Fidel Castro, Internet junkie

[mike r]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-fidel-20100904,0,4441605.story

Fidel Castro, Internet junkie
It turns out that Cuba's ex-leader loves the Web, although most of the Cuban people still lack access.

Fidel Castro is back from the dead (his words) and has been reincarnated as an Internet junkie. Not only is he a prolific blogger on Cuba's online Granma newspaper but, it turns out, the 84-year-old greybeard consumes 200 to 300 news items a day on the Web and is fascinated by the WikiLeaks site, with its trove of 90,000 formerly secret U.S. documents on military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The "resuscitated" revolutionary is smaller and shakier than he was before the intestinal illness that prompted him to hand power to his younger brother in 2006, but no less verbose. He spoke with the editor of the Mexican newspaper La Jornada for five hours, during which he raved about the profound impact of the Web. "Do you know what this means, comrade?" he asked, like some sort of Rip Van Winkle waking up in the 21st century. The Internet, he said, "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, for example, has the lowest level of Internet penetration in the hemisphere, plus severe government restrictions and censorship affecting those who do have access. A Brookings Institution report says that Cuba has 1.3 million users, or 13% of the population, according to Cuban government statistics — or about 2.6% by international estimates. Either way, that's lower even than impoverished Haiti's 23%.

In the interview, Castro blamed the U.S. trade embargo for denying Cuba access to an underwater fiber-optic cable, forcing the island to rely instead on expensive satellite access at a cost of about $5 an hour to consumers — a third of the monthly wage of the average Cuban. President Obama issued a directive last year allowing telecom providers to enter into agreements to extend cable to Cuba, although only as far as the shore, not onto the island; a company from a third country or the Cuban government itself would have to finish the job. For that reason, or possibly because American firms are skittish about the Cuban state-controlled economy, nothing has happened. Venezuela is likely to provide cable access to Cuba before the U.S. does...

[Curmudgeoness]

1. Maybe he's here on DU, stirring the pot. I think I might do it

if I were him. That could explain some of the inexplicible opinions I see here.

[bleever]

2. Hi, Fidel.

:hi:

[Diclotican]

3. mike r

mike r

Intersting, That a old man like him, is using the net;). And it must also scare the holly makaroni out of him, that also his own secrets can be known to everyone with a internet acess...

But it is absolutely interesting to hear, that the old man are more or less consuming news intems every day, 200-300 news intems a day must says, he also read a lof of things, that he maybe have never ecounter before, or who maybe even is something that he had known about, in fragments, but not in detail...

I think the old man enjoy been able to surfe the net, As I think th old revoluationary have a intersting if everything new in the world... And maybe, just maybe he also discover that the world are not a bad place to be after all...

The downside as he also point out, the connection to the rest of the world is expensive, and they have yet to be conected to it all by fiber optic... But when they are, the world would be discovered, and it would more than posible change Cuba forever.. As it have been doing for the rest of the world in ways no one belived to be posible when internet was made able for everyone else than universities and so one.. (I got my first dial up in 1997, with a wopping 57,800 modem:P, now I have a ADSL who is somewhat faster than this. )

Diclotican

[Joe Chi Minh]

5. On the contray. It doesn't sound as if he considers he has anything to hide.

Why would he? You mutts seem to think technological progress is the only progress worth a cracker. Fidel still has a health system in Cuba for you to die for.

[Tutankhamun]

4. At last, I must confess. It is I -- Fidel Castro behind this screen name.

I chose the name "Tutankhamun" because he too is a great world leader, and unlike the name "Castro" Americans have no negative associations with the name of the great pharaoh.

I will now return to posting as "Tutankhamun," and only the few who read this post shall know my secret.

P.S. If you would like to see free, democratic, unrigged elections in Cuba, please send money to my friend Rob Rumsey in California, who is not me.

Thank you.

[IDemo]

6. Bienvenidos a DU, Fidel..

:hi: