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January 6, 2006

Santeria priests see bad omens in coming year

Santería priests warn of more disease, broken accords and corruption

By Andrea Rodriguez, Associated Press. Posted on Tue, Jan. 03, 2006.

HAVANA - Priests of the Afro-Cuban religion Santería called on islanders Monday to be wary of diseases, broken agreements and corruption as they issued their much-anticipated predictions for the New Year.

Although the annual ''Letter of the Year'' is vague enough to be interpreted in a variety of ways, Cubans anxiously look forward to it each January.

Several competing groups of Santería priests, or babalaos, gather every New Year's Eve for religious ceremonies that include chanting and animal sacrifices. Predictions are announced in the first days of the New Year.

Santería is a mix of spiritual traditions carried here by African slaves and of Roman Catholicism brought by Spaniards. The faith is practiced throughout Cuba; even many members of the Communist Party follow its rituals and look forward to the predictions each year.

The ''10 de Octubre'' group of nearly 900 priests, named for the Havana municipality where it is based, issued the warning about disease, ruptured accords and increased corruption.

The group said the Santería orishas, or gods, ruling 2006 will be Obatala, god of wisdom and justice represented in the Roman Catholic faith as Our Lady of Mercy, and Ochun, the goddess of maternity and newborns, whose representation is Cuba's patron saint, the Virgin of Charity.

The priests urged Cubans to watch out for cerebrovascular problems, stomach disorders, hormonal ailments and unknown diseases.

Society as a whole can expect an increase in crime, particularly corruption; broken agreements, including international accords; and a risk of drought and other natural disasters.

A different Santería group, the Yoruba Association, which is more closely allied with Cuba's communist government, had similar predictions with some variations and said the orishas ruling 2006 would be Oggun, associated with St. Peter in Roman Catholicism, and the Virgin of Charity.

The Yoruba group called for Cubans to pay attention to their health, especially cardiovascular ailments and mental problems.

It warned against violence and alcohol and drug abuse, calling for the exercise of intelligence, humility and the guarding of secrets.

The Yoruba Association also called on Cubans not to underestimate the power of meteorological phenomenon.

Plane may help overcome Cuba's 'news blockade'

TV and Radio Martí prepared to hit the skies with a new aircraft they hope will break through Havana jammers and the Cuban government's monopoly on the island's media.

By Pablo Bachelet, pbachelet@MiamiHerald.com. Posted on Tue, Jan. 03, 2006.

WASHINGTON - One TV Martí show features an actor portraying Cuban leader Fidel Castro as a cranky and infirm boss. Another has a Havana woman complaining about the nearly constant electricity blackouts.

Most Cubans are unable to view these political satires because of their government's powerful jamming.

But TV and Radio Martí are preparing to hit the skies this spring with a new broadcasting airplane they hope will improve their ability to break through the jamming and the Cuban government monopoly on the island's mass media.

The aircraft will replace a Pennsylvania National Guard Commando Solo C-130 that has been transmitting to Cuba for four hours on weekends. The aircraft has also been used to broadcast to Iraq and Afghanistan.

TV and Radio Martí usually broadcast from a blimp tethered in the lower Florida Keys, but it was knocked out by last year's hurricanes and has not been replaced. Cuba has been largely successful in jamming the signals since the radio opened in 1985 and the TV station followed in 1990.

Supporters say the addition of the mobility and broadcasting strength of the new aircraft, expected to be delivered in the spring, will give the station the technological punch needed to overcome the jamming.

The television station has broadcast on UHF channels from a blimp in Cudjoe Key and on a VHF channel with Commando Solo. It also uses the HispaSat1 satellite. The radio station now broadcasts on shortwave, AM and FM frequencies from transmitters in Marathon and Summerland Key, as well as North Carolina and California.

The new broadcast aircraft will allow Radio Martí to transmit more effectively on the FM band, officials say, and TV Martí to spread its signal well outside Havana, so that Cubans in the provinces will be able to videotape its programs and pass them on.

FOUR ANTENNAS

Cuba's jamming of both radio and TV signals is strongest around Havana, which has about 2.2 million of the island's 11 million people. Pedro Roig, the head of Radio/TV Martí, said the Cuban jamming comes from four antennas on some of Havana's tallest buildings.

Roig said the TV signal will also be added to the DirecTV satellite lineup. Although Cuban regulations make it almost impossible to have a private satellite reception dish, they are easily available on the black market.

''The object is to use as many [transmitting] channels at our disposal,'' said Joseph O'Connell, the spokesman for the International Broadcasting Bureau in Washington, the U.S. government entity that controls Radio/TV Martí.

TV Martí is also preparing to add a second newscast in the evening, O'Connell said, and the radio and TV news operations were combined earlier last year to improve coverage and efficiency. Radio Martí, which according to surveys of Cubans arriving in Miami, has seen its market share slide in recent years, has changed to an all-news and information format.

Jorge Luis Hernández, director of broadcasting operations of Radio and TV Martí, said management has been trying for a more youthful, modern feel and added more satires to the TV lineup. La Oficina del Jefe -- The Office of the Boss -- a spoof on Castro, is especially popular, Hernández added.

Congress last month allotted $10 million for the new aircraft, on top of $28 million to cover operating expenses for Radio/TV Martí. The damaged blimp will also be replaced at a cost of $1.7 million. Officials have not determined the kind of aircraft or whether it will be leased or purchased, O'Connell said.

Cuban dissident Vladimiro Roca and independent Havana journalist Angel Pablo Polanco told The Miami Herald in telephone interviews that the broadcasts help counter the propaganda of the Cuban government, which controls the island's mass media.

But some critics say the stations are a waste of U.S. taxpayers' money and that the Cuban government should have little difficulty jamming the new plane's signal.

''Just because the plane's moving around doesn't change the fact that [the signal] is broadcast on a frequency. . . . The Cubans figure out what frequency it's on; they jam it,'' said John Nichols, a Pennsylvania State University professor who has researched Cuban communications issues.

O'Connell also acknowledged the aircraft will only fly in U.S. airspace -- limiting how closely it can approach Cuba -- to avoid violating international treaties on telecommunications. Havana has long argued that Radio/TV Martí, even by broadcasting from U.S. airspace, violates the regulations by aiming its signals at Cuba.

But Radio/TV Martí officials insist they have evidence suggesting the aircraft will significantly add to their broadcasting punch.

The station has received more than 600 calls from Cuba during the Commando Solo flights. ''We have never before had such a feedback from people who have seen our broadcast,'' Roig told The Miami Herald.

Polanco said TV Martí could be viewed for the first time in the provinces, and sometimes on the western and eastern outskirts of the capital, during the Commando Solo flights.

Jammers work by transmitting on the same frequency as the targetted signals. And they usually have the upper hand because they are closer to the receivers, said James Lewis, a former U.S. diplomat.

'PUNCH THROUGH'

Lewis said one way to overcome the jamming is to ''punch through'' by using a more powerful transmitter or broadcasting from multiple sources -- like the airplane, blimp and ground stations. Cubans could then counter by boosting the potency of their own jamming stations.

''It's hard to stress the [jamming] system to the point of failure with something like this,'' Lewis said, adding that the airplane would be simply ''more annoying'' to the jammers than a balloon or fixed station. News of the aircraft's planned purchase also sparked new attacks by critics of Radio/TV Martí who argue the programming lacks credibility among Cubans.

''It abandons news judgment when sensitive issues are in play,'' said Phil Peters, a Cuba analyst with the Lexington Institute, a conservative Washington think-tank.

Roca said Radio/TV Martí has ''plenty of credibility'' and added: "It is important that we get different . . . opinions or criteria and news, to break the Cuban government's news and information blockade.''

''We follow [government] standards and guidelines,'' said TV Martí's Hernández. "We try to offer to the people of Cuba the window of opportunity to give them all the information the Cuban government denies them.''

Castro's home a surf away

A new Google Internet program allows users to zero in on the homes of famous people, including the alleged homes of Fidel Castro.

By Rui Ferreira. rferreira@MiamiHerald.com. Posted on Wed, Jan. 04, 2006.

Want to see a satellite photograph of Fidel Castro's home in Havana? How about one of a Cuban air force base, showing even some warplanes?

Well, anyone can, with Google Earth, an Internet program launched last June to easily display satellite photos of virtually any place in the world and allow visitors to mark specific places -- like Castro's home.

The satellite images of Havana are, in fact, marked with two places for the home of Castro, whose private life has long been kept virtually secret because of what the 79-year-old leader claims have been the more than 600 assassination attempts against him.

One of the addresses is clearly wrong, placing it in the center of Havana, in a colonial-era fortress known as the Castle of the Prince. The fortress was used as a prison until the mid-1970s and is now a military command center.

But the other address, in an area of western Havana known as Siboney, matches the neighborhood where U.S. officials and senior Cuban defectors have long said Castro lives with his wife, Dalia Sotodelvalle, and several of their five sons.

BOMB SHELTER

The erroneous address was marked by someone who used the name ''Alexander Mendoza'' and offered other alleged details of the residence, such as the presence nearby of an underground nuclear bomb shelter where Castro, his family and top generals can survive for 24 months.

''Mendoza'' also claims that Castro's shower was specially built because he's relatively tall for a Cuban, but he doesn't explain how he knows those details. Comments from other visitors to Google Earth sometimes challenge his data.

The more likely true location of Castro's house was marked by someone using the name of ''Luisdo,'' who also marked many other places on the satellite map of Cuba, many of them with military significance.

He seems to be something of an expert on military aircraft, because he tries to correct what he calls mistakes by other readers in the identification of planes at military airports.

''Luisdo'' corrected an error in the identification of the military airstrip at Ciudad Libertad, known as Camp Columbia before Castro seized power in 1959. He also identified some parked planes as MiG-23s, MiG-21s or MiG-17s -- even though the satellite photo shows only fuzzy outlines of airplanes.

What he does not explain is how he learned all this.

''I can't say,'' Luisdo writes.

Google Earth is one of the latest and most successful products from Google, a company that has soared to the top listings in the New York Stock Exchange.

The company has described the site as a satellite imagery-based mapping product that combines 3D buildings and terrain with mapping capability and Google-styled searches. The program enables users to ''fly'' from space to street level views, and to find geographic information.

The program easily identifies streets and even houses, although the images of smaller objects like cars and pedestrians grow increasingly fuzzy.

Google Earth already has created controversy in some countries, mainly in the Middle East, which fear that their military secrets and even the palaces of their rulers will be exposed to the public.

Google rejects that criticism, saying the photographs are at least six months old and in any case can be easily obtained directly from commercial satellite services.

Viewers who place their comments on the photos must first register in ''the Google community,'' but there's no independent check on their information. None of the people mentioned in this article included their e-mail addresses or telephone numbers and could not be contacted.

In addition to pinpointing Castro's apparent house, Google Earth allows viewers to identify many other places in Havana and elsewhere in Cuba, including government ministries, museums, hotels and tourist spots.

MONUMENTAL GAFFES

But some mistakes appear, some of them monumental.

A large, five-pointed building in the town of Tarará east of Havana is marked as looking ''somehow satanic,'' or a possible ''battery of SAM-7 antiaircraft missiles.'' In fact, it's an abandoned amusement park.

And the landing strip at the Ciudad Libertad military base in Havana is marked as the capital's José Martí International Airport. That airport is actually in the city's southern outskirts.

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