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Operational Strategic Nuclear Warheads: USA = 3,451 USSR = 497 Number of Operational ICBMs: USA = 203 USSR = 36 Number of Operational Strategic Bombers: USA = 1,306 USSR = 138

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...

SNIPPET: "The Interior Ministry says Spanish police have arrested a Cuban man suspected of belonging to al-Qaida. A ministry statement says the man was detained Monday on the Mediterranean Island of Mallorca."

HAVANA (Reuters) – A Cuban cigar roller broke his own record on Tuesday by rolling the world's longest cigar, a monster smoke that stretched 268 feet 4 inches (81.8 metres), or most of the length of a football field. Resting on tables, it sprawled through El Morro, an old Spanish fort overlooking Havana Bay, where Cuba is holding its annual International Tourism Fair. The cigar, once it is officially accepted by Guinness World Records in London, will eclipse the previous record cigar of 148 feet 9 inches (45.38 metres), both rolled by Jose Castelar Cairo, better known as "Cueto. Cueto,...

HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuba's Communist Party approved landmark economic reforms on Monday and voted for new leaders in a key party congress to chart Cuba's future, state-run media reported. The Caribbean island's highest political body was to select new first and second secretaries, its Central Committee and powerful Political Bureau, .. results were not immediately disclosed. The reforms represent the biggest changes to Cuba's Soviet-style economy in decades and are aimed at securing the future of socialism in one of the world's last communist states. The congress' approval had been widely expected because some of the reforms are already in...

Rats and diseases infested Cuban prison cells so badly that some inmates tried to kill themselves and other did themselves harm, according to freed political prisoners who spoke Thursday in Spain. Those who spoke were among 11 political prisoners released this week and flown to Spain to start new lives. At a press conference in Madrid, they painted a squalid picture of the prison conditions they had endured. "The hygiene and health situations in prisons throughout the island of Cuba are not terrible, they are worse than terrible," freed dissident Julio Cesar Galvez said. "We had to live with rats...

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...

company run by former Dallas Mavericks owner Ross Perot Jr. filed suit Monday against the club and Mark Cuban's company that holds majority ownership in it, alleging that it's insolvent or verging on insolvency. In the 13-page petition filed in a state district court in Dallas, Hillwood Investment Properties III Ltd. asked that a judge place Dallas Basketball Ltd., the team's business management, in receivership and order an independent audit of its operations. Hillwood also is seeking actual and punitive damages.

Victoria Jackson interviews a Cuban emigre on Tax Day, April 15th, 2010 in Washington, DC

Seven Cuban doctors and a nurse sued Cuba, Venezuela and the state-run oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa) for alleged conspiracy to force them to work in conditions of "modern slaves" in order to pay off the Cuban debt with the Venezuelan government for oil supply. The defendants "intentionally and arbitrarily" held the health staff in "debt servitude" and the staff became "economic slaves" and "political advocates," according to the complaint filed in the United States, Efe reported.

Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) will announce his retirement this afternoon at a press conference at Florida International University, according to two Republican sources familiar with his decision.

Cuban refugees are dominating arrests in Florida's indoor marijuana trade in what investigators call a nearly punishment-free crime. ....young Cubans throughout the state are turning to the lucrative business of raising ultra-potent pot worth up to $4,500 a pound, without fear of deportation or lengthy prison sentences. Probation is a common sentence for anyone convicted in state court of running a growhouse, drug agents say. And, unlike other foreign-born felons, U.S. policy prevents the deportation of Cubans. South Florida groups identified by law enforcement as Cuban Drug Trafficking Organizations control hundreds of growhouses that have sprung up from Miami to...

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...

HAVANA (AFP) – Cuban Vice President Juan Almeida Bosque, a revolutionary commander who fought alongside Fidel Castro to bring down a pro-American dictatorship, has died. He was 82. An official communique issued through state media said Almeida, the number three official in the Americas' only communist regime, died late Friday from cardiac arrest. Almeida was one of just three top Cuban leaders to hold the title of revolutionary commander. As a black man in racially diverse Cuba, Almeida was an important visual symbol of a break with the past, particularly in 1950s Cuba, when racism and discrimination were common. His...

The 47-year-old trade embargo against Cuba has been shaken by the revelation that drilling for oil and natural gas is about to take place less than 50 miles off the U.S. coast - in Cuban waters. No one knows for sure just how much oil lies off the northwest coast of Cuba, but the consensus is that it's sizable. The U.S. Geological Survey initially came up with an estimate in 2004 of between 5 billion barrels and 10 billion barrels. But Cuba's state oil company, Cubapetroleo, recently said the undersea geology was "very similar" to Mexico's giant Cantarell oil field...

"6. Pyongyang has announced that it will “never” give up her nuclear weapons’ policy. You might have heard that the word “never” is never to be used in any context. Why does North Korea practice the opposite without much damage? Because we make it pay. Perhaps, as far back as 1953, the Kims had reason to discover that in their case that “never” always works. It does so because they have to do with entities whose moral relativism and crisis management technique is that everything, and really everything, is negotiable at all times. Accordingly, they never say “no, never” to...

Watch the videos at the link to comment. "Humor is everywhere if you just look. I decided to have my friends at Flinch Studios, the folks who do our in arena Mavs videos put together a timely parody of the FreeCreditReport.com commercials. Enjoy."

"I was a bit disturbed to see this guy on 60 minutes last night, once again, bringing up Abraham Lincoln in an interview. He obviously wants to establish a specious connection with the great leader as he has brought Lincoln up on many other occasions and even campaigned with a banner bearing Lincoln’s image in front of the State House where Lincoln served. What makes it so appalling is that the primary issues for which Obama stands are in direct opposition to the father of the GOP. Obama can get away with this because the majority of Americans who voted...

****UPDATE**** SEC Charges Mark Cuban With Insider Trading The Securities and Exchange Commission filed insider trading charges against Mark Cuban, the outspoken owner of the Dallas Mavericks, for allegedly dumping shares in Mamma.com upon learning it was raising money in a private offering.... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122693827604333637.html

SEC charges Mark Cuban with insider trading:

MCCAIN: It's great to be back in Florida. We need to win Florida on November 4th, and with your help -- we're going to win here, and bring real change to Washington. We need a new direction, and we have to fight for it. I've been fighting for this country since I was seventeen years old, and I have the scars to prove it. If I'm elected President, I will fight to shake up Washington and take America in a new direction from my first day in office until my last. I'm not afraid of the fight, I'm ready for...

Russia will offer to share its air defence expertise with Cuba when a military delegation visits the Caribbean island this week, Interfax news agency reported on Monday. "The Russian and Cuban military will exchange experience in organising tactical air defence and in training officers," Interfax quoted Russian Land Forces spokesman Igor Konashenkov as saying. The two sides will "discuss the prospect of training Cuban servicemen at the tactical air defence academies and training centres in Russia, using upgraded Russian-made military hardware," Interfax quoted him as saying. The delegation, led by the chief of Russia's tactical air defence headquarters, Lieutenant General...

About 150 Muslim workers have been fired from a Grand Island meatpacking plant in a dispute over prayer... Plant officials at the JBS Swift meatpacking plant are bringing in Cuban workers to replace them...

HAVANA - Cuba announced Tuesday it has set Jan. 20 for national elections that are part of the process of determining whether ailing leader Fidel Castro continues as president. The ruling, signed by interim leader Raul Castro and read on state television, set the date for elections to provincial and national assemblies — voting that is held every five years. There was no explicit mention of Fidel Castro, but the 81-year-old leader of the Cuban Revolution must be re-elected to the national parliament before he could repeat as president of the Council of State to remain in full power. Raul,...

A very insightful, and mighty smackdown, of Brian De Palma's propaganda movie "Redacted" by Michael Medved. Listed to review here. He calls the movie "The worst film I have ever seen." Medved has been reviewing movies for over 25 years, and certainly knows his subject. Brian De Palma really layed an egg with this one. He couldn't even make an effective propaganda movie.

Brian DePalma, Mark Cuban, et al, have directed and produced a libelous piece of trash called "Redacted." This fictional "film" tells of the rape and murder of a young Iraqi girl by U.S. Soldiers. This filth is supposed to show the true nature of the "criminal" war in Iraq - or so the director, producer and MSM would have us believe. Tell you what DePalma and Cuban - why don't you get your pampered, elitest butts over to Iraq and see what's really happening? I've tried to write Cuban in care of the Dallas Mavericks, which he owns, but to...

Hannity & Colmes — 9p/12 Mid ET: Secret Footage from "Sicko" Exposed

Billionaire Mark Cuban has decided to put all of his weight behind a campaign to smear US troops in Iraq as “monsters’. Cuban has decided that De Palma’s film “Redacted” must be seen as the cornerstone of his and De Palma’s self-declared anti-victory campaign against America and her troops fighing in Iraq. Cuban’s company Magnolia Pictures will be bringing this propganda campaign to a theater near you this winter. According to a source close to Cuban, the decision to develop, finance and distribute the film was personally made by Çuban. Cuban has a full producer credit on the film, and...

HAVANA (Reuters) - Convalescing Cuban leader Fidel Castro has bowed out of Thursday's Revolution Day festivities, with his stand-in and brother, Raul Castro, to speak in his place, the government said on Wednesday. "Raul will speak tomorrow" blared a red banner headline of the Communist party newspaper Granma. The news was hardly a surprise to most Cubans and foreign observers as Fidel Castro has repeatedly failed to appear in public since undergoing the first of a series of intestinal operations a year ago. "We'll be waiting for him. If Fidel can't make it, who better than Raul to be here,"...

Dallas Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban Submits Application to Buy Chicago Cubs CHICAGO (AP) -- Add internet billionaire and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban to the list of potential Chicago Cubs buyers. "I submitted an app," Cuban said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. Interested parties must submit an application to Major League Baseball to examine the team's finances. Cuban told the Chicago Tribune he sent in the application last week, although he wasn't sure of the date. Tribune Co., which owns the team, announced in April it was selling itself for $8.2 billion to Chicago real estate mogul Sam...

HAVANA - The latest video clip of Fidel Castro was shown Monday on state television to promote an interview of the convalescing leader to air Tuesday, his first formal interview since taking ill 10 months ago. The brief clip aired Monday showed Castro and the host of the nightly "Round Table" TV program, Randy Alonso, sitting across from each other in rattan chairs in an interview evidently conducted over the weekend around the same time Castro met the visiting Vietnamese Communist Party chief. Alonso said his interview with 80-year-old Cuban leader would be shown the following night on the same...

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is part of a group considering formation of a football league that would compete with the NFL for players drafted lower than the second round. The league, still very much in the preliminary stage, would play its games on Friday nights. The NFL does not play then because of the potential conflict with high school football. "It's a pretty simple concept," Cuban said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "We think there is more demand for pro football than supply." The proposal was first disclosed by The New York Times on its Web site,...

After three days, The Miami Herald only published two responses, but not a single apology from Herald Staff or from the journalist Ana Menendez. Please read article below, and forget about the word Cuban, and replace it with African American after each insulting word. Dont you think that after three days, the Herald Board of Directors will publish an apology by this time??

"It is possible to create an incident which will demonstrate convincingly that a Cuban aircraft has attacked and shot down a chartered civil airliner enroute from the United States to Jamaica, Guatemala, Panama or Venezuela. The destination would be chosen only to cause the flight plan route to cross Cuba. The passengers could be a group of college students off on a holiday or any grouping of persons with a common interest to support chartering a non-scheduled flight." a. An aircraft at Eglin AFB would be painted and numbered as an exact duplicate for a civil registered aircraft belonging to...

The US coast guard is staging a huge exercise in Florida in preparation for a possible mass exodus from Cuba in the event of the death of Fidel Castro.More than 300 agents and 85 law enforcement agencies are taking part in the two-day Operation Vigilant Sentry. Actors are playing imaginary Cuban migrants in mock interceptions. The operation has taken on a renewed urgency since President Castro fell ill and handed temporary power to his brother Raul last July. President Castro recently spoke in a live broadcast with his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez, but has not been seen in public...

Immigration reform is a predicament wrapped in a dilemma. While it is common for issues to separate Republicans and Democrats, immigration is an issue that opens yawning divides within each group. "We are engaged in a struggle for the soul of the party," Mel Martinez, the general chairman of the Republican National Committee, told me. Martinez said Republicans must back more than border security if they are to survive politically. The party, he believes, must back legislation that will lead to the "regularization" of illegal immigrants already in this country. Alex Castellanos, media strategist for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney,...

Billionaire basketball team owner Mark Cuban denied a report on Wednesday that said he plans to offer $625 million to Tribune Co. for the Chicago Cubs baseball team.

Mark Cuban in Megabucks Bid for Cubs TEAM SPIRIT CubanBillionaire blogger Mark Cuban is more serious about buying a major league baseball team than he's been letting on. The tech entrepreneur and Dallas Mavericks owner is set to offer $625 million to buy the Chicago Cubs from Tribune Co., according to a source familiar with the matter. "Mark is desperate to buy the Cubs," says the source. "He wants this so bad." Cuban hasn't responded to a message from Radar, but when asked about the Cubs in the past, he has admitted to being a potential buyer. "I'm always interested...

Cuban colonists traded bootlaces for gold Maev Kennedy Monday October 9, 2006 Guardian Unlimited (UK) El Chorro de Maita cemetery; and an artist's impression of the jewellery made by the Cubans from the Europeans' shoelaces. Images: Courtesy Institute of Archaeology The people of El Chorro de Maita, a fishing and farming village on the east coast of Cuba, were buried with their greatest treasures: jewellery made of stone, coral, pearl, gold and silver alloy, and odd little tube shaped metal beads. Meanwhile the first Europeans to make contact with the island were sailing home, well pleased with their barter: they'd...

Dan on hold 10/05/06 02:18 PM Dan Rather Reports will still be coming soon to Mark Cuban's HDNet. Just not as soon. "We are moving Dan back to after the elections so there won't be as much going on," Cuban said in an email Thursday. The weekly "completely uncensored" news program originally was slated for an October start. Rather and Cuban officially broke the news to TV critics at a July 11th dual press conference in Pasadena, CA. Cuban, who also owns the Dallas Mavericks, said he was happy to free the former CBS News warhorse "from the ratings-driven and...

With strong faith, seminarian stood up to Castro and was expelled from Cuba Cuban-born Enrique Corona, a diocesan seminarian, most likely has never heard of Richard Stockton, one of the America's Founding Fathers. Although separated by 230 years of history, both men have this in common - each of them put his own freedom on the line, enduring a prison sentence for having gathered up the courage to put pen to paper in voice of freedom.   At the dawn of the American Revolution, Stockton, a New Jerseyan, made the brave decision to sign the Declaration of Independence - an act...

The American's Guide to Cuban Diseases Destemplanza: Mysterious body temperature, not high enough to be considered fever, but serious enough to miss school and work. Illness is unknown by the American Medical Association and understood only by doctors of Cuban origin. Patatú: Attack of obscure origin that can strike at any time. Could be serious enough to require hospitalization, yet is undetected by medical technology. Victims tend to be males and females over the age of 50 years. Sirimba: Attack with similar symptoms as the Patatu's but not as serious and with shorter duration. Can be alleviated by lying on...

Cuban exiles reacted with exuberance at the news that Fidel Castro had temporarily ceded power to his brother late Monday night, taking to the streets, dancing and honking their car horns in celebration that decades of dictatorship in Cuba was coming to an end. But today, the initial joy turned mostly to uncertainty as Cubans paused and considered the unanswered questions: why did Mr. Castro himself not appear to announce his illness? Was he alive or dead? What would the future bring for families with loved ones in Cuban prisons, or for those with executed relatives in the grave?

A veteran Fairview police officer voided traffic summonses he wrote to the boyfriend of state Attorney General Zulima Farber after she showed up at the scene, sources with knowledge of the incident said Thursday. The U.S. Attorney's Office has been contacted about the matter for possible review, a law enforcement source said late Thursday. Meanwhile, an internal investigation is continuing in the borough, the sources said. Farber confirmed late Thursday that she was at the scene, but denied using any influence to help her boyfriend. According to three sources, borough Detective Albert Napolitano pulled over a 1995 Oldsmobile van driven...

A blog is media. Its a platform to communicate that can reach anyone within reach of an internet connection. Ive been writing this blog for more than 2 years and that time has allowed me to recognize the difference between a blog and traditional media and why the two will never successfully meet. In traditional media, you are first defined by your medium. There is some constraint to the physical or digital definition of the medium the content is delivered on or by, that for the most part determines how you are perceived. There is a cost vs time vs...

MIAMI -- Cigar aficionados beware: Those handmade Montecristos, Cohibas and Romeo y Julietas aren't necessarily premium smokes. Law-enforcement and cigar industry officials say counterfeiters are marketing millions of dollars in fake upscale cigars, some even pretending to be authentic Cubans that are illegal to sell in the United States. A crackdown uncovered several major counterfeit operations, including one in Miami that resulted in the seizure of more than $20 million in fake stogies, labels and packaging.

Growing up in Miami, young Cuban Americans rolled their eyes whenever the older generation warned there were spies everywhere. Agents of Fidel Castro who blended into el exilio and reported back to the island? It seemed too dime-store-novel to be true. But over the years, proof poured in. The latest: alleged Cuban agents at Florida International University. The old-timers have felt vindicated every time a spy is discovered -- just because they were paranoid didn't mean spies weren't out to get them. But just how damaging have those spies been? Whatever intelligence they may have swiped, their greatest toll could...

Supporters of an old anti-Castro rebellion are having difficulties getting asylum in the United States because the Patriot Act labels them terrorists. WASHINGTON - Four decades ago, thousands of Cubans took to the Escambray mountains in a CIA-backed guerrilla war against Fidel Castro. Today, U.S. law brands them as terrorists.

On March 10, parts of the Patriot Act expire again. Section 215, most famous for the alleged threat it poses to library patrons ... doesn't single out libraries but relates to official requests for "... books, records, ... etc.". The provision is not known to have been invoked yet .... To hear the ALA talk, librarians are the last bulwark defending our most cherished civil liberties against government assault. Yet two recent examples show again that self-anointed guardians of the public good can be very selective about the people, and rights, they choose to protect. One example came from Newton,...

Tehran, 22 Nov. (AKI) - Iran's religious authorities in the holy Shiite city of Qom have officially invited Cuba's revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, to convert to Islam, according to Hojatolislam Mohammad Reza Hakimi, quoted by Iran's Farda news agency. "I met Castro together with the Iranian foreign minister, Saiid Salili, and gave him some sacred Islamic texts translated into Spanish," said Hakimi, who recently returned from a government visit to Cuba. "We spoke with Castro for several hours, and I think I almost managed to convince him to become a Muslim," Hakimi added. "Castro certain that Cuba is suffering from...