Chronicle on Cuba - October 2006

US-Cuba Relations

October 2: US trade sanctions have cost Cuba $4.1 billion over the last year in higher financial and shipping costs, lost business and cancelled contracts, the island's communist government said. Cuba said the Bush administration had tightened enforcement of its 44-year-old economic "blockade" despite the opposition of nearly every country in the United Nations. Washington has cracked down on Americans who go to Cuba without special licenses by fining 487 people a total of more than $500,000 for breaking a ban on travel to the island, Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said. It is also increasingly chasing companies in third countries who do business with Cuba and threatening banks to close down Cuban accounts and transactions in dollars, he told a news conference. "The blockade intensified and its extra-territorial reach has extended," Rodriguez said during the release of Cuba's annual report to the UN General Assembly on the impact of the US embargo. [Report by Cuba to the UN General Assembly] (Reuters, 2/10/06) 

October 2: Harvard will participate with the University of Havana in a semester study-abroad program, after overcoming strict federal regulations on US travel to the island, reported The Harvard Crimson. The arduous process of obtaining this license took 18 months, and permission lasts for only one year, according to Harvard's vice provost for international affairs, Jorge I. Dominguez. The 2007 program will run from late January to early May. For these four months, students will live in Havana, the country's capital. (Prensa Latina, 2/10/06)

October 2: A group of Cuban migrants sent home in January after reaching an abandoned bridge in the Florida Keys said their own government has not given them approval to leave more than six months after they received US visas to emigrate. Growing more desperate as the months pass, the 14 migrants met with US officials, who said they would investigate the matter. "Right now we're looking very carefully at this case," said John Wallace Bird, who oversees US citizenship and migration services for the American mission in Havana. "We're concerned it's taking so long for them to receive permission to leave the country." Bird said US-Cuba migration accords prohibit the island's government from punishing Cuban migrants that are returned home. (AP, EFE, 3/10/06)

October 2: US Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who is attending a meeting in Managua of Western hemisphere military leaders, made a reference to Cuba as one of main US antagonist in the region. He said he hoped that one day soon ''the final holdout in our hemisphere against the democratic sweep of history will give its citizens the right to choose their own destiny and will participate in our conference.'' (The New York Times, 3/10/06)

October 3: A popular celebration to reflect against the blockade and annexation started in Cuba with the attendance of social and political organizations and people in general. The celebration, to be run until October 27, includes debates, forums, statements from union, student and grass-root entities, as well as extensive broadcasting on this issue in the press. (Prensa Latina, 3/10/06)

October 3: Jesus Diaz Jr. said he resigned as president of the Miami Herald Media Co. and publisher of The Miami Herald and its Spanish-language sister paper. Diaz said his decision was crystalized by the recent revelation that some El Nuevo Herald journalists were paid for appearing on US-government broadcasts aimed at promoting democracy in Cuba. David Landsberg, a longtime Herald employee who served as general manager, took over immediately as company president and publisher of both newspapers, said The McClatchy Co., the papers' parent company based in Sacramento, California.   In a letter to readers, Diaz said the company would rehire two El Nuevo Herald reporters and a freelance contributor that he dismissed last month for getting paid by Radio Marti and TV Marti. He said six others who took payments would not be disciplined. (AP, 3/10/06)

October 3: The Netherlands Caribbean Bank (NCB), a subsidiary of Dutch financial services group ING Groep NV, has been put on a US blacklist for doing business in Cuba, ING said. An ING spokesman confirmed a report in the Volkskrant daily that the US government put NCB on July 28 on a list which bans US companies and citizens from doing business with the bank. “ING is viewing what the implications might be," the spokesman said. ING, one of the top five insurers in Europe, owns a 50 percent stake in NCB. Two Cuban financial organisations, Gilmar Project Finance Establishment and Banco Metropolitano, each own a 25 percent stake, the spokesman said. (Reuters, 3/10/06)

October 3: Two men charged in a Cuban-migrant smuggling operation that left a 24-year-old woman dead pleaded guilty to all 68 counts in federal court. Rolando Gonzalez, 20, and Heinrich Castillo, 28, pleaded guilty in Spanish and showed little emotion during the 30-minute proceeding. But several family members and friends wept when assistant US attorney Jeff Tsai said that the most serious offense, migrant smuggling that results in death, carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. U.S. District Court Judge K. Michael Moore set sentencing for January 8. A third defendant, Amil Gonzalez, decided to take his chances at a trial. Gonzalez has said he was not a smuggler, but simply a migrant like the others who were intercepted by the Coast Guard on July 8. (The Miami Herald, 4/10/06)

October 3: Two months without Fidel Castro at the helm in Cuba have shown how wrong US predictions of upheaval on the communist-run island have been, a senior Cuban official said. Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's National Assembly and Havana's point-man on relations with Washington, said the US government ought to rethink its policy of pressing for change. "The situation since July 31 has shown the stability and solidity of Cuban society's institutions and the degree of cohesion in our country," Alarcon said in an interview. "It has also shown how out of touch with reality some people are in the White House, where (US Secretary of State) Condoleezza Rice seemed to be talking about another planet," Alarcon said. (Reuters, 3/10/06)

October 4: A Cessna 172 airplane, which was stolen from the Marathon Airport, is in Cuba. The 1978 plane, valued at $78,000, was discovered in Cuba on September 29. The pilot landed there due to mechanical problems, federal officials told the Monroe County Sheriff's Department. Charges are expected to be filed against the pilot in federal court, said Alicia Valle, spokeswoman for the US Attorney's Office. Federal officials said the man, who has not been identified, was accompanied by a young boy, but their relationship is unknown. The motive for the theft also is not known, whether it's a custody dispute, joy ride, kidnapping or something else, police said. Police identified the owner of the current stolen Cessna in Cuba as William Jones of New York. He flew out of New York on September 25 with one passenger. They made a stop in Savannah, Georgia, and landed in Marathon, according to the sheriff's report. Jones did not discover his plane was missing until September 30. After a quick search of the small airport that borders US 1, officials decided the plane had been stolen. How the plane will be returned to the United States is still up in the air, authorities said. (The Miami Herald, 4/10/06)

October 4: Cuban Americans in a local congressional district support travel restrictions on tourism and family visits to Cuba, according to a new poll exploring the views of the Cuban community in South Florida. The poll, commissioned by US Representative Lincoln Díaz-Balart for his district, indicates that 89.7 percent of the 400 Cuban-American voters surveyed support retaining the US restriction on tourism, while 85.2 percent back the current policy that prohibits Cuban nationals from visiting the island more than once in three years. Among those voters, 88.5 percent also supported the economic embargo against Cuba, although those younger than 34 were less inclined to back it. The time of their arrival did not make a significant difference in attitudes toward those policies, according to the poll. The respondents to Díaz-Balart's poll, conducted September 25-30 by analyst Dario Moreno, were all registered voters and 80 percent arrived before the 1980 Mariel boatlift. They all live in Díaz-Balart's district, which encompasses portions of South Broward and Central Miami-Dade down through Palmetto Bay. The poll's margin of error was not immediately available, according to Díaz-Balart's office. (The Miami Herald, 4/10/06)

October 4: A Texas man who allegedly stole an airplane from Marathon Airport and flew it to Cuba with his young son as a passenger was charged by federal prosecutors with transportation of stolen property overseas. Randall Ray Franklin, 52, from Laredo, Texas, is currently in Cuba while the US and Cuban governments work out his extradition to the United States. (The Miami Herald, 4/10/06)

October 9: An anti-Castro militant, now elderly and being held in a Texas jail, warned the CIA months before the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that fellow exiles were planning such an attack, according to a newly released US government document. The document shows that Luis Posada Carriles — who was cut off by the agency earlier that year — was secretly telling the CIA that his fellow far-right Cuban exiles opposed to Fidel Castro's communist government were plotting to bring down a commercial jet. The document does not say what the CIA did with Posada's tip. A CIA spokesman said he had no comment, a federal holiday. The CIA had extensive contacts with anti-Castro militants and trained some of them, but has denied involvement in the bombing. The documents were posted online on October 5 by the National Security Archive, an independent research institute at George Washington University that seeks to declassify government files through the Freedom of Information Act. (AP, 9/10/06)

October 8: US officials believe that Fidel Castro of Cuba has terminal cancer and will never return to power, according to a report in Time magazine. Castro has remained largely out of the public eye since undergoing what was said to be serious abdominal surgery on July 31. Official reports about his health have been few and vague. "Certainly we have heard this, that this guy has terminal cancer," a US official told Time. But others cautioned that it was nearly impossible to obtain definitive facts about the health of the 80-year-old Cuban leader. Previous reports have surfaced suggesting that Castro might have cancer, either of the stomach or the colon, or else a serious ulcer. Cuban officials have denied the reports. (International Herald Tribune, 8/10/06)

October 10: Human Rights First will honor the Ladies in White (Damas de Blanco) from Cuba and Suciwati from Indonesia with the organization’s 2006 Human Rights Award for their courage and contributions to the human rights movements in their respective countries.  The awards will be presented at an October 16 gala ceremony and dinner, which will be open to the press. Accepting the award on behalf of the Damas de Blanco will be Yolanda Huerga Cedeño, a founding member who now lives in Miami with her husband, Manuel Váquez Portal. (HRF Press Release, 10/10/06)

October 10: The federal government announced the formation of a new law enforcement task force that will aggressively pursue violators of the US trade and travel sanctions that have been in effect against Cuba for more than four decades. Miami-based US Attorney R. Alexander Acosta said the task force will focus on prosecuting violators of laws governing such things as commercial business with Cuba, currency reporting requirements, money laundering and travel to the island. The task force's formation comes about a month before US elections in which Cuban-American voters in South Florida — most of them fervently anti-Castro — form an important Republican Party constituency. (AP, 10/10/06)

October 11: Suspected immigrant smugglers beached a speedboat with some unusual passengers on the millionaires' enclave of Fisher Island, Florida. Along with the 28 Cubans on board were six Cuban finches. According to US Customs and Border Protection, one of its jets saw a speedboat with its navigational lights off about three miles east of Key Biscayne. When a Black Hawk helicopter tried to intercept it, the boat changed course, barely missing a rock jetty and landing on the island's shore, said Customs and Border Protection spokesman Zachary Mann. Everyone on board jumped out and ran toward nearby condominiums, Mann said. Officers rounded up 28 Cubans, who were turned over to the Border Patrol for processing. It was not clear whether the suspected smugglers were part of the group, Mann said. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is investigating. The finches were sent to a US Department of Agriculture Quarantine Center, where they will be observed and tested for diseases such as Avian Influenza. (Sun Sentinel, 12/10/06)

October 12: The Cuban National Assembly of the People’s Power termed the US blockade on Cuba a true economic war aimed at plunging the people into starvation and desperation to overthrow the Revolution. The White House has been systematically applying for 47 years a fierce economic, trade and financial blockade on the island, states a declaration published by the Cuban Parliament s International Relations Commission. Never before in the history of humanity have any people been subdued to as cruel and hostile a policy, pointed out legislators. On November 8, the UN General Assembly will vote on a resolution for 15th time to demand an immediate end to the US economic, trade and financial blockade on Cuba. Last year, the motion was supported by 182 countries. The Cuban National Assembly also requests lawmakers of the world and the international community to take effective actions with that aim, in defence of justice, the right to life, peace and freedom of peoples. (Prensa Latina, 12/10/06)

October 12: The interagencies group created by the United States to tighten its 44-year-old economic embargo on the island was dismissed by Cuba as being "more of the same." Cuban Foreign Minister Raúl de la Nuez also predicted that this “will not work either. (AFP, 12/10/06)  

October 12: A federal jury convicted a Cuban migrant of conspiring to smuggle other migrants to the United States, but acquitted him of the more serious charges involving the death of a woman during a chase on the high seas. If convicted of the more serious charges, Amil Gonzalez could have received life in prison. The jury also found the 32-year-old jeweler from Santa Clara, Cuba, guilty of giving false information to law enforcement officials. ''He's more in shock,'' defense attorney Irving Gonzalez (no relation) said of his client. ``If anything, he just thought he'd be guilty of giving false information.'' Federal prosecutors said they did not know if this was the first time a Cuban migrant trying to reach US soil for freedom also had been convicted of being a smuggler in the same trip. (The Miami Herald 12/10/06)

October 12: Puerto Rico will contribute to the recovery of a Cuba in political transition so that both nations can reap the economic benefits, said in Miami the vice-president of the Puerto Rican Senate, Orlando Parga. "We Puerto Ricans cannot see the changes that will inevitably take place in Cuba as a threat, but rather as an opportunity to collaborate, promote the development of a stagnant economy and help each other," said Parga. (El Nuevo Herald, 13/10/06)

October 13: Washington has no solid information about the health of veteran revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, a senior US official said. "We have no way of verifying any information," US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez told the press. He spoke when asked about a report in Time magazine saying that many in the US government are convinced Castro, 80, has terminal cancer. (Reuters, 13/10/06)

October 14: The Cuban authorities are arresting people that have been repatriated following botched attempts to emigrate illegally to the United States. Temporary arrests of those repatriated by the US Coast Guard Service had proliferated since Washington called off migratory talks with Havana in January 2004, but in the last year the situation has become dramatically worse. "We have received reports of Cubans being detained for several days or longer after their return to the country," said an official with the US Interests Section (USINT) in Havana.” (El Nuevo Herald, 15/10/06)

October 14: Some South Florida leaders are convinced that quick change will only come one way: with the death of Fidel Castro. ''Fidel Castro has to die for the future of Cuba to begin,'' Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart said at the first Cuba Transition to Democracy Summit gathering in Miami. ``I do think destiny will have something to do with that, hopefully soon.'' More than 300 Cuban exiles and political leaders, including Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart, Governor Jeb Bush and Senator Mel Martinez gathered at the Biltmore Hotel to hash out the beginnings of a new Cuba. Likening Castro to the despotic Roman emperor Caligula, Diaz-Balart suggested he actively wished death upon the communist dictator. ''Oh yes, for humanitarian reasons,'' Diaz-Balart told the press. ``I'm a humanitarian.'' Representatives from former communist nations in Europe that underwent dramatic political and social upheavals after the fall of the Soviet Union were on hand to offer advice to the exile leaders. (The Miami Herald, 14/10/06)

October 14: Cuban spy Ana Belen Montes gave Havana detailed information on US eavesdropping programs against the Castro government, allowing Cuba to mount effective counterintelligence and deception operations for years, according to a new book on US intelligence failures. The book, by Washington Times defense writer Bill Gertz, also describes Alberto R. Coll, a Cuban American and former deputy assistant secretary of defense in the early 1990s, as ''an apparent spy'' -- a charge Coll vehemently denied. Montes, of Puerto Rican descent, was a senior Cuba analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency, enjoying near-unfettered access to top secrets until she was caught in 2001. She is now serving a 25-year prison term. Gertz writes that she leaked so many significant U.S. secrets to Havana that some U.S. officials rank her with Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, the infamous spies for Moscow who sent dozens of US agents to their deaths. Gertz's book also notes the case of Alberto Coll, who pleaded guilty last year to a charge of lying about a trip he made to Cuba in 2003. He had claimed he was visiting relatives, but he later acknowledged he was visiting a lover. (The Miami Herald, 14/10/06)

October 14: The US blockade on Cuba took out a new victim, the Dresser Rand Group Inc, a New York-based company that the US Treasure Department fined $171,300 for trading with the island. The information, published by Granma newspaper, is one of the "examples of Washington s extra-territorial trade sanctions of third countries in its policy of economic, trade and financial blockade imposed to our country." (Prensa Latina, 14/10/06)

October 17: Cuba's acting ambassador to the United Nations Ileana Nuñez denounced the increasing radio and TV war against the island by the Bush Administration, which this year has earmarked $37 million USD for that effort. Speaking during the General Assembly's Fourth Committee on information-related issues, the Cuban diplomat pointed out that these attacks against the island have been going on for decades. She added that these were intensified in August, when Washington launched a G-1 aircraft to increase broadcasts aimed at Cuba from one hour to six hours a week. (ACN, 17/10/06)

October 18: Latin American migrants in the United States will send a record $45 billion to support relatives back home this year, according to a study released that sheds new light on the powerful economic forces driving migrants -- legal and undocumented -- to America's labor-hungry regions.  $60 billion annually from remittances worldwide, a number that dwarfs what countries receive in aid from the US government or such institutions as the World Bank. Remittances even exceed the $40 billion that private companies are expected to invest in Latin America this year, according to the Institute of International Finance, a group that represents big financial institutions. Florida's numbers, while the fourth largest, excluded remittances to Cuba, which according to several other reports, obtains more than $1 billion from around the world. The IDB can't cross-check the data on remittances to Cuba because of U.S. sanctions against the island. (The Miami Herald, 19/10/06)

October 19: The US government recently promised to crack down on those who violate trade travel sanctions against Cuba, but legal American trade with Cuba is thriving despite pressure from both governments, industry leaders said. Since the ban on agricultural trade was lifted in 2001, US companies have gone from selling about $4 million (euro3 million) a year in corn and poultry to about $350 million (euro279 million) worth of more than a dozen products in 2005. The Bush administration created a new law enforcement task force that will aggressively pursue those who violate restrictions on commercial business with Cuba, currency reporting requirements, money laundering and travel to the island. Industry leaders disagree on how the task force would affect future business with the communist nation, which ranked 30th out of 224 US export markets last year, according to the US-Cuba Trade and Economic Council Inc. (AP, 19/10/06)   

October 19: Cuba will never be the same as it was before leader Fidel Castro took ill in July and handed power to his brother, according to the US pointman to democratize the communist island. "Cuba is not actually going to be the same after July 27," said Caleb McCarry, who was named Cuba Transition Coordinator a year before. McCarry spoke before Latin America experts at an event sponsored by the Inter American Dialogue, a Washington think tank, and Florida International University, in Miami. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who chairs the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba along with Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, recommended to US President George W. Bush, who agreed, to spend 80 million dollars to help Cuba's opposition make the transition to democracy. Cuba promptly called the decision "arrogant" and "shameful" and in "violation" of international law. The opposition also rejected the outside help, as "counterproductive." Anthony Maingot, professor of sociology at Florida International University, suggested it "might be time to stop and listen" to opposition leaders. "You can't stand by and not help people," McCarry said. "It's up to the Cuban people, but we have to give them this opportunity," he said. (AFP, 19/10/06)

October 19: As signatory country of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, Venezuela has "a role to play" in a Cuban transition toward democratic rule, said US State Department official Caleb C. McCarry, coordinator of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba. (AP, 19/10/06)

October 23: US independent candidate Brian Moore traveled to Cuba to underscore his opposition to US trade sanctions against the communist-run island after he was shut out of a debate between top Democratic and Republican candidates for one of the two Florida Senate seats. "Rather than sit around and mope and whine, I decided to come here instead," Moore said after arriving in Havana for a four-day visit. "I'd like to highlight my opposition to the embargo. Moore said the US sanctions imposed more than four decades ago in an attempt to undermine Fidel Castro's communist government violate the rights of Americans who want to visit and conduct trade with the island. (AP, 23/10/06)

October 23: Afro-Cubans and African-American civil rights leaders discussed the issue of race in Cuba during a show aired live by Radio Martí, the US government broadcast of news, information and entertainment to the communist island, The Miami Herald's news partner, WFOR-CBS4, reported. The unprecedented broadcast was hosted by the US Interests Section in Havana, where black Cubans participated in the discussion with black Americans at Radio Martí's facility in Doral. The program was to focus on the plight of blacks in Cuba. James Meredith, known as the first black student who broke US color barriers to attend the University of Mississippi in 1962, was among the participants. Meredith told CBS4 that ``the Cuban blacks are probably as bad off as any blacks there are in the whole world. And that's why I say that the improvements of the condition for blacks in Cuba will result in the improvement of blacks in all of Latin America.'' Cuba's government has long insisted that the revolution brought great gains for black Cubans. ''Since Castro, you've heard about the Cuban situation in America over and over. But I've never heard a focus on the black Cubans, period,'' Meredith said. (Radio Marti, 24/10/06)

October 24: American hostility toward Cuba has reached "unprecedented levels" under the Bush administration, a senior Cuban official said. He predicted that the UN General Assembly will deliver a sharp rebuke of US policies in a resolution next November. Cuba's chief diplomat in Washington, Dagoberto Rodriguez, said the world assembly will denounce the US trade embargo against Cuba, as it has each year since the early 1990's. "The longest running and most ruthless blockade ever known to mankind will be rejected again," Rodriguez said, noting that 182 countries voted to end "this cruel and genocidal policy" last year. (AP, 24/10/06)

October 24: Radio and TV Martí have officially launched their new aircraft-based broadcasts with a program sure to please their Cuban audiences -- baseball's World Series. The new G1 twin turboprop, based in Key West, is to be airborne between 6 and 11 every night except Sunday in an attempt to bypass Cuban government jamming of the stations' previously stationary broadcasting facilities. After several weeks of testing, the aircraft officially began beaming the regular Martí broadcasts, starting with Game 3 of the World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Detroit Tigers. Although Cubans could rarely view the previous land-based broadcasts because of the government jamming, anecdotal evidence suggests some have been receiving the airborne transmissions, especially outside the Havana area. (The Miami Herald, 26/10/06)

October 26: The illegal flow of Cubans towards Florida maintained an unstoppable pace during the fiscal year 2006, when nearly 6,000 people reached or attempted to reach US soil by sea, according to official statistics. The 3,075 Cubans who managed to land on the South Florida coasts and the 2,754 intercepted at sea by US Coast Guard patrols during the fiscal period concluded last September 30 constitute the highest migratory statistical figures since the 1994 raft people crisis. (El Nuevo Herald, 26/10/06)

October 26: The ACLU asked a judge to suspend a state law that bans universities in Florida from allowing travel to Cuba so that professors and students can pursue travel plans for research and academic exchanges. In the hearing before US District Judge Adalberto Jordan, the American Civil Liberties Union argued that the law banning trips to Cuba and five other countries on the US terrorist watch list is unconstitutional and should be overturned. But attorneys for the state said Florida has the right to oversee all money managed by its universities. 'It's not the professors' monies; it's the universities','' said Louis Hubener, acting solicitor general for Florida. He argued the law applies to state universities as well as private universities in Florida that receive state funds. At issue: the law, approved by the Florida Legislature this year, seems to be inconsistent with federal law, which currently allows travel to these countries for academic research. (The Miami Herald, 27/10/06)

October 27: Japanese camera maker Nikon Corp. has been under fire for refusing to present a digital camera as a prize to a Cuban boy who was one of the winners of a UN painting competition, citing a US economic embargo on the Caribbean island state. Nikon, which co-sponsored the 15th International Children's Painting Competition on the Environment, provided cameras to all the contest winners except the 12-year-old boy, who was given art materials as an alternative prize at the awards ceremony in Algiers on June 5. Faced with protests, Nikon said it cannot present a digital camera to the boy because it contains US-made parts whose export to Cuba is banned. (Kyodo News, 27/10/06)

October 27: A man was extradited to the United States to face charges that he stole a private airplane from a Florida Keys airport and flew it to Cuba with his young son as a passenger. David Ray Franklin was charged with interstate transportation of a stolen aircraft and international parental kidnapping, the US Attorney's Office in Miami said. Franklin, 52, and his son took off in someone else's blue and white 1978 Cessna 172 Hawk from the Marathon airport on September 30. Later that same morning, Cuban authorities notified the US Interests Section in Havana that a plane matching that description had landed in Cuba. Authorities escorted Franklin back to Miami on a commercial aircraft to face the criminal charges, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. (AP, 28/10/06)

October 27: Cuba has jammed the latest anti-Castro television programming beamed over by the United States, according to an informal survey of Cubans who tried to watch the shows that included baseball's championship series. But the US agency that oversees the effort said it was "confident" Cubans were seeing the programs. "A friend told me they were going to broadcast the World Series, so I got together some people to watch and all we saw was static," Eduardo, a 33-year-old eastern Santiago resident who does odd jobs for a living, said. "I went next door where there is a better television and looked until 11 p.m. On Channel 20 it seemed like some signal was trying to get through, but it was jammed," Havana resident Eddi Machin said. The Bush administration has pledged to strengthen TV Marti broadcasts in hopes of undermining Cuba's communist government, provisionally headed by Defense Minister Raul Castro while his brother, Fidel Castro, recovers from intestinal surgery. TV Marti, part of the US government's International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB), officially began new aircraft-based broadcasts on October 24 to baseball-crazed Cuba, starting with game three of the World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Detroit Tigers. (Reuters, 27/10/06) 

October 29: A Cuban-American lawmaker said that recently released images of ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro meant little for the island's future. Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said that Castro, who temporarily ceded power to his brother Raul in July following intestinal surgery, is "certainly around, and we don't think there's going to be a change, whether it's Fidel or Raul or anybody else who's part of the communist infrastructure."  "What we want is free elections in Cuba, freedom for political prisoners and a multiparty system," the lawmaker said on CNN's "Late Edition." "There's no role for Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, in that scenario." (AP, 29/10/06)

October 31: The 4th Civil Society Forum against the Blockade and Annexation condemned the worsening of the US blockade on Cuba and Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said the island will have a new victory at the UN. The event was organized by the UN Cuban Association and attended by representatives from 138 non-governmental organizations that, in their final declarations, termed President George W. Bush’s government “genocidal”. About 10 panels deliberated and presented papers on several aspects of this issue, and there were speeches on the economic, trade and financial siege against Cuba. (Prensa Latina, 31/10/06)

October 31: A global press advocacy group is deploring attacks by China, Cuba and Gambia against independent online journalists who use the Internet to transmit news about their countries to readers around the world. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said governments in such countries as Cuba severely restrict their citizens from access to Internet outlets.  But the Cuban Internet site, CubaNet, for example, has provided Cuban journalists with "unprecedented global reach," said the CPJ. In 2003, the CPJ said, Cuban authorities cracked down on Cuban journalists who used telephones, fax machines and occasional Internet connections to send local news and commentary to Web sites in the United States and Spain.  Some 23 of the 24 journalists now jailed in Cuba were contributors to US or European Web sites, said the CPJ. (Washington File, 31/10/06)

October 31: A California-based sports agent was arrested, charged in federal court in Miami with financing and organizing a scheme to smuggle Cuban baseball players from the communist island to the United States. Baseball agent Gustavo ''Gus'' Dominguez of Total Sports International is accused of hiring four men to help him get 19 Cubans off the island on August 22, 2004, including several who are now US minor-league baseball players. The voyage also included three children only identified by their initials. (The Miami Herald, 31/10/06)