By JIM KUHNHENN | Associated Press

Days from now, a stately black schooner will sail through a narrow channel into Havana’s protected harbor, its two masts bearing the rarest of sights — the U.S. Stars and Stripes, with the Cuban flag fluttering nearby.

The ship is the Amistad, a U.S.-flagged vessel headed for largely forbidden Cuban waters as a symbol of both a dark 19th century past and modern public diplomacy.
The Amistad is the 10-year-old official tall ship of the state of Connecticut and a replica of the Cuban coastal trader that sailed from Havana in 1839 with…
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(Editing by Jeff Franks and Alan Elsner) | Reuters

Cuban police grabbed members of the opposition group “Ladies in White” by their hair, dragged them into a bus and drove them away to break up a protest march on Wednesday.

The white clothes the women traditionally wear were smeared with mud as they resisted policewomen forcing them into a bus. Government protesters shouted insults at them for the second day in a row.

The march was the third this week by the Ladies in White who are protesting the 2003 imprisonment of their husbands and sons, most of whom are…
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By Nelson Acosta and Jeff Franks | Reuters

Cuban government supporters harassed and shouted at members of the opposition group “Ladies in White” on Tuesday in Havana as the women marched in protest against the 2003 imprisonment of 75 dissidents.

The women, numbering about two dozen and dressed in white, had to be protected by state security agents after they stopped and yelled “Freedom, Freedom!” in front of the headquarters of the Cuban state journalists union.

The dissidents were marching for the second day in a protest to commemorate the 2003 “Black Spring” crackdown by the government against opponents.

About…
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Rob Sequin | Havana Journal

The European Union voted today to condemn Cuba for the “avoidable and cruel” death of dissident hunger striker Orlando Zapata Tamayo.

The European assembly called on Cuba to immediately release all political prisoners and urged the EU foreign affairs liaison Catherine Ashton, to push the Castro regime toward a peaceful transition towards a multiparty democracy.

The vote of 509-30 with 14 abstentions in favor comes as another Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas is seriously ill from his own hunger strike that he is using as a demand to get Cuban political prisoners freed. The assembly…
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Rob Sequin | Havana Journal

A new ruling from OFAC regarding Cuban Assets Control Regulations, effective immediately, states that US companies can export certain services “incident to the exchange of personal communications over the Internet”.

This new action will allow Cuban citizens to access various instant messaging, blogging and social networking services based in the US. Cubans theoretically will have access to popular social networking services like Google’s Blogger, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft Hotmail and other personal communication services as long as the Cuban government allows their use.

On April…
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