Cuba search engine trawls Castro speeches, not Web

Cuba search engine trawls Castro speeches, not Web
By Esteban Israel2 hours, 10 minutes ago

Cuba built an Internet search engine that allows users to trawl through
speeches by Cuban leader Fidel Castro and other government sites, but does
not browse Web pages outside the island.

The search engine (www.infosoc.cu/buscador) unveiled at a conference this
week underscored restrictions on Internet access in communist-run Cuba,
which the government blames on U.S. trade sanctions.

Cubans cannot buy computers and Internet access is limited to state
employees, academics and foreigners. Cubans line up for hours to send
e-mails on post office terminals that cannot surf the World Wide Web.

Passwords are sold on the black market allowing shared Internet use for
limited hours, usually at night.

Cuba's first search engine can search any subject, but only on Cuban
servers, or the Cuban intranet, including 150,000 government sites and the
state-run media. It has a special function key on the homepage to browse
through hundreds of Castro's speeches since day one of his revolution in
1959.

"The aim is to search Cuban Web sites without having to rely on foreign
engines," said its creator, Leandro Silva.

Cuba has the lowest rate of Internet usage in Latin America, 1.7 users per
100 inhabitants, according to the International Telecommunication Union.

Critics, such as rights watchdog Amnesty International, say Cuba restricts
Internet usage to limit freedom of expression.

Cuba says Internet access is not available because of sanctions enforced by
its longtime ideological enemy the United States that block connection to
broadband fiber optic cables running undersea just 12 miles off shore.

Opening this week's IT conference in Havana, Communications Minister Ramiro
Valdes said Cuba was forced to "rationalize" use of scarce Internet
bandwidth in priority sectors such as scientific research, education and
health care.

"Despite the fact that international fiber optic cables run very close to
Cuban shores, the rules of the blockade prevent connection to these," Valdes
said.

Cuba is forced to use a costly satellite channel with only 65 megabytes per
second (mbps) for upload and 124 mbps for download, he said.

VENEZUELAN CONNECTION

Cuba has turned to its main ally, Venezuela, to bypass the U.S. embargo and
increase its Internet capacity by laying a 1,000-mile fiber optic cable
between the two countries.

"A fiber optic cable will allow faster connection and significantly lower
costs," Valdes said.

Havana initially saw the Internet as a U.S. Trojan horse designed to
undermine its one-party state and quickly decreed its "selective" use in the
"national interest."

Cuba harnessed the Internet as a tool in developing one of the most advance
biotech industries in the Third World. It has also been a boon to the
Caribbean island's tourist trade and provided a medium for Havana to get its
views on the Web.

One expert on Cuba said Washington blocks Cuban access to high-speed
Internet to hinder Cuba developing a knowledge-based economy based on a
well-educated low-wage population.

"It is Venezuela that will give Cuba the real-time connectivity it needs,"
said Nelson Valdes, a professor of sociology at the University of New
Mexico.

"This will open the huge world of Internet business to the island and Cuba's
human capital could transform Havana into another Mumbai," he said.

(Additional reporting by Anthony Boadle)

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