http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/castro/ en-us Tue, 22 Dec 2009 19:35:45 GMT Focus Forum 15 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2413203/posts Havana, Cuba - Cuba's foreign minister called President Barack Obama an "imperial and arrogant" liar Monday for his conduct at the U.N. climate conference, a reflection of the communist island's increasingly fiery verbal attacks on the U.S. government. Bruno Rodriguez spent an hour and a half lambasting Obama's behavior in Copenhagen, telling a news conference, "at this summit, there was only imperial, arrogant Obama, who does not listen, who imposes his positions and even threatens developing countries." He called the summit "a fallacy, a farce" and said Washington used back-room deals and strong-arm tactics to foist on the world a... Communists 4 Obama http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2413203/posts#comment Tue, 22 Dec 2009 19:35:45 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2410955/posts Veteran Cuban leader Fidel Castro on Friday dismissed US President Barack Obama's trip to UN climate change talks in Copenhagen as a "show," and complained that the world's poor will shoulder the burden of any summit agreement. Castro's opinion article, titled "The Moment of Truth," also criticizes the "fascist methods" used by Danish police to put down protesting environmental activists. "It is already evident that a great catastrophe threatens our species," wrote Castro, 82. Perhaps the worst part of the summit "is blind selfishness of a rich and privileged minority that intents to impose the bulk of the necessary sacrifices... Breitbart http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2410955/posts#comment Sat, 19 Dec 2009 04:13:56 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2407876/posts Cuba's former leader Fidel Castro has accused the US of plotting to overthrow left-wing governments in Latin America. The "friendly smile" of US President Barack Obama could not be trusted, Mr Castro said in remarks read out at a summit of leftist leaders in Havana. His comments were echoed by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and other regional leaders at the meeting. Fidel Castro's remarks suggest hopes for a thaw in US-Cuba ties may be waning, correspondents say. BBC http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2407876/posts#comment Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:19:28 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2407698/posts Fidel Castro says Obama's smile can't be trustedMon Dec 14, 2009 7:31pm EST HAVANA (Reuters) - Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro warned on Monday that President Barack Obama's "kindly smile" could not be trusted, saying Washington was plotting against leftist Latin American governments including Venezuela's. Castro, 83, who ran Cuba for nearly 50 years before poor health led him to hand the presidency to his younger brother Raul last year, initially welcomed Obama's election but has been increasingly critical. In a letter read by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at a gathering of leftist leaders in Havana, Castro said the United... Reuters http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2407698/posts#comment Tue, 15 Dec 2009 04:33:18 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2405415/posts Documentary peeks at Fidel Castro's human side Dec 10 05:12 PM US/Eastern By WILL WEISSERTAssociated Press Writer HAVANA (AP) - The Rev. Jesse Jackson took him to church for the first time in 27 years. Home run legend Hank Aaron asked him for autographed baseballs. Literary great Gabriel Garcia Marquez gave him a copy of "Dracula" that kept him up all night reading and smuggled ingredients into the country so he could make baklava. An international cast of luminaries who traveled to Cuba and met with Fidel Castro, as well as top members of his government and military, talk... Breitbart.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2405415/posts#comment Fri, 11 Dec 2009 15:42:06 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2405212/posts A few days ago, President Barack Obama made it clear ``to every man, woman and child who lives under the dark cloud of tyranny, that America will speak out on behalf of their human rights.'' Speaking out against tyrants, international resolutions and sanctions are often used as diplomacy tools. Sanctions are not uncommon when dealing with tyrants, as we have seen in the discussions weighing what to do about North Korea and Iran. The United States levied sanctions against Libya after its terrorists downed a PAM AM flight over Scotland in 1996; the world imposed sanctions on the white supremacist... Miami Herald http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2405212/posts#comment Fri, 11 Dec 2009 08:22:06 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2404831/posts HAVANA: Fidel Castro is calling President Barack Obama's accepting of the Nobel Peace Prize a "cynical act," given that he is sending 30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan. The 83-year-old former Cuban leader initially applauded Obama's selection, but he has backed off that recently. In a column on a government website on Wednesday, Castro wrote: "Why did Obama accept the Nobel Peace Prize when he had already decided to take the war in Afghanistan to its ultimate limit?" Castro said Obama "was not obligated to commit a cynical act" by accepting the prize. He said Obama's Dec. 1 speech during... Times of India http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2404831/posts#comment Thu, 10 Dec 2009 20:32:12 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2401913/posts <p>What an odd hat. In fact, it is identical to the one Castro wears from color to style...</p> <p>I understand that the Castro hat is a common 'fashion' symbol for many women lately. Is Palin intentionally wearing a Castro hat for some point or is her fashion skills that mediocre? I've only seen teenage girls wear those things.</p> http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2401913/posts#comment Mon, 7 Dec 2009 10:50:51 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2399856/posts Venezuela's currency fell sharply against the dollar in black market trading Thursday, reaching a two-month low as worries over bank nationalizations prompted Venezuelans to trade in their bolivars for greenbacks. President Hugo Chavez ordered the seizure of four small banks over the past week, and on Thursday said they would be nationalized. The day before, he threatened more bank seizures, leading to a run on some banks as people started guessing which ones might be targeted. The specter of a liquidity squeeze hitting the country's smaller banks is starting to appear, fueling dollar demand. In afternoon trading in Caracas, the... Wall Street Journal http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2399856/posts#comment Fri, 4 Dec 2009 02:13:04 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2396740/posts Cuba began its biggest military maneuvers in five years on Thursday, saying they were needed to prepare for a possible invasion by the United States. Despite a thaw in U.S.-Cuba relations and assurances last week by President Barack Obama that the United States has no intention of invading the island 90 miles from Florida, Cuba's state-run press quoted military leaders as saying there "exists a real possibility of a military aggression against Cuba." The war games, which are being called "Bastion 2009," also will get the military ready to deal with social unrest the United States may try to foment... Reuters http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2396740/posts#comment Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:54:35 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2393681/posts Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) has launched a "Spotlight on Spending" series to highlight items in his Control Spending Now Act, which includes 40 items that, the senator says, will reduce the government deficit by more than half a trillion dollars. The first provision featured by Feingold's press office is Radio Marti, launched in 1983 to broadcast 24 hours of programming designed to undermine the Castro regime. TV Marti debuted in 1990. Both are operated by the Office of Cuba Broadcasting under the Broadcasting Board of Governors. Feingold's office cites Radio and TV Marti as wasteful, among other reasons, because their... Radio Ink http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2393681/posts#comment Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:25:04 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2392229/posts Nearly 50 years after a botched US-directed invasion of Cuba, the communist nation said Saturday it is holding a military exercise next week to boost preparedness against any future US attack. "It is a necessity of the first order given the political-military situation that now defines relations between Cuba and the empire," Major General Leonardo Andollo warned, referring to the United States. He told the official Granma newspaper that the "Bastion-2009" exercises will "raise the deterrent capacity to prevent a military confrontation, under the principle that there is no better way to win a war than by avoiding it." AFP http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2392229/posts#comment Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:57:17 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2391854/posts CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is inviting his mentor Fidel Castro to visit Venezuela during the coming months. Chavez read aloud a letter to the 83-year-old former Cuban leader during a televised speech Saturday night, saying "Venezuela awaits you." Chavez proposed that Castro visit at some point between now and April, during a congress of his socialist party. The 83-year-old Castro has not been seen in public since undergoing a series of emergency intestinal surgeries in July 2006. Associated Press http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2391854/posts#comment Sun, 22 Nov 2009 05:15:30 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2386009/posts HAVANA – Think you're obsessed with President Barack Obama and the many challenges he faces at home and abroad? Well, you're not alone. Fidel Castro appears to have a fascination with the American leader that would make Obama Girl jealous, writing obsessively not only about his politics, but of his youth and vigor. And unlike with past American heads-of-state — he slammed President George W. Bush as a genocidal drunk — Castro seems to genuinely like the fresh face in Washington. Since handing over the Cuban presidency to his brother in February 2008, the 83-year-old has continued to publish his... Yahoo News http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2386009/posts#comment Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:54:37 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2385451/posts Think you're obsessed with President Barack Obama and the many challenges he faces at home and abroad? Well, you're not alone. Fidel Castro appears to have a fascination with the American leader that would make Obama Girl jealous, writing obsessively not only about his politics, but of his youth and vigor. newsmax http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2385451/posts#comment Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:12:02 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2375584/posts HAVANA — Fidel Castro has found something to sneeze at in Washington's decision to ease visits by Cuban-Americans to his island: He says more Americans mean more swine flu. The 83-year-old ex-president wrote in state-controlled newspapers on Saturday that many of Cuba's early cases of the virus were visitors from the United States and he used the occasion to take a jab at the U.S. embargo. "We had the strange case where the United States on one hand authorized more trips for a large number of people carrying the virus, and on the other prohibited us from obtaining equipment and... Associated Press http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2375584/posts#comment Sat, 31 Oct 2009 23:59:19 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2375435/posts Fidel Castro has found something to sneeze at in Washington's decision to ease visits by Cuban-Americans to his island: He says more Americans mean more swine flu. The 83-year-old ex-president wrote in state-controlled newspapers on Saturday that many of Cuba's early cases of the virus were visitors from the United States and he used the occasion to take a jab at the U.S. embargo. "We had the strange case where the United States on one hand authorized more trips for a large number of people carrying the virus, and on the other prohibited us from obtaining equipment and medicine to... Associated Press http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2375435/posts#comment Sat, 31 Oct 2009 19:07:13 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2372731/posts Samuel Johnson once remarked that seeing a dog walking badly using only its hind legs would not be surprising. What would be surprising, he said, was seeing a dog walking on its hind legs in the first place. Similarly, coming upon a poorly developed story on the Marxist network Democracy Now! having anything to say which would reflect unfavorably on a fellow Marxist would not be a surprise. The surprise would come with the realization that the story was run at all. NewsRealblog http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2372731/posts#comment Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:04:24 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2371986/posts One of Fidel Castro's sisters says in a memoir released Monday that she collaborated with the CIA against her brother, starting shortly after the United States' failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961. Juanita Castro, 76, initially supported her brother's 1959 overthrow of the Batista dictatorship but quickly grew disillusioned. In a Spanish-language memoir published by Santillana USA and co-written by journalist Maria Antonieta Collins, she says the wife of the Brazilian ambassador to Cuba persuaded her to meet a CIA officer during a trip to Mexico in 1961. By then, her house had already become a sanctuary... Washington Examiner http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2371986/posts#comment Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:18:52 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2371474/posts A sister of Cuba's former long-time leader, Fidel Castro, has admitted spying for the CIA in the 1960s. Juanita Castro, who now lives in Miami, said she had gathered sensitive information for the US for three years. In her memoirs, she said she had fallen out with Fidel and her other brother Raul - Cuba's current president - over the killing of their opponents. Ms Castro, 76, said she had helped to warn and hide Cuban dissidents before finally fleeing the island in 1964. There has been no immediate reaction from the US or Cuban governments. news http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2371474/posts#comment Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:44:36 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2370752/posts MADRID - U.S. President Barack Obama asked Spain to send Cuba a message about reform when he met Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero earlier this month, the newspaper El Pais reported on Sunday. Six days after their meeting on October 13 at the White House, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos visited the Caribbean island and met President Raul Castro. "Have (Moratinos) tell the Cuban authorities we understand that change can't happen overnight, but down the road, when we look back at this time, it should be clear that now is when those changes began," Obama told Zapatero, according... Reuters http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2370752/posts#comment Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:13:09 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2368378/posts Havana's man in Europe is returning from Cuba with a simple request: For his EU partners to drop their focus on human rights. After a two-day visit with the Cuban government, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos will press his Continental counterparts to scrap their 1996 "Common Position" on Cuba in order to fully normalize ties with Raul Castro's dictatorship. .. "Consider Mr. Moratinos a trend-setter in the age of Obama, as the U.S. president's own overtures to Castro (not to mention to Iran, Burma and now Sudan) follow a distinctly Moratinian philosophy. This holds that engaging dictators will yield... Wall Street Journal http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2368378/posts#comment Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:35:40 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2365920/posts Come for the Disaster Preparedness Lecture, Stay for the Totalitarianism   [Mark Hemingway] It was in the web briefing yetserday, but my eyes nearly popped out of my head when I finally read "New Orleans mayor learns about disaster response in Cuba." So one day after President Obama is in the Big Easy, Mayor Ray Nagin heads off to Cuba to learn about disaster preparedness? What does the Cuban government possibly have to teach us? Here's the Cuban disaster preparedness plan in a nutshell: Kill off the private economy for 50 years so that when a hurricane comes you don't have... National Review http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2365920/posts#comment Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:39:04 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2364514/posts Is the Central Intelligence Agency covering up some dark secret about the assassination of John F. Kennedy? Probably not. But you would not know it from the C.I.A.’s behavior. For six years, the agency has fought in federal court to keep secret hundreds of documents from 1963, when an anti-Castro Cuban group it paid clashed publicly with the soon-to-be assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. The C.I.A. says it is only protecting legitimate secrets. But because of the agency’s history of stonewalling assassination inquiries, even researchers with no use for conspiracy thinking question its stance. The files in question, some released under... The New York Times http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2364514/posts#comment Sat, 17 Oct 2009 10:55:35 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2362307/posts To: US State Department & United Nations IN SUPPORT OF THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF HONDURAS. We the citizens of the world, lovers of liberty and democracy, concerned about the isolation and impoverishment which is being imposed upon the Republic of Honduras by; the United Nations, the OAS, the UNASUR, the EU, and the U.S, hereby set forth our intend, individually and organizationally, to demonstrate our support of the government of the Republic of Honduras, presided by Roberto Micheletti together with all the legitimate and constitutional bodies of said government. We strongly support the current government’s efforts to safeguard the constitution... Defenders of World Democracy http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2362307/posts#comment Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:07:04 GMT