Three Ways To Get To Cuba From The US Right Now

Three Ways to Get to Cuba Right Now

Jenna Scatena | Photo: Courtesy GeoEx | December 23, 2014

How to get onto the island before everyone else does.

The U.S. may be opening diplomatic relations with Cuba, but don’t expect to catch a flight from SFO to Havana just yet. Leisure and tourist travel remains prohibited for the time being, as lifting restrictions for general tourism requires congressional approval. And that’s not likely to happen for a while. 

But despair not, Cubanophiles. While you don’t have free rein to relax on the beach with a mojito yet, the policy shift has still managed to liberalize travel and trade with the country, making it easier to get there and more convenient to travel within the country.

President Obama will open general licenses to travel to Cuba for several reasons—public performances, workshops, athletic competitions, human rights and humanitarian work, private foundations or institutions—which previously required a case-by-case review and approval by the government.

The ban of US credit and debit cards has been lifted, making it much easier to spend within the country. Under the new policy, licensed travelers will also be allowed to import up to $400 worth of Cuban goods, including $100 of tobacco and alcohol products. Good news for Cuban cigars and rum!

The US will re-open its embassy in Havana, incentivizing permitted tour companies to increase tours and easing some peoples’ safety concerns. Cuba will also allow the International Committee of the Red Cross and United Nations human rights officials in the country for the first time in years.

Havana, which has had some of the worst Internet access in the world, has announced it will increase affordable access to its citizens and travelers. Under the new policy, telecommunication providers will now be allowed to establish necessary infrastructure for better Internet.

The lesson for restless travelers? It’s not as easy as flying to Mexico or Costa Rica, but if you want to go, it’s doable and easier than before. And if you want to see Cuba before it transforms, it’s best to experience it before the general tourism ban lifts completely (assuming it happens, of course). These three Bay Area-based operators offer legal, ethical, and immersive trips:

Presidio-based GeoEx offers 8-day custom private trips to Cuba for up to 16 people. Travelers can work with the company to create the perfect itinerary, and land introductions to local historians, artists, and musicians.

The Berkeley nonprofit Ethical Traveler is hosting a 10-day trip in April.  Led by local journalist and Ethical Traveler executive director Jeff Greenwald, this tour focuses on art and culture, with visits to Cuba’s studios, galleries, and community art projects, as well as opportunities to collaborate with Cuban artists.

Over in the Mission, the human rights nonprofit Global Exchange has been bringing Americans to Cuba for more than 20 years. Tours connect travelers with organizations in Cuba to see what life if like for locals and hear about current issues on the ground. 

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Nicaragua Breaks Ground On $50 Billion Dollar Canal

December 23, 2014 4:53 am

Nicaragua breaks ground with $50bn canal

Jude Webber in ManaguaAuthor alerts

©AFP

Grand designs: Wang Jing, centre, inaugurates the project on Monday flanked by Nicaraguan officials and HKND staff

Nicaragua and Chinese billionaire Wang Jing have formally launched work on a $50bn canal across the Central American nation — a megaproject that has raised international questions about whether it will ever be finished, who is really funding it and why.

A carefully orchestrated party was held in Managua’s main square, hailing President Daniel Ortega’s “great triumph” in realising Nicaragua’s “century-old dream”, and thronged with supporters waving banners declaring “God bless the canal”, as Mr Wang and other dignitaries gathered in the former presidential palace.

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“We are not destroyers, we are constructors,” the telecoms magnate declared in a lengthy speech carried live on state television.

Mr Ortega sought to assuage fears that awarding the 100-year contract to build the canal, two ports, locks and other works to Mr Wang’s Hong Kong Nicaragua Development Group was signing sovereignty over to China.

“The Chinese have not come to Nicaragua with occupying forces,” the veteran revolutionary leader said. “They have come to share their resources, their capabilities, their development, their technology, their science. This is what they have come to share with the people of Nicaragua.”

The waterway, which will compete with the Panama Canal for traffic between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, has been criticised as a monumentally costly folly. Opponents have warned that it will wreck flora and fauna, contaminate the pristine Lake Nicaragua through which the canal will run, and evict thousands of people from their land without fair compensation.

Mr Wang dismissed such suggestions and insisted instead it would open up a “21st-century maritime silk route . . . [and] lead the Nicaraguan people to a more brilliant and happier future . . . it will change the model of world trade”.

He added: “There is no turning back.”

A route across Nicaragua, whose lush greenery and stunning natural riches contrast with its status as one of the region’s poorest states, had been considered when the US took over rights to the Panama Canal a century ago, but was dismissed as too difficult.

The HKND plan, known formally as “Nicaragua’s Grand Interoceanic Canal”, is to be three times as long as the Panama waterway and capable of handling larger ships.

Nicaragua’s canal by numbers

Take a poor, central American nation. Add a giant investment from a little-known Chinese billionaire. The result is the biggest public works project in the history of the world, according to its backers. Here is a quick rundown of the planned Chinese-financed Nicaraguan canal in numbers.

Nicaragua’s GDP: $11bn

Cost of planned canal: $50bn

Start of work on access roads: December 2012

Expected inauguration: 2019

Jobs planned to be created:50,000 in construction,200,000 in operational phase

Length: 275.5km (compared with the 81.3km Panama Canal and the 193.3km Suez Canal)

Capacity: 8,800 ships a year

Depth: up to 30m

Width: 230m-520m

Number of routes studied: six(five were eliminated because of threats to turtles, coral and other biodiversity)

Number of ports and locks:Two ports, Brito and Punta Aguila. Two locks, Brito and Camilo.

Mr Wang, a telecoms businessman with no known record in such an ambitious public works project, promised jobs and prosperity, as well as fair market compensation for landowners. Mr Ortega said the canal “has the capacity to completely eradicate extreme poverty” in his nation.

The canal, however, promises to divide the nation in more ways than one.

“I thought at first it would be good for development, and we’re in such a mess here,” said Miguel Reyes, a fast-food seller in the central square of Granada, a colourful colonial town popular with tourists on the shores of the lake. “But now I’m not sure. If it brings development, great, but if it contaminates, then I don’t agree with it.”

Carlos Reyes, an environmental consultant who was having his shoes shined in the square, countered that no project could have zero impact, but the canal’s planned route had been chosen and five others eliminated in order to do the least harm. “We will be a country in the eyes of the world with this project,” he added.

Implicitly acknowledging that there had been criticism and questions about whether Beijing was funding the project, Mr Wang vowed transparency in tenders to be held for the design of the project, locks and ancillary works. “There is no trickery here, no lies,” he said. “We will not invade your happy and tranquil life,” he told Nicaraguans.

HKND would, he said, complete an environmental impact study by the end of the first quarter next year. A tender for the canal’s design and locks at the east and western ends would be held in the fourth quarter, he added.

The company, however, has declined to spell out who its backers are, telling the Financial Times only that the project has drawn “wide capital attention. The financing is under way. We will publish the progress in proper time”.

Additional reporting by Gu Yu in Beijing

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How Pope Francis Helped To Melt The US-Cuba Freeze

How Pope Francis helped melt the US-Cuba freeze

James Politi in RomeAuthor alerts

©AFP

Pope Francis is not usually one to tout his own accomplishments. But even the modest Argentine pontiff could not resist the temptation to hail the groundbreaking deal he helped mediate this week to normalise relations between the US and the Cuba.

“The job of the ambassador is made of small steps, small things, that end up bringing peace,” he told a group of envoys to the Holy See on Thursday morning. “We are so happy to see two peoples take a step to move closer after being distant for so many years”.

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In his biggest diplomatic triumph since being elected to the papacy in March 2013, Pope Francis nudged presidents Barack Obama and Raúl Castro towards a deal through a series of canny moves, including a letter sent to both leaders during the summer, according to people close to the talks. He also discussed a possible compromise with Mr Obama during the US president’s visit to the Vatican in March this year, and hosted key US-Cuba negotiating sessions, including one in October.

Until now, Pope Francis’s record as a diplomat was one of grand ambition but patchy results. For instance, his calls for peace in the Middle East during a trip to the Holy Land in May were followed fairly quickly by the explosion of violence in Gaza and clashes between Israelis and Palestinians over the summer.

Despite the setbacks, the first non-European pope in more than a millennium has remained determined to translate his global popularity into a more active diplomatic role than that played by his predecessor, Benedict XVI. In terms of global engagement, he is at least seeking to match the influence of John Paul II, the Polish pontiff who helped defeat Soviet communism.

The Vatican has long taken a keen interest in US-Cuba relations, including John XXIII’s effort to end the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962. In recent decades, both John Paul II and Benedict XVI made visits to the island, which is more than 60 per cent Catholic, creating a well of trust Pope Francis was able to draw on.

“What was sown years ago finally became ripe and Francis deserves credit for insisting on the line that ‘you must talk’,” says Joaquín Navarro-Valls, the former spokesman for John Paul II who led the negotiations for the first ever papal trip to Cuba in 1998. “This means the collapse of a new wall. It’s different than the one in Berlin but it was a wall that had to fall.”

The first Latin American pontiff will certainly hope that his diplomatic win in Cuba will lead to other successes closer to home.

Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state who was formerly the Holy See’s emissary to Venezuela and played a key role in the Cuba talks, described the deal as a “model” for the future.

“A step of this nature will surely have a positive impact on the whole Latin American area because there are situations that are crying out for improvement and solutions,” Mr Parolin told Vatican Radio on Thursday.

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How quickly will Cuba’s Soviet-style economy change, and what are its implications for the wider region?

Under Pope Francis, the Vatican has been pushing to unlock stalled talks between the government and opposition in Venezuela, to halt the violence between government forces and Farc rebels in Colombia, and to push for an end to the mass killings carried out by drug cartels in Mexico.

“Francis’s Latin origins are definitely a strong point — and could help unite the continent,” says Giuseppe Dentice of the Milan-based Institute for the Study of International Politics. “All the Latin American leaders — from the Bolivarians to the pro-American axis — backed the Cuba deal and complimented Francis for his role as a mediator.”

And yet it may be that the circumstances of the Cuban deal were so unique that it will be difficult to replicate anywhere else. Arguably Pope Francis’s biggest diplomatic challenge — how to deal with China, with which the Vatican still lacks formal relations — remains unresolved. Pope Francis recently refused to meet the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, who was on a visit to Rome with other Nobel laureates, perhaps signalling a shift towards less confrontational relations with Beijing.

By helping to seal the deal with Cuba, the Pope has already shown that he intends to marry his push for a more humble Catholic Church with a more assertive diplomacy.

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The Paraguayan War Reshaped the Region | Stratfor

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The Paraguayan War Reshaped the Region

Media Center, Image

 DECEMBER 15, 2014 | 19:25 GMT  Print  Text Size 

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On Dec. 13, 1864, the small, landlocked but strategically positioned country of Paraguay declared war on the Brazilian Empire. The ensuing conflict became the worst in South American history.
The Paraguayan War laid the foundation of contemporary South America's geopolitical divisions. The conflict emerged as a result of Paraguay's centrality in the Platine River Basin and its position in the heartland of South America. Underlying geopolitical imperatives — most notably the need to secure access to the key waterways providing trade routes and outlets to the Atlantic — forced the national interests of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay to collide in the worst armed conflict in South America's history, pitting Paraguay against what came to be known as the Triple Alliance. Today, 150 years later, the impact of the war still resonates, dominating and defining the nature of regional politics.
The conflict lasted until 1870, costing Paraguay nearly half its territory and almost 90 percent of its men of fighting age. Estimates differ, but Paraguay's overall population is thought to have dropped from 1.3 million to less than 250,000. The conflict was probably the closest thing to Clausewitzian "total war" ever fought in Latin America. After the war, Paraguay never managed to recover its previous position. Meanwhile, the war efforts of the Triple Alliance nations pushed them to the brink of bankruptcy. It was during this period in which these countries acquired the bulk of the sovereign debt that shaped the region's later history.

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