Cuba: For macho island, a shift on civil unions

Guantánamo, Cuba, an important eastern city near the eponymous Naval Base, the streets recently reverberated with shouts of “Down with Fidel! Down with Raúl!” and “The streets belong to the people!” as dozens marched in open defiance of the iron-fisted rule of the Castro brothers. Even the physical attacks hurled by the regime’s paid thugs did not prevent the march from continuing.

Over the past few months similar protests have taken place across cities and towns throughout the island. What do they portend?

To most people, popular uprisings against dictatorships appear spontaneous because they capture our attention at their moment of fruition, when massive crowds in public plazas attract television cameras. In truth, uprisings are the result of many years of individuals struggling to overcome personal fear, and of tenacious organizational work by small groups.

Resistance networks that grow through repressed societies act like arteries that arouse a subjugated people, a key event or moment serving as the critical spark, the catalyst for the awakening. The death last year of prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo, an Afro-Cuban bricklayer, perpetrated by the authorities’ denial of water for 18 days in an attempt to force him to stop a hunger strike, set off a wave of street protests and hunger strikes. International condemnation forced the dictatorship to release hundreds of political prisoners. Many of those released were pressured into exile, but a hard core of political prisoners chose to remain on the island, their leadership qualities thereby growing exponentially in the eyes of the population.

The Castro dictatorship is once more trying to stem the growth of such resistance in Cuba through persecution and brutality because popular demonstrations, unprecedented in number and message, have erupted throughout the island, among them:

The announcement was made by Mariela Castro, daughter of Raul Castro and the director of Cuba’s national sex education center, during an interview with Spanish broadcaster Cadena Ser earlier this month. Castro, the island’s leading gay rights advocate, said Cuban authorities are already studying the proposal in preparation for the upcoming Community Party conference on Jan. 28.

“This is a historic opportunity, and I think we’re close to having draft legislation,” said Castro, who also revealed in the interview that gay Cubans can serve in the military. “We’ve been working on this issue for a long time, with a lot of activism. We’re starting to see results and a political solution.”

Certainly the recognition of same-sex civil unions would be a landmark achievement — for Mariela Castro and the island’s gay rights activists. But it also prompts the question: Why has it taken Cuba so long?

After all, six other Latin American nations already recognize same-sex civil unions: Uruguay, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico (in certain states). Why then is Cuba, a largely secular society where left-wing politics have dominated for 50 years, still slow to grant full legal equality for gays and lesbians? As Castro told the interviewer, “A socialist society can’t be a homophobic one.”

But it has been one in the past.

In the decades following Fidel Castro’s 1959 Cuban Revolution, gay Cubans endured various forms of harassment, and many in the late 1960s were sent to military labor camps to be “rehabilitated” by grueling agricultural work. The socialist “New Man” envisioned by Che Guevara was strong, self-sacrificing, masculine — and unambiguously heterosexual.

When the Cuban government screened the film “Brokeback Mountain” on national television in 2008, church spokesman Orlando Marquez wrote [6] “I respect homosexual individuals, but not the promotion of homosexuality. We’re going down a dangerous path when our own state institutions promote programs that undermine the foundations of our society.”

“While homosexual behavior isn’t new,” he wrote, “the international agenda that promotes homosexuality at all levels is.”

Marquez, who is also the editor of Palabra Nueva, the church’s magazine, declined to comment on Mariela Castro’s announcement, referring inquiries about the Church’s views to previously published statements opposing same-sex unions, including declarations on the subject by the Vatican and Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega.

In Cuba’s gay community, the reaction to Mariela Castro’s announcement has been enthusiastic, but also mixed. Ailec Garcia, 32, said that while her partner of seven years was eager to formalize their relationship, it wasn’t a priority for her.

“It’s hard to get excited about it when you still live with your parents and can’t think about having a house of your own,” Garcia said, explaining how Cuba’s miserably low salaries and acute housing shortages make sobering realities of many couples’ domestic aspirations, whether they’re gay or straight.

Castro did not go into detail about what legal benefits the unions might bring. But Cuba is also a country where the practice of marriage has also been in dramatic decline and many heterosexual couples go unwed, even after they’ve had children, since they can’t afford to have a wedding and would derive few legal benefits.

Still, Garcia said, the legalization of same-sex civil unions would carry enormous symbolic importance for the country. “We still have a long way to go toward eliminating machista attitudes and taboos,” she said. “But it would be a huge step forward.

Cuba prepares for parliamentary session on economic reforms

HAVANA — Cuban courts have convicted airline and pharmaceutical executives of corruption and sentenced them to three to 13 years in prison.

The stiffest sentence is 13 years for Cubana de Aviacion director Jose Heriberto Prieto.

An announcement on state television Friday night also mentions sentences for various officials from pharmaceutical company Herbiotec SA.

It says the penalties correspond to the seriousness of the offenses and “numerous losses to the economy.”

Cuba has recently seen a series of convictions in an anti-corruption campaign that has swept up two Chilean businessmen and a Frenchman who was accused of laundering drug money.

Castro will address the three-day session of the National Assembly of People’s Power, which opens Monday, to report on his reform program to the one government institution that has not yet approved it.

A full congress of the ruling Communist Party in April approved a list of more than 300 “guidelines” for the reforms, designed to yank the Soviet-styled economy out of its deep and long-running slump.

The guidelines include deep cuts in state subsidies and payrolls, giving more autonomy to government-owned enterprises and allowing expansions of foreign investments and small private enterprises such as barber shops.

But Cuban news media reports Friday indicated that while the campaign is making progress in some areas, it is falling short in many others.

Castro, who has repeatedly branded corruption as an impediment to the reforms, warned his cabinet last Saturday that prosecutors and judges will have to crack down on the shady dealings, Granma reported.

Granma and Juventud Rebelde also reported the Cuban economy grew in the first six months of 2011, but gave no figures except for some of the sectors that fell short of the government’s central planning goals.

Of all the construction materials that the government plans to sell to private individuals this year, only 15.6 percent had been sold as of the end of June, according to the newspapers.

And of the 23.394 housing units that state enterprises plan to build this year, only 28 were in fact finished in the first six months, they added. Private builders did even worse, finishing only 16 percent of their 3,206 planned units.

Granma also reported that costly agricultural imports will have to increase because of continuing shortfalls in agricultural production, despite Castro’s two-year-old program of leasing fallow state lands to private farmers.

Cuba will have to spend about $1.5 billion this year to import at least 60 percent of the food its people consume, according to government estimates. Other estimates put imports at up to 80 percent of consumption.

Granma and Juventud Rebelde usually report on the weekend cabinet meetings in their Monday or Tuesday editions, and there was no immediate explanation for the delay this week. Last month, Granma reported it would soon publish “important news” from the cabinet, but then published nothing.

More details on the reforms are expected to be made public when Vice President Marino Murillo, Cuba’s “reforms tsar,” addresses the parliament, which meets only twice a year for one-week sessions.

About 600 members have been meeting in committees and subcommittees behind closed doors this week to discuss what Granma describes as “dozens of issues, most linked to the economic-social transformations under way.

Cuba approves flights from 9 more American cities

ABC Charters airline said that it will offer flights between the international airport in Tampa, Florida, and Cuba, possibly starting Sept. 10, the Tampa Tribune reported on Thursday.

The Tampa airport this past March received the official authorization of U.S. Customs and Border Protection to operate direct flights to Cuba.

According to the president of ABC Charters, Tessie Aral, the firm will begin with one flight per week using a Boeing 737 that seats 145.

The company, which will resume its operations from this airport for the first time in 50 years, forecasts that it will be able to increase its service to and from Havana to two flights a week in October.

Ticket prices have not yet been established, but Aral said that they will range between $399 and $459 for a roundtrip.

Tampa International in March also began handling direct flights between the United States and the Caribbean island along with Miami, New York's JFK, Los Angeles and the international airport in Fort Myers, Florida.

Cuban travel agency Havanatur Celimar said it added the cities of Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, Baltimore, Chicago, Atlanta, New Orleans, Dallas, Houston and San Juan, Puerto Rico, to the list from where charter flights would be accepted.

Cuba is preparing for an increase in visitors from its long-time ideological foe under a recent loosening of travel restrictions by the Obama administration.

The United States, which maintains comprehensive sanctions on the communist-run island and bans tourism to Cuba, does not allow regular commercial flights between the two countries.

But the Obama administration has lifted all restrictions on Cuban Americans visiting their homeland and allowed religious, academic and other professional travel by Americans to Cuba.

Havana Celimar has a monopoly on the Cuban end of U.S. charter flights and already receives travelers on flights from Miami, New York and Los Angeles.

The number of U.S. citizens visiting Cuba increased last year by 20 percent, to 63,000, according to Cuban statistics.

Some 350,000 Cuban Americans visited Cuba in 2010 after the Obama administration lifted all restrictions on their travel.

Lawmakers argue that the Obama administration is helping prop up the Cuban government, while the White House counters more people-to-people contact is the best way to undermine the island's communist system.

President Barack Obama has threatened to veto any move to undercut his people-to-people policy toward Cuba.

Cuba has said it had 2.53 million tourists in 2010, with Canada the largest provider at nearly 945,000, followed by Britain at 174,000 and Italy at 112,000.

Tourism is one of Cuba's most important earners of foreign exchange, with revenues of $2.2 billion last year, and an important provider of jobs.

Chavez in middle class appeal

Merida, July 29th 2011 On Thursday Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez celebrated his 57th birthday by making a number of public announcements; reiterating his plans to stand in next year’s presidential elections, calling for an end to the sectarianism and dogmatism that could prevent “the construction of a new hegemony” in Venezuela, and setting a new date for the meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean Nations (CELAC), the regional organization to include all American states except the United States and Canada.


Calling to greet those gathered at a meeting between Venezuelan Executive Vice President Elias Jaua and representatives of Venezuela’s agricultural sector, Chavez told listeners and viewers that he has every intention of running for reelection in December 2012.


“I will run for reelection and, God willing and with my determination to live, I will be reelected by a large majority of the people. I invite you to join me,” he said.


Chavez, who spent the day with his family at the Miraflores Presidential Palace, told his supporters that winning next year’s presidential elections would require unity among different sectors of Venezuela’s left and an end to “sectarianism and dogmatism.”


The Venezuelan leader made his comments a day after he celebrated his 57th birthday, when - appearing in yellow rather than his characteristic red shirt - he told a rally of cheering supporters that he was in no mood to leave office in the near future.


In Friday's telephone interview, Mr Chavez said the treatment to remove a tumour had led him to radically change his life towards a "more diverse, more reflective and multi-faceted" period.


He told his supporters to eliminate divisions and dogma, and end what he called the abuse of symbols such as the term "socialist".


"Why do we have to always have to wear a red shirt?" said Mr Chavez. "And the same goes for the word 'socialism'."


The president cited the example of a mayor in the governing party who inaugurated a "Socialist Avenue", which Mr Chavez described as "stupid".


"We need to reflect and introduce changes in our discourse and in our actions."


Cuban lessons
Mr Chavez, who came to power in 1999, said the private sector and the middle classes were "vital" to his political project.


He said it was a shame that attempts to be more inclusive of these groups in society had been criticised by some in official circles in Venezuela.


"Raul Castro is leading a process of self-criticism," said Mr Chavez, hinting that Venezuela could learn from the reforms being undertaken by the president of Cuba, who has made some concessions to the private sector since taking over from Fidel Castro in 2006.


Mr Chavez said his government needed to correct the perception that small businesses would be taken over by the state.


"We have to make sure no-one believes that," he said. "We have to convince them about our real project, that we need this sector and that we want to acknowledge their contribution.

Debt focus shifts to Senate

Warring House and Senate votes late Friday set up a tense weekend of confrontation — and what the White House hopes are still meaningful negotiations — before markets reopen Monday, one day before the threat of default.

Stocks slid for the sixth day in a row as anxiety grew on Wall Street, and Washington’s once dry debt debate has grown into a high stakes game of political chess quite unlike anything the city has seen in decades.

The House moved first, narrowly approving a Republican-backed debt ceiling bill but only after Speaker John Boehner had to tack right again by adding a provision threatening default next year if Congress doesn’t first approve a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

The 218-210 vote was quickly followed by a 59-41 Senate roll call tabling the House bill — at least for the moment. And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid set in motion a 1 a.m. Sunday cloture vote on his own debt ceiling and deficit reduction package estimated between $2.2 trillion and $2.4 trillion.

Reid’s timing was ominous, suggesting the two sides are each trying to back the other into a corner still — without reaching a meaningful deal. But the House bill could yet be resurrected and Republicans predicted it could still be amended as part of a final compromise negotiated by all sides over the weekend.

McConnell's office off the Senate floor in the Capitol saw a steady stream of GOP senators coming and going. Several senators were called for a lunch meeting with McConnell as conversations turned to amending the Reid bill in a way that could win Republican support.

Boehner received a standing ovation when he, also, visited the Senate GOP lunch. But in public comments, several Senate Republicans were sharply critical of the proceedings in the House and suggested they could be open to a compromise with the Democrats.

"What's happening in the House is kind of pathetic," said Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.). "We need to get everybody to work together for the good of the country, not any political party or interest."

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) said that "we are all troubled with the delay in resolving this issue."

The goal, congressional officials indicated, was to develop a compromise that could pass the Senate early next week as the clock ticks down and then go back to the House and pass with a coalition of Democratic and Republican votes.

Any such bill would lose a substantial number of House Republicans aligned with the "tea party," who, as the past week has shown, are willing to defy GOP leaders. Many did not view Boehner's bill as conservative enough. Some don't want to raise the debt ceiling at all.

Obama, in a morning statement from the White House, called on Congress to compromise.

"We are almost out of time," Obama said. "I urge Democrats and Republicans in the Senate to find common ground on a plan that can get support — that can get support from both parties in the House –- a plan that I can sign by Tuesday."

The few remaining days before Tuesday's deadline are about finessing specific policy revisions to build political support, but also involve the strategic calculation of running out the clock.

The 11th hour can be a forceful motivator in Washington, particularly over a weekend with jittery financial markets preparing to reopen Monday morning. All sides say they want to avoid putting the economy in further distress. Yet, few senators were willing to publicly acknowledge what changes to the agreement were needed to secure their votes.

The negotiations are focusing on a menu of "trigger" mechanisms to bring about further deficit-reduction measures, without resorting to holding the debt ceiling hostage to those votes.

Reid and McConnell have 24 hours to craft such an agreement. One trigger under discussion would mandate deficit reduction measures if the new committee's recommendations for cuts are not approved by Congress.

Another option would allow a bipartisan group of five Democratic and five Republican senators to force a vote in that body on recommendations it develops if the new congressional committee stalls. Deficits could be reduced by spending cuts or tax revenue increases or both.

The compromise designers also could choose to lay out a "parade of horribles" that no one wants — unacceptable reductions in Medicare or tax hikes — to force lawmakers to agree to less onerous steps. Cuts in defense spending and transportation projects are other possibilities.

Obama wants what he calls a "balanced approach" to the trigger mechanism, according to Democratic officials familiar with the situation. Officials at every level of the White House were involved in talks with Congress, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

Havana, no one likes Barack much anymore anymore

HAVANA, Cuba — There was no mention of it in the pages of Granma, the Communist Party newspaper, but when word came that Cuban authorities were considering the legalization of same-sex civil unions, it was a cause for quiet celebration here.

The announcement was made by Mariela Castro, daughter of Raul Castro and the director of Cuba’s national sex education center, during an interview with Spanish broadcaster Cadena Ser earlier this month. Castro, the island’s leading gay rights advocate, said Cuban authorities are already studying the proposal in preparation for the upcoming Community Party conference on Jan. 28.

“This is a historic opportunity, and I think we’re close to having draft legislation,” said Castro, who also revealed in the interview that gay Cubans can serve in the military. “We’ve been working on this issue for a long time, with a lot of activism. We’re starting to see results and a political solution.”

Certainly the recognition of same-sex civil unions would be a landmark achievement — for Mariela Castro and the island’s gay rights activists. But it also prompts the question: Why has it taken Cuba so long?

After all, six other Latin American nations already recognize same-sex civil unions: Uruguay, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico (in certain states). Why then is Cuba, a largely secular society where left-wing politics have dominated for 50 years, still slow to grant full legal equality for gays and lesbians? As Castro told the interviewer, “A socialist society can’t be a homophobic one.”

Fidel Castro, of course, responded in typical over-the-top fashion, razing the road in front of the embassy building and constructing an outdoor stage with scores of flag posts designed to obstruct the view of the embassy. Officially called the José Martí Anti-Imperialist Plaza, the Cubans informally refer to it as the “protestordomo,” because it’s been the site of hundreds of anti-U.S. rallies sponsored by the Cuban government.

Naturally, when Obama was elected, just about anyone would have had a better reception in Havana than the prior American president. But Barack brought particular things that made him more appealing than the average Democratic president of the behemoth to the north.

First, he’s black – an inspiration to the multitudes of Cubans of color, as was the case with people of color throughout the world. (Curiously, though Fidel had practically endorsed Obama in his commentaries, the government – in 2008 run by brother Raul – was well aware that Obama’s election put the lie to a good deal of propaganda about American racism, and that was a bit unnerving.) Second, he was going end the wars, close Guantánamo and bring an era of greater cooperation with Latin America that, everyone hoped, would also mean improved relations with Cuba.

Then, of course, there’s the story that supposes that Barack is Cuban. Before the 2008 election, rumors ran rampant that Obama’s mom got pregnant while on a solidarity tour of Cuba, his real father a man from the town of Sagua la Grande, and then rushed home and married Obama Sr. to cover it up. Just the vaguest chance that the president might be Cuban made him a big fave out on the streets of Havana.

Three years later, though, no one wants to lay claims to him.

Sure, he’s lifted some travel restrictions and laws regarding family reunification and remittances. But the wars continue, and Libya – a traditional ally of Cuba’s – is now feeling Obama’s bombs. And Guantánamo remains active, and Latin America has been almost completely ignored.

Qué pasó?” the Cubans ask, sadly and sincerely.

Vine Bounces Back Sound to Signal Bats

Most plants are pollinated through bees, but one plant, Marcgravia evenia, which grows in the Cuban rainforest, has it a little harder: it has to attract on-the-go bats in the dark of night.

Instead of using their eyes, the flying mammals orient themselves with echolocation: they send out ultrasound waves and listen closely to which sounds echo back.

According to a study published Friday in the journal Science, a team of British, German and Canadian researchers have shown that this newly-discovered plant that has evolved to reflect back especially audible ultrasound waves. Marcgravia evenia achieves this through concave, spherically shaped leaves.

The bats located the feeder in half the time when it was attached to a dish-shaped leaf. And that was good for the bats and the vine.

“For the plants, it increases the success of pollination,” Dr. Simon said. “For the bats, it’s good because it helps them find the flowers faster — they have to make several hundred visits to flowers every night.”

The study, which appears in the current issue of the journal Science, is one of the first to focus on the evolution of echo-acoustic signals in plants.

Several hundred species of plants in the Neotropics rely on about 40 nectar-feeding bat species for pollination, Dr. Simon said.

He and his colleagues expect that they will find other plant species that are similarly adept at acoustic signaling for their bat pollinators.

Kerry lifts hold on some U.S. funds for Cuba

WASHINGTON, -- A key U.S. senator has stopped blocking $20 million in aid to Cuban dissidents, a spokesman said.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, officially lifted his hold on the funds Thursday after the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development agreed to a "thorough review of the programs," spokesman Frederick Jones told The Miami Herald.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., still has his own hold on some of the money, but Senate staff said his concerns were likely to be resolved soon as well.

Kerry was said to view the democracy program, which the Castro regime calls subversion, as ineffective and wasteful, and fears it could delay the release of Alan Gross, a U.S. government subcontractor jailed in Cuba.

Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont still has a separate hold on part of the funds, but three Capitol Hill staffers said his concerns could be quickly resolved by the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Kerry spokesman Frederick Jones, in an email to El Nuevo Herald Thursday afternoon, wrote that the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations “lifted the hold on the Cuba funds” after State and USAID officials agreed to a “thorough review of the programs.”

There was no explanation for the reports by Capitol Hill staffers throughout Thursday that the Massachusetts Democrat had lifted his hold Wednesday then put it back on, saying he wanted to wait because freeing the funds now might anger Cuba and delay its possible release of Gross.

Sen. Bob Menendez, a Cuban-American Democrat from New Jersey who favors releasing the money, at one point was considering blocking Senate action on all U.S. ambassadorial nominations until Kerry cancelled his block, the staffers added.

Matanzas

Matanzas is one of the provinces of Cuba. Major towns in the province include Cárdenas, Colón, Jovellanos and the capital of the same name, Matanzas. The resort town of Varadero is also located in this province.

Of Cuba's provinces, Matanzas is one of the most industrialised, with petroleum wells, refineries, supertanker facilities, and 21 sugar mills to process the harvests of the fields of sugarcane in the province.

Geography

The second largest in Cuba, Matanzas province is largely flat, with its highest point (Pan de Matanzas) at only 380m above sea level.

The north-western coast is largely rocky, with a few beaches, while the north-eastern coast has numerous small cays of its coast (part of Sabana-Camaguey Archipelago), and scrubland and mangroves near the shoreline. Cuba's northern most point is located in on Hicacos Peninsula.

The southern coast has one of Cuba's most distinctive features: an enormous marsh, Ciénaga de Zapata that covers both the southern part of the province and the Zapata Peninsula. East of the peninsula lies the Bay of Pigs, the site of the failed US backed invasion.

Municipalities

From 1976 to 2010 Matanzas was sub-divided into 14 municipalities. Starting from 2011, the municipality of Varadero was abolished and merged to Cárdenas. This Matanzas now has 13 municipalities.

Municipality Population

(2004) Area

(km²) Location Remarks

Calimete 29,736 958 22.53389°N 80.90972°W

Cárdenas 103,087 566 23.04278°N 81.20361°W

Cienaga de Zapata 8,750 4,320 22.28806°N 81.1975°W Playa Larga

Colón 71,579 597 22.7225°N 80.90639°W

Jagüey Grande 57,771 882 22.52944°N 81.1325°W

Jovellanos 58,685 505 22.81056°N 81.19778°W

Limonar 25,421 449 22.95611°N 81.40861°W

Los Arabos 25,702 762 22.74°N 80.71583°W

Martí 23,475 1,070 22.9525°N 80.916667°W

Matanzas 143,706 317 23.05139°N 81.575°W Province capital

Pedro Betancourt 32,218 388 22.73056°N 81.29083°W

Perico 31,147 278 22.77528°N 81.015°W

Unión de Reyes 40,022 856 22.80056°N 81.53694°W

Varadero 24,681 32 23.13972°N 81.28611°W Abolished in 2010

Demographics

In 2004, the province of Matanzas had a population of 675,980. With a total area of 11,802.72 km2 (4,557.06 sq mi), the province had a population density of 57.3 /km2 (148 /sq mi).

Cienfuegos

Cienfuegos is one of the provinces of Cuba. The capital city of the province is also called Cienfuegos and was founded by French settlers in 1819.

Cienfuegos is the smallest province in Cuba with an economy almost entirely dedicated to the growing and processing of sugar. Sugar mills and sugarcane plantations dot the landscape. There are waterfalls in the sierra of the province.

Scuba diving off Cienfuegos province is extremely popular both with tourists and locals. There are numerous underwater caves, and well over 50 dive sites in the province.

The provinces of Cienfuegos, Sancti Spíritus, and Villa Clara were once all part of the now defunct province of Santa Clara.

Soccer Isn't a Big Deal Here

US Women's soccer team has relied on numerous players this year, but one that has highlighted the field has been Cuban descent player, Amy Rodriguez.

The 24-year-old forward also known as 'A-Rod' has amazed many with her the impressive techniques. She first joined the U.S. Women's National Team for the 2005 Algarve Cup and was the only high school player on the roster.

The 2008 Olympic gold-medalist went on to become the top draft pick in the Women's Professional Soccer draft, selected by the Boston Breakers, and currently plays for the Philadelphia Independence.

Rodriguez, believes that fans of soccer will appreciate the talent of the women¿s team and that might translate to more interest in the domestic league.

But there's too much stubborn clinging in the U.S. to the idea that the worthiness of a sport is equal to the size of its audience, and in particular, its television ratings. If you're not drawing big numbers like the NFL, if you're not famous enough to sit in a director's chair the Greenwich Boys & Girls Club to announce your next job, you're supposedly outside the Zeitgeist. (Hockey is often diminished as unpopular in the United States, too, which must have been news to the million or so lunatics who lined up in Boston to watch the Stanley Cup parade.)

Why is mass appeal essential to some people's appreciation of a sport? In other cultural arenas, we're eager to prove ourselves as niche cool hunters: seeking out restaurants that others can't get into; raving about television shows like "Breaking Bad;" clicking around Pitchfork.com for the next alterna-genius. Many of us thrive upon being early adopters; the second everyone else likes it, we drop it altogether (Weezer; Ryan Gosling; Brooklyn).

Besides, the whole soccer-isn't-big-here argument can no longer blithely shout over the fact that the sport is massive almost everywhere else on the planet. These days you can't dismiss the rest of the earth as if it was Carl, the crazy guy talking about Lionel Messi in the office kitchen.

To draw geographic borders around a sport in the 21st century, in an era where you can watch cricket on streaming video and follow the Tour de France on your phone, is outmoded and narrow, like believing that Dirk Nowitzki didn't play basketball until he entered Texas. Today, every sport is everyone's, everywhere. (Where will Kobe Bryant possibly spend his an NBA lockout? Asia.)

Another U.S. World Cup victory won't provoke an instant soccer revolution and transform Wambach and Hope Solo into Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. But it's silly to consider that a letdown. This U.S. women's team has been everything a sports fan could ask: thrilling, resilient, unselfish, successful. What's more.

Chavez Slams Referee for 'Robbed' Goal in Venezuela Soccer Loss

National team’s 2-1 victory over Chile on Sunday night dominated talk in Caracas, pushing aside speculation about President Hugo Chavez’s cancer treatment in Cuba.

Fans poured onto the streets immediately after the win, and fireworks filled the sky above the city of about 5 million people. In anticipation of the semifinal Wednesday against Paraguay, fans are proudly wearing the burgundy national jerseys that give the team its nickname “Vinotinto” (red wine).

It’s a rare show of common cause in a country where supporters and opponents of Chavez feud bitterly.

“Sports unite us. Politics divide us,” said Daniel Farinez, a 30-year-old security guard who has closely followed the matches in Argentina. The country seems “super united,” he said.

“I think Venezuela is going to end up the champion,” he added. “Venezuela is a team that’s inspired.”

The satirical Venezuelan website El Chiguire Bipolar — which translates as “The Bipolar Capybara” — posted a parody quoting politicians on both sides of the divide urging the country to put a stop to “the unity and the happiness surrounding soccer so that President Chavez can be talked about again.

Chavez flew to Cuba July 16 to receive chemotherapy, saying he would be back "in a few days." The socialist leader was operated on June 20 in the communist island to remove a baseball-sized tumor in the pelvic area after doctors discovered an undisclosed form of cancer during an operation to remove an abscess June 11.

Soccer Surprise

Before departing Chavez delegated some powers to his ministers while rejecting demands from his opponents he cede power during his absence. Chavez, who has used Twitter to announce policy initiatives in the past, said technology will allow him to communicate with his cabinet and electronically sign laws from Cuba.

Venezuela, which has never qualified for a World Cup and is better-known as a supplier of talent to Major League Baseball, surprised its South American rivals by advancing deep into the elimination round of the 12-nation tournament. After drawing even against five-time World Cup champion Brazil in the group stage, Venezuela defeated Chile 2-1 in the quarterfinals.

Paraguay will face Uruguay in the Copa America finals July 24, while Venezuela will face off against Peru for third-place.

Cuban-American Chronicles Life Between Cultures

Hijuelos has written eight novels exploring the Cuban-American experience. His latest work, a memoir called Thoughts Without Cigarettes, describes his early life in New York, where he was born in 1951.

Here, in his childhood neighborhood of Morningside Heights, Hijuelos can still remember the soulful Sicilian shoemaker in a green smock in the window of his repair shop; the row of tenement houses across the street where he used to play; his father, home from work, leaning against a basement rail, smoking cigarettes; the old "Freegent's" Pharmacy on the corner.

"There used to be a soda fountain just inside the window," Hijeulos recalls, "and candy counters, and a big telephone booth — you know the old kind, with doors you'd open up." Hijuelos' parents, who immigrated to the U.S. in the late '40s, didn't have a telephone until 1965. They'd come to the Freegent's phone booth to make and receive calls to the relatives still in Cuba.

Hijuelos stops in front of his childhood home, building No. 419. "This is where I was raised," he says. He points to a front window, once the family's living room. "As a kid, I spent so much time standing at that window ... I was sick as a child, so my mother wouldn't let me out all that much, so I sort of saw this life [on the street] exploding. I mean, it was such a lively block that it was very hard to feel lonesome. But somehow I could."

When Hijuelos was just 4 years old, he contracted nephritis, a kidney disease, during a summer trip to Cuba. He had to spend a year in a convalescent hospital in Greenwich, Conn., miles from his family.

Garcia is the author of five novels, including Dreaming in Cuban and The Lady Matador's Hotel. Garcia was born in Havana, but like Oscar Hijuelos, she was raised in New York. "I remember meeting Oscar," she says, "It was in '92 or '93, and I started speaking to him in Spanish and he answered me in English. I completely understood how you are one foot in the culture, and the rest of you out of it. Even the sense of being a fraud, because you're in the culture but you're more of an observer than a participant."

As a child, Hijuelos did plenty of observing from his apartment window. He eventually found a refuge in reading. His building was literally in the shadow of Columbia University across Amsterdam Avenue. He says his mother would find crates of books on the street.

"Since we had a bookcase, she wanted to fill the bookcase with books," Hijuelos remembers. "So she'd take these books from the street, and put them in our shelves. So I grew up, for example, reading things like about agriculture in the Midwest in the 1950s. Half a volume of Oliver Twist, I remember — the cover was still nice, but half of it was missing.

Food imports put Cuban reforms at risk

Strong historical and cultural relationships have existed between Cuba and the Dominican Republic. A part of the Cuban national legacy is in some way related to the DR, and Dominicans always remember that it was Cubans who restarted their sugar production in the 19th century.

Cubans from the east of the island have surprising cultural and linguistic likenesses to the people of the Dominican Republic. In fact when Francisco Henriquez y Carvajal (the brother of Federico and the father of Camila, Pedro and Max) was named president in 1916, he was teaching at a school in Santiago de Cuba. He had to head back to his country at full speed before the arrival of the US Marines, who ultimately occupied the DR a few months later and remained there for eight subsequent years.

Few people will recall that the largest national political organization, the Revolutionary Party of the Dominican Republic, was founded in Havana and owed its name to its affinity to the Cuban Revolutionary Party (authentic). It was founded by Juan Bosch, who lived in our country for several years, married a Cuban and left us an excellent book titled La isla fascinante, whose reading a few years ago helped me to better understand who I was.

All told, it’s understandable that Cubans and Dominicans continue being ingredients of one sole pot, a fact that they proclaim with pride. Intellectual exchanges continue to take place to the benefit of both societies, and these have been quite intense in the last few years under the government of Dominican President Leonel Fernandez.

This is praiseworthy of the Fernandez government, as well as the fact that it was under his first mandate that the reestablishment of diplomat relations with Cuba was produced.

State curbs on buying and selling in the marketplace were eased and Cubans were told they could buy and sell real estate. The rule change that has sent the fledgling market economy into a subdued frenzy as would-be property tycoons begin to hone their skills in a fast-changing business environment.

However, government statistics indicated the food import bill was a major worry. Cuba imports up to 60 percent of rice it consumes and, by the latest count, bought more than 400,000 tons of the commodity to meet basic needs, Juventud Rebelde newspaper reported.

The import bill is set to rise as domestic demand for the staple grain this year is likely to exceed that level and may reach 600,000 tons to meet the basic needs of Cuba's population of 11.2 million.

Despite numerous moves to relax state control on food distribution and supply, Cubans depend on rationing to fulfill basic needs for rice and other consumables.

Grain Research Institute Director Telce Gonzalez said self-sufficiency in food was crucial to Cuba's economic well-being.

"The first challenge is to produce what we need," he said, adding that, although Cuban agriculture expanded areas under rice cultivation, it still had a long way to go to realize that goal.

This year, the government will need to import almost double the quantity of rice it produces for domestic consumption, new estimates indicated.

Vietnam is Cuba's main supplier of rice. Neither side has disclosed the terms under which Cuba buys rice from Vietnam, a socialist nation in an advanced stage of transformation into a market economy.

The prospect of the state trade sector having to pay more for imports sent the government into overdrive this month. There were calls to institutions to galvanize rice farmers to produce more and reduce dependence on imports.

The campaign aims at raising awareness of about 50 varieties of the grain that can be grown in the island's different ecosystems for maximum rice yield.

Cuba's agriculture suffered when it lost export markets as they ditched communism and switched to capitalist options, or cut imports with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The government frequently has set targets to boost rice production and reduce dependence on imports but has missed reaching any of the goals.

Chavez Celebrates 57th Birthday, Vows To Fight Cancer

CARACAS, - Looking stronger after cancer treatment, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez said on Thursday he felt reborn, phoenix-like, on his 57th birthday, in a sign the socialist believes he is overcoming his illness.

"I've arrived at 57 being reborn, a new life, my eternal return," said Chavez, who opponents accuse of having messianic tendencies. In the past he triumphantly came back from a failed coup he led and a putsch that briefly drove him from power.

"I'm like the phoenix, I've returned to life," he said during a phone call to state TV from the presidential palace, where a cockerel crowed in the background.

He said he expected the tough stage of his illness to be over by year-end and invited Latin American presidents to a December summit he had earlier canceled for health reasons.

A former soldier whose greatest victory was the collapse of a 2002 military rebellion after massive popular protests demanded his return, Chavez has used the 10 years since to nationalize much of the economy of the major U.S. oil supplier.

Chavez vowed to beat the cancer and said he was happy and healthy despite preparing himself for a second bout of chemotherapy, in an interview shown on state broadcaster VTV.

He said, "I am now like the phoenix. A new life is born in me. [This is] a sublime birthday, fueled by many people, love and affection. And I invite you to the 67th."

After returning to Venezuela on Saturday, the populist leader said that he was "in better condition than when I left" and vowed to carry on his political duties.

Chavez, who did not specify which type of cancer he has, underwent two surgeries in Cuba last month -- one to remove a baseball-sized cancerous tumor and the other to treat a pelvic abscess.

Before going abroad for medical care, the 56-year-old former army officer handed a few of his presidential functions to Vice President Elias Jaua and Finance Minister Jorge Giordani, including some budgetary duties and greater oversight of government expropriations.

Throughout his treatment, Chavez so far remained publicly upbeat and declared Saturday that "doctors did not find any malignant cells in any part of my body." However, he warned that a relapse was possible and is expected to undergo a second round of chemotherapy, possibly in Brazil.