Like my father says you don't know what you have until you actually loose it. I guess thats what happen when brugal becomes more important than reading and learning but anyways. If you can't drink enought from 7 AM till 1 AM then you have a major alchool problem that must be dealt with quick. Well i don't hold anything against the guy i understand that moving DR into the 21st century is going to create problems like the ones we have seen here but we must move forward with the plan.

Sorry Belly, but please dont tell me how to use my freedom of speech as you wish.. i will use my freedom of speech however I see fit !!

As for the freedom of Cuba, the Cubans are much FREER than Dominicans .. FREE TO READ FREE TO WRITE ! We , on the ohter hand have a mediocre literacy rate!

so there... please feel free to use your freedom of speech by responding or not !

WOW is nice to know you are using your FREEDOM OF SPEECH while supporting for other not have it. what else do you do in your daily life walk with no legs and talk with your eyes and speak with your ears. So basically you are saying i'm not reading or writing back to you ahahaha man you are funnier that i would have ever thought keep the jokes coming. a good advice is to read your FREE COMMENT BEFORE YOU WRITE YOUR FREE COMMENTS. Any ways i have nothing against you man is all good and fun talking to you!

I know it belly !!

Thats what drinking does!! it makes you humorous!!!

But I had to flee teh DR bcs I like to start drinking after 1AM.... thats when the fun people start partying !! haha! so my so called FREEDOM was hastily taken from me.

Really, when you went to cuba , both times, what did you see that mande you anti castro.. did they go up to you and tell you horror stories of how the regime has tortured them and robbed them of their freedoms? So that means, cuba has their own form of PATRIOT ACT?

First thing i was told by a police man was to shut-down the video camera because he was going to take it away if i didn't because is not allow to film there unless you a reporter controlled by the Castros. Second what Cubans eat on a daily bases is dictated by Castros but he and his family can eat what ever they want. Also your drinking habits would be taken away too because that is also controlled by the castros. Hospitals have different floors where they take Cubans in and where they take tourist in and trust me where they take tourist in and Cubans in is a Heaven and Hell diferences. If you say anythig about the Castros you are considered a traitor and you are put in jail. They don't just have police man they also have spy that get pay pretty good to bring traitors of the castros in. Your Human rights are all taken away and you can only go to school for what they say and under their conditions. Many cubans have diead trying to ovetrown the Castros to the point Cubans fear them but now days they know they don't have much time left because Cubans inside are getting tired of this and are begining to loose their fear. Thats the reason they are willing to negotiate because it won't be long before they get overthrown by eeither the USA/Cuban or cubans inside who are suffering hunger everyday. Nobody has any rights or access to anything outside of the Castros. You must take a trip there so you can see it for your self. In my opinion i would rather be dead that live under those circustances.

wow !

Belly, I didnt know it was like that after 50 years of the revolution.

the cubans I know that come here to miami to be with their relatives adn go back , must certainly be castro agents then....

I was going to disagree with you but once you said they would take my drinking away , I would fight them tooth and nail!

Still, i maintain that they are cowards, bcs if things were as bad as you say for this long , dont youthink they would stand up and do soemthng ? didnt we stand up to Trujillo?

That is the only reason i think most people are brainwashed to believe that living condition are horrendous in cuba , when they have all sorts of parameters that indicate the contrary.... how could they have more huger and starvation than DR but have a higher life expectancy?

You must remember that all numbers report by Cubans are controlled by the Castros so i won't trust this number since if they were bad it would make people think the regime has done bad. I see your points but the difference is that Trujillo was doing all his horrible thing under a free society and of course the general public got to know whats going on and they catched up to but in Cuba people only hear what the Castros say it is not what the realitty is. Now days cubans are getting the word of mouth type of media and are starting to see the bigger picture that has been hidden from them all this time. So the castros are thinking well if we negotiate with USA and still keep power we will be good to go but USA is like well not so fast there MR because people have to be able to choose their leader and thats why you seeing them kind of backing out of some of their statements to bring democracy there. by saying USA doesn't want to negotiate with us and blaming they failure to the Embargo.

AfroLatino:
Can i ask you what's your agenda here?

Will Havana reduce repression?
BY FRANK CALZON
frank.calzon@cubacenter.org

President Barack Obama just returned from Trinidad & Tobago where he met with hemispheric heads of state. The one missing, Cuba was on everybody's mind. The question most often asked was: ``When will the United States lift the failed trade embargo and normalize relations with Cuba?

The media thrive on conflict, and Latin American leaders get a free pass from their radical left when they criticize Washington and turn a blind eye to a 50-year-old military dictatorship in Cuba. Before the meeting, President Obama lifted of restrictions on travel and remittances by Cuban Americans; which will help Cubans and deliver hundreds of millions of dollars to the regime that controls every economic activity on the island.

The dollars influx comes at a critical time for Havana. Reuters reported this week that Cuba's cash crunch is getting worse. The price of nickel is down and Cuba is no longer a significant producer of sugar -- indeed, the country has been forced to import sugar from abroad. Besides, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez will not be able to continue his level of subsidies to the Castro dynasty due to the low price of oil.

President Obama is right that the ball is now in Raúl Castro's court. President Obama insists on maintaining the embargo but lifting some restrictions opens up the way if, as the president hopes, Havana responds in kind. It is emblematic of U.S.-Cuban relations that Havana demands concessions and when they are made, responds by saying they are not enough.

If Havana reduces its repression, allows the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit its political prisons and dismantles and extends to Cubans the same rights and privileges it grants foreigners on the island, the gesture will not go unnoticed by the United States or by the Europeans who lifted restrictions almost a year ago, hoping that their unilateral decision would prod Havana to open up. The Europeans are scheduled this summer to review a series of benchmarks in regard to internal reforms in Cuba.

President Obama has pointed out that there are Cuban families who have foreign visas to travel abroad, but the Cuban government does not permit them to leave. Cuba is the only country in the region that requires government authorization for its citizens to travel abroad. Latin American leaders might want to ask General Castro to let them go.

The United States lifted its restrictions on remittances and packages. Now it may be Havana's turn to permit the normalization of postal services between the two countries. Were it to do so, more Cubans could receive assistance from abroad.

The issue here is that Cuban-Americans are swindled to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars by a monopoly developed by Havana in Miami. Havana licenses companies which profit from the desire of Cuban-Americans to help their relatives on the island, by overcharging them for the sending of care packages.

The normalization of postal service is absent from the demands of those who want to ''normalize'' relations with Cuba, because it not one of the priorities of the Castro government. In the case of the remittances, which unlike remittances from Salvadorans, Mexicans and others, do not have a multiplying effect on the island because almost all economic activity is prohibited to Cubans. President Obama has suggested General Raúl Castro reduce the harsh tax it imposes on those transactions.

The United States is also ready to allow American companies to sell TV satellite dishes, and Internet technology to Cubans.

It remains to be seen whether Raúl Castro will permit satellite dishes and computers connected to the Internet to be placed in libraries, churches, and schools -- let alone to be purchased by those Cubans who which now will have a lot more to spend than the typical $20 monthly salary.Again
OPPENHEIMER REPORT
Castro brothers' power struggle may doom Obama's overture



Fidel Castro's latest comments about last weekend's 34-country Summit of the Americas seem to support a growing theory among U.S. and Latin American leaders -- that there is a split between Cuban leader Raúl Castro and his nominally retired brother Fidel.

Speculation of a non-declared power struggle at the top of the Cuban regime may have helped to bolster President Barack Obama's hopes at the summit in Trinidad about ''a new beginning'' in U.S.-Cuba ties.

At his news conference at the end of the summit on Sunday, Obama praised Raúl's remarks in Venezuela last week, in which the Cuban leader had stated that Cuba is willing to talk with the United States about ''everything,'' including human rights and political prisoners.

Obama said Raúl's remarks were ''a sign of progress.'' Secretary of State Hillary Clinton welcomed his ''overture.'' And U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough told me that Raúl's admission that Cuba may have made mistakes in the past ``strikes me as a degree of candor that we haven't seen heretofore.''

But this week, Fidel Castro poured buckets of cold water on U.S. and Latin American leaders' speculation that we may be at the threshold of a new chapter in U.S.-Cuban relations. The former Cuban leader, who retired in 2006 but maintains loyalists in key positions of power, appeared to contradict his younger brother in written ''reflections'' published by Cuba's official press this week.

On Tuesday, Fidel wrote that Obama had ''misinterpreted'' Raúl's remarks about Cuba's willingness to discuss human rights issues. According to Fidel, Raúl meant to say that Cuba would free political prisoners if the United States frees five Cubans convicted in the U.S. of spying for Cuba.

On Monday, in an editorial entitled ''Crazy Dreams,'' Fidel mocked last weekend's calls from some summit leaders for a readmission of Cuba into the Organization of American States, adding that Cuba does not want to be part of the OAS.

At the summit, Latin American leaders told me they believe that Raúl wants to open Cuba's economy, following the Vietnamese model. Fidel, on the other hand, fears that such a path would doom his revolution, they say.

There are concrete signs of Raúl's desire to seek better ties with Washington, Latin American officials said.

Days before the summit, Raúl's government dispatched senior diplomats to Brazil and Argentina to urge their presidents not to risk a rift with the Obama administration at the summit over the Cuba issue. The Cuban emissaries' message was: ask Obama to lift the U.S. sanctions on Cuba, but don't attack the U.S. president to the point where it could create a backlash in the United States and spoil the momentum for a normalization of ties, they said.

Earlier, Brazil's daily Folha de Sao Paulo's prominent columnist Clovis Rossi suggested in an article that Raúl is telling foreign dignitaries that he is his own man. According to the April 12 column, Raúl told Chilean President Michelle Bachelet during her recent visit to Cuba, ``You have to understand that there are two very different Castros here.''

Are the two Castros fighting among themselves, I asked Norberto Fuentes, author of The Autobiography of Fidel Castro, who was close to the Castro brothers before he went into exile in 1994.

''They fight all the time, but at the end of the day they rule together,'' Fuentes said. ``And right now, Fidel's health has improved, and he's running the show.''

According to Fuentes, Fidel has sabotaged every U.S. effort to improve ties with Cuba over the past 50 years and he needs confrontation with Washington to justify his regime's absolute hold on power.

My opinion: Obama deserves credit for offering a carrot to Raúl Castro, and waiting to see whether the Cuban leader bites.

But I'm not too optimistic -- unless Fidel's health takes a turn for the worse -- that there will be a positive response from Cuba. There are two different Castros on the island, but the one in charge is the one we've seen lately looking at the camera with wide eyes and wearing the Adidas tracksuit. And he's not likely to change course this late in the game.

Follow this link Fascinating testimony from Sec state Clinton on Wednesday http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7kaF2iTtXA