Category: Cuba

President Raúl Castro of Cuba arrived here on Saturday on his first official foreign visit since assuming power two years ago from his ailing brother, Fidel. The decision to visit Caracas first highlights Cuba’s continuing reliance on subsidized oil and other forms of aid from Venezuela reports nytimes.

Or was it more of a fist in the air? Benicio Del Toro’s turn as Cuba’s second-most important icon, the Argentinean Ernesto “Che” Guevara, won acclaim from those who are closest to his myth.

CNN reported that the movie was screened Saturday in the Yara movie theater in Central Havana as part of hte 30th International Festival of the New Latin American Cinema.

“Del Toro personifies Che in a spectacular manner, not only his physical appearance but also his masterly interpretation,” the state newspaper said.

While it doesn’t pertain to Cuba per se, this excellent article in the New York Times takes a look at the current socialist salon being created by Hugo Chávez’s socialist government in Venezuela.

In hotel corridors where oilmen in business suits once hatched deals over glasses of whiskey, delegates in Birkenstocks and guayaberas discussed Marx and Antonio Gramsci, the leftist Italian writer. Such meetings have become a staple of life in Caracas, with Mr. Chávez’s government flush, at least for now, with petrodollars that can be used to attract sympathetic members of the chattering classes the world over.

Officials here have organized international encounters for philosophers, women’s rights advocates, the government spokesmen of nonaligned countries, poets and, in September, specialists in body painting.