20 April 2021
Cuba’s Communist Party has announced that Miguel Díaz-Canel will take over from Raúl Castro as the party’s first secretary. Relations between Cuba and the US were restored under Barack Obama; Donald Trump imposed sanctions and financial restrictions on his neighbour; more recently, Joe Biden has promised to resume remittances and travel between the two countries. In 2015, Janette Habel wrote of the challenges facing the island.
End of US embargo will flood Cuba with dollars
Some will be more equal than others
Relations are beginning to normalise between Cuba and the US last month a ferry service began from Florida, the first for more than 50 years. But the new Cuba may be a less stable society.
By Patricia Grogg Most beginnings are rocky and sometimes the obstacles seem insurmountable, before they are finally overcome. This was certainly the case for the Finca Marta, a farm in Cuba that had to begin by digging a well in search of water and with the hard-scrabble work of clearing an arid, stony and overgrown plot of land.
By Patricia Grogg When people ask marine biologist Angela Corvea why the symbol of her environmental project Acualina, which has transcended the borders of Cuba, is a little girl, she answers without hesitation: Because life, care, attachment, the creative force of life lie are contained in the feminine world.