Posts Tagged ‘Cuba’
Sunday Brunch Links
8:37 am By Maegan La Mala · Controversia|Cuba|Immigration|Linking Latinos|Quicklinks · Comments Off
8 Feb 2009I’ve been way off my game this week and am trying to come back. Mientras tanto, peep what I’m reading/watching this lovely domingo morning:
Shock! Fidel Castro criticizes Obama. Guess he’s not dead yet.
Miley Cyrus may have been nominated for a Kid’s Choice Award, pero she’s still racist.
Feliz Sunday. It’s beautiful out, at least here in NYC it is, so get outside into the sun. She’s missed you.
On New Year’s Day, 1959 Fidel Castro and his band of Revolutionary Directorate rebels defeated General Fulgencio Batista’s forces and led his country towards a revolution. Few thought it would hold, but here we are some 50 years later, and Castro’s revolutionary ideal for Cuba is still going, if not strong, along.
While the rest of the world was congratulating each other on the New Year, Fidel was congratulating his countrymen on the longevity of his ideals:
“Upon the 50th anniversary of the triumph, I congratulate our heroic countrymen,” said Castro, 82, in a brief note dated Wednesday afternoon and published in on the cover of Granma, the Communist party’s newspaper.
Lacking a non-generic comment from Fidel or anything of substance from Raul on the future of the revolution, we turn to Mariela, Raul’s daughter, the most outspoken member of the family. Check out what she has to say in the video after the jump.
Flood of Cuban “Grandchildren” into Spain
8:45 am By Maegan La Mala · Cuba|history|Immigration|Latin America|Spain|World · Comments Off
31 Dec 2008
Spain announced last week the opportunity for mass nationalization of the grandchildren of Spanish citizens who were forced to flee to Cuba during the Spanish Civil War, and the response from Cubans fitting this description has been overwhelming.
Cuban cardiologist Norberto Díaz Reyes will be a Spaniard in 15 days. And he hopes to be in the “madre patria” in less than 3 months. “I always wanted to return to my grandparents’ country. I would like to live and work in Spain for many years”, he says, with a smile wider than the Havana harbor. Norberto, 38, was the first person in his country to take advantage of the so-called “Grandchildren Law”, part of the “Historial Memory Law”, which, starting yesterday and lasting for two years, will let some 150,000 Cuban descendents of emigrants and exiles, obtain Spanish citizenship.
150,000 may not sound like a lot, but that’s only a fraction of what the Spanish government is expecting. In looking at data, it appears that there should be a lot more people on their way to the Spanish consulate in Havana: in just the first third of the last century, over one million Spaniards had emigrated to Cuba. Another piece of data is that in 1905 there were over 100,000 Spaniards from Galicia — just one region of Spain – living on the island. These numbers point to a possible avalanche of petitions for citizenship, and the Spanish consulate has hired an extra 35 people just to deal with all of them.
El País reports that some people waiting in line (for days, some for weeks and months)could care less about living in Spain; what they want is a European passport so they can get to Miami.
Similar lines are forming outside of consulates around Latin America, such as the one in Buenos Aires, where the Spanish government has hired 150 extra employees to handle the demand.
Via / El País
Raul Castro Offers U.S. Prisoner Exchange
19 Dec 2008
In what could be interpreted as an attempt to warm relations between Cuba and the United States, Cuban President Raul Castro has offered to exchange political dissidents in his country for five Cubans jailed in the United States.
Answering a question about political prisoners in Cuba, Castro said: “We will send those prisoners you talk about [to the United States]with their families. But give us back our five heroes.”
Via / Miami Herald
Could change really be coming with the Obama administration, especially in terms of U.S. – Cuba relations? Fidel Castro and his hermano, the actual president of Cuba Raul Castro seem to think so.
Obama took alot of heat during his presidential campaign for saying that he would be wiling to sit down with so-called “enemy” Latin American countries, namely Cuba and Venezuela.
“With Obama, talks could happen anywhere he wants,” Fidel Castro, America’s longtime Cold War enemy, wrote in the latest of a series of columns he has published in state-run media since falling ill in 2006.
“He should remember the carrot-and-stick approach will not work with our country,” Castro wrote of Obama. “The sovereign rights of the Cuban people are not negotiable.”
In spite of the death wishes of many a Cuban exile and speculation that he has been dead for some time now, new images and words keep coming from Cuban leader Fidel Castro. The latest picture is dated October 20th and features Fidel being visited by the second in power of the Russian Orthodox Church, Kiril Gundajaev. Castro hasn’t appeared in public since July 2006. His words, however have never stopped.
Oil is gold these days, as a hot topic on the presidential campaign trail, and as a commodity that fuels more than homes, but also wars and diplomatic relations. Take the U.S. relationship with Venezuela for example. One of the biggest threats that President Chavez has made is that he will cut off U.S. access to Venezuela’s oil. Now there is a new potential threat. Well not new, pero a new spin on an old threat. Cuba announced that there may be more than 20bn barrels of recoverable oil in offshore fields in Cuba’s share of the Gulf of Mexico, more than twice the previous estimate.
What does this mean if it is indeed true?
Fidel Castro Recieves Human Rights Award
10:08 am By Maegan La Mala · Controversia|Politics|South Africa · Comments Off
16 Sep 2008
Fidel Castro has won the South African Ubuntu award for his contributions to “humankind beyond boundaries.”
Castro won the award “for the role he played in the Cuban revolution and worldwide contribution to the struggle for an alternative, just and humane society,” the statement said.
According to our research on the award, which was first given in 2006 to Nelson Mandela, there seems to be little relation to the award and the current realities of Cuba, rather it seems to be focused on Cuba and Castro’s international work, specifically African liberation struggles.
Another Way to Help Cuban Hurricane Survivors
13 Sep 2008Help us organize an IFCO-Pastors for Peace Construction Brigade
of 30-50 skilled carpenters, electricians, plumbers, etc.
They and a small number of support individuals will travel to Cuba for
approximately two weeks to assist in the reconstruction of
social projects-i.e. schools, hospitals, medical facilities, home for the elderly, etc.
This brigade will arrive in Cuba with tools and humanitarian aid collected from our friends.
As usual this aid will be delivered to the Ecumenical Distribution
Committee which will distribute the aid wherever it is needed most.
Help us organize a mini-caravan to gather aid that Cuba says they need.
Send a generous donation. IFCO has established a Hurricane Relief
Fund to respond as best we can to the needs of our brothers and
sisters in Cuba.
The magnitude of need in Cuba has reached historic proportions. Each
of us can contribute in some way to the recovery effort.
You have helped us in the past.
Our friends in Cuba need our support now more than ever before.
Please be as generous as you can. Send your tax-exempt
contributions to: IFCO, 418 W. 145th Street, New York, NY 10031 212-926-5757 by phone
or by snail mail or
donate online at our website.
Let us help Cuba rebuild with no strings attached!
All contributions are tax deductible. IFCO is a 501c3 non
profit organization.
And please dont forget to urge other people of faith,
conscience and
good will to contribute in any way possible to this effort.
Important: Please designate all contributions with the
word ‘Hurricane”. Do not use the word “Cuba” in the
subject notation line of your check or with an online donation.
Donating on line is safe, simple and straight forward:
Go to www.IFCONEWS.org
contributions online
Designate your donation amount and write Hurricane Relief in the box online.
Tomorrow in Washington DC : Protest for the Cuban 5
11:00 am By Maegan La Mala · Activism|Cuba|Washington DC · Comments Off
12 Sep 2008
The Cuban Five are five Cuban men who are in U.S. prisons, serving four life sentences and 75 years collectively, after being arrested in September 1998 and wrongly convicted in U.S. federal court in Miami in 2001.
They are Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González. They were falsely accused by the U.S. government of committing espionage conspiracy against the United States, and related charges.
But the Five pointed out vigorously in their defense that they were fighting terrorism — they were monitoring the actions of CIA-backed Miami-based terrorist groups, in order to prevent attacks on Cuba.
The Five’s actions were never directed at the U.S.government. They never harmed anyone nor ever possessed nor used any weapons while in the United States.
Saturday, September 13, Washington, DC
* 10 am: Morning Rally at Malcolm X Park, 15th St. & Euclid NW.
* 12 noon: March to the White House
* 2:30 pm: Indoor Rally at SEIU Building
1800 Massachusetts Ave. NW, 1st Floor Auditorium, by Dupont Circle
For more information visit The Cuban 5 official website.
Hola!
VivirLatino is a daily publication published by Mamita Mala Media, dedicated to featuring all the latest politics, culture, entertainment of interest to the diverse Latin@ diaspora.
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