But Washington has put off the latest round of talks until Havana agrees to discuss issues on the U.S. agenda, the Cuban Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued on Tuesday night. Cuba had wanted to hold the talks on Thursday, it said. "The government of the United States is entirely responsible for the cancellation of this round of migration talks," the statement said. "These are merely new pretexts to aggravate tensions between the two countries," the foreign ministry said.
……………. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega told reporters in New York the Cuban leader was lending increasing support to anti-government groups in Latin America. On Monday, a State Department spokesman expressed concern over reports that Castro and Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez were working together to promote and finance anti-government groups in the region. ***
The left-wing populist president has waged a noisy two-month public campaign to pressure the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) to free the funds for his government, which has clashed with the bank in the past over economic policies.
Central bank directors have so far resisted the president's repeated public threats, arguing that the country's laws do not allow them to use international reserves to finance the government's current spending.
"Well, we'll see. If the Central Bank of Venezuela has to be taken over, then it will be," Chavez said at a rally in the western oil state of Maracaibo.
As he spoke, around 100 of his supporters demonstrated outside central bank headquarters in Caracas to back his demand for the $1 billion handout to finance food production.
Chavez said it was "illogical and absurd" that the bank should be holding international reserves of more than $21 billion, while the government was spending millions of dollars to import basic food staples like beans, milk and chicken.***
[Vheadline.com reaction to Reuters report LINKED at article.]