This is the Asia model. Still, the signals he has sent are so faint
and so tentative that it's not at all clear where he wants to take
Cuba or where Cuba will go."
Robert Pastor, a professor of international relations at American
University, speaking of Raúl Castro's
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/02/america/02cuba.php
(snip)
Since finally succeeding his ailing 81-year-old brother, Fidel, in
February, Castro, 76, who appeared before hundreds of thousands of
Cubans at a May Day rally on Thursday here in the capital, has been
busy with a flurry of changes. In the last eight weeks he has also
opened access to cellphones, lifted the ban on Cubans using tourist
hotels, and granted farmers the right to mange unused land for profit.
More is on the horizon, government officials say, like easing
restrictions to go abroad and the possibility of allowing Cubans to
buy and sell their own cars, and perhaps even their homes. Each of
these changes may be microscopic in contrast to the outsize problems
facing Cuba. But taken together, they are shaking up this stoic,
time-warped place.
