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France called on the U.S. to lift the economic embargo against Cuba during a historic state visit Monday by the Caribbean island's president aimed at boosting economic relations between Havana and Paris. Raul Castro's trip comes after a breakthrough deal was reached in the French capital in December to lighten Cuba's foreign debt. French President Francois Hollande, the former leader of France's Socialist party, greeted Castro on Monday with a warm hug in the courtyard of the Elysee presidential palace, and then started the meeting saying "Vive Cuba!" ("Long live Cuba!") Both presidents vowed to develop economic, political and cultural...

Cuban President Raul Castro is paying an historic state visit to France, seeking to develop business and tourism ties as the Caribbean island opens up its economy. The trip comes after a breakthrough deal was reached in Paris in December to lighten Cuba's foreign debt - and days after France hosted the leader of another long-time pariah state: Iran. Castro, 84, is on his first official trip to Europe since taking over from his elder brother Fidel in 2006. The Cuban president briefly stopped to Rome last year to meet with Pope Francis. ...

As you read this, a convoy of buses carrying an estimated 8,000 Cuban nationals is arriving at our southern borders after departing from Costa Rica and El Salvador. The circuitous route is due to an increased Coast Guard presence in the Florida Straits, which itself is a response to record-level illegal crossings from Cuba this year. What's driving this exodus may not be due to completely natural factors, however. Writing in the Miami Herald, Maria Werlau of the Cuba Archive, says that what's arriving at our door is nothing but a "fabricated crisis," intentionally designed by Cuba to "stir humanitarian"...

Actually that's not the title of yesterday's blockbuster report in the Wall Street Journal. Here's the WSJ title: "Missing U.S. Missile Shows Up in Cuba." "An inert U.S. Hellfire missile sent to Europe (Spain) for training purposes was wrongly shipped from there to Cuba in 2014," continues the WSJ, "a loss of sensitive military technology that ranks among the worst-known incidents of its kind. The unintended delivery of the missile to Cuba has confounded investigators and experts who work in a regulatory system designed to prevent precisely such equipment from falling into the wrong hands… Investigators are unclear if the...

Stalinist dictator Raul Castro was a busy man this week during his whirlwind tour of the city he craved to nuke. “My dream is to drop three atomic bombs on New York City,” sighed Raul Castro to a colleague in November of 1960. But in between speeches at the UN and meetings with Governor Cuomo and Bill de Blasio (the mayor of the city Castro longed to incinerate) the Communist mass-murderer was also buttonholed by Bill Clinton for a friendly chat. Reporting on these meetings, Cuba’s KGB-mentored media included an affectionate mention of Hillary Clinton, former senator with an especially...

New info from Havana and the Pope's visit. New "freedoms" celebrated... and monitored as in every good socialist/marxist dictatorship. Have a laugh in the face of the serious happenings. "The official language of San Marcos (Cuba), will be Swedish. All citizens will be required to change their underwear on the 1/2 hour.....underwear to be worn on the outside, so we can check. Also, all children under 16 years old, are now... 16 years old". From the movie (woody allen's- his last worthwhile funny film from long ago-- considering what a perv he is) "Bananas"- appropriate with the shiite going on...

Pope Francis flies to eastern Cuba on Monday for the next leg of his pilgrimage after having met with both Raul and Fidel Castro but missing out on an encounter with Cuban dissidents. The Vatican stressed that no official meeting had been planned with the dissidents. The Vatican embassy in Havana did make calls to some leaders “as a sign of attention to these people,” the Vatican spokesman said, but in the end the dissidents were prevented from reaching the cathedral where the greeting was planned. The Castro meetings went off without a hitch. The Vatican described the 40-minute session...

HAVANA (AP) — Pope Francis hailed detente between the United States and Cuba as a model of reconciliation for the world, urging Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro to persevere in building normal ties as the pontiff launched a 10-day tour of the former Cold War foes Saturday. Francis' surprisingly direct call for progress toward normalization came after weeks of Vatican assurances that he would not explicitly address politics during his pastoral trip to Cuba and the U.S. Francis served as mediator and guarantor of 18 months of secret negotiations that led to the resumption of diplomatic relations between the...

Breaking ranks with nearly all of his fellow 2016 Republican contenders, Donald Trump says he supports President Barack Obama's decision to reengage diplomatically with Cuba. "50 years is enough," Trump said in an interview with the Daily Caller published Tuesday, referring to Obama's decision to re-establish U.S. ties with Cuba. "I think it's fine. I think it's fine, but we should have made a better deal," Trump added. "The concept of opening with Cuba is fine." Trump joins libertarian-leaning Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky as the only Republican running for president to express his support for normalizing relations with Cuba....

Since I read a lot, and doing so makes it rather easy to connect the dots, I occasionally publish “Ed’s Fearless Forecasts.” They are generally distributed to a few faithful friends who will permit me to say “I told you so,” or have the good grace not to mention it when my forecasts fail. (My record, so far, is about 50/50.) Realizing that the closing of the “Guantanamo Naval Base and Prisoner Recreation Facility” is high on the President’s priority list, and observing that his several efforts at closing it have not been particularly successful, last December 18th I offered...

(Reuters) Vladimir Putin with Jose Maria Aznar, then Spain's prime minister, at Moncloa Palace on June 13, 2000. One of Russia's largest organized-crime syndicates allegedly operated out of Spain for more than a decade with the help of close allies of President Vladimir Putin, then the deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, Bloomberg reports. Prosecutors in Madrid have filed a 488-page petition to charge 27 people with money laundering and fraud in connection to the St. Petersburg-based Tambov crime syndicate's setting up shop in Spain in 1996. Vladislav Reznik, now the deputy head of the finance committee in Russia's lower house...

President Obama will announce Wednesday that the U.S. and Cuba have reached an agreement to open embassies in Havana and Washington, an administration official confirmed to Fox News. The announcement marks a major step in ending hostilities between the longtime foes and an opportunity to re-establish formal diplomatic relations. The U.S. and Cuba have been negotiating the reestablishment of embassies in each other’s capitals following the Dec. 17 announcement that they would move to restore ties. …

THE TRAIL OF BLOOD AND SUFFERING LEFT BY THE CASTRO BROTHERS TERROR NETWORKThe Castro brothers, mass murderer tyrants who terrorized a whole Island for over 56 years who killed, imprisoned, and tortured more Cubans per capita than Stalin during his reign of terror and founded and headed the most lethal international terror network is honored, embrace and rewarded by comrades Obama and Pope Francis.The trail of blood and suffering left by Castro’s exploits, especially throughout Africa and Latin America, has had no bearing on the Pope and on the American sycophants support for the longest lasting and most brutal regime...

Maranatha First Baptist Church is one of the largest congregations in Holguín, Cuba . . In early May Pastor Amado Ramírez Oliveros reported the long-awaited answer: Cuban authorities not only denied the construction permit, they announced the government is seizing the property that has belonged to the Eastern Baptist Convention since 1947. Maranatha will be forced to pay an unannounced amount of “rent” if it wants to remain in its building.

Venezuela is afflicted with the world’s highest inflation, its second highest murder rate and crippling shortages of food, medicine and basic consumer goods. Its authoritarian government is holding some 70 political prisoners, including the mayor of Caracas and senior opposition leader Leopoldo López, and stands accused by human rights groups of illegal detentions, torture and repression of independent media. All of that is now pretty well known, and it is finally beginning to gain some attention from Latin American leaders who for years did their best to appease or ignore Hugo Chávez and his “Bolivarian Revolution.” What’s less understood is...

We too, forgive his Holiness of all his wrongdoings, for HE too, does not appear to know what he is doing. May God save us all Your Holiness Pope Francis Apostolic Palace Vatican City 00120 Your Holiness: I am one of approximately one million Cubans, who, on a day like today, fled our homeland for good – a Caribbean island, who, discoverer Christopher Columbus, described as: “The most beautiful land that human eyes have ever beheld”. That was Cuba. That same island which on January 1st, 1959, would warmly welcome a cadre of bearded soldiers of fortune, dressed in olive...

“More than 1,000 gay, lesbian and transgender Cubans marched through Havana on Saturday,” reports Reuters, “proudly displaying their truest selves.” This once-unthinkable display in Cuba was no less than its eighth annual “March Against Homophobia and Transphobia.” This one took on extra special meaning for 20 couples who “symbolically exchanged” wedding vows, even as same-sex marriage remains illegal in Cuba, but obviously not for long. If this can happen under the dictatorial nose of despots Fidel and Raul Castro, then it’s already permissible. Gay Cubans erupted into a celebratory parade, banging conga drums and waving rainbow-colored banners. The special day...

Apparently, the answer is ‘yes’: "Cuba has eased its persecution of religion in the last 23 years, but there have been few overtures suggesting the country’s executive office might be finding its faith. "That changed Sunday when President Raul Castro said the teachings of Pope Francis had persuaded him not only to take a softer line on religion, but perhaps to return to the Catholic Church and begin worshipping again as he once did, growing up in Jesuit schools." Now, you could interpret that to mean that Raul Castro has suddenly seen the light and decided that marxism is not...

“. . . they only heard it said, ‘He who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy’. . . .” – Galatians 1:23 Has Cuban president Raúl Castro, once described by a senior Vatican official as a man with a soul “like a stone,” had a Damascus Road experience like Saint Paul, such that he’s now preaching the kind of politics he had long tried to destroy? Fidel Castro’s little brother and political heir was certainly suggesting as much, in remarks to the press after his May 10 visit at the Vatican with...

Not many people, including Catholics, are aware of Raúl Castro's background. The brother of Fidel is in fact a sociopath who served as an executioner during the revolution as well as after his brother took power. Raúl was known for his ruthlessness and brutality. Years after the revolution, the homicidal maniac, who quite possibly is demon possessed, suggested that his nickname should be "Raúl the Terrible" for his role in hundreds of killings. He even executed a close friend, Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa, on orders from Fidel in 1989. Cubans who dare to criticize the government or the policies of this...