Venezuela fiber-optic line to dramatically expand Cuban internet capacity

[Judi Lynn]

Venezuela fiber-optic line to dramatically expand Cuban internet capacity
The Associated Press
Published: February 15, 2007

HAVANA: A new undersea fiber-optic cable from Cuba to Venezuela should be finished within two years, a Venezuelan communications official said Thursday, dramatically expanding Cuba's internet and telephone capacity.

Julio Duran, president of state-run Telecom Venezuela, told The Associated Press that the deal signed in late January calls for a line with a capacity of 160 gigabytes per second.

That's well over 1,000 times the capacity of Cuba's current satellite-based internet link, which was listed as 65 megabytes per second on upload and 124 megabytes a second on download by Cuban Communications Minister Ramiro Valdes.

It will break through what Cuban officials describe as choking restrictions imposed by the U.S. commercial embargo on Cuba, which they blame for blocking possible connections with existing privately owned fiber-optic lines in the region.
(snip/...)

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/02/16/business/CB-FIN-Cuba-Venezuela-Internet.php

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

1. Too bad they can't even get to Google.

N/T

[Mika]

2. Huh?

What are you talking about?

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

4. Oh I'm sorry I misspoke

You might be able to get to Google from some computers, as this report says you can get to allot of internet sites, but you can only if;
1) Use the computer the govt sets up key loggers on
2) Have a computer with a license from the government
3) Have government permission to get a phone line much less an internet connection
4) Use a computer at a govt sanctioned internet cafe where you must "show your papers" and use computers with filtering software installed to detect banned content.

If you even want a computer, which most Cubans living in Castro's Utopia can't even afford, you need permission from the government.

Oh, and if you are a "dissident" or unlicensed/independent reporter, good luck even being allowed to use a computer in one of the "public" internet cafes.

http://www.rsf.org/IMG/pdf/rapport_gb_md_1.pdf

Yup, Viva Fidel! :puke:

[Flanker]

5. That is NED propaganda.

While Cuba may not be as free as most, they are far freer than China or the US, recall you cannot do stuff on the net either. Exhibit A the child that was jailed for calling for the assasination of GWB.

It is great news the government is helping break the US internet blockade.

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

6. NED propaganda?

Its very critical of the US for a propaganda arm of the NED. They may get funding from NED, but I would hardly call them a propaganda arm.

Cuba is more free than the people in the US? Right. How exactly is that?

What child was jailed for calling for the assasination of GWB? I'm sure it was investigated but when was he jailed?

Let's see, stuff I can't do on the net:
Libel
Child Porn

What else can't I do?

You can find eanything you want on the net, including DU where the administration is slammed openly and the President is called a Chimp openly. I doubt there would be a DU in Cuba.

The Cuban govt. is its own internet blockade.

[Flanker]

7. That is laughable considering how little US citizens care about an NGO

A french NGO that at best gives it a slap on the wrist. Things have been labelled propaganda for far less.

You are falling for the exceptionalist propaganda. I challenge you, if you feel so free, for calling "magnicidio" on you know who. Obviously somewhere else as it will be deleted by mods.

It might be the same in Cuba.

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

11. No one has been jailed for what you are sayin, investigated yes, but jailed no.

Show me where they have been jailed. One incident please.

I'd look in the mirror to see who is falling for exceptionalist propaganda.

As for the mods deleting posts here, this is their website, a PRIVATE website. They can allow or dissallow whatever they want. Just b/c they delete something here does not mean the govt. is censoring you, or the black helicopters will come to your house in the middle of the night.

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

13. French NGO and NED propaganda don't seem to mix

French organizations seem to be the most vocal critics among our allies.

[Flanker]

15. That is quite prejudiced

To assume all French people are critical is bolony.

RSF takes money from the NED, I am sorry but that is a fact. They may sprinkle their bias with slapping the wrist of the US, dropping them like one spot after killing a dozen or so journalists, or jailing 5-10. But that does not convince their critics.

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

16. Not biased but a fact.

The French organizations have been very critical of the US actions and policy recently. Outside the US, it seems to be one of the most vocal critics of US foreign policy among the countries the US traditionally calls allies.

That is not anything like the tainted word "prejudiced" that you use.

Criticism is a good thing among friends.

What other bias can you point to on the part of the RSF? I never disputed they take NED money, I know they do, but that is far from being an NED propaganda arm.

[Flanker]

18. Again big difference between a French person, government or NGO

RSF is NOT a respectable NGO, they copied the name of the ultra respected DSF, take money from the US government and repeat the propaganda it wants.

Nowhere does RSF explain that Cuba has severe technological limitations thanks to the US govt. They turn around the fact that they have only 65 Mbps bandwith (for comparisons sake a single home in Japan has 65 mbps) and therefore only select places like universities and libraries can have access, and call that internet repression. They compiled a list of internet enemies and they failed to include the US despite cripling issues like the, xxx domain, net neutrality, and thorough internet spying with echelon related activities.

RSF has no credibility, they might as well be the state dept.

[Judi Lynn]

19. You may be familiar with this information, but it's worth checking again, even if you are:

Reporters Without Borders Unmasked
by Diana Barahona
May 27, 2005

When Robert Menard founded Reporters Without Borders twenty years ago, he gave his group a name which evokes another French organization respected worldwide for its humanitarian work and which maintains a strict neutrality in political conflicts ­ Doctors Without Borders. But RSF (French acronym) has been anything but nonpartisan and objective in its approach to Latin America and to Cuba in particular.
(snip)

In September 1998 Menard traveled to Havana to recruit people to write stories for RSF to publish. He later told Calvo in his interview, "we give $50 a month each to around twenty journalists so they can survive and stay in the country." But Menard's first representative in Cuba, veteran journalist Nestor Baguer, disputed that description of the relationship in interviews he gave to Granma after he revealed that he had been working for state security while posing as a dissident. Baguer maintained that RSF would only pay for articles turned in, and that they had to attack the Cuban government. He did not consider most of the so-called independent journalists to be either independent or journalists; few had received any formal training and he was forced to severely edit their copy ­ something he called a "terrible penance."

Baguer recalled the first conversation he had with the RSF head in the back of a rental car: "What he wanted was for it to come straight from here. It seems before he was getting fed from Miami. But he wanted to have his Cuban source so it would be more credible." Noting the small amounts Cubans were paid for their articles, Baguer speculated Menard was doing a "great business" (Allard).

In May 2004 the State Department issued a report to the president by the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba. The report recommends $41 million in funding to promote Cuban "civil society" and specifically targets Cuban tourism. In Chapter I, "Hastening Cuba's Transition," part V, headed, "Deny Revenues to the Castro Regime," there is a subheading, "Undermine Regime-sustaining Tourism," which says, "Support efforts by NGOs in selected third countries to highlight human rights abuses in Cuba, as part of a broader effort to discourage tourist travel. This could be modeled after past initiatives, especially those by European NGOs, to boycott tourism to countries where there were broad human rights concerns."

It does not take much to figure out which "European NGOs" have been boycotting tourism to Cuba. RSF is mentioned by name in the report in reference to its support for a jailed journalist whose writings it had published.

RSF's patron at the CFC, Otto Reich, has a long history as a U.S. hit-man in Latin America. This includes helping to spring Orlando Bosch from prison in Venezuela while Reich was U.S. ambassador to that country under President Bush Sr. Bosch was in prison for blowing up a Cuban civilian passenger airplane, killing 73. His accomplice, Luis Posada Carriles, had already bribed his way out in 1985 and was working for the CIA in El Salvador, supplying the Contras from the Ilopango air base. Otto Reich was a major figure in the Iran-Contra scandal. Under the current Bush administration, Reich helped coordinate repeated attempts to oust Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. He was transferred to the NSC in November 2002, and while there he oversaw the February 2004 coup against Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide ­ an event in which RSF enthusiastically participated with a smear campaign against the Haitian leader.

Although Reporters without Borders' attacks on Castro, Chavez and Aristide are perfectly alligned with the State Department's policies, and though she admitted RSF was receiving money from Reich, Morillon denied that the governmant funding the group receives in any way affects its activities. She pointed out that RSF's $50,000 payments from the CFC and a January grant of $40,000 from the National Endowment for Democracy only constitute a fraction of the organization's budget. This is true, but Menard has other rich rightist friends in Europe and the U.S., including CFC director Manuel Cutillas, head of Bacardi. CFC's executive director is Frank Calzon, a former CIA special agent. Like Cutillas and others at the center, Calzon is a former director of CANF, and it has also been alleged he was a leader of the National Liberation Front of Cuba, which claimed credit for a host of bombings and murders worldwide beginning in 1972 (Hernando Calvo Ospina, Bacardi: The Hidden War, London: Pluto Press, 2002).
(snip/...)

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=7951

[Judi Lynn]

17. You won't find many supporters here for that claim.

We discussed it exhaustively long ago. Anyone who has followed these guys long enough is very well acquainted with their politics. Not that many people will be misled by these guys any more:

After long denying it, Paris-based "Reporters Without Borders" finally admitted they receive payment from the US government's regime-change financing arm, National Endowment for Democracy (NED).


Rebelión

05-05-2005

The strong suspicions that have surrounded the dubious and tendentious
activities of Reporters without Borders (RSF) have not been without merit.
For many years, various critics have denounced the largely political
propagandistic actions of the Parisian entity, particularly with regards to
Cuba and Venezuela. The RSF's positions against the governments of Havana
and Caracas coincide perfectly with the political and media war that
Washington carries out against the Cuban and Venezuelan revolutionaries.

Finally the truth has come to light. Mr. Robert Ménard, secretary general of
the RSF for twenty years, has confessed to receiving financing from the
National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an organization that depends on the
U.S. Department of State, whose principal role is to promote the agenda of
the White House for the entire world. Ménard was clear: ³We indeed receive
money from the NED. And that hasn¹t posed any problem.² (1)
(snip)

But the enemy par excellence for RSF continues being Cuba. Mr. Ménard's
almost obsessive propaganda campaign against the island is designed to cause
harm to its tourism industry. (5) It's actions should be seen in the context
of the Bush Plan against Cuba, which allocates a budget of five million
dollars for the NGO¹s who carry out activities seeking methods to discourage
tourists from visiting Cuba. The Bush Plan specifically lists Reporters
without Borders as an example follow. (6)

Additionally, RSF admits providing economic help in Cuba to the families of
thirty jailed "journalists", to "help make up for the
loss of income caused by the arrest of their family members". If the
ideological rhetoric of this sentence is suppressed, it reads that the RSF
remunerates the families of the jailed people by receiving a salary from the
Bush government, seriously threatening the integrity of the Cuban nation by
abetting the economic sanctions the US caries out against Cuba. Given that
Mr. Ménard received substantial economic assistance from the United States
government, it is the same as saying that Washington, not only directly
financed these subversive activities from afar, but that it also does
through indirectly through the RSF. This of course constitutes a serious
violation of Cuban law. (7)

According to the 2004 annual report from the RSF, ³at least 53 information
professionals lost their lives in the practice of their jobs or for
expressing their opinions .² Iraq is,
according to this report, the most dangerous country for journalists, with
19 reporters murdered. The U.S. Army, which has occupied Iraq since 2003, is
responsible for these murders, since it controls the country. However, the
RSF, far from accusing the U.S. authorities, limits itself to once again
echoing Washington's official statement by describing the shots which caused
the deaths of the various journalists as ³accidental.² However, Iraq is not
a priority for Mr. Ménard. (8)

On the American continent, according to the RSF, ³twelve journalists lost
their lives² in Mexico, Brazil, and Peru. Nevertheless, the target of the
Parisian organization is again Cuba where it has to be emphasized that not
one journalist has been murdered since 1959. Venezuela is also found in the
line of sight while no journalist there has lost their life. There are those
who have established a relationship between the targets of the RSF and those
from Washington, pointing out their strange coincidence. (9) Secretary of
State Condoleeza Rice's reprimands have been specifically aimed at Mr.
Castro and Mr. Chavez, whose growing closeness is of great concern to the
United States.(10) Of course it's not just a matter of personalities (Fidel
and Chavez), its the Cuban and Venezuelan societies' programs in favor of
the poor that are being attacked.

"Likewise, it is well-known that Mr. Ménard frequently visits the extreme
Cuban right in Miami with which he has signed agreements relative to the
media war carried out against the Cuban Revolution. (11)
(snip/...)

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2005/05/29/17447201.php

[jefferson_dem]

8. Cuba "freer" than the US? You can't be serious.

While we are not perfectly free, we are *less imperfectly* free than *just about* anyplace else, including Cuba.

:shrug:

[Flanker]

9. Yet you tolerate your imperfect freedoms because like

DLC dems you are afraid to rock the boat, or are waiting for the same law to protect your government.

Lets face I left the US for among other reasons the lack of internet freedoms, never knowing when something I might say may draw suspicions on the war on terra. While it *might* be possible that in Cuba it might be worse if I opposed the government, at least there is no precedent YET.

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

10. No precedent yet?

Guess all the reporters jailed for "dissident" srticles are not precedent.

[Flanker]

12. You are very shifty

I thought we were talking about internet access?

Anyhow the US jailed an internet journalist: Josh Wolf, for journalism related crimes.

http://freejosh.pbwiki.com/

But I doubt you care, because you are exceptional, and adopt a see no evil cognitive dissonance as a result.

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

14. We are talking about free speech which includes internet access.

Journalism related crimes. I have not heard of Josh Wolf, and will give your link the full credence that it deserves. I will do some research on it.

Given that this is 9th circuit, I am going to be hard pressed to see only "journalism related crimes" here. But if they are so be it, that is wrong as well.

You are the shifty one, claiming Cuba is the "exceptional" place while trying to divert to other things. Well they do it there, so they can do it here. Wrong is wrong no matter where it occurs.

[Flanker]

20. But Cuba has an excuse (both technological and hostile hegemon next door)

What excuse does the US have?

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/05/1429248

I mean come on.

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

21. So now you are saying Cuba IS jailing dissidents for speech violations?

[Judi Lynn]

22. Why don't you post information on jailing Cuban dissidents for speech violations?

Don't just leave vague accusations dangling in the air. Either you've got information on this, or you know you don't.

Please take time to share your creditable information.

[jefferson_dem]

27. Here's a report on the "human rights crackdown" in Cuba, from 2003

It's prepared by Amnesty International. No "source credibility" problems here, i wouldn't think...

******

In the most severe crackdown on the dissident movement since the years following the 1959 revolution, Cuban authorities arrested 75 dissidents in the space of several days in mid-March. They were subjected to summary trials and were quickly sentenced to long prison terms of up to 28 years. With this sweep the authorities detained, with the exception of half a dozen well-known figures critical of the regime, the bulk of the mid-level leadership of the dissident movement; many of those arrested had been involved in activities of dissent for a decade or more.

The move, unprecedented in scope, was surprising to some observers in that over the last several years Cuba had generally seemed to be moving towards a more open and permissive approach. With some exceptions, for example numerous arrests of dissidents before and after the attempted gate-crashing of the Mexican Embassy in February 2002, the number of prisoners of conscience had declined steadily over past years. The Cuban authorities had seemed to be moving away from the blanket imposition of lengthy prison sentences as a means of stifling dissent, and towards a more low-level approach of harassment, designed more to discourage than to punish critics.(1) In addition, in April 2000 Cuba began implementing a de facto moratorium on executions, which was widely welcomed by observers of the human rights situation on the island.

Given the accumulation over the last several years of these and other signals of a relaxation in human rights terms, the wave of arrests and summary trials, in addition to the execution of three men convicted of hijacking, signal an alarming step backwards in terms of respect for human rights. Not unusually in the history of fraught bilateral relations, Cuban authorities identified provocation and aggression from the United States as the root source of the tensions which caused the crackdown.

Whatever the merits of the dispute between the Cuban government and the United States over the latter's practices with regard to Cuba, a review of the limited information contained in the available trial documents indicates that the conduct for which dissidents were prosecuted was not self-evidently criminal; it was non-violent and seemed to fall within the parameters of the legitimate exercise of fundamental freedoms as guaranteed under international standards. On the basis of the available information, therefore, Amnesty International considers the 75 dissidents to be prisoners of conscience(2) and calls for their immediate and unconditional release.

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR250172003

[Judi Lynn]

29. They are overlooking the fact these people were taking money from the U.S. government.

Money has been allocated to give them many times, so it's no secret.

It's also illegal in Cuba, just as it is here, if the situation were reversed.

[jefferson_dem]

30. No offense but i trust AI and their conclusions more than i trust some *suspicion* by some

that the US is directly involved in promoting dissident activities. Moreover, i wouldn't trust the current regime in Cuba even if they claimed to demonstrate such a connection, within their "legal" system.

[Flanker]

So would it be alright if I claim suspicion on any crime committed

Because of your "legal" system? What you are advocating is irresponsible, like not handing over Posada because of a "legal" system not up to your standard.

[Judi Lynn]

31. They have the evidence. It was used at their trials, and shared with the media

during press conferences.

What's more, if you took the time to do any reading, you'd already be acquainted with regular grants of large blocks of money from the U.S. Congress to support Cuban dissidents. It's been done for years. It's also illegal for Americans, were the situation reversed.

[jefferson_dem]

32. Leaving aside the sanctimony, you pick your sources and sides, i guess.

You may choose to believe the Cuban operatives and whatever so-called evidence they pony up as rational for clamping down on political dissent at "trial" and press conferences.

But we are left with this judgment from AI that i find convincing...yet you discount on its face ---

"Whatever the merits of the dispute between the Cuban government and the United States over the latter's practices with regard to Cuba, a review of the limited information contained in the available trial documents indicates that the conduct for which dissidents were prosecuted was not self-evidently criminal."

To me, the claim that "it's also illegal for Americans" is rubbish. If/when this government or regime fucks up, unlawfully violating free speech/assembly/press/etc. i'll call them on it. I'm sure you will too.

[Judi Lynn]

33. You've taken the off-ramp. Maybe this will help get you back what I said:

~snip~
It is a fact rarely mentioned in the western media and willfully ignored by
governments in Europe that these dissidents were not tried for their
political beliefs. They were tried for treason, accepting money from an
enemy power, under the Law of Protection of National Independence passed in
1999. The "dissidents" were sentenced to terms fluctuating between 6 and 28
years. All accused had the right to name a defense attorney and those who
did not were assigned a professional lawyer much as in courts in the US;
none was subjected to torture or humiliation; all hearings were public and
they were attended by about 3,000 people, including the relatives of the
accused. In June, the Cuban Supreme Court heard the appeals against sentence
of the so-called dissidents and upheld the sentences. The contrast with the
treatment given to prisoners in the Guantanamo base could not be more stark.

Some of the accused had special passes for unrestricted entry to the US
Office of Interest in Havana; one of them had US$13,500 in his pockets,
another had US$5,000 in a jar at home - they could not explain the origin of
these monies.

Felipe Pérez Roque, Cuban foreign affairs minister, in a press conference of
April 9, 2003, gave ample evidence of the US financing of subversive
activities against the Cuban state with the purpose of assisting in creating
the conditions for a military confrontation with the United States. Pérez
Roque claimed that the Agency for International Development, an official US
government body, had stated that $22 million represented ''just a tiny part
of the funds channelled to Cuba,'' which he claimed supported ''subversion''
in Cuba. AID records show that from 1996 to 2001, the agency provided $12
million to 22 groups to promote peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba.
And although Adolfo Franco, assistant administrator for the Agency for
International Development, who is in charge of the Latin American and
Caribbean bureau, denied Roques allegations, he did acknowledge that AID
finances programs to promote democracy in Cuba through various private
groups, including major organisations in Miami (read the Cuban American
National Foundation - CANF). Such activities would carry jail sentences for
treason in any country in the world, including the US.

No country in the world tolerates or labels domestic citizens paid by and
working for a foreign power to act for its imperial interests as
''dissidents''. This is especially true of the U.S. where under Title 18,
Section 951 of the U.S. Code, ''anyone who agrees to operate within the
United States subject to the direction or control of a foreign government or
official would be subjected to criminal prosecution and a 10 - year prison
sentence''.
(snip)

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:i00Vb5yShpYJ:www.blackpoolandfyldecsc.org.uk/archive/ar196.html+Cuban+dissidents+money++government+illegal+U.S.+Code&hl=en

[Flanker]

34. I doubt it

"
To me, the claim that "it's also illegal for Americans" is rubbish. If/when this government or regime fucks up, unlawfully violating free speech/assembly/press/etc. i'll call them on it. I'm sure you will too."

Have you called them out on this?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5284980.stm

Your media does not, maybe bacause they are ok with it? Or maybe because they are not free to oppose it due to the backlash.

If you view everything through the axiom that the US will always be a free speech zone regardless of what happens then this is the logical conclusion.

[jefferson_dem]

35. I'm not sure how you can presume to know my position on such issues as we've never

dialogued before, as far as i recall.

For the record, i'm wary of most any effort by the government to stifle the *free* press and this applies to the "Hezbollah" incident you reference. Perhaps you, on the other hand, have no problem with suppression and censorship as long as it's deemed that the information would threaten the political security of the regime in power. Isn't that how one defends the rounding up of dissidents in Cuba?

Self-regulation by commercial press outlets is problematic too...but nowhere near as threatening as government-regulated censorship. Various outlets in "My" media assume various positions on various issues.

[Flanker]

36. You are correct, I am not a free speech extremist

I wish somebody could have censored the extremist Hutu's genocide calls over the airwaves. And yes I do not support coup supporting media.

Still the comparison is a joke anyhow, Cuba is under threat from the US, yet Hezbollah is but an insignificant threat to the US.

As for Corporate censorship... That is also a joke, nobody cares about corporate censorship, no NGO has ever argued against it, and your attitude is a good reason. Apperantly a firewall (if real I have yet to accurately verify it) is somehow more worrysome than the extinction of the non-corporate media.

[Judi Lynn]

37. A few of the slower ones don't seem to be able to see the difference

between people on the payroll of another government, who are NOT dissidents, and actual dissidents.

There are dissidents in Cuba who have not been taking money from the U.S., and they are well known, and don't go to jail. They were not rounded up when the Cuban government, after years of surveillance by double agents, brought in people working for the U.S. Government.

I suspect the occassional poster who complete ignores the reality of the situation is trying to repeat a lie often enough to fool people who haven't taken the time to do their homework. That won't really work, in the long run.

Sooner or later, people will find out.

[Flanker]

23. Cuba may be jailing them

The issue is again if they deserve to be jailed, certainly there are strict laws against taking money from the US govt as there are laws against taking money from Hezbollah. (or even worse just broadcasting them see this cable operator that was jailed: http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2006/08/ny_man_charged_.html)

Is it a violation of free speech? all I claim is that it is comparable to US limitations, just that exceptionalist mantra clouds your vision.

[Judi Lynn]

24. Here's a look at the pathetic connection between the U.S. government & some Cuban "dissidents:"

CUBA: Dissidents funded by US government


23 April 2003
BY ROBERTO JORQUERA

At an April 8 press conference in Havana, Cuban foreign

minister Felipe Perez Roque presented vouchers, bank receipts and photos demonstrating the truth behind the charges against 75 dissidents found guilty of conspiring with the US Interests Section (USIS) at the Swiss embassy in Havana.

Perez exhibited vouchers of monies received last year from the US by several illegal organisations in Cuba. The Centre for a Free Cuba received US$2.3 million. The Task Force for the Internal Dissidency received US$250,000. The Program for Transition in Cuba, headed by Frank Calzon, received $325,000. Support Group for the Dissidency received $1.2 million from the International Republican Institute. Cubanet, an internet magazine, received $98,000 and the American Centre for International Labor Solidarity, whose mission is to persuade foreign investors not to invest in Cuba, received $168,575.

At a series of trials of Cuban dissidents in early April it was revealed that James Cason, the current head of the USIS, had conspired with them to provide information that Washington can use in its economic, political and propaganda war against the Cuban workers' and peasants' government.

On March 18, Cuban police began charging those involved in the US-funded dissident network. They were charged under a number of different articles in the Cuban penal code and subsequently sentenced to between 15 and 27 years imprisonment.
(snip/...)

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:JKM46sNgBB8J:www.greenleft.org.au/2003/535/30410+United+States+assistance+Cuban+dissidents&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us

[jefferson_dem]

26. In a debate about "freedom" you offer this critique of the efforts by private individuals

to lobby and leverage reforms in Cuba. Interesting. Should they not have the "freedom" to organize and express their positions, whether or not you agree with their motivations?

[Judi Lynn]

28. Not if they are working for the U.S. Government. Use your head.

This also is illegal in THIS COUNTRY if the people working to destabilize their government are also receiving money from another country.

Illegal. Fines. Prison time.

[originalpckelly]

3. I wonder if the users will be able to look up "democracy" and "revolution"

on the service without having a visit from someone.

[Judi Lynn]

25. Venezuela to help Cuba expand internet capacity

Caracas, Friday February 16 , 2007
Venezuela to help Cuba expand internet capacity

A new undersea fiber optic cable from Cuba to Venezuela should be laid within two years, dramatically expanding the island's internet and telephone capacity, a Venezuelan communications official said Thursday.

Julio Duran, president of state-run Telecom Venezuela, told The Associated Press that the deal signed in late January calls for a line with a capacity of 160 gigabytes per second.

This is well over 1,000 times the capacity of Cuba's current satellite-based internet link, which was listed as 65 megabytes per second on upload and 124 megabytes a second on download by Cuban Communications Minister Ramiro Valdés.

It will break through what Cuban officials describe as choking restrictions imposed by the US commercial embargo on Cuba, which they blame for blocking possible connections with existing privately owned fiber optic lines in the region.

"It's a very important project, not only for Venezuela and Cuba, it's for all Latin American countries," Duran said during an interview at an IT convention in Havana.
(snip/)

http://english.eluniversal.com/2007/02/16/en_pol_art_16A836135.shtml