From Voice of America News

U.S. lawmakers have heard testimony about continuing weaknesses in U.S.-government funded television broadcasting to Cuba. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) updated members of Congress on steps taken by the Broadcasting Board of Governors and its Office of Cuba Broadcasting on recommendations to deal with management, morale and other problems.

Since its inception in 1990, TV Marti has been the subject of controversy over cost, contracting, internal management and…

From My Perspective June 17, 2009

The decision by the U.S. Supreme Court not to review the case of the Cuban Five will be seen in Havana as coming from the Obama Administration, thus casting further doubts on the potential for a real thaw in relations between Cuba and the United States.

Beyond the sheer injustice that has been done to these five men—whose only crime was not to have registered as agents…

Camagüey 8/6/09 - 8/14/09

Location: Asociación Hermanos Saiz and Provincial center of books and literature

The Sixth Literary Crusade of Camagüey will take place from 8/6 to 8/14.  There will be a number of events in support of literature and music providing an important cultural opportunity for Camagüeyanos, especially those living outside of the city, offering them exposure to the works of the literary vanguard of Cuba.    As part of this event,…

From World Focus, BBC (here), (and here),  and El País.   OAS member nations have voted to list the suspension of Cuba’s membership imposed since 1962.

Thirty-three of the 34 members of the OAS want to bring Cuba in from the political wilderness and have diplomatic relations with Cuba. But the United States pays for 60 percent of the OAS budget, and OAS headquarters is an august building about a block and a…

Reported in Radio Cadena Agramonte , Camagüey Television, and The International Plant Names Index.

Botanists from Camagüey have developed and reproduced a new variety of orchid.  Fittingly, it is called Orchidaceae Encyclia × camagueyensis, common name, Amalia

from Dr. Eduardo Santana

Some public personalities, including editorialists at major newspapers in the United States, have expressed they are “puzzled and dismayed” by the unanimous “readmission” of Cuba to the OAS. Let me try to explain and comfort.

Cuba was suspended, not expelled, from the OAS, so it did not need to be “readmitted”. The OAS Charter has no clause whereby a state may be separated from the organization.  Cuba’s exclusion…

In this very cogent piece from The Havana Note, John McAuliff argues that the U.S. should remove obstacles to full membership. The following sums it up, but it is well worth reading in full.

As with the rest of Administration Cuba policy to date, trying to maintain leverage by incremental change is living in denial and counterproductive. Secretary Clinton should simply abstain if the OAS votes on ending Cuba’s suspension without conditions.…