Cats and dogs, China, and Cuba
Stephen Pollard writes on Sir Paul's animal crackers (also at Times on Line)

Sir Paul and Lady Heather are so exercised by the plight of some cats and dogs that they will now refuse to travel to China, and are demanding a worldwide boycott of Chinese goods.

As for the imprisonment and judicial murder of thousands of dissident human beings, not a pip from either of them.

Not that anyone should be surprised. It is the same liberal mindset that lavishes praise on Fidel Castro as a hero, rather than condemning him as a tyrant. Castro learnt well from his Soviet backers, and rounds up and imprisons opponents just as they did. In March 2003, 75 prisoners of conscience (as Amnesty has designated them) were sentenced to prison terms of up to 28 years for peacefully opposing the regime.

In China, while the current environmental crisis turns political, not only is there imprisonment and judicial murder of thousands of dissident human beings, there's an active trade in their remains, as Lost Budgie has blogged about, and the imprisonment and murders continue. In Cuba, they can kill you, or they can leave you to rot in a dungeon the size of a latrine.

As for Castro, he's blocking internet use, but of course, it's all because of the embargo,

Private persons in Cuba cannot legally buy computers or sign up for regular Internet service without government permits that are almost impossible to obtain. . .
. . .
Earlier this month, the France-based organization Reporters Without Borders denounced Cuba as one of a dozen nations with the most controlled and least accessible Internet. It lumped Cuba with Iran and Vietnam.

I guess there won't be any old Beatles downloads, and that's probably fine with Sir Paul.

Not that one can afford a lot of downloads on an extra $7 a month if you only were making $15/month to begin with:

Cuba's Communist Party daily newspaper says that the pay rises will be the first some civil servants have been awarded in 23 years.

Workers with masters degrees will receive a bonus of up to $4 a month. Doctors will get an extra $7.

The raw figures might seem low but in Cuba - where the average monthly salary is around $15, and accommodation healthcare and education are free, the rises will be welcome. Perhaps all the more so because they come at the same time the Cuban government is launching a campaign against those that supplement their salaries through illicit means.

Gotta love how the Beeb must remind us that accommodation-healthcare-and-education-are-free, as if we hadn't heard it already. It's a good thing Cubans don't have to subscribe to the Beeb, since $14/month (after all that free-accommodation-healthcare-and-education) wouldn't cover the proposed £200 licence fee.

Fidel, of course, has been supplementing his salary to the tune of $3,900,000,000 through the UBS laundering service. I call that "illicit means", don't you?

(technorati tags China, censorship, Cuba)