanzi plug a hole in the gas tank of their Russian Ural sidecar motorcycle with a glob of powdered deodorant and super glue. It’s a temporary fix for the machine that will carry them across all 15 Cuban … Read more
Travel Regulations: OFAC and Cuba
The re-opening of “people-to-people” travel to Cuba by President Barack Obama in early 2011 was the boldest and, arguably, the single most consequential step taken by his administration in relation to the island. It was in fact a revival of a Clinton-era exemption to the decades-old ban on U.S. citizens visiting that country. The exemption … Read more
The Havana Film Festival in New York Celebrates 15 Years
Since 2000, the Havana Film Festival in New York has been bringing Latin American cinema to New Yorkers—and after 15 years, it is still going strong. Despite its name, the festival doesn’t limit itself to showing Cuban films. Its goal, said creative director Diana Vargas, is to place Cuba within a larger Latin American context … Read more
Monday Memo: Valparaíso Fires – Fabius in Cuba – Las Bambas Mine – Venezuela – Drummond Shipwreck
This week’s likely top stories: a deadly fire ravages Valparaíso, Chile; French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius visits Cuba; Glencore sells Las Bambas mine to Chinese consortium; Venezuela investigates abuses during protests; a shipwreck spills fuel off the coast of Colombia. Fire in Valparaiso, Chile: At least 12 people have died in a disastrous fire in … Read more
Monday Memo: Costa Rican Elections – U.S. Deportations – Venezuela-Spain Spat – FIFA Delays
Unchallenged Costa Rican Candidate Wins Presidency: Luis Guillermo Solís of the Partido Acción Ciudadana (Citizen Action Party—PAC) won Sunday’s presidential election in Costa Rica, claiming 78 percent of the vote. The challenging candidate, Johnny Araya of the Partido Liberación Nacional (National Liberation Party—PLN), dropped out of the running after a March 5 opinion poll ranked … Read more
USAID Creates “Cuban Twitter” to Provoke Unrest
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) covertly created “ZunZuneo”—a Cuban version of the online messaging network Twitter—to cause civil unrest in Cuba, the Associate Press reported on Thursday. The program functioned through cell phone messaging to avoid the Cuban government’s controls over internet use, and planned to build a network that could mobilize quickly … Read more
Monday Memo: Investment in Cuba – Venezuela – Costa Rican Elections – Rio Police – Mining in Peru
Cuba Approves New Foreign Investment Law: The Cuban government on Saturday unanimously approved a law that provides new incentives for foreign investment in the island. The law will reduce taxes on profits from 30 to 15 percent in most areas, will speed up the approval process for foreign investment, and will exempt new investors from … Read more
Fresh Look Reviews
Fresh, unique perspectives on recent books from across the hemisphere originally published in English, Spanish and Portuguese.
Russia’s Military Power in Latin America
As tensions between the United States and Russia over the future of the Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula continue to rise, Moscow officials may look to beef up their country’s stronghold in Latin America. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced on February 26 that his country is planning to expand its long-standing military presence in Cuba, Venezuela … Read more
Diplomacy Isn’t a Tug of War
Diplomacy during the Cold War, wrote Sam Tanenhaus in last Sunday’s New York Times, may have been more of a high wire act than a chess match—but diplomacy, neither then nor now, is a tug of war. Unfortunately, that’s the way it’s being conducted in the U.S.’ delinked Cuba-Venezuela policies—hostages to age-old vendettas, anachronistic policies … Read more
Second Member of the “Cuban Five” Freed
The United States released the second member of a group of five Cuban prisoners—known as the “Cuban Five”—from an Arizona prison on Thursday. Fernando González, 54, was convicted in 2001 of spying on military bases and Cuban exiles in South Florida, and is expected to be deported back to Cuba within days. René González, a … Read more
Changing U.S. Policy Toward Cuba: Another View
In a recent interview with The Washington Post, Florida sugar magnate Alfonso Fanjul said he is ready to do business with Cuba “under the right circumstances.” The questions are: “what are the right circumstances?” and “who benefits when American companies ‘do business’ with communist Cuba?” The Fanjul family left Cuba in 1959 when Fidel Castro … Read more
Two to Rumba: The European Union Decides to Negotiate With Cuba
On February 10, the European Union’s Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) approved a mandate to start negotiating an overall agreement with Cuba. This decision had been under preparation since 2008, when the EU renewed its political dialogue with Havana. Between 2003 and 2008, relations had been at a low point following a series of strong measures … Read more
Cuba: Wait, Wait, Let Me Guess What Comes Next
I’m not a betting man, but if I were, this is what I’d bet. With a series of statements by leading Cuban-Americans, stories of change inside the island, and growing public pressure and attention to liberalize the U.S. embargo toward Cuba, I’d wager that soon the Cuban government will do something to halt the process. … Read more
Most Americans Support Normalizing Cuba Relations
A new poll by the Atlantic Council released yesterday found that a majority of Americans are now in favor of stabilizing U.S.-Cuba relations. Of those sampled nationwide, six out of 10 said they favor policy changes that would allow more business transactions between the two countries, as well as the lifting of restrictions that don’t … Read more
