Re: new photos of Fidel Castro just released
The embargo also prevents from non-US companies doing business with Cuba if they also want to do business with US (at least in theory). Anyway, for "some odd reason" US has never had such a policy with e.g. China.
I don't know if things have changed over the last year but at least couple of years ago the products at the "hard currency stores" were mostly electronics and other non-vital items, the food elsewhere was much better (relatively speaking). I bought a 15-year-old Matusalem there and to my disappointment it was "Made in the US", not the real cuban stuff which I later purchased in Spain. We also ate much better food at the local's homes (they are happy to cook for you for $5-$10 per head) for less than any of the government restaurants. In fact the food at their homes was well above any basic diner anywhere.
The restaured part of old Havanna was my far the most historical place we've ever been to in the central America or Caribbean, including southern parts of US (or all of US for that matter). They also have a dozen of restaured old spanish mansions as hotels, excellent value ($100/night) and worth the visit as they'd be well above $500/night if they were in Spain. I would rather see the country develop from what it's now (culturally) than see it convert into another adult's Las Vegas Disneyland with braindead tourists. The latter is a real threat as it's next to the US and Mexico hasn't been quite Caribbean enough for that to happen. Living next to Tallinn, Estonia, has given us a good example. You can see the british people flying in every weekend for brainless partying, yelling for no reason, pissing into cabriolets, and flying back on sunday without having any memory of where they've been for the weekend.
The official public picture (on either side of the curtain) and what you see locally there are vastly different, no doubt neither one is the actual truth.
