Fantasies in Cyberspace: Cuban Net "Subverts" Embargo Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit [In which we learn that Fidel Castro never understood the potential of the Internet until the Elian Gonzalez case, that people can conduct financial transactions with Cuba via the Bank of Nova Scotia and other foreign banks and US bank subsidiaries, that Granma's [usually highly inflated] hit figures "stunned" editors there, and that the johnny-come-lately's at the WSJ have decided AP's belated discovery of the Cuban Internet is Big News. It's ALL big news to the Wall Street Journal, and the dimwit editors at AP. It's hard to tell here whether the headline was a WSJ production, but probably it's better for the WSJ/AP to be reporting that the Cuban Internet is being used to "subvert" the embargo than that it's being used to "subvert" the security of the USA.... The links at the end are terribly lame -- Cuban portals are billed as "main government sites" and no government sites are included. etc etc Whoever wrote them knows little about Cuba, and even less about the Net. ho-hum -- NY Transfer.] source - JosePertierra@aol.com AP via The Wall Street Journal, Aug 27, 2001 CUBA USING INTERNET TO SUBVERT US EMBARGO HAVANA (AP)--The discovery of the Internet's potential hit Fidel Castro's government like an electrical surge in an ungrounded socket during last year's custody battle over Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez. Suddenly, hundreds of thousands of new hits appeared daily on the Web site of the communist newspaper Granma as the curious scrolled stories in Spanish and English about government demands that the boy be repatriated from the United States. Granma editors were stunned at least twice during the seven-month custody battle when the weekly number of visitors passed 2 million. For perhaps the first time, the island isolated for more than 40 years by U.S. trade sanctions was offering unedited views directly to Americans who didn't even think about Cuba before the fight over a motherless 6-year-old boy. An Internet latecomer, Havana now deftly uses it to spread its political message by subverting the information curtain that has surrounded the island since the trade embargo was imposed four decades ago. Americans and other foreigners can now visit more than 200 government sites that explain communist Cuba's view of the battle over Elian, the U.S. trade embargo, Washington's crackdown on Americans who break the law to travel to the island. Havana also has discovered an important side benefit to its Web presence: potential revenue from services and products advertised on those pages. By diverting payments through third-country banks not affected by American trade sanctions, people outside Cuba are using credit cards -- even ones issued by U.S. banks -- to pay for things ranging from hotel rooms to gifts for relatives on the island. Generating income while "publishing the truth about Cuba in the world" are two main goals of Cuba's Internet program, said Melchor Gil Morell, vice minister of informatics and communications. "It is not legal for American citizens to purchase Cuban items from these sites," said Tasia Scolinos, a spokeswoman at the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. Still, it is unclear how buyers would be identified because purchases are made through banks in third countries such as Canada. Because the practice is new, there are no statistics on how many people, if any, have been prosecuted for such purchases. "But any enforcement would be targeted at the people buying, not the companies selling," Scolinos said. For those seeking free information about the enigmatic island just 90 miles (150 kilometers) from American shores there are numerous links to sites about Cuban history, politics and government, arts and music, all of the state-operated newspapers, even a calendar of upcoming events. Although the English version of the Elian site has disappeared more than a year after the child's repatriation, a Spanish version still displays more than 300 stories about the boy. Another site, cubavsbloqueo, presents communist Cuba's arguments for eliminating the U.S. trade embargo. Then there are the products and services. The government's main Web site, Cubaweb, a service called Quick Cash lets people use their Visa, Mastercard or American Express to send money to a Cuban bank account within 24 hours. The payment is diverted through a bank in Canada -which has no embargo with the island -then forwarded to Cuba. The state tourism company Cubanacan, meanwhile, has a site that allows online shoppers to buy gifts ranging from television sets to a bottle of rum for folks in Cuba. For a short message to loved ones on the island, a service called "e-scriba" - a play on the Spanish word for "write" - allows anyone with a credit card to send a note of up to 800 words or 80 lines to anyone in Cuba. Each message costs $1 and is delivered as a letter by the Cuban postal service. Foreign entrepreneurs such as the British travel agency T&M International Marketing Ltd., operate similar Cuba sites. T&M International's GoCuba site claims to be the first to provide an Internet payment system for travelers visiting the island, beginning in 1998. The company recently launched cubagiftstore.com, which lets consumers use credit cards to buy gifts for people in Cuba - much like the Cubanacan site. Payments are made through banks in the British Virgin Islands. "There are hundreds of thousands of Cubans around the world who miss their families," said T&M president Stephen Marshall. "Now, if you miss your grandma, you can send her flowers in 48 hours." Other independent sites focus on Cuba's world famous cigars. The Canada-based clubhavana.com, promises it can ship Cuban stogies to anywhere in the world -- including presumably the United States. Using a credit card, online consumers can order a box of Montecristo No. 2 cigars for $600 or a box of Super Partagas for $250. [Montecristo is a Jamaican brand, fellas... ] Another independent Cuban cigar site operated from Canada, cubamall.com, carries a note to U.S. customers: "Our guarantee is valid for all customers on the planet, including the United States," it reads. "We ship to every country without problem. However, we do not to remind U.S. customers that Cuban products are not legal in the United States." ---------------- On the Net: Main government sites: http://www.cubaweb.cu; http://www.islagrande.cu; http://www.ceniai.inf.cu. Government travel site: http://www.cubanacan.cu/hoteles/reserva Cuban music: http://www.discuba.com Independent or semi-independent shopping and travel sites: http://www.clubhavana.com; http://www.cubamall.com; http://www.cubagiftstore.com; Elian website: www.granma.cu/elian/index.html Anti-embargo website http://www.cubavsbloqueo.cu Copyright 2001 Dow Jones & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytmed-08.28.01-23:14:54-31993