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Putin's Secret Message to ObamaI’m Andrew Klavan and this is the Revolting Truth. Ever since President Obama took office, he’s been making friendly overtures to the Russians, trying to “press the reset button” in relations between our two countries. In 2012, the president was even caught on an open mike promising he’d have more “flexibility” to cave in to Russian demands after he was re-elected. Russian President Vladimir Putin has responded warmly to Obama’s gestures by warmly cheating on our arms treaties, warmly supporting our enemies in Syria, warmly annexing Crimea, and warmly abetting the destruction of a Malaysian airliner...

I have never been to Havana, though I've long wanted to go. It's one of those storied cities of the mind that you're afraid an actual visit might spoil -- like Buenos Aires or Alexandria. Yet the other day I got the distinct impression I had been to Havana. It hit me as I was reading a piece by Oswaldo Paya, the Cuban dissenter awarded the Sakharov Prize in 2002 for refusing to be cowed by Cuba's commissars. His petition calling for free elections and a decent respect for human rights garnered 11,000 signatures -- an impressive tribute to the...

Havana (dpa) - Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter and Bartholomew I, the patriarch of the Orthodox Church, have sent Cuban leader Fidel Castro get-well wishes after his bone-breaking fall, the Cuban state-run media said Tuesday. In a letter printed in the official Granma newspaper, Carter said he and his wife, Rosalynn, had been concerned about the news of Castro's fall on October 20 but were relieved that his injuries were not grave. Carter said he and his wife were praying for his recovery. Carter visited Cuba in May 2002 on the first trip by a U.S. president there since the...

<p>HAVANA (AP) -- Blanca Reyes waits by the phone every Thursday afternoon for a call from her jailed husband, Raul Rivero.</p> <p>A year ago Saturday, she watched from her tiny balcony as the poet and journalist was hustled away by President Fidel Castro's agents in front of cheering pro-government neighbors. Crying tears of rage, she shouted: "Alli va UN HOMBRE!" -- "There goes A MAN!"</p>

These vignettes are a glimpse of my experiences and the people met while visiting Cuba to see relatives this past year. All of the names have been changed to protect these contacts. Cubans shared their thoughts and stories at the personal risk of harassment, detention and even years in prison. I feel obligated to share what they told me with friends and perhaps the press as well. Ay Cuba! Finally, after years of curiosity, Havana came into sight under my plane's window. Cuba is the largest island in the Greater Antilles, a long extended claw that is home to Fidel...

President Fidel Castro insisted Friday that his socialist system will survive him, as he celebrated the 10th birthday of Elian Gonzalez - the shipwrecked boy who was the center of a fierce international custody battle. Castro characterized as "idiots" those who believe that socialist rule on the island will end with his death. "This revolution does not depend on one individual, or two, or three," Castro declared in a speech of more than two hours at a birthday celebration in the courtyard of Elian's school in the child's hometown of Cardenas, about 85 miles east of Havana. Speaking about a...

Havana's Karl Marx Theater rocked and rolled last month. Cuba's Communist Party put on a rollicking Fourth of July party. "In honor of the noble American people on the anniversary of their independence," proclaimed Cuba's Communist Party newspaper "Granma." Ted Turner's "Helluva guy!" was there, Fidel himself, declaring: "The cultural, spiritual and moral legacy of the American people is also the heritage of Cuba and of the Cuban people!" And a choral group sang "Old Man River." Wow. What happened to the U.S. as "a vulture preying on humanity!" circa 1960? What about the U.S. as "the cancer of humanity!"...