Upon the death of Fidel Castro, the global media praised his legacy of political sovereignty and his role as an internationalist, as well as the notable improvements he made in education and health, although the judgment is usually negative in regards to the economy.
“The Cuban Communist party is the only legitimate heir of the legacy and authority of the commander in chief of the Cuban Revolution, comrade Fidel Castro,” read signs at the memorial on Monday for Cuba’s ex-president, who passed away on Friday. Havana’s Revolution Square, watched over by the towering likenesses of war heroes Camilo Cienfuegos and José Martí, was filled earlier this week with thousands of Cubans waiting in long, winding lines to pay tribute at the memorial.
In Havana, Cubans have a saying: When something goes wrong; when food takes a long time to come out at a restaurant; when all the taxis passing by are full; when someone trips over a bump in the sidewalk—they say, “Es el bloqueo.” This transla
“Brother Obama,” wrote Fidel Castro in a public letter to the American president, “we don’t need the empire to gift us anything.” The article was published on the 28
Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Economics and Latin American Studies, former director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Latin American Studies and author of over 90 books on economic and social policy in Latin America, approached his new book on Cuba’s non-state economic sector differently than he has done for past books.
The small Cuban city of Viñales is a colorful town situated at the foot of the Cordillera de Guaniguanico, a sharply pitched, palm-and-vine-draped mountain range with awe-inspiring internal caves and strikingly stark facades. The rolling fields that surround Viñales are saturated with color: the rich red-brown soil is almost as vivid as the bright green tobacco leaves growing out of it. The tobacco fincas, or plantations, extend around Viñales and into the mountains where coffee is grown as well.
Monday, September 21, 2015, marked the one year anniversary of the death of Paola Acosta, a woman who suffered her fate at the hands of her ex-partner1, Gonzalo Lizarralde. She was raped, killed and dumped in a sewer together with her one-year-old daughter, Martina, who she had in common with her attacker. Remarkably, Martina survived. Wednesday, September 23, Gonzalo Lizarralde, marked the first day of the prosecution for the murder of Paola2.
The Gran Teatro de La Habana Alicia Alonso, the newly remodeled theater which houses the Ballet Nacional de Cuba, is a striking building both inside and out.
