Word: cuba
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Despite all that, Chávez vows to keep spending, especially on social programs such as public housing and health. He has also flaunted his petro-wealth over the past few years, by giving money and free oil to allies like Bolivia and Cuba. Such generosity may be unsustainable, as Chávez is discovering. He provided cheap heating oil to poor Americans in New York, Massachusetts and elsewhere until last week, when Venezuela's financial meltdown forced him to scrap the program...
...Cuba's fertile land and favorable climate allowed all three types of tobacco leaves used in a cigar - the wrapper, filler and binder - to be harvested on the island, and sailing ships were soon distributing Cuban tobacco from Europe to Asia. Columbus had claimed Cuba for Spain, and the Spanish soon cornered the nascent industry, mandating in the 17th century that all tobacco for export be registered in Seville; they later tightened their stranglehold on the market by forbidding Cuban growers to sell the crop to anyone but them - a monopoly that persisted until...
...change was bad news for the U.S.; Castro's regime (and American attempts to eliminated it) prompted the Bay of Pigs debacle, closed off a beautiful country with a vibrant music culture, and - possibly worst of all - triggered a 46-year-old trade embargo that has deprived Americans of Cuba's most prized export: its vaunted cigars...
...Lula da Silva - who is the head of Brazil's Workers Party and supposedly the Castros' leftist soulmate - is perhaps Latin America's most acclaimed capitalist leader. Capitalism's excesses get deservedly excoriated for causing today's global catastrophe. But even Venezuela, which helps prop up Cuba's economy with cut-rate oil, has made it clear in recent elections that it's not the socialist hotbed that its left-wing President Hugo Chávez dreams of. Yes, the hypocritical drill among Latin leaders is that they censure Washington publicly but Havana privately. Still, most of them believe Cuba...
...that the Cuban revolution doesn't deserve its due. It overthrew one of Latin America's most putrid dictators, championed the poor (still a rare thing to do in Latin America) and showed the U.S. that its worst Monroe Doctrine impulses (not to mention the Mafia that was overrunning Cuba then) could be thwarted. People buy Che Guevara T shirts for more than just the lefty chic. The Miami exiles (many of whom backed Fidel Castro before he went communist) deserve their props too, despite the Elian Gonzalez mess. Most were not corrupt oligarchs and gusanos (worms, as Fidel Castro...