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President Obama and Cuban leader Raúl Castro are expected to meet sometime Friday or Saturday at this weekend’s Summit of the Americas, which for the first time ever will be attended by the leaders of both countries. It's a historic moment the White House is embracing. Obama briefly shook hands with Castro during former South African President Nelson Mandela’s funeral in 2013. But their meeting at the summit in Panama is expected to be a much more significant encounter. Obama is seeking to normalize relations with Cuba after a decades-long trade, travel and diplomatic embargo. If successful, the change would...

KINGSTON, Jamaica — President Obama said Thursday that the State Department had completed its review of whether to remove Cuba from its list of nations that sponsor terrorism, but he added that he had not yet received a final recommendation and was not ready to announce a decision. “Our emphasis has been on the facts,” Mr. Obama said of considering Cuba’s removal from the State Department’s terrorism list, where it has remained for more than 30 years. “We want to make sure that given that this is a powerful tool to isolate those countries that genuinely do support terrorism, that...

A half-dozen Cuban dissident leaders and American citizens were attacked this afternoon by a group of Castro regime agents in Panama City. The activists were placing flowers at the statue of Cuban independence hero, Jose Marti, when approached by a group of Castro regime agents, who began to violently beat them. Among those attacked were a group of American citizens, including Orlando Gutierrez of the Democratic Directorate, Silvia Iriondo of Mothers Against Repression and Gus Monge. The Cuban dissidents include former political prisoner Jorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antunez," his wife Yris Perez Aguilera and Leticia Ramos Herreria of The Ladies...

The State Department has completed its review of Cuba's status as a state sponsor of international terrorism, President Obama announced today from Jamaica, bringing the U.S. one step closer to a potentially momentous policy shift towards the Communist stronghold. President Obama said he would not announce any decision today about removing Cuba from the list and that the White House was still reviewing the report. Cuban negotiators have made clear during talks with Washington aimed at reestablishing diplomatic and economic ties that the relationship could never be considered normal as long as Cuba was designated a sponsor of terrorism by...

Barack Obama is a pretty popular guy in Cuba these days. So much so that nearly nine out of 10 Cubans hope he’ll be the first U.S. president to visit their island since Calvin Coolidge did in 1928. A new Bendixen & Amandi Poll for Univision Noticias – Fusion in collaboration with The Washington Post shows that 89 percent of Cubans think the U.S. leader should swing by for a visit now that the two countries are trying to make nice. Obama also enjoys an 80 percent favorability rating on the communist-led island. The poll suggests that Obama is nearly...

Cuba may be taken off America’s list of state sponsors of terrorism at any moment, ABC News has learned. Sources familiar with the request tell ABC News that State Department is "way down the road" in its assessment of Cuba's status on the terrorism list. The State Department has not sent the paperwork to the White House yet, but officials expect it at any time. Roberta Jacobsen, assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs and the lead U.S. negotiator in Cuba talks, said recently the review of Cuba’s place on the list is “in advanced stages.” Added to the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama vowed on Tuesday to act quickly once he receives a State Department recommendation on whether to remove Cuba from the U.S. list of terrorism-sponsoring countries, a remaining obstacle to the restoration of relations between Washington and Havana. With just days to go before a hemispheric summit in Panama where Obama will come face-to-face with Cuban President Raul Castro, he offered no clear sign of how he was leaning or the timeframe for his decision. He ordered the review immediately after announcing a diplomatic breakthrough with Havana on Dec. 17.

Fidel Castro appears in public for first time in over a year BY DANIEL TROTTA (Reuters) - Former Cuban President Fidel Castro, 88, appeared in public "full of vitality" for the first time in more than a year on Monday, greeting a delegation of Venezuelans, official media reported on Saturday. It was his first known appearance outside his home since Cuba in December agreed to normalize relations with the United States, Castro's longtime adversary. Official media showed images of a seated Castro shaking hands with the visiting Venezuelans through the window of his vehicle, wearing a baseball cap and a...

Havana (AFP) - Cuba rallied behind Venezuela on Tuesday, offering its closest ally "unconditional support" after US President Barack Obama authorized new sanctions against officials of the turbulent South American oil producer. The Cuban reaction marked its first public confrontation with the United States since the two countries began discussions in December on fully restoring diplomatic relations. Cuba joins other leftist regional governments in closing ranks with Caracas in the deepening US-Venezuela row. An official statement published in the island's state-run media called Obama's executive order implementing the sanctions "arbitrary and aggressive." "Cuba again reiterates its unconditional support and that...

Influence peddling on behalf a Medicare Fraud doctor, in return for donations.

It’s a timeworn tactic of the Cuban Communists, something any good magician quickly learns: diversion is your best friend. On Monday, as American administration officials, members of Congress and exiles were making lots of noise about the weekend arrest of some 200 dissidents on the island, Raul Castro and Communist Party Central Committee were meeting in Havana to decide the political fate of the nation.

Che Guevara’s daughter Aleida is in Canada this week whooping up president Obama’s opening to the Stalinist regime her father co-founded, and saying he’d certainly approve.She’s absolutely correct. Aside from her father, few people knew from first-hand experience how easily U.S. officials can be snookered. To wit: “I am not a communist and have never been a communist. It gives me great pain to be called a communist. (Ernesto “Che” Guevara” in the New York Times, Jan. 4th 1959.) Then—like now—The New York Times served essentially as press agency for the U.S. State Department.Oh, I know, I know, your professors,...

Gerardo Hernandez, a spy for Communist Cuba and the man responsible for the murder of four humanitarian workers (three of whom were American citizens) over international waters, was freed from prison last year by the Obama administration, due in part to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). This was revealed at a February 6, 2015, celebration of Hernandez’s release, along with two of his fellow Cuban agents (collectively known as the “Cuban 5.. At the beginning of the event, an IPS official thanked all who who took part in the 17-year campaign and singled out a number of organizations that...

A new HIV strain in some patients in Cuba appears to be much more aggressive and can develop into AIDS within three years of infection. Researchers said the progression happens so fast that treatment with antiretroviral drugs may come too late. Without treatment, HIV infection usually takes 5 to 10 years to turn into AIDS, according to Anne-Mieke Vandamme, a medical professor at Belgium's University of Leuvan. According to the study, published in the journal EBioMedicine, Vandamme was alerted to the new aggressive strain of HIV by Cuban health officials who wanted to find out what was happening.

Netflix on Monday launched its streaming service in Cuba, the latest sign that economic relations between the United States and the island nation are thawing. The service will be available for $8 a month to residents with credit cards and access to high-speed Internet.

North America has an “enormous interest” in building diplomatic relationships with Cuba, Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday during a weekend meeting with his counterparts from Canada and Mexico. “This is an effort we believe offers the best opportunity for the people of Cuba to improve their lives and to take part in the choices about their lives,” Kerry said during a news conference at Boston’s Faneuil Hall. A high-level U.S. delegation held two days of talks with Cuban officials in Havana last week for the first time in decades. In December, President Barack Obama announced plans to restore...

Now, to add insult to injury, Castro has started issuing his own set of demands. In a speech at the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States summit in Costa Rica on Wednesday, he said there'd be no normalization of relations unless the U.S. ends the trade embargo, closes the naval base at Guantanamo Bay and takes Cuba off the list of state sponsors of terror. Oh, and he also wants the U.S. to stop allowing Cubans to stay in this country just because they manage to set foot on American soil. That's been causing a brain drain from the...

The good news: The discomfort over the embargo of Cuba has led to a good bargaining position in talks with the US. The bad news: Raul Castro’s the one that thinks so. Far from being grateful for the diplomatic overture from Barack Obama, Castro wants the US to pay reparations for the economic damage that Castro says the embargo caused, plus the immediate return of control over Guantanamo Bay, as the opening ante for normalizing relations: Cuban President Raul Castro demanded on Wednesday that the United States return the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, lift the half-century trade embargo on...

In December, U.S. President Barack Obama surprised the world by announcing that America would restore diplomatic ties with Cuba after 53 years of hostility. The terms of the deal completely favor Cuba. Cuba did not have to abandon communism or reform its dictatorial governance. The U.S. got nothing out of this deal. Then why did the president make this deal? Only our booklet America Under Attack fully answers that question! (Request your free copy.) What is this all about? We could write quite a bit about the president bypassing Congress and using yet another executive action to make this deal....