Fidel Castro, Internet News Junkie 241
pickens writes "The LA Times reports that 84-year-old Cuban ex-President Fidel Castro consumes 200 to 300 news items a day on the World Wide Web. In a recent interview he called Web communication 'the most powerful weapon that has existed' and extolled its power to break a stranglehold on the media by 'the empire' and 'ambitious private groups that have abused it' adding that the Internet 'has put an end to secrets.... We are seeing a high level of investigative journalism, as the New York Times calls it, that is within reach of the whole world.' Well, not the whole world. Cuba has the lowest level of Internet penetration in the Western Hemisphere (lower than Haiti), plus severe government restrictions and censorship affecting those who do have access. In addition Cuban law bans using the Internet to spread information that is against what the government considers to be the social interest, norms of good behavior, the integrity of the people or national security."
Not surprising (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:There are few things more annoying (Score:3, Interesting)
Castro is not an idiot or an ideologue. He is the classic opportunist - and an intelligent one, at that. Seeing the opportunity for power in a top-town socialist regime, he seized it.
Now, he sees the power that 'new media' presents - and refuses it to the residents of his country. Seeing the open horizon of new media and denying it from others are not incompatible for a mega-maniacal dictator.
Re:Posting for Team Stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:There are few things more annoying (Score:5, Interesting)
while most people in his country aren't allowed to do so because it would threaten his power
Actually, the "official" reason is that the US limits who can we get bandwidth from (by owning or threatening those who own the fiber around the island), so we can only get it at ridiculously high prices. I think the total bandwidth for the whole country is about 230Mb/sec download, 100 upload.
I don't believe that is the only reason (clearly, censorship is a big one - I had to censor many things in the name of "lack of bandwithd" even after I proved that it would have a negligible effect). But the "official" reason, by itself, is enough to restrict nearly as much as Cuba does. It's also disgustingly hypocritical that the US gives the Cuban government such a perfect justification for their censorship.
Who knows, maybe with the cable to Venezuela the Cuban government will show the world (and the Cubans) that the US was the only responsible for the lack of internet access in Cuba. I would be very surprised if they did - but I doubt they'll be intelligent enough to see how it would benefit them.
Re:There are few things more annoying (Score:1, Interesting)
You might be surprised and depressed if you actually answer those questions...
Certainly, the US can ruin lives in more ways than Cuba.
Cuba's population is a little over 11 million. The US Population is a little over 300M. So the US is about 30 times bigger, by population.
The death rate in Cuba is 7.22/1000. It's 8.036/1000 in the US.
How many foreign deaths is Cuba responsible for? Zero in the last 10 years, as far as is known. The US is responsible for somewhere between 500,000 and one million, during the Iraq Invasion alone.
How many internal deaths is the US responsible for?
Re:He's a Dictator, not President (Score:5, Interesting)
what a pile of lies (Score:1, Interesting)
Castro didn't start a a communist, is the only choice he had left thanks to the US Mafia that used to run the casinos in Batista era and thanks to the US politicians that treated Cuba as their own personal whorehouse
The situation Cuba and the Cubans are owns a lot to the US embargo
The US maintain a illegal occupation of legit Cuban territory (I know Guantanamo is a great place to torture murder and make people disappear outside US territory not questions asked)
If anything resembling justice was left in this world, many a US politicians, members of the great US families and all their mob friends would be rooting in prisons (midnight express stile prisons)
once upon a time used to be socialism, communism, capitalism, national socialism.
No one talks about national capitalism
Hail dollar, the mob =the new SS, Goebbels would have been be proud of American television, Hollywood and US news services
Re:There are few things more annoying (Score:3, Interesting)
He seemed like a nice guy to me. (Score:4, Interesting)
I met him when i was there in 2000.
He flew down in his Helicopter into this village i was in; out of the blue and did a speech etc.
i was there with a Brit and a Yank and we asked if we could meet him and we did.
Mainly talk about Capitalism being evil etc etc.
small world eh ...
Re:I'm surprised... (Score:3, Interesting)
They, and Costa Rica, are two of the most socially and physically healthy societies in Central America.
Coincidentally, Cuba and Costa Rica are also the two countries that have suffered the least American meddling in the past half-century.
Re:I'm surprised... (Score:3, Interesting)
The US has the strictest standards when it comes to this - babies we try to save here would be written off as late-term miscarriages elsewhere.
Yeah the standards are so strict the US has been widely criticised [cnn.com] for having the "second worst newborn death rate in modern world." Hey at least you beat Latvia. Worse still, U.S. childbirth deaths are still on the rise [amnestyusa.org] bucking a world wide trend. But don't worry, just turn on the TV and put on Glen Beck or some other US propagandist and he'll reassure you're The Greatest Nation On Earth(TM).