TASK DEFINITION: Given a document, generate a short title of the document. The title should convey the main idea/event/topic about which the document is being written. Note that URLs in the text have been replaced with [Link].
PROBLEM: Nelson DeMilleâs new novel  The Cuban Affair  takes us on a hard-hitting adventure through modern-day Cuba and makes some memorable points about todayâs tense political situation along the way. DeMille has an incredible gift for perfectly capturing a characterâs voice and unique personality. His protagonist in The Cuban Affair is 35-year-old former US Army infantry officer Daniel Graham MacCormick  or Mac for short.
Originally from Portland  Maine  we meet  Mac  once  he âs become a charter fishing boat captain in Key West  Florida. We never fully hear about  Mac âs tour in Afghanistan except for some traumatic combat memories  but weâre told  he  has a Silver Star  two Purple Hearts  and shrapnel wounds  so DeMille makes it clear that  Mac  saw heavy action.
DeMille reintroduces Mac into some abrupt  heart-racing action in The Cuban Affair. The story is told from the first-person point of view and is an action-packed  rollicking tale. After heâs approached by a group of mysterious Cuban expats in Key West   Mac  gets talked into a top-secret mission to recover $60 million in U.S. cash and property deeds from a cave in Cuba that were hidden during Castroâs violent overthrow of Fulgencio Batista in 1959.
 Mac  feels like thereâs something fishy about the whole operation  but eventually signs on  enticed in part by a beautiful Cuban-American woman  Sara  who will be his partner for the mission. DeMille showcases his humor throughout the book  such as when Sara is talking  Mac  into accepting the mission. Theyâre out on  Mac âs charter boat and Sara tries to appeal to his sense of adventure and his sense of right and wrong  with mixed results:
âDonât talk yourself out of this   Mac . Thereâs a sayingââ Iâd rather regret the things I did than the things I didnât do.â â
 Mac   of course  ends up taking on the mission and getting  himself  in hot water after traveling to Cuba under the cover of a Yale educational tour then breaking away to get the hidden money. Things donât go as planned and the book ends up taking a few sharp zigs and zags as it rockets to its conclusion  but this refreshing  zany  and cynical sense of humor is a great recurring feature throughout the book.
Demille also doesnât shy away from the hard topics. Heâs uncompromising in his look at the sadness of modern Cuba and the empty rhetoric of its socialist revolution.  Mac  doesnât really care about what happened in Cuba and comes across as basically apolitical: He just wants to get the money and the girl.
There are complications  naturally. The money is buried in a rural cave in a heavily armed police state full of citizen informants and the girl has a boyfriend. Nonetheless  despite his focus on the basics and disinterest in politics   even Mac  starts to feel disillusioned after arriving in Havana and looking around at the state of things. âRevolutions usually replace one group of incompetent autocratic assholes with another  and the real losers are everyone else  â Mac  ponders at one point.
When  he  finds out about the food situation in Cuba itâs even more sobering. Sara explains to  him  that Cuba is basically half starving as they look around an organic farm:
Even as Sara and Mac traverse Cuba and get into big trouble  DeMille keeps the laughs coming. Itâs quite funny that DeMille puts a character called Richard Neville (clearly a humorous stand-in for himself) into the book. Neville is a bestselling adventure author traveling with  Mac âs tour group in Cuba to research a book and Mac notices Nevilleâs highly attractive wife (a real âlookerâ). Not believing she could really be into the grouchy writer   Mac  surmises she must be attracted to Neville for âthe bulge in his pants â his wallet  not his crotch.â
Neville and  Mac  also have a bit of a rivalry for Sara and a competing inside joke about Ernest Hemingway that is hilarious. As Neville takes photos in front of Hemingwayâs house in Cuba:
As  Mac  and Sara work to get the money they run into a citizen informer  or chivato. He tries to buy them off in return for his silence that he suspects they are up to funny business and explains how things really work in the Communist paradise:
In another part  Mac  and Sara walk through the nicest neighborhood of Havana and are shocked at what they see  which is outright hypocrisy:
In the end  The Cuban Affair manages to combine just the right amount of sassy and sad. It doesnât focus all on doom and gloom  nor does it pretend that everything is merely a joke. At its most profound âteachable moment â  Mac  concludes that life is messy and the truth about humanity lies somewhere in between optimism and blackpill nihilism.  He  concludes that human affairs are complex and paradoxical  alternately bringing out the best and worst in different individuals.
In  his  acknowledgements  DeMille mentions that  he  did personally go on a Yale educational tour of Cuba to prepare for the bookâRichard Neville  indeed.  He  also thanks various friends  family  and colleagues who helped and advised  him  on the book. One is especially telling  because it shows that this book comes from the source:
Iâd like to thank a man who I met in Cuba  and who gave it to  me  straight about contemporary Cuban politics  culture  and life. He wishes to remain anonymous for obvious reasons  but heâs given himself the code name âLola.â Thank you  Lola  wherever you are  and take care.

SOLUTION: Nelson DeMille Presents A 'Cuban Affair' To Remember

PROBLEM: In an interview with NHK after polls closed   Abe  said  he  would push for an amendment.
“The ruling parties have been granted a majority ”  he  said. “I think it was the people’s voice telling us to make progress in politics and bring results with a stable political base.”
For a leader touting stability  the election had been a gamble.  Abe  had called the vote more than a year early  justifying it by saying that  he  needed a new mandate to deal with the threat posed by North Korea and to work through the details of a consumption-tax increase.
Many analysts said  Abe ’s motive was more opportunistic  however  with the prime minister taking advantage of the disarray of the Democratic Party  Japan’s main opposition party  and a small bump in  his  approval ratings after a number of scandals earlier this year.
The LDP has long dominated postwar Japanese politics. For many Japanese voters   Abe ’s leadership represents stability after years of short-lived governments before  he  returned to the prime minister’s office in 2012.
Some analysts suggest  however  that the weakness of the opposition may mask discontent with  Abe  and a lack of support for many of  his  policies. One exit poll cited by Kyodo showed 51 percent of voters saying they don’t trust  Abe   while 44.1 percent said they do.
Koichi Nakano  a professor of political science at Sophia University  said that the election exposed a lack of widespread support for  Abe ’s policies.  Abe  did not win “because people enthusiastically support  him  ” Nakano said. “People are disaffected and the opposition is divided.”
The bad weather may have also helped  Abe . The approaching Typhoon Lan left voters battling strong winds and heavy rain to make it to polling stations. On Monday  Kyodo estimated the final turnout at 53.69 percent  only marginally above a record low in the 2014 election.
Despite the rain  a number of voters could be found exiting a polling station in Tokyo’s cosmopolitan Roppongi neighborhood Sunday morning. Nobue Koizumi  a 67-year-old retired translator  said she had felt compelled to vote because of fears about  Abe ’s security policies.
“I don’t particularly support  Abe   but I do support” the LDP  said Hiroki Shinohara  a 54-year-old wholesaler at the Tsukiji fish market. “I feel it’s doing what’s right for Japan  and Japan needs it.”

SOLUTION: Japan election: Shinzo Abe's coalition wins supermajority

PROBLEM: The Socialist government of George Papandreou has a six-seat majority in parliament and is expected to carry the vote to be held after midnight.
 "Reform was long overdue " Papandreou told Newsweek magazine in an interview released on Wednesday.
 "Right now people are in limbo " Papandreou admitted on Wednesday.
 "Our drastic measures are still fresh  and people feel the pain. Reforms need time to kick in and show results " he said.

SOLUTION:
Greece to vote on 2011 austerity budget