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In an apparent lack of confidence in the leadership of Raul Castro, the number of Cubans leaving the island illegally by sea has been rising, according to U.S. officials. The number of people attempting the perilous voyage across of the Florida Straits has risen 21 percent compared to the same period last year. The number intercepted by the Coast Guard increased 65 percent. Since the beginning of October 2007, some 2,891 Cubans have attempted the journey across the straits. While 1,697 successfully reached the United States, 1,194 were intercepted at sea and returned to Cuba. Nearly ten times the number...

New details of Moscow's intelligence work in Cuba were disclosed by Vasili Mitrokhin, a former KGB archivist who defected to Britain in 1992. ...Russian KGB officer Nikolai Leonov became "firm friends," with Mr. Castro's younger brother Raul in Prague in 1953 and then worked together with Fidel from 1956 and after he took power in 1959. The book, the second volume of what is known as the Mitrokhin archive, also reveals how Moscow sought to indirectly defeat the United States during the Cold War through large-scale "disinformation" and influence operations in the developing world. "The KGB really believed they could...

<p>NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. federal court documents show Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández and some of his closest advisers were among the targets of a Drug Enforcement Administration investigation.</p> <p>A document filed by prosecutors on Tuesday in the Southern District of New York mentions Hernández as part of a group of individuals investigated by the DEA since about 2013 for participating “in large-scale drug-trafficking and money laundering activities relating to the importation of cocaine into the United States”.</p>

Now that Hugo Chávez is out of the picture, former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela Otto Reich warns President Obama to tread carefully in dealing with the “evil, evil men” that are now running the South American nation. “These guys are so tricky and so evil, quite frankly,” Reich, tells Newsmax in an exclusive interview following the announcement of Chávez’ death on Tuesday. “The people in power in Venezuela today are evil.” … Reich added that Fidel Castro and his brother may be calling the shots in Venezuela. …

EDITOR'S NOTE: The opinions expressed in the following conversation are those of the book's author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of LifeSiteNews. September 1, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — Journalist Maike Hickson conducted an interview with author George Neumayr on his new book, The Political Pope. Neumayr offers insights into communist influences on Pope Francis.  Maike Hickson: Throughout your book, you make references to Pope Francis' relationship with communism or with certain communists in particular. Could you describe for us in general his attitude toward communism? George Neumayr: He tends to speak of communism in benign terms. He told the Italian press that he wasn't "offended"...

<p>The Pope told reporters that he has 'human relationship' with the former dictator of communist Cuba while encouraging 'exploratory dialogues' with the oppressive regime.</p><p>VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) – Pope Francis expressed his fraternity with the former communist leader of Cuba Raul Castro in a Monday interview, telling journalists that he had a “human relationship” with the murderous dictator.</p>

“Remarking on the soaring tensions between Ukraine and Russia, Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Eduardo Rodriguez Parrilla voiced support for Moscow and echoed his voice against NATO’s expansion eastward.” (This was way back on Feb. 20, by the way.) Most of us recall the Obama administration's lies and treachery regarding Benghazi. But how many of you know about the Obama administration's lies and treachery against the American families of the Americans ambushed and murdered on the orders of Raul Castro this week in 1996?....... Thought so...Well, please read on: You see, amigos: This week 26 years ago three U.S. citizens and...

It's been a rough summer for generals in Cuba. They are dropping like flies, as we see in this report:Over just nine days this month, Cuban state media announced the deaths of five generals, sparking a wave of discussion and rampant speculation among analysts and exiles.The senior military leaders all appear to have died between July 17 and 26. Some were serving and others retired, but all had lauded military careers. The youngest was 58. Most were in their 70s or 80s. It is not clear what caused the deaths, and there is no indication they were related.The deaths of...

The repressed island nation of 11 million people is at a precarious tipping point, with the economy in tatters and the clamour for personal freedoms growing as more Cubans gain access to the internet. There have been protests, hunger strikes and even clashes with police as an underground opposition movement has increasingly ventured into the open.

Children two to four years old now subject to the mask order from Michigan's state government... A tightening of COVID controls in Canada's largest province... A Mississippi man is partially paralyzed and unable to talk after receiving the Johnson and Johnson vaccine... Oxford University helped to develop the AstraZeneca vaccine. Now amidst reports of blood clot side effects from the vaccine Oxford University research pointing to the blood clot risks of contracting COVID-19.... The CEO's of Pfizer and Moderna pointing to the future and the need for a third dose of their coronavirus vaccines... In Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel injected...

HAVANA—Raul Castro confirmed he was handing over the leadership of the Cuban Communist Party to a younger generation at its congress that kicked off on Friday, ending six decades of rule by himself and older brother Fidel. In a speech opening the four-day event, Castro, 89, said the new leadership were party loyalists with decades of experience working their way up the ranks and were “full of passion and anti-imperialist spirit.” Castro had said at the last party congress in 2016 it would be the last one led by the “historic generation” who fought in the Sierra Maestra to topple...

Los Angeles Democrat seeks “new path of support and collaboration” with Communist Cuban regime. “Congresswoman Karen Bass, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, is undergoing vetting as a candidate to be Joe Biden’s running mate,” Bo Erickson of CBS News reported on June 24. In March, the five-term Los Angeles Democrat endorsed Biden for president, but even some Democrats were troubled by one of Bass’s previous endorsements. “The passing of the Comandante en Jefe is a great loss to the people of Cuba,” said Bass in a statement after Fidel Castro passed away on November 25, 2016.  “I hope together,...

We start with the story of the political drama in Washington. Three House committees controlled by Democrats issuing a subpoena aimed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo..... Also word coming out Friday night of the resignation of Kurt Volker, US Special Envoy for Ukraine. Volker a longtime inside the beltway figure and Executive Director of the McCain Institute..... Brexit deal talks resuming again as we go into the weekend..... The Greater London Authority referring Prime Minister Boris Johnson to police...... Police in Nigeria say they have freed more than 300 students from an Islamic school where they were being abused........

“Cuba and the United States signed an agreement to cooperate in the fight against terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering and other international criminal activities on the eve of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.” (Reuters, Jan. 2017)“Cuban security officials toured Key West drug-war center—A delegation of Cuban government national security officials recently toured the Pentagon’s counter-drug center in Key West (in May, 2016)— a first, signaling a nascent effort in U.S.-Cuban security cooperation. They got a briefing on the work that has been described as Southcom’s command center in the war on drugs.”“Cuba has kept drug trafficking, in check— the U.S. State Department’s...

The Cuban government announced Friday that it is launching widespread rationing of chicken, eggs, rice, beans, soap and other basic products in the face of a grave economic crisis. Commerce Minister Betsy Díaz Velázquez told the state-run Cuban News Agency that various forms of rationing would be employed in order to deal with shortages of staple foods. She blamed the hardening of the U.S. trade embargo by the Trump administration. Economists give equal or greater blame to a plunge in aid from Venezuela, where the collapse of the state-run oil company has led to a nearly two-thirds cut in shipments...

“One Thousand Killed in 5 days of Fierce Street Fighting!” read a New York Times headline on Jan 4, 1959. The fake news headline dealt with the (utterly bogus) “battle” of Santa Clara in central Cuba where Ernesto “Che” Guevara earned much of his enduring (and totally bogus) martial fame. “Commander Che Guevara appealed to Batista troops for a truce to clear the streets of casualties,” continues the breathless The New York Times article. “Guevara turned the tide in this bloody battle and whipped a Batista force of 3,000 men!”A year later, Che’s own diaries revealed that his forces (which actually numbered...

May 28, 2014 - 06:02 PMInvestment_U Back in January, I wrote a column explaining the supply-demand squeeze in nickel. One way I suggested to play the nickel squeeze, the iPath Dow Jones-AIG Nickel Total Return Sub-Index ETN (NYSE: JJN), is up 38% from my recommendation. Did you buy that fund? Well, if you didn't, there's no need to kick yourself. The nickel run isn't over. In fact, if anything, the supply/demand squeeze powering nickel's surge is likely to get stronger. The biggest user of nickel is China. Nickel is used to make stainless steel, and China makes a lot of...

"We called the White House and they acted swiftly on the Friday event, which has since been postponed," said a staff member for Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who complained that the event would have openly undermined President Donald Trump’s agenda on Cuba."The event in question has been postponed," a State Department official confirmed."This (event) was designed to embarrass the president and Pompeo—somebody needs to be held to account," one source said. "The fact that State Department officials were advancing a program that is so slanted and completely at odds with the president's directive on Cuba, I am concerned what...

Cuba turns to a model Communist Party official, Miguel Diaz-Canel, to steer it through a period of uncertainty when it finally turns the page on the Castro era in a vote on Thursday. The 57-year-old First Vice President is the pre-ordained choice of Raul Castro as he steps down, ensuring that the vote in the National Assembly to appoint him will be little more than a formality.

You've heard of skunks at the garden party? Such as still-ruling Nicaraguan socialist strongman, Daniel Ortega, who got his famous nickname from none other than the great Ronald Reagan? Well, now we have pigs at the garden party of democracy, the Organization of American States' Summit of the Americas, and this time, quite literally. At the globally watched summit, locals released a bunch of pigs through the streets of the Peruvian capital of Lima, around the Plaza San Martin, which is one of its main public spaces, spray-painted with the names of Venezuela's dictator, Nicolas Maduro, and Cuba's dictator, Raul...