Cuba Archives - Page 8 of 13 - Americas Quarterly

Monday Memo: Canadian Executive Jailed – Missing Mexican students – Venezuelan Bolivar – Murder Suspects in Peru – Colombian Hackers

This week’s likely top stories: Canadian businessman Cy Tokmakjian is sentenced to 15 years in Cuba; Mexico searches for 58 missing students; Venezuela’s bolivar hits a new low; Peru arrests two suspects in the murder of Indigenous activists; Colombian peace negotiator Humberto de la Calle says his e-mail was hacked. Canadian executive jailed in Cuba: … Read more

These Are a Few of My Favorite [AP] Words

If there are two things that inspire me it’s a ramped up, over-the-top, scurrilous AP story about democracy promotion and a Broadway musical–especially a Rodgers and Hammerstein production. So, here is my adaptation of the classic Sound of Music, “My Favorite Things,” based on the recent series of articles published by AP on USAID’s democracy … Read more

Cuba and the Summits of the Americas

If the U.S. wants to keep the Summit of the Americas process on track and regain some measure of influence in the hemisphere, it will have to change its Cuba policy, pronto. Reframing our policy and saving the Summit process isn’t as tough as it seems; it just takes leadership. In coming months, the United … Read more

Dear AP, Sometimes a Democracy Program Is Just a Democracy Program—Even in Cuba

For the past several years, with almost predictable regularity, The Associated Press (AP) has been producing a series of articles supposedly revealing the secret, unaccountable cloak-and-dagger misdeeds of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in its Cuba program. For all the implied sinister intentions, bureaucratic overreach and shades of John le Carré-like intrigue, though, … Read more

Monday Memo: USAID and Cuba – Mexican Energy – U.S. Immigration – Argentine peso – Bridge in Colombia

This week’s top stories: USAID is accused of running a secret program in Cuba; Mexican energy reform passes in the lower house; U.S. Republicans pass immigration bills before recess; the value of the Argentine peso drops over debt woes; a bridge in Montería, Colombia collapses. USAID and Cuba: In a statement this morning, the United … Read more

Arts Innovator: X Alfonso

The hippest place to be in Havana is an old olive oil factory once known as El Cocinero. Reincarnated this February as the Fábrica de Arte Cubano (Cuban Art Factory—FAC), it is the brainchild of Cuban rocker, rapper and filmmaker Equis Alfonso (“X”) and is already taking the Cuban arts scene by storm. Part Miami … Read more

Hard Talk

Will warming Cuba-EU ties open up U.S.-Cuba relations? Yes: Sarah Stephens; No: Joel Brito

The EU has recognized that its Common Position has failed to improve human rights in Cuba. It’s time for the U.S. to do the same with its embargo.

When Louis Michel, then-development commissioner for the European Union (EU), met in 2009 with Bruno Rodríguez, Cuba’s foreign minister, he worried openly about the slow pace of EU diplomacy. “I think that if the European Union does not consolidate the normalization of relations with Cuba,” Michel said, “the Americans will do so before us.”1 He … Read more

The EU is engaged in a discussion that will yield no change in human rights conditions on the island. The U.S. would be wise not to follow the EU’s lead.

In March, the European Union (EU) and the Cuban government announced a renewal of bilateral talks on trade and investment. Lured by Cuba’s proposed social and economic reforms, including a new foreign investment law, the expansion of self-employment, and loosened travel restrictions, the EU agreed to return to the negotiating table for the first time … Read more

Visit Sparks Hope for Chinese Investment in Cuba

Chinese President Xi Jinping kicked off a two-day tour of Cuba last night, stirring hopes that the China will invest heavily in Cuba’s developing economy. President Xi will meet with President Raúl Castro today in Havana before flying to the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba. While China and Cuba are close political allies, instability … Read more

Defending the Right of Everyone to Travel

I, like many others, was one of those who sent an e-mail to the U.S. State Department inquiring about the visa status of a number of Cuban economists coming to the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) last week in Chicago. Most, though not all of them, received visas after becoming lodged in the State Department’s … Read more

Yoani Sánchez Launches Online Newspaper

Cuban dissident Yoani Sánchez launched 14ymedio, an online-only newspaper, on Wednesday morning. The outlet is meant to be an alternative to the state-controlled media, but Sánchez said that it will not serve as a platform to criticize the government. Rather, it will “contribute information so that Cubans can decide, with more maturity, their own destinies,” … Read more

While Brazil Sambas with Cuba, the U.S. Dances Alone

Brazil is betting on an eventual opening in Cuba. The bet is more than economic; it’s linked directly to a larger geopolitical project intended to draw Cuba toward its own model of economic and political organization as Cuba wakes up from its 55-year slumber under the Castro regime. The process has already started with a … Read more

Cuban Revelations: Behind the Scenes in Havana by Marc Frank

Popular interest in Cuba will continue to grow as Americans open their eyes and ears to one key fact: after 55 years, Cuba is changing. It is shifting from a highly centralized, paternalistic, socialist regime, both lauded and vilified for achieving social progress at the cost of democracy and civil liberties, to a hybrid system … Read more