The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas blog writes that "a report by the United Nations Human Rights Council praised Cuba for its successes in promoting the right to education, food, and health care but criticized it for restricting freedom of expression. The IPI commended the council for airing those concerns but worried that the report effectively minimized freedom of expression and the press as fundamental human rights."
“Cuba’s suppression of dissenting voices, thoroughly and systematically carried out for so many years, strongly affects our ability to understand and assess the situation in the country,” the director of the International Press Institute said.
Read more about journalism in the Americas on the Knight Center blog.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Cuba's underground reggaeton artists are causing a stir on the Caribbean island, according to this report from Reuters.
Rising star Michael "El Micha" Sierra, 27, records his songs into his neighbour's old computer, and then burns them onto CDs or USB Flash drives and spreads them around town. "With little official support or air time on state-controlled radio, the songs Cuban reggaeton artists record in makeshift studios lined with egg cartons for sound insulation are mostly transmitted though homemade CDs and on computer flash memory sticks.
"That is how the tropical fever of reggaeton is sweeping communist-ruled Cuba, captivating its youth and enraging a cultural establishment alarmed by the vulgarity of some of its lyrics, which include phrases like 'Coge mi tubo' ('Grab my pipe') and 'Metela' ('Stick it in')."
You can watch El Micha letting loose with another reggaeton artist, Pipey, in a video here on YouTube.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
L.A. Now reports:
Angelenos with family in Cuba will have another option for travel today, when a Long Beach-based company kicks off nonstop flights from LAX to Havana.
The five-hour flight, which will run every Tuesday and can accommodate 150 people, takes off from L.A. at 11 a.m. and is the only Cuban flight for Cuba Travel since July 2004, when the Bush administration tightened rules governing travel to Cuba, according to the company.
Since 1962, travel from the U.S. to Cuba has been banned, but Cuban Americans have been allowed to visit family under various policies. Obama repealed the 2004 travel restrictions in April. According to Cuba Travel, 1.5 million Cubans live in the United States. About 55,000 reside in Los Angeles County.
For details, see The Times' Daily Travel & Deal Blog.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
 Five photo negatives of the Cuban revolutionary figure Ernesto "Che" Guevara that went on sale at the Mexican auction house Louis C. Morton over the weekend were withdrawn from the auction after failing to attract a buyer, Milenio newspaper reports.
Mexican students might love the Argentine now credited as one of the most important figures in the Cuban Revolution, alongside Fidel Castro, but it doesn't appear that art and antique buyers feel the same way.
One of the negatives up for auction was an image of Guevara addressing the First Latin American Congress of Youth in 1960.
The bidding for the negatives started at 80,000 pesos (around $6,075) but were withdrawn due to the lack of interest, reports the newspaper.
As we reported in January, when the first part of Steven Soderbergh's film "Che, the Argentine" premiered here, Guevara is popular among the sprawling student population in Mexico City, where he and Castro, then an exiled lawyer, planned the Cuban Revolution over dinner and cigars on July 3, 1955.
The myth and heroic image of Che have replaced a real understanding of the complex man that he was. His face is often seen emblazoned on flags and T-shirts at student protests and commonly evoked as a universal symbol of social struggle.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Image: Alberto Korda's 1960 photograph of Ernesto “Che” Guevara, not one of the negatives up for auction, has been painted, printed, silk-screened and sketched on nearly every surface imaginable. Credit: Alberto Korda.
Fidel Castro, the former Cuban president, isn't the only member of his family who likes to express himself online. The BBC is reporting that a Cuban exile blogger from Miami says he used a female Internet alter ego to gain access to Antonio, the 40-year-old son of Castro.
Luis Dominguez said he used the character to begin an online relationship with Antonio. Capitalizing on the younger Castro's purported interest in young women and sports, Dominguez says he snared Antonio Castro by posing as a 27-year-old female Colombian sports journalist named Claudia.
Dominguez refused to apologize for the deception, saying he wanted to show the "opulent lifestyles" of the Castros.
"I'm a Cuban and I'm a Cuban American and I have not been able to go back to my country since 1971 when I left.
"I use whatever tools I have to be able to get back at these people. In Cuba people are put in prison for no reason at all. Their rights are violated ... So, why can't I do the same thing to them? I have no remorse whatsoever," he told the BBC.
"The Cuban authorities have made no comment about the chats, but Claudia says the relationship has gone cold," ends the BBC report.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
 Julia E. Sweig's book, "Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know," is reviewed by the Los Angeles Times' Marjorie Miller, who writes:
"For most of Cuba's history, and certainly since the revolution that brought Fidel Castro's Communist government to power, U.S. policy has penetrated nearly every facet of life in Cuba, making it virtually impossible for average Cubans to forget about the superpower next door.
"This is driven home in `Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know,' Julia E. Sweig's forthcoming portrait of the country, where even chapters on domestic issues are as much about Cuba's relationship with the United States as they are about Cuba itself. Beginning with the Cuban war of independence from Spain through the end of Castro's rule in 2006, the long arm of the United States has reached across to the island."
You can read more from writer Sweig in the Washington Post earlier this month, where she wrote:
"President Obama has promised to shut down the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, seeking to erase a blot on America's global image. He has also reached out to Cuba, easing some travel and financial restrictions in an effort to recast Washington's approach to the island. These two initiatives have proceeded on separate tracks so far, but now is the time to bring them together. Hiding in plain sight, the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay is the ideal place for Obama to launch a far-reaching transformation of Washington's relationship with its Communist neighbor." --Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
As President Obama's administration considers lifting the ban on travel to Cuba for Americans (this poll on The Times' "Opinion L.A." blog shows sentiment leaning toward lifting the ban), travel companies have started to get on board.
From the site's mission statement:
"Orbitz believes that Americans should have the freedom to travel the world, because our journeys lead to cross cultural understanding and stronger ties between citizens of all nations. The beaches of Cuba were once a premier Caribbean tourism destination for Americans, and they can be once again!"
The company and IPSOS carried out a survey on American views on the issue and report that 67% of Americans favor allowing Americans to travel to Cuba, and that 72% feel that expanding U.S. travel to Cuba would positively impact the lives of the Cuban people.
Not to mention that opening travel could help Orbitz's bottom line.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
 Blogging isn't just confined to the young in Cuba, and someone other than the island's star blogger, Yoani Sanchez, is generating attention abroad with their cyber-scrawls.
The 82-year-old former President Fidel Castro may be out of the real-life spotlight, but his public musings are alive and well in the online world, as Bruce Wallace reports here on Foreign Exchange.
"Castro blogs with the frequency and energy he once devoted to his exhaustive and exhausting speeches," Wallace writes. "His Reflections by Comrade Fidel is translated into seven languages, and remains a fascination for Cuba watchers trying to measure the island's political mood -- though the extent of his remaining influence is unclear."
Click here to read extracts from Castro's online writings.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Photo: Fidel Castro. Credit: Associated Press
*Edited Friday 6:25pm Mexico City time - AP video embedded.
Mexico City is on high alert this morning as it awaits the arrival of U.S. President Barack Obama, expected here today in his first official visit to Mexico.
Read on »
Cuban authorities accused blogger Yoani Sanchez of "Generacion Y", one of La Plaza's linked blogs, of dissidence and "provocation against the Cuban Revolution" after she publicly spoke against Cuban censorship during an arts performance in Havana, Reuters reports.
The Knight Center for Journalism's "Journalism in the Americas" blog reports that Sanchez spoke during an event in the Havana Biennial arts festival and read a manifesto stating that the Internet was creating a "crack" in government control. She then added: "The time has come to jump over the wall of control."
"Since microphones are not abundant, I just took the opportunity," Sanchez wrote in her blog about the event.
Sanchez's blog is critical of the Cuban government and widely read abroad, but her Cuban readership is limited because Internet access is restricted on the island.
Read more on Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez here.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
|
|
Chris Kraul
Mexico City:
Deborah Bonello
Ken Ellingwood
San Diego:
Richard Marosi
Washington:
Nicole Gaouette