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Castro Proves Embargo Foes Wrong Humberto Fontova Thursday, March 3, 2005 The hammer came down in Cuba again last month. "The Cuban state is reborn, like a phoenix with expansive wings!" Castro crowed to an "anti-globalization" conference in Havana. The crowd of 1,400 international "economists" went wild (naturally). The Maximum Leader was almost deafened by their ovation and acclaim. "Cuba's communist state is rising from the ashes of its post-Soviet economic crash with GREATER CONTROL [capitalization mine] over its economy," said a Reuters story from Feb. 14. Story Continues Below Unsurprisingly (for those who know something of Fidel Castro), Cuba...

# Monterrey, Mexico, Feb 27 (Prensa Latina) The US government-led biological warfare and economic blockade on Cuba have caused the Island economic damages estimated at more than $USD130 billion, a Cuban official asserted Sunday in Monterrey. Addressing a Friendship and Solidarity Meeting, the Vice President of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the People (ICAP) José Estévez blamed the US blockade for having caused Cuba losses for over $USD80 billion, while the biological warfare have meant some $USD54 billion in damage. At least 3,478 people have died and 1,099 have been seriously affected by biological weapons the United States has...

Democratic candidates hope disagreements among Cuban Americans over the Bush administration's new restrictions on travel to Cuba will convince some to abandon the Republican Party. By clamping down on travel and remittances to Cuba last month, President Bush tried to send a signal to Miami's Cuban exile community that he was serious about getting rid of leader Fidel Castro. But some candidates for office are trying to turn the tables and use the policy change to attract Cuban-American votes to the Democratic Party. One Democratic candidate for Congress in South Florida even managed to get more than 150 voters, mostly...

New Cuba embargo rules may be bad for Bush    Big News Network.com     Wednesday 21st July, 2004   New regulations restricting travel to Cuba from the United States may have gone too far and turned some Cuban-Americans against Bush, lawmakers said Tuesday. The new regulations ... have passed the tipping point in Florida, Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said during a conference in the Rayburn House Office Building to discuss the current state of U.S. policy toward Cuba. New restrictions from the Bush Administration that went into effect at the end of June limit family visits to Cuba to once every three years...

Groups of American protesters have returned without incident to U.S. soil after deliberately defying new rules increasing travel restrictions to Cuba. . About 90 members of the Venceremos Brigade, a group that opposes U.S. policies toward Cuba, re-entered the country Monday on foot in groups of 15, carrying banners and pulling suitcases behind them. . While U.S. citizens have been making such trips for the past 35 years, the latest travelers were the first to directly challenge new rules that further tightened restrictions. The new rules, which took effect June 30, cut the amount of money Cuban émigrés can send...

House Votes to Overturn Bush Rules on Cuba 1 hour, 5 minutes ago Add Politics - U. S. Congress to My Yahoo! By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - The House dealt an election-season setback to President Bush (news - web sites) on Wednesday by voting to overturn restrictions his administration has issued on the gift parcels that Americans can send to family members in Cuba. The 221-194 vote was won by a coalition in which Democrats were joined by nearly four dozen farm-state and free-trade Republicans to rebuff the president. The vote came just four months from an...

SALT LAKE CITY - If Iraq is understandably the current focus of the Bush administration's foreign policy, the president is not overlooking an irritant in America's backyard, namely Cuba and its communist leader, Fidel Castro. President Bush has just taken steps to stiffen his anti-Castro policy. This puts him at odds with some members of Congress as well as business leaders who favor a policy of relaxation, but does him no political harm with many Cuban-Americans in Florida, a state important in his reelection campaign. After a review of the Cuban situation by a presidential commission, Mr. Bush has issued...

This was on the A.N.S.W.E.R. site about a year ago. You can click on the link to see the names of the signers. Any guesses as to whose name is there? =========================================================== Statement supporting Cuba against Bush's attacksInitiated by the International A.N.S.W.E.R. CoalitionWe invite you to sign this statement in solidarity with the people of Cuba. Click here to sign. Click here to see the initial signers May 19-20: Nationally-coordinated local actionsSTOP BUSH'S NEW AGGRESSION AGAINST CUBAEn Españolpdf flyer in English    pdf en Español We, the undersigned individuals and organizations, view with great concern the intensifying campaign of subversion and...

Cuba moves are called 'too little, too late' Monday, May 10, 2004 Journal staff and wire report Newhouse News Service A proposal to tighten restrictions against visiting relatives in Cuba has drawn criticism from Union City residents, who say U.S. efforts should be aimed at Fidel Castro, not the people who are suffering under his regime. U.S. Rep. Robert Menendez, D-Hoboken, denounced the moves as political posturing in an attempt to secure more Florida votes in the upcoming November election. Florida is home to the nation's largest community of Cuban exiles, many of whom support a strengthening of the U.S....

Powell aide blasts policy on Cuba BY LESLEY CLARK lclark@herald.com As the White House last week prepared to put its stamp of approval on a range of Cuba sanctions recommended by Colin Powell, a senior aide to the secretary of state was quoted as calling the decades old-standoff against the communist island, the ``dumbest policy on the face of the Earth.'' The outspoken remarks appear in the June issue of GQ magazine. In the article, GQ writer Wil Hylton interviews several Powell aides, including Larry Wilkerson, Powell's chief of staff who is described in the article as having a ''mind...

WASHINGTON – Cuban President Fidel Castro usually offers an inviting target during U.S. presidential election campaigns. President Bush, accused by some in his party of not doing enough to confront Castro, offered them on Thursday what amounts to a policy of regime change in Cuba. "We're not waiting for the day of Cuban freedom, we are working for the day of freedom in Cuba," Bush told reporters. A presidential commission recommended that the United States subvert the planned succession in Cuba under which power would pass from Castro to his younger brother, Raul. Although Bush did not address that issue...

Cuban-American Alliance Education Fund Condemns US President George W. Bush's Anti-Cuba measures Washington, May 8 (RHC)-- The Cuban-American Alliance Education Fund, based in Washington, offered a press conference on Friday -- condemning US President George W. Bush's cruel measures against Cuba. During the press conference, the Cuban-American solidarity group said that the Bush administration is attempting to get the financial and political support of the right wing sector in South Florida for the November presidential elections. While Cuba eases travel to the island of Cuban nationals living abroad, the White House -- which attempts to show the world they support...

<p>Mexico City, , May. 8 (UPI) -- Mexico will not cooperate with U.S. plans to speed up the overthrow of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, local news sources reported Saturday.</p> <p>"Mexico will not subscribe in any way to the (U.S.) proposal that has been made, which is against Cuban sovereignty," said Mexican President Vicente Fox, reacting to the White House's tougher new restrictions on money moving to Cuba and plans to prevent Castro from passing power to a successor.</p>

Cuba said that U.S. plans to increase sanctions against the country are cruel and a violation human rights laws. Cuba's Communist party-controlled newspaper, Granma, suggested the U.N. Human Rights Commission should review the new measures. They include plans to reduce resources available to Cuba from worker remittances and gift packages from the United States as well as providing millions of dollars to support Cuba's opposition. The United States also plans to spend $18 million to use aircraft to broadcast into Cuba U.S. government-sponsored Radio and TV programs that the government of Fidel Castro now jams. Cuba said that the policies...

President Bush, declaring "we are working for the day of freedom in Cuba," took steps Thursday to end jamming of U.S. broadcasts to the island as part of a tough new strategy to hasten the demise of communist rule. Mr. Bush decided to order deployment of military aircraft to transmit signals of the Miami-based Radio Marti and TV, an effort to end Cuba's jamming of U.S. government broadcasts. The measure was one of a number of recommendations in a report prepared by a government commission on Cuba headed by Secretary of State Colin Powell. "We are working for the day...

WASHINGTON - A government commission is recommending to President Bush (news - web sites) a series of measures to cut U.S. dollar flows to Cuba as part of a broader policy to hasten the end of the country's communist system, an administration official said Sunday night.

A few hours ago, Kerry offered another shift in stance--this time on his policy in Cuba. During the beginnings of the Democratic primaries, Kerry reached out to snatch Cuban American voters by criticizing Bush on his lax attitude towards Castro. He assured that if he were in office, things would change in policy. But, according to the US News Wire, he definied where he stood. While maintaining that he would uphold the Embargo, he conceded that he planned to ease travel restrictions. I'm not the brightest guy in the world, but it would seem dropping the travel restrictions would be...

"The Republicans have allowed a communist dictatorship to flourish eight jet minutes from our borders! We must support anti-Castro fighters. So far these freedom fighters have received no help from our government." -- Democratic presidential candidate, Oct. 1960 "George Bush and the Republicans in Washington have run the most inept foreign policy in the modern history of this country! It has been a failure!" -- Democratic presidential Candidate, April 2004. No, friends, it didn't start with this campaign. Indeed, Kerry apes his idol (JFK) faithfully. Problem was, during the '60 presidential campaign Kennedy left out the sly smile, the shifty...

A YEAR AGO Cuba's Communist government cracked down on nonviolent dissidents, independent journalists, human rights activists, librarians and teachers. Within weeks, 75 of them were in prison, sentenced to terms ranging from 6 to 28 years after one-day closed trials. Carried out while the world's attention was focused on the war in Iraq, this was President Fidel Castro's attempt to destroy a pro-democracy civil society that had been peacefully emerging. A year later, the bad news is that those 75 political prisoners are still locked away, in many cases under inhumane conditions. The worse news is that Mr. Castro has...

It comes as no surprise to learn that John Kerry, who hates to take one position on an issue when he can take two or three, has come down strongly in favor -- and strongly against -- US policy in Cuba. As Peter Wallsten reported last week in the Miami Herald, when Kerry was asked during a Florida campaign stop where he stands on Fidel Castro's repressive regime, he answered, "I'm pretty tough on Castro, because I think he's running one of the last vestiges of a Stalinist, secret-police government in the world." And to make it clear that...

<p>IT COMES AS no surprise to learn that John Kerry, who hates to take one position on an issue when he can take two or three, has come down strongly in favor -- and strongly against -- US policy in Cuba.</p>

Peter Kirsanow points out that Kerry has flip-flopped even on Cuba. He has been in favor of raising sanctions, and now he’s not. A few days ago I started reading Carlos Eire’s Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy (published about a year ago). Eire is a professor of history and religious studies at Yale. He left Cuba in 1962, at age twelve, one of 14,000 children airlifted out of Cuba, exiled from country and family. He has written scholarly tomes, but this is his first book without footnotes, as he says. Why did he write it?...

Kerry's stances on Cuba open to attack BY PETER WALLSTEN pwallsten@herald.com John Kerry had just pumped up a huge crowd in downtown West Palm Beach, promising to make the state a battleground for his quest to oust President Bush, when a local television journalist posed the question that any candidate with Florida ambitions should expect: What will you do about Cuba? As the presumptive Democratic nominee, Kerry was ready with the bravado appropriate for a challenger who knows that every answer carries magnified importance in the state that put President Bush into office by just 537 votes. ''I'm pretty tough...

Months of growing tensions over the Bush administration's approach to Cuba are taking a toll on the president's standing among Cuban Americans -- one of the Republican Party's most crucial voting groups in Florida -- just as his reelection campaign is getting under way, according to a new poll. The survey shows that more than one-third of South Florida Hispanic voters -- a group consisting primarily of GOP-leaning Cuban Americans -- disapproves of the job the president has done ''promoting democracy and regime change'' in Fidel Castro's Cuba. Those results, compiled for Univisión Channel 23 by Washington pollster Rob Schroth,...

Mississippi: What do Fidel Castro and a bunch of “good ole boys” from Dixie have in common? Chicken and cheeseburgers, for starters. Mississippi, long considered one of the most politically conservative states in the United States, is cultivating a small but burgeoning trade relationship with Cuba’s communist-run government. Ships laden with an extensive and growing list of US food and agricultural products such as beef, chicken, rice and cheese now sail regularly from Gulfport and Pascagoula to Havana, the Cuban capital. The exports, legal under an exemption to the United States’ four-decade-old trade embargo of Cuba, have whetted interest in...

Afew weeks ago, Cuba's communist dictator Fidel Castro prohibited human-rights leader Oswaldo Payá from traveling to Germany to speak about the human-rights situation in Cuba. Payá responded by sending a message to the international community: ``We have never supported [Cuba's] isolation, but at this late date, it is an insult to be told that foreign tourism and investment can lead to an opening in Cuba. Cultural exchanges in Cuba take place under rules set up by a government that in a true apartheid manner excludes, exploits and humiliates the Cuban people. Even if it is not their intention, those who...

WASHINGTON – Legislation that would relax the ban on travel to Cuba is headed for failure even though it passed the House and the Senate. Supporters of the bill conceded Wednesday that Republican leaders would strip the provision from the transportation funding bill during House and Senate negotiations so President Bush would not have to veto an important appropriations bill. "A veto would create too much of a firestorm," said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont. "They will find some other way to finesse it." Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., a key negotiator who will help craft the final bill, wants the...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The House of Representatives voted to end the decades-old restriction prohibiting travel to Cuba, a measure US President George W. Bush (news - web sites) has already indicated he would veto. By 227 to 188, lawmakers approved a bill authored by Representative Jeff Flake which would withhold funding to enforce the travel ban, effectively ending restrictions on travel to Cuba by US citizens. The House has approved similar legislation in the past, only to see the US Senate fail to take up the measure. The bill is given better odds this year, however, with the creation of...

<p>WASHINGTON — Defying a threatened presidential veto, the Senate joined the House Thursday in moving to end four-decade-old restrictions on travel to Cuba.</p> <p>"It is not constructive at all to try to slap around Fidel Castro by imposing limits on the American people's right to travel," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.</p>

POLICY AGAINST CUBA IS NOT THE AMERICAN WAY An exclusive interview with Harry Belafonte By Sandra Levinson Cubanow.- What kind of commitment does it take to still be here, supporting Cuba, after all these years? I don't see it as a supreme effort, it's a way of life: if you believe in freedom, if you believe in justice, if you believe in democracy, if you believe in people's rights, if you believe in the harmony of all humankind, I don't know if you have any other choice than to be there for as long as it takes. But, what I...

SALT LAKE CITY - While President Bush has been focused on troublesome problems in far-off Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, he is paying new attention to Cuba, which could cause election-year problems in his own backyard. Bush's new interest in Cuba comes at a time when there is evidence of a policy split between Fidel Castro and his hard-line supporters on the one hand, and, on the other, a group of well-placed officials and military men who favor a softer line at home and a warmer relationship with the US. The maneuverings are subtle and extremely cautious, because overt...

A car bomb kills six and wounds 35 in Baghdad. Al-Qaida reportedly is planning new assaults on the United States. Clearly, Fidel Castro is in trouble. Fidel Castro? What does he have to do with Iraq and Osama bin Laden? Nothing, of course, but that may just be the point. Bush's preemptive war on Iraq has led to an occupation that isn't going well. American casualties and suicides are up. The Army brass is in virtual public revolt, with half of our forces mired in Iraq, and brutally long assignments raising fears about re-enlistments and recruiting. Republicans are chafing at...

HAVANA (Reuters) - Communist Cuba on Monday rejected renewed pressure from Washington to undertake democratic reforms and said President Bush was "dreaming" of a post-Castro transition. A Cuban Foreign Ministry statement said steps announced by Bush to hasten political change on the island were aimed at securing the votes of the Cuban exile community in Florida, the pivotal state in his controversial 2000 election. "This is how the White House repays this Mafia for the scandalous fraud and tricks of the 2000 presidential elections," said the statement published in Granma, the ruling Communist Party daily. Bush said on Friday his...

WASHINGTON - President Bush Friday reassured Cuban Americans, a crucial constituency in his reelection bid, that he will keep the pressure on the Cuban government, naming a commission to seek ways to help bring about and prepare for democracy on the island.Bush directed his Cuban-born housing secretary, Mel Martinez of Orlando, and Secretary of State Colin Powell to oversee an effort ``to plan for the happy day when Castros regime is no more.''Bush's initiatives emphasized better enforcement of long-standing restrictions on travel and an effort to increase ''safe and legal'' immigration from Cuba.''We will increase the number of new Cuban...

<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush will outline new initiatives on Friday aimed at weakening President Fidel Castro's grip on power in Cuba and spurring democratic transition there without using force, administration officials said.</p> <p>Subjects Mentioned Fidel Castro White House United States Names Mentioned President Bush Minister Felipe Perez Roque More Wire Service Stories Breaking News Business Entertainment Politics Science Sports Technology World Bush's advisers have gone so far as to draft contingency plans for rushing humanitarian aid to Cuba and preventing civil unrest once Castro is gone.</p>

THE changes that have occurred in the world in the past 20 years are truly remarkable. We have left behind the Cold War and the confrontation between two irreconcilable ideological systems. The symbol of divided Europe -- the Berlin Wall, which Ronald Reagan famously urged me to tear down in 1987 -- has long since been destroyed. But one relic of the Cold War remains: the wall of the economic embargo imposed by the United States on Cuba 43 years ago. The lack of relations between the U.S. and Cuban governments, enshrined as it is in the U.S. policy of...

The head of Cuba's diplomatic mission here, Dagoberto Rodriguez, called on the Bush administration Thursday to "stop acting like a lawless cowboy" and "start listening to the voices of the nations of the world."

By GEORGE GEDDA, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - Eager to please a key Florida constituency, President Bush directed his secretary of state and his Cuban-born housing secretary Friday to recommend ways to achieve a transition to democracy in Cuba after 44 years under Fidel Castro. AP Photo Secretary of State Colin Powell and Housing Secretary Mel Martinez will chair a panel that will "plan for the happy day when Castro's regime is no more and democracy comes to the island," Bush said during a Rose Garden ceremony. "The transition to freedom will present many challenges to the Cuban people and...

VARADERO, Cuba -- Sitting in the shade of a coconut palm, Jackie Haddad points to the aqua waves rolling ashore to explain why she and her husband returned to Cuba for the fourth year in a row. "It's so beautiful -- we're stressed, and we want to relax," said the Canadian lingerie manufacturer. "And you get more for your money here." Rumbling overhead, a vintage 1930s prop plane worthy of an Indiana Jones movie is the lone reminder that the Haddads are lounging in a land frozen in time and forbidden to most Americans. For years, travelers like the Haddads...