Startup Cuba Weekly News Roundup: December 2nd, 2022
The black market online, a crazy spy thriller, the us saying no internet, the Cubans responding, “stop speaking from both sides of your mouth.” 
El Bocadito: Although it doesn’t necessarily seem like breaking news, the idea that internet reach continues to expand in Cuba, thus bringing the existing black market online, is pretty cool.
In other news, there’s the U.S. government telling the FCC not to cooperate with an application for a new US-Cuba internet connection. That’s one thing but the other is the quick, terse response from Cuba slamming the decision not to allow the cable. The Washington Post put out a serious spy thriller of a story, from back in 2000. It involves the US, Cuba and Russia in a can’t-believe-this-shit-is-real plot of everyone telling on everyone. There’s a lot more below…
By the way, none of the opinions in any of the stories shared on this page represent ours; we’re just sharing them with you. If you are a journalist or you have seen a story that you’d like us to consider for future weekly news roundups, please send us a note and a link to the story here.
A sub-sea industrial glass fiber optic cable. Photo: Adobe
A U.S. government committee on Thursday urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to deny an application to connect Cuba to the United States through a new undersea cable landing station to handle internet, voice and data traffic. Read more at reuters.com.
February 10, 2023
Samuel Riera’s Art Brut Cuba opens channels for Outsider Artists to sell their art when they otherwise couldn’t earn a living from their work.
Cuba´s Vice Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio on Thursday accused long-time rival the United States of doublespeak after the Biden administration proposed to scrap a plan to install a new undersea telecommunications cable to Cuba. Read more at reuters.com.
Havana’s modern “international” architecture has Cuba’s urban planners worried.
Photo: Ramon Espinosa / Associated Press
In the Telegram group chat, the messages roll in like waves. “I need liquid ibuprofen and acetaminophen, please,” wrote one user. “It’s urgent, it’s for my 10-month-old baby.” Others offer medicine brought from outside Cuba, adding, “Write to me in a direct message.” Emoji-speckled lists offer antibiotics, pregnancy tests, vitamins, rash creams and more. The group message, which includes 170,000 people, is just one of many that have flourished in recent years in Cuba alongside an exponential increase in internet usage on the communist-governed island. Read more at latimes.com.
Washington Post: FBI alerted notorious spy for Russia to another working for Cuba
The arrest photo for Ana Montes, who was working for the Defense Intelligence Agency and spying for Cuba simultaneously. Photo: FBI
In late 2000, the FBI was closing in on a suspected spy for Cuba working inside the Defense Intelligence Agency. Undercover operatives would soon begin trailing Ana Montes, the agency’s top military and political analyst on Cuba, by car and on foot. They filmed her making calls on pay phones, even though she carried a cellphone in her purse. They intercepted Montes’s mail and inspected the trash outside her apartment in Washington.
The Cuba ransomware gang extorted more than $60 million in ransom payments from victims between December 2021 and August 2022, a joint advisory from CISA and the FBI has warned. Read more at techcrunch.com.
A street seller holds Cuban pesos in downtown Havana, Cuba, October 13, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini/File Photo
China, Russia, Algeria and Turkey have pledged to restructure Cuba’s debt, provide new trade and investment financing, and help ease an energy crisis, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel told state-run media following a rare trip abroad last week. Read more at reuters.com.
Voters wait in line to enter a polling station during municipal elections in Havana, Cuba, November 27, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini
Cuba saw its lowest level of voter turnout in municipal elections since at least 1981, according to preliminary government figures on Monday. Read more at reuters.com.