A lot of my diplomatic counterparts in Havana look completely bemused when I talk to them about Twitter or tell them what my last blog was about. That’s not because they don’t know what Twitter or blogging is but because they don’t really see social media as playing a role in their daily diplomacy.

When Fernando Gonzalez walks out of an Arizona prison next week, the "Cuban Five" will be down to three. Intelligence agents in the employ of Fidel Castro's Cuba, they were arrested in the United States in 1998 and given terms ranging from 15 years to consecutive life sentences on charges including conspiracy and failure to register as foreign agents. 

A popular U.S. provider of massive open online courses is being prevented from offering lessons to students in blacklisted countries. This will do more harm than good. The United States frequently fancies itself a defender of online freedom, serving up stern words to regimes which censor and control the Internet.

Europe is set to upgrade its ties with Cuba in a bid to broaden economic cooperation and demand more progress on respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms, a senior European Union official said Thursday. The 28-nation bloc's foreign ministers will endorse a mandate to negotiate a new, broad political agreement with Cuba at their upcoming meeting Monday, the official said.

A Cuban doctor working in Brazil has sought political asylum in the office of a conservative party complaining that Cuba's communist government takes too big a slice of her pay, a party official said on Wednesday. Ramona Rodriguez, 51, entered the office of the center-right Democratas party leadership in the lower chamber of Brazil's Congress on Tuesday afternoon and slept the night on a sofa, the official said.

A popular online education platform has blocked its services from Cuba, Iran and Sudan to adhere to US sanctions on international trading. Coursera, the social entrepreneurship company to offer Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC), has more than 21 million student enrollments in over 180 countries. Coursera co-founder Andrew Ng told The Stream there have been thousands of failed attempts to login since the block was initiated last Friday.

Cuban President Raul Castro called on Latin American and Caribbean leaders Tuesday to work together on pressing regional problems at a gathering of all Western Hemisphere nations except the U.S. and Canada.

In a rare demonstration of public dissent, dozens of Cuban artisans and vendors protested in the city of Holguín this week, marching to local government offices and demanding the right to work without government harassment, witnesses said.