Blogger Yoani Sanchez, who's been commenting on Cuba for the Observers since its launch, has been selected by Time Magazine as one of "the world's most influential people". Fidel Castro, on the other hand, didn't quite make it. Read more...

Granma, Cuba's official news site, has just announced that Fidel Castro has given up his presidency of the country. On hearing the news we immediately called our Observer in Havana, blogger Yoani Sanchez, to get her reaction. As the news had not yet been broadcast on Cuban TV or radio, Sanchez was unaware of the declaration and gave an initial reaction of "a sense of relief". She said she believes that the Cuban system could now evolve into something similar to the Chinese regime. Read more...

Granma's front page on Tuesday morning.

Seeing Cuban students openly criticise the Castrist regime in front of Parliamentary President Ricardo Alarcón is not easy to imagine. But it's true. And the proof, in this video sent to the BBC by an anonymous source, has now become a huge online hit. Is the nearing end of Fidel Castro's reign bringing about improvements in freedom of speech, or is it a publicity stunt to better outside views of the authorities? Our Observer in Cuba, blogger Yoni Sanchez, gives us her opinion. Read more...

UPDATE (12.0207 / 17.00): One of the students, Eliecer Avila, was uncontactable for just over a day, leading to the belief that he has been arrested. He reappeared this Monday in an interview on Cuban television (see in post), where he denounced the way the foreign media ‘manipulated' his statement.

Material from Team Observers.

In a country where the media is completely state-owned, this young Cuban blogger is extremely brave. In this post, she talks about the release of the Academy Award-winning German film, ‘The Lives of Others'. Set in Communist East Germany in the mid-1980s, the film tells the story of a Stasi agent assigned to monitor an East-German playwright suspected of subversive intellectual pursuits. The film details the alarming efficiency of the East German snooping machinery, including bugs planted in apartments and around-the-clock monitoring of a suspect's private life.

But for Yoani, the film is not so much about ‘the lives of others' as it is the lives of people she knows - as well as her own - in Castro's Cuba. Read more.

Post your questions to Yoani Sánchez.