The attention lavished on the handshake between Obama and Castro belies the hard work needed to create true, equal partnerships between the United States and Latin America.
In a candid 1962 conversation with a Guardian editor, President Kennedy unpacked his views on Cuba, the Soviet Union, and nuclear war. What can Obama learn from him?
Once upon a time it was an eternal indestructible friendship
Keizers
The remnants of the Cuba-Soviet relationship are still very much part of Cuban culture – a fact on display at this month’s Miami International Film Festival
Presidents Obama and Castro instigated rumors of a thaw when they shook hands for the first time at the memorial for Nelson Mandela in December last year.
Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters
This past December, Presidents Barack Obama and Raoúl Castro ended over fifty years of economic and political isolation between the US and Cuba with their shock announcement that they intend to re-establish…
US and Venezuela meet in Brazil
Reuters photographer
The Obama administration announced the intention to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba the same week that Congress approved sanctions against Venezuela for human rights violations. The timing was coincidental…
A harbinger of things to come? VP Joe BIden up close and personal with Brazil’s President Rousseff
Ricardo Moraes/Reuters
The New Year always provides an opportunity for both introspection and speculation. So it seems a good time to consider what the big stories are likely to be this year. Some of the five major stories I…
The author with his brother and father on the way to Florida
“Normalization” – that’s been the word of the week among Cubans and Cuba watchers. Set aside for the moment whether it’s really possible for a dictatorship and a democracy to have normal relations, since…
The star-spangled banner yet waves over a Havana taxi-bike.
EPA/Alejandro Ernesto
The recent news that the United States and Cuba are finally beginning to “normalise” relations has understandably caught the world’s imagination, given the two countries’ longstanding mutual hostility…
Providing housing is just one thing on the list
Reuters/Claudia Daut
No US president ever said what President Obama told the American people on December 17, 2014. He also spoke to the people of Cuba, the ordinary citizens who struggle to make breakfast, lunch, and dinner…
The restoration of full diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba, announced simultaneously by Barack Obama and Raúl Castro yesterday, is a huge political breakthrough. The benefits to the Cuban economy…
On Wednesday, the White House announced that the United States would resume diplomatic relations with Cuba in a deal that was brokered with a great deal of help from the Holy See. A statement released…
The resetting of US Cuba relations has been a long time in the making but without the Alan Gross case it is likely it would have happened sooner. I think both sides have thought long and hard about what…
Fidel Castro during a visit to Washington in 1959.
U.S. Department of State
The action by President Obama to move toward the normalization of US-Cuba relations is long overdue. The US ruptured ties with Cuba in early January 1961, under President Eisenhower, not only in the context…
Obama announces the biggest Cuba policy shift in 50 years.
EPA/Doug Mills
In the United States and Cuba’s strained relationship over the past 50-odd years, certain key flashpoints stand out: the Bay of Pigs incident, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and many more. December 17 2014…
Cubans are migrating to the US in greater numbers.
Reuters
Compared to the number of Mexican immigrants entering the US through its southwestern border, migration of Cubans may seem insignificant. Yet the numbers of Cubans coming to the US has soared since Raul…
Bras and other everyday goods are hard to come by in Cuba.
Ed Yourdon
Cuba has imposed new limits on the amount of goods that travellers can bring into the country. The new measures will be unpopular with many involved in the trade from suppliers to customers, and at first…
Xi Jinping’s tour through Latin American countries signals the time is right to reassess Chinese investment in Australia.
AAP/EPA/Cubadebate
Chinese President Xi Jinping has just returned from his second state visit to Latin America, having achieved what no other leader could. His dash through Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, and Cuba has breathed…
Raul Castro has been looking to China’s economic model to relieve Cuba of its stagnant output and mounting foreign debt.
AAP
Dashing the opposition’s hopes, Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Cuba last month ended up resembling that of his predecessor John Paul II fourteen years prior. The island’s leaders emerged from both visits…
NRF Accredited & Senior Researcher; Lead Coordinator of the South-South Educational Collaboration & Knowlede Interchange Initiative, Cape Peninsula University of Technology