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HAVANA (Reuters) - President Barack Obama is trying to make positive changes in the United States, but is being fought at every turn by right-wingers who hate him because he is black, former Cuban leader Fidel Castro said on Tuesday. In an unusually conciliatory column in the state-run media, Castro said Obama had inherited many problems from his predecessor, George W. Bush, and was trying to resolve them. But the "powerful extreme right won't be happy with anything that diminishes their prerogatives in the slightest way." Obama does not want to change the U.S. political and economic system, but "in...

There’s something deeply wrong with journalism that scrutinizes and criticizes the institutions of free and successful nations, but produces puff pieces on the supposed achievements of totalitarian dictatorships. On Thursday, CNN aired a piece of Communist Party propaganda about how Cuba could serve as “a model for health care reform” in the United States, complete with an authoritative sound bite from an American medical expert, identified only as someone “who’s lived and worked in Cuba for decades.”But the expert, Gail Reed, is a longtime admirer of the Cuban revolution, married to the Cuban official who served as ambassador to Grenada...

The agreement signed last week between Cuba and a Russian oil company to explore waters in the Gulf of Mexico raises a question that seems almost like a joke - if Cuba can explore for oil and gas off the coast of Florida, how come the United States can't?

HAVANA (Reuters) - President Raul Castro said on Saturday he would not change Cuba's communist system to make peace with the United States, but repeated his willingness to discuss all issues with the island's longtime enemy. In a speech to the Cuban National Assembly, Castro acknowledged the United States under President Barack Obama was less "aggressive" toward Cuba, but he expressed irritation with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for saying repeatedly that Washington expected Havana to make changes in exchange for better relations. "I have to say, with all due respect to Mrs. Clinton ... they didn't elect me president...

The United States has not had formal diplomatic relations with Cuba for more than four and a half decades, however since the Carter administration the U.S. has maintained an “Interests Section” in Havana. Ambassador James Cason (retired) is the former head of the U.S. Interests Section (USINT) in Cuba, and in 2006 he had an electronic news ticker installed across the windows of the top floor of the building. In June of this year the sign went dim, along with any hope that the Obama administration would take a stand in favor of liberty for the Cuban people who have...

HAVANA, July 30 (Reuters) - Havana's famous seaside avenue, the Malecon, could be mistaken for Hollywood Boulevard this week as four high profile film stars come to the Cuban capital in the splashiest sign yet of warming U.S.-Cuba relations. Benicio del Toro, Bill Murray, Robert Duvall and James Caan arrived in Cuba on Wednesday, with del Toro in town to pick up an award and the other three working on a "research project," a spokesman for the group said on Thursday. The spokesman, who asked not to be identified, said the stars were accompanied by other people in the movie...

(English-language translation) Radio Martí - The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved by acclamation the nomination of Cuban theologian Miguel Díaz as U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, an appointment that must be ratified by the full Senate. If confirmed, 45-year-old Havana native Díaz would be the first Hispanic U.S. ambassador to the Holy See since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1984. Díaz, the son of a waiter and a typist, was the first member of his family to earn a university degree. He studied at the University of St. Thomas and the University of Notre Dame, working as professor at...

The Obama administration has caved to demands from Fidel and Raul Castro's government to shut down a U.S.-sponsored electronic billboard in Havana. This is a symbolic step backward in America's mission to promote freedom.

The Obama administration has turned off an electronic sign at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana that displayed pro-democracy and human rights messages to Cuban passers-by. The news 'zipper' on the fifth floor of the American Interest Section in the Cuban capital had riled the government for the past three years. But it is now shut down amid the administration's efforts to engage with Cuba's leadership that has already seen some U.S. sanctions eased. 'We believe that the billboard was really not effective as a means of delivering information to the Cuban people,' spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters. He noted...

HAVANA (Reuters) - The United States has turned off a news ticker at its diplomatic mission in Havana that had long irritated the Cuban government, in another sign of efforts to improve relations with Havana, western diplomats said. The ticker, which streamed news, political statements and messages blaming Cuba's problems on the country's communist system and socialist economy, had infuriated former President Fidel Castro when it was turned on in January 2006 at a moment of high political tension with Washington. President Raul Castro took over from ailing elder brother Fidel last year.

In condemning the removal of Honduran President Mel Zelayaya by the Honduran military, Pesident Obama stands shoulder to shoulder with the Fidel Castro and his thug epigones Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega. Zelaya sought to conduct an illegal referendum to extend his rule. The Honduran military has sought to enforce the rule of law by providing for Zelaya's departure from the scene. Mary Anastasia Grady explains:

Forget the mission of Cuba to the OAS or the moves by the Obama Administration to have a constructive dialogue with Cuba. Let’s face it, change needs to come from the people on the island. To see that change, we need to focus on the grassroots. Like a breath of fresh air, things are shifting within Cuba. Non-violent civic movements are gaining attention and influence both on and off the island. Hope is being restored for the ever so desperate youth. With acclaim both on and off the island most people think of Yoani Sanchez as the guiding light for...

National Security: Amid all the neighborly talk about new U.S. efforts to engage Cuba, the arrest of a State Department official as a Cuban spy ought to be a wake-up call about the intentions of the Castro dictatorship.Last Friday, federal agents arrested Walter Kendall Myers, 72, and his wife Gwendolyn, 71, as unregistered Cuban agents. The Feds said the pair had been spying for Cuba since 1979 and, like other agents in service to the Castro regime, didn't do it for money, but out of sympathy for communism and a loathing of the United States. For that, they stole not...

Fidel Castro called the case of two Americans accused of spying for Cuba "strange" Saturday and questioned whether the timing of their arrests was politically motivated. In an essay read by a newscaster on state television, the former Cuban leader noted that the retired Washington couple were taken into custody just 24 hours after the Organization of American States voted to lift a decades-old suspension of Cuba's membership in that group. Though the U.S. ultimately supported the OAS vote Wednesday, the administration of President Barack Obama initially wanted to see more democratic reforms on the communist island before Cuba was...

Hunting spies is difficult, but Cuban spies are notoriously hard to detect, former senior intelligence officials said a day after an American husband and wife were indicted on charges of spying for Cuba. Walter Kendall Myers and his wife Gwendolyn of Washington were arrested Thursday after a three-year investigation that began before Myers' retirement from the State Department in 2007. They had been spying for Havana for 30 years, according to the U.S. government. Investigations like this typically take years to come together because they usually turn on small pieces of information, and Cuban spies often leave few traces. Cuban...

They wouldn't have looked out of place at a yacht club with him dressed in a blue blazer and khakis and her sporting a soft tan but federal authorities say the appearance of Walter Kendall Myers and his wife, Gwendolyn Myers, belied a darker truth: For three decades, the couple spied for the Cuban government. Mr. Myers, a 72-year-old former State Department analyst with a top-secret security clearance, and Mrs. Myers, 71, appeared in federal court to answer charges of conspiracy to act as illegal agents of the Cuban government, passing classified information, and wire fraud. They each face 35...

SNIP Myers first began working for the State Department in 1977 as a lecturer at the department's Foreign Service Institute in Arlington, Virginia. But from 1988 to 1999 he began to work for its bureau of intelligence and research. In 1985, he was given top-secret security clearance which was then upgraded to a higher level in 1999. By the time he retired, Myers was working as a senior Europe analyst for the department's intelligence bureau and had daily access to classified information stored on computer databases, the Justice Department said. A scan of his computer showed that from August 2006...

When I heard this on the radio on the drive home the first thing I thought was, I’ll bet they’re democrats (socialist) and huge Obama supporters. Walter Kendall Myers, 72, aided by his wife Gwendolyn Myers, 71, used his Top Secret security clearance to pass on classified information to the Cuban government and at one point met with Cuban leader Fidel Castro, according to court documents. The two were charged with conspiracy to act as illegal agents of the Cuban government and to communicate classified information to Cuba, the Justice Department said. They were also charged with wire fraud and...

A former U.S. State Department official and his wife have been arrested for spying for the Cuban government for nearly 30 years, the Justice Department said on Friday. Walter Kendall Myers, 72, aided by his wife Gwendolyn Myers, 71, used his Top Secret security clearance to pass on classified information to the Cuban government and at one point met with Cuban leader Fidel Castro, according to court documents. The two were charged with conspiracy to act as illegal agents of the Cuban government and to communicate classified information to Cuba, the Justice Department said. They were also charged with wire...

A 72-year-old former State Department employee and his 71-year-old wife have been arrested and charged with illegally aiding the government of Cuba for nearly 30 years, the Department of Justice announced Friday. Walter Kendall Myers retired from the State Department in October 2007. Walter Kendall Myers and his wife, Gwendolyn Myers, were charged with conspiracy to act as illegal agents of the Cuban government, providing classified information to that government, and wire fraud, according to court documents unsealed in Washington. The couple appeared briefly Friday before a federal magistrate in Washington, who ordered them held without bail pending a detention...