The more things change ...

Unconfirmed but strong reports from Cuba that one of the students who tackled Ricardo Alarcon, the president of the rubberstamp Parliament, on the need for (moderate) change on the island has been taken into custody by agents from the political police.

You may recall that several students used a meeting at the Computer Sciences University (UCI) in Havana to ask a range of “difficult” questions of a visibly shaken Alarcon.

The meeting was filmed and a video of the session was then leaked by someone to the BBC, resulting in substantial international coverage ... which appears to have upset the regime, going by this narky little commentary in yesterday's online edition of Juventud Rebelde, the newspaper of the Union of Communist Youth.

Well, the student who is supposed to have been arrested or at least taken away by police is Eliécer Ávila, who was one of those shown on the leaked video taking the slimmy Alarcon to task over the ban on overseas travel, the cost of essential goods and low wages.

For updates, you can visit www.penultimosdias.com