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Conflict and Confusion in Cuba Conflict and Confusion in Cuba | Matthew Cullinan Hoffman | Catholic World Report Cuban dissidents ask Benedict XVI to take up their cause as papal visit approachesAs Cuba prepares to receive Pope Benedict XVI on March 26, an increasing number of voices both on the island and abroad are complaining that the local church authorities are ignoring dissident groups and showing favoritism to a government that oppresses its own people. They also fear that the pontiff's visit could be exploited for the same purposes.In recent days, Lech Walesa, the former leader of Poland's Solidarity movement...

Pope Benedict said on Friday communism no longer works in Cuba and that the Roman Catholic Church was ready to help the island find new ways of moving forward without "trauma". Speaking on the plane taking him from Rome for a trip to Mexico and Cuba, the pope told reporters: "Today it is evident that Marxist ideology in the way it was conceived no longer corresponds to reality." Responding to a question about his visit to the island, a communist bastion 90 miles off the coast of the United States for more than 50 years, Benedict added: "In this way...

“Police are in my house; bring summons for Oscar,” Tweeted Elsa Morejon at 11:50 Thursday morning from Havana. “Oscar” is her husband, Oscar Elias Biscet, the courageous physician who has spent 12 of his 50 years on earth in Fidel Castro’s prisons for expressing the opinion that Cubans should be free to speak their minds, to associate with whom they please, and to vote in fair elections. On Wednesday, he voiced those opinions again in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. “My country continues to be run by a brutal regime that oppresses the people, systematically violating our basic...

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE — Pope Benedict XVI denounced the drug-fueled violence wracking Mexico and urged Cubans to use dialogue to find new models to replace Marxism as he began a pilgrimage Friday that will take him to both countries. Benedict spoke to reporters after breakfast aboard a special Alitalia flight carrying him to central Mexico later in the day. The pope said "idolatry of money" lies behind the violence that has claimed more than 47,000 lives in Mexico since a government crackdown began in 2006.On Monday, Benedict will leave Mexico for Cuba, where he said that it is...

Pope Benedict XVI's visits Mexico and Cuba, a trip planned to span 5 days, from March 23-28. This visit includes a meeting with Mexican president Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, Mass in the Parque Bicentenario in the municipality of Silao; a meeting with representatives from the ninety-one dioceses of Mexico; then a meeting in Cuba with Cuban President Raul Castro; a visit to the Shrine of Our Lady of Charity and a visit to Havana, greeted by Cardinal Jaime Ortega y Alamino, archbishop of Havana and by other religious and civil authorities. On the morning of Wednesday 28 March, the Pope...

March 22 - Pope Benedict XVI’s three-day visit to Cuba starting Monday will begin under a cloud: human rights groups are appalled by Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega’s decision to call the police to evict peaceful dissidents who had sought refuge in a church to draw international attention to their demands for civil rights. According to an official Cuban Roman Catholic Church communiqué published in the Cuban regime’s daily Granma, Ortega asked the police to evict 13 dissidents on March 14 after they had occupied the Our Lady of Charity church in Havana. Following their forced eviction by anti-riot police clad...

Marco Rubio loosed some hardcore bile against the Catholic Church, accusing the Church of cozying up to the Castro regime. The Daily Caller reports:Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said Wednesday that he is “deeply concerned” that the leadership of the Catholic Church has “negotiated themselves a space of operation” in Cuba “in exchange for looking the other way,” and expressed concern that Pope Benedict XVI’s upcoming trip to the island may “reinforce that arrangement.” Rubio, a Catholic, said during a discussion at The Heritage Foundation that the Catholic Church has “negotiated a political space for themselves in exchange for their...

March 20 - The following article was published on the Wall Street Journal: Next week, Pope Benedict XVI is coming here to Cuba, marking the first papal visit to my country in over a decade. During the planned three-day trip, His Holiness is set to meet with both Castro brothers and their subordinates, and to bring his spiritual message to the Cuban people. The stakes couldn't be higher. This trip is a unique opportunity for the leader of the Catholic Church to leverage his considerable prestige and influence to support the oppressed and help the Cuban people claim our liberty...

A new book by an ex-CIA spook claims that Cuban dictator Fidel Castro knew about Lee Harvey Oswald's plot to assassinate President John F. Kennedy and did nothing to stop it. Author Brian Latell was the agency's former national intelligence officer for Latin America and is now a senior research associate in Cuban American studies at the University of Miami. In the upcoming volume, "Castro's Secrets: The CIA and Cuba's Intelligence Machine," Latell writes that on Nov. 22 1963, Castro ordered his intelligence officers in Havana to drop their normal responsibilities and pay close attention to communications coming out of...

Thirteen Cuban dissidents have occupied a Catholic church in Havana, demanding an audience with Pope Benedict when he visits Cuba later this month. The dissidents want the Pope to press Cuba's communist government on issues such as the release of political prisoners and an end to repression. The Catholic Church in Cuba condemned the protest, saying places of worship should not be used for political demonstrations. The Pope is due in Cuba on 26 March. Dissident William Cepera said the eight women and five men had entered...

WASHINGTON _ The Senate on Tuesday resoundingly rejected a sweeping measure to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other protected areas to oil drilling, as well as to approve construction of the Keystone pipeline project. Tuesday's vote was the first time in four years that the Senate has voted on a measure including ANWR drilling, and it failed miserably.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2010 The Wikileak that has Michael Moore howling Real nature of health care in Cuba debated Upon hearing about the Wikileak controversy over Michael Moore and the film Sicko being broadcast into Cuba three questions come to mind: Is the Cuban health care system as presented by Moore in his film accurate? If and when the film was broadcast in Cuba was the section on Cuban health care included without edits for the Cuban audience? What did the average Cuban on the island think of the film? At this point the first question raised can be addressed....

The government of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is emerging as a rare supplier of diesel to Syria, potentially undermining Western sanctions and helping the Syrian government fuel its military in the middle of a bloody crackdown on civilian protests. A cargo of diesel, which can be used to fuel army tanks or as heating fuel, was expected to arrive at Syria's Mediterranean port of Banias this week, according to two traders and shipping data. The cargo could be worth up to $50 million. Chavez is a vociferous advocate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who face pressure...

Whoever desecrated the picture above by tastelessly printing "Pope Robot" across it was wrong as well as wicked, and worse, inelegant; Pope-bot would have been much better. In any event, the Pope and his entourage were actually swaying to el son Cubano. How can I tell? Just look at that motion, the movement in the hips and back as well as head and hands! The photo absolutely pulsates with ritmo. In truth I guessed it from an article announcing Pope Benedict's desire to see Fidel Castro on his upcoming trip to the Pearl of the Antilles. The meeting will depend...

Occupy Wall Street and its hundreds of offshoots, cost the U.S. hundreds of millions of dollars in a few short months. Cleanup costs, police overtime, lost and disrupted production and countless smaller issues hit cash strapped communities at a time they could least afford it. If, as some (including myself) predict, the movement expands and becomes better organized and more violent next Spring and Summer, the costs could become astronomical. If you were an enemy of the U.S., a hostile power intent on bringing America to its knees, would you like to see this movement grow? Maybe even help it...

Radio and television broadcasts of baseball games beamed into Cuba has become the latest brainchild of the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), whose Radio/TV Marti programs will make the cherished American sport available to Cuban citizens for free. The anticipated sole-source contract that BBG intends to award to Major League Baseball Properties, Inc., comes on the heels of a congressional report questioning the usefulness of such investments of U.S. taxpayer funds into Cuba-targeted programming. Similarly, it also should be noted that, late last year, Radio/TV Marti journalist Manuel Vazquez Portal resigned in protest of the station's alleged over-reliance on...

Gross’s work involved distributing computer and satellite phone equipment to members of the island’s Jewish community so they could use the Internet, according to his family and U.S officials.

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...

Tonight on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” Joseph Farah alleged that Florida senator Marco Rubio is ineligible to serve as vice president, saying he’s “not a natural-born citizen. We’ve been through this with Obama now for four years.” Farah, the editor of WorldNetDaily.com, drove much of the controversy over President Barack Obama‘s birth certificate, claiming the president also was ineligible to serve because of where he was born. He speculated that former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum hasn’t been more aggressive in taking on Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney because he is angling to be Romney’s running mate. “I think Santorum is...

MIAMI - Florida’s voters effectively ended Mitt Romney’s presidential dream four years ago. He won in only about one-third of the 67 counties, gained the support of only 9 percent of Cuban Americans, rejected advice from local advisers, and misplayed the ideological landscape. Now the political battlefield, the issues, and the competition are different - but the stakes in Tuesday’s vote are even higher as the one-time front-runner battles to regain his primacy against the candidate who has emerged as his chief challenger, Newt Gingrich. After Romney was sent reeling by Gingrich’s victory a week ago in South Carolina, he...