Nearly 70 journalists were forced into exile over the past 12 months, with more than half coming from Iran and Cuba, two of the world's most repressive nations, a new survey by the Committee to Protect Journalists has found.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Monday he had his full faculties after an operation in Cuba and was still managing government affairs despite being ordered to rest for several days more.
The body of political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo, whose death by hunger strike last year provoked international criticism of Cuba was exhumed for cremation Tuesday, his family said, enabling them to take his remains when they emigrate to the United States.
A Cuban court has convicted 14 government officials and businessmen and a Chilean entrepreneur for corruption and bribery involving the state-owned airline and a tourism agency.
Cuban President Raul Castro turned 80 on Friday, vowing to rejuvenate the country's aging leadership and its sagging economy.
The National Ballet of Cuba plans to deliver a “message of peace” when it starts its first United States tour in eight years, said renowned director, Alicia Alonso. The visit is expected to last one month.
President Raul Castro said that Cuba currently “needs more than ever the blessings from its evangelic churches” to keep advancing with the reforms to update the exhausted economic model of the last fifty years, according to reports in the official Havana media.
The number of Cubans working in the private sector continues to rise and now includes over 300,000 as a result of President Raul Castro government’s economic reforms that have been implemented since last October.
Lawmakers from the European Union and Latin America meeting in Uruguay approved two resolutions on the lack of freedoms in Cuba and on the coming electoral process in Venezuela.
Cuba has given all small businesses the authority to hire (and fire) labour and will loosen other regulations governing private enterprise as part of the broader measures to reform the island’s economy and boost production, the government said in a statement.