Cuba unblocks access to controversial blog

Below a Reuters story confirms the Cafe Fuerte report from yesterday that Generacion Y is now back on-line and open for business in Cuba.  Let's hope it doesn't last just until the end of the week when the computer science conference ends and all the visiting techies return home to spread the good news.

My only question is this: 

The fiberoptic cable arriving from Venezuela, the cyber-police video, the announcement of the Alan Gross charges and trial, the computer science conference in Havana, Raul now calling the shots, and now GY back on line...  

While this may all seem coincidental, not everyone thinks so.  Just what are the segurosos up to?  

See Phil Peters latest post at The Cuban Triangle (which argues that it is all a slick production courtesy of Cuba's Ministry of the Interior) and Zoe Valdes' blog for some sharp analysis and interesting speculation. 

Cuba unblocks access to controversial blog

HAVANA (Reuters) - Dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez said on Tuesday the Cuban government apparently has unblocked access to her blog, which had been off limits on the island's Internet since 2008.

In a posting on Twitter, she wondered how long Cuban Internet users would be able to view her Generation Y blog, (www.desdecuba.com/generaciony/), but exulted in the opening, however brief.

"In the long night of censorship, a small hole has opened. My blog Generation Y returns to the insular light," the 35-year-old blogger said.

Her blog, which criticizes the Cuban system and the difficulties of daily life on the communist-led island, is little known in Cuba, where Internet access is limited, but she has an international audience.

Sanchez has become the new face of political opposition in Cuba, replacing an old guard less conversant in new technologies, and she has earned the enmity of the Cuban government, which frequently criticizes her on its websites.

She was mentioned prominently last week in a leaked videotape of a government meeting about the Internet as the new battlefield in Cuba's ongoing ideological conflict with the United States.

Sanchez has won a number of international prizes and was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine in 2008.

Her blog is translated into 15 languages and she has more than 100,000 followers on Twitter.

A Cuban government official did not respond to questions about why Sanchez's blog has been unblocked, but it came as Cuba hosted an international computer science conference.

(Reporting by Nelson Acosta and Esteban Israel; Editing by Jeff Franks and Paul Simao)