[Cincinatus' Wife]

Cuba Charges Bush Administration Tightening Embargo*** HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba on Tuesday charged that the Bush administration was tightening a U.S. embargo on the island despite growing domestic and international opposition, as it launched an annual drive to have the United Nations condemn the policy.

"The economic, financial and commercial blockade the United States has maintained against Cuba for more than four decades has not only been scrupulously applied, but strengthened over the last two years," Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said at a Havana news conference.

In Washington, U.S. National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack did not dispute that view. "President Bush has made very clear that he not only supports the embargo, he supports the strengthened enforcement of the embargo and he has taken stopes to do that under his presidency," he said. ***

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Trio rips Castro's regime in letter***LONDON - The heroes of Eastern Europe's anti-communist movement denounced Fidel Castro's "Stalinist" regime in Cuba yesterday and demanded action from the West to encourage its peaceful overthrow.

Former Polish President Lech Walesa, former Czech President Vaclav Havel and former Hungarian President Arpad Goncz made their call in a letter to the Daily Telegraph and several other leading European newspapers.

The letter from men who were themselves victims of communist oppression is likely to bring a furious response from the Cuban regime, which is acutely sensitive to attacks from countries which were once its closest allies.

Writing six months to the day after the regime sentenced 75 opposition figures to lengthy terms of imprisonment, the three men described the Castro regime as weak and desperate, but condemned current European Union and American policy as a failure.***