Simon Calder: Cuba as risky as Darfur? Don't make me laugh

[PaulaFarrell]

http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/simon-calder/simon-calder-cuba-as-risky-as-darfur-dont-make-me-laugh-1029213.html
<snip>

Yes, the Caribbean's largest island is currently so dangerous that a large travel insurer is refusing to cover British holidaymakers who go there. Direct Travel is happy for its policyholders to visit turbulent nations such as Colombia and Indonesia; yet the historic heart of Havana, the tobacco plantations of Pinar del Rio and the beach at Varadero are deemed to be in the same risk category as Helmand in Afghanistan and Darfur in Sudan.

Why should an island that welcomes hundreds of thousands of British holidaymakers every year suddenly find itself consigned to the danger zone? For the answer, Direct Travel referred me to its parent company, AIG, which recently took over the insurer. The company told me it decided earlier this year "that the risks arising from the continued provision of cover under our travel policies in respect of destinations such as Afghanistan, Cuba, Liberia and Sudan were unacceptably high at the present time".

It seemed only diplomatic to call the Foreign Office and warn them that, according to a travel insurer that issues 2 million policies a year in Britain, the last bastion of communism in the West poses "unacceptably high" risks to holidaymakers.

The press officer I spoke to in the news department had just himself returned from a holiday in Cuba, miraculously unscathed. He kindly put me on to Matthew Forbes, the Foreign Office man with one of the best job titles on the planet: Head of Mexico, Central America, Cuba and Hispaniola. It's fair to say he was sceptical about Direct Travel's characterisation of Cuba as too risky to cover: "Our travel advice doesn't recommend against travel there. Large numbers of British travellers go there every year. It's certainly not a dangerous destination."

<more at link>

[justinaforjustice]

1. Another Attack on Socialism

This is just another delusional attack on countries which do not toe the line to U.S. foreign policy. Cuba is safer than Washington D.C.

[amdezurik]

2. an attack from a comapnay that just took

mega-bucks of "welfare" itself.

[MasonJar]

3. Must be the thinking that caused AIG to need a bailout. Great! Taxpayers

need to revolt.

[Lautremont]

4. I've been there, and I've prowled the mean streets of Havana.

It's a great place!

[Judi Lynn]

5. Other DU'ers have been there tons of times, and they all express they feel TOTALLY safe in Cuba.

This includes an outspoken Canadian DU'er, "Freecancat," who doesn't post here any longer due to her impatience with trolls, who has been there time after time, since her country doesn't forbid it, and if she saw this gibberish she would raise holy hell about it.

Absolutely outlandish. This guy has to be on someone's payroll. He's trying his hand at "perception molding." Lying out his ass for propaganda purposes.

"So dangerous." That's a hot one.