Cuba | GlobalPost

Survey work underway for Cuba's undersea internet hook up

Nick MiroffMay 28, 2010 13:33

A Chinese vessel has arrived in eastern Cuba after several weeks of survey work on a route for Cuba's first high-speed data link to the outside world, according to Cuban government news agencies. The long-awaited undersea fiber optic cable would give the island 3,000 times more bandwidth than its current satellite connections, according to reports, and the $70 million Cuba-Venezuela joint venture will be completed some time early next year.

Getting cell phones into Cuban hands

Nick MiroffMay 17, 2010 06:37Updated May 30, 2010 13:33

HAVANA, Cuba — A cell phone is a handy device on this under-wired island. Just not for making phone calls. Cuba’s state-run wireless monopoly, Cubacel, has some of the steepest rates in the world, charging the equivalent of 50 cents per minute for outgoing and incoming calls. In a country where the average salary is less than $20 a month, half a day’s wages can disappear with the first “Hola.”

Cuba lets Ladies in White resume march

Nick MiroffMay 2, 2010 15:38

Cuba's unseemly showdown with the Ladies in White appears to be over — at least for now. After blocking their path for the past three weeks, Cuban authorities allowed the group to resume its weekly protest march today along Havana's Quinta Avenida. Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the island's highest-ranking Catholic official, told reporters that he had worked out an agreement with Cuban state security officials to allow the women to resume their low-key protest, at least through May.

Cuba: Nothing against the Revolution

Nick MiroffApril 30, 2010 19:09Updated May 30, 2010 13:31

HAVANA, Cuba — In June 1961, Fidel Castro summoned Cuba’s leading writers and intellectuals to a meeting at Havana’s Biblioteca Nacional. There, he issued a warning that would regulate speech on the island for the next 50 years. “Within the Revolution, everything. Against the Revolution, nothing,” the 34-year-old Castro famously said. In other words, public criticism of Castro’s socialist system would be allowed — but only if its intent was to support the government, not oppose it.

Free-market makeover

Nick MiroffApril 23, 2010 14:44Updated May 30, 2010 13:30

HAVANA, Cuba — The Cuban government keeps close tabs on its citizens, but at least it’s getting out of their hair. Starting this month, in a small but significant nod to market economics, the Castro government has begun handing over state-run barbershops and beauty salons to their employees, marking the first time communist authorities have ceded control of retail-level small businesses that were nationalized in 1968.

Opinion: For Obama, wind shifts on Cuba

Michael MoranApril 23, 2010 07:45Updated May 30, 2010 13:30

WEST NEW YORK, N.J. — For a decade now — the fervent anti-Castro movement, which has influenced U.S. foreign policy ever since the Cuban Revolution of 1961, has been losing its grip on its community in America. Polls and anecdotal evidence, including the record numbers of Cuban-Americans who voted Democratic in the 2008 presidential elections, indicate a more moderate strain of thought is becoming the mode of the day.

Teaching Twitter in Havana

Nick MiroffApril 2, 2010 06:57Updated May 30, 2010 14:46

Photo caption: Yoani Sanchez sits with her computer in her apartment in Havana, Oct. 3, 2007. Sanchez runs a Blogger Academy out of her living room. (Claudia Daut/Reuters) HAVANA, Cuba — As an educational institution, Cuba’s Blogger Academy suffers from a few notable deficiencies. Its six-month course doesn’t grant an accredited degree, and its single, cramped classroom — the living room of founder Yoani Sanchez — isn’t even hooked up to the internet.

Diez de Octubre Street: a gallery of architectural decay

Nick MiroffMarch 29, 2010 06:55Updated May 30, 2010 13:26

Cuba: Fatal hunger strike creates a martyr

Nick Miroff March 2, 2010 12:12Updated May 30, 2010 13:22

HAVANA, Cuba — Orlando Zapata Tamayo wasn’t a prominent voice in Cuba’s small opposition movement. He wasn’t one of the dissident activists whom foreign reporters often call for quotes, and he didn’t have a blog or an academic degree. But when the 42-year-old bricklayer died Feb. 23 after an 85-day hunger strike in prison, he made a powerful protest statement that has electrified the island’s fragmented dissident community and brought a flood of fresh criticism to Cuba’s human rights record.

Cuba: Home to one of the world's biggest book parties

Nick MiroffFebruary 25, 2010 07:47Updated May 30, 2010 13:21

HAVANA, Cuba— Each February, Cuba’s International Book Fair transforms the old Spanish fortifications that overlook the Havana harbor into one of the biggest book parties in the world.