EL IMPERIO Y LA ISLA INDEPENDIENTE 4 y 5http://www.cubamigos.be/nl/node/544,


Cuba awaits news on Castro's return
By Michael Voss BBC News, Havana Cuba's electoral process formally got under way this week - at a time when Cubans are increasingly beginning to wonder how permanent Fidel Castro's absence from power will be.
Their long-time leader handed the temporary presidency to his brother, Raul, last summer after undergoing emergency surgery.
The country's electoral process will culminate early next year in a new National Assembly, or Parliament, which in turn elects the country's president for another five-year term.
The president of Cuba's National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcon, is one of the few leading figures to have spoken publicly about Fidel Castro's health following his series of intestinal operations.
Until now, the official line had been that the ailing leader would eventually return to the helm and run for re-election next year.
But, in an exclusive interview with the BBC, Mr Alarcon was far more cautious in his latest assessment.
Strict regime
We met at the modest National Assembly building on 42nd Street, in the Miramar district of the capital, Havana.
---- I hope that he will continue recovering and I look forward to him continuing to play the leading role that he has always played in our country Ricardo Alarcon -------
Mr Alarcon joined Fidel Castro's movement to overthrow the American-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista at the age of 18, organising its youth brigades.
He told me that Fidel Castro had had to adjust to a strict regime to help his physical recovery, while remaining active in the decision-making process.
"He's also doing something that probably he would have liked to have done more of in the past but didn't have time to do before his illness, which is reading a lot and writing a lot."
But when asked specifically if Fidel would return to front-line politics, he was more circumspect.
"I hope that he will continue recovering and I look forward to him continuing to play the leading role that he has always played in our country," he said.
Living standards
The world's last surviving Cold War leader has not been seen in public since he named his brother Raul as acting president just over a year ago.
It is now more than two months since any pictures of him were released, though Fidel Castro continues to make his presence felt through regular newspaper editorials.
Cuba is now more than a year into the transition and outwardly, at least, very little has changed.
But acting President Raul Castro has raised expectations that efforts are being made to raise living standards.
In a keynote address to the nation in March, acting President Raul Castro spoke of the need for structural and conceptual changes.
"Raul was appealing to people to be more critical of our own problems... and looking at the possibility of doing things in a better, more rational way," Mr Alarcon explained.
Foreign policy
At a speech in Venezuela earlier this month, Mr Alarcon had said that in the 21st Century we can expect to see many different types of socialism.
So is Cuba about to embark on a Chinese or Vietnamese-style reform, with an opening-up of the economy?
"No," he told me. "What you should expect to see is a Cuban approach.
"But that doesn't mean to say that you cannot benefit from the contributions that other people's experience may bring."
On foreign policy issues, Mr Alarcon, who was Cuba's long-time ambassador to the United States through much of the Cold War period, reaffirmed Cuba's willingness to sit down at the negotiating table with the Americans, but not as long as the Bush administration was in power.
Mr Alarcon also said that an end to the US trade embargo against Cuba, which has been in force for almost half a century, was not a precondition for talks.

Bolivia: Coca Leaves Predict Castro Recovery By SIMON ROMERO - NYTA consultation of coca leaves by Aymara Indian shamans presages the recovery of Fidel Castro, according to Cuba’s ambassador to Bolivia. “The Comandante is enjoying a recovery,” Rafael Dausá, the ambassador, told Bolivia’s state news agency after attending the ceremony in El Alto, the heavily indigenous city near the capital, La Paz. Pointing to Cuba’s warming ties to Bolivia, as the leftist president, Evo Morales, settles into his second year in power, Mr. Dausá said, “Being in Bolivia today means being in the leading trench in the anti-imperialist struggle in Latin America.” Bolivia and Cuba, together with Venezuela, have forged a political and economic alliance called the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas.
POLÍTICA-CUBA: La fuerza de la costumbrehttp://cubaalamano.net/sitio/print/report.php?id=680,

What does the bridge to Cuba mean for the North?http://www.nob.on.ca/columns/Robinson/08-07-cuba.asp,

TV Martí can be watched. The question is by whom and where.http://progreso-weekly.com:80/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=103,
TV Martí sí se ve. El problema es quiénes y por dóndehttp://progreso-semanal.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=84&Itemid=1,
Liberado en Miami el terrorista Osvaldo Mitat Una vez más EE.UU. incumple su compromiso en la lucha contra el terrorismo
Solo era cuestión de tiempo. Los artilugios "legales" funcionaron. Se confirma que el terrorismo contra Cuba aupado en Miami no es historia pasada. Osvaldo Mitat fue liberado este jueves después de 22 meses de cárcel. No cumplió la condena que le habían impuesto por posesión ilegal de armas, destinadas a atacar a Cuba.
Él y Santiago Álvarez Fernández-Magriñá, connotados terroristas, acusados por tenencia de armamentos y explosivos en EE.UU., habían llegado a un acuerdo de "cooperación" con la Fiscalía, y esta los calificó de "luchadores por la libertad".
Ambos viajaron en el 2005, en el barco Santrina, que introdujo ilegalmente en territorio estadounidense a otro terrorista de marca: Luis Posada Carriles.
Ayer, un canal de televisión del sur de la Florida se regocijó con la noticia y el propio Mitat dijo ante la cámara que su amigo Santiago saldrá en fecha próxima.

Democracia y capitalismo son incompatibleshttp://www.insurgente.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=10738,

Venezuela
President for life?Aug 16th 2007From The Economist print edition
Forward to six-hours-a-day socialism
WHEN Simón Bolívar, South America's Venezuelan-born independence hero, wrote a constitution for the brand new country of Bolivia, it featured a lifetime president. So it should come as no surprise that Hugo Chávez, who claims to be a latter-day Bolívar, is proposing to let himself be re-elected indefinitely to his country's presidency.
The plan to abolish presidential term limits is part of a bundle of constitutional changes unveiled by Mr Chávez on August 15th. These would remove the last remaining checks and balances to presidential power in Venezuela. They would strip the Central Bank of all autonomy, allowing the government to spend the country's foreign reserves. The government would be given power to expropriate private property by decree, and to promote co-operatives and state enterprise.
State governors and mayors will still be subject to term limits—otherwise they might become caudillos, Mr Chávez said recently, without irony. They will be sidelined by new communal councils, dependent on the presidency. Another proposal is to reduce the maximum working day to six hours. “Now we are headed straight towards socialism,” Mr Chávez said. But first the plans must be approved by referendum.
In office since 1999, Mr Chávez was himself the architect of the constitution he now wants to modify. Since winning re-election last December he has nationalised the telecoms and electricity industries and discontinued the terrestrial broadcasting licence of the main opposition television station.
The president remains popular, thanks to a bond with many poorer Venezuelans reinforced by quantities of oil money for social programmes. But there is much polling evidence that a large majority oppose socialism and value democracy.
His opponents say that Mr Chávez is destroying Venezuela's economy and its democracy, and needs ever more money to buy popularity. Some of his senior supporters, who have their own presidential ambitions, may also be discomfited by the burgeoning personality cult around the president.
Bolivia quickly discarded Bolívar's 19th-century constitution and sank into instability. Once the oil money runs out, that may be the fate of a socialist paradise working six hours a day.

I don't want to rule indefinitely, says Chávez
James Sturcke and agenciesThursday August 16, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
The Venezuelan leader, Hugo Chávez, denied he wanted to stay in power indefinitely after announcing plans to abolish limits to presidential re-election.Mr Chávez also told the country's National Assembly that presidential terms should be extended from six to seven years.
"I propose to the sovereign people the seven-year presidential term, the president can be re-elected immediately for a new term," Mr Chavez said in a the four-hour speech.
"If someone says this is a project to entrench oneself in power, no - it's only a possibility, a possibility that depends on many variables."
Mr Chávez was elected president for a second time last December and, under the current constitution, will have to step down in 2012.
The BBC reported that he also proposed implementing a maximum six-hour working day, increasing presidential control over the central bank and strengthening state economic powers to allow the government to control assets of private companies.
Critics have accused Mr Chávez of seeking to remain as president for decades to come, like the Cuban leader Fidel Castro, a close friend. They fear he is steering the oil-rich nation towards Havana-style communism.
The National Assembly, controlled by Mr Chávez's political allies, is expected to approve the reform plan - which would then have to be passed in a national referendum - within months.
Holding up a small copy of the country's current constitution, which dates to his first term in 1999, the president called it one of the world's most advanced.
He said he and members of a presidential commission were redrafting it so that capitalism in Venezuela "finishes dying" to make way for socialism.
His opponents have attacked the reform plan. " Chávez is seeking to reduce the territory held by the opposition and give his intention to remain in power a legal foundation," Gerardo Blyde, an opposition leader, said.
He added that many other reforms were likely to be "red capes" like those used by a bullfighter "to distract Venezuelans from his real objective".
The Venezuelan Roman Catholic bishops' conference has complained that the reform proposals were drafted without public input.
Mr Chávez has denied copying Cuba, and insists personal freedoms will be respected. He and his supporters say democracy has flourished under his administration, noting that he has repeatedly won elections by wide margins.
However, some of his decisions have been criticised as apparently curtailing freedom. Last month, he vowed to expel foreigners who publicly criticised his leadership or government. In May, RCTV an anti-Chávez television channel, was banned from broadcasting.

Latin America's middle class
Adiós to poverty, hola to consumption SÃO BERNARDO DO CAMPO From The Economist Faster growth, low inflation, expanding credit and liberal trade are helping to create a new middle classhttp://www.economist.com/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=9645142,
Latin America's economies
Up from the bottom of the pile
From The Economist Something rather exciting is happening in Latin Americahttp://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9653053,
Analyse"Castro light" peut-il changer Cuba ?, par Jean-Michel CaroitLE MONDE 16.08.07 15h18 • Mis à jour le 16.08.07 15h18
ransition, succession, continuité ? Les cubanologues et les polémistes de l'exil s'interrogent sur le processus ouvert par la maladie de Fidel Castro et l'abandon "provisoire" de ses fonctions à la tête de l'Etat cubain il y a un an. Plus déroutante que les divergences de ces observateurs, à la vision parfois brouillée par l'obsédante figure du fondateur de la révolution cubaine, est l'attitude de Washington.

Apparemment surprise par le scénario de la lente agonie, l'administration Bush a d'emblée tranché : Fidel et Raul, c'est du pareil au même, répète-t-on à Washington. Trois offres de dialogue du frère cadet, surnommé le "Castro light", ont été repoussées sans ambages.
La politique cubaine des Etats-Unis demeure dictée par des considérations électorales intérieures. Au risque de rater l'occasion de favoriser une transition pacifique souhaitée par la majorité des habitants de l'île et un nombre croissant d'exilés.
Appartenant pour la plupart à l'aile dure, les porte-parole de la communauté cubano-américaine représentent de moins en moins les nouvelles générations d'exilés, favorables au dialogue. L'un des paradoxes de l'équation cubaine est qu'ils continuent à tracer la politique intransigeante des Etats-Unis vis-à-vis de l'île communiste alors que Washington dialogue et commerce avec la Chine ou le Vietnam.
Comme les Cubains de l'île, les Cubano-Américains de la deuxième génération et les émigrés des deux dernières décennies sont saturés de politique. Les exilés récents aspirent à renforcer les liens avec leurs familles restées à Cuba pour en améliorer l'ordinaire. Or l'administration Bush a restreint les possibilités de voyages et de transferts de fonds sous la pression des "durs".
Le non-respect de l'accord migratoire négocié par l'ex-président Bill Clinton, qui prévoit la délivrance de 20 000 visas annuels, a créé une nouvelle pomme de discorde. Cela pourrait servir de prétexte à une autre vague de migrations sauvages, comme en 1980 ou à l'été 1994, si le mécontentement s'aggravait dans l'île.
L'Europe, elle, ne fait guère preuve d'imagination. Malgré les efforts de l'Espagne, l'ancienne puissance coloniale, qui a conservé des liens forts avec Cuba, les initiatives pouvant favoriser une transition pacifique butent sur le suivisme des positions américaines. Anciens du glacis soviétique, les récents membres orientaux de l'Union paralysent la diplomatie espagnole.
Un an après sa première opération, il est de moins en moins probable que Fidel Castro - dont le 81e anniversaire, lundi 13 août, n'a donné lieu qu'à de discrètes cérémonies - reprenne ses fonctions. L'ombre du Gardien du temple révolutionnaire rend difficilement perceptibles les efforts de changement. Patriarche prévoyant, il a organisé sa succession avant de passer sur la table d'opération. Pour encadrer son frère cadet, principal héritier, il a nommé les membres de la direction collégiale chargée d'expédier les affaires courantes et d'entretenir la "flamme éternelle" de la révolution. Raul Castro a profité du 26 juillet, principal anniversaire du calendrier révolutionnaire, pour esquisser ce que pourrait être le changement dans la continuité. Loin des interminables envolées rhétoriques de son aîné, bourrées de statistiques à la gloire de la révolution, Raul Castro a choisi la concision et l'autocritique. A l'écoute des frustrations d'une population qui consacre les trois quarts de ses maigres revenus à une alimentation médiocre et insuffisante, il a évoqué des "changements structurels et conceptuels".
L'objectif, a dit le président "provisoire", est d'accroître la production et surtout d'augmenter la productivité d'une économie où les salaires dérisoires n'incitent pas à travailler. Il a pris soin de préciser que ces changements seraient "graduels" et qu'il ne fallait pas en attendre des résultats immédiats et miraculeux. Le pragmatisme de Raul tranche avec l'idéalisme de son aîné, qui n'a cessé de compter sur la mobilisation, le travail volontaire, la ferveur révolutionnaire et la "bataille des idées".
LES SUBSIDES DE CHAVEZ
Raul Castro sait que le sauvetage de l'économie ces dernières années, grâce aux pétrodollars vénézuéliens, n'est pas exempt de risques et d'effets pervers. L'aide du président Hugo Chavez a permis à Fidel Castro de revenir sur plusieurs réformes qu'il avait adoptées à contrecoeur dans les années 1990 pour faire face à l'effondrement du camp socialiste.
A Miami, les économistes comparent les subsides de Chavez aux subventions de l'ère soviétique. La découverte d'hydrocarbures dans les blocs offshore, où près d'une dizaine de compagnies étrangères ont signé des contrats d'exploration, réduirait cette nouvelle dépendance, qui retarde la rationalisation de l'économie cubaine. Reste à savoir si le socialisme cubain peut être réformé, à la chinoise, à la vietnamienne ou, comme l'espèrent des dissidents modérés, tendre vers une forme de social-démocratie à la cubaine qui préserverait les "acquis de la révolution" en matière de santé et d'éducation. Avocate des homosexuels et des transsexuels, Mariela Castro, la fille de Raul, s'est prononcée en faveur de réformes dans deux entretiens à la presse espagnole. Sans être rabrouée par son père, relèvent les optimistes.
S'il se confirme que Raul, qui est âgé de 76 ans, est convaincu de la nécessité de rationaliser le socialisme cubain, il devra agir avec habileté et sans perdre de temps. Pourra-t-il, sans contredire Fidel, répondre aux demandes et aux frustrations d'une population dont on exige trop de sacrifices depuis trop longtemps ? En attendant, Raul Castro se pose, comme son frère, en défenseur de "la révolution éternelle" et de "l'unité du peuple". Dans le jargon révolutionnaire, cette "unité" est synonyme de refus du pluralisme politique et de contrôle des médias. Elle est justifiée par la défense de la souveraineté nationale, menacée par "l'agressivité de l'impérialisme nord-américain".
D'où l'importance d'un changement d'attitude à Washington, qui pourrait résulter de la possible élection d'un président démocrate en novembre 2008. Barack Obama s'est dit prêt à dialoguer avec Raul Castro et avec Hugo Chavez. Hillary Clinton est restée plus évasive. C'est à eux que le président "provisoire" cubain a de nouveau tendu un rameau d'olivier dans son discours du 26 juillet. Une manière de laisser entendre qu'il pense être toujours au pouvoir en janvier 2009 lors de la prestation de serment du prochain président américain. Jean-Michel CaroitArticle paru dans l'édition du 17.08.07
La CIA y el Vaticano alteran algunos contenidos de Wikipediahttp://www.insurgente.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=10736,http://www.minci.gob.ve/noticias-nacionales/1/15303/anteproyecto_de_reforma.html,

CIA, FBI computers used for Wikipedia edits Reuters The logo of the Central Intelligence Agency is seen in the lobby of the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia People using CIA and FBI computers have edited entries in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia on topics including the Iraq war and the Guantanamo prison, according to a new tracing program. The changes may violate Wikipedia's conflict-of-interest guidelines, a spokeswoman for the site said on Thursday.
The program, WikiScanner, was developed by Virgil Griffith of the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico and posted this month on a Web site that was quickly overwhelmed with searches.
The program allows users to track the source of computers used to make changes to the popular Internet encyclopedia where anyone can submit and edit entries.
WikiScanner revealed that CIA computers were used to edit an entry on the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. A graphic on casualties was edited to add that many figures were estimated and were not broken down by class.
Another entry on former CIA chief William Colby was edited by CIA computers to expand his career history and discuss the merits of a Vietnam War rural pacification program that he headed.
Aerial and satellite images of the U.S. prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were removed using a computer traced to the FBI, WikiScanner showed.
CIA spokesman George Little said he could not confirm whether CIA computers were used in the changes, adding that "the agency always expects its computer systems to be used responsibly."
The FBI did not have an immediate response.
Computers at numerous other organizations and companies were found to have been involved in editing articles related to them.
Griffith said he developed WikiScanner "to create minor public relations disasters for companies and organizations I dislike (and) to see what 'interesting organizations' (which I am neutral towards) are up to."
It was not known whether changes were made by an official representative of an agency or company, Griffith said, but it was certain the change was made by someone with access to the organization's network.
It violates Wikipedia's neutrality guidelines for a person with close ties to an issue to contribute to an entry about it, said spokeswoman Sandy Ordonez of the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia's parent organization.
However, she said, "Wikipedia is self-correcting," meaning misleading entries can be quickly revised by another editor. She said Wikimedia welcomed the WikiScanner.
WikiScanner can be found at wikiscanner.virgil.gr/.

The CIA
On top of everything else, not very good at its job
From The Economist The United States has not, even in the eyes of well-disposed critics, been well served by its main intelligence agencyhttp://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9644588,