Free Republic

Delegates to the United Nations’ World Radio Communication Conference 2007 declared Radio and Television Marti’s broadcasts to Cuba illegal. The conference, which was organized by the U.N. International Telecommunications Union, approved a series of resolutions condemning the actions of the U.S. Office of Cuba Broadcasting. The resolutions followed a complaint from Castro’s government that the broadcasts “are interfering with our right to protect our people from capitalist lies.” “This programming has not been approved by our government,” a spokesman for the Castro regime asserted. “It contradicts our government’s message—sowing doubt and mistrust—undermining confidence in the socialist revolution.” Radio and Television...

Despite spending $600 million to get its propaganda message to the people of Cuba, the U.S. has failed to find an effective way to counter the Communist country's technical blockage of TV Marti and Radio Marti, according to NBC's Mark Potter. Although the channel is now carried by the DirecTV satellite service and is beamed over the island from aircraft flying north of the Cuban coast, Potter noted in a report on MSNBC.com, a report to Congress indicated that fewer than one percent of Cuban households watched TV Marti during the past year. (Satellite dishes are forbidden in Cuba.) Penn...

The luxury plane was exported to Havana from Russia Cuba is buying one of Russia's most up-to-date airliners, carefully crafted for President Fidel Castro's personal comfort. The purchase is part of an initial Cuban order for two brand new Ilyushin planes worth $110 million (£63 million) which Russian officials say is a shot in the arm for their struggling airline industry. To head off criticism that a new presidential jet is an expensive luxury in austere times, Cuba says one of its new planes is being used to ferry workers to and from Venezuela. To finance the deal, Cuba has...

UNITED NATIONS - A U.N. agency is in the middle of an escalating war of words between Washington and Caracas after awarding President Chavez of Venezuela its $5,000 Jose Marti prize, bestowed in Havana by Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. The prize, given by the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization and, according to its Web site, intended to promote the heritage and values of Latin America, has been obscured from the public eye for more than a decade. As Friday's awards ceremony became an occasion for spreading anti-American sentiment, the Marti prize, and Unesco's choice of Mr. Chavez as its...

HAVANA - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, receiving a U.N. prize handed over by Fidel Castro on Friday, said Washington was right to be concerned by Latin America's tilt to the left because it represents a threat to the U.S. "empire." Chavez was visiting Havana amid an intensifying propaganda war between Washington and Latin America's leftist leaders. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld compared Chavez to Adolf Hitler and warned darkly Thursday about populist leadership in Bolivia and Cuba. "They are right to be worried, because they know what's happening here," Chavez said in a speech lasting more than 2 1/2...

HAVANA (Reuters) - How did a well-to-do country boy with a conservative education called Fidel Castro turn into a fearless rebel and enduring leader of one of the world's last Marxist states? For Finnish documentary-maker Folke West, granted rare access to early Cuban state archives, the answer lies in Castro's formative years, long before he became a Communist. His 2-hour, 50-minute "Young Fidel" traces the Cuban president's life from his father's ranch through Jesuit schools and volatile university politics to a nearly suicidal raid on Cuba's second largest military garrison, prison and finally exile in 1955. "Most biographies jump most...

Fair Lawn officer killed in shootout     Play the video (04/18/03) BERGEN - A manhunt involving numerous law enforcement agencies was launched on Thursday night after a shootout in Bergen County ended with one police officer dead and another wounded.Fair Lawn Police Officer Maryann Collura was helping a Clifton officer who was involved in a car chase on Thursday night. The Clifton officer was chasing a red sports car that was eventually stopped on a church's front lawn.Authorities say when the officers tried to arrest the people in the car, at least one of the suspects and the Clifton...