First US-to-Cuba cruise ship in decades docks in Havana

Yahoo – AFP, Hector Velasco, May 2, 2016

The first US-to-Cuba cruise ship in half a century glides into the port of Havana,
on May 2, 2016 (AFP Photo/Adalberto Roque)

Havana (AFP) - The first US cruise ship to travel to Cuba in half a century docked in Havana Monday, marking a new milestone in the rapprochement between the old Cold War foes.

A crowd of onlookers waved Cuban and American flags and filmed with their cell phones as the Adonia, a Carnival cruise liner, sailed into port in Havana after setting off Sunday from Miami, the heart of the Cuban diaspora in the United States.

The ship had 700 passengers on board, some of them Cuban-Americans returning to the communist island for the first time in decades.

A crowd of onlookers waved Cuban and

 American flags and filmed with their cell 

phones as the Adonia, a Carnival cruise

 liner, sailed into port in Havana (AFP

Photo/Adalberto Roque)

Yaney Cajigal, a 32-year-old dancer, could barely contain her excitement as she waited for her niece to disembark.

"This is incredible for me, this is very exciting," she told AFP.

"We're welcoming them with the flags of Cuba and the United States so everything will be unity, peace and tranquility."

The voyage is the first of what Carnival says will become week-long cruises to Cuba twice a month, with the goal of promoting cultural exchange between the two countries following a warming of ties that began in December 2014 and led to the restoration of full diplomatic relations last year.

The "cultural exchange" aspect is key, since ordinary tourism to Cuba is still banned under a US trade embargo, which remains in force despite the diplomatic thaw.

For the time being, Americans can travel to Cuba only for cultural, academic, sports-related or religious events.

Carnival is the first cruise line company to win permission from both governments to offer trips, which ended after the Cuban Revolution in 1959.

The Adonia has scheduled cultural activities in its ports of call in Havana, Cienfuegos and Santiago de Cuba, including meetings with artists, musicians and business owners, as well as dance classes and guided tours.

The cruise "offers a truly historic opportunity for travel to Cuba: a chance to help build new bridges to a rich and vibrant culture that, until now, most US travelers have only seen in photographs," the cruise ship's web page says.

US President Barack Obama speaks with Cuban President Raul Castro during 

a Major League baseball exhibition game in Havana (AFP Photo/Nicholas Kamm)

Down to the wire

Uncertainty over whether the cruise would take place cleared up only last week, when Cuban President Raul Castro's government lifted restrictions for seaborne visits of Cubans to and from the United States, opening a door for Cuban-Americans born on the island to board the ships.

Carnival initially refused to accept reservations from Cuban-born customers because of restrictions first imposed when Havana feared landings by anti-Castro militants.

The cruise line's policy prompted charges of discrimination amid a firestorm of criticism.

Carnival, the world's leading tour ship operator, eventually relented and began allowing reservations from Cuban-born customers. But its conditions to start the visits were for Cuba to allow its citizens to sail freely.

Cuba ultimately backed down after intense negotiations as part of the normalization process, which culminated in President Barack Obama's visit to Cuba in March.

Carnival has permission from both governments to run cruise ships between

 Florida and Cuba, and said the first ship will leave Miami on May 1 (AFP Photo/

Karen Bleier)

'Always wanted to visit'

One of the Cuban-born passengers is Isabel Buznego, 61, who left the island when she was five and was returning for the first time.

"My dad wanted to come because he had never been able to come, but he passed away," she said. "So I'm coming in his name. That is why I have so many different emotions, but I am mostly happy."

Another passenger, Regina Patterson, 58, from Delaware, said she wanted to take the cruise because it was historic.

"And it is a place I always wanted to visit," she said. "I want to see how they live, the music, what they eat, and shopping, shopping, shopping!"

The cost of a ticket on the cruise ranges from $1,800 to $7,000 per person.

Regular flights from the United States to Cuba are expected to begin later this year.

Cuban, US scientists bond over big sharks

Yahoo - AFP, Robert Macpherson,July 2, 2015

"Tiburones: Sharks of Cuba" marks the first time that TV cameras have
 recorded American and Cuban scientists working side by side to explore the
mysteries of shark behavior, habitats and migration (AFP Photo/James Watt)

Washington (AFP) - Somewhere in the North Atlantic right now, a longfin mako shark -- a cousin of the storied great white -- is cruising around, oblivious to the yellow satellite tag on its dorsal fin.

In mid-July, that electronic gizmo should pop off, float to the surface and instantly transmit a wealth of data to eagerly awaiting marine scientists in Cuba and the United States.

How the mako became one of the first sharks ever to be satellite-tagged in Cuban waters is the subject of an hour-long documentary that is a highlight of Discovery Channel's cult summer series Shark Week.

"Tiburones: Sharks of Cuba" marks the first time that TV cameras have recorded American and Cuban scientists working side by side to explore the mysteries of shark behavior, habitats and migration.

It also comes as Cuba and the United States renew full diplomatic ties, more than five decades after Fidel Castro's communist revolution.

"The Caribbean has, I think, 20 percent of the world's biodiversity of sharks and Cuba is the heart of that," the show's director Ian Shive told AFP by telephone from Los Angeles.

What's more, a half-century of isolation and limited development mean Cuba's coral waters have largely escaped the kind of negative environmental impact seen elsewhere in the region, Shive said.

"The oceans surrounding Cuba are like time capsules," he said. "You can go back and look at the Caribbean as it was 50 years ago."

Inspiring the project was a shark of legend -- El Monstruo, or The Monster, a great white caught by fishermen off the Cuban village of Cojimar, east of Havana, 70 years ago.

Biggest ever

Reputedly 21 feet long (6.4 meters) long and weighing in at 7,000 pounds (3,175 kilograms), it remain perhaps the biggest great white ever captured anywhere in the world.

"All the fishermen and their families came down. They were excited because they had never seen such a big animal in Cojimar," fisherman Osvaldo Carnero, a young boy at the time, told the filmmakers.

Tagging a similar big shark was one of the goals of the 15-day expedition in February that brought together shark experts from Cuba's Center for Coastal Ecosystems Research and Florida's Mote Marine Laboratory as well as Shive's camera crew.

They found initial success along Cuba's south coast in a pristine coral reef system known as the Gardens of the Queen, once visited by Christopher Columbus and now one of the Caribbean's biggest marine parks.

There they successfully tagged two large silky sharks with help from veteran Cuban diver Noel Lopez Fernandez, who wrangled them underwater with his bare hands and then rubbed their bellies to sedate them.

Surprising data has already been received from the silkys, Robert Hueter, Mote's associate vice president for research, told AFP in a telephone interview from Sarasota, Florida.

Not only do they prefer to stay near the reef, the satellite tags -- which measure sea depth as well as location -- revealed that the sharks can dive as far down as 2,000 feet (610 meters), much deeper than assumed for the species, Hueter said.

From the Gardens of the Queen, the scientists set off for Cojimar and struck it lucky by snagging the longfin mako, with top shark cinematographer Andy Casagrande underwater capturing video of the rarely seen oceanic creature.

Only the second

It is only the second longfin mako to be sat-tagged, Hueter said. The first, in 2012, roamed from the Gulf of Mexico and around Florida before turning up in the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, on the US East Coast.

Hueter is hoping for the so-called "pop-up" satellite tag, worth about $4,000, to come off the shark and commence its data dump sometime in mid-July.

"Everyone's eager to get that data," said Shive, who recalled the two years it took to get US permission to go to Cuba and for Havana to green-light the first-ever satellite tagging of its sharks.

Hueter is hopeful that better relations between Washington and Havana will facilitate more joint projects between Florida-based scientists and their Cuban counterparts just 90 miles away.

"In some ways (the February expedition) was the culmination of a lot of work, and in other ways it was the starting point for what will hopefully be a new age of cooperation between the United States and Cuba," he said.

"Tiburones: Sharks of Cuba" premieres Tuesday in the United States. Discovery Channel, which launches its 28th annual Shark Week on Sunday, plans to air the show in other countries in the coming months.

Cuba's Elian Gonzalez, now grown up, hopes to return to US

Yahoo - AFP, 18 May 2015

Elian Gonzalez (R), in a church in Havana, during the celebration of 10th

Anniversary of his return from Miami, on June 30, 2010 (AFP Photo/

Adalberto Roque)

Washington (AFP) - Elian Gonzalez, who as a child was at the center of a bitter international custody battle between his Cuban father and his Miami relatives, now dreams of returning to the United States, he said in an interview broadcast Monday.

Now 21, Gonzalez was just six years old when he was found floating off of Florida's coast in November, 1999.

A rickety boat carrying his mother and several other would-be refugees, capsized, and Elian -- found floating in a car inner tube -- was the only survivor.

Fifteen years later, asked where he would like to go if he could travel anywhere in the world, Gonzalez in an interview with ABC television replied without hesitating: "Los Estados Unidos" -- the United States.

"I want the time to give my love to American people," he added in halting English.

He recalled for ABC the trauma of his mother's death.

"I remember when the boat capsized, when we fell on the sea," he said.

"I remember when I was put on the raft and my mom was covering me and I was raising my head, looking around... and at some point I raised my head and I didn't see her again," Elian recounted.

"I was alone in the middle of the sea."

The six-year-old was sent to live with his relatives in Miami, but soon became the object of an international battle, after his father demanded he be returned to live with him in Cuba.

The dispute made international headlines after Elian's relatives -- and the larger Cuban-American community in Miami -- insisted they would not allow him to return to Cuba, fearing he faced a life of privation and political oppression there.

Eventually, US courts sided with Elian's father and then-US attorney general Janet Reno ordered that US federal agents seize the boy.

Iconic news photos of the April 2000 raid showing the terrified child being taken at gunpoint were beamed around the world.

Little more was heard from Elian, other than when his image was occasionally beamed on Cuban television as a model member of the communist party's youth wing.

Now an adult engaged to be married and pursuing engineering studies, Gonzalez said he has put the traumatic episode behind him.

"For my family it has always been, we always have the desire to say to the American people, to say to each household our gratitude, appreciation and love that we have," he said, repeating his wish to see America.

"I could personally thank those people who helped us, who were there by our side. Because we're so grateful for what they did."

US authorizes commercial ferry services to Cuba

Yahoo – AFP, 5 May 2015

US flags are seen in a bici-taxi near the capitol in Havana, Cuba,

on January 23, 2015 (AFP Photo/Yamil Lage)

Washington (AFP) - The United States authorized commercial ferry services to Cuba for the first time in more than a half-century on Tuesday, another major step in improving relations between the two countries.

The US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control lifted the ban and at least one Florida company confirmed it had been licensed to launch boat services to the island.

That adds to the charter air services that had been permitted up until now, focused on enabling Cuban-Americans to visit families.

Joseph Hinson, president of Miami-based United Americas Shipping Services, confirmed his company had received permission from the Treasury to provide ferry travel.

"Today's action was a great step forward," he told AFP, while saying other permissions were still needed from authorities in both countries before launching the first trip.

Whether by plane or ferry, American travelers still have to come under one of 12 categories permitted in the landmark easing of US sanctions announced by the White House in December -- including family visits, official government business, humanitarian projects and sports gatherings.

The ferries will also be allowed to carry cargo to the communist island, which sits just 150 kilometers (90 miles) off the southern tip of Florida.

On December 17, US President Barack Obama broke a nearly six-decade Cold War-rooted estrangement between the two countries by lifting sanctions on travel and some trade as the first step toward normalizing relations.