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CUBA POLITICS SECTION - Havana Journal > Humanitarian
Latin American Herald Tribune
Reporters Without Borders on Wednesday demanded the immediate release of Cuban photojournalist Maria Nelida Lopez Baez, who is being held at an unknown location on the communist-ruled island.
The journalist faces possible persecution for “pre-criminal social danger,” the Paris-based organization, known as RSF, said in a statement.
“The regime once again feels the need to censor and crack down on dissidents and journalists,” RSF said. “This helps to explain why it was so contemptuous about the recent decision, obtained thanks to the efforts of other Latin American countries, to let Cuba back into the Organization of…
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The U.S. and Cuba have agreed to resume migration and postal talks, according to a State Department official who briefed reporters.
Diplomats from both countries met in Washington yesterday and agreed to resume talks that have been suspended for six years on legal and illegal migration from Cuba to the U.S. The two officials also agreed to discuss the resumption of direct mail service, which hasn’t existed for decades.
The U.S. and Cuba have not had full diplomatic ties in the aftermath of the 1959 communist revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power. Raul Castro formally succeeded his brother…
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Rob Sequin | Havana Journal (user name Publisher - See my comments in bold below. Too many comments to post at the end.)
AFP
Cuban bloggers are fighting a cyberwar with the government to give their own version of reality on the communist island, from hotels and using memory sticks and laptops obtained from abroad.
Bloggers with “alternative” agendas say it is becoming harder to evade official censorship, although they have managed to multiply in the past three years in a country where Internet access is limited.
Havana accuses them of being on the payroll of Washington and other governments…
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By ELLIOT WILSON | Barrons
An outspoken dissident argues that lifting the longstanding U.S. trade embargo would quickly undermine the Castro brothers’ power.
A proud, upright figure, Oscar Espinosa Chepe was a young guerrilla leader in Fidel Castro’s army when the rebels came out of the mountains and seized power from the corrupt Fulgencio Batista 50 years ago this January. Twice he rose high in the government, but twice he also challenged official dogma and fell from grace. Now he is a pro-American economist in Havana, living in the shadowlands of the dissident community and telling his life story.
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Reuters
Cuba would have to meet minimum standards on human rights and democracy before Canada supported any reintegration of Havana into the Organization of American States, a Canadian spokesman said on Wednesday.
Several Latin American countries, including Brazil, have said Cuba should be allowed to rejoin the 35-member OAS. It was suspended in 1962 because the OAS judged Cuba’s communist system to be incompatible with the group’s principles.
“Cuba’s return, or eventual return, if they’re willing, will obviously depend on Cuba’s will to address hemispheric norms of participation, including representative democracy and respect for human rights,” Canadian spokesman Dimitri…
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(Publisher note: This article was submitted by one of the authors, Matt Lawrence, who is a member of the Havana Journal. The management of Havana Journal Inc. has approved of the posting as a courtesy to one of its members. However, all opinions and statements are those of the author and not of the management of Havana Journal Inc.)
March 30, 2009
By Wes Vernon
April is “Cuba month” for the Obama administration.
The Observer, the Sunday edition of the UK’s left-wing Guardian, approvingly tells its readers that the Obama White House “has moved to ease some travel and…
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Latin American Herald Tribune
Cuban dissidents on Thursday said that the government briefly detained between 60 and 100 people to prevent them from taking part in opposition activities marking the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The head of the outlawed Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, Elizardo Sanchez, told Efe that on Wednesday the government launched “a new wave of political repression” by detaining “between 60 and 100 people,” although almost all of them have now been released.
“We’re still identifying the names. That’s normal, and it is to be expected that it will…
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The France-based media rights group Reporters Without Borders on Thursday named jailed Cuban journalist Ricardo Gonzalez Alfonso its 2008 Reporter of the Year. The award was bestowed on the dissident Cuban “for helping an independent press to survive in Cuba,” the group said on its web site.
Gonzalez was arrested in March 2003 along with 26 other dissident journalists and sentenced to 20 years in prison for “being in the pay of the United States” and “undermining Cuba’s independence and territorial integrity.”
Since being shut away in Havana’s Combinado del Este prison in late 2004, he has suffered from…
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By CBS News Producer Portia Siegelbaum
Cubans already reeling from two devastating hurricanes this year woke up to scenes of yet more destruction.
The first pictures coming out of Santa Cruz del Sur, where late-season Hurricane Paloma made landfall Saturday evening as a Category 3 storm, reveal a cat’s cradle of wooden beams and bricks - all that is left of this city of some 10,000 people.
A massive evacuation operation protected lives here where nearly 76 years ago to the day a hurricane left 3,000 dead.
One million Cubans in central…
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Presstv.ir News source from Iran
Amnesty International has called on the US President-elect, Barack Obama, to lift the 46-year-old trade embargo on Cuba.
Irene Khan, Amnesty International’s secretary general, said changing Washington’s Cuba policy would help Obama restore the US’ moral authority, which she said was damaged during the administration of President George W. Bush.
“Obama should close Guantanamo. Obama should make a public statement confirming the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment,” she said.
The US President-elect who has expressed his openness to hold talks with the Cuban President Raul Castro says that he will keep the trade…
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