Cuba : News

News : Cuba : News

A retired State Department employee and his wife pleaded guilty Friday to a 30-year conspiracy to provide classified information from the U.S. to Cuba. (MiamiHerald.com)

Cuba's celebrated and increasingly brassy blogger Yoani Sánchez emerged Thursday as a player in U.S.-Cuba relations, scoring a lengthy reply from President Barack Obama to her questions and playing a starring role in a congressional hearing on efforts to let American tourists visit Cuba. (MiamiHerald.com)

A high-octane effort to let U.S. tourists visit Cuba got a major endorsement Thursday from one of the island's leading dissidents, who suggested that ``along with suitcases, Bermuda shorts, and sunblock, support, solidarity, and freedom could come too.'' Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez, who this week drew the attention of President Barack Obama, wrote in an essay to House Foreign Affairs chairman Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., that lifting the ban on U.S. travel to Cuba ``could bring more results in the democratization of Cuba than the indecisive performance of Raúl Castro.'' (MiamiHerald.com)

<!--#include virtual="/static/blog_includes/cuban_colada.html" --> (MiamiHerald.com)

Cuban purchases of U.S. food will fall by at least a third this year as the island slashes imports to stabilize an ever-weak economy further hammered by the global economic crisis, a top trade official said Monday. (MiamiHerald.com)

Cuba's armed forces launched three days of intense military exercises across the island Thursday, a mobilization that state-controlled media says is designed to guard against an American invasion. (MiamiHerald.com)

Independent journalist Aini Martín says she was detained last week as she took photos of a policeman seizing merchandise from an elderly street vendor. (MiamiHerald.com)

Members of the National Police Force arrested five blind street vendors in the capital last week. (MiamiHerald.com)

The government has eliminated potatoes from from the subsidized basket of food purchased under the ration card in the capital. (MiamiHerald.com)

The request of dissident Carlos Manuel Pupo for 3.5 hectares (8.75 acres) of unused farmland has been rejected by the government. (MiamiHerald.com)

La ``troika'' de la Uni&oacute;n Europea (UE) y Cuba celebrar&aacute;n este s&aacute;bado en Bruselas la reuni&oacute;n que estaba prevista en Nueva York a finales de septiembre, en paralelo al encuentro de la Asamblea General de la ONU, pero que finalmente qued&oacute; aplazada. (MiamiHerald.com)

PRESOS/ Periodistas independientes cubanos y familiares de encarcelados pidieron este mi&eacute;rcoles a los mandatarios que asistir&aacute;n a la XIX Cumbre Iberoamericana la pr&oacute;xima semana en la ciudad de Estoril, Portugal, que intercedan ante el gobierno cubano por la liberaci&oacute;n de los presos. (MiamiHerald.com)

Una delegaci&oacute;n de activistas cubano-estadounidenses, empresarios y ex prisioneros pol&iacute;ticos de organizaciones del exilio cubano viajar&aacute;n a Honduras como observadores internacionales de las elecciones del domingo, inform&oacute; una entidad en Miami. (MiamiHerald.com)

Delf&iacute;n Gonz&aacute;lez camina por el modesto museo que tiene desde hace a&ntilde;os en su casa de La Peque&ntilde;a Habana y no puede evitar la nostalgia al mirar las fotograf&iacute;as, juguetes y ropas de su famoso sobrino, Eli&aacute;n. (MiamiHerald.com)

The Obama administration has caved to demands from Fidel and Raul Castro's government to shut down a U.S.-sponsored electronic billboard in Havana. This is a symbolic step backward in America's mission to promote freedom (MiamiHerald.com)

American and Cuban diplomats took the first small steps toward improving relations between our two countries with talks in New York this week on migration issues. The discussions revived a regular dialogue between Washington and Havana on migration issues for the first time in 6 years, and followed a pledge by President Barack Obama to reach out to all of America's neighbors in the Western Hemisphere. (MiamiHerald.com)

Most Latin American leaders slammed the 47-year-old U.S. embargo of Cuba at the mid-April Summit of the Americas in Trinidad. Fidel Castro hadn’t been invited, so he ranted about the “blockade”—and President Obama—from Havana. This all sounds familiar, but there is an important new twist today. The Obama team, and shifts in Cuban American opinion, give hope that we may finally move toward eliminating the embargo—if we can jettison unrealistic demands and expectations. (MiamiHerald.com)

Bill Clinton and George W. Bush recently had a face-to-face debate in Canada to discuss current affairs. The only Latin American nation mentioned in their conversation? Cuba. (MiamiHerald.com)

Havana, Nov 26 The Defense Exercise "Bastion 2009" is starting Thursday in Cuba with the slogan "Actions of the country and territories during the period of crisis to face military aggressions of the enemy on a large scale." The aim of the three-day maneuver is to train leadership and command structures, and strengthen the preparation of military ...

Communist Cuba's shift away from the leadership of Fidel Castro to his brother President Raul Castro has failed to end human rights violations including persistent aggression against dissidents.

By Tom Evans, CNN November 23, 2009 8:26 p.m. EST A European Union commissioner Monday told CNN's Christiane Amanpour that Europe's policy toward Cuba in the future will place less emphasis on human rights in the island nation than now.

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen blasted efforts to open Cuba up to U.S. tourists Thursday during a House Foreign Affairs Coomittee meeting, suggesting the tourist dollars would only keep the regime in power. (MiamiHerald.com)

Cuba's government remains as repressive under Ra&uacute;l Castro as it was under his brother Fidel, according to the first in-depth report on the island's human rights since the younger Castro took power. (MiamiHerald.com)

More than 50 House Democrats sent a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi supporting current Cuba policy, which embargo-supporters say effectively means that a bill to open Cuba to tourists is dead. (MiamiHerald.com)

Famed Cuban blogger Yoani S&aacute;nchez said Friday she and another blogger were punched and thrown violently into a car by presumed state security agents as they walked to participate in a peaceful march in downtown Havana. (MiamiHerald.com)

President Barack Obama has answered questions submitted by a celebrated Cuban blogger, saying he isn't interested in "talking for the sake of talking" with Raul Castro and indicating he won't visit the island until the communist government changes its ways. (MiamiHerald.com)

President Barack Obama has answered questions submitted by a celebrated Cuban blogger, saying he isn't interested in "talking for the sake of talking" with Raul Castro and indicating he won't visit the island until the communist government changes its ways. (MiamiHerald.com)

Former political prisoner Vladimir Alejo Miranda has painted the front of his house black, which, he says, is a sign of mourning for Cuba. (MiamiHerald.com)

Bruno Rodr&iacute;guez se entrevistar&aacute; con la denominada 'troika europea' ... (MiamiHerald.com)

SECUESTRADOR/ La Fiscal&iacute;a y la defensa de Luis Armando Pe&ntilde;a Soltren, acusado de secuestrar un avi&oacute;n comercial y desviarlo a Cuba en 1968, acudieron el martes a un tribunal federal en Manhattan para tratar de establecer la fecha del inicio del juicio contra el puertorrique&ntilde;o. (MiamiHerald.com)

<p align="right"><p align="right"> <span class="dropcap-large">E</span>l escritor colombiano William Ospina, premio ``R&oacute;mulo Gallegos'' 2009 por la novela <I>El pa&iacute;s de la canela</I>, abri&oacute; en La Habana la ``Semana de Autor'', de la que es invitado especial, con una conferencia en la que asegur&oacute; que el espa&ntilde;ol le debe mucho a Hispanoam&eacute;rica. (MiamiHerald.com)