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No one should be surprised at reports that at least some captured Taliban fighters have been tortured in Afghanistan. This is, after all, a country that barely is functioning. Was every single detainee handed over by Canadian soldiers to Afghan authorities in 2006-07 tortured, as alleged by former diplomat Richard Colvin? We'll never know. Even a public inquiry, as demanded by the Liberals and the NDP, wouldn't be able to ascertain how every captured Taliban insurgent was treated by either Afghan prison officials or that country's infamous National Directorate of Security. It's great that Corrections Canada officials regularly monitor prisons...

Nearly 50 years after a botched US-directed invasion of Cuba, the communist nation said Saturday it is holding a military exercise next week to boost preparedness against any future US attack. "It is a necessity of the first order given the political-military situation that now defines relations between Cuba and the empire," Major General Leonardo Andollo warned, referring to the United States. He told the official Granma newspaper that the "Bastion-2009" exercises will "raise the deterrent capacity to prevent a military confrontation, under the principle that there is no better way to win a war than by avoiding it."

"Venezuela's Central Bank announced on Tuesday that the country's economy fell into a recession in the third quarter, with the gross domestic product (GDP) tumbling 4.5% from the same period last year. But not to worry. Venezuela's genius dictator, Lieut. Col. Hugo Chávez Frías, got the country out of the recession in just one day!..."

Americans shouldn’t worry. Although, the economy is diminishing, jobs are dwindling, soldiers are dying, and a new health care plan might just restructure the nation and cost the taxpayers billions of dollars, our Commander-in-Chief is looking out for us. In fact, he’s in China right now—improving our relations and receiving a hero’s welcome. But, does he deserve it? After a rocky rating month, President Obama’s presidential approval rating has stabilized, states Rasmussen Reports. 28% of American voters strongly approve of his performance, and 38% strongly disapprove. However, 48%, the highest number this year, give Obama poor rankings in the way...

Out of work and willing to relocate? McDonald's is advertising for an assistant manager for its sole franchise in Cuba — serving up burgers and fries that sometimes feed detainees at the prison camps at Guantanamo Bay. The help wanted ad popped up recently at the McVirginia.com careers Web site featuring the Golden Arches, a headline "Find a Career @ McDonald's" and this enticement: "Enjoy the perks." It didn't specify salary but said, "Candidates must have restaurant management experience, possess a valid United States passport and be willing to relocate to Cuba." Other incentives include half your rent paid and,...

The Russian and Cuban governments have signed four agreements for oil exploration and production on the Caribbean island, official media reported. Under the accords, Russian state energy firm Zarubezhneft has been given permission to operate for 25 years in blocks located in the Cuban provinces of Matanzas, Sancti Spiritus, Villa Clara and Ciego de Avila, Cuban state television said. Cuban Basic Industry Minister Yadira Garcia and Russian Deputy Trade and Industry Minister Ivan Materov attended the signing ceremony, which took place at Russia’s pavilion at the International Trade Fair in Havana, which got underway on Monday. The deal represents the...

<p>HAVANA - Secret police agents abducted and beat award-winning blogger Yoani Sanchez, whose online reports chronicle the dark side of everyday life in communist Cuba, on her way to a march for non-violence, she said Saturday.</p> <p>Three agents in street clothes snatched her and friend Orlando Luis Pardo off the street in the Havana district of Vedado.</p>

Penultimos Dias has word that Yoani Sanchez and other Cuban bloggers have been arrested in Havana.Yoani Sánchez, Orlando Luis Pardo, Ciro Díaz and Claudia Cadelo among those arrested. Cadelo is reported to have already been released. Details on whereabouts of other dissident bloggers are still sketchy. UPDATE 6:46 EST: Im told all were picked up, harassed, manhandled and released at some distance away from where the march was to take place. Will keep updating as the news trickles in.UPDATE 7:15: Penultimos Dias reports the Yoani and Orlando were verbally abused and severely beaten. Yoani was told that "this is as...

Cuban refugees are dominating arrests in Florida's indoor marijuana trade in what investigators call a nearly punishment-free crime. ....young Cubans throughout the state are turning to the lucrative business of raising ultra-potent pot worth up to $4,500 a pound, without fear of deportation or lengthy prison sentences. Probation is a common sentence for anyone convicted in state court of running a growhouse, drug agents say. And, unlike other foreign-born felons, U.S. policy prevents the deportation of Cubans. South Florida groups identified by law enforcement as Cuban Drug Trafficking Organizations control hundreds of growhouses that have sprung up from Miami to...

HAVANA (AP) - Michael Douglas staged an impromptu walking tour of the Cuban capital's historic district Tuesday, posing for photos with construction workers and surprised residents. His visit came two days after fellow Oscar-winner Sean Penn arrived in Cuba, reportedly seeking an interview with 82-year-old Fidel Castro, who has been little seen since announcing he was suffering from an unspecified illness in July 2006. He stepped down as Cuba's president in February of the following year and was replaced by his brother Raul. Penn traveled to the Isle of Youth, off mainland Cuba on Monday to meet with local artists....

Sean Penn is exercising his journalistic skill, reporting from inside Cuba. The Oscar winner has embarked on a short trip to the island on assignment for Vanity Fair and The Huffington Post. Rumours have circulated that he might interview Fidel Castro. But his rep told E! News that there were no plans to meet up with the ailing former leader. If he were to, it would not be the first such encounter. In 2005, his family held a lengthy meeting with Castro whilst holidaying in Cuba. ... Past overseas assignments for the actor turned journalist include stints in Iraq, Iran...

Juanita Castro, sister of Cuban rulers Fidel and Raúl Castro, cooperated with the CIA in the 1960s -- a time when the U.S. agency was plotting to assassinate Fidel and overthrow his revolution -- according to an exclusive Univisión-Noticias 23 report on her newly published book. The report also revealed that Juanita, who broke with her brothers' revolution in 1964, hid government opponents in her home; that Fidel refused to visit her because the house was ``surrounded by worms;'' and that their mother often intervened with Raúl to help Castro critics, jailed or fugitive. Described as the Castro family's best-kept...

The younger sister of Fidel and Raul Castro, Juanita Castro, collaborated with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency against her brothers' rule in Cuba before going into exile in Miami in 1964, she said on Sunday. Juanita Castro, 76, who has not spoken to either of her brothers for more than four decades, made the revelation to the Spanish-language TV channel Univision-Noticias 23 on the eve of the publication of her memoirs about Fidel and Raul Castro. The book in Spanish entitled "Fidel and Raul, My Brothers, the Secret History," co-written with Mexican journalist Maria Antonieta Collins, is being published on...

MADRID - U.S. President Barack Obama asked Spain to send Cuba a message about reform when he met Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero earlier this month, the newspaper El Pais reported on Sunday. Six days after their meeting on October 13 at the White House, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos visited the Caribbean island and met President Raul Castro. "Have (Moratinos) tell the Cuban authorities we understand that change can't happen overnight, but down the road, when we look back at this time, it should be clear that now is when those changes began," Obama told Zapatero, according...

"Obama asked Spain to send a message to the Castro brothers Oct. 25 - President Barack Obama asked Spain to send Cuba a message about reform when he met Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero earlier this month, the newspaper El Pais reported on Sunday..."

Anita Dunn—Pots and Kettles By Humberto Fontova Friday, October 23, 2009 So Obama’s Communications director, Anita Dunn, bashes Fox as a “propaganda arm” for the Republican party? Considering that Gregory Craig serves as Obama’s chief White House counsel, Ms Dunn’s rant shames most accusations from pots to kettles. When a Republican administration uses their chief counsel to scheme with a Stalinist dictator to shanghai a little boy and then collude with a major network in a Potemkin TV show to bamboozle America—when we have any proof of anything resembling this criminal swinishness—then we’ll take Anita Dunn’s accusations quasi-seriously. To wit:...

As he returns to New Orleans today after a six-day junket in Cuba, Mayor Ray Nagin almost certainly will face questions about the latest addition to his collection of controversial comments. Nagin told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he thinks Cuba's repressive regime does "a much better job" than U.S. officials of identifying citizen needs and deploying resources in the face of hurricanes, which routinely batter the Caribbean nation. Though Hurricanes Gustav, Ike and Paloma all struck the island last year, only seven Cubans were killed, in part because authorities use soldiers to close highways and enforce evacuations. Harking...

If Americans want a glimpse of all of the good that can be done for children if our Senate decides to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), we need look no further than 90 miles off the coast of Florida. For a shining example of the success of internationalism, Cuba is the United Nation’s latest poster child. In articles released this week by official Cuban news agencies, UNICEF representative José Juan Ortiz praised Cuba for being “able to apply the UN Convention on Children’s Rights in a way which is truly a model.” Cuba? --...

Under Cuba's communist system, the government calls all the shots all the time — but during monster hurricanes that may not be such a bad thing, New Orleans' mayor says. In an interview during his six-day trip to Cuba's capital to study the island's disaster-response system, Ray Nagin told The Associated Press that "one of the biggest weaknesses we had during Hurricane Katrina is it wasn't clear who was the top authority." "The president and the governor were going back and forth. ... in Cuba you don't have that problem," Nagin said Tuesday evening. "The government says, 'This is what...

Come for the Disaster Preparedness Lecture, Stay for the Totalitarianism   [Mark Hemingway] It was in the web briefing yetserday, but my eyes nearly popped out of my head when I finally read "New Orleans mayor learns about disaster response in Cuba." So one day after President Obama is in the Big Easy, Mayor Ray Nagin heads off to Cuba to learn about disaster preparedness? What does the Cuban government possibly have to teach us? Here's the Cuban disaster preparedness plan in a nutshell: Kill off the private economy for 50 years so that when a hurricane comes you don't have...

New Orleans, Louisiana, Mayor Ray Nagin arrived in Cuba late Friday on a mission to learn about how to deal with storms, a spokeswoman said. "We understand we may have a lot to learn from the Cubans in terms of disaster preparedness and how they have dealt with hurricanes," spokeswoman Ceeon Quiett said. Cuba is internationally applauded for exceptional disaster management, according to a news release from Nagin's office. In the Cuban capital, Havana, Nagin plans to meet with several officials, including some from the Latin American Medical Centers for Disaster. He will also learn about preparations the Cuba Defense...

I am a little delusional. Until a minute before the Maria Moors Cabot prize ceremony – held yesterday – I thought the Cuban government would change its decision and let me leave. So I saved the recording I made at the Immigration Office on Monday, October 12. Today, seeing that I am in the same place, I have decided to publish it, thinking especially of all those who are going through the same experience. Emotion – having so much to say – did make me speak at a velocity difficult to subtitle, but I feel the relief of having said...

A fugitive who has been living in Cuba for four decades to avoid prosecution for his role in an airline hijacking surrendered to federal law enforcement authorities in New York on Sunday, ending his distinction of being one of the F.B.I.’s longest-known fugitives. Louis Armando Peña Soltren, 66, was arrested at 1:30 p.m. after debarking his plane from Havana...An F.B.I. spokesman said Mr. Soltren had arranged his return to Kennedy International Airport with the F.B.I. and State Department because he wanted to see his family, including his wife, who lived in either Puerto Rico or Florida.*** Nearly 41 years ago,...

An Aeroflot Airbus A330-200, registration VQ-BBF performing flight SU-334 (dep Oct 7th) from Havana (Cuba) to Moscow Sheremetyevo (Russia), was enroute overhead the Atlantic at FL350 about 320nm southeast of New York, when the crew talking very good English reported a passenger (German citizen) had become sick and requested to divert to New York's JFK Airport, but changed their diversion destination to Toronto,ON (Canada) just before reaching the top of descent into JFK about 120nm southeast of JFK. The airplane landed safely on Toronto's runway 24R about 2.5 hours after the first decision to divert and about 4.5 hours after...

Former Cuban leader says award is a "positive measure" Former Cuban Leader Fidel Castro celebrated President Obama's controversial Nobel Peace Prize win early Saturday, saying the commander in chief's honor was a "positive measure" that was intended to criticize past U.S. leaders -- not Obama's achievements in particular. Castro wrote in a column for Cuban media that he didn't generally agree with the Nobel Committee's decisions but that their choice on Obama was one he could throw his support behind. "I'm obligated to recognize that in this instance it was, in my judgment, a positive measure," he wrote. The former...

One question that has repeatedly been asked vis-à-vis the Honduran situation (it doesn't seem quite fraught enough to be termed a "crisis") is why so many members of the Western elite, governmental and otherwise, insist on backing Manuel "Mel" Zelaya, despite any number of reasons not to. A quick recap: Mel Zelaya, evidently acting out of a form of Chavez-worship, attempted to carry out a referendum that would allow him to run for another term as president. Honduras, like many other Latin countries, has endured the malignant phenomenon of the "president-for-life", which the U.S., partially excepting FDR, has been spared,...

Che Guevara: Assassin, Coward, Imbecile Humberto Fontova Thursday, October 8, 2009 “SENTENCE first – VERDICT afterwards,” said the Queen. “Nonsense!” said Alice loudly. “Off with her head!” the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. – Alice In Wonderland They say Lewis Carroll was a serious dope fiend, his mind totally scrambled on opium, when he concocted “Alice in Wonderland.” A place where the sentence comes first and the verdict afterward? Where people who protest the madness are sentenced to death themselves? What lunacy! If only Carroll had lived a bit longer. If only he’d visited Cuba in 1959...

The United States and Cuba are taking baby steps toward each other. Since President Obama called for a ``new beginning,'' his administration has allowed unlimited family travel and remittances, resumed migration talks, proposed direct-mail service and given its blessing to the concert by Colombian pop star Juanes. In the past 10 months, the State Department issued 5,500 more visas for Cubans to visit the United States than in the same period before October 2008. When news leaked that Bisa Williams, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, had traveled to Cuba, eyebrows were raised. Over six days,...

Aired Live on October 5, 2009- Michael Savage has a direct message for Michael Moore.

Cuba is ready to use just about everything at its disposal, from its well-oiled civil defense system to the soldiers of a totalitarian government, to keep swine flu cases to a minimum. Everything but a vaccine. As the U.S. prepares an extensive health survey for side affects from its extensive inoculation plans, Cuba’s No. 2 health official says relying on a shot to contain a world pandemic is risky as best — and demoralizing at worst. "Nobody knows if it would work," said Dr. Luis Estruch. "How safe would it be?" Cuba’s sophisticated public-monitoring system and geographic isolation as an...

SPY THREAT: CATCH AND RELEASE -- A Veteran Counterintelligence Officer Warns America International News Analysis Today September 30, 2009 By Toby Westerman America is about to be forced into a dangerous game of catch and release with deadly spies, threatening both national security and the morale of the U.S. intelligence community, warns veteran counterintelligence officer Christopher Simmons in a exclusive interview with International News Analysis Today. Christopher Simmons is director and founder of the Cuban Intelligence Research Center. International coercion, attacks on national security, lies and misinformation spread in the media, and the murder of American citizens are part of...

A senior American diplomat has held high-level talks with the Cuban government in Havana, state department officials are reported to have said. The talks between the two nations were the first of their kind in years, the Associated Press news agency reports. State department official Bisa Williams held the unannounced talks with Cuba's deputy foreign minister during a visit to Cuba earlier this month, AP says. A US trade embargo on Cuba remains, but there are signs relations are easing. Earlier this month, Ms Williams, the deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, was part of a US...

On the eve of the French Revolution, the aristocrats inhabiting the palace of Versailles enjoyed, “as an ironic lark, sporting the clothing of the working classes,” according to writer Charles Stenson. These pampered elites were undisturbed by the fact that their peasant getups mocked the real peasants, many of whom were dying as a result of the elites’ self-serving policies. These clueless aristocrats have descendents in spoiled college kids who think it’s trendy to idolize Communist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Che’s face is emblazoned on T-shirts, he was glamorized by the movie “The Motorcycle Diaries,” and Time magazine described him...

HAVANA — President Raul Castro is taking a bold gamble to ease communist Cuba's cash crunch by eliminating a costly government lunch program that feeds almost a third of the nation's population every workday. The Americas' only one-party communist government, held afloat largely by support from its key ally Venezuela, is desperate to improve its budget outlook; the global economy is slack, and Havana is very hard pressed to secure international financing. Raul Castro, 76, officially took over as Cuba's president in February 2008 after his brother, revolutionary icon Fidel Castro, stepped aside with health problems. Though some wondered if...

El Libro Sensacional! Castro's Sis Dishes on Bro in New Book Exiled sister will publish book about brother Fidel Castro The world will soon get a rare glimpse into the life of one of the most controversial political figures of the past half century when the sister of Fidel Castro publishes her tell-all book next month. Juanita Castro has lived in Miami since 1964, when she fled her native Cuba, and now her book, Fidel y Raul, Mis Hermanos (Fidel and Raul, My Brothers) will finally hit store shelves on Oct. 26,according to the Miami Herald. The 432-page Spanish language...

Cubans began taking a hard look this week at entrenched customs like food rationing, pilfering on the job, cradle-to-grave subsidies and black market trading in a national debate called by President Raul Castro.

HAVANA, Sept. 20 -- Rock-and-roll diplomacy came to the communist isle on a smoldering afternoon, as hundreds of thousands of Cubans filled the Plaza of the Revolution on Sunday and sang along to a dozen international musical acts led by the Colombian singer and peace activist Juanes. The free "Peace without Borders" concert was criticized by hard-line Cuban exiles in Miami as a propaganda coup for the Castro brothers, and that it might have been. But for thousands of young Cubans, it was a rare treat to hear Latin music stars such as Olga Tanon of Puerto Rico and Miguel...

US President Barack Obama has welcomed plans for a massive but controversial concert in Havana on Sunday by Miami-based music star Juanes. Obama told US Spanish language network Univision that the concert, which is expected to draw around half a million Cubans, could help improve ties with Cuba. Obama's Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had met the Colombian singer before he left for Cuba, with both drawing criticism from Miami's Cuban exile community for a performance they say will legitimize the island's communist regime. "My understanding is that he's a terrific musician. He puts on a very good concert," Obama...

Video Linky CNN ad responds to Fox ad's claim: "Fox News: distorting, not reporting" - 9/18/2009

HAVANA, September 18 (RIA Novosti) - Modernization of the Soviet-made military equipment and training of Cuban military personnel will be the focus of Russian-Cuban military cooperation in the near future, the chief of the Russian General Staff said on Friday.

Cuba's foreign minister on Wednesday lashed out at US President Barack Obama for keeping in place a crushing, 47-year-old trade embargo against the communist island, despite having recently eased travel and money transfer restrictions. "The economic blockade policy remains in place," complained Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, as he unveiled a report to be presented to the United Nations General Assembly on the negative impact of the embargo. "The arrival of a new US president has not meant any change at all" for Cuba Rodriguez said.

HAVANA (AFP) – Cuban Vice President Juan Almeida Bosque, a revolutionary commander who fought alongside Fidel Castro to bring down a pro-American dictatorship, has died. He was 82. An official communique issued through state media said Almeida, the number three official in the Americas' only communist regime, died late Friday from cardiac arrest. Almeida was one of just three top Cuban leaders to hold the title of revolutionary commander. As a black man in racially diverse Cuba, Almeida was an important visual symbol of a break with the past, particularly in 1950s Cuba, when racism and discrimination were common. His...

Jose Obdilio Duran's '57 Chevy has holes in its mottled floor, a passenger window that can't be rolled up and no inside panels on its doors. But the 71-year-old retiree wants to put the old car to work — applying for one of the first taxi licenses this communist country has granted in a decade. About 60 would-be taxi drivers lined up early Friday at a Transport Ministry office in central Havana to fill out forms for permission to use their own cars as taxis — a rare dose of the free market on an island whose economy is dominated...

HAVANA (AP) - A Cuban appeals court upheld a two-year prison sentence for "public dangerousness" against a man who became an Internet celebrity after......(click here)

America and its allies in the past 20 years have assumed that the best way to stabilize the developing world is to export democracy. As a result, the ballot box has become a stand-in for substantive political reforms, resulting in chronic instability or – worse yet – elected autocracies.By Gerard DeGroot Anastasio Somoza, the notorious Nicaraguan dictator deposed in 1979, was no great believer in democracy. "I would like nothing better than to give Nicaraguans the same kind of freedom as that of the United States," he once remarked. "But, it is like what you do with a baby. First...

Visiting Chinese top legislator Wu Bangguo (L) shakes hands with Fidel Castro, first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, in Havana on Thursday.

The Treasury Department formally lifted nearly all U.S. restrictions on family travel to Cuba on Thursday, along with limits on how much money families can send to relatives on the island. The department also eased regulations prohibiting U.S. telecommunications and satellite linkages between the United States and Cuba and licensing requirements for visitors engaged in agricultural and medical sales. President Obama first announced most of the changes in April as part of a general opening that he said would allow Americans to reach out to the Cuban people, and he ordered Cabinet departments to take steps to implement the changes....

HAVANA – Cuban state media have released a second recent photo showing Fidel Castro in regular civilian clothing instead of the track suits that he commonly wore after falling ill in July 2006. In the picture, the 83-year-old Castro is shaking hands with the visiting head of the Chinese parliament in the walled backyard of an undisclosed home. Castro is wearing a red, short-sleeve dress shirt as he greets National People's Congress leader Wu Bangguo. ..

The US Treasury Thursday eased restrictions on travel and money transfers to Cuba, a move aimed at promoting "greater contact between separated family members in the United States and Cuba." The move follows an April 13 announcement by President Barack Obama that Washington would lift curbs on travel and money transfers by Cuban-Americans to the island. The 47-year-old US economic embargo on Cuba however remains.

(English-language translation) HAVANA (AP) — The United States should implement the announced permission for Cuban-Americans to travel to Cuba, and the island should respond by eliminating exit restrictions on its citizens, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson recommended. This was one among a list of suggestions the American devised during his visit to the island, which ended on Friday. "There is a very good environment, the best I have seen in many years," Richardson stated in relation to a possible approach between the two countries. According to the governor, "humanitarian" steps should be taken to stimulate links between people [involved] in...