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Yoenis Cespedes agreed to terms with the A’s on a four-year deal worth $36 million, according to Yahoo’s Tim Brown. The Marlins had been thought to be the favorites for the 26-year-old outfielder’s services but reportedly had offered the same $36 million over six years. Cespedes was a power-hitting star during his eight years of professional ball in Cuba but defected last summer and subsequently established residency in the Dominican Republic. More here.

This week the media was flush with stories on the 50th Anniversary of the U.S. “embargo” of Cuba. From the New York Times to USA Today, most are running AP and Reuters stories (from Havana) which begin and end with quotes from “academic experts” deploring the “embargo” as “failed,” “archaic,” “cruel,” “political pandering to Republican Cuban-Americans,” blah, blah. First off, a totalitarian regime bestowed both Reuters and the AP with press bureaus. There was a day when Americans understood what this implied. For those who’ve forgotten here’s Vicente Botin, who reported for Madrid’s El Pais from Cuba for years. “The...

Prime Minister Stephen Harper made his most direct sales pitch yet to sell Canada's energy, vowing that "foreign money and influence" will not obstruct his government's goal to sell oil and other natural resources to countries other than just the United States. [clipped] Following up on themes he's developed ever since the the Obama administration delayed a decision on construction of the Keystone pipeline that would take bitumen from the Alberta oilsands to refineries on the U.S. gulf coast, Harper said that decision would not prevent Canada from capitalizing on its resource wealth. "We are an emerging energy superpower," Harper...

Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee slams both the Bush and Obama administrations for taking too many risks when releasing prisoners from Guantanamo Bay prison, Fox News has learned. The 93-page report, which is expected to be approved Thursday, criticizes the evolution of detainee policies over the past decade and claims both the Bush and Obama adminstrations have adhered to "domestic political pressures" to allow the transfer of some detainees. In turn, those transfers have amped up the national security risk to the United States. The report comes as the Obama administration officials have acknowledged that they are considering...

MADRID - Spanish oil firm Repsol YPF SA has begun offshore drilling in Cuban waters as part of its global exploration operations, a person familiar with the situation said Thursday. Deep-water exploration drilling began about 50 kilometers north of Havana and will take at least 60 days to complete, this person added. Repsol is resuming exploration in the area after it failed to find exploitable oil in 2004. The U.S. Geological Survey has said there could be a substantial amount of untapped oil off the Cuban coast. The Repsol well is much closer to Florida than any other well in...

U.S. intelligence officials acknowledged Tuesday that the United States may release several Afghan Taliban prisoners from the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as an incentive to bring the Taliban to peace talks. Meanwhile, Afghan officials told The Associated Press that a plan to give Afghanistan a form of legal custody over the men if they are released satisfied their earlier objection to sending the prisoners to a third country. Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper told Congress Tuesday that no decision had been made on whether to trade the five Taliban prisoners, now held at Guantanamo Bay as part...

Carlos Perez, one of Ronald Reagan's closest Miami advisers and a Radio Mambi talk host who is influential in Florida's Cuban-American community, says there is growing resentment among Hispanics due to “lies and distortions” from GOP candidate Mitt Romney targeting former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Perez told Newsmax in an exclusive interview Saturday afternoon that a backlash is brewing against the Romney campaign’s allegation that Gingrich tried to undermine former President Ronald Reagan’s agenda. Perez was a close adviser to President Reagan, and Reagan even acknowledged his Cuban-American friend's achievement during a State of the Union address. “Among Cuban-Americans, you...

HAVANA—Cuba's Communist Party will consider reforms this weekend that could impose term limits on its leaders in what would be a striking change on an island that Fidel Castro ruled for 49 years and was succeeded by his brother. President Raul Castro said in an April Communist Party congress that this conference, which starts on Saturday and is the first in the party's history, would consider limiting Cuban leaders to two five-year terms. The party has said it was also pondering age limits for high-ranking officials as it tries to bring younger people into its aging leadership. … The party...

AN alarming number of under-age girls – some as young as nine – are being forced into marriage in Islington, according to a leading campaign group. The Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation (IKWRO) claim that at least 30 girls in the borough were forced into marriage in 2010. The practice was condemned by the Imam of Finsbury Park Mosque, who said such marriages were against Islam and “unacceptable”. He pledged to invalidate any marriage which he said were carried out by “back-street Imams”. IKWRO, which made headlines last month when they revealed there had been almost 3,000 “honour-based” violence...

The race for the Republican Party presidential nomination in the United States has been a contest of "idiocy and ignorance," former Cuban leader Fidel Castro said on Wednesday in a column in Cuba's state-run press. Castro and the communist Cuba he created have been the target of much rhetoric in the lead-up to Florida's Republican primary next week, with top candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich taking hard-line positions to appeal to the state's large population of Cuban exiles. Castro did not cite them, but expressed his general disgust with the Republican field. "The selection of a Republican candidate for...

Classified U.S. government information was found in the cells of high-value detainees at the Guantanamo Bay military prison that houses the world’s most dangerous terrorists, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Editor's note: This story contains language from liberals that some readers my find more offensive than the normal America-bashing, God-hating, left-wing spew that's become a staple of their discourse. Be warned.   Along with many others, I complained a couple of days ago that Mercedes-Benz was morally bankrupt for using the image of a notorious racist, communist, and murderer as part of a marketing gimmick.Here's the original story:I’m Surprised the Amoral Jerks at Mercedes-Benz Don’t Use Hitler’s Image to Promote Cars January 12, 2012 by Dan Mitchell I hope my car doesn’t break down anytime soon. I’ve already sworn I will never buy a...

Viva la gaffe... Mercedes-Benz apologises for using image of Che Guevara to promote 'revolutionary' car sharing programme (Viva la revolucion: Mercedes Benz used an iconic image of Marxist revolutionary leader Che Guevara to promote a new ride-share initiative) Che Guevara, the famous Argentinian-born revolutionary and military theorist, wore many hats – including that of physician, author, and guerrilla leader. But he almost certainly never wore one with a Mercedes-Benz logo. The high-end car company, known for its impeccable - and pricey - motor vehicles, used the late leader to promote a new car-sharing program, much to the horror of Cuban...

When it comes to Cuba, President Obama can do little right in the eyes of exilio politicians. When he eased travel restrictions to the island, for example, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen accused him of undermining democracy on the island. Now she's slamming Obama for his decision to order U.S. inspectors to check a deep-water oil rig that is on its way to Cuba. ... "A state sponsor of terrorism [is] poised to achieve a tremendous economic boon by entering the oil business and endangering U.S. waters to boot," she said. "It is deeply disappointing that the Obama administration appears content to...

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro has spoken out against US President Barack Obama, claiming that a "robot" would do a better job in the White House, AFP reported Monday. "Is it not obvious that the worst of all is the absence in the White House of a robot capable of governing the United States and preventing a war that would end the life of our species?" Castro wrote, according to AFP. {snip}

January 7, 1959, marks a milestone in U.S. diplomatic history. Never before had the State Department extended diplomatic recognition to a Latin American government as QUICKLY as they bestowed this benediction on Fidel Castro’s that day. At the time, Castro himself had yet to enter Havana.Nothing so frantically fast had been bestowed upon “U.S.-backed” Fulgencio Batista obligatory prefix, used in every MSM and “scholarly” mention of him) seven years earlier. Batista had in fact been punished by a U.S. arms embargo and heavy diplomatic pressure to resign for a year. Batista was subsequently denied exile in the U.S. and not...

Cuba's iconic revolutionary Fidel Castro warned that the world was on an "inexorable" march into the abyss this year because of climate change and the threat of nuclear war. In an article published Thursday -- Castro's first since November 2011 -- the 85-year-old retired leader also took aim at the United States and at gas shale "fracking," a new source of fossil fuels condemned by environmentalists. He did not, however, address rumors of his death, which were denied by an official Cuban blogger after they surfaced on Twitter earlier this week. "Many dangers threaten us, but two of them, nuclear...

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro said on Thursday the world was on an "inexorable march toward the abyss," which he blamed in part on the discovery and exploitation of vast reserves of so-called "shale gas" around the world. Shale gas is natural gas locked in rock formations that in the past decade has been found in great abundance around the world and is now considered a top source of future energy. Castro, 85, wrote in one of his occasional columns published in Cuban state media that "numerous dangers threaten us, but two of them—nuclear war and climate change—are decisive and...

The US has agreed in principle to release high-ranking Taliban officials from Guantánamo Bay in return for the Afghan insurgents' agreement to open a political office for peace negotiations in Qatar, the Guardian has learned. According to sources familiar with the talks in the US and in Afghanistan, the handful of Taliban figures will include Mullah Khair Khowa, a former interior minister, and Noorullah Noori, a former governor in northern Afghanistan. More controversially, the Taliban are demanding the release of the former army commander Mullah Fazl Akhund. Washington is reported to be considering formally handing him over to the custody...

Buddy of mine just heard it on a Dominican radio station Can anyone confirm this?

Chávez: Obama is an irresponsible phony who shames the USA On Monday (19th), Venezuela's President, Hugo Chavez, heavily criticized the U.S. president, Barack Obama, in response to his warning of the alleged restrictions on the rights of Venezuelans. Chavez called Obama "irresponsible and fake": "Obama will get involved with his things. He dedicates himself to his country, where he has practiced a disaster. Now he comes seeking votes by attacking Venezuela. Do not be so irresponsible, boy," said Chavez in a Council of Ministers broadcast on state television. In an interview with Telesur, Chávez said that Obama is a "shame"...

Cuba says it is expanding free-market reforms, opening more of the retail services sector to private business. From 1 January workers including carpenters, locksmiths, photographers and repairmen will be allowed to become self-employed. They will be able to set their own prices, while paying taxes and leasing their premises from the state. The measures are the latest reforms aimed at reviving Cuba's socialist economy by boosting private enterprise. President Raul Castro, who took over from his brother Fidel in 2008, has said the changes represent an effort to update rather than abandon the socialist model. His government plans to have...

As the merry-go-round of the GOP primary continues, the present darling of fickle voters is Newt Gingrich, Like a phoenix he’s risen from the ashes to claim, with typical humility, “I’m going to be the nominee,” dismissing all other candidates as a trifling irrelevancy. Unfortunately the belated choice of Gingrich is no choice at all, for there can be little doubt how the questionably conservative and enormously polarizing Gingrich would fare against a personally popular Obama in the General Election. There is, at present only one real choice to make regarding the next president. It’s either Romney or Obama. A...

When Sir John A. Macdonald arrived at the train station in Washington, D.C., in 1870 — the first time a sitting Canadian prime minister would head to the American capital to meet a sitting U.S. president — there was no one of import there to greet him, not even the ranking Canadian representative, who had simply dispatched an aide, a horse and a carriage with which to ferry Macdonald to a hotel in Virginia. The president, Ulysses S. Grant, kept Macdonald cooling his heels in Washington for a full week before seeing him. Things have improved since then, though the...

Nearly twelve years have passed since he was pulled from a closet by a masked machine gun wielding US agent. Now Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban boy who survived a perilous raft journey that killed his mother and became a symbol of troubled relations between the United States and Cuba, is an adult. Gonzalez currently studies at a military academy on the island and took part in an 18th birthday celebration Tuesday in his native city of Cardenas alongside his father, according to images broadcast on the nightly news.

“Of all the people I interviewed in New Orleans regarding the Kennedy assassination, Carlos Bringuier was the one I trusted most. I could see in his eyes he was always telling me the complete truth.” (Oriana Fallaci, L, Europeo, 1969.) "That weasel walked into my store and started looking around," recalls Carlos Bringuier about the afternoon of August 5, 1963. "But I could sense he wasn't a shopper. Sure enough, after a few minutes of browsing he came up and extended his hand. "Good afternoon," he said. "I'm Lee Harvey Oswald." In 1963 the CIA regarded the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil...

Experts close to the Kremlin have put some flesh on a recent project of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to create a "Eurasian Union" made up of Russia and other post-Soviet states. Putin, who is expected to again become Russia's president next year, outlined his geopolitical ambitions, according to a report in the daily Izvestia. A round table in Moscow, organized by the ruling United Russia part, put flesh on those ideas, the Russian media reported today (17 October). Apart from countries of the former USSR, the "Eurasian Union" should bring together nations that are historically or culturally close to...

Say, Al Sharpton: if Herman Cain lacks "intelligence" for colloquially referring to "Cuban" as a language, how about your guy Barack Obama . . . who did precisely the same thing when it came to "Austrian"? On his MSNBC show tonight, Sharpton mocked Cain, alleging he lacked "intelligence," for asking in an aside while munching on a Cuban delicacy, "how do you say 'delicious' in Cuban?" Does Sharpton not know that Barack Obama, in a much more formal setting, addressing a NATO audience, said something virtually identical, wondering how a certain phrase was said "in Austrian"? View the video here.

When Japan’s ferocious General Tomoyuki Yamashita (“The Tiger of Malaya”) finally emerged from his headquarters on Luzon to surrender on September 2nd 1945 he handed his pistol, samurai sword and battle flag to the nearest U.S. soldier he saw. This was staff sergeant Manuel Perez-Garcia of the 32nd Infantry Division. Perez-Garcia was born in Cuba but immigrated to the U.S. after Pearl Harbor to join the U.S. Army and volunteer for combat. At war’s end the 82nd Airborne presented a special trophy to the U.S. soldier who had racked up the most enemy kills in the Pacific theater. Today that...

Venezuelan militant Carlos the Jackal, who goes on trial in France Monday, boasted in an interview with the daily El Nacional of committing more than 100 attacks that claimed up to 2,000 lives. Asked about civilian bystanders who lost their lives in his attacks, the Marxist-Leninist radical said: "There were very few. I calculated that they were fewer than 10 percent. "So out of 1,500 - 2,000 killed, there were not more than 200 civilian victims," . ... Asked if he believed that he had made mistakes, Carlos said his crimes were minor. He charged that former Cuban president Fidel...

The ban on property sales took effect in stages after Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba in 1959. Parents were able to pass property on to their children, but buying and selling property was not allowed. The rules have meant that for decades Cubans could only exchange property through complicated barter arrangements, or through even murkier black-market deals, often involving illegal payments and bribes. With the new law, Cubans will be allowed to own a maximum of two properties - their main home and a holiday home. A popular aspect of the law will be the abolition of the...

The Washington Post’s vendetta against Cuban-American Marco Rubio continues with another hit-piece last week and with MSM soulmates CNN and The Los Angeles Times chiming in. But the WaPo’s rancor against the most lopsidedly Republican voters in America didn’t start with the Rubio hit-piece last month. To wit: Imagine the proar from the MSM/Democratic axis upon discovering a Tea-Party placard that celebrates the mass-expulsion of Hispanic U.S. citizens from U.S. shores. (Heck, one that celebrated the expulsion of illegals would detonate their hair-trigger charge of ‘RACISM!”) Well, back in August 2007 a mass-expulsion of U.S. citizens of Hispanic heritage was...

Forty nine years ago on Oct. 28th JFK “solved” the Cuban Missile Crisis. Given the influence of Camelot’s court scribes and their cronies in the MSM, perhaps a refresher on conservative reaction to this “solution” is in order: "We locked Castro's communism into Latin America and threw away the key to its removal," growled Barry Goldwater. "Kennedy pulled defeat out of the jaws of victory,” wrote Richard Nixon. "Then gave the Soviets squatters rights in our backyard." "We've been had!" yelled then Navy chief George Anderson upon hearing on October 28, 1962, how JFK "solved" the missile crisis. Adm. Anderson...

Last July one of America’s biggest TV networks craved to interview Senator Marco Rubio. Univision is the biggest Spanish-language network in the U.S., reaching thirteen and a half million households, (95 percent of the “Hispanic” total) making it 4th biggest in the U.S., just ahead of NBC. Mexican-Americans make up most of its viewers so the network’s editorial tone essentially echoes that of the Democratic-controlled Hispanic Congressional Caucus. Univision’s owner is actually an Egyptian-born Israeli-American named Haim Saban, who ranks among the Democratic party’s most lavish benefactors "I don't say this lightly," said Democratic National Committee head Terry McAuliffe back...

On May 12, 2009, Marco Rubio, then a candidate for the U.S. Senate from Florida, arrived in the U.S. Capitol for a pivotal meeting with Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina. Florida’s Republican leaders wanted the seat for then-Gov. Charlie Crist, then considered a shoo-in, and DeMint’s job was to persuade Rubio to drop his campaign. Instead, Marco Rubio made grown men cry. “He was young and eager to make his case,” writes DeMint in his book The Great American Awakening (Rubio wrote the foreword). “His parents had fled Cuba as refugees, coming to America with great hopes of a...

Sen. Marco Rubio is firing back at a Washington Post report that claims he embellished his Cuban family’s history. *** “To suggest my family’s story is embellished for political gain is outrageous,” he said in a written statement. “The dates I have given regarding my family’s history have always been based on my parents’ recollections of events that occurred over 55 years ago and which were relayed to me by them more than two decades after they happened. I was not made aware of the exact dates until very recently. “What’s important is that the essential facts of my family’s...

HAVANA - A state-run newspaper in Havana published a column by Cuban dictator Fidel Castro in which he said that he believes that Venezuela "is destined to become a revolutionary model for the world," and discussed this and other revolutionary revelations with the ailing autocrat Hugo Chavez, who is in the country reportedly to receive a check-up on the status of his cancer. In his newspaper column "Reflections," Castro wrote, "I talked with him at length yesterday and today (referring to Monday and Tuesday). I explained the eagerness with which I spend my remaining energies to the dreams of a...

Freedom: Laura Pollan Toledo was a humble schoolteacher who led Cuba's defiant Ladies in White. She died Friday in Havana. But she left a legacy of untold courage that terrified Cuba's long-communist dictatorship. As surely as the sun will rise, a day will come when Cuba is free of its 52-year Marxist nightmare. And when its history is written, it's likely to begin with the story of Laura Pollan Toledo, the wife of an arrested dissident who shined a light on the totalitarian nature of the regime for all the world to see. Pollan was a founder of the Ladies...

The White House on Saturday marked the death of Laura Pollán, the founder of Ladies in White, a Cuban opposition group that staged weekly marches to press for the release of political prisoners. She was 63. The White House press office statement read: “The President's thoughts and prayers are with the family, friends, and colleagues of Laura Pollán, the founder of Las Damas de Blanco, who passed away Friday in Havana. Pollán and the quiet dignity of the Ladies in White have courageously voiced the core desire of the Cuban people and of people everywhere to live in liberty. Through...

Guevara would clear the occupation of Wall Street in a New York nano-second. His colleagues of the time recall Che cheering the Soviet tanks slaughtering Hungarian freedom-fighters on the streets of Budapest. The youths they machine-gunned and ground under their tank treads were all “Fascists and CIA agents!” he raved. “I’m a Stalinist” Che Guevara boasted to Cuban colleague Carlos Franqui in 1957. That sniveling speech by Khrushchev denouncing Stalin’s crimes was nothing but “imperialist lies!” But Khrushchev’s subsequent spunk in sending tanks and battle-hardened Siberian troops to massacre Hungarian protesters, Che later conceded, certainly helped ameliorate his speech’s doctrinal...

Havana, Cuba (CNN) -- Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro lashed out at U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday for demanding changes on the island in order to improve bilateral relations and referred to him as "stupid." On Wednesday, Obama told Hispanic journalists that he would be willing to change the country¹s tough line on Cuba "when we start seeing a serious intention on the part of the Cuban government to provide liberty for its people." On Thursday, Castro responded with sarcasm in a written essay published in Cuban state media. "How nice! How intelligent! So much generosity has failed to...

HAVANA, Cuba — Fidel Castro is mocking U.S. President Barack Obama for saying he’s open to changing U.S. policy toward Cuba if there is change on the island first. Castro writes sarcastically: “How kind! How intelligent!” He adds that such goodwill has not led Washington to end its five-decade-old economic embargo against the island. (snip) The ex-leader says “perhaps that empire will fall first,” referring to the U.S. Later he calls Obama “stupid.”

President Obama said today that his administration is “open to a new relationship with Cuba if the Cuban government starts taking the proper steps to open up its own country.” “As long as I’m president, I will always be prepared to change our Cuba policy if and when we start seeing a serious intention on the part of the Cuban government to provide liberty for its people,” the president said in a roundtable discussion on Hispanic issues. The president went on to point a finger at Republicans, saying they have stalled comprehensive immigration legislation. In order to fully engage, Obama...

As he attempted to address them this week, one third of the UN General Assembly walked out on Iranian “President� Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Then, he was pointedly snubbed by all U.S. political figures and hard-balled by the media, which grilled him on human rights abuses and nuclear weapons. Fidel Castro's sides must be hurting as he ponders the scene. Perhaps he's offering his friend Ahmadinejad some advice:  “Ahmadinejad you sorry chump! When I visited New York in 1995 for the UN's 50th Anniversary bash, and accused the U.S. of murdering thousands of Cubans with “silent Atomic Bombs,� not only did I...

Billions would have died in the nuclear holocaust. But this was the plan from the Latin American warmonger Che Guevara, who's face is emblazoned on T-shirts around the globe: “What?!” Khrushchev gasped upon reading Castro’s telegram on Oct. 28 1962. “Is he proposing that we start a nuclear war? That we launch missiles from Cuba? But that is insane! Remove them (our missiles) as soon as possible! Before its too late!” instructed the Soviet premier. So much for the Camelot fable of JFK “standing up to the Russians,” during the Missile Crisis Khrushchev “blinked” alright. But at Fidel Castro and...

Energy Policy: Deep-water drilling will resume in the Florida Strait when a giant, semi-submersible oil rig en route from Singapore arrives later this fall. The bad news is it will not be American. While U.S. oil and energy prices "necessarily skyrocket," as President Obama once said they would under energy policies that have imposed a de facto ban on offshore drilling, a massive Chinese-built semi-submersible oil rig is on its way from Singapore to a drilling position off northwest Cuba perhaps as little as 50 miles from Key West, Fla. The long-predicted move could come as early as November, as...

Students Fight to Keep UCSD Landmark Open SAN DIEGO -- A group of UCSD students is fighting to keep an eccentric landmark open. "It's that one last place at UCSD that sort of exudes that college atmosphere," said Alex Peterson, UCSD student. "It sort of represents the revolutionary, liberal, young college student." The Che Cafe opened in 1980 as a co-operative run by students and volunteers. It was named after Ernesto "Che" Guevara, an Argentinian doctor who was a major figure of the Cuban revolution. It's one of the oldest structures on campus. Built in 1960, the building was turned...

A giant, semi-submersible oil rig en route from Singapore will probably be drilling in the Florida Straits between Key West and Cuba in mid-December. The rig could arrive earlier, but Repsol, the Spanish oil company, wants to wait until after hurricane season ends before it begins drilling. This latest report on the progress of the Italian-made Scarabeo 9 oil rig comes from Lee Hunt, the chief executive of the International Association of Drilling Contractors, who just returned from a trip to Cuba last week as part of a joint delegation with the environmental group, the Environmental Defense Fund. Hunt also...

On the Friday after Thanksgiving 1962, Cuban agents planned to detonate 500 kilos of TNT inside Macy's, Gimbel's, Bloomingdale's and Manhattan's Grand Central Terminal. Che Guevara was the head of Cuba's "Foreign Liberation Department" at the time. On September 11th 2001, roughly 50,000 people worked at the World Trade Center. Macy’s alone gets roughly 50,000 shoppers on Black Friday. Castro and Che planned their Manhattan holocaust short weeks after Nikita Khrushchev foiled their plans for an even bigger one. "Say hello to my little friends!" Castro had dreamed of yelling at us in October of 1962, right before he imagined...

“I still have my Che Guevara poster. Che Guevara was a freedom fighter.” (Bob Beckel on FoxNews’ “The Five” Sept. 5th) If Bob Beckel’s “freedom-fighter” had been allowed his fondest bit of “freedom-fighting” Bob Beckel’s incinerated remains would fit in a gin bottle today. “America is the great enemy of mankind! Against those hyenas there is no option but extermination!...If the missiles had remained, we would have fired them against the very heart of the U.S., including New York City.” For the record: Ernesto “Che” Guevara was second in command, chief executioner, and chief KGB liaison for a regime that...