On days like this I very much regret not having an Internet connection to share so much happiness with the commentators on the blog. Clacking keyboards, drinking toasts screen to screen, and thanking all of you who have supported me with your words of encouragement, your critiques and your sugge...

A World of Sauces for Labor Day

Without labor nothing prospers. Sophocles

As Labor Day approaches, with the last big grilling feasts of the year, I can't help but think about my favorite part of a mixed grill - the sauce you put on top! Every country seems to have its own take on this critical ac...

As if cutting a cake before it is even baked, our government has extended to 99 years the right of foreign investors to use our land. Pieces of this nation will pass into the hands of those who hold foreign passports; meanwhile local entrepreneurs are granted the use of agricultural land, in usuf...

Former Cuban President Fidel Castro called years of official persecution of homosexuals under his Communist regime an "injustice." In an interview published this week in a Mexican newspaper, he said he takes responsibility for the repression.

"If someone is responsible, it is me," Castro told Ca...

Tags: Cuba, Fidel castro, Persecuzione degli Omosessuali, Responsabile

Cuban leader Fidel Castro has given a rare interview to a foreign journalist and disclosed new details about just how sick he was when he relinquished power in 2006.

"I was at death's door," Castro told Mexico's leftist daily La Jornada. "But I came back."

The interview (link in Spanish), which...

Tags: Cuba, Libero Mercato, riforme

Eight in the morning and the rails of the station at Factor and Tulipán still have the freshness of the dawn. The only train, coming from San Antonio de los Baños, is delayed. The elderly, seated on the walls, resell the newspapers bought very early and offer, as well, cigarettes at retail. Thi...

Non ci stancheremo mai di dirvi quanto sia importante usare il preservativo, il miglior modo di proteggersi dalle malattie a trasmissione sessuale, con persone che si conoscono poco.

I mesi estivi soprattutto, sono quelli di massima allerta. Manca la protezione (una under 25 su tre non utilizza ...

My cellphone rings but I don't answer. I wait for the ringing to stop and go to a nearby phone to call the number shown on the screen. I've warned my friends that I'll let a call go and call them back later, but some insist, forgetting about the high cost of a minute of conversation on the cell ...

Abbandonare la Terra che abbiamo ormai spolpato. Colonizzare lo spazio per evitare l’estinzione. Lo afferma l’astrofisico Stephen Hawking (quello del famoso libro “Dal Big Bang ai buchi neri”) in un intervento sul sito internet Big Think che sta facendo il giro del web.

Il motivo? La popolazione...

Out of respect for privacy, even concerning famous people, I wasn't going to write about the marriage of Chelsea Clinton to a Goldman Sachs alum and budding hedge-fund hustler with the resources to buy a $4 million loft so soon after graduating from Stanford. Hopefully Marc Mezvinsky won't follow...

The smoke gets in my hair, my clothes, and overnight I take on the smell of tobacco although I am one of those Cuban adults who has never smoked. The man at the next table has consumed a pack and a half of Hollywoods in the short time he's been here, using an empty beer bottle as an ashtray. On ...