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Cuba's Fidel Castro criticized Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for denying the Holocaust and said in an interview Tehran should acknowledge Israel's fears for its own survival, the Atlantic said Wednesday. The Iranian government should understand that the Jews "were expelled from their land, persecuted and mistreated all over the world, as the ones who killed God," Castro was quoted as saying in the magazine's website. Castro delivered his defense of the Jews in an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, who wrote a widely noted piece in Atlantic's September edition exploring the likelihood of an Israeli air strike on Iran's nuclear facility...

HAVANA — Fidel Castro says al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is a bought-and-paid-for CIA agent who always popped up when former President George W. Bush needed to scare the world, arguing that documents recently posted on the Internet prove it. "Any time Bush would stir up fear and make a big speech, bin Laden would appear threatening people with a story about what he was going to do," Castro told state media during a meeting with a Lithuanian-born writer known for advancing conspiracy theories about world domination. "Bush never lacked for bin Laden's support. He was a subordinate."

Recently, reports have surfaced indicating that the Obama administration plans to revive efforts to ease the ban on travel to the communist dictatorship of Cuba. This is in keeping with the conventional leftist wisdom on Cuba, which holds that engagement is key to softening the attitude of the country’s despot, Fidel Castro. In fact, this fetish for engagement with Castro began before he was even in office: “Me and my staff were all Fidelistas.” (Robert Reynolds, the CIA’s “Caribbean Desk’s specialist on the Cuban Revolution” from 1957-1960.) “Everyone in the CIA and everyone at State was pro-Castro, except [Republican] Ambassador...

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, chairman of the soi-disant Cordoba Initiative, has gotten all the attention he deserves for his astonishingly insensitive attempt to build a 13-story mosque and community center at the site of Ground Zero. Rauf has largely escaped attention for his efforts to build a sawed-off version of the same on the grounds of the venerable and historically Christian Chautauqua Institution in western New York State. Although the resistance to Rauf at Chautauqua has not made the news, it is deeply felt, and it is coming from both Christians and Jews. As shall be seen, the forced feeding...

While the MSM reports on Fidel Castro’s 84th birthday today – Fidel Castro marks his 84th birthday on Friday after a spate of public appearances and apocalyptic warnings of nuclear war and environmental disaster that have catapulted him back onto center stage in Cuba and garnered him headlines outside the Communist-run Caribbean island. The Cuban public, by and large, has welcomed their Commandante back after four years of seclusion with the warmth and sympathy one might bestow on an ailing, but wise grandfather home after a prolonged hospital stay, but in no position any longer to play head of the...

Arizona's new law that requires the police to ask people to show ID, which was just knocked out by a supremacist judge, may not be the most controversial Arizona law about illegal aliens. Gov. Jan Brewer signed another law this year that bans schools from teaching classes designed to promote solidarity among students of a particular ethnic group. This law bans classes that "promote the overthrow of the United States government" or "promote resentment toward a race or class of people" because schools should treat all pupils as individual Americans. The issue arose because the Tucson School District offers courses...

(embedded video of then Senator John F. Kennedy addressing Communism and the Fidel Castro Regime in article is a must see) Now is the time to stand up to the threat of Socialist Communism within the United States. While many today on the Left glorify Mao Tsu-Tung, Marx, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and Socialist Communism itself, John F. Kennedy stood resolutely against these enemies of humanity thus against many of the people now in the majority in Congress and in the White House. Yes, John F. Kennedy was a Liberal, but… John F. Kennedy was also a real American. He...

Cuba's Fidel Castro took part in his first government function since he nearly died in 2006, repeating his apocalyptic warnings of a nuclear war that only President Barack Obama can avert as he spoke Saturday to a formal session of parliament.

Fidel Castro, the dictator who came the closest in history to igniting a nuclear war, made several public appearances recently to predict an imminent nuclear conflict. The cataclysm he craved in 1962 will erupt, he warned on Cuban TV, when the Israelis and their American cohorts provoke Iran in the straits of Hormuz. You did indeed read the above account correctly. Castro, the man who co-sponsored the famous 1975 UN resolution equating Zionism with racism, is claiming the Israeli tail wags the Yankee dog. Those Yankees are certainly powerful, Castro explained, but also a bit naïve and docile. The main...

Fidel Castro made his first reported appearance outside Havana on Saturday since a health crisis forced him from power in 2006, the strongest indication yet he is reclaiming a major public persona after years out of the spotlight. The gray-bearded, 83-year-old wore an olive-green shirt at a ceremony in Artemisa, 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of Cuba's capital, honoring fallen fighters in his revolution. Through frail, Castro looked a bit like his old self in video released on state television and in photos posted on the government website Cubadebate. It was the latest in a slew of public appearances in...

Hope I'm not stepping on any toes, but I'm working on a paper for school and there's a particular bit of info that would be extremely helpful for my assignment. Unfortunately, I can't remember the specifics. So let me lay out the general story: It's about a Cuban general who served under Batista and decided to sign on with Castro, as he didn't care for Batista. Once Castro overthrew Batista, he realized what sort of people he'd signed up with and decided to retire, saying that he had no interest in being a part of the Castro regime. Rather than...

While the nation's eyes remain fixed on Arizona, another immigration story has been playing out largely unnoticed on the other side of the country. On July 13, in the waters off South Florida, the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted a solitary Cuban man fleeing to freedom in the United States. Now, Cubans fleeing Castro's paradise are nothing new; indeed, 56 other Cubans were picked up in the Straits of Florida the same week. What makes this man interesting is his mode of travel: a tiny boat made mostly of Styrofoam. But except for a few stories in the Miami papers and...

WASHINGTON — After two court rulings against its six-month moratorium on deepwater oil and gas drilling, the Obama administration on Monday announced a revised ban that it described as essential and appropriate. The Interior Department said the revised ban incorporates "new evidence regarding safety concerns" as well as new procedures to gather industry feedback. Moreover, the revision suspends drilling not based on water depth, it said, "but on the basis of the drilling configurations and technologies."

New photographs of a smiling, tracksuit-clad Fidel Castro greeting workers at a scientific think-tank were posted on the websites of two Cuban journalists Saturday, offering a rare glimpse of the reclusive revolutionary leader in a public forum. Fidel, 83, appears slightly stooped but otherwise healthy in the four pictures, which were apparently taken Wednesday with a worker's mobile phone. The former Cuban leader is seen raising his hand to wave in one picture and apparently being led away in another. “He is thin but he looks good, and according to our director, he is very good mentally,” reads a comment...

HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro made his first known public appearance since falling ill four years ago in a visit this week to a Havana scientific facility, a blog reported on Saturday. Photographs taken with a cell phone and posted with the pro-government blog showed a smiling Castro, 83, chatting with people said to have gathered around him as he was leaving the National Center of Scientific Investigations. ... The blogger, Rosa C. Baez, wrote that Castro was spotted making a "surprise visit" to the center on Wednesday and stopped to greet and "throw kisses" to the...

HAVANA — Cuba began making good Thursday on a deal to release its 52 most prominent political prisoners, with five told by the country's top clergyman that they could be released into exile at any time, and six others transferred to jails closer to their homes. Under a landmark agreement between the government of President Raul Castro and the Church, brokered by visiting Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, authorities promised to free five political prisoners as soon as possible and force them to head to Spain — then free 47 more in the next two or three months.... It...

The 11 arrests so far are the tip of iceberg. Many more to follow, many in South Florida.” “The “South American country” where Vicky Pelaez picked up her payments from Russia’s SVR was Venezuela.” “Russia’s SVR, Castro’s DGI (Directorio General de Inteligencia) and Chavez’ SEBIN, (Servicio Bolivariano de Inteligencia) are all linked. They all share agents and information. Castro-Cubans run Chavez’ intelligence agency practically lock, stock and barrel.” “Vicky Pelaez was frequent traveler to Cuba where she met with Castro’s DGI. Pictures exist of those meetings.”

Elian Gonzalez says he's not angry at his Miami relatives who fought to keep him in the United States during a nasty international custody battle a decade ago, and is thankful "a large part of the American public" supported him being reunited with his father in Cuba. Now 16, Gonzalez's first comments to foreign reporters in years came after President Raul Castro attended a state celebration Wednesday night marking the 10th anniversary of the famous ex-castaway's return to the island. "Even though they didn't help me in every way possible, they didn't help me move forward, they are still my...

(Reuters) - A congressional panel is poised to take the first step toward ending a decades-old U.S. ban on travel to Cuba and removing other hurdles to food sales to the Caribbean island, a senior lawmaker said on Tuesday. "This bill has been needed for a long time," House of Representatives Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson said in a statement ahead of committee action on Wednesday.

Gov. Charlie Crist's special assistant in South Florida has resigned over the governor's attendance at a fundraiser for his U.S. Senate campaign attended by business leaders who back lifting sanctions on Cuba. The fundraiser -- story here -- was co-hosted by Alfredo Duran, a lawyer and prominent supporter of opening dialogue with the communist regime. Chris Miles, 20, joined the governor's office shortly before Crist left the Republican party to run as an independent in late April. He previously worked for Sen. George LeMieux and for U.S. Rep. Lincoln-Diaz Balart's re-election campaign. "I appreciate the opportunity that I have had...