Google has cancelled its participation in a US Defense Department Project, while retiring Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) accompanied Eric Schmidt, a former Google Chief Executive to a meeting with figure-head Cuban president, Miguel Diaz-Canel in Havana. 

In this issue from THE DAILY SIGNAL, “US Makes the Right Call to Quit UN Human Rights Council:  "14 of the 47 members of the council (including Burundi, China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela) are ranked “not free” by Freedom House. This is the highest number of “not free” countries in council history."  Also in this issue from 14yMedio "Mariel, the Cuban Hong Kong That Never Became One ,” by Mario Penton Martinez.

En este CUBAenBreve se incluyen articulos sobre la escasez de medicinas que padecen los cubanos en la isla;  los extranjeros no son afectados, como no les afecta el racionamiento de los alimentos, productos higienicos, y todos los articulos necesarios para la vida. Lea aqui un analisis de la zafra azucarera del 2018: "se sabe que se produjeron unos 1.1 millones de toneladas (TM), para una caída de un 40% con respecto a los 1.8 millones de 2017.

The United Nations Human Rights Council was founded a few years ago to remedy the lamentable track record of its predecessor, the UN Commission on Human Rights, where some of the worst human rights violators prevented any real efforts to help victims of repression around the world. But little has changed, and China, Cuba, Venezuela and other regimes continue to enjoy impunity for their crimes. While a member of the Commission, the Cuban government said it would not accept “one iota” of its recommendations.

El Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Cuba ha cancelado la acreditación del periódista uruguayo Fernando Ravsberg quien ha reportado desde La Habana por más de diez años, suspendiéndole también el permiso de residencia en el país.

Lea en este CubaBrief:  La Habana convertida en destino de drogas, Diaz Canel sigue siendo alumno de Raul, Amnistia Internacional adopta a otro cubano, y Colombia detiene a un cubano vinculado a la FARC por narcotrafico, todo de Diario de Cuba de hoy. 

In view of Havana's record of hostile actions against the United States, including the attempted smuggling of war planes to North Korea during the previous administration, the downing of American small civilian aircraft in international airspace in the Florida Straits, and Fidel Castro's message to the Soviet Union in 1962 urging the use of nuclear weapons against America, this article just published by THE DIPLOMAT should not be ignored.

Former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castañeda, now a professor at Columbia University, explained in a recent New York Times column that 21st century socialism is dead in Latin America. The Times editors should take heed. On this CubaBrief you may also read to important articles focusing on Nicaragua: Carlos Alberto Montaner's.

Cuba Today:  from Havana's airport lacking water in its bathrooms the abject poverty that most Cubans suffer and tourists do not see.

Cubabrief distribuyo un articulo de Fernando Ravsberg. Hoy distribuimos unas correciones de Hector Lans.  Es importante que no nos pasen gato por liebre.

Beginning in the late fifties, Fidel Castro ordered the burning of Cuban sugar mills, warehouses, buses, factories. He also order bombings in stores, theaters, nightclubs, clinics throughout the island as part of the revolutionary campaign against the Batista dictatorship. The Office of Publications of (Cuba's) Council of State published in 2015 a four volume chronology entitled "We shall fight until the end" [Lucharemos Hasta el Final].

Friday's crash of a Boeing 737-200 plane just after takeoff from Havana's Jose Marti International Airport occurred at a particularly inopportune moment for Cuba's government. Over the past few months, the country's diplomatic thaw with the United States has given way to a new Ice Age.

El evento "Cuba bajo Díaz-Canel", a celebrarse este viernes, ha quedado pospuesto, en otro episodio de los desajustes entre la Casa Blanca y el Departamento de Estado en relación a la política hacia Cuba.

Yesterday several organizations that support a transition to the rule of law and respect for human rights in Cuba called on the Department of State to reappraise a forum which the Bureau of Intelligence and Research had scheduled for today.

While the Kennedy Center in Washington hosts ARTES DE CUBA: from the island to the world for several hundred Cuban artists, the regime in Havana persecutes Cuban artists for organizing the First Alternative Biennial in Cuba. Foreign artists wanting to attend the exhibition were deported. CUBABrief reprints below a recent article on the subject.

Vice President Mike Pence, freshly returned from his participation at the Eighth Summit of the Americas in Lima, Peru, penned an Op-Ed letter to the Miami Herald in which he writes: “Last year, President Trump reversed the failed policy of the last administration. No longer will U.S. dollars fund Cuba’s military and intelligence services.”

Several weeks ago I wrote an "Expert Brief" for the Council on Foreign Relations titled "Time to Tighten the Screws on Cuba?" There I argued that the one-sided and unfortunate concessions the Obama administration made to Cuba had helped the regime but not the Cuban people, and urged the Trump administration to go even further than it has already gone in reversing those concessions.

Wall Street Journal columnist Mary O'Grady tweeted today the following: "the history of Castro's revolution has been lost beneath 60 years of communist propaganda. here's a dose of truth about what really happened and why Diaz-Canel is nothing new," about  an important article published by Forbes this morning: "The End Of The Castro Era. Really?" by Nestor Carbonell. The article follows.

Also in this CubaBrief, "Díaz-Canel and a Cuba without promises" by Ana Julia Faya, published in Diario de Cuba.

After all these years many opinion and decision makers around the world are beginning to understand the real nature of the Castro dynasty. Many editorials and commentary in the United States and elsewhere point out that the elevation of Miguel Diaz Canel to be president of Cuba is not a new development. During the 1960s Fidel Castro was not the head of state, although he ran the island as his personal farm.

Canada will remove families of diplomats posted at its embassy in Cuba as the cause of unusual health symptoms is still unknown, though information received from medical specialists has raised concerns of a new type of acquired brain injury, a senior Canadian government official said on Monday.