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(English-language translation) HAVANA - In a column in a Cuban newspaper, former President Fidel Castro commented that the United States spends millions of dollars in the arms industry but its President Barack Obama has to "sweat blood" to offer healthcare to its population. "In 2008, some $1.5 trillion were invested in defense budgets. Forty-two percent of worldwide expenses in that sphere, $607 billion, belonged to the United States, excluding war expenses," the former leader added in "Reflections", the opinion columns he publishes in the Cuban media. "While those colossal expenses in killing technologies are produced in the United States, that...

Cuba's leaders are counting on Alberto Romero's eight cows to help turn around the island's struggling socialist economy. Private farmers like Romero, who belongs to a 219-member cooperative near the eastern city of Holguin, were overshadowed for years by Cuba's emphasis on large state farms. But the government recently began handing out idle state land to private farmers across the island in an effort to boost food production. "The government has put its faith in us, and we will show what we are capable of," said Romero, whose 20-acre plot has been in his family for 103 years. Cuba is...

...The Obama administration has approved a Sept. 20 peace concert in Havana's Revolution Square by Colombian rocker Juanes, who lives in Key Biscayne and is one of Latin music's hottest artists. Cuban officials say they are also looking forward to hosting the New York Philharmonic in late October. An orchestra spokesman confirmed that a trip to Cuba is being planned...Juanes visited Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to discuss plans for the concert.... Juanes, whose real name is Juan Esteban Aristizãbal, may need it. The concert is under attack from hard-line Cuban exiles in Miami who accuse Juanes of naively...

The new "chief diversity officer" for the Federal Communications Commission believes the so-called "Fairness Doctrine" was never repealed and advocates crippling $250 million fines for radio stations whose programming does not meet with the government's approval, charges the author of a book on the end of free speech in America. "Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski recently appointed Mark Lloyd, a former senior fellow at the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress, to be the FCC's 'chief diversity officer,'" says Brad O'Leary, author of "Shut Up America: The End of Free Speech." "Lloyd is a proponent of the 'Fairness Doctrine'...

HAVANA (Reuters) – Former Cuban President Fidel Castro marked his 83rd birthday on Thursday with a gloomy warning about the global economic crisis, which is hitting his country hard, and a vow to "carry on." Castro, the leader of Cuba's 1959 revolution that brought communism to the Caribbean island, has remained out of public view for the last three years and in 2008 handed over the presidency to younger brother Raul Castro for health reasons. But while he leaves day-to-day running of the government to Raul Castro, he remains influential behind the scenes and writes regular commentaries for state-run media....

Economic Systems: If you ever wonder why we so resist socialism, consider the latest news out of that collectivist island paradise known as Cuba.Central planners announced this week that they were fresh out of money to buy toilet paper — yes, toilet paper — for the island's 9 million citizens. But not to worry. A nameless official for state-run monopoly Cimex and quoted by Reuters assured that "the corporation has taken all the steps so that at the end of the year there will be an important importation of toilet paper." The predicament would be funny if it wasn't so...

SNIPPET: "In October 2009, as a result of successful appeals, a federal judge will reduce the sentences of five convicted spies who were part of the Cuban Wasp Network. Havana regularly refers to the spies as the "Cuban Five." One of the Wasp Network operatives who fled to Cuba, Juan Pablo Roque, abandoned a wife in the United States, whom he married only to obtain cover for his operations in the U.S. Simmons told International News Analysis that he is in process of completing a book about the "Cuban Five" and the cold-blooded manipulation of Ana Margarita Martinez, "the spy's...

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...

HAVANA – Cubans accustomed to hourslong speeches, thousand-word essays and lengthy interviews can now get Fidel Castro at a glance, thanks to a new dictionary of El Comandante's teachings. "Unemployment" and "History" are among the myriad words for which the 339-page paperback provides definitions — based on snippets of speeches, columns and statements dispensed by Castro during the 49 years he governed the communist-run island. The publication, which the government says is meant to provide guidance to Cuban thinkers, calls to mind the "Little Red Book" of the late Chinese communist leader, Chairman Mao Zedong.

The Obama administration's counterterrorism chief appeared to provide the first indication the administration may not make its January deadline for closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay in remarks Thursday that aimed to outline a new path for combating terrorism. The administration is folding measures to combat terrorists into its broader effort to engage other countries and improve social conditions overseas, said John Brennan, the president's senior counterterrorism adviser who also served as a senior intelligence official during the Bush administration. In defense of the Obama administration's national-security policies, which have come under fire from the left and right, Mr. Brennan...

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?

Energy: As Russian attack submarines patrol our eastern seaboard, Moscow signs a deal to help Castro's Cuba drill for oil off the Florida coast. In Moscow and Havana, the cry is "Drill, Comrade, Drill!"Two Russian nuclear attack submarines have taken up positions along our East Coast in recent days, another sign of renewed assertiveness by the former communist giant. The move comes as Moscow inks a deal with the communist relic of Cuba to drill for oil we refuse to go after. The submarines are of the Akula class, a counterpart to the Los Angeles class attack subs of the...

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...

HAVANA – Raul Castro announced Saturday that Cuba will cut spending on education and health care, potentially weakening the building blocks of its communist system in a bid to revive a floundering economy. The former defense minister who took over the presidency last year called state spending "simply unsustainable" and said the cash-strapped government would reorganize rural schools and scrutinize its free health care system in search of ways to save money. But he vowed that the island will not see fundamental change even after he and his older brother and predecessor Fidel Castro are gone. "I wasn't elected 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: It's hard to find a spare tire in Cuba these days, or a cup of yoghurt. Air conditioners are shut off in the dead heat. Factories close at peak hours, and workers go without their government-subsidized lunches. Cuba has ordered austere energy savings this summer, and the Council of Ministers and Communist Party Central Committee met this week to consider more cuts to cope with budget deficits and plummeting export profits. More likely, the shortages result from a global recession that hit an already struggling economy still reeling from last year's hurricanes. President Raul Castro told Cubans in a...

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...

HAVANA (Reuters) - Hollywood came to Havana on Thursday as Cuban writers and artists gave an award to Benicio del Toro, star of the 2008 movie "Che," in a ceremony attended by fellow actors Bill Murray, Robert Duvall and James Caan. Murray stole the show when he improvised a version of the song "As Time Goes By" then jokingly passed around a hat, asking for money. Their presence lent a bit of Hollywood glitz to warming U.S.-Cuba relations, and may have been the precursor for the making of a film in Cuba. A spokesman for the group said del Toro...

On July 27, 2009 Trinidadians marked the nineteenth anniversary of the failed attempt by the Jamaat al-Muslimeen (JAM - Muslim Association, known colloquially as “the Jamaat)” to overthrow the government in Trinidad and Tobago in a violent coup. Although JAM made international headlines in June 2007 when one of the suspects in an alleged plot to attack New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport was reported to have ties to the group, the enigmatic Caribbean militant group, composed mostly of Afro-Trinidadian converts to Islam, has received scant attention outside of Trinidad in recent years (see Terrorism Monitor, June 21,...

(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.

Russia is to begin oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, after signing a deal with Cuba, says Cuban state media. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin signed four contracts securing exploration rights in Cuba's economic zone in the Gulf. Havana says there may be some 20bn barrels of oil of its coast but the US puts that estimate at five billion. Russia and Cuba have been working to revitalise relations, which cooled after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia's Zarubezhneft oil concern will work alongside the Cubapetroleo monopoly in the deep waters of the Gulf. "Every time I...

WASHINGTON, July 29, 2009 – The Defense Department remains committed to meeting President Barack Obama’s one-year timeline to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Pentagon’s top lawyer said yesterday. “A bipartisan cross section of distinguished Americans has called for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, and has done so for a period of years,” Jeh C. Johnson, the Defense Department’s general counsel, said before the Senate Judiciary Committee. “The president imposed a deadline on us for closing Guantanamo Bay, and we remain committed to meeting that deadline, and we’re confident we’ll get the job done.”...

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...

July 27, 2009, 4:00 a.m. McNamara’s FollyThe road to failure in Vietnam. By Conrad Black The recent death of former U.S. defense secretary and World Bank president Robert McNamara, at 93, has raised again, in editorials and obituaries, the hoary head of the Vietnam War. Geeky in his thick, rimless glasses and slicked-back hair, expressionless, desiccated, fast-talking, and mechanically confident, McNamara was at the cutting edge of the managerial revolution—a business administrator, statistician, and efficiency expert. He was a mesmerizing figure for a time, especially after the Kennedy public-relations apparatus confected the myth of calibrated crisis management in the...

HAVANA, Cuba -- The United States has turned off a news ticker at its mission in Havana that had long irritated the Cuban government, diplomats said yesterday. The 5-foot-tall ticker, which streamed news reports and messages blaming Cuba's problems on its socialist economy, infuriated former President Fidel Castro when it was turned on in January 2006.

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.

Raul Castro said Sunday that the global economic crisis means tougher times ahead for Cuba, but the country has no one to blame but itself for poor farm production that leads to frequent shortages of fruits, vegetables and other basics. In a speech marking Revolution Day, Cuba's president said the island can't simply pin all its problems on Washington's 47-year-old trade embargo. He implored Cubans to take better advantage of a government program begun last year to turn unused state land over to private farmers. "The land is there, here are the Cubans," he said, pounding the podium. "Let's see...

More belt-tightening may lie head for Cuba as President Raul Castro said on Sunday the government will look at making its second "adjustment to expenditures" this year due to the effects of the global financial crisis. He said Cuba needs to press ahead with his program for getting more land into the hands of private farmers, calling the lone major reform of his administration a top national priority. Raul Castro said Cuban ministers will meet on Tuesday to consider revising spending plans for the rest of the year because "of the effects of the world economic crisis on our economy."...

WASHINGTON, July 24, 2009 – Plans to close the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, within President Barack Obama’s one-year time frame are on track, the Pentagon’s top lawyer said today. The military held about 240 detainees at the center when Obama pledged days after his inauguration in January to close the facility. Since then, the interagency group assigned to reviewing the cases has made recommendations on more than half, including approving the transfer of more than 50 detainees to other countries, Jeh C. Johnson, the Defense Department general counsel, told the House Armed Services Committee in a prepared...

U.S. Rep. Randy Forbes, just back from a fact-finding trip to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, says the visit reinforced his opposition to closing the facility and moving the detainees held there to the United States. President Barack Obama has pledged to close the prison by January, pleasing human rights advocates who said reports of inhumane treatment there stained the nation’s reputation. But the White House said Monday that a task force studying how to do that has been given another six months to deliver its recommendations. That delay poses a “huge difficulty” for prosecutors building cases...

The 47-year-old trade embargo against Cuba has been shaken by the revelation that drilling for oil and natural gas is about to take place less than 50 miles off the U.S. coast - in Cuban waters. No one knows for sure just how much oil lies off the northwest coast of Cuba, but the consensus is that it's sizable. The U.S. Geological Survey initially came up with an estimate in 2004 of between 5 billion barrels and 10 billion barrels. But Cuba's state oil company, Cubapetroleo, recently said the undersea geology was "very similar" to Mexico's giant Cantarell oil field...

Talks between Cuba and the United States on the thorny issue of immigration, suspended since 2003, will resume on Tuesday at United Nations headquarters in New York, the US State Department said. "Today, US and Cuban representatives will meet in New York to discuss implementation of the US-Cuba Migration Accords," the State Department said in a statement. "The discussions will focus on how best to promote safe, legal and orderly migration between Cuba and the United States." The US delegation, it added, will be led by Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Craig Kelly, and include...

HAVANA, July 11 (Reuters) - Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro predicted that Latin America would be swept by a wave of military coups if Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was not returned to power after his ouster in a June 28 coup. Castro, in a column published late on Friday on an Internet site run by Cuba's communist government, said right-wing military leaders trained by the United States could be encouraged to take up arms against their governments, depending on how the Honduras crisis turned out. "If President Manuel Zelaya is not returned to his post, a wave of coups threatens...

First Iran and now China. It seems the surest way to get a malign regime to slaughter its citizens is to have the Obama administration offer it an outsretched hand and a guarantee of indifference toward human rights abuses. Welcome to the Land of Hope.

The New York Philharmonic, hoping to notch another exotic destination in its touring history, said on Thursday it had been invited to perform in Cuba and was seriously considering such a visit. The orchestra’s president, Zarin Mehta, and other of its officials planned to travel to Havana on Friday to investigate concert halls, hotels and other logistical matters. The Philharmonic has received licenses to travel there, in light of the United States embargo. The trip would be yet another recent dip into cold-war waters for the Philharmonic. It would take place just a few days after the orchestra returns from...

Ousted President Manuel Zelaya has vowed to return to Honduras on Sunday, despite being threatened with arrest. In a speech on the regional TV channel, Telesur, Mr. Zelaya said he woul arrive along with several other presidents. Mr. Zelaya, who was forced out by the military on Sunday, criticised the leaders of the interim government and described them as traitors. The Organization of American States is holding an extraordinary session and is expected to vote to suspend Honduras. "I am organising my return to Honduras....This is the return of the president elected by the soverign will of the people," he...

It has been interesting watching the response to the Honduran military's recent ousting its nation's president, Manuel Zelaya.  Barack Obama called the action "not legal" and Hillary Clinton said that the arrest of Zelaya should be condemned.  Most interesting, perhaps, is that taking this position places them shoulder to shoulder with Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega and Venezuelan's roaring mouse, Hugo Chavez, who is threatening military action against Honduras.  Now, some would say this is an eclectic group - others would say, not so much - regardless, what has gotten them so upset?  Let's start with what they say.  They are...

WASHINGTON — President Obama on Monday strongly condemned the ouster of Honduras’s president as an illegal coup that set a “terrible precedent” for the region, as the country’s new government defied international calls to return the toppled president to power and clashed with thousands of protesters. “We do not want to go back to a dark past,” Mr. Obama said, in which military coups override elections. “We always want to stand with democracy,” he added. The crisis in Honduras, where members of the country’s military abruptly awakened President Manuel Zelaya on Sunday and forced him out of the country in...

Meeting in urgent session in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, the Organization of American States (OAS) issued a demand that Honduran President Manuel Zelaya be restored to power, calling his ouster earlier that day "an unconstitutional alteration of the democratic order." The OAS Permanent Council proclaimed that it would not recognize any government resulting from that "coup d'état." Pretty strong stuff--but too little, too late. Manuel Zelaya began his four-year term as president of the Central American Republic of Honduras in January 2006. The harsh fact is that most of his countrymen regarded Zelaya as a capricious blowhard who was too...

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: Yesterday the Central American country was being pressured to restore the authoritarian Mr. Zelaya by the likes of Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega, Hillary Clinton and, of course, Hugo himself. The Organization of American States,...

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:

Iran's growing influence in Latin America is a "potential risk" to the region, the newly-appointed head of the US Southern Command, General Douglas Fraser has warned. Fraser, who on Thursday takes charge of US military operations in 31 countries across Latin America and the Caribbean, expressed "real concern" about the Islamic Republic's links with "extremist organizations" in the region. "The real concern is not a nation-to-nation interaction, it is the connection that Iran has with extremist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah and the potential risk that that could bring to this region," Fraser told journalists ahead of taking up the...

Defense: The former presidential candidate argues the U.S. should stop and board the North Korean ship if we know it carries banned cargo. Some say it would be an act of war. So is firing missiles at Hawaii.Some say it would be an act of war. So was the naval blockade of Cuba in October 1962 in a confrontation with an infinitely more dangerous foe. Sometimes it's just necessary to exert military pressure to call someone's bluff and nip a growing threat in the bud. The U.S. Navy is tracking a North Korean ship under new U.N. resolution 1874 that...

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is glorifying the murderous legacy of communist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara with a sexy, semi-nude photo of his granddaughter dressed in his iconic style. Lydia Guevara, 24, will appear in a new PETA advertisement wearing camouflage pants, a beret and a bandolier made of carrots, instead of bullets, asking others to "join the vegetarian revolution." Miss Guevara lives in the United States, but this ad will be targeted toward audiences in South America. PETA spokesman Michael McGraw has told the press that the campaign is "an homage of sorts to her late...

PETA: Murder boys but not flies! Posted: June 20, 2009 By Humberto Fontova "Human beings often don't think before they act," laments PETA while explaining their reaction to President Obama's unthinking fly "execution." "We believe that people, where they can be compassionate, should be, for all animals." Close on the heels of their consciousness-raising campaign for fly compassion, PETA has launched a vegetarian campaign using Che Guevara's 24 year-old granddaughter, Lydia, dolled up in commie beret and topless, though strategically covered by twin bandoliers of carrots. "Join the Vegetarian Revolution!" reads the campaign's slogan, which will debut in Argentina (no...

The fate of three of nine foreigners abducted in Yemen last week is known — their bodies were found, shot execution style. The whereabouts of the other six — including three children under the age of 6 — remain a mystery. But terrorism experts say their abductors and killers are almost certainly not a mystery. They say the crimes bear the mark of Al Qaeda, and they fear they are the handiwork of the international terror organization's No. 2 man in the Arabian Peninsula: Said Ali al-Shihri, an Islamic extremist who once was in American custody — but who was...

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...

NEW YORK – The granddaughter of Cuban revolutionary leader Ernesto "Che" Guevara is at the forefront of another revolution — for vegetarianism. Lydia Guevara poses semi-nude in a PETA campaign that tells viewers to "join the vegetarian revolution," said PETA spokesman Michael McGraw. The print campaign is expected to debut in October in magazines and posters, McGraw said. It will be launched first in Argentina, where Che Guevara was born, and then internationally. PETA approached the 24-year-old in recent months after finding out she was a vegetarian,

The arrest of Walter Kendall Myers and his wife demonstrates the extent to which the Cuban Intelligence Service has penetrated and manipulated American academic institutions. Myers...worked as instructor and chairman for West European Studies at the State Department's Foreign Service Institute. Myers received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. The same institution in 1988 awarded a master's degree to Ana Belen Montes, the key Pentagon intelligence analyst on Cuba pleaded guilty to working for Cuban intelligence...Cuban intelligence has targeted American colleges and universities for nearly half a century. The FBI debriefed DGI Capt....