As reported in the November issue of Direct Action (“Cuba debates the future of socialism”), millions of Cubans have been participating in grassroots debates in neighbourhoods, workplaces and Cuban Communist Party (PCC) base committees since September.

“Volveran!” (They will return) appears nearly everywhere you look in Cuba: on official billboards, painted on the walls of shops and factories, scrawled on people’s houses. “They” are five heroic Cubans – Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labanino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez and Rene Gonzalez – unjustly imprisoned in the US.

In workplace and neighbourhood assemblies across Cuba and in the base committees of the Communist Party (PCC), millions of Cubans are responding to the call by President Raul Castro for a nationwide debate on the future of the country’s socialist revolution.

San Francisco – Cuban revolutionary hero Juan Almeida Bosque died late on September 11 in Havana, Cuba. An official period of mourning for this beloved Cuban leader was immediately declared; numerous statements in homage to Almeida have poured in, and 2 million people visited memorial sites across Cuba on September 13 during a 12-hour period.

This year’s winner of Cuba’s National Award for Journalism is veteran journalist Luis Sexto. Little known outside Cuba, Sexto is a professor of journalism at the Faculty of Social Communication at the University of Havana.

[The following is an abridged version of a speech given on August 1 to Cuba’s national legislature, the National Assembly of People’s Power, by Cuban President Raul Castro.]

A black president in the White House has changed nothing for five Cuban men imprisoned in the US for the “crime” of defending Cuba from terrorist attacks planned and organised in the US. On June 15, the US Supreme Court upheld the convictions of Gerardo Hernandez, Rene Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero, Ramon Labanino and Fernando Gonzalez, known internationally as the “Cuban Five”.

Che Guevara: The Economics of Revolution
By Helen Yaffe
Palgrave Macmillan, 354 pp. $59.95

Havana – On May 1, international workers’ day, at least half a million Cubans marched cheerfully and defiantly through Havana from the Plaza of the Revolution to the US Interests Section. Hundreds of thousands more rallied in other cities throughout the Caribbean island.

[This declaration was unanimously approved by the International Meeting of Solidarity with Cuba, held at the Convention Centre in Havana on May 2.]

[On May 16 the first-ever gay pride march took place in the Cuban capital, Havana. The Associated Press news agency reported that Mariela Castro, Cuban President Raul Castro’s daughter, an outspoken supporter of the Cuban Revolution and a gay rights advocate who directs Cuba’s government-funded Sex Education Centre, led the march.

[The following article by Cuba’s retired president is reprinted from the May 2 edition of Granma, the daily paper of the Communist Party of Cuba.]

What nation is the most sustainable in the world? If you guessed Sweden or Denmark, you would be wrong. Instead, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has declared Cuba as the only country on the planet that is approaching sustainable development. Key to this designation is the island’s “energy revolution”, an energy conservation effort launched only two years ago.

Compact fluorescent light globes are as bright as incandescent globes but consume 75-80% less energy and last 5-10 years.

Their uniform is not the traditional white coat of the medical fraternity, but red and blue T-shirts with the slogan “For the triumph of virtue”. Their medicine is the warmth of social solidarity and the gift of friendship. Nearly all are members of Cuba’s communist youth organisation, the UJC.

I first visited Cuba in 1996. I’d read a lot about the Cuban Revolution, but seeing it first-hand made a deep and lasting impression on me. I wrote at the time: “You know when you greet a horse on a cold winter morning – you put your hand to its nose and you feel the warmth of its breath, powerful, reassuring and full of goodness.

Havana – Many had hoped former Cuban president Fidel Castro would make a surprise public appearance at the January 1 late afternoon event in Santiago de Cuba to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. But as expected, it was Fidel’s brother, Revolutionary Armed Forces minister and current Cuban President Raul Castro, who gave the keynote speech.

On January 1, Cuba’s working people celebrated 50 years of freedom from imperialist rule.

On January 1 Cuba’s working people will celebrate 50 years of freedom from imperialist rule.

In June 2008, a US appeals court upheld the convictions of the Cuban Five – five Cuban nationals who were arrested and convicted of espionage, conspiracy to commit murder, and other illegal activities, in the US. The appeals court vacated the sentences of three of the five men, ordering re-sentencing trials for them.

Every year since 1992 the overwhelming majority of UN member countries have voted for Cuba’s resolution demanding an end to the US economic blockade against the Caribbean socialist state. On October 29, the UN General Assembly voted for the 17th consecutive year in favour of Cuba’s motion.

“A nuclear strike” is how Cuban leader Fidel Castro described Hurricane Gustav, which roared across Cuba’s Isle of Youth and the western province of Pinar del Rio on August 30. A week later Cuba was hit by the even more destructive Hurricane Ike, which gouged a swathe of devastation from one end of the Caribbean island to the other.

Havana – The economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States for 50 years is the main obstacle to Cuba’s development, the well-being of the Cuban people and, under the current circumstances, all the work involved in recovering from the extensive damage caused by hurricanes Gustav and Ike, stated Cuban foreign minister Felipe Perez Roque in Havana.

In December and January, the 26th annual Southern Cross Work-Study Brigade will visit Cuba and take part in celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of the triumph of Cuba’s revolution against US domination. The brigade is organized by the Australia-Cuba Friendship Society.

It’s not surprising that we tend to associate Cuba with the word “dictatorship” rather than, say, “democracy”. This is not because Cuba really is a dictatorship, but because most Australians form an opinion of socialist Cuba based on how Cuba is portrayed in the corporate media.