Just as Fidel Castro’s 2016 death did not transform US-Cuba ties, his brother Raul’s exit from politics is unlikely to do so. But Cuba itself is changing. Eventually, Havana and Washington will, too.
American and Cuban flags hang from a wall with an old camera hung in between in Havana, Cuba, on Jan. 11, 2021.
(AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Joe Biden could return to the path blazed by Barack Obama on Cuba, when two years of bilateral negotiations helped undo more than five decades of hostility.
Cubans record a street musician’s performance at an internet hotspot along the seafront in Havana, July 14, 2018.
Reuters/Alexandre Meneghini
Some Cuban entrepreneurs are so openly anti-communist that they sound like, well, capitalists.
Prince Charles takes part in a floral tribute at the monument to Cuban national hero José Martí, at the Revolution Square, in Havana, March 24 2019.
EPA-EFE/Ernesto Mastrascusa
Cuba will not legalize same-sex marriage, as gay activists hoped. But its new constitution adds greater protections for LGBTQ people and for women, and gives Cubans the right to own private property.
Guantanamo Nay detainees sit in a holding area at Camp X-Ray on Jan. 11, 2002.
Reuters/Shane T. McCoy/Handout
On Dec. 10, 1903, the US military leased 45 square miles of Cuban territory to build a naval base. How did Guantanamo Bay become an infamous prison for alleged terrorists?
As gay Cubans gain more rights, opposition is also growing.
AP Photo/Desmond Boylan
Cuba is avowedly secular. But as the country debates a new Constitution that would protect LGBT rights, churches have come out strongly against gay marriage — a sign of change on the Communist island.
Cuba’s new president, at the National Assembly meeting where he was appointed to succeed Raúl Castro on April 18, 2018.
Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters
Cuba has a new president — and for the first time in six decades his last name is not Castro. Who is Miguel Díaz-Canel, the man who inherits a Cuba born of Fidel’s 1959 revolution?
Adios Raúl, hola Miguel.
smael Francisco/Courtesy of Cubadebate/Handout via Reuters
Miguel Díaz-Canel, a 57-year-old engineer and Communist Party loyalist, is expected to succeed Raúl Castro as president of Cuba. Will change bring prosperity or instability to the Cuban people?
In Cuba, unlike in many Latin American countries, when you see children on the street, they’re not begging; they’re playing. And therein lies Castro’s dilemma: how to reform Cuba’s stagnant economy without losing what’s working?
Dan Lundberg/flickr
Fidel Castro was no fan of his brother’s plans to normalize relations with the US or open the economy. Does his death suggest those plans might accelerate?
Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in January 1959, shortly after the fall of the Batista regime.
EPA/STR
Love him or loathe him, the Cuban leader’s legacy cannot be denied.
Cubans were jubilant when president Barack Obama visited the island in March, but economic reforms have not progressed in line with the people’s hopes of change.
Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters
Cuba’s National Capitol Building has been reclaimed as the seat of the National Assembly 54 years after it was abandoned by the new revolutionary government. There are lessons in this for others.