I finished my graduate work this week, so I’ve been a little behind on Cuba news (and a little exhausted.) As per my most recent post, here are two really interesting items on the subject of USAID work in Cuba:
The Cuban Triangle‘s Phil Peters posted statements from USAID, regarding their work in Cuba, and lines from the Cuban criminal code that address USAID assistance to Cuban citizens. The comments that follow are worth read too.
Tracey Eaton, a journalist and blogger at Along the Malecon, posted his latest findings on the site of his new project, Cuba Money Project. I am fascinated by what Eaton is doing with this, and hope to dedicate a post to the project in the near future. Although it looks like some of these numbers are still rough, they indicate that federal spending allocations on programs devoted to Cuba (through USAID, State, etc.) from 2007 to 2010 cumulatively reached nearly $100 million. That’s a lot of money! Visit Cuba Money Project for updates.
Lastly: Alan Gross has been sentenced to fifteen years in prison, but US authorities are optimistic that he may be released as soon as this year.
Ellery Roberts Biddle 
I follow your blog with punctuality, and I wondered why so long you had not written a new post.
Now with this last entry, I understand why you were away.
I would like if you could comment in what is happening in the news in Cuba.
Since March 5, 2011, Cubadebate was presenting several undercover agents.
First Carlos Serpa, agent Emilio, infiltrated for 10 years with the Group of anti-Castro reporters.
Then was Moises Rodriguez, agent Vladimir, infiltrated for many years as a collaborator within the SINAE in Cuba.
And after that with the presentation of Dalexi Gonzalez, as agent Raul, that a member of the American Embassy had tried to reclute.
In all this time there has been no comments in the “El Pais”of Spain, and the alternates Bloggers from Cuba, had stayed quite.
Only in one of her latest post. Yoani Sanchez, makes reference to the case in a very stupid comment:
“From lemon juice to encrypted code”
“on TV, we saw a young frightened face telling how a tourist gave a data encryption software.”
Yoani is a very intelligent woman, but with this post , either she is stupid, or really did not put attention to the interview, or she is trying to confuse us.
The young frightened face, is agent Raul, of the State Security, and the “tourist” is a member of the American Embassy in Cuba.
And later writes:
“taking steps to ensure that a message or information on our computer are protected becomes obscene and illegal.”
This is not the case, but the proposal of the encrypting was to pass secret messages to the enemy.