New President Changes Cuba

 The Miguel Diaz-Canel Imprint Sharpens!!

Photo courtesy: Enrique de la Osa/Reuters

     The photo above was used Wednesday, July 18th, 2018, to illustrate an article written by Rachel England for Reuters. She said: "The Cuban government has launched a program that will see mobile internet rolled out nationwide by the end of the year. Cuba is one of the least connected countries in the Western Hemisphere due to a lack of resources, the U. S. trade embargo, and low tolerance for outside support of public dissidence. But new President Miguel Diaz-Canel says, 'greater internet access will help boost the economy and help Cubans defend the revolution.'"

       In the days after April 19th, 2018, when he became President of Cuba, Miguel Diaz-Canel spent considerable time touching base with Cuba-friendly world leaders. He firmly stated, "We must work as best we can with the Trump administration in Washington but unlike during the Obama term it now involves wasting too much of our time that can better be spent with international leaders of friendly nations."

      Cuba's new President backs up his comments. Diaz-Canel is shown above with an international leader that is very friendly to Cuba, Federica Mogherini. She is the High Representative for the 28 European Union nations that include key trade-partners.

     In addition to the July 18th-2018 Reuters report that President Diaz-Canel is aiming for nationwide internet access by the end of the year, he earlier this week reaffirmed a key decision in which he ordered his Ministers "to appear regularly on Cuba's excellent television channels to tell the people what each of you are doing to address the concerns of the people, so they can judge your efforts for themselves."

     This week, in reaction to Diaz-Canel's new orders stressing that televised news and cultural reports should connect the Cuban people more with their leaders, the photo above was taken at a national journalistic session. Diaz-Canel valued the input of two very popular television news anchors -- Rosy Amaro on the left and Cristina Escobar on the right. Journalist Sergio Gomez is in the middle of the above photo.

       Within the first month of his Cuban presidency, Diaz-Canel was confronted by a major tragedy -- the crash on the edge of Havana of a Cuban airplane in which 112 people were killed on May 18th, 2018. Diaz-Canel immediately went to the scene of the crash {above}. Standing in front of the burning wreckage, Diaz-Canel faced live television cameras and explained what he knew at the time about the crash. He explained why the 39-year-old Boeing 737 was leased from a tiny Mexican airline and had a Mexican crew, and he blamed the U. S. embargo as the reason Cuba cannot get needed spare parts or newer planes. After allowing both the U. S. and Mexican experts to investigate the cause of the crash, this week "pilot error" was blamed.

     The flight had taken off from Havana on the island's west end bound for a 450-mile flight to Holguin, a major city on the eastern end of the island. The crash site just southwest of Havana is depicted above by the red star. Since then, 16-hour bus rides have replaced the domestic flight as Cuba grounded all but 3 of its 16 major planes.

     Two of the passengers aboard the ill-fated Havana-to-Holquin flight on May 18th were...Dr. Monica Leyva Garcia and her precious baby girl. Waiting for them at the Holquin airport was Dr. Leyva's husband and the baby's father. He too is a doctor at the Holquin hospital. Monica Leyva had posted the above photo on her Facebook page on April 8th, 2018. Victims of the U. S. embargo? Diaz-Canel thinks so.

      U. S. Senator Marco Rubio -- a product of the Bush dynasty, the Tea Party, and Little Havana in Miami -- is currently in control of the U. S. Cuban narrative. He says...he lies...that the embargo is in place and should be strengthened TO HELP the Cuban people. The Trump administration, in compliance with the easily manipulated mainstream U. S. media, enables the self-absorbed Rubio to revel as America's latest Cuban dictator, reveling in the political power he gets from policies that torture innocent people, including babies, in a nearby much weaker nation. The gutless mainstream U. S. media that excoriates Trump for torturing migrant children who cross the U.S.-Mexican border illegally has neither the courage nor the integrity to criticize either Trump or Rubio for torturing totally innocent babies in THEIR OWN COUNTRY, which is the Caribbean island of Cuba.

      Meanwhile, the rest of the world -- including former U. S. President Barack Obama and Fabiola Sanchez, the Cuban-born editorial chief & top columnist at the Miami Herald -- agree with the unanimous UN vote {191-to-0} condemning the embargo against Cuba. It has, of course, existed SINCE 1962 to appease a mere handful of self-serving Counter Revolutionaries like Rubio who could not care less about the shame it bestows on the United States and on Democracy...OR how it effects the precious lives of Cubans on the island like Dr. Monica Leyva and her baby. {The above internationally accepted image of the U. S. embargo of Cuba was crafted by Brazilian journalist Carlos Latuff after he read the DE-classified U. S. document that detailed the reason for the embargo from 1962 till today and that reason was-is to starve, deprive, and make miserable the lives of Cubans on the island to induce them to rise up and overthrow their revolutionary government}. Through all these decades since 1962, cowardly and unpatriotic Americans have not had the guts or the intelligence to do something about history's longest and cruelest embargo ever imposed by a powerful nation against a weak nation. Carlos LaTuff speaks the truth; Marco Rubio revels in lies as he gloriously hides behind the skirts of the Superpower U. S. government, THE VERY SAME THING THE BATISTA-MAFIA DICTATORSHIP DID IN CUBA TILL THE CUBAN REVOLUTION IN 1959 CHASED IT TO LITTLE HAVANA IN MIAMI, Florida.

      Improving Cuba's fragile economy while trying to deal with yet another Republican administration in Washington {that is tightly aligned with counter-revolutionary Miami and Congressional hard-liners}, remains a daunting task for President Diaz-Canel's nascent leadership of the vulnerable and historically targeted nation that, unfortunately, lies just 90 miles from Key West, Florida. But the Cuban people all across the Caribbean's largest island got to know Diaz-Canel during his stint as a motorcycle-riding Education Minister and they strongly support him in these early stages of Cuba's first non-Castro and non-Revolutionary presidency since 1959.

The Diaz-Canel ledger.

     But, first and foremost, President Diaz-Canel's idol will always be Revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, who died at age 90 on November 25th, 2016. Improving Cuba's economy is #Two on Diaz-Canel's priority list; protecting Fidel Castro's revolution and legacy is #One. The so-called "Cuban experts" in Washington have rarely judged Cuba correctly, accounting for the island's Revolutionary victory over the vile U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship; over the vile Bay of Pigs attack in April of 1961; and over six decades of constant U.S.-CIA-Cuban exile-Mafia attempts to recapture the island. The Washington "experts" pre-judging Miguel Diaz-Canel as merely a "figurehead leader" once again plays into little Cuba's hands against its colossal northern enemy.

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Miami Is STILL Little Havana

6+ Decades AFTER Revolution!!

Photo courtesy: Roberto Koltun/Miami Herald

      This week -- on July 16th, 2018 -- the photo above was used to illustrate a major article in the Miami Herald written by Mimi Whitefield. The article is entitled: "Miami Billboard Accuses Cruise Ships That Sail To Cuba Of Dealing In Confiscated Property." It is yet another gigantic reminder that, since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in January of 1959, the city of Miami, controlled by exiles from Bastista's-to-Castro's Cuba, is still Little Havana and still waiting for some Republican administration to recapture Havana for them. But...Miami...used to be...Miami.

     The aforementioned article in the Miami Herald points out that, although the Trump White House now dictates America's Cuban policies in alliance with Little Havana, Florida's and the world's top Cruise Lines today are sailing to Cuba or scheduled to sail to Cuba including: Pearl Seas Cruises, Royal Caribbean, Oceanic Cruises, Viking Ocean Cruises, Holland American Line, and Regent Seven Seas Cruises.

      Yet, since 1959 the Little Havana neighborhood in the heart of Miami has controlled all six Republican presidential administrations, including the current Trump administration as well as the current Republican domination of both branches of the U. S. Congress. This -- as graphically reported by the above referenced Miami Herald article on July 16, 2018 -- Little Havana in Miami is totally frustrated with such things as cruise lines from Florida making regular cruises to Cuba ALMOST AS IF THE CUBA-FRIENDLY U.S. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA was still in the White House.

     The current Trump Republican administration was preceded by the two-term and Cuba-friendly Democratic administration of Barack Obama who tried desperately to role back the USA's and Little Havana's egregious designs on Cuba.

      Although Fidel Castro died at age 90 on Nov. 25-2016, the island is still Castro's Cuba even with its new born-after-the-Revolution President, Miguel Diaz-Canel.

      And through it all, in July of 2018 the sovereign-revolutionary Cuban flag is still waving {against all odds and predictions} in the unpredictable Caribbean winds.

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Photos Best Tell Cuba's Story

Better Than Rubio's Words!!

       The BBC, the London-based international media giant, used the above AFP photo to illustrate a report on July 16th-2018 concerning Cuba's National Assembly enacting "A New Constitution Recognizing Private Property." The BBC explained that it merely "reaffirmed" a Cuban law that has been in effect since 2011. It also reflects affirmation of Cuba's new non-Castro President.

     An article today -- July 16th, 2018 -- written by Marc Frank of Reuters used the above AFP photo to illustrate that the Cuban National Assembly has "given the green light for private taxi service on the island." The green convertible is a  new taxi.

     Since April 19th, 2018, Cuba's new President Miguel Diaz-Canel has left some subtle and not-so-subtle imprints on the island. The 58-year-old Diaz-Canel was born after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution and is the first non-Castro leader since 1959. But, as the above photo indicates, Diaz-Canel aims to make sure that Cuba "remains sovereign and remains Fidel's independent island without foreign domination." President Diaz-Canel is shown paying homage at the tomb of his idol Fidel Castro, who died at age 90 on Nov. 25, 2016. In fact, one of Diaz-Canel's strengths is the simple fact that there has, since the 1950s, been enough Fidel idolaters on the island to fuel and sustain the Revolution, and that still particularly includes the powerful young leaders comprising the vital Federation of University Students, a group that has massively supported Fidel and the Revolution since 1953. Diaz-Canel's trajectory to the top leadership of Cuba included his popularity across the island as Education Minister.

     Fiery defenders of Fidel Castro's Revolution today include all the top leaders of the Federation of University Students {FEU} such as Jennifer Bello Martinez. Batista's gunmen in the 1950s killed many top FEU leaders, such as the famously martyred Jose Eccheveria, but he couldn't kill them all even as he {Batista} closed the University of Havana. Jennifer and her associates today are cast in Jose's mold as fierce defenders of Fidel, the Revolution, and now President Diaz-Canel...and that's very important.

       The above photo was taken on Saturday, July 15th, 2018, in Havana, and it reflects one of President Diaz-Canel's already indelible imprints. He has ordered his Ministers to appear regularly on Cuba's excellent television news programs to "inform the people what you are doing to solve their problems so they can judge for themselves if they are being solved or at least know that we are trying." The past weekend in Havana -- July 14 & 15, 2018 -- featured a major parliamentary National Journalism session defining Diaz-Canel's newly embedded emphasis on television news. The photo above shows Sergio Gomez flanked on the left by Rosy Amaro and on the right by Cristina Escobar. The two young women are brilliant television news anchors and Diaz-Canel's Ministers welcomed their input regarding broadcast journalism on the island.

       While Americans are programmed to form most of their opinions about Cuba based on the words of self-serving Counter Revolutionary-Miami extremists such as U. S. Senator Marco Rubio, Alexandre Meneghini is a far better and fairer source for Cuban information. Meneghini is an internationally renowned Brazilian photographer based for many years in Cuba. His Cuban photos for 12 years while working for the American Associated Press won numerous awards and he now works for England's Reuters news agency...and is still winning internationally acclaimed photographic laurels. The following array of Alexandre Meneghini photos from Cuba, for example, paint a true portrait of the island as actually lived by actual islanders.

      This award-winning Meneghini photo was taken on January 9th, 2015. At a point when Barack Obama was the first and only U. S. President since the 1950s to have both the courage and the decency to treat Cubans on the island with respect, this photo shows 12-year-old Jenifer Lopez watching television in her Havana home.

Meneghini's Cuban motorcyclist.

     This Meneghini photo shows Elia Gabriel of South Sudan. The photo was used in a Reuters report about Fidel Castro's legacy related to Cuba having the world's largest Medical School and one that continues to offer totally free 6-year scholarships to poor foreign students, including 170 from the United States, who never pay Cuba a cent but just promise to return to the destitute areas from whence they came to provide medical services for at least five years. Elia Gabriel said, "As the Mandela defender who beat apartheid, Fidel was already Africa's best friend. My medical education is also his."

     This Meneghini gem shows the Cuban musical group Quintela Rebelde. All five fought as rebels for Fidel Castro in the Sierra Maestra Mountains during the Revolution and then fought for Fidel at the Bay of Pigs in April-1961 to successfully defeat the air-land-&-sea military attack by the U.S./CIA/Mafia/Cuban-exile force that intended to recapture the island. Today the five veteran Castro rebels known as Quintela Rebelde make their living singing and performing for visitors to the Bay of Pigs, which Cuba just calls Playa Giron Beach even as it attracts history-minded tourists.

     This Meneghini photo shows a Cuban cooking a meal at a Casa Particular that caters to tourists at the Bay of Pigs (Playa Giron Beach}. Casa Particulars are privately owned Restaurants or Bed & Breakfast operations that many tourists favor as a means of understanding Cuba and also helping out everyday Cubans on the island who have been targeted so unmercifully since 1959 by unchecked Counter Revolutionaries anchored in Miami, in the U. S. Congress, and in six Republican White Houses. When I was in Cuba, I tried to eat and sleep at excellent Casa Particulars like this one.

      This nighttime Meneghini photo was taken in Manzanillo and shows young Cuban men checking the Internet near a Wi-Fi station. Manzanillo is the city at the foothills of the Sierra Maestra Mountains and it played a vital role in the Revolution because is was where the doctor's daughter Celia Sanchez from the town of Media Luna, the island's Superstar revolutionary heroine, recruited rebels and supplies to kick-start the anti-Batista, pro-Castro revolution in 1953 that ended up drastically changing Cuba and the United States of America by shocking the world on the first day of January, 1959.

     This nighttime Meneghini photo depicts a street scene in Santiago, Cuba's second largest city and former capital located on the far eastern end of the alligator-shaped island. The well-lit Fidel Castro photo is something he never encouraged and, in fact, he insisted that no statues should honor him and no roads, buildings, etc., should ever be named for him.

    This nighttime Meneghini photo shows two young Cuban women in Santiago-de-Cuba engrossed in whatever they are detecting from a Smart Phone.

     This Meneghini photo shows a schoolboy raising the Cuban flag to start the day in Santo Domingo, the hamlet closest to Fidel Castro's wartime military headquarters known as "Comandancia La Plata" high up in the Sierra Maestra Mountains. "Comandancia" remains a prime tourist attraction but to get all the way there and see the restored Fidel Castro-Celia Sanchez cabin is only possible if you happen to be an extremely healthy hiker.

     These Havana teenagers, supportive of and excitedabout the Obama overtures to Cuba in 2014, were photographed by Meneghini. Of course, at the time neither these enthused young Cubans nor anyone else realized that Obama's successor in the USA White House would be Donald Trump.

Meneghini's old Cuban tobacco farmer.

     Meneghini's photo of a Cuban with "I Love Fidel" painted on her cheek as she very sincerely mourned his death during the last week of November, 2016.

       Popular young Havana television news anchor, Rosy Amaro, on a day off from work visiting Fidel's tomb on the eastern end of the island.

      Meneghini's photo of a pink vintage 1950s convertible taking tourists for a ride on an uncrowded Havana street.

     A Meneghini photo of Miguel Diaz-Canel as he was just getting used to the avalanche of fresh attention accorded to the new President of Cuba.

     Formerly the award-winner with the Associated Press and now a Superstar at Reuters, Alexandre Meneghini's photos from Cuba are essential, I believe, to truly understanding the rhythms and pulses of the very fascinating but often misunderstood island of Cuba. There are 200+ other favorite Meneghini photos from Cuba that I'll try to share periodically in future Cubaninsider postings.

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America's First Journalist

Is He More Powerful Than Trump??

The Answer, my friend, Is Blowing in the Wind!!
{UPDATED: Sunday, July 15th, 2018}

    American President Donald Trump has a beautiful, independent-minded First Lady and he also has an ultra-powerful First Journalist -- the omnipotent Sean Hannity. Of the three -- Malania, Donald, and Sean -- who is the most powerful person in America? My answer is: Sean Hannity {with actually Cuban-American Jeff Bezos second}. Before I explain that reasoning, understand that my all-time favorite President is Barack Obama. And until recently I had never watched Hannity's one-hour Prime Time television program on Fox and I had never listened to his Equally Powerful 3-hour-daily Radio Talk Show because I considered both venues to be right-wing propaganda outlets. However, I do not think either Hannity or Trump is the biggest threat to America. Nor do I think Russia, China or North Korea are the biggest threat to America. I think the extreme left-wing news media is the biggest threat to America...and that's what put the {I personally think} unqualified Trump in the White House and what has driven me to watch and to listen to...Sean Hannity.

    To understand who Sean Hannity is today and comprehend how he became the most powerful man in America in 2018, you need to know where he came from. He was born in New York City 56 years ago. In his youth he worked as a dish-washer, in construction, and as a bartender. Three decades ago he became a conservative Radio Talk Show host and to this day his 3-hours-a-day on the radio precede his one-hour Prime Time television show on the Fox News network. His weeknight television shows dominates Prime Time news programs. But his Radio Talk Show for three hours each day is on 570 radio stations across America!! His use of those two powerful propaganda mediums has elevated Sean into America's most powerful person, a man who most influences President Trump who was gifted with the most powerful office in the world by an extreme left-wing media and its establishment presidential contender that called his supporters "a basket of {ignorant white right-wing} deplorables." Such racism and stupidity from white elites and their strong support from minority groups put Trump in the White House and, consequently, has now elevated Sean's remarkable status -- the most powerful person in America at the moment.

     On CNN and MSNBC -- Sean Hannity's two competitors on Cable News networks -- most of the airtime is spent not covering news but rebuking whatever Hannity says on his Fox News program. All of the CNN anchors and almost all of the anti-Trump propaganda pundits lash out at Hannity and Fox as being "Propaganda Machines." There is certainly truth to that accusation but, incredibly, beginning at 6:00 A. M. each morning and extending into reruns beginning at midnight, CNN and MSNBC are much more pronounced as "Propaganda Machines" than Hannity and Fox are...and that is saying quite a lot as it attests to the extremely SORRY STATE of broadcast journalist in the United States today.

Yes, it's Hannity's America.

    And yes, the sorry state of broadcast journalism in America has made a Superstar out of Sean Hannity, enabling him to play a huge role in putting Trump in the White House and keeping him there!! Left-wingers who deny that are deluding themselves when they blame the "deplorable, stupid, uneducated white ignoramuses who support Trump." They themselves -- the extreme left-wingers in charge of five news networks in the U. S. -- are to blame because they created Sean Hannity and now they must live with him as the United States evolves into what might well be a cascading Revolution or Civil War.

     While being far too conservative and right-wingesh for my liking {remember, I'm a huge fan of Barack Obama}, I nevertheless now consider Sean Hannity preferable to the left-wing extremists that control today's Democratic Party PLUS five of the six most important television news networks AND arguably the two most influential print sources -- the New York Times and the Washington Post. So, who or what can offset or even overwhelm such an array of ultra-powerful left-wing extremists? Both the who and the what, in my newly constructed opinion, is...Sean Hannity. Yes, the Sean who was with Trump in the hours before Trump announced Sean's choice as the new Supreme Court nominee; And yes, the Sean who broadcast his omnipotent radio and television shows on July 11th-2018 from London because...uh...President Trump's Air Force One was about to land in England's capital city.

     Instead of hiring anchors and broadcast journalists, CNN, NBC, MSNBC, CBS, and ABC "news" executives hire left-wing propagandists and then saturate at least 95% of their airtime in a coup/propaganda conspiracy...along with the New York Times and Washington Post...designed solely to impeach or eliminate President Trump. That leaves millions of American citizens searching for fair-and-honest news coverage such as the BBC presents to the UK and the world, including the USA on cable providers. But America's mainstream media has descended into left-wing & right-wing propaganda machines that serve about 10% of America's left-wingers and about 10% of America's right-wingers while leaving the 80% of moderate and more decent Americans out in the bitter cold thirsting for the type of real journalism that the BBC has.

     In addition to putting Trump in the White House, the extreme left-wingers in Washington and around the USA have made Sean Hannity America's most powerful person. If that sounds ridiculous to you, it's because you may not realize that Sean...more than Melania, Putin or anyone else in the world...dictates Trumpian decisions. After all, Trump & Melania -- not Morning Joe & Mika on MSNBC -- are America's President and First Lady. And America's First Journalist, Sean Hannity, is more powerful than any of them. If you thank that makes me happy, you are wrong.

    Remember? My all-time favorite politician is Barack Obama, the antipathy to Trump...and Hannity. Obama's greatest legacy, I believe, will be his Herculean efforts to end the Embargo of Cuba, which...as registered by the 191-to-0 condemnation in the United Nations...has greatly harmed innocent Cubans on the island since 1962 and, consequently, has done more than anything else to harm America's worldwide reputation. With left-wing and right-wing control of the mainstream U. S. media, Americans are programmed to ignore such realities, and the Cuban reality caused me to wish, like FDR, Obama could have had 4 terms and 16 years as President, not just 2 terms and 8 years AND THEN BE SUCCEEDED BY TRUMP & HANNITY. So I resent the left-wing extremists who made Trump the successor to Obama and thus elevated Hannity as the even-more-unlikely MOST POWERFUL PERSON in the world right now.

    With America the world's economic and military Superpower, Hannity & Trump, in that order, are the two most powerful people in the world. Taking full advantage of the left-wing extremism in the mainstream media and in the Democratic Party, Hannity skillfully and incredibly put Trump in the White House in Nov.-2016 and plans to keep him there for a second inauguration in January of 2020. Meanwhile, Trump follows Hannity's meticulous suggestions. So, you tell me. Who is the most powerful person in the world, the U. S. President and Commander-in-Chief, or the media whiz that put him in those positions??

      Neither the Democratic Party nor the Mainstream Media seem capable of relinquishing their extreme left-wing bias. That plays perfectly into Hannity's hands as Trump's puppet-master, and Hannity is skilled enough as a right-wing media artist to fully take advantage of the gift bequeathed to him by the extreme left-wingers. That is so even though in America's two-party Republican-Democratic system, Hannity & Trump have, at best, no more than tenuous 40% support from the population. But the extreme left-wingers are much-more frayed than that as are the extreme right-wingers. I consider Hannity a right-winger but not an extreme right-winger and that gives him the edge over the extreme left-wingers who dominate the Democratic Party and the Mainstream U. S. media. I repeat, total extremism on the fringes represents the biggest threat to America and the left-wing fringe is the most dangerous.

     The above estimate of Sean Hannity's net worth was posted a few years ago, so now it's a gross understatement. At a mere $40 million-a-year, he was also grossly underpaid. That may surprise many Americans who know Hannity's 9:00 P. M. Prime Time television show is top-rated but forget that Hannity's 3-hour Radio Program each day is awash with sponsors on hundreds of radio stations across the country. By hiring Pundits & Propagandists instead of real broadcast journalists and anchors, the extreme left-wing networks are conceding power and influence to Hannity -- except for the 10% or so of left-wing U. S. extremists who form a choir of seal-like, fringe-clapping sycophants. The smarter Hannity has the 10% or so of Americans who are extreme right-wingers in his hip-pocket but gradually he is also filling his front-pockets with the 80% or so of the middle-of-the-roaders, including me!! Remember, my all-time favorite politician is Barack Obama, who is antithetical to everything Hannity stands for.

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