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• Cuba travel ban under discussion in Washington
• President Obama's responses to Yoani Sanchez (in English)
• Yoani Sanchez's letter to Rep. Howard Berman

Parts of Cuban blogger's essay read aloud in House

A high-octane effort to let U.S. tourists visit Cuba got a major endorsement Thursday from one of the island's leading dissidents, who suggested that ``along with suitcases, Bermuda shorts, and sunblock, support, solidarity, and freedom could come too.'' Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez, who this week drew the attention of President Barack Obama, wrote in an essay to House Foreign Affairs chairman Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., that lifting the ban on U.S. travel to Cuba ``could bring more results in the democratization of Cuba than the indecisive performance of Raúl Castro.''

``Both peoples,'' she wrote of Cubans and Americans, ``would come out winners.''

Berman read portions of Sánchez's essay at an impassioned hearing in the House Foreign Affairs Committee on whether to lift the travel ban, after critics and supporters of the decades-old ban cited Sánchez's recent beating and detention at the hands of Cuban security forces to criticize the Castro regime.

Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez gets answers -- from President Obama

Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez Thursday posted President Barack Obama's answers to seven questions she sent him in an effort to engage in a bit of "popular diplomacy."

Sánchez also posted in her popular blog, Generacion Y, seven questions to Raúl Castro, but it was not immediately clear when the questions were posed to the Cuban ruler.

She wrote to the two leaders, the blogger noted, because for too long ``Cubans have resigned themselves to having no one `up there' explain or consult with us the road this island will take, so much like a ship taking on water and at the point of sinking.''

Cuba fighting blogs with blogs

Cuba is counter-attacking its cyber-foes with government backers calling them mercenaries and CIA agents, but sometimes admitting it's difficult to fight Internet critics like well-known blogger Yoani Sánchez.

``There must be a defense, but how?'' wrote one government supporter on Progreso-Weekly.com ``If you [answer] them, you validate them. If you ignore them, you confirm them. If they are repressed, they are empowered. And if they are not repressed, they are also empowered.''

The answer seems to be to counter-attack. Half-a-dozen posts referring to a ``media war'' and the need to ``man the trenches'' in ``defense of the revolution'' have popped up on pro-government blog sites in the past three weeks.

Cuba travel ban under discussion in Washington

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen blasted efforts to open Cuba up to U.S. tourists Thursday during a House Foreign Affairs Coomittee meeting, suggesting the tourist dollars would only keep the regime in power.

``If you desire to come to a warm tropical climate, come to my district,'' she said. ``Let's not fill the coffers of the Cuban regime.''

Committee chairman Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., said travel to Cuba is in the U.S. national interest.

Report: Cuba's Raúl Castro as ruthless as Fidel

Cuba's government remains as repressive under Raúl Castro as it was under his brother Fidel, according to the first in-depth report on the island's human rights since the younger Castro took power.

Titled ``New Castro, Same Cuba,'' the report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) details a skein of cruel pressures on dissidents, relatives and friends that belie initial hopes Raúl Castro would be different.

``Castro inherited a system of abusive laws and institutions. . . . Rather than dismantle this repressive machinery, Raúl Castro has kept it firmly in place and fully active,'' said the report, released Wednesday in Washington.