HAVANA - Cuba's government and independent online news site El Toque exchanged blows this week after state-run media accused the website of manipulating the black market currency exchange rate to impoverish Cubans and stoke unrest on the Caribbean island.
"El Toque is secretly financed by the United States and establishes a false value of the peso in relation to the dollar," said a story in the state-run media outlet CubaDebate. "The strategy aims to foment protests in Cuba.
"The Communist Party has decided to convert our platform, elToque, into a scapegoat to justify its failure," El Toque's Miami-based editor-in-chief, Jose Jasan Nieves, said in a message sent by email to readers.