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| Established | March 1959 |
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| Owner | Cuban government |
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Agencia de Noticias Latinoamericana S.A. (Latin American News Agency), trading as Prensa Latina, is the official state news agency of Cuba, founded in March 1959 shortly after the Cuban Revolution.
In a speech by Fidel Castro in Santiago de Cuba in 1959, Castro denounced the United States media and instead favoured a Latin American service "written in our own language". According to Servando González, the creation of the agency was similar to that of Agencia Latina founded by Juan Perón. [1]
Prensa Latina was founded at the initiative of Ernesto Che Guevara. The founder and first manager was Argentinian journalist Jorge Ricardo Masetti. [2] On Masetti's instructions, the first journalists were recruited by March 1959, when the service went into operation. [1] Among the initial group of journalists were Gabriel García Márquez, Rodolfo Walsh, Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, Rogelio García Lupo, Aroldo Wall, Leonardo Acosta and Carlos María Gutiérrez.
Prensa Latina had its license revoked in the United States in 1969, in retaliation after the Cuban government closed down Associated Press and United Press International bureaus in Havana. These offices have since reopened and function intermittently. [3]
Officials working at the agency are usually affiliated with the Dirección de Inteligencia (DI). [4] [ page needed ] [5] [ page needed ] The history of the agency is also intertwined with Cuba's foreign relations. On occasion, several bureau chiefs abroad have been deported on charges of espionage, including agency staff from Peru, Canada and Jamaica. [4] [ page needed ] [6] [ page needed ]
"Prensa Latina is part of the Cuban Revolution since it was born with the revolutionary process."
— Frank Gonzalez, Prensa Latina Former President [7]
All mass media in Cuba receive their information from the agency. [8] The agency regularly relays speeches from Fidel Castro and other government officials, and reports on state activities. The organisation also disseminates information about Latin Americas relations with Cuba and the revolution. [9]
Prensa Latina has its central office in Havana, Cuba, and its goal is to provide an alternative news source of international topics and events. The agency also has an additional 40 overseas offices, most of them in Latin America.
A daily news service is provided by the agency, with information on economic, financial and commercial news. They also publish a daily English-language "Cuba News in Brief" and "Cuba Direct", which provide translations of articles regarding Cuban news, politics, culture, sports and art. Other features include tourism news, medical news, women's issues, and coverage of Cuban and Caribbean science and medicine. [10]
Cuba's foreign policy has been fluid throughout history depending on world events and other variables, including relations with the United States. Without massive Soviet subsidies and its primary trading partner, Cuba became increasingly isolated in the late 1980s and early 1990s after the fall of the USSR and the end of the Cold War, but Cuba opened up more with the rest of the world again starting in the late 1990s when they have since entered bilateral co-operation with several South American countries, most notably Venezuela and Bolivia beginning in the late 1990s, especially after the Venezuela election of Hugo Chávez in 1999, who became a staunch ally of Castro's Cuba. The United States used to stick to a policy of isolating Cuba until December 2014, when Barack Obama announced a new policy of diplomatic and economic engagement. The European Union accuses Cuba of "continuing flagrant violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms". Cuba has developed a growing relationship with the People's Republic of China and Russia. Cuba provided civilian assistance workers – principally medical – to more than 20 countries. More than one million exiles have escaped to foreign countries. Cuba's present foreign minister is Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla.
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 2008. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist and Cuban nationalist, he also served as the first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1965 until 2011. Under his administration, Cuba became a one-party communist state; industry and business were nationalized, and socialist reforms were implemented throughout society.
Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar was a Cuban military officer and politician who was the elected president of Cuba from 1940 to 1944 and military dictator of the country from 1952 until his overthrow in the Cuban Revolution in 1959.
The Cuban Revolution was the military and political overthrow of Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship, which had reigned as the government of Cuba between 1952 and 1959. The revolution began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état, which saw Batista topple the nascent Cuban democracy and consolidate power. Among those opposing the coup was Fidel Castro, then a novice attorney who attempted to contest the coup through Cuba's judiciary. Once these efforts proved fruitless, Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl led an armed attack on the Cuban military's Moncada Barracks on 26 July 1953.
Granma is a yacht that was used to transport 82 fighters of the Cuban Revolution from Mexico to Cuba in November 1956 to overthrow the regime of Fulgencio Batista. The 60-foot diesel-powered vessel was built in 1943 by Wheeler Shipbuilding of Brooklyn, New York, as a light armored target practice boat, US Navy C-1994, and modified postwar to accommodate 12 people. "Granma", in English, is an affectionate term for a grandmother; the yacht is said to have been named for the previous owner's grandmother.
The 26th of July Movement was a Cuban vanguard revolutionary organization and later a political party led by Fidel Castro. The movement's name commemorates the failed 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba, part of an attempt to overthrow the dictator Fulgencio Batista.
The Cuban exodus is the mass emigration of Cubans from the island of Cuba after the Cuban Revolution of 1959. Throughout the exodus, millions of Cubans from diverse social positions within Cuban society emigrated within various emigration waves, due to political repression and disillusionment with life in Cuba. Between 1959 and 2023, some 2.9 million Cubans emigrated from Cuba.
Herbert Lionel Matthews was a reporter and editorialist for The New York Times who, at the age of 57, won widespread attention after revealing that the 30-year-old Fidel Castro was still alive and living in the Sierra Maestra mountains. President Fulgencio Batista claimed publicly that the young guerrilla leader had been killed during the landing of the yacht Granma, bringing him and others back to Cuba from Mexico in December 1956.
Juan Almeida Bosque was a Cuban politician and one of the original commanders of the insurgent forces in the Cuban Revolution. After the rebels took power in 1959, he was a prominent figure in the Communist Party of Cuba. At the time of his death, he was a Vice-President of the Cuban Council of State and was its third ranking member. He received several decorations, and national and international awards, including the title of "Hero of the Republic of Cuba" and the Order of Máximo Gómez.
Relations between Cuba and Venezuela were established in 1902. The relationship deteriorated in the 1960s and Venezuela broke relations in late 1961 following the Betancourt Doctrine policy of not having ties with governments that had come to power by non-electoral means. A destabilizing factor was the Cuban support for the antigovernment guerrilla force that operates in remote rural areas. Relations were reestablished in 1974.
The mass media in Cuba consist of several different types: television, radio, newspapers, and internet. The Cuban media are tightly controlled by the Cuban government led by the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) in the past five decades. The PCC strictly censors news, information and commentary, and restricts dissemination of foreign publications to tourist hotels. Journalists must operate within the confines of laws against anti-government propaganda and the insulting of officials, which carry penalties of up to three years in prison. Private ownership of broadcast media is prohibited, and the government owns all mainstream media outlets.
Alexander Ivanovich Alexeyev was a Soviet intelligence agent who posed first as a journalist and later a diplomat. His arrival in Havana on 1 October 1959 inaugurated a new era in Cuba–Soviet Union relations. Alexeyev was later appointed as the Soviet Ambassador to Cuba, and played a vital role in easing tensions during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Jorge José Ricardo Masetti Blanco, also known as "Commander Segundo", was an Argentinean journalist and guerrilla leader. Born in Avellaneda, Masetti entered the jungle at Salta and after 21 April 1964 was not heard from again. He was the founder and the first director of the Cuban news agency Prensa Latina, and became the leader of one of Argentina's first guerrilla organizations, the Guevarist People's Guerrilla Army.
Cuban foreign policy during the Cold War emphasized providing direct military assistance to friendly governments and resistance movements worldwide. This policy was justified directly by the Marxist concept of proletarian internationalism and was first articulated by Cuban leader Fidel Castro at the Organization of Solidarity with the People of Asia, Africa and Latin America in 1966. However, as an informal policy it had been adopted as early as 1959, shortly after the Cuban Revolution. It formed the basis for a number of Cuban military initiatives in Africa and Latin America, often carried out in direct conjunction with the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact member states which provided advisory or logistical support. These operations were often planned by the Cuban general staff through an overseas headquarters known as an internationalist mission.
The consolidation of the Cuban Revolution is a period in Cuban history typically defined as starting in the aftermath of the revolution in 1959 and ending in the first congress of the Communist Party of Cuba 1975, which signified the final political solidification of the Cuban revolutionaries' new government. The period encompasses early domestic reforms, human rights violations continuing under the new regime, growing international tensions, and politically climaxed with the failure of the 1970 sugar harvest.
The emigration of Cubans, from the 1959 Cuban Revolution to October of 1962, has been dubbed the Golden exile and the first emigration wave in the greater Cuban exile. The exodus was referred to as the "Golden exile" because of the mainly upper and middle class character of the emigrants. After the success of the revolution various Cubans who had allied themselves or worked with the overthrown Batista regime fled the country. Later as the Fidel Castro government began nationalizing industries many Cuban professionals would flee the island. This period of the Cuban exile is also referred to as the Historical exile, mainly by those who emigrated during this period.
Cuba–Ethiopia relations refers to the bilateral relations between Cuba and Ethiopia. Both nations are members of the Non-Aligned Movement and the United Nations.
The Antonio Maceo Brigade was a political organization in the mid-1970s composed of Cuban Americans that demanded the right of Cuban exiles to travel to Cuba and to establish good relations with the Cuban government. The group was mainly composed of young Cuban Americans that had developed leftist sympathies from experiences in the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement, and were generally critical of anti-Castro rhetoric. The group was invited to Cuba personally by Fidel Castro. The visit brought a brief period of warmer Cuba-United States relations and brought attention to the Cuban-American left.
The Huber Matos affair was a political scandal in Cuba when on October 20, 1959, army commander Huber Matos resigned and accused Fidel Castro of "burying the revolution". Fifteen of Matos' officers resigned with him. Immediately after the resignation, Castro critiqued Matos and accused him of disloyalty, then sent Camilo Cienfuegos to arrest Matos and his accompanying officers. Matos and the officers were taken to Havana and imprisoned in La Cabaña. Cuban communists later claimed Matos was helping plan a counter-revolution organized by the American Central Intelligence Agency and other Castro opponents, an operation that became the Bay of Pigs Invasion.
The idea of the Cuba de ayer is a mythologized idyllic view of Cuba before the overthrow of the Batista government in the Cuban Revolution. This idealized vision of pre-revolutionary Cuba typically reinforces the ideas that Cuba before 1959 was an elegant, sophisticated, and largely white country that was ruined by the government of Fidel Castro. The Cuban exiles who fled after 1959 are viewed as majorly white, and had no general desire to leave Cuba but did so to flee tyranny.
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