Already, in the early hours of February 14, we noticed that something was happening with our mobile phones. Any attempt to send and receive a message or make a call, ended in failure. It was Valentine's Day and many of the mobile phone users in the country came up with the same idea: send a greeting to the contacts in their phonebook. It did not work. The only cellular phone company in Cuba did not pass the test of such high demand and, come noon, its 1.3 million subscribers were simply "out of service."
Cuba lags behind all Latin American countries, including Haiti, in the number of mobile phones. Although the figure has grown since 2008, when the government of Raul Castro finally allowed Cubans to contract for cell phone service, it still is insufficient. Despite the high prices of calls and text messages, the cellular provider, Cubacel, has not invested a share of its profits in improving its infrastructure. Hence, the service collapses with increasing frequency. Holidays, celebrations, and Christmas are dates on which the use of this little gadget with a screen and keyboard is almost impossible.
But this logjam of messages is also a good sign, because it means that every day cell phones are becoming a more and more popular method of communication among us. Although nearly 20 years behind the rest of the world, the mobile phone has entered our lives. For people reserve their use for urgent issues or occasional greeting on the Day of Love. But at some not too distant future it will also be a mechanism by which we can call for social action, a channel to unite us and express ourselves civilly.
Follow Yoani Sanchez on Twitter: www.twitter.com/yoanifromcuba
Despite many pro-Cuba chants for economic aid and the lifting of the 50 year old Cuban Embargo placed via President John F. Kennedy's Proclamation 3447, there appears to be no shortage of funding by Cuba for that nation's energetic spy apparatchik.
Do not underestimate Cuba's vast intelligence and espionage network. Their security and intelligence apparatus are on a scale perceived to be "many times larger than that of the United States." And even with Cuba's poverty, depressed economic situation and weak prognosis for future windfalls, their clandestine operational acts continue and extend throughout the Americas and the world.
The Cuban espionage budget is not generally known outside of most major competent intelligence services globally. However, much of their modus operandi is. Essentially the DI (Dirección de Inteligencia) never had to be reinvented, other than by moniker, from the former DGI (Dirección General de Inteligencia) with original training by the former Soviet KGB.
Cuba maintains one of its largest intelligence networks within Venezuela, with President Hugo Chavez preferring direct access to the service, as indicated by cables unscrupulously released and sent from the U.S. Embassy in Caracas to the State Department. This cozy relationship, between Cuba and Venezuela, reeks of potential massive funding hidden by obscure secret decrees.
http://www.mexidata.info/id3268.html
CONTROL OF INTERNET ACCESS
In Cuba, access to the internet remains under state control. It is regulated by the Law of Security of Information, which prohibits access to internet services from private homes. Therefore, the internet in Cuba has a social vocation and remains accessible at education centres, work-places and other public institutions. Internet can also be accessed in hotels but at a high cost. In October 2009, the government adopted a new law allowing the Cuban Postal Services to establish cyber-cafés in its premises and offer internet access to the public. However, home connections are not yet allowed for the vast majority of Cubans and only those favoured by the government are able to access the internet from their own homes.
However, many blogs are not accessible from within Cuba because the Cuban authorities have put in place filters restricting access. The blogs affected are mainly those that openly criticize the Cuban government and its restrictions on freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly and movement. For example, Generation Y is one of the dozens of blogs that are filtered or intermittently blocked by the government and are not accessible inside Cuba.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AMR25/005/2010/en/62b9caf8-8407-4a08-90bb-b5e8339634fe/amr250052010en.pdf
There is no such law. Most Cuban homes are, unfortunately, still served by the old analogue telephone system which simply hasn't the capacity to carry large volumes of internet traffic.
As usual, as far as Cuba is concerned, Amnesty International plays fast and loose with the truth. Perhaps it's enough to know that everything they publish about the island comes from those self-styled 'dissidents', tainted as they are by a bitter, self-loathing perception of their own country, and more importantly, their own desperate insignificance within it.
I think the Cuban government's emphasis on other matters, like food production, distribution, economic reorientation, etc., are a damn sight more important than Sanchez' cell service. What a total lack of perspective.
Despite some initial disagreement, there now seems to be a consensus around the figure of a minimum of $1.2 billion as the amount remitted yearly from Cuban Americans to their relatives in Cuba. Of this, the Cuban government assesses about 20 percent in various fees. If Cuban expatriates and their now adult children had not fled to the U.S. and elsewhere, the economy of Cuba would be in far worse shape than it is today. That's one of the many ironies of the Cuban Revolution
http://spectator.org/archives/2011/08/19/an-old-mans-island#
SECTOR EXTERNO / EXTERNAL SECTOR - 8.4 - Intercambio comercial de mercancías por países seleccionados y áreas geográficas (Conclusión) Trade in goods in selected countries and geographical areas (Conclusion)
Estados Unidos de América (USA)
2004 = $443,900,000
2005 = $476,311,000
2006 = $483,591,000
2007 = $581,657,000
2008 = $962,767,000
2009 = $675,420,000
http://www.one.cu/aec2009/esp/08_tabla_cuadro.htm
Even businesses with no direct dealings with the US can be targetted. For example, an English importer of Cuban goods recently found themselves without a bank account because their bank had a US subsidiary which was threatened with heavy fines, and the possibility of imprisonment for its staff, if the English customer of their English parent company continued to operate an account with them in the UK.
There are countless examples like that and these US government reprisals occur on a daily basis. The net result is that Cuba loses trade on a vast scale. Cuba also pays huge amounts in bank charges as it tries to disguise international transactions. Instead of the usual two or three movements of money involved in any normal transaction, Cuba's payments have to go through five or six stages, each attracting large fees and interest rates from the banks. Of course, if the banks are caught by the US government processing transactions for Cuba, their US subsidiaries receive heavy fines, often involving many millions of dollars.