Visitors to Havana can find US-Cuban connections everywhere

Visitors to Havana can find US-Cuban connections everywhere

Beth J. Harpaz, Ap Travel Editor

Updated 11:09 pm, Monday, July 20, 2015

HAVANA (AP) — This week's reopening of embassies and resumption of diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba opens a new chapter in the countries' complicated relationship.

But any visitor to the Cuban capital can see that connections between the two nations run long and deep just by taking stock of all the attractions showcasing American culture and history. Despite decades of hostility, some of these sites even seem to celebrate Americans, while others reflect an anti-U.S. point of view.

Here's a look:

HEMINGWAY

American writer Ernest Hemingway lived in Cuba on and off for years and worked on some of his most famous books here, including "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and "The Old Man and the Sea." One of Havana's biggest tourist attractions is his estate at Finca Vigia, visited by literary pilgrims from around the world and Cubans alike. You can't enter the home, but large open windows provide a good look inside. Liquor bottles and magazines artfully placed amid sofas and tables suggest Hemingway will be back at any moment. Also onsite is Hemingway's boat, the Pilar.

Photos of Hemingway posing with trophy fish and with revolutionary leader Fidel Castro decorate many bars and hotels, including the Ambos Mundos hotel in Old Havana, where you can tour a room Hemingway lived in. And two Havana bars attract a steady stream of tourists in part thanks to Hemingway's famed drinking declaration: "My mojito in La Bodeguita, my daiquiri in El Floridita." The handwritten quote, allegedly scribbled by Hemingway himself, is framed over the bar at La Bodeguita del Medio. The Floridita features a Hemingway statue.

Colombia Arrests Social Activists for Bogotá Bombing Despite Lack of Evidence

Colombia Arrests Social Activists for Bogotá Bombing Despite Lack of Evidence
Monday, 20 July 2015 00:00
By Kate Aronoff, Waging Nonviolence | News Analysis


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In a sign that reads “No legal false positives,” activists in Popayán show solidarity
with the 16 jailed activists (Photo: WNV / Irene Arenas)
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On the morning of July 8, the district attorney of Colombia, in coordination with the National Police, rounded up and arrested 16 people for their alleged connection to a bombing in the capital city of Bogotá a few days earlier. Today, those arrested sit in their cells awaiting indictment. The question being asked by the country's activists, progressive media and a growing base of skeptics outside of the cellblock is whether they've done anything wrong.

Despite a marked lack of evidence, Colombian President Manuel Santos has pinned the attack on the National Liberation Army - the country's second largest terrorist group next to the FARC. Following the raids, Santos' Defense Ministry further claimed that the suspects were "acting in the name of the ELN," the Spanish abbreviation of the rebel group.

But are those arrested the hardened guerrillas the government claims? Among the jailed are Jhon Fernando Acosta, a 19-year-old performing arts student active around issues of gender equality, and Heilar Lampara, a 25-year-old representative to the Superior University Council from the National Teacher's University and an advocate for free higher education. Writer Sergio Esteban Segura Guiza, who has covered the country's armed conflict and peace process as a correspondent for the independent news outlet Colombia Informa, had his journalistic archive seized at the time of his arrest. Women's rights lawyer Paola Andrea Salgado Piedrahita, also arrested, could face as many as 30 years in prison if the case goes to trial.

Many are organizers within Colombia's student movement through the National Student Roundtable, or MANU, and seven are affiliated with Congreso de los Pueblos, a social and political movement fighting, amongst other issues, against displacement by the country's extractive industry. Two are contractors with the city government. While Fernando Acosta is the youngest of those arrested, none are over the age of 34.

More:
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/31964-colombia-arrests-social-activists-for-bogota-bombing-despite-lack-of-evidence

US / Cuba Relations: What Would Constitute Normal?

US / Cuba Relations: What Would Constitute Normal?
July 15, 2015

by José Pertierra

President Dwight D. Eisenhower broke diplomatic relations with Cuba on January 3, 1961. Fifty-four years later, on Monday the 20th of July, the United States and Cuba will advance toward normalization of diplomatic relations. Presumably, the US will no longer treat Cuba as its enemy and treat the island simply as its next-door neighbor. Maybe …

The raising of the flags at the embassies on the 20th of July is much anticipated. But what does this all really mean? After more than 56 years of trying to destroy the Cuban Revolution through US sponsored terrorism, an invasion organized and launched by the CIA, biological warfare, an economic and commercial blockade, clandestine infiltrations and a permanent propaganda campaign against Cuba, what would constitute “normal” relations between Washington and La Habana?

The word normal derives from the Latin normalis. In the context of US-Cuba relations it refers to civilized diplomatic behavior, according to historically established philosophical precepts: norms or rules of peaceful conduct between nations.

What rules of peaceful conduct by the United States towards Cuba may we expect from now on? Which normative rules could be considered normal and which abnormal?

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/15/us-cuba-relations-what-would-constitute-normal/

Pro-Normalization PAC Raising Funds to Back Obama’s Cuba Initiative

7:35 am ET
Jul 14, 2015

Campaign Finance

Pro-Normalization PAC Raising Funds to Back Obama’s Cuba Initiative

A political action committee launched in May to support normalizing U.S. relations with Cuba raised more than $178,000 in the past two months, a sign of public support for closer ties between the two countries, the group’s director said.

The group, New Cuba PAC, views itself as a counterweight to the pro-embargo U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC, which launched in 2004. The director of that group, Mauricio Claver-Carone, said Monday the group had raised more than $200,000 this year. In 2014, it raised more than $300,000 and since its founding has raised over $4 million, according to the groups filings with the Federal Election Commission.

The sums announced this week aren’t that big in the world of political fundraising – the largest PACs raise tens of millions of dollars each year – but are an indication of the surge of interest in Cuba since President Barack Obama’s announcement last December that he would move to normalize relations with the former Cold War foe.

“This is something that’s been missing for a long time,” James Williams, director of the pro-normalization New Cuba PAC said. “When we approached it the hard liner, pro-embargo side was incredibly skeptical and with this filing it shows they were wrong. People who care about this issue put their money where their mouth is.”

More:
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/07/14/pro-normalization-pac-raising-funds-to-back-obamas-cuba-initiative/?mod=WSJBlog

Colombian City’s New Face and Violent Underbelly Collide

Colombian City’s New Face and Violent Underbelly Collide

By WILLIAM NEUMANJULY 13, 2015

BUENAVENTURA, Colombia — This has been called one of South America’s most violent cities, infamous for its “chop-up houses,” where victims are murdered and dismembered, their bodies later found on the streets or washed up in the stilt-house slums that line the shores of the polluted bay.And yet, in recent weeks, workers were busily laying pink and gray flagstones for a pedestrian mall in front of a newly built hotel and condominium complex meant to attract the international executives who are investing billions of dollars to expand this city’s busy port.

People here often talk of the two Colombias. One is the country of a sophisticated elite, growing rich off international trade and jetting between Bogotá and other world capitals. The other is a country of crushing poverty and violence where lawlessness reigns.In this Pacific port city, these two Colombias come face to face with raw impact.

Buenaventura is the country’s main Pacific port and the centerpiece of a government strategy to focus on increasing trade with Asia and Western Hemisphere countries on the Pacific, including Chile, Mexico, Peru and the United States. At the same time, it is plagued by intractable poverty and violence, a place where vicious gangs hold sway, long isolated from the central government in Bogotá.

The violence here, with its visceral cruelty, has gotten much attention. Prosecutors said at least two of the chopped up corpses found last year showed signs that they had been dismembered while the victims were still alive. Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group based in New York, has published two recent reports denouncing conditions here.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/14/world/americas/colombian-citys-new-face-and-violent-underbelly-collide.html?_r=0

Whataburger takes stand against Texas' new open carry law

Source: Associated Press

Whataburger takes stand against Texas' new open carry law

Seth Robbins, Associated Press
Updated 11:07 am, Sunday, July 12, 2015



Photo: Eric Gay, AP

This Thursday, July 9, 2015 photo shows a Whataburger restaurant in San Antonio, Texas. The iconic Texas restaurant chain will not allow the open carrying of guns on its properties, taking a stand against a new law legalizing the practice.


SAN ANTONIO (AP) — An iconic Texas restaurant chain will not allow the open carrying of guns on its properties, and industry experts say other restaurants will likely take the same stand against a new state law legalizing the practice in many public places.

Whataburger — with some 780 locations in 10 states — has drawn a mix of praise and rebuke since making the announcement this month, including a prediction of boycotts from one of the state's leading advocates for gun rights.

In an open letter on the company's website, Whataburger president and CEO Preston Atkinson said many employees and customers are "uncomfortable being around someone with a visible firearm." He described himself as an avid hunter with a concealed-carry license and noted that patrons licensed to carry concealed handguns will still be able to do so in Whataburger.

Atkinson's letter comes one month after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill that made it legal to carry handguns openly on the streets of the nation's second most-populous state, ending a prohibition dating back to the post-Civil War era that disarmed former Confederate soldiers and freed slaves.



Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/texas/article/Whataburger-takes-stand-against-Texas-new-open-6380200.php

Huge new survey to shine light on dark matter

Huge new survey to shine light on dark matter

European Southern Observatory Press Release

Posted on 11 July 2015 by Astronomy Now



The first results have been released from a major new dark matter survey of the southern skies using ESO’s VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. The VST KiDS survey will allow astronomers to make precise measurements of dark matter, the structure of galaxy halos, and the evolution of galaxies and clusters. The first KiDS results show how the characteristics of the observed galaxies are determined by the invisible vast clumps of dark matter surrounding them.

Around 85% of the matter in the Universe is dark, and of a type not understood by physicists. Although it doesn’t shine or absorb light, astronomers can detect this dark matter through its effect on stars and galaxies, specifically from its gravitational pull. A major project using ESO’s powerful survey telescopes is now showing more clearly than ever before the relationships between this mysterious dark matter and the shining galaxies that we can observe directly.

The project, known as the Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS), uses imaging from the VLT Survey Telescope and its huge camera, OmegaCAM. Sited at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile, this telescope is dedicated to surveying the night sky in visible light — and it is complemented by the infrared survey telescope VISTA. One of the major goals of the VST is to map out dark matter and to use these maps to understand the mysterious dark energy that is causing our Universe’s expansion to accelerate.

The best way to work out where the dark matter lies is through gravitational lensing — the distortion of the Universe’s fabric by gravity, which deflects the light coming from distant galaxies far beyond the dark matter. By studying this effect it is possible to map out the places where gravity is strongest, and hence where the matter, including dark matter, resides.

More:
http://astronomynow.com/2015/07/11/huge-new-survey-to-shine-light-on-dark-matter/

FARC urges government to dismantle neo-paramilitary forces

FARC urges government to dismantle neo-paramilitary forces
Posted by Adriaan Alsema on Jul 10, 2015



Colombia’s largest rebel group FARC urged the government on Thursday to effectively dismantle paramilitary organizations, fearing that these right-wing drug trafficking groups will violently frustrate the guerrillas’ reintegration if peace is reached.

The FARC has been engaged in peace talks with the government since November 2012 in an attempt to leave behind decades of drug-fueled political violence and become a political movement.

After initially refusing to disarm, the FARC said it was willing to lay down its weapons, but needed guarantees that its disarmed members wouldn’t be subject to a political extermination campaign.

The UP trauma

Following a peace deal with then-President Belisario Betancur (Conservative Party) in 1985, the FARC joined other leftist forces to form the Patriotic Union, a far-left political party that sought the political inclusion of the FARC and other leftist forces.

However, following its formation the party became subject to an extermination campaign by right-wing paramilitary forces who — in conjunction with politicians and elements within the military — killed thousands of supporters and leaders of the party, including two presidential candidates.

More:
http://colombiareports.com/farc-urges-government-to-dismantle-neo-paramilitary-forces/

The FARC’s biggest fear: Colombia’s paramilitary groups

The FARC’s biggest fear: Colombia’s paramilitary groups
Posted by Adriaan Alsema on Jul 10, 2015

Colombia’s largest rebel group, the FARC, is holding peace talks in order to become an unarmed political organization. However, one of the things threatening this possibility is a phenomenon older than the guerrillas: Paramilitary forces.

According to the FARC, their demobilization is unfeasible unless these right-wing paramilitary forces are also dismantled.

The left-wing rebels fear that once the FARC has demobilized, these right-wing illegal armed groups will target reintegrating rebel fighters like they did in the 1980s and 90s when thousands of leftist political activists and politicians were assassinated in what effectively ended the FARC’s first attempt to enter politics.

In order to push the Colombian government to take action, the FARC shared detailed guerrilla intelligence about alleged existing paramilitary structures across the country, the location of their bases, and possible links to military battalions and local politicians.

More:
http://colombiareports.com/the-farcs-biggest-fear-colombias-paramilitary-groups/

A tale of two Colombian colonels in a parapolitical saga

A tale of two Colombian colonels in a parapolitical saga
Posted by Emma Rosser on Jul 10, 2015



An Army colonel who was key witness in a trial that sent a former Police colonel-turned-governor to prison is fearing for his life, while the convicted former official has been welcomed home as a hero following an early release.

Former Colonel Julio Cesar Prieto has broken his silence in reaction to the early release and consequent victorious reception received by former Governor Hugo Aguilar in the central province of Santander. He in contrast revealed the constant terror that he and his family now live in due to his testimonial in 2007 that was key to Aguilar’s final conviction.

The former governor was a major player in Colombia’s parapolitics scandals, in which some 70 congressmen and governors were convicted for their connections with paramilitary units who used death squads and intimidation to coerce voters to get their allies elected into office.

Colonel Hugo Aguilar

Colonel Hugo Aguilar rose to fame in December 1993 after leading the Search Bloc in the successful hunt of Colombia’s notorious drug lord, Pablo Escobar.

More:
http://colombiareports.com/a-tale-of-two-colombian-colonels-in-a-parapolitical-saga/