[Cincinatus' Wife]

Cuba Says Bush Post-Castro Plan Just a Dream - Payment to Mafia for 2000 vote*** 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 administration would toughen enforcement of a ban on travel to Cuba by going after Americans who visit the island without special permits. He also promised to increase the number of visas granted to Cubans who want to "seek freedom" and emigrate to the United States, as demanded by anti-Castro Cubans in Miami who oppose the return of rafters leaving the island. ***

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Press group indicts Cuba, Venezuela [Full Text] CHICAGO - (AP) -- Freedom of expression and freedom of the press are violated, or at least threatened, throughout the Western Hemisphere, an organization of newspaper publishers said Tuesday. The Inter-American Press Association concluded a five-day meeting in Chicago saying the situation is the worst in Cuba and Venezuela.

The Miami-based umbrella group of nearly all newspapers in the Americas said Cuba is the country where freedom of the press ``is violated most systematically and completely.''

''Twenty-eight independent journalist are serving prison sentences ranging from 14 to 27 years in subhuman conditions, far from their families, with no medical attention and no respect for their other basic human rights,'' the IAPA concluded in a report.

Venezuela was also mentioned as a concern for harassment of Venezuelan journalist by sympathizers of President Hugo Chávez.

A ''special distinction'' of the IAPA's award went to the 28 Cuban journalists.

Receiving the award on their behalf, Humberto Castelló, executive editor of El Nuevo Herald of Miami, asked Jack Fuller, the Chicago Tribune publisher IAPA president, ``not to allow Venezuela to become a new Cuba with the press.''

The IAPA also said national security is being used as a pretext to clamp down on the media in the United States. [End]