Seven years ago, when the roar of the winds of a hurricane devastated Havana and the water filtered through the unglazed living room door of Lisvan, a private worker living in an apartment of blackened walls which urgently needed comprehensive repairs, his housing conditions did not interest the snitches on the block where he lives. “When I began to be successful in my business and I could renovate the apartment, from doing the electrical system, plumbing, new flooring, painting the rooms to putting grills on the windows and the balcony, the complaints began.
Category: La Habana, Cuba
After two months of imprisonment for celebrating the death of…
It is no surprise that dissident artist Danilo “El Sexto” Maldonado was arrested and imprisoned for nearly two months simply for celebrating the death of Cuba’s apartheid dictator, Fidel Castro. These are the types of human rights violations Cuba’s brutally repressive dictatorship has been committing for more than half a century.
US policy change on Cuban migrants leaves many stranded
It took three months for Gabriel Marin and his wife, Yansiel, to make it from their home in eastern Cuba to this migrant shelter in Panama’s capital. The goal was the United States and now the door that spurred their odyssey has slammed shut.
Obama Ends Cuban Immigration Perk as Part of Opening
President Barack Obama ended a decades-old policy of granting residency to Cubans who enter the U.S. without a visa, a final step in the outgoing president’s move to reverse the Cold-War isolation of the Caribbean nation. Obama’s order now places President-elect Donald Trump, who campaigned as an opponent both of current immigration flows and of normalizing relations with Cuba, in the position of either accepting another opening to Cuba or having one of his early actions in office be making it easier for immigrants to come into the country.
Cuba’s ‘civil society’ is as phony as Obama’s policy
President Obama’s Cuba policy has been a boon for the apartheid Castro regime, throwing the corrupt dictatorship a lifeline just as it had finished sucking all the blood it could out of Venezuela. Nevertheless, that hasn’t stopped the president and the White House from continuing to tout how their policy is “helping” Cuba’s civil society.
Artisanal charcoal to be first Cuban export to United States in decades
A man prepares artisanal charcoal at a farm on the outskirts of Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2017. A man prepares artisanal charcoal at a farm on the outskirts of Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2017.
Cuban President Raul Castro faces deep problems in 2017
In this Dec. 3, 2016 file photo, a soldier of the Revolutionary Armed Forces stands guard next to the tomb of Cuba’s late leader Fidel Castro at Santa Ifigenia cemetery in Santiago, Cuba. Fidel’s brother Raul must manage economic and diplomatic challenges during his last full year as president without his older brother whose presence endowed the system he created with historical weight and credibility in the eyes of many Cubans.
Cuban President Raul Castro faces deep problems in 2017
” Alex Romero was delighted when President Barack Obama came to Havana in March bearing the promise of a bright new future. Like so many other Cubans, the 42-year-old state photography shop employee thrilled at the president’s vision of restored ties between the U.S. and Cuba.