From Havana
Digging into the agricultural sector
The pebble in the shoe
By Manuel Alberto Ramy
Alimentary security – defined as strategic – and farm production are intimately connected. More than one year after Law 259 (a law that distributes land for the usufruct of those who are willing to till it) was enacted, how has the sector progressed?
With this question in mind, I climbed into my car and traveled through some of the Havana municipalities that are key to farm production. I spoke with farmers and specialists, visited farmers' markets and visited the website of the National Statistics Office (ONE).
E-4, or pawn to King 4: A new move by Washington
By Enrique Ubieta Gómez
When is a dialogue false? Is it when the demand for liberty becomes a rhetorical trick to deceive the reader? Whoever attempts to dialogue with Cuba has to jettison all prejudices. Seated across the table would not be "the good guy" and "the bad guy," the big rich interlocutor and the small "needy" one, the one who must change and the one who extends...
Honduran dictatorship is a threat to democracy in the hemisphere
By Mark Weisbrot
From the Sacramento Bee
A small group of rich people who own most of Honduras and its politicians enlist the military to kidnap the elected president at gunpoint and take him into exile. They then arrest thousands of people opposed to the coup, shut down and intimidate independent media, shoot and kill some demonstrators, torture and beat many others. This goes on for more than four months, including more than two of the three months legally designated for electoral campaigning. Then the dictatorship holds an “election.”
The famous Cuban bloggers
By Jesús Arboleya Cervera
The Cuban bloggers are the world's most famous. I refer to the “dissidents,” of course, because the first idea that they try to convey is that there are no others.
The reason for such fame should not be sought in the quality of their sites, their literary talent, or cultural baggage. Not even in the chance that they may be particularly savvy political analysts or in the sagacity of their criticism of the Cuban government.
About bandwidth and other questions
By Nelson P. Valdés
On Oct. 29, the Cuban magazine Temas held its monthly meeting/debate on what has been called "Last Thursday," because the event is held the last Thursday of every month. The discussion dealt with the Internet and Cuban culture.
This is an extremely complex topic, all the more so on the island because access to the Internet and its use have been politicized by the opponents of the Cuban government. At the same time, the Internet has become one of the many instruments used by the government of the United States to project its foreign policy and influence the internal processes of other world nations.
During "Last Thursday," blogger Yoani Sánchez asked to speak and was granted that privilege. Her first comment was to question the argument that bandwidth is what prevents most Cubans from gaining access to the Internet.
I have dealt with the topic of the Internet and Cuba in a series of articles. I was one of the first to state that the bandwidth is an essential element in the type of topology and architecture a country may have, and that this, in turn, affects the number of users and the speed in the transmission of data.
My theory, of course, was based on the connection costs (digital lines, servers, transponders, etc.); we'd also have to consider whether access is made through satellite or some other means.
The big terrorist in the Big Apple
By Bill Press
NEW YORK ... This week, in the bars, restaurants, and subways of the city that never sleeps, one topic dominated all others. Not Sarah Palin, Afghanistan, or health care reform. But Khalid Sheik Mohammed.
It all started when Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Justice Department was bringing KSM, self-declared mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, from Guantanamo Bay prison to lower Manhattan -- to be tried along with four co-conspirators in federal civilian court.
Obama, Cuba and lost hopes
When in April 2009 at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad he first tried out his presidency and the promise of rapprochement towards Latin America, and Obama listened patiently to the calls from almost every nation of the area for lifting of the embargo on Cuba and normalizing relations between the two neighbors, the hopes of many on the island were multiplied.Click to continue reading...
By Leonardo Padura Fuentes
Follow our progress by clicking here where we will show you the number of hits received on a monthly basis. Or, at the top, click on each of our sections and there you’ll find a week by week account of how each article was received by the number of hits it received.
Hunger in America: Shame of a Nation
By Max J. Castro
What happens when a brutal recession strikes a nation that has been busy shredding its socioeconomic safety net for a quarter century? The result is an enormous toll of human misery and deprivation.
The real price of oil
By Saul Landau
From my window in Alameda overlooking San Francisco Bay, I watch hundreds of men and women in white suits, some with masks, busily uprooting slimy sea plants and gently grabbing birds with feathers coated in black grease.
Gaming the Miami political system
By Alvaro F. Fernandez
If Lewis Carroll had been around today and living in Miami, and he had yet to write his Alice in Wonderland, his resulting story, if based on our city, may have been even stranger and more nonsensical than it already is. Alice and her white rabbit, Mad Hatter and Cheshire cat would have had little over some of our zany politicians -- and their crazy stories.
You want bizarre? Miami City Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones, 42-years-old, last week was arrested on one count of second-degree grand theft. She is accused of stealing $22,000 in county grant money. By the time she bonded out of jail, Gov. Charlie Crist had suspended her from the commission post she had won by an 80 percent majority one week prior. A special election to replace her was called this past week by new Mayor Tomas Regalado. It will be held in January. Ms. Spence-Jones has announced she intends to run for the seat she was removed from by the governor. Chances are that she will win.
This, by the way, would not be a first for Miami. In 1998, MiamiCommissioner 
Humberto Hernandez was suspended by then-Gov. Lawton Chiles.Hernandez had been indicted for money laundering and bank fraud. He bailed out of jail and ran for his own seat -- and won overwhelmingly.
Cyber game
As I see it, when on Nov. 12 the presidential team (Obama was in China) agreed to answer the questions posed by Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez, it did two things. First, it paid back Fidel for his earlier prediction that Barack would not be reelected in 2012 but be succeeded by a Republican in the style of Nixon or Cheney. And second, it bet on the Internet as a way to deal with Cuban issues – but not with the people and for the people, because Yoani does not represent the people.
