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Portal:Cuba

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Welcome to the Cuba Portal

Location of Cuba in the Caribbean
Republic of Cuba
República de Cuba (Spanish)

Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the northern Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and Atlantic Ocean meet. Cuba is located east of the Yucatán Peninsula (Mexico), south of both Florida and the Bahamas, west of Hispaniola (Haiti/Dominican Republic), and north of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. Havana is the largest city and capital. Cuba is the third-most populous country in the Caribbean after Haiti and the Dominican Republic, with about 10 million inhabitants. It is the largest country in the Caribbean by area.

Cuba is a socialist state, in which the role of the Communist Party is enshrined in the Constitution. Cuba has an authoritarian government where political opposition is not permitted. Censorship is extensive and independent journalism is repressed; Reporters Without Borders has characterized Cuba as one of the worst countries for press freedom. Culturally, Cuba is considered part of Latin America. Cuba is a founding member of the United Nations, G77, Non-Aligned Movement, Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States, ALBA, and Organization of American States. It has one of the world's few planned economies, and its economy is dominated by tourism and the exports of skilled labor, sugar, tobacco, and coffee. Cuba has historically—before and during communist rule—performed better than other countries in the region on several socioeconomic indicators, such as literacy, infant mortality and life expectancy. Cuba has a universal health care system which provides free medical treatment to all Cuban citizens, although challenges include low salaries for doctors, poor facilities, poor provision of equipment, and the frequent absence of essential drugs. A 2023 study by the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH), estimated 88% of the population is living in extreme poverty. The traditional diet is of international concern due to micronutrient deficiencies and lack of diversity. As highlighted by the World Food Programme (WFP) of the United Nations, rationed food meets only a fraction of daily nutritional needs for many Cubans, leading to health issues. (Full article...)

Sans Souci

The Sans Souci was a nightclub within a natural environment and located seven miles outside of Havana. It had a restaurant and floor shows nightly that attracted a great number of tourists. Its greatest profits came from an amusement arcade operating in a small room next door to the Sans Souci that was not advertised since there was no official license for its exploitation.

The 1956 the Cabaret Yearbook describes the venue as "Usually run by Americans, Sans Souci Cabaret is located in a Spanish-type villa. Stage, dance floor and tables are under the moonlight. Shows, like at the other Big Three nightclubs, are production numbers with name acts. Good-looking U.S. showgirls are an added attraction. Sans Souci, as well as Tropicana and Montmartre, has a gambling room with roulette, craps and chemin de fer, etc. Located even further out than Tropicana, Sans Souci usually opens only for the winter season." (Full article...)

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The following are images from various Cuba-related articles on Wikipedia.

Did you know (auto-generated)

  • ... that the 1919 foxtrot song "I'll See You in C-U-B-A" was an example of Cuba being perceived as "America's playground"?
  • ... that Brooklyn Nine-Nine actress Melissa Fumero is the daughter of Cubans who fled to the U.S. as teenagers?
  • ... that José Ramón Balaguer fought as a soldier-medic for Fidel Castro's rebel army before becoming Cuba's minister of public health?
  • ... that after his movement's victory in the Cuban Revolution, television broadcasts showed Camilo Cienfuegos freeing parrots from birdcages, declaring that the birds had "a right to liberty"?
  • ... that after his release from a hospital for the criminally insane, Richard Dixon burgled $16 from a credit union and hijacked a jet to Cuba?
  • ... that a hypothesized land bridge may have allowed some fish species to migrate from South America to Cuba?

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Sánchez in 2013

Yoani María Sánchez Cordero (born September 4, 1975) is a Cuban blogger who has achieved international fame and multiple international awards for her critical portrayal of life in Cuba under its current government.

Sánchez attended primary school during the affluent time when the Soviet Union was providing considerable aid to Cuba. However, her high school and university education coincided with the loss of financial aid to Cuba following the Soviet Union's collapse, creating a highly public educational system and style of living that subsequently left Sánchez with a strong need for personal privacy. Sánchez's university education left her with two understandings; first, that she had acquired a disgust for "high culture", and second that she no longer had an interest in philology, her chosen field of university study. (Full article...)

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Juan Gualberto Gómez as a Senator in 1919

Juan Gualberto Gómez Ferrer (July 12, 1854 – March 5, 1933) was a Cuban revolutionary leader in the Cuban War of Independence against Spain. He was a "close collaborator of [José] Martí's," and alongside him helped plan the uprising and unite the island's black population behind the rebellion. He was an activist for independence and a journalist who worked on and later founded several pivotal anti-royalist and pro-racial equality newspapers. He authored numerous works on liberty and racial justice in Latin America as well.

In his later years, he was a "journalist-politician." He defended the revolution against racism and U.S. imperialism and upheld Martí's legacy in print (often under the pseudonym "G") as he served the Cuban state; he was a part of the Committee of Consultations that drafted and amended the Constitution of 1901, and was a representative and senator in the Cuban legislature. He is best remembered as "the most conspicuous" Cuban activist leader of the 1890s independence struggle and "one of the revolution's great ideologues." (Full article...)

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Havana harbour in 1912
Havana harbour in 1912
Credit: C. E. Doty. Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs
View of Havana harbour, with vessels of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet in the distance. 1912.

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Quote of the day

Cuban writer Guillermo Cabrera Infante.

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