cuba in november i posted a query as to whether anyone on the list , particularly in the usa , had had any experience of , or problems with , communicating with cuban academics . only four people replied , which may in itself be significant . anyway , thanks to those four for their communications . to summarise : 1 . two people i know have been asked for offprints by linguists at havana university . 2 . there was an exhibition by some ' third world ' americans at the biennial contemporary art exhibition just held in cuba , reported in the november issue of ' new art examiner ' . 3 . some academics received last year a call for papers for an international conference in cuba including areas on speech processing , computational linguistics etc . the contact was : dr eloina miyares bermudez ( cmstg @ ceniai . cu ) . 4 . one respondent from the list told me that it is possible to e-mail cuba from the us . there is another source of information in the form of an e-mail list in spanish , espana - l @ albnyvm1 . bitnet , which is primarily a social list for people who speak spanish ( spanish is the language of the list ) and are spanish or interested in spain . the cuba-l list can be read and contributed to worldwide . on several occasions , a member has forwarded something from cuba to the list , including recently a cri de coeur quoting passages of the cuban constitution and demonstrating that it was actually a travesty . the original writer , a cuban , was very openly decrying the cuban constitution . the poster quoted por - tions of the constitution , then gave examples of how the regime flouts it to the harm of the cuban people and the self-aggrandizement of castro , the local police captain , or " the system " in general . that writer seemed to have no fear of retribution , as if the cuban list were the only safe place to speak up , and were indeed safe , unlike whispers in the corner bar . the correspondent finishes : " castro can't keep cubans from speaking freely , and the us government can't keep americans from listening to or talking with the cubans . " if anyone else wishes to comment , please forward your communications to me , and i ' ll produce another summary . paul . foulkes @ uk . ac . newcastle