New Photos of long-abandoned missile sites (updated)

In October 2009, Secretos de Cuba posted photos of the former Soviet missile sites in Cuba. These pictures, some of which are reproduced in the slideshow above, show how nature has retaken what used to be nuclear missile bunkers and launch sites.
I wonder who took the pictures and how they wound up on the Secretos de Cuba website. If anyone knows the photographer, let me know and I'll add a photo credit.
A high-resolution screensaver of the photos is below.

Update:
A reader in Germany kindly sent in a message giving the source of the photos on this page. It appears that a Danish railroad engineer named Martin Trolle took the pictures. Here's a link to Martin's Flickr page.
Ernesto Hernández Busto posted a link to the photos in November 2009 on Penúltimos Días, along with link to an article with more information about the sites.
The story was published in the Journal of Social Anthropology.

Ex-CIA spy loyal to Fidel Castro until the end

Philip Agee, regarded as traitor by U.S. officials, died in Havana in January 2008.

Former CIA spy Philip Agee turned against the U.S. government in the 1970s, saying he didn't believe the American government should be interfering in the affairs of Latin American nations. He outed hundreds of American agents and became an outspoken critic of the CIA.
Agee traveled to Cuba frequently and eventually settled in Havana and opened a travel agency.
He appeared from time to time at press conferences and spoke out against U.S. attempts to undermine the socialist government. I shot these photos during a press conference in mid-May of 2003.
Around that time, in an article that appeared in Counterpunch, Agee wrote that:

 ...regime change, as overthrowing governments has come to be known, has been the continuing U.S. goal in Cuba since the earliest days of the revolutionary government. Programs to achieve this goal have included propaganda to denigrate the revolution, diplomatic and commercial isolation, trade embargo, terrorism and military support to counter-revolutionaries, the Bay of Pigs invasion, assassination plots against Fidel Castro and other leaders, biological and chemical warfare, and, more recently, efforts to foment an internal political opposition masquerading as an independent civil society.

 

Scenes from a tourist resort in Holguin province

Photos taken at the Paradisus Rio de Oro in Guardalavaca, Cuba.

American politicians and others continue to debate whether Congress ought to lift the ban on travel to Cuba.
These photos give you a glimpse of a resort in Guardalavaca in the province of Holguin.

Taino Indian show at Paradisus Rio de Oro

Dance show at Paradisus Rio de Oro

Born at the beach

A mixed-breed puppy born at the house I rented in Tarara, Cuba.

Scenes from countryside in Holguin province

Posada Carriles joins Damas de Blanco march

Luis Posada Carriles. Photo credit: Reuters

Luis Posada Carriles, who is awaiting trial on perjury, immigration fraud and other charges, marches with supporters of the Damas de Blanco in Miami.

Link:
Along the Malecon's Anti-Castro militants page

Ready for action

A rooster struts around across the street from Parque Central.

Flashback: Damas de Blanco in 2004

Laura Pollan, leader of Damas de Blanco, has been in the news lately, gaining the support of Cuban-American stars Gloria Estefan and Andy Garcia. These photos show her in her Havana home in June 2004.

The slideshow below includes more photos of Laura Pollan along with pictures of Yolanda Huerga and her son, Gabriel, when they lived in Havana.
Huerga's husband, Manuel Vazquez Portal, was among 75 dissidents, journalists and others arrested in March 2003.
His release came a few weeks after I shot these photos.

Play ball

Latin American Stadium, Havana

Young soldiers in Havana

The fish eye

On stilts, hoping for tips

Gettin' juiced

Death from above

Watch out for falling debris.

Ready to capture that moment

This is one of the photographers who sells pictures to tourists outside the Capitolio.

Accused crook falls for Tropicana dancer

In case you haven't seen it, Juan Tamayo wrote a fascinating story in the March 15 issue of the Miami Herald. Here's the opening:

He's an eccentric British antiques collector, middle-aged and a bit of a dandy. She's a fetching young dancer from Cuba's famed Tropicana nightclub.
Improbably, they fell in love. Even more improbably, they got themselves entangled in a bit of foreign intrigue involving a purported former Fidel Castro bodyguard and a stolen Shakespeare manuscript, the latter 387 years old and worth millions.

Photo credit: Daily Mail stories here and here

Future scenarios: Battle of ideas or guns?

The sign behind Fidel Castro says battles in the future will be fought with ideas, not guns. But I wonder whether the fight over Cuba will eventually turn violent.

Walking the streets of Havana

The women above must be tourists, don't you think? The water bottle is a dead giveaway.

The women below are Cubans.

March issue of CubaNews is out

The March issue of CubaNews was published on March 15. It contains a story I wrote about Vicki Huddleston, the former chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.
Huddleston headed the Interests Section from 1999 to 2002. She and Carlos Pascual, now the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, recently wrote a new book, "Learning to Salsa: New Steps in U.S.-Cuba Relations."
Huddleston and Pascual suggest that U.S. officials take unilateral steps to engage Cuba as part of a strategy that would gradually lead toward the normalization of relations.
Huddleston told me that unless U.S. policy toward Cuba changes, there is a risk "that Cuba will evolve without us." Then, "when change really comes" to Cuba, "we will be inconsequential."
CubaNews also reprinted portions of an Along the Malecon post called, "A correspondent's life: What the heck was I complaining about?" A section of a Reporters without Borders report is inadvertently reproduced in the CubaNews report as if I wrote it. Just to clarify, I'm including an image of the report below to show the section of the report that referred to in my post, but didn't write.

Granma complains after baseball fans kill bird

Industriales fans tormented and killed a defenseless bird while celebrating a bases-loaded home run in a game against the Sancti Spíritus Roosters. Granma complained and called for sanity.

Havana fixer-upper

Luxury at the Marina Hemingway

One day I spotted a yacht called the Blue Narwhal at the Marina Hemingway.

Getting hitched in Cuba

The happy couple takes off for ride along the Malecon.

New OFAC rules on export of Internet services to Cuba

OFAC today also published new rules on export of Internet services to Cuba. Click here for summary of new Cuba rules and here for the entire 21-page document.

Updated OFAC air and travel list is out

Old Havana street corner

The Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, released today an updated list of air, travel and remittance services to Cuba.

Cattle along the road near Havana

 

Photo taken on the way to Jose Marti International Airport

The ambassador's pooch

Here's an Afghan hound named Havana. This was Vicki Huddleston's dog while she led the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.

Vicki Huddleston bio

Castro's 76th birthday

 

The 2002 cartoon shown above is a tribute to Fidel Castro. Gerardo Hernandez, one of the Cuban Five, drew it while at a federal prison in Lompoc, Calif.

 

Havana soccer team

Dancing her time away at the beach

Eight or nine years ago, I often spotted this good-humored old lady dancing and entertaining tourists at Playas del Este. I don't know what became of her.

A Cuban sugar mill

John Lennon in Havana

John Lennon

Fidel Castro attended the unveiling of a John Lennon statue at a Havana park in December 2000.
The ceremony came 20 years after a gunman murdered Lennon in New York. Castro said of Lennon:

What makes him great in my eyes is his thinking, his ideas. I share his dreams completely. I too am a dreamer who has seen his dreams turn into reality.

A Cuban artist created the bronze statue. The problem was, people kept stealing Lennon's glasses. So authorities stationed a guard near the statue so that wouldn't happen.

Scene from outskirts of Havana

Plantains, fresh from the countryside

Link:
Recipe for tostones

This little piggy

All smiles along Paseo del Prado