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Alejandro Fonseca stood in line for several hours outside a bank in Havana hoping to withdraw Cuban pesos from an ATM... HAVANA -- Alejandro Fonseca stood in line for several hours outside a bank in Havana hoping to withdraw Cuban pesos from an ATM, but when it was almost his turn, the cash ran out. He angrily hopped on his electric tricycle and traveled several kilometers to another branch where he finally managed to withdraw some money after wasting the entire morning. “It shouldn’t be so difficult to get the money you earn by working,”... Fonseca is one of an...

(CNN)CIA physician Dr. Paul Andrews was one of the first people sent to Havana, Cuba, to investigate a spate of mysterious health incidents that were impacting embassy and agency personnel in 2017 when he was struck by the same set of debilitating symptoms, he told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta in his first public interview for a CNN Special Report: "Immaculate Concussion: The Truth About Havana Syndrome." Andrews, who is using a pseudonym in order to speak publicly, had already been studying the first victims of what has come to be known colloquially as "Havana syndrome," or officially...

ROBERT TREUHAFT, who has died aged 89, was best known as the Communist husband of Jessica Mitford; by marrying into the Mitford clan, he became one of a disparate group of brothers-in-law that included Sir Oswald Mosley, Lord Moyne, Derek Jackson, and the Duke of Devonshire. On paper, Bob Treuhaft sounded unpleasant, and was once described as one of the most dangerously subversive lawyers operating in America. In reality, he possessed considerable charm and intelligence, and was an altogether lovable figure. Robert E Treuhaft was born in New York on August 8 1912, the son of Jewish working class immigrants ...

At least two U.S. diplomats will be medically evacuated from Vietnam after “Havana Syndrome” incidents were reported over the weekend in the capital city of Hanoi ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris’ arrival, according to two senior U.S. officials. ...The description of the incidents as “acoustic” indicates that the affected diplomats heard strange sounds. That was also the case with many of the original Havana Syndrome cases in Cuba, but there have been other incidents that did not involve sound. The weekend incidents in Hanoi occurred at the staffers’ homes, not at ...

The first Cuban protester has died after police allegedly opened fire on a peaceful demonstration while an anti-government reporter was arrested live on TV as the unrest continues on the Communist-run island. Diubis Laurencio Tejeda, 36, died on Monday in a suburb of Havana during a clash between protesters and police, the Interior Ministry said. The ministry said Tejeda was part of a group of protesters that had attacked a government facility in the La Guinera neighbourhood of Havana and did not say what caused his death. But witnesses said security forces had responded with gunfire after some demonstrators had...

Cuba protests: Thousands rally against government as economy struggles https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-57799852 Cubans Denounce ‘Misery’ in Biggest Protests in Decades https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/11/world/americas/cuba-crisis-protests.html Biden calls on Cuban government to listen to protesters https://www.ft.com/content/ea060122-11fd-48cc-b77e-4d8a38b975b1

Cubans make up the largest number of migrants in Mexico trying to obtain asylum in the United States. But policy changes in the Obama and Trump administrations have made it harder for Cubans fleeing the island. Immigration officials deported 120 Cubans on a single flight last week — one of the “largest” Cuba repatriation missions in recent history. Last Friday’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement charter flight from New Orleans to Havana was one of many to come, two federal sources say, noting that officials have been quietly ramping up their efforts to detain and send undocumented Cubans back to...

On February 15, 1898, the battleship USS Maine exploded in Havana Harbor, touching off the Spanish-American War shortly thereafter. Here is an account written by Charles D. Sigsbee, the captain of the Maine who survived the destruction of his ship and later went on to become an Admiral in the United States Navy. About an hour before the explosion I had completed a report called for by Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, on the advisability of continuing to place torpedo-tubes on board cruisers and battleships. I then wrote a letter home, in which I struggled to apologize...

Early film from Movietone sound cameras of life in Havana including horse racing, thirsty American tourists at the world famous Sloppy Joe's bar having a legal drink, various scenes of entertainment and night life, religious pilgrims, the Pan American Conference of 1928, the state visit of US President Calvin Coolidge, some scenes of local landmarks and the visit by Charles Lindbergh. (B&W with sound appx 45 minutes)

Russia will spend hundreds of millions of rubles on restoring the golden dome of the National Capitol Building in Havana, Cuba, in what Russian critics have said is an example of misplaced spending. Russian users reacted sarcastically to the plan, with opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s aide Leonid Volkov calling it “brilliant news, simply the best.” Popular blogger Ilya Varlamov wrote a post on Telegram ridiculing Russia’s decision to spend the money abroad. “Russia will spend 642 million rubles to restore roads and repair hospitals across the country!” he wrote. “Whoops, I made a typo, sorry!" Though opened after eight years...

Republican Sen. Jeff Flake says the U.S. has found no evidence that American diplomats in Havana were the victims of attacks with an unknown weapon. Flake, a Senate Foreign Relations Committee member and a longtime leading advocate of detente with Cuba, met Friday with high-ranking Cuban officials including Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez and officials from the Interior Ministry, which oversees domestic security and works with foreign law-enforcement agencies. The Cubans told Flake the FBI has told them that, after four trips to Cuba, its agents have found no evidence that mysterious illnesses suffered by U.S. diplomats were the result of...

It sounds sort of like a mass of crickets. But not quite. A high-pitched whine, but from what? It seems to undulate, even writhe. Listen closely: Some hear multiple, distinct tones colliding in a nails-on-the-chalkboard effect. The Associated Press has obtained a recording of what some U.S. Embassy workers heard in Havana, part of the series of unnerving incidents later deemed to be deliberate attacks. The recording, released Thursday by the AP, is the first disseminated publicly of the many taken in Cuba of sounds that led investigators initially to suspect a sonic weapon. The recordings from Havana have been...

Reflections on the Trump Administration's changes to our Cuba policy: In 1959, following six years of organized Marxist-Leninist rebellion, mostly run by Fidel and Raul Castro and their partner Che Guevera, the Battista government of Cuba was overthrown and Fidel Castro claimed dictatorial powers, which he eventually turned over to his brother Raul, in 2008. The Castros spent their sixty years not only oppressing their people – robbing, raping, beating, imprisoning, torturing, and killing, as all communist governments do – but they also spent those years, particularly the years before the collapse of the Soviet Union, spreading violent revolution across...

A free concert is very nice, but it's a reminder that Cuba remains in communist squalor It was awfully nice of the Rolling Stones to go to Havana this past weekend and play a concert for free. I’m sure the longtime victims of communism appreciated the gift - especially since exposure to any media that would have made them aware the Rolling Stones exist put them in jeopardy of prison under the Castro regime that Barack Obama thinks we can learn from about civil rights. The Stones may be almost as old as the Castros, but they rocked, as they...

When it comes to travel, nothing rains on President Obama’s parade. In the first visit by a sitting U.S. president in 88 years, the first family touched down in Cuba on Sunday amidst some wet weather. They headed straight to a walking tour of Old Havana, a neighborhood that’s maintained its architectural character since its founding in 1519. The area is comprised of five large plazas: Plaza de Armas, Plaza Vieja, Plaza de San Francisco, Plaza del Cristo and Plaza de la Catedral. Each plaza is surrounded by significant buildings, monuments and narrow, winding streets.

President Barack Obama will use an historic speech in Havana next week to lay out a vision of greater freedoms and more economic opportunity in Cuba, White House officials said Wednesday, offering a glimpse of how the president hopes to use his trip to encourage change on the communist island. Obama’s speech on Tuesday at the Grand Theater of Havana will mark a moment that seemed unimaginable only a few years ago, before Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro moved to restore relations between the two estranged countries. Obama’s advisers said they hoped Cubans would be able to watch the...

U.S. officials say the United States and Cuba will sign an agreement next week to restart commercial air traffic for the first time in five decades. U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx flies to Havana on Tuesday to cement the deal. It will let U.S. airlines bid on routes for dozens of U.S.-Cuba flights per day. That's more than five times the current number of flights, all of which are charters. ...

HAVANA - In the Alamar neighborhood on the outskirts of Havana, the streets don't have names. To find an address, you need to know the zone, the block number and the apartment, because all the buildings look the same. Long and rectangular, five stories tall, their facades have been stripped by the ocean air and re-pigmented in curlicue patterns of mildew. Alamar is the largest public housing project in Cuba, if not one of the largest in the world, with 100,000 residents. In a country sworn to socialist equality, it is arguably Cuba’s most equal place, because everyone pretty much...

What is it about worn-out socialist "worker paradises" like the old Soviet Union and Cuba that bring out the romantic in American radical politicians? After Vermont senator Bernie Sanders announced his run for president, Britain’s Guardian newspaper pawed through old archives in his home town of Burlington, Vermont where he served as mayor in the 1980s. They discovered that Sanders really did practice the socialist solidarity he preached about rhetorically. During Bernie's mayoral tenure, Burlington formed an alliance with the Soviet city of Yaroslavl, 160 miles northeast of Moscow. When in 1988 he married his wife, Jane, the mayor decided...

“We were saying backstage that you want to come back as an Emanuel child. You take your young people on fascinating trips around the world, headed these holidays to Cuba. Why?” POLITICO's senior White House correspondent asked. Emanuel bristled, responding, “Well, first of all, thanks for telling everybody what I’m going to do with my family." "You had a private conversation with me and now you decide to make that public. I really don’t appreciate that, for one, I really don’t," the mayor scolded