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Cuba Getting Internet Upstream Via Venezuela
An anonymous reader writes "Seems like Cuba is working around the US internet embargo by teaming up with Venezuela: A confidential contract released yesterday on Wikileaks reveals Cuba's plan to receive internet upstream via an undersea cable to Venezuela, thus circumventing the enduring embargo of the US, denying Cuba access to nearby American undersea cables and overcoming the current limits of satellite-only connectivity. The connection, to be delivered by CVG Telecom of Venezuela, is to be completed by 2010 and will provide data, video as well as voice service for both the public and governmental services."
No kidding. It is only a couple hundred miles of submarine cable. The only reason that I can think that it wasn't done sooner might be because Cuba's credit is so bad (due to refusal to pay contracts) that nobody was willing to do the job without cash upfront.
My wife and I went to a resort in Cuba back in 2003. They did have (albeit slow) internet at the resort.
Some things about Cuba - the locals we met were some of the nicest people we've met anywhere in the world. Everyone in the country gets (at the time) the equivalent of $13 US per *month* to live, and that's it. Still, nobody ever asked anything from us (unlike Jamaica) and they would bend over backwards to do anything to help you. It was more likely for them to give *us* things, like on our first day there, one gentleman was making a grass hopper out of palm leaves on his break, and when his break was over he gave it to my wife and was offended when I reached for my wallet (I was used to the people who approach you in other places, like Peru, France, Mexico, even on our visit to New Orleans in '02, and I suppose in most major cities, doing some kind of performance to try and get some money out of you).
One of the most poignant moments was a long discussion we had with one woman who worked on the resort. She was asking us about some of the places we'd been able to travel (mostly Europe at the time), and she was telling us about her eventual goal to travel the world. It's not particularly easy for Cubans to travel. They have to get a travel permit from the government. It's quite expensive, and I believe it has to be for an officially sanctioned reason. Still she was determined to go, and I hope she eventually gets her wish.
But we were struck by how tragic it was that all these amazing people are practically being held hostage in their own country, cut off from the rest of the world. As far as I'm concerned, the more we can engage the common people in Cuba, through the internet, travel, trade, etc., the less time it will take for their country to reform, and for them to catch up with the rest of the western world. I really think the US embargo is completely counter-productive.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Okay. Depending on who you ask, there were at least 4 distinct waves of migration. Each of these waves was a different generation or a different class.
The article is in pretty sad shape, but here's a wikipedia article.
The generation/class with the greatest support of the embargo is the first, the middle and upper classes (also white, mainly). Understandably so, as this was the generation who had their power and belongings taken from them and had the most to lose.
Later migrations, like the Marielitos, balseros and "dusty feet", came from different classes and generations and have different opinions.
The generation that constituted the first wave is slowly dying off, and opinion in favor of the embargo is eroding in relation to the change.
Disclaimer: I'm anglo. Apologies to any cubanos if I screwed something up.
I'm not trying to endorse either the Cuban lifestyle or Michael Moore here, but that is actually partially true. The Cuban healthcare system runs far more efficiently than the one in the US, at least as far as the numbers are concerned.
For example, the average life expectancy of a Cuban (77.23 years) is roughly on par with the average life expectancy of an American (78.1 years), but the Cuban government spends ~US$5/year/person on healthcare. In comparison, the amount spent in the US on healthcare (by individuals, government, businesses, etc..) is ~US$7200/year/person.
Given that they have embargoes on American medical technology, doctors, etc.. they must be doing something right.
Disclaimer: I'm from a country which has a nationally supported healthcare system alongside a private system, and they seem to work equally well together. I also don't understand why so many Americans hate Cuba so much..
http://www.xkcd.com/354/
Yeah. That might work. Just because Cubans are clever enough to set up and run samizdat thumb drive networks doesn't mean that they'll find out about the onion net.
And cesnsorship and state control of media worked pretty much flawlessly in the old Soviet bloc. I mean everybody there was pretty well convinced that Soviet communism was the greatest thing ever, Moscow was the center of the universe, and that they had absolutely the highest living standard on earth. That's why it was such a shock to everyone in 1989 when Reagan singlehandedly punched through Berlin Wall and gave everyone a case of Coke and a two-year subscription to Playboy.
We all know how solid China's great firewall is. No way around that puppy, you'd better believe it.
And of course the real goal of the US isn't to prevent companies from doing business in Cuba in contravention of the law (however stupid you think that law may be), but to actually prevent Cubans from getting any information at all. That's probably why there are honking big transmitters in Florida broadcasting news 24-7 towards Cuba.
Castro's done a great job of blocking all that information. Nobody in Cuba has ever heard of El Duque, for example, or Alexei Ramirez. Both of their families still believe the official explanation that they accidentally drowned themselves while shaving.
Indeed we all know that controlling information is much like building a dam: It's very cheap and easy to do, it takes hardly any effort to maintain, and it's virtually indestructible. And the best way to control the flow of water through a dam, much like controlling the flow of information, is to drill a very small hole and use a finger to carefully control how much gets through. Information, like water, tends to stay put and hates to travel.
I cannot possibly see any problems with your plans for CubaNet. Sure, the richest and most ruthless software company on the planet has spent 10 years and billions of dollars trying and utterly failing to come up with something "that look[s] like Google and act[s] like Google". But with a decent project manager Cuba should have the whole thing up and running within about six weeks or so. That'll show those yanqui bastards what's what.
You probably haven't noticed all the restrictions in place to travel to Cuba, have you?
There's a bit of wisdom that's been passed around, all over Latin America, for the last thirty years: Visit Cuba before the North Americans can get back in, 'cause they're gonna drag along McDonald's, Hard Rock Hotel & Casinos, Starbucks and shopping malls.
Can you imagine a fucking Cinnabon in Havana? You have no idea just how many people, non-US citizens by and large, consider that image to represent a Faustian Pact, because it represents Washington's economic doctrine of neo-liberalism that's screwed over every other country in the continent, as well as Africa, over the last several decades.
You can pontificate about how Cuba's living standards are lower than so-and-so, but just compare to El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Paraguay, etc, all of whom toed the Washington (which is to say, Exxon and DuPont) line, and whose dictators were mostly alumni of the US-sponsored School Of The Americas.
Furthermore, if Cuba had not been embargoed, it would be quite prosperous today. Within the limited means that the embargo created, the Cuban population is managing better than most countries victimized by Washington's neo-liberalism.
So yes, visit Cuba before it's too late, while the population is still relatively innocent, crime levels are extraordinarily low, and an extended vacation can be had for a song (or two).
No offense intended, just food for thought about an absurd situation: Curious that the only people restricted from traveling to Cuba are the citizens of The Land Of The Free. So how Free (as in speech, not beer) are you, really? Think about it, I believe it's really an important question.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
Time and time again we've seen this happen. Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam was a nationalist. He refashioned his politics in terms favored the only backers available to him and became "communist" when it was clear the US would continue supporting it's puppets in the south, for example.
A large part of the rebel movements that started spouting communist slogans etc. over the last few decades did so first when that was how they got support because the Soviet Union and others saw it as an opportunity. Many of them would have preferred or were open to support from the West, but were ignored or branded terrorists because the dictators they went up against were supported by the West, and turned to whomever were willing to fund them or provide weapons.