Frankly, the alliance of the communist left and radical Islam gives me nightmares. I first became aware of this frightening trend years ago when my husband and  I noticed a definite anti-Israel bias in LA Times articles on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.   Always, always, these biased articles were penned by liberals, supposedly the tolerant, peace loving defenders of human rights. What do jihadists and the left have in common? Hatred of Judeo-Christian civilization, and an agenda for power,  their prime targets being the United States and Israel, who stand as twin pillars of freedom and democracy, entrusted as protectors of mankind's inalienable rights, granted only by God.

Remember, just months before the terrorist attacks of 9-11, in May 2001, Fidel Castro told a cheering crowd of Muslim students at the University of Tehran, "Together we will bring America to its knees,"  he wasn't joking.   The war following the attacks provided a perfect opportunity for this enemy to go on the offense.  With ally Obama in the White House, their operations became overt, the so-called Arab Spring, and the rise of Muslim Brotherhood their first victory. Who carries the saber for these destructive radicals bent on war and destruction?  The left dominated and Soros funded MSM, thats who.   CNN, long dubbed the Castro News Network, can now also be called the Crescent News Network.

From Jean-Patrick Grumberg for www.Dreuz.info, via Atlas Shrugged:

Breaking News: CNN Israel fired all Jewish Journalists

The media scandal that you are about to read was revealed to us by a totally reliable source.

It is likely to provoke a wave of shock and indignation within the North American media industry, and it certainly will not calm down the controversy over the pro-palestinian CNN treatment of the conflict.

We learned today that the Israeli branch of CNN, located in Jerusalem, is downsizing to cope with reduced income from less advertising.

What goes beyond good management is that CNN has fired four Israeli Jewish journalists (out of a crew of 8), and has retained only Arab journalists. Where, until now, CNN always sent a Jewish and an Arab journalist to cover information, now there will be only an Arab journalist. The local chief editor of the News Chanel is now Arabic.

This is a conflict where information is central to public opinion, and it weighs a lot on diplomatic decisions. Furthermore, it is no secret that Arab journalists cannot freely publish what they want without risking for their own lives when traveling to Gaza, East Jerusalem, and Judea Samaria. Thus, CNN decision to fire all Jewish journalists from its Jerusalem office is of particular concern, because the general public is unaware that they will be receiving biased information.

Update at 8:30 PST: we just received the names of the four journalists that were fired:

Moshe Cohen, editor, fired on january 30, 10 years with CNN.

Izi Landberg, Producer, about 25 years with CNN, fired on January 30.

Avi Kaner cameraman fired on january 30, 10 years with CNN.

Michal Zippori desk producer, situation still unclear.

It's Groundhog Day, and if Punxsutawney Phil is correct, we are in for six more weeks of winter before we can look forward to spring.  Sadly, the weather's temperature is not the only measure of warmth for humans.  As it is, there is no need for a weather predicting rodent in Cuba, because there is no escaping the chill of the repressive winter of the firmly entrenched Castro dictatorship.  We witness those international masses who cheered the so-called Arab Spring, who proclaim concern for universal human rights, justice, and self-determination, apply a different standard when it comes to rights for the Cuban people.  Apparently, the Castro brothers are just too sexy for condemnation, to lovable to be judged by their actions, as were other lesser tyrants long ago confined to the pages of history.  Businessmen from around the globe froth at the mouth over the delights of the island in anticipation of future profits, while turning a blind eye to the public beatings of peacefully protesting women.  The Castro's author the islands narrative; they say there are no political prisoners in Cuba, and Walla!  In lockstep, the international media ignores the reality of Cuban political prisoners, well documented by international human rights organizations, and gleefully disseminate the propaganda.  Not content with that complicity, their white wash often includes an added insult to the victims they say do not exist.  Clergy of all faiths, those representatives of human kind's morality, travel to the island to pay homage to the world's longest reigning tyrants, never minding the history of executions, the atrocities, or the testimony of survivors. 

 There's a price to be paid for this base inhumanity, as the devil always gets his due.  The forces gathering in the Middle East, their infiltration into the Americas, and the erosion of constitutions by radicals elected to power may be the beginning of payback.  If the lights of liberty darken, will that too be called justice?

Media complicity with the brutal Castro dictatorship is why we are bombarded with articles promoting Tourism to Cuba, Healthcare in Cuba, Gay Rights in Cuba, et al, while members of the "Ladies in White" and other peaceful dissidents are attacked and beaten in broad daylight, under the watchful eyes of A.P., CNN, and other  MSM outlets.  They enjoy their Havana desk perks in exchange for ignoring the brutality that surrounds them. Instead of their pundits at least expressing hope for a "Cuban Spring" for the long suffering Cuban people, they spew out endless dictator approved propaganda. Why??? Are Egyptians, and Libyans somehow more deserving of freedom and human rights than Cubans?  More likely, they share the dictators disdain for the people they claim to represent.  Sound familiar?

  Thank you Thor and Pedro, from the Human Rights Foundation for speaking the truth for Cuba.

More PR Shame: Associated Press Cooperates With Dictatorial Propaganda Machines

August 15, 2011

by Thor Halvorssen and Pedro Pizano

Fidel Castro just celebrated his 85th birthday. One would think that after 52 years of running a police state in Cuba, the media would accept that Castro is a brutal oppressor and tyrant. Comparable, no doubt, to any of the totalitarian despots still alive today. For example, Bashar al-Assad in Syria (41 years of dynastic tyranny) or Teodoro Mbasogo Obiang in Equatorial Guinea (31 years of bloody oppression). Yet, surprisingly, when it comes to North Korea and Cuba, one of the most trusted wire services in the world, the Associated Press (AP), cares more about business than about journalistic ethics and the truth.

Evidence of the vicious nature of these regimes, and the lack of civil liberties and political rights that their citizens are granted, are more than well documented. Barbara Demick, in her latest book, Nothing to Envy, paints a harrowing picture of the "ordinary lives of North Koreans." By tracing the lives of six defectors, Demick chronicles the effect of government propaganda and the harsh realities of survival. Human rights abuses in North Korea spread far beyond violations of freedom of expression: government-orchestrated poverty and starvation are responsible for the deaths of millions. Yet, the ruling Kim dynasty is so successful in covering up their crimes that, during the 1990s famine, many North Koreans believed government propaganda that the United States was responsible for food shortages. One woman Demick interviewed even blamed herself for the deaths of her family members. "It never occurred to her to blame the regime," Demick writes.

We had the chance to listen to Demick's stories first hand at this year's Oslo Freedom Forum. You can watch her speech here.

Compare this to what the AP has said about North Korea in its efforts to cater to the regime, and, consequently, its announcement that it will be the first western wire service to have a bureau there. Then read what Michael Calderone of the Huffington Post and Isaac Stone Fish of the New York Times have to say. Isn't it striking that the AP would partner with the Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) without even once mentioning that it's a state-run propaganda tool? Are the AP stringers in North Korea suffering from the same brainwashing as North Korean citizens?

Now consider this recent press release from the AP commemorating Fidel Castro's birthday:

Castro is proclaimed by the AP as an "iconic" leader and a "source of inspiration for many people throughout the world." Ché Guevara is lauded as a "revolutionary hero" in the picture captions. Castro is no more "iconic" than Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, or Pinochet in historical context. However, it is highly unlikely that the AP would try to sell pictures and collections of Hitler as an "enigmatic" historical figure who is "still a source of inspiration." Castro and Ché may, indeed, be a source of inspiration for ignoramuses, washed-up ideologues, tendentious institutions, or people who still believe that he accomplished some "good things," (much as Hitler "created jobs" or Mussolini "made the trains run on time" or Pinochet "saved Chile from communism") but it is shocking that the AP would sink this low to make a buck.

Again, the AP has partnered with an official state news agency of Cuba, Prensa Latina, without offering any caveats. As Tom Blumer quipped recently on BizzyBlog, "the guess here is that the AP would have more of a problem cooperating with anything or anybody associated with Fox News than it does in cooperating with the island nation's equivalent of the old Soviet Union's Tass."

Please consider, dear reader, that in Cuba, ordinary citizens cannot invite their friends over, or hold any kind of meeting, for fear of being accused of subversion. Cubans cannot even host something as innocuous as a book club. Few of them even own books—leading to the creation of underground "independent" libraries whose operators risk prosecution and prison for such subversive acts as owning a copy of a banned novel or history book.

There is no freedom of speech; internet access is severely restricted; there is no freedom of press in Cuba; property rights do not exist (your stuff isn't yours—it can be confiscated at the whim of the regime); Cubans have one currency while party leaders and tourists have another; you aren't allowed to switch jobs without government permission (and the government is the dominant employer); and most jarring, you are forbidden to leave Cuba without the government's written permission. Even the ignorant executive or venal cog in the AP machine should draw the line between the free and unfree world where you cannot vote with your feet and leave. Those who try to leave Cuba often end up drowning or eaten by sharks after days on a raft in the ocean.

Is any of this undeniable reality of life under Castro mentioned in a single caption of the thousands of photographs offered by the AP? Not once. Castro, they repeat, is a "revolutionary hero."

Fidel Castro and Che Guevara are offered by the AP as sources of inspiration. Hitler, Mussolini, and Mao, all cold-blooded killers, are also inspirations. But for whom? A new generation of psychopaths and dictators? For shame.

Thor Halvorssen is president of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation and founder and CEO of the Oslo Freedom Forum. Follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.

Pedro Pizano is the global media liaison for the Oslo Freedom Forum and the Public Advocacy Coordinator for Human Rights Foundation . Follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.

"The function of propaganda is, for example, not to weigh and ponder the rights of different people, but exclusively to emphasize the one right which it has set out to argue for. Its task is not to make an objective study of the truth, in so far as it favors the enemy, and then set it before the masses with academic fairness; its task is to serve our own right, always and unflinchingly."  - Adolph Hitler 

Fidel Castro, a practiced student of der Führer, learned that lesson well. With Obama's relaxation of Cuba restrictions, the regimes agents of influence wasted no time in bringing their planned grand Castro propaganda show to the U.S. audience.  The shows, given the cover of legitimacy by respected cultural institutions such as Carnegie Hall in New York, and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, dutifully enhanced by glowing write ups in the New York Times, promoted by the Hollywood establishment, well, what a fait accompli for the dictatorship!  The American masses, unindoctrinated no longer as they view carefully chosen photos depicting life in Cuba before and after the revolution,  thrill to the beat of Cuban music and dance. Yes Cuba!

From the LA Times:  "For the final performance of its first North American tour since 2003, Ballet Nacional de Cuba danced a thrilling, go-for-broke “Don Quixote” on Sunday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion."   The reviewer goes on to describe the performances as  incandescent, sparkling, and unforgettable.  What drivel.

This Machiavellian tour is brought to our shores by the Si Cuba Festival, partnered with the following organizations: (Please, follow the links and check out their board members)

  Los Angeles: 
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Fowler Museum at UCLA
The Getty
The Int'l Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5 and SPARC
LA Phil
Los Angeles Film Festival
Museum of Latin American Art
Music Center
Segerstrom Center for the Arts

Missing  from the Si Cuba Festival's display of everything Cuban  from traditional Son to the delights of Cuban Cuisine (at $75 per person in the Getty Center's private dining room), is the simultaneous hunger, terror, and repression inflicted on non-elite Cubans back home on the island.

Who's behind this disgusting deceitful collaboration with the dictatorship? Among others, a well-known suspected Castro agent of influence.  

Julia Sweig is an Honoray Committee member of Sí Cuba Festival; a "go to Cuba Expert" and member of the "non-partisan" Council for Foreign Relations.   The Castro's can surely count on their good friend Julia to promote the interests of the Castro dictatorship. 

Here is a list of her fellow Honoray Committee members, also from Sí Cuba Festival's website. Note however, that this list is from the Si Cuba's New York Festival page and unavailable on the SoCal page, an interesting omission.

Jody Gottfried Arnhold
Chair, Board of Trustees, Ballet Hispanico

Margaret C. Ayers
President, Robert Sterling Clark Foundation

Beth Rudin DeWoody
President, May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation

Howard Farber
Founder, Fundación Cuba Avant-Garde

Damian Fernandez
Provost & Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Professor of Political Science, SUNY-Purchase

Mauricio Font
Director, Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere Studies, City University of New York

Allen Greenberg
Director, The Jerome Robbins Foundation, Inc.

Dr. Ramiro Guerra
Director, Danza Contemporanea de Cuba

The Trustees of the Harkness Foundation for Dance

Stephen Heintz
President, Rockefeller Brothers Fund

Tania Leon
Composer, Conductor, Distinguished Professor, CUNY

Lourdes Lopez
Co-founder and Director, Morphoses

William H. Luers
Ambassador

Richard Lukins
Vice Chair, Board of Trustees, The Joyce Theater

Alberto Magnan
Co-Owner, Magnan Metz Gallery

Ben Rodriguez-Cubeñas
Chair, Cuban Artists Fund & Program Director, Rockefeller Brothers Fund

Alex Rosenberg
American Friends of the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba

Carole Rosenberg
President, American Friends of the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba

Jane Gregory Rubin
Secretary, The Reed Foundation

Donald Rubin
Co-Chair, The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation and Co-Chair, Board of Trustees, The Rubin Museum of Art

Julia Sweig
Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies and Director for Latin America Studies, Council on Foreign Relations

Luis A. Ubiñas

Who cares?  Not the MSM bent on promoting their favorite revolutionary hero, and keeping their desks in Havana... the devastation of the Cuban people be damned.

Thanks to the inimitable Paquito D'Rivera for shedding light on this phenomenon, because I've been unable to understand how it is beneficial for Americans to spend their hard-earned, and increasingly hard to acquire dollars on propaganda shows produced by tyrannical dictators who enslave their people and hate us. While it's easy to understand why the dictator's agents of influence would promote such events, I have a hard time understanding why respected institutions of culture agree to participate, or why someone who escaped the plantation is now willing to dance for the former master, or why a son of an exile would dishonor his  father.

Yes… Libya!

By Paquito D'Rivera

Years ago, Miami’s Willy Chirino had a hit song—a cute Cuban Guaracha— with a chorus that went: “If she wears a Bikini… punish her!, If she wears a mini-skirt… punish her!” The song was about a tycoon whose wife was kind of loose. Each time she slipped, her husband would “punish” her by buying her a mansion, the latest model sports car, or a vacation with her girlfriends in The Bahamas.

Apparently the US government has taken Chirino’s parody too seriously, or perhaps someone has convinced them to apply such a peculiar disciplinary concept to the most cruel and dangerous of dictatorships in this convoluted world of ours. In a friendly and conciliatory gesture, on February 2008, the Bush administration sent the New York Philharmonic Orchestra to a gala concert in North Korea. Naturally, the despotic Kin Jon-Il didn’t even bother to attend. His answer was to increase even more his threatening atomic arsenal. Two years later, among a myriad of atrocities taking place in Cuba, pacifist Afro-Cuban doctor Oscar Elias Biscet, a devoted follower of Dr. Martin Luther King’s ideas, was sentenced to 25 years in prison; Orlando Zapata-Tamayo’s death in a hunger strike; the physical and mental abuse of his mother Reina Luisa Tamayo and to the self-sacrificing Ladies in White; the incarceration of hundreds of dissidents and even the arbitrary detention of American citizen Alan P. Gross.

It seems like to celebrate such horrors, the New York City Ballet, the Wynton Marsalis Orchestra, and also Chico O’Farrill’s orchestra, under his son Arturo’s direction, traveled to Cuba. The Ministry of Culture of the oldest (and most ridiculous) dictatorship in the hemisphere invited them. “Ours is not a political visit. It is strictly musical”, the travelers simply affirmed as if in a totalitarian country like Cuba, everything, absolutely everything, didn’t have markedly political intentions.

The examples of “friendly aggressions” of Americans against ill-governed nations by never ending tyrannies have been quite many. Of the shameful case of China business affairs we better not even talk about. But we must recognize that the massive repressive escalation of the Castro brothers’ dictatorship, finally gained the support of many more nations that united to condemn these five decades plus of abuse and arbitrariness. In the meantime, President Obama’s administration, following the Chirino song’s chorus, “punishes” the repressor by encouraging travel and cultural exchanges (unilateral of course) of American artists and their counterparts (in what is left) of the island in ruins. This basically translates into considerable new revenue of extra cash for the Castro government. Also the sponsorship of a huge Cuban festival in the city of the skyscrapers, facilitating the free use of US territory as an enormous exhibit warehouse, where they will showcase only what they decide people should see.

As we expected, in the expo named “¡Sí Cuba!”, or Yes Cuba!”, the valuable contributions of Celia Cruz, Cachao, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Zoé Valdés, Andy García, Gloria Estefan, Olga Guillot, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Bebo Valdés and so many other giants of our national culture will be absent. They have been systematically deleted from our suffering country’s history books because they oppose communism.

So, following the above mentioned examples, now that the Libyans, with the support of the civilized world, are liberating a crucial battle against Muhammar Gaddafi (or however the hell it’s spelled), I propose that –through the Libyan Embassy in Washington DC– we request that the Bedouin Coronel’s Ministry of Culture, organize the “Yes Libya!” festival. It’ll be pretty much like Fidel’s, but instead of mambos and rhumbas, they can play their own nawbah and takambas; musical styles danced by Libyans (at least by those who are still alive).

I suggest the festivities to begin with a great demonstration on camelbacks and dromedaries, loaned by the nation’s zoos that house those particular species. The camel riders, dressed as they do in the dessert, will be carrying curved swords, daggers, hand-grenades, anti-yankee placards, life size posters of the brother leader of the revolution and AKG rifles, fired occasionally by the cavalry men. (About the possible throwing of hand-grenades and other explosives against opposing demonstrators, we would submit this option to a democratic vote from the Libyan government’s organizing committee).

The cavalcade, preceded by the RPSBB (Retired Palestinian Suicide Bombers Band) and by women covered with veils and burkas, would march from Times Square to Ground Zero’s esplanade, where counting on the voluntary assistance of Casa de las Americas, Pastors for Peace, the Venceremos Brigade and the diplomatic representation of Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, would put up the dictator’s (pardon me, the leader’s) legendary Bedouin tent. Once in the neighborhood, there will be a prayer on the site of the mosque that was to be built there and had caused so much controversy among the intolerant families of the twin towers’ victims; little incident that occurred so long ago. At the end of the prayers, there will be free shish kebab, couscous with chickpeas and barbecued goat testicles. Passages of the Koran will be read and there will be a give-away of the famous green book, autographed by the remarkable author, father of the revolution. A Libyan boy, wearing a Che Guevara T-Shirt, machine gun in hand, will unveil a beautiful statue of Benjamin Netanyahu hanging from an olive tree in the heart of the historical plaza, once home of the twin towers, a symbol of capitalism. At the end of the ceremony, Mayor Bloomberg will read a proclamation declaring the official day of Tripoli in New York. As evidence of Islamic tolerance, accompanied by the Retired Palestinian Suicidal Bombers Band, Louis Fahrakan will interpret the Arab version of Willy Chirino’s “Punish Her,” especially orchestrated by Robert Mugabe for this occasion. To close with a golden seal, 100 members of the Palestinian band, activating their explosive vests at the cry of “Yes Libyaaa!” would blow to pieces and in the name of the eternal brotherhood between our people, 40 American flags will be burned along with 49 Israeli flags and a Cohiba cigar. Allah-Akbar!

Paquito D’Rivera.
Bern, Switzerland,
April 27-2011

I’ve been debating with myself for weeks whether or not to pay the bucks and attend this event.  Part of me felt I should, in order to offer an honest review.  I hate when people review things they haven’t watched, read, etc.,  but I also have a personal policy to do my best not to spend money on anything; events, music, books, whatever, that in anyway benefits Castro Inc.  So, I’ve been debating, and this evening I decided to check out the Getty PR for the event.  (Don’t know why that took me so long)  Anyway, I’m not going, and I won’t be reviewing the event.  IMO this exhibition is just part of the promote Castro tour currently enjoying US comforts financed by Cuban blood.  The Cuban National  Ballet  is also on tour; does anyone really want to see a 91 year old "ballerina" pimping for an 85 year old mass-murdering dictator?

 The Getty Website has several corresponding events listed in conjunction with this exhibition, one of which is the Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club® featuring Omara Portuondo at the Hollywood Bowl.   

In my humble intransigent opinion,  I think that’s all we need to know about who and what is behind this "Cultural Event."

Posted below is a letter sent to The Orange County Register by Delia Abascal in repsonse to their interview with Alicia Alonso-Carta.  I received it from Abel Perez, Editor and Publisher of the 20 de Mayo Periodico. 

 June 13, 2011

 Mr. Paul Hodgins

Orange County Register

  

Dear Mr. Hodgins:

 

After reading  your article on Alicia Alonso and seeing her comments on Fidel Castro, I want to emphasize that opinions and facts are two different matters. She said  that Castro helped her, that he was a blessing. She refused to make political comments or answer your questions on Castro.

 

Castro has destroyed  the Arts in Cuba, all the  branches of the arts world in Cuba, that is a proven fact!  Alicia Alonso should be embarrassed for the help that Castro has given her. She should be embarrassed and ashamed knowing that Castro and his bunch of criminals have destroyed the Cuban Arts, in all aspects.  Please, ask her why they helped her only and he did not allow the rest of the Cuban artists to perform their art in Cuba? Why so many Cuban artists had to escape from Cuba because they were persecuted by the Castro's criminal regime? I can name hundreds of Cuban dancing artists that are performing  and living around the world because they can not perform and live in Cuba. 

 

How wrong Alicia Alonso is! It is not a fact to say that Castro is a blessing, It is absurd and an immorality to say that! Castro destroyed the private enterprise in Cuba. We had several dancing schools in Cuba and he closed them all, closed movie theaters, nightclubs, radio stations, playhouses. Castro does not allow to play  some musical instruments that were created years ago because according to him these instruments are symbols of capitalist countries. Castro does not allow the Cuban population  to listen to  American music; he banned songs from Cuban singers that had to leave the country because of his persecution. Among these singers are Celia Cruz, Olga Guillot, Gloria Estefan, Willy Chirino, Lucrecia, Olga and  Tony, Fernando Albuerne, the list is too long to fit here.

 

There is  "the so called" Cultural Exchange Program that should allow Cuban artists to come here to perform and Cuban born artists in here to perform in Cuba. Well, the reality, another fact, is that Cuban artists who live in Cuba and that are selected and approved by the communist dictatorship can come over here but the Cuban born artists, who live in here are not allowed by the Cuban dictatorship to go to Cuba to perform there. What Alicia Alonso has to say about that? Ask her. Alicia Alonso knows that what ever profit comes from her performance here, has to be divided with Castro. Castro will pay very little to the artists and he will keep the majority of the profit for him like he does with all other professionals that he send from Cuba to work in other countries, What Castro is doing with these Cuban artists is another criminal act, the act of SLAVERY!  In the case of Alicia Alonso, she wanted to be an slave and has helped the Cuban dictator to continue the killing of innocent men, woman and children in Cuba. What Alicia Alonso has to said about that? Ask her!

.

In here, I am only referring to the performing arts because is what I am addressing now. I am not mentioning all the Human Rights that have been violated in Cuba for over 52 years of dictatorship and that Alicia Alonso hide with her attitude. By being so grateful to Castro and ignoring all the criminal acts Castro has done and is doing to the Cuban people, she is considered another assassin,  A CASTRO'S PARTNER, an accomplice of the destruction of Cuba, an accomplice of the violation of Human Rights all over the Island, these are years of proven facts.

 

I am looking forward to see my letter in the paper so the Orange County Register readers can make a decision if they want to contribute with a bloody regime that have killed the arts in Cuba or if they will abstain from going there so they will not cooperate with the bloody Castro criminal dictatorship.

 

Thanks

Delia Abascal   

"RIBBIT! RIBBIT!"

He used to be a correspondent for Al-Jazeera English in Communist Cuba, reporting “objectively” on what is happening in Castro’s island paradise. Now, Juan Jacomino is the Second Secretary of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, D.C., where he is coordinating “solidarity” activities for the regime. This means that he is organizing support on U.S. soil for Marxist governments and movements in Latin America.

His transition from Al-Jazeera to official Castro mouthpiece and “diplomat” demonstrates that the news channel has extremely low standards for deciding who is fit to be a “journalist.” It is another major embarrassment for Al-Jazeera, which wants to be taken seriously as a professional news organization.

But that’s not all. It turns out that Jacomino also worked for a news agency that supplied news and information to CBS News, National Public Radio and Fox News Radio in the U.S.

The Cuban Interests Section, featured on Jacomino’s business card, is considered Castro’s embassy in Washington, D.C. since the U.S and Cuba do not have diplomatic relations. But it is known to be a nest of spies for Castro. The Miami Herald has reported that Cuban spies based in the United States operate from the Cuban Interests Section in Washington and the huge Cuban mission to the United Nations in New York City.

An Al-Jazeera story about Cuba quoted “Al-Jazeera’s Juan Jacomino” as commenting about the introduction of some free enterprise in Cuba. The story added, “Our correspondent said that Cuba will continue to provide its citizens with free health-care and education: social programs which are widely seen as hallmarks of the 1959 revolution.”

So despite the introduction of some capitalism, designed to stave off the bankruptcy of the regime, the Cuban people will continue to enjoy “free” heath care and education. The cost of these “free” services, of course, is the lack of freedom to choose.

It turns out that Jacomino, who has his own Facebook page, worked for the Cuban government before he became a correspondent for Al-Jazeera. Back in 1997, during an on-line discussion of a U.S. academic trip to Cuba, Jacomino was described as “a journalist at Radio Havana Cuba who specializes in the economy and was previously a functionary at the Foreign Ministry.” This trip was being arranged by the pro-Castro group Global Exchange, headed by Medea Benjamin of Code Pink. Typically, these visits are arranged to expose American academics and journalists to propaganda from communist officials.

More...

Darn! What a bummer. The socialist paradise on the Caribbean is being sucked into a 52 year – wide black hole of its own creation and some self centered “reporter” by the name of Portia Siegelbaum, who must have graduated from the Anita Snow School of communist propaganda regurgitation, is so bummed she felt compelled to write about it for CBS News.

Poor Portia seems peeved that some of the Cubans who once had enough sense to pin their “hope” on [f]idel are now “pooh pooh-ing” the slow pace of the “second revolution” (?!?) because the “contemplated changes” are not going “far or fast enough.” The nerve of these pissant proletariats to expect their leaders to act after …I don’t know…a half century?!?!

The Cuban people just don’t get it, you see. They, unlike Portia, don’t understand that they are a burden to the state:

As the Communist Party convenes its 6th Congress this weekend its stated priority is revamping the economy to increase production and efficiency, while implementing austerity measures to ease the burden on this long-time paternalistic State.

The State is “paternalistic” not totalitarian, autocratic, militaristic or even authoritarian. PATERNALISTIC. The 52 year beating it’s been giving the Cuban people was for their own good and it hurt [f]idel more than it hurt its victims…and this of course is burdensome. Wow.

And those burdensome revolutionary fledglings that are about to kicked out of the collective nest, they are panicked:

The older generations who have been told to live a certain way for more than five decades cannot suddenly wrap their minds around a new approach to life that demands they fend for themselves.

To Portia, it’s not the unfeasibility and the illegitimacy of a system that has to force its citizens to participate in its absurdity that makes it not work and crumble under its own bloated weight. No, to her, it’s the lack of “idealism” and “sprit of unity” (oh boy…she forgot to mention lack of willingness to sacrifice-what an amateur…) of the “new man” and uncontrollable outside factors, (reality), that is perverting the ideals of [c]astro’s (forced) utopia. Gee, not falling for a tired line of crap and a bankrupt ideology is called intelligence, but to members of a cult, reason doesn’t exist. And don’t worry, Portia “papa” is still going to tell the Cuban people what to do.

Some of the outside factors are:

Cuban exiles who send money to their family in friends thus creating a new class in the classless society where only the ruling class and sycophantic foreign journalists have hard currency.

Then there’s technology…the internet…the wild colt that must be tamed… corralled… because of it those un-idealistic and materialistic young Cubans know that they’ve been forced to ingest a life long crap sandwich while the escaped friends abroad eat steak.

It must take a very special person to experience life in Cuba today, write about it, and not once mention repression, oppression, abuses, hunger, pain and suffering.

It must take an even more special person to blame the victims- the kind that feels good about herself by freely walking around a prison, going to the manicurist with a pocket full of hard cash and a belly full of fine food and resenting the inmates for wanting to change the system that makes her feel so good about herself.

Over a dozen Cuban pro-democracy activists were violently assaulted and arrested yesterday, including 2010 Sakharov Prize winner, Guillermo Farinas. Is it in the news? Nope, nada, move along, nothing important here.

How about the shootout in Havana? zzzzz.... Silence.

Capitol Hill Cubans, "The Sound of Cuba's Media Cricketts"

On Tuesday, foreign news bureaus in Havana got flustered by Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, who (in an apparent state of dementia) declared that he was no longer head of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC).

Worst yet, that he hadn't been head of the PCC since 2006.

There were dozens of news stories on Castro's (essentially irrelevant) remarks (which he has now retracted).

Apparently, no one bothered to check the PCC's website, which still has Fidel listed as First Secretary. Oops!

Meanwhile, over a dozen Cuban pro-democracy activists were violently assaulted and arrested yesterday, including 2010 Sakharov Prize winner, Guillermo Farinas.

Any stories? Nope.

Also, a prominent Havana neighborhood was essentially overrun by Cuban state security, as a policeman and civilian were killed in a shootout. It's believed the incident was the result of a corrupt, police-related business deal gone bad. Five others have been arrested.

Any news? Nope.

And if that wasn't enough, one of the regime's official journalists (from the Granma newspaper) has been arrested and held in isolation at Cuban state security headquarters for the last two months. He is accused of "counter-revolutionary" activities. Another has been fined and prohibited from using the Internet (reserved for the privileged) for interviewing sports defectors.

Crickets.

Because the man has never been known to lie, or hallucinate ...

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro says the US has no interest in seeing peace in Libya but is solely concerned with the country's oil reserves.

Mr Castro, in a column published in state media, said it was too early to evaluate what was happening in Libya.

But, he said, it was clear the US would not hesitate to order Nato to invade.

[...]

In his latest "Reflections", Fidel Castro outlines the importance of oil and what he argues is the long-standing aim of the US to control supplies.

"What is for me absolutely evident is that the government of the United States is not worried at all about peace in Libya," he writes.

Instead, Washington will not hesitate to order a Nato invasion of the oil-rich North African country, in "a matter of hours or a few days".

Mr Castro makes no direct reference to reports from Libya that clashes between security forces and protesters left hundreds dead.

"We will have to wait the necessary time to know exactly how much is truth or lies," Mr Castro writes.

Mr Castro and Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi have been allies for many years, sharing both a revolutionary history and fierce opposition to the US.

[...]

I guess he's not really aware Pres. George W. Bush is no longer Commander in Chief.

Hmm, they seem to work just fine for weight loss on the Cubans that are 'checked-into' them ...

The Daily Caller tracks the tagged beached whale:

It’s not even the new year yet, but Michael Moore is trying to lose a few pounds.

The liberal filmmaker recently checked into a $4,500 a week luxury weight loss spa in Miami, a patron of the spa confirms.

Moore visited the Pritikin Longevity Center and Spa in mid-November. The resort’s campus features “650 acres of lush tropical gardens, fountains, water features and other amenities,” its website boasts.

Moore has visited Pritikin in past years and said he once lost 30 pounds by employing the center’s methods of eating “heavy foods.”

[...]

Hopefully, Moore’s recent visit helps. A fellow patron of the spa said he didn’t look well.

“He didn’t look like he wanted to talk. And neither did I. But he sure was fat, even fatter than he looks on TV, like he’d gained a hundred pounds,” the source said, adding that Moore was receiving private training.

While in Miami to shed weight, Moore apparently went on Keith Olbermann’s TV show to blast the health insurance industry.

[...]

It is unknown whether the Communist Cuban health care system, which Moore has praised, offers its citizens refreshing stays at luxurious weight loss resorts.

"The press should be not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organizer of the masses." Vladimir Lenin

The press is certainly fulfilling Lenin’s job description when it comes to Cuba.

Supposedly Cuba is “freeing” political prisoners, when as Alberto demonstrated in this earlier post; the reality is forced exile, a gross violation of the prisoner’s rights, without which there is no freedom.

To have a private sector, there has to be private enterprise.  We've been hearing a that Cuba’s is supposedly “transitioning to private enterprise” when in fact the opposite is happening.   Raul Castro has been systematically restructuring Cuba’s business model not after China or Viet Nam, but North Korea where power remains absolute.

“Allowing” farmers to use state owned land on terms dictated by the state is not private enterprise.

“Allowing” hairdressers to sell their services, when supplies, property, and potential profits are controlled by the state is not private enterprise.

“Allowing” the elite to rent out their state owned residences, or cars on terms dictated by the state is not private enterprise.

“Allowing” workers to work for foreign companies doing business with the state of Cuba under employment terms, including wages, dictated by the state is slavery, not private enterprise.

Ditto “allowing” accountants, masseuses, and park custodians to sell their services on state owned property under terms dictated by the state is also not private enterprise.

Private enterprise is correctly defined as the basis of a free market capitalist system, it is a business unit established, owned, and operated by private individuals for profit, instead of by or for any government or its agencies, the key to the existence and flourishing of the free market is a society in which the rights and titles of private property are respected, defended, and kept secure. The key to socialism, on the other hand, is government ownership of the means of production, land, and capital goods.  This is the case in Castro's Cuba, no matter the propaganda labels used to cover-up the true nature of its repressive machinery.

Fidel Castro beckoned Jeffrey Goldberg to Cuba for a chat, and Mr. Goldberg gladly accepted the invitation. With friend of Fidel Julia "Cuba Expert" Sweig in tow, he eagerly departed to Cuba, “the tropical socialist island paradise," to "get a glimpse of the great man." (Sic)

One of the resulting articles, Fidel to Ahmadinejad: 'Stop Slandering the Jews, is a surreal walk through Fidel Castro's very purposeful manipulative revisionism.  The timing of this offensive performance, just before the start of the Jewish High Holiday's and the forty-seventh anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, wherein Fidel contributed Cuban blood—not his own of course, as well military equipment to the Syrians, is a desperate attempt to gain support for ending trade sanctions, and perhaps more importantly, to have Cuba removed from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism.  It is an insult and a desecration to the memory of the thousands of Jew's who have died for their homeland. 

 Perhaps Jeffrey Goldberg, a "Middle East Expert," either doesn't know of, or doesn't care about Castro's bloody anti-Israel legacy.  I'm not going to speculate on Mr. Goldberg's intentions, or what activities he enjoyed during his visit to Havana, but his presentation of Fidel’s staged concern for the Jewish people and human kind, marks him as just another Castro lap dog, and undermines any credibility he enjoyed as a "fair and unbiased" journalist.  All that is missing from Mr. Goldberg's narrative on the dolphin garden party with Fidel are declarations of leg tingling, while in the presence of the “great man."

History will not absolve the Castro's of their lifelong complicity with, and support for the worlds most vile murderous terrorists. In a May 2001 address to cheering Iranian youths at Tehran University, Mr. Castro said that, "Iran and Cuba, in cooperation with each other, can bring America to its knees.”

From the 2002, “Castro's Anti-Semitism and the PLO,” by Agustin Blazquez with the collaboration of Jaums Sutton:

In January 1966, at Havana's Tri-Continental Conference attended by communists, revolutionaries and worldwide terrorist organizations, a resolution was passed calling for the breaking of all treaties with Israel, total economic and cultural ostracism of Israel and its expulsion from all international organizations.

In November 1966, Castro opened more than a dozen guerrilla training camps under the direction of KGB Col. Vadim Kotchergine where Palestinians were trained. And in 1967, after the Six-Day War, Cuba's U.N. ambassador, Richardo Alarcon - portrayed as a "moderate" by the U.S. media - called the war an "armed aggression against the Arab people ... by a most treacherous ... surprise attack in the Nazi manner."

In October 1973, Castro broke diplomatic relations with Israel after he deployed thousands of Cuban soldiers including helicopter pilots and tank crews to fight alongside the Syrians during the Yom Kippur War. How many Israelis did Castro's soldiers kill?

To insult Israel and the Jewish people even further, Castro gave the PLO an expropriated Jewish community center in Havana.

On Nov. 14, 1974, Yasser Arafat was enthusiastically received in Havana and given Castro's foremost decoration, the Bay of Pigs Medal.

On May 30, 1978, Reuters news service confirmed (11 years later!) that PLO personnel had been trained in Cuba and on Sept. 13, the Egyptian newspaper Ahar Sa'ah reported that 500 Palestinians were leaving for training in Cuba. Does anybody know how many terrorists and suicide bombers Castro trained in his camps and how many innocent people have been killed as a result?

From the 1970s to today, Jews have been scorned in Castro's controlled press.

For a detailed list of Castro's terrorist activities, read Eugene Pon's Castro and Terrorism:  A Chronology, and The Real Cuba's - The World's Oldest Terrorist.

Dear Sir or Madam:

We write to you worried about the police and paramilitary harassment denounced from Banes, a small town in the Cuban province of Holguín, by Reina Luisa Tamayo. She is the mother of Orlando Zapata Tamayo the prisoner of conscience who died on 23 February after a prolonged hunger strike that up to its tragic and fatal outcome had little coverage in the international press.

Every Sunday, we receive, mostly through phone interviews broadcast by the US-based Radio Martí, the same report from Reina Luisa describing how she is beaten, insulted and how [the government directed mob] prevents her from going to the town’s church to pray for her son and the health of all Cuban political prisoners still in jail. The repressive organs of the Cuban regime also impede her to visit her son’s tomb.

It is surprising to us that despite the wide coverage dedicated to Cuban topics, your organization has not reported on this. We know of the limitations to movement within Cuba, but we also understand that any foreign reporter has the means and resources to travel to the Eastern part of the island and give an eyewitness report of what happens there, in front of Reina Luisa Tamayo’s home.

We do not wish to tell the media what they should do, but to share with you our concern for the life of a woman who has lost her son in unjust circumstances and is clamoring for the world’s help to avoid more deaths.

We, the promoters of the #OZT: I accuse the Cuban government Campaign that demands the unconditional and immediate release of all peaceful political prisoners in Cuba and the respect of all Cubans’ human rights; write to you because we know that the international press in Cuba not only bears witness to what happens there, but can also help prevent and stop harassment incidents like those suffered by the Ladies in White in March of this year.

We would also like to know if there is any kind of legal hindrance or of any other sort that prevents your reporter in La Habana from traveling to other regions of Cuba.

We thank you in advance for your reply.

Sincerely,

#OZT: I accuse the Cuban government Campaign

DIRECCIONES DE MEDIOS DE ESPAÑA:

escribanos@bbc.co.uk ( en "asunto" poner "mensaje para BBC Mundo)
cartasdirector@elpais.es
cartas.director@elmundo.es
cartas@abc.es
internacional@abc.es
internacional@elmundo.es
espanaexterior@efe.es
iberoamerica@europapress.es
noticias@europapress.es
director@libertaddigital.com
internacional@larazon.es

CONTACTO CON LA OFICINA PRINCIPAL DE AMNISTIA INTERNACIONAL DE ESPANA:
Esteban Beltrán- Director Amnistía Internacional – Sección Española
Dirección Secretariado Estatal
Fernando VI, 8, 1º izda.28004 Madrid España
Teléfono
+ 34 902 119 133
+ 34 91 310 12 77 (información general)
Fax
+ 34 91 319 53 34
Correo- e info@es.http://www.facebook.com/l/d02a0t3Xy_KBspVEkowL6dP3OuQ;amnesty.org
Para Asociarte a Amnistia Internacional: http://www.facebook.com/l/d02a02250XAqSzyb5guRJFqS1xw;www.es.amnesty.org/inicio/

En español abajo/In Spanish below

Carta abierta a directores de medios de prensa acreditados en Cuba

Sr. Director:

Nos dirigimos a usted preocupados por la situación de acoso policial y paramilitar que denuncia desde Banes ?un pequeño poblado cubano de la provincia de Holguín?, Reina Luisa Tamayo, madre de Orlando Zapata Tamayo, preso de conciencia fallecido el pasado 23 de febrero tras una huelga de hambre que, hasta su fatal y trágico desenlace, tuvo escaso impacto en la prensa internacional.

Cada domingo nos llega a través de conversaciones telefónicas, casi siempre de la emisora estadounidense Radio Martí, el parte de Reina Luisa, en el que invariablemente describe cómo la golpean, la insultan y le impiden acercarse hasta la iglesia del pueblo a rezar por su hijo y por la salud del resto de los presos políticos que permanece en las cárceles de la isla. De igual modo, los órganos represivos del gobierno cubano le impiden visitar la tumba de su hijo.

Nos sorprende que a pesar de la amplia cobertura que su medio está dando al tema Cuba, todavía no haya reportado sobre este particular. Sabemos de las limitaciones de movimiento que existen en Cuba, pero también entendemos que cualquier corresponsal extranjero tiene medios y recursos para trasladarse, acaso por un par de días, hasta el otro extremo de la isla para contar de primera mano qué ocurre allí, frente a la casa de Reina Luisa Tamayo.

En nuestro ánimo no está el indicarles a los medios qué deben hacer, sino compartir con usted nuestra preocupación por la vida de una mujer que ha perdido a su hijo en unas condiciones injustas y que está clamando por la ayuda del mundo para evitar “más muertes”.

Nosotros, promotores de la campaña #OZT: yo acuso al gobierno cubano, que reclama la excarcelación inmediata y sin condiciones de todos los presos políticos pacíficos en Cuba y el respeto a los derechos humanos de todos los cubanos, le escribimos desde el convencimiento de que los ojos de la prensa extranjera acreditada en Cuba no sólo sirven para contar lo que pasa, sino también para evitar y frenar episodios de acoso como el vivido por las Damas de Blanco en La Habana durante el pasado mes de marzo.

Nos gustaría saber, asimismo, si existe algún impedimento legal o de otra índole para que su corresponsal en La Habana pueda dirigirse a otras zonas del territorio cubano.

Gracias de antemano por su respuesta,

#OZT: yo acuso al gobierno cubano
--------------------

 The first thing that caught my eye in today's Cuba news feed is a speculative article about Hillary Clinton traveling to Cuba to help gain the release of Alan Gross. You can bet this rumor is just a tickler put out to ensure that when the actual event takes place it will have the correct "buzz," and you know the MSM will make certain that it does.   So there you have it folks, the final act in this years big con.

One thing about  the old cadaver, he’s possibly the best grifter ever.  Why he's got his victims working overtime to hand over the cash.  I know it's a given that con men can always count on greed to help them along, but this is, as Humberto would say "unbelievable."

The team:  Ortega and the Catholic Church, the Spanish Government, the U.S. Government, the official so-called Cuba Experts, and the MSM.

 The pawns:  54 Cuban “dissidents”, the official political prisoners, and Alan Gross.

 The mark:  The U.S., and the European Union.

 The job:  An end to U.S. trade sanctions and billions of dollars to castro inc.

Collateral damage: The Cuban people, and the suffering is incalculable as they face a future of brutal enslavement without even the appearance of an ally.

 The grifter's only adversary, the marginalized Cuban exiles; they exposed the con at each step of the game, and predicted the payoff, but I doubt they have the power to stop it.

 It’s a hell of a world we live in friends.

The rumor is here.

Or anywhere else in the news that I've seen.

Just a few days ago, in an article posted here at Babalu, the Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said, "...the important thing was Castro's decision to "definitively'' end the issue of political prisoners in Cuba."

Oh really?  Yesterday, while all was abuzz over the cadavers TV appearance, this was happening. Anyone see it anywhere in the MSM news?

From OZT:

Dozens arrested after honoring victims of 1994 tugboat massacre

Independent press agency Hablemos Press informs [in Spanish] that dozens of opposition and human rights activists were arrested by police in Cuba this Tuesday after honoring the victims of the tugboat 13 de Marzo.

Arrests began in the [Cuban] capital at noon on Tuesday when a group of 30 people, convened at the city’s seawall (el Malecón) by Liga Cívica Martiana (Josè Martí Civic League) and other dissident movements, performed a public protest.

Opposition activists denounced the detentions and called them “arbitrary.” Many of them reported to this agency about their situations and the conditions of their arrests from inside police stations via telephone.

Among those arrested are Julián Guerra Deriet, Oscar Sierra Hernández, Flores Borroto, Niurka Caridad Ortega, Ernesto Rodríguez López, Carmelo Rodríguez Rodríguez, Raúl Parada Ramírez, Humberto Martínez Almeida, Hermógenes Inocencio Guerrero, Julio César Jorrín, Juana María Oquendo Gómez, Joel Lázaro Carbonel Aguilar, María Nélida López Báez, Manuel Morejón Soler, Luis Roberto Arcia Rodríguez and María Elena Mir Marrero in La Habana; Hugo Prieto Quevedo, Yosvanis Alonso Brito, Denis Díaz González and Nilo Justino Padrón in Pinar del Río and Rogelio Tabio López in Guantánamo.

Jorge Corrales Ceballo, independent journalist in Guantánamo and Luis Felipe Rojas, poet and journalist in Holguín, were placed under house arrest, and kept under tight surveillance by agents of the political police. In Santiago de Cuba, there were arrests, but the names [of those arrested] could not be confirmed.

Some of those arrested were released at night, after being issued warnings.

Then again castro always did enjoy making fools of easily manipulated politicians.

The Cuban political prisoners that reportedly are being freed and allowed to leave are neither.  They are mere slaves in a $cam to prop up a murderous dictator for the $ake of business as usual.  How is the current practice of the state selling the labor of Cuban workers , more here, and here, to the highest bidder any different than past slave masters renting the labor of their slaves?  They work if they want to eat, and keep their mouths shut if they want to avoid punishment.  

Ending five-hundred plus years of exploitation is something the Spanish government is unwilling to do.  Not as long as it is profitable and they get by with it. 

How nice of Spain to to accept Cuba's unwilling cast offs. I wonder, is the payoff is a bigger piece of the anticipated U.S. tourist pie as reward, or are they merely protecting their current business interests?

 As Rayarena commented on Alberto's post below, " Can you imagine if Mandela had been released only to be exiled? The roaring condemnations from the MSM would be deafening."

When it comes to Cuban political prisoners,  it is the MSM's silence that is deafening.  ¡Ya no más!

The horrific tragedy in Haiti should not be used for political purpose, and Babalú has refrained from commenting on the fact that Cuba is doing exactly that, but IMO there comes a point where remaining silent is unconscionable. 

I've reached that point.  While the Haitian people deserve all the help they can get, from every available source, and I'm glad they are receiving said assistance, I cannot remain silent as story after story goes on and on about Cuban doctors saving thousands of Haitians while performing thousands of "difficult" surgeries, etc., etc., etc., while lamenting that they wish they could do more.   The hypocrisy is disgusting because the castro regime will not allow Cuban doctors to provide adequate  medical care to their own people.  The regime practices medical "apartheid" with one system for tourists and the elite, and quite another one for the average Cuban who is unable to buy aspirin.  So I say enough of this politically correct bullshit that the castro regime has been getting by with for 51 years. 

Fact: Cuban doctors who are willing to stand up against this injustice become enemies of the state as in the case of political prisoners Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet and Dr. Darsi Ferrer, who was just beaten by a political "re-education officer" while handcuffed and unable to defend himself.

Fact:  The castro regime denies the Cuban people all human rights, and if they don't care about their own people you'd have to be a complete idiot to believe that they care about the Haitians.

There, I've said it and if this makes me a bad person, well then let the stone throwing begin.

While reporting on Cuba has usually been misleading and favorable to the regime, ignoring easily obtainable, publicly known facts reaches a new level of sloppy reporting. Either that or these reporters’ loyalties unabashedly lie with the regime.

Recently, the Seattle Times erred in an editorial about the embargo, stating:

SEN. Maria Cantwell calls our attention to a law, signed by President Obama, allowing Cuba to buy U.S. farm produce and pay after the goods are shipped. The law reverses a Treasury ruling during the Bush years that Cuba had to pay in advance — a ruling that stopped the trade altogether.

Our own wonderful Humberto Fontova corrected the fools with his usual enthusiasm for truth:

$720 million just last year in U.S. exports to Cuba! We're Cuba's BIGGEST food supplier for almost a decade!...and YET..?! ...And YET the editorial staff of an eminently prestigious big-city newspaper was incapable of the ONE Google search that now makes COMPLETE JACKASSES of them ALL!!!

Now AP publishes the following groping statement in reference to Havana’s motives in an article about the American detained in Cuba:

 “As the case has dragged on, speculation has grown that Cuba might want to use him as leverage to highlight the case of five Cuban intelligence agents who are serving long prison sentences in the United States for infiltrating anti-Castro groups Havana says were behind a 1990s bombing campaign against hotels on the island.”

It took less than a minute to access the following facts of the case:

In September 1998, 10 members of the Wasp Network, including the “Cuban Five,” were arrested and accused of crimes under U.S. law in connection with their covert activity in the United States in the service of Cuba’s Directorate of Intelligence (DI). Five of the accused pleaded guilty, while the “Cuban Five” fought the charges. Two of the three “illegal officers” and one U.S.-based agent (Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero and the man claiming to be Ramon Labaniño) were convicted of conspiring to commit espionage against the United States. One of the “illegal officers” (Gerardo Hernandez) was convicted of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder based on his role in the February 24, 1996, shoot-down of two unarmed civilian aircraft in international airspace by Cuban Air Force jet fighters, which resulted in the deaths of four people, three of them U.S. citizens. All of the “Cuban Five” were convicted of conspiracy to act in the United States as agents of a foreign government without notification to the attorney general, and to defraud the United States.

Get that AP, the five were legally arrested, tried, and convicted in accordance with US law with all due process, not arbitrarily imprisoned by the US government for “infiltrating” anti-Castro groups, and while you’re at it how about investigating the horrific human rights abuses in Cuba, and the hundreds if not thousands of Cuban political prisoners illegally rotting in Cuba’s hellhole gulag.

Penultimos Dias has word that Yoani Sanchez and other Cuban bloggers have been arrested in Havana.

Yoani Sánchez, Orlando Luis Pardo, Ciro Díaz and Claudia Cadelo among those arrested. Cadelo is reported to have already been released. Details on whereabouts of other dissident bloggers are still sketchy.

UPDATE 6:46 EST: Im told all were picked up, harassed, manhandled and released at some distance away from where the march was to take place. Will keep updating as the news trickles in.

UPDATE 7:15: Penultimos Dias reports the Yoani and Orlando were verbally abused and severely beaten. Yoani was told that "this is as far as she would go."

Ernesto, acabo de hablar con Yoani, Ya está en su casa. Tiene un golpe en un ojo. La han agredido física y verbalmente. A Orlando también. Les gritaban dentro de la patrulla que hasta ahí habían llegado, la pusieron con la cabeza hacia abajo y los pies hacia arriba y les aplicaron golpes de karate. Estaba muy nerviosa. Yo también.

Please help with translation.

UPDATE (translation):

Ernesto, I have just spoken to Yoani. She is now back home. She has bruising around one eye. She has been verbally and physically assaulted. Orlando was too. "This is as far as you're getting!" was repeatedly shouted at them inside a patrol car. She was placed head over heels and subjected to karate blows. She is very nervous. I am too.

WHERE IS THE ARMY OF DAVIDS?

UPDATE 2:04: Here's video of the march the castro monarchical dictatorship just couldn't allow Cuban bloggers to participate in:

UPDATE: Yeah! Let's lift the embargo, dialogue with fidel and raul and co., and allow Americans to travel freely to Cuba so they can witness Yoani and her colleagues be treated like chattel!!

Update 8:15 AM Saturday: From Orlando Luis Pardo, posted at Penultimos Dias:

Miro mi nuca.
No ha sido nada.
Un cinturón de petequias por la demasiada fuerza de un efebo oficial y acaso por mi mala coagulación.
Miro mi nuca en un jpg.
Según se interprete, es insultante o interesante de contar.
En el principio no fue el Verbum, sino la Barbariem.
Violencia extra-verbal a pulso.
Caminar en El Vedado será a partir de hoy una experiencia extrema.
La Avenida de los Presidentes remitirá ahora a una prisión post-principesca.
En segundos, Yoani y yo estábamos de brazos torcidos dentro de un auto importado desde nuestra Madrastra Patria: China.
Mi cabeza contra la alfombra del carro y Yoani casi de patas arriba.
No pude verla, la identifiqué porque no se callaba ni maniatada.
En segundos, la oí gritar con la vehemencia del ser más libre del planeta.
Tenía una rodilla de macho cubano clavada en el pecho y todavía los increpaba.
En segundos, de esa energía chupé fuerzas para sostener un poco mi voz.
Me dijeron que le dijera a Yoani que se callara.
Esa frase, pronunciada por tres desconocidos a nombre del Estado Cubano, resume toda la escenografía obsoleta y obscena de este país:
Díganle a Yoani que se calle.
Díganle a Yoani que se calle.
Díganle a Yoani que se calle.
En segundos, nos depositaron despóticamente en una esquina que confundí con el patio interior de un barracón.
Yo estaba mareado.
Sentí asco, tuve ganas de vomitar.
No podía mover el cuello.
Abracé a Yoani (antes nunca lo había hecho).
Empezó a sollozar.
La mujer más grande de Cuba parecía una niñita de cero años.
Porque Yoani es eso: el futuro de Cuba cristalizado sobre un esqueleto frágil e irrefrenable.
La besé en la cabeza. Su pelo tironeado con odio olía a la libertad.
Una.
Dos.
Diez.
Incontables veces besé su cabeza sin edad.
Pero nunca le dije que se callara.
Pero nunca le dije que se callara.
Pero nunca le dije que se callara.

Orlando Luis Pardo
La Habana

Update 8:38 AM: Ninety-five pound Yoani Sanchez takes a beating for 12 million Cubans and writes:

Cerca de la calle 23 y justo en la rotonda de la Avenida de los Presidente, fue que vimos llegar en un auto negro —de fabricación china— a tres fornidos desconocidos: “Yoani, móntate en el auto” me dijo uno mientras me aguantaba fuertemente por la muñeca. Los otros dos rodeaban a Claudia Cadelo, Orlando Luís Pardo Lazo y una amiga que nos acompañaba a una marcha contra la violencia. Ironías de la vida, fue una tarde cargada de golpes, gritos y malas palabras la que debió transcurrir como una jornada de paz y concordia. Los mismos “agresores” llamaron a una patrulla que se llevó a mis otras dos acompañantes, Orlando y yo estábamos condenados al auto de matrícula amarilla, al pavoroso terreno de la ilegalidad y la impunidad del Armagedón.
Me negué a subir al brillante Geely y exigimos nos mostraran una identificación o una orden judicial para llevarnos. Claro que no enseñaron ningún papel que probara la legitimidad de nuestro arresto. Los curiosos se agolpaban alrededor y yo gritaba “Auxilio, estos hombres nos quieren secuestrar”, pero ellos pararon a los que querían intervenir con un grito que revelaba todo el trasfondo ideológico de la operación: “No se metan, estos son unos contrarrevolucionarios”. Ante nuestra resistencia verbal, tomaron el teléfono y dijeron a alguien que debió ser su jefe: “¿Qué hacemos? No quieren subir al auto”. Imagino que del otro lado la respuesta fue tajante, porque después vino una andanada de golpes, empujones, me cargaron con la cabeza hacia abajo e intentaron colarme en el carro. Me aguanté de la puerta… golpes en los nudillos… alcancé a quitarle un papel que uno de ellos llevaba en el bolsillo y me lo metí en la boca. Otra andanada de golpes para que les devolviera el documento.
Adentro ya estaba Orlando, inmovilizado en una llave de kárate que lo mantenía con la cabeza pegada al piso. Uno puso su rodilla sobre mi pecho y el otro, desde el asiento delantero me daba en la zona de los riñones y me golpeaba la cabeza para que yo abriera la boca y soltara el papel. En un momento, sentí que no saldría nunca de aquel auto. “Hasta aquí llegaste, Yoani”, “Ya se te acabaron las payasadas” dijo el que iba sentado al lado del chófer y que me halaba el cabello. En el asiento de atrás un raro espectáculo transcurría: mis piernas hacia arriba, mi rostro enrojecido por la presión y el cuerpo adolorido, al otro lado estaba Orlando reducido por un profesional de la golpiza. Sólo acerté a agarrarle a éste —a través del pantalón— los testículos, en un acto de desespero. Hundí mis uñas, suponiendo que él iba a seguir aplastando mi pecho hasta el último suspiro. “Mátame ya” le grité, con la última inhalación que me quedaba y el que iba en la parte delantera le advirtió al más joven: “Déjala respirar”.
Escuchaba a Orlando jadear y los golpes seguían cayendo sobre nosotros, calculé abrir la puerta y tirarme, pero no había una manilla para activar desde adentro. Estábamos a merced de ellos y escuchar la voz de Orlando me daba ánimo. Después él me dijo que lo mismo le ocurría con mis entrecortadas palabras… ellas le decían “Yoani sigue viva”. Nos dejaron tirados y adoloridos en una calle de la Timba, una mujer se acercó “¿Qué les ha pasado?”… “Un secuestro”, atiné a decir. Lloramos abrazados en medio de la acera, pensaba en Teo, por Dios cómo voy a explicarle todos estos morados. Cómo voy a decirle que vive en un país donde ocurre esto, cómo voy a mirarlo y contarle que a su madre, por escribir un blog y poner sus opiniones en kilobytes, la han violentado en plena calle. Cómo describirle la cara despótica de quienes nos montaron a la fuerza en aquel auto, el disfrute que se les notaba al pegarnos, al levantar mi saya y arrastrarme semidesnuda hasta el auto.
Logré ver, no obstante, el grado de sobresalto de nuestros atacantes, el miedo a lo nuevo, a lo que no pueden destruir porque no comprenden, el terror bravucón del que sabe que tiene sus días contados.

Yoani Sánchez
La Habana

From Claudia Cadelo:

Friday at the Blogger Academy, we ended the day with a class on Cuban culture with Miriam. Relaxed atmosphere: the Tainos and their myths. Before leaving Ivan told me, “See you at five-thirty.” We had found out from friends we knew that Aldo, Luis Eligio, Amaury and other young people were going to walk today from 23rd and G Street to L Street, with signs against violence. A civic march in a country where citizenship has been kidnapped by the totalitarianism, where power has grown old and the ultimate death rattles of a collapsing system are a blind response, pure temper tantrum.

We stayed, Orlando Luis (Pardo Lazo), his girlfriend, Yoani and I, cleaning up until it was time for the march. We left the house nervous, but confident that we wouldn’t be alone. By G Street Orlando was making jokes that I don’t remember but I was falling out laughing. A man was masturbating in broad daylight in Zapata, Havana looked the same as always.

The bus stop for the P11 was full, at 27th and G, the only corner from where you can catch something to take you to Alamar. The car appeared from nowhere, yellow plates, a new Chinese model: money for repression. “Let’s go in comfort,” Yoani said to me jokingly, and the guys got out with faces that were not pleasant, it must be sad to be a thug. We refused to get in the car, there were three of them and they threatened us:

"Get in the car, now."
"Let us see your documents, or wear a uniform."

Orlando had his cell phone in his hand. “Pardo, don’t record,” said the said the one in the orange shirt, and I got my cell out. Nobody noticed me, I sent the first Tweet…

In less than three minutes a patrol car came up with a couple of cops—a woman and a man—completely dumbstruck by the scene. The carried out their orders almost in slow motion, the woman told me:

"Don’t resist."
"They are undocumented," it occurred to me to enlighten her.

Yoani was clinging to a bush, I was clinging to her waist, and the woman was pulling me by the leg. They had already dragged Orlando off, outside my field of vision. A man stopped, looking on with an expression of terror, people didn’t say a single word. The officer, very young, got me in an armlock that immobilized me, I could have kicked a little but I was too astonished at seeing Yoani’s legs sticking out of the rear window of the State Security car.

They shoved me into the patrol car while I was screaming, “Yoani! Yoani!” But I realized that no one could hear me, everything was hermetically sealed, Orlando’s girlfriend was struggling with the police, Yoani’s body was being pushed headfirst into the car, and Orlando’s telephone flew out through the window… I sent the second Tweet hoping someone would be able to understand it with my terrible typing. The girl cop got in the patrol car and said to me,

“Why did you resist? We don’t want to hit you.”
“You almost ripped my shirt,” said the other PNR (National Revolutionary Police), meanwhile putting Orlando’s girlfriend in the car.

They looked embarrassed, for a moment I thought they were going to apologize:

“Do you have your identity cards handy,” she said, almost sweetly, and passed us Orlando’s phone which wouldn’t stop ringing.

Unfortunately, the one in the orange shirt got in and shut the door… I fell over. The police fell silent and started the dialog.

“Claudia, turn off the telephone.”
“Forget it.”
“How disgusting,” said Orlando’s girlfriend.
The rest pure insult, a surrealistic rage.

“Your name is not going to go down in history,” he said.
“I don't care, you don’t even have a name.”
“Then it will be worse.”
“Your threats are your fear. That’s their purpose.”
“Comedian.”

Stepping foot on the corner by Yoani’s house made me dizzy, there was no light in the building, I couldn’t get anyone’s cell, and I was losing my balance. Then the first call came with a 00 international prefix and I knew nothing had been in vain, even if we had all been arrested and the march suspended. When, later, I saw the video that Ciro brought me I knew for certain: They lost, it’s the countdown.