Cuba Readies Reply to 'Vile' U.S. Bio-Weapons Charge *** Cuba has technical cooperation programs and joint ventures in the biotechnology field with numerous countries, including South Africa, Brazil, China, Canada, and some European Union nations. Since 1996, Cuba and Iran have been building a joint venture pharmaceutical research, development and production facility in Karaj, Iran, just outside the Iranian capital of Tehran, valued at $60 million.
Iran was branded by President Bush this year as part of an "axis of evil" bent on promoting terrorism. Some Cuban exile organizations in the United States have charged the Karaj complex is a front for biological weapons development. Cuba says the Iranian plant will produce vaccines, interferon, and other pharmaceuticals it has developed, for sale in Iran and to neighboring countries.***
MRC Special Report. "Megaphone for a Dictator: CNN's Coverage of Castro's Cuba, 1997-2002."*** CNN's Havana bureau now has a five-year track record that can be evaluated, and the results are not good. Media Research Center analysts reviewed all 212 stories about the Cuban government or Cuban life that were presented on CNN's prime time news programs from March 17, 1997, the date the Havana bureau was established, through March 17, 2002. MRC's analysis found that instead of exposing the totalitarian regime that runs Cuba, CNN has allowed itself to become just another component of Fidel Castro's propaganda machine. ***