The Miami Herald
October 7, 2010
We can’t see the forest yet. Still, laying off more than a million workers over the next eighteen months is no small matter, and that’s exactly what the Cuban government aims to do. Raúl Castro and other officials insist that it’s an actualización, an update of the economic model, not really [...]
The Miami Herald
September 10, 2010
At almost 48 million, Hispanics are 15 percent of the U.S. population. Though the largest minority, most Hispanics do not identify as such but rather by their national origins. Culturally and politically, African Americans remain the more-cohesive minority.
Mexican Americans constitute two-thirds of all Hispanics. Four in ten Mexicans in the United [...]
The Miami Herald
August 26, 2010
Latin Americans are in an upbeat mood. Most (78 percent) feel that they and their families are moving in the right direction, even if their countries (45 percent) and the world (41 percent) are not. Still, in 2003, fewer Latin Americans saw their country (30 percent) and the [...]
The Miami Herald
August 12, 2010
It wasn’t the inauguration that Alvaro Uribe had wanted. In March, Colombia’s Constitutional Court denied him the possibility of ever seeking a third term, and so on Aug. 7 he witnessed the next best thing: Juan Manuel Santos sworn in as president. In his inaugural address, Santos called Uribe an “illustrious [...]
The Miami Herald
July 29, 2010
It was a memorable July 26 after all. For the first time ever, neither Fidel nor Raúl Castro addressed the nation. The nondescript José Ramón Machado Ventura — Raúl’s second in command — delivered the main speech, reminding Cubans that the “economic battle” is the “principal task.”
Machado echoed Raúl’s words in [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
July 15, 2010
Women in Latin America have come a long way but aren’t there yet. The legacy of Iberian colonialism, male-centered Catholicism and an undemocratic past all contributed to societies that subjugated women to men. Economic backwardness also compounded the unfriendly ambience for women in the region.
Expanding [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
July 1, 2010
In 1988, Amnesty International, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies, the Bar Association of the City of New York and, most notably, the then-U.N. Commission on Human Rights all sent delegations to Cuba.
A year earlier the UNCHR first [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
June 3, 2010
Until Tuesday, we were in a holding pattern. Then Havana finally began the transfer of six men out of 53 still imprisoned during the Black Spring of 2003 to jails closer to their homes.
On May 19, Raúl Castro met with Jaime Ortega — cardinal and archbishop of Havana — [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
May 20, 2010
At a meeting of the Río Group in February, a Group of Friends led by Dominican President Leonel Fernández offered to mediate the conflict between two neighbors. Alvaro Uribe and Hugo Chávez accepted. When Colombia’s constitutional court banned Uribe from seeking a third consecutive term, however, [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
May 06, 2010
Last Sunday the Damas de Blanco — dressed in white with coral gladioli in their hands — resumed their customary walk after Mass at the Church of Santa Rita. Freedom again rang along the stately Fifth Avenue in Miramar, a Havana suburb.
For three weeks, government mobs had prevented the [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
April 23, 2010
Iran is a pariah regime. Claiming only peaceful purposes for its nuclear program, Tehran is processing uranium in quantities that say otherwise. In 2006, the U.N. Security Council first imposed sanctions while offering incentives for the regime to come clean. It hasn’t. Is an Iran armed with nuclear weapons [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
April 8, 2010
Things aren’t going well for Havana, and the regime simply doesn’t get it.
On Sunday, Raúl Castro said: “Today, more than ever before, the economic battle is the main task.” Yes, the economy is a battle but only because the regime stubbornly refuses to take the market [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
March 11, 2010
On March 8, Granma, the Communist Party daily, foretold the death of Guillermo Fariñas Hernandez. On a hunger strike since Feb. 24, he is demanding that two dozen political prisoners in ill health be freed. Cuba can’t be blackmailed or pressured, Granma noted, nor would it [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
February 25, 2010
It happened in Cancún where 32 Latin American and Caribbean countries were meeting. At a private lunch, the group witnessed an unseemly encounter between Alvaro Uribe and Hugo Chávez. Speaking off the record as is customary in these gatherings, Uribe called on Chávez to end Venezuela’s hindrance of trade [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
February 11, 2010
Until June 30, Spain holds the presidency of the European Union. Madrid has always taken the lead on Cuba, and so it has been since the Socialists won the 2004 election. Under José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain prodded the EU to lift sanctions imposed after the Black Spring of [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
January 28, 2010
Politics is swirling everywhere. Such are the ways of democracies, especially when oppositions come alive and defeat or threaten incumbents.
On Jan. 17, Chileans elected Sebastián Piñera their president, the first time in 52 years that a conservative won at the polls. It’s tempting to cast his victory as Right [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
January 3, 2010
Cuba’s problems can’t be addressed under the leadership’s passé reformism. Raúl Castro is neither Gorbachev nor Deng Xiaoping, both of whom thought outside the box while in power. He is stuck in the old mold of market socialism: a tinker here, a nudge there, even though Europe’s 1989 should [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
December 17, 2009
Nicaragua is nearing the brink. In 2006 Daniel Ortega campaigned in sheep’s clothing but freed his inner wolf once inaugurated. He joined ALBA, Venezuela’s alliance of autocrats, traveled to Iran, Cuba, Libya and Algeria and used then-U.S. Ambassador Paul Trivelli as a punching bag. The Sandinista machinery of clientelism, [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
December 3, 2009
Along the Jersey side on the Hudson River, New York City stands vibrant if now forever scarred. Between 1892 and 1954, 12 million immigrants entered the United States through Ellis Island, where a must-see museum renders tribute to their hopes and the country that blessed them.
Union City welcomed immigrants [...]
Published in The Miami Herald
November 5, 2009
The Obama administration may be going down a dead end. In an Oct. 13 meeting with Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Obama said: “Tell Raúl that if he doesn’t take steps, I won’t be able to go further.” A few days later the Spanish foreign minister met [...]