Entries by Havana Live

US flag – the latest fashion trend in Cuba

HAVANA, 16 April The US and Cuba’s strained relationship seems to be on the mend. President Barack Obama just had an historic meeting with Cuban President Raúl Castro. And President Obama recommended the island nation be removed from the US list of states that sponsor terror. Lately, some in Cuba have noticed that the US flag […]

Obama removes Cuba from terror-sponsoring list

HAVANA, 15 April President Barack Obama will remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, the White House announced, a key step in his bid to normalize relations between the two countries. Obama made the final decision following a State Department review of Cuba’s presence on the list. The terror designation has been […]

Brazil airline to make 3 flights weekly to Havana

HAVANA, 14 April The Brazilian civil aviation regulatory agency authorized Gol airline to make three flights per week between Brazil and Cuba, a route that is not currently directly covered by any company, official sources said Tuesday.  otice of the green light given by the National Civil Aviation Agency, or Anac, to Gol to make […]

Flying from Key West to Havana and back

Air Key West flies a weekly round-trip flight from Key West to Havana on a 10 seat plane. HAVANA, 14 April (By TOM HUDSON) Rob Valle used to fly fighter jets for the U.S. Navy. Now he flies charter flights for his company Air Key West. Since late March that has included a weekly scheduled flight from […]

US-Cuba talks a result of Obama’s Miami connections

HAVANA, April 13 — Barack Obama‘s historic talks with Cuban President Raul Castro on Saturday were the culmination of a long quest by the US president that included meetings with moderate Cuban-Americans frustrated with the hardliners in their own community who refused to engage Havana. The Obama-Castro meeting in Panama followed a breakthrough agreement by […]

CheapAir to sell direct U.S.-Cuba flights online starting wednesday

HAVANA,  11 April  “Charter flights to Cuba are nothing new,” Jeff Klee, CheapAir’s chief executive officer, said Friday. “What we’re doing that is new is bringing online booking to it.” Travelers can buy tickets Wednesday and travel immediately, Klee said. (Though you still have to comply with U.S. travel rules; see below.) Daily flights from […]

Obama and Raul Castro have historic handshake in Panama

HAVANA, 11 April  (AFP) The meeting between Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro will be the first top-level negotiations between the two countries for more than half a century. Mr Obama has signalled he is prepared to take Cuba off Washington’s list of state sponsors of terrorism. The two leaders met briefly at the summit’s opening […]

Obama advised to take Cuba off terror list

HAVANA, 10 April (AFP)  President Barack Obama moved closer to removing a major hurdle in the US-Cuba diplomatic thaw, as a lawmaker indicated he could take Havana off a list of state sponsors of terrorism. As Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro landed in Panama for a historic encounter at the Summit of the Americas, […]

Kerry meets Cuba foreign minister

HAVANA, 10 April (AP) U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met his Cuban counterpart in Panama late Thursday in the highest-level discussion between representatives of Washington and Havana in more than 50 years. The State Department said Kerry met Cuba Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez ahead of the Summit of the Americas, which begins Friday. A […]

Havana seeks foreign investment

HAVANA, 10 April It may have been hard to imagine in Fidel Castro’s heyday, but Cuba’s trade minister made a high-profile pitch for foreign capital at a meeting of corporate executives on Thursday as the island nation sought to reap the economic benefits of improved relations with the United States. Following Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and […]

Orlando Airport will offer flights to Cuba starting July 8

HAVANA, 10 April   Direct weekly flights to Cuba from Orlando International Airport will start July 8, marking the first time in decades that people can leave from Central Florida to the island nation 90 miles south of Key West. Island Travel & Tours, based in Tampa, will fly each Wednesday from Orlando International to […]

Historic encounter with Castro awaits Obama in Panama

HAVANA, 9 April (AP Josh Lederman) — Turning the page on a half-century of enmity, President Barack Obama signaled Thursday he will soon remove Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, boosting hopes for improved ties as he prepared for a historic encounter with Cuban President Raul Castro. Hours before his arrival […]

Poll in Cuba: Obama more popular than Fidel, Raul Castro

HAVANA, 8 April  President Barack Obama is more popular among Cubans than either of the Castro brothers who have ruled the island for the past five and a half decades, according to a new poll secretly conducted there last month. Eighty percent of the Cubans polled said they had a “very positive” or “somewhat positive” […]

Havana’s emerging LGBT nightlife

HAVANA, 8 April  (By Johnny Simon and Rebecca Sanchez)  Proving true to the complexities of Cuba’s social and political climates, LGBT nightlife on the island is no less multifaceted. Regular gay-oriented parties, which started to pop up a little more than five years ago, are held in state-run clubs, but, technically listed as “audio-visual projects,” […]

Havana is launching first official classified ads

HAVANA, Apr 7 (acn) The Cuban News Agency (acn) has announced the opening of a paid ad space, both on tabloid and on-line, in which cooperatives, state companies, private workers and people in general can now post ads to advertize products and services. During a news conference at the building hosting the Cuban Journalists Association […]

Cuban films in Havana film festival New York – preview

A scene from Venecia (Venice), 2014, by Kiki Álvarez Courtesy HFFNY HAVANA, 7 April This Thursday, April 9, the opening-night red carpet unrolls on the 16th Havana Film Festival New York—and with it, some of the island’s most talked-about features and documentaries. Four Cuban features are competing in the Best Fiction Film category, among them […]

NBA is going to Havana

HAVANA, 7 April The NBA will host a basketball development camp in Cuba later this month, making it the first major American sports league to conduct official business there since the thaw in U.S.-Cuba relations. The four-day clinic in Havana, which starts on April 23, will be sponsored by the NBA and FIBA, basketball’s international […]

HAVANA says no preferential treatment for U.S. companies

HAVANA, 6 April (Reuters) – U.S. companies can expect the same treatment as those from the rest of the world, receiving neither special benefits nor punishment, if there is a further commercial opening between Cuba and the United States, Cuba’s foreign trade minister said. “U.S. business people will enjoy the same treatment that is offered to […]

For investors,Cuba is an island of opportunity

HAVANA, 5 Apr. After President Obama on Dec. 17 called for restoring “travel, commerce, and the flow of information” to communist Cuba, island-watchers at Penn’s Wharton School rushed to gather Cuban American magnates, scholars, and U.S. officials to brainstorm investors’ return. They met in New York on Thursday for an all-day Cuba Opportunity Summit. Cuba […]

Over 300 foreign companies interested in Mariel

HAVANA, Apr 4  (Prensa Latina)  Cuba has received more than 300 formal requests to settle in the Special Development Zone Mariel (ZEDM), it was reported today in an online business forum prior to the Summit of the Americas, to be held in Panama. The online-real-time exchange with managers and Cuban officials focused on the topics […]

Fidel Castro appears in public for first time in over a year

HAVANA, 4 April (Reuters BY DANIEL TROTTA) – Former Cuban President Fidel Castro, 88, appeared in public “full of vitality” for the first time in more than a year on Monday, greeting a delegation of Venezuelans, official media reported on Saturday. It was his first known appearance outside his home since Cuba in December agreed […]

Will Havana survive the americanization ?

HAVANA, 4 April Americans are flocking to Cuba by the tens of thousands this year. Next year it may be millions. The architecture of Old Havana has lasted hundreds of years, but will it survive the onslaught of tourists and rampart commercialism that so despoils other Latin American capitals? Most Americans will marvel at the […]

Real-estate revolution hits Cuba

Ordinary Cubans start to buy and sell their homes, and authorities dust off plans to develop a luxury vacation-home market for foreigners. HAVANA, 3 April  (by Michael Allen and Kejal Vyas ) Listed at $1.2 million, the penthouse has broad terraces, marble floors and stunning waterfront views stretching from the Darth Vader-style Russian Embassy to […]

An Uber for Cuba already ?

HAVANA,. 2 March   A couple of enterprising young men in Cuba have launched the closest thing the island will have to Uber for the time being — yotellevocuba.com. (Translated, “I will take you”). It’s simply a way of contacting an organized community of drivers via email at this point, but with the state-run cellular […]

Airbnb is now available in Cuba

HAVANA, 2  April  Airbnb operates in 190 countries and 34,000 cities around the world, but its latest addition could be a momentous one. The online lodgings marketplace said today it now offers properties for rent in Cuba, becoming one of the first U.S. companies to establish itself there since President Obama and Cuban President Raúl […]