Friday, August 4, 2006

Cuba: Have you seen Fidel lately?

*Cuba’s government says that the country is “prepared for the defense” of their country and prepared for any form of U.S. intervention.

*Dissident Cuban activist Oswaldo Paya advocates that any changes in Cuba have "to be by Cubans and not the U.S. and also claims that “the hardliners in Miami…don't represent most of the exiles now.”

*There seems to be a difference of opinion among the Cuban community in the U.S. as to how the U.S. should change its policy towards the island. The difference is based on age with older exiles tending to be more hard line than younger generations, which are “far less political.”

*Several leaders of Cuban exile groups have called on President Bush to ease travel restrictions to Cuba that the president severely tightened in February 2004.

*The media is running rampant speculating over the state of the Cuban economy; was it doing well under Fidel, will it do better under Raul’s rule, or will it be the “future land of opportunity” in a post-Castro era?

*Listen to a podcast of Julia Sweig, senior fellow at the Council for Foreign Relations, being interviewed on Fidel’s break in power.


*The U.S. government is looking into adding more broadcasts into TV and Radio Martí, though one official acknowledged that “the emphasis (is) on ‘let's get the message there the best way,’ not say ‘it has got to be this mechanism or that one.’”

*Is it any surprise that the Bush administration’s point man on Cuba is staunchly anti-Castro and that the Cuban government refers to him as the “Paul Bremmer for Cuba”?

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