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Once again, the Castro brothers deny Yoani Sánchez the exit permit to visit Brazil

Feb. 3 - Cuba’s best-known pro-democracy blogger said she was denied permission to leave her country after Brazil granted her a visa ahead of President Dilma Rousseff’s state visit to the communist island last week.
“There’s no surprise,” Yoani Sanchez said in a posting on her Twitter account today. “They again deny me permission to leave. It’s the 19th time they violate my right to enter and leave my country.”
Sanchez, a critic of Raul Castro’s government on her Generation Y blog, requested permission to travel to Brazil next month so she could attend the screening of a documentary in which she appears. While she’s been barred from leaving Cuba for the past four years, expectations she might be allowed to exit this time increased after Brazil granted her a visa on the eve of Rousseff’s visit this week.
After Rousseff failed to meet with Sanchez and other activists during the three-day trade mission to Havana, the blogger complained on Twitter that the Brazilian president came to Cuba “with her wallet open and her eyes shut.”
Rousseff, who was inspired by Cuba’s revolution to take up arms against Brazil’s military dictatorship in the 1960s, said she would not get involved in what is an internal Cuban matter.
“Brazil gave the visa to the blogger,” she told reporters in Havana. “The rest is not a matter for the Brazilian government.”
Brazil’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment on Cuba’s decision when contacted by Bloomberg News.
While blocked from traveling abroad, Sanchez openly criticizes Castro’s government online, and has emerged as a leader among a group of young dissidents who describe the daily travails life in Cuba through difficult-to-access social media. She was invited to Spain after winning the Ortega y Gasset journalism prize in 2008. Many of her chronicles are published by newspapers throughout Latin America.

Bloomberg

 

Cuban women denounce beatings and harassment by Castro's police

Feb. 2 - Cuban dissidents say police beat, groped and detained seven women who tried to stage a march in the central city of Santa Clara to demand the release of an opposition couple jailed since early January.
In an audio recording provided by the dissidents, women were heard screaming and repeatedly shouting “Don’t stick your hands on my breasts, murderer” — allegedly as police searched for the cellphones recording the scene.
“He put his hands inside my blouse, then they lifted my blouse in the middle of the street looking for my phone,” said Idania Yánes Contreras, who led the march and recorded a narration of the Wednesday confrontation on her phone.
“We were all punched and had our hair pulled” as police carried the women to waiting patrol cars, Yánes added. Police also seized a frying pan the women had been banging on to attract attention.
Six of the women were freed Thursday and the seventh was sent home late Wednesday, Yánes told El Nuevo Herald by telephone from her home in Santa Clara.
Yánes said the seven members of the Rosa Parks Feminist Movement for Civil Rights, all dressed in black as a sign of mourning “for the victims of the dictatorship,” launched the protest carrying a sign that said, “For Freedom, Against Impunity.”
The march was intended to protest the continued detention of independent journalist Yazmín Conlledo Riverón and her husband, Rafael Álvarez Esmoris, who were arrested Jan. 8 on what Yánes described as fraudulent charges.
The women had gone only about half a block, shouting “Freedom” and “Down with Repression,” Yánes said, when uniformed police and State Security agents in civilian clothes swooped down on them and began searching for the phones.
One security official told another, “that person has a cellular there,” according to a transcript provided by the dissidents. The actual recording, posted on the blog of Jorge Luis García Pérez, known as Antúnez, is sometimes difficult to understand.
Antúnez, whose wife Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera was one of the seven women detained, writes the blog Ni Me Callo Ni Me Voy — I will not shut up or leave.
The other women were identified as Yaité Diosnelly Cruz Sosa, Yanisbel Valido, Xiomara Martín Jiménez, María del Carmen Martínez López and Damaris Moya Portieles.
The Rosa Parks movement is named after the Afro-American civil rights activist woman who sparked the bus boycott in Montgomery, Al.

Read more

 

Will we ever see a Cuban spring?

Feb. 2 - Margaret Thatcher once said, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” During my week in Cuba, I saw firsthand the truth of her case.
Havana, a once-glorious architectural gem, is falling down — literally. Much of the central city is crumbling and building collapses are common because there is no maintenance. Many people live without running water, and roosters can be heard crowing a block from the nation’s capitol, which is shuttered for “renovations.”
The sight of American cars from before 1959 plying the streets is charming but an indication of chronic stagnation. Going to the rural areas is like boarding a time machine to the 19th century. Farmers plow by walking behind two oxen, and horses provide basic transportation. Public “buses” consist of horse-drawn wagons.
Fidel Castro’s “revolución,” now in its 54th year, as spray-painted slogans constantly remind you, is running out of other people’s money. First the Soviet Union propped up the Communist takeover, and after its collapse, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela came to Castro’s rescue.
It’s a devil’s bargain. Castro barters young Cuban professionals for oil, with Chavez delivering a reported 100,000 barrels a day. In exchange, Cuban doctors and teachers are sent to Venezuela. Chavez went to Cuba for cancer treatment last year.
Castro himself almost died in 2006, although of what remains a mystery. He still heads the Communist Party, but is rarely seen and there are rumors he suffers from dementia. His brother, Raul, runs the government, though it’s not clear he could survive Fidel’s death.
The brothers’ scramble to keep 11 million Cubans sullen but not mutinous is leading to a patchwork of liberalizations. Tourism is growing, bringing in foreign investment and the dreaded C-word — capitalism. Large collective farms are being divided, with farmers getting plots to use for 10 years and permits to sell their produce. Read more
 

Sheer Hypocrisy: “I prefer a million critical voices before the silence of the dictatorships” Dilma Rousseff

Feb. 1 - Commentary by Yoani Sánchez about the visit of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff:

Choosing the time for a presidential visit can be an exceedingly thankless task in this so unpredictable and changeable world. When the date of the visit of a head of state is placed on the agenda, announced, and reconciled with the hosts, life commonly offers up the unexpected. The government palaces don’t control chance, nor anticipate the surprising events that strain the arrival of a dignitary. Dilma Rousseff knows this well. Her presence in Havana was coordinated for weeks and was even preceded by that of the foreign minister, Antonio de Aguiar Patriota. Everything seemed neatly tied up: a fast timeframe, efficient, protocol, focused on economic themes, ending with her boarding her flight to Haiti. But something complicated it.
Several days before the Brazilian economist and politician landed at Jose Marti Airport, a young Cuban died after a prolonged hunger strike. The official media threw itself into presenting him as a common criminal, although he had been arrested at an opposition march through the streets of Contramaestre. The radicalized discourse of power and the political temperature reached those levels where our rulers perform so well. In that context, the recently concluded Conference of the Cuban Communist Party became more an act of reaffirmation than of change, a statement of unity rather than an opening. Many who were waiting for an announcement of political transformations of great significance, realized that the event was, instead, the ultimate lost opportunity for the generation in power. One day after its closure, Raul Castro — General Secretary of the only permitted party — received Dilma Rousseff, the former guerrilla who today leads a country with diverse political forces and a highly critical press.
Dilma’s Cuban agenda includes inspecting the construction work at the Port of Mariel and the possible granting of new bank credits. Brazil is our second largest trading partner in Latin America, but it’s not just a question of resources. The Raul regime also has the urge, at this time, to be legitimized by other presidents in the region. So there will be smiles, handshakes, commitments to “eternal friendship” and photos, lots of photos. The civic activists, for their part, will attempt a meeting with the woman who was tortured and imprisoned during a military government, though there is little chance that she will receive them. Dilma Rousseff will converse with Raul Castro, she will be very close to him at exactly this delicate juncture in which chance has placed her. We hope she will not miss the opportunity and will comport herself consistent with the clamor for democracy, instead of opting for a complicit silence before a dictatorship.
Note: Yoani will find out on Friday February 3 if the Castro brothers will allow her to travel to Brazil for the presentation of the documentary "Cuba-Honduras Connection." Generation Y

 

Cuba's best-known Olympic athlete: "Training conditions are terrible. There's is not stimulus"

Feb. 1 - Cuba’s best-known Olympic athlete, Dayron Robles, complained Tuesday about terrible training conditions as he prepares to defend his gold medal in the 110-meter hurdles this summer in London.
“The Olympic games are already there and we don’t have even half of what you need to train well,” Robles said in an interview with The Associated Press. “Conditions are terrible. There’s no stimulus.”
Robles, who holds the world record in the 110-meter hurdles at 12.87 seconds, did not give specifics but said he and other athletes are banding together for mutual support.
“They don’t give you the necessary things for training so you’re always upset, and what’s worst is that people generally don’t know anything about it and will judge me by the results,” Robles said. “Nobody comes around to ask about anything, but they do come to demand results.”
Read more

 

It's not the embargo, it's the stupid system that doesn't work: Cuba food prices up 20% in 2011

Feb. 1 - Government report shows agricultural reforms not increasing production or dropping prices.
Food prices in Cuba shot up by nearly 20 percent last year as the cash-strapped government cut subsidies and imports and agricultural reforms failed to crank up domestic production, according to a new government report.
The report by the National Statistics Office reflects Cubans’ long-running complaints that while some food items have been appearing with more frequency in stores, the prices have been so high that few can afford them.
Cuban leader Raúl Castro, trying to reform the stagnant Soviet-style economy, has put heavy emphasis on the need to increase agricultural production by leasing fallow state lands to private farmers and allowing them more freedom to grow and sell their products.
But the report, titled Sales on the Farm Market, showed that produce prices soared by 24.1 percent during 2011 and meat prices rose by 8.7 percent for an average increase of 19.8, Reuters news agency reported.
Reuters added that although the reforms could increase agricultural production down the road, output increased just 2 percent last year and fell 2.5 percent in 2010. Overall agricultural production in 2011 remained below the levels of 2005.
Dissident Havana economist Martha Beatriz Roque said the government figures reflect “stagflation” — stagnant productivity coupled with inflation — and the failures of Castro’s efforts at agricultural reforms since he replaced brother Fidel Castro in 2006. The Miami Herald
 

For Brazilian President Dilma Rouseff, money is more important than human rights

Feb. 1 - Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez said her compatriots had hoped for more from Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who avoided mention of human rights on the communist island during her first state visit to Havana this week.
Sanchez said she had looked for at least a “small wink” from Rousseff, who was imprisoned and tortured for fighting Brazil’s dictatorship in the 1960s, after a jailed dissident, Wilman Villar, died this month following a hunger strike and President Raul Castro vowed to maintain single-party rule.
“It was pure chance that she came at this time, but people had hoped for more,” Sanchez, 36, said in an interview last night in Havana. “I would’ve hoped for a small wink, a phrase with a double meaning that we could interpret, and that the government could interpret too.”
Rousseff, who concludes a three-day visit to Havana today, said that it was an internal matter for Cuba to decide whether to allow Sanchez to leave the island after Brazil last week granted the 36-year-old blogger an entry visa to attend next month a screening of a documentary she appears in. Sanchez, a critic of the Castro government on the Generation Y blog, has been denied permission to leave Cuba for four years.
“Brazil gave the visa to the blogger,” Rousseff, 64, told reporters yesterday in Havana before meeting with Castro and his brother Fidel. “The rest is not a matter for the Brazilian government.” Read more
 

An excellent letter by Maria Corina Machado to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro

Jan. 31 - A few days ago, we posted a video of Venezuelan independent presidential candidate María Corina Machado, asking Hugo Chávez a question during his eight and a half hour speech to the National Assembly about the state of the country. (Scroll down this page to watch the video).

A few days later, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro wrote one of his "reflexiones" defending his Venezuelan puppet and attacking María Corina.

Today, María Corina Machado responded in a letter to the Cuban dictator that was published by three national papers in Venezuela.

This is my translation of what she wrote:

"President Chavez tried to use his presentation to the Assembly for two very obvious purposes. First, to show a country of peace and prosperity that doesn't exist.  Venezuela, with all its human and natural resources, lives the ravages of poverty, crime and humiliation; secondly, he wanted to use the opposition MPs to show the world a democratic game that has been compromised by his government, through the abuse of controlling all state institutions and repression of dissent.
Faced with this manipulation and the indignation that it produced on me, I asked for permission to speak, to report that there is no such country as the one that Chavez described and, by contrast, it is marked by shortages and rationing, crime and the actions of the state, stealing private property with impunity and labeling it as expropriations. So when I uttered the phrase ‘expropriation is theft', the feelings of Venezuelans, especially the most humble, were expressed.
Those were not phrases that, as you say proved Chavez's 'gallantry and coolness', but what they really proved is his deception and the "movie" that he was playing out until the moment when I responded to him.
I said to expropriate is to steal and I sustain it. It was president Chavez who described himself as a "thief" taking personal responsibility for expropriations, which are thefts justified with a "legal varnish" by the current regime.
His often quoted statement about eagles and flies is a gross manifestation of contempt for those who question his actions. Only a despot believes that a popularly elected parliamentarian has no credentials to question the president of his country. But in the end, Chavez is right: he and I are very distant in terms of morals and principles."
The independent candidate for president of Venezuela said that the comments of the Cuban dictator "incursions into Venezuelan political debate," and is "further evidence of the systematic interventionism" of Cuba in Venezuela's internal affairs, while recalling other times in contemporary Venezuelan history when Castro tried to turn Venezuela into a branch of his Communist model.
"In the decade of the 60s Cuban military personnel attempted to impose a regime in Venezuela like the one you imposed in your country. The civil authorities and armed forces who were then in charge defeated you, just as the Latin American democracies did throughout the region. Your aggression caused many deaths, including that of so many young Venezuelans who became illusion with your revolution."
Maria Corina reminded Castro of his solidarity with President Carlos Andres Perez at the time of Chavez's attempted coup of February 4, 1992 against his government.
"Venezuelans recall your letter to President Perez in which you said: "At this bitter and critical moment, we remember with gratitude all that you have contributed to the development of bilateral relations between our countries and your position of respect and understanding toward Cuba. I hope the present difficulties will be overcome completely and preserve the constitutional order and your leadership in charge of the destinies of the sister Republic of Venezuela."

The Venezuelan parliamentarian also reminded Castro of how he ,ust have felt when his Russian partners "negotiated" with the US during the Cuban Missile Crisis without consulting him.
"You, who know that very well, can imagine the outrage produced on all Venezuelans when they see Cubans sent by your government at the highest echelons of the state, military installations, in command of the presidential palace's security forces and of government records. Imagine the humiliation felt by the officers of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces when they must take orders from foreign Cuban officials, who invaded our military installations."
Your government gets, as far as we have been able to determine, more than 110,000 daily barrels of our oil as a gift, supposedly offset by services that are not worth what it costs to produce our oil. Your regime does business triangulations which make Venezuela's imports more expensive and allow you a slice of gross and unnecessary commission fees. Chavez and you have achieved that what had been a traditional friendship between Cuba and Venezuela, is now pierced by resentment and suspicion. That friendship will return, but only when the invasion of your country's officials into Venezuela stops.
"Do it willingly, or the democratic forces in Venezuela would make you understand once again, as they did 50 years ago."

Click here to read the letter in Spanish

 

Make Repsol "bleed" if Cuban well leaks: lawmaker

Jan. 31 - Since the United States couldn't stop Repsol from drilling for oil off Cuba's coast, it should make the Spanish oil giant pay dearly for damages from any spill that threatens neighboring Florida, a congressional Republican said on Monday.
"We need to figure out what we can do to inflict maximum pain, maximum punishment, to bleed Repsol of whatever resources they may have if there's a potential for a spill that would affect the U.S. coast," Representative David Rivera, a Florida Republican, told a congressional subcommittee that oversees the U.S. Coast Guard.
The House of Representatives subcommittee met at a Florida hotel with a panoramic view of the waves breaking over an Atlantic beach dotted with sunbathers, to conduct a hearing on the potential impact on Florida's 800-mile (1,290-km) coastline from the first major oil exploration in Cuban waters. Read more
 

Mary Anastasia O'Grady: Cuba and the Castro News Filter

Jan. 29 -  Stories about 'reform' make headlines while a dissident's death goes unreported.

Investment companies that provide market analysis are required by law to disclose potential conflicts of interest that could bias their reports. Imagine if media outlets were forced to do the same with stories filed from inside Cuba's military dictatorship. Their disclaimers might read like this: "This report was prepared under psychological duress, threat of loss of journalistic credentials, imprisonment or expulsion from the country, and while being spied on 24-7."
Tourism, aka "cultural exchanges," out of the U.S. to the island is on the rise, leading some observers to conclude that the dictatorship is kinder and gentler than it used to be. But all visitors, and those they interact with in Cuba, are as carefully watched as they were in the first days of the revolution. In the news business, reporters are not permitted to travel freely, and it is verboten to damage the image of the Castro government. Penalties can be severe.
This reality came to mind last week when we learned of the death of another dissident at the hands of the regime. Thirty-one-year-old Wilman Villar Mendoza, who was arrested in November, had been on a hunger strike for at least 50 days. His imprisonment was part of a wider wave of state repression that has been under way for more than a year amid a rising number of public protests, particularly by young people.
Yet while Raúl Castro's announcements about "reform" have made headlines and topped television news around the globe, we had hardly heard of Villar Mendoza or the resistance movement he belonged to.

Apologists for the status quo will tell you that Cuba's democracy movement is not news because the number of Cubans who would rebel given the right encouragement is insignificant. But if Cuba is an island of contentment, why do the Castro brothers go to such lengths to make an example of dissidents like Villar Mendoza and pressure local news bureaus to ignore the repression? There is a reason journalists who want to stick around know they'd better find something else to write about.
Villar Mendoza's case was especially hard to learn about because he lived in the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba. The east is one of the most repressed areas of the county, perhaps because it is where, historically, uprisings in Cuba have originated. Now, despite the tight grip, it is again becoming the hotbed of antigovernment protests, united by a coalition known as the Eastern Democratic Alliance. But since there are no embassies there and reporters may not leave Havana without permission, the magnitude of the eastern rebellion is not recognized by the outside world.
The story has gotten out thanks to Cuba's journalists and human-rights advocates, operating on a shoestring and at great personal risk. They use cellphones and sometimes computers when they can sneak under the radar. They've reported that on Nov. 14 Villar Mendoza was beaten and arrested for his part in a peaceful protest march in his hometown of Contramaestre. Ten days later, in a summary trial, he was sentenced to four years in prison. When he was refused an appeal, again without due process, he began a hunger strike. His jailers at Aguadores prison responded by stripping him, throwing him in a dank solitary confinement cell, and denying him water. He came down with pneumonia and died of sepsis.
Given the history, the account sounds plausible and gains credibility from the regime's intensive damage-control efforts. The Castros allege that Villar Mendoza was a common criminal. This is standard procedure: In fact the regime claims there are no "political" prisoners in Cuban jails—only criminals.
Former Cuba correspondent for Spanish Television, Vicente Botín, describes how hard it is to report the truth from the island in his 2009 book "Funerales de Castro." He reminds readers that in 1997 Fidel expelled a French journalist for writing that Cuban chickens were not meeting their government egg-laying quotas. In 2007, the regime withdrew the credentials of three foreign correspondents from the Chicago Tribune, the BBC and the Mexican daily El Universal for lack of "objectivity." "The three journalists were scapegoats used to warn their colleagues in the foreign press of the dangers they run if their 'objectivity' does not coincide with that of the government," Mr. Botín notes.
Sebastián Martínez Ferraté didn't fare so well. In 2008 he used a hidden camera to document Cuba's epidemic of childhood prostitution, and the report aired in Spain. When he returned to the island in 2010, he was arrested and sentenced to 17 years in prison. Spain only recently negotiated his release.
As Mr. Botín explains, the regime goes out of its way to make sure that journalists know that they are being watched and no one working in Cuba is under any illusion about a free press. Yet when foreigners watch "news" from the island they are likely, through force of habit, to put their trust in the messenger. Maybe the news organizations should start running that disclaimer.  Wall Street Journal
 

One person killed after another Havana building crumbles

Jan. 28 - A 90-year-old Havana, Cuba, theater collapsed and killed one man in the fifth such wreck in 10 days, underscoring the precarious state of many dwellings and commercial structures in a city known for its architecture.
The Campoamor Theater, which opened in 1921, closed in the mid-1970s and then partially collapsed about five years ago, neighbors said. But four families, driven by Cuba's critical housing shortage, were squatting there when it collapsed Thursday.
The four-story shell was featured in a 2006 documentary about the state of many of Havana's old buildings, "The New Art of Making Ruins," by German filmmakers Florian Borchmeyer and Matthias Hentschler.
Ricardo Riquene Anaya, 47, plunged from the third floor and died when the building collapsed, one emergency worker said. His son had to be pulled from the ruins but reportedly suffered only cuts and bruises.
Just last week, at least four youths were killed and five injured when their three-story building, also in Centro Havana, fell in a heap. It had been condemned after a partial collapse over 10 years ago. Three other Havana buildings collapsed Thursday, but no injuries were reported, said the emergency worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"What we're seeing is a sign of what is happening to the government, slowly crumbling," dissident Martha Beatriz Roque said by telephone from Havana. The Miami Herald

 

Another visitor to Cuba experiences Castroscare

Jan. 27 - From an article in Moon Travel Guides (H/T) Capitol Hill Cubans:

A few weeks ago while escorting a National Geographic Expeditions’ 10-day “Cuba: Discover its Culture & People” trip, one of the participants fell ill with a serious dental problem.
I accompanied her to the Clínica Internacional—the foreigners-only International Clinic— Cienfuegos. Cuba’s best medical services are reserved for foreign tourists paying hard currency. This was no exception. An English-speaking doctor saw us immediately.
She identified an abcess and recommended we visit the dental ward at Cienfuegos Hospital. We were transferred in a low-tech ambulance.
The hospital’s broken windows and screens were an ill omen of worse to come: The black ring (caused by a million grubby hands) around the door handle to the dental ward, suggested it hadn’t been cleaned since the revolution.
We were admitted immediately to the ward and seated at one of a dozen stations. The first image took my breath away. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Dental instruments were sitting in a tray that hadn’t been cleaned—not even wiped!—in ages. Literally, my best guess is in months, if not years! A microscopic study might well have revealed every known bacteria under the sun. In Europe or North America, the hospital would be instantly closed as a health hazard. The travelers looked up at me with a mix of revulsion and near-panic.
Fortunately, the female dentist didn’t need to place any instrument in her mouth. Instead, she looked into her mouth and instantly confirmed the abcess, then wrote a prescription for antibiotics, which the international clinic had in stock.
The next day, while walking along Cienfuegos’ main shopping street (El Búlevar), the group paused to peruse the local pharmacy that serves local Cubans. I counted barely a handful of drugs (all locally produced) for sale on the sparsely stocked shelves.
What a study in contrasts!…
The barebones Cubans-only pharmacies. And the foreigners-only pharmacies fully stocked with imported drugs, reminding me of President Jimmy Carter’s admonition (presented live on Cuban TV during his visit to Cuba in January 2001) that Cuba can buy all the drugs its needs from Mexico, Brazil, etc. at prices well below those charged in the United States.
The Cuban government disingenuously tells Cubans that the U.S. embargo is to blame for the critical shortage of basic medicines. How, then, to explain the fully-stocked pharmacies serving tourists, which Cubans never get to see? Clearly, a political decision has been made to not stock the Cuban pharmacies.
Why? I can think of only one plausible reason: It’s great politics in Fidel Castro’s pathological demonization of Uncle Sam. Let’s hope things will soon change under his younger brother, Raúl.
Meanwhile, and more worrying, is the disparity between Cuba’s claims about the excellence of its health-care system and the shocking revelation that it doesn’t even apply standards of basic hygiene. Moon Travel Guides

 

More than 1,000 people have registered at CubanSearch looking for relatives and friends

 If you haven't visited or registered, click here for the English Version  Y aqui para la versión en espańol.

You can register a name of a missing relative, or you can look through the list of names to see if you have any information that you can provide about any of them.

Dozens of people have already found their missing relatives thanks to www.cubansearch.com

 

Chileans who received medical training in Cuba failed test to practice medicine in their country

Jan. 26 - In 2011, nearly 80% of Chilean doctors who obtained their degree overseas failed the mandatory national medical knowledge test, also known as Eunacom. The vast majority of them completed their training in Cuba.
Cuba’s program of medical internationalism began in 1959 after the Cuban Revolution, when Fidel Castro rose to power. Since then, it is argued that medical professionals are Cuba’s most important export.
Since the Revolution, Cuba has sent more than 185,000 health professionals on medical missions to at least 103 countries, according to the New York Times. Unfortunately, this great quantity of doctors does not mirror the quality of their training. In other words, doctors in Cuba are not expected to learn as much as doctors trained in other countries. However, they are sent to some of the poorest parts of the world, including areas of Latin America and Africa. This raises an important question: Is a poorly trained doctor better than no doctor at all?
Cuban doctors have routinely received lower scores in countries including the U.S. and Brazil as well as Chile. In Chile, the average point for the doctors trained overseas was 38.84, well below the minimum needed for success. The average points for Chilean natives, on the other hand group was 74.05.
Beltran Mena, who is head of the Eunacom tests, articulated that “This group of doctors are not authorized to practice medicine in Chile and besides the test will now have to revalidate their degree at Universidad de Chile.”
Of all Chilean medical schools represented in the tests, residents from the Universidad Católica hold first place, followed by those from the Universidad Mayor. On the other end of the spectrum, highest failure percentage rates belong to schools such as the Universidad del Mar and Católica de la Santísima Concepción. Read more
 

Cuba's Cardinal Ortega should follow the example of this bishop and a priest

Jan. 24 - Cuban dissidents are thanking a Catholic priest and a bishop for protecting a handful of opposition activists from a government-organized mob, armed with sticks and rocks, that besieged the church where they attended Mass Sunday.
The Cuban government, meanwhile, fired back at U.S., European and other officials who condemned the death of political prisoner Wilman Villár, accusing them of “unscrupulously taking advantage of a lamentable . . . death of a common prisoner.”
Villár’s death last week after a long prison hunger strike triggered a string of dissident protests over the weekend and the short-term police detentions of about 80 opposition activists, according to government opponents.
More protests, pots-and-pans demonstrations and other public activities are planned for Tuesday, according to the National Front for Civic Resistance, an umbrella organization of dissident groups around the island.
The government-organized mob and scores of police laid siege Sunday to the Cristo Redentor church in the eastern city of Holguin as two members of the Ladies in White and Javier Martinez, a dissident also dressed in white, attended mass to pray for Villár.
“We were terrified because the mob was armed with sticks and rocks,” the 25-year-old Martinez told El Nuevo Herald Monday by phone from Holguin. “It was something horrible.”
After the Mass, the Rev. Arnaldo Aldama told the dissidents to remain in the church while he went out and told the mob that “the people in the church were just as Cuban as they were,” Martinez said.
Holguin Bishop Emilio Aranguren arrived amid the standoff and met privately with a local government official in charge of relations with the church, Martinez added. During the talks several members of the dissident Christian Liberation Movement slipped into the church.
After the Aranguren meeting, the mob dispersed and the estimated 100 police in uniform and plain clothes withdrew about 200 yards from the church, said Jose Ramon Pupo Nieves, 40, a dissident who said he watched the incident from the edges of the mob.
Neighbors applauded as the dissidents emerged from the church and rushed to their homes, fearing that police would detain them on the way, both Martinez and Pupo reported.
A person who answered the phone at Aranguren’s office said the bishop was out of town. Calls to Aldama’s cellular phone were answered with a message that it was shut off or out of the service area.
Pupo and Martinez praised the two priests for their decision to protect the dissidents, very likely a tough choice at a time when the Cuban Catholic Church is preparing for Pope Benedict XVI’s planned visit to the island March 26-28. The Miami Herald
 

Planes continue to return from Cuba full with sick Canadians

Jan. 22 - Canadian travellers are continuing to return from Cuba with more than their vacation memories.
For the fifth time in less than a week, a Canadian airline is reporting several ill passengers on a flight returning from the vacation destination of Holguin.
Although many travelers on each flight reported staying at the same resorts, at least four resorts have been identified amongst the travellers onboard the first four affected flights, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada. Health officials in Cuba have been contacted, said Sylwia Gomes, a spokeswoman for Public Health, and in Canada agency officials are monitoring the situation.

Fifteen passengers on an Air Transat flight that landed in Montreal late Saturday reported feeling sick, said Debbie Cabana, a spokeswoman for the airline. The airline contacted health officials before the plane landed, she said, but once passengers were on the ground it was determined that because of the mild nature of their symptoms, health officials were not required.
The airline is taking extra precautions to disinfect planes travelling to the island and crew are being advised to be extra vigilant about hygiene, she said.
Michelle Larabie said she got sick on a plane returning to Toronto from Holguin on Jan. 13, a week earlier than the other flights. She said she began feeling nauseous while in the air, and her sickness and diarrhea lasted nearly a week.
“As soon as we landed, I had to run to the washroom,” Ms. Larabie said. Read more The Globe and Mail

Cubana Airlines is planning a new non-stop flight Holguín-Toronto:


 

Statement by Yoani Sánchez on the death of Wilman Villar

Jan. 20 - Translation by our friend Alberto de la Cruz:

Greetings and good evening.
My name is Yoani Sanchez. I am a blogger, a citizen journalist, and I want to make a denouncement.
I want to denounce that in my country, people have to use their bodies, their intestines, their stomachs as a battlefield, as as a way to mount a civic protest. It is very lamentable that an entire population -- 11-million Cubans on this island -- has had all their rights as citizens taken away or limited. The civic, electoral, and judicial avenues for citizens to seek change, to demand a transformation, to demand the end of the status quo in our country has been blocked. What do we have left? Well, the people then must use hunger strikes as a way to express their nonconformity. It is very sad what has happened today, the death of Wilman Villar. It is also very sad that Orlando Zapata Tamayo had to die. Until when will Cubans have to put their own bodies up as a form of protest?
That is the denouncement I wanted to make. Perhaps it is just like a bottle thrown into the sea, something that falls into an abyss, but on this 19th of January, I want to leave constancy of this. Please, we do not want to continue utilizing our skin, our bones, as a way to show our outrage. We have to have the right to do it without repression.
Thank you.

 

Political prisoner Wilman Villar dies after 50 days in a hunger strike

Jan. 19 - Wilman Villar, a Cuban political prisoner who had been in a hunger strike for the last 50 days, died on Thursday night at Juan Bruno Zayas Hospital in Santiago de Cuba.

"We hold the Castro regime responsible for his death. They are the only ones responsible, "said Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia, spokesman for the Cuban Patriotic Union (UNPACU). "The family is mourning his death. Tyranny has just committed another crime," said Ferrer.

Villar, who was only 31 years old , became a new martyr in the ranks of the opposition who risk their lives in defense of individual liberties and human rights. Villar was on life support for several days. His condition worsened in recent days due to an outbreak of sepsis caused by a heavy infection in the bloodstream. Doctors warned the family that only a miracle could save his life.

The complication irreversibly affected the functioning of the liver and kidneys, according to the last medical specialists who treated him in the intensive care ward of the hospital.
On Thursday, his wife Maritza Pellegrino said that agents of Cuba's State Security didn't allow her to see the body of her husband.

Villar was serving a four year sentence for opposing the Castro regime.

On January 14, he was rushed to a hospital in critical condition and unconscious. In November he had been confined to Aguadores, one of the most brutal prisons in Castro's Gulag, after being arrested during a police offensive in Contramaestre, near Santiago de Cuba.
In a trial behind closed doors and without any procedural guarantees, Villar was charged with assault, disrespect and resistance.

Villar denied the allegations and, putting aside the risk that could mean an act of rebellion, he went on a hunger strike on November 25. He later  contracted pneumonia, which was aggravated by the hardships he suffered.
Villar never wanted to wear the common prisoner's uniform. In retaliation, his jailers sent him to a one-person cell, without clothes or acces to water.

Another crime of the brutal dictatorship of the Castro brothers!

And in the meantime, the Pope is getting ready for his trip to Cuba, the Miami Archdioceses is preparing tourist packages to profit from the visit, and the rest of the world couldn't care less about this new crime of the fascist regime in Cuba. El Nuevo Herald (Spanish)

 

María Corina Machado calls Chávez a "thief" to his face

Jan. 13 - Hugo Chávez spoke for more than 8 hours during his annual speech to the Venezuelan National Assembly on Friday, during which he announced the closing of the Venezuelan consulate office in Miami.

The US government expelled the Venezuelan consul in charge of that office after accusing her of conspiring with Iranian and Cuban agents to attack the US computer networks.

María Corina Machado, a Venezuelan legislator and a potential presidential candidate, told Chávez that during his marathon state of the country speech, he didn't say a word about the things that the Venezuelan people really wants to hear, the shortages of basic goods like milk, untamed crime and failed nationalizations that she referred to as "robberies."

"We've been listening to you for eight hours describe a country very different to the one we mothers know," she said, telling Chavez: "Mr. President, your time is finished."

María Corina Machado also told Chávez that the Venezuelan people don't want communism.

Watch the video (Spanish)

 

Video of a mob controlled by the Cuban regime, attacking the home of Maritza Castro in Havana

Jan. 12 - On Tuesday, January 10, the home of Cuban dissident Maritza Castro was attacked by a paramilitary mob under the control of Cuba's State Security.

The mob threw rocks and used wood stick to break the windows of the activist's home.

 

The ANC thanks Castro for his "unwavering support", while Jesse denounces "economic apartheid"

Jan. 9 - This weekend, African National Congress (ANC) president Jacob Zuma paid tribute to the men and women who sacrificed their lives for the liberation of South Africa, and to Castro's Cuba for "its unwavering support," during a ceremony to commemorate the 100 anniversary of the organization.

Also in attendance was US civil rights activist, Rev. Jesse Jackson who said it was time the country snapped out of "educational and economic apartheid."

"We single out Cuba for her unwavering support to the movement. "Freedom would not have been achieved (without the support)," Zuma said.

What a pair of hypocrites! What about freedom for the Cuban poeple?

Neither one of them has ever said one word about the abuses of the racist regime in Cuba, a country where 11 million human beings, the majority of them black or of a mixed race, has been enslaved for 53 years by the same Castro brothers who they thank for the "liberation" of their homeland.

When have you heard any of these so called " Black activists" denounce the brutal abuses of the Castro regime against the Cuban people?

Meanwhile, Jesse Jackson told the crowd: "Now you have been freed from humiliation of skin color apartheid- but there is educational apartheid, there is economic apartheid and land ownership."

Have you ever heard Jesse Jackson mention one word about the tourist apartheid in Cuba?

Have you ever heard him denounce the fact that only two Cubans, whose last name is Castro, are not subjected to the economic apartheid in the island?

Have you ever heard him denounce the fact that Cubans are second class citizens in their own country?

No way, Jesse would not jeopardize the opportunity to be wined and dined by the racist slave masters that have kept Cubans enslaved for 53 long years.

These are not "activists" on my book, they are HYPOCRITES!  The Africa Report

 

Listen to Fidel Castro

For those who think that the Cuban people chose the system imposed by the Castro brothers, here are some of the things that Fidel Castro said and promised when he gained power Click Here

 

Visit our updated Videos page with many new and old videos

 

Satellite photos of Cuba's prisons, missile installations, military bases and more

 

A look at Havana before the Castro brothers destroyed it Cuba B.C

 

Visit our updated page: The Useful Idiots

 

Our new page: Fidel Castro, the World's oldest terrorist

 

We have new photos of Havana taken in October of last year

Oct. 9 - A friend sent me around two dozen photos of Havana that he took at the beginning of this month.

Some of them are very sad, because they show how Havana has been completely destroyed by this gang of human termites.

Some others are hard to believe, including this one of goats having "lunch" off the dumpsters on a Havana street.

Click here  to see them

 

Article in El Nuevo Herald about Cuban Search

July 16 - Today's El Nuevo Herald has an article and a video about my new website, Cuban Search, that helps Cubans inside and outside the island, find relatives with whom they have lost contact.

Cuban Search serves as the missing-link with their relatives and friends between those millions of Cubans who are now spread all over the world and who may be trying to find them. El Nuevo Herald (Spanish)

 

Capitol Hill Cubans: Finding lost Friends

June 25 - Nearly every Cuban exile has a harrowing story about how they fled Castro's Cuba.
Each journey is full of tremendous risk, pain and sacrifice -- and that's just to leave the island.
Then, there are the challenges of starting a new life in a foreign land.
To help ease this transition, a new website has been launched to help Cubans find their friends and relatives abroad.
It's called Cuban Search.
According to its founder, George Utset (of the blog, The Real Cuba), the response has been overwhelming -- parents looking for their children who had left Cuba and they couldn't find, children looking for their parents, brothers, cousins, friends and schoolmates.
You can either search for a particular name, or register and enter the person that you are looking for.
You can search alphabetically, by city, or even by school.
Cuban Search has also teamed up with Cuba Archive Project to provide a database of Cubans who have disappeared at sea trying to escape Castro's Cuba.
It is estimated that as many as 70,000 Cubans have perished at sea in search for freedom.
Thus far, 900 have been identified. Capitol Hill Cubans

 

Socio-Economic Conditions in Pre-Castro Cuba

Dec. 17 - Cuba Facts is an ongoing series of succinct fact sheets on various topics, including, but not limited to, political structure, health, economy, education, nutrition, labor, business, foreign investment, and demographics, published and updated on a regular basis by the Cuba Transition Project staff at the University of Miami.

Click here to learn the truth about Cuba's Health, Education, Personal Consumption and much more in pre-Castro Cuba.

 

More photos showing how the Castro brothers have destroyed one of the world's most beautiful cities

Click here

 

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