Cuba Turns On Submarine Internet Cable 132
angry tapir writes "A change in Internet traffic patterns over the past week suggests that Cuba may have turned on a fiber-optic submarine cable that links it to the global Internet via Venezuela. Routing analyst firm Renesys noticed that the Spanish telecommunications company Telefónica began routing Internet traffic to Cuba's state telecommunications company, Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba S.A. (ETECSA). The Internet traffic is flowing with significantly lower latencies than before, indicating the connection is not solely using the three satellite providers that Cuba has relied on in the past for connectivity."
VIVA LAS VEGAS !! (Score:1)
Oh, wait !! LAS REVOLUCION !!
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"Las" is plural. I think you meant "La revolución".
Well (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Well (Score:5, Funny)
So you drink to the completion of "Cuba Fibre"?
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I'm glad for their sailors (Score:5, Funny)
To finally have internet access on their submarines must be a godsend. I wonder how they avoid getting the cable tangled as the maneuver though.
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To finally have internet access on their submarines must be a godsend. I wonder how they avoid getting the cable tangled as the maneuver though.
They've got a larger one of these: http://www.staples.com/GE-Phone-Cord-Detangler-Black/product_716304 [staples.com]
No no no.... (Score:2)
"cable" is figurative here.
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a submarine full of tapes.
Sure, the bandwidth of a surface vessel would be even more, but submarine transport is harder to intercept.
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Not sure how they used subs to get both higher bandwidth and lower latencies. Seems unpossible.
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To finally have internet access on their submarines must be a godsend. I wonder how they avoid getting the cable tangled as the maneuver though.
You have to keep your submarine on the surface, and out in the deeper waters. Sadly, this means they may never see port again, but they do have faster downloads. And fake girlfriends.
Just ask (Score:5, Insightful)
Just ask them if it is active. Don't speculate. They have no reason to hide it, and every reason to boast that their internet connections just got better.
The author seems to have mistaken Cuba for North Korea.
Re:Just ask (Score:5, Insightful)
Just ask them if it is active. Don't speculate
Assuming their Venezuelan peer didn't connect to them via satellite and does now connect via fiber, it should be simple to log into your nearest BGP speaking router and/or check a looking glass web interface for the cuban ISP AS number and see if it now has a path via the fiber instead of / in addition to the path via the existing satellite providers.
That's how you "don't speculate". Is there a BGP path over that fiber or not?
Of course if the path won't change if all that changes is layer 1/layer 2 from satellite to fiber.
This is assuming Cuba has enough traffic to warrant being a "real" ISP with BGP peers and full routes. I suspect they do?
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Give it a few years -- eventually the US will introduce freedom via air strikes and occupation.
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Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Use this as a chance to end the embargo against Cuba. It has been 50 years, let's move on. If we can now trade with Burma and Vietnam, then why the hell should be still be fucking with Cuba?
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
1)To get votes from the Cuban community from Miami.
2)To protect US corn farmers and corn syrup from imports of cane sugar from Cuba.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
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I've also heard some things about the Hawaiian tourist lobby having some push here too. Does anyone know if that's still true?
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If I was POTUS for a day I would round-up all the Cubans in Miami and deliver them to the Cuban Government with the label 'terrorist'
Good job you're not going to be, you horrendous racist.
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1)To get votes from the Cuban community from Miami.
US politicians are scared of the Miami Cubans. They are more feared than the Mafia at its height. If I was POTUS for a day I would round-up all the Cubans in Miami and deliver them to the Cuban Government with the label 'terrorist'.
Hey, at least send out those that actually are terrorists. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Posada_Carriles [wikipedia.org]
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Yep, drop the embargo, pull back the curtain on the Great & Powerful Oz. Take away the Cuban government's ability to blame poverty on the US, make them deal with their problems or face the repercussions. If we haven't gotten things straightened out when it's time for Raúl Castro's presidency to come to a close, we set ourselves up for another potential 50+ years of unfriendly relations with our closest neighbor.
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Yeah, I meant *one of our* closest, not closest. Obviously Mexico and Canada are closer.
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Use this as a chance to end the embargo against Cuba. It has been 50 years, let's move on. If we can now trade with Burma and Vietnam, then why the hell should be still be fucking with Cuba?
===
Canada has been doing it for years. Cuba has poverty, because and only because of the USA embargos, but they have superb medical care, and superb university education, which is second to none. That is why Chavez went to Cuba, instead of a Cancer clinic in the USA. Better treatment and better care. Not all American for profit medical centers are there for patients.
Anyway, time for embargoes to end. The Internet will do that, and changes will come slowly, so as to protect the society. Rapid changes wil
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
why the hell should be still be fucking with Cuba?
Because they agreed to allow the USSR to put NUCLEAR fucking MISSILES on their island, aimed at us, and it's basically the same government in power today.
Even the USSR was trading with just about anyone in Western-Europe, despite either their own or US Nukes aimed at them from there. And even Turkey didn't get the Cold War shoulder, despite the stationing of US nukes there that was the reason for stationing nukes in Cuba in the first place (which BTW where "coincidently" removed just a few months after the end of the Cuba crisis).
Not to mention that the embargo started before the nukes and was the actual reason that Cuba became depended on the USSR in the first place.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
It is simple - one does not shoot his/her customers.
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Which let me tell you makes it really tough to get a good night's sleep. How much is a room at this place anyway?
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If it becomes another American spring break paradise it will be ruined.
Too late. I understand it's infested with a bunch of smug, holier than thou Canadians.
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Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
So the USSR is on the trade-embargoes list too? (Er... no... it's not).
The US itself put nuclear weapons in the EU in case of the USSR attacking, and although they are an "ally" to the EU, I don't see any of the former Russian states initiating embargoes with the EU countries or the US, now or in the past?
And where embargoes exist, or have existed since the Cold War, they are usually aimed purely at the thing you want to embargo (i.e. nuclear weapons, like the UK embargoed India). A blanket trade embargo is someone throwing their toys out of the pram, not a sensible real-world solution, and is usually only temporary until a government settles into power.
And the US-Cuba embargo was started in 1960. Most of the legislators who decided on the embargo aren't even around any more. My entire life was lived in that time, with nearly two decades to spare. Wars were fought and won.
The US is a playground bully that embargoes countries that don't play by its terms. It has little or no real-world relevance to their security, or anything else.
Cuba are about as much a threat to the US as Argentina is to UK. And, hell, technically we went to war with Argentina for an invasion of UK-owned islands in the intervening decades, fought it, declared peace and several decades later are being cautious about a potential re-occurrence. But we still don't even trade-embargo them.
And, technically, the embargo has NEVER been about that. It was about human rights, trade debts, and the nationalisation of US citizens' property in the country. The Missile Crisis came years later, and was resolved within days.
Let's punish countries for things they did up to 60+ years ago with their own allies that actually hurt no-one, and punish them even when the problem goes away. Because there'd be an AWFUL lot of countries up shit creek if we did that.
And, the thing is, nobody has ANY idea whose has missiles and where they could be aimed at nowadays. Nobody. Hell, that was the whole "WMD" farce in a nutshell - a false positive. And most modern weapons could take out anyone, anywhere, without warning. By the standards applied, the US should either a) invade Cuba or b) trade-embargo every country in the world. The threat was always the USSR, never Cuba itself.
Notice that no other countries embargo Cuba. Not even the US allies. That says a lot. And no country in the world has had an embargo in place for as long.
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While I agree the Cuba embargo is silly, it does not make the U.S. a bully. International trade by definition happens when both countries consent to the transaction. If one country doesn't want to trade with another country for whatever reason, it is their right not to. Exercising that right does not make them a bully. What next, calling a woman a bully because she refuses to have sex with you?
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Exercising that right does not make them a bully. What next, calling a woman a bully because she refuses to have sex with you?
That's the wrong analogy. The correct one is: An adult American and an adult Cuban want to engage in consensual sex, but the American's parents stop the transaction by threat of force. In real life, Americans want to buy cheap sugar cane from Cuba free from protective tariffs. We can't, so we end up consuming a lot of high fructose corn syrup instead.
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Well, when the USSR revives itself from the grave, or the Cubans come up with nuclear missiles themselves, I'll consider that cause for concern. For much the same reason, I don't see much point in having US troops standing ready to bravely defend West Germany from Soviet expansionism.
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I think the Greeks hate the Germans.
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Yet it is a Greek-German couple that rules the United Kingdom and it's Commonwealth.
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they can trade with canada, and especially mexico next door, along with china, russia, and europe.
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Actually no, they can't. Because of the Helms/Burton act any company that trades with Cuba cannot trade with the Untied States. Any Mexican or Canadian company which sells to Cuba is prohibited access to the US market. Which market are they going to go after, do you think?
This is why Delaware does such brisk business... Canadian and Mexican companies trade with Cuba all the time... and their sister companies trade with the US. NAFTA and Helms/Burton keep the actual *goods* from going to the US from Cuba (legally), but the same people trade with both countries all the time via shell corporations set up precisely because of the US embargo.
It's almost like the US lost the paperwork that explained this whole situation, and has since found it more profitable to keep the embargo
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Did you know that part of that Godfather film [wikipedia.org] was based on a true story?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgencio_Batista#Relationship_with_organized_crime [wikipedia.org].
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You may be a shitbag imperialistic apologist for colonialism, but at least you're a funny one.
Turn on? (Score:2)
You don't 'turn on' a cable. How about 'start using'?
Not sure that this is either news for geeks, or news that matters, unless you live in Cuba.
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You don't turn on a TV, you just supply electrical potential to certain components. And you don't start a car, you just start using certain electrical pathways that start using certain valves and motors to supply fuel, oxygen, and a periodic ignition source.
'Turn on' is a valid way to describe going online. From a systems and communications point of view, it isn't that much different from turning on a lightbulb (it just has a lot more components).
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You don't 'turn on' a cable.
you've never had your cable turned on?
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No, he's right.
While a cable certainly can carry porn, it not really capable of getting excited by it.
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You don't 'turn on' a cable. How about 'start using'?
Try harder
Layer 1 - plug the damn thing in, "interface wtf0 enter no shut enter". Remove the testing loopback plugs, hopefully from each end. Unplug the OTDR and plug in the GBIC. Whatever.
Layer 2 - is kinda implementation dependent.
Layer 3 - "router bgp wtf enter neighbor wtf remote-as wtf" or if its already up, change your AS path regexes or route-maps to actually allow traffic to flow. Or change your prepending so instead of prepending your AS 50 times to force all traffic off the fiber, prepend 50 t
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"You don't 'turn on' a cable"
No, but you can trip over it
I have done that many times, I must tidy up my office.
BTW the rest of the world welcomes Cuba to the 20th century
Re:Turn on? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, we need to consider traffic flowing out of Venezuela as another route to Cuba. It's fairly important if you peer with Telefonica directly, or if your job is to monitor this stuff.
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Fair enough; still a LOT better than what you typically experience in Cuba.
Anchor damage? (Score:1)
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Or get them from Canada. Or Mexico. Or any of your neighbours who don't have a ridiculous embargo against Cuba. :)
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Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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probably because they haven't installed DPI boxes to monitor the new link, and they'd likely need bigger ones given the bandwidth.
But they likely only want to see the messages going out anyway...
Will Cuba Ever Learn?! (Score:3, Funny)
First they turn on their capitalist landowners and now they have turned on their Submarine Internet Cable! Don't you know what's good for you, Cuba?
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Interesting Enigma (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure what or how much difference this cable will make for the immediate future.
Cuba is a really interesting enigma. The Cuban government (and some misinformed Americans) likes to blame the U.S. embargo on Cuba's woes, being poor with little hope of advancement. But, the reality is that ALL of Cuba's woes are the failure of the Cuban government.
Sure, the U.S. and some of its allies own't (aren't allowed) to trade with Cuba, but the vast majority of the world can and will trade with Cuba. A few actually do trade. Countries like Canada, the E.U., Japan, Australia, Russia, India, China, most Latin American countries... They all willingly trade with Cuba. But, they require Cuba to pay them for goods and that is where Cuba suffers. Due to mismanagement by the Cuban government and their ideology, they have never had a strong enough economy nor enough money to buy the things that they need or should have as a modern country.
We are always shown the crumbling buildings and the 1950s era cars on the streets of Havana. But, there are a fair few brand new Peugots, Renaults, Toyotas and more driving around on Cuba's roads. But, they are all being driven by the extremely wealthy, government officials or tourists. There are fabulous opulent and modern resorts in Cuba. There are citizens with expensive yachts around Havana. The media never shows this and the Cuban government keeps it on the DL so that the local population doesn't get upset about it, but its all there.
Recently, there have been reports of food shortages in Cuba. Why? Cuba is a Caribbean island that is extremely fertile. They could, and in the past have been able to feed themselves. Once upon a time Cuba exported food, as well as other resources. Sure, the U.S. market isn't open to them, but all the rest of the world is. Yet they fail so miserably that they are now struggling to feed the populace? That's gross mismanagement. That's Fidel's fault. Raul may or may not be turning to a better course, but for the past 50 years, the management has been the cause of Cuba's problems.
All of Cuba's woes are caused by their government's poor management and failed ideology.
Re:Interesting Enigma (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been there and it didnt look very woeful to me.
A lot of the ancient 1950s gas guzzlers have been replaced. People everwhere on the island were wearing new clothes. New roads were under construction. Pretty much like any 3rd world country that is modernising.
There didnt seem to be any food shortage that I could see.
Although I didnt see it first hand, the health care is legendary.
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It's funny; everyone says their health care is legendary, but no one has actually seen it. Oh yes, some foreigners have seen the facilities made available to them-- but these aren't the ones used by Cuban citizens.
If Cuban health care is so great, why do humanitarian organizations and relatives have to send in medicines from the USA all the time?
Re:Interesting Enigma (Score:5, Interesting)
My mother made several trips there in the 1990's, spending most of her time well outside of Havana, in private homes, and was not surrounded by government minders or anything like that.
There was a significant crisis after the collapse of the USSR, because before 1989 the Cuban economy had relied on trading sugar to the USSR in exchange for almost everything else including food. There were some food shortages - nothing like, say, Ethiopia's famines, but people were sometimes going hungry. The Cuban government responded to this by converting more of their farming towards food and loosening the restrictions on private sales of food (prior to that, the only legal way to get food was to buy it from the government-run stores). It still hasn't fully recovered, but it's definitely gotten better in the food department. Raul Castro is also significantly more pragmatic about such things than Fidel Castro was - Fidel was focused on pure ideological communism, Raul seems fine with limited market economies so long as nobody is getting overly rich or poor.
Health care was definitely readily available and quite innovative. Their model starts with the neighborhood doctor, who is not only the primary care physician but also acts as a public health advocate for residents. Doctors also were growing herb gardens and using them for natural remedies when the pills weren't available (e.g. camomile instead of sleeping pills). On the flip side, when pills were available, she noticed that people would frequently take very large doses, far more than an American would, all at once. Because of the difficulty in treating illness, Cuban medicine has always been focused on preventative care, and it seems to mostly work. The people she encountered were generally of sound health.
And as a sibling poster points out, your average Haitian or Dominican would see Cuba as a paradise by comparison. You would probably also be a lot happier living in Cuba than living in the worst part of Detroit.
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Here's where the "legendary" part comes in (data from the World Health Organization):
Life expectancy in the US - 77.7 years
Life expectancy in Cuba - 77.4 years
US annual health care cost per capita - $7,164
Cuba annual health care cost per capita - $495
That's the reason people are paying attention to the Cuban model - they're getting good results on a shoestring budget.
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Yes it is a poor country but as far as quality of life goes I have to say I’ve seen a lot worse (India, Thailand, even rural Mexico to name but a few... Don’t even get me started on Africa). The people I met were friendly and largely happy with what they had.. I say largely because I did
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It must be really hard form someone from a first world country, who has to stump up for private medical insurance, to believe that a third-world country, who offers medical services for free, has better healthcare.
Yet all the statistics and all the first hand reports show that it does.
If Cuban health care is so great, why do humanitarian organizations and relatives have to send in medicines from the USA all the time?
Cuba BUYS it's medicines from the USA. They received aid after the odd hurricane, but equally they give aid to other countries that have been hit by humanitarian disasters - they were the first to aid Haiti for example. And of
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Although I didnt see it first hand, the health care is legendary.
One of the reasons for this is that Cuba has for years told everybody how "great" their health care is. It's just human nature that if you keep telling everyone who will listen over and over again that you are really good at something, they will eventually believe it. I'm sure that Cuban doctors do get good quality training, but I don't read about them being in the forefront of any new techniques and I do know that the US embargo has a big impact on their medical supplies. I think they do have competent
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Life expectancy is not really a good marker for health or well-being of different populations. This is especially true with cultural differences as large as there are between the US and Cuba. One population will always have factors that can't be accounted for by the other. For instance, deaths from traveling more miles (accidents) or recreational activities, drug abuse and so one can greatly skew the life expectancy of one place and has little to do with health or the quality of care.
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Are you sure? Re:Interesting Enigma (Score:3)
I went to a resort in Cayo Coco last year. The resort was nice and modern. Took a day trip into Ciego de Avila and it was a different story. The center of the city looks fine but you go a few blocks out of the way and it goes downhill pretty fast. In general everything looked pretty run down, especially on the drive in.
I didn't see as many 1950's cars as I thought I would. I saw plenty of small motor bikes, horses, bikes, etc. Saw newer cars at the resort but don't recall seeing many in the c
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For a predominantly Christian country you wou
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Its not that much further to get supplies from central and south America. Opening trade with Cuba will only serve to have Cuba exploited by American businesses and little more.
As for "love thy neighbor", I don't think that means anything in this context. You can love you neighbor and still not do business with them.
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Of course they want to "escape", they hear on Radio Marti that everyone who comes to the US is guaranteed a high-paying job, a nice apartment an
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The Cuban government (and some misinformed Americans) likes to blame the U.S. embargo on Cuba's woes, being poor with little hope of advancement.
I don't think its as simple as "become a lapdog of the USA and you'll be rich". Look at their neighbor Haiti.
Also I have long been interested in visiting Cuba, mostly because I live in a non-free country that won't allow me to visit (and whats forbidden is always really good, right?). Anyway a gross and inaccurate summary of Cuban Ag, post 1990s, is they make a hell of a lot more money exporting tobacco and citrus and cassava while spending a small amount of export money importing some rice. I mean they
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If you really want to see a place that is screwed with nearly 100% food imports, think Vegas.
Funny you mention Vegas, being the other Mafia controlled city besides "free" Havana.
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I don't think its as simple as "become a lapdog of the USA and you'll be rich". Look at their neighbor Haiti.
I never even remotely suggested that this was the case.
I stated that the difficulties experienced by the nation and the people of Cuba are all brought about by the Castro regime's mismanagement. Cuba's current state has nothing to do with the U.S. Cuba can easily trade with the rest of the world, but they can barely afford to do so because of Castro mismanagement and failed ideology.
Cuba could be a highly prosperous and successful nation without ever dealing with the U.S., but that scenario would require ex
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You might want to educate yourself on the real reasons for the differences between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. None of which has anything to say about Cuba.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1953959,00.html [time.com]
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Cuba's current state has nothing to do with the U.S.
Well, just look at a map, and one can clearly see that a cable to Florida would have made a lot more sense than the cable to Venezuela. There is. in fact, an undersea cable running like 20km off-shore off the northern Cuban cost, but because of the embargo, Cuba was not allowed to connect to it. Hence until now, at least the state of the Cuban Internet connection had a lot to do with the embargo. And Internet connection nowadays means business.
Boring Ignoramus (Score:2)
The stupid, it hurts. Ask anyone from any country that's been under an economic boycott or embargo about it's effects on the economy and the goods available. Palestinians who can't even get wheelchairs in Gaza, parents who lost kids in Iraq due to the lack of medicine, which is n
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And yet their healthcare is still better than the one in the US...
Go figure.
"Submarine cable"? (Score:2)
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Irony (Score:3)
Apropos of nothing, but I always find it a bit ironic that supposedly free US citizens are barred by their own government from travelling to Cuba and can get into a lot of trouble for doing so.
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Especially when they can visit North Korea/Missile-Mart (Eric Schmidt and Bill Richardson).
Venezuela (Score:5, Interesting)
To all of you who think Cuba is "modernizing" on its own, I remind you that Venezuela is sending over 100,000 barrels of oil on a daily basis which the Castros sell to other countries at current market prices. Venezuela became, for Cuba, what the USSR used to be. This is why many venezuelans think that their (our) country is being controlled politically by the Castros in Chavez' absence so that Cuba never loses that lifeline that, if it were to be gone tomorrow, it will send their country to another "periodo especial"
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Right, in the same way the United States is "controlled" by miniscule foreign aid donations that make up a percentage of a fraction of a sliver of it's GDP. You know.....paranoid right wing Alex Jones bullshit.
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It's not a gift. It's not aid. It's called trade.
In return for Venezuelan oil, Cuba is sending approximately 30,000 to 50,000 technical personnel to Venezuela, including physicians, sport coaches, teachers, and arts instructors who offer social services, often in poverty-stricken regions. Under the programme Convenio de AtenciÃn a Pacientes implemented in 2000, Venezuela send patients and their relatives for medical treatment in Cuba where the Government of Venezuela pays the transportation costs, and Cuba bears all other expenses.[6]
In April 2005, the two countries signed an agreement to increase the number of healthcare workers in Venezuela to 30,000 and initiated health programs which included establishment of 1,000 free medical centers, training of 50,000 medical personnel, and surgical treatment for approximately 100,000 Venezuelans in Cuba. Cuba also offered to train an additional 40,000 Venezuelan physicians. Meanwhile the oil shipment to Cuba is increased to 90,000 barrels (14,000 m3) per day.[17] In 2005 alone, 50,000 Venezuelans went to Cuba for free eye treatment.[5]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba [wikipedia.org]â"Venezuela_relations
Chavez himself is being treated in Cuba for his Cancer, just as so many other Venezuelans are.
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DATA in the DEEPS, an artistic interlude (Score:1)
Cue the music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaqTVVq-vZ4 [youtube.com]
[pause for music to begin]
OK, here we go.
The wrecks dissolve above us; their dust drops down from afar---
Down to the dark, to the utter dark, where the blind white sea-snakes are.
There is no sound, no echo of sound, in the deserts of the deep,
Or the great grey level plains of ooze where the shell-burred cables creep.
Here in the womb of the world---here on the tie-ribs of earth
Words, and the words of men, flicker and flutter and beat---
Warn