Miami's Cuban Connection

Time Magazine: High Insurance, Poverty and Some Exile Politics Hurting Miami

Sunday, Nov. 19, 2006
There's Trouble--Lots Of It--in Paradise
Restless locals call Miami a corrupt, exorbitant mess, and many are leaving
By TIM PADGETT

Jewelry, an actress once said, takes people's minds off your wrinkles. So too has Miami's necklace of pearl beaches and aventurine waters long distracted residents from the city's notorious imperfections. Crime and corruption were a small price to pay, people told themselves, for an otherwise affordable existence so near paradise.

That logic may no longer apply. Crime is down, but the city's old dysfunctions have been joined by acute new economic pressures on Miami's middle class and retirees. Now that the city's jagged growth spurt is showing signs of sputtering, regular Miamians are taking stock of their new city: traffic jams, half-built high rises, struggling schools. And more than ever, they are voting with their flip-flops. They're leaving town.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1561128,00.html

Paris Protesters Denounce Jailed Journalists

This protester in Paris, with the Eiffel Tower as a backdrop, is drawing attention to the plight of 23 jailed journalists in Cuban prisons. Only China has more journalists in prison than Cuba.

U.S.-funded Group: Civil Resistance Acts Rise in Cuba

From the Herald's Frances Robles:

From candlelight vigils to hunger strikes and even a mountain hike, Fidel Castro opponents logged more than 3,300 acts of civil disobedience in Cuba last year, nearly twice the number of the year before, according to a report to be released today.

As Castro's government continues a campaign of reprisals against dissidents that began with a wave of arrests three years ago, members of the opposition movement say more people are speaking up and joining up.

''Repression generates rebellion,'' said Janisset Rivero, executive director of the Cuban Democratic Directorate, an exile organization that published Steps to Freedom, to be released tonight at the University of Miami.