Cuban search engine

Just the other day, I was joking about Cuba trying to get its own search engine to avoid the imperialist evil of Google. In fact, they just unveiled one, called Dos por Tres and anyone can give it a whirl. The catch, of course, is that you can only access approved Cuban government sites. There is a huge bonus, though, in a special feature that allows you to search through a huge electronic database of Fidel speeches.

When I did searches, the results were mostly from Radio Habana. So, for example, after typing “Fidel salud” (Fidel health) the first result was news that “important Guatemalan personalities” hoped for Fidel’s recovery. I typed in “Bush” and the first result was from the website “Cuba Socialista” and entitled “Bush’s re-election and the Cuban counter-revolution.” Exciting stuff. I also learned that the Cuban government has a website dedicated entirely to Elián González.

Finally, I had to take a look at the speech database, but unfortunately it seemed to offer the exact same results as any of the other categories (general, images, press, etc.). It’s still a beta version, so we’ll have to wait.