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Posts Tagged ‘castro’

Castro close to death, says U.S.

12:35 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Cuba|Politics · Comments Off

15 Dec 2006

The U.S. government is claiming that Cuban leader Fidel Castro is extremely ill and near death, reports Reuters:

Everything we see indicates it will not be much longer … months, not years,” Negroponte told The Washington Post.

As speculation swirls around what will happen when Castro actually does die, a Gallup poll shows that 47% of Cubans agree with Castro’s regime:

The Gallup poll released Thursday showed that 47 percent of the Cubans polled approved the job performance of their leaders and 40 percent disapproved.

The flip side of the poll is that the Cubans polled say they aren’t satisfied with the personal liberty they have under Castro’s rule:

Only one in four Cubans declared to be satisfied with their levels of personal freedom. By contrast, four out of every five Latin Americans said they were satisfied with their personal freedom.

Via / Reuters and Miami Herald

Oliver Stone fined for violating Cuba “embargo”

12:07 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Celebrities|Cuba|Politics · Comments Off

13 Dec 2006

Legendary filmmaker Oliver Stone has been fined $6322 for negotiating goods and/or services with the Cuban government and/or Cuban citizens during the filming of his documentary Looking for Fidel:

The penalty includes IXTLAN Corporation, Stone’s production company, and members of the crew that worked on “Looking for Fidel”, which premiered on HBO in 2004, reports El Nuevo Herald, citing sources “familiar with the case”.

The fine was imposed by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, part of the Department of Treasury, which informed that IXTLAN Corporation has arrived at an agreement to pay the sanction for “violations which occurred during the making of the documentary, between February 2002 and May 2003.”

According to 20 Minutos, OFAC fined Americans violating trade laws with Cuba over $250,000 last year.

Via / 20 Minutos

No Nikon for a Cuban boy

2:40 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Controversia|Cuba|Politics · Comments Off

31 Oct 2006

Raysel%20Sosa.jpg If you live in Cuba, apparently you can’t have a Nikon camera. Or at least that’s what Nikon is telling a young Cuban boy who won a contest for one. Nikon is citing the U.S. government’s restriction of entry into Cuba on products produced in the U.S.:

A 12 year-old Cuban boy, Raysel Sosa González, won a Nikon digital camera as a prize for an international environmental painting contest held in Algeria and organized by the United Nations.

Nikon, the company who makes the digital camera, refused to delvier the gift to the child citing the content of a clause from Washington that prohibits the entry into the island of products with components from the United States.

It seems that the digital camera contains elements that are included in the list created by the U.S. during the 1962 Cuban Missle Crisis.

Castro and Chavez: (Almost) in bed together

6:38 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Controversia|Cuba|Politics|Venezuela · Comments Off

15 Aug 2006

Last week La Mala told us about the “love notes” circulating between ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Today we found images of Fidel “in good spirits”, according to Cuban newspapers, and in the company of his amigo del alma Hugo:

Lying in bed, the Cuban president smiles and shakes hands with Mr Chavez, a close ally, as they celebrate his 80th birthday.

The state newspaper Granma earlier published still photos of the meeting.

…Granma called the bedside visit “Three Hours of Emotional Exchange”.

The photos show gifts being exchanged and the two leaders eating what Granma called a “frugal snack”.

The accompanying story quoted Mr Chavez – one of Mr Castro’s closest political allies – as saying: “This is the best visit I’ve ever had in my life.”

He is reported to have expressed admiration for the Cuban leader’s stamina, saying: “What kind of human being is this? What material is it made of?”

God, they really do sound like they are in love.

Via / BBC News

Photo via AP

International left: Don’t mess with Cuba

5:34 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Cuba|Latin America|Politics · Comments Off

7 Aug 2006

Intellectual luminaries from all sectors of society and from all over the world are getting together to tell the U.S. government one thing: stay out of Cuba. In an open letter to the United States government, the list of personalities reads like a whos-who of international thought leaders:

José Saramago, Portugal; Wole Soyinka, Nigeria; Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Argentina; Dario Fo, Italia; Desmond Tutu, Sudáfrica; Rigoberta Menchú, Guatemala; Nadine Gordimer, Sudáfrica; Zhores Alfiorov, Rusia; Noam Chomsky, EEUU; Oscar Niemeyer, Brasil;Harry Belafonte, EEUU; Mario Benedetti, Uruguay.

And that’s just the first paragraph…of about 20 more. I have my reservations about Prensa Latina as a news source, but this seems legit. Check out the whole list of signers.

Via / Prensa Latina

Cuba is paradise on Earth, says paper

4:22 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Cuba|Latin America|Media|Newspapers · 1 Comment

22 Nov 2005

To preface this post, I am not commenting either way on the rightness or wrongness of Castro’s Cuba. I have very mixed feelings about the topic that have nothing to do with the fact that I just find Prensa Latina, a publication in English which is very obviously propaganda Castrista, amusing at times. It’s so blatant it reminds me of Fox News. The headline today was: “Cubans Have Potential to Live to 120″ (which I don’t doubt, really) and following are some “interesting” excerpts:

Selman considers that it is important to be motivated, healthy, physically active, and culturally and environmentally educated to achieve that goal.

In this respect, he highlighted the possibilities Cuba offers to reach that objective, because it counts on a just social system, essentially humane and supportive.

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